And, you know, these kinds of opportunities are what these past beneficent beings, that's what they used, these opportunities that we have. They were just exactly like us. Let's see, okay, let's see, I think it was, I think it was Janine, and then it was Carla, and then it was Martha. Yes? How does a pearl know how to roll on itself? Can you think about that? Imagine how a pearl knows how to roll on itself. It does it, it knows how by its roundness. It knows how by the bowl, by the shape of the bowl, that's how it knows how.

[01:06]

That's the kind of guy Master Ma was. He knew how to do it by the circumstances and no other way. He didn't use anything other than what was happening to play his part. That's what I think about him anyway. So you don't need to know. It's not a matter of knowing. Knowing is kind of like, I don't know what, it's like trying to po-vault on crutches. You don't need crutches to po-vault, it's just going to be extra complications to try to do that. Next, Carla. What would it be like if everyone was like the Master Ma and how to roll on itself and

[02:16]

could say such profound things? I was wondering how everyone would listen to that. And I was wondering how it would be if everyone in the room would listen to the person next to them in that way, or the person across the room, that they really did have something of great value. And if we did that, all day long. Because I think that probably, I think 75% of what ever tries to come out of my mouth doesn't come out of my mouth anymore. And I don't know whether that's because I'm silent, because I don't listen to them, or maybe I should listen more.

[03:18]

But I think to myself, wow, that everybody must have a tremendous voice of all these things, and all I need is someone to ask, well what do you think? How are you? And when people ask me how I am, I don't dare answer because, number one, I don't think there's a real one here, and number two, I don't know how much power do we have to get everybody ready to absorb. So I just thought, well, if we were all, if everyone pretended all over the world to be a sick mastermind, or the one that was listening to them, that maybe it would just change the world overnight. It would just suddenly disappear. Or even if one person did that, it would change the world, immediately. Just like it did what Master Ma had to say, what he said.

[04:28]

And I think that would be good if we all spoke just like Master Ma. If we made the effort to speak like that all day long, that would be very good. And every time we did that, every moment we did that, it would be sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. And if we listened, I don't know how this monk was listening, but I know how Master Ma was listening. No, I believe Master Ma was listening like you're talking about that monk listening. When he was listening, it was the same thing. But we don't know until he talks. That's why it's good to talk, so people know how you were listening. Your speech can teach people about your listening, so speech is important. But listening is equally important to speech. They're both necessary, and I want to listen like Master Ma and speak like Master Ma.

[05:52]

And the way Master Ma spoke was that he wasn't trying to speak the same words as his ancestors, but he was doing the same practices as his ancestors. And the practice is to go down into this cave and find that pearl, which is you, and watch this pearl rolling on itself. And then study how this pearl listens, how this little pearl speaks. And for some reason or other, that might be difficult a good share of the time. There's a strange thing of somehow corralling this horse and pulling her back on the path. Martha?

[06:53]

While I was sitting here, this thought came up, which I thought, it's interesting that sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, I didn't think for a minute that he was talking about himself. I mean, in a sense, in a kind of arrogant way. Like, I am sun-faced Buddha, he is moon-faced Buddha. But there was this kind of declaration of love for Buddha, and I felt it was interesting that in the use of the word face, he didn't say sun-Buddha, moon-Buddha, he said sun-faced Buddha. And it was like, there's this face that's the sun, there's a face that's the moon, and then there's the Buddha. And it was a kind of declaration of a Buddha nature that connected him to the person who was asking him the question. I felt very connected to him. There's you, and there's me, and there's these faces.

[07:56]

And these faces keep coming up, and they seem to be different. Sometimes moon, and sometimes sun, but it's Buddha. Yeah. The word face is important. It's got a lot of things going on here in these little six characters. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, six characters. It's got face in there, it's got sun, and moon, and Buddha. Pretty good. Do you think he was waiting for somebody to ask him? Where did that come from all of a sudden? What does it say? Stars fall, thunder rolls. I mean, stars fall. And this guy says, sun-faced Buddha. Face is really important. What's with birth and death and no birth and death? Birth and death, no birth and death, and face.

[08:57]

Face. It's face. How do you see this? Where do you think that came from? How could that guy be that way? To say that all of a sudden. Carolyn? You had your hand raised a little while ago. Didn't you? I think it was a little while ago. You still have something you want to say? Um, no. Rolling. Keep rolling. Keep those doggies rolling. I was feeling very intimate with Mark when I was thinking about when you said go back to yourself. When I started looking at this, I was home. I didn't come here, because I had this terrible back pain. And friends had given me a couple of Valentine's cookies, and I read this.

[10:04]

And it was like some face in the movie, who felt like a Valentine. And I saw some of these stories, you know, like either opaque or put in an office, or something like this. And it was just like a sweet gift. And, um, it was like, he was just lying there on the couch there. And, um, his family were talking about the face. Most of these stories, I only see these guys, these two guys with the face. But somehow, Mark actually had a face. And I looked back at a couple of other cases, just briefly, but he was mentioned in them. And, um, I was asking him, what is Peter? And one time he said, Mark is Peter. And one time he said, no, I know Peter. And, um, that just felt like something really meaningful to me.

[11:07]

So I watched my pain kind of coming and going. How sometimes pain comes and I fight it and do all these things. And other times it goes. And sometimes it comes and it doesn't matter at all. It's just, I don't know, the next moment. And, um, somehow this feeling, in some cases, really limited, but getting this sort of cycle feeling that, um, just moment after moment comes and goes. And it might be a long life. It might be a short life. It might be pain. It might not be pain. It just keeps going. And somehow this mind that, you know, crutches here or there, makes it turn into pain and not pain. Then there's this sleep feeling.

[12:15]

When you're practicing going into the cave, then you're like, ooh, there's something else here. And I always, when I hear, you know, go into the cave, it always brings up the question of, what is it to go into the cave? How do you do that? What does it really mean, going into the cave? What is it? You're asking me? It means to go into yourself right now. It means to turn around and walk back into yourself. So it's something you just keep doing. It's something you keep doing. How many times have I gone down into the Green Dragon Cave for you? I can't tell how deep it is.

[13:16]

This distress deserves recounting. It's worthy of recounting. There's something about us that it's... There's some difficulty in this for some reason. Of going back into ourself. Because the nature of the mind is that it thinks that everything out there is outside. So basically what you're doing here is you're reversing evolution, in a sense. You're turning it around and then it comes forward again. It isn't like the pearl turns around once and stays there. It keeps turning round and round. You go back and then you relate. And there's people and you care about them as though they're not you.

[14:20]

And then you remember to go back home. And then you go back out again. And this constant turning somehow brings this tremendous working of the whole into your own process. So you realize that the whole world and you are turning on each other. But the going back home is the hard part. Going back into yourself. When you're talking to somebody. When somebody's insulting you. When you hear a great story. When you hear a difficult teaching. To go back home so that you can come back and turn this thing around. And make it an opportunity for benefiting beings who are suffering because they're not doing this. Because they aren't celebrating this constant turning. So we have to do this work on ourselves in order to encourage others to do the same work.

[15:24]

And we have to be healthy when we're healthy too. But not just be healthy but go back into the way we're healthy and be the healthy that we are. It's hard to be healthy too. It's actually not harder to be sick than to be healthy. And usually people first learn how to be sick and then later learn how to be healthy. Most people almost always the breakthrough is in sickness not in health. The first time you completely turn around you almost always is in sickness. I don't want to make an absolute rule of that but that's a classical opportunity. It's a moment of illness, a moment of pain when we wake up. Once you can do it in pain you can do it in pleasure or health. But it's harder to do it in health than it is to do it in sickness.

[16:34]

Some people who haven't spoken yet want to speak since it's a guest. In the book of records it says something about Mungo talking about Shakyamuni. Can you refer to what he's talking about? Well it says, he's referring to Master Ma offering these wonderful opportunities and then he says that even though he's offering these wonderful opportunities to people by the way he lives this is still gouging out a wound in healthy flesh. It can become a nest or a den. Do you understand? Even though this is a great kindness that he offers, still it in some sense hurts us that he does this for us

[17:40]

because we can make a nest out of this and stop turning and stop doing our work. That's part of the reason why I asked us to use ourselves as a resource right away in this koan. Come at it from your own work, come at it from yourself. Let's not get too much into how wonderful it was that he said this. I've already done it too much probably. Yes. I've been thinking that a guy with a tongue that big ought to have it cut out and sell it in the market. Well please do. Thank you. Linda.

[18:43]

I've been thinking about the last koan. Andy. I was thinking it's kind of like the acquiescence kind of like sets the scene for the timeless man to speak. So Master Ma did. And it's, I know for me the acquiescence, like if things are going well there's a certain kind of confidence or kind of inertia of being carried forward or something. And it's kind of visual or something and it doesn't necessarily feel that way. No. And then with sickness or something like that there's a little more hesitancy and a little more opportunity for acquiescence.

[19:53]

We have less of feeling, we don't feel so much like we have something to lose when we're sick. Or we're maybe even willing to lose something when we're sick. When I have a tongue, I think I do, or if something is like that I'll say something. You know like Janine asked how could Master Ma say something like that. And it's kind of like he could not. She said how would he know how to say that. How would he know how to say it, but he said he didn't. He didn't, no. He was a tongueless man. See that's why this case follows the previous one, Jim. So when I'm healthy, I have a tongue. When I'm healthy I have a tongue. Or I'll say something, you know, that has like this subjective kind of outcome. You know, it's kind of a smart thing. Yeah. Our strength, for most of us our strength is our habit.

[20:55]

Our strength is our delusions. And then we talk from our delusions. But to speak from our weakness, or to speak from having no tongue, to speak from our illness, in other words to speak from whatever is coming up rather than our own strength. This is a tongueless woman. But who wants to live there, you know, and find a jewel there, in utter poverty, you know. In that cold, damp, smelly, dark cave. You're a jack. Wait a second, somebody who hasn't spoken has cut her hand up there. I'm laughing but, well, I think so.

[21:58]

I really like this guy, Master Mo. I read it and I liked his facing this life. The moon and the sun. And I thought, yeah, this is it. And as an architect, I've decided to do some work with homophobes. And I'm a complete blob. I am completely emotional. I haven't even started yet and I have gone home and it's just so dark and despairing and desperate that I don't even know if I can. I mean, and this is just to volunteer, this is not... I am sharing something but there's also some... I think, I hope, something more. So I, yesterday, could hardly do anything.

[23:06]

And I, okay, well, I'll just meditate. I'll sit here and start breathing. And that was a return, I suppose, to my home. And I thought, okay, I'll go out again. See what is there and continue. And friends have sort of tried to encourage me. And I've needed that. And it's just surprising that I can comprehend strength so easily. And to try to live that, it's so difficult. Your distress deserved recounting. So Master Ma encourages us to do this difficult work. He was doing difficult work. You can be sure of that. And yet, this could pop out of his mouth.

[24:11]

And that could pop out of your mouth. And this can pop out of your mouth. Pop. I can't forget the image you created for me, where you said, we're all sitting in our own roles, when we are among ourselves. I don't know what it means, but I can't get the image out of my mind. It feels like we're all so separate from each other. Which seems very sad. We are separate from each other. Everybody else is our ball. We're rolling around in everybody else. That's what we're rolling in. And the pearl is separate from the ball. But the radiance of the pearl is the ball that it's rolling in. Everybody else is separate from you, and they're your radiance.

[25:14]

But, of course, your radiance isn't separate from you, and neither are they. We're all your light. You're not your light. Wait a second. Just one second, though. You had your hand raised, Janet. Would you like to pop something out? It seems like a non-sequitur now, but in my experience, when I was thinking about it earlier this morning, I thought, we can't prepare for loss, and we can't prepare for death, and we can't prepare for continued illness. And I think that that's something that needs also to change. When you say we can't prepare, you mean it really doesn't do any good.

[26:16]

You can prepare for it. But emotionally, you're preparing for something that you know nothing about. That's right. But you can prepare, and preparing can be... If you understand what you're doing, if you go back to yourself while you're preparing, then preparing is just as good as any other stupid thing. Sure. It's another way of spending time. It's another way of spending time. Correct. As long as you keep realizing what you're doing, preparing is okay. Yes. So tonight you can all, before you go to bed, think about what you're going to do tomorrow. But remember, what you're thinking about is not tomorrow. You're thinking about yourself. Right, Mark? Yes. Yes. What do you want to say? I was just going to read what I was feeling about this morning. Fine. Sun-faced Buddha eats the pain. Moon-faced Buddha, in between, now, gone. Illness, manifestation of thought, feeling, consciousness.

[27:21]

Once it becomes word, it is too late for the moon and too early for the sun. This is good class participation, but there's a few people who haven't spoken, which we give special encouragement to. Karen? Did you speak already? I didn't say if I asked you a question. I didn't really speak. I think that it's about a really very deep surrender. About faith.

[28:22]

Do you think that going down into the cave is deep surrender? What was that? And when you said, stars fall, thunder rolls, I remember a small miracle that happened this morning, at service. A spark flew out of the cauldron, and I wasn't standing in front of it, I was some distance away, and it just went boom, like that. Small miracles happen all the time, and that's the preparation. You have to be there for it. And then, where does intimacy between us come into this picture? Or come out of this picture?

[29:22]

And where does it come from? Where does the intimacy come from? Where does it come from? It comes from the down at the bottom, and then from down at the bottom, what comes? Light. Light? In what form? Words. Words. And what else? Faces. Words and faces, basically. You can use your hands, too. Meditate on your intention deeply, and trade every being and place. Fill the true merit of the Buddha's way. Beings are numberless.

[30:32]

I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. So next week, our class will be on Valentine's Day, so please do the right thing. Also, I'd like to remind everyone who has borrowed a book to please bring it next week to return it. I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words.

[32:00]

Marks to Case 35. Just one question. Were these cards put in any specific order, or was it just a random ordering? Well, I feel that the order is logical, reasonable, intentional. In the early ones, particularly, I feel, in the first several, I feel like they're very much kind of going like this, and then going like that, and then going like this, and then going like that. Kind of like presenting basics of the teaching in different sides. And I think we've often felt that the case we're on

[33:14]

flows naturally from the last one. It might be interesting to see how this one flows from the last one. You want to sit here, Kathy? You want to sit here? This is Kathy. So we have this next case here. It's Case 36, and in the booklet record, it's Case 3. The Great Master Matsu was unwell, seriously sick,

[34:20]

by near death, and the superintendent, or the chief priest of the monastery came to ask about his health, and said, how is your venerable health these days, Master? And he said, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. That's the story. And as I think many of you know,

[35:33]

these names of the Buddha can be found in certain lists of names of Buddha. You can find these two names. And the sun-faced Buddha is said to live for, I believe, 18,000 years. And the moon-faced Buddha just lives one day and one night. This story seems to be, I mean, this koan seems to be very difficult, although we can say things about it. It seems that it would be good to, what to say?

[36:40]

I guess, I kind of feel like, since it's so difficult, we shouldn't, since it's so difficult, let's not depend on what anybody else says about it. If we are encountering something very difficult to understand, expression, we might want to get some help from somebody else, and then with their assistance say something. But in some ways it's more straightforward just to express our understanding, because then we know, not we know, but we have a sense, that we're really, we're just really expressing ourselves. And we don't think that, oh, there's some chance, because I'm using what some other Zen teachers said,

[37:45]

that I'll be less foolish than I might be if I just said what I thought. In some ways that's even more foolish, in addition to not understanding, to hide behind somebody else's words. So I would suggest that we approach this really from our own sense of it. Now, on the other hand, sometimes people like to have a little bit of point of departure, in order to express something. Do you have some point of departure available to you now, or do you need anything more?

[38:46]

Just a question, I wondered if you or maybe anyone else knows, whether or not in the Chinese cosmology of this time, the sun was understood, as we understand it today, as casting light on the moon, which is then reflected back to the earth, or whether or not, I know a lot of people from earlier times sort of believed that the sun had one kind of illumination, and the moon had another kind of illumination. And I just wondered when people at this time were thinking of the moon, if they were thinking of it as reflecting the sun's light, or if they were thinking of it as self-luminous. I don't know what they were thinking. Yes. I felt that this koan expressed the kind of contradictory idea that as individuals there will never be a time in which we don't exist,

[40:16]

and yet our existence is very fleeting. Yes, I think that's part of the imagery here. The sun, you know, and one image that somebody suggested is you think of the sun, and particularly think of the sun setting maybe, you know, maybe in its last glorious moments, just before it starts going down into the horizon. And in that golden radiance, where you maybe feel some poignancy too that is going away, but in that golden radiance, in some sense you feel all of eternity, just in that moment. And even though it's going away, still in that moment, you feel eternity. Whereas the moon, you could say the same thing about the moon,

[41:18]

but the moon, I think, for Asian people, conveys more fragility. And Asian people don't like to look at the sun too much, except when it's setting. So I guess it's a safe time to look at it. When they look at the moon, they usually don't look straight at the moon, usually they like to look at the moon through clouds, or through a window, or like take a plum branch, hold a plum branch up in front of the moon. Yes? There's also poignancy in that the sun is kind of a representation of day, and the moon a representation of night. Yes. So it's like a whole day, or a whole life. So in a person's head,

[42:23]

so it seems like an expression of experiencing the whole of life. It's an expression of the experiencing of the whole of life. Right. Yes. And I think generally we can go ahead and watch all koans, if we want. We can watch everything, actually. And we can watch certainly all Buddhist teachers as using some opportunity, like you're dying and somebody comes up to you and says, How are you? And you use this opportunity of the words coming out of your mouth to express the whole. And part of the way we are is we're this strange combination of feeling like lasting forever and feeling impermanent.

[43:26]

What is it about you that would help you understand this? What is it about the way you are that shows you what this story is about? Yes? Well, when I was approaching this, I was thinking of a kind of visualization of what a sun-faced Buddha and a moon-faced Buddha would look like in relationship to the experience between the two. In the sun-faced one, I saw the light going out, and the rays going out. In the moon-faced one, it was more like being receptive, a receiver of light. To me then, it was this experience of breathing in and breathing out. So I've been breathing in through all my pores, this kind of luminosity when you get very quiet, and breathing out again, kind of rays of light talking with the idea of a moon, helping out the moon.

[44:32]

Kind of receptive, like you were talking about, receptive and active. Was there a hand over there? Yes? Yes, I get this level of me because I was sick. I've been sick for a long time, and so I came tonight because the koan was about this person's death. You heard about this koan? The night Mary was reading it tonight, and she said, I'm coming, and I said, and she said, I've been sick, and I remember the other class, and then she said, I said, I have to read the koan, so I read the koan, and she said, I wish you'd come. Mary? Is Mary over here? Yes. So, anyway, we read it, and... Whenever I read those things... Where were you when you read it? I was sitting at the dining room table.

[45:36]

Was Mary with you? Yes, Mary was eating dinner. Are you roommates? Mary lives in my house, yes. And other people live here. But... Yeah, so I thought, well, I better come, because this is about someone who was sick, and how are you, and... And I thought, you know, that's exactly why. According to how I feel. That, you know, it's kind of, to me, it was like saying, like, I know this is, I'm trying not to be too unholy about this, but that's how it first hit me, and I thought, it's always easy to find something deeper in anything, because if you look at it,

[46:38]

then it becomes awesome. But in the beginning, I think it made me feel good to hear someone say, It's a very calming thing to say. You know, how are you today? I mean, you know, some days it will be, you know, one minute it will be Florence, and the next minute it will turn around and be kale, fried meat, and... And that's the way life is, it's, you know, some things are good and some things are good. You're sick, well, you know, get up, go to bed. And I always think of children as good as Buddha. I think of them as some things good as Buddha, and some things good as Buddha. They're either juicy with crying, or they're brilliant with joy and laughter, and, you know... So I don't know, it just seemed like everything was fairly good. I would like people to say that to me all the time.

[47:43]

Well, that's simple. You know what to say to Carla. Carla? Yes. I think there's a certain problem with that. The problem is saying that my experience with people I've been with, and have been dying, is that things, a lot of things get less and less important. It's not... Whether it's a sun-faced Buddha or a moon-faced Buddha, it doesn't... It's one or the other, and it doesn't matter. It's not so much...

[48:58]

I didn't experience it so much as what is a sun-faced Buddha, and what is a moon-faced Buddha, because it's more like, to me, they're the same thing, and it's all the same thing. It's one version or another of the same thing. How's the air? Is it starting to get a little warmer? Some of you willing to open some windows? Okay. Not Andy, it looks like. I'm chillin'. It would appear to me that

[50:23]

when they're making the statement that there isn't a difference, but I think when you're living it through death or loss, that even though you have an understanding of that, that while the loss is occurring, whatever, it's an entirely different feeling. You can't hold on to the kun-si-kun-sa so easily. So how can this... be a teaching while you're going through the process of loss, whether you're the one changing, or it's someone you love? So, how? Through understanding that the rest is no more than loss.

[51:33]

I'll attempt to say preparation, but an understanding in the... in just the way life functions, the way life is. In life. It says... It says here, illness comes from doing, going comes from ill, in the commentary, illness comes from illusion, illusion comes from the mind, mind is normally unborn, whence does illness come to be? When he had formed this thought, suddenly he was well. That comes... what Carlos said, he just simplified the whole thing to make it really nice, nice and chunky. We've all been ill, we've all... I have an image of my mother coming to see me when I'm ill, and it's like this big, oh, I'm really ill,

[52:41]

and then my girlfriend comes to see me, and I'm like, I'm alive, and I'm like, OK, I'm not that bad. It's the same thing, it's a frame of mind, you can overcome the state of mind. It's the same as the death of loss of a loved one. I've experienced a friend going through loss of a loved one, and his preparation, the way he handled it, was really unique for me to see, there wasn't this moaning and this grasping to the human form, it was like, they're ready to go. So how do you prepare yourself? By staying alive, by realizing how we cling and our attachments to certain things. I think. Yes? I have a feeling that it has to do with a complete surrender to all our pains,

[53:42]

and it's kind of easy to feel that we have to overcome this aversion or so, but it feels to me that somehow it's more a process of an opening to really get ready to actually work on this pain in our life. And for myself, I very often my tendency is more to kind of cut it off and to get strong, but actually I feel a freedom with no incomplete surrender to it, which is kind of a return, but that's not an easy thing to do. It's not an easy thing to do. Oh, no. No. It just came up to me, because you were talking so much about inner way training, I don't think it's so much about doing, it's really, it's a process of opening and actually any kind of disease or illness or weakness is based on this kind of preparation or can give sometimes the chance to that

[54:45]

because it's something that doesn't give us the chance to run away. The disease is the preparation? Yeah, it can give the chance to that. It can give a chance. A chance for what? You already said it. The disease gives a chance for what? To not run away, but to open up to any kind of illness or non-infection. Mm-hmm. Martha? Well, I think I was going to say something that my teacher said. My sense in listening to Chris was that I felt something tightening, that in the presence of some terrible tragedy if we were really practicing, that we would somehow hold back the despair or hold back the fear and that through some kind of trick of the mind we would be able to kind of circumvent

[55:46]

some real, some tragic, some relationship to a tragedy. And I feel like this poem is about Dasdama being totally moon-faced Buddha and being totally sun-faced Buddha. It's not, they're not weakening each other necessarily by being there together. I see how he could be pounding his head on the earth and tears pouring out of every place when he lost his son or his teacher. And that would be moon-faced Buddha. And right through the center of that the sun-faced Buddha. You know, since it is alternation, you know, just the way the sun and moon alternate,

[56:48]

you know, the sun comes up every day and sets and the moon rises. And in life, you know, brightness, you know, comes and goes. And so, you know, in that sense, in the situation of of being sick or someone else being sick, I think, you know, there are moments, you know, when we can maintain our our brightness or our cheerfulness or, you know, our sense of peace. And other moments, when we lose it and slip into kind of despair. I get the impression from you know, from the way the expression is used here, that this person who is saying sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha

[57:51]

is not captured or he is not caught by despair and not caught by by happiness or the lack of despair. But he is not stuck in it. For him, it is kind of like an equanimity between sun-faced and moon-faced. For me, there is no equanimity. It is like an alternation of the two. So I think that there is something in this about being able to experience sun-face and moon-face, joy and despair or peace and despair without without becoming trapped by them or owned by them. Yes, certainly.

[59:02]

And more. Quite more. Yes. Well, I'm thinking about the person who asked the question, sort of thinking about what Carla said about there being this easy level of access, but when I think about this monk coming and asking about him, he was clearly very, very sick. I think he was asking him to say something pretty profound about what was going on. Well, this guy, you know, this Master Ma always said something profound. Everything he did was profound. That's called that's called right faith. Hi, Lee.

[60:08]

I wonder about the monk, though, whether he whether he dared to to to, you know, ready himself to receive this response. I wonder about that monk. Arlene? I was just going to say that I wonder about defining illness. What is the difference between illness and happiness? And that maybe it's in the definition of illness that it's illness. But maybe if you didn't define it as illness, what would you know? Yeah. And Master Ma let it be called ill. The great Master said,

[61:16]

it's illness. Watch me. Watch me be sick. Check this out. And come and ask me questions now and hear what the sick man says. But it's true that without defining that way, he wouldn't have been able to use sickness to teach the way he did. And then look at the way he teached. He teached. He said this very amazing thing. Now that he's already said it, you think, well there it is. But nobody ever said that before as far as we know. We've checked the records. It's been a computer search. Somehow he managed to say that and because he said it now, they wrote it down because they said this is really interesting that he said this. Yes.

[62:26]

It means horse or cow. Because he could lick his nose with his tongue. Laughter He was a big guy with a long tongue. So they called him Horse Master. His posthumous name was Great Silence. He has more, what do you call it, he has more certified enlightened disciples than any other any other teacher in China or Japan or Korea. I don't know if there's any Tibetan teachers that have as many as he did. He produced 139 Zen Masters. Not to mention lots of other, you know, probably very fine disciples who weren't officially Zen Masters.

[63:29]

So he was an amazingly effective teacher and here's one of the most, apparently one of the most effective and amazing of his teachings which we get to look at and wonder about. But I will say over and over that I I recommend that we approach it from ourselves. That you try to, you try to I like the instruction of, you know, go back to yourself and check that out and then tell us about this story. Remember you know that you're a person sort of on your own speaking here and then let's see what that person has to say. And tell us about what it's like to walk back home through yourself. Tell us about that and see if that's what these other people went through when they contemplated this story.

[64:36]

Yes. Even when you were a little baby you did? When did you start? Probably when I was about 14 years old. And what they're saying right here in the first sentence is that after all that investigation in the mind, intellect and consciousness there is still death. And for me there is the sun-faced Buddha and moon-faced Buddha is the sun, is the sun. In my experience there's still death and the heat of the sun and in the moon there's still the the feeling of the moon. So without thinking and getting too deep into a lot of this

[65:40]

it's what is life and I think what you're telling us to do and I think it's really important is to try to to know these people through our own experience. Yes. And embody the teaching. I like a line from the verse in the air faces for without such as You know what it is about that that you like? You know what it is? What is it encouraging you? It's beyond line. Illness or wellness night or day. Yes.

[66:53]

This brings up some of the other cases for me that we can study and I've been investigating it also that this whole duality moon-face, sun-face a lot of the footprints that are embedded in the mud the thing that makes the footprints a lot of duality to me what it brings up I like your instruction but what it brings up for me is when you talked about being hit last week that was really a key thing for me and I realized that I define myself by what hits me that I react to that and so it's like there's part of me that's defined by objects that I call not me and then there's a part of me and then there's a process in some way

[67:57]

and I'm still investigating this where I create the objects too and so there's a it seems to me that there's kind of a round, there's a circular flow that I'm feeling when I read this kind of thing where there's an inflow from the objects and an outflow from me when I create the objects and it seems like I'm creating my own objects and then reacting to that, almost so the duality to me is not sequential it kind of happens all at the same time I don't know if that's the term you talk about or not but that's what I think and it's a good feeling, it feels very calm and I think that mirror faces forms without subjectivity for me might help me in noticing that there are objects out there I let go of my

[69:00]

process for a bit and just notice that there are objects out there and notice this well I think I'm getting into trouble here well well what you're saying and the line that Janine just pointed out about the mirror contemplates or confronts objects without subjectivity or confronts the image without subjectivity forms faces faces forms or faces images faces I don't think that I individually create my images but my life system is such that it interprets whatever is happening by these images and I get the images from myself

[70:01]

so I interpret what's happening by using myself I use myself to interpret who's out there so and then the next line is the pearl in the bowl rolls on itself so we're rolling on ourself yes what I got from that verse and a little going back to in some case Buddha being there is what we've already talked about is basically an illumination that's reflected in the moon or in the particulars of each situation whether it be the distant cold and sick and dying or in other situations and so it's a complete reflection without subjectivity

[71:03]

the illumination directly reflected in the moon without anything really interfering in that reflection and then the pearl in a bowl rolls on itself a pearl looks a lot like the moon and the bowl also for a pearl has a sense of eternity to it the pearl basically just rolls constantly inside of the bowl can't really get out hopefully hopefully and so what I kind of envisioned from that is the pearl is constantly rolling and meeting certain circumstances and directly reflecting or directly in intimate contact with the bowl which is the illumination of the sun and the pearl

[72:05]

rolling in the bowl the circumstances of the pearl are that it's luminous and that it rolls in the bowl and its luminousness rolling on itself it can even imagine that it sees a moon outside itself but really the moon we see is really our own luminousness and our luminousness is our interaction with circumstances it's not our own thing it's that we're rolling on ourself in the bowl all the time that's our luminousness and we can see that luminousness in everything because we roll on this luminousness now this is the what do you call it this is the I don't know what to call this

[73:06]

this kind of description but anyway the other description is for 20 years I've suffered bitterly how many times have I gone down into the green dragon cave for you I can't tell the depth of this cave you clear-eyed people don't take this lightly so there's that side to this business of realizing that this pearl is rolling on itself in the bowl for some reason or other it's difficult for us to experience the very process which helps us realize that the luminousness we see out there is really just our own process which can project itself all over the place

[74:06]

so we have a good chance here we all have the opportunity right now to go down into the cave and find this pearl which happens to be either under the dragon's neck under the dragon's chin or in the dragon's mouth so so the actual functioning strange enough is going on right now and if you see a pearl or you see the moon then you can see it otherwise otherwise you have to find it in yourself once you find it in yourself then you can say something like Master Ma said

[75:12]

but somehow for a strange reason it's hard to get down there and find this pearl in ourselves it seems to be it has something to do with some bitter struggle I don't know it seems like it wouldn't have to be that way it's not exactly like we're saying it's mandatory but on the other hand Master Ma got sick he could have died in good health believe me he could have died sometime before this story when he wasn't feeling so bad and they could have said Master Ma was feeling fine and was about to die Buddha was sick

[76:17]

just before Buddha died he went into a state where he was feeling fine wasn't wasn't feeling bad, he was feeling quite equanimous quite detached and at peace when he died but here Master Ma's not feeling so well and here's where he's teaching about this he's showing this bowl this pearl rolling on itself in the bowl that's us that's what we are that's each of us in our different way because we're in different bowls where each of us is sitting is the middle of a different bowl and

[77:21]

are you enjoying your position do you want to say something Sonia although the pearl is rolling on itself in the bowl it seems that it requires the bowl or the shape of this thing to roll if it was just sitting flat on land maybe it wouldn't roll unless there was an earthquake or something another translation is the pearl on a tray is rolling on itself but the part of this teaching happened with his being ill or came out that there was some dynamic there in this case of the pearl and the bowl or something that brought this

[78:30]

form or that happened to the pearl

[78:35]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ