Today I'd like to start by giving you a little outline of Zen practice, which I'll say it's first settle, then bloom, and meet. Settle, bloom and meet. Settle means, by settle I mean to settle into our experience moment by moment. settle into our breathing our posture our conflicted emotions our opinions judgments all that that's happening moment by moment

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to die, we might say, into the moment, to let go of any other agenda other than simply being ourselves, to settle the self into the self. to surrender completely to our experience.

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And when we do this, then we just do that and let our life bloom. And the theory of Zen practice is if you can do that, if you can just let yourself settle completely into this dream body-mind, that a spring flower will bloom up out of that ground. And it's also said that the quality and the beauty of the flower does not depend on how long it takes for the blooming to happen. It may happen quite quickly with some people, maybe in, who knows, a week or a day of total surrender to our life.

[04:11]

For some people, it takes a long time. Of course, for most of us, it takes a long time to completely surrender. That's what takes all the time. Once you surrender, it doesn't matter how long it takes, and the quality and beauty of the flower is not limited by how long it takes us once we're sitting. Just popped in my head this image of, I guess, some ticks that live on a branch for For sometimes years and years they just sit on a branch until suddenly something walks under the branch and jiggles it and gives off some odor and then they come alive and drop down and start sucking blood. You know about those ticks? So the occasion for our blooming is like that. If we can just sit and wait we will not miss our chance.

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And then, if the blooming happens, and you may not even notice it, because when the blooming truly happens, one does not necessarily say, oh, I'm a flower. You may, but may not be the case. But in any case, once the blooming happens, this blooming, this flower should be brought to meet another flower. the flower which blooms from completely modeling ourself on ourself should meet another who hopefully has been doing the same thing, a companion, and we come and we meet. And I also propose that the Zen teaching is that only when two flowers meet do the flowers completely understand their nature. Also as a kind of theoretical introduction, we have maybe three layers.

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First layer is the layer of illusion. So the layer of illusion, what do we do with the layer of illusion? I just told you, what do we do with the layer of illusion? Settle into it. Completely, exhaustively surrender to illusion as illusion. And when illusion is just illusion, illusion is exactly the contents of and inseparable from great non-discriminating wisdom. So first we settle into the illusion, then comes a release from illusion, a flower which breaks up, based in and breaks out of illusion. And then this flower of awakening, of freedom from our illusion, which is our personal accomplishment and our personal release, this flower must meet another flower to realize what we call the Buddha awakening, which is not just a personal awakening.

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It is a transpersonal awakening. where two awakenings meet and help each other become free of awakening. So it's a flowering up out of flowering, beyond flowering. First is illusion, next is release from illusion, and next is release from release. Freedom from freedom or whatever. Those are the three stages, settle, bloom, and meet. And I have a story to illustrate this. Actually, I have one, two, three, four stories to illustrate this. And maybe I should make it five, because that four is kind of a scary number. The main story is a story from the Book of Serenity. Case number 16, four times four.

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It's called Magu Shakes His Staff. An introduction to this case. Pointing to a deer, it becomes a horse. Picking up earth or grubbing in the dirt, it turns into gold. Rousing the wind and thunder on the tongue, hiding a bloody sword between the eyebrows, sitting there watching success and failure. standing there, examining birth and death. Tell me, what kind of awareness is this?

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Pointing at a deer, it becomes a horse. I saw on a TV show, two lovers were gliding across a pond, and one of them said to the other, Something like, we don't see nature itself. We see nature being observed. And the other lover said, Heisenberg. And they kissed. Looking at a horse, it becomes a deer. If you grub in the dirt thoroughly, it turns into gold, rousing the wind and thunder on the tongue, hiding a bloody sword between the eyebrows, exhorting human beings to be human beings completely, being very enthusiastic about this project of settling into the Self, just sitting there,

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Watching success and failure. All day long, we see success and failure, or I hope we do, because that's what we're involved in, isn't it? Of course, it's early in the day. Maybe you haven't had a success yet or a failure. But I think by 7.30 tonight, you will have had some successes. I hope you've had some successes. You all successfully got to Green Gulch. Perhaps some of you drove in and said, I made it, and I found a parking space. I don't know how you felt. But most people do get into that, and it's good to actually observe how many times during the day you have a success and how many times a day you have a failure. Each of us is sitting there determining success, success, failure, [...] success, failure, success. We're doing that all day long, aren't we? You're not? Please start.

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Join the rest of us. Those who are beyond this, please come back to visit. Standing there examining birth and death, what kind of a state is this? This is settling, okay? So here's the story. Magu. Magu, with ringed staff in hand, came to Jiang Jing. Jiang Jing's a Zen teacher. He circled Jiang Jing's meditation seat three times, stood in front of him, holding his staff, at attention. Zhang Jing said, right, right.

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Then Magu went to Nanchuan, another great Zen teacher, circled his meditation seat three times, stood in front of him, shook his staff once, and remained at attention. Nanchuan said, wrong, wrong. Magu said, Zhang Jing said, right, right. Why do you say wrong, wrong? Nanchuan said, Zhang Jing is right. It's you that's wrong. This, this is something that can be blown away by the power of wind. It inevitably disintegrates.

[14:53]

That's the story. Do you remember it? Ma Gu and Zhang Jing and Nanchuan, all three are disciples of Matsu. Matsu was the most prolific Zen teacher that we know of. He had 139 enlightened disciples. Three of his disciples are Nanchuan, Zhang Jing, and Magu. Nanchuan is the oldest of the three. Zhang Jing's next, and Mag was the youngest. So the younger brother is going to visit his teacher's other disciples. So probably he was studying with Nan Xuan. The other two had left probably before he met them and gone off to teach in their own communities. After finishing his study with Matsu, he went traveling to visit and meet some of his older brothers that had left home earlier.

[16:03]

So here he is meeting two elder brothers. He comes before them in this way. I just proposed to you, for starters, that this monk, Magu, would not have been traveling if he hadn't already learned how to settle. His teacher, Matsu, would have kept him at home a little longer. If he's a disciple of Matsu he would not have been released for travel until he had learned how to sit and be himself. Please don't accept my interpretation as some kind of a law. This is just my interpretation for you to work with. But the way I see it anyway is like that. So he's learned how to settle and probably also

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been recognized by his teacher, Matsu, and now he's going off for study. And study, by the way, or pilgrimage, the word they use for that is exhaustive study. So you study being yourself, you get recognized by your teacher, and then you deepen your study by visiting other brothers and sisters around the country. So I see him as someone who has achieved liberation from illusion, by settling into illusion. And now he wants to meet other flowers. So he goes before his older brother, Zhang Jing, walks around him three times, which is a traditional way to meet a teacher and show signs of respect. If you look in the sutras, you'll find it says, so-and-so approached the Buddha, walked around the Buddha three times, and then, usually,

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sat to one side and questioned the Buddha or waited for some instruction. In this case, it's different. Instead of walking around three times and sitting to the side, he stood right in front of him, holding his staff very erect, upright. He stood there. This is the state, teacher. What do you have to say? Right, right. How nice. A flower eats a flower. Or so it seems. Then Magu goes to visit the next teacher and does the same thing. And the next teacher, the next older brother, says, Wrong, wrong. Wrong, wrong. what it looks like happened was that he carried that right-right with him when he went over to visit the next teacher.

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That's what it looks like. And that, of course, doesn't work. If you manage to settle in yourself and the flower blooms, and you want to take the flower to meet another flower, one of the rules about bringing a flower to meet another flower is that you have to drop the flower before you leave. The flower that's realized from settling into yourself becomes stale after one moment. You have to find another flower in the next moment by again being willing to be who you are again. So the trick is to bring your self, which has accepted yourself, to meet someone without bringing the flower that bloomed the last time you did it. Now, if someone then confirms you and says, yes, you really have done it, it's even more difficult not to bring that. So it looks like that's maybe what he brought.

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And then he says... Zhang Jing said, right. You say, wrong. He said, Zhang Jing was right. It's you that's wrong. What you've attained, this awareness that you've attained, is something that can be blown away by the wind. Inevitably, it disintegrates. It deteriorates. It's impermanent, too. There's no permanent anything, including no permanent awakening awareness. After the flower blooms, we just return to our usual work. I slip of tongue, I said, we just retune. Just retune. After the flower blooms, retune. Retune to the next moment of success or failure, the next moment of birth and death, the next moment of pain or pleasure.

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Drop everything that you've attained and return. Surrender to the next moment. Be a servant of your next chunk of birth and the next death. And watch for the next flower. And if one comes, see if somebody else can see it. This staff, this ring staff, this one has six rings on it. The full set has 12, which are, you could say, the 12 gates to awakening, which is the same as saying the 12 links

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of causation, of the twelve links of how we come to be born and die in this world. So in the old days, Buddhist monks used to walk around carrying this thing, and every step they'd think of birth and death, gain and loss, success and failure. always thinking about this great matter of birth and death, of our illusory life. And hopefully, with every step, also a flower is born. Birth and death, flower. Birth and death, lotus. To the extent that I'm willing to have my life be such a stupid enterprise, Not holding myself above birth and death, gain and loss, success and failure. To the extent that I'm willing to admit that I'm a petty critter.

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In direct proportion to that, the flower is born. Those who are unwilling to be such lowly things are trying to bloom in mid-air. So, please, as soon as possible, let's get down to our life. Let's die completely to our miserable existence. And the sooner we do that, the sooner we will be fresh. If we hold back from being this one, yucko, we get staler and staler. Ugh. It is not attractive work, but it is required of flowers. Flowers must let their little roots go down into the dirt.

[25:02]

Okay, well, some other story is about a meeting that occurred between an American writer and a Native American, a European American and a Native American had a meeting. This European American wanted to learn from this Native American about how his people learned how to ride ponies without saddle or bridle. So he asked the chief How do your people learn this? How do you learn this? And the chief didn't answer. And he hung out with the chief for a long time. And every time he would meet with the chief, he would ask the chief, how do your people learn this?

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The chief wouldn't answer. And then after this going on for quite a long time, one day the chief said, how come you're not asking that question? He forgot one day. How come you didn't ask that question about the ponies? And he said, well, actually, how about it? And the chief said, nothing for a long time again. And finally he said, really, to understand, you'd have to be born an Indian, grow up with Indians, and also grow up with your pony. But maybe I could show you something. So then the chief went like this. Put his two hands up, palms facing the man.

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Then he joined the palms. Then he let his fingers get entangled like this until the fingers touch the backs of the other hands. Then the two index fingers came up like one finger and then they made a circle together. Can you see? This is called settling into the Self, this part. The palms joining, you being willing to give in to your own experience and completely, exhaustively meet your experience and be one with what you are and not try to get away.

[28:25]

And then out of that comes this flower. And from this flower comes a dance. That's how you can ride ponies too. It's various uses of this practice. Another thing that I thought of when I was washing my hands just before I came down here, I was washing my hands in a sink and I was using ivory soap. And I was washing with the soap and then I was washing my hands.

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I thought of, it's actually kind of nice to do that, but I thought of when I was a little boy and my grandmother used to wash my hands with me. And she would sit either to my side or behind me and reach around and the soap would be between my hands and her hands would be around my hands. So I'd be washing with the soap between my hands and also these other bigger hands would be around my hand with soap all around it. And I love that feeling of the soap and my grandmother's hands around my hands, washing my hands with the warm water. And now, it's not as much fun to wash just my own hands, actually. It doesn't feel as good as to have those others set around there. Personal realization is great. Washing your own hands is great.

[30:31]

But having somebody else wash your hands, too, and to have your hand washing wash their hands, because my grandmother's hands got washed in the process, too, although I didn't know what that was like for her. To be washed by yourself and to be washed by another, and for your washing to wash another, this is more fun. At least with ivory soap. I don't know how it is with other brands. That's what my grandmother used. The mysterious bond which holds all created things. Inseparable, harmonious. One family. To enter into this great, harmonious, inseparable harmony, each of us must do our job of being who we are.

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Our ticket into this kinship of all life is that we have to be willing to be ourselves. That's hard work. And it's moment-by-moment work, and you don't get to carry any laurels over from the last moment. And once we do that, then every person we meet is an opportunity to see if we've really done our work, and also to look to see if they've done theirs. Are you home? Are you willing to be you? But before I ask that, I should check to see if I'm willing to be me. The other day a little boy came to visit me with his mother. She knocked on the door and she said, Josh said he wanted to visit you, so here we are.

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And I said, come on in. And Josh said to me, Josh is about one or two years old, he said, peanut butter? he could smell peanut butter on my breath. I said, yes, that's right, that's very good. And I said, would you like some toast with peanut butter? And he said, yes. So I made toast and put peanut butter on it, and we had peanut butter and toast together, Josh and I. And while we were sitting, eating our toast, he pointed up at the wall at a spider that he saw up there.

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And then his mother told me that he's on a schedule now, a heating schedule. he only gets to nurse, in a nursing schedule I mean, he only gets to nurse three times a day. Once after breakfast, once after lunch, and once after dinner before he goes to bed. So one day, in the later afternoon, this two-year-old guy, how old is Josh? Anybody know? This two-year-old guy said to his mother before dinner, he said, around 5 o'clock, he said, I want a nurse. And she said, no, Josh, now we're on a different schedule.

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You have to wait until after dinner, until near bedtime. And he said, I didn't say he, what do you call it, toddled over to the window. of the house, and he pointed out the window, and he said, look, Mom, it's Venus, the evening star. I don't think she nursed him, though, even though I said that. And then later when I saw him around Green Gulch, he could see the evening star anytime, anyplace, indoors, outdoors. And he could also see, all you got to do is go like this and there's a spider up there. Wherever he is, there's a spider. He still has more work to do.

[36:02]

But the spirit's there, you know. During my last talk, I talked about, you know, Superman and... That was case 14 of the Book of Serenity. Superman and Lois Lane. And I said, maybe somebody will give me a Superman T-shirt. So far, I haven't gotten one. But what I did get today, instead of a Superman T-shirt, I got this one. LAUGHTER In case you can't see, it's a Z. It's a Z. Instead of Superman, it's Zen Man. Superman's great, right? But what about Zen man?

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And what is Zen man anyway? I think you know what Zen man is, right? What's Zen man? Zen man is somebody who's willing to be herself. And then wonderful organic events happen to some woman or man who is willing to be herself. So I don't know if I deserve to wear this T-shirt, except once in a while, maybe for a moment, I can wear it. I guess nobody can wear this shirt except for a moment. You have to keep passing it back and forth. And the person who gave it to me, her name is Lois. but not Lane. Now, what's the song for this lecture?

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I couldn't think of one. Does anybody know the song for this one? They are intentional.

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