Courtney asked for something like some assistance to help relate the traditional stories, the stories from our tradition, to our current our current stories, and the recent stories, and future stories, our contemporary stories. How do those ancient stories come down? She said that she sometimes has trouble seeing how the ancient stories or the teachings of the ancients, how they apply to our current stories. In a sense, to look at our current stories as the enactment of the ancient story is what we call grandmother mind.

[01:16]

At every moment of this current story, we dedicate to the enactment of the ancient story of the life of awakening. for every act, to be the integral part of the triple treasure. This is Grandmother Moon. With the sense of doing this with your whole heart, completely wanting and intending and dedicating and giving this moment, this action, these movements, these physical gestures, these thoughts, that these will be for the sake of the Buddhadharma. And then one might say, well, how is that so?

[02:22]

That might be part of wholeheartedness. How is it so? Well, it's partly so that I want it to be. and I'm so hurt by it. And then it's also that I would want to know how others feel about that, too. Someone still might say, Well, how do those stories help? Well, check. Check with the stories. Read the stories. Do you feel like you're emulating, that you're acting like the ancestors? Of course it's different. There were Chinese and Indian and Korean and Vietnamese and Japanese, and they were different, but you feel like actually you are actually modeling yourself on the great control that you want to, and that your current act isn't the same, but it's modeled on their example.

[03:27]

And you want to actually model yourself on the ancient examples. You want to use the ancient examples, the ancient stories, as models for how to live. And if you do, and you hear some ancient examples, how you could be that way, or how that would be good, or how that was compassionate, then that was something to discuss. I heard the story that a Vietnamese monk was at a party that the queen Vietnam was hosting. And he was, I don't know what he was doing exactly, but I think he was drinking and eating a lot of meat or something.

[04:42]

I don't remember. But anyway, he was doing something. So she said to him, I think she said, Buddha would not be acting like you. And the monk said, I don't want to act like Buddha, and Buddha doesn't want to act like me. I heard Thich Nhat Hanh's... I didn't hear him say it directly, but I heard that he said that the Buddhists are not... It's not imitating the tradition, imitating the ancestors.

[05:47]

But then he also says that the Buddha way is making every act a ceremony. That's imitating the ancestors, such that activity is a ceremonial enactment of the tradition. Still, again, if you hear ancient stories and you don't see how they apply, it's fine to ask for help to see that. The other direction is, sometimes people want to know how what we're doing now is what they were doing. So one way is, how is what they're doing what we're doing, and how is what we're doing relevant to what they're doing? So we're making an effort here to, like,

[06:53]

to use the sun for their energy needs. In the past, we look back to the ancestors. Did they use the sun for their energy needs? Sure they did. They were solar collectors, but they oriented their buildings so the sun could come in They built their buildings so that they could absorb sun and also so that they didn't need air conditioners. They used fans. So if we look back, we might be able to find they were ecologically concerned too. They didn't have any gasoline to use. They didn't have the temptation. In fact, they were using the sun, just like we want to use the sun. We want to get off using some other things. So, if they were ecological, then maybe it is Zen practice for us to put up solar collectors.

[08:09]

Did I say it's ecological to put up solar collectors? No, what I mean is, if we put up solar collectors, that may be part of the traditional Zen practice. So we check to see if some people want to know how what they did applies to them, or how what we're doing applies to them. So we go both from the ancients to now, and from now back to the ancients. And we also go from now here, how is what we're doing applying to the rest of society? And how is what the rest of society is doing applying to the ancients? And how what we do here, which is an ancient practice in a modern form, how is it relevant to helping the society? And how was what the ancients did relevant to helping their society? So we go vertically from the past.

[09:20]

We go vertically from the present to the past. We go horizontally from the present to other places in space. And we go horizontally from the past. So all these different explorations are a normal part of exploring . It's a normal part of studying cause and effect. See the relationship. So it's a tradition of studying cause and effect and teaching cause and effect. It's a tradition of seeing the relationship between teachings at different times. Many people read the Zen stories, and some of them are inspiring. In other words, they see how they can be relevant to the way they want to live.

[10:22]

Other stories you read, you may not see. Then you have a koan class, and you discuss, and then you say, oh, now I see how that story is helping me live my life. Therefore, the Buddha said, those who in past lives who were not enlightened will now be enlightened. In this body, it says, liberate the body which is the fruit of many lives. People have been saying, liberate. He slipped back to say it. Can we try liberate again for a couple of minutes? He said liberate on this piece of paper here. Is that okay to try to liberate again? I think I'm so insane. Please, overwhelm me. ...liberate this body which is the fruit of many lives. Before Buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we.

[11:26]

Enlightened people today are exactly as those of old. The enlightened people today are like the ancestors. The stories of the enlightened people today are like the stories of the ancestors. And the stories of the ancestors are like the stories today. This is our constant, this is part of our meditation. Traditional meditation is to meditate on how we are acting in tradition and how we tradition. And then he says, quietly exploring the farthest reaches of these causes and conditions. And when I thought of causes and conditions, I was thinking referring to the causes and conditions of confession and repentance. But in one translation it says, quietly explore the farthest reaches of the causes and conditions of what this Zen teacher just said, of this statement, the causes and conditions of

[12:36]

Those who are not enlightened will not be enlightened. Enlightened people of today are like the ones of old, and Buddhas were like us before they were enlightened. Explore the causes and conditions of that story." And then he says, this practice is the exact transmission of a verifying Buddha. What practice? The practice of knowing the causes and conditions. of how you're like what Buddhists were before they were enlightened, and how enlightened people today are like those that will explore these causes and conditions.

[13:12]

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