clear-eyed Pedro monks don't take this lightly. One understanding of this is he's saying that, he's talking about his own practice, that he's struggled for 20 years and he's gone down into this green dragon cave some number of times for you, for us, for himself, And clear-eyed patch-robed monks, in other words, even if you do have clear eyes, even if you do have insight, when you get that far in the practice, don't then start taking it lightly. So he's saying it takes a long time to get there, and then after that, Don't rest.

[01:03]

Don't rest. Yes? I've been thinking a lot this week. Going down to the Green Dragon Cave. I was very struck by that. I had this experience actually this morning. I was on call for the weekend. I was very tired and losing a lot of sleep. This person called me at 5.45 this morning, and it was, you know, it was inappropriate. And boy, was I angry. God. But I was very tired, and I was just kind of in the dream space. But what I was aware of was this enormous rage. I could feel so clearly the emotions going on. And the next thing I'm thinking, but it was dragons. And I was asking myself, was I in the dream a great dragon came?

[02:09]

Because I was struggling to not get attached to those feelings of anger and rejection and murder. In fact, it reached through the boat. Yeah. And so I was wondering about that and wanted to understand also more about the symbology of dragons and how they're used here in Zen writing for thought. Well, before I say how they're used in Zen, in Europe, dragons usually seem to be symbols of blockage. they're often imprisoning the feminine principle, right? You have to kill the dragon in order to release the damsel in distress. In the East, dragons more are symbols of, you know, the wondrous enlightenment itself.

[03:17]

So they're not, you know, this dragon itself is not an obstacle. However, to get to the dragon takes quite a bit of effort. The dragon is, in some sense, the actual creative, wonderful creative principle in its real functioning. So right there, under the dragon's chin, is the jewel. The dragon's not going to kill you if you try to come and get it, but it's hard to figure out how to get close to the dragon because you don't want to You don't want to develop a dualistic attitude towards a dragon. You don't want to go away from it. You don't want to grab it. So how to approach a dragon is, because of our dualistic thinking, is a very painful process. And as we approach it, we may, you know, we may, you know, try to blame people for the problems we're having and stuff like that.

[04:27]

project out the pain and try to find some cause for the pain rather than understanding that it naturally would be painful to approach the proper relationship because you have to give up a lot of the repertoires by which you usually approach things. And this thing actually you shouldn't approach because it's not someplace else. It's your own nature. At the same time you can't just be complacent. But you get another statement here, is that in order to understand what Sway Du is saying in this verse, and also understand what Master Ma is doing, you have to be able to turn around and look at yourself, and you have to do that really thoroughly. Still, you know, you get to sometimes choose you know, who you work with and who your teacher is and stuff like that.

[05:31]

So, you know, because otherwise you may, you know, it's too hard to resist the opportunity, you know, the tendency to give up. But at some point you do need to create a situation for yourself where you do go to work and where you really are thorough So in a lot of ways, what's happening here in this case, at least in the commentary in the Blue Cliff Record, is saying, you know, what Master Ma is doing here on his deathbed by saying sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, in order to actually see that, you have to really do a lot of work on yourself, and you have to really be thorough, and it's difficult. And even if you have some pretty good insight, you can't stop at that either. I'm not saying you should, like, worry if you're not having an easy time in practice.

[06:41]

That may happen sometimes for a while. It's, you know, maybe it's okay. But it shouldn't be going on for too long. Like, you know, I don't know what too long is. A day? A day is kind of a long time. A week at the max. I don't know. Anyway, it's hard to say how long you should be going on without sort of like having your preconditions challenged and having your, you know, your sense of what's right have some holes blown in it and feeling the pain of that and trying to figure out who's responsible for this, who you get back at for it. It's actually just your willingness to practice that's allowing this to happen. If you're really adamant about it, you probably could get through this life without growing at all.

[07:44]

On the other hand, if you'd like to understand the wonders of Master Ma and what Sui Du is talking about, you need to work pretty hard on yourself. And is that enough on dragons? I've always heard the teaching for the dragons, and maybe this is more western, that the jewel was in the belly and not in the throat. It's not in the throat, under the throat. Or under the throat. Yeah. I don't think, you know, you can put it in the belly, it's fine. There's a way to get it out of the dragon without hurting anything probably. and I don't mean to embarrass the guests but in the future I'd like to be consulted about guests in the class so if you want to bring a guest please ask me beforehand or if you want to come as a guest please ask Maya beforehand this is Maya right here so I don't necessarily want guests in a situation where we have this ongoing class without you asking for permission

[09:04]

Are you ready for case 37? So for this case, I'd like to have you start out by everybody finding a partner and taking a walk with the book and saying the case to each other. Everybody play both parts. And maybe if you can, go with somebody who has a watch or stay sort of nearby here. Maybe spend 10 minutes doing it, okay? About 10 minutes. And if that isn't long enough, we'll go back out for another outing. Do you understand? There's two people in this story, right? So one person take a turn being Guishan, one person take a turn being Yangshan, and switch. So you play both parts, see what they feel like. Okay? So just choose a partner and go do it for a while. I think it'd be good if some people went outside because otherwise you won't be able to hear.

[10:17]

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see if they can reappear without a trace.

[12:00]

So are you familiar with the story now? There's another one right at the beginning of the commentary, which we don't usually read the commentary right away, but the stories take another good story to recite. Is it just... See, how many more people about... Is this about it? Does anyone want to pull over there? No, it's the same. OK. Oh, here comes something. Here. So the other story is that a monk asked Nanyang that he says in the in the Flower Adornment Sutra it says that the fundamental affliction of ignorance itself is the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas.

[13:47]

This seems to be very profound and difficult to understand. And Nan Young says, Oh, I don't think that's so difficult. I'll show you. And so there was a young man sleeping nearby and he said, Hey, you. And the boy turned around and looked and he said, Is that not the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas. And then he said to the boy, what's Buddha? And the boy got confused and wandered off. And he said, is that not the fundamental affliction of ignorance? So, what's this thing about, what do you call it, the karmic consciousness?

[14:59]

There's just karmic consciousness and there's no fundamental to rely on. Do you have any questions about that? Why someone would say that? Anybody have fundamental to rely on? God is good. God is good? Yeah. First cause. First cause? Mother Nature is your friend? What? Everybody needs milk? Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is not bliss. There really is something. There really is nothing. So those are some examples of some fundamentals that you might be able to rely on.

[16:07]

So what has sentient beings have? Karmic consciousness. Is that a fundamental to rely on? No. So including, don't make that into a fundamental to rely on either. And this karmic consciousness is boundless and it's unclear. And on top of being boundless, unceasing and unclear, there's no kind of like nice little section where you can depend on it and make your life secure with it. What's the unclear? Well... It's... It naturally...

[17:31]

includes the potential for confusion. This confusion is not reality, but there's always this possibility. Also, consciousness could be another. You could say that there's karmic consciousness and then some kind of like bigger consciousness that would be fundamental, that you could rely on. That's what somebody calls absolute idealism. So he's saying there's no fundamental to rely on, so... He says, how would you prove that in practice?

[18:36]

How would you test this or prove this in practice? So he does this experiment. He says what he would do. He explains what he would do. Guishan thinks that's a good way of testing. Do you understand any questions or do you have any questions about what's being tested or why that's a good way to test? Yes? What is karmic consciousness versus what's an enlightened consciousness? So I'm going to talk about this class, and I have no reservation about talking about it in this class, but I also want to mention to you that we have another class on Wednesday night which goes into great detail about this.

[19:51]

And that's part of the reason why I'm happy that this case is happening. Go ahead, this other class. But I'm going to try to present this in a real simple way to start here. So, you know, according to basic Buddhist description of experience, every moment of experience, which you could call every moment of consciousness, if you want, mm-hmm. not yet saying karmic consciousness, but just every moment of conscious experience or consciousness experience, there always is some kind of pattern to the field of events and to the impression of all things that are happening

[21:21]

which is registered I shouldn't say the impression of all things are happening but anyway all the things that happen in the realm of consciousness that is consciousness the impression of all them is what consciousness basically is it's the raw impression of everything that happens in this realm of awareness that always has a pattern and that pattern in its static and dynamic appearance is present in every state of consciousness. And there is the possibility within that field of imagining having the idea that particularly the dynamic aspect that you can see, the dynamic aspect meaning the changing aspect, but the changing aspect is represented in a moment.

[22:32]

And then things change, and you have a different experience, but in a moment there is a dynamism present. And you can see that. You can see the potential for this thing we call movement or action. And that shape or that pattern is the definition for what we imagine to be movement and action. The consciousness which believes in This imagination of action is karmic consciousness. And all sentient beings participate in this. And you need to do that in order to be a sentient being. So it's the kind of mind that imagines action.

[23:45]

that imagines that self can do something or other can do something. It sees, in some sense, it sees an overall pattern, but then it imagines something which isn't really happening. It imagines movement. And it changes a pattern into an action. And this is karma. It doesn't, it really can't be established, but going along with this

[24:46]

believing in this pattern, giving it reality, that has effects. Just the pattern itself has effects. But believing in it has further effects. And that's the string of karmic consciousness. And that produces a cycle of rebirth. And there's no kind of like, fundamental in that situation that you can kind of like hold on to. There aren't any other things besides the things that make up this field for us. So you say, well, isn't the Buddhist practice a fundamental? But it's not like there's this field of karmic consciousness and then there's some Buddhist practice principle there.

[25:54]

The Buddhist practice principle is actually how the thing is working. How the thing is working is not karma. It's called the path. And how the thing is working is actually that there is no kind of like this going from here over to here without that action being also counterbalanced. So as I mentioned to some people this morning, there is, you know, all the elements in any field of experience, which we call dharmas, each one of them, all of them, each individual one is biased or has outflows. You know, it has a kind of flow. It's like a partial circuit. Like even wholesome circuits or wholesome dharmas like faith. There's faith in something. So there's a flow from one to the other.

[27:01]

Even giving or generosity, there is that even concentration. There's a focusing on a point. And... And, of course, greed, hate, and delusion are also... There's a flow there, a circuit. But it's not a complete circuit. It goes, but doesn't come back around. But the whole system doesn't, like, go someplace. The whole system, all the different things in the system, are just the whole system. So, an understanding of how the whole system appears is just actually the way the whole system appears. And that has no defilement. That is the way all the defilements work together to supplement, complement, and check each other so that the system continues to be just what it is.

[28:07]

Not continues to be what it is, but just is what it is. Yes? So if all things work is not karmic, does the understanding of how things work, is there karmic energy there? The understanding of how things work could be karmic. In other words, you could think you understand. That would be, you could make that into an action. I understand this, then understand is a verb, isn't it? Is it a verb? I understand. It's a passive verb. But the actual understanding of the way things are is actually just the way they are. So meditation on cause and effect, on how things codependently appear, At first, you may feel like you're meditating, you're watching how things happen.

[29:09]

But that's not thorough, because you also have to do what I said just a minute ago, you have to turn around and look at yourself. Also in this process, you have to see how you're caused. In other words, you have to see how you're part of the whole causal thing and how the whole causal thing is part of you. So after a while, there is just causes and conditions, which always, that's all there ever was. And all the causes and conditions are just other dharmas or other events, each one of which also has a partial circuit and also dependently is co-produced and therefore lacks inherent existence also. So things are flowing. There's no movement, but things are flowing constantly in innumerable directions because they're both being caused and causing all things simultaneously. including you're thrown into it because you've become that thorough in that situation there's no outflows there's no defilement that's the path but the path is nothing but all these defiled dharmas in their totality and their totality is not just that they're all in the same bowl which is true but

[30:34]

They're all, you know, helping each other. Each dharma is helping all the other dharmas and all the other dharma is helping this dharma. Just like when you said zazen, your whole body helps your mudra. Not just your whole body, but the whole universe helps your mudra. The whole universe comes forth to let this mudra happen. But also this mudra brings forth the whole universe. But specifically, your arms bring forth the mudra, your shoulders bring forth the mudra, your vowels bring forth the mudra, your lunge brings forth the mudra, your knees bring forth the mudra, your abdomen brings forth the mudra, your eyes, your tongue, all the different parts of your body help your mudra. And your mudra and all the different parts of your body help your elbow. So everything's in your body helping all the different parts. And that's the way things really are. And therefore there's no upload, because everything goes in both directions at once.

[31:36]

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form, simultaneously, back and forth. That's not karmic consciousness. But, in order to be born and to be a sentient being, you have to play karmic consciousness. Otherwise, you can't come into this world. You have to pay that price. That's why we have the practice of repentance. We repent this karmic consciousness Begrudging karmic consciousness is karmic consciousness. Rejoicing in karmic consciousness is karmic consciousness. However, if you rejoice thoroughly enough in karmic consciousness, it turns into what's happening.

[32:38]

And then the rejoicing is not karmic consciousness. And if you begrudge karmic consciousness thoroughly enough, There wouldn't be anybody left. There would just be what's happening, which looks, which used to look like wishing that you didn't have karmic consciousness. But actually, you would become a Zen person by being thoroughgoing in your resistance of being a human being. Like Blake says something about, if you persist in your foolishness thoroughly enough, it'll turn into wisdom. But you will disappear in the process, too. Because true wisdom doesn't have somebody outside looking at what's happening. Pardon?

[34:06]

What isn't what experience? There isn't this kind of awareness of the experience of being in overdrive or in some kind of experience that feels like I want to call it karmic consciousness. Are you saying you do have a sense of karmic consciousness? I have both. A sense of karmic consciousness and? And? and just experience without that other kind of overdrive experience on top. Well, what is that like? That one that's not karmic consciousness?

[35:07]

It doesn't seem to be a problem. Or it's just, I don't even notice it. Maybe I notice the difference when I feel this kind of overdrive experience of karmic consciousness. When you mean overdrive, you mean like oppressive drive? Well, I don't know. Bothering, karmic consciousness that bothers you? It has more of a driven quality. Uh-huh. More of a driven quality, that's all. And then there's another kind which isn't so driven? I don't even notice the other way or the other experience. But then I can tell when this other thing kind of is going on. So the one kind you hardly notice it, so you feel like maybe you're postulating that maybe it's a different kind of thing than the other one because it feels different?

[36:13]

It feels smoother? Not such a problem. Well, I don't mean to be a stick in the mud, but yes? When she said that, it reminded me a little bit of a place where you could think that the problem wasn't in you turning the head, the problem was of hesitation. It reminded me of what Pat is postulating at this too. Part of what we want to find out about is, in the main case, what are they testing? He says when he hesitates,

[37:15]

I say, oh no, actually when he hesitates, it's already all over. Sometimes he doesn't hesitate. So what's the difference between the hesitation and the not hesitation in the first case? So you say, hey you, and then you say, what is it? What are you testing there? By the way, I just want to mention that some priest yelled at me the other night, hey, you, or hey, Reb. And then I told him later that I'd rather not have him yell at me across the Green College campus. In that case, the reason why I don't like it is because it was for convenience sake to get my attention from a distance. And... When I do that, I find it disrespectful.

[38:19]

But if I'm saying, hey, you, to somebody to follow up with, what is it? That's different. If you want to say, hey, Reb, and you're going to say, what is it? But then don't ask me some administrative question. Don't use it as a trick. I mean, if you sincerely want to. trap me into some dharma cave that's okay but still I suggest you do it up close up close you say hey you anyway so I don't you know in some sense I don't know if we're ready for this but since we're into it just do it so you have a situation where Maybe it's like, you know, somebody says, hey, Pat, and you just turn your head and it's no problem.

[39:23]

And then I say, you know, what's your problem? And suddenly you feel maybe some heaviness come into your response. And it seems to, you feel awkward or feel like you gotta, you gotta like defend yourself or, Maybe give a good answer or something. Or, you know, decide whether or not you're going to punch me for talking to you like that. Or, you know, it's like somehow it's a big deal all of a sudden. The ante has been raised from just turning your head and saying what to like, you know, is this person serious? You know, are they really talking to me like this or is it a joke? And it seems to make a big difference whether they mean it or not. In that case, the one that seems to be not a problem happens first, and then you get into the heavier one. Is this making some sense? Yes?

[40:27]

I feel that problem a little bit, in this case, probably. Like they say, hey, you to the monk, but when he says, can you prove your experience? It's like there's this demonstration going on. There's this monk who's kind of out there. And I wonder if the monk, or if he's part of it. Well, yeah, well, if the monk, if he says to the monk, hey, you, and the monk turns and he says, what is it? And the monk doesn't hesitate. The monk's in on the game. Then the monk has proved. What has he proved? He proves he understands that statement. I think part of the problem is that when you say to somebody, you know, hey you, they don't think, they often won't think that they're being asked something about a fundamental issue. So they're not like looking for a fundamental. They're just

[41:28]

I don't know what they're doing, but anyway. Then if you say, well, it's Buddha, and especially if the Zen student you're talking to, they feel like, oh, I'm being asked to come up with something now. That's one thing that may be happening. Can you learn from hesitation also? I think you can learn from both hesitation and non-hesitation. But the first story, he's just talking about how he tests people. So I think sometimes you would test people, you would say, hey you, and then you'd say, what is it? And they would respond. And there's a story that I've told before about Guishan's teacher, Baijan, came into the hall one time, and started chasing the monks with his staff, I don't know, swinging them around or something, and they were chasing them out of the hall, and when they got to the door, he yelled at them and said, monks, and they turned around, and he said, what is it?

[42:35]

So in a sense, what... what... Yangshan's saying here is what his grandfather did to the monks. However, when he did that, I don't know of any stories that told that when he did that, I don't know how many times he did it, and I don't know of stories where he, where the monks woke up, or how many of the monks woke up when he did that. However, when Guishan's, what Guishan's, brother, younger brother, Yun Yan, went to study with Yao Shan and told Yao Shan about this technique that Bai Zhang used of chasing the monks and saying, what is it, calling them out, getting to turn around and saying, what is it? When he told it to Yao Shan, Yao Shan woke up, just hearing that method. He was already awake, but he woke up again.

[43:38]

And he woke up to the teaching of his of his peer through his peer's disciple's description. And then when he told his peer's disciple that he understood finally his brother through him, the disciple woke up. The disciple told, it's like one of those Sherlock Holmes things where Dr. Watson says this stuff and Sherlock Holmes gets it. This is a case like that, where Dr. Watson tells a story and Sherlock Holmes gets it, and then when Sherlock Holmes tells Watson that he gets it, Watson gets it. But just by hearing that Sherlock Holmes understands. Even though he told the story, he didn't get it, but when he heard somebody else got it, he got it. So just hearing this story now, of, you know, somebody else heard the story of Bajan chasing the monks out, saying, hey you, them turning around saying, what is it?

[44:48]

And somebody else hearing that woke up. Are we waking up? Or why aren't we waking up? Just by hearing that. What don't we see? Is there something missing in the picture that we can't understand? Can you get into that thing of about that experience. Yeah, it's very much like that, too. There's an old story of, I think, Mahakashava tells Ananda to raise a flag, right? and he, huh? Oh, take it down. So, and he says, yes, sir. And then, and then when he goes to do it, Mahakashapa says, you know, elder or whatever, elder Ananda, and Ananda says, yes, sir, and wakes up.

[46:00]

Is that the story? Is that the way you remember? It's the other way around. It's the other way around? What? called Ananda. Yeah. I think Ananda was questioning Ananda about understanding the awakened. Yeah. And Ananda says, yes, sir. Ananda says, yes. And Ananda struck the flag. Oh, struck the flag and then he woke up. Yeah. Well, it was a high quality waking up. Well, you know, there isn't really an all the way. That's the nice thing about awakening. Really awake? She thinks they're lucky.

[47:03]

They are lucky. They're very lucky. They're very lucky to spend 20 years of bitter struggle. That they're lucky to do. Struggle for 20 years. Now, of course, you've been struggling for more than 20 years, right? Haven't you? No. Well, after struggling for 20 years and going down into the Green Dragon Temple... many times then you'll have this state of mind and then it'll look easy it'll look easy but coasting along for 20 years then it may still look hard Now it's about 40 years.

[48:08]

You have all these discourses right now. Before that. I read a story that I don't know. She said, you know, she said, look at people, you know, she said she had a gay life, but they don't know about it. Pardon? What did he say? Did he say something like that? Yeah. The true story. And all three are in this room right now. But they don't know it. I was wondering, these guys knew me when they... I mean, these tourists, they often know that they woke up.

[49:10]

Or they do deep bows. They do deep bows. They do deep bows. And then somebody says, well, what are you doing a deep bow for? And then they say, now I see that when I was with Chateau, I was like a mosquito trying to bite an iron bull. Now, do you think that they know that they woke up at that time? I mean, you would think that what they see, they know. See, first of all, they bowed, so they must have known something that they bowed. That's what we think, right? It defeats the waking up if you know it. No, it doesn't defeat it. Nothing defeats it. That's the nice thing about it. No. It's possible to bow without thinking you're enlightened, right?

[50:12]

So after enlightened, you might be able to bow without thinking you're enlightened, right? Or do you think, no, this time you've got to think you're enlightened. Before you didn't have to think you were enlightened because you weren't. But now that you're enlightened, you have to think you're enlightened. No, it's not true. That's the nice thing about being enlightened. When you're enlightened, you do not have to think you're enlightened. Also, when you're not enlightened, you don't have to think you're enlightened. And I have no statistics on whether people before or after think that they're enlightened, more or less. Now, some people say the people afterwards almost never think they're enlightened, and the people before, especially if they're Zen students, frequently think they're enlightened. But, you know, I don't find that many Zen students thinking that they're enlightened. But it isn't that after you're enlightened, then you start thinking that you're enlightened, and before you don't. Definitely some people before think they are, but they're just thinking. They're just thinking.

[51:19]

And then some people after occasionally think that. But that doesn't defeat the enlightenment, fortunately. It isn't like you have enlightenment and a thought comes through and shoots the enlightenment down by the thought. And also the enlightenment doesn't come and shoot the thought down. It isn't like enlightenment comes in all the thought. It's that the enlightenment comes in into the thoughts. But it doesn't disturb them. It doesn't like coming in there and say, okay, you guys straighten up now. So that's the thing about the Buddhas is that... Are you here, Martha? Okay? That there is no traces of consciousness in their enlightenment. There's no traces of consciousness in their enlightenment.

[52:29]

And for ordinary people, there's no enlightenment in their consciousness. It doesn't, it just, consciousness doesn't, you know, doesn't leave traces in their enlightenment. But the topic of enlightenment is how consciousness happens, that the contents of enlightenment is karmic consciousness. But the karmic consciousness that the topic of it doesn't have traces in it. So the enlightenment isn't required to testify to itself as opposed to karmic consciousness. Karmic consciousness is testifying to itself all the time. Here we are, thinking this stuff. Here we go. If you want to know what it is, I'll tell you. And also, I could think that I'm enlightening, too, while I'm at it.

[53:37]

And it isn't that If you're going along thinking, I'm enlightened, I'm not enlightened, that enlightenment occurs or is, you know, realized, and then suddenly the mind kind of, like, can't think that thought anymore. Like, it's blocked, it'll, you know, think I'm still blocked that thought. No. The moon doesn't come in and, like, you know, crack the water. Okay? I propose that. I'd be happy to argue about it. Now, some people say that enlightened people don't think that they're enlightened. I mean, that's one translation of Dogen. They do not think, quotes, quote, I am enlightened, unquote. They don't think that. Okay. Well, it's like, quote, they don't have that thought.

[54:39]

That thought can't happen in their mind. I don't think that's proper. I think they don't necessarily think it. Because it seems like an enlightened person could, like if you went up and passed a piece of paper and it said, I'm enlightened, it wouldn't be like they had to cover their eyes and couldn't read it. It wouldn't hurt them for that thought to pass through their mind. But they wouldn't like, you know, there wouldn't be something like would be a big deal to them. So it wouldn't necessarily, it wouldn't be such a big deal. They might remember that it is a big deal for people. Yes. Yeah, it doesn't.

[55:48]

What you say is a problem. When the idea, I'm enlightened, comes through, if you grab it, that's a problem. That's karmic consciousness. It's a problem. But that consciousness doesn't shoot down enlightenment. If you have enlightenment, that could never happen anymore. No, it can still happen. That's what I say. Is that they can think the thought, I'm enlightened, and they can grab it. But grabbing it is karmic consciousness, it's not enlightenment. It isn't that after enlightenment there's no karmic consciousness anymore. Right, but would I still be enlightened? Enlightenment is not something, it isn't like you have enlightenment here and karmic consciousness over here in two different worlds. I think what I mean is I could imagine that it kind of covers. Karmic consciousness covers enlightenment? It could. No, it doesn't cover it.

[56:50]

It's just karmic consciousness. It doesn't cover enlightenment. It's just karmic consciousness. Could it cover the expression of it? Could it create that kind of fiction that we're all in? Or again, the lead of somebody that he or she is not enlightened? Or could it thinker? The karmic consciousness is the hindering, but there's nothing it hinders. It is the realm of hindrance. That's karmic consciousness. But there's nothing outside of it, there's no fundamental down there that's getting squished. like some nice enlightenment down there, or there's no fundamental sort of floating around the outside that, you know, that you can, say, grab that up there or reach down below.

[57:58]

Karma consciousness is all you've got to work with, and it's not covering anything. Are you saying enlightenment is what? Karma consciousness is covered. No, up till then I agreed. Karmic consciousness is karmic consciousness and enlightenment is enlightenment. That's right. Okay? What? No, nothing's permanent. That's right, too. Okay, got that? They're not permanent, and they're not the same thing, and delusion is delusion, karmic consciousness is karmic consciousness, and enlightenment is enlightenment. We say in Zen, when there's karmic consciousness, it's three bowls of miso soup, and when it's enlightenment, it's a cup and a half of rice.

[59:00]

What's the difference between the two? The difference between the two is when you grab an enlightenment, you lose it. When you push away karmic consciousness, it gets inflamed. That's the difference between the two. Aside from that, the only mind that can establish a difference between them is karmic consciousness. the content of discriminating, enlightened discriminating awareness is karmic consciousness. It isn't the karmic consciousness that blocks perfect wisdom. It doesn't block it. It's the stuff that it grows up out of. And you can say, well, well, What about when you don't have realization of perfect wisdom? It's not that the karmic consciousness is blocking it.

[60:04]

It's that the wisdom hasn't grown up out of it yet. But this stuff isn't blocking it. This is the thing that's going to be built on. This is not blocking enlightenment. This is the source of enlightenment. The source of enlightenment is delusion. The source of enlightenment is karmic consciousness. If there wasn't any karmic consciousness, enlightenment would not be an issue. We would have no need for Buddhas. Buddhas appear in the world because beings have karmic consciousness and they want to come down, not they, anyway, enlightenment wants to come down and teach karmic consciousness what karmic consciousness is. They want to open the ears of the karmic conscious beings so that they can hear the teaching of Buddha's wisdom, which is, study this. Study this.

[61:06]

And then they want to show them how to study. Then they want them to wake up. to the nature of karmic consciousness and then they want them to enter Buddha's way because once you understand the nature of karmic consciousness you can see the path right before your eyes the path through karmic consciousness there's no place else to walk that's where bodhisattvas walk they walk through karmic consciousness they don't have any other playground we might wish we did but we don't we have the playground of karmic consciousness And there's no neighborhoods we can avoid. There's nothing. You can't leave anything out. And you can't hold on to anything either. Bodhisattva is a common person, like I said on Sunday, on Saturday.

[62:09]

Manjushri, the prince of enlightening beings, the prince of sweetness and light, he should be called the sweetness and light of delusion, the sweetness and light of hate, the sweetness and light of confusion, the sweetness and light of attachment. He's a common person. He's got the problems that everybody else has. He doesn't have a better deal. What is that? I don't know. You're still doing the same things. No, no. Enlightenment is about the things you're still doing. It's liberation and enlightenment about what you're doing.

[63:12]

Yes, but even more than usual. More thoroughly than usual. But that awareness came from being more aware than usual of your delusion. It isn't that you're somewhat aware of your delusion and then and then zippo, you wake up, you're really thoroughly aware of your delusion, and that's awakening. And then you go even beyond that, because you don't even take that lightly and sort of say, oh, now I can take a break. You keep studying. You keep studying what? Karmic consciousness. There's nothing else to study. That's all we've got. That's what it says here. all sentient beings, sentient beings just have karmic consciousness. It's very big, kind of a mess, and it's not like some nice neighborhood where you can sort of like study some neat stuff.

[64:15]

Like, well, I'd like to work on the fundamentals this week. So if we never hesitated, there wouldn't be much to study in other words. It's, if I, the hesitation is where the work is. No. You can work on just turning the head. Hesitation is a way to check to see if you understand. But you can, the karmic consciousness can be operating very nicely into somebody who says, hey you, and you turn your head. But it's true, you know, if you can do heavier duty, then you start saying to somebody, what's Buddha? Or who's Martha? Then that usually stops them. So if you say to a shisawa ceremony, you'd like to do something like 53, 52, 51, 50, 49. They're doing fine. It might be easier for them if you go up.

[65:18]

52, 53, 54, 55. They don't have any problem with that. And you say, where's Buddha? Watch the color change. Then there's numbers and people don't think, you know, this is easy for me. I'm not being challenged here. You're not asking me about something fundamental. This is going right along with you. And then you shift gears, shift levels. And they think, whoops, now I'm being asked something. Hey, good, Martha. You want to be she yourself? I love it. I had a really different reading of this. I was reading, what is it as, what do you want? So I say, hey you, you look up at me and I say, what do you want? So in other words, I'm usurping your role.

[66:23]

And so the hesitation is that I, linguistically, should have robbed you of your response. When you say to me, you say hey you to me. I say hey you. Then you ask me, what do I want? When you turn, I say, what do you want? And that robbed me of my response. Well, that's the hesitation is that you're confused. How easy it is to confuse you. And that shows that you have to rely on it. That's a way to do it, too. Yes, that's right. But the reason why I'm so easily confused is because I think I have something to rely on. Like it says in Case 18, even the most eminent people are turned about by words.

[67:31]

Okay? So, and the reason why the people who are turned around by words are people who invest some fundamental substance to words. They forget where words come from. You know, when words finally happen, they seem like they're, you know, you know, there's some lawfulness there, some agreement about what they mean. But where they came from, how they got there, You know, it's very mysterious. They didn't come from some solid place. They came from the bowels of history. Who knows where they came from or what they really mean, you know? You can do etymologies, but then some powerful people tell you that the etymologies are some other way. Like Heidegger switches everything around on you. So you can turn a person about, even a very eminent person, if they lose track of where words come from. And almost everybody, if you offer them the right words, they'll think that there's something fundamental there and they'll grab it and you can throw them for a loop.

[68:41]

They can be thrown for a loop because they think there's something fundamental there. Rather than, this is just another example of karmic consciousness. I'm not going to get thrown around by this. I mean, I'm thrown around already by it. So it's no different to say, hey you, than to say, what's Buddha? They don't think, oh, all of a sudden, woo. Hey, you, people don't feel some substance in that, necessarily. Unless, you know, they're practicing Zen and you say it from a long distance in the temple and then they get offended. They think there's some substance to respect, you know, or right conduct. So then you can get them for that. But if you remember, if you're watching karmic consciousness all the time, then it's kind of like, hey you, hey you, hey you. You know, you just bat it around. It's all the same. You're just always this little karmic puppet.

[69:45]

Yeah. Case 80. Blue Cliff Record. Yeah. Yeah. To try to get my attention? Show me. Long distance bowels. Long distance bowels, no problem. They're really great, especially from the top of the mount to the other top of the mount. Those are really great ones. Wow, look at that. It's amazing. This really is Buddha land. Or like, you know, if you're swimming in the ocean, way out, you know, and just come up all the water and go like this. Great. Any other kinds of signals you want to check out? This is a good one, you know, this is quite respectful. Not so convenient. This is much more convenient. This one you've got to get both arms up and get the fingertips up even with the nose.

[70:47]

Now, this kind of testing is something that, you know, these guys lived in a situation where, I guess, they dared to test people this way. We don't usually think we could test people this way, but anyway, in the realm of testing out, understanding of this kind of teaching, they would have these tests. There's some other ones they had, too, but this is one of them, which, as you see, is like Bajan used on the monks. Now, right now, you see, if I had a big club and I started swinging around here and you guys started running for the door, well, you've already been warned. So, you know, it's hard, you know. I'd have to catch a surprise. I'd have to surprise you to try it. And some of you probably wouldn't move because you'd think, well, he's not really going to hit us. He's just kidding, you know. And I probably wouldn't then if you didn't move. But if you moved... I had come pretty close. And then I think when you got to the door I could say something and maybe you turn around and then I could ask you a question.

[72:00]

But I have to think of something else, right? Or at least I have to wait for two generations and you forget the story. Is this something you want to try on your friends? Or have your friends try on you? Hmm? Okay. So, we got into the case a little bit tonight, didn't we? The other class is going to be looking at how this karmic mind is born and how you can study it, too, in a more analytical way.

[73:17]

This is kind of a practical test of the same teaching. It's very nice that they're so much alike. I also recommend, as I mentioned last week, Dogen's Painted Rice Cake. You can read the commentary if you want to. We are in detention.

[74:05]

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