A Raj of East India invited the great teacher Prajnatara to lunch. The Raj asked him, Teacher, why don't you read scriptures? Prajnatara said, this poor wayfarer doesn't dwell in the realms of body and mind when breathing in, doesn't get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out. I always reiterate such a scripture. One hundred, one thousand, one million scrolls.

[01:07]

There is a well-known and highly valued practice among meditators of following the breathing, of mindfulness on the process of breath, mindfulness of breathing in and breathing out. This practice can be used to develop mindfulness and also to develop concentration. But in Zen practice, paying attention to one's breathing is not primarily a physical exercise or a mental exercise to develop one's concentration on one point.

[02:55]

But it is the very abandonment of one's total being to this breath. Here and now. It is letting go of one's whole self to be possessed by the breath, to be verified, guided, inspired and fulfilled in it. Concentration on the breath is a very good practice. But what Prajnatara is teaching, the scripture he always recites, is how to immediately realize complete liberation.

[04:06]

Our great ancestor, Kone Ejo Daisho, said, trust everything to inhalation and exhalation and throw yourself into the womb of light. Trust everything to inhalation and exhalation Throw yourself into the breathing. This is the womb of light. And don't look back. Being upright in the midst of breathing in and breathing out.

[06:34]

Not dwelling On or in anything. Not getting involved in all the things that are going on all around you. Breathing in and breathing out. And not meddling with the breath, not meddling with the body, not meddling with any of your thoughts. You give up everything

[07:40]

in this being upright. Your heart becomes completely unprejudiced As we read this morning, learn the backward step. The forward step is, I do this, I do that. I meddle with this, I meddle with that. I fix this, I interfere with that. I interfere with what's happening.

[08:50]

I breathe in and out. The I that breathes in and out is now tossed into the breathing. This I does not interfere with the breathing anymore. When the I is given up, the heart is purified of all prejudice. This is how to practice secretly working within like a fool, like an idiot, as though you didn't know how to manipulate, meddle with, interfere, with everything that's happening.

[09:55]

This place is called the womb of light. In this bright place, there's just clear awareness, and no words can reach it. No words are pushed away from it. No words can come to visit it. It's just brightness in the middle of all darkness. Learning how to give up the self and jump into the womb of light is called learning the backward step.

[11:03]

You turn the light of your awareness around and illuminate the self that has given itself up to life. Body and mind of themselves will drop away and the original face will manifest. Here you cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs. But cease all affairs means you cease being entangled in them. They go on as usual all around you. But you sit upright in the middle of the world of intense turmoil and dynamism.

[12:13]

You're vividly alive at the center where there is no birth and no death. This is unconstructedness, unfabricated in stillness. And although this place of light is not produced It is not without speech. Words can emerge from this place. Actions can emerge from this place. But these actions do not emerge from self-cleaning. They emerge from self-abandonment to the process of life and death.

[13:25]

They emerge now from an unprejudiced heart. They emerge from a place of not thinking good or bad. They emerge from a light which does not administer pros and cons. They emerge and emanate from a place and a time where we cease all involvements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views. In this light, we have no design on becoming a Buddha. This upright sitting has nothing to do with sitting or lying down. Traps and snares can never reach it.

[14:29]

Yet, when we realize it, we're like a tiger who's back in the water, or like, I mean, excuse me, a dragon back in the water, or a tiger who returns to the mountains. I've heard that the house cats don't like to be washed, like in a bathtub or in a sink. They like to do self-cleaning. I've heard that. And I don't know if tigers like to be taken to the bathtub, but they are willing under certain circumstances to get wet.

[15:44]

Sometimes they bring their prey with them into the river. They're certainly willing to get wet with blood. This place where we do not dwell in our experience, this practice of not dwelling in body and mind, is true nonviolence.

[17:00]

where we stop doing any violence to our experience, where we trust our experience so completely that we stop meddling with it. Where oh where is this mind of no abode?

[18:10]

Where oh where is the unprejudiced heart? It is in giving up our personal powers. But giving them up does not mean shrinking back from them. As a matter of fact, giving them up means

[19:17]

to be upright and present in the midst of our power, of our strength, of our personal expression. It means to be upright and present as you breathe. It does not mean to breathe less fully or more fully. It means to breathe exactly as you're breathing. It means to be present for your breath as it is coming to be right now. Where are you going, Adam?

[22:33]

Please stay. Please stay. Did you want to see something? You want to see me? Come up closer. Are you with your breath now? ARE YOU WITH YOUR BREATH, WITHOUT DWELLING IN IT OR ANYTHING ELSE?

[23:51]

Do you have a sense of you, of yourself, and the breath? Can you bring this self to meet the breath? Can you bring your completely naked self to meet the breath? Will you allow yourself to be completely vulnerable to breathing in and breathing out? Can you trust your life to your breath?

[25:32]

This is a terribly sweet thing to do. for your breath, for yourself. Celebrating this spirit which gives up the self to the spirit, celebrating this kind of breathing of the Buddha, which throws the self into the light of Buddha's mind.

[26:58]

Master Tien Tung wrote this verse, a cloud rhino gazes at the moon. It's engulfing radiance. A cloud rhino sports and plays and dances with the moon. and glows in the rays of the moon. Up in the sky, a cloud in the shape of a rhino looks at the moon. And the cloud engulfs and glows with the light of the moon. A wooden horse romps in the springtime, swift and unbridled.

[28:29]

These verses celebrate breathing in without dwelling anywhere, breathing out without becoming entangled in anything. This kind of breathing is the great, bright, white mind. It completely energetically expresses itself and is illuminated by everything. The price of admission is that you give yourself entirely to what's happening. Then in the subtle round mouth of the pivot,

[29:42]

The spiritual work turns. The breath work turns. The dance starts and happens. I saw a movie recently about a pig, and this pig was friends with a lot of other living beings, particularly good friends with some sheepdogs.

[30:53]

And this one female sheepdog tried to train this pig to, I guess, herd the sheep. So she told the female sheepdog to go over and show the sheep who's boss. yell at them, talk to them like they're stupid. So the pig tried, and the sheep just laughed because they knew this pig was very sweet and was just being put up to this by the sheepdog. The sheepdog says, now bite them. So hesitantly, the little pig went and bit the leg of one of the big sheep.

[32:00]

It was a little tiny pig. It didn't really hurt the sheep, but the sheep were still kind of surprised because this pig had been very nice to one of the leading sheep. I think the pig, shortly after trying to bite, apologized and explained that the reason why he bit them was because he was trying to get them to do something. And the senior sheep said, well, you're a nice young pig. be happy to do whatever you like, but please ask us." So he said, would you please do such and such. And he said it very sincerely.

[33:01]

And they said, fine. They were happy to do what he asked. Because they knew that he really respected them actually. Other beings had tried to get these sheep to do things by overpowering them. And the sheep eventually kind of went along with the power of, for example, the sheepdogs who growl at them and act like they're going to bite them or kill them. The sheepdog get down and crouch in a posture like a wolf would as it approaches to kill.

[34:05]

Then the sheep move. But although they move, they keep resisting. They go along with the power of the dog, but not really. They're still holding back. They're not happy sheep. But this pig that hardly even knew that it was a pig, that sometimes thought it was a dog, and sometimes thought it was a human, and didn't really have any place or abode to put itself. The sheep actually broke through all the resistance of the sheep. This pig that gave up being a pig.

[35:08]

And giving up being a pig, all beings come to help us and cooperate with us and support us. Another verse of appreciation for this kind of mind which does not dwell anywhere when breathing in and breathing out says heroic power smashes the double enclosure the hero's strength tears through the nested resistances but all heroes stories, the classical hero story is that the hero tries to do something.

[36:36]

The hero tries to herd sheep or climb a mountain and finally falls on his face. And someone representing everyone comes and helps her. And with that assistance, miraculous things happen. The hero's strength is not the possession of the hero. On the way to do some incredibly difficult thing, the hero often runs into some fairly unattractive old lady who asks him if he will share his bagged lunch.

[37:42]

He has given up all calculations, pros and cons. and shares his lunch without remembering how much lunch he has to share and whether there will be any leftover for him. He's like a fool. But this old woman this twisted and withering old woman smiles to see how silly he is to give her all his lunch. And the time comes when she's just the person he needs

[38:50]

to do his work. The last two lines of celebration of this unprejudiced heart, this mind of no abode, goes, Hansan forgot the road by which he came. Siddha led him back by hand. More than a thousand years ago in China, there was a person who we call Hanshan, which means cold mountain.

[39:56]

His earlier name was Big Shield, and he was a mountain person. One time as he was traveling around in the forest, he heard some crying off the side of the road, off the side of the path, and went and found this little boy who had been abandoned among the pine trees. And he picked him up and named him Pickup. which in Chinese is shida. He took shida back to the monastery where he was kind of ordained as a Buddhist monk and gave the little boy to one of the monastic officials.

[41:08]

And the little boy then grew up there as a monk, as a Buddhist monk. Big Shield later renamed himself because he hung out in a place called Cold Cliff. So he named himself Cold Mountain, Hanshan. And he wrote quite a few poems, which we still have today. One of them goes like this. If you want a place to rest your body, Coal Mountain is good for long preservation. The subtle breeze blows in the dense pines. Heard from close by, the sound is even finer.

[42:12]

Underneath the trees, A graying man furiously reading Taoist texts. Ten years I couldn't return. Now I've forgotten the road whence I came. Breathing out, Hanshan forgot the road by which he came. Breathing in, Siddha takes his hand and brings him home. Han Shang would go back to the monastery sometimes and Siddha would give him some food, leftover scraps.

[43:29]

Han Shang was a monk, but he was so irregular and non-standard form of monk that most of the other monks would drive him out. But Siddha would give him a little food and then he would go back to the mountains and write some more poems. But anyway, every exhale, every exhale, the Zen master forgets the way he came. Every exhale, the Zen adept forgets the way he came.

[44:33]

Every exhale, the Buddha forgets who she is. She tosses herself into the womb of light. Every inhale, without remembering who you are, a friend takes your hand and brings you back and then you find out who you are. You're the person at the end of the friend's hand. You don't have to remember who you are. You don't have to remember your prejudices.

[45:40]

You can throw everything into breathing. And the people you helped in the past will be this self This brand new self is a self that was born from trusting everything to your breath. This self is a self that's born from no prejudice, from no attachment, from bright light. This self is a self that's born from the kindness of those you have been kind to yourself. It's born from the love of those you have loved, you have cared for in the past.

[46:49]

What we have to do in order to join hands with the people, the plants, and the animals, and the mountains, and the pines, and the sky that love us and which we have loved and benefited too. What we need to do is we need to trust that and throw ourself into the womb of light. We need to trust that we have been very good already. Now we have to do something difficult. We have to give up our attachments and give ourselves completely to this exhale. We have to be ourselves completely.

[48:02]

as a breathing, physical, emotional being. No more, no less than that. Let this cloud rhino gaze at the moon. Let this horse run fast through the springtime. And this giving up again is not doing anything It's giving up all your ability to do things and just be yourself.

[49:21]

It's like a foolish thing to do. Anyway, it seems to be what Prajnatara was doing all the time. That's the scripture he was always reciting, breathing in, breathing out, without dwelling anywhere. without getting ahead of myself, without being behind myself, without even being in myself. Because of your great kindness in the past, you can practice this way.

[50:55]

You can allow yourself to practice like these ancient masters. You can actually practice just like them. This is called succeeding to the authentic lineage of the ancestors' samadhi, entering the actual awareness of all Buddhas. The great, bright, white, non-abiding Presence, which doesn't depend on anything and can dance with everything. Hansan forgot the way he had come

[52:14]

should have led him back by the hand. May our intention...

[52:55]

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