As I mentioned last week, this text, which was originally written in Japanese, called Genjokon, is part of a collection of texts called the Shobo Genzo. And Shobo Genzo can be translated as True Dharma I Treasury. or treasury of true dharma eyes. This expression, treasury of true dharma eyes, I think first appeared in a story about the first transmission of dharma between the Buddha and the great disciple, Mahakasyapa. This story actually has not been found in the ancient Indian canon.

[01:07]

The earliest evidence we have for this text is in China, actually quite late in China, like the 10th or 11th century. So it's one of these Buddhist teachings that appears at a certain time in history long after the historical Buddha died. And in the story, the Buddha raises a flower before the assembly of students and turns at the flower in his hand and winks. And one person in the assembly smiled.

[02:11]

And he said at that time, according to this story, this Zen story, I have the treasury of true Dharma eyes, the mind of, the inconceivable mind of Nirvana. I now transmit it, it is now transmitted to Mahakasyapa. So the truly transmitted Buddha Dharma, according to this story and most of Zen tradition accords with this. The transmission, the right transmission of the Buddha Dharma is this shobo genzo, is this treasury of true Dharma eyes.

[03:18]

And it also says in this story that this transmission does not rely on words and it is outside of the scriptures. So there is this shobo genzo and then there is a text called Shobo Genzo. Or there is the Treasury of True Dharma Eyes, which is the rightly transmitted Buddha Dharma. And then there's a text about this rightly transmitted Buddha Dharma. And this text is a text written by a person to express his experience of the rightly transmitted buddha dharma his experience of the treasured true dharma eyes he conveyed he manifested with pen and ink as a large compendium of many many separate teachings each one of which

[04:42]

is a crystallization or a manifestation of his experience of the spirit of this right dharma transmission. And the first chapter of this work is called Mahaprajnaparamita, or The Great Perfection of Wisdom. The second chapter is the actualization of the fundamental point. In a sense, the first chapter is a more it seems to be talking about an ancient Buddhist text called the Perfection of Wisdom Scripture. He quotes that text, which we call the Heart Sutra.

[05:47]

In that fascicle, he doesn't call it the Heart Sutra, he just calls it, because we chant every day, at Paul Zen Center, we practically chant every day, the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Scripture. But this chapter is not called the Heart of Perfection of Wisdom Scripture. It's called the Perfection of Wisdom. It's not called the Scripture. So he created a scripture, in a sense, or he created a verbal manifestation of this perfection of wisdom. And he quotes therein the Heart Sutra. And how many people are not familiar with the Heart Sutra? Okay. And the people who are not familiar with it means that you haven't heard about it at all, really?

[06:50]

You haven't heard it at all? Is that right? in that scripture, which is actually in Chinese, 254 characters, so it's not very long. It's about half as long as the text we just recited. In that text, sort of the initial big teaching is that when the bodhisattva of infinite compassion clearly saw that all the different elements of phenomenal existence are empty. That vision of the emptiness of the phenomenal world relieved all suffering. And emptiness means that he saw that the phenomenal world is empty

[07:56]

of any inherent existence, which means it's that any inherent existence that there is appearing in the phenomenal world, he actually saw is not there. So when he looked at all living beings, plants, animals, humans, everything, mountains, rivers, all this phenomena, when he looked at it, he could see that nothing existed by itself, that everything was empty of the imaginary inherent existence, everything was empty of self. And this vision liberated all suffering. The phenomenal world in some could be called sort of a representative of the phenomenal world in terms of a technical term is form, like a color. But then there's also feelings, consciousness, emotions, sounds, smells, tastes, intangibles, the whole phenomenal world.

[09:12]

All the things in the phenomenal world are empty of any idea you have of them as having independent existence. So in that text, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion says that form, for example, or color, is actually emptiness, and emptiness is actually Things are really, actually, the way things really are is that they're empty of inherent existence, but also things are emptiness of inherent existence. And emptiness is always actually a form or a feeling or a color.

[10:19]

it's the way all things are and the way all things are is emptiness. That's the basic teaching of that scripture. And then the Zen teacher comments on that scripture in his first classical of his work manifesting his understanding of the true Dharma. Next chapter is quite different, as you can see. There's no mention of form and emptiness here. However, I just mentioned this as some background, which I'll bring up again. The form and emptiness is going on in this text. Actually, the form and emptiness is going on in the title of the text. So, last week I mentioned that genjo means reality as it's happening now.

[11:28]

Reality as it's happening now. Genjo, genjo, genjo, genjo, genjo. These are genjos. These moments are genjos. Your experience is genjo. This is reality as it's taking place. But reality does not take place. Reality, as it takes place, is a form or whatever. But reality, which is at the form, is empty of any idea you have a form. That does not take place. So I said reality is it takes place and then I said reality does not take place.

[12:30]

So what I mean is reality in the way that reality takes place or reality in an unreal way or in a false way is what we experience right now. That's phenomena. That's genjo. Koan is reality, the reality which doesn't take place. the reality which just is. It doesn't like happen and then not happen. It's the way everything that happens is and the way everything is after it stops happening. But it itself does not happen. Happenings only occur because of our imagination. And also everything I'm saying to you now about things that occur because of imagination and things that don't occur because of imagination.

[13:35]

That's all imagination. So once again, the correctly transmitted Dharma is not the same as the manifestation of the correctly transmitted Dharma. And yet you can experience Dharma And then you could write something about your experience of Dharma, and what you write is not your experience of Dharma, but might be helpful to people and you to write. Also, you can move your arms and legs, you can cook lunch, you can do many things to express and manifest your experience of the truth, of the Dharma. So I said last week, I'll say again, Genjo is Koan.

[14:53]

Genjo Koan means Genjo is Koan, and Koan is nothing other than Genjo. Genjo Koan means that the world which appears and disappears, this world which has appeared and has now disappeared, and this world which has appeared and has now disappeared, the world of appearance, the world of birth and death. The phenomenal world is the world which does not appear and disappear. The phenomenal world is the ultimate truth. The phenomenal world is not just the ultimate truth, even, but the living Buddha way. And the living Buddha way is none other than the world of birth and death, the world which appears and disappears.

[15:57]

And this teaching gets set, not the first fascicle, but the second fascicle, but it really, this is the fascicle that the tradition of Dogen's disciple looks to as the central, in some sense, the central eye of the many eyes, of the treasury of eyes, of true Dharma, this fascicle. For some reason, rather, it's held up as the highest or most central of the teachings of the 95 fascicles. There's a Zen teacher named Linji and there's a record of his teachings. And in the record, the first story in the record, he comes into the hall of his temp monastery and there's some monks there, apparently, and he gets up in the teaching seat and he says something like,

[17:26]

Due to the gracious and emphatic request of a certain official of the government, I have got up in this seat now. If I were to accord with the source of our school, I wouldn't be able to open my mouth. But then you might not be able to get a foothold in this source. So here I am. And if anybody wants to come up here and interact with me, you're welcome to do so. And a monk came up and came close to him.

[18:38]

And I don't remember exactly what happened, but something like he said, maybe, come closer. And the monk came closer and he reached out and he grabbed the monk. And I don't remember if at this particular occasion he shook the monk or not, but he did yell, speak rather loudly. And he said, speak, speak. And the monk did not. And then he kind of dismissed the monk. he didn't really feel like he should say anything but he did say something so that someone could come up to him and he could transmit the true dharma and as the monk came up he tried to open the monk's eyes open the monk's heart to this true dharma by getting a hold of them

[19:53]

speaking loudly, speak, speak. He tried to open the eye so that the monk could see the true Dharma, the true Dharma which is, of course, not someplace else. The living Dharma is, of course, as it says in this text, right where you are. And then how can we open our eyes to it? This was Linji's attempt to open somebody's eye to the true dharma and it looked like he was unsuccessful great teacher but on his first recorded attempt he did not succeed there were probably some other attempts earlier which did succeed which led the official to invite him to speak on this occasion and then people wrote it down there's maybe some other stories before this where he was successful but nobody wrote it down In this spirit, a number of Zen teachers in the lineage coming down from Dogen have warned themselves and their students, and their warnings have been recorded and transmitted down to the present, so now we can be warned too, about approaching this treasury of true dharma eyes conceptually.

[21:34]

Koan is Genjo. Genjo is what's happening, and what's happening is that our conceptual minds are creating a world. That all of us, not just my conceptual minds creating the world, but me together with you, all of us together, and also flies and the cockroaches and the gorillas, all living beings' conceptual activity is creating a world a mind-created world which we create together. And it's happening. And the world we create, by the very fact of the way we create it with our minds, which are always changing, the world is changing. This is the phenomenal world. This is the genjo. Genjo is koan. What's koan? Koan is that this world that we created together with our conceptual activity this conceptually created, this conceptually constructed world we live in, it's empty of all of our conceptions of it.

[22:45]

Our conceptions have created the world, but the world is empty, totally empty of each of our conceptions of it at a given moment and all of our conceptions together. It's empty of them. But conceptual activity has consequences. And if we believe it, the consequence is misery, which varies in its intensity, as you notice in the phenomenal world. But even suffering, which we conceptually create by believing our conceptions of the world we create, even suffering is empty of all of our ideas of suffering. So to approach the world which is empty of all of our conceptions actually, and to approach the teaching which says that the world created by our conceptions is the world truth that's empty of our conceptions, to approach this teaching conceptually is, initially at least,

[24:00]

probably not the best way. However, if you do approach it that way, even though it's not the best, it still is an approach. In a sense I would say, you know, even a stupid approach is still pretty good. Like it says here, when you first approach the Buddha way, you move away from it. You want to go towards it, but actually because you approach it conceptually, you go away from it. If you hadn't approached it, you would have had a better understanding than before you approached it. Actually, it's right here, and if you don't approach it, you understand pretty well. But usually if you say, okay, well, it's right here, but I think I'd like to understand that, Okay, fine, that's fine, that's okay. That's good.

[25:05]

Of course you'd like to understand it. That would be great. Now can you approach it without using the very equipment which is making you feel separate from it? We feel separate from it because of our conceptions. If we use our conceptions to get close to it, we get farther from it. So that's why Linji says, speak, speak, shaking him. Being shaked by a great Zen master and having him yell at you, it's hard to, like, start accessing your conceptions about what you're supposed to say. You can speak under such circumstances. You can talk without approaching your speech conceptually. It is possible. We really are that way. We have a habit of using our conception to approach everything.

[26:09]

Once again, Nolengi says, well, if I don't say anything, they get no foothold. Well, I'm saying something, so you can get a foothold, a foothold on approaching this text about freedom from conceptual thought being this world that's created by conceptual thought. A text which is about how freedom, how the actuality that we're free of conceptual thought is none other than the world that's created by conceptual thought. It's a text about that. Now, how can we approach it in a living way? I even hardly don't say non-conceptually because we make that into a conceptual thing too, maybe. So then after this introduction and warning, which can be even more vituperative and harsh than I'm making it, these various people who warn us against this conceptual approach, like Lin Ji, then they start talking.

[27:26]

They say quite a bit. But then they occasionally stop and see if anybody's slipping back into the conceptual thing, and then they attack again the conceptual approach. And then they say some more. Because just shutting up doesn't quiet everybody down. The teacher just doesn't say anything. The students may just keep chattering to themselves conceptually. So it's okay to then write a text about the true Dharma eyes. And then it's also okay to read the text and recite the text. However, can you read this text? I think you can. I think you can, and you certainly may, Buddha deftly allows you. You can read this text just to read this text, or just to read this text as an act of devotion.

[28:30]

Read this text as an act of devotion. Read this text respectfully in the sense of I'm going to, without using my conceptual equipment, I'm going to become one with this text. I wish to become one with this text. I wish to realize this text. Yes, Peter. I mean, like, if I just take one picture of a book, I read about gold, I think about gold for a week. and you think about how I experience the reality of my conception of it. So everything is fixedly within my context, my life experience, my conceptualized ideas.

[29:37]

So I understand what you're saying, but I don't, for me, the only thing that I can see is that I constantly remind myself that my way is the conceptualized way that I can see. I think that reminding yourself that way is part of what it means to be devotional. Part of what it means to be devotional towards some teaching or some practice is to remember that you're somewhat handicapped and that you're approaching this potentially very helpful thing in a handicapped way. And the handicap is that you're going to make this teaching or make this practice into your own pint-sized version of it. So I'm approaching an ocean. I'm approaching an ocean. I'm approaching the entire universe as...

[30:38]

as the living way of peace and happiness for all beings. I'm approaching the entire universe that way. And part of my devotion is to raise my hand and say, but the way I'm going to approach it is going to be that I'm going to turn this ocean into a circle of water or into a pint of water because I don't like oceans that much. I like pints of salt water. As a matter of fact, I'm even going to have it desalinated or had the salination level reduced somewhat because that's what I have because that's the kind of guy I am that's part of my devotion is to admit that I'm going to that because of my nature I have a handicap in approaching the truth of the Buddha way that's part of devotion It's not so much as you get out of the conceptualization, because getting out of the conceptualization, there would be no phenomenal world.

[31:53]

There is a possibility of getting out of the phenomenal world, but we're not so interested in that. We're more talking about how do you understand that the phenomenal world is actually the living Buddha way, which includes that the phenomenal world is empty of all of our ideas of it. And so I said there's another way. For example, you can, at the moment that you admit that you're deluded, period, or deluded in your approach to the teachings of enlightenment, when you admit that at that time, well, you're pretty, you're pretty not, that's not very conceptual. I'm deluded in my approach and And presently, at this time, I'm just admitting that I'm deluded.

[33:13]

I'm not getting anything out of it yet, even. I'm not saying I'm deluded, and now I also, this is what the teaching is. I want to understand the teaching, but I understand that what I think it is, is my delusion of it. Admitting that is a respectful way to approach the teaching. Now, a lot of people would say, well, if I'm deluded, why study the teachings? If I can't have the real teachings, if I can't approach them and see them as they are, why approach these teachings? Because I'm deluded about everything else. Why go to the Buddhist teachings? I'm deluded about them. I'm deluded about anti-Buddhist teachings, too. And I would say, actually, if you go to the anti-Buddhist teachings with the same attitude of, I'm deluded, as you go to the Buddhist teachings of the attitude, I'm deluded, and in both cases admit your delusion, in fact, although in one case you're studying anti-Buddhism and in the other case Buddhism, in both cases you're practicing Dharma by admitting the fact that you're deluded.

[34:19]

Because it says here, those who are greatly enlightened about delusion are the Buddhas. buddhas are studying delusion all the time so when you pick up a buddhist text written by somebody who's enlightened you're reading a text by of somebody who studied their deluded approach to everything including they've studied their deluded approach to zen and they studied their delusion about zen they've studied their delusion about zen they've studied their delusion about zen and they even went to a teacher and said Here's my delusion about Zen, or here's what I think Zen is. And I have a feeling from what I've heard that it's delusion. Is that right? And the teacher says, yes, you are deluded. You're totally deluded. That's what I thought. Thank you. And when will I get over this? And so on. You actually study intensively delusions. And those who approach Buddhist teachings or any other wonderful teachings with thinking that they understand or thinking that what they think is correct, they're deluded about what understanding is.

[35:43]

And that's what a living being is. It's somebody who basically believes their fantasies about what's going on, which includes a lot of beings are believing their fantasies. But there are beings who have fantasies about what's going on and really know that those are fantasies. And the people who are best at fantasies, who do the most fabulous fantasies, the most beautiful fantasies, are those who understand that these are fantasies. Now, some people who don't understand that their fantasies are fantasies do pretty well. Like my grandson. He has lots of fantasies and he does not think any of them are fantasies. Almost never. And they're beautiful fantasies. I think that. But because of my education, I know that I'm deluded in thinking that his fantasies are beautiful.

[36:50]

thinking that that's true, if I do, but I don't think that. I don't really think he's that wonderful. But he does. You have to be very careful. He's not ready to have his fantasy world checked yet. Barely able to hold it together, you know. I have to be very gentle. He's not ready for me to shake him as they speak. He's speaking all the time, but not... I'm just on the receiving end of this. It's like I'm not... I can't tell him to speak. However, he will listen to me speak occasionally, which is nice. There's an opening starting to happen. Occasionally he listens to me a little bit. So you can read the text trying to find a way to read it in a respectful way, namely... Please excuse me, text, for me having a limited idea of what you are.

[37:59]

I humbly admit that, and now may I read you. So I'm getting what you're saying, but I'm deluded. Yeah. You're getting what I'm saying, but the way you're getting it probably is not it. It's just the way you're getting it. But if you understand that, you're starting to understand the nature of delusion. So this is a text to help us understand delusion. Understanding delusion is enlightenment. And there's lots of fantasies, lots of images, lots of imagination. This text is full of imagination.

[39:02]

As you can clearly see, all these fishes and the birds and the water and the moon and all this stuff will help us understand delusion. But also, people sometimes, if they come to class on philosophy or religion, they might want to get something or might want to become less deluded or get somebody to agree that they never were deluded and stuff like that, which is fine because really we aren't deluded. We're not really deluded. It just appears that way. And one of the ways it appears is that we think we're not deluded. That's the way the delusion appears is that we go around thinking we're not deluded. Thinking that you're not deluded is not really the way you are.

[40:04]

You're not really that way. That's more like this one little like straw in your hair. You're much greater than going around thinking that you're not deluded. You're much more than that. Because of course when you stop thinking that you're not deluded. You don't evaporate. You're still fully alive. Matter of fact, when you stop thinking you're not deluded, you might feel more alive and everybody in the neighborhood might feel that way too. Do you know what I mean? You didn't... What's your name? Did you not know what I meant? Well, if you know somebody who thinks they're not deluded, have you met anybody like that? Yeah. If that person took a break from thinking that he wasn't deluded, just let that pass for a moment, he would feel some relief, perhaps, and you probably would also feel more at ease with him, too, because now his, like, I'm not deluded thing has been dropped for a moment.

[41:09]

Yeah. Now, if you get this, if you drop this, I'm not deluded over and over... drop quotes, I'm not deluded, drop that, and maybe even try on, I appear to be deluded, or I have the suspicion that I'm deluded. And even my idea of my delusion is another fantasy. The more you get into this, the more you become relieved. And the more people around you feel relief too. Actually, this is an approach which also is an approach to actually what generosity is, the more generous you become. You become more generous as you become more and more comfortable admitting how you limit the world. Generosity is to get over the limits we're imposing on the situation more and more, but we have to admit the limits to get over some of them. So it is good, actually, nothing could be finer than to read this text, or any text, or look at anything in this devotional way, in this respectful way, in this humble way.

[42:34]

So I'm devoted to this thing, but also I'm handicapped in my devotion Because even in my devotion, I try to make this wonderful thing into something that I can take home with me or that I can buy or I can sell or I can categorize or I can get rid of or I can hold on to. I have this problem. And that helps me be more truly devoted to a living being or a text which is all about telling me about how deluded I am. in a very beautiful way and also it's a beautiful thing telling me how beautiful my imagination is how beautiful and how energetic and how fast and how unstoppable and how effective and all the people I live with also have these great imaginations and we're working together to create this world The world's not an imagination.

[43:40]

It's a real world, but it's created by imagination. And the way it really is, is that it's free of our imagination. I say this because otherwise, we probably shouldn't even be reading any further. Not to mention that we probably shouldn't write anything. And what I say about this, I have to I need to constantly be aware of, am I slipping into a conceptual approach to the dangers of conceptual approaches or conceptual approach to this text? When the teaching does not fill your body and mind, you think it's sufficient. When it does fill your body and mind, you understand something's missing, like going out in the middle of the ocean.

[44:47]

So, one teaching is Genjo Koan, the title. This world that's happening, this world which is occurring, is the living Buddha way. This is none other than the world which does not occur or disoccur. One with that. And then that teaching too, those words are not what we're talking about. We are talking about something which these words point to. So there's a living thing there right under your nose we're trying to open our eyes to it open our eyes to what is right there before us untouched by our ideas by which we look for it that's one teaching and the place to look is always in what's happening and then when you look at what's happening you also remember this teaching that what's happening is the koan

[46:08]

twenty four hours a day seven days a week what's happening is none other than the koan is none other than the shobo genzo treasury of true dharma eyes is none other than what is appearing that's the koan it's not the separate things it's the whole phenomenal world that is the koan. And then the other thing, the additional instruction, one additional instruction is that if you listen to this teaching about the Dharma, if you let it in a little, you think you got it. If you let it in a little, you got a circle of water and you think it's the circle of water

[47:14]

that you have about this teaching. It's okay that you got a circle of water. If you let it in all the way, you still have a circle of water. If you let the teaching all the way in, you still have a circle of water, just like a person who has let only a little bit of teaching in. Okay, that make sense? Little bit of teaching, circle of water. A lot of teaching, circle of water. Because we can only see circles of water, we cannot see the whole ocean. It's not the kind of creatures we are. We cannot see the entire universe. But the entire universe is actually kaput away. We can hear that teaching, and then we hear the teaching. Even that teaching is an ocean which we cannot see the whole of that teaching. When you let that teaching in a little, You've got a circle of water about that teaching and you think, ah, good, I got it.

[48:17]

If you let in a lot, you realize, ah, good, I got it, and that's not it. Both cases you have a take on it. You have a fantasy about the teachings of the universe and the Buddha way. Both cases. In one case, though, it hasn't sunk into you enough In the other case, it has sunk into you so that you realize it's not enough. And you're more alive that way. In both cases, though, you do not... By being a human, which has created in certain ways, we are naturally built to only see part of the ocean. But again, you can see part of it and realize this is just part of it. and i cannot see the whole thing and i am very happy because i remember that i remember that you're not what i think you are i'm very happy about that i do have this i do think something about you and i enjoy it or i don't but i also remember that ain't making it this is a humble way to study a person and a humble way to study a text

[49:43]

Again, this is a text to teach you how to be humble about studying the text. So I encourage you to be able to tolerate studying this text with these people in this room. I don't know if I would say try to understand it. I guess I would say more to you, do you want to understand it? Do you want to understand it like thoroughly, exhaustively? Do you want to? Do you? Yeah. That's why I would stay with more, I want to, I want to, I want to be. I want to understand this text thoroughly. I want to understand it. I want to understand it. Now you can turn I want to into that's the way I'm going to try.

[50:45]

Okay. But that's a real effort to want. To want and be aware that you want to. To want and be aware that it's that it's then it's very wonderful to want to and it's wonderful to like then as a result of wanting to or based on wanting to you actually study it. You look at it, you read it, you hear it, and how wonderful that is, and all the more wonderful if there's no grasping and no seeking. Wanting without seeking or grasping. I asked for some feedback from one of the people in the class, and the person said, Well, I was sitting in the class and I was kind of wondering, what am I doing in that class? But I've been listening to this guy for 25 years. What am I doing in this class listening to him?

[51:48]

And he said, oh, because I've been listening to him for 25 years. That's where I'm... However, that person is not here tonight. Which reminds me, someone told me that she was sick. That reminds me that I ask you, I beg you to tell me if you're going to miss class. Also, somebody else told me that they had to... or that she had to help her mother who's having an operation this week. I appreciate if you're not going to be here that you would tell me in class or call Donald or me and leave a message with my assistant, and she'll tell me. So some people have told me that. I appreciate that. That's part of... It's part of the process of studying delusion is to share with people you're studying together about what you're doing and keep in touch with them.

[52:53]

That helps realize how deluded we are. And the more the great enlightened people are the people who know more about their delusions than almost anyone else knows about their delusion. They don't concentrate on other people's delusion. They study their own. And they do it a lot. It isn't like once a day. It's many times a day that they realize delusion. That's how they greatly understand delusion, by studying it really intensely, really intensely, day after day. So it's, anyway, we've got the delusion, it's sitting there, understanding it, opens our Dharma eye to the Buddha way, which is always exactly no other place than this world of birth and death.

[53:57]

So again, I encourage you to develop a tolerance for I put it more personally, I encourage myself to become more and more tolerant, which allows me to be more and more present and continuously aware of my delusion, understanding that that really does help the world. We've got a lot of people who are deluded, who are what we call clueless about their delusion. They do not think they're deluded. And I say that those people are suffering and dangerous. And then we have people who are also just as deluded as they are, but are clued in to the teaching that they're deluded, and they're tolerating that more and more, and they're becoming more at ease, more generous.

[55:01]

and more patient in many ways by being patient with their own delusion, more patient with other difficulties, more gentle, more peaceful, because this is about the most difficult thing to face, is this thing that's right here all the time, namely our own delusion. If we can face this, we can become enlightened. So I really encourage us to understand that that's part of the medicine big part of the medicine of the Dharma path. And this text is about that, but all, whatever we're studying, we have to do that. And I had this thought that the room's quiet.

[56:17]

There haven't been so many questions tonight. And I had this thought that, well, it may be hard to ask questions when you've been forewarned about trying to conceptually grasp this material. But anyway, some people did ask questions anyway. So it is okay to ask questions, but it's a little trickier now because you're aware to some extent that you're not just asking a question, but you're deluded in asking a question. And everybody in the class knows that you are. So they're going to be watching the deluded person talking, and so maybe I should just shut up. But as you know, I've been talking quite a bit. And you've been knowing that this deluded person's talking and it doesn't stop me. So feel free to express yourself, you blankety-blank-blank-blank students, as various Zen teachers would say you are.

[57:21]

I won't repeat their harsh words that they have spoken to their students to remind their students we're sincerely trying to get the Dharma so that they can go into business as Zen masters. You want to be a Zen Master? You want to be a Zen Master? Want to get in to be a Zen Master? Okay. Come here and study this. You'll get to be a Zen Master. Yes? Do we have time for a little bit? Yeah, we do. Yes? Do you have a diluted question? Do you have a diluted question? Okay, go ahead. You will.

[58:23]

You will. Do you have any tricks up your sleeve? Oh, by the way, congratulations on your becoming a father. Yeah. It's a big delusion coming. Want to express something? Oh, I had a question. Go ahead. You mentioned that when he's teaching failed. When he first said that, I thought, well, because the student didn't say anything in response. But... I'm wondering if it's a failure not because the student said something or didn't say something, but because he acted conceptual. Did he act conceptually? It's possible. I mean, or why did the teaching fail? Or is it a failure? Well, it's a failure in the sense that he wanted, right then, as much as possible for that student's dumb eye to open, and the student couldn't stand

[59:34]

couldn't stand to, like, let it open, or if it opened, he couldn't express himself in that world that he was entered into. He didn't, you know, hang in there with the teacher. That's the way it looks. Now, we can work with it, though. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's Way.

[60:15]

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