This is a class on BaZen stories, right? And as many people know, we have their books open, the Case 13 of the Book of Serenity. That's the case that we got to last fall. We've been studying for a couple of years. And we've done 13 stories, 12 stories in two years. So we go slowly through these stories. We could go slower, but that's about how fast we go. So we will, at this rate, we'll be done in about 10 years. Because we're going to speed up. I'm not sure exactly at what point, but we actually are speeding up lately. Have you noticed? The last few cases... But before we start, I think it's good to always go back to the beginning of what we're doing so that we understand the context because these stories are like, they're kind of like going over to somebody's house

[01:29]

and entering and going into their, not even to dinner, but almost like going into the bedroom and watching the members of the family talk in bed or brushing their teeth or something. The story's about people who are very intimate, and if you don't understand the context of what they're doing, It may seem, ironically, even though it's about intimate daily life, it may seem very abstract or even intellectual, what's going on. But these stories are stories about the greatest possible intimacy. They emerge from situations of the greatest possible intimacy between people and wherein the intimacy leads to intimacy with the truth and intimacy with freedom, intimacy with compassion. through the intimacy of the relationship and through the language that different that these people speak to each other.

[02:35]

So surrounding all these stories is a basic a basic aspiration that all these people and all these stories have the same thing in common they there's many things that are different about them about these people but there's one thing that they all share and one thing that they're all interested in and one thing that they're all committed to and what is that one thing Yeah. They're all committed to save all living beings. In other words, to help all living beings attain complete freedom and happiness and enlightenment. In other words, not just their own personal happiness, but that they even are able to work

[03:42]

unhinderedly and unobstructedly to help others. This is what all these stories, all the people in all these stories are basically share that, this one thing. Everything else about them may vary, but that's the one thing they share. Okay? So these stories are stories about the process of working for world peace and harmony. among beings, and human beings and other beings are usually afflicted by a kind of, they're afflicted by thoughts and opinions And the reason why they're afflicted by these thoughts and opinions is because they believe in these thoughts, misunderstand these thoughts, misinterpret these thoughts, and cling to these thoughts.

[04:49]

So these people in these stories are working with themselves primarily to not be fooled by their own thinking and also by the way the world appears to them, and to help other people also not be fooled by their own perceptions. So the focus of these stories is on perception, on the way we experience the world, and how we can have a revolution in the way we understand what's happening so that we liberate ourselves from our own experience. And these stories are, generally speaking, they're stories of non-duality.

[06:01]

And non-duality means, for example, Case 37 in this book is called Guaishan's Karmic Consciousness. Guaishan is a Zen master. That's his name, Guaishan. It's the name of the place he lives. And it's about a statement in Buddhist scriptures which goes, all living beings just have karmic consciousness, active, evolving consciousness, which understands things in terms of action. All sentient beings just have karmic consciousness with no fundamental to rely on. And that's a kind of statement of non-duality.

[07:17]

In other words, it's not that we're saying that We have people, we have living beings like us, all of us share the fact that we're caught up in thinking which is habitual and conditioned by past thoughts. All sentient beings have that situation. They just have karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear. this karmic consciousness is, with no fundamental to rely on. There's no like deep down underneath kind of like thing you can hold on to that's kind of like save you. All you've got to work with is this illusion factory. However, this illusion factory, this karmically created string of illusion, is the content of and is inseparable from non-discriminating wisdom of all Buddhas.

[08:52]

So, but it's hard for human beings to just accept their thinking as it is and let it be just that. It's very hard for us. If we can do that, if we can see actually how our mind and body function, That is exactly, not even see it, but that, not even see it like somebody's seeing it, but when you're just who you are, when you're just this karmic consciousness, completely just that as it is, that's exactly what we mean by being awake. So that's kind of the fundamental point of view of these stories. And I talked the other night about that there's kind of two gates.

[10:15]

I didn't mention that there's two, I just mentioned one. There's two gates into these stories, or into freedom. One gate is the direct gate, the front gate. And the other gate is called the indirect gate, or the back or side door. And these stories actually show both kinds of gates because the two gates are also non-dual. So I might say tonight that there's There's one thing that's called the lion's roar of the Buddha. The lion's roar. And the lion's roar of the Buddha is that all sentient beings, all living beings, just as they are, is the Buddha nature.

[11:30]

That's the lion's roar of the Buddha. So the front gate is just be exactly what you are. That is not doing anything. That is called non-action of just sitting and being who you are. That's a practice which you cannot prepare for. You can't do that practice. It's something that you cannot... that can have no delay. It only happens in the present. You can't get ready to do it later.

[12:39]

As you're getting ready to do it, that's when you do it. And so on. This kind of practice is particularly... I'll just say, particularly cherished, particularly beloved in the Zen school. To do a practice like that, you have to drop everything and just be yourself, including dropping all ideas of how you do that. So, an example of this comes in the story I just told you about, where after the initial, well, not to tell you the initial story, as someone says,

[13:46]

Guishan says to his great disciple Yangshan, this is case 37, if someone comes up and asks you about this statement, all living beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear, with no fundamental to rely on, how would you how would you verify this teaching with this person who asked you about it? He'd also say, how do you test this person to see how they understand, or how do you help them understand? But he says, in other words, he says, how would you verify? In other words, how would you actualize this teaching right with this person as they ask? He and Yangshan said, if somebody comes up to me like that, I would say to them, So the monk comes up to him and says, "'Teacher, what do you say about this statement?

[14:54]

All sentient beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear, with no fundamental to rely on. What about that?' Yangshan would say, "'Hey, you!' If the monk turns his head, then I would say, "'What is it?' If he hesitates, I would say, Not only do all sentient beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear, but there's not even any fundamental to rely on. Now what's embedded in that story is that when the monk, when he first said, hey you, and the monk turned his head, at that time, the monk's response was perfect. And then you further verify the monk's response by saying, what is it?

[15:57]

If the monk can handle that, we don't know what the monk will do if the monk can handle that. But if the monk hesitates when asked, what is it? In other words, if the monk reaches for some fundamental other than just his direct response, then he's done for. He's been caught. He doesn't believe anymore that people just have karmic consciousness. He thinks there's some fundamental, he thinks there's some good answer. He lost his faith in just being himself. But when someone says, hey you, you may just turn your head. At that time you have faith in being yourself. you may not think, oh, I have faith in being myself. But in fact, when somebody says, hey, you, and you turn your head, you do have faith in being yourself. And then there's another story, which is very, I'll say, to give you another angle on this.

[17:02]

It's a story, it's in the commentary on this story. It's a story of another Zen teacher named Yunnan. And someone, a monk, asked Yunnan, in the Avatamsaka Sutra it says that that the fundamental affliction of ignorance itself is the immutable knowledge of all the Buddhas. The fundamental affliction of ignorance itself is the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas, of all the Buddhas. Okay, is that clear? That that's the same statement as saying that all sentient beings just being themselves is what we mean by awakening. Is that clear? Same statement? Is it? So then the monk says, this seems to be a very deep, profound statement, difficult to understand, difficult to explain.

[18:08]

And Yunnan says, oh, I don't think so. I think it's quite clear and distinct and easy to explain. He said, for example, at that time there was a boy standing nearby sleeping and Yunnan said, Hey you! And the boy turned his head. And Yunnan said, Is this not the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas? And then he said to the boy, What's your Buddha nature? And the boy said, hesitated, became lost and wandered off. And he said, is this not the fundamental affliction of ignorance? Can you see the difference between those two responses? Between turning your head and hesitating? Are you saying that that reaction wasn't the tip?

[19:11]

You know, the reaction like this, that was his Buddha nature. That was his Buddha nature, but there you can see that that's the fundamental affliction of ignorance too. Can you see that? It's not that the fundamental affliction of ignorance itself, just as he was then, In his hesitation. That's the Buddha nature. Right? But can you see the fundamental affliction of ignorance there? I guess I'm not quite clear that conglomeration of words, fundamental affliction of ignorance. Well, the boy was confused, lost, wandered off. He didn't know what hit him. He felt lost and confused, didn't he? I don't know, I guess I wouldn't necessarily read it that way.

[20:16]

Maybe he just, you know, maybe he had this other feeling, you know, that this isn't the place for me to be, or this isn't the exchange, and something told, you know, just let's, you know, get out of here, or something like this. I guess I can't, I'm not saying everything can't be on that verbal level, even though I know you're not saying that. Well, what I'm saying is that look, just look at the two responses, okay? In one response he just turns his head. In the next response, he hesitates. In other words, he doesn't... In the case of both stories, there's a hesitation, there's a being at a loss, there's a reaching for something else. There's not a trusting in the present, in the two stories, in the second response. So you're putting it on him that maybe he had reason not to trust. I guess I just... I mean, I understand what you're saying, but there seems to be this little part of me that sees that there are other ways to explain his behavior.

[21:21]

Well, but even if you explain his behavior another way, then I would say to you, are there moments in our lives when we hesitate, when we don't trust this, Not to blame the boy and say he was that way. He's supposed to be representing us when we hesitate. If he wasn't hesitating, okay. But the idea is anyway, sometimes I say to somebody, hey you, and they just turn, and that's it. And the Buddha nature, the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas is no more than that. In another case, they hesitate and they feel lost. They feel undermined. They feel that they are not in the present. And that's what ignorance is. But in both cases, they're very similar, aren't they? One, you're turning your head. The other, you're hesitating. In the case of turning your head, you could also say that's the fundamental affliction of ignorance.

[22:25]

You could say it then, too. It's just that ignorance is not real. And the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas is. The immutable knowledge of the Buddhas is real? It's real. And the ignorance or the affliction is not real. So in the story of where the boy hesitates, in other words, hesitation, hesitation is not real. Non-hesitation is real. What do you mean by real? I mean happiness. I mean freedom. That's what I mean by real. Isn't the hesitation doubt? Yeah, you could say doubt. Say when you're going to make a choice or a decision in your life, if you wait two weeks to make that decision, usually that two weeks is pretty painful.

[23:27]

Usually, yeah. It's hesitating and doubtful, but if you make that decision like that, you don't fall into that painful... Yeah, and what's being proposed here is, in fact, that in reality we always make decisions like that. We never hesitate, really. There really is no hesitation. That's why in the hesitation itself, the hesitation itself... as it really is, is the Buddha nature. Really the way the boy's hesitation is, as it is, that's the Buddha nature. And yet, the boy doesn't understand that, or we don't understand it when we hesitate, and therefore the exact same response, which as it is, is the Buddha nature, the exact same response is misery. And it's the same world.

[24:31]

It's exactly the same world. In both worlds, the head is turned or the foot is stubbed. Wasn't the asking of the question set up? Was it set up? And what is it could also be said to be a conceptual question too, right? In the other story. Well, first he says, hey you, and then he says, what is it? No, there's two stories. They're similar stories. Yeah, but I'm saying in the previous story when he said, what is it? Also, that's a similar kind of thing where it throws one into the conceptual realm.

[25:37]

Right? Yeah. So that's what they're doing. They're trying to verify it. First of all, they did verify it. In both cases, when they said, hey, you, they got the response where the person stayed in the present. and the person was not misled, did not mislead himself. Then they said, okay, now let's take one step further and see if they can now handle a more conceptual question or whether they get caught. In other words, have they verified this teaching fairly thoroughly? So they're testing. Like if you ask somebody a question, you know, ask somebody a question, you say, like this, you say, 51 is followed by 52... is followed by 53. Now, what is it? That even helps them more to get into it. You sort of get their mind going, 51, 52, 53, okay, now what is it? Well, you know, that is a setup. In other words, can you follow along with me being conceptual and then now I ask you, what is conceptuality and can you get not caught by it?

[26:42]

So that's what sometimes people do is they You test the wa... You know, what is it? You test water with a stick. You test minds with words, with concepts. Can you put words up in front of a person and see if they don't hesitate, if they realize that there is no being misled? And it's hard for us not to be misled by words. So it is a test. And is that deception, having a pseudo-assist? Is it deception? I don't think it's deception. I don't feel it's deception myself. Pardon? Do I feel it's deception to test people? I'm asking this because then you have an idea in your mind. You might...

[27:45]

Being just there, you have an idea already of mine. I have to test this person. Why do you … Oh, he was asked, he was asked by his teacher how he would test it. His teacher said, how would you test it? And he said, I would test it like this. That's historic, right? He said, how would you test this? If someone comes up and asks you about this, how would you test it, or how would you verify it? this teaching. So he said, this is how I would test it. You don't have to test things all the time with people, but sometimes that's what's happening, is you're testing. But if people don't want to be tested, I think that it's kind of impolite to test them. I think that the testing should be a voluntary agreement. Students come to Buddhist teachers and say, please test me. And the teacher says, what is it? And the student goes, whatever they do, you know.

[28:50]

And then the student feels like, I'm miserable. And the student doesn't believe that that's the immutable knowledge of Buddha. But that's not true. Whatever their response is, itself is the immutable knowledge of Buddha. Whatever we do, we are always Buddha's children. Exactly. No matter what we do, we never vary from it in the slightest. But we cannot believe that under some circumstances. Under certain circumstances, we do believe it. Like when the Buddha says to us, Ted, and you say yes, at that time you believe it. It's not like you think, oh, I said Ted, that's the right answer, therefore I'm Buddha's kid. That's not what you think. Believing that you're Buddha's kid is when Buddha says, good morning, Ted. You say, good morning, Buddha. That's believing you're Buddha's kid. Just a response like that. You're not feeling like, I'm talking to Buddha. I better give the right answer. I better not waste this chance.

[29:53]

Or even that thought, if you feel like, well, here I am talking to Buddha. This is my only chance. I'm probably going to get pretty uptight about this. That's who I am. This is normal for a Buddha's kid to get nervous when around having a five-minute interview with Buddha. I'm probably going to get nervous. This is fine. This is not... I'm not hesitating. I'm totally nervous. You know? And I'm not going to miss this chance to be nervous. And I'm really self-conscious and I don't want to miss this... I don't want to, you know, waste this opportunity. This is perfectly... perfectly immutable knowledge of all Buddhas. That's what it really is. But if I hesitate... If I feel like I'm hesitating, then I feel like I don't really believe that, and therefore that's what ignorance is. Ignorance is not much more than that. Of course, you can crank it up from there into tremendous misery and tremendous war from that place.

[30:58]

sitting here and see that's the kind of training that i got the through schools and through parents was come up with the right answer yes instead of just responding yes much of my that's karma consciousness growing up was you know that's you have to learn what what's the hesitation well what's what's the right answer yeah all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion. So my parents taught me this stuff and out of greed I wanted to please them and out of hate I wanted to fight them. Anyway, all that, and also I was confused about which one to do. And after all that greed, hate and delusion, now I've got karmic consciousness. And that's all I've got. And everybody else helped me get it. And because everybody else helped me get it, that's exactly why karmic consciousness is Buddha's mind, is because you didn't do it all by yourself. All living beings help you make your karmic consciousness, and your karmic consciousness as it is, exactly as it is, that is precisely freedom.

[32:05]

Because that's the only thing you've got, and that's the only thing you don't have to mess with. You're completely free with that gift that you have. Every moment you get a new common consciousness, freshly delivered, totally out of your control, but you can settle with it, or you can hesitate and fight it. If you hesitate and fight it, that is the definition of ignorance. In other words, you ignore what you are at that moment. And the reason why you ignore it is because you cling to some idea of what you're supposed to be as a Zen student or as a kind person or as a crook or whatever you think you are. You cling to that and therefore you resist and fight being the creature you are and being the creature you are in full faith that you, just as you are, breath after breath, that is the immutable knowledge of Buddha and that is nothing at all.

[33:16]

It's real, but it's nothing at all, nothing in addition to your life. It's just your life. That's the front door. And it comes from the Lion's Roar of Buddha saying that each person, just as they are, Or sometimes they say, all beings, whole being. In other words, who you are totally. Who you really are, just as you are. Not just your little idea of yourself, but who you are completely as you are. That is Buddha. That's the Buddha nature. And so that kind of teaching leaves us with a basic koan, which is, how is it that this, right now, is the manifestation of ultimate reality?

[34:24]

How is that? That this is the truth. And we have trouble not hesitating with that. Right? We have a little problem with that. We fuss around with that a little bit. If you take on that practice, then your problem is how to accept that point of view, how to live with the point of view that Buddha has, how to live with Buddha's lion's roar. Yes? Well, I was returning to Margo's question briefly. It seems that the person... with that awareness, if asked that question, how would you test, could also say, I wouldn't test, or why should I test, or what would it do for him to test him? Definitely could say that. Yeah. As a matter of fact, that answer has been given. That's a different story. I think she was asking, what is the purpose of testing, and what does it do for him to test?

[35:31]

Does it help him or not? Well, the word wasn't test. The word was verified. So whenever the Buddha does anything, the Buddha is verifying the reality. When Buddha says good morning, Buddha is verifying. When Buddha says good morning, that is verifying Buddhahood. And then if we say good morning back, then that's verifying Buddhahood. But if we don't believe, if Buddha comes up to us or some person comes up to us and says... John, and you say, and then you think, well, that wasn't very good. That wasn't right. That was wrong. I'm screwed up. I don't believe it. I'm in misery, and I don't think the kind of misery I have is freedom, as a matter of fact. As a matter of fact, I feel like punching somebody in the nose, and that's really bad, and on and on we go. If you can realize that each step along the way that I just demonstrated, if you can let that be as it is, then all those are Buddha.

[36:37]

But if you believe those things and you get caught by those things, then that's what we mean by being afflicted. There's no reality to that because, in fact, each one of those cases you could have turned around into complete freedom. If you believe those things, though, that you think they're real, then that's the definition of being afflicted and suffering. Because you ignore, you turn away from what you are. You think that what you are is not right. If you think that what you are is not right, then you feel lousy. Or, and also, thinking that what you are is not right is the same as thinking that what you are is something. So no matter what you think you are, that will get you. Okay? Somebody said to me the other day, you know, barbers think everybody needs a haircut. So, if you've got hair, you're in trouble if you meet a barber.

[37:45]

But if you don't have any hair, it's okay. Barbers will excuse bald people. So if you don't have anything, then You can be yourself. And usually, when somebody says, hey, you, well, maybe not, some of us might be insulted by that, right? My name's Hayes, you eat hay, you don't call me hay. Anyway, if somebody says, hey, at that time, we respond maybe with nothing, you know? We just turn. We're not defending, we're not saying, why are they saying, hey, you, to me, that's rather disrespectful. No, we just turn. And later we say, why did I turn? I shouldn't have turned, they did address me improperly. But just when you turn, that's not real. But if you do those things, we get in big trouble. If you do things that are bad, then they're really bad. But they're not real. If you hesitate, it's not true that hesitation is not real.

[38:51]

You can't hesitate. It's logically impossible to hesitate. But if you hesitate, you get in big trouble. You feel miserable. Because when you hesitate, that means you don't trust yourself. If you don't trust yourself, you feel terrible. But if you can simply not trust yourself and say, okay, man, I don't trust myself. That is where I'm at. Then you trust yourself again. I think that one of the things that's difficult to really grasp what you're saying in some areas is because so often we're taught to act, not react. And the automatic thing that comes up for me when you're discussing it, you progress in your discussion to make it seem a little bit easier and smoother.

[39:53]

But when you first say, respond, the first thing I think is, well, you're reacting. You're not acting on the situation. So when you hesitate, you're taking some time so that it's not a reaction. And that still feels a little shaky for me, what you're saying. When you hesitate what? That when you hesitate to respond, that you're Processing act in the response instead of react to the response, or the question, either or. Well... Got confusion? Yeah, I got confused. I wanted to say that what I'm saying is, first of all, that hesitation is not really happening. So if you hesitate, I don't mind at all, myself, You know? Because I don't really believe that we hesitate. But if you think that you're hesitating, then you feel bad.

[40:55]

That's what I'm saying to you. But if you hesitate and you know that your hesitation is not real, then it's just a little dance. It's called the hesitation. Okay? One, two, three. Hesitate! Okay? One, two, three. Hesitate. You can be an actor, get up on the stage and act out hesitation. What's your booty nature? And you can be totally there in the hesitation. And you are always totally present, unhesitating in your hesitation. Really. Your body temperature is basically 98.6 through the whole hesitation. Your life force is basically turned on up to being alive during the whole process. You just are kind of thinking, oh, I just don't trust myself. I think I'm supposed to give a better answer than that.

[41:57]

I suppose now somebody in big wheels is asking me a question, so I've got to give it right away. You're not really hesitating. You're alive. So I don't really believe in hesitation, but I sometimes get caught by mine. If somebody asks me a question, I can take three weeks to answer without hesitating in the slightest. You know? I can just say, I'm not going to answer that question today. It's not hesitation. I don't have an answer. It's not hesitation. I really, unhesitatingly, don't have an answer. So the key word is hesitate. Well, tonight it is. Tonight it is. And in fact, in the case of the boys or the monks turning their heads, they didn't hesitate. They just turned their head. And no big deal. And they didn't think they were not hesitating either. They just turned their head before they had time to think.

[42:57]

But you can only turn your head when you think. You're still thinking. You're just not hesitating. You're always thinking. You're never hesitating. Really. Really. And that's our freedom. Moment after moment we're free. That's the front door. Back door is, we don't believe that. So the Buddha has another thing, that the Buddha's lion's roar is, no matter what you do, if you hesitate or not hesitate, you're always in the family of the free, the brave, and the happy. and the skillful at helping. You're all in that family, no matter what you do. I don't care what you say, what you think, you're all in that family, as Buddha's lines were. But Buddha also has what he called a battle cry, or a slogan. You know the word slogan means battle cry? Buddha's slogan is, it's a Scottish word, it means battle cry. The slogan of Buddha's enterprise is

[44:00]

Dependent Co-Arising. Dependent Co-Arising. Which I want to introduce to you by the acronym DCA. DCA. That's Buddha's slogan. Basically Buddha just says, when Buddha was awake he just said, everybody's awake. Everything is awake. Everything's perfect just as it is. That's what Buddha basically saw. People, and anybody who believed that fine. Then they could just be what they are and that's it. That's what he said first of all. But then people didn't get it, so then he said, DCA, for all those who don't believe that what you are, just as you are, is exactly the same as complete freedom and complete ungraspability of of the incomparably subtle and miraculous nature of life. Anybody who doesn't believe that, well, I have this thing called, this teaching called Dependent Co-Arising. If you study this, you will be able to understand.

[45:05]

Since you can't understand what I just said, and you refuse to believe it without understanding, now study this, and if you study this, you will be able to understand what you couldn't understand before, and then you'll believe it. So dependent co-arising is the main teaching that Buddha gave aside from the fact that you people are already okay. So these stories are about simply just be yourself and secondarily that this whole thing that's appearing before us is brought to us by dependent co-arising, by all phenomena dependently co-producing each other. So I'd like in these stories to work with these two aspects. One aspect is to show how there's a direct gate in these stories and there's an indirect gate by understanding how things are dependently co-produced and to see how things dependently come together to produce misery and how things dependently come together to produce happiness.

[46:22]

So in the story, both of these responses were dependently co-produced. The turning of the head is dependently co-produced. You have a monk and you have another monk. One monk, and they both have karmic consciousness, and they speak Chinese in this case. So one says to the other one in Chinese, you know, hey you. And then by dependent co-producing of the fact that they both have years and, you know, and there's air and stuff like that, and they both speak Chinese, and one says, hey you, the other one turns his head. That is simply dependently co-produced just what it is. That's all it was, right? There were no opinions about it. It just simply, hey you, and the head turned. In the other case, also there was dependent co-production.

[47:30]

He said something, what is it? The monk had a response. But in that case, there was a dependent co-production of something else. There was a belief also generated there, a belief in some kind of like substantial reality or right answer. And that made, in the first case, what was dependently co-produced was just the way things are. In the second case, what was dependently co-produced is just the way things are. But in addition, the way things were was that there was a belief, that there was some kind of thing there which caused the monk to hesitate or be lost, or to think that where he was, was lost. rather than to think where he was was where it's at.

[48:33]

And I'm introducing this language, and I can understand it may take a time to get it, but I'd like to continue to use this language, this slogan of Buddha, of dependent co-arising, so that you can see the different way, the different kinds of dependent co-arising, the way one kind of dependent co-arising dependently produces birth and death and misery. The other kind of dependent co-arising produces freedom and happiness, but they're both operating in the same world of dependently co-arisen phenomena. But there's a slightly different way that these two work together to produce these two different situations. What time is it now? 8.30. Okay. So when I said that, people started yawning and looking spaced out. That language is very hard. I tried to teach this stuff for many years.

[49:46]

Zen is basically to simply settle into DCA. Zazen is to quietly settle into dependent core rising. And quietly means, really quietly means you just settle into it. You don't settle into it and say, oh, I'm settling into it. Or, oh, I'm doing Buddhist meditation. Or you may say that, but then you just settle into that. There's no kind of like somebody out there settling into it. It's just simply being settled into dependent co-arising. So like, you know, you've heard this expression by Dogen Zenji, to carry us, to confirm or verify what's happening, to practice, to live your life and to make an effort and to verify what's happening while carrying a self.

[51:06]

That is what we call, it's in quotes, what we call delusions. Okay? Because that way of conducting our life, of carrying a self around and then bringing it to situations, like carrying a self to dependent co-arising, that's what produces, quotes, delusion. It doesn't really produce delusion, because delusion is not real, but it produces what we call delusion. If you want to know what we call delusion, that's what we call delusion. It's like you have a self and you bring it to situations, like you walk into a situation and you bring your self, rather than just have situations happen and then there's somebody there. When everything just comes and happens, when there's just dependent co-arising, right now, can you feel it? There's dependent co-arising. Can you feel it come happening? And there's somebody here. It's like everything in the universe is coming into every pore of your body right now.

[52:14]

All around you, everything in the universe is supporting you and upholding you and creating you. It's not like you're not here, it's just that when everything arrives, you're here. That's enlightenment. It's the same situation, it's just that there's not one situation, everything's coming and then there's somebody here because everything arrived. And you can witness that, because somebody here can witness that, and you can even act from there. Or you can bring the self, the burden of the self, you can carry the self, the situation, and go, okay, now this is dependent co-arising. That's delusion. You can also carry the cell and say, this is the pinnacle arising, but actually not fall for it and really feel like everything's causing that. And even then, have that be enlightenment.

[53:16]

So you always feel all causes and conditions supporting you to be born now in this place. Even while you go through the charade of carrying a self around and applying it to situations, like bringing the self of Buddhist practice, or bringing the self of sensory awareness, or bringing the self of compassion. Compassion, wisdom, kindness, saving all beings, these can also be selves which you carry around your shoulder, come up and dump them in situations. Rather than trust, okay, Now here we are, we're born again, everything's arrived, and there's somebody here. Ooh! Again! But this person that's here is just light. That person's just light. There's nothing, you can't get a hold of that person. And that light person, that person of light,

[54:21]

That's what we call awakening. And that is exactly, just exactly a person. But the person is not a person that made himself or herself, and it's also not a person that somebody else made. It is simply, it's not like something made the person. It is simply the arrival of everything that confirms this person, that confirms the self. Okay? That's dependently co-arising awakening. Which in fact is always happening, but if there's the slightest hesitation, or if there's the slightest taint of importing a self onto the situation, then magically the whole thing's turned into delusion. And therefore, birth and death, therefore misery.

[55:34]

Unavoidably, you know, completely misery. Are you saying that birth and death aren't real? Yes, that's right. I'm saying they're not real. And on the Han here, you know, it says the most important thing is birth and death. In other words, that's why we have confession in Buddhism. You have to confess that you do see birth and death, that you are caught up in birth and death. And it's because of birth and death that there's Buddha. If there wasn't birth and death, we wouldn't need Buddhas. But I mean birth and death are physical realities. They are definitely physical realities, and we do not deny them. We do not deny them at all. They are physical realities. And they are the most important thing.

[56:38]

They are the most important thing. And birth and death, just as they are, birth and death, just as they are, is ungraspable. Dependently co-produced. And when you see them just as they are, you understand what we mean by dependently co-arisen awakening. But if you don't let yourself admit that you're caught up in birth and death, then you can't admit what birth and death are really like. And therefore, if you resist birth and death, You can't admit that you believe in birth and death. You can't admit what you believe in if you don't admit what it is that you believe in. If you admit what you believe in, you have a chance to realize that what you believe in is not real.

[57:46]

But you have to, first of all, admit what it is and that you think it's real. What's the option? What's the option if you don't believe in birth and death? Everybody does believe in birth and death. There's no option. You have to believe in it. If you don't believe in it, you're denying, you're being dishonest with yourself. You just said it wasn't real, so how can you believe in something that's not real? What I'm saying is, Well, how can you do... You asked me first of all, how can you claim something that's not real? I'm saying that people are very adept, completely proficient at believing in things that aren't real. But I'm saying we recognize that it's not real, so how can we believe that there's got to be an option? I don't believe that birth and death are real. What do you believe? But I believe that birth and death are real. I mean, I actually believe they're real. Okay?

[58:47]

That's what I actually think. Like if I start to die, I'm going to start to believe that it's real. Or if you start to die, I'm going to start to believe it's real. In other words, I do believe that birth and death are real. But Buddha's teaching is that birth and death are not real. I also believe that. In other words, I believe in an ultimate truth, no eyes, no ears, no tongue, no body, no mind, no birth, no death, no coming, no going, no increase, no decrease. I believe that too. So what do you believe? I believe in that, but I also have karmic consciousness, and karmic consciousness believes in birth and death. You're talking about carrying the head? Yeah. I carry a self to birth and death. I do that. I have to admit I do that. I do believe in birth and death, and everybody I know believes in birth and death. We have to admit that.

[59:49]

I understand what you're saying there, but when you say that it's not real and that you believe that it's not real, there's got to be something. You said you believe in ultimate truth. Well, that's part of what I want to tell you, which I haven't told you yet. There's two truths. There's a conventional truth, which everybody shares and everybody's involved in, and there's an ultimate truth. And these two truths are identical. These two truths. And that's part of what these stories are about, is that there's one truth, which is that people do believe that things exist. And because people believe that things exist, there is birth and death, and there is misery, because people do believe that things exist. They do believe that there is hesitation. That's why we suffer. And we really do suffer. That's conventional truth. That's worldly truth. And we do not deny that.

[60:51]

We do not deny that. We must admit that. We must admit that we, each of us, are involved in that. If we don't do that, our practice is floating in the air. But there's another truth, too. Namely, that it's not really true that things have some existence. That's not true. They aren't graspable. Yet we have a mind which thinks it can grasp things, and because it thinks it can grasp things, it suffers. The definition of suffering is grasping what's happening to us. Without the grasping, there's just life. But we have to identify and admit that we're up to this grasping. So we have to admit that we believe in birth and death. If we don't admit that, we're being dishonest and we have to start with it.

[61:55]

That's what we start with. How's that? All right. Does it make sense to you? Kind of. Yeah. And that's very difficult for us to do. The path is not easy. The path of admitting what we're like is not easy. The path of experiencing our discomfort and our misery is not an easy path. And studying these stories will be real to the extent that while you study them you admit to yourself that you are attributing substantial existence to every word you read. So reading these stories should be, first of all, a kind of confession of your delusion.

[63:03]

You should be able to observe karmic consciousness operating while you're studying these stories. Otherwise, these stories are somewhat abstract. Buddha manifests as birth and death. Buddha manifests as birth and death. And where else? Where else? Buddha manifests as dependently co-produced being. Okay? But Buddha doesn't manifest as birth and death except in the eyes of those who attribute existence to Buddha. That separates samsara and nirvana, isn't it? Nirvana is not reality and samsara is not… It's not like nirvana is reality and samsara is not reality. Reality is that samsara and nirvana are the same thing. Therefore Buddha is birth and death.

[64:06]

Yes, but also therefore Buddha is not birth and death. Buddha is just some dependently co-produced thing, and if you have suffering beings, Buddha is born. And if you look at Buddha through the eyes of existence, then you will see birth and death Buddha. If you look at Buddha from the point of view of non-existence, you'll just see suchness. But it's the same world, looked at in two different ways. And there's no Buddha. We would not have any Buddhas if there wasn't birth and death. Birth and death is the cause of Buddha. The fact that people are involved in birth and death brings a Buddha, or brings Buddha. And birth and death is the... Birth and death is inseparable from dependent core arising because birth and death is dependent core arising from a certain point of view.

[65:14]

And Buddha is inseparable from dependent core arising. So Buddha, dependent core arising, and birth and death are inseparable. And yet they're also different. So we say they're not the same and they're not different. So that's, so what time is it now? It's quarter of, quarter of. So I think I'd like to, ooh, how many people, we forgot to bring people copies of the case. 30. Oh, I'm sorry about that. We have to give you copies of the case. You don't have copies of the case, right? Sorry. Well, I'll tell you the case then. You can memorize it. Fortunately, you have minds, and they're karmic, so they can memorize things.

[66:21]

Okay, so here's the case we're on. See if you can memorize this. When Lin Ji... Lin Ji is one of the most influential of all Zen teachers in China. When he was about to die, he admonished... his disciple, San Shung. San Shung. San Shung means three saints. And he said, after I pass on, don't destroy my treasury of Dharma eyes or my treasury of eyes of the truth. a treasury of true eyes." Shobo Genzo. Okay? So let's say, don't destroy my treasury of eyes of the truth.

[67:28]

Sanchang said, how dare I destroy the teacher's treasury of eyes of the truth? Lin Ji said, if someone suddenly questions you about it, how will you reply? San Sheng said, ah! Lin Ji said, who would have known that my treasury of eyes of the truth would perish in this blind ass? Okay, so you got the story? Let's say it. When Linzhi was about to die, he admonished Sancheng, after I pass on, don't destroy my treasury of high of truth. Sancheng said, how dare I destroy the treasures of treasury of highs of truth.

[68:38]

Linji said, if someone suddenly questions you about it, how will you resolve it? Sanshan immediately shouted, ah! Ah! Linji said, who would have known that my treasury of the God of Truth would perish in his assigned house? Applied pass. That's great. ass being donkey. Why? A blind donkey. Do you remember the story now? Do you? Good. So that's what? Yes. I think when I looked up lineage, it seemed that Sanshong had no disciples.

[69:40]

Is that correct? Is that correct? I do not know, but I don't think so. I don't think it's correct. But it might be. Sometimes, you know, some Zen teachers are so picky that they destroy themselves. There have been some like that. Okay. They want a disciple, but they just can't bring themselves to recognize anybody. A very sad situation. He might have got run over by some old lady. Just as he was about to transmit the Dharma, some old lady said, you can't eat a cake today. So please study that story, okay, for next week.

[70:42]

Think about that story, meditate on that story, suffer with that story. See what you can come up with concerning that story. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of us had trouble working with that story. So how would you work with a story like that? Some great Zen teacher is about to die, and he says to his disciple, he said, did he say hesitate? Huh? Okay, I can't remember. After I pass on, don't destroy my treasury of, I like eyes, eyes of the truth.

[71:52]

After I die, don't destroy my treasury of eyes of the truth. And he's bringing his self along? I was just thinking about something like that now. I said that to somebody. If he burned it, and he has no disciples, then that would probably be his teaching. If they burned... I mean, just whatever he's... Whatever he was, if they burned it... Yeah, that's good. So anyway, he says, don't destroy it. And then the monk says, well, how dare I destroy it? How dare I destroy it? That's the word.

[72:59]

What? How dare he destroy what? Yeah. How could you destroy what? And then he says, if someone asks you about it, what will you say? And he yelled. And Linji said, so my treasury will perish with this blind ass. Who would have known that my treasury of eyes of the truth would perish with this blind ass? That's how this book got in here. This story got in here. It's a good story. So how are you going to work with it, though? How are you going to bring this perfect story into your life? It seems he destroys it with a shout, but it doesn't seem that every shout has to be a loud shout.

[74:09]

That's right. So how are you going to bring it into your life? The question is, if I'm ceasing conflict, if the conflict goes away, then the shout is there. And if the shout is there, what's that? It's there. What is that? It's your life, right? Yeah. So you can bring this into your life by this being your life. That's how you can work with this story. Live your life. Now, then if someone asks you about this story, we'll see if you've been living your life. Okay? Do you see? This story says, live your life for the next week. But then next week, we'll ask you about this story to see if you were living your life. Do you understand? Rather just say, have you been living your life? We'll ask you about this story. If you've been living your life, you'll be able to answer these questions about this story. Does that make sense?

[75:13]

Scary though, huh? Because, yeah, because, you know, do you trust your life? I know you bet your life. Yeah, if you trust your life, then you'll be an expert on this case next week. But if you want to keep the case with you, you know, as a kind of little talisman that you carry with you, how will you carry this case with you? Just remember that you're supposed to trust your life and that you're going to next week be responding about this case. How would you do it? Bring a notebook. Not bring a notebook. Okay. But how will you carry it with you during the week? Of course, you shouldn't carry it, right? So how will you carry it? Hmm?

[76:16]

I'll read the footnotes. Stuart. Stuart. That's an honest man. That's a good way to carry it in your feet. Yeah, they say you're supposed to do that. You're supposed to, when you're walking around, breathe through the soles of your feet. That's a good way to remember this case. Breathe through the soles of your feet when you're walking around. Start with them up in the air first and start dieting. Get him going. And then up there. Okay, got it. And then so see if you can keep up and put it down. It's good sometimes, it's sometimes useful to find some way to bring the whole case into your life.

[77:19]

Footnotes is good. Writing little notes where you can write it on the bottom of your foot, that's good. Ah! studying in the wee hours over the text and memorizing it all and asking profound questions about the text. And also, just the shout could be the text, the way you remember the text. Just remember the shout. Or E-Y-E. What's the I of this story? DCA. Huh? What? DCA. DCA, right, right. So take that. Take that little eye and keep that eye in your eye during the week. That was not hesitating of you. Were you happy? Me? Yeah, you.

[78:21]

Just letting it go by. Right. So that's the homework assignment, all right, which goes very well with us not giving you the text. It's very skillful. But we'll give you the text to poison your mind late next week with all kinds of footnotes and all kinds of nice commentaries. How many people want a copy? Five. 10? It must be more than 10. Make 15. Make 20. Make 30. Are you going to have different things that are in the book? It's going to be just exactly what's in the book. That's what it's going to be.

[79:24]

You're going to copy from the book. Well, when you said different commentaries, I thought maybe you were going to have additional... No, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, we're not going to pass this out, but there will be different commentaries in addition to those different commentaries. Yes, and your verbal commentaries, too. But I think it's good to just take the text in some kind of kernel form, make it into an eye, and carry the eye with you, but not as something in addition to your life, but just somehow make your life the eye. Find some way to see your life as the eye. DCA or whatever. Okay? Try to do that and see what you do. And also, while you're doing this, again, you have to keep remembering what you're up to all the time. What are you up to, ladies and gentlemen? Believing in birth and death. Believing in birth and death all the time.

[80:26]

All the time, getting caught. All the time, that's us. That's us folks here. And eyes. And eyes, yeah. Same thing, okay? So next week we'll study Case 13 some more. And then maybe that'll be enough on Case 13, but... I would like you to also try to share this practice with other people, too. Find some way to share it among your friends, wherever you live. I don't know how you can do that, but I know you can find a way. May our intention

[81:35]

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