I mentioned this expression, going down fast, coming up slower, going down slowly and coming up fast. And so what I understand that to mean is going down through karmic consciousness and getting to the bottom or getting to the bottom or bottomlessness of karmic consciousness, getting to the ultimate, to the end of karmic consciousness. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them is one way, but I vow to come to the end of them. So then the observation was Zen goes down fast, goes to the end of them very quickly, and then integrates that, the end of delusion, integrates that with delusion by coming up slowly through it.

[01:14]

But I think that typification is interesting, but not... necessarily universally applicable to all the different styles of Zen teaching. We also have the expression, going down into the green dragon's cave. I think I understand that to mean the same thing that you go down through karmic consciousness to meet the real dragon at the bottom of it or at the emptiness of it. And then from that emptiness of karmic consciousness you come up through karmic consciousness and integrate the ultimate truth with the conventional truth. So one method is to work with conventional truth of karmic consciousness very carefully.

[02:23]

And when you work with karmic consciousness, you go deeper. When you apply the teachings and the practices to your karmic mind, which is consciousness, you go deeper. You learn what the mind is. You learn all about it and finally you learn that it cannot be found. And at that point there's liberation from consciousness. And then from that deep place you come back up through consciousness and integrate that unfindability of mind with mind. Yes. Well, I was going to use an example of anger.

[03:28]

So you, in common consciousness, anger might appear. You have a story and you feel anger towards it. And then And then you confess that you feel angry and maybe you feel sorry about it. And you say, I'm sorry. Practice confession and repentance. And you continue to practice, trying to practice the precept of not being angry. But you don't yet understand the precept of not being angry. because you're still going down through the consciousness where there seems to be somebody other than you who is behaving not well, that you feel irritated with and you want them to be different.

[04:31]

This is karmic consciousness. And you keep practicing not being angry with these undisciplined, ill-behaving beings or yourself. Do the same to yourself. You get angry and irritated with yourself. But you keep trying to be patient and generous and not be angry towards living beings. And that way you go down through the consciousness rather than just swirling around in it. And when you get to the place where there's no bottom, to the vastness of the consciousness, then you come back up and see if now, if it's ever possible that you might be angry from emptiness. Because now you've found out that there's nobody to be angry at and nobody to be angry.

[05:35]

And there's no anger and there's no, you know, none of this stuff can be found. And from that place now, you watch these same appearances, like somebody's doing something and you seem to be watching them. But you understand that nobody's to be blamed. There's nobody over there that's doing the bad thing or over here to be blamed either. And then actually you might actually get angry. But it's a new anger. It's an anger that comes from emptiness. It's a wonderful anger. It's an anger that everybody wants you to have. No disagreement. Everybody thinks anger is good this time. This is a helpful anger. This isn't putting anybody down.

[06:41]

This isn't being above anybody. This isn't catching anybody at anything. This is anger from wisdom. And so the criterion of anger from wisdom is that it is the anger that everybody feels. Nobody disagrees. Everybody says, thank you. You might be yelling at somebody, but the person you're yelling at says, right on. Like now, I don't know if there's any examples of anger that everybody agrees that we're seeing around. There are sometimes stories like that, of anger like that, where somebody seems to be angry but then we find out that it's really beneficial and everybody agrees. That's coming up slowly. So then you integrate the precepts with all your behavior.

[07:49]

And a lot of times maybe you're not, it looks like not anger, but not anger also is Not angry. It looks like you're coming up through and consciousness looks like not angry. And everybody agrees, not angry is right. Sometimes you're not angry and people say, you should be angry. And people get angry at you because they think you should be angry. And other times people get angry at you because they think you shouldn't be angry. So... I'm not saying anger is helpful. I'm saying anger can be helpful. So in the commentary on the precept not being angry, one of the comments that's being made is this means to not be angry when it's not appropriate and to be angry when it is appropriate. That's the meaning of not being angry.

[08:52]

Sometimes anger is helpful. People have been angry at me and I felt it was helpful. I felt they weren't looking down at me. I could see that it was love, and it was helpful. Now not everybody in the universe was in the room at that time, so I don't know if everybody would agree that they agreed that it was helpful, but I think almost everybody would. You're an example of that. Me lying. Okay, I'm a big boy, and if I lie, if I'm not being honest, if I'm being deceptive, some master might yell at me, and I might feel like, you got me, thank you.

[09:55]

And you might be watching and saying, that was good. I want to study with that guy. I want to get that kind of feedback. Here's another one. One time a guy was hunting for, I think it was a grizzly bear in Alaska or someplace like that. And he shot at the bear a few times and missed. And then he was sitting like in a cave up in the mountains watching for the bear to come around again. And the bear did come around. The bear came right around the corner. And the bear put his face right in the guy's face. I don't know how they did this. It wasn't like special effects. I don't know how they did it. Maybe it was special effects. I don't know. But the bear came around the corner and put her face right in his face and then opened her mouth. It didn't completely put it around the guy's head, but kind of put it around the guy's head and roared.

[11:05]

And the guy sat there and thought, okay. It was very helpful to that. I don't think anybody on the planet would disagree with that roar. So again, the comment is, when you make the roar for the whole assembly, that's what that precept not being angry means. And of course, it also means that if somebody's annoying you, you know, who's actually your kato, your helper, you don't get angry at them. You say thank you. You realize you hired them for this purpose. That's not appropriate.

[12:05]

So basically, I think it's possible to really roar with no irritation. So anyway, that's an example of what's possible when you understand emptiness. When you have perfect wisdom, you understand the lack, you realize the lack of a basis to apprehend anything. And from that place, you can roar, you can sing, you can dance. You're not attached. And you express that non-attachment for everyone. That's coming up. and integrating this realization. Now some people say if you go down slowly you can come up really fast. In other words, you don't need to integrate, you know, case by case. You're already at the top again and everything you do is in accord with the bottomlessness of karmic consciousness.

[13:09]

But I think actually going down slowly and coming up slowly is is great. Going down is necessary. You can't understand the precepts from the surface. Not killing does not mean what you think it means. It does not mean what you think it means, but you can go down through what you think it means, and at the bottom of what you think it means, there's no bottom to what you think it means, and there you understand the liberating meaning of that precept. And then you come back up through that precept, Go down quickly would be like the Mumon Khan collection of koans. The first koan is mu, which means there isn't any, or no.

[14:11]

And sometimes people use that koan and they just say no, no, no, no. No karmic consciousness. Does the dog have Buddha nature? No. No. And why does a dog not have Buddha nature? The story goes on, because it has karmic consciousness. So actually you're saying no Buddha nature, no Buddha nature, but also no karmic consciousness. And just focusing on that, you go down fast. But when you get there, you don't know how to behave necessarily. All your karmic habits are still there. So now you need a teacher there with you to make sure, and some people do go down there fast, but then they don't know how to behave unless they have a teacher to show them how to integrate and test their application of that going fast, going down. So there is that kind of thing. People do sometimes have realization and then

[15:14]

they fail to get the assistance to integrate it. And then we have, I don't know what the word is, tragedies. So that's what I wanted to say. I wanted to clarify this going down, that it means that you don't, it isn't like you swallow Zen and it goes down fast and other things go down slowly. It's that you go down in the practice through through your karmic consciousness, applying the practices, getting to realize wisdom, and then come back up through karmic consciousness. It isn't that we just get down and become liberated. We integrate the liberation with karmic consciousness. That's all I wanted to say. Could we end now? Is that okay? Thank you very much. And we can just go back to the Zendo and go down or up, whichever direction is appropriate.

[16:24]

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