I got a question or a comment about the expression emptiness is disciplined form. Which I thought I might go over this a little bit. It reminds me of, I thought Meg was Something makes that a few times ago. Isn't form already empty? So basically, this comment could be rephrased as, oh yeah, maybe that the truth of forms The ultimate truth of forms is that they're empty. The ultimate truth of forms, like Zen forms, but also feelings and emotions and consciousness, afflictions and delusions, all dharmas are said to be ultimately ungraspable and insubstantial.

[01:22]

Empty. All things are said to not have any inherent existence. In other words, empty. So all things already are that way. But to realize that requires practice. We have to practice with form to realize its emptiness. We have to practice with delusion in order to realize that it's emptiness. That it's empty and that it's emptiness. It's empty, but it's also inseparable from emptiness. Emptiness is the way it really ultimately is.

[02:26]

And there's no other emptiness other than being the way things are. There's not a being the way things are floating out separate from the things. So things are both empty and emptiness. And yet, you can discriminate between the two by, for example, look at something and don't look at it deeply, and then you see it one way. Look at it another way, look at it deeply, in a disciplined way and you see it another way. But the emptiness is already there, you could say, and the form is already there. Another expression we have is, the meaning is not in the words. So the meaning, the emptiness is not in the words. The meaning is not in the delusions, and yet the meaning responds to the arrival of energy.

[03:33]

The meaning responds to the arrival of inquiry. Reverence. The meaning responds to discipline. So if you have a form and you bring energy to it, a certain kind of energy, if you bring compassionate energy to a form, the meaning of the form comes forth in that compassionate meeting. The meaning responds. The meaning comes forth when we're kind to the form or the delusion. Delusion takes off its superficial mask and shows us it's a deep, liberating truth. Another comment here was that form itself is already disciplined in my eyes.

[04:44]

I agree. Form is already disciplined. Form is already disciplined. Form is the disciplined version of things. Everything really is practicing. All things are really practicing wholeheartedly to be themselves. No holding back. But if we don't bring a similar effort to the things, we don't join that discipline, and we don't see. So if form is already disciplined in your eyes, maybe that's because your eyes have been disciplined. Maybe you have a disciplined relationship with form, so you see that form is disciplined and empty, which is great. There's some other subtle points here, which I think I will discuss with the person who gave me this.

[05:50]

I would like to also move to another question that comes up again and again. What is authentic delusion? So again, I would say authentic delusion is going to the etymology of authentic. I would say authentic delusion is creative delusion. Because the root of the word authentic is the same as the root of the word author. The root is create. To create. So I'm saying that authentic delusion is disciplined delusion, and the discipline of delusion is to arrive at the creation or the creating of delusion. Delusion is created. It's a created thing. It's a dependently coerced thing.

[06:52]

We need to discipline our relationship with delusion so that we enter into the dependent coercing of it. And I had this little course that I told you about before. Bye bye karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear with no fundamental to rely on. It's a six-step program or seven-step program of disciplining our relationship with anything, but let's just take delusion. Or let's simultaneously take delusion and a formal Zen practice. So let's think we're going to try to have a disciplined relationship with the forms of Zen, a disciplined relationship with delusion. so that we can become free of both of them. Everybody wants to become free of delusion, but also we want to become free of the forms of Zen, right?

[08:01]

So the first step, I used to start with relax. That's the first step. But then I got a darker pen... And I put before relax, I put trust. I put trust before relax because I was suggesting people relax with, for example, affliction. I met some people who were afflicted and I suggested that they relax. But then they said, I don't dare to relax. I might, you know, do evil things if I relax with my affliction. I was ready to relax with deflection, but they weren't. I was ready to relax with my delusion, but they weren't ready to relax with their delusion because if you relax with your delusion, you might think, well, then the delusion will take over.

[09:06]

I've got to fight it. I've got to stiffen up with my delusion so it doesn't push me around. I understand that. Sometimes we feel that way. Well, this is a little bit of a sidetrack, but I used to play judo. And in judo, we use the term play. We don't say, I used to fight judo. We say play judo. And judo means gentle way in English. And in judo, when somebody comes towards you, it's not recommended that you stiffen up and resist them. It's recommended that you embrace them and go with them. And then as you move with them, you may find an opportunity to take them on a little ride. Like if they're coming towards you, you might just, as they step, you might just move the foot they're stepping on someplace else from where they wanted to be.

[10:16]

So they step and you just go with their step and you just take your foot and slip next to their foot and they go on a nice little tumble. You don't fight them. The people who resisted and were stiff, they didn't learn judo. The first thing they teach you is to fall. first thing you learn is so you can be thrown without fear, without much fear. So you can flow with it. When you flow with it, you learn. One time in my first few times I was doing that, I was playing with the teacher. And of course, the teacher was going to throw. He's throwing all the students, so he's going to throw me. So when he came to me, I went with him, and he was moving me around and getting ready to throw me, and he got thrown. He didn't like it that much, but that's what happened. I don't know how it happened, but he got thrown. And I was ready to be thrown. I was assuming that that was the way it was going to go.

[11:20]

So we think if we've got delusion, if we've got confusion, if we've got unwholesome energy, we should not relax with it. We don't trust that we can relax with it. But I'm saying... according to this process, that relaxing with our delusion is very helpful for us to learn to dance with it and sometimes get thrown, but sometimes throw it. But the most important thing is not to throw or be thrown, but to become authentic with it. And so I used to think relax was the first step. But no, I don't think, I think trust is the first step. In other words, trust what? Not trust the delusion. I don't trust delusion. Not trust other deluded sentient beings. Trust relaxing. And the person says, no, no, I can't trust it.

[12:25]

Well, what do you need to trust it? What can we do to help you dare to trust relaxing with your deluded mind? You've got a deluded mind anyway. Fighting it, have you noticed that it hasn't helped all these years? Haven't you noticed that fighting it just feeds it? The devil comes up, you know, I'm going to pinch you. Oh, no, you're not. I got you. The devil comes up. Let's kill the devil. Kill the devil. The devil's lying there. I got him. I got him. The devil comes. You don't say thank you. The devil, they got you. But the devil comes. You say, welcome, the devil. Oh, no. Anyway, what do you need? What do you need to trust relaxing with your... With what? With delusion? Yes. With Zen forms. What do you need to relax with Zen forms?

[13:26]

First... I guess you have to first find a Zen form. Now I've got a Zen form. How are you going to relax with it? What do you need to trust? Let me know what you need to trust that you can relax with Zen forms. I'll probably give it to you, what you need, because I would like you to relax with these forms. Now, one way to relax, you might think, well, just leave the valley and go to Mill Valley. Go to a different valley. They're waiting for you there, too. But go to, I don't know, maybe Sevastopol won't be far enough. Maybe Sacramento. No, that's not far enough. How about Las Vegas? If you got to Las Vegas, maybe there. But running away from Zen forums is not the same as relaxing. Relaxing is to be there with them and be soft. gracious. That's relaxing. So anyway, here we've got these forms and we've got delusion.

[14:29]

So let me know what you need to relax with your delusions and your forms. I'd be happy to help you. And if you see me being tense with my Zen forms or my delusions, please help me. Relax. So in order to be authentically deluded, you have to be relaxed with your delusion. Once again, you might be deluded. Being open to that possibility is a little bit like being relaxed. People who are relaxed are often open to being the way, pretty much any way. They don't like to be deluded, but they're kind of like, well, maybe I am. You are deluded. I wasn't talking to you. Why did you make that sound? Anyway, somebody here might be deluded.

[15:31]

So we got that part, the delusion. Now we got to relax with it. Relax. And then next step is Play, play, play, play, play. Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas, play. They play with delusion. And they appear in this world to teach beings how to play with delusion. They relax with it. They trust in relaxing with it. They trust to play. They come to teach other sentient beings to play with affliction. They come finding beings who are afflicted, who are not playful with their affliction, who fight their affliction, who run away from their affliction, who tense up around their affliction, who curl up in balls around their affliction. And they want to teach these people to relax and play with their affliction, play with their delusion, play with Zen forms. Next step is the big one.

[16:36]

Create. In a way, it's a big one. Create. When you start playing with something, with somebody, with delusion, when you start to play with it, then you can start creating it, which you've been doing all along, but you weren't there in the magician's workshop. Now you're right there, and you can be responsible for the creative process. You can join the creative process. that gives rise to form, feeling, impulses, all the delusions, consciousness, everything. And that word create then, then your delusion is starting to, it becomes authentic. Now you're authentically deluded because you're creatively deluded. Now you're authentically a Zen student because you're creating Zen forms. They're not being shoved down your throat by the ancestors.

[17:38]

You have received them and relaxed with them and played with them and now you're part of the process and so they're authentic. And then the next step that comes is understanding or realization of the emptiness of your delusion, of the truth of your delusion, of the emptiness of Zen forms, of the truth of Zen forms. understanding. And then comes liberation. Liberation from affliction, liberation from the wonderful forms that were your playground. Delusions and Zen forms are the playgrounds of the bodhisattvas or any kind of Vajrayana forms, Theravada forms, Mahayana, whatever forms, they use these forms to enter into an authentic relationship with them and thereby realize the truth and realize liberation.

[18:52]

So that's what I mean by Yeah, authentic delusion or disciplined delusion. I offer that to you. And now I just wanted to tell you that the next thing I wanted to bring up was another way of talking about all this. But before I do, is there any further response before we move on to other related material? Yes. I think I have to understand. You asked what do I need to trust. I think I need to understand before I trust. It's one part. Actually, number five would be my number one.

[19:59]

Number five would be your number one. Understand, yeah, trust, trust. And so what kind of understanding do you need before you can trust, before you can trust that you can relax? What kind of understanding do you need? I know it's about two levels, that for me I have to understand it on a logical level. Yes. Also it can be just right for me when I see that somebody did it, you know, I can understand it with my heart too, that there's some truth about it. I have to see it. So if you saw someone relax with their delusion, and you could sort of see that that was a good thing, then you might trust that you can relax. Okay. What's the other one? Oh, and the other one is logical. So do you logically understand now that relaxing would be okay with...

[21:06]

with your life, with Zen forms? That part's okay? Have you seen anybody relax with their delusions that has encouraged you? Shall we look? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Please let me know if you see anybody relaxing with their situation in an encouraging way to you. So I appreciate that she said what she needed and we're working on that now. Yes. How about standing right here? With the mic? With the mic. With the mic. Yeah. Okay. Are you comfortable standing way up high like that? No. No? No, I want to be lower than you.

[22:09]

Would you like to? That's more playful. You use so many words to describe this proper attitude towards one's delusion. Welcoming, being compassionate with, being gentle with, being open to, and now it's relaxing with, playing with, and so on. So I just wonder, too, how they're related to each other and if you can describe what that attitude is because I take it that it's not propositional it's not a form of thinking it's neither a pro nor a con attitude but is it the same? does the words obviously you want to make a difference between relaxing with and playing with Do they also make a difference in welcoming?

[23:09]

They're not exactly a difference, but more like... I feel like the word relax may be easier to get to than play. I guess I feel like the word relax refers to something I need in order to play. But you could also say, but you need to be able to play to relax. Well, sometimes you can relax but not yet be able to move. So playing is doing something? Well, playing maybe is to let the relaxation sort of into action a little bit more. And then more into interaction. So I think I could relax. Like I think some people in the Zen-do, they actually relax. And then, so traditional, not traditional, but anyway, fairly traditional, somewhat slightly traditional Zen practice is to sit still and relax.

[24:12]

Learn to relax with your bodily experience and your mental experience. And then go interact with a teacher. and to see if you can continue to relax in an interpersonal. So I guess I would say in some ways that the intra-psychic is like intra-psychically relax and then try to interpersonally relax. So in some sense there's that sequence. Okay, so relaxing... It goes back and forth. So let's say I have, what I normally do when I sit on my cushion, I have very, very, very short-lived delusions or thoughts, you know. They're changing fast? Yeah, it's like an image. Yeah. And it's sort of over. It's sort of hard to play with it. It's just, I can be open to it, I can not reject it. Just a second, if you relaxed with it, and it went, you might realize that that was quite playful of it and you. Because being playful and experience something as playful is pretty much the same thing, is it?

[25:20]

Well, being playful and to some extent participating with that. So like people are experiencing impermanence, but they don't necessarily see it as something playful or they have trouble being playful with impermanence. So one of the great things is to be encouraged by, watch somebody go through big changes and watch them do so in a relaxed and playful way is very encouraging for us. So watching Suzuki Roshi die, he did a really good job of, I feel, he was kind of like a little bit playful going through this painful liver cancer process. And also he was kind of playful the way he changed and kind of relaxed. And the Shakyamuni Buddha, too, was in pain towards the end of his life, and he demonstrated a kind of relaxation and playfulness with that impermanence. So if you're observing your mind changing all the time, and you're relaxed with it, you might realize that you're actually being kind of playful with it.

[26:23]

Not fooling around, necessarily, but there's a playfulness there. There's flexibility. And then you can open to the creativeness of the process. Okay, and then to return to this other question, is relaxing with the same as accepting something as it is or loving it or welcoming it, or is it something different? It's not different exactly, but it's possible that you could relax and welcome with something but not yet be ready to open to the way it really is. There could still be a little bit of, what is it, uncarefulness in your welcoming. your patience might not be strong enough to accept the way it really is. So it really, wisdom and welcoming or acceptance are really the same, and yet when you first welcome something, you might not quite be ready to see, for example, and accept.

[27:34]

When you welcome the thing, you might not yet be ready to accept that you can't grasp it. Okay, so up here I... I accept things as I perceive them. And down here, I accept them as they really are. Yeah. So like we say in the meal, what is it, the purity of the three wheels that we say? The emptiness of the three wheels. So when you first receive the gift, when you first accept the gift of the experience in a gracious way, you might still think that there's some separation between you and the gift. At the end of the process, you realize that the way it really was is that it wasn't really that you were receiver only. You were also gift. So at the beginning, you really are enjoying the giving process, but you may be somewhat still in a position of being the gift or being the giver or being the receiver.

[28:38]

You still may be sort of a little bit... A lot. Yeah. But at the end, it's the same reality, but fully realized. By the play process, by the creative process between the two, between the wisdom and the giving. Well, it's sort of nice to have things to look forward to. Thank you. You're welcome. And one second, please, Valerian. I just thought I might give a couple examples from Suzuki Roshi. One was, I'll give two. One was, one day at an afternoon tea at Tassajara Monastery, he came up to me and said, something like, I would like to show you how to walk when you're carrying the stick.

[29:44]

I think he maybe said in Japanese, I would like to show you how to walk when you're the Junko. Junko is the name of the person who carries the stick. So he said, I would like to teach you how to walk when you're being Junko. So out there in, you know, on Tussar Avenue, he showed me how to walk carrying a stick. And my response was, you know, great. That's what I came for, for you to discipline my walking. And that was pretty easy for me to receive that instruction. And I barely remember what it was. But I do remember that I felt like what I came for was not so much to learn how to walk in a new way or to learn how to walk in any way, but I came to have a relationship where he would give me a gift and I would see if I could receive it.

[30:48]

And I guess he appreciated that I received it because he offered me more other gifts. So then a little later, he suggested I be on the first Delon Rio show. Does everybody know what doan means? Doan literally means do is hall and an means peace. So it's the people who work for the peace and serenity of the hall, of the meditation hall. And so, and ryo means room, so that means the group of people that work on that. So he suggested that I be on this do-an-ryo, the first one we had at Tatsuhara in the spring, in January of 1970, where a visiting teacher named Tatsugami Roshi, who had been the ino at Eheiji for 13 years, he came to Tatsuhara to teach us these Zen forms. And particularly he concentrated on the do-an-ryo.

[31:53]

And Suzuki Roshi said, he said, I want you to learn chanting from Tatsugami Roshi because he's a very good chanter. So I was very happy that he gave me that assignment. So I went to Tatsuhara and I was on the do-an-ryo and I tried to learn chanting from Tatsugami Roshi. And he spent a lot of time teaching us how to chant. So then after the practice period was over, Suzuki Roshi came to Tassajara and he asked me to show him the chanting that Tatsugami Roshi taught. So I would sit with him and go, you know, And he would listen to me. And then he disciplined me. So I learned that, and then I chanted that, and Satsangharashi watched me, and then he gave me some feedback.

[33:22]

It wasn't just I do Junko, I do Zazen, I do chanting. I do these things, and then he has something to work with. He has a form to touch and test. So then he said, you know, Tatsugami Roshi is 65 years old and he's Japanese. So when he chants like that, it's beautiful. But you're a young American person, so you should do it more simply. You know? So he kind of ironed out, ironed a lot of the little decorations which I learned. And then he would say, so do it like this. And I would try and say, no, do it like this. And he was giving me a lot of attention. And this is what I wanted, but it was a little bit intense. I kind of wanted to leave the room rather than have my practice ironed out. But the point I'm stressing now, 40 years later, 41 years later,

[34:29]

is it's not so much that you learn to chant, but that you can be playful with these forms, that you can let your seniors and juniors and teachers, you can put your form out there and have them give you feedback and you can feel that interaction and relax with it and find the authentic relationship there. And I vaguely knew that at the time, but still I wanted to get out of the room because it was so intense. I was so exposed, you know, because I was like putting... I learned something and then I was performing it and he was giving me this adjustment while I was performing it. It was very intense. So I wanted to get out. So I said, you know, I said repeatedly, I don't want to take any more of your time, Roshan. LAUGHTER And then he would say, it's okay. Anyway, eventually he did let me go. But I always remember that his great kindness, you know, here's this person who we now realize was very valuable to the history of Buddhism in America and he spent time training this young guy

[35:52]

But it wasn't somewhat just that he wanted me to learn to chant. He wanted to transmit that relationship. And it's, there it is, very subtle. And that's where the discipline form comes where you realize the emptiness of the chanting, the emptiness of the chanter, the emptiness of the teacher, and how there's no teacher or chanting or student separate. But still, I needed to have something for him to work with. And so he sent me to learn something so he could work with it. Otherwise, he doesn't walk down the street and walk up to people and adjust their posture. He's just nice, friendly, hello. But when he has a student, they can learn a form, and then he could work with it. And he wanted to do that, but unfortunately, He didn't live so long after that, so he couldn't train as much as he wanted to.

[36:59]

But we can carry on this disciplined relationship with what we're doing and help each other and interact with each other around these forms. That's what's important. And then we keep the forms going, so this training this discipline, to realize that the truth can go on. We could change the discipline, but it's a lot of work to set it up and train it, so we kind of keep in the same one, but... And it's hard, you know, as you know. So we're having some difficulty here in this intensive, but we're doing really well in a way. Look at this. We're all here, sort of. Nothing really... Not too many people are sick. We all got pretty close. I think probably all got kind of close to it. Did anybody get nowhere near it? There's one person, yeah. Two people haven't gotten even near it.

[38:02]

Yes, you haven't either? Yeah, yeah. Nowhere near, yeah. Yeah, at Tassajara last fall, I didn't even get near sick, but I got real near sick. Just before this intensive, I got sick. So it turned out to be a little bit of an inoculation, so I've been able to participate pretty fully. But there's some challenges out there. There's some trouble ahead. And now, Valerian, if you still had to come, please do me. Yeah, just reminding myself of the last time I was here and you were talking about stories and how we can come over our stories by engaging them. Yeah. And I just remember it was so difficult for me last time I was sitting in your class and for two class or three class and I was just sitting there and I said, I have the story that what I always tried to like,

[39:08]

show myself in a different way than I am. So I had the fear of, a very big fear of not being myself. That I could not pretend to be someone else. That's what I mean. That I could be in a situation where I don't have the opportunity because, for example, you say something and I cannot pretend to be very clever or what I would like to pretend in that situation. So I had this story and I was struggling all the time. But after three or four classes, for some reason I stood up and came to you. I didn't really say much, just I had the story going on. But it helped me to come over it. Right now I want to make sure again. That's just a story. I attempt to forget sometimes. So that was a good reminder.

[40:12]

Very good. So we want to show our story and then show another story because we're afraid of what would happen to us if we couldn't hide our story. Let's do our best to show our Our story. And see if we can keep that up. And become free of it. Try to welcome it. Yeah, try to welcome it. And if you think you can welcome it, then go show it to somebody else and see if you can welcome it then too. Back and forth. Inwardly and outwardly. Express the story and see if you can welcome that. And I have another story, but in a different way. Because you brought yesterday up the story that we are supporting each other all the time. And that reminded me on a very nice metaphor I heard before. A what?

[41:14]

Metaphor. And it was very encouraging for me and a big help for my practice to see in every situation that we are always in some way supporting each other. So I wanted to share that also. So it goes like, if you imagine that you are parents, I mean, lots of you are, I know, and you have your child, son or daughter, whatever, and you just imagine you... pick a mask, put it up, and scare your child every day. And because you know that your child would become strong for this world. So you love your child so much, but I'm sure no one would really like to do that because of our love, we don't want to scare each other. But we actually do that every day. And we put up this mask, like this mask we are wearing right now.

[42:21]

But actually we are basically loving beings. And in this kind of way, scaring each other or loving each other. Doing everything we do, we support each other on every second. But basically we are just under this mask, loving beings. So it's good to remember that in every kind of situation. You get angry with someone, you just try to see behind the mask and remember it's just a loving being and supporting me in my practice in this kind of way. Thank you. I'm having trouble with the create step.

[43:22]

Yeah. I have this idea that at some point you get so familiar with the delusion creation process that you're having a hand in it, like controlling or creating delusions for fun or something like that. I'm guessing that's, I'm curious about it. That's a possibility. I'm open to that. Well, you know, that would be desirable, but just wondering what happens there. Well, if I'm relaxed with that, I continue to be relaxed and I continue to be trying to be playful. But as you point out, the playfulness, I think it's very helpful for me to remember that the playfulness is very, very fragile. So you're playful and creative, but then you lose the playfulness and you start to slip back into not being playful, but manipulative. It's hard to be playful, [...] creative, creative.

[44:26]

So you start to be creative, and when you're creative, you are not the creator. Like when you're dancing and you enter into the creative process of dancing with somebody, you're not doing the dancing. It comes upon you, this great thing called the dance. There's two dancers, but neither one of them are doing it. But then they can tense and flip into, I'm doing it. And so we have to find it again. And we have to relax with, okay, now I'm back to me being creative. Well, that's not very creative. So now I go back to the drawing board, start over, and be patient that I just tensed up around the process and, you know, restricted or restrained the creative process because it got too intense. But, you know, now I start over. So we can always be, this playfulness and this creativity is very fragile.

[45:30]

We need patience also. When you find it, it's painful to find it. There's pain in finding it. There could be pain when you find it, and there's pain when you lose it. So patience is part of what we need to stay, keep returning to the center of the process. So what are we actually creating there? What are we actually creating? Well, you know, if we say what it is, we miss it. But it's not to say there's nothing there, it's just that I can't really say what it is. But I do feel, I'm suggesting that if we get in touch with creativity, we get in touch with freedom from suffering and fear, anxiety. So if we get interested in trying to get a hold of what we're creating, that is part of what disturbs realizing the creative process.

[46:32]

But it's allowed. It's allowed for somebody to try to figure out what it is we're creating here. What is this dance we are doing? What is this practice? Now, if you're asking that question just as part of the creative process is one thing, but if you're asking that question as an overture to get a handle on this, well, before you came here, you already had a handle on it. You didn't need to come to Zen Center to have a handle on practice. You know, you had an address and everything. What do you mean by that? Well, you know that Zen Center wasn't, you know, near the beach and you know where the Zendo was. You kind of know. You already know how to get put. Your mind knows how to put handles on things. We know how to restrict things and confine things with our mind. We know how to do that. And we really can't stop. But we can become free of it if we enter it fully. And then when we enter it fully, we still, then we might say, what is this thing called love? He might say, oh, it's love.

[47:40]

But as soon as you say that, you've already kind of lost it. One of the early surprises that Suzuki Roshi offered me was, he said, when you look at a flower and say it's beautiful, that's sin. I thought, wow, that's very strict. So I've been careful not to call flowers beautiful ever since. I'm with people and we're walking through paradise. Oh, look at the beautiful flowers. Or I say, I'm going to sin now. Here we go. Yes, it is beautiful. I'm a sinner. So to say what it is we're doing, it's okay, but... It's kind of a little tricky to be saying what we're doing here. So be careful. If you're saying what we're doing, be careful. Thank you. Thank you.

[48:44]

I'd rather have you say what we're doing here rather than, you know... Try to avoid being the person who wants to say what we're doing here. I'd like to go back to something you said on Sunday and then in our last class that I ended up confused about, about thinking. Yeah, that's the next topic. Thinking, the next topic is thinking, not thinking, thinking, not thinking, and non-thinking. That's the next topic. I could wait. No, no, no. You can be the overture. Okay. Well, here's my entree to the meal. I always thought on the cushion what you do is you sit there, thoughts come by, you notice them, but you basically would like them to leave.

[49:57]

Basically you'd like them to leave? You know, the goal would be to have none, but if you have one, fine. Yeah, thank you very much for mentioning that. I think that is something that is floating around in the world of Zen, that view. Okay, so then I thought you said on Sunday you're thinking all the time. And so what I've been hearing in this period is... embrace whatever so I was sitting on the cushion today and I noticed I was thinking and then I noticed I started to sing a little song in my head and then I didn't know whether to embrace singing the song or push it away or you know notice it and let it go so that that's my question do you let it go or do you be with it and embrace it when you have a thought on a cushion If you thoroughly embrace a thought, the thought will be released.

[51:05]

So letting go and thorough embracing are the same thing. So if I was still... Clinging is not thoroughly embracing something. Again, in dancing. In dancing. If you thoroughly embrace your partner, you're not clinging to him. If you cling to him, he interferes with the dance. You want to be together and let go. Make a real connection and then let go through the connection. So... Definitely the Buddha Dharma is not about, when I said we're thinking all the time, there are times I mentioned when you're not thinking. When you're in a comatose state, you're not thinking. Brain damage, dreamless sleep, and certain yogis do go into states which are almost comatose. But that's not, and the Buddha could do that, but that's not what the Buddha was teaching as the meditation practice, the central meditation practice.

[52:21]

Could you open that one? So I'm saying being able, being concentrated is a necessary ingredient to wisdom, but being concentrated does not mean that you suppress your thinking. Wisdom is a certain type of thinking. It's correct, authentic thinking. That's what wisdom is. So when a thought comes to let it come and let it go, is, I would say, bodhisattva practice. Let something come and let something go. And for me, letting something come and letting something go is thoroughly embracing it. To let something come and not embrace it, I don't think you're really letting it come. And if you really embrace it, you will let it go. your thorough embrace will release it.

[53:26]

The criterion of release is thorough embrace and vice versa. If you want to know what I think thorough embrace is, it means you let it go. So a teacher of Zen thoroughly embraces her students, and that means she lets them go. That's the reproductive process in Zen. Teacher thoroughly embraces sentient being student and then that thorough embrace, when it's thorough, the student is released to do the same thing with the next generation. The third major bodhisattva precept, embrace and sustain all beings. That means all thoughts, all feelings, all living creatures. Embrace and sustain them. And, of course, it means release them. It doesn't mean embrace and sustain and own them and keep them. It doesn't mean embrace and sustain and throw them down the stairs. It means embrace and sustain and release.

[54:29]

It means release. It means liberate. It means help them develop at the appropriate rate, which is sometimes very slow. So yes, please, when thoughts come, be a gracious hostess. Let them come and let them go when the party's over. And in the middle, have a wonderful party with them. If a song comes, completely, thoroughly encounter it, as Dogen Sanji says. Encounter, embrace and sustain. And also, As I mentioned before, that character which is translated as embrace and sustain, it can have a passive and an active marker with it. So if you don't have the passive or active marker on it, both are possible. Are you clear about that?

[55:31]

In Chinese, you have this character which means embrace and sustain. But if you just look at the character by itself out of context, it could be to give Buddha's compassion or to receive Buddha's compassion. It could be to give guidance and sustenance or receive guidance and sustenance. If you put the marker, if you put the other character in, it's one or the other. But by itself, the precept doesn't say give embracing and sustaining or receiving embracing and sustaining. So embrace and sustain all beings also means be embraced and sustained by all beings. So every thought that comes, embrace and sustain it. Every thought that comes, be embraced and sustained by it. When the thought comes, realize that that realizes you. That thought gives you life, and you give the thought life. This is like fully encountering and actualizing that thought. And we need to be calm in order to

[56:33]

be there for this intense meeting. So we develop calm. And one of the ways you develop calm is to kind of emphasize letting go of the thoughts because usually we're not. Usually we're holding on or pushing away. So a little emphasis over on the side of letting go to develop composure. But once you're calm, then you're ready to play. Very helpful, thank you. You're welcome, thank you. I'm measuring this class and my measurement is we've accomplished quite a bit in 55 minutes. I wanted to take a minute to share a little bit with the group about an experience I'm having relating to this. My Jukai ceremony and the group that went through that, for me, my experience was that I'd been trying to go through that ceremony for about two years, maybe even a little longer.

[57:47]

I know you've had my Rok Su for probably at least 18 months or two years. And each time we tried to go through it, something came up so that we weren't able to accomplish it. So in November, Reb asked if I would be open to coming to the intensive to go through that ceremony. And I ended up having just the right kinds of conditions come together that would allow me to come for three weeks. So I said yes. So I went through the ceremony, which was wonderful. And thank you all for your support. And then, you know, had yesterday and was really happy to get the meal board cleaning job because I just like really felt like running in the Zendo. I had a lot of energy yesterday and just, you know, I was really, really happy and excited. And then I woke up today and got into the Zendo and Reb was in his seat and Michael, who sits behind me, wasn't in his seat.

[58:48]

And my roommate is ill, Nancy, and she wasn't in her seat. So I had no one sitting by me. And I can't even describe how that missing support affected my practice in a way that made me realize why I struggle so much with my own home practice. And so I was embracing the thoughts about how much I really wanted to shift my position. And I was thinking about trying to be wholehearted about the forms. And I thought, you know, my knee really hurts and there's no one here that I would particularly be affecting by this. And so I think I'm just gonna like show my knee a little compassion here and move. And so that was the first time I think almost since I've come that I allowed myself to break the form. And I think I couldn't have gotten there if I didn't understand becoming more gentle and relaxed. And the irony is that when I went back to my room and talked to my roommate, I said to her, I'm feeling, I don't know how to describe how I'm feeling.

[59:56]

I came, I was focused on Jukai, I went through it, and now I don't know. And then I just looked at her and I said, I think maybe I'm just relaxed. It's possible. You know? And then I said to her, do you think this is how everyone's been feeling since they got here? You know, because kind of for me, you know, the purpose is, I feel complete, right, with the purpose. And yet now I have two whole weeks of just being present, which is really kind of delightful. And so when I got my name, and it says, you know, Striding Mountain, Playful Seas, play is the next step on the ladder, which the last words my father spoke to me before he died were, Relax, Gene.

[60:58]

Gene, relax. So he kind of knew. Reb kind of knows. So I wonder if I'm at the next stage of playfulness in my practice. And that in order to get to that, I had to go through this process of sort of, I was thinking about writing a prequel to Reb's book of being upright. I was going to title it Being Uptight. Well, Suzuki Roshi gave me the name Tension. No wonder I relate to you so well. So that long story, I just wanted to share my current experience of moving down this. And then my question for you is sort of I would imagine that this goes back up and down and around and so forth. But do you experience deeper levels of each as you grow? So, for example, for me. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And then by getting deeper levels you notice problems you didn't notice before.

[62:09]

But you're ready for them and then you grow through getting more and more information about more and more subtle aspects of delusion and affliction and form. So when we first start practicing Zen, we get a little instruction here, a little instruction there, and then as you move on, you get some instruction that wouldn't have been appropriate to give you at the beginning, and so on. And then the other clarification I wanted to ask was about create. And if you could just elaborate on that a little for me. Create, creation, and I'm not sure what it's meaning in this context. Well, again, if you think of a... Well, I was going to say a dance, but I thought I'd change the metaphor.

[63:15]

I thought of this example of this little girl who came to see the great teacher Donald Winnicott. And she's a very, very sick little girl. really have a lot of problems, a lot of seizures and very bad rash, just a really unhappy little girl. And she came in to be with the doctor, and for some reason or other, although she was having all these difficulties, she came over and sat in the doctor's lap. And the doctor had these tongue depressors in his coat, and she took the tongue depressors and pulled him out of his coat and threw him around the room and poked him with them and bit on him and stuff like that. And then they had repeated meetings, but she actually was able to, his relaxation and his playfulness was somehow able to teach her how to relax with him.

[64:25]

She was still sick, though. But she would come and she was able to play with him And she learned that she could, you know, she could adjust her posture. And it was, you know, it was okay. She could, you know, uncross her legs and it was all right with him. And so then she just developed this way of coming and playing with him. And then... And then, yeah, I think somehow he had some, I don't know if he had some gloves or something, but anyway. I don't know if I have this right, but she pulled the gloves off his hand or she took his gloves and put them on her hand.

[65:28]

And then she pulled the gloves off. That was part of what she was allowed to play. She pulled the gloves off. And then she tried to pull the fingers off and found out that she couldn't. And he said when he saw her do that, he really felt she had this great understanding that she was being playful. In the midst of playful, she understood that the fingers don't come off the way the glove comes off. And she had this great understanding in the process of creation and play. And she never had any seizures after that. And in two weeks, she was released from the hospital where she'd been for more than a year. And she moved on to other problems, of course, like we all do. But she got over those problems, those severe problems, The key point, though, was at this point of being creative with, you know, like, I'm going to change this thing, you know.

[66:39]

I can change this thing. And then realizing that there's another side to it, too, you know. It's not just all you. It comes back at you, too, you know. It's like, no, you can't create that, but you can create this. And that's part of creation is to know how it works. And like, ooh, it's a whole new world. And you get freed from your... This girl was in a major prison, which nobody was in charge of making, and nobody could get her out of. But the playfulness got her out, and the playfulness and creativity released her from this very difficult situation. Thank you. That's helpful. You're welcome. It's the same in dancing. And... And it's all very fragile stuff, too. It's all very fragile. It's easy to go from playfulness to losing it and get very disappointed because it's so wonderful, that realm.

[67:46]

Then we have to be patient and, again, be welcoming the post-playfulness phase. So what I'm warming up to is to discuss this famous story which Dogen Zenji uses as his favorite teaching on how to practice zazen. So this is an example of our great ancestor giving instruction in Buddhist meditation in the form of a story. and not just a story, but a story of his ancestors, of his family. It's a family story about a family practice of Buddhas, of sitting Buddha. And the story is, which we heard many times, the story is of one of our old Buddhas named Yakusan Igen, in Japanese pronunciation and

[69:00]

Yao Shan or Yue Shan in his Chinese name. And so he's a disciple of Sekito Gisen. He's the teacher of Ungan Donjo or Yunyan. and so on. So he's one of our great ancestors. And so he's a Buddha, I guess, in our tradition. We venerate him as an old Buddha. The Buddha's sitting. The Buddha's sitting still and tranquil in the story. And a monk comes to the Buddha, Yashan, and says, When you're sitting still like this, what kind of thinking is there? And Yashan says, I'm thinking. Or he didn't say, I'm thinking.

[70:04]

He says, thinking, not thinking. That means thinking. Thinking. Thinking, not thinking. What kind of thinking are you doing, teacher?

[71:11]

I'm thinking, not thinking. The monk says, how do you think not thinking? And Yalashan says, with blacker ink. Non-thinking. So there's many Chinese characters for thinking. In this story, actually this is colloquial speech. Zen stories are often in colloquial speech. Buddhist scriptures, generally speaking, are not colloquial Chinese. The Heart Sutra is not colloquial Chinese. The Lotus Sutra is not colloquial Chinese. But this conversation is colloquial Chinese. And in colloquial Chinese, the master says, The monk says, what kind of shirio are you thinking?

[72:15]

Shirio is thinking, and the teacher and master says, fushirio. Not just fushirio, but shirio, shirio, fushirio. So the monk says, what kind of shirio are you doing? He didn't say fushirio. He said, shirio, fushirio. Tei. What kind of thinking are you doing? I'm thinking, not thinking. How do you think, not thinking? Hishirio, or non-thinking. So I'd like to, for a while, I'm going to talk to you about this story and about how this story is, for Dogen Zenji, showing the essence, the essential aspect, the essential art, the essential method of the Zazen of the Buddha. So I think maybe that we... And by the way, thinking...

[73:27]

Thinking is another word for karmic consciousness. The definition of karmic consciousness is thinking. Chinese character. This is a Chinese character, which is a definition of karmic karma. Karma's definition is thinking. Not action. Not action. Action is, karma means action. So the definition of action, the Buddha's definition of action is thinking, is thinking. And not thinking on the both, foo and non. No, no. Foo is not and he is non. Yeah.

[74:30]

So non-thinking. Non-thinking is the essential art of Zazen. Thinking is not the essential art of Zazen. Not-thinking is not the essential art of Zazen. Non-thinking is the essential art of Zazen. But non-thinking is how you think not-thinking. Non-thinking is... relating to both of these and relating to their relationship. Thinking and not thinking are inseparable. They're always going on together. We're basically always thinking, but also not thinking is going on all the time, too. Non-thinking, that's the part, that's the practice part. Just like, you know, form and emptiness are always together. We have to discipline our relationship with form and emptiness and their relationship in order to have the practice.

[75:39]

So this is using a Zen story as the basis for the sitting meditation instruction. And so we're continuing to study delusion, thinking, and the relationship between delusion and authentic delusion in sitting practice. All this, of course, this whole study is being conducted under the auspices of great tranquility. We are very tranquil here. We sometimes have lots of energy and sometimes we don't have so much, but we're always cultivating imperturbable composure so that we can study these more or less profound teachings of our ancestors. And so we can study the profound teachings of our daily interactions with each other. So I will go into the story more in our next class, and I think with enough preparation we can carry this discussion right into our sashin.

[76:55]

Is that a good time for us to conclude now? Is that about right? Thank you very much for your attention.

[77:09]

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