Brought to you by Philly Dartmouth. So the young man, twenty-four year old man, Matt Buck, Harris' age, Harris' age, Fletcher's age, Roosevelt's age, twenty-three, twenty-four. So, a person about their age, he's up, he's in the right-spounding room,

[01:00]

and he hears this poem. He says, I think I'll give it a try. And he says that enlightenment is fundamentally not a treat. Everybody knows that, right? And the clear mirror, not a stamp. Originally there is not one thing where can dust alight. So that which is thought does not exist. All we think of, all we know of are objects.

[02:04]

They don't really exist. That is what we think of, that is what we know. The things we know do not exist. So how can something alight? We don't have to spend time wiping off dust that collects non-existent things. All we have to do is let our mind terminate at the concept. Let our mind stop. Let our thinking stop. At the word. That the word does not exist, so there's no cleaning that needs to be necessary. When the...

[03:07]

When he put this on the pillar, the monks who had been chanting the poem by the head monk thought that this poem was even better. They thought, wow, some living bodhisattva has written this. And the ancestor came by and said, no, this is really bad. Erase it. Now the monks' common sense, actually, their common sense was they saw that poem by Hoi Nang, by Workman Liu, and they thought it was better than the other one. But the ancestor said, no. So they agreed. This is what you call common sense versus public opinion. The ancestor established public opinion, and said, this is not good.

[04:11]

He hasn't really perceived the real nature of things. So all monks said, OK. But their common sense was that it was a deeper understanding. So then after that, the ancestor went to visit his old friend back in the pounding area, pounding away. And he asked him, what did he ask him? Is the rice white yet? Now this is important. This proves that they had white rice way back then. See, I practiced microbiology for a while during my early Zen days. Tassajara was actually taken over by microbiotics in first practice period, or first several practice periods.

[05:15]

And Suzuki Roshi didn't stamp out the microbiotism here. And it caused him to lose quite a bit of weight because he, being a true Zen master, grew up on white rice. So he lost a lot of weight in Tassajara because he didn't get involved in the politics of the kitchen. He didn't go in there and say, would you guys please knock it off, knock off this strip? I think he knew that if he had done that, he would have lost half his students. A lot of people came to Tassajara to eat microbiotically. Really, that's what it became. Because we had this great cook named Loren Palmer. Actually, Ed Brown was the cook, but Loren Palmer was the arbiter of taste and forced microbiotism on Tassajara. Suzuki Roshi didn't get involved in politics and just ate the brown rice,

[06:17]

but he also had false teeth and couldn't chew it enough. So anyway, he lost a lot of weight, and it actually hurt his health. However, I think it probably saved Buddhism that he didn't get in there and try to fix things up and let it run its course. So anyway, they had white rice way back then. And then what did the workman Lou say when he asked for the white rice? He said, yes, it's white, but it hasn't been sifted yet. And the ancestor hit the mortar and went on with it. And the ancestor said, come to my room tonight at midnight. So that night he went to his room

[07:19]

and the ancestor taught him more subtleties about the mind which he had realized. He had realized the mind that doesn't abide anywhere. He had realized the mind that terminates in mere concept. He perceived the word which doesn't exist and to which nothing can alight. So then the ancestor explained more about this. And finally he said, the Buddha is for the sake of the one great matter of the appearance of enlightened ones in the world. This is the expression from the Lotus Sutra. The one great matter of the appearance of enlightened ones in the world. It's the one great thing.

[08:24]

It's the appearance of enlightened ones in the world to teach living beings a way to freedom according to their capacities. Eventually, after that, there came to be teachings of the ten stages, the three vehicles, sudden and gradual, and so on. Moreover, Buddha transmitted the unexcelled, extremely subtle, esoteric, true treasury of right dharma, shogogenzo. Of complete enlightenment to a senior disciple, Mahakasyapa. This was handed down until reaching Bodhidharma, the 28th ancestor. He came to China and found the great master Huika.

[09:26]

It continued to be transmitted until it came to me. Now I pass it to you, the treasure of the teaching and the vestment which has been handed down, the Okesa. Preserve this teaching and do not let it be cut off. This scene is... This is the final scene in the love story. And this scene is enacted theatrically down the transmission ceremony of Soto Zen. Kneeling, the master received the Okesa and the Dharma and said, I have received the teaching. To whom should this Okesa be imparted? The ancestor said, a long time ago, when Bodhidharma first came,

[10:31]

people didn't believe. So he handed on this Okesa as an indication of having attained the teaching. Now faith has developed. The vestment has become a source of contention. So let it stop with you and don't pass it on. Now you should go far away and conceal yourself until the appropriate time to teach comes. It is said that the life of a person who has received this Okesa hangs like a thread. Workman Liu said, Where should I hide? The ancestor said, When you come to Huai, stop there. Hide there for a while. The master bowed and left with the rope.

[11:39]

Actually, this is the final scene. A couple of points here. Bodhidharma passed the rope. It became known as the rope of faith because it was kind of proof of the transmission of enlightenment. But by the time it came to the fifth generation, the rope had become a point of contention. People were greedy for it. So the ancestor said, Don't pass it on anymore. In the days of Bodhidharma, the way he was teaching and the way Huayka taught was something a little different, something quite radical in terms of what some of the Chinese had understood. So they got in big trouble for it.

[12:52]

But because of the rope, there was this faith as material proof. But now, by the fifth generation, people believed in Zen, Zen lineage. It wasn't called Zen at the time, but anyway, they believed in this lineage. So they believed in it too much, actually, and they became greedy for it. So they stopped passing the rope and stayed with Huaynong. After Huaynong, there's no more. It's one, two, three, four, five, six ancestors. And after that, there's millions of ancestors. It's no longer a unilineal transmission of just that one rope. He also wanted Huaynong to hide. He was 24 years old. He had received the Dharma. And also remember, he's a layperson now. The Dharma was transmitted to a layperson by this priest.

[13:55]

He's not yet ordained as a priest. He's giving the robe that a priest should wear. He can't wear the robe yet either. He's giving the robe, which is the proof of the enlightenment, to a layperson to take care of until it's time for him to wear it and teach. Hundreds of monks around him, but he gives it to this layperson and tells him to hide. And actually, I think some translations say that watch out, these people will kill you. Literally, that might have been true. Who knows? But the way I've understood it is that a newly transmitted person, a young teacher like that, can be spiritually killed if he receives or she receives a very precious lineage because people will try to get

[14:58]

a cost to the person. The person does not yet have the... They receive it, but they don't yet have the integrity to withstand the responsibilities of teaching. So Huainan also starts, at this time, Huainan and the Six Ancestors start the tradition of hiding out after you've become a teacher for a while to grow up a little bit so you can stand the responsibility. So he did hide out. So then he left the room and then there was a crossing, a river, some body of water at the base of Huangmei. Huangmei is the name of the Sixth Ancestor and the Fourth Ancestor

[16:01]

at their monastery. So there was a crossing there and the Ancestor personally escorted him to that crossing. And Huainan said, got showed and said, I've already realized the way and I should ferry myself over. The Ancestor said, Yes, it's true, you've already realized the way, but still, I will ferry you over. So saying, he took a pole and he went across the water and the Ancestor returned to the monastery and said, and stopped lecturing. And the monk said, What happened? And he said, My way is gone. And he said,

[17:06]

Well, who got it? He said, an able one, Nung. He figured out that it was Huainan. So they went off after. That's the end of that love story and now comes another love story. It's the story of this army of monks chasing Huainan led by a monk named Huay Huay, [...] Huay Huay Meng No, Huay Meng Huay Meng Same Huay as in Huainan, meaning wisdom or insight and Meng, brilliance. Now, this Huay Meng had been a general before he was a monk. He led the guys after him. And they overtook him in a

[18:15]

mountain range, the Dayu mountain range. And the ancestors could see that they were catching up with them, so he put the robe and bowled down on top of a boulder. And he said, you know, same thing. This is the robe of faith. It's, you know, I don't want it to be something for people to fight over. So he just put it down. They're coming to get the bowl and robe, right? And he hid in the bushes. I like that part. The little ancestor hiding in the bushes. Don't hurt me. You can have the bowl and robe thing. So when they came, the general monk, Hui Ming, came up, saw the robe and bowl and grabbed it. Of course, tried to pick it up and he couldn't. A little too heavy. He

[19:23]

realized this robe was a little bit heavy. And so he sort of started trembling and said, I remember, I have come for the teaching, not the robe. So Hui Ming came out of the bushes. All you have, huh? And sat on the boulder. And the monk, Hui Ming, said to the lay person, Hui Nung, please work in Lu. Reveal the essence of the teaching to me. And Hui Nung said, when you don't think of good or bad, what is your original face? Pretty good. I came up with that. And of course, at that time, Huang Ming, I mean, Hui Ming, was enlightened.

[20:40]

There's some experience, okay? You're having experiences. Without thinking of good or bad, about what you're experiencing, what's your original face? And then the general monk said, is there any further secret meaning beyond this? And Hui Nung said, what I have told you is not a secret. If you look into your mind, the secret is there. Hui Ming said, though I was at Huang Ming, the monk with the fifth ancestor, I really didn't realize my own likeness. Now that I have received your teaching, I'm like a person who drinks water and knows for himself whether it is cool or warm. You are my teacher.

[21:59]

The master said, Hui Nung said, you feel that way, Huang Ming. You feel that way, but Huang Ming was your teacher. In other words, you feel like I'm your teacher, but really that fifth ancestor was your teacher. So he said thanks and bowed and left. And he went off and became an abbot. And he changed his name from Hui Ming to Dao Ming, in deference to his teacher. And whenever anybody came to study with him, he would always send them to study with Hui Nung, as long as Hui Nung was alive. This story is the 23rd case of the Mumong Khan. The story of Huang Ming chasing him, overtaking him, putting the robe on the boulder. And this phrase, this interaction is the meat of the case.

[23:19]

Namely, when you don't think good or bad, what is your original fix? And the commentary, I like Mumong's commentary on this, I like very much. He says, it should be said that the sixth ancestor, of the sixth ancestor, that his actions spring from urgent circumstances. His kindness is like that of a grandmother who peels fresh lychee and removes the seed and puts it in your mouth so that all you have to do is swallow it. When I heard that commentary, I thought of my Chinese mother, my Chinese mother-in-law.

[24:26]

And the urgent circumstances, when I thought of her, the urgent circumstances for the sixth ancestor, the urgent circumstances are the urgent circumstances of this monk, this suffering creature. He needs the teaching. And he just wants to give him just the right teaching. He was a living being. I want to give him just the right teaching. He said, here, just eat it. So, I thought of that because my mother-in-law, when I first met her, I think, I went out to dinner with her. Chinese restaurant. They didn't serve lychee. But they had something even better than lychee. I forgot what it was, but really good stuff. And so these dishes were on the table. And so I was sitting here and she was sitting there. These dishes were there and there was a teapot between me and some of the food.

[25:32]

And she reached over to get the teapot out of the way. But the urgency with which she reached for it really impressed me. She really wanted, she really was urgently trying to get this teapot out of the way so that I wouldn't have to have any obstruction to these delicious foods. Now, she a little bit overdoes it, but I felt that urgency, that great love for transmitting the teaching. I felt that in Quang Nam when he said that. So kind and so effective and so delicious, a teaching. So again, I feel this is about love. This whole thing is about love. And love in the sense that love is suchness. Love is the way things really are. The way things really are is that if one person wakes up, they see how connected they are to other people. And they really want other people to wake up.

[26:42]

If one person feels inspired and sees how wonderful people are, that person really wants other people to be able to see how wonderful people are. Urgently you want that. It's because of the suchness, because of the fact of our connectedness. That's the love. And you've come out of this, as William James says. He says that the this's that we're dealing with are coming out of these what's. And when you awaken to the integration of the what's and the this's, there's an urgency there, and that's in that suchness, in that completion.

[27:46]

This guy named Scott Peck is now such a well read author. In his book I heard that he defines love as something like a concern for other people's spiritual benefit. Something like that. Anybody know? That's about right. And, yeah, concern for other people's spiritual growth. When someone needs you, when they need you to develop, when you're developing something that they need for their happiness,

[29:27]

That's really the way things are. That's actually suchness. That's the way it is. Other people, we need each other to develop. I need you to develop. You need me to develop. That's just, that's the way things really are. And that's, that need, the teaching of that need, the teaching of that relationship is what's transmitted. Teaching of that fact and how to realize it. How to make yourself happy through other people's spiritual growth. This is the teaching of suchness. Teaching of love. The word karuna, which is usually translated as compassion, means stopped happiness.

[30:53]

Stopped happiness means that you can't be happy when another person's not happy. Their unhappiness stops your happiness. That's compassion. Their unhappiness then becomes an urgent circumstance for you, and you really want it to hurt you. I mean, it's chopping into your happiness, so you really want to find some way for them to be happy. And it's not just that. Love's not just that. Love is also that you have no expectations about how this is going to happen. You don't say, well, it's going to happen by them stopping being the way they are. They're going to stop being such a sourpuss.

[32:01]

They're going to get real nice, or they're going to be this way or that way. You have no expectations. You do not know exactly how the person is going to respond. You try to offer it on their terms. They may not feel that way, but that's what you're trying to do, to adapt and accommodate for their benefit. So once you realize that your happiness depends on the other person's development, then the work of teaching begins. However, it's not easy because the other person is resisting often. So even though you're working for the person's benefit, they're fighting you in a way. And the closer you get, oftentimes the more they fight. Or not so much they fight, but the situation seems like a fight.

[33:12]

Why does the ultimate familiarity seem like enmity? So the ancestor hid. He hid out for 16 years, approximately, which brought him to the age of 40. Some calculations say 38. In the Jewish tradition, 40 is the age that a person is ready to teach, ready to receive revelation and be responsible. So when he was 40, he came out of hiding and got ordained as a priest and started teaching. And when he started teaching, he got a lot of people to come and study with him, and thousands of people were enlightened with him.

[34:29]

His teaching is really fantastic. He wrote this one book called Platform Sutra about his teaching, which is basically his teaching in conjunction with an ordination ceremony, a bodhisattva initiation ceremony, which is embedded in the text. And one of the things I wanted to point out, one of his teachings, just one for now, is the section 18 of that text. The reason why I want to point this out is because, first of all, the second ancestor said, to sit in silent purity with no concerns, or if no false thoughts arise, or no false thoughts are born, and you just sit in silent purity, the great sun of nirvana will spontaneously dawn, clear and bright.

[35:46]

So I just wanted to say that, I wanted to bring a point on his teaching about purity. And he says, good friends, in this teaching of mine, from the outset, sitting meditation does not concern the mind, nor does it concern purity. We do not talk of steadfastness. If someone speaks of viewing the mind, then I would say that the mind is itself delusion. And as delusion is just like fantasy, there is nothing to be seen. If someone speaks of viewing purity, then I would say that a person's nature is itself pure. It becomes a false thought if your reality is obscure. If you cultivate your mind to view purity without realizing your own nature is originally pure, delusions of purity will be produced.

[36:58]

So, he's just warning against, sitting in purity does not mean you think about purity. If you sit viewing purity, then this is exactly not purity. Purity means not to have an object like purity, or mind, or Buddha way, or something. Yes. Well, your job about your unkindness and gratitude, your job is to confess that. And, know you not who bore the blame? You don't bear the blame. You must confess, so that you can see the blame bore or bared by love.

[38:11]

If you don't admit your ingratitude and unkindness, love can't work for you. If you admit it thoroughly, completely, then love bears the burden. It responds to the arrival of that energy of confession. Literally, it means the arrival of energy. Another translation, as you know, is the inquiring impulse. The inquiring impulse could be seen as the confessing impulse, the avowing impulse, the repentant impulse. Another way it's translated is, when one is ripe, you ripen yourself by confession. And these burdens, it's interesting that in the poem it says,

[39:15]

I have marred them, I have marred my eyes, let my shame go where it doth desert. Know you not, says love, who bore the blame? You should let your shame go where it doth desert. Once your shame is shame, once you feel your shame, it should go where it deserves. Let love take it, let suchness take it away. It is taken away by your shame. As the Diamond Sutra says, by recognizing your own past non-virtue, your eyes are cleared. By remorse over your past action, your eyes are cleared. And you can see. Truth carries it away from your eyes, but you have to see it up there.

[40:22]

Like this. Like that book that was very popular years ago, Catch-22. There was this one guy in there that had flies in his eyes. But he couldn't see he had flies in his eyes because he had flies in his eyes. If you can see the flies in your eyes, you can see through your eyes. As soon as you see the flies in your eyes, the flies are removed from your eyes. Just like if you can see feelings. You have feelings in your eyes too. You have concepts in your eyes. You have emotions in your eyes. If you don't see these things in your eyes, your eyes are covered with these things and you can't see anything. But if you can see the feelings in your eyes, the feelings are taken away from your eyes. If you can see your non-virtue, it's borne away by suchness, by truth. The truth that they're what they are. Love made me welcome, but my soul drew back.

[41:35]

Love made me welcome, yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed love, observing me, goes slack from my first entrance in. This poem starts after the person has come, you see. The person in this poem, the subject, has already come to love and backed away. The energy has already arrived and then it backs away, it shrinks away. And then love sees that and says, Hey, wait a minute. What's the matter? You lack something? I lack the guest. What is the guest? The guest meets the host. The guest has to be able to be here. I lack a guest who's worthy to be here. Love says, you are worthy to be here.

[42:40]

I, the unkind, the ungrateful, I cannot look on you. Who gave you these eyes? You wouldn't even be in this situation in the first place. These eyes are what brought you here so that you can back away. Love gave you these eyes. Truth gave you these eyes in the first place. Yes, that's true, I suppose, but I marred them. Let my shame go where it does deserve. Yes, let it go where it does deserve. Now that it's recognized, let it go. It does deserve to go now. Love has borne, suchness has borne the burden. My dear, then I will serve. Now you can serve.

[43:48]

So you must sit down and taste the meat. Taste the meat of suchness. Which comes to the taste, to the sound. I was hoping for a bird, but I got a cough. Comes to the colors. Comes to the touch down here. In your butt. In your knees. In your back. It comes through smell. And comes through concepts. What kind of concepts? Concepts of feelings. I shouldn't say that. Because those come to you in concepts too. But it comes to you in feelings, emotions, perceptions, consciousness.

[44:57]

Now the sixth ancestor had lots of disciples, thousands, and had transmitted to quite a few. He had thousands of disciples and lots of successors. The two most important successors are Seigen Gyoshi, of the lineage that we received here. Chingyuan Xingzi is the Chinese name. Chingyuan Xingzi. Seigen Gyoshi. And Nangako Ejo. Nanyue Huirong. These are two big disciples. They're called Two Horns of the Ox. From those two come the Five Petals of Zen.

[46:04]

But he had lots of other important disciples too. So now I'd like to go on a little bit to talk about these two big disciples. Maybe I'll start with Nanyue Huirong. From him comes the Linji line, the Rinzai line. And also the, what's called the Guiyang line, the line of Yangshan and Guishan. Comes Matsu, Zhaozhong, Baizhang, Guishan and Yangshan, Linji, Wangbo, and on and on. Many, many great, great Buddhist bodhisattvas come from that side.

[47:07]

That side tends to be... I have this feeling about that side versus the Chingzi side. A little bit like I feel about the two schools of tea in Japan. That the Nanyue line tends to be a little bit more dramatic and elegant and dazzling. It's a little bit lean on that side a little bit. And the Qingyuan side, a little bit more quiet and gentle and subtle. Even you might say one side's a little bit more masculine, the other side's a little bit more feminine. Or one's more powerful and the other's maybe a little bit sneakier.

[48:17]

Again, three steps. The other school they move across is six steps. Again, it's sort of a masculine, feminine thing. I've heard this example of this lady. She's a Nepalese lady, Nepalese mama. And she said that women are kind of like goldsmiths and men are more like blacksmiths. Women are kind of tapping away and men are sort of like blacksmiths. Once in a while they get up and go... These are just fun generalizations. But there's something like that between these two schools of tea. One's a little bit more dramatic, bigger movements. The other one's more like little movements. Smaller, precise movements.

[49:23]

And to some extent the two schools are a little bit that way. The one side puts more emphasis on the tiny little details. Very precise and subtle details. The other one, I'm not saying they're sloppy. Because they put an emphasis on details too, but more dramatic maybe. But the important thing I think is that they're coming from one source. And that after the schools split, which I can go into later, there's a tremendous amount of interfusion between these two schools after they split. These teachers are going back and forth, these monks are going back and forth, studying from both sides. Oftentimes they're enlightened on the other side of the horn, the other horn from the one that they become successors to. Like they're in this line, their teacher sends them over to say, that person has been enlightened over there, come back here and carry on this tradition. Or vice versa. So there's a very close connection between the two sides there really,

[50:25]

they should be balanced. And yet, people do emphasize sometimes one side or the other. So the Nanyue line, I'll just tell one story from that line during this session probably. Well, I'm doing this today anyway. And that is, when Nanyue came to the Sixth Ancestor, that first meeting is one of my favorite stories, and probably one of yours too, and one of Dogen Zenju's favorite stories. It appears several times in the Shobokenzo. He comes to the Sixth Ancestor, and the Sixth Ancestor says, What is it that thus comes? And you could also say, What is love that has just arrived? What is love now? And Nanyue says,

[51:28]

To say that it's this, misses the point. And the Ancestor says, What does that mean there's no practice in realization? Or that means there's no practice in transformation? And Nanyue says, I don't say that there's no practice in transformation. I just say that it cannot be defiled. And the Ancestor is very happy to hear this and says, This undefiled way has been transmitted by all the Buddhas and Ancestors. Now you are thus, I am thus too. What is love now?

[52:42]

What is thus come? To say that it's this, misses the point. This means what's happening right now, what you're aware of, what you know about. If you say it's this, you miss the what. You can only be aware of the levels of this, but if somebody asks you what's happening, and you point to this, you miss the great what, the huge what that underlies. In other words, you're dealing just with the conceptual level of your life, the level you know about. You're forgetting about this other level. If you say it was the what, that wouldn't be right either. If you say, what is it that thus come? You say, what? That's not quite right either, because then you miss this. There's a this and a what.

[53:44]

They're simultaneous, and they depend on each other. So to point to this wouldn't be right, and to point to what wouldn't be right. So if you say, I'm not going to point to this, and the teacher says, well, does that mean that you're not going to deal with the thises, with the practice, with all the thises that we practice with, and with the importance of transformation and enlightenment in your life? I don't say that. I just say, I don't want to go one way or the other. I don't want to defile it by pointing to it. Because whenever I point to anything, I'm in the realm of knowing. I just want it to be not defiled, that's all. That's good. Fine. Again, we're talking in the realm of thises.

[54:47]

Our knowledge is in the realm of thises. And when we hear in the realm of thises a question about what is thus, what's thusness, what's love, you can't point to this and say, this is love. This is love. This is all we know, but we don't say this is all that's happening. That would be, again, to have some thoughts about this. That would be to say good and bad about this. This is maybe, my wife may get mad at me for saying this to you, but my psychological background is such that I kind of like to be loved for thises.

[55:51]

I think some other people are like that too. In other words, everybody wants to be loved and somehow some of us thought that if we had the right thises, the right inventory of thises, then we'd get the love. And it does look like that somehow. Get tan, for example. Get a this called tan. Get a this called a real nice bod. Get a this called lots of cash, or a neat car, or be real smart, or be nice, or be a Zen master. These are some thises that when they turn into thises anyway, they're not really thises either, but if you deal with them on the level of thises and you get the right combination of thises, maybe this love will be there. Maybe if you get the right pattern of thises, you get the thises plus the other thises and all the right thises around it, then thusness will appear because of the thises. If you point to this just right,

[57:00]

then thus and love and all things will manifest. I think that's my psychological background. I kind of want my wife to tell me, and I want you guys to tell me too, that this is that you love. This was a good lecture. This really helped me. This was really smart. I kind of want you to tell me that you love me that way. My wife doesn't operate that way. She doesn't love me for thises, really. She tries, for my sake, to love me for thises. But she doesn't love me for thises. It's awesome. And to some extent, to some extent, you could trade in all the thises for a bunch of other thises and it wouldn't touch the love.

[58:01]

So I really don't want you... When people don't... When time goes by and no one tells me that I gave a good lecture, nobody says, I love you for this. I sometimes feel a little funny, but then I also remind myself that really, that's not why these people are here. They're not here for the thises. And they're not here for the what's, either. It's not also that you love someone for the unknown. You love someone for all the things you don't know about that are happening at another level. It's that you love them for the what's and the thises and you love them really for the interplay between the two. That's what you love. That is love. That's love. So my wife loves me for something beyond beyond the thises. So I never get the this kind of love. But there's something there that nothing can destroy that's just awesome. Now, on the other hand,

[59:08]

I love her for thises. It's easy for me to love her for thises because that's sort of where I come from. She doesn't care about me loving her for the thises. She kind of likes it, of course, to notice she's got a haircut. She likes that. But she really doesn't care that much about what she wants is unconditional love. Love that has nothing to do with thises. So she's really good at the unconditional. I'm relatively good at the conditional. And I kind of want the conditional, but I don't get it from her. And really I'm gradually getting used to not getting conditional love. I'm gradually switching over to unconditional love. And that's the love that all you give me, too, even though I have no way of knowing it. And I kind of, once in a while, like the other kind. But anyway, that's... that's a button.

[60:08]

That's dustness. That's the dustness of it. Just come. And you can't really point to the this. And you can point to it, but you kind of miss it. Why do you love me? Well, because you tie your shoes in a real cute way. Well, it's not really it, you know. It's because you love people that you like the way they tie your shoes. It's because of suchness. And suchness is not this or what. It's the... The what's produced the thises and the thises go back to make more what's. This is undefiled, this understanding, too. It doesn't leak. Now, I said, like with my wife,

[61:17]

you could trade in all the thises that are here for another set of thises, and she'd still love me, and she would. But she might leave me, too. For example, if I started beating her, now I don't beat her, I never hit her. She made that rule when we first got married, no hitting. And although I many times wanted to, especially when I'm losing an argument, to resort to that level, which I know I could lose. That was always against the rules. But if I started doing something like hitting her or something like that, she would leave me. But she wouldn't stop loving me. It would just become ridiculous for her to live with somebody who's beating her. It just wouldn't work for her life. So she'd go away. But the love would never get touched. I really believe that.

[62:18]

I think it's the same with all of you, that if I start giving really good lectures and start doing some really great stuff, that won't bother you. And if I stop giving lectures and start acting really weird, you'll kick me out. Or you'll leave. But you won't stop loving me. Because loving is such that nobody can start or stop it. Loving is what's already happening. Exactly, truly as it is. Some people are awake to it. Like my wife's awake to it. Some people aren't. Like me. But we can learn more about it. And our way of learning about it is to sit in silent purity

[63:28]

with no concerns. Because you don't have to work at making this suchness happen. You don't have to make this love happen. You just have to confess and repent, take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, give rise to the Bodhisattva vow, and sit in silent purity with no concerns. And it will dawn. It will dawn. So, tomorrow, hopefully, we can start talking about this fabulous creature called Chingsa. I mean, you know, Chingyuan Chingsa, Sengen Gyoshi. He was a real sweetheart. You're going to like him. He's the other horn

[64:29]

of the ox through whose compassion we now practice. And that's the end of that lecture. OK, now I'm going to do one more, OK? This one's sort of for Harris. Bodhidharma, actually, for some reason, Tom Cleary explained it one time, Bodhidharma sort of put aside the four foundations of mindfulness and I'm going to try to find out from him again why he did that. But, and I think the reasons why he did it were good reasons. Lots of great teachings should be put aside sometimes. But I would like to point out something about

[65:34]

the four foundations of mindfulness, particularly the foundation of mindfulness of breathing and the foundation of mindfulness of body. Well, the first foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of body. The second foundation is mindfulness of feelings. The third is mindfulness of consciousness. And the fourth is mindfulness of Dharma. The first one, mindfulness of body, which includes mindfulness of breath. The point I want to bring up here is that, well, you know, it says, first of all, it says, ever mindful, she breathes in. Mindful, she breathes out. Ever mindful, she breathes in. Ever mindful, she breathes out. When breathing in a long breath, he knows, quote, quote, I am breathing in a long breath, unquote.

[66:38]

Breathing out a long breath, he knows, quote, I am breathing out a long breath, unquote. Breathing in a short breath, he knows, I am breathing, quote, I am breathing in a short breath, unquote. Breathing out a short breath, he knows, quote, I am breathing out a short breath. First point up. And then it says, experiencing the whole body, I breathe in, quote, experiencing the whole body, I breathe in, unquote. Thus, she trains herself. Okay? First point I want to make is that, what I'm saying here is that, when you're doing something, and you're aware you're doing it, and you're mindful you're doing it, what you're aware of is a word. They have it in quotes.

[67:40]

Because it's in the realm of knowledge. So what you're aware of is a word. The word you're aware of, body or breath, is the word you're aware of. It says, ever mindful he breathes, it doesn't have that in quotes. It says, what you know, what he knows, it says, when you're doing this thing called breathing, who knows what breathing is? Nobody knows what breathing is. Nobody knows what breathing is. Except Buddha. And breathing is, and what Buddha knows, is not in the realm of knowledge. Okay? He knows. What does he know? Quote. Unquote. He knows. Quote. He knows these words. I'm breathing a short breath. Okay? That's the point.

[68:47]

To connect this early teaching, that one subtle point is that quotation mark. And right before the quotation mark, it says, she knows that. Before that, when it talks about what's happening, there's no quotation marks. When you're, when you're, it doesn't say that breathing is in quotation marks. Breathing itself is not in quotation marks. Breathing is beyond quotation marks. And, breathing is inside of quotation marks when breathing overlaps with the realm of knowledge. Then it's in quotation marks. Breathing that is known, is a word called breathing. Breathing that is a short breath, is a word called short breath. Okay? It's right here in the sutra. And nice. Just so you, can you remember? And the next point it makes, is that this is also very important. After all these bodily awarenesses, or breath awarenesses.

[69:48]

Or his mindfulness is established with the thought. Quote, the body exists to the extent necessary just for knowledge and mindfulness. Okay? The body exists. These things exist. They don't really exist. But they exist just to the extent necessary for knowledge. As soon as there's knowledge, as soon as there's enough of a concept for you there to be knowledge, that's it. That's enough. That's just body. Just the breath. Everything else is false thought. Good and bad. Any kind of substance attributed to it. It has no substance. It is just a this, which is conjured up out of what? Just this. And this to the extent,

[70:54]

just to the extent necessary for knowledge and mindfulness. You can't practice mindfulness. You don't practice mind. Mindfulness is not practiced except in the realm of knowledge. You don't practice mindfulness down in the dark of level of direct perception. Mindfulness is practiced up in the realm of words. So, you do attribute existence to these concepts, but only to the extent necessary for the experience of knowledge and mindfulness. And that's it. Everything else, it drops away. It's the same thing as saying the mind terminates in mere concept. The same thing as saying no thought and stop thinking. Stop thinking means just the sound of a bird. Means just the word bird. And you let the sound of the bird exist just to the extent necessary

[71:56]

for knowledge. Okay? So, I wanted to connect that early teaching of foundation of mindfulness of breathing with what we're doing here. Yes. I'm thinking of a very basic experience we have. A transformation or change that happens whenever we are learning something. For example, in any new situation, whether it's learning lines to a play or learning how to walk into the Zen Do or how to do Hori Yogi, or whatever, we have to exercise we just have to exercise mindfulness in order to learn it in a certain way. Generally. Now I'm walking over the threshold

[72:58]

of what's closest to the outside door or the first, whatever. Now I'm going to wait for the co-curator to say this, before I open the doors. Then after a while, okay, so that to me is very much like, you know, everything's in quotes. Like a very concept-oriented, very word-oriented. Then hopefully after a period of time, these actions are memorized or they're learned by the body or they're incorporated. And we don't go necessarily into a sleepy state in a few of these. But I, it's still called mindfulness if they become, in a sense, automatic, but not automatic. Therefore, not so much with words, but yet we're doing them with attentiveness.

[73:59]

Is that attentiveness? And wakefulness. In a way, it's still like a walk of mindfulness. Well, I just thought of tightrope walking, okay? When you're first tightrope walking, if you can actually stay on the tightrope, pretty much your mind terminates in mere concept. Pretty much you're only aware of the existence of your body and the tightrope to the extent necessary to know and to be mindful. But after you get better at it, you can daydream while you're tightrope walking. Okay? So, after you get better at it, you no longer have to pay that close attention. Then, you have then, since you're not spontaneously pure,

[75:00]

because you have to pay just... When you're first learning, you can only be mindful. You have no room to do anything else. Otherwise, you'll get it wrong and you'll fall off. After a while, you can do it and also daydream a little bit around the edge. And you can say, well, I'm tightrope walking and I'm doing pretty well. You can think good and bad and still tightrope walk. When you're first doing it, if you think about how you're doing, you will fall off. You don't have room to judge how you're doing. As you get a little better, you can start getting the judgment. At that point, the practice changes a little bit. And then you have to work not so much on being mindful. I mentioned you said being mindful, but the mindfulness then is not so much in order to do tightrope walking. The mindfulness now is to watch, to make sure you don't do anything in addition to the tightrope walking. Whereas when you're first doing it, just tightrope walking, you didn't do anything additional to tightrope walking.

[76:02]

So now the mindfulness is applied slightly differently. Mindfulness should be applied just to that extent. And when you're on a tightrope walking and you do a little bit more than what's... The word in the parentheses is what you have to take care of. If you don't take care of this, you'll fall off the rope. You have to take care of that. When you're first learning it, if you do anything other than that, you'll fall off the rope. That will teach you that you did something unnecessary. Later when you... Because your body learns in this sense, you think you can do something else. So then mindfulness has to be, again, reiterated just to keep you on the thing and not let anything else... not let any activities of mind happen around the object. Because now the falling off the rope

[77:05]

isn't helping you anymore the way it did before. So what you do in that case, what tightropers do, rather than practice mindfulness, just for mindfulness' sake, is they keep learning new tricks and keep upping the ante so that now they put chairs on the top of the rope and bicycles on top of the chairs on top of the rope so that they have to... so that the feedback from doing anything other than just what is necessary will come from the physical world. And then other people can watch it. And then other people can watch and they'll see that if anything other than what they have to take care of is being done, they'll fall off and it's just a big mess. Would it be harder for them to just keep on walking on the rope without having chairs and bicycles? Or would this work with orioke or whatever? That's right. In Buddhism, you just get up on the rope and we don't then pick up the bicycles and stuff like that, generally speaking. We stay at the simple level and then we try to see, once we've got something to... we have to have something to work on.

[78:06]

So once we have the basic thing, like orioke or... It's not that complicated to put your... you know, the foot in with the one nearest to the door. You can learn that fairly quickly. It doesn't take 25 years to learn that. But it takes 25 years to do it for 25 years. And after 25 years, to still watch and still notice if you're doing anything other than putting your foot in when you step over the door. And after 25 years, it's pretty hard just to put your foot in over the door and not think. Something more than that. Like, for example, this is all I've learned in 25 years? You know, one of my Dharma brother, Paul Disko, you know, we were ordained and he went to Japan. And he... he was already a good carpenter, but then he went to Japan and became a master carpenter. Came back after being away four or five years.

[79:07]

I was sitting at Zen Center. He came back and he had learned all this stuff, you know. What did I learn? What did I have to show for it? You know, what? And now many more years have gone by. What have I got, you know? I've been thinking about this practice period because this practice period is the 20th anniversary of my first practice period. What did I do for the last 20 years? What's the difference between this practice period and that practice period? And even I'm hoping this practice period will be more like that practice period, namely have more rain. What did I learn? I just wasted all that time. And actually I'm trying not to... I'm actually working at trying not to have learned anything. I'm working at doing this practice period just like I did that one, without any... you know, like, well, I can do this better than I did before. I could step in the door better than I did back then. No, I'm trying to actually...

[80:08]

My effort is to try not to step in any better than I did then. What a strange life. To want to always be a beginner. To always go back to the beginning. Strange, yes? At the Don Station, there's a beautiful, incredible picture that says, it shows a man taking a signal from the orchestra and under it it says, the steward screws up. And above, steward, there's a little balloon and it says, I'm not going to screw up, I'm not going to screw up, I'm not going to screw up. And it sounds like that. Right. And someday the Don will be able to take that cartoon away. Ah, yeah. I seem to remember that cartoon as only having one symbol. I didn't observe it in the light.

[81:08]

I'm sorry I gave two lectures, I'm really greedy. May our intention be brave and may there be meaning and place where the truth and love will not fade. To the Lord who lives, stay undone. O Lord who lives, stay undone. O Lord who lives, stay undone. O Lord who lives, stay undone.

[82:05]

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