How many people are here for the first time in this class? Who? Appointing somebody? So this story, here's how the story goes. A monk comes up to a Zen teacher and says, when vanishing, well, when appearing, And when arising and vanishing are gone unceasingly, when arising and vanishing go on unceasingly, how is it? And the teacher says, in a kind of scolding way, whose arising and vanishing is it? That's the story. Do you remember it? That's the story.

[01:02]

And last week you said something about acknowledgement. Do you remember? You said is it an acknowledgement? What was the context of your question? Do you remember? That I can't remember. I might come back in the process of hearing, but in the moment. I said no. That I do remember. Okay, so... So, tonight there's going to be, you're having a quiz. Go home. Huh? What did you say? Is it time to go home? It is time to go home. And now that you're home... What have you learned from this case? What have you learned? What's this case about, Boris? First class, we talked about being upright.

[02:11]

Yeah. And how does that relate to this story? Can you say something about that? No. No? We learned that whatever idea comes up about what this case is about, we should just let go. Is that what the case is about too, do you think? What? Is that what this case is about? You said that the last time, that any understanding or not understanding that we have about the case, we should just let go of. And do you see how that relates to the case? I can relate to any case. Right, but do you see how it relates to this case?

[03:13]

For example, an understanding of this case, how does an understanding have to do with this case? Well, I did have a kind of understanding of the case, I guess. But after having heard you say, just let go of it, I didn't really get too attached to it. But I mean, I could run it by you, I guess. I'm asking a little bit different question, but we can talk about that too. Not what is your understanding, but how does anybody's understanding apply to this case? How's this case talking about somebody's understanding? Do you see a way that the language of this case, what talks about that? No. Nothing comes up for action? Yeah, not specifically.

[04:24]

Anybody? This month, the first month, he's trying to figure out a question. He's trying to come to an understanding. As long as he... The thing that the Master points out to him is that he has to let go, like you said, he has to let go of that. Any understanding, not understanding, any confusion, any... You know, what is he grappling with this question? But as long as he's grappling with it from a standpoint of an eye, grappling with it, he has to let that go. Anything else? Yes? He doesn't understand. Yeah, who's understanding? That's one way directly. And also, understanding might be something that would appear and vanish. So, as understanding appears and vanishes, or also as lack of understanding appears and vanishes, how is that?

[05:28]

How is that? And you could say, how is that for you, teacher? And supposedly if it's a Zen teacher, what you're going to get back is an intimate relationship with this process. So when something's happening, for an adept at Buddhist meditation, if something's happening and you ask how it is, person's going to tell you, perhaps it's up to them, but basically they're capable of telling you how it is to be intimate with any situation you bring forth. And so one way to be intimate with the impermanence of our life, with the changes of our life, one way to be intimate with that is Whose experience is this?

[06:36]

Whose impermanence is this? Whose arising and vanishing is this? Whose birth and death is this? This is a way to be intimate with birth and death, to be intimate with arising and vanishing, which is ceaseless. In other words, if you understand the necessity of intimacy with the process you're in, then you can't have any holdings, you can't hold anything and be intimate with the process. Does that make sense to you? Like if you're talking to somebody and you're also kind of like holding on to your glasses, you're not really with the person.

[07:43]

Of course you can hold on to your glasses and talk to the person, but if holding the glasses is something that you're holding on to and not giving entirely over to the conversation, you're not really intimate. Does that make sense to everybody? And then, so then one step back from that, which I think I also talked about, and that is one step back from being intimate with our experience, what would be the point of being intimate with your experience? Or put it this way, what happens if you're not intimate with your experience? What would be the situation if you weren't intimate with your experience? Like this monk was at first a little bit not intimate with his experience. He was concerned. How is it? in birth and death. How is it when change is unceasing?

[08:46]

What's the good of being intimate and what's the problem of not being intimate? Or what are some of the problems of not being intimate and some of the goods of being intimate? Yes? Well, if you're not intimate, you're really not in the experience, you're just thinking about it. Yes. Yes. So the problem is that you're just not there. And what is the problem of not being there? You're not really experiencing it. What's the problem of not really experiencing it? Or what are the problems of not really experiencing it? Yeah, you're not really alive. Is there any other problems in not being alive?

[09:47]

Well, feeling separate is the same thing. So what is the problem of feeling separate? What is the problem of not being intimate? One problem is you're not really alive. But there's more severe and dramatic problems than that, I would suggest to you. What are they? Anxiety, and what else? Breaking the precepts, hurting people. Yeah, breaking the precepts, hurting people. So, intimacy is necessary if you wish to help people. If you wish to work for the benefit of people, you need to be intimate with your experience, because if you're not, even if you want to help people, and you're not intimate with your experience, then it isn't just that you're kind of like not really there, which is, it is true that you're not really there, it isn't just that you're not really there, it's also that you can completely forget the most important thing in your life, because when change hits you, it can throw you for a loop. As long as you're not intimate with what's happening, you basically are a puppet. And you can be manipulated by circumstances, but by your distance.

[10:56]

So you can forget the most important thing in your life. You can forget being kind to people. You can forget being kind to yourself. All this stuff you can forget if there's a little bit of distance, if you're not intimate. So intimacy is necessary in order to, if you want to help people, if you want to help beings be free, if you want to be kind to yourself too, you have to be intimate. And if you're not, you're not alive, but the way you're not alive can become severely distorted. it can become very deadening to you, but also it can become very harmful to others, even. So, in order to work for the benefit of all beings, you need to be intimate with your experience, otherwise you'll forget about working for the benefit of all beings, under some circumstances. Under some circumstances you'll remember, Like if you walk into a room and everybody says, OK, now, come on, remember to help people.

[11:59]

We're all here to remember that. Then in situations like that, sometimes you say, oh, yeah, great. But a lot of other ones, when everybody spits in your face, you say, what was it? What was it again? But if you're intimate with being spit in the face, you can still remember what you're here for. Intimacy, even in remembering, means you remember beyond the words. your vow will naturally come forward. So, this intimacy with the process of change is necessary. Or put it another way, once you realize, once you have the vow to benefit all beings before yourself, then you realize you must practice conscientiously, and practicing conscientiously means practice conscientiously, you know, in your life, right? as it's happening. And the way it's happening is it is constantly arising and vanishing in unpredictable, uncontrollable, dynamic forms.

[13:00]

If you can be intimate with the process, the process won't throw you off. As a matter of fact, the intimacy will not be thrown off, but the intimacy then will be your office or your material that you use to fulfill your vow. And so how do you stay with this constant upchucking and destruction of the universe? How do you stay with it? Well, the destruction here is who is arising and vanishing? Either, you know, there's various ways to hear that. Who is it that's arising and vanishing? Or who is arising and vanishing is it? And so on. And part of the bite or difficulty of following this instruction is... Well, you tell me.

[14:07]

How is this a difficult practice? I want to continually say what I find difficult, and that is... um staying with rising advantage that's not even not even going as far as asking the question who's is it What I can see, this is what I also find very interesting about this case, that I think for myself it already needs to be a very intimate situation to be able to perceive what is in the vanishing, because usually I suppress, can you affect it happening? Good, yeah. I don't want it to happen. Right.

[15:08]

So this monk was already pretty good. Probably. I mean, he probably was already pretty well tuned in to arising and vanishing. I mean, he was probably talking about his own situation. It wasn't so theoretical. He probably was up to his eyeballs in arising and vanishing already. And also that it was, not only was he seeing arising and vanishing, but he was seeing it unceasingly. So he was already very concentrated, not just concentrated, but concentrated on change. And not just concentrating on change, but even then, in addition, he had enough presence of mind to then say, well, how is it? And then had enough to actually ask somebody else that. So you can imagine, like, I like the example of surfing. You go out into the surf, you know, you get on the board, that's unceasing change, unceasing arising and falling of waves, right? And tilting up the board and balancing and all that. You have to get pretty good before you start asking questions, well, how is it?

[16:12]

You know what I mean? You've got to get pretty balanced to get on the surfboard before you can have tea party. You sort of invite Zen teachers to board and say, well, I'd like to discuss something with you about this situation. Here we are, you know, the two of us, getting bounced around by these waves constantly. How is it? And then you have to even be a little bit more present to like be, you know, a little bit brusque with this surfer who's asking you this question, because you sense the dualism in his attitude, and ask him, whose arising and falling is this? But he's present enough to hear that instruction and wake up, out there in the surf. So he became a wonderful Zen master also, as Lua Shan did. But as Baron says, it's hard to be out there with the waves.

[17:14]

We have some people here who go surfing. They go surfing, he goes surfing quite often, but they don't surf all day long. I shouldn't say they don't, maybe they do. I mean, I know they don't stay out in the water all day long, Maybe he continues surfing the rest of the day. I can't say. But I know that some people can be pretty present when they're surfing. You can see that they are. There they are. If you're standing on a board during the waves, you're present. Pretty present. But there still could be some duality there. It's still possible to be very present and adjust to the circumstances of change out on the surf, on the board. It's still possible to do that and still say, I... and present. I am going up and down. My surfing is a rising and ceasing. Circumstances here are rising and ceasing. You could be right with that and still have a little bit of diminishing who's surfing this is.

[18:22]

Okay? So part of the difficulty is getting up on the board. Then, once you do that, then to then wonder, how is this? And then, after examining it, then to open up to who is here? Who is this? Really open up that question of how is it? So, in some sense, I'm saying this case is a straightforward characterization of practice in that way. You have to concentrate and put aside other concerns, most people do, in order to be able to stand up in the changing world, or to sit up in the changing world. And as you become more comfortable with adjusting to those changes, you have a little bit of leisure. Yeah, first you have to have leisure to allow yourself to tune in to what's happening.

[19:23]

Then you have to have the leisure, once tuned in, to question the situation, wonder what it is. And then, in the wondering, start facing and meditating on how the surfboard and the water and your legs and the sky and the shoreline and the rest of the ocean and the turning of the earth, all the animals in the ocean, how that all is coming together and talking to you through this event. and how it is that not only does all this stuff give you the riding on the surf, but by you facing all this, you give life back to the water, and the surfboard, and the sky, and the mountains, and all sentient beings. But to experience how you save the world and how the world saves you, how you're appreciating how the world gives you life, gives life back to the world and wakes the world up.

[20:48]

How the anxiety of the world you're open to, in your concentration you're naturally open. What is this? What is the anxiety of the surfboard? What is the anxiety of my body, of my feet? What is the anxiety of the sky and the waves and the mountains and the people on the beach? What is the anxiety of all living beings? You open to that by being concentrated and present. And you hear, you hear the waves talking to you. You hear the arising talking to you, teaching you the Dharma. You hear the vanishing teaching you the Dharma. So I've been emphasizing renounce. You have to renounce. And when you renounce, then you can hear this Dharma. And when you hear the Dharma, hearing the Dharma in the renounced state, you naturally maintain the Dharma. You turn the Dharma wheel. The Dharma wheel, you know, it comes into your hands when you're present with all these changes.

[21:54]

This is a difficult practice. Such a practice is difficult, isn't it? Very difficult. This is the scope of the practice. And that's why we do this great vow to save all sentient beings, because otherwise we would probably say, well, this is just too hard. Isn't there some easier practice? And there are easier practices. But they don't lead to... They're just not in the same ballpark as the bodhisattva practice. But that's what these stories are about. Zen stories are about these beings who want to help everybody, who really want to help all beings in the best possible way. So it's a very heroic scale here. Infinite scale. Stupid scale. And this infinite, inconceivable level of concern requires that kind of practice total engagement and then from that total engagement a natural opening and vulnerability to the suffering and anxiety of all beings and seeing how that what the message of that is what the message what the teaching is of that

[23:24]

And when suffering beings are calling you when you hear what they're teaching you, then they hear what they're teaching themselves. They hear the meaning of their suffering too. When you understand it, it goes back to them. I gave that example during a session earlier this year of, what's his name? Christo, who wrapped buildings. He recently wrapped the, what is it called? The Reichstag, you know? He wrapped the Reichstag, so when he wraps the building, people wake up to the building, but also the building wakes up. The building is covered with deadness.

[24:29]

What deadness is it covered with? It's covered with the deadness of my perception. That's what it's covered with. What's the deadness of my perception? Well, I don't hear the Reichstag crying. I don't hear the anxiety of the bricks calling out to me. The reason why I don't hear it is because I'm not present enough. If I'm not present enough, I have the energy to defend myself against the suffering of a building, the suffering of history, the suffering of Berlin. I can protect myself if I'm not totally engaged, but if I'm on my surfboard, eventually I'll hear the water and the rocks and the earth and the fire and the air, I'll hear that suffering. So, by wrapping the building, you admit your covering, you admit your defense, you admit your deadness.

[25:34]

By admitting your deadness, you open yourself to what you're denying. And you see the building in a new way, even though it's covered up. It was already covered up. If you admit it's covered up, it's uncovered a little bit. And if you uncover the building for your own eyes, the building's uncovered. And even though the building's covered, it's less covered than it would be covered if you didn't cover it. So in fact, you know, I wasn't even there, you know, I just saw a picture of it. And I think that kind of a good-looking building, I've seen pictures of it without being covered, it's kind of a good-looking building, but that building for me was dead compared to how alive it looked when it was wrapped. Because when it was wrapped, it was like, yeah. It opened me to a whole new understanding that I wasn't up for about what that building is. So we need to wrap.

[26:42]

We need to be present, not theoretical. You need to be present with your experience with people, first of all. You can't just go up to people and not be present with them and then wrap them. I mean, you can do that, but that won't work as well. It's a little bit good to wrap people even if you're not present. Wrap them with, who is this? What is this? How is this? Every person you meet is an arising and a vanishing. Wrap them. Wrap them. But first get close, you know, and try to get the experience of them and wrap that. Wrap your experience with who is this? Who's arising and vanishing is this? But this is a difficult practice because, you know, except in this class, who is reminding you to do this? And people come up to you and spit in your face. At that time, it's hard to remember. Oh, yeah, you know, be here, and okay, now I'm here. Who is this? It's hard to remember that. Moment by moment, it's hard.

[27:43]

This is a difficult practice, not an easy practice. It's a simple practice. Simple story, simple practice, but difficult. It's easy to break your bones. easy to fast for weeks. It's easy to climb mountains. This practice is difficult. You need to understand that it's necessary, and if you have any doubts that it's necessary, you should bring up your doubts, because it is necessary if you want to help, really help all beings. This is full-scale practice that they're talking about here. He didn't say, when arising and vanishing occasionally happen. I wanted to say that my doubts have to do with being able to face

[28:52]

and being drawn to suppressing and vanishing. For me, one very big synonym for me for vanishing is death and dying. And personally, especially right now, I have a very strong feeling about the necessity of embracing the fact of my own death and dying before I'm capable of being alive. And at the same time, really seeing how deeply the processes of, and I should speak for myself, but it's also a cultural thing, a thing of our society, maybe a human thing, of not being willing to face this very big thing. So that's my first association with the word vanishing.

[30:03]

And at the same time, it's my doubt about being able to practice. It comes from that. Of course, it is very... Your doubt about whether you can practice or not? do you say, comes from your, your doubt about whether you can face death? Right. Yeah. But that's not exactly doubt. Doubt is, is more like when you, when you don't face the death. That's more like kind of, what you're saying is more like a belief of your capability. Like I could think, well, this is difficult to face my death, I don't know if I can do it. Doubt is when you actually don't do it. That's doubt. So most of us, in a sense, actively doubt when we don't actually face our death, our vanishing. That's the actual doubt.

[31:03]

Now, if you believe that it would be good to face your death, that's a belief. If you actually do face your death, that's actually the faith. Faith isn't just, well, I believe or I think it would be good to do that. That's more like a belief. Probably that would be helpful. It's okay. But actually, to really face your death, you kind of have to give up that belief and just face it. If you're still holding on to, like, I think it would be good to face my death because I heard you're supposed to do that in Buddhism. If you're still holding on to that belief, to that probability, to that good message, to that instruction, you're still not really like... bare-bodedly, bare-mindedly facing your death. And if you think it's really a good idea to face your death, and you try, but you don't, that's your doubt that you're holding back. So I think you were a little bit using the word doubt more like a kind of a belief or lack of belief.

[32:10]

But our actual doubt is that we do not, when we do not face... what we actually, you know, is most important to us. And what is most important to us can get stronger and stronger. So, we do need, though, the path of liberation is to face this fear and face this anxiety and face the pain that we experience around death. Or the pain we experience around anything. We have to face that pain. And arising and vanishing are a little bit painful for us. And there's ways which I can go into later about how we can exaggerate that pain. But whatever level of pain we have, the path of liberation is to face that pain. Not to create pain, to face it.

[33:16]

And one of the main opportunities of facing it is around our death, around this arising and vanishing. So this is difficult. Yes. This is all or none. This is a hundred percent thing. Is there no doubt? And I'm wondering if, for example, I could do a little good without all the way. Yes. As a matter of fact, you can do a little bit of good with almost no effort. You know, just be a total bum does some good. Okay, so why is it necessary to be a bodhisattva? It's only necessary to be a bodhisattva if you want to be a bodhisattva. If you don't want to be a bodhisattva, it's not necessary. But if we have no bodhisattvas, then we have We're not going to make it?

[34:20]

If we have no bodhisattvas, we're not going to make it. If we have no bodhisattvas... No, if we have no bodhisattvas, we'll make it as a planet. We'll just make it in a certain way as a planet. We'll have a planet full of beings who are totally closed to wisdom and compassion. We'll make it in that way. So, and if we have a planet full of beings who are closed and don't see the Dharma of the Buddha, don't see wisdom and compassion, they don't see it, they're closed to it, they don't understand it, they don't practice it, if we have a planet full of that, things will go a certain way, and that will be the Dharma of, that will be the law, the lawfulness of a whole bunch of people who are selfish and in bondage and irritated and angry and enraged and, you know, hitting on each other all the time and afraid of hitting on each other and afraid of being hit and all this, that's the way things will go.

[35:25]

However, so that's that. And if the wish is not, in that situation, if no wish is born to help these beings, then there won't be any Bodhisattvas, and there won't be any Buddhas, and it'll just stay in that situation. Okay? However, that's not the situation. There is the wish to benefit these beings. Okay? It has been born. It's been reborn quite a few times, as a matter of fact. It's been born, this wish to help all beings, to help all beings in the highest possible way, has been born in this world of suffering. So, When it's born, you have the beginning of a bodhisattva and the beginning of a Buddha. This has happened already. So then, if you want to be a bodhisattva, if you want to be a Buddha so you can help people in the greatest possible way, then all these practices are necessary. But if you want to help beings just a little bit, you don't have to do 100% practice.

[36:30]

And in fact, even if you don't want to help beings at all, you can still be somewhat helpful because it's a little bit helpful if you cruel people are a little bit helpful because they show, they teach the path of cruelty. They show us, they remind, they're somewhat helpful because they remind us how terrible cruelty is. So they're not entirely unhelpful. And for certain advanced bodhisattvas, cruel people are like, kind of like, you know, they're high potency vitamins. They kind of need cruel people in a way. although they would get by probably if there weren't any, they kind of need them to sort of polish off their practice, to make sure that they've really dealt with all their negativity, because some people are so developed that ordinary people cannot, they've got negativity in them, but ordinary people can't stimulate them to become aware of their negativity.

[37:33]

They need big time cruel people to help them purify themselves. They need really lazy, disrespectful disciples to get them to feel their self-concern. You know, you give certain people who deserve wonderful disciples and so on, and you give them really nice disciples who are just, you know, I don't know what, just really nice disciples, and their impurities just stay down there, just kind of like locked up. Give them some really cutthroat, you know, grubby, disrespectful, lousy disciples. And then they start feeling really nasty, you know, towards their disciples. And then they see, oh, I've got some negativity here. So, you can be helpful to people even if you're just like really a jerk or even if you're like really a lousy Zen student, you can help your teacher, at least. Is there anything in between that? Yeah, between that there's like, I want to help people, you know.

[38:37]

And so you try to help people, or even like I like to help a lot of people, or even like I like to help everybody, and suddenly you have this vow. But then you have this vow, but then somebody, then one of your students treats you disrespectfully and you forget about your vow because you're not 100% into your experience. So you can be thrown for a loop. I'm really, in the back of my mind, I'm wondering how this relates to the middle way. The middle way is... I don't deny the middle way. Yeah. But that's a whole different thing than this way. No. Is it? Then what way? No doubts, no self, wholehearted. No doubts, no self is the middle way. Oh. If you have any doubt whatsoever, it's not the middle way. The middle way is the path of no doubt. That's the way it is. It's the way where you don't need to know anything or not know anything.

[39:42]

You're totally just working with what you have and you have no doubt about working with what's happening now. You give yourself completely to this experience as it's happening now. You have no doubt that this is what you should be working on. You have no doubt that ultimate reality does not miss a beat. You're going to work with this pen in your hand, not another pen. You're going to work with this nodding of the head, not another one. You're completely present with this changing life. You're going to work with this body. You're going to work with this death. That's the middle way. And working with it is not grabbing it or turning away from it. And it's very difficult to do that with your body, with your mind.

[40:43]

Very difficult. Bodhisattvas need to do that. They need a mind which has no abode. This mind just has no abode. They need a mind which is like the sky covering everything, like the earth supporting everything, without limit, that lasts forever. If you don't have such a huge, unlimited mind, then you're going to reach a place where you're going to not be able to stay with it. When your body starts going through certain changes, you know, when it starts getting crunched and crumpled and you head towards death, if you don't have this mind, well, you'll lose the thread of the practice. If your practice depends on anything, if your mind alights on anything at all, then eventually that thing's going to go away and then your practice is going to go flying with it.

[41:54]

Isn't it just the opposite? Isn't it just the opposite that through the pain and through when we really get into dying or we get severely sick or something, but then the practice really becomes real, but that's often the doorway that we really actually awaken to who we are and come home. Yes, but why is that the opposite? Well, you said you're flying, your practice goes flying with you, kind of like you're throwing off your support. Yes, if as you approach death, You have a habit, if you have a mind that alights on things, then if you alight on this, when you go into this change, you get thrown off. Yeah, but isn't that what can be also your biggest chance? Everything's your biggest chance. That's why you shouldn't alight on anything. Because if you alight on something, then when that thing goes, you won't use the next thing. You mean alight, like identify with? Yeah. Like, okay, now finally I got cancer, I can practice. I think that's very likely.

[43:02]

Huh? I think that's very likely as a twist you're supposed to... I didn't say it's very... You're the one who just said that when you get sick, the opportunity arises. Right. So now I gave an example of getting sick. Well, I mean... And then, you know, so there it is. There's the example. But even in that example of saying, okay, now I can finally practice, which some people do when they get sick... Wait a minute, that's what you said. I would say you get cancer. You get what? I would say you get cancer, but you go, whoa, here I am, identifying with this body who's successful, or whatever I'm doing in my business, or whatever, here I am, and I'm just going to be dying in three months. And so everything goes flying, and really what stays with me basically is a come home call, or I don't know how to say it, but it's something that brings me closer to To the truth. That's the way I would see it. That's why I was surprised you said... And what I'm saying is nothing brings you closer to the truth.

[44:02]

If you have something that brings you closer to the truth, then what happens when that thing goes away? Well, you might have an opening and a reminder, and you might practice with that. Like if you get well, for example, right? That when you're sick and you get through that sickness and there's this opening and it becomes maybe not practice if I'm sick and then all of a sudden maybe I get well and my cancer goes away so I have my life and maybe I'll be stupid like before but maybe not. Maybe at least I'll remember and make a practice out of that. Go step. Practice out of what? Out of what I learned during those sick times. What did you learn? To give up my body, maybe. Or to give up whatever I need to give up. And what do you need to give up? Being identifiable is my idea about yourself.

[45:10]

So then if you give up your idea about identifying yourself, then what? Then that would be what you were talking about. That's right. So what's the problem? No problem. Can you practice this way? It's hard, it's what I'm working on. No, I think the only thing I can really say is that it can... admit when I'm not there. I can't be there and I can't want to be there. For me the way to go is to see where I'm not there and to remember that I'm really there all the time even though I don't realize it. Remember that you're there all the time? That doesn't sound like what you just said. Well there are things in my life that do make me remember on a deeper level. that bring me to a place where I'm not identifying with my mind, but where I can be found.

[46:14]

So you... Anyway, it sounded... When you said remember, suddenly I felt like you're changing your practice to a different practice, that you're identifying again. Oh, just something, and I give it up, and I cling on to the next thing. Okay. Okay. So this case I'm dealing with in this kind of simple, tough way. The next case is not so simple. The next case is more like if you can practice, not if you can, but given whether you can practice or not, given the practice of this case, now this next case is going to throw some salt water in your face. But, you know, do you understand, is the principle of this case and this way of practicing, is it clear?

[47:21]

Even though it's difficult to do, is it clear? Do you have some question about this? Can you articulate a question if it's not clear? You went like this, Ms. Martha. Do you have some question? Anything you can do to bring up the unclarity? That reminds me of a story. A monk said to Jiao Jiao, The Buddha Dharma seems remote. How should I concentrate? And Jiao Jiao said, in that it's like the Han Dynasty in China.

[48:29]

It unified the entire country, but when it ended, it wasn't worth a penny. That seems to me more elusive than... Pardon? That story seems more elusive. What story seems more elusive? The one with just two. You mean it's more elusive than the other one which you didn't understand? Yeah, maybe that's the thing is that maybe what you don't understand is how elusive the first story is. This first story is totally elusive. I ask you if you understand, but I'm asking if you understand a practice that has nothing to do with you. Who's arising and falling is it?

[49:31]

It has nothing to do with you. Do you understand? That's what the who's means. Who's means, it doesn't mean you's, you's guys, it means who's guys. It's a big, it's a radical 100% who's we're talking about here. It seems that the monk is pretty remote in the way he's temporizing and banishing. And then when the teacher questions him and says, who's, it's as though it brings it to him. Right there. What who's yours and who else's? Or why is it a possessive question? Why does he say who's instead of what is it or why is it or something else? Why does he say, why does he include him? It's not necessarily who, the apostrophe S is not necessarily a possessive marker.

[50:37]

It could also be an abbreviation. But it's W-A-W-S-E. It could also be read as, who is it? Well, it's the same. So how do you... So I guess I'm just saying that in my experience, when I really said, who's, something happened, and it was unusual. So I think it was that I was reading it in a very remote way somehow, just being able to understand it. And... This thing that happens, how is that the opening to awakening? I mean, I actually physically felt the question. So, while I'm saying this, because it clarifies something. So how does that make your life bigger?

[51:47]

I mean, does it make your life bigger to understand of who's not? So, as we have experiences throughout our life, if there's any self-clinging going on, then basically we're just, you know, sitting ducks. And it's the realm of damage control, which I recommend that you do practice damage control if you're a sitting duck.

[52:55]

And one of the approaches to damage control is to try to become intimate with the experiences that you're having. That will tend to limit the damage and set up the possibility to enter a realm where there won't be any damage. But you have to get intimate with the damage that's going on, which we talk about in the precept class. You have to admit how things are going for you. You have to get into the arising and falling of experience and also the arising and falling of your actions and the arising and falling of the consequences of your actions. You need to get intimate with that. Once you're intimate, then you can start looking at what's going on and look at the self-clinging that's involved in your experience. looking at self-clinging is already an act of renunciation, because self-clinging does not want you to look at it.

[54:13]

So if in the process of the arising and falling of experience, you settle into a way of watching the arising and falling of experience, so that you can even see the arising and falling of self-clinging, So, pretty soon, there's just arising and falling, or there's just arising and vanishing. So, isn't that when your life would become so minute that you would just be part of all of life? I mean, that you would no longer have? Yes. Right. So I suppose that's how I felt about the schools, is that sometimes you penetrate that, just that I quality, and that you become part of all that is happening. Mm-hmm, yeah. But we need to be with our experience and be with the experience of the self-cleaning and be with the experience of the turbulence or the English or the spin that self-cleaning puts on the experience.

[55:49]

You need to admit that spin that your self-clinging is putting on your experience. You need to be intimate with the experience enough to feel the contribution of self-clinging to the process. And as you throw yourself completely into the awareness of the self-clinging and the effects of the self-clinging, after a while, there's nothing more than the process. And then this is intimacy. And this case, I propose to you, this monk was intimate, and the who's arising and vanishing, is it, put him into full intimacy. It helped him renounce a little bit of holding that he still had, or a little bit of resistance or reservation he had about throwing himself into his life. And then he woke up by, you know, right at the words which stimulated him to go with it completely.

[56:58]

Yes? I'm not sure what my question is, but we were playing with this in the dining room a couple of weeks ago. And there were about four of us. And I was young, too. The other people were all blue-shined. And we went around the table, and each time they asked me the question, and then I shouted at them, who's the rising and falling? Something happened. It was great. I couldn't... I can't verbalize what it is that happened. But it was like, and we, because we were all doing it together, we each knew what was going to happen. We watched it happen. But each time, something happened. It's like, something changed.

[58:08]

And so, and that's what it's like when you're actually therewith arising and falling as you start to notice this kind of world. And so that's what you're describing. And then if you could tune into that and stay with that so that actually you felt like this thing of something changes by everything you do throughout the day, when it got to be unceasing and you had continuity, then you could get into like any subtle holding that you're doing in this process that you just observed. The process you observed is stepping towards this place where you could be asked a question which would bring you into full alignment with what's happening. But you need to be in this very rich soup of noticing that everything you do, the whole universe kind of quivers in response to you. Like I told some people today, I was swimming at a lake up in Northern California and this little boy was trying to stand up on an inner tube and he got up and he said to his mom, hey mom, look, and she said, my eyes are on you.

[59:37]

So, you know, eyes of Texas are upon you. Eyes of the universe are upon you. Everything you do, the universe blinks. and also you blanket everything the universe does. We're in this very intimate relationship, but we have to, like, we have to exercise ourselves to enter into this dynamic. And this story is, you use this story to enter that world at the dining room table, which is fine. That's part of what the story is about, is to encourage us to have the kind of relationship that these two men had back in the Tang Dynasty to have this kind of relationship with our friends at the dinner table. And if we have to, we can use Zen stories, as silly as that is, to have that kind of relationship. But then you can also do it with people who don't want to hear Zen stories. The same intimate dynamics going on, and if we can settle into that, then we're really into it.

[60:43]

So you feel when you see something, that something arises, and then you feel something ceases, and then you enter that, and it's unceasing. Then the question is, is there any self-cleaning there? And you watch for that. How is it? How is it? Once you're there, how is it? What is it? What's it like? And then you can gradually just settle into the perfect accord with the situation, which is... that it's extremely dynamic. Yes? That's what I was going to say. It seems almost overwhelming, the system, the human system. And I've heard people say they have experienced LSD. Our normal consciousness is like a filter from all this bombardment of coming and going, vanishing and arising. Yes. I'm just sitting here, like this experience we had, it's almost too much.

[61:47]

It's almost too much. And that's why we have a class like this, to encourage us to enter a world that's almost too much. Almost too much. There was some quality about the experience of, like, getting it, that it was too much, that it was a relief, too. It was just, like, a relief. How was it a relief? It felt like... It's hard to explain it. I have the words, but it's like something you draw off your book. Something that felt like something Some, almost a holding at the breath of something, some kind of protection or something.

[62:48]

Something dropped away when? When was that? When we did this asking, you know, did this little vibe. Yeah. Well, you say something dropped away, but I thought you were saying that when you experienced how overwhelming it was, that something dropped away. Mm-hmm. But now it doesn't sound like you're talking about that, it's talking about when you were actually doing it and letting it be overwhelming, something dropped to it. Well, that's what I mean, that's what I meant. The experiencing that, experiencing the overwhelming was a relief. Right. And there's another kind of relief, and that is, it's not the same relief, it's the relief of forgiving yourself You all can forgive yourself, and I can forgive you too, because I know it's difficult to stay with this overwhelm. And we want to go back to getting things under control again and pretend like the world's predictable again, just for a little while. And not faint, not be on the verge of fainting all the time.

[63:53]

So, don't be hard on yourself if you can't stay in that world, but at the same time try to encourage yourself into that world. And I'm trying to encourage myself and all of you to enter that world, which is a world of overwhelm. It's unpredictable, totally dynamic, uncontrollable turbulence of change. And there's lots of pressures on us, you know, which we need people to sign off on, that people want us to not be open to this. They don't wanna have to have us be, you know, open to this because that reminds them of something that they don't wanna be open to. So they want us to pretend like everything's okay. And if we don't go along with this, they will actually put some pressure on us to kind of pretend like everything's okay.

[65:00]

And they'll even tell us that everything's okay. And then we'll have trouble with that too. And they'll put pressure on us not to have trouble with us telling us that everything's okay. So there is an environment which seems to be saying, we don't want you to be yourself. We don't want you to be overwhelmed. We don't want to hear about that. And so then we say, well, gee, I guess since I don't want to, I guess I'll kind of like buckle under. But if you do, part of you is going to get really upset and angry at you for doing that. And then the message is, don't be aware, you know, that now in addition to everything being uncontrollable and unpredictable, that now also you're angry at yourself for pretending it's not that way.

[66:07]

Don't be aware of that either. Then you're going to get even more angry. But then again, you're going to not be able to know that even more, because it's even worse now. So push that harder down. But it comes out that somebody else walks up and reminds you. Somebody else starts acting like they're out of control. Then you turn what you can't admit in yourself, you then turn on them. So this is how the lack of being able to stay with this very difficult thing to stay with then leads us to get really angry and then to be cruel to other people. I mean roughly cruel or to start lying to them and trying to get them to join the same club which we buckled under and joined. But just trying to open ourselves to this is not the way.

[67:11]

because that would just be our idea of opening. What we need to do is concentrate on what's happening more and more, say the stories, study the stories or whatever, talk to your friends about them, listen to what your friends say, listen to yourself talk, see how you feel, get in touch with more and more of what's happening that you're already aware of, and get more and more settled with that, and gradually you'll open up to these other things. And you'll learn that you can live in an overwhelming universe. You can. You are. We are living in such a place. And there's lots of anxiety. And the reason for the anxiety you will see. But you can't see the reason for the anxiety if you don't feel the anxiety. So this weekend, we're doing a workshop on anxiety and fear, and it's very popular, which it should be.

[68:21]

It should be popular because we all need to work on this. Like I was just reading these, you know what they call it? Is it the Harper's Index in Harper's Magazine? They have these numbers, you know? And one of the numbers is, among industrialized countries, the rank of wages for American factory workers is number nine. Eight countries pay their factory workers more than we do of the industrialized countries. And then the next line is, percent of Americans who believe that non-union workers will be fired if they try to organize a union. Seventy-nine percent.

[69:24]

Seventy-nine percent of Americans feel that if non-union workers would try to organize a union at their workplace, where they're getting paid less than eight other countries, that they'll be fired. So generally speaking, people feel like they'll get fired if they don't go along with the program of their employer. They might not get fired. Who knows? I don't know what will happen to them. They might, they might not. But 79% of people think that they will get fired. And also, among those 79% of those people, all those people might say, I don't care if I'll get fired, I'm still going to do this. I'm not going to let that stop me from doing this thing if it's helpful. So the world is kind of like putting this to us in a lot of ways. The world is saying stuff like, if you're obedient, you're responsible.

[70:31]

And if you're not obedient to the organization, you're irresponsible and you're a bad person if you're not obedient. Buddhism is to do what Zen Center tells you to do. If you don't agree with what Zen Center says, you're not a Buddhist. You're violating the Sangha. You don't respect the Sangha if you don't do what Zen Center tells you to do. Right? And if you don't do as Zen Center tells you to do, Zen Center will punish you. In Indianapolis, the ranking of the three main employers in the city of Indianapolis, the local government employs the most people. The state government employs the second most people, and the city government employs the next. I mean, that's the federal government.

[71:33]

The three biggest employers in the city are the local, state, and federal government. So you can imagine what Indianapolis is like. If anybody doesn't want to... If people don't like what the government's doing, guess what they'd do about that? Before the militia. Thanks. But it doesn't do any good to blame people who are saying, be obedient or we'll punish you. That's a pervasive thing. And just being aware that they're pressuring you is not enough either. You have to face the pain. You have to face the pain of that and the anxiety of that and the fear of that. You have to face the fear of what they'll do to you if you don't go along. And by facing the fear, the fear tells you to take a step back to feel the anxiety of what it's like.

[72:40]

And then another step back to feel the pain. Feel the pain. The pain. The pain of what? The pain of the world saying to you, you can't be this way. We don't accept you. And that's what I think what you're talking about. You're saying, is that acknowledgement? And I said, no. But what I mean is that what we're talking about here in this practice is not acknowledgement. But one of the first steps in the practice is to admit the pain of not being acknowledged. Because we need to be acknowledged. We need to feel that the world is supporting us to be who we are. And the reason why we need to feel that is because it's true. That need in us is in close rapport with reality. The universe did make us this way, the universe does want us to be this way, and we need the world, the universe, to mirror back to us, we've got our eyes on you, and we love what you're doing.

[73:49]

We need that. But, But we don't always get it. And then if we don't get it, it hurts. And then if it hurts, we cry. And then if we cry, we're told to shut up. And then if we shut up, we forget that it hurts. And then if we forget it hurts, then we become enraged. And then we become enraged, we speak up. And then we're told to shut up again. And then we shut up about the rage and we become more enraged. And then we get somebody else for it. we have to go back to that pain of not being accepted for who we are. Which is who we have to be, who the world really wants us to be, even though the world says, shut up and don't be that way, the world really wants us to be that way. But individual people who have not themselves felt like they could be themselves, they will tell you not to be yourself.

[74:51]

Because they're They're jealous. They see somebody getting to be herself. They'll say, you can't be yourself. Matter of fact, one way that you can feed me is to give up you being yourself, and that'll be you kind of recognizing me a little bit. So the more powerful people get the weaker people to recognize them, which they got to be powerful so that somebody would recognize them. But you don't have to give in to this and you won't give in to this if you can face the pain of not being accepted. But you have to sometimes do quite a bit of work to get back to that pain of not being accepted. You have to go through the pain of the fact that when you weren't accepted, you shut up about it and that you pretended that you weren't upset and got away from it.

[75:57]

So getting back to this, actually what you're experiencing is hard work. It's pain. It's not painful work. It's joyful work of facing pain. Because when you face pain, you come alive and you get joy because you learn You get the benefit of facing the pain and you get the benefit of becoming released from fear. But it's tricky because as you work your way back, you know, as you start to face it, you can also then face it and then veer away from it and freak out and become angry. Anger is not facing it. Facing it will expose the anger. So it's tricky to work your way back to this place. This is a difficult work of, you know, experiencing the ceaseless arising and vanishing of pain and pleasure, of your feelings.

[77:05]

Your feelings of joy, your feelings of pain. And you start with what you have now, and the others will be uncovered. But it's overwhelming, very difficult, this work. And this next story, case 44, do you have copies of that, Galen? Where are they? Right there. So I feel like we can go on to this next case, which is kind of a much more complex language. So we can go on to case 44 now. And if you need a copy, you can get a copy from Galen here. How are you doing, folks?

[78:22]

Is there some pain in the room? Yes? Earlier tonight you said that path to liberation is to be close with pain around things. Facing the pain? And you said you would talk about ways to exaggerate. I did. I just did just now. Right, yeah. I didn't notice that I did, but I did, I got into it. And I don't know, what I was just referring to, what Jacqueline said about, is this acknowledgement? I think what I said no to that was, the level of interaction in this story is not a level of acknowledgement. In this story, the work of facing the pain of not being acknowledged has been done. You have to experience enough acknowledgement to face the pain of not being acknowledged.

[79:29]

A person who has not been acknowledged at all, I don't think has much of a chance to experience the pain of not being acknowledged. So some people who have not experienced enough confirmation, acknowledgement, they need to get that so they get strong enough to face the pain of the situations. You can never give anybody total acknowledgement for everything they do. You can't get the world to do that. And that's good in a way, that you can't, because it makes people go beyond the level of just being acknowledged, but we need to start there. And we need to start by admitting the pain of when we don't get it, because it does hurt us when we don't get it. And it basically never stops hurting when we don't get it, as long as there's a we or a self. So that pain of not being acknowledged is what helps us identify the self.

[80:33]

But if you have no acknowledgement, you don't have much of a chance to settle into awareness of that pain. You're so traumatized. But this story is not about acknowledgement. This story is about showing the person what the self is. And this person has been able to stay with this pain ceaselessly. And stay with the pleasure too, stay with the experience, the rising and falling of the pain of not being accepted, rising and falling with the pain of having people tell you to give up yourself, not give up but submit yourself, trash yourself, do what they want, the pain of that, to stay with that throughout circumstances. And the joys also that happen when you get what you want, in exchange for giving up, you know, your integrity, stuff like that. All those feelings. Okay?

[81:36]

Then, understand the self that's in there making deals all the time for power. The self that, you know, you can't stand the pain of that self. You get in there and you get to know that and wake up to that. So that story is not about acknowledgement, it's about liberation from this acknowledgement process. Okay? And liberation comes from facing this pain.

[82:08]

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