During this intensive we have been contemplating the perfect wisdom of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. We have been contemplating Avalokiteshvara practicing deeply Zazen. I asked someone, how is Avalokiteshvara's perfect wisdom? And he said, I thought emptiness was love, or is love. Is emptiness great compassion?

[01:43]

Maybe so. Is a lack of own being great love? And also, people ask, is there a difference between great compassion and perfection? Or I should say, is there a difference between compassion and perfect wisdom? Is there a difference between reality and wisdom?

[02:55]

Well, not really. Perfect wisdom is a realization of reality. And yet if we don't practice perfect wisdom, it's like it isn't realized. So it's maybe the same with emptiness. If we don't practice emptiness, we don't realize it. If we don't practice compassion, we don't realize it. Realizing it is wisdom. So is compassion the ultimate truth? Maybe so. Is realizing the ultimate truth wisdom? Maybe so. Avalokiteshvara is practicing perfect wisdom.

[04:02]

Avalokiteshvara realizes that all dharmas are emptiness. Avalokiteshvara realizes that all dharmas are compassion and thus relieves all dharmas of self-clinging and suffering. This practice of perfect wisdom gives us compassion Maybe that's the essential working of every Buddha. Maybe that's Zazen. What is it again? Perfect wisdom

[05:05]

which realizes great compassion and relieves all suffering. Maybe that's the essential work of every Buddha. Maybe that's what we need in this room and everywhere else. One simple description of Zen is clean the temple and then sit. Clean the temple and then... So we do clean the temple in the literal sense of cleaning the grounds and the rooms. And we clean our bodies, which our bodies are part of the temple. And then when we sit, we also clean the temple. When we're sitting, we practice... cleaning our body and mind by practicing generosity and ethics and patience and diligence and samadhi.

[06:15]

Right? When we have practiced those cleaning practices, we are ready to practice perfect wisdom. And we have this another teaching which we've been looking at about what? About this practice of perfect wisdom is the teaching of a story about the ancestor, Yaoshan, Medicine Mountain, sitting in meditation, sitting still, and silent, and a monk asks him, what are you thinking? He says, thinking, not thinking. The monk says, how? Thinking, not thinking. And he says, non-thinking or beyond thinking.

[07:19]

So maybe this is a story about Yashan contemplating emptiness. Emptiness is form. Thinking is not thinking. We also told the story of Yashan going to meet his first teacher. on top of the stone, shirto, and then he goes to meet Matsu, Master Ma. He's done quite a bit of house cleaning. He's cleaned for years. And now he wants to practice zazen. Now he wants to practice perfect wisdom. He heard that Zen teaches

[08:32]

a way to see the nature of mind. The nature of mind is impermanent and there's no place it does not reach. He heard that Zen teaches what emptiness is. He heard that Zen teaches that the nature of mind is compassion. or emptiness, which is compassion. And he wants the teacher, Shurto, to teach him. And Shurto teaches him. But he just feels confused, so Shurto sends him to Matsu. And Matsu teaches him. But in that interaction, his confusion drops away. and to express his gratitude for this teaching where he that emptiness is compassion and compassion is emptiness.

[09:47]

He bows to Matsu and Matsu says, what have you seen? And he says, I've seen that when I was I was like a mosquito trying to mount an iron bull. I was just thinking recently that mosquitoes are, you know, they seem to be rather delicate little creatures. I've seen quite a few of them squashed by cruel humans. They're not very tough. They're not like beetles. or turtles, they don't have a hard shell from our perspective. They're rather fragile. But they have a proboscis, like a thing that comes out of their head, and it can penetrate human skin. It can go right under our skin and suck blood out of us.

[10:54]

They like to go into us and suck blood. their drill wouldn't go into an iron bowl. But he was like that, he said, I was like a mosquito trying to drill into an iron bowl. We asked for the teaching of emptiness from the Buddha, and the Buddha gives it to us. But if we try to get it, the consciousness, that's like a mosquito trying to bite an iron bull. Our discriminating karmic consciousness is not going to be able to understand, enter into

[12:01]

this perfect wisdom. There's a story that one day Yaoshan was reading scriptures. And I don't know at what point in his life he was reading scriptures, but I think that this story occurs after he met Master Ma and after he realized he was going to produce for mosquitoes to try to bite iron bulls. I think so. Part of the reason I think this is because this story involves one of Matsu's senior students, one of Matsu's So I think this story occurs while he's still living with Matsu in his temple.

[13:06]

He's an enlightened master now, in a way. He's an enlightened master. He has realized, he has understood that he's a mosquito. Or no, he was a mosquito when he was at Shirtou's place. And if somebody asked me, which nobody ever did, after Yao Shan understood that when he was with Shirtou, he was like a mosquito trying to bite an iron bull, Did he continue to be a mosquito or not? And I would say, I don't know. But I think, I think maybe he continued to be a mosquito.

[14:13]

But the difference is that after he was enlightened, he stopped trying to kill bulls and just, you know, settled with biting people. you know, in a kind of a gentle way. In a kind of generous, ethical, patient, diligent way, he bit more appropriate flesh So one thing that mosquitoes do other than try to bite iron bulls is they read Buddhist scriptures. So he was reading a Buddhist scripture and Master Bayan came to him and said, stop fooling people.

[15:23]

I don't know what he meant by, you should stop fooling people. Maybe he meant, you know, you look like a learned monk. You look like an enlightened monk. People probably would think, oh, there's a master of Buddhist teaching. He said, you should stop fooling people. And Yashan rolled up the scroll In those days, I guess, they often were reading scrolls. And he said to Master Bayan, what time of day is it? And Bayan said, just by coincidence, Bayan said, it's noon. He said, that pattern still exists? And Master Bayan said, I'm just thus.

[16:35]

How about you? And Master Bayan said, what did Yangshan say? Does anybody know? Any mosquitoes know? Nice try. Flap those wings. I'm somewhat sorry that I'm not sure the next line.

[17:53]

I remember some other lines. So another line is, Master Bayan said, I don't even have nothing. And you're too brilliant And then Master Bayan says, I'm just thus. How about you? So Yashan's reading scripture. Bayan says, You should stop fooling people, Daddy.

[19:18]

Yashan rolls up the scroll and says, what time is it? Bayan says, noon. Yashan says, that pattern still exists? Okay. Master Bayan says, I'm just thus. How about you?" Yashan says, You're too brilliant. Master Bayan says, I'm just thus, how about you?

[20:27]

Yashan says, belong ungainly in 100 ways. What does ungainly mean? Awkward? I just limp along ungainly in a hundred ways, clumsy in a thousand ways. Still I go on like this. So I think that maybe after Yashan wakes up, after he's not confused anymore about his confusion, he continues to be a mosquito.

[21:38]

A mosquito reading Buddhist scriptures. And a Zen master says to him, you should stop fooling people. And they have this conversation. But at the end it sounds like he says, I'm just a mosquito. I'm not trying to bite anyone anymore. And I just go along like this. And when people ask him what he's doing when he's sitting, he says amazing things like, thinking not thinking.

[22:39]

I'm maintaining the essential working of the Buddha way. That's the kind of thinking I'm doing. And the way I do that is like a mosquito, not trying to bite an iron bull. I don't know why, but anyway it says at the end, secretly working within, like a fool, like an idiot. Does it say that in the Precious Mirror Samadhi song? Practice secretly working within like a fool, like an idiot, But, you know, be a tidy fool.

[24:04]

Clean the temple. And then listen to everything. And observe everything in the temple. How are we going to realize emptiness which is compassion?

[25:26]

How are we going to realize the compassion which is emptiness? By taking good care of the temple. We don't have to advertise that we're fools. We just are. You can keep it to yourself. Work inward. Keep things tidy and clean. Out of respect. which isn't trying to control them. It's like just observing them, by observing them, cleaning them by listening to them. And remember that the one who lives in this cleaning place is a fool.

[26:36]

but a fool who knows not to try to bite an iron bull most of the time. And if she tries to bite, she says, okay, I tried, I'm sorry. There was another person who lived in China and his name was Feng Shui. Feng Shui. To be distinguished from Shui. Feng Shui was asked by a monk silence, both silence and speech, kind of

[27:55]

transgress into and denial, or difference and unity, or alienation and vagueness. Speech and silence, both involved in alienation and vagueness. How can we avoid transgressing? And Feng Shui said, I always think of Hunan in March. The hundred grasses and the partridges chirping. Do you know what the partridge is in German? No?

[28:59]

They're a little bit like, sort of similar size to quail. Is that right? They're small birds, sort of the size of a quail, and they chirp. A quail also chirps. Quail are the state bird of California. Perhaps partridges are the state bird of Hunan, where Feng Shui lived. And when people asked him, how do we avoid transgressing into silence or speech? How do we avoid transgressing into form or emptiness? He said, I always think of Hunan in springtime, the hundred grasses and the partridges chirping.

[30:06]

His response is of non-thinking. It's an expression of the way to work with thinking not thinking. If I ask myself now, how can we avoid to transgress into samsara or nirvana? I would say, I'm not trying to bite an iron bull, but I would say, in the late 60s, around 1967, in San Francisco, at the Zen Center, where Suzuki Roshi was teaching,

[31:18]

They made a kind of gomasio, which was very delicious. And I tasted it. To stay and practice Zen. I'm not saying I'm better than Yao Shan. I'm a mosquito, just like him. But I don't know if actually I was going to bite an iron bull when I stayed to eat gomasio.

[32:25]

Maybe later, after I ate quite a bit of gomasio, I tried to bite an iron bull. I don't remember. But anyway, now I'm just going to be a fool. A fool who is in service of the sublime Dharma, which I cannot understand. But everything I do is dedicated to realize it. Unlike the insect mosquito, I'm a mosquito who can talk.

[34:16]

And I can say, thinking, not thinking. And I can look and see if I'm trying to get anything when I say that. Whether I'm trying to get anything or not, I'm still a fool. But again, I'm a fool in service of the Dharma, which I can't get, but which totally pervades me and supports me to serve it. Being a fool, I can do foolish things, or not.

[35:34]

Being a fool, I'm tempted to sing a song, or not. Once I had a secret fool that lived inside the heart of me. Soon the secret fool became impatient to be free. So I asked a friendly star the way that you often do.

[37:01]

Actually, so I told an ancient star, no, so I told a friendly star The way dreamers often do. How wonderful you are. And what a fool I am for you. Now I shouted from the highest hill. Even tell the golden daffodil. Now my heart's an open door. My secret fool's no secret anymore. May intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way.

[38:17]

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