As you know, it says, Zhaozhou asked, after the great death, or when someone who has undergone the great death returns to life, how is it? And Tozu says, don't go by the night, arrive in the daytime, or arrive in the daylight. When someone who has undergone the great death returns to life, how is it? Okay, and let's see.

[01:02]

Before going into the story in more detail, I just want to say that this is a story about, you know, the great debt. When you have accomplished, when you've, you know, you've accomplished, you've thoroughly realized the practice of meditation on ultimate reality. You become intimate with ultimate reality. And by being intimate with ultimate truth, you have realized nirvana. Okay? So after nirvana, how is it? So after nirvana in this tradition... it's not just like nirvana and you're gone.

[02:09]

There's life after nirvana. There's the life of great compassion. So another way to ask this question is, after undergoing the great death, after thoroughly accomplishing or mastering the contemplation of ultimate truth, How is great compassion? Coming back to life, what is great compassion? How does it happen? Okay? And... And then... And Tozu gives... his feeling for how great compassion is. He's talking about how great compassion functions.

[03:12]

Don't go by night, arrive in the daylight. Now, Part of what makes this kind of story difficult is that the practice which led to it is kind of difficult. Difficult in the sense of it's difficult for us to give up our usual approach to life. Our usual approach to life is not the basis of the great death. Washington said, isn't sufficient. or the great death. Our usual approach to life is to fiddle with life.

[04:18]

But contemplating ultimate truth, we work with our life in a different way. And this different meditation practice is different primarily because, you know, you can't do it. You can't do contemplation of ultimate reality. So we have to give up our usual grasping approach to our life in order to contemplate ultimate truth. And it's difficult for us to give up our ordinary grasping approach, which we think we can do, which we imagine we can do. It's difficult for us to give that up and just face reality with no way to do it.

[05:24]

A lot of us are interested in Buddhism. Sure, I'm happy to face truth. I'm happy to face the ultimate truth. But to not know how, that's too much. Tell me a way I can do it. But if we can't tell you a way that you can do it, then it's really hard because, well, what's going to happen to you if you don't have a way to do it? Who knows? Well, a great death will happen to you. after which, coming back to life, that would be great compassion. So, the way of talking about how to practice the contemplation, which culminates in great death, to some extent, the way of talking about it has to be a way that doesn't cater to what's going to die. It also doesn't be mean to what's going to die.

[06:31]

It's compassionate to what's going to die. It's compassionate to the grasping, power-oriented approach to life. It's compassionate to it. But the instruction is not, well, use your power like this and then you'll be doing meditation on ultimate reality and you'll understand it. So the instruction isn't like that. And then, since the instruction isn't like that and the death isn't like that and the rebirth isn't like that, Also the way that they talk about what compassion is, isn't like that. When they're talking to each other, when the dead people are talking to each other. Now sometimes after they come back to life, if they meet people who are not yet ready to practice the way that sets up the great death, they talk another way. They say, you know, they talk in a way that the person thinks that they can do. But this is a conversation between people who have realized the great death. So when they talk about great compassion, they don't translate back into the way of talking about great compassion in terms of a way that you can do it.

[07:38]

You can understand it. You just can't understand it the way you usually understand, which is the way you can do. They're telling you how it is, but you can't get a hold of it. But that's what great compassion is. Great compassion is you can't get a hold of it. It's better than that. I mean, it's really great. It's like, you know, the working of that which is free. So that's why it's kind of hard, it's hard to talk about this, and it's hard even to talk about the meditation which leads to the great death. But somehow I want to talk about it. And just so happens this case is talking about it, so there it is. How do we contemplate ultimate truth which sets, you know, which starts to... How do we cultivate ultimate truths which sets up our weaning ourselves from our usual grasping mode?

[08:46]

Well, first of all, we ground ourselves in conventional reality. So as I was saying on Saturday, we have in Zen the three pure precepts, and the first pure precept is to embrace and sustain the regulations and ceremonies of practice. Those practices are ways that you can enter into the contemplation of ultimate reality. When you first approach, you know, putting your hands together and making the cosmic concentration mudra, and bowing and sitting up straight, and eating in a ritual way, and many other practices which are done in a traditional way, when you first approach them, you think you can do them. So you do them. Well, that's fine, that's the conventional approach. I can do this and that's that. And we all agree, that's an orioke bowl,

[09:51]

That's bowing, this is a seat, that's a zendo, this is a schedule. Yes. And I can do that, sure. But as you do that, you realize there's some problem in you doing it. You become depressed or elated over your success at doing this stuff, and you become aware of that. And over the years, you finally learn how to do these forms these practices in such a way that you're not doing them. They're just the practices. And then the practice of the contemplation of ultimate reality is starting to happen. You've given up. your grip on the practice, and it's just a practice. You're alive, the practice is alive, but you don't have the practice, and the practice doesn't have you.

[10:55]

It's just a practice. You didn't disappear, but you're not something in addition to the practice. You never were, and you can face that now. This is, you're on the edge of the great death, when it's like that. It takes a while to get ready for that and be willing to be there because you're scared of what will happen to you if you don't keep track of yourself in the practice. But anyway, after a while you get sick of being this thing that's in addition to the practice. I mean, you get really sick of it and you say, well, I actually probably would be all right if there was just the practice. I mean, I actually don't have to worry about it. I think I'll be okay. I don't think just the practice means I'm going to be not there. It just means that the grasping is going to be dead. The old life is going to be dead. The life of me in control, actually, me trying to be in control.

[12:01]

That terrible, boring, painful power trip. I'm willing to give it up and just have there be what's happening. Training at the forms is one of the ways to train yourself out of our distrust of ultimate truth. Which is, put positively, it's one of the ways for us to testify to our faith in ultimate reality, which is that All the Buddhas are practicing with us as we put our hands together. All the Buddhas are practicing with us as we eat our breakfast. There's no difference between us and the Buddhas as we brush our teeth.

[13:07]

There's just the brushing of teeth by the kindness of all beings. This doesn't depend on my power. I'm willing to trust that because I've learned by a million examples of how boring and dull and tiring it is for me to lift the toothbrush by my own power. All by myself. This arm is going to stop operating pretty soon. But the practice does not end and does not start We will never stop being supported. Never. We never started being supported either. We are just supported by all the Buddhas and all living beings every moment. How do you contemplate that? You can't do it. You just stop resisting and accept it.

[14:12]

You stop resisting it because you get tired of resisting. So like it says actually in the commentary here, Chan Master Jung Kwan, Chan Master Jung of Jung Kwan Temple in Su Province said in a talk, if the points of words miss, home is 10,000 miles away. And that's discussing what it's like, you know, to live by power. If you don't see how everybody's helping you, how all the great ancestors are helping you, if you don't see it, if you don't meet that, if you don't see it meeting you, well, it's really You're a lost person.

[15:19]

So then he says, you must let go your hold. Does it say off there? On, huh? Hold of, oh, yeah. I have the manuscript here and it says, you must let go, you must let go your hold off the cliff. But I was going to change it to on. So it could be of or on the cliff. Let go of your hold of the cliff. Let go of your hold on the cliff. What's the cliff? You know, it's your life, right? Let go of your grip in your life. That's all it takes to meditate on ultimate reality. If you just let go of your grip on your life, Then your hands are free and you can accept ultimate reality. The only thing that's obstructing it is that you're trying to get a hold of it. You've got your fingers gripping into it. You're gouging it. You're gouging this wonderful truth. All these hands that are coming to help you, you're gripping them and gouging them and saying, help me, help me.

[16:20]

Just let go and you realize and accept all the help. You must let go of your hole in the cliff, allowing yourself to accept. That's it. After annihilation, return to life again. After annihilation of this grasping, distrustful, power-oriented self-clinging. Okay? Then you return to life again. Now, there is another story in Buddhism that you do this and then you just, that's the end of the story. You're in nirvana and, you know, congratulations. But the bodhisattva practice is congratulations and now come back to life. Now enjoy going to work to really develop the deep understanding that great compassion will bring. So again, it's hard to talk about how you get there because you have

[17:27]

You want to describe what it's like to let go, what is how you let go, but you got to let go of how you let go too. Just let go of your grip on the cliff and accept. And then come back to life and then let go of your grip on what that's going to be like. Okay? So this is the practice that sets this case up. And these two people have been, I think, practicing this way for a while. And they've realized this way of letting go of the cliff. And they both come back to life after the great death. And so someone's, the commentator says, Jojo heard this phrase here. You know, let go and after annihilation come back to life. But he maybe heard this, so he went and he asked, Tozu, after one has undergone the great death, how is it? But before we go back into our story, any questions?

[18:39]

Yes? Yes? What does that refer to? Well, that's back into the story. Do you have any questions about how you get to the story? The story starts before the story. These two guys have done their homework. What's the homework? Grounding yourself in the conventional and... Realizing ultimate reality. Letting go of your grip on your life. Don't move. They've gone through the great death. That's the homework, right? They contemplated ultimate reality. They went through the great death. They did that before the story starts. Do you have any questions on the background of the story? On the practice that sets this story up?

[19:41]

And then did they go to nirvana and then come back? They didn't exactly go to nirvana, they just... They realized nirvana. They realized nirvana. And then they came back because of their compassion? Yeah, they realized nirvana and then they had this, what do you call it, this thing happen to them, poor babies. They got this kind of like little... Hardik. Huh? Hardik. Yeah, Hardik. They got this big thing coming up to them that makes them want to come and share this wonderful thing that they realized with all beings. So how is that different from Nirvana? It's not different. It's like, it's like what do you call it? It's like a A flower is not different from the stem and the roots and the earth, right? It's just that the earth can blossom as a flower.

[20:42]

Or it can not. So this is the blossoming of the flower of their practice. Okay? And the fruit of their practice is that other people will receive their compassion and they will join the practice. So this is like this blossoming. It's a blossoming of their... What do you call it? It's a blossoming of non-attachment. Letting go and not holding on can blossom. So like the... Like in the story of when Tozu met his teacher. Know that story? Tozu met his teacher and he said... What is it? What's the principle of of Buddhism. Is that right? And he said, Buddhism has no principle. Right? Is that right? Emptiness is not empty.

[21:50]

Death is not... In emptiness there's light in emptiness. There's life in the emptiness. Insubstantiality is not nothing. Insubstantiality is really alive. and it blossomed. When you realize, when one realizes insubstantiality, then you blossom more fully than ever. Then you can really be a total, you know, I don't know what you want to call that, just total whatever people want, need, you know. You blossom in whatever way they need out of this insubstantiality, out of the death of your substantial existence. you are available. Yes? Well, I want to know if for you, like, when this, I mean, is this a side thing? Is this something that happens and is irrevocable? Like, do you know? Or can this, like, can you fall into this and then come out? Or, you know, you're definitely different from the day before.

[22:53]

Um, there is an irrevocable change that happens to one. And as I mentioned the other night, even after this irrevocable change, there's still training. There's training after enlightenment, which means that there's higher levels of enlightenment. There's real enlightenment, real seeing through, your belief in substantiality, and yet still more training after that, which means that enlightenment naturally goes beyond itself endlessly. But once there's a first enlightenment that never gets revoked, that's a real authentic enlightenment, authentic breakthrough, and you don't slip back, but you have tons more work to do. And sometimes if you don't do that work, if you have a great insight and you don't do the work, You can get in big trouble for a long time, but you can't go back before that time.

[23:59]

You're just like somebody who's got a job to do who isn't doing it, and you feel really bad that you're not doing your job. And then finally, after not doing your job, which you knew you had to do all along, and you actually understood your job, you understood reality, and you're just loafing because of all kinds of bad habits, finally you go to work. and do your post-enlightenment training. Some people don't do that. They immediately go right to work and it's really a nice simple story. They wake up and then they start cleaning up their act. No problem. That's why it's nice to wake up in the Sangha with a teacher nearby who can guide you so you don't torture yourself for 30 years with your enlightenment. Is that okay? I hope so. Good. Any other questions? How is it you get into trouble if you don't do the cleaning up after realization?

[25:01]

Well, the same way you get in trouble if you don't do the cleaning up before the realization. It's just that you feel worse after than before. Because you know you should do it and you know it, you know. So it's like if you're, if you're like cruel and selfish and you act like that and you have habits where people do things and you immediately do other things based on your selfishness, before you understand how silly that is and how there's no basis to it, you get in trouble for that. You feel bad about that. But after you see there's no basis to it, it's just as bad as it was before, plus it's even worse because now you realize how ridiculous it is that you're angry for no reason. It's really totally stupid. You feel no justification for these... bad habits, so you feel worse. But if you don't even concentrate on seeing how bad you feel and try to distract yourself from facing the consequences of your understanding, meaning that you feel worse about the things you are doing than you used to, if you don't face that and feel remorse, then you get even more trouble.

[26:06]

You cause even more disturbance. Because you should know better. And you do know better. So you're being, in some sense, worse than you were before you were awake. It's just terrible. Just terrible. And everybody, and you cause much more confusion than before. Because before, it's like, there you were, an ignorant jerk. And now you're like a jerk who's kind of like enlightened and not doing his job. It really causes a lot of trouble for people. It's really bad. That's why you shouldn't get enlightened. Until you're ready to go to work afterwards. So think about it before you take this leap, okay? Because it's going to really be trouble if you don't follow through. But they actually, you know, I'm not kidding. So, you know, get steady now. Before you do the great death, be ready for afterwards you're going to have to keep working. It's not going to be so easy to loaf afterwards.

[27:12]

Okay? Rin-san? We were talking about, it seems like either one or the other thing, either grasping or a complete letting go. Yeah, right. I used to chant something by Ajahn Chah and by Horcruz. He said, if you let go a little, you have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you'll have a lot of peace. But I wondered, that goes on to say, if you let go completely, you'll have complete peace and freedom, et cetera, et cetera. What I wondered was, people that we're reading about are fairly highly evolved people who are in this place of having completely let go. But if you're just some regular form of being, is it possible to train in some sort of way by, you know, Are there degrees of letting go? Is it possible to confirm and to help? Does that help you to understand anything? Okay, so.

[28:15]

I never met John Shaw, so I don't know. But it sounds like you're being kind of sweet about this, right? Let go a little, you feel pretty good. Let go a little bit more, you feel better. Let go completely, you feel really free. The way some Zen people put it is the other way around. If you hold on even the tiniest bit. Okay? In that tiny bit of holding on, the entire universe fits in that space. And all the world's problems can still come out of that little bit of holding on. So I think it's true that if you let go a little, you feel some peace. I think that's true. Let go a little bit more, I think you feel more peace. Okay? And let go completely, you feel complete peace. And then after feeling complete peace, then you really have to go to work. He probably, I agree. But when you let go a little bit and feel a little peace, that little bit of letting go is also allowing big problems too.

[29:22]

That's the other. And so if you can't face that, then we just say, okay, let go a little bit and you feel a little peace. But if you can face this big responsibility, then that's not that approach. You have to really let go all the way. So building up the wholehearted practice is fine, but in some ways you could say it doesn't really help this kind of build-up. The only thing that helps is the realization itself. And all this messing around is really not that helpful. It's just, it's kind of more the same kind of half-hearted practice. And it really counts that you do one more half-hearted thing. It actually sets, it continues the pattern. And we feel compassion for the person, but in another way we say, although I feel compassion, this is actually continuing the habit. Don't be confused about that. You're still holding on

[30:23]

And this approach, which I talked about before, of letting the bow go a little bit, you know, half and half and half, and pretty soon it just goes, it doesn't really work that way. Okay, yes? I think it was last class that you said, or if you say, that it's not that we can contemplate ultimate reality, but we contemplate the idea of ultimate reality. Do you remember saying that? I think I might have said that, yeah. You can... Could you... Could you talk about that? The difference or the... What do you mean by correct... What you meant by correcting yourself and saying it's not contemplating ultimate reality but contemplating the idea of it? I think that contemplating the idea of ultimate reality is kind of like this thing about letting go halfway or letting go a little If you contemplate ultimate reality, that helps in some sense, you know, helps you calm down a little bit.

[31:32]

Can you contemplate the idea of it? Yeah, contemplate the idea. For example, ultimate reality is, the idea of ultimate reality is that you're all helping me. Okay, so when you help me in the form of insulting me and telling me how much you hate me, stuff like that, when you help me that way, If I remember the teaching that you're helping me, whatever you do is helping me, if I remember that teaching, I contemplate that teaching, that helps me be patient and say thank you, rather than kind of get distracted from what's happening and getting kind of like doing various things, which I would do if I forget that you're helping me. It's kind of like contemplating the idea of ultimate truth, that all beings are giving me life. that everybody's helping me, that everything that comes towards you is the Buddha Dharma. That's ultimate. So you have the idea, everything that happens, everybody you meet, everything they do to you, every overwhelming event or underwhelming event is the Buddha Dharma.

[32:42]

There are no objects. Okay? You think about that and you're thinking about ultimate reality. That helps you not punch out ultimate reality. That helps you not get angry at bodhisattvas when they're helping. Which is a big mistake. To get angry at anything because everything is buddha-dharma. Okay? That's contemplating ultimate reality as an idea or as concepts. Actually contemplating ultimate reality is when you actually don't see the object out there and you can't contemplate it or think about it. You actually, you are behaving like everybody is not an object. That's the actual contemplation of ultimate reality. So it's an activity. It's a way of living. The actual contemplation. And it is...

[33:44]

the great death. When you accomplish, when you actually are doing the contemplation of ultimate reality, you have died. You have let go. So letting go and the contemplation are the same thing. Before that, you're like thinking about letting go and thinking about how everything is coming to you as Buddha Dharma. But you're still kind of like thinking that there's an idea out there and you're over here. But at some point, you just, you drop it. It drops. And that's a great tip. And how we get to the place where it drops, there's no way to get there. And yet, somebody's yelling all the time about ultimate reality. And you're there hearing it. Kind of like, and trying to cope with all this stuff about ultimate reality. Okay?

[34:48]

Yes? Are these two, like, adults, like, reflecting each other in this great day? Are they reflecting each other? Yeah, they're reflecting each other, they're supporting each other. They're reflecting all beings, they're supporting all beings, and, you know, they're kind of with it. Shall we go to the story now? Yes? I just had, I'm trying to remember this poem that I read that Buddha read at one point that this work that supposedly said, it was something like, forsaking loved ones and worldly delights, determined to seek a heaven like this, one may overcome some pain, but not the great one in the end. I think that's pretty neat for completing conventional reality. You've used it kind of.

[35:51]

Like no matter how much you feel like you're giving up, that may not be the real background. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wish I was sure. What? It's something like that. Sounds pretty good. By the way, Martha Wax did a nice little, I don't know if I would call this a cartoon, but it's something like a cartoon of this case. Do you want to look at it afterwards? I get it. I don't want to pass it around. I'll leave it here and you can come look at it, okay? I don't want to get upstaged for the whole class by this thing. Okay, so here we're back to the story. So we got Jiaojiao, who's like 40 years older than Tozu.

[36:54]

And Tozu's like, he's a graduate of the program. He's a fairly old guy. Jiaojiao's like really old. So after Tozu finishes studying with his teacher, Suiwei, Okay? Do you know about his studying with his teacher, Tsui Wei? Do you know about that, Rev? You don't? That's the story we just told, where he says to Tsui Wei. So he went to see Tsui Wei, and he found him in the hall walking around, so he went up to him. Tozu? went up to his teacher at Si Wei, who was walking around the hall in the temple. Okay, get the picture? Everybody got the picture? Teacher's walking around the hall, I don't know what he's doing, walking around the hall.

[37:55]

In China, you know, in those days, you know, they might not have had that much to do. You know, life is tough sometimes, you know, it's dark. Like, imagine, like, turned off all the lights here, you know? Like, you have one candle here at Green Gulch, the whole place, one candle. So teachers are walking around just trying to keep it warm or something. So he's a monk coming looking for the teacher and he sees him in the hall, he walks up there, teacher's walking around, so he immediately goes up to the teacher and greets him with a bow and asks, what does the Master, how does the Master point people, point out to people the esoteric meaning of coming from the West? Coming from the West means bodhidharma. How does the Master here point out to people the esoteric meaning of Zen Buddhism. And then Sui Wei says, Sui Wei stopped walking, looked around and looked around at him. And Toju says, please direct me.

[38:57]

And Sui Wei says, do you want a second ladle full of foul water? Do you understand? You don't? Well, what do you mean you don't understand? You don't understand what I don't understand? Well, I can't believe it. Okay, so you asked Sui Wei, what's the esoteric meaning of Buddhism, right? What's the esoteric meaning of Buddhism? And he said, do you want another ladleful of fallow water? Do you understand that? I understand the words. Yes? I think the translation is a little ambiguous. I mean, it might be a little different from the book. My impression is that you're right. So the way it's walking past, it's almost as though the monks might be lined up in a, you know, there's several monks standing there and the master's going by, perhaps as part of a ceremony or something in ritual, or maybe going to the front of the hall to speak or something like that.

[40:09]

And then the... then Toza says, how does the master reveal, excuse me, how does, how would the master reveal the teaching of the esoteric nature of Zen? Okay. And then, but the point is, the master then stops, Sui Wei then stops. He just stops walking and looks at it. Yeah. That's all. Yeah. And then Toza presumes that, well, so tell me, And then he says, well, do you want another ladle full of foul water? Right. So do you get the first ladle of foul water? Do you get the first ladle? Did he ask? No, the first ladle is the teacher stops and looks at him. That's one ladle of foul water. Okay, so you want to know what Zen is, right? Okay, you ask. All right? If the teacher keeps walking, you don't get any foul water. unless he walked to give you something.

[41:14]

But if you say to the teacher, the teacher's walking by and you say, hey, hey, what's that about? The teacher just keeps walking. You don't get no fall of water. You don't get anything. Hey, wait a minute, I asked you a question. Come here. Just keeps walking. No fall of water, right? But this guy's kind of like a little bit, a little compromise here. He stops and goes. So then you say, well, come on, tell me. Do you want another one? I already blew it by even stopping. I should have left you alone in the first place. But I thought maybe if I gave you some foul water, you'd say, oops, sorry, I asked. I take it back. I take it back. I don't want to know what I'm saying is. I shouldn't have asked in the first place. I'm really sorry. Please forgive me. You are forgiven. Never ask again. But he gave him a little bit of foul water, told him, you know, this should be heartening to you, by the way.

[42:19]

Here's a great Zen master who blew it twice. First he blew it by asking. Then he got it, which is not what he wanted. So then he tried it again. So if you do that, don't feel so bad because great Zen masters have done this. All right, so, do you want another one? Then what does he say? Oh, well, it worked. It worked. Okay, so what's Zen? What's Zen? The teacher didn't just keep walking, which would have been very pure. He stopped and gave him some foul water. The guy then says, you know, it's not enough, I want more fallow water. So he says, do you want more fallow water? And maybe that wasn't fallow water. Maybe he's saying, I gave you some fallow water, do you want more? So then he understood.

[43:21]

What he should have understood beforehand, but couldn't, but he let go, and then he understood. So he was enlightened, so that's a happy story, right? So now Tsui Wei's student, Tozu, is doing fine, right? So, it's good news. And then he says, then Sui Wei says, don't fall down. Don't fall down. In other words, now that you've awakened, don't fall down. Keep training. Tozu says, when the time comes, sprouts grow themselves. Fall down. This is not the end. Keep practicing. Keep practicing. Okay, and Tozu, as you can see, the sprouts will come when it's the right time. And then Tsui Wei writes this poem for his student. When has the Buddha principle ever had a principle, ever been a principle?

[44:27]

Real emptiness is not empty. Datong, Datong is Tozu's name. His monk's name. Tozu is the name of his mountain. But his monk's name is Datong. Datong will dwell in the abode of silence, spreading the message of our teaching. Okay? So then he stays. I don't know how long he practiced there with Sui Wei, but eventually he left and he went to his native area, which is in Tongchun, and so he was there, and so he was living someplace in his native area, and here comes Mr. Jiaojiao, who's like roaming all over China, right? This old great master, roaming around China. He's everywhere. It's amazing. So he's wandering in this area of Tongzhong,

[45:33]

And he hears about Tozu, which is the name of the guy who lives up on Mount Tozu in a hermitage. And also in China, there's an ancient tradition which is still going on of people living up in the mountains. People kind of know about them because, you know, they eat and stuff. They come down and get vegetables. And so people know about them sometimes. And then people go up and visit them. Sometimes they make a little hut nearby them. or just hang out under a tree near them. So, Zhaozhou sees Tozu and thinks, oh, he says to a layperson who's walking along, he says, is that Tozu? And the layperson says, yeah. So then he says, he goes over to Tozu and says, are you Master Tozu? And Tozu says, would you give me some money for salt and tea? Huh? Tea? Salt and tea? And, uh, Zhaozhou, I guess, doesn't give him any money and goes up to Tozu and makes a little camp and waits for Tozu to come back.

[46:45]

When Tozu comes back, Zhaozhou comes out to meet him and says, What is Tozu? And Tozu holds up... Oh, Tozu is carrying some oil and holds up the oil and says... Oh, no. He says, What is Tozu? Huh? And he says, I... What does he say? Oh. He says... Oh, no, no, no. I got it wrong. So he sees Tozu coming with the jar of oil. And then Jojo says, I have long heard of Tozu, but now that I've come here, I only see an old man selling oil. And Tozu says... You only see the old man selling oil. You don't see Tozu. And Zhaozhou says, what is Tozu? And Tozu raises the oil and says, oily oil, or oil, oil. And then Zhaozhou says, I've been a thief from the beginning, and now you've even stolen from me.

[47:58]

OK? So... He recognizes him as being better than himself? Yeah. So Jojo recognizes Tozu as better than himself. Which, by the way, is a characteristic of Zen masters. That they find people that are better than themselves. And they're happy to find that. Rebecca, you look like... More enlightened. More enlightened. I hope, you know, I don't know. I think they just play games with each other. I think that earlier story with the student, you know, asking him to go to the institute. Yeah, yeah. That could have been like a test or a trick question. You could also look at it that way, maybe just he was testing the teacher.

[49:01]

Yeah, maybe so. But it could have been, yeah, it could have been testing the teacher. But he did say, you know, please direct me. And it did say that he was enlightened at that time, so apparently that was kind of a new thing for him. Now maybe that, maybe, you know, that's just a story, right? I'm just saying that you might think, well, how could Jaojo find anybody more enlightened than himself? I mean, he was like one of the greatest Zen masters of all time. How can he find people that are better than himself? Well, that's the thing, is that these very developed people can find people more developed than them. That's a sign of being very developed. The person who finds everybody more developed than them is the most developed one. They have their presence. I mean, they're an influence on the people that they are. Yeah, right.

[50:09]

Well, not only that, but they see it as greater than their own. And they're happy to see it. It isn't like, well, of course, there's some examples of people who are sort of Zen masters who find people that they can see, boy, that person's greater than me, and they feel bad about it. Darn it. Anyway, he recognized this guy as his equal or his superior. And he went and apparently he went and told people all over China about this guy because after this event, Tozu became famous. Tozu was living, he was a hermit, right? He was the hermit of Mount Tozu. He finished his training. And he was living on a mountain by himself. He was a hermit. And he would come down to try to get salt, tea, and oil, right? Begging, give me some money so I can buy some salt and oil and tea. All right? A begging hermit. No students. He's a graduate of the Enlightenment course, but he has no students. He's living up in the woods. But people like him.

[51:15]

They're not going to study with him yet, but they kind of like him. So the word's out that some cool guy's living up there, but he's not attracting any students yet because Zhao Zhou hasn't put the word out yet. So Zhao Zhou goes to visit him, and Zhao Zhou says, this guy can steal from me. And he tells everybody. So then after that, Tozu has lots of students. Make sense? There's another story here, right? One day... Tozu set out in a little tea setting for himself and Zhaozhou. And he personally handed Zhaozhou the tea. Zhaozhou didn't pay any attention. So then he said to his attendant, would you please give the old man some tea? So the attendant brings the tea to Zhaozhou, and Zhaozhou bows to the attendant three times. And The commentator in this book and the commentator in the blue-clip record, Case 41, they both had the same question.

[52:19]

What does that mean? That Bao Zhaozhou wouldn't accept the tea from Kouzu, but bowed three times to the attendant. What is that? What do you think that's about? I had a sense it was about direct transmission and relative absolute, that somehow Oh, I can't stand this. It's too abstract. It's directly between them, the passing, when he passes the tea directly. It's almost like walking by in answer to the question, in that the attendant is more like coming like that, that he becomes two words. It comes to a medium, so that the offering is put in front of a medium of someone else. I'm resisting. I think he was testifying to the oneness, I don't think.

[53:20]

I'm resisting. Resisting. Please forgive me. That's okay. Yes? Tozu has a tea party for Jiaojiao, sets out the stuff, offers Jiaojiao the tea. Jiaojiao doesn't pay attention to him. So he says to the attendant, give Jiaojiao the tea. Jiaojiao then bows three times to the attendant. I'm resisting these things you said about relative and absolute and direct and indirect. Humility? Yeah. Being humble. He's bowing to the attendant. He can't even bow to... He can't even... He can't even bow to Tozu. He bows to his attendant. Tozu is like honoring Jojo, right? Making tea for... Tozu is honoring Jojo. Jojo can't accept Tozu's towards his honor. But how about can he accept it from the attendant?

[54:21]

He bows to the attendant. He can't even accept it from the attendant. He bows to the attendant. Oh, this is like such painful, so lowly. The greatest Zen master of all time is way down there. Oh. I mean, I don't mind it. It's just, isn't that amazing? That's the way I see it. Yeah, Vernon? I was just remembering another, I don't know if it was in here, the Blue Cliff Record, where a Zen master was supposed to meet somebody and he wouldn't meet them, but then this person sent their general, he would go and meet the general, and then when they asked him, well, how about if they just sent the lieutenant? So I would walk all the way to town to meet the lieutenant. I don't know if that means either, but it just reminds me.

[55:25]

It does, doesn't it? Sounds a lot like that. This is like I would crawl all the way down to meet the private. Okay, so, is this an example of post-traumatic? Traumatic stress syndrome? Is this an example of post-death? Post-traumatic stress syndrome, you know that? Yes. Oh, you do? You learned it? It's a kind of popular term in America. A lot of people in America are traumatized. Probably in Germany, too. I don't know if you got the term, but... Does it exist without the term? Huh? Does it exist? Does it exist without the term? That was too much. Uh-oh. I remember I heard you say once compassion, and I think it's also a quote, compassion is like reaching back for a pillow in the night.

[56:50]

So there's darkness, but here it's kind of associated with daylight. And I don't know why I say this, but I feel from the story tonight, I learned compassion is something that is very fluid. Because after all, all these stories are kind of combined by liquids, or water, or tea. Kind of speckled all over. Yeah, I agree. Compassion's very fluid. But in the fluidity, there's sometimes little, you know, chunks of vegetables. And sometimes, like, there's alphabet compassion. Some little words flowing around in the fluid.

[57:53]

Like, hi! So this story about the tea and stuff, this is like, you know, an example of, maybe this is an example of Tozu saying, don't travel, don't go by night, arrive in the day. He's saying that. So when he offers tea to Jojo, is that his coming by the day? And Jiaojiao not accepting is that Jiaojiao is coming by day. What does it mean now? We're into the compassion part now. We've come back to life, okay? Now we're in the part about daytime. So, we're ready for the verse. The verse says, the seed castle, the eon rock, subtly exhausting the beginning.

[58:56]

Okay. The living eye in the ring illumines vast emptiness. Can't go by night, arrive by dawn's light. The sound or the message of the family couldn't be entrusted to a goose or a fish. Okay. So the beginning line is There's two, you know, the seed castle and the eon rock. Those are expressions for long time. Okay? So a long time, a long time, you do this subtle and exhaustive study of the beginning. The beginning of what? Before the death?

[60:12]

I don't think so. No. No. No. The beginning. It's exhausting the beginning and it's like disappearing the beginning. It's like disappearing the beginning. What's the beginning? Hmm? Hmm? What? He said the arising of form. The arising of form? Delusion. Delusion? The arising of delusion? Well, anyway, we're supposed to study this beginning. So what's the beginning? Is it the, huh? What? Emptiness? Emptiness. Ignorance? We've got them all now. We've got emptiness and we've got ignorance. We've got form, we've got emptiness, and we've got ignorance about form and emptiness.

[61:19]

So we're all set. What are we supposed to study exhaustively? The beginning. Now, is this the beginning before anything happens? Or is this the beginning... Right now? The beginning of something happening before everything happens? Maybe that's what it is. So there's a beginning which means like before anything happens, right? Well, that's emptiness. Hmm? That's emptiness. What's emptiness? That's emptiness. What's emptiness? Before anything happens. It is? Well, ultimately, everything springs out of it. You know, if things don't spring out of emptiness. That's kind of like a Taoist idea, that there's this emptiness, got this emptiness thing, everything springs out of it. Emptiness goes with the things. Before there's things, there's not even emptiness. You don't have like emptiness sitting there and then a thing popping out.

[62:21]

It's rather when the thing pops out, it's empty. Which is why there's no beginning. Well, there's no beginning, but there is a beginning, too. Things do have a beginning, but... So, the beginning is before something happens, right? But how can you study that? Yeah. Silence. Right. How do you study... How can you study anything but conventional reality? Yup. How can you study anything but conventional reality? Well, after you study conventional reality, thoroughly. And is there anything more to study after that? Yes. What? Yes. Yes? Yes. Okay. Got that. Exhaustively investigate the beginning. Yeah.

[63:23]

Dashman. Attachment what? Is that the beginning? You're saying attachment is the beginning? It's only the exhausting beginning. Attachment. Well, but something happening does not necessarily mean attachment. I'm not saying any of that. I thought you said that the beginning was attachment. What did you mean? Attachment. It's just what comes to mind. Is that the beginning? I don't think it's the beginning. Necessarily. Okay. You just happened to say what came next. I can't. How do you study the beginning? Well, one way to study the beginning is to get to the end. Get to the end and then that's it, right?

[64:26]

You're all done. Now, can something happen? When you get to the end, then you're before the beginning. You're before the beginning. Sometimes they call the beginning the eon of emptiness. They sometimes call the beginning the eon of emptiness. Yes? What's the end? Yeah, what's the end? The great death. The end's when you stop, when you give up all your trips. What do you say? When all is said and done. English we say. When all is said and done. When you're done saying and doing things. Okay? When all is said and done. In other words, ultimately, at the end, you're done. No more grasping. That's the end. Now, what about the beginning? Yeah. So that's a Zazen. Zazen.

[65:30]

Okay? Zazen. Study in the beginning. All right? Study in the beginning. So then, study in the beginning. Does something happen? Eventually something happens. What happens? Something happens, whatever it is, is it empty? Yes. Yes, it's empty. The second line. What? The second line. The second line. It's empty. And you understand the emptiness of what has happened because you're studying the beginning. You see how it happened. You illumine emptiness. Emptiness is illumined. Now, in this situation, you can't go by night.

[66:37]

You have to arrive by day. And then they have this story here about not trusting the goose with the message or the fish. And that's Tien Tung's way of celebrating and praising this way of compassion. What's going on here? What does it mean to not go by night and to arrive by day in this study of the beginning? What's going on here now? How is it? Well, you're in a circle and you really can't find a beginning or an end. I mean, if you're not going by night, you're not going. Yeah, you're right. It's a circle and you can't really find a beginning, but there can be the appearance of a beginning. In other words, there can be the appearance of something happening.

[67:43]

Matter of fact, there is the appearance of something happening. That's part of what's going on here, is that Something that's a beginning that's not a beginning, that really doesn't exist, is happening. There is a constant production of what doesn't exist. Okay? So you're not traveling at night. But what does it mean not to travel at night? It seems like unconscious. It can't be unconscious. It can't be unconscious. This is... Don't hide. Don't... Pardon? It's almost like a bodhisattva vow in that third one. We have to enter. What do you mean, Martha, it's almost like a bodhisattva vow? Don't hide from the relative or from the phenomenal world. You be there in the might where things appear as objects. It seems like a description of that journey from enlightenment to the great death towards the bodhisattva vow.

[68:45]

You have to enter the world of relative truth. Yeah, you have to enter the world of relative truth. But how? With discriminating consciousness. With discriminating consciousness. Is that the light? Is that it then? So you're all set then, because you got that, right? Everybody's got discriminating consciousness? This is the way. Are you relieved? What is the night? Pardon? Well, one possibility is the night is like unconsciousness, or another possibility would be a consciousness which isn't discriminating anything. But that's not really a regular consciousness, right? Hmm? Is that a meditative attainment? Well, in some ways it's just the way we are as living beings before we have discriminating consciousness.

[69:54]

Or all the time, just our regular sense functioning is not really making discrimination or attributing beginnings and ends to things. Nirvana? It's not really nirvana. Nirvana is like when you're confronted by discriminating consciousness that you don't indulge in it. It's not the same? No, we're talking about when you're not even confronted by discriminating consciousness. You just have sense, you're alive, but you have no opportunity to see anything out there. You have no way to... You're not conscious of anything. So... That's not necessarily nirvana. As soon as the opportunity to see something out there would happen, you would immediately grab it, maybe. But to see something out there and not be fooled, in other words, to realize that there aren't any objects out there, that everything that's coming is buddha-dharma, that's nirvana.

[71:01]

Hmm. So what is this state then? Pardon? What is this state if it's not nirvana? What is what state? Being conscious of anything, going by night. I mean, can't go by night, going by night. It's not nirvana, it's not being conscious of anything. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. It's like the way to express compassion will not be in non-discriminating, or I shouldn't say non-discriminating, will not be in unconsciousness. It will not be in a realm where you can't be tempted by objects. It won't be there. Such a person would be alive. You can't trust a goose or a fish. Gooses and fishes don't do that, do they?

[72:03]

There's no untrustworthy goose. Right. No evil geese. Or evil fishes, like, you know, you give them a message and they say, oh, I'm going to sell this out. I'm going to sell it. So you're figuring, you know, you can't give, this lady can't give her message to one of the people, one of her captors, you know, because they'll just turn her in. So she gives it to a goose. Isn't that safe? Well, theoretically, because a goose isn't going to, like, take it to the guard and say, she tried to pass me this thing, you know. Or you wouldn't bribe a goose. I'll give you the other half when you deliver the message. But you can't trust a goose. You have to trust a regular person who is incorruptible. Somebody who's died a great death. Somebody who's died a great death, and they're willing to start over with regular consciousness like we have, which makes stuff out there coming at us.

[73:10]

Okay, we got it. Would it have worked to have also said, you can't go by death, you have to go by life? Would it work to say, you can't go by death, you have to go by life? You could also have said that with the same idea across. You could, but the thing is, we're talking about after you come back to life, you died, okay? You're coming back to life. So, what kind of life do you come back to? You're like totally cooled out in this life thing of, you know, you're not grasping objects anymore, you're not on any power trips, right? So how are you going to come back to life? Hmm? I'm supportive. by the support of everything else, but also you might come back by the support of everything else into a state where you don't have any objects. That's life too. We are living that way. There's a level of our life that's coming like that.

[74:17]

We're just not tempted by things. There's nothing out there. Part of our biological, neurological activity is that we don't see things out there. We like, you know, touch stuff. But I'm not touching something out there. There's no objects. No objects, Klaus. No objects. No objects, Klaus. No objects. What? When you're driving a car, it's like that. You see the road, you see the trees, but you're not... You're not supposed to drive like that, Klaus. If you're going to drive like that, you just get over into the passenger seat... I'll be the show.

[75:28]

And I'll, like Suzuki Roshi, one time Suzuki Roshi was getting a ride from Tassajara and his driver said, how come you don't drive? And he said, it's too dualistic. So at that time, of course he was kidding, but if he was serious, then that would be like traveling by night. He gets to like sit in the seat and let the driver be dualistic. No. Really, he was sitting in the seat being dualistic about something else. Probably planning some kind of like thing for Tassajara, like Tassajara is going to be this or Tassajara is going to be like that. Like there really is a Tassajara out there, right? Did he have a driver's license? No. Probably just as well, right? If you're going to drive out there anyway, you shouldn't drive, okay? Hey, I drive that all the time. Are you safe? No, I'm not glass. Don't drive that way anymore.

[76:31]

Please, hand it over. And my key, too? Yes, your key, too. You have a really nice car, too, don't you? You can have your driver's license and your keys back if you drive dualistically. Okay. But until then... So there's danger here, then. There's a danger coming by night. Yeah, what's the danger of coming by night? You can't survive. Hmm? You can't survive. What? You can't survive, she said. No, you can survive. You can survive. You're always getting support. Even if you are unconscious, you get support. Even if you don't see objects, you get support. It's just that you shouldn't drive cars, and also you can't fulfill your compassion unless you enter into the world like where other people, where you see objects.

[77:35]

and where you can see objects and be tested by them and, you know, see them out there and then not fall for that. That's where you exercise your compassion. And that's the story, you know, where he serves him tea. Like, I'm, Tozu, serving you Zhao Zhou tea, and Zhao Zhou doesn't pay attention. Now I'm going to get my attendant to serve you tea, and Zhao Zhou bows. This is like...objects. They're right in the object, just like the rest of us. But there's a little, somehow, there's a difference. Was he also saying that he didn't want to see his teacher as an object? I mean, in addition to that, I don't know the right interpretation of that. No, it's not that you don't want to see, it's not that you don't want something, it's that everything is Buddhadharma. And everything you do shows that.

[78:37]

He chose to objectify the attendant and not his teacher in that interaction. And he acknowledged the teacher as an object. No, I think he acknowledged the teacher as an object, the attendant as an object, everything as an object, and never fell for anything. Totally subjected to ordinary perception. and behaved in this outrageously enlightened way. Both of them did. In other words, they're in the daylight. They're like dealing with the same kind of objects that we do and not being fooled by it. There aren't any objects out there. And when you see it, then you also come back that way. Then you are coming, you're showing it too. It's showing you, you're seeing it, you're not fooled by it, then you show it.

[79:39]

But it's possible, once you have the great death, it would be possible, you might think, just to be totally cooled up, and you wouldn't see any objects, you'd just, you know... Is that possible? Well, someone might think so. But I think really, he's saying, how is it? In some sense, I think Toze is saying, it's not really possible. You have to go back in the regular world of discriminating consciousness, which is the world that you exhausted. In a state where you perceive at the same time, dualistically and non-dualistically, this borderline gets blurred. You can't perceive non-dualistically. There's no non-dual perception. And when you understand that there's no non-dual perception, that's called perceiving non-duality.

[80:46]

So all you can perceive is duality. Because if there's a perception, something's outside there, so there's duality between perceiver and perceived. Non-duality is realized by completely letting go in that process and not trying to control it at all. And in the process of perceiving external objects to realize they're not objects and no matter what happens, it's Buddha Dharma. Realizing that, the great death happens, then after the great death, then what? Right back into it again. The auxerting. It's the auxerting. It's auxerting, but the pictures might be a little different from some of those pictures. The end picture, it's an auxerting picture where the end picture and the beginning picture are the same. And you still have two pictures. Yes. But some of the beginnings, this in-between stages, might not be there.

[81:53]

So it's Oxfordian pictures mostly emphasizing the beginning, the first picture, and the last picture. And that they're separate and simultaneous. They're separate and inseparable. So this is like the immediate Oxfordian. Instead of stages, it's like the immediate ten Oxfordian pictures in one moment. So, the final stage is you're willing to be in the first stage. Excuse me, in Oxfordian pictures, there's some in-between stages in Oxfordian pictures. There's one of them that's got a big empty circle. No, no. This thing, this thing, no, no. That's dark, that empty circle, that's darkness. We don't have that one. It's almost like it could be there, but not really. It's like the circle's full of junk, and it's the same junk as it was at the beginning. It looks, some people say, oh, it looks like this guy's really happy, she's bopping around the market, you know, kissing everybody.

[83:00]

But it looks just like at the beginning, when you're kind of wandering around the market, kind of like wondering, well, where am I? It's almost exactly the same, except, you know, when they pass you the tea, you'd ignore it, and you bow to the attendants. It's kind of like exactly the same and like totally surprising, or a little bit surprising. You kind of get it, right? So it's kind of like you're all set. You're completely at the beginning. You're completely at the end. You've got the same stuff that they do when they finished. You've got the same stuff that they had when they started. You just have a lot of work to do. to make this all, like, real, so that you really feel like there aren't any objects out there and everything that's coming in is buddhidharma. And when you really feel that, it's almost like you could have just a big circle and nothing there. But you don't go for that. You're so free, it's almost like you could have nothing.

[84:04]

And like there could be, like, really nothing out there. Rather than you to understand that all those people out there are not objects, it could be like there aren't any objects. You're so free, you could almost, like, be like that. So you really can't, but it's almost like you can. And some people, when you're so free, you can actually, like, be that free that you could actually, like, not have anything out there. I mean, like, literally. But that wouldn't be it. But that is, in the ten oxygen pictures, that's one of the stages, that empty circle. You know what I mean? There's one stage, nothing there. You could try that out. That could happen. But you come back from that into the city. So Tozer is saying, you know, before... We don't even check into that hotel. We zip right past that empty circle back into the city. It hurts.

[85:06]

The city hurts? Yeah. We zip back into hurtville, which is exactly the same as the beginning, except... you've gone through this great death. That's the only difference. So, we need to be doing this practice, always doing this practice of contemplating ultimate reality, letting go of the cliff. Okay? Letting go of the cliff. What's the cliff? All these objects. Letting go of these objects. Let go. Open your hands and accept Buddhadharma. And then, what do you reward? It comes right back into your game. Do it again. And then see how it's letting go and accepting, but then it's also a blossoming coming. Somehow, when you let go, you actually are doing something.

[86:12]

You let go into doing something. You become a servant of this. Can't trust a goose. It'll be a stage of great faith. Hm? Seems like a stage of great faith. What's a stage of great faith? Just to let whatever comes out be what's happening. Right. Yeah. Yeah, great faith following great death. Or great faith as the expression of great death. Rather than great faith being, you know, hey, nothing happened, no problem. Had enough of this case? Hmm? You haven't died, but we could go on.

[87:20]

Well, let's, you know, keep this case in our heart, and if you want to start studying the next case, case 64... I believe Diana has made copies, is that right? Diana has copies for you. If you want to start looking at case 64, we may get into case 64 next time. Or we may not. Depends on where, you know, what happens, right? We'll just let go now and see what happens next week. How do you say the name of 64? How do I say the name of 64? It's getting late. I'm sorry to keep you up so late. I have these Shakespearean sonnets here, which seem to be relevant to this, but since it's late, maybe I should read them next time.

[88:37]

No, let's hear one. Want to hear one? What? Can you read 101, please? Yes. O truant muse, what shall be thy amends, When thy neglect of truth and beauty died? Both truth and beauty on my love depends, So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer, muse, wilt thou not happily say, Truth needs no color with his color fixed, Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay, But best is best if never it are mixed. Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb? Excuse not silence so, for it lies in thee to make him much outlive a gilded tomb and to be praised of ages yet to be.

[89:39]

Then do thy office muse, I teach thee how, to make him seem long hence as he shows now. Here's my marklet. The dead one. The dead one. Just a coincidence. And if you want to see Martha's picture, where did it go? Okay, here's Martha's picture for you to check out. Good night. Good night.

[90:17]

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