And so somebody told me that after some considerable time of taking this class and being kind of frustrated and et cetera, some feeling of something going on is coming through around the edges of all the stuff that's not coming through. I don't want to turn this class into an emperor's clothes thing. Those who really understand can see. But anyway... So here's a story about these guys, right? These two people meeting. This is a story about the meeting of two... This is not like teacher-disciple kind of meeting. This is a meeting of equals kind of story.

[01:05]

This is people that know how to adjust to the circumstances. And so one interpretation of the story is that that, well, let's read this, everybody, let's read this time, shall we? San Shang's golden fist. San Shang means three sages or three holy ones. Okay. And...

[02:06]

The introduction says, meeting the strong, be weak. Meeting the soft, be hard. If both are hard and hit each other, there will surely be one damaged. But tell me, how do you interchange? Sanchong asked Trephong, the golden fish that's passed through the net, What does it use food for? What does it use for food? And Shre Pong said, when you come out of the net, then I'll tell you. Sanchang said, a teacher of 1,500 people, yet you don't know, yet you don't even know a saying.

[03:18]

The abbot says, my task as abbot are many. If you want to go again from there, that's really nice. Thank you. I don't know exactly. I could find them, but... All of ours. I want my own. By the way, tonight we have a door prize. With the fed of... It's a little... What do you call it? Bunch of Susie Kirsch's commentaries on the Blue Click record.

[04:21]

He didn't go, ooh. Somebody's going to win this at the E-Club. And there's a little section in his commentary on this particular case. There's a little talk about training. So I was going to just do a really short talk about psychology. which I think occurred before but I want to say it again. And given this, we'll talk on psychology in the context of this story which is about

[05:43]

Interchange or meeting. Two people meeting. In the living room. What is it? in the area where the person's following his eyes. So if I look at something, it doesn't have it looking in the direction that you see it.

[06:50]

We color through that white picture, picture surface, and dot to dot, we color through the light that's coming through the barrier. And that point is for the eyes to be so fortunate that innovation through electromagnetic radiation interacting with the synthetic material. The material energy, the material of electromagnetic radiation interacts with another material, which is sensitivity to that. And this interaction creates a rise to consciousness. This is called direct experience. It's not the thing that's the direct sensation. It's the consciousness. And you hear all that sensation. However, that consciousness and also the sensation, the sensory impact, is not the person you see.

[08:00]

Obviously. But right now, the colors that you're getting off me, that's not me. I can tell you. It's not me. But that's what you see at the sensory level. These colors are not the real me. I'm here to say that ain't me. Although it's got something to do with me because those colors are what happen when the light kicks me and bounces off and goes back to you. Not only that, but this level of sensation of direct experience, this level of sensation of direct experience is not known to us in the sense of known, of objective knowledge. We have, there is a consciousness of it, we are experiencing it right now, you're having these sense experiences right now. Many of them. Every second you have many of them. But you do not know these consciousnesses.

[09:05]

These consciousnesses are not objectively known. However, right after one of these things happens, in the next moment, the mind consciousness searches through an inventory of concepts and picks one of them as the best possible guess of what just happened in a level of sense. It doesn't know what happened. However, what it gets as a result of that last experience is it gets basically a kind of a dead version of that sense experience. And that dead version of sense experience is kind of a paradigm of that dead experience, or that direct experience, that paradigm. And that paradigm is what we call the mind organ, or the ability of the mind to act as an organ.

[10:12]

It means the ability of mind to separate itself from this object. And the mind gets the model for how to separate itself from the object from sense experience, where the object is separated from the subject, the object is separated from the consciousness by an organ. That's the paradigm of sense experience. Something intervenes between consciousness and the field. So that paradigm then gets made available to mind consciousness, and that serves as organ. Then the awareness chooses within its own field some guess about what the object might be, which is a concept. And that concept serves as what we think is out there.

[11:16]

But actually, we're looking back in our own storehouse. We're looking back to New Province to guess what had just happened. of, you know, what do you call it, Nyangchang Temple. We never think of Shang Tsung or another person. Actually, you always think of somebody you already saw before. So when you look at people, you cannot see the real person. All you see is a concept. It's not even a concept of that person. It's a concept which you have said, that's my best guess about who that person is. And there is a connection between who that person is and what concept you come up with because there's some connection between what you guess happened and what happened. And there's some connection with what the person is and what happened. But what happened was, for example, just the color of that person. So this process of thinking is, in some sense, quite disrespectful.

[12:22]

in the sense of saying that this concept is what that person is. So in that way we're kind of disrespectful of each other. When we look out there and we think that what we see out there is what there is. We don't have to think that way, but we do have to, we have to limit people to to something that could already happen before. We cannot see people anew. However, that's the psychology. So you cannot see, we cannot objectively know who people are through that process. Basically, almost all of what we learn When we interact with some other being, most of what we're learning is about ourself and how our mind works, and how we select things from our own past experience.

[13:36]

Yes? Mr. O'Connor, I understand the bad things. We can't help but be in awe. It's also possible to meet someone else in the after. What do you mean by being in awe? The simple fact that it's beyond my competition. Anything. That's why I didn't miss the visit to Princeton. If you feel that something's beyond your comprehension and you're in the midst of mystery, yes, you could do that with a person as well as you could do it with the mountain or the ocean. But where does awe come from? How does that happen? that maybe things only seem as serious because other things seem well figured out?

[14:54]

Well, that's one kind of mystery. But there's another kind of mystery, which is just the way things actually are. And I guess what I propose is that by being willing to accept that what we're dealing with is our own perceptions, and by entering fully into the process of our perception, we become integrated or we become illuminated by direct experience. However, direct experience does not get converted up into the realm of objective knowledge, because as soon as it does, it's not direct experience anymore. Now, by integrating ourselves with the realm of direct experience completely accepting that we're living in the world of our own perceptions, our own conceptions, by integrating that realm, we have, we get a closer take on our direct connection with somebody else.

[16:05]

And that connection, although that connection is not the person, the connection completely includes the person. but not as they actually are, but as they are a connection. So the thing that can happen is that studying this case, for example, We don't. I can tell you stories, and I think actually it's good to tell you stories about San-Chung, and I have, and Shui-Feng. To know more about them doesn't hurt at all. It would help you imagine who these people are. Already you've heard a story about these people. Do you have an imagination of who they are? You do. Some of your imaginations may be more vivid than others. But you all have some imagination of who these people are from what you've read so far. Some of you know other stories about them.

[17:15]

There are other cases in this book already. We've studied them. So you have some more sense of... You all have some image of who these people are. That's not who they are, but it's connected to who they are. Those guys are connected to us through this story. But what we know about them right now is our image, our imagination of them. And each of us has a different connection to them. The way they come to each of us is through a different sense field, a different sense field, or a different sense opportunity, creating a different sense consciousness. And then, given our different sense consciousnesses, we consult different storehouses of concepts. So that's how we wind up with quite different of who these guys are. The good news which I propose to you, my happy proposal to you, is that by fully entering into the fantasy that you have about who these people are, these people will actually come to meet you.

[18:36]

You will actually meet them. And you can meet them as fully as you can meet somebody who's sitting right across from you right now. And vice versa, you can meet somebody who's sitting across from you right now as little as you meet these people. Or I would even say you do not meet another person who's sitting right in front of you any more than you meet them. And therefore you can meet these dead ancestors as fully as you can meet a living person right in front of you, your own child. And in fact, we are completely connected and completely meeting these dead ancestors right now, just like we're completely meeting each other right now. The thing that will make us realize this is by completely, exhaustively, thoroughly studying our delusions about who each other are and our delusions about who these ancestors are.

[19:50]

That we can meet them and we can meet each other. And we can meet them as fully as we meet each other right now. Because we are separated from each other by our sense fields, by our sensations, and we're separated from those people by our thinking just the same way. That's my prospect to you, that you can actually meet these people, and that's how I suggest you can. And that's how you can meet a living person, too. So what do you think?

[20:56]

I have a question, too. Well, like right now, I'm looking at you, and your name's Kirsten. That's what I can call you that, right? Is that how I know it?

[22:01]

You told me, and some other people told me. But you can change your name too, and then I'll switch to that. But even if I don't know your name is Kirsten, I already have a name for you. I have a name. Your face, your eyes, your eyes, and I watch you, and something happens over there. that makes me consult my repertoire of human faces and come up with which one I think you are. I don't have to have your name to keep looking around the room and coming back and saying, you're the same person that was over there before. You can change a lot and I'll still keep saying that nobody's playing tricks and changed people with me over there. However, at a certain point, I'll say, hey, wait a minute, you switched people on me. Somebody else is sitting there now, you know? I will get to that point, especially with all my glasses on. You know what I mean?

[23:03]

If you wake up, if you're traveling and you wake up in Mexico and you look at the ceiling of your hotel room, at first you don't know where you are. You search through your card catalog, San Francisco, Green Gulch, Paso Hara, Los Angeles, China. What part of Germany? And they'll say, oh, you're in Mexico. When I look around the room, I actually try out. I say your names at the beginning of class. I try out who you are to see how it works. And you see, we've practiced at it, so this is the way it works. But it's with words that I put your name together and your face together. And so I'm concluding that maybe there's something over there that has stayed over there for a while now, such that I'm able to get by with coming up with the same concept again and again for what's happening over there.

[24:10]

They're basically the same thing. Concepts and words are not something that we make up by ourselves. It's a kind of like, within a certain group of sentient beings, particularly human beings, we have some agreement about concepts. Concepts have that lawfulness that they're made by a community. Whereas the belief in the reality of our concepts is not made by the community. That's something which we do by ourselves, and there's no lawful check on that. And all those attributions are the same, and we map them onto all concepts. That's how we make, referring back again to case 32, that's how we make the objective world so solid, because we attribute solidity to it. And there's no group discussion of attributing solidity to our objects.

[25:22]

We don't do that together. We don't discuss that. But we do discuss the concepts. And there's limits on how far we'll let people move on these concepts. And because... of this quality of concepts. That's why concepts lack inherent existence, because they are composed by the group. Because we make them together, they do not stand on their own. If concepts were actually something of themselves, they wouldn't depend on our discussion of them. But we have to work out what they are. That's because they're not, because they're insubstantial. And so they're empty. However, we attribute substantiality to them. But the attribution of substantiality is not something we do together. So its emptiness is a different order of emptiness, a more profound order of emptiness and a more profound order of delusion.

[26:30]

So the composition of the things we think, the composition of the concept by which we see the world is one thing. We believe that making them into solid objects is another. By entering deeply into this process of delusion we have a chance of meeting someone. A mind-to-mind meeting. It's a mind-to-mind meeting, a body-to-body meeting, a nature-to-nature meeting. And this is also the way we understand who we are by this meeting. It almost seems like in literature the same process would be going on if you meet somebody who doesn't really know anything. That's right. And that's the difference between literature and I don't know what else there is besides literature.

[27:42]

But there's some kind of writing that's called literature and that's the kind of writing where you meet somebody. And that's the kind of writing that when the writer writes, somebody comes there. The writer so thoroughly inhabits the language that something comes to meet. So it isn't just like the writer is delving in his or her storehouse of concepts, manipulating ours or something. I like your conclusion a lot better. I really like what you're saying, that somebody does come. Yes, but somebody comes to visit those who are thoroughly into the specifics of the language so thorough that they no longer had any energy for anything but that.

[28:47]

And they reach the limit of themselves. And when they reach the limit of themselves, they see this other thing, and this other thing sees them. They make their character come alive. Because they're willing to be limited by the language. That's why when we translate some of these texts from foreign languages into English, that's why it's hard for us to exert those texts, because they're not literature in translation a lot of the time. So it's hard for us to really enter it, because the author didn't enter it, because the author felt like they had to translate. And that's part of a little bit of a problem we have here in this phase of Buddhism in the West. is that we don't have literature too much to study. And that's part of the reason why we read books written by the people who are living today, even though, in some sense, they don't seem to be as enlightened, by all accounts, as some of these guys who lived hundreds of years ago.

[29:55]

When they wrote, that's the way it was. It was like... It was literature. They weren't translating anymore. So we have this story here, okay? Our job is to somehow figure out how to make this story, literature, is short enough so we can make it literature. And we can inhabit it. And somebody will come and meet us. And if they come to meet us, we can also share that with somebody else. And see if that person can meet us through us, pardon me, this person. This story is not like the last story. The last story tells us about how to practice this story. That's part of the logic of this story, following the last one. The last one tells us how to use this story. Again, the stage of faith is a person standing by word.

[31:02]

If you can enter these words, these characters, In other words, if you can enter your fantasy of who these people are, completely, you will meet the people in this story. Yes? Without our delusion, there can be no understanding. Our delusions are essential to human awakening. Some organisms, and we, I think, something like humans used to live at a level of direct sensory experience. Something like humans lived in that realm quite a while ago. And they did not have, they were not consulting with concepts to figure out what was happening. In other words, they didn't have mind consciousness, they didn't have objective knowledge, they didn't know things. This is pre-Garden, this is the Garden of Eden.

[32:06]

Whether the people in the Garden of Eden were really human or not, you know, we can talk about that. But basically, in the Garden of Eden, or in the story, you know the story of Amor and Psyche? You know that myth? When Psyche was in union with love, in the dark, and didn't know who Psyche, who Amor was, when she didn't know what love was, but she was totally embraced with love, At that point, there was no sense of self. There was no sense of the death being something outside. And there was no knowledge. And there was no delusion of things inherently existing. And so whatever suffering there was then, I don't know what to say about it. But whatever evolution happened, we moved to another stage of development where we could know things.

[33:13]

A sense of self was born. We became beings which exist on different levels of consciousness. And we had to reintegrate the whole process because we needed to know what our life was. And the delusion was necessary in order to cause the pain to drive us to do this work. just like Psyche, in her sense, in her painful separation from love, was willing to do very hard, kick-on-heroic, impossible tasks, which she could not do by herself. And also in this practice, too, of inhabiting these characters, I said, maybe if you can inhabit your imagination thoroughly enough, someone will come and live in you, someone will come and meet you, but you can't do this by yourself. I cannot inhabit my own imagination all by myself. I need encouragement and assistance to even inhabit my own imagination.

[34:15]

Just like you need, maybe, I think you need my encouragement to tell you that what you're working with is total delusion, so you won't just stop there and you'll do more work. If you know you're in pain, and I'm telling you, not only are you in pain, but you've got to inhabit your delusions. You've got to, like, be totally up for admitting that all you're working with, everything you see, is delusion, and then you have to totally get into it. That's what it takes to save all sentient beings. What? You don't want a cigarette? Yes? Just saying, okay, that we're looking at you and we're getting colors, you see. That's not me. Yeah, I'm over here saying, that's not me. That's right. Oh, it's got something to do with me, I know, because I've got blue eyes. Something over there is causing it. And perhaps it's you that's causing it. I'm part of what's causing it.

[35:17]

Right, okay. But what I see is not you. I agree. I'll buy that. So... What I see is something like you were saying, I'm pulling this out of my heart catalog, and so I'm thinking that there's somebody over there, and it's actually an amalgam or a combination or maybe a pure form of something I've seen before. And you're right, there is somebody over here. I'm over here saying, that's right, here I am. I'm here. Right. That's true. But you don't know who I am. And I want you to know who I am. As a matter of fact, if you don't, it hurts my feelings. Go ahead. Right. Well, I'm thinking, you know, I did that with you, you know. I mean, I pull somebody. You're sort of like somebody I used to know. Good for you. Well, and so I'm thinking, yeah, you know. I'm sure Reb's not really the person, but I know that I'm working with this person.

[36:27]

You do the best you can with what you got. Right. But what I'm also... Yeah. What I'm also realizing is that, you know, this sort of sounds a lot to me like... sort of an idealism where... where what I really see is me in the sense that the you that I see comes straight out of my head with part of me. And I'm just wondering, but you're also saying that through totally paying attention to that me that's sitting over there, I will actually meet you. Yeah.

[37:29]

I don't exactly... I mean, how... You say that a lot about things, okay? You said we would learn that, but thoroughly. Thoroughly, family. Thoroughly, thoroughly... accept what we are, what we are. That we will see beyond it or what I have trouble with there is how to do it. I mean, how to do it. How to be still girl. I have trouble being any more girl than I just naturally am. Well, there again, I just said, you cannot do it by yourself. The level of thoroughness here is beyond human ability.

[38:32]

One person's ability. In the story of Amoran Psyche, too. She's supposed to separate a pile of sand from sesame seeds, I think. Something like that. She tries, but it falls on her face. She can't do it. And while she's in collapse, the ants come and help her. But the funny thing is, the task of thoroughness, you can't do it yourself because who you are is not who you think you are. So your thoroughness, which is gonna lead you to realizing who you are, also must use the part of you that you don't yet know you are. So the fulfillment of yourself will come and help you do your work. She didn't get it either. It took three tries, though. Well, she had three tasks. Yeah, three tasks. The other one was, another one was, she was supposed to collect the fleece from the rams, these golden rams, a golden fleece.

[39:34]

She was supposed to collect the fleece from them. She was going to go off and do that, you know. If she had gone straight up to these male, you know, these male, what do you call them? Not rams, male, these are the male principal, right? At noon, she was going to go up to the male principal, the high noon of male principal. Well, if the female does that, there's no relationship there possible. So the reeds on the way said, don't go now. Go at sunset. And even then, don't go directly up to those guys. Walk around the edge. Circle around them and pick the fleece off the brambles. So, you cannot do this by yourself. The thing we're doing here is we're realizing our self, which is not our self. So the way you realize it will not be by your personal effort. However, your personal effort also must be thoroughly exhausted.

[40:35]

She didn't go up to the pile of sand and sesame seeds and say, well, I can't do this, and go to sleep. She tried and failed. You have to do everything you can do and find out that's not enough. And in doing as much as you can do and finding out that's not enough, they come and help you. The same thing that comes to help you is what's going to meet you You're going to get help from what meets you. And what comes to help you? The Buddhas and the ancestors. All the great teachers and beneficent beings in the universe will come and help you when you do your part. And the part you can do is you can separate Sesame Seeds from sand and you can separate Sesame Seeds from sand as much as you can do until you fall on your face. Because you can't do it all. But you have to do as much as you can. And when you do as much as you can and you reach your limit, they say, let's go help her. And they come.

[41:36]

And they're the same being that you're trying to meet by this thing. The same thing, the ants that came and helped her were love that she lost. And this is the task of reunion. But you have to do your part. And the part you can do is you can be deluded. You can inhabit the life of where you do things by yourself. That's what you're good at. That's what people are good at. People are good at karma. Matter of fact, we are the champions of karma. There may be no other beings in quite a large area around here that can do karma like we can. I know of no animals that can do karma. But the ordinary human being who has a sense of self is a karmic actor you know, basically everybody's good at it. But not everybody's good at being thorough at it.

[42:37]

And if you're thorough at it, then the non-karmic side of your mind comes to meet you and comes to help you. You cannot do this practice that we're talking about, but you can do the part you think you can do, and you can do that fully. You can work as hard as you can work, and you should work as hard as you can work, up to the limit of what you can work, and you should realize that doesn't do it. And that's the same as saying help. But you can also say help. Help is another thing you can do. You can say help. Help me do it. Yeah. Well, now, in Suzuki Roshi's commentaries, he talks about motivation for it. practice, like, why the monks go to ADHD, if you go with a certain mind, you know, maybe it's not so good if you go with a different type of mind, and what you're talking about... Did you read the commentary? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And I'm wondering what you'd have to say about that, with regard to this belief in the amulet psyche story.

[43:46]

So, by coincidence... kind of a nice coincidence, in his commentary on... Do you want to sit, Linda? Do you want to sit here? By coincidence, his commentary... A big part of his commentary on this is a somewhat strange discussion of training. In this case... I'll join these two kind of adepts interacting, these two kind of graduates of Zen training interacting. His commentary is about training. How are we going to train in such a way to meet these adepts? Okay. So maybe I'll just read what he says here about training. A little bit. Let me see. This case is, you know, same as what I've been saying, basically. There's no winning or losing between these guys.

[44:52]

Okay? These guys are not beating each other. It looks like that, but that's not what's happening. So he says, somebody asked him a question, is it necessary to go through thunder and storm in order to attain calm, clear, healing wind? They asked him that. And Suzuki Roshi said, not always. If there are no thunderstorms, you cannot undergo it. So again, in this case, you have these two powerful figures interacting, you know. Kind of the thunderous meaning of these two. One guy standing up and saying, one translation of this is he's not just saying when the fish breaks out, he's saying the fish has broken out. In other words, he says when the fish does, but actually you can also understand that he's saying, here is a fish that has broken out.

[45:54]

What are you going to do with me? What can you do for me? And Shreya Pong stands up and says, yeah, I'm that way too. And I don't think you are. That doesn't really mean I don't think. He doesn't really mean that. He's just saying, in order for me to tell you how much I'm like that, he has to put a dent in you. We talked about that last week. Then if you fully express yourself at that moment, it's hard to recognize the other. And this creates quite a sea. Do you understand? Anybody not understand this? This is important. Tom's hair is sticking up at the top of his head. I keep thinking he's raising his hand. Do you understand this dynamic here?

[46:59]

It's this dynamic, you know, about what, you know, again, this is about the dynamic which creates meeting. And it's the dynamic of fully expressing yourself, and recognizing somebody else. And then the other person fully express herself and listen to you. Watch you recognize, watch you express yourself. And that relates back also to what we're saying when the mother looks at the baby and says, you are just the greatest and you're just like me. I recognize you completely, but also, In doing that, the mother is fully expressing herself. That's another. When you fully express yourself at that moment, you take up a lot of space. And somebody who takes up a lot of space and expresses himself is the kind of person that you want to have recognize you because they're really something.

[48:08]

They're somebody. They're there. That's the kind of person you want to have recognize you. But in order to recognize you, they have to sort of concentrate on you. They have to sort of, in a sense, put aside their expression and listen to you. And say, oh, I see you. And you're just like me. I'm somebody and you're just like me. But in order for them to do that, you have to express yourself. But you have to express yourself to somebody who you recognize as somebody. You have to express yourself to somebody who you think, wow, there's somebody over there. In other words, you're recognizing the person who you want to recognize you. But when you're recognizing them, you're not expressing yourself. So how do you express yourself to somebody who you recognize? And how do they, who are somebody who's expressing themselves, recognize you? And also, while they recognize you, how do they express themselves?

[49:11]

fully, and recognize you fully, and recognize you as them. This is a storm. This is an extremely dynamic situation. And we have trouble staying present in that situation because it is so intensely dynamic, changing constantly, swirling constantly. So what we like to do is just back off to the side a little bit and just express ourselves and let somebody else watch, or watch somebody else express themselves. Split off play roles, teacher and student being different. Have the student watch the teacher and say, wow, or have the teacher watch the student and say, wow. have the parents say, oh, the kids are really neat, and the kid's not paying attention to the parents, or vice versa. And one society, American society, tended to err on the side of paying a lot of attention to the kids and not paying attention to adults.

[50:13]

British society has a tendency to pay attention to the adults and not pay attention to the kids. Cultures have tendencies to split off, but the real culture of autonomy and real meeting is to do them both at the same time, if possible, and put their talents. That's the storm. Is it necessary to undergo that storm? Well, Suzuki Rishi says, not always. But anyway, if this isn't happening, you can't undergo it. However, he goes on to basically say what it's like when it happens. Once when I was traveling alone in northern Japan, I met a man accompanied by a dog held by a great dog chain. The first thing he said to me, they were going on a boat ride to a small island, was, the first thing he said to me was, be careful, the dog is dangerous.

[51:18]

Dangerous, number one. We became good friends, I suppose, him and the man and the dog. He told me that if it was my business to save all common people, then I must know what happens to them. I had to experience what they experienced. He, for instance, had women and drank sake. I should practice the same in order to understand it. If the occasion comes to drink, it may be all right. If you have to do something, if it is inevitable, then there is the possibility of real training. But if I drink sake in order to train myself,

[52:27]

then I would not be doing it in the same way as he, so it would not work. It is dangerous to undertake something on purpose in order to train yourself. We monks go to AAG monasteries for training, but it is not always successful. If you go of your own will, then often there is wrong motivation. You expect something when you have completed it. You expect to gain enlightenment or improve your character or something. It is quite dangerous. You must be very careful of your motivation when you do something on purpose. If you have wrong motivation, then, if we have wrong motivation, then when we come out of the monastery we become arrogant and conceited. We have spiritual pride in what we have done.

[53:30]

This is very dangerous. There are many ways to train. The monastery is a good one. While you're there, you have to do many things. You know, if you walk through the fog, your garments will become wet without any effort or being conscious of it. They quite naturally become wet. That is why we begin training with the basis of the teaching of transiency. There is no self and all things are changing. If you really understand these two points, and if you remain faithful to the truth, you will get rid of useless ambition and one day acquire good character. Sometimes we want hard training. If you are in discomfort or pain, it might be quite difficult to accept the fact of no self. If your leg hurts, you want to have a stick on your shoulders. It takes your mind off your legs. It is a very kind thing, that stick.

[54:32]

Thus, sometimes you want hard training, but if you have the right attitude in all you do, you will be successful in your training of yourself. I do not ignore the thunder or rainstorms. It is quite interesting to talk in this storm and rain Now, what's this business about? The first thing the guy did was he told me that he had this dog. His dog was dangerous. And we became good friends. Was that about anything? Or was that just an incidental detail? Is that just a little piece of history? Yes? I think that the dog was dangerous. That was like metaphorical, you know, referring to his own strength of his own character. He's on drinking sake and having women? Well, saying that I'm not going to just, you know, I'm not going to just defer to you.

[55:43]

If you want to be my friend, we're going to meet, or we're going to, it's going to be some challenge. It's interesting, you know, because in the earlier part of this commentary, he says that, let's see, a Rinzai teacher called this kind of question that Sancho asked, you know, the question he asked was, The question is, now that the goldfish is out, what are you going to feed him? That kind of question in Rinzai is called a question of presenting your understanding. OK? That clear?

[56:45]

He was asking a question, but really what he was doing is presenting his understanding. In other words, he's saying, I understand. What are you going to do? But he says that in Soto Zen this kind of question is called a metaphorical question. That's what Zikurish says, metaphorical. But the literal translation is it's a question by using a thing. You know, you use a thing like you use a golden fish jumping out of a net as a way to ask the question. It's metaphorical. So saying I have a my dog is dangerous in a metaphorical way. The Rinzai way would be saying that he says, my dog is danger is a way of stating his understanding. My understanding is, I have a dangerous dog here. So there's a dangerous dog here, I would say too. And we keep this dog on a chain.

[57:46]

Like we keep the fish in the net. Like he wasn't free of the chain. Like he wasn't free of the chain. He's not free of the chain? Right. And also, I think someone said, didn't they have to be completely caught in the net in order to be free? Aren't these two guys completely caught in the net? And the adepts are those who are not only completely caught in the net like everybody else, but they know they're caught in the net like not everybody else knows. That's the thing about them, is that they're adept at being caught in the net. They're not adept at getting out of the net. They're adept at being caught in the net. Therefore, there are depths.

[58:55]

Therefore, they're not caught. Are we adept at being caught in the net? Are you on the chain? Are you wriggling inside of this net with all your fish-like potential? Are you struggling against its limits? Are you feeling your struggle against your limits? Yes. I've been really struck by the similarity, the interchange, to practice of Tai Chi, Tushyana, Tai Chi, boxing, or literally, I like Tai Chi playing. And he inspired me to go back and find some literature that helps me tap down.

[60:05]

I mean, essentially, on the first, it's critical. Good girl. Well, I'd very much like to hear it. Just in fact, there's quite more. Okay. When the opponent is hard and I am soft, you call it shoot or yielding. When I follow the opponent and he comes back up, you call it the end, adherence. If the opponent don't know, I didn't mean to interrupt. That's good, though. Thank you. Don't lean in any direction. Suddenly appear and disappear. How many people say being able to attract emptiness between you or Alistair to reflect a thousand pounds

[61:12]

Not being able to attract the emptiness, you cannot collect 1,000 pounds. The words are simple, but the meaning is complete. Desiring to attract the emptiness and use four ounces to collect 1,000 pounds, first you must know yourself and others. If you want to know yourself and others, you must give up yourself and follow others. And it's found in this practice of push-pads that people have the same experience of wanting to get out of it very badly. And these scores, the whole principle of push-pads is not at any such time. It's during the healing that happens in these scores.

[62:16]

I don't want right now. But I think play is a good word. This weekend I did a little workshop with an actress called Zen Theater. But I thought a better title would be, not the best title, but a better title would be The Zen of Theater and The Theater of Zen. And I think that one of the things about going into some other realm, like for a Zen student to go into a theatrical scene, or into martial arts, or tea ceremony, or dancing, or singing, or whatever, is that you make what you're doing into theater.

[63:31]

And part of the reason why you make it into theater is because by going into some new dimension, you often amplify some subtlety in a practice you're more used to. And your realization and what you're really familiar with is so subtle and so refined that you often can't see it. But if you go into some other realm, you can often, it amplifies it for you. So like if you practice Zen for a long time, you may not notice what you're afraid of anymore while you're sitting. You may feel quite settled and calm. But there's maybe some area you're not, you know, some area where you're not closing the gap, where you're not being completely thorough, and you can't see it. So that's why it's nice when, you know, like in the story Case 21, what's his name, the Gizen teacher Yunyan sweeping the ground. He could have just as well been sitting in Zazen.

[64:35]

This is, you know, one of our ancestors, this is an adept sweeping the ground. Sweeping the ground means he's sitting and his mind's working. And his brother comes up and says, you're busy. And then they have this conversation, which amplifies the space to see how clearly they've settled the matter of what is a busy mind, what's an unbusy mind. That story makes us be able to look at the nature of the relationship between dualistic and non-dualistic thinking. But without that theater, sometimes it's hard to get in to see how these guys' minds are working in their meditation. And similarly, a theater person, in a place where they're maybe not completely being thorough, if they come to practice Zen and sit still, they often will notice something quite surprising, which is exactly what's going on in their theater work, but they can't see it in their home work.

[65:44]

or if a Zen student who doesn't know how to dance takes a dance class, suddenly she experiences things which she ordinarily doesn't experience in what, you know, doing kini, which she's very familiar with. She feels quite calm. But she doesn't notice in her kini that actually she's scared to death. But when she's dancing, she sometimes, she feels, she sees her breathing is actually stuck. So it's good to find some way to put practice into theater. So this story is a way to put your practice into theater. Can you see how to theatricalize, how to amplify your understanding of yourself into this story? Maybe some of you feel like, hey, I don't need my understanding amplified.

[66:47]

I know it's trippy. There's no question of what the gap is. That's very clear to me. So maybe that's not necessary. Do you understand what I'm talking about? Do the younger people understand what I'm talking about? I didn't get much response. I don't know what that was. Tom's hair's still sticking out. Yes, Daniel? Well, I think I knew what you were talking about. The story's a little... It's a good story. I guess I sort of know other examples, you know.

[67:50]

Beyond a certain point, I can only work with it so far when I want to, you know, have other stories. I'm going to continue or something. Well, could you... Do you want to say anything about how far you've worked on it? Well... I've worked on it a lot. I mean, before I read it. How so? Well, in the sense that reading it, I remember the various times in my life when I've had conversations or interactions with people that had a quality that of future change that was sort of remarkable to recollect.

[69:02]

Afterwards, I noticed that something happened there. They tried or reproduced, but there, So anyway, knowing that this is possible and that this is what it takes to answer to practice, it really turned around. You know, it's sort of encouraging. And then now it's sort of come out. Well, I appreciate what you're saying. I think you may be speaking for more than just yourself in that regard.

[70:11]

And... And... My experience is, in studying koans, is that we get to this place where we'd like to go on to another story. But we feel like we've gotten about enough out of this one. It's been nice. Let's go on. Okay? So, you're articulating that place that you come to once or more with the story. Now what I, so that makes me say, I wonder if we should go on to the next story before you have the feeling that these people have actually come to visit you. That you would actually like, perhaps sincerely tell me that you feel that

[71:17]

that one or both of these people has come to see you. Or something equivalent to that kind of a meeting has happened to you by working with this story. If one person would say that, that would be interesting. If more than one would say it, it would be something, too. But I kind of feel like the challenge of this story is, for me, at this time, this week, is that that kind of a meeting would happen and then we'd move on to the next story. At least that somebody would kind of like get close to that. Now, we had this conversation about salmon a couple of weeks ago, okay? And similarly, you know, how much do you study salmon to bring you to the place where actually you feel like the salmon Not your idea of Santa, but the salmon came to meet you.

[72:21]

How long does it take? How long do you hear about salmon in your neighborhood before you feel like something came to visit you and help you? And this story, I feel like, has not yet come to visit us. I haven't seen much sign of that. Yeah. Yeah, well, if my life were totally... totally geared around studying the Book of Serenity, that there would be more likelihood of that. I would be in there with this story. It would probably be more likely for me, personally, that this story would come to visit in the context of farming. That's what's on my mind. Right. Right. Yeah, that's right. These guys will come to visit you in your daily life.

[73:24]

But have they? So if they haven't visited you in your daily life, or visited Paul in his daily life, or Leslie in her daily life, if they haven't visited you in your daily life, then why go on to the next story? And also, I don't want to add another story because you don't have time to learn more stories. You've got one story here, you've practically memorized it already, haven't you? So without any further study of books, you've got this story, you can take it with you wherever you go, The question is, have one of these ancestors or has any ancestor come to visit you in the field? Are they down there with you? If they're not, then I say, you know what I'm saying, I'm saying, if they don't meet you down in the field, you ain't meeting anybody down in the field. That's my challenge to you people.

[74:25]

If you can't get one of these Zen masters to come and visit you in your field or your office or your clinic, or in your kitchen, if you can't get one of these guys to visit you, which you know is going to be very difficult, how are you going to get a dead Zen master to visit you? You know that's hard. But it's no harder, I'm saying to you, it's no harder than to get an actual plant, a real plant, not your idea of the plant, but to have the plant come and say hello. To have a person, actually meet a person, beyond your little tiny world that you live in all the time, where basically everything that comes in, you translate it into your own stuff. How is anybody going to break through to you? It's as easy for these Zen masters to come up and tap you on the shoulder in the field as it is to meet a person. And meeting a person, a real person, is difficult.

[75:27]

Yeah. Well, yeah, so, I didn't actually... More stories. More like, you read the story, not wanting to get on with my life. Yeah. Not get on with more stories of other people doing other things. Okay. The way we kind of should use the matter. Yeah. Okay. Yes, anything else? Yes? Sukhiroshi says here, Perhaps only well-trained monks can appreciate the deep meaning of this dialogue, which is beyond the realm of understanding. Does that mean that we're talking about it? As we're talking about here, yes. And what is a well-trained monk? What's the training of a monk? And he talks about training. What is training? Who said that? Is your name Allison?

[76:36]

Does that mean Allie's son? Are you Allie's son? Are you Allie's daughter? So what's the training? Do you know what the training is? It's, you said, she said, did you say to turn your mind around? Turning. Did you say to turn your mind around? Turning. I thought I heard somebody say to turn your mind around. Anyway, the mind turning around is the training. To learn how the mind turns around And mind turning around means that you meet somebody.

[77:41]

And the way the mind turns around is to thoroughly do your work, thoroughly do your job. And thoroughly doing your job is also called the self-fulfilling samadhi. To do your job samadhi, to concentrate on doing your job. What is your job? Your job is to be a deluded being, because that's your job. You are doing that. Do it. Are you doing that? Are you being a deluded being? What? Can you do anything but that? Well, we think we can. We think we can be smarty-pantses, don't we? That's part of our delusion. We're so deluded that we can even think that.

[78:44]

But that's all the more why we... Yes? Yeah. Not really clear how that's happening. I don't know. They're not putting out their idea of what the other person is. I don't think that's what they're doing here. Actually, no, they are putting out their idea of what the other person is. The way they're doing that is, you tell me, and if you don't, I'll tell you. How are they putting out... What? This guy, Sanshong, Okay? Case 13, check it out. This is quite a person here. Okay? This is one of the great figures in religious history.

[79:44]

After he's finished his formal training with his teacher, which is Rinzai, okay? He's traveling around, seeing if there's anybody else in the world like his teacher that he can bomb out. What does he see when he sees Shui Fung? What does he see? He sees himself, and he knows it. And what does he see? He sees an adept, because he's an adept. That's what he sees. This story shows that San Shang sees an adept. What's the proof? He says to the adept, what are you going to do? What are you going to feed an adept? I've broken out of the net of subject-object delusion. That's where I'm at. I put an end to the Rinzai lineage with one shout. What are you going to feed me? And he's talking to somebody that could feed him. So he sees himself and he sees an adept, which is the way words show that.

[80:53]

What does the other guy say? He says, When you get out of the net, when you aren't adept, I'll tell you what I'll feed you. But he wouldn't talk like that to somebody who wasn't talking to him that way. He wouldn't loom up like that. So he sees it in adept, too. They both see themselves in the other. And they're right. They do see themselves in the other, and the other is themselves. That's shown here in this case. But when you look at me, do you see yourself? And when I look at you, do I see myself? Or do I think that's some younger guy over there who used to be into, you know, non-dairy stuff? Huh? Do I see some tall guy with a beard who's not me?

[81:55]

Is that what I see? Well, if I do, then I've got some work to do, according to me. Can you help us do that? I'm deluded, but I'm not that far gone. I'm not trying to help to see what I see. I'm just saying, if I do see you and I think you're not me, then I've got plenty of work to do. when i say i've got work to do that means i've got job security that means that means i'm employed in the work of zen namely i can do this self-fulfilling samadhi means i can keep remembering oh i'm still deluded here i am deluded thinking that he's not me And thinking is not me thinking more of various things. Now, once I get into that, I can think various things. Well, is he being respectful? Or, you know, does he like me? Or why does he treat others better than me?

[82:57]

Or, you know, why doesn't he ever come to Doksan? And I get into that. Why don't I come to Doksan to talk to myself? What's that about? You know? And how come these other people do come to Doksan to talk to me? That's weird. What are they up to? People who don't come probably, you know, anyway. Do you see what I mean? Do you work on yourself when you meet people? Or do you think you're meeting somebody else? Right. And I can, being far more developed than you, I can be aware that I think somebody else is out there all the time. I should constantly be aware that I think this is not me.

[84:13]

Yeah, because that's what I think. I can notice that I think that that's not me all the time, and I do. I'm pretty good. I almost always notice that I think you're not me. It's actually not that hard. Yeah. And most of those times I can notice that I'm deluded for thinking that way. And a lot of those times, maybe even most, I can feel pain because of thinking that way. It hurts me to think that way. And I can feel that pain. It hurts. I can feel it. That's my strong point. I've sensed the pain of thinking that you're not me. it actually does hurt me. It bugs me. And I've got to practice the patience I do around the way I think. And the more I practice patience, the more I can open up to the fact of how painful it is to think that you people aren't me, especially some of you.

[85:22]

And that has something to do with not trying to stop thinking that you're not me. I'm not into that at all. I'm willing to be somebody who does that. And I feel that being willing to do that, I'm like these guys, that I'm joining their team, their club. Because I think that's what they did because they said that's what they did. And they also said that when you do that, it disturbs you and it hurts you. They were painting over this, too. So that's what it is. And the same with plants and animals and everything hurts when you think it's not you. So all you've got to do is admit what you're up to. Don't try to change yourself at all, except you have a long-range goal of becoming completely enlightened, of course, and being greatly compassionate. But the road to that is through going into the mud of being an ordinary person. Yes? When I read this, I see for the first time that he's feeding.

[86:30]

It's where Pong is feeding. Yeah. That's the point. He empties out. He empties the form that Sanjit comes up with, and straight on empties it. He empties the form? Well, it feels like in his sense. Empties the form? I'll think about that, but my first reaction is he doesn't empty the form. He fulfills the form. He stuffs form down his throat, namely the form of his own delusion. He gives him back himself. And that's how you feed these guys. The whole conversation is like becoming a receiver. I had a thought about someone I cared very much about, and I saw our inner changes as my feelings or emotions filling empty places in him, and then receding and letting him fill the empty places and leave.

[87:40]

And that was the basis for my friendship to Right. And what I thought of when you said that was, you said the coming and receiving of waves, the coming and receiving of waves. I think that's true. That's part of what it is. But the other thing about waves is that they don't come and go. They come up and down here. They seem like they come and go, but actually what they're doing is coming up and down here. So it seems like you just came to me just now by what you said. but actually something came up and down in me. I thought it was you, though. And vice versa. It seems like coming and going of ways. It does. The receding. But actually, it's energy coming up and down right here, and when it comes up here and goes down here, it comes up there. It goes down here and comes up there. That's what happens, right? Transmission of energy. So it looks like something goes from here over to there. In other words… Also, what I thought about in this dialogue is the experience I had with

[88:51]

Yeah, and that's the advantage of talking to those people, is you get in touch with that. somehow there's something about them you don't know what they are but something about them stimulates this thing and you can you go into your file folder and whatever to get your stuff and you come up with some different stuff so it's good but still your own stuff but it gets you to consult a different section yeah yeah yeah right the aluminum yourself He's being himself.

[89:58]

The way you feed another person is to be yourself. Because when you're really yourself, then they can feed themselves with themselves. And sometimes the way you're yourself is to back off when they come on strong. But that's really where you're at, and you're completely... But that indicates emptiness, though, that relationship. Yes? I think it happened on an exclusive level, too. Sun Chung said, you being a teacher, and Phil being a teacher, you're not much of a student. Right. Well, you're not much of a teacher. Mm-hmm. You know, Saint-Jean assumes then the next role, being the critic, and instead of resisting and struggling with that, sort of leaves, Trichon leaves him with that in his mind.

[91:08]

He just steps aside. Right. So, can you use what happened in this story to fulfill your relationships throughout the day. Okay? That's the way you make this story complete, but also you make this story complete by living it in your life. When people are working on these koans, You use them in your life, and you see how these stories show you, are supposed to show you, are helping you to live your life. That's what stories are about, is to show you how to practice the middle way in your work, in your relationships. Can you see how this story is showing you this? Can you put it into practice? What's so funny? I went to a conference for the last three years in Oakland on economic development groups who brought the country to the top of it.

[92:20]

And I read the case each day before I went to the conference. And I kept experiencing myself. the commentary that if you come like two strollers, it's not correct. If you recede too much, it's not correct. My experience in the conference was very much having a presence and some experience to bring to the conference, and also my experience of the two strollers are too weak. And finding something independent of the word, or even independent of the presence there, allowing that presence to be complete in itself. So some of my feelings about this story actually come up after Daniel. I'm not done with the previous work. So I feel like I don't get but I feel a coursing of this plane or whatever you were talking about.

[93:28]

It feels like what I've been doing in the lab is just what it is.

[93:33]

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