I really recommend that you learn these stories by heart. They're much more useful if they're in you, like inscribed in your tissue, so that they come up. They come up many different ways, but one of the ways that they came up is the way they are in a book. And you can vary them from that at will. It's good if you have it as a resource, just to memorize the cases. Now, if you can memorize the verses, all the better. The commentaries, you're not so worried about. But the case and the verse, and the introductions are very good, too, because they don't really explain. The commentaries, I think, not so important. You can write your own. I really recommend you memorize these cases. OK, so back to case 39. As some of you know, I pulled out of this case, I interpreted this case not as a meaning, but as a resource.

[01:10]

I made this case into a meditative resource by connecting it with the breathing process. So I recommend that you... you could try just using the case to help you study your breathing. And then, that's helpful. Then you can, incidentally, you can use your breathing awareness to study the case. So on the inhale, have breakfast. Once you've finished inhaling, you've eaten breakfast, so on the exhale, wash your bowl. And then at the end of washing your bowl, then notice the end of bowl washing, the end of the exhale. And just watch that place there and see when breakfast starts again. And as the breath comes in, as the breath enters your body on the inhale, notice the experiences, you know, take in whatever experiences of body and mind arise on the inhale.

[02:18]

eat them, so to speak. When you're done then, on an exhale, just wash off the bowl, wash off the container of those experiences. In other words, wash off your consciousness. That's a meditation instruction, which I thought was kind of a nice meditation instruction, which can be drawn from the case. It's not the meaning of the case. but it's a way then to use the case to help you with your breathing awareness. And incidentally, you also will be meditating on the case, and the meaning of the case or the significance of the case might be revealed to you in the process of being present with your posture and breathing. So I suggested that, okay? All right, so that's the case. So we have this story. And so, I don't know, this commentary is kind of fun.

[03:24]

Catching a dragon with a straight hook is already being a dull, awkward tub. A dull, awkward tub. What do you have? He's dull. He's just less dull than before. Huh? What was it? Dull? Dull lacquer tub. Lacquer tub. Or bucket, if you prefer. Dull lacquer bucket? Is that... Not a shot. He's lying. Oopsies. Well, there you go, folks. It says lacquer tub. I mean, the Chinese says that, but I think Cleary probably thought. He thought something. He took it out. Three inches apart from the hook is already being taken over by the boatman and Jishan.

[04:32]

I have a question on the case of G. Sean and the boatman. You got G. Sean and the boatman? What case is that? What case is that? Does anybody know what case that is? Huh? I don't have my book. What's that about, this catching, hmm? 68. 68, yeah. 68. which is, if you'll notice, is similar, isn't it? Read it. It's a similar issue. Do you want me to read that case? My guest, Jishan, how is it when getting rid of the dust to see Buddha?

[05:50]

Jishan said, you should directly swing the sword. Is this the problem? This is the problem, the swing of the sword. Repeat. Well, find it. It's this thing about the boatman. A guy comes in the boat, and Jishan says, you know, when you come out of the boat, it's a question, a similar question is, is there enlightenment or not? Yes, there is. You should direct us from the sword. If you don't swing the sword, you shouldn't stick to the nest. Uh-huh. The monk brought it up to ask Jishan. Uh-huh. How is it when getting rid of the nest, does he do it? Xishuang said, he has no country where we can meet him. The monk returned a quote of this to Xishuang. Xishuang went up in the hall and said, in the establishment of method and school, he does not compare to me the profound talk.

[06:58]

And to the principal, I am still 100 steps behind Xishuang. That's it. There's another one, too, which is more directly about the boat, yeah. So that one's about the hook part. What's this business about a hook, a straight hook? Hmm? What do you think that's about? What? It's for catching fish that turn away from life, okay? So what does a straight hook mean? It sucks. Yeah, so this book, this case kind of has a straight hook. This case has kind of a straight hook, right? Is it an obvious hook? No, I don't think... Do you see the hook in this case? Where is there something... Where is enlightenment demonstrated in this case? It's rather subtle, isn't it?

[08:02]

I mean, the way he's fishing is kind of ordinary, right? Have you had breakfast? Yes. Wash your bowl. And the idea is that this is a story of enlightenment, right? But the way the teacher is fishing is pretty silly. You don't see something obvious where he's cooking the guy and pulling him around and testing him, do you? And then he says, yes, I've eaten breakfast. It doesn't look like he got something there, necessarily. And then he just washed the bowl. This is supposed to be a story of the enlightenment of this monk, or maybe the enlightenment of this monk. That's part of what we're talking about in this case. Sorry. But the monk hooked the teacher first. Do you want me to teach you first by the question? Yeah, but that's also not a very obvious hook. It's pretty straight. Ordinarily, you come to monastery, you say, I've just entered, could you give me some instruction?

[09:03]

This is fairly straight. It's for catching dragons. What is the dog about then? It's an arguing dog. Yeah. So what's that dull lacquer tub? Usually it's shiny. That's what lacquer's for. It's shiny. It's an old one, probably. Very used. You can imagine a tub that's used for carrot lacquers. Pitch black. Utterly dark. Was it ordinary, too? When was the last time you saw it?

[10:06]

Isn't there a black lacquer bucket with no bottom? That's a metaphor. The bottom of the black lacquer bucket breaking out is the expression for for a breaking through experience. It was one of the, in the screen we're reading about, what's his name, Satpo. That was one of the levels of his, not his final life, but one of the stages of his enlightenment process was the bucket losing its body. I kind of, actually, I feel like abandoning this vague discussion of this commentary for now until we're better versed in this boatman business.

[11:08]

I want to go to the verse. Is that okay? When the boatman comes here... Where is the boatman? You don't know where we are in this case? I don't know. Would you mind joining the circle? Would you mind sitting over there? It is straight forward. Just sit over there. Okay. There is a boatman occurring in this commentary. Pardon? There is a boatman occurring in this commentary. Case 39. Yes. Yeah. All right.

[12:09]

Okay, so now would you say again what you said? You two, are you kind of a team? Okay. Okay. And now we're on case 39. And this is, okay? Okay. All right. So, I'd like to read the verse. Ready? Breakfast is over. The direction is to wash the bowl. Opened up, the mine ground meets itself. And now, a guest of the monastery... Have you studied to the full? But was there enlightenment or not? Okay, so now what is this business about the mind around meeting itself? Is it like reversing thought?

[13:15]

Is it like reversing thought? Yes. Reversing thought. Reversing thought. When the mind turns around. What is it, mind turning around? What's that mean? Can anybody tell us a little bit about that? We've studied this before. A little review on mind turning around. For Linda, who wasn't hearing what you were talking about. Just looking. Yep, Linda behind you. There's Linda directly behind you, Linda. What? Looking. Looking? No, not necessarily. When you first look, how do you look? When most people look, when Linji says, look, look, how do most people look? At objects. They look at objects. They think they're looking at objects, right? This is the ordinary way.

[14:15]

Backward. What? The backward step. The backward step. is the reversal. And what happens when you learn the backward step? Mind looks at itself. Things come to you. The world comes to you. The world comes to you. So what's the difference? The difference is what's going forward and what's coming. What's the difference besides that? I think that like yesterday you talked about the wind battle. Yes. Normally, I'm tilting the way I think the wind is going to come, but thinking about this definitely would be like just thinking. It would be just like what? Waiting for the wind to come. No. The entrance into the mind reversing is this being present.

[15:18]

Okay. The backward step is when the wind comes, then what? When the wind comes, what do people usually experience when the wind comes? Huh? What? Well, how do they experience the wind? How do they experience the sensations? But how do you experience the senses? Something happens to me. It's their fault. You blame the external world for your situation. That's the usual way, right? That's called ordinary mind and it's not what's called straightforward in Zen. Straightforward is to not be fooled by that. is to not be disoriented. So when the wind comes, the usual way is the wind comes and moves me. So the reversal of that is myself comes and realizes me in this form.

[16:30]

This is the reversal way of seeing things. This is called straight ahead. But not straight ahead depending on something, because if it depends on something, you're not going straight ahead. This is like, things get turned around this way. This is a reversal of the usual way of thinking. And it's not an intentional thing, it's a spontaneous thing. Okay? It comes spontaneously in what kind of situations? First of all, you enter by being upright, sitting upright or standing upright. You enter this. But there's something more that usually happens between the uprightness and the flexibility. If you're not flexible, when the wind comes, you won't get the optimal amount of information from the wind coming. Do you understand? Does that make sense? In other words, part of realizing that the wind isn't coming from outside is the way the wind affects you when you're flexible.

[17:35]

Does that make sense? If you're resisting, which means you're not paying attention basically, if you don't pay attention to how the wind touches you, how the thing touches you, you lose a lot of information. By not paying attention. If you pay attention, that's very similar to being flexible. Yes? Is that where the bowl is empty? Is that where the bowl is empty? Yeah. So you're ready now to get your breakfast. Okay. Okay. You're ready to really receive breakfast now. And in the process of receiving breakfast, you see how when the breakfast meets your bowl, breakfast meets you, or the food meets your mouth, or how your mouth meets the food and how the mouth and the food interact as you watch this process, then this reversal can occur.

[18:44]

When the reversal occurs, you start washing bowl again. Is this how you're following this? Any questions about this? How are you? Is it better, Jennifer? A little bit? You think it's Martha's fault? That's a very good example. Okay, now. Now, can you study that? Can you study that a little bit more? Can you study a little more? Do you understand?

[19:54]

She needs to study this more. Do you understand? Do you? You can say no, it's okay. You can't wash yet? No. You haven't finished breakfast. You haven't finished, according to me anyway. Well, you tell me now. I'm asking you. This is a good example. She's come in here. Are you asking me for guidance? I know, but tonight are you asking me for guidance? Have you had dinner? Have you finished? Think carefully, Paul. Well, see now, this is a key point. It looks like a simple story, but when the teacher asks if you've finished breakfast, that's a very important question. If you finish breakfast, then you go back to case 32.

[21:03]

And the teacher says, reverse your mind. In case 32, what did the teacher... Do you remember case 32, Mahi? Do you remember case 32, Jennifer? What? Okay. I do. Yangshan... Yangshan was in case 32, and what other cases is Yangshan in Mani? I'm not very good at names. I know. Well, just say you don't know. You don't know. This thing about not being very good at names, this is another kind of like thing of blaming somebody outside. Just tell me. That's somebody outside. Yangshan's also in case 30. What? Who's that? You're talking like it's something outside yourself, like your memory is something outside yourself.

[22:09]

It's you. It's you, that's who it is. Your memory is you. All right? But I'm not supposed to tell you that. Anyway, case 37 is the same guy, Yangshan. All right? In case 32... A monk comes to Yangshan and Yangshan says, are you paying attention, Jennifer? I can't hear you. Okay, so a monk comes to see Yangshan and Yangshan says, where are you from? From your province. And he says, do you think of that place? I always think of it. Okay, now I always think of it. That's closely related to what? What? What? Have you finished eating? Yes, I've eaten. I've always think about it very closely related to yes, I've eaten. I always think about it. I thought of it thoroughly. I really ate my dinner. I thought about what I ate.

[23:16]

I really chewed it. I chewed it and I realized everything I can realize about dinner, including that Martha supposedly had something to do with it. Then you have didn't. Then I can say, wash your bowl or reverse your thought. Okay? This is a similar process. Now, do you have some questions about this, Mahina or Jennifer? What? Do you understand? I think so. You need to think about this dinner all the time. Do you think about this dinner all the time? Good. So is this it?

[24:20]

Are people following this discussion here? I have a question. I'm confused about the ring bell and the back of the step. I thought they was eating that. No. I know you said that. I'm confused about the backward step, I guess. I understand. Well, the wind belt, the whole function of the wind belt includes the backward step. What about the drinking tea and going? What do you think? Well, it fits in here to the window. How does it fit in? Just tell me about it. It's standing your ground, sitting. What does standing your ground have to do with drinking tea? Okay, let's take one thing at a time. Drinking the tea, to me, is ingesting my experience. Integrating it.

[25:20]

And letting it go. That's the next part, letting it go. But if I do that, I can't let it go. But I have to do that first. You have to do what first? To drink it. That's right. To let it go. That's right. You have to drink the tea in order to let the tea go. So when you drink tea, how do you let the tea go? Well, there's some stuff before peeing that happens. Well, yes, that, but the tea stops being tea. You pee, but before you pee, the tea stops being tea. The tea turns into something different from tea, doesn't it? It doesn't stay tea forever in your body. It doesn't go through your body and come out tea. Are you sure? If it does, if it does, you're sick, right?

[26:21]

If a hamburger goes in and gets in your bloodstream, this is a problem. These things have to be broken down. When they're broken down, they change into heat. They change into movement. They change into thought. They change into songs and dances, right? Among other things. They also change into waste products. They turn into excrement, urine. But they also turn into feet and flushed cheeks and blinking eyes and voices, right? In other words, food changes into everything in the universe. It changes into karmic consciousness, which creates the whole universe. I mean, it creates the whole world we live in. It creates the world of birth and death. Okay? That's what happens to tea or rice when it goes into you and you chew it and digest it. Now, if you don't chew it, If you could somehow swallow it whole and go through, then you're sick.

[27:29]

And then food is not producing health, but when you chew the food up, as you chew it, you study it, and it gets converted into the realization of emptiness. In other words, you realize there's no fixed thing called food. Or even no fixed thing called digested food. Digested food can become, in one body, digested food becomes a dance. In another body, digested food becomes discovering physical laws. In another body, it becomes making babies. There's no fixed nature to the transformation of those things, right? Because of the process of study, of chewing, of digestion. This monk, according to the verse, studied to the full. In other words, he really had his breakfast. Now, I mean, you know this, but we say it again.

[28:31]

And then there's a question, I have a question for you about this. When we eat breakfast, do we barely eat breakfast? Do you chew your food? Do you use the process of chewing your food as a way to realize emptiness? Emptiness is realized through things like that, through chewing your food. Zen monks, the living Zen monks, run on rice. But not just rice that they didn't chew. If you don't chew the rice, if you don't chew it and chew it and chew it, you're not really a Zen monk. It's selling itself to the rice seller. Chewing the rice is studying the self, yes. And the chewed rice realizes, that's how you realize emptiness, by chewing this rice. Does that make sense? For chewed rice of emptiness, they also disappear. They also disappear.

[29:34]

They disappear. However, they don't disappear like into nothing. They disappear into anything. Because they're converted into emptiness, the rice can be absolutely anything. It can be a war. It can be a peace. The rice is converted into emptiness? Well, converted into emptiness. Or realizes emptiness. The chewing of the rice realizes emptiness. Yes. Watch that. So you participate in the process and you study the process. This is called having eaten breakfast. This is called, in this verse, studying to the full. Now, there's many things here now. One of the things is though, would you please take a moment and see if you're ready to make a decision.

[30:37]

And the decision that I want to know about is, are you ready to decide tomorrow morning to chew your food? To study the most profound issue in bodhisattva's path while eating breakfast. Just think about that for a little while. And if it makes it easier on you, you could apply this to lunch. I know some people have very light breakfasts. You might want something a little bit more substantial to meditate on. Okay, so I gave you a chance to decide if you decided. Congratulations if you didn't.

[31:40]

Think about it later. Okay, so I have some other things I want to talk about tonight. Is there anything you want to talk about? We talked about studying the self or completely eating breakfast early. And a question comes up for me that in that process, How do you do that and not become self-absorbed? What do you mean by self-absorbed? Can you hear her okay? Could you hear her? She said, how can you study the self and not become self-absorbed? And I said, what do you mean by self-absorbed? It sounded like self-absorbed. You mean something that's not healthy? Yeah. I mean, kind of getting lost in this, the intricacies of one's own process.

[33:04]

Could we use the example of breakfast? If you decide tomorrow morning and decide now and do it tomorrow morning to really chew your food. There's a kind of leisure in that. Or even you might say, well, maybe even you might say luxury. Who has the luxury or the leisure to chew their food? Aren't we too busy to notice that we're chewing? We have that kind of idea. I think that leisure might seem like self-indulgence or something. But actually, I think myself that you have to, what do you call it, you have to say, for the sake of all sentient beings, I'm going to pay attention to what happens when I put food in my mouth and I'm going to notice what happens to my teeth and gums and tongue and food. I'm going to watch that. I'm going to watch that because I think that's called, you know, touching earth. I think I need to do that in order to practice, actually.

[34:07]

Now, if you don't think so, then let's have a case from somebody who thinks you don't have to pay attention to what's happening. We can discuss that. But I propose to you that for the sake of all sentient beings, you need to touch earth. And when you're chewing your breakfast food, or when you have food in your mouth, chewing and paying attention to it, it's through that activity that you touch earth. And that's something you do for the sake of other people, and you do that chewing just for the sake of chewing. And you practice giving. And the way you practice giving is you let the food be the food. And you let the chewing be the chewing. And you let the conversion of the food be the conversion of the food. To really give things their due and let them be that way. And you enter into that process with your whole heart. And if there's any self-absorption or self-indulgence, you chew that up too, in the same way. It's another foodstuff. maybe sugar or something.

[35:11]

But if that's what you're eating, if that comes up, you chew that too. The monk's stomach is a furnace. And anything that comes up gets burned up in that furnace and converted into emptiness. And that emptiness then makes anything possible. Then you're ready. So, the windmill's hanging. And by being fully present, hanging in space, hanging where? Hanging in space, hanging in emptiness. And what comes, you chew that up, and then you can go with it. You're not holding to a fixed position. Yes? I can understand it in terms of practice. I'll give the harder example. Dealing with... say relationship issues that come up.

[36:13]

And then there's someone that you're having a hard time with and they bring up stuff that you're projecting onto them. Whatever, that kind of thing. Then it seems possible to get I mean, I know it's possible to get absorbed into that or kind of lost in it, fascinated by it. Fascinated by your mind. Yeah, I guess. Fascinated by what you converted this experience into. Yeah, what makes of it. And that there's some way in which... I mean, my experience certainly is that I have to turn towards what's going on for me in some process. But I also know that I can't get... I sort of fall in love with it, I think.

[37:23]

Yeah, well... I agree and I suggest that it's falling in love with it or becoming enamored with it or getting stuck with it is because I didn't shoe it up enough in the first place. . Let's see, avoidance. Well, it's the unclear on this. I'm thinking of an example, you know, of somebody, I met somebody just yesterday, I met somebody, and she said, is this the infamous Rev. Anderson? And she was smiling when she said it, so I was introduced to her. But I didn't really, you know, deal with what she said.

[38:28]

I just sort of, like, went along with where she's smiling and being introduced to her now. I really didn't, like, stop and say, now, what's that about? I could imagine a whole bunch of stuff that I was about. And I still can't. But that's, again, more just like, that's just more like, uh, taking a bite out of that, and then taking a bite out of something else, and then I could take a bite out of something else. I could jump from one thing to another for quite a while. And actually later in the day, I would say on my feelings, because I didn't really deal with what it was in time, later in the day it started coming back to me and haunting me, that interaction. Because I wasn't really there, it became a kind of ghost. Because I didn't deal with it at the time. I just sort of like, there it was. I had some tape on what she was saying, like, I guess that she was kind of, she was smiling, kind of a kitty, right? But I didn't deal with the nuances of what she said.

[39:30]

And I didn't interact with her. I didn't really get in there. And I'm not, whatever interpretation I had, at the time my interpretation was kind of like, well, you know, that's okay. She's teasing or something. But then later I could have other interpretations too. But I didn't do it at the time. I didn't work with her at the time. I didn't work with her from the time and then onward from there. In a way, I was kind of self-absorbed, in a sense, by not really dealing with what she was saying. And I thought later, I could have gone up to her and I could have said... And her partner was there. And we had just been having this discussion with the Zen Teachers Conference about, you know, how... you know, about sexual misconduct and sexual abuse, and like, like I say, you know, I don't usually, I don't anymore like go and hug people, I let them initiate it. Because I had the experience that if I actually initiate a hug, some people feel abused, or like they can't say no or something.

[40:34]

So I let other people initiate those things. So I was going to, so I later, but later I thought... Except for me. [...] The exception proves the rule. You'll hear from my wife. I don't know. Give me his lawyer. I considered it. We can do that later. Anyway, what I thought would have been good to do was to say I would go up to her and say, may I touch you? That's what really I felt like I should have done. She would say, may I touch you? And see what she would have said. You know, with her lover standing right there.

[41:36]

And I could imagine various things she would say, like, no, or yes. If she said yes, then I had something else to say. In other words, I was being required as to how I could, because I had a rather elaborate way of touching her in mind, a very embracing way of touching her, which I was going to do with her partner that day. Because I kind of felt like what she was doing was she was trying to make contact with me in her way. That's what I felt like was going on. But at the time, my first reaction wasn't that. My second reaction was she was criticizing me or attacking me. But I didn't know what it was. The point was, I should have engaged her more. At the time. Then there wouldn't have been any ghost. If I could have stayed right with her moment after moment. deal with, you know, she did this thing to me, I had a reaction, but I didn't really deal with what was happening to me. I just like kind of wrote it off as, I should just, you know, you can say that kind of thing about people, right?

[42:47]

You can say that about people when you meet them. It's just the infamous, you know, it's one of the things you can say when you meet somebody. You can say a lot of other stuff, too. It has a certain kilt on it, which, since she's saying that, since I'm an implementer of Anderson, then I could... I could do various things. But with permission, right? With permission. And that's what I think I would have gone with with her. And I don't think there would have been any ghosts. But there was a ghost because I think I was self-indulgent. I indulged in my view of what was going on there, but it didn't work for very long. It reverberated. Brett, were you saying that because there was a hook there for you that you didn't recognize in the moment, that it came up later? Because if there was no hook, it would never come up later. People say thousands of things to us constantly.

[43:49]

If there was no hook, it wouldn't have come out. You're still carrying a woman after you take her across the street. Right, that's what I'm saying. What you're saying is that something happened in the moment that you didn't recognize and didn't deal with in the moment, so it came up hours later. Yeah, part of what I'm saying is that in some ways, almost everything can turn into a hook if you don't deal with it. You can say, well, it must have a hook, but... Somehow you make the world into hooks by not dealing with what's going on with you at the time. Or that because there is a hook, you don't deal with what's going on with you at the time. But a lot of people, there's hooks in everything, I guess, because they don't deal with anything. So you could say that there's almost always hooks in things, and that's why people don't deal with what's happening to them. Almost everything that happens to them is such that they can't face it. And so you can say that. That's fine either way. But in fact, if somebody calls me infamous, there is a hook in that.

[44:55]

In other words, I am concerned that I'm infamous. I am concerned if people are going around infamizing me, it's an issue. But if it weren't an issue, then would I have paid just as much attention and had the same response, namely not much response at all? Would I then not interact with people if nothing was an issue? So it seems like whether it's an issue or not, that the interaction process of what happened would convert it into letting me be released into some kind of like, again, she does this thing and it has an effect on me. I think that if things aren't a hook for you, they'll have an effect on you. If they are a hook to you, they'll have an effect on you.

[45:57]

Either way, they'll have an effect. One of the first stories which many of you heard me tell over and over that attracted me to Zen was when Pakunzenji was falsely accused of being the father of a girl in a village, and the parents came and criticized him. And he said, is that so? They criticized him. He said, is that so? So I could have said to her, when she said the infamous Rob Anderson, I could have said, is that so? May I touch you? But I think it did catch me, but catching me was related to me not really seeing how I felt. Because if I see how I felt, then I feel her thing moving me. And if I feel her thing moving me, and I stay with it to the to the full amplitude of the swing, then I'm going to notice, here I come back again, I'm going to come back, and there's going to be something with that. I may not say anything, but I'm going to come back, because I got moved. Now if Hockman didn't get moved by that criticism, the story wouldn't be so interesting to me.

[47:02]

I pictured that he was moved. I pictured that when they were screaming at him, that his face got slightly tense. A little bit, you know, but there's a difference between people screaming at you and people saying, you are like the most wonderful Zen monk in the world and we totally admire you and you just, I think that has a different effect on your face. I think sun does have a different effect on your face than a cold blast of wind. If it doesn't, then the story wouldn't be so interesting to me if he was like immovable rock. That's interesting, but not as interesting. So her comment had an effect on me. I wasn't really with the effect, I think. So I didn't notice how, in fact, she had an effect on me, and then I came back. This is called, noticing this is called having breakfast. When you put food in your mouth, this thing's effect. When food's there, you put it in your mouth. What happens when you put it in your mouth? Something happens. You get moved by that experience.

[48:04]

You go or you go up or down or something happens to you when you put food in your mouth. And then if you start opening your mouth and shutting your mouth, saliva squirts out, you know, and tongue starts wiggling and you have all kinds of judgments occur in your mind. Stuff happens to you. You get moved. If you're upright, you feel moved. So I think, again, when people sit still for a week and you take them someplace... like downtown, or give them some taste, or show them a flower, they feel the impact of the experience. They feel how it moves them. Or they feel moved. And maybe the way they understand it is really different from usual, but they feel the movement. And then they can maybe watch how there's a swinging back from that movement. This can be self-absorbed, but it also can be just pure mindfulness. And and very useful to the other person. But I missed a chance with that woman, and I kind of regretted it.

[49:06]

I could have really had a good meeting with her, because she gave me a good chance there. She didn't say nothing to me. She didn't just say anything to me. She went out of her way to say something to me. I was just walking into a place. She was sitting there with her partner, and she couldn't walk by. She didn't. She said, is this... You know, she drew my attention to her. She went out of her way, and she said something with some impact. She said my name, she guessed my name, wasn't sure, guessed my name, and said this thing about influence, and smiled, and did all that stuff, and I didn't, I didn't pick up on that, you know. She made me a, she made a big overture, and I couldn't let it come back quite a bit, as another offer to her, which she might have turned down, But if she had turned it down, that would have been just fine. Or she might not have turned it down, and then I could have made another offer.

[50:09]

We could have had quite a good meeting. Plus, her friend would have got to watch, witness. It's so weird, Fred. Pardon? I think this whole thing is so weird. This idea of asking her if you could touch her. Boyfriend sitting there. Girlfriend. Sidewalk. Girlfriend. Yeah. Weird. You know, whenever people say weird, I almost always find how appropriate, usually when people say weird to me, I always hear of the etymology of weird, which means fate. Weird means fate. You know that? It's a Norse word from the word for the three weird sisters, which are the three, the triple-headed goddess of Norse mythology, of fate.

[51:14]

In Latin mythology also, it's tree fortuna. The purple-headed goddess of fate in Latin and Norse mythology. So weird. It was weird. It was fate. And I missed. I missed an opportunity to... It's over. It's over. I missed... I missed. And you see what happens when you miss? What happens when you hesitate? You're lost in retrospective hesitation. And so, again throughout the day, I retrospect on my hesitation. I hardly even noticed I hesitated, but I did. I missed a chance. And she did too, because she gave me a chance. Now she could have, after I just said nothing, she could have said, did you hear what I said? Are you going to just let me call you infamous and let it go at that?

[52:19]

But she did. She gave me a chance. I missed it, and she let me go. Actually, she didn't. I'll tell you what else she did later. Isn't that in a way exactly the same? It's creating karma. It's not reacting immediately. And so maybe a part of what's weird is all this what we're talking about now is made up, what could have happened. So it's all the time missing actually reality. But it's spinning and spinning and it can't stop. Right. Whereas if I had really felt what happened to time... Right, you might not have asked that question, done maybe something completely... No, I wouldn't necessarily have asked that question, but I would have done something. You would have done something, right. I would have done something, and then... then there wouldn't have been retrospective hesitation. I wouldn't have imagined what would have happened. And I think the problem is that actually there's no way you can know what you would have done.

[53:21]

No, there's no way. So it's always kind of trying to look around to kind of appease that unfinished business. It's a ghost. But it creates more. Yeah, it's a ghost. One time I was sitting in the Zen Dota Sahara and I looked at somebody and I looked away and I saw a ghost. And the ghost I saw was the ghost that was created by not looking at them. I didn't really look at them. I could feel that the way I looked at them was not complete enough. And right away there was a ghost. It was a ghost of my unthorough vision. And I had a sense that that's how you create ghosts. You create ghosts by not having a complete experience. So we're haunted by lots of ghosts from our incomplete experiences. Yes? say say again what people are repaying even some inconsequential statement or questions yes yeah that's what i'm saying right so what she said was fairly inconsequential but if i was really paying attention i would have done better but i i didn't do so well and whenever we don't do well

[54:46]

and don't really experience ourself, we're haunted by our inattention. But still, by observing that, I feel encouraged to not miss other opportunities as they arise. That's why I hugged Henry, because his body was there. He offered me his body. Or hug. In this class, it's different. In this class, the rules of whose sexual misconduct did not apply? Anything they let happen, believe me, it's okay. Anything that they and you let happen. Jennifer, number one? Actually, she should be number one, because you're older than her, aren't you? Senior. Senior, older.

[55:50]

Jennifer, number one. Number two? Yes. This is called repentance. By the power of repentance. I have now memorialized this experience and used this, my flub, as a point of encouragement. So it's almost, it's almost, it's almost okay. But I'm laying in wait for her if I ever see her again. But it does help to talk about it afterwards sometimes because you're thinking about it anyway. It's good to discuss it. Because when you're thinking about it, you can also then utilize that experience. You may be lost in retrospective hesitation, but when that comes up, you can fully engage that.

[56:52]

So I'm trying to fully engage that with you. And that way I exercise my ghosts. So your hesitation was an escape. Oh, you could say it was an escape, where I was kind of, I was sort of, I wasn't really present in the first place, and she caught me in an unpleasant moment, and said this, I was walking up the stairs to the yurt, and I was like planting my foot monumentally on each step. If I was, there's the infinite Reb Anderson I would have gone. But I wasn't. I was kind of like... I could just see it now. You run into her again. You deliver the line. She says, excuse me, have we met before? I had you deliver the line. Say it directly. Say? What? And you're coming in first.

[58:07]

Jennifer? Jennifer? What? What did you tell her? Yeah. It's like notorious. Infamous is something like criminal would be infamous. Widely known but unfavorably. Widely known but unfavorably. But sometimes they use it sort of on the line, like Marlon Brando's almost infamous. You know, he's on the edge there.

[59:07]

So it's sometimes a mixture of positive and negative. Or you don't think so? What? Frank's not. Oh, Jason's. Adolf Hitler. But when that happened, it wasn't, if you had been awake, you wouldn't necessarily have to have said anything as long as you were awake. No, I wouldn't necessarily have had to have said anything. That's true. But my not saying anything, I think, again, my not saying anything would have been more like this. I would have been like that. Going along like this. She would have said what she said. It would have had an effect on me, and then something would have come back. My work may have come back and may have been silenced.

[60:09]

But there would have been that response, and I would have seen this, and I would have seen this. And when a wind bill gets moved, it doesn't just get blown to the west and come back to center again. It gets blown to the west and it comes back to center and goes to the east a little bit. So there's some kind of thing like this that happens. And it did happen, but I wasn't watching it. I was like this. She said that thing. Then I went like this, but I didn't really see it. I was more caught in, oh, hi, you know, blah, blah, blah. I wasn't really there with watching this thing, and it did happen, and I could see later that it happened because of this retrospective. Yes? Wouldn't the individual personality also affect the reaction? Yes, definitely, like a wind bell. Some wind bells are made of a claw with bells at the bottom. Okay? Some wind bells are chimes, you know, ceramic chimes.

[61:15]

Some wind bells are metal. Some wind bells are plastic. So depending on the wind bell and the shape, on the material and shape, it will make a different, it will move differently. Given the same wind, it will move differently. Different kinds of eddies will occur. Different kinds of sounds will come. Yeah? So would your personality, though, you felt that you should react to that? No. I say that I would have reacted differently if I'd been more present. I'm sure I would have reacted differently. Because when you pay attention to what you're doing, what you do changes. But I might have done... What I did might not have looked much different, but it might look a lot different. And I think that people who are this way, generally speaking, people feel the person watching herself.

[62:22]

They sense the person is aware of herself. People feel that, notice that. There's something about them that you can notice that. You can notice them watching what they're doing. You can notice them paying attention. Even though they're not kind of going like this, you can sense their presence. But how it manifests is completely... The more you're this way, the more how you manifest is completely unpredictable and spontaneous. That's part of the good thing about it. So it's not programmed. I'm just saying later when I thought of that, I thought of that thing. In other words, I thought of some response. There really wasn't any response from me to what you did. Does your hand still work? No. Sure. The line graph, the union itself, is it the same as the union that is sort of the pointer?

[63:33]

Yes. So what does maingram meaning itself in this story? Going to bed. Going to bed. Yeah. Part of the problem of studying this case is that what we've been dealing with here is the fact of this monk being an adept. And I think what he's an adept at is what we've been talking about. And part of what's being discussed here Some people say he was an adept, but they're not going to talk about enlightenment here. So there's some issue here in this story about whether there's enlightenment or not. Even though it seems to be pretty clear everybody thinks this monk was quite adept. And they think Zhaozhou is adept too. So Zhaozhou is a famous Zen adept. This monk is unidentified, but some people think that he's being considered to be adept. as in meditation, and adept at this interaction.

[64:37]

But then there's still the question was, even though he studied to the full, was there enlightenment in the story? And in a way, I feel kind of silly to discuss this, but it is an issue somehow. Yes. I have some sense that... from the perspective cold washer well that that's that's a washing away trace it wash boy traces like so then after the bowl is washed if it's a question are we talking about like is there like if that's not the question I think that's part of it, yeah. Yes, Martha and... We don't know if he actually did it. Once again? We don't know if he did watch the sport. We don't know if he did. Yeah.

[65:39]

We don't know. I hesitate to assign you people to consider this issue to tell you the truth. I think it might not be wise for me to make such an assignment. But I'll tell you that I'm going to be looking at this for the next couple weeks, this issue. I don't say that to encourage you, incentive you doing it, but I want to tell you, you know, I'm going to do some homework on this myself. Michael? Yeah, I've done something similar that happened when you sat down with them, that The thought that was going on in my mind was, oh, it's just going to be me and him sitting across the table. We never had an interaction before. Outside of class. Yeah. And so I was so preoccupied with that thought that, in retrospect, I wasn't really present for the conversation

[66:49]

And I hadn't realized that until somebody offered me the opportunity to wash dishes. You know, so I said, you know, would you please volunteer to wash dishes? Of course. Then I got to thinking about it. All the things that we talked about in a very short amount of time, which were lots of the questions that I really had wanted to ask in class all along. And I wasn't present enough to... could be there for. I mean, one of the things he said was, you know, he talked about how oftentimes, you know, a lot of what I hear in the class kind of grows up in my head, and he said, well, a lot of what this is about isn't like that. And then he said, you can taste it. And then I said, well, maybe you can smell it or something like that. You know, my question was, what do you mean you can taste it? You know, I didn't stay with it. And there were some real pearls that would just be sitting there in those few moments that I was so focused on the discomfort or my perception of what I thought the discomfort would be of sitting there alone, that I missed the whole moment.

[68:14]

But actually, you weren't focused on your discomfort. If you were really fully focused on your discomfort, you would have said, you know, I feel really nervous about sitting here being with you. Or, you know, if you had really paid attention to that discomfort, you would have been there. Well, I thought about saying, actually, and I thought... You got close. Yeah, close. Good point. I was looking for a place to sit. I went to various tables and they wouldn't let me. I went to Linda's table and she wouldn't let me sit down. I went to their table and they wouldn't let me sit down. So then there was Michael. A table all true selves. I thought, this guy's not going to reject me. It's a delicious dinner. We want to enjoy it. Wait a second.

[69:21]

And so then, as I was about to sit down, then somebody yelled that there was a seat available at the infamous custody. But then I looked at my guy and thought, I'm not going to abandon this guy. And started to say, well, I've got a seat over the table with all those cute girls. And I'll sit down with this turkey. I didn't say turkey. Anyway, I sat with him. And it was a delicious dinner. It was a great feast, especially the way I made it. I took those wheat tortillas, and I put just salad inside with salsa. It was that good. Salad, salsa, radicchio, lettuce. It was delicious. I can still taste it. And so I think we should stop because some people want to go to bed.

[70:22]

Yes? I just would like to register my difficulty in hearing people speak in the Zen. There's the echo. It's hard to hear. Many times you said what people had to repeat and we didn't move around very much so I hope we're going back to ruins so I could Okay, next week we'll be in the We're Right Center. August 15th we're going to be back in December. August 15th we'll be in the We're Right Center and, ladies and gentlemen, we will now have a poem from Dave. Well, I didn't quite pull it off this evening, but dinner, Stinson Grill, thinking shit, late for class, no dirty dishes. That was a hike.

[71:29]

Five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables. Did you count them? Thank you. One assignment is to memorize all the cases. How about the other assignment? Other assignment? To become adept at having breakfast. To chew your breakfast. Does that mean I can't read my newspaper? If you decided, I don't know, if you decided to do that, that's what I recommend, is that breakfast tomorrow, you really chew it and you realize that this is studying emptiness. This is how you realize emptiness. It's by watching yourself chew your rice. Now, this thing about reading the newspaper at the same time, it's very advanced, I'm not saying that.

[72:37]

You can do both. You might alternate the chewing and then stop when you're done, and then pick up the newspaper and look. and watch your sense consciousness, your eye consciousness process, watch that be converted as you read. You might, you know, warm up to sort of doing it one at a time before you try to do both simultaneously. What time on Saturday? It was 9-5. No, we meet here. But I think it's better to meet here because we're going to be going from discussion to sitting, discussion to sitting. So if you do a weird sign, you'll keep walking back and forth.

[73:40]

And also, a lot of our discussions will be in small groups. So only some of the discussions will be in a big group. I think this room works quite well. I think last time we did. It's nice because you have the sitting, the discussion, and lots of places to meet right around here. I will study what kind. What kind? I have decided. I will decide that. Can you see if you approve?

[74:18]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_79.93