Someone asked me if I had a text that I was working with during this practice period. And I said, not really, not yet anyway. I'm kind of waiting to see where the people in the practice period are. And then we may go into a text from there. And as I mentioned on Sunday, I felt a call, a request from a number of places calling for more realization of intimacy in our life here. So then I thought of a text, which I brought up on Sunday. Actually, I thought I heard of... Yeah, well, I thought of one and then another one came up.

[01:08]

And then another one came up. The one that came up was... I think it's Liangshan and... and Yuran Guan. Is that right? So Liang Shan, in our ancestors, Liang Shan says to Yuran Guan, what's the business, what's going on under the patch robe? And Yuran Guan doesn't have anything to say And then Yangshan says, to wear this robe and not reach this realm is the most painful thing.

[02:30]

And Yerong Guan says, what is going on under the patch robe? And Yangshan says, intimacy. So what's going on under this robe, what's going on under the clothes worn by the initiated members of the Sangha who wear the robe, both monastics and non-monastics wear the robe, and what's going on under their clothes is the work of intimacy. So if you, you know, you could imagine a story where you'd say to, if there was a great teacher present, the great teacher was sitting, a Buddhist teacher wearing a Buddhist robe, sitting in meditation, you might say, what's going on under the robe there?

[03:44]

And the teacher might, would say, intimacy, maybe. But, not but, and sometimes when a student would ask a teacher who's exemplifying meditation, what's going on there in the meditation, the teacher would say, thinking of not thinking. So in this tradition, thinking of not thinking is another answer to the question, what's going on under the robe of an actual disciple of Buddha. Under the robes of everybody, anybody who's got a robe on, whether they're a disciple of Buddha or not,

[04:54]

What's going on under the robe is karmic consciousness. That's going on for everybody. But what's going on for the actual practitioners is intimacy with karmic consciousness. They're not just, you know, thinking. They're intimate with their thinking. And also, they're not just not thinking. So when asked what's going on under the robe of a disciple of Buddha, we don't say, well, nothing's going on. I say we, I mean in this tradition, we don't say, well, nothing's going on. There's nothing happening. It's completely like Nothing's happening. There's no thinking. There's no feeling. There's just, I don't know what, there's concentration and nothing's happening. The mind's totally flat. The person's not thinking or feeling anything.

[06:00]

There's no talking going on. There's no movement going on. That's what some people think Zen is. But that's not the answer given by the ancestors. They don't say nothing's going on. They tell you what's going on. What's going on is intimacy and intimacy with the living being. And living beings, all living beings are is karmic consciousness. So there's intimacy with karmic consciousness. That's what's going on under the robe of the Buddhas. So that, and I'm trying to stop myself from telling too many stories about that. But right now, I'd just like to say that, by the way, intimacy with whatever's going on is not the same as controlling it.

[07:03]

And it's not the same as trying to control it. So again, we have this dance class on Monday night, and I'm proposing, and maybe you agree with me, that when you're dancing with somebody, you're not trying to control them. You're not trying to control your partner when you're dancing with them. You're trying to be intimate with the person, intimate with their body. You're trying to have your body be intimate with their body. And if there's music, trying to be intimate with the music. I mean, if there's music and you hear it and you think it's this kind of music, then you get intimate with the music and the other person's body and your body. And this intimacy is the dance that we're talking about in this school. It's not that the dance is nobody's moving and there's no music. However, In order to realize intimacy, we must be still and silent.

[08:07]

So when you're dancing with your partner to the music, in the present you're not moving. You're completely still with your partner and you're completely silent with the music. And you're silent with your thinking about the dance. There's tremendous activity in stillness. And when you realize intimacy, you realize stillness, and when you realize stillness, you realize intimacy. And you're not trying to control your consciousness, yourself, or your partner. And this is the essential art of zazen. So someone says, what's zazen? In this school, zazen is intimacy. Which is the same to say, what's zazen in this school?

[09:11]

In this school, zazen is thinking of not thinking. And how do you think of not thinking? Non-thinking. This is the essential art of zazen. Which is, this is also the art of intimacy. Intimacy. So the next thing that comes up in the practice period is, what about control? How can we not control this karmic consciousness? Because this karmic consciousness is sometimes very difficult to control. not try to control. Because sometimes it's quite, one person is really troubled that the karmic consciousness that she's being given is silly. She actually doesn't have as much problem if the karmic consciousness is like cruel. Because if it's cruel, she's more kind of like Maybe I shouldn't try to control a cruel karmic consciousness.

[10:14]

Maybe I should just be intimate with that. But a silly one, come on, knock it off. Knock it off. Get under control. And if that's enough, I'll just stop there. But if you don't, I'm going to get more aggressive about this. That's not what I'm talking about is intimacy, and I don't think that's the zazen of this school. Some people think that zazen is concentration practice. It's not that it's not concentration practice, because when you're intimate with your karmic consciousness, you will be concentrated. If you're intimate with your dance partner, you will be concentrated. You will be calm. but not just calm. Concentration doesn't just mean calm, it also means flexible and soft in body and mind so you can adjust to the changing circumstances of bodies and music and breath and thought.

[11:26]

So concentration is not like, it's, I'm totally here, what do you need? So there is concentration in the intimacy But the practice is not just to get concentration. It's to have concentration and with no dwelling in the concentration. It's to have concentration and be intimate with the concentration. And again, when you're intimate with the concentration, you're not trying to hold on to it. You're not trying to control it. Matter of fact, you get concentrated when you stop, when you give up trying to control your mind. But it's not that you give up trying to control it in the sense of you don't pay attention to it. You give up trying to control it when you're intimately dancing with it. And the history of Zen has lots of confusion between trying to control the mind on one side and on the other side to be intimate with it.

[12:39]

And this tradition has been struggling with these two sides, these two understandings of meditation from the beginning of the tradition and before. The Buddha tried, first of all, to practice concentration. He tried to get himself under control. And if anybody got close to getting himself under control, it was Shakyamuni. I mean, it was actually Gautama pre-Buddha. When he became Woody, he stopped trying to control himself. But up to close to the end, he was actually trying to control himself. He was heavily trying to control himself. He never did get control of himself, but he tried. He got down to eating like, I heard, one sesame seed a day. This is like major control, attempts to control. And he was a miserable meditator, even though world-class,

[13:43]

miserable meditator. And he said, okay, I'm maybe not completely in control, but I'm pretty much in control. I've got my mind so I can basically turn it off. There's absolutely no disturbance here. I'm totally concentrated. And I'm not indulging in sense pleasure. I think I'm actually on the verge of death. And I haven't realized what I wanted to realize by the practice. I'm still Not at peace. My heart's not content. I actually don't understand much. This is not the right way. So then he started to eat a little bit and even started to put on some clothes and wash a little bit. He moved away from the extreme control trip he was on and found the middle way. So we have this in our background of extreme attempts, not just by him, but other disciples in the tradition of extreme attempts to control themselves.

[14:45]

And I myself had this period where I tried to control myself and I got I got myself almost entirely under control for a little while. And I said, okay, now I'm under control. This is great. Congratulations. But this is not what I came to Zen Center for. I didn't come to get myself under control even though I had been working at this because I got the impression I was supposed to do that, and if I would get myself under control, I would get what I want, which is, what did I want? I wanted to be able to respond with compassion no matter what people gave me. That's what I wanted to learn. But I was no better at it. As a matter of fact, I was worse at it because I'd been being mean to myself for many hours. I'd been saying, if you lose count, I'm going to punish you. And I'm not kidding. And I kind of went, okay. There is this element, you know, in Zen practice, like they carry sticks and if you move, they hit you.

[15:55]

If you blink, they hit you. If your eyes are wandering, they can tell you're thinking and they hit you. There are places where they do that. And some places, even they can't see your face and they just hit you because, you know, they're bored. Sometimes the hitting is compassion. It's always compassion. Yeah. You know, and this kind of attempt to control people has accomplished great things in the world. Like in China, they're really good at it, especially around martial activities. They have these, you know, long tradition of, not gymnastics exactly, but acrobatics. And they get these kids, and they get these kids to stretch and stretch and stretch.

[16:57]

And the master gets them to stretch and [...] practice and practice and practice. And they beat them up if they don't do it right. And pretty soon the kids are really like doing it right. And they do these amazing acrobatic feats because they are treated so cruelly. And without that kind of pressure, almost no one will get as good at these acrobatics as some of these people do. And that spirit is just in human culture, and it comes into Buddhism, and it defiles Buddhism. And not even just in human culture, but in the human mind, this thing of controlling, because human beings are, generally speaking, afraid, and they think if they could get control, that that would help. But I propose that the more, if you're afraid and you try to control to reduce your fear, you'll just make yourself more afraid.

[18:03]

And then if you try harder to control to reduce your fear, you'll get more afraid. So I sense that as we approach intimacy in practice, people rightfully notice that that would involve giving up trying to control it. People actually think it would involve giving up control. I don't think you're giving up control. You don't have to give up control to be intimate. You have to give up trying to control. Because even people who aren't in control are still trying to control it. And if anybody was in control, that would be okay if there was such a thing, but still you have to give up trying to control if you want to be intimate. I propose you have to give up trying to control, but if you contemplate giving up trying to control, then you might think various catastrophes would occur if you gave up trying to control.

[19:03]

Like you might I don't know what. You might drive off to Highway 1. If you're driving and you gave up trying to control, you might drive off the road. You might think that. It's true, you might. But you also might drive off if you're trying to control. I don't really know which way is safer. Some people think, well, if I'm not afraid of driving off the road, I might drive off the road. It's true, you might. But I, you know, and maybe for some people being afraid will help them pay attention. And they won't pay attention if they're not afraid of driving off the road. I understand that that might be the case for somebody. So some people try to frighten people when they're teaching them to drive on this road. You know, do you realize you could go off this road any minute? You better pay attention. Okay. Such things are, we do things to ourselves and others. I don't really know though, I don't think actually that does actually help that much to learn to drive that way.

[20:10]

I think really good drivers, I think the really good drivers have given up trying to control. I think the really good skiers have given up trying to control and so on. I think the people who are really most there and most effective when at that moment that they are, I think they've given up trying to control. And they're intimate with thighs, knees, ankles, arms, gravity, snow, skis. They're intimate with it. And so they can perform these things. But you can also make people quite good through the control thing. So when you're sitting in zazen, I'm proposing to you that you're actually not trying to suppress your thinking, you're trying to be intimate with it.

[21:16]

You're actually in a conversation with your thinking. or you're learning to have an intimate conversation with your thinking, which we call thinking of not thinking or thinking which is not thinking. Thinking which is not thinking is thinking so intimately that it's not thinking anymore, that you realize that thinking is not itself. That's intimacy with thinking. And that also involves being tranquilly abiding with your thinking. Our tranquilly abiding thinking is concomitant with intimacy with thinking. However, some people have tranquil abiding, but they actually are still trying to control their thinking in the tranquil abiding

[22:19]

And they're clinging to their thinking and tranquil abiding. So then the Prajnaparamita Sutra says, if you're tranquil and you want to perfect your tranquility, then stop clinging to it and it will become perfected. If you're tranquil and serene and relaxed and alert and bright, the way to perfect that is to give it away. If you're holding on to it, it's still tranquil, but it's not the perfection of tranquility. And some people say, okay, fine, but I haven't even got tranquil yet, and I want to get tranquil. And I would say, okay, I understand. And if you want to get tranquil, if your intimacy with that desire to be tranquil, you will be tranquil. But intimacy means give up trying to get tranquility. giving up trying to get tranquility, you will become tranquil.

[23:22]

But it isn't just that you forget about tranquility. You're practicing tranquility by giving up trying to control yourself into tranquility. And you're working on that. Why not all the time? In every moment, work on being still without trying to get stillness. Because the stillness we're talking about is not a stillness you get. It's a stillness you are. It's the stillness of being yourself. That's stillness. And that's also tranquility. And that's also intimacy. And that also requires giving up trying to control. But again, giving up trying to control something that you're totally devoted to, that you never forget about. like your dearest friend that you're totally devoted to, give up trying to control that person. And how about yourself? How about being totally devoted to being yourself and then give up trying to control yourself?

[24:29]

Then all All the Buddhist virtues are required for this intimacy and all the Buddhist virtues emerge from this intimacy. All these Buddhist virtues take you into intimacy with yourself and others and all of them come from intimacy with yourself and others. And again, one of the things that arises in your mind is, I'm scared to try this I'm scared to not try to control. I'm scared to not be in control, and I'm scared to try to give up trying to control. I'm afraid of what will happen to me if I do. And basically pretty much anything can happen to you whether you do or you don't. If you try to control, almost anything can happen. As far as I know, there's pretty much infinite possibilities for everybody right now

[25:33]

And if you're trying to control, that doesn't limit the possibilities. You'd like to limit the possibilities, but it's not going to work. You still have infinite possibilities. You cannot destroy your life, actually. You can just try. And people can try to destroy their life. And a nice sounding way of doing it is try to control yourself. People can disrespect themselves, and a nice way to express disrespect is control yourself. And as you know, people say, control yourself. Control your dog. Control your kids. Control yourself. Control your sangha. Control your students. Control your saliva. Control your plants. Control your animals. Control your roads. Control your cars. Control your carbon footprint.

[26:35]

This is where we live. We live in a place where people are encouraging people to control each other. Like I heard on the radio one time, I was on the highway, and I was out there in what he called motel land, and I heard this ad. This woman comes on the radio and says, At work, you know, I have to listen to this music or whatever. And if I play the music I like, my neighbor says, would you turn it down? And also, I can't control the music. I can't choose what music they play at work. And also, I can't control who the person is sitting in the next cubicle. And I can't control what kind of perfume they wear. And I can't control the temperature of the office. And I can't control what they serve at the cafeteria. And I can't control the work that's coming to me. You know, it's really no good. But then, on the weekend, I get in my car and I go to motel, whatever, and there I'm in control.

[27:41]

I can choose the music I want to listen to. I can have the temperature I want. I can watch the TV I want. I don't have to talk to my spouse about it. I'm in control. In other words, I'm happy. I'm happy because I've got the world under control, finally. This is like, you know, what people think. People think that's going to be happiness, get the world under control. Now, if you don't have it under control yet, which even though you're trying, you may not have quite got there yet. You think, well, maybe if I would like just close the gap, you know, I'm at 95% now. If I would just do an extra 5%, then probably I would be happy. But like I said, that's the way I tried to practice Zen at the beginning. And I was at 95, 96, 97. And I got to 100% basically, and I wasn't happy.

[28:46]

And sometimes in the house I live in, especially when I used to have more than one person living with me. Actually, now I have two. I have a furball and a... and a beautiful doctor of psychology. I had them living with me. And I used to have this other, I used to have this giant energy ball who lived there too. And she moved out. But while she was living there, sometimes the mother and the daughter and the dog would leave the house. Like, sometimes they'd go away for a while, you know, someplace. And guess what happened? Guess. Huh? What? Total control. Total control. I was in control, like almost 100%. And it wasn't that bad.

[29:48]

But I also realized it wasn't that bad, but this is not the life I wanted. I wanted him to come back and trash the place. Please come back and mess my life up. and see if I can be intimate with this mess. So most people that I've run into who are like, you know, 98.6, they have messy karmic consciousness and most of them are trying to control it, more or less. Some people are not trying to do it that much. Some people take drugs, actually, so that they won't try to control themselves. Because controlling ourselves is, you know, it's basically, it's not very compassionate. And trying to control the people you love is not compassionate, and it's disrespectful. So we've got a karmic consciousness. When you go in the zendo, it goes in with you. And then when you sit down, it goes with you right up to your seat, then you sit down, and then it just, it comes alive.

[30:52]

It's the show on town, karmic consciousness. Ta-da! What are you going to do with me now? Are you going to love me and be intimate with me? Or are you going to try to make me into a better karmic consciousness? And if you try to make me into a better karmic consciousness, I may actually go along with it and later I'll get you. Big time. But if you really love me, I will take my mask off and show you the reality of the universe because it totally... penetrates me. But you have to be kind to me and stop trying to control me. Otherwise, I'm just going to keep fighting you. Please be intimate with me. Your consciousness is saying to you all day long, please pay attention to me. Please pay attention to me. Please remember me. Don't get distracted. You've got somebody here to take care of. Not control, take care of.

[31:54]

And all this intimacy with this dynamic living thing that we are occurs in silence and stillness and is realized through silence and stillness and great compassion. We must be intimate with our karmic consciousness in order to not dwell in it. If we're not intimate with it and try to control it, we're stuck in it. So in fact, a lot of the time we're trying to control it and we are stuck in it. But again, if you're kind to that terrible situation or that sort of terrible situation, non-dwelling will be realized. This is what I think zazen is. In intimacy, a total devotion to what's happening which is so total that it's intimate and there's no separation and there's no dwelling.

[33:09]

And then the Dharma is received and transmitted. Then the Lotus Sutra is received and transmitted. So that's what I say in response to what seems to be happening here in Green Dragon Zen Temple at the end of February 2010 with us. And I actually am not trying to control you into giving up trying to control. If you don't want to give it up and you keep trying to control, I just think it's wonderful. And I just have more opportunities to encourage you to do it.

[34:11]

And if you did that, I really would be out of a job. But I'd be okay with being out of a job because I'm not trying to control myself into having a job. But as long as you're resisting me, I have lots of work to do, so thank you very much. Not so much resisting me, resisting intimacy. I'm not intimacy, so you're not resisting me, you're resisting being intimate with me, which is the same as me resisting being intimate with myself, or you resisting being intimate with your silly karmic consciousness. I recently read Dogen saying that karmic consciousness is giddy. And I was surprised to hear karmic consciousness described as giddy. So I looked up the word giddy, and one of the meanings of giddy is to be so excited as to be disoriented. Karmic consciousness is really exciting.

[35:19]

I mean, it's the most exciting thing that there is. I mean, all excitement is living in karmic consciousness. But it's so exciting, we kind of get dizzy and disoriented. Now, what was it again that we were doing here, practicing Zen? What is the bodhisattva path again? I just heard it a couple of days ago. What was it? Oh yeah, that's right. Thank you. Okay? So, good luck. I pray that you do this wonderful work of being intimate with yourself. It's really great. Oh, yes, Miss? Ma'am? I read somewhere that it says intimacy. Why is intimacy like enmity? It actually doesn't say intimacy.

[36:19]

Okay. I don't know what the original character is, but it says the ultimate closeness is almost like enmity. So that's part of what's difficult about intimacy. When you're really far away from somebody, you say, hey, I'm intimate with you. That person comes closer and you start to smell their breath or whatever. And you go, hmm. And then they get a little closer, and as they get closer and closer, it's almost like, would you back up a little bit, please? Or could I please control you a little bit, please? Could I turn your face that way a little bit? But when they're far away, you're kind of like, okay. But as they get closer and closer, the struggle gets more intense, actually, to resolve that and not... Like I know that this woman just told me a couple days ago, she said, and my daughter's fat, really fat.

[37:20]

And I said, of course, if you saw some other young lady who was fat, who was somebody else's daughter, you wouldn't have a problem with it. But it's your daughter. And with your daughter, you have trouble not trying to control her because you're so close. So as you get closer, it becomes more and more difficult to not try to control her. You know, you see somebody else driving a car and turning left, you know, they're following the rules, there's no problem. But if somebody you're close to, you're in the car with them and they turn left, you think, well, it would be better to turn left up one more block. You kind of really feel that because you're so close. It's almost like they should be able to read your mind. So as you get closer, it gets more and more difficult to... in our life together, the closer it gets more and more difficult. But then when we finally give up all time to control in that closeness, then we realize intimacy.

[38:24]

And that's, you know, in the koan that Linda's referring to, that phrase, why is the ultimate closeness almost like enmity? That's in the case where Dung Shan's saying, I'm always intimate with this. Not close. Not close. Not far. Intimate. No separation. But if there's a little bit of separation, actually a tiny bit can be more difficult than a lot. Because if a lot, we sometimes say, well, I don't care. I'm not devoted to this person. But somebody you're devoted to, and then being a little different from what you think is good, that's really hard. Really hard. And then to continue to be devoted, knowing that that, like I told this story too, one person said to me, who'd been having trouble with me for a long time, someone who was really devoted to me, said, you know, we're having a nice talk, she said, but I still have a problem with you.

[39:34]

And I think the reason why I have a problem with you is because I expect something. So I was thinking maybe if I would be less devoted to you, I would expect less and then I wouldn't have so much pain. So again, give up trying to control what you're totally devoted to. It doesn't really count to give up control about things you don't care about. Give up what you care the most about. Give up trying to control what's most important. like your own mind, your own heart, your own compassion, your own life. And the life of those you really love, give up trying to control them. But keep being devoted. It's hard.

[40:36]

Yes. Yes. Do you remember saying you can't control yourself? Do you remember yourself saying that you can't destroy yourself? Yeah, you can't destroy anything. Nothing is destroyed. But things change all the time, but they're not destroyed. I mean, they're not annihilated. Down to the molecular level? Well, don't they say that nothing in the universe is created or destroyed? Isn't that a principle of physics? Things aren't destroyed, things aren't annihilated. Things don't go on, they don't last, but also they're not totally annihilated. That's another expression of the mental way. So you can't actually destroy yourself and you can't also keep yourself to be the same. You can only be the way you are now and you are that way for a moment, but you can't be that way the next moment.

[41:39]

But also you can't destroy yourself, you don't get totally annihilated when you change or when you disappear you're not annihilated because your disappearance is a condition for the next appearance called you. So there's not really annihilation or eternity to things. I'm going to interpret this thing that I've been thinking about in reference to you. You're talking about Pango and the invitation that's extended to dance. And when she brought up the subject of enmity, one of the things that I discovered One of my teachers taught us that you can be invited to move, but you can refuse that invitation.

[42:57]

And you refuse it by making some alternate move. Yeah, right. which that in turn invites the partner to do a different move. And so the leading and the following become intermixed. And it's almost like, I mean, it can become something like a sparring or challenge, challenging game. And I started thinking in those terms as a way of really becoming intimate through playing off each other, through opposition, through fighting, through that kind of relationship. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's some guidelines about how opposition might really be conducive to intimacy.

[44:05]

Like, are you flexible? Are you calm? Are you welcoming the opposition? Are you patient with any difficulty in the opposition? Are you giving up trying to control in the challenging opposition? And are you patient with yourself when you forget to deal with the opposition the way I just talked about? And gentle with yourself when you forget to be gentle? So when you're talking, I always think of Michelangelo and that slab of marble in Florence that he struggled with for quite a while, and the result of which was Michelangelo and David. But the marble opposed him, and he opposed the marble.

[45:09]

They opposed each other. But he developed this art of intimacy with marble. He got very intimate with his marble. He was totally devoted to his marble. But not only was he devoted to it, but he was... I think he gave up trying to control it. He had, and he was who he was, so it became David rather than Zeus or King Solomon. Something about him wanted it to be David. But he didn't oppress the stone. The stone was not overwhelmed by his energy. And he was not, wonderfully, he was not overwhelmed by the stone. They were changing each other. He was becoming the greatest artist of all time, and this was becoming a great artwork. Whereas before, he was less great artist than he was after he met that stone.

[46:14]

And the stone was a beautiful thing in its own way, but it hadn't yet been influenced by Michelangelo. And he hadn't yet been influenced by it. So as a result, they both made each other into what they were at the end of the artwork. Lots of opposition, lots of resistance. And in tango too, tango is a dance where you actually press against each other and the pressure that you lean into each other a little bit, that little bit of leaning makes it easier to understand what you're being asked to do or what you're asking to do. The pressure makes it easier to communicate. If you're too loose, it's kind of unclear what you're offering. So I'm thinking that that kind of intensity, that kind of intense encounter and that kind of opposition really, really leads to profound intimacy.

[47:19]

I mean, it really... It can, yeah. But you have to give up trying to control it. If you have an opponent... Yes? That is, and you're matched in strength. Yes. That you can't control. Yeah, and actually, if you're not matched in strength, you can't control either, but it would be easier to think that you can. But you can't, when you're much stronger, you can't either, but you think you can. And the other person might think you can, too. So that makes it harder maybe to understand the intimacy when you're not. Being more equal makes it a little easier to wake up to being together without either party trying to control each other, the other. Are you about to say something?

[48:20]

Oh, you just want to go to home. Well, Should we let her go?

[48:27]

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