I think the last three times I spoke here, I suggested that you could say Zen or spiritual work, freedom work lives in crisis. that crisis is the place where spiritual life lives. Another way to say it would be that Zen lives at turning points or at the turning point. Like right now, each of us is sitting here, I guess, on this planet. and to the extent that we can see that where we sit right now is a turning point that helps us understand the possibilities of and crisis means turning point.

[01:27]

And I've also been mentioning that The Chinese word, the Chinese expression, one of the Chinese expressions for crisis is may. Other words, and those two words are, or two characters are danger and opportunity. So right now there's an opportunity for freedom, but there's also danger. Right here. There's a danger of not being free. And there's a danger of reacting to not being free in unskillful ways. Lots of danger around us. But lots of opportunity too, lots of opportunities for freedom. And I also have been saying over and over that if we open to the dangers that surround us, that opening also, at the same time, is an opening to the opportunities around us.

[02:54]

And if we close to this, we close to the opportunities. the opportunities are still there, and the dangers are still there, it's just that we close to them. To danger, I don't mean necessarily that you become afraid of the dangers, although some of the time, if we open to danger, and we haven't seen it before, or even if we have seen it before, when we open to danger, sometimes we become afraid. So for example, everybody in this room is in some sense possibly holds some danger for each of us.

[03:59]

So if you came up here and sat or stood in front of me and started speaking to this group, you might have some opening to some danger. Many people feel somewhat afraid to come up and speak in front of a group of people, a large group of people, because when they do, when they notice, when they open to, boy, there's a lot of people here, They're also open to, well, some of them might not think I'm good looking. Or some of them, if I say anything, some of them might think of me. Or someone might think some other thing about me that they don't like. So it's dangerous to speak in front of a large group of people. And I would say, yes, it is. I'm in danger to you. But it's possible to open to the danger and not be afraid.

[05:11]

But if there is fear, we have to then open to the dangers of fear. But there's also opportunity. When you're in fear, it can be a place, a crisis point too. If you can see the dangers of the fear, you can see the opportunities of the fear. You can become free in the middle of fear. Some part of us, though, has to be able to look clearly at the danger. Clearly and calmly be present with the danger. then we can be clear and calm with the presence of the opportunity. If we're shaky with the fear or shaky with the danger, then we'll have trouble getting on the horse of freedom. But if we can face the horse of danger and go up and get on, we may notice also that this is a freedom horse.

[06:25]

I'd like to bring up the turning point of faith. Or if there's some faith in your life, or if you interact with people who have faith, some kind of faith, I'd like to point out the crisis aspect of faith. So again, faith, like anything else, if it's happening, doubt also, start with faith, there's dangers surrounding faith and there's opportunities surrounding faith. Some of you may know lots of dangers around faith. I just point out a couple.

[07:39]

I'll bring up more later if you like. One of the dangers of faith is, particularly religious faith, is that people may think that or they may feel that they really don't have a reason for their faith. They just believe in certain things, or they just trust certain things. They just trust not so much things, but they may trust certain religious practices. In the tribulation, there's a teaching to not really trust things, like mountains and rivers and planets, because they, what do you call it, The Rockies may tumble. Gibraltar may crumble. But our love is here today.

[08:40]

So we don't really even trust the mountains because they're impermanent. But what do we trust? We might trust being present with the mountains when they crumble. I might tell you in a way that you consider trusting living in the crisis of the mountains, that when you're in the mountains, you know, especially in California, these mountains can move. They can crack, they can crumble, and we can be hurt. But if you can face the danger of the mountains, you can find the opportunity of freedom in the mountains. So I trust actually living at the turning point and opening to danger and opportunity and the freedom, opportunity in situations we live in. I trust that. I tell you about it.

[09:46]

You might trust it too. But the danger there is that you might think, well, I don't really have a reason for trusting this. you might not have a reason, you might say, it just sounds like a good idea. And you don't have to prove that it's a good idea, you just might give it a try. Try living in crisis, since it's where you are already, according to me. But again, the danger, if you can't prove that it's good, one of the dangers is that you slip into thinking, well, I get it on authority from... I received it on good authority, so it's true. It couldn't be wrong. And therefore, there's no... Either you agree with me or you don't, and if you don't, you're wrong, and we have nothing to say to each other.

[10:48]

And I think, again, when the... that when conversation stops between us, between people who have faith and also between people who don't have faith and people who do have faith, when the conversation stops, the turning stops or is hindered. Then a big social danger of faith is like theocracies, states where some religious truth or some faith is held to be infallible, unquestionable truth. And anybody who questions it actually can be in danger of a kind of spiritual or religious inquisition process.

[12:02]

And this can happen in Iran or Afghanistan or the United States or Stalinist Russia. Like a lot of people were afraid to question the invasion of Iraq because there was this kind of feeling like if you question it, you're not being patriotic. And once the invasion occurs, if you question it, you might not be . And patriotism is good. And there's no question about it. No questioning, no conversation that it's good. It's a good thing, but there's no conversation about it.

[13:07]

There's a story that it's a good thing, but there's no way to question the story. A Czech writer named Milan Kundera said, I invent stories. And then I each other. And by this means, I ask questions. He makes a story, and then he takes another story and confronts it. And the stories start turning. And this way, he turns his stories into a way of questioning. He says, The stupidity of humans comes from having answers for everything. But the wisdom of the novel questions for everything.

[14:21]

So he writes a story, and then after he finishes the story, he says, that's not what happened. And he tells another version of it. This is what happened. And he said, that's not really what happened either. This is what happened. What's happening? What's happening is turning. So the opportunity, the danger of faith is that we'll take it literally. Well, actually, You have to take it literally. But then you don't have to keep taking it literally. You can take it literally and then let it turn. Or take it literally and bring up another story so the two literal stories can start turning each other. And hold it literally and say it's true and there's no conversation. That's the danger.

[15:25]

That can lead to war among people. So you have all these different faiths in the world now. And Zen is a faith which says, our faith is a story. It's a storytelling faith. Faith is a faith about fiction. It's using fictions to keep the conversation going. So we have a lot of stories in Zen about crises, about turning points. And these stories about turning points

[16:34]

about where people turn from bondage to freedom, from ignorance to enlightenment, are stories. They're not what happened. They're stories about what happened, but they're not what happened. Because they're just stories. So when you say a story about some Zen people getting enlightened, or some stories about some Zen people interacting really compassionately, that's a story about what they were actually doing, what was actually happening. It isn't what happened. And because it's a story, you can say that. When you hear about some Zen teaching, you say, that didn't happen. And the person who tells you might say, You're right.

[17:36]

And you say, what did you tell me for? So you could say that. Now you tell me what really happened. And then you can say, and you say, that didn't happen. And you say, that's right. I just did it because you told me to. We're having a conversation. Zen stories are just stories about what happened. And by the way, ultimately, these are stories to help us understand that nothing happens. Actually, nothing's really happening. And that's another story. You can say, yes, things are happening. But basically, everything's fundamentally at peace, and nothing's actually happening. That's an illusion. So in Zen we have stories about what's happening,

[19:01]

The stories never really did happen, but they're stories about what happened. They're fictions, they're creations, they're inventions to help us question everything so we can turn and dare to face the dangers of the world and open to the opportunities. Usually we want to have a story which is actually what's happening, a story that's true. But if we hold to the story that's true, it's hard for us to face the dangers that the story's false. True stories are in danger of being false. But if they're so true that they have no danger of being false, then we close to the danger of our true stories. So we close to the dangers of being free of our true stories. So some people are walking around with true stories and they're totally enslaved by them and miserable with their true stories which cannot move, which cannot turn.

[20:07]

And also misery loves company so they want everybody else to hold on to this true story with them and then get everybody who is not believing this story to believe it. So everybody got answers for everything. And then we have war. These people got answers for everything. These people got answers for everything. And they have different answers. And so stupidity arises among wonderful people. But wisdom arises When these people start asking questions like, do you think possibly our truth could be like in danger of not being true? Shut up! Bring the inquisitor in on this person. They're asking questions of our truth. They want to have a, could I have a conversation about our truth?

[21:11]

Could I have a conversation about the truth of the Buddha way? What? Is it possible that what we're saying here is true is not true? Is it possible that what I'm saying here is not true? So I say this. Here's another story. Zen doesn't give you the truth. Zen is meeting each other face to face. It's not like Zen's got the truth. Here's Zen. Here's the truth. No, it's like Zen is when you meet each other face to face.

[22:16]

In that meeting the turning starts happening. And in that meeting there's danger. Every meeting there's danger. There's danger that you'll get hurt and that you'll hurt someone. There's danger that you will be afraid and hold on to your truth with your tension and clinging and disrespect for everybody that disagrees with your unassailable truth, there's that danger. But there's also in that meeting an opportunity. I got a truth. You got a truth. Everybody's got a truth. And I now endanger my truth to you. Please be kind to my truth, but still, if you want to ask any questions about it, go ahead. But please be gentle.

[23:20]

I don't want to be gentle. I'm going to be rough with your truth. Yeah, that's a possibility. And I opened to it. And now there's freedom for a moment because I endangered my truth to you in the meeting There's the Zen. There's the turning. There's the freedom in that meeting, in that face-to-face meeting. And the meeting transmits the liberating truth. Or you can say, Zen is a conversation. And it can be a verbal conversation or a physical conversation, like dancing together or, you know, walking together, or touching elbows, or passing a pencil, or in many stories, raising a whisk.

[24:29]

And also Zen is a transmission, but it's not a transmission from Zen to you, or from you to Zen, it's a transmission that happens in the midst of the whole universe everywhere. It's the way the truth is being transmitted all over the place between everything. And it's the way it happens between two people, two enlightened people. who are enlightened by the transmission that's happening between them, or to people who are awakened to the transmission that's happening between them. We are actually in a process of transmission, of mutual transmission all day long, and then there's stories about people waking up to this transmission.

[25:39]

And these are stories. They're not the actual waking up to the transmission. They're stories about the waking up to the transmission of freedom between people. transmission of freedom through the meeting. So we have this experience from quite a long time ago that it's a special transmission outside the scriptures. So many religious traditions, many faith traditions have scriptures. And Zen, in a sense, lives in a world where there's many, Zen lives in a world where there's many faith Just like you live in a world where there's many faiths. You're like Zen. You live in the same place Zen does, in a world of many faiths, a world of many scriptures. Zen is in the ocean of scriptures, which is outside the scriptures.

[26:47]

But outside the scriptures means using the scriptures and not using scriptures, using the scriptures, not using scriptures, and won't it be fine? So we have an ocean of scriptures, an ocean of beings. Do you see the ocean of beings? Do you see the ocean of scriptures? Do you see the ocean of faiths? That's where we live. You but you're surrounded by people who do have faith. Right now, you know, you may not have any faith, but there are millions of people in churches right now, all around you, particularly over to the east, because actually maybe the whales are in church too, I don't know. We're surrounded by religious people in the sense that people who I have faith as part of their life.

[27:52]

And some of those religious people, or some of those people hold their faith, as I mentioned. Their faith, they're not going to have a conversation about their faith. Their faith is a bat, not a whisk. This is my faith. Some people are like that, and some Zen people are like that too. because they have a badge, a Zen badge. And they have a membership card, and they have a Zen bat. And they're real Zen people, and they're not going to have a conversation about that. So watch out for them. But if you can meet those people, those people who don't want to have a conversation, If you can meet them, and those are dangerous people, those people who think they're Zen, and they don't want to have a conversation about it, and you go up to them and say, could I have a conversation?

[28:57]

They say, no, I don't want to have a conversation about Zen. It is, or shut up. So that, you know, again and again I think of this, you know, This story, this scene I saw in a Woody Allen movie I've told you before, he's a robber and he winds up in prison in the southern part of the United States. It's kind of like a chain gang style prison. And he's coming in with the new recruits, the new inductees, the new prisoners, and they have a very fierce and violent head with all kinds of weapons he's holding in his hands and lots of big tough guys behind him. And he's saying, let me tell you a little bit about the way we do things here. And then he tells them, he says, and if you don't want to go along with these policies we have here, it will be very, very horrible for you.

[29:59]

You will be very, very sorry if you do not go along with our rules. We will hurt you. We will harm you. And so you'd like that kind of talk, kind of cruel way of talking to these poor people who are now in prison rather than saying, oh, you poor guys, you committed these crimes and now you're in prison. I'm really sorry for you. He's more says, you're in prison now and you've got to follow these rules or we're going to punish you. And he says, any questions? And Woody Allen says, yes, I have a question. And I will put in parentheses, I'd like to have a conversation. He says, do you think it's all right to pet on the first date? And actually, the guard, this fierce, cruel guard, is disarmed. He doesn't know what to do with it. Or other religions who have these faiths that they hold up and that they're ready to smash you with if you don't believe them.

[31:11]

And you think, well, they don't want to have a conversation about this faith. They want me to submit or shut or both. Maybe you said, could I ask a question? Do you think it's all right to pat on the first date? I read this novel recently about Afghanistan during the, I think it was during the or right afterwards. And this guy was watching TV and these, I guess they were imams, Islamic teachers, they were having a discussion about whether when young men, because young men are starting to wear their pants down below their, real low like the United States. You know what I mean? The underpants show. When I was a kid, they wore pants low like that too, but no underpants. You see the crack. But now the underpants are part of the presentation, right?

[32:16]

Someone thought it's the boys' version in their belly buttons. But anyway, so these boys in Afghanistan are going around wearing their pants real low, showing their underpants. And so the imams were discussing whether or not these boys would go to hell for wearing their pants down. And they went back and forth like this for about an hour and a half. And at the end, they decided, yes, they will go to hell. for wearing their pants low. But at least there was a conversation. Of course, there were no women in the conversation, and no Zen people were allowed to ask about dates, but at least they were having a conversation. It wasn't like settled beforehand. Yes, definitely, no question about it, they will go to hell for wearing their pants low. There was a little bit of room there, a little bit of room for freedom. And in fact, even though they did decide, yes, they will go to hell, after the discussion it was kind of funny.

[33:21]

A little bit of humor. Yeah, they will. Kind of funny. A little bit of, because of the play beforehand, even though they came up with this kind of unfortunate conclusion for these boys, there's a little freedom in that. What attracted me is then, I was, there's stories about people having great awakenings. That isn't what attracted me. What attracted me, I think, to Zen was stories of people having conversations. People who got together and had conversations and you could see, I could see, this freedom. Freedom from what? Freedom from being stuck. Freedom from not being free. So I told you these stories over and over, you know, these stories of people interacting, having conversations. Like the Zen monk who lived in a fishing village and a girl got pregnant and she told her parents that he was the father.

[34:28]

So the parents went and had a conversation with him. And the conversation was, you're a really rotten priest. You're a disgrace to the Buddha. And when the kid comes, you take care of it, you monster. And he says, is that so? And the baby is born. They bring him the baby. He takes care of the baby for two years with the assistance of a wet nurse. And the girl tells the parent, somebody else is. And they go to the priest and they say, they have another conversation. They say, you're a great priest. We're so sorry we accused you falsely. You didn't argue with us. You didn't defend yourself. And you took care of our grandchild. We thank you. We're honored to know you. And you're the reason why we practice the Buddha way, people like you. And he said, is that so?

[35:30]

And I thought, that's a nice conversation. I'd like to have a conversation like that, those two types, where people are coming to me and cursing me. And I say, hmm, this is what's happening, huh? And then they come and praise me falsely. And I go, hmm, this is what's happening. They come and tell me stories about myself. People come and tell me stories about myself. People come and tell me stories about yourself. They say, oh, you're this or you're that. You appear to be this or you appear to be that. Or they tell you stories about themselves. I hate you. I want to tell you a story about myself. I think you're a jerk. End of story. They tell us stories, but we feel like, oh, this is like the beginning of a conversation. This sounds like a conversation opportunity here. So the special transmission outside the scripture means we don't use words.

[36:41]

We don't use the teachings to get the truth. We use the meeting and the conversing to get the truth. I don't get the truth, you don't get the truth, our comrades don't get the truth. When we're talking, it's not like when we get the truth, the truth takes over us, takes us over through our conversation. Then that's a special transmission occurs in that way. So again, we can use the scriptures, but we use the scriptures, or we can not use the scriptures. Use the scriptures, but we use the scriptures to have a conversation so we become free of the scriptures. We use our faith to become free of our faith in this tradition. We use our faith as a point of departure beyond our teaching. Again, as I said, using the scriptures, not using the scriptures, and won't it be fine.

[37:48]

So I got a lot of stories about people conversing. Oh, I see. There are about people conversing. But it's getting late already. And I know you have a date. with a muffin. Are there muffins? You have a date? I'm kind of sorry for us. I don't get a muffin either, right? Don't even I get a muffin? You think that's funny, don't you? OK. Maybe there's time for a few stories. There's no muffins. There's tea.

[39:11]

Okay. Well, there's a story right there. There's a great teacher in Georgia, I think, yeah. And his attendant comes to him and says, teacher, A monk has come, and he wants to know what's the living meaning of the Buddha way. And Jaojo says to his attendant, go tell him to drink some tea and leave. And so he goes and tells the guy, and he comes back and said, teacher, I told him. What is the meaning of the Buddha way? And Zhaozhou says, drink some tea and leave. Zhaozhou's grandfather was named Master Ma, and Ma means horse.

[40:30]

He was the horse ancestor, the great spiritual horse of the Zen tradition, Master Meng. And a monk came to him one time and said, beyond the four propositions and beyond 100 negations, What is the living meaning of the Buddha way? So here he's saying, these are these teachings, the four propositions and the 100 negations. These are teachings in the tradition to help people become free. They're teachings to help you find the turning point where the spiritual work of liberation occurs. So he said, beyond these teachings, where is the living meaning?

[41:35]

Where is the special transmission outside these teachings? He doesn't hear these teachings, but he's not asking about the teachings. He's asking, what's like, where's the transmission beyond these teachings, teacher? He's asking the great master, Matsu. And Matsu says, I can't explain it to you. Go ask my student, Shittong. So then he goes and asks Shittong, the meaning of the Buddha way and Shittong says, why don't you ask the teacher? Why don't you ask Master Ma? And he said, Master Ma told me to ask you. He said, oh, well, I got a headache. I can't explain to you. Go ask Master Ma or Master Waihai.

[42:44]

So he goes and asks Waihai, another great Zen master. These are two great Zen masters who are students of the super great Zen master. So they go ask Bajang Waihai. And he says, why didn't you ask the teacher? And so he goes through the same thing again. And Waihai says, well, after all this, I don't know. I don't understand. After all this, I don't understand what's this living Buddhism beyond his teaching. So he goes back and tells Matsu what happened with his two great students. And Matsu says, Shi Tang's hair is white. Bai Zhang's hair is black. That's his story. Did you get it? Did they tell you what the living meaning of the Buddha way beyond all these wonderful teachings was?

[43:52]

Did they tell you? Well, sort of did. But it wasn't something you could get on to, hold on to, and say, well, we're not going to have a conversation about this. As a matter of fact, it seems like you might want to have quite a few conversations about that conversation. Like, well, what is that about? Who was that masked man? What was that? Who was that? What are they talking about? I'm changing. Or you can find out something and hold on to it and not have to have all these conversations and questions. Getting late. Sorry. Whatever. I got to be going. But do you want me to set up one more for the road? Is this enough for you guys? It's enough?

[44:54]

Okay. How many people is it enough for? Raise your hand. It's only three. Five, six, seven. How many people want one more? Okay. Well, the people who it's enough for, I would suggest you stand on your head. Or stand on one foot. Why don't you stand up and jump around a little bit? Get some exercise. You see, most people want one more story. There you go. You can have a hip conversation. Maybe that's the meaning of hip. Have a conversation with your hips. So unfortunately, this is really a long story. So once upon a time, there was a Chinese monk who lived in China.

[46:02]

And he heard about, and he was an expert on the scriptures. It seemed like he had these scriptures and it seemed like he had some idea about what they meant. And then he heard, well, actually, yeah, he had some idea about what they meant. I'm not going to make them as long as it really is. Anyway, he had some idea about what these scriptures meant and then he heard about the Zen school's teaching about how you could Boy, these Zen heretics who were talking about this special transmission outside the scriptures, who were saying, using the scriptures, not using the scriptures. And he said, no, no. We use the scriptures. We don't not use the scriptures. So he went down there, and as he was approaching some Zen temples, he walked by a little... This guy's name, by the way, is Dushan.

[47:16]

He walked by this little... roadside tea shop where this lady was selling fried cakes. And these fried cakes are actually called, in Cantonese they're called dim sum. In Mandarin they're called tian shin, or tian shin, which means literally dot heart. But it means the dot like to touch your heart or hit the spot. They're little cakes that hit the spot, you know. They refresh your heart. You know, they're refreshments, right? They touch your heart, reach your tummy, and they hit that spot. And then you feel, oh, good. I can go on in my trip to defeat these Zen heretics. So he wanted to order some refreshments, some dot hearts. And the lady said...

[48:19]

what's that on your back? He had a big backpack full of scriptures that he was going to use to destroy these Zen people. And he said, well, it's the perfect wisdom scriptures and particularly it's the diamond cutter scripture of perfection of wisdom and lots of commentaries on it. And she said, oh, well, if you, I have a question for you, and if you can answer the question, then I will give you the cakes and your heart will be refreshed. And you can go on your way. If you can't answer it, you have to go someplace else to get your refreshments. It's a question about the Diamond Sutra she wants to ask. She said, okay. She says, in the Diamond Sutra it says, in the scripture it says, Past heart or past mind cannot be God. Future mind or future heart cannot be God.

[49:23]

Present mind cannot be God. Venerable teacher, with what mind are you going to refresh your mind? And she said, see you later. Not in any case here. He couldn't relate outside the scriptures. He came to destroy the people who could relate outside the scriptures, like this lady. She used the scriptures, but then she had a way to play with them and converse with them. So she referred him to a Zen master, and the Zen master's name was Dragon Pond. So he went to Dragon Pond, which is, you know, it's kind of a play on words because the temple's called Dragon Pond, and in front of the temple there was a pond that had dragons in it, and also the teacher of that temple was called Dragon Pond.

[50:36]

So he went to see the master, Señor Dragon Pond. And then he gets there, And he walks into the room, or the teacher's room, to meet the teacher, to have a meeting. Now, he doesn't want to have a meeting, actually. In his deep, deep down, he really does want to have a meeting. He just wants to destroy this guy. So he comes in and he's, actually, I don't know if he wants to destroy the guy. That's just a story, which I just thought maybe wasn't true. but he walks and he doesn't see Dragon Pond. Dragon Pond happens to be hiding behind a screen. So then Dushan, the visiting monk says, empty room, he says, long have I heard of Dragon Pond, but now that I've arrived here,

[51:48]

there's no pond to see and no dragon appears. He doesn't know it, but he's just started a conversation. He thinks it's with an empty room, but then Dragon Pond comes out from behind the screen and said, now that you've come and you haven't found A dragon found dragon pond. Now you've really arrived at dragon pond. Now that you realize there's no dragon pond and no dragon. Now you're really here. And when you come to Green Gulch and you realize, this is called Green Dragon Zen Temple. Did you know that? When you come to Green Gulch to meet the Green Dragon and you see there's no Green Gulch and no dragon, you meet at Green Dragon Temple.

[53:02]

Just like in ancient China. You can reenact that story every time you come here and not find anything here. But that's not the end of the story, that's just this current lesson. Then Darshan bowed and withdrew. And then during the night, so he goes to this temple and then during the night he goes back to his room. and stands in attendance in the teacher's room in the dark of the night. And then the teacher says, why don't you go? Goes to the teacher's room and just stands there in his room for a long time, and the teacher says, well, why don't you go? And Deschamps then, again,

[54:10]

bowed and departed, and he lifted up the curtains to go outside, and he said, go outside. And then Deshawn said, oh, here, here's a candle so you can see your way. And he gives him the candle, and then he steps outside with the candle, and Dragon Pond blows the candle out. and Darshan understands the Dharma. How did it happen? It happened in the conversation. No dragon, hi, I need some light here, take the light. What they did, the Dharma of Zen was transmitted. He was finally free. With all this dangerous situation, pretty dangerous, go to somebody's house late at night, stand in the dark, have them tell you, well, why don't you leave?

[55:18]

Go out in the dark, perfect candle, taking your light away, endangering your light to somebody. Anyway, that's the story. That isn't what happened, that's just a story. The next morning, here's another story. The next morning, he took all his big pile of sutras out in the courtyard of the temple He was free of these wonderful teachings. I mean, these are great things he burned. Fortunately, there were some other copies in China, so we can find out what they were. But these were like supremely liberating texts which he loved and thought were the truth, which they are. They are the truth, but only in the situation of the conversation, only in the situation of feeling the danger around and the opportunities and sharing this and endangering our truth with everybody else who's endangering their truth to us.

[56:28]

It's in that realm that all the world religions have a chance to help each other become liberated from each other. Like I often say, the founder of Zen Center, Suzuki Roshi said, Buddhism is not one of the isms like Mohammedism, Judaism, Catholicism, Capitalism, Communism. It's not one of those isms. Oh, I forgot to say, it's Buddhism. It's not one of the isms like Buddhism. That's a punchline. I missed it, sorry. Buddhism is not one of the isms like this ism, that ism, and Buddhism. Buddhism is when all these isms are themselves. And the Buddhists need to help the Muslims and the Jews and the Catholics and the Protestants and the Hindus go beyond their religion.

[57:36]

And those people of all those religions Buddhists go beyond theirs. Buddhism is when Jews go beyond Judaism and Islamic people go beyond Islamic and find the special transmission that's outside all traditions because none of the traditions can reach them. All of them are outgrowths from a deep, unreachable unfathomable truth. So the religious can help each other rather than hurting each other if said in the Middle East, somebody has to be willing to be defeated in order to find peace. Is Israel strong enough to say, okay, we lost. You guys won. Or are the Palestinians strong enough to say,

[58:39]

who can go beyond their truth, that starts the process of the conversation. And that conversation, that's what is the crisis of faith, I say. By the way, the story of Deshan goes on. This is just his enlightenment. And I'll tell some more stories later about Deshaun if you want to, at the question and answer. But I don't want to keep it too long in this little trap here. But before, I have to sing a song. And I've already kind of kicked you off to this song before. And it came to me when I was taking notes and I wrote, Using the scriptures, not using the scriptures. That beat, you know, using the scriptures, not using the scriptures.

[59:41]

What song is that from? Using the scriptures, not using the scriptures. Can I read it? Oh, and won't it be fine. Using the scriptures, not using the scriptures. That's Zen. That's going beyond the teaching. Use them and not use them. Use them when it's not useful. Use them again. Okay, so this is a song, the words are by Johnny Mercer. Excuse me, Johnny, I'm changing your words. And the music is by Harold Arlen. And excuse me, Harold, I'm changing the words. Okay, so here it is in my version of this thing. I'm gonna meet you like nobody's met you come rain or come shine high as the river come rain or come shine I guess when you met me it was just one of those things

[60:51]

But don't ever bet me, cause I'm gonna be true to you. You're gonna meet me like nobody's met me, come rain or come shine. Happy together, unhappy together, and won't it be fine? Using the scriptures, not using the scriptures, and won't it be fine? The days may be cloudy or sunny. We're in or we're out of the money. But I'm with you always. I'm with you. Rain or shine. Just say amen. Did you say you have your own axis?

[62:23]

Your own answer. I thought maybe you said you had your own axis. Can I say something? If you have your own answer, you're kind of not in a good position to find what's beyond. The cusp of... On the edge of the beyond and reality. Well, beyond isn't... Anyway, I think you also said earlier, how do you realize this beyond in ordinary situation? Because... If this beyond comes into the reality, but then when the beyond comes into this unknown into the reality that it's known, and it is known and unknown, and the unknown be at the same time in the know. Yeah.

[63:30]

So there's certain things you think you know, like you kind of know you're in this room. But could there also be an unknown, your sense that you know you're in this room? And I would say yes. So I think of dancing or singing. If you're dancing, you might have some sense of, oh, I'm doing a dance. You kind of know you're doing a dance. And then maybe suddenly you realize that there's a dance going on. That's not really the dance you're doing. And before you had that sense, you weren't really dancing. You were just dreaming of dancing. And you thought your dream of dancing was the dance. And suddenly you realize that your dream of the dance isn't really the dance. The real dance is beyond your ideas of dancing.

[64:31]

And that's the actual dance. And you somehow wake up to it, just like real religion. The real point of religion is when we go beyond our ideas of religion. Religions come from some place, but their form doesn't plumb their source. But there's a way if you can learn to be flexible, you know, not so fixed in the form of the religion or the form of the dance. You're open to the For example, you open to the danger around the form of the religion or the form of the dance. Like, for example, tango, there's a danger of falling down or missing out on the fun of the dance. There's all those dangers. But there's also, if you open to that and relax with that, you open to the actual opportunity of the dance, which is not either partner's idea of the dance.

[65:37]

So a nice thing about tango, for example, It's not one person getting up and doing her or his idea of the dance. You have to do it in a meeting. And like I also used the example of, I saw this case of a meeting between Isaac Stern, do you know that person? A violinist, a great violinist who I think died not too long ago, but like 20 years ago he went to China to teach violin to Chinese musicians, particularly young musicians. This was right after the Cultural Revolution, when the only musicians in China were young, basically, because the Cultural Revolution kind of eliminated a generation of musicians. Almost none of them left. Either they were forced out of the work or destroyed.

[66:38]

He's teaching these young people, and this one young man is playing the violin, and he's playing in front of a big group of people, and he's very good, you know. He formed my idea of playing the violin, and he was doing very good. He was doing a very good job. And for most people's idea, he was very good. But he was in the idea of playing the violin. And Isaac Stern came over to him. And he was good enough so that he could play the violin well with having this to him at the same time. He had 3,000 people watching him, plus this world-famous violinist talking to him, yelling at him, actually, so he could hear him over the music. And he continued to play without mistakes. So Isaac Stern says, sing. You're not the music. Isaac Stern starts singing to him.

[67:43]

And most people think, well, violins don't sing, right? But the teacher said, sing. And the teacher started singing. And he moved beyond. The violin kept playing. And no mistakes were made. From this... being limited by this form is to start to spiral into the realm which was really what music is, which is beyond any form, it's beyond the form of music. And it was, you could feel it, you could experience this moving being. Of course, this boy had never seen this world. And also, he did this with this other person, and Isaac Stern also got to go with him. the great teacher got to go with the great student beyond anybody's idea of what music is. And one time I was listening to another Chinese musician, Yo-Yo Ma, and I sat in a really close seat, like I was five feet, ten feet away from him, and he's playing, and of course he doesn't make mistakes usually, but he's very good.

[68:58]

I had this distinct feeling like I couldn't tell that he was good. I couldn't say, well, that's beautiful, or that's... Sometimes I can feel like that. Oh, this is really beautiful music, or this is really... God, this guy's really an expert cellist. But what he... I couldn't judge him. It was kind of sad. I couldn't say, well, this is really good. I just had to be here with this guy doing, which I didn't know what he was doing, but I had this very strong take that with him more than almost any musician I'd ever seen. I've seen some musicians who are not very good, so of course I think, oh, they're not very good, and I think they're good. I think they're not very good, and I think they're not very good. Or they're good, and I think they're good. But I think they're actually good. I think that's what they actually are. But he was not really good or bad. He was so much what he was that I couldn't really say. And I kind of missed out on losing that world of good and bad, expert and expert.

[70:07]

And I had to go live in this world where he lives, which is like not, it's beyond, it's beyond like good and bad. It's music rather than, you know, my idea. And I kind of want to go back to my idea of hearing really great music. Yo, yo, my, in person, right up close. But when you get really close to him like that and you're like right there with him, sorry. Too close for comfort. For like, you can get a hold of it. But at the same time, I felt like I really met him, and I learned something about what music really is, being with this person who's beyond, who's so much, he's beyond what he appears to be. I couldn't put him in any category. But I think people farther away probably thought he was really, really good.

[71:13]

If you get far away from people, you can think they're really good, and you think that's really true. And then people say they're no good, and you say, oh, no, that's not true. Maybe you do. But we want to, like, if somebody comes up and says your best friend's a jerk, you kind of go, hmm, is that so? And your best friend being you, of course. You're a jerk. Hmm, is that so? Hmm. What else is new today? Okay? Yes. Hi. I'd like to ask you to explore a little bit the topic. You've been talking a lot about forms and finding the definition outside of the... Yes, right. But I think my sense is that there is actually a very strong value in taking oneself to the form

[72:17]

Sorry I didn't make that point today, but that's right. It's hard to go beyond form before you totally to experience the form in your limited story way. So you have to really be into the story before you can feel the dangers around the story, like that you're going to lose your really good story. You have to be really into the form before you can really feel the specific Vaguely aware of, you know, you don't really know. If you haven't really taken up a form, there's not much danger with the form. It's hard to feel the danger with the form. Like if somebody tells me, you know, you're really a very poor pianist, I feel like, well, okay. I mean, I really don't even... Little that if somebody says it to me, I really don't know what they're talking about.

[73:24]

because nobody's ever heard me play, except actually my daughters heard me play because we did the Suzuki Method like 20 years ago. But if I really got into playing and really knew, and then somebody makes a comment, then I think you're right. So in the story of the guy who really was an expert on the scriptures, when that woman quoted him the scripture, he knew what she was talking about. So then she said, well, what mind are you going to use, since you can't get a hold of any minds, what mind are you going to use to be refreshed? Because he knew the scriptures so well, she could get him. She could show him. He was stuck. And then the next teacher, without even talking about the scriptures, Because he was so into the scriptures, that teacher could and show them the meaning of the scriptures, which he was an expert at.

[74:25]

So yes, we usually have to get into a form before we can actually go beyond it. Yes. Or not like them. You're going to like them. Somebody else is not going to like them. Not liking is also attached. So attaching to the forms for an unenlightened person is essential, because otherwise you don't find out you're attached.

[75:30]

What? Pardon? No, I don't think you're unenlightened, but if you'd like to, I could think that. I'm just telling you for these other people that aren't enlightened, if they work with a form, they will have some attachment to it. And the attachment could take the form of liking it or not liking it. But you have to attach to it because otherwise people don't have any experience with attachment usually. If they don't attach to something, they don't think it's happening. Attachment comes with, for unenlightened people, it comes with the form. So the form gives you a way to discover your attachment. And then you can forgive yourself for having attachment to the form. You can forgive yourself for liking the forms and forgiving yourself for not liking the forms. In other words, another way to say this is that whatever appears, whatever form appears, we have some resistance to it.

[76:34]

We can't just like meet it without any grasping. This is the true meeting with whatever is happening in our life. We either like try to grab it or try to get away from it. Just to meet it completely openly is something we're trying to work towards. So when we first meet it and get close to it, we start to resist it. And the way to resist it is to try to control it. So that's part of the deal. And so forgive yourself for liking or disliking the forms. Yes. And also you, hopefully you will be forgiven by the people you're practicing with for liking or disliking the forms. That's part of the deal. Yes. Yes. Well, history is his story, right?

[77:43]

the whisk, and also we could hear her story about the whisk. But anyway, his story about the whisk is that once upon a time, there was a world where people didn't have screens on their houses. Like, you know, the pharaohs, they lived in these nice palaces, but they didn't have screens around them. And so all these insects came in and were bugging the pharaohs. So they have these people with these palm, big, big palm leaves, right? So they're not only cooling, they're cooling the king off, but also shooing the insects that are bugging the semi-divine being. And then Lesser, you know, like the priests, but also give people with smaller fans to blow their insects away. Have people killing the insects.

[79:02]

The king would have enough people that could be individually annihilated, but in some ways it's more gentle just to sort of fan them away. So basically it's a fly whisk originally that would be used to make it so that the teacher could give a talk without going like this. So then it moves to become a symbol of a leader or a teacher. But it's originally just kind of like to gently invite the insects to get away from your face. And then to a symbol of authority, then it's a teaching device. It's a device you can use to say, I got the stick. I'm the teacher. What do you think about that? You want the stick? And so there's a lot of Zen stories where people raise their whisk and say, do you understand what this is? Like, am I saying that I'm the big authority figure?

[80:05]

What are you going to do with that? You're going to fall for that? You're going to challenge that? And what's this whisk anyway? So it's a teaching device. But originally, you could say it was an insect interaction device. That's his story. I appreciate some other stories if you can think of them. Yes, perhaps you have. You mean the characters? Yes. Where can you see them? Yes. Well, I guess I could calligraph it and post it on my website. Or I could calligraph it and then it could be stenciled and we could shine light through it and flash it under the sky.

[81:07]

in the fog over Green Gulch. So look in the sky above Green Gulch tomorrow night and you may see the Chinese character for Crisis. Wouldn't it be nice just to put Crisis in the sky for everyone to meditate on? What? I must have read Harry Potter. Now I just want to say something about how many people have not read Harry Potter? Heretics, basically. So the problem with you not reading Harry Potter is that you won't like to hear about this bumper sticker. I'm sorry. And the arch villain of Harry Potter's, the supreme villain is named Voldemort. So there's a bumper sticker that says, Republicans for Voldemort. Now, I hesitate to say that because people might think that, you know, that, you know, I don't know what, that there's a put-down of Republicans, but it kind of is.

[82:24]

When I heard that, though, I thought, would it be as funny if you say Democrats for Voldemort? And I think almost probably, how many people who have read Harry Potter are Republicans here? I think Harry Potter is kind of a Democrat, kind of more, it's more of a Democrat type of book. So, the other people who haven't read Harry Potter, how many are Republicans? This is a bad place to ask, I'm sorry. Also, you're probably scared to say, because people would think you're for Voldemort. However, here's another part of the story, okay? Voldemort is Voldemort killed his father. Killed his mother too? No. He killed his mother? He killed his mother and he killed a lot of other people. And he tried to kill Harry Potter. Many times.

[83:27]

He's not a nice guy in certain ways. But he's a very powerful shaman, very powerful wizard. And in the recent movie, Harry Potter, He was played by, I think, by Ralph Fiennes. Is it Ralph or Ralph? He's played by Ralph Fiennes. And Ralph Fiennes did such a nice job of playing Voldemort that some people, some Democrats, are starting to like Voldemort. There's a danger. This is a danger that you'll start to actually feel some love for the arch-evil one. Wouldn't that be like, isn't that dangerous? But Buddha loves Voldemort. So if you love Voldemort, especially if you're a Democrat and you love Voldemort, if you're a Republican and you love Voldemort, you might just be stuck in your political position.

[84:31]

But if you're a Democrat, if you're a Democrat and you can love Voldemort, that means you're going beyond being heading into Republican waters. So Democrats should be able to turn and become Republicans. Can you Democrats become Republicans? I know some Democrats that I'm closely related to who are, they cannot understand how a person could be a Republican. No, that's not Buddhist. Buddhist Democrats should learn to be Republicans. See, this is like, you know, that's too much. That's too much. That cannot, that's impossible. The truth cannot be, there's limits. Yes?

[85:34]

Mort and Voldem means? Flight of death. Yeah. Flying death. Yes. Or flight from death. Yes. I think that the more you open to and remember the dangers surrounding you, the more fun you'll have. But the temporary initiation into danger, as I said earlier, might be that you become frightened.

[86:44]

So it's just like, you know, one of the things I do is I sometimes swim in the cold water of the San Francisco Bay. And especially in the winter when I stand at the edge of the water I think, this is insane. What would happen to me if I go into the water? It's dangerous. You can die in that water. You could get too cold. And you're also in danger of having painful sensations from the cold. I'm in danger of having a heart attack, hypothermia, eaten by sharks, run over by boats, getting hepatitis from the water. There's a lot of dangers out there in the water. However, it's also danger on the beach, standing there in the cold in your bathing suit. There's a danger that if you go back, people say, what are you, a chicken? The more you open, but then you go into the water and you meet the danger.

[87:51]

There's a lot of opportunities there, too. And so for a lot of people that swim in the bay, that's their religion. is that the experience a little bit each day, danger. And when you voluntarily open to danger, and sometimes people have to do really dangerous things to open to danger, which I don't recommend. I think it's better to like just don't do something dangerous to get in touch with danger. ...open to the dangers, rather than try to put yourself in an especially dangerous position, which is fine. It's just that when you leave it, then you maybe say, well, now I'm not in danger anymore, which is not fine. To think you're not in danger is closing to something that's there. We are in danger. At any moment, an avian virus can come. At any moment, an avian virus can come. At any moment, hatred and ill will can come. At any moment, we can be unskillful, which is even worse than anything that anybody can do to us is what we might do to someone else.

[88:55]

At any moment, we might do something harmful to somebody. And to say it's not dangerous is closing to that side of life. But life isn't just dangerous, life is also an inconceivably vast field of possibilities, unlimited possibilities. Freedom and love that's also there. So if I close to danger and feel safe, I close to what I really want to have in life. But when I first open to danger, I may feel I'm not having such a good time for a while. And after a while, like in going in the water, when you first go in the water, especially when it's really cold, it doesn't seem exactly like fun. And I try to go in really slowly so I can really feel, to try not to get ahead of the sensation of this really cold water.

[90:00]

Like I find, even going into 80 degree water, I find cold, actually, because my body's above 80. And going into 70 and 60 and 50 and 40, it gets more and more kind of like, Not pleasant. It isn't like, oh. Now, if you're really hot and you go into like 80 degree water, it's like, oh. Or maybe even 70 degree water, oh. But if you're really hot and you go into 40 degree water or 50 degree water, usually it isn't, oh. It's more like, oh. cold already and then you go into cold water. It's kind of a negative sensation. Plus it seems dangerous. Your body says, is this really okay? Is somebody around here crazy? And then you open to that and you open to that and pretty soon You're fine.

[91:01]

Except that the one problem is if you get really cold, you start feeling like it's not dangerous again. You don't just get used to the danger. You start thinking, this isn't dangerous. And that's a sign you're getting hypothermia. This is really warm and cozy out here. Everything's golden and yellow. I think I'm almost dead. Freezing is one of the best ways to go because usually you go into a nice warm dream before you die, like people often dreaming to come back but they were by a nice warm fireplace drinking hot chocolate. And then they come back and then it's very painful to recover here. And I've gotten close to that a few times of feeling really comfortable in the cold water and feel like, God, I could stay out here forever.

[92:02]

I think, oops, time to leave. When you first go in, you don't think, oh, I could stay out here forever. You think, I don't know if I can stay out here any longer. I think it's time to go back right now. You stay a little longer and you feel like, oh, that's okay. And then you start to feel like, hey, no problem at all. Then it's too much. Like, no danger anymore. It's like... So, anyway. When you're first starting... If you think there's this much danger and you're used to it, then you may feel pretty comfortable. And then when you see there's this much, there's an adjustment problem, and you adjust to that. And then you see there's more danger. So constantly opening to wider and wider possibilities of danger and getting calm, being calm with it. And then you open to wider and wider possibilities of freedom. That's the proposal I make to you.

[93:05]

Yes? Okay, what is it? It's 12.30? Okay. So, I'm being... by the Gringotts monsters to stop. Would you go beat her up, please? They're not beating you up, why not? They want to go too. You want to have a lunch? OK. I'll stop. Remember, Voldemort.

[93:46]

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