These two cases can be seen as... These two cases can be... One way I see these cases is the first case 43, you're meditating on birth and death, you're meditating on the arising and the vanishing. The monk is meditating on it and wondering, you know, what is really happening as you're watching things happen. And the teacher gives him instruction on how to selflessly meditate on impermanence by saying, you know, who is arising and vanishing, is it?

[01:09]

But, okay, that's that, okay? But that instruction, although it is an instruction and a good instruction, you can read it in the book and you can practice it. It's a nice meditation practice to do. But it was delivered in person. between these two people, two, I think, very present human beings. So, as this interchange happened, as this teacher gave him this meditation, as he brought forth his presence with that meditation on birth and death, and asked how it was, how that meditation is, the teacher gave him an instruction to amplify how to do that meditation, but also something happened between them. There was a personal interaction too that happened while this meditation instruction was conveyed, while this question was asked and this response given.

[02:17]

But we don't give any details about what happened between them. All we hear is those words, and then that Lhasa woke up. The next case, 43, I think amplifies, concentrates on what happens when the people try to meet. Previous story, 43, the meeting was successful. By the conclusion of the story, you can tell the monk woke up. In 44, the process of what happens when people meet is amplified, but apparently in this story, the monk was, well, you see, he's called a monk, even. Whenever they say a monk, not whenever they say a monk, but generally speaking, when they say a monk, it means...

[03:26]

What do you call it? The name is not mentioned to protect the innocent. Whenever they say the name, usually the person is awake. It's not a hard and fast rule, but... Anyway, so the case 44 kind of like blows up the interaction and shows the principles... which were realized in the previous example, previous kits, and the same principles which were not realized in this case. So these two things go together very nicely. So if you're meditating on case 43, You can both take it just as an on-the-paper meditation instruction, but you can also look into the story and try to see what kind of reaction, what the relationship is there for a successful teaching experience, a successful learning experience.

[04:36]

But the story is not telling you how it happens. The next movement tells you more about how it happens. Any questions about this so far? Does the rest of it make sense?

[06:20]

So this is a... And there's some description here, some language here, and it's colorful language, so you can use the language to imagine all colors and images that are going on in this interaction. One idea I have is that you can tell me or tell us what happened in this story. You can say it however you want to and then validate it with the language of the story. If somebody speaks, the gorilla will come out and take our head off.

[07:33]

If somebody speaks? Well, what do you mean, somebody? Well, as I just spoke, I knew I was going to get whacked. I stepped my head out. What's it like when you stick your head out? Yeah, not sticking your head out? That was not sticking my head out. What? That was not sticking my head out. How about what you just said? That was sticking my head out. What is sticking your head out? What is the nature of sticking your head out? Just your action. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. There's no reason to do it or no reason not to do it. It's just a rush.

[08:36]

Okay, may I say something? I don't know what you mean about pure action, but when I hear the word pure action, I think that is not sticking your head out. I think it's possible, I think what's being proposed here is that it's possible to speak without sticking your head out. And that's pure action. Now, part of what you said, I don't know, you can say to speak without a reason, One way to understand speak without a reason is that you're speaking for no other reason than to speak at that moment. Another way to understand speak without a reason is there's no reason for your speaking. Which is a little different. There are causes for your speaking. There's a reason why you say what you say. You never say what you say without reason. But you can say what you say just to say what you say. And there's reasons for that too. given our background, we are sometimes incapable of speaking and just letting it go at that.

[09:47]

But when the situation is right, when the situation is such that we can speak, just to speak and no more than that, then I would say the causes and conditions ripen for us to not stick our head out and yet to speak. So the thing with these stories is, can you speak without sticking your head out? You can also not speak and stick your head out. That's why at the end he said, well, I'll just go like this and retreat. Retreating can be sticking your head out. Coming forward can be sticking your head out. Speaking can be sticking your head out. And being silent can be sticking your head out. You can also come forward, go backwards, speak and be silent without sticking your head out. And in this story, in one sentence, when you stick your head out, that means a dragon comes. A dragon comes out of the water.

[10:51]

And if it's not right, the Garuda will find the dragon and take its head off. Now I mentioned before, Section 10C, of the Diamond Sutra is that Bodhisattva should give rise to a mind which elights nowhere, which has no address. That's called not sticking your head out. So, if you're walking or talking or thinking or not, Your mind is still functioning. Where is the mind that has no address? The mind that has no address that Garuda can't find. And yet you become charging forth on some occasions with a mind that has no address. And that's not sticking your head out. And that's how you meet somebody.

[11:55]

You put yourself out there without leaning forward. So this is our last meeting for a while, but when we start meeting again, I hope we remember to try to learn in this class how to speak, how to sit and stand in this room, how to have a body and a mind and speech, and to be that way that we are without sticking our head out. And let's practice that tonight, too. and to see what the Garuda does with us. Is there any way to learn to do that besides getting your head chopped off over and over? I don't know. There might be another way. But getting your head chopped off... or bruised over and over, it does seem like that is a well-established method of learning.

[13:12]

Learning by mistake, right? Like a baby walks. A baby can't walk until he grows a lot. Yeah, well, usually. Well, Shakyamuni Buddha walked there. Did you say maybe? Yeah, maybe. I'm not really clear on this concept of sticking your head out. What I understand it means is that if you speak... and your speech is ego-based, or you are speaking in a position that is not upright, according to the way you were told us about uprightness, that that is sticking your head up. Is that all right? So when you get your head chopped off,

[14:16]

Like the master says to the monk to look in front of the gate. That's where his ego is, right? That's where his ego queen is. That's what he should look at. Is that right? Yeah, he's giving him... So first of all, he said, first the monk asked the question, right? About, first the monk says, when the dragon, a dragon king comes out of the sea, sky and earth are tranquil. Okay? How is it to meet? He's already off. Think of the story. He's asking you about how to meet, but the way he's asking, he's saying, I want to learn how to meet. This is a young dragon here.

[15:22]

I want to learn how to meet. Tell me how it is. I'm concentrated. I'm present. Here I come out of the ocean, okay? Now how can I meet you? And the teacher gives us an instruction. Part of the instruction is, I'm telling you how to do it, but you're also off right now. Okay? Okay? And then the monk says, suppose somebody asks, and then he gives them more, and then he gives them instruction. Like you said, he shows them where he looked for ego or any kind of bias. He tells them, you know, use the Garuda to find any kind of clean. All right? Okay, then the monk blows it. Second time.

[16:23]

And the teacher calls it off. Sad story. So the first instruction, both instructions are instructions on how to get feedback on your, on your, The way you're arising is ceasing in the world. Two different instructions about how to check yourself and catch yourself. Or where to look for feedback when you're trying to meet. All right? So the two instructions are the Garuda, king of the birds, takes command of the universe, who can stick his head out here.

[17:34]

So there's some kind of like protecting, there's a protective function of the universe, which is not the teacher. The teacher is like the person you play with. to develop the right relationship. It's the person you use to create the relationship. It's the person you use to create the arena in which you can potentially do right action. The Garuda is kind of the Dharma protector that will give you feedback. Sometimes they give you feedback through the teacher, but not necessarily The teacher might do nothing, but you just feel really bad or nervous or frightened. That anxiety you feel is the Garuda giving you feedback.

[18:35]

It's the Garuda bruising you. Now, if the teacher wasn't in the room, it wouldn't be possible to have a situation. To feel. Because you just look at the wall and say... I shouldn't say it wouldn't be possible, but you'd have to have something inside yourself to look at and feel nervous about. So, does it make sense? What? Partially. What part makes sense? The possibility of being in a room without a teacher.

[19:37]

Yes. And not necessarily looking at a wall, but realizing there are things going on inside yourself. Yes. That makes sense to me. Yes. Like if you go in a room, you know, let's say you go in a room and you walk into a room and you feel really anxious. Okay. So you got the Guru to working for you. Yeah. In other words, the way you went in the room, you stuck your head out. Stuck your head out and then the Guru came around your head. Okay. Perfect, perfect etymological example, because anxiety means to get choked. So, when you stick your head out, the Garuda puts her teeth around your head and squeezes down your throat. Okay? Do you understand? I understand that, and I also understand observing that.

[20:37]

Yeah, and you can do that in an empty room, but most people don't. But if there's a teacher in the room, most people do. But you don't have to have a teacher in there. But usually I would say that if you go into an empty room and there's not anybody in there and you feel it, it's because you think somebody's going to be in there any minute. Right? You know what I mean? You see any horror movies? You go in the room and nobody's there, right? But you know the Garuda's going to come any minute and get you and munch on you, right? That's why it's so scary. Are you following that? Does that make sense? Something's going to come and get you if you stick your head out. If you stick your head out, yes. But isn't the Garuda there all the time? The Garuda's there all the time. You don't have to go in a room. Wherever you go, the Garuda's there. The Garuda is there wherever you are, anytime, 24 hours a day, the Garuda is there.

[21:39]

If you stick your head out, you get bruised. Okay? And if you don't, the Garuda is still there. If you don't, the Garuda is still there, but the Garuda won't munch on you. So now most people... are in so much, you know, so much denial that even though their head's sticking out and is munching on them 24 hours a day, they're just, you know, they're doing everything they can to get away from the experience of the feedback they're getting about sticking their head out. So they're missing learning opportunity after learning opportunity. They're deeply anxious. The Guru is like palming on them and they're just totally pushing that away all the time. Every possible way that they can get away from it. They're using it. But you can wake up to that if you can wake up to any leaning you're having and the feedback you're getting from the thing that protects you from that tendency, which is to give you negative feedback from your leaning.

[22:49]

You open up to that. The part that I didn't understand was the presentation, the dragon coming out. The presentation as the monk paints the picture. You said he started out... You said the monk started out... What do you mean? I'm saying the monk stuck his head out. Okay, the monk stuck his head out. And he stuck his head out by asking the question... No, not by asking the question... If you hadn't asked the question, nobody would stick his head out too, unless he wasn't in the room. Was this the way he asked the question? Yeah. The way he asked the question. And so what's hard for me is the way the question is asked. Understanding the way the question is asked as it being a way of him sticking his head out. Well, I don't... I can't see in the language that the monk hears that the language was... proves that he was sticking his head out.

[24:01]

It's more the teacher's response that shows that he was sticking his head out. He was sticking his head out, nonetheless. He was sticking his head out, nonetheless. What do you mean, nonetheless? I wouldn't know he was sticking his head out just by that first line there. I just saw a monk said... A dragon king comes out of the sea. Sky and earth are tranquil. How can we meet? How can we meet face to face? I wouldn't know by that that he stuck his head out. That question could be asked in an upright way. That question could be asked in an egoless way. And so, I guess what you're saying, or what I'm hearing you say, is that... the master's response to the question is the clue that he's sticking his head out. Because he's not asking the question in an upright way.

[25:03]

Yes. And then the rest of the story continues to show that he wasn't upright in the way he asked the question. So, asking in an upright way, okay, asking without that question You could use those words. Any of you people could learn that. You could memorize that sentence. And you could say that sentence all day long. And maybe 30% of the time you ask that question, you might ask it egolessly. And 70% egocentrically. Or vice versa. You could just for like a day, just say nothing but that sentence. Inside, in your own head, outside when you meet people. And you could say it. And each time you say it, it could be upright or not. It could be ego-based or not. It's like when you exhale. Every exhale can be ego-based or not. Every time you see something, it can be ego-based or not.

[26:06]

So it's not the words. It's the energy. It's the type of posture you bring to it. Your attitude. Okay? Okay? So the attitude that you're instructed as Bodhisattva to bring to it is an attitude where your mind has no abode. Your mind has abode. They got your number. They got your address. That's the mark. It's right there. Get them. The Garudas will get you. If you got an address, they'll get you. Any dragon's got an address, it's done for. So you can say, you can speak, you can talk, or you can say anything without an address, or anything you can say has an address. So when you speak, when you make a statement or ask a question, if it's really being expressed for the welfare of others,

[27:12]

It's egoless, and it's upright. Can you tell that ahead of time, before you get a response? If you tell that beforehand, you lean. So the way you tell if you're leaning is by the response that you get? Which could be inside yourself, too. You can stand out in an open field and you can say, a dragon comes out, a dragon queen comes out of the sea. You can say that in an open field and feel. That wasn't for the welfare of all. I didn't do that for the welfare of all beings. You can feel you're off. It gives some selfishness there. When you feel selfishness, you're right. And sometimes you can't feel it, but somebody else can reflect it back to you and then you can feel it.

[28:18]

But it is possible to say anything selflessly or to say anything primarily for the welfare of others. When you're upright, you're not like doing things for something. And again, if you do things for the welfare of others, but you think that this thing you're doing is for the welfare of others, then you're leaning. I mean, if you think this is for the welfare of others, then you're leaning. To want to act for the welfare of others is different than saying, this is for the welfare of others. If you say this is for the welfare of others, then you're kind of leaning. Also what you meant, you used to call it leaking. Yeah. It's leaking. Is it the same thing? Mm-hmm. Type of leaking. Yeah.

[29:22]

Except that this is emphasizing a little bit more. In the process of trying to find out who is arising and vanishing, in the process of trying to find this who, You know, who is a person that doesn't have an address, right? You can't find who. Nobody can find who. So this who is now, now we're trying to like get some, now if it's not who, your head's sticking out. If it's Henry instead of who, and Henry really means Henry, then, and that's Henry's over there rather than over here, but Henry's got an address. If I say Henry, and I think Henry's over there, then I've got an address because I think, you know, that way. And my mind is dependent on Henry being there, rather than the big Henry, which I don't know anything about.

[30:26]

If you go around all day just saying Henry, without having an address for that Henry, then Henry doesn't have an address. You don't have an address, and the Garuda can't find you. The whole world is Henry. The whole world is Henry. Right. And the whole world is not Henry. Actually, Henry has a different take on the story. Now, the story talked to me a little bit differently than... As long as you bring me out, I... Oh, that's right. My interpretation of the story is that There's been this sort of talk about avoiding having the guru to take off the head, and that's choice. And what I thought is that the monk interpreted it that way, and that's what the master got upset about. In other words, he said, well, dragon comes out of the sea, you know, and then what?

[31:30]

Then what happens? And then he said, well, the guru is going to come down. You know, the guru is out there. And he says... You know, and then you take off the heads of dragons. Well, what happens when it does come up? He says, well, he takes the head off. And the monk says, well, I'm just going to make myself so harmless that the guru is not going to do that. You know, and he says, no. And the master gets upset because that's not the point. The point is not avoiding getting your head taken off because you can't. The point is that if you come out and see it, where it will take off your head, that's the whole, it's the natural process. You can't not do that. You can't not have that happen. Anyway, that was my take. Okay. And I would say that, just let's have it be that there's great merit in what you said.

[32:36]

Okay? Is that right? Let's just say there is great merit in what he said, right? I would say simultaneously with that, it is possible for the dragon to come out of the water and not stick his head out. In the same world where the dragon sticks the head out, there's a dragon that doesn't stick its head out. So this monk's saying, okay, now, you know, we're dragons. We're coming out of the water, calm, fresh, ready to interact. We want to meet. How can that be? And the teacher says, one way to read this is the teacher's saying, okay, now you're coming out into the world, ready to interact, You should know that there's a Garuda bird too. Dragons are wonderful beings, but dragons are not in charge of the whole thing.

[33:36]

They're just wonderful creatures in the big picture. The Garudas are in charge of the whole scene. And if when you express your life, your wonderful, you know, colorful dragon life, If you do that and you stick your head out, you're going to have a problem. You've got to do it, got to find a way that it happens without sticking the head out. In the situation where the guru is in charge, in other words, who can stick their head out here and not get in trouble? It doesn't say necessarily you're going to stick your head out and you are going to get in trouble, but rather who could stick their head out here and not get in trouble? And the answer is nobody could. So... If you stick your head out, the guru is going to get you. Fortunately. That's good because there's no room for sticking your head out. So that's good.

[34:37]

The world's, the universe is set up in such a way that it's set up to train you to be, you know, an upright being. And if you're not, you get drunk because that's the way it's set up. However, it doesn't mean you shouldn't be a dragon and express yourself. It doesn't mean you should try not to get your head cut off or munched. It doesn't mean you should do that. It doesn't say this monk shouldn't have come forth and asked this question. It doesn't say you should either. Anyway, dragons do come out of the water anyway. Whether you like it or not, they come forth And there's a way for them to come forth while sticking their head out. And so the monk says, suppose suddenly, so actually I take it back.

[35:40]

I take it back that his first question is sticking his head out. Let's say his second question is sticking his head out. Suppose someone suddenly appears, then what? Now he's tilting his head out. And the teacher bruises him and gives him instruction at the same time. It's like a falcon catching a pigeon. He says, suppose one suddenly appears, then what? When one sticks one's head out, then what? In other words, am I sticking my head out now? Or am I sticking my head out now? Okay, I just got you like a pigeon. And if you want to know if I got you, come up.

[36:45]

in front and look to see if your head's on stick on the balcony or on the front of the tower. So you got, so the monk says, oh, you got me, huh? Okay, well, then I'll just get up. So he did it again. So the teacher, so the Garuda, the Garuda threw the teacher, whacks him again. And that's the end of the story. Doesn't get a third chance. So. So you said a monk, when you speak of a monk, it's someone who's usually awake. So you can be awake, and it will still... Oh, not awake. If he was awake, if he woke up, and they put his name in here. I was going to say. Because when people wake up, they forget to sign your name.

[37:48]

They forget to sign history books when you wake up. And a few weeks ago you were talking about how we need to be acknowledged. And some people get their names in the history books while waking up, too. But anyway, this monk didn't get his name, and maybe later he did, but it depends on the story. It's just body. A few weeks ago you were talking about we all need acknowledgement. Yes. And I think I stick my head out. When I want to, if I don't feel like I'm getting acknowledged or I need acknowledged, I know that's the self, that's self-centered. Yes. But then to acknowledge myself, the pain of not being acknowledged, before it becomes the anger and the rage, which could be the guru also. Let me careful now. So sometimes you feel like you want acknowledgement.

[38:54]

Right. And you think that you stick your head out in the process of doing that? Yeah. However, sometimes you want acknowledgement and you stick your head out to get it. And you get it. And you feel good because you wanted it and you got it. Other times you want it, stick your head out, and don't get it. And that wasn't very successful. And people, I think, want it, need it, stick their head out to get it, and they sometimes get it and sometimes don't. And they have to keep trying until they get it. Once they get it, and the karutas give it to them for trying to get it, you can get the acknowledgement and also get your head munched up. But at a certain stage, it's worth it to you to get it acknowledged, even if you get bumped for it.

[40:03]

These stories are about after these people have already been acknowledged. And the habit of sticking your head out to get acknowledged is still there. But they don't need acknowledgement anymore. What they need now is training in not sticking your head out. If these people aren't trying to get approval anymore, if they are, It's not a Zen story. Zen stories are about people who have already gotten approval, who are trying to get trained out of the habits that they got into when they were trying to get approval. You have to go through that. You have to go through that stage of getting approval. And then, when you have approval, then you enter into training. And you have to do the training of the guru. The guru gets to decide. The guru is in charge.

[41:07]

The guru decides whether you're upright or not. Not you. The guru does not give you unconditional approval. He should approve only if you're upright. If you haven't got some unconditional approval in the past, then it's going to be very difficult for you ever to be upright. Because you have to keep trying to get approval until you get approval for yourself. And that's part of the thing about whether you can stand sticking your head out and getting munched and not approval. In regular life, you get munched and sometimes approval, and munched and nothing, and munched and disapproval.

[42:09]

But in these stories, in these Zen stories, you never get approval. You only get training or approval that you haven't been leaning. But if you haven't been leaning, you're not trying to get approval. And even if you're not trying to get approval, that could be another technique of leaning backwards, sticking your head inside out or something to avoid getting munched. So in other words, you have to learn to act for no reason other than the action itself, which is called having a mind of no abode, having no address. Yes. And then you can meet somebody? Yep.

[43:21]

And that's the only way you ever meet anybody. There's no other way to meet people. you're trying to get approval, you're not meeting the person. The person is approving you. They're there because their approval wouldn't mean anything if they weren't, if you didn't think they were there. But you are not interested in being done at all. You don't actually care about them at all. You just think they're hot stuff and you want them to approve you. You're not into approving them. You don't care about them, except that you want them to be big and important. That's the point of the original question.

[44:27]

It says that a dragon comes out of the ocean and the sky and earth are tranquil. Yes. And then he says, and then what? Yes. Then what? Then there's no movement. How is there meeting? There's no interaction. How is there communication? There's no... He doesn't actually say, and then what? Well, he says, how is there presentation? How is there meeting? You know, if there's all this tranquility, you know, all this tranquility... He's saying... He is moving out of the water. There is movement. He's coming forth. Here comes the dragon. But this dragon's not just a mysterious dragon. This dragon's got some presence. In other words, when the monk, when the yogi is stabilized, not just stabilized, but a big-scale stabilization so that the sky and the earth

[45:31]

you know, are also calm. You've got this calm being coming forward who wants to meet somebody. How is it? There is movement. There is a... There is this thing. Now, how can you come forth in calmness and meet? All right? All right. So that's the question. That's the question. This is the question. And the answer is, do you meet... You meet in uprightness. And uprightness is... You meet in selflessness. You meet when you give up yourself. If you're still holding on to yourself, then it's all kind of like, well, you recognize me. Come on, everybody, recognize me. Let's have approval over here. But again, as a human being, you can't forget yourself or give up yourself if you haven't already been recognized. If you haven't been recognized, you're still driving for recognition and approval. You need that first.

[46:33]

Otherwise, there's nobody there to meet. There's no dragon. If the dragon hasn't been recognized at a earlier stage of development. Do you mean before beginning to practice? Yeah, before beginning to really practice like this, before actually coming to meet someone, if you're not there, well, then you can't... If you're not there... And that's how much you have, and you give that a lot. It doesn't have to be a big self, it just has to be a real one. It has to be exactly the one you've got. You can't give away more than you've got either, just to sound big. You can't give away less or more, you have to give away precisely what you've got. And in order to have something to give away, you have to have, whatever you've got has to be recognized so that it's this much, so you give this much away. And you have to have that before you can actually start to practice selflessness.

[47:36]

Because in fact your selflessness, or your mind which has no abode, is exactly yourself. Just being that. That's what your non-address is, is actually you being you. The best place to hide, it turns out, is to just hide and be yourself, and nothing more or less than that. Yeah. Until then, your personality is driving for realization as a personality. Once it's realized, then it can be studied, realized, and dropped. And the guru to guide the personality into intimacy with itself. Into uprightness.

[48:42]

And then when you're upright, you can meet someone. But the person who meets someone is the person who has forgotten herself. That's the person who can meet someone. And that's the person who always cares about other people first. Because you always see other people first because you see them first. You're forgotten and then there's somebody. And then there's you. And then there's you is not like sequence in time. It's simultaneous. It's logical. It's a logical sequence, not a temporal sequence. As soon as the other people come, there's you. It's at the same moment. But logically speaking, they're first. Do you understand? The self, you forgot yourself.

[49:47]

That's the situation. You forgot yourself. Then somebody appears. And when somebody appears, that confirms you. You're confirmed. You're realized by other people. So you're sitting there, you're a living being, and suddenly you see somebody, and that's who you care about. First, because you're not there, you forgot. But the very moment you care about them, and you don't care about them because you're some nice person or something, you care about them just because that's the birth of your life. That's all. No good favor you're doing anybody. It's like these ducks that imprint on their, you know, whatever they see at a certain time, It can be a biologist, or a mama duck, or a gas station attendant, whatever is there, when the time is right, that's it. Doesn't matter what it is.

[50:50]

Whatever it is, confirms the being. But then the being is... But it's them first. You see them first, and then you're confirmed. But it's simultaneous. It's logically a sequence. But in time, there's no sequence. It's simultaneous. When the anxiety comes up from sticking your head out, can also anxiety arise without sticking your head out? I remember that you said Buddha was anxious even after he was enlightened. That's confusing to me. I don't think you can be anxious because you're sticking your head out. I think if you stick your head out, you get strangled or choked because you feel anxious.

[51:53]

But if you don't stick your head out, it's just a frontal attack. You just get smashed. But you don't get, you're not choked. You can breathe in the being smashed. Also, you're smashing back. It's like, you know, smash, smash, smash. Face-to-face transmission. Move the face. Move it up, move it up. Do it like that. But if there's a you that's not sticking their head out, that's still sticking their head out. There's a you there? If there's a sticking their head out, then there's a sticking their head out, yeah. But if there's not a sticking their head out, then there's no anxiety. You don't have this experience of saying, oh, that was great, I just didn't stick my head out. Well, you do have that experience, but that's sticking your head out.

[52:55]

Act of fact. Unless you're kidding when you said that, then you wouldn't be sticking your head out. She had a question earlier, which is about, let's say you're in this full frontal anxiety without sticking your head out. And then anger comes in a rage. Is that sticking your head up then? Or is that just another part of this anxiety? You mean, how does the rage come into this? Right. Well, I don't want to make too tight a case for this, but basically rage comes when you don't, you know, bring a self forward.

[54:12]

When you haven't, when you haven't been recognized and or you've been recognized, but then after being recognized, then you took that nice recognized self and trashed it because Ironically, you wanted to protect it. So in order to protect it, you trashed it. But then the self said, we went to all the trouble to get this thing out there and get approval, and now you trashed it? That was really a big mistake. And so there's going to be health pay. Now this is real trouble, so we better get rid of that too. Mm-hmm. Anyway, eventually, this thing sneaks out. The rage sneaks out and starts coming. This is, again, arriving to get the self back on square one again. Namely, have a self that has been recognized, therefore we've got a self, so now we've got a self to look at and forget.

[55:25]

When there's rage, it means you... You know, you've made a big mistake and you're mad at yourself for betraying yourself. Or you can't admit that to yourself, so somebody else, you see somebody else around who reminds you of what you did, which you can't remember you did anymore, so you try to get them. But what other people do is, you know, is never as bad as what we do to ourself. Because nobody can betray us like we can betray ourself. But when we betray ourselves, how we feel about that is so dangerous that we get rid of that too. And then the fact that we project it onto somebody else is so dangerous that we get rid of that too. So we just throw the whole thing into as much dark place as we can so we can get on with the same principle that we made a mistake with in the first place, namely that this would protect ourselves if we got this stuff all just pushed away.

[56:32]

Still, it's kind of seeping back. So you got to get that all worked out before you can practice Zen. And then after you get that all worked out, then you bring yourself out and up. and see if you can just bring it up, just like, here it is, here's myself, nice and like, right there, not this way, not that way, not, just, zoop, here it is, all vulnerable, and exposed, and not, you know, too exposed, or not exposed, not really this way, not really that way, just like, here it is, I don't even know what it is, doesn't even have an expose, You've got to have something to have to not have an abode. You can't like say, okay, here, it's got no abode. You've got to take something precious and put it out there with no abode. Matter of fact, you have to put the most precious thing, you have to put the pivot of your life out there and put it out there just right.

[57:38]

and all that stuff, but you can't put it out there if you've been throwing it away, pretending like it's not important, or lying about it because you're afraid somebody will find it and hurt you, or that they'll hurt you if you put it out there, so you better hold it away, or say, no, I didn't really mean that, or whatever you do to protect this thing, but it doesn't protect it. It doesn't protect it. It doesn't. But we make that mistake. So if we, to the extent we made that mistake, we now have to, we have remedial work to do to remedy that. And when it's remedied, we have self. Take yourself and you put it, you know, you bet with it.

[58:41]

Say, I bet the self on, you know, whatever. I bet the self on Zaza. I put the self down here and just let it be that and we'll see what happens now. And if you get certain kinds of feedback, you find out you didn't just put it down and put it down kind of with this agenda or that agenda or hoping for this or hoping for that or kind of really putting it down because you didn't think that would be all right or putting it down a little bit more so that they wouldn't really notice what it really was or whatever. You start to notice you didn't just put it down. You weren't, you know. And in order to just put it down, you have to be clear about what it is. So again, you have to keep clarifying it. And the clearer you get about it and the more you learn how to put it down just right, the closer you are to forgetting it and set it down just as it is, you know, more or less, then you wake up to what you really are, which is called forgetting yourself. And then you can reset.

[59:43]

Now, I want to tell you a story, but it's kind of like, in some sense, irrelevant. But it must be relevant. It's a story about the person in this story, the priest, the teacher in this story. His name is Xin Yang. And Xin Yang is a Soto Zen monk. Chinese monk. He's a disciple of a monk named Da Yang. I believe it's Taiyo Kyogen Daisho. Taiyo Kyogen Daisho. Tosugisei Daisho. Tosugisei.

[61:23]

It's not in the story. So the very most recent thing happened. Da Yong had 15 disciples. It says in here, right? One of his 15 disciples is this man here. Okay, so you got the Zen teacher has 15 disciples. All 15 die before he does. So there's the teacher. He has 15 disciples, successors. in his lineage and they all die. So he's there without a disciple. No disciple to live after him. They're all dead. So he looks around for some more disciples and he can't find any. So finally he finds one. But the one he finds is a Rinzai monk who's already become a successor in the Rinzai lineage. So he says, And they meet.

[62:27]

They have this meeting, right? So this Rinzai monk has already had a meeting with somebody else in the Rinzai lineage and has therefore become a successor to that lineage. And Dayan meets him and says, would you come and meet me? He says, okay, and they meet. So now he's a successor in two lineages. So his responsibility then is to meet somebody in each one of those lineages and transmit them. And Dayang says, so would you do that? Would you find a successor for me? You're my successor, actually. But the monk says, yeah, I know your successor, but I can't transmit two lineages. I can't. I can't be in two lineages. So he carries this lineage for one generation and transmits it. And he finds somebody to transmit it to. And the person he finds is Tosugisei. But Tosugise, you know, is the person who comes after Dayan.

[63:35]

So we have this transmission, we have Dayan and Tosu, but in between is this guy from another lineage who came in and sort of carried over to the next generation. He actually was just a regular generation, but they take him out of the lineage, and he's in another lineage someplace else. Isn't that funny? This is one of those funny things I want to tell you about. That somehow, for some reason or other, that's what happened. And people think like that. Isn't that funny? Isn't that strange that Zen moms do things like that? Well, it's very helpful. It was helpful, very helpful, a lot of work. He had to go and find somebody. And he had to find somebody to carry on his lineage, and then he had to find somebody to carry on his other guy's lineage, which was his lineage in a way because he was a successor in that lineage, but it was not his lineage because he was gonna extract himself from it and never appear in that lineage, even though he did carry the lineage for a while until he found his successor.

[64:54]

And I don't know what happened to his lineage and the Rinzai lineage. I don't know what happened to it, but I think it died out. And the lineage that he disappeared from. Right. Because the next generation, the disciple of Tosugise was this great teacher named Fuyo Tokai. So the transmission got really thin, you know, and just almost died out. And then by this strange little loop of finding a teacher from another lineage carried on and then And then it got really big and strong again. That's how this stuff works. That image of pruning a tree, a fruit tree. Cutting it back and it's very much... Or what cold winter sometimes makes really sweet fruit. are really brilliant flowers.

[65:58]

Like, you know, we have lilacs here in California. Have you seen a lilac in California? And there's lilacs in Minnesota, too. And there's many other factors, but anyway, the lilacs in Minnesota are total, like, you know, they're like the main botanical whitefall in the state. But in California, they're just kind of like these, you know, one of the flowers, but also kind of a wimp among some of the other stuff. But in Minnesota, they're extremely powerful. I mean, like, they go running across vast spaces and knock you flat. But in California, you can go up right near them. It's the cold. It's the cold that does that. It makes it extremely strong, the lilacs in Minnesota. The same plant flower was just the same. Yes, Douglas? So, Shengyang, the hero of our stories, died young?

[67:04]

He died relatively young, yeah. He had one too many monks over the head, maybe? Maybe he had one too many monks over the head and the Garuda got him? The Garuda got him? Maybe. I actually got a question about the guru. Is that the same thing as karma? The same thing as karma? Yes. How does the guru differ from karma? The guru is teaching how to be free of karma. The guru is a kind of protective function of enlightenment. So it's, for beings that are involved in karma, the kaluta, you know, packs out. So there are, there are, there's the power of our karmic habit, which is very powerful, of course.

[68:05]

But there's a, there's a contravening force of the universe, which is making karma not all that comfortable. And sometimes the way it makes it not comfortable is in a way that's educational. along in the line of a path of liberation and bondage to Karna. And that's what the Gruta is emphasizing. And in the sense that even dragons can be trained, even very powerful beings, Even the most powerful monarchs in certain life forms can be trained by this protector of truth. So karma isn't always a protector of truth.

[69:09]

Karma is a law. But some of the ways that the law of karma works are that if you do this, this, and this, you go more and more asleep. And sometimes you get so asleep that the Garuda just doesn't even come into play. So the Garuda may be more for, not for regular banana slugs and slime mold, but for dragons, people that are ready for some conversion experience. Then the Garuda comes in to show you that you don't have room to be off. You have to like really be impeccable. in the way you come forth to learn. That's the way the Guru is used to be functioning here. example of the student, the presence of the teacher, and how there's the anxiety that maybe what was the teacher, was there a way in which we perceive everything as the teacher, but wouldn't be focused on an individual personified as a teacher?

[70:44]

I'm just curious about this. part of what's the difference between kind of being present because we're aware of the difference between kind of learning through your mistakes and somehow already being Well, you asked several questions there, right? Did you notice? Okay, so everything's your teaching, yes, right? But also you need some situation that is... Here you are, here I am, here we are, you know, whatever, right?

[71:48]

And if we're not balanced... We get feedback on that. Okay? Everybody does. If you're not balanced, you get feedback. The question is, do you notice it? Most people do not. Why don't they notice it? It's painful. What do they usually do? Turn away. Run away. Get out of the place where they're starting to get feedback on their selfishness. Right? That's what most people do. Most people are selfish and getting feedback on it, and it's uncomfortable, and so they try to get away from the feedback, which is telling them about what they need to know about in order to become free. The universe is very helpful. The whole universe is teaching you all the time. Everything is coming forth and saying, wake up, wake up, hello, hello, hello, hello. This is not pleasant. Sometimes the universe says, oh, Liz, you're just, well, no, we're okay. This is fine. But once you have a self, then the universe says, okay, now would you please carry yourself with some dignity?

[72:56]

You got a self, forgive yourself for supporting you or, you know, here you are, you got this thing, now would you please, you know, be as dignified and gracious about it as you can and use that self for the welfare of all beings. Would you please? And in matter of fact, would you please? And if you don't, we're going to ask you again. And we're going to keep bugging you until you do. And if you don't do it, we're going to bug you in a way that gets your attention. So that's what's happening. Everything's doing that for you all day long. But who can face that? Difficult, basically. So, everybody's giving you the feedback, but not everybody has got a relationship with you such that they can say to you, well, excuse me, but... you're running away. You need somebody who's gonna help you, because you agreed that they would do that, to stay in the pot where you're getting your feedback.

[74:04]

Because generally speaking, people wanna get out of the pot that is cooking them. So you have to have some agreement with somebody, but they're going to help you stay in the place where you're getting the feedback about what you need to learn. This person is called teacher. They don't have to do anything, they just have to keep you in the pot. And everything will give you feedback. Now there's some skill involved there for the teacher to be able to stay there with you and for you to, you know, and also there's some skill on your part to get in the thing in the first place, but the teacher has to hold that situation for you. Not everybody's going to do that. Not everybody's going to do it. Almost nobody can have everybody do that. Because most people don't want to do it. So they're not going to help you.

[75:04]

They'll help you by giving you feedback and throwing garbage into the pit. They'll help by kicking you and spitting on you and distracting you and all that. That way, that's help too. But they won't help you stay with it because they don't want to stay with it either. You've got to find somebody who wants to stay with it, with you, and help you stay with it with them. There's a few people like that. You need that. Call it whatever you want, but you've got to have something like that. Otherwise... We just have a tendency to try to get away. We have to take that into account and gradually develop a situation that will hold us to the learning process which we would like to go through. Which is to be in a situation where all the feedback we're getting will gradually, all the feedback we're getting, we could use.

[76:10]

And then we're released. Then we're going to wake up. When you start using all the feedback, then that's the same as having the forgotten self. Or put it the other way around, when you forget yourself and you use all the feedback. So using all the feedback and the forgotten self are the same thing. They happen at the same time. When you're open to all the feedback, it's the same as when you forget yourself. Yes? Um, if you have to have yourself be recognized a certain amount before you can give it away, if that happened in time, I mean, how do you know when you've got enough of a self to start giving it away? Or do you have to wait until you've finished getting yourself together before you give it away? Well, most people have already, most people already have it. Already have recognition.

[77:27]

Some don't. Those that don't, Buddhist teachers should have a skill to tell who does it and arrange for them to give it. And Buddhist teachers can give it themselves, which is a little tricky because they give it and then later they say, I'm not going to give it anymore. We're done with that phase. Now it's time before everything you do was right and now everything you do is wrong. But most people already have it and you just need to sort of like get that clear that you've got it already and that's not going to be the issue anymore. But sometimes that's just have to make sure, okay, that's clear, right? Got that? Yes. There is unconditional love. Yes. But that's not the same as training. Training is you have to give up your thing and learn somebody else's thing. But if you haven't been recognized, you can't recognize the other.

[78:29]

So I guess that part of the teacher's responsibility to create the situation is to see if the reason why the person is not recognizing the other or not working with the, you know, learning how to be upright, to see if it's actually like they're lacking some kind of confidence, some basic confidence. And if so, that has to be developed, either between those two or get some outside help. And that's part of what Buddhist teachers in America have to learn how to do. I think in Asian cultures, where the family structure was more intact, Most of the people wound up coming to study Buddhism, had a fairly healthy family situation, and they got the kind of recognition that they need in order to have a self and then have a self to study. We have examples now, people have this kind of spotty self-development, and so they need to do remedial work.

[79:41]

And as you get into the practice, you have to be able to tell when the slippage starts occurring because of the difficulty of facing the pain of having a self, and when the slippage occurs because there isn't a self. You can't necessarily tell it right away when you meet a person. And even if you do sense it right away, you may be at the practice with the person for a while, for the person to see that they aren't being rejected, because the problem is that they aren't being rejected by being sent to do that kind of work. Because you can demonstrate how they can't do the present Zen work, or the Buddhist work. You can show, see how you can't do this, that's because you haven't done this. They can actually see that. But if you do this, you'll be able to do this more effectively. That's an encouragement. So they aren't being kicked out of Buddhism. They're just, you know, go back to stage six before you try stage eight.

[80:45]

And wouldn't you like to be able to do stage eight? Yes. Well, if you do that one, you'll be able to do this. So it's, you know, it's just like part of the thing. You skipped over something that you have to do. Well, time to end the class. Until when? Until next year? Next year, unless somebody can think of some other way to do it between now and then. Yeah, so we might be having more classes at Carol's house. It is a long time until 1996, isn't it? Well, you're going to be at the Sydney Satire early in October, right?

[81:46]

The first Tuesday of October. Is that scheduled? Well, not that I know of. But, uh, you... you may have... you may have... you may have made an announcement to that. He's put it in some kind of... in a brochure that I didn't know. Well, gee, I was thinking about it last time when he talked about your schedule, and I had it right on the nose. Yeah. Somehow it didn't work out that way so far. Because I think I'll be at Tassajara in October. What? Are you getting tired? Am I? Am I? Say it, say it. Just say it again. Say it again and see what happens to you. I think this crisis is, you know, one of the neatest things that's happening in the world.

[82:57]

I mean, it's so neat to have a bunch of people studying an ancient text for like 10 years. That's what's going to happen unless I die. Oh, you all die. Even if you all die, I'll go in. Don't worry. That's true. And you guys all get credit for this class. Is that Peter Roosevelt? Is that Peter Roosevelt? Definitely. You're already a success. Okay? Don't worry about that part. Why are you so anxious? Because you're in training. Your art is success. It's just that you need to be trained in order to bring yourself to fullest, what do you call it, juiciness and availability to all beings.

[84:09]

Your success needs to be rendered available to all beings. That's full dragon-ness. With the aid of our wonderful... Garuda is always circling around me, guiding us back on the path.

[84:30]

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