a little boy turned me into fire. And when I was fire, I screamed a lot, so my voice is hoarse. Someone made me this, this cover for my books. You know, and you've got this little thing you can wrap around to hold it together. And for a long time, ever since before tonight, I almost always put it on this way, this side out. I think, showing... I noticed this side. I didn't notice this patch.

[01:02]

But tonight I notice this patch. It's a lotus. So, you know, there's a lotus right there all the time. I didn't notice it. I think partly because it was black. I wasn't expecting to see a black lotus. Yeah. Yeah. I saw Dave reply, and perhaps there are some people waiting in Zendo. He hasn't come back in the six months. Oh, Dave went over to Zendo? Would you like to be involved with Zendo and make an announcement? Yes, we do invite them to come over here. We invite the people in Zendo to come over here. Would you people on the floor mind sitting up here?

[02:08]

Would that be okay? Would you mind sitting up here? What? What did you say? There's no more room, you can sit right here. Or over there. Is that alright to sit there? Yes. They said they'd be over as soon as they put away the chairs, so... Okay, go for it. All of them? How many word they have out?

[03:09]

Quite a few? I don't know. I didn't get that one. I met at a reconnaissance party. So there's some new people here tonight. Where did you come from? What brought you here tonight? I'm temporarily here in the United States. I've been here before in Greenwich. The Patriot War and during the serenity of the place in another way. And I decided to come this time. I'm a Tibetan Buddhist. And I'm interested in Zen. Are you from Holland? Actually, I'm from Holland. And how about you?

[04:10]

I'm from Hollywood. This is my first time actually in a Buddhist retreat center. I've been interested in it for a couple of months now. And I wanted to come and retreat and get the full experience. I'm doing that. I'm enjoying it very much. And Anne? For a vacation? For the weekend you're here?

[05:13]

One day. And are you related to Jennifer? I'm her mother. And thank you for the invitation. You're welcome. I'm Jennifer. So the new people here maybe don't know that in this class, this class is usually a little bit bigger, but because it's the holidays, quite a few people didn't come today. And for about four weeks we've been studying a story, a famous story where it starts out a Zen teacher saying that there is a true person of no rank who is always going in and out of the portals of your face.

[06:43]

The portals of your face, your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. There's a true person who's always going in and out through these portals. A true person who has no rank. Who has no status, like a status as a true person or something. So let's see. Is it set? Steph. Steph. And Peter. And Nicole. And Dave. And Linda Ruth. And Grace. And Grace.

[07:46]

So, uh, Some, someone said to me today, someone who's a guest here said that she's been enjoying being a Green Gulch also, that she's been playing hide and seek with this true person of no rank. What is that sound?

[08:59]

Is it the heater? Someone told me that she was reading one of our Zen, one of our Zen classics, like this book, but it was a different book. And in the process, she... Actually, she studied different translations of this, the same text, three different translations.

[10:03]

And as she was studying, she started to feel... scared, and like she had no ground. The text she's reading was a difficult text, and maybe the translation she was using was not very good. And then reading another translation, Maybe that wasn't too good either. And then reading another translation, also not so good, but every time... I'm playing this out a little bit, but every time she read another translation, she felt less and less ground to stand on. So I felt in this person that... it was good that she could sense that she was losing her footing because it seemed like she was she was approaching the text and trying to get something from the text and

[11:36]

being unsuccessful trying again and then when you try again and you're unsuccessful then you feel worse you feel maybe not good when you first try to get something from the text you feel maybe not so good and then if you try again even reading another text and you still don't get it you feel maybe a little worse and then try again you feel a little worse and But it's good if you feel worse each time. Or it's good that you feel worse the first time and then worse the second time and so on. It's good if you don't feel good about that because that approach is, excuse the expression, is empowering or causes leakage. Causes you a loss of energy to approach a text that way. So she was She was fortunate to notice the effects of approaching the study that way.

[12:40]

You don't always... I'm not saying you should feel that kind of loss of energy when you approach a text that way, but rather you're lucky if you do, because it's an energetic kind of like trace of the wrong approach. And this two-person of no rank is another text. It's written in a book. It's out in the world. It's like a statue or an icon of the Zen school. Of course it's an icon that's, you know, It couldn't be like a solid piece of wood or bronze because it's going in and out of your face all the time. But it's something that we're keeping our eye out for.

[13:47]

But the attitude with which we look for this true person can be one that would cause us to be disempowered and feel scared and lose our ground. Yesterday, in the wedding ceremony, I quoted this expression, the ultimate closeness or the ultimate intimacy seems almost like enmity. And that same poem says, this closeness is heart-rending if you seek it outside. So, I don't know. If you don't feel close at all to Zen texts, they won't bother you much. It's kind of like if you approach certain wild animals like tigers and lions, if you approach them from a certain distance, they pay you no attention.

[14:59]

If you move inside that distance, they'll move away from you. And then if you move inside of another perimeter, another circle, they'll move towards you. And if you get inside another perimeter, they won't do anything at all. So if you're far enough away from these texts, people that are really far away from you, they kind of go, well, they just don't have a problem. And as you get closer, you have a problem, or I would say as you have problems, you know you're getting closer. And when these texts really hurt you, then that shows you that you're close to them, that you're quite close, and yet you still think they're outside you. We are actually separated from what's most close to us. and that bothers us.

[16:04]

So being scared or weakened or shaky around these texts, it shows that you're getting close, but your attitude's still wrong. So also we have this teaching that the meaning is not in these words of this story. The meaning is not in the words. So if you approach the text and try to get the meaning out of the text, well, you'll have some frustration and pain. But the meaning responds. Meaning is a response to bringing your energy forward. So if you bring your energy to the text, as your energy arrives, there's a response to the energy. What is it? Everything has an equal and opposite reaction.

[17:08]

May I take off? Every action has an equal and opposite reaction in physics. There's something like that in the realm of spirit except it's not... Opposite does not mean opposite in the usual sense of opposite. And equal does not mean equal in the usual sense of equal. In other words, equal doesn't mean equal to what you think your energy is. So, like you say, well, like you bring some energy to reading the text. Like, I don't know how much energy you bring when you read a text. When you bring your eyes down on the page, how much energy is that? You may think, well, not too much. Just go, your bowl, wash your bowl. How much energy is that? you may say, not so much. And I guess to that much energy that you think is not that much, you would be surprised if you got much back.

[18:14]

But how much energy actually goes into wash your bowl, when you see wash your bowl, how much energy actually comes there through you to be able to read that? How much of your life comes forth right now to hear what you're listening to. So, if there's a tremendous amount of energy coming forward now as you're listening, then there's a tremendous response. And that's where the meaning is. And the words are an opportunity for you to direct your attention, for this true person to go out through your eyes and in through your eyes, or to go out through your ears and in through your ears.

[19:29]

I remember a while ago I was listening to a physicist talk about energy and he said that we do not know what energy is, but we can measure it. And this expression, the meaning is not in the words, yet it responds to the arrival of It's sometimes translated as the inquiring impulse, but the character means, can mean inquiring impulse, but it can mean any opportunity. It means opportunity. It also means energy. It means function. So if it's thinking, then it's the arrival of thought. If it's seeing, it's the arrival of seeing. If it's physical action, it's the arrival of that kind of energy. If you're being insulted, if what you're reading is insult, then it's the arrival of that kind of opportunity.

[20:56]

So someone might say, well, you can measure the size of that opportunity. I'm not saying whether you can or not, but the bigness of that opportunity, the largeness of what you're witnessing as what's coming forth has something to do with what you'll be able to witness as the response. And then the meaning will be in proportion to that arrival and response. So I like this hide-and-seek with the true person.

[22:16]

And hide-and-seek, in one sense, both hiding and seeking are wrong. Hiding from this person isn't quite right, and seeking this person isn't quite right. Now, you know, the true person sounds pretty good. And then we say of no rank, which is supposed to be even a further promotion because this person is true without falling into any categories or any limited designations of what true person would be. So this is really a wonderful creature, this true person. This is super true. This is true, transcending true. This is true without even the rank of true.

[23:21]

And in case you don't realize how wonderful this person is, I could go on and on about how wonderful this person is. And then you would want to seek this person. Or maybe you'd find, oh, this person's very awesome, and you might try to hide from this person. Today I was out in a little swamp. I was out in the middle of the swamp with a little boy on a raft. And people walked by at the edge of the swamp. And some people waved. And I waved back. When I see people like that, what am I seeing? Who is that there? Where are those people walking? I think we're all... I don't know about all of us, but I get this feeling that a lot of people around here are concerned with their own suffering and with the suffering of some other people or a lot of other people.

[24:54]

But when you see someone walk by, when you see someone walking by before your eyes, coming into your eyes, going by on the surface of your eye consciousness do you understand that this this is the occasion for dealing with this suffering of all beings or do you think there's some other time some other place that you'll go and then there you will like start dealing with the problem of you know the problem in this world that there you will start setting people free setting yourself free and setting others free. Is there some serious occasion, some serious place, some good opportunity? Well, yes. But anyway, the meaning, the meaning of whatever the meaning that you're interested in, particularly meaning bearing on liberation from suffering, the meaning comes forth.

[26:05]

The way comes forth When you bring your energy there, when these people are walking by, when you realize they're walking by, but the experience of somebody walking by is because energy is coming forward. An opportunity is being offered for that experience to happen. And the true person is going in and out of your face at that moment. So that's what we've been meditating on for several weeks or several lifetimes. Recently I was in Boulder, I mean I was in Colorado and I was

[27:09]

visiting someone and he had some calligraphy on his wall and I I asked what the calligraphy said and then I was told that that calligraphy was done by the Karmapa and the young man who was showing me this calligraphy said they said he made a spelling error there He said the Karmapa wasn't very good at spelling, wasn't very good at reading and writing. Karmapa said, I'm not very good at reading and writing, I'm sorry. I'll try to do better next time. So you may, I may not be too good at reading, at reading the text that's written in every face of every person we meet throughout the day.

[28:29]

This true person is written on every face. Every face comes into our face. and every face comes out of our face. Everything I see is coming out of my eyes and in my eyes. So I may not be too good at reading this to a person, but I can try better next time, next moment, next incarnation. So, you know, I don't want you to seek this person, like sort of grab this person. And I also don't want you to miss seeing this person.

[29:38]

I don't want to grab this person either. I don't want to miss, I don't want to slander you by saying you're this person. I don't want to slander you by saying you're not this person. So how do we, what's the right attitude with which we watch to witness this true person who's always going in and out of our face? This is our meditation practice, how to be ready to witness this person. Again, this isn't a person who visits once in a while. There may be some true people of no rank that visit once in a while. It seems somewhat antithetical to no rank that it would visit once in a while.

[30:39]

No rank would mean also it doesn't have the rank of any particular time of appearance. This is the person who is appearing all the time and disappearing all the time. So that's the case we've been studying for a while. So we could go on to the next case, which is a very simple, easy-to-remember case. It sounds so ordinary that the new people will have no trouble remembering it. I shouldn't say no trouble.

[31:43]

I might have a little trouble, but you might not be too good at reading. So the story goes like this. A monk came to see a great Zen master named Zhaozhou. And he said, I've just entered the monastery. Please, Master, give me some guidance. And Zhaozhou said, Have you had breakfast yet? Actually, he said, Have you had gruel? In Chinese, the word for... They call the word for meal is rice. And, you know, And breakfast, the word for breakfast is thin rice.

[32:46]

So if you had gruel, if you had rice soup, and the monk said, yes, I've eaten it. Yes, I've eaten. And Jiaojiao said, then go wash your bowl. and as it says in the commentary in the original record it said the monk was enlightened at that time so this this is another example of an ordinary life situation where this true person is coming and going and And he was witnessed, the true person was witnessed by this monk in this very ordinary interchange. And then, now we have this story, and whether we were told that the monk was enlightened or not, still we have this story, and then the question is,

[34:09]

is the true person coming and going as we look at this story. So the expression comes to my mind, how many times?

[35:46]

How many times? And then I think, oh, haven't I heard that somewhere before? Oh, and it says, how many times have I gone down into the green dragon cave for you? And you could understand for you being for this person. And we live our lives moment by moment. We live our lives. And how much of our life

[36:51]

How much of our time are we going down into this cave? How much of our life do we spend looking to meet, to witness this true person? And I must say, I don't want people to go around carrying with them some kind of extra thing on top of living your life. But I also wonder if we don't practice some way as we're living our life, is it possible then to spend one or two moments a day or perhaps thousands and millions of moments a day when we just don't pay attention to the opportunity so but then if you if you like say okay i'm gonna practice and i'm gonna do this and do that that's not quite the right attitude either

[38:12]

What kind of awareness is the correct awareness? And if you found that awareness, do you feel like you're settled in that kind of awareness right now? If you say no, then probably you haven't. If you say yes, probably you haven't. It feels like if I say, I'm going to practice, or I'm going to do this, or that sort of thing, and I notice that I'm doing that, then it almost allows for an opportunity for something to come up and witness, if I don't get confused.

[40:15]

with the I'm gonna, with that being it. Sort of that creating an opportunity for awareness or alertness of work. Because otherwise I just walk around kind of, I don't know. I could walk around sort of zoned out or numbed out or, But there's some way that that kind of maybe brings my attention. So one way is to, zoned or numbed or whatever, that's like hiding from it. Like, I'm not going to get into doing this thing, so therefore I'm going to not do something. That's one extreme, hoping that dullness will avoid the error.

[41:20]

So that's right. But if you could say, well, I'll just think about doing the practice of watching for this person. I know that's a mistake, but maybe that error can be an opportunity. I'll just sort of sacrifice my life and let that sacrifice, let my life which is sacrificed, I'll let my delusion be an opportunity to have that be an opportunity. And that's, you know, that's again swinging back a little bit to the side of seeking, but it's, you're hoping that your seeking then can turn into an opportunity where you can just let that be an error that gets you into the game. But I think actually that I would say, you know, that I can see some case for that, but I would say actually that's too much.

[42:30]

It's a little bit too interesting. Not too interesting, it's just a little interesting. So without trying to dull your mind and try to avoid being a person who is practicing, in other words, without trying to avoid being in the way of thinking, I'm doing things, without avoiding karmic activity, and then not swinging back to the other side of, well, I've got to do a little something to get something to work with. How about having nothing to work with? wouldn't that be boring? And wouldn't that be pure? And then, not holding to that purity either. So that then, if that same thing that you were just talking about, if dullness comes up, or some kind of like interesting little trick comes up as an opportunity, you'd be the one who goes, come up,

[43:42]

They just come up rather than you using them as some device. It's a little different though. That you actually are not using dullness or distraction as a technique to get something to work on. You're willing to have a practice where you have nothing to work on. And then something will happen. Something will come up in your face. But it wasn't what you decided to work on. It's just what comes up. Isn't that idea of having nothing to work on kind of just that idea of not reality? Isn't it kind of like just an idea, but it's not real? It's not reality? Having nothing to work on? No. I can't imagine having nothing. Well, it's not that, you can imagine that you have nothing, that's fine, but that's just imagining it's having nothing, okay?

[44:45]

So that's not reality, it's not that that's not reality, it's just that that is, what that is, is just the idea of I have nothing. But the idea of having nothing, if you have the idea, I have nothing, and you practice that way, that's this dullness approach. And the other one will be, well, I'll have something, but I'll know that having something is also a defilement. To have something is also wrong. So to not have something is a kind of special dullness. To have something is saying, it's delusion. I have some delusion to work on. Or you could even say, I have something, this isn't delusion, this is like some reality. You could have those two. Those are both off. Then to say, well, now I have nothing. That's, again, one of those two. But when you have this feeling of, I've let go of this, and I've let go of that, and kind of like, a little bit like, whoa, you know, kind of like, just before yikes, just before, whoa, what can I do then?

[45:53]

Or, you know, how will I know whether I'm practicing or not? You know, if I can't get into doing or not doing, then we'll... Just before that happens. Then something will happen. Now what happens then could be, yikes. I might not be, how would I know if I'm practicing? Or it could be just whatever, you know. Something happens. And that something that happens could be completely Something that you actually, you didn't do anything. You were just sitting there. You were truly an innocent bystander. However, you got to be an innocent bystander by renouncing having something and not having something.

[46:56]

You renounced them. It isn't that they never happened. It's just you said, oh, that's dullness. I mean, that's kind of like numbness. Okay, that's kind of like trying to be pure that way. And here is being impure, but, you know, being pure of, geez, how will I, you know, what's going on? Maybe I'm wasting my time. But then again, how do you deal with maybe I'm wasting my time or what's going on? How do you relate to that? This true person was going in and out of your face during all this stuff. During dullness, the true person was going in and out. During distraction, the true person was going in and out. During having nothing, the true person was going in and out. So it's kind of a question of posture. Having the right posture.

[47:59]

If you have the right posture, you have a chance of witnessing things actually just come up. You have a chance of witnessing uncontrived birth, uncontrived death. You have a chance to watch how life goes. In other words, the sutra, the thing that's all going on starts to unfold before you. Yes. Yes. Deciding on this one thing.

[49:06]

Deciding on this one thing, it's something that could happen. You know? Usually, you know, when you do a natural set one time, you make, this is your normal practice, every day you sit down and draw your breath. Or if you're sat there, But if a bird gets in, or a dog, or whatever, or your children, or your kids, right? But then, I don't know, it's a moment, but it's a moment. But it's better than wanting to feel it again. When you go to the meditation hall, and then if it is the case with you, for example, that every day you sit down you always think, before you sit down, I'm going to now study to be mindful of my breathing, is it possible that a person

[50:35]

could go day after day to the meditation hall, sit down and say, I'm going to give Michael a nice breath. It's possible if you say that every time. Right? And it's possible that that same person would never say, I'm going to pay attention to the birds. Right? That's possible. Is everybody following that? However, even though that person sat down and did not say, I'm going to pay attention to the birds, and did say, I'm going to pay attention to my breath, still, whenever that person heard the bird, the person would pay attention to the bird at that moment. But then the person might not say, in this particular example, would might not say, well, I'm going to keep listening to the bird, just I heard the bird. And then you might not even have to say to yourself again, I'm going to be mindful of my breathing. You just might go back and be mindful of your breathing again.

[51:38]

All right? This is a possible story in this world that I think quite a few people have lived this story of. of going to a meditation hall, saying to himself, I'm going to concentrate, I'm going to be mindful of my breathing, and then spending quite a bit of time watching the breathing and hearing the birds too, but not intentionally, not saying anything about an intention to listen to the birds. And I'm saying that if this was a story that was true for somebody, that somebody could say that that was their story, then I'm saying, I'm talking about the attitude with which you go into the hall. I'm talking about the attitude with which you say, the attitude gets there when you say, I'm going to be mindful of my breathing.

[52:50]

What is the attitude there? Even if you say, I'm going to be mindful of breathing, what is the attitude there? There's a certain attitude there I'm talking about. You can again say, I'm going to be mindful of my breathing. Or you could say, try to say, well, I'm not going to be there being mindful of my breathing. And you could try to phrase it like, in some very dull way, like, there's going to be mindfulness of breathing somehow. or I'm not even going to go that far. Again, to try to phrase it in some special way to avoid either of those extremes would again be a little off. How do you say, if you do, I am going to, or I intend to be mindful of breathing and posture during this period of meditation, how do you say that

[53:53]

And while saying that, remember that somebody's there who's not involved in any extreme approach to that verbal utterance. How do you witness this true person at that time? This is the question. If I tell you how to do it, that will be off. Like Zhaozhou, this same person, this person, some monk said to this person, Was it, no, it was Zhaozhou and Matsu, I think. This monk here, Zhaozhou, in this case 39, the one who taught the monk to wash his bowl, he asked his teacher, what is the way? I think he said. And his teacher said, everyday mind is the way. I'm sorry, everyday mind is the way? Everyday mind, ordinary mind is the way. And then this Zhaozhou said to his teacher Matsu, a non-Jhwan, how, I think he said, no, he said, how will we know if we're practicing everyday mind or not?

[55:17]

And the teacher said, to know is just delusions. To not know is blank consciousness. To know is like some kind of delusion you use to sort of say, okay, this is how I know that this is everyday mind and this is the way. Just remember that Nanchuan said that and keep telling yourself, everyday mind is the way. That's just a delusion. Like, I don't have anything or whatever. Or I can be ordinary. To avoid that, And to not know, to sort of go, I don't know if this is it, I don't know if this is everyday mind, I don't know if this is the path, I don't know if this is the way. To do that, it's like a kind of dullness, to sort of protect yourself from the error of saying, this is the way. I'm not going to be self-conscious, I don't know what's right and wrong. Or, I got a device here by which I can tell what's right and wrong. Those two, one's delusion, the device by which you can tell right and wrong is delusion. The avoiding the whole issue is dullness that pulls off.

[56:25]

And then Jaljo says, well, I missed one line. I think he said, everyday mind is the way. And then Jaljo says, well, how can I turn towards it or how can I direct myself towards it? How can you direct yourself towards this right attitude? How can you direct yourself towards the way of holding yourself so that you can witness this true person coming in and out of your face all the time? To turn towards it is to turn away from it. To turn away from it is also to turn away from it. Any orientation you take from it won't be right because it's always there. There's no way to turn towards it. There's no way to, you know, if you turn towards it, you turn away from it. No orientation is the proper orientation. So, then he said, after he said, well, turning towards it, you turn away from it.

[57:34]

He said, well, how do I know if I'm on the path or not? Knowing and not knowing are both wrong. Knowing is delusion, not knowing is dullness. And then he says, this path has nothing to do with knowing or not knowing. It has to do with no doubt. It's the path of no doubt. The path of no doubt is to be in that posture and have this, not this, but to have thus be the posture. So, Sonia and Jerry came forward to offer something to work with.

[58:50]

Yes? Is this where confession comes in? How are you thinking about that? Knowing when you turn away and when you turn toward. Not... Just... Recognize you're not interfering, but notice that you do interfere. Yeah, noticing. Just say, there, I interfered. Mm-hmm. There I went off a little bit. You talked about confession a few weeks back. I see that as kind of an acceptance of what you are doing is mortising what you did and accepting it and letting it go. You're not interfering with what goes on next. Yeah. Admitting that you have done something a little extra, or a lot extra, just noting that... It's always happening.

[59:58]

That's pretty much... It's good to be prepared for... That's the in and out. It's always going. It's like it's always there. The two-person is always there, but there's always enough there, too. Well, it's always there and it's always not there, or maybe two extremes again, that it's there. There is always somebody going in and out of your face, and then again to say that there is such a person is an error, to say that there isn't is an error. This person doesn't really, this true person has no rank, never gets the rank of existing or non-existing. There's a person who's actually free of this high-speed categorization process that we have.

[61:05]

The high-speed categorization process that's going on, that's when we confess that. And it's possible to get very fast at confession so you can see your mind. categorizing at extremely high speed. In other words, you basically understand that every moment categorization has just taken place. That you put everybody and everything neatly in its position of existence, non-existence, and so on. That everybody, you put everybody right where you think they should be, and you've made almost no mistakes. You kept each person in their seat. very nicely and if anybody does anything you can categorize them right down to every motion they ever take with opinions and judgments to go along because our mind is very fast but this true person is free of this

[62:16]

This person has no rank. Are they actually free of it, or are they free of getting stuck in it? Ah, same thing. They're free of it, they're free of getting stuck in it, they're free of not getting stuck in it. Yes. I think I understand just this person as... Now, after you're listening, it sounds to me like that is all. It's on the side of incarnation, a war. I do not. Well, just this person, you know, you can go to the zendo and say, I'm going to practice with just this person.

[63:18]

That could be the same as Jerry's example of going to zendo and saying, mindfulness of breathing. If you go in the zendo and you open the door and you see the floor, there it is, there's the floor. The floor is just another example of, is a paralleled example of just this person, follow the breathing, the bird chirping. Except to say, oh, I hear the bird is different from saying, I'm going to listen to the bird. I hear the bird is different from, I'm going to follow my breathing. I'm going to be mindful of my breathing. To be aware of your breathing is different than saying, I'm going to be aware of my breathing. Different language. But the floor of the zendo, the room, the bird, our intentions, everything is something that's appearing.

[64:26]

If you say, just this person, what is your attitude at that time? if I say to you, just this person, what is my posture in this world at that moment? And you just, you know, you keep looking for a posture, you keep watching for a posture. There's a posture in this world that drops everything off. There's a mental and physical unity of posture and breathing and mind such that everything drops off from that. And one thing to drop off, you don't have to worry about practicing any practice. You can practice just this person. You can practice a koan, any of these stories. You can practice mindfulness of posture, of breathing. You can do any practice with this attitude.

[65:30]

And then every word is an opportunity to bring your energy, this kind of balanced energy there. I lost it, but you mentioned the perception. So all that comes in through the senses, the perception, the hearing, the taste, the smell, can be sort of a false perception. For instance, I see smoke over there, and I already make an interpretation. Maybe I think there's a fire. So if something starts to work, out of the perception comes an emotion. Are we talking then or I have a smell with it and I already have a similar kind of reaction.

[66:36]

Are we talking then of the person with rank in that case? Because I have created the imagery which is I have already created there, I have already set a scene. Yes. And I respond to that particular scene. Yes. So I'm not free anymore. And now I'm finally not trying to try. I'm trying to find a gate. I'm trying to find a way how to see different. And I see that you said before, it's not either or. You do not try or you do not not try. So there's this moment of, I don't call it confusion, but there is a certain kind of, like, media alert blankness. I don't know how to describe that. Or not knowing how to go further with that.

[67:42]

Would you then encourage to stay with that particular state of alert blankness? I don't know. Now this teacher also said, well actually not this teacher, this teacher's teacher's teacher said, just drink tea and go. I wouldn't say to stay with that state. I would say just notice it and go ahead, straight ahead. What is straight ahead? Nobody knows what straight ahead is. You go straight ahead. And also, the reason why they say go in and out of the eyes is that you say the senses come in, right, but then you notice something comes in, we say, but actually

[68:44]

even though we think something's coming in and something is coming in, as soon as we think of it, it's actually going out. Because what's happening is you're putting out what you think it is. So you think you let the sound, you let the light come in, you let the smell come in. The light came in and the smell came in. But you think they came in, you think like the smoke came in and the smell came in, the light and the smell came in. But actually, Something came in, and then back here there was smoke. The smell of smoke and the color of smoke and the shape of smoke was back here. So when you thought the smoke light and the smoke now were coming in, that smoke light that came in was actually the going out. No such thing ever came in your nose. No smoke came in your nose. The smoke is way over there. Some particle, some tiny little particle, which is not smoke, which no one would say was smoke.

[69:49]

Some chemical came into your nose. That's not... Do you understand what I mean? No one would say that that was smoke. That was a signal to you that there's smoke someplace. Now, if you were actually in the smoke, you'd be more confusing. But really, you can't smell smoke. There's no such thing as smelling smoke. There's just certain something happens to you and in your brain you say smoke. Also, there's no light that comes to you that's smoke. There's no smoke light. There's zillions of colors coming in and you decide to say smoke. But when you say smoke, that's going out, actually. But something came in so that smoke would go out. But smoke didn't come in. So you people, none of you people actually ever come in to meet If you did, you'd all be dead. You don't come into me.

[70:53]

You have your own lives. But colors come into me, and with colors, you come out of me. All of you come out of me. You are coming out of me. That's your existence. But when you come out of me, that has something to do with you, and then that comes back to me. So you are out there, and what you did, what your life depends on my perception of you, But my perception of you is what I do, not what you do, and not who you are. But if there wasn't you, I wouldn't be able to come up with a perception. Even if you went away and I closed my eyes, I still wouldn't be able to dream of you even without you. I'm not saying to hold with the state that you felt when you started to meditate on this, that state of confusion or whatever. Don't hold to it. Just taste it and go straight ahead, is what I'm saying. And straight ahead is another word for the right posture, this posture of witnessing this true person.

[72:00]

Straight ahead, you know, different people have different ideas of what straight ahead is. But that's the recommended way of walking the Buddhist path. It's called straight. We don't say do a zigzag path. Washing your bowl. Washing your bowl. After eating breakfast. Eat breakfast and wash your bowl. This is called straight ahead. But what is that? What is that when you eat your lunch... And then you wash your bowl. You see, where is the straight ahead? Where is it? That's it, right? But what was that? It was a response. It was a response, but, you know, it wasn't that response. Because after dinner, straight ahead is to wash things differently. Because you have different bowls. And then... And then straight ahead, when you meet somebody, is another straight ahead.

[73:06]

But it's always the same thing. Straight ahead is always the way to go. You can say, well, let's make it crooked. Okay, fine. You know. But they don't say crooked. They don't say the bodhisattva's heart is crooked. They say the bodhisattva's mind is straightforward. But straightforward means that all the stuff that's happening, something just cuts right through it. Something just cuts through everything and just drops everything. What is that? That's what's always going on. Something's always going on and nothing ever changes that. That's the proposal here. There is a true person. what's going in and out of your face all the time. Nothing can stop that. You don't have to worry about that. You don't have to make that happen. You don't have to make that happen.

[74:07]

That's not your job. Your job is to witness this person. Meantime, there is categorization going on. There is judgment of right and wrong going on. There are all kinds of contrivances coming up. They are an unstoppable cornucopia of positions, ideas, tactics, strategies, and so on that keeps tumbling out of the mind constantly because the mind is capable of producing artwork all the time. What's straightforward in the middle of that? Nobody knows. It's a matter of faith. People do know, excuse me, people do know, but again, knowing is just a delusion about this. I know what straight ahead is, fine, that's a delusion. I don't know what straight ahead is, fine, that's dullness. Dullness, delusion, take your choice.

[75:13]

One or the other is probably going to happen a good share of the time. Straight ahead is to cut through whatever position you take on this. This witnessing seems to be one straight ahead. No. The witnessing is understanding. Straight ahead. Straight ahead is always going on. Straight ahead is always going on. Straight ahead is always going on. That's just what's happening, straight ahead. There's something that's always cut free of any of our trips. Witnessing is understanding that. You actually understand it. And you can prove it then. You can prove it, because you understand it. You can demonstrate it. Yes? So, on my mind, I think I see a fire.

[76:19]

I put it out. Mm-hmm. Yes? So that's it. I mean, the thing to do if this is a fire and I'm trusting my what's coming in and what I'm putting out, the image that this is a fire, and I'm trusting that what the prudent thing to do is to go and put it out, or call 911, or do what I must do, who would be to put out the fire. And that's how the going in and the going out would be, that would be my understanding of it. Okay, that's your understanding of it. Yeah, and if I was sitting in the Zen room and I smelled smoke, I think I would...

[77:23]

bow and go find out what was going on. So maybe you would. Maybe I wouldn't. But maybe you wouldn't. Maybe you hear somebody else get up and you think, oh, she's going to go take care of it. So then you might not do that. You might sit there and wait a little longer. Yeah, maybe I wasn't sure if they'd really take care of it. Maybe you aren't sure. So maybe you go and get up and go ask them if they're going to go take care of the smell. but the have you eaten your breakfast yet in that when you say have you eaten your breakfast yet that's not straightforward straightforward

[78:27]

has no rank. Straightforwardness is being demonstrated by this conversation. So you can say this story is a story of straightforwardness. There is straightforwardness here. But it's not in these words. And there could be straightforwardness in you hearing the smell and you getting up and going out to see what's going on. But it's not in that thing. You could also stay in your seat and straightforwardness could be there too. Straightforwardness is not in the words. There's words happening all the time. Smoke, fire, blah, blah, blah is happening all the time. The meaning is not in those words. The meaning is in the energy that comes forward that it's in the energy that arrives and there's a response to that, the meaning there.

[79:34]

And you can give that example, but if in giving that example you're trying to get a station or a place to figure out what it would be to be straightforward, then There's some more words there, and what's your attitude towards those words? If you think the meaning is in those words, well, you're off. If you think it's not, you're off. To say it's not, to put your energy into what's not in those words, like for me to say, no, you're wrong, that's not it. For you to say, yes, I'm right, that's not it. Yet the meaning is not in what you said or in what I said or what you thought or what I thought about what you said. The meaning's not in that. The meaning is when the energy comes forth in response to your words. The meaning comes forth in response to my energy. Not my energy, but the energy. You can sit in zendos, you can get up and put out fires, you can get up and try to put out fires that never were there.

[80:49]

All that's fine. But the question is, where's the meaning? Where is the liberating meaning? In smelling, in seeing, in hearing, tasting, and touching. Where is the liberating meaning? It's not in the story. However, to not have stories, it's not in not having stories. It's not in dullness of saying, get rid of the stories. It's not in the stories. But it's also not in the stories. And here's a story. And it's not in these words. It's not in these words. It will come forth when you bring your energy to these words. It's not in these faces. But it responds to the arrival of energy in response to these faces.

[81:51]

Or these faces, actually. are the arrival of energy. I have no way to tell about the energy of my perception other than these faces. Unless the faces all walk out of the room, then the wall comes at me. What I'm talking about is is, of course, what we call the backward step. It's called turning around and walking in the other direction. It's called dropping contrivances to figure out how to live your life, which also means dropping contrivances about how to live the way of freedom. And I heard that Henry thought that we should leave 50 minutes ago in order to get up to see the fireworks, but we didn't. We didn't. I'm sorry, Henry.

[82:55]

I was totally on your side in that regard, but I forgot about it until I heard that alarm. So here's case 39. There's a story. There's some words. The meaning's not in those words. It's not on this page. And I close the book. I still remember the story. The words are floating around in my head. The meaning's not in those words. But those words remind me. Those words are words that have come to me from the Tang Dynasty, been transmitted carefully to me and to you, to remind us what it means to go straight ahead in an ordinary day-to-day life situation. What is it? Where is that straight-aheadness, that true person has no rank?

[84:02]

Let's keep our eye open for it. Playing hide-and-seek is, when you say I've been playing hide-and-seek, that's confession. I've been hiding and seeking. But somewhere between hiding and seeking, you're pretty close. As you switch from hiding to seeking, from seeking to hiding, a switch from knowing to not knowing, somewhere as you cross line there, you probably cross the balance place for a moment when you're just ready to meet the true person, to witness the true person. And I say again, how many times, how many times have I gone down in this cave to meet this person? How many times? Hundred? Thousand? Million?

[85:05]

Trillion? These great ancestors who have transmitted this stuff thousands of years, they did this many, many times until they somehow got skillful at it. So don't think that Just ten or twenty or a hundred or a thousand times is enough. Don't feel discouraged if you have to drill at this and go over it. And many, many times I have to confess, I was seeking, I was hiding. I didn't even think about it for days. I forgot about this true person for weeks. I didn't even notice. Now I feel, now I wish, now I wish, I hope I do better this week. I hope, like the Karmapa said, I'll try to do better next time. So next week I'll try to do better at witnessing, at watching for this true person. And I'll think about this story about washing the bowl and putting out fires and following my breath and being just this person and so on.

[86:21]

How about you?

[86:23]

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