The mind of the great sage of India is an intimate transmission which is intimately transmitting. The intimate transmission is a mind of the great sage of India. The mind of the great sage of India is a meeting face to face. The great sage of India is a generosity.

[01:23]

Meeting face to face. Once he was a boy, and I don't know what his name was, but he became known as Dragon Pond. His family was of making and selling cakes.

[02:45]

The cakes that we call in now, in Cantonese, are called dim sum. In Mandarin, they're called ten shin. which means, in this case, it means a dot on the heart. So his family made these cakes and living near a monastery called Tian Huang, a monk named Da Wu lived. And every day this boy brought the monk ten cakes.

[03:57]

And after he gave the monk ten cakes, the monk would give him one cake. one of the ten, and say, this cake is for your descendants. On one of these meetings between the boy and the monk, the boy said, my family makes thousands and millions of these cakes everywhere. Why do you give one back to me? And the monk said, if you take them everywhere, what's the harm in me giving you one? And the boy saw something deep in

[05:05]

these words and decided to leave home and practice with this monk. He stayed close to Dawu and Dawu gave him the name respect and faith. Dawu said to him, your name will be respect and faith because you have been respectful and you seem to trust what I say to you. Now he had a name and he served Dawu closely as his attendant.

[06:10]

The young monk said to the teacher, ever since I've been here, all the time I've been here, You have never talked about the essential, pivotal mind. You have never pointed directly or you have never pointed out this pivotal mind. And Da Wu said, ever since you've been with me,

[07:37]

I've never done anything but instruct you in this essential, pivotal mind. And the young Chongxin said, How have you indicated it? And Dawu said, When you bring me tea, I have received it for you. When you bring me food, I have received it for you. When you prostrate to me, I lower I have never done anything but indicate the essential pivotal mind.

[08:52]

Hearing these words, the young monk to the mind. I think I told that story wrong.

[10:06]

So go back to the place where he said, when you bring me water or when you bring me tea, I received it for you. When you bring me food, I received it for you when you prostrated to me I lowered my head anything but teach you the pivotal essential mind and then Chongxin lowered his head for a long time and then Look directly at it. If you think about it, you'll miss it. And then the young monk awoke to the mind.

[11:30]

and said, how do I hold it? How do I care for it? And Dawu said, just in daily life with circumstances and don't look for anything outside this. Now looking at this story again, the boy and the teacher were . They did a ceremony every day of the boy bringing the teacher cakes and the teacher giving one cake back.

[12:57]

Over and over they did This was the precept that they practiced together. The boy came to me. The teacher received the cakes and the teacher offered the precept of giving one back. Over and over they did this and finally the boy says, what's this about? What is this giving a cake back? And they talked about it and there was some understanding of just sitting. This precept, this ceremony, the ceremony of this precept came up between them, they practiced it, and then they mutually saw what this precept was.

[14:18]

They saw the just sitting of this precept. Then they practiced together after the monk left home. Similarly, doing daily ceremonies together, serving the teacher, looking at that ceremony together day after day. And finally, the attendant asked this question, why don't you teach me something about this ceremony we're doing? the mind. And the teacher says, I have been. And the monk asks, how? And he refers to their life together. He refers to how they've been meeting, how they've been meeting the mind which the boy wanted teaching about. This intimate

[15:29]

communication, this intimate interaction, is the mind, is the pivotal activity of all Buddhas. And still the young monk didn't understand He said, just look at it. Look at what? Look at the ceremony, which means look at the mind, which is the ceremony, which is the mind. Look at the ceremony, which is intimate communication. It is the mind, which is the ceremony, which is intimate communication. Just look at it and see if you can look at it without thinking about it. See if you can perform the ceremony wholeheartedly.

[16:37]

See if you can ask the question which arises in the ceremony wholeheartedly. And I don't know, but I think they lived with each other longer and kept doing this ceremonial face-to-face meeting, which is the pivotal activity of all Buddhas. They kept doing it together. And at some point, the monk, faith and respect, and respect and faith, went off from his teacher's temple and became the teacher of a temple called the Temple of Dragon Pond, Lung Tan.

[17:51]

Living in another part of China at the same time as Dragon Pond was another monk whose name was who we call now Virtue Mountain, Deshan. And this monk was I guess quite intelligent, and he gave talks, which quite a few people attended. I'm laughing because he didn't just give talks to himself. He gave talks and people actually came and listened. On the Diamond Sutra of Perfect Wisdom, He loved the sutra and studied it and gave talks and people listened to him talk about the sutra. It seems according to the story that he became rather full of himself, but not completely full, just quite full.

[20:12]

but not wholeheartedly full of himself. And he heard about the Zen school which had this special transmission. A transmission which they say pointed to the essential mind of all Buddhas and people could see the nature of everything and become Buddha by this intimate transmission. And he hadn't heard about this in the scriptures and he thought it was heresy. He thought these people, these special transmission people were endangering the Buddha Dharma

[21:26]

And he decided to go where they lived and, well, I think he was thinking about destroying them. So he's traveling to where there was a lot of these Zen people and he comes to a place where there's a shop which sells cakes. In this story, it doesn't say that the people selling cakes in these shops were brothers and sisters of Lung Tan. But maybe the shop he came to, the woman who was running the shop was Lung Tan's sister. Anyway, she was called in the story an old lady.

[22:31]

who sold tea cakes. And he came to her and he said, May I have tea cakes? And she said, What's that? What's in the pack on your back? And he said, It's the Diamond Sutra of Perfect Wisdom and lots of commentaries on it. I'm a teacher of the Diamond Sutra. And she said, oh, I heard about the Diamond Sutra. I heard that it says the past mind cannot be grasped, the future mind cannot be grasped, the present mind cannot be grasped. I wonder, venerable teacher, what mind you will use

[23:34]

to eat these tea cakes, I'll give them to you free. If not, you're going to go hungry. Can you hear me in the back? And he couldn't say anything. And he became, I would say, this is my modification of the story, I think he became a little more full of himself with the aid of this woman's questions. But still, not yet fully. And he couldn't speak. And she could hear that he couldn't speak. And she said, you need some help. There is a person nearby who might be able to help you.

[24:39]

They call him Dragon Pond. You might want to go visit and meet him face to face. And so he does. He looks for Dragon Pond and he finds the temple which probably had a sign on it. And he goes into the temple and And when the priest, Dragon Pond, sees him coming, Dragon Pond steps behind a screen. And Virtue Mountain comes into the hall and looks around and says out loud, I've long heard of Dragon Pond, but now I'm here and I don't see a dragon. or a pond.

[25:41]

And then Dragon Pond steps out and says, Thus you see Dragon Pond. They met. And Dragon Pond welcomed the rather full of himself scholar monk let him stand close to him throughout the day into the night they continued to be together face to face into the night and then finally dragon pond said to virtue mountain it's getting late you should leave And Virtue Mountain went to the door of the room, opened the door and said, it's very dark out here.

[26:55]

Lit a paper lantern and brought it to him and handed it to him. And as he handed it to him, he blew it out. And finally, virtue mountain became completely filled with himself and overflowed into the intimate transmission. Finally, through this face-to-face meeting, he became fully himself. Finally he realized that he included everything. In this meeting realized the transcendent mind of all Buddhas, which is this meeting.

[28:14]

Through these meetings with the lady at the shop and Lung Tan, he was initiated to just sitting. And entering just sitting, he realized what the meeting was. When Lungtan was young, he went to meet a teacher and brought him cakes and got a taste, got a hunger, a desire in the meeting with the teacher.

[30:47]

for the essential pivotal mind of all Buddhas. But he thought the thing he got a taste for was something other than the meeting with the teacher, that it was something beyond offering cakes and having the cakes received. And he went on, serving the teacher, still thinking that there was some mind other than this meeting face to face. And he realized that the essential pivotal activity of all Buddhas is nothing in addition to our meeting face-to-face with each other."

[31:53]

And then he did this transmission with Darshan, who also thought there was some great dharma in addition to meeting face-to-face with an old lady. face-to-face with Lungtan. But in the face-to-face meeting with Lungtan, he finally realized there is no teaching of suchness outside face-to-face meeting. And there is no face-to-face meeting outside the teaching of suchness. And then he also carried on this transmission He burned all his books and just from then on his practice was the special transmission.

[33:03]

And he met many people who thought there was some Buddha mind in addition to meeting with him. And these people They were shocked to find out what happened when they met him and thought that there was something besides meeting him. He was strict like the Yurok shaman who said, bring me 30 kinds of wild... He would say, maybe, bring me 30 kinds of Buddha mind. And if the monk looked for someplace else for it, he would meet them very intensely. He would give them so much that they would become wholehearted or run away and tell the authorities,

[34:17]

This Dushan who wanted to destroy the intimate transmission people has become an intimate transmission madman. You should lock him up. So the bodhisattva precepts are practiced. If we can find a way to meet face to face and find a way to be fully responsible in the meeting, the bodhisattva precepts arise and are realized.

[36:00]

And the meeting opens unto the revelation and the exploration of our social life together and social justice and peace in the world. So we train to learn to be fully responsible in our meetings with the other, with an other. become fully responsible in our face-to-face meetings I promised you I would tell you a story, and I did.

[37:24]

And I have more stories about this. But fortunately, I was afraid that if I stopped now, it would be too short. It's almost 11 o'clock. I kind of want to tell you the next story, but I think actually it's okay to stop now, isn't it? And tell the next story the next time. Is that okay? Is it okay? Is it okay? Please? Please? Is it okay? Did you say okay? Thank you. Can you come tomorrow? Can I come tomorrow?

[38:31]

Could you hear what he said? He said okay. He said... I can tell the next story tomorrow. The next story is kind of scary. But it's just a story and I also want to tell you, I didn't make this story up, so please Don't attack me for telling you a scary story. Please be kind to me. It's a scary story about studying the Bodhisattva precepts face to face. May our intention equally...

[39:44]

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