Someone mentioned to me that I, in the early part of the practice period, I said something like, um, renounce something like that. Anybody else remember that I said something like that? So yeah, I don't know if I said it, but I think, yes, we need to renounce our imagination. What are some of the things that our imagination imagines? Catastrophes, yeah. What? End of practice period, right. April. The self. Anything with that?

[01:01]

The other. Yeah, the self, other things, is an imagination. It's an imaginary thing. Any other imaginations that we might want to renounce? Memories and our dreams of the future. all that imagination. And today I want to emphasize that we must use the imagination to renounce it. And we must use art. We must artfully use the imagination in an artful way in order to renounce it. I think, I don't know how it happened, but I got onto Yeats yesterday, partly because of St.

[02:10]

Patrick's Day. William Butler Yeats, because Renounce. Renounce, girl. Renounce. So I thought about somehow some. So there's a champion. There's a person who really know how to use his imagination, his imagination in the early part of his life to make these amazing poems. and plays. And when he got old, he started to use his imagination to try to become free of his imagination. He got sick of his imagination. So when he was young, he used his imagination to just revel in the wonder of creation

[03:19]

of birth and breeding and sensuality. As he got older, he started to actually find what was born to be disgusting, because he started to notice that death goes with that. He was disgusted by birth and death. And this great art that he had working with his imagination, he then used this art to liberate himself from imagination. And particularly to liberate himself from, how did he put it, one upon another imagination. opposites or one upon another oppositions. In other words, he wanted to use his imagination from the dualities that imagination creates and enter into, through art, a realm of changeless purity and eternity.

[04:32]

And so in this poem, Byzantium sort of marks the beginning of his poems of escape from life and death, from birth and death. It's on tape. can I, we hope, through art to escape life and death, to escape the dualities. Oh, he wanted to attain the world of art, you know, the world of art which is changeless, purity. And another poem which I often think about, especially in springtime, is the Ode to Grecian Urn. which celebrates this urn, which will be around far long after our woes are forgotten.

[05:42]

So we're going to be gone pretty soon, but that urn will be in the British Museum probably for quite a while. And so these people 2,000 years ago in Greece or more made that urn, and the urn just goes on and on. Plus the story on the urn never ends. those lovers on the urn, they never die, they never get old. They never actually kiss, but they never stop wanting to kiss. So, huh? Desire goes on forever, and the artistic depiction of it is eternal. And for this, the eternal changeless peace that art can, using the imagination can get you out of the world of birth and death and change, into the world, the changeless world of eternity beyond imagination. He wanted to go there. And in fact, his artwork did go there.

[06:43]

This is Yeats. No, no, I'm talking about Byzantium, sailing to Byzantium. Well, I think, I don't know about what keeps us motivated, but I'm just saying that poem has the same theme of the eternity of art. And Yeats wanted to go there, to that pure land, in a way, beyond life. In the poem which you wrote just three years later called Byzantium, so first you're sailing to Byzantium, but then in the poem called Byzantium, it kind of starts out the same way, using the imagination to meditate on death and purification. Again, death of the imagination, not killing it.

[07:49]

but letting it die, renouncing it. And our imagination is a wonderful thing, and it can be used both to defile us and it can be used to purify us. Its normal functioning is defiling, but it can be used to help us let go of it, and then its function is purifying. So he starts out that poem, that Byzantium poem, to let us die of the world of birth and death and enter purity. But at the end, he uses the imagination to come back to life. And so those poems are interesting because one is like a renunciation poem where he renounces and just goes and never comes back. But the other poem, he starts with renunciation and then comes back to the world

[08:50]

It's a Bodhisattva poem. The second one's a Bodhisattva poem, but they're just three years apart. And I think he got quite sick in the middle. And so Byzantium's one of the last poems he writes where he's still even talking about getting away from the world. After that, he's just totally into it. The later poems are really like his early poems in a way. They're of a man in his 80s, I think. He's returned to the world of, what does he say, mire and blood. So he wanted first to get away from the world of mire and blood. Now he's riding the back of a dolphin of mire and blood. So he reenters the world. is imagination. So all of us actually, in traditional Buddhist teaching, is we enter the world through our imagination. It's through imagination that we are born, and it's through imagination that all things are born. And it's through, we use our imagination to let go of our imagination and enter the world beyond birth and death, which is called nirvana.

[10:04]

And then from nirvana, we use our imagination to return to the world of birth and death, or samsara. Byzantium is spelled, well, I'll just read it. B-Y-Z-A-N-T-I-U-M. How do you say Byzantium? Huh? How do you say it? Byzant. Byzant. Byzantium. Byzantium. Byzantium. My high school history teacher used to say, Byzantium. Byzantium. Oh, no, he should have said Byzantinum. Byzantinum. Byzantinum. Byzantium and from Switzerland, which is probably closer to the homeland.

[11:04]

Some other examples of this are, which I think at one point this was in this book called Being Upright. I don't know if I got edited out, but I told this story of Marlon Brando in a... Is that in there? So he's in his acting class, and the teacher says, okay, now... I think the teacher says something like, okay, you guys imagine now that you're chickens. So use your imagination to imagine your chickens in a chicken coop, resting on your... They're sitting in this theater or something, on little bleachers or something. And he says, now imagine that you hear that there's an atomic bomb going to be dropped, or that an atomic bomb is being dropped. What do you do? And all the other... students in the classroom lying around the room squawking or something, and Marlon Brown just sat there. So I interpreted his response as he used his imagination to imagine being a chicken and imagine not having an imagination.

[12:15]

So somebody tells you about Tommy Baum, you just... Quack, quack. What do chickens do? I don't even know what chickens do. So you just sit there because you don't know what to do because you don't have an imagination. You can't imagine anything but sitting there. So that's an example of using your imagination to imagine that you don't have one. And another example I heard of was, I don't remember exactly who said this, whether it was who said it, but anyway, I think Samuel Johnson or one of his friends said something like, mostly what we use the imagination for is beforehand and afterwards. That's mostly where the imagination is. It's not very often applied to the present. The present is very thin and changeable and poor, nothing much happening here.

[13:19]

Whereas before and after, the after is quite stable and the future can be as stable as you want it to be because nobody, you know, just imagine whatever you want it to be. So it's stable and also you can use your imagination indefinitely on the past and the future, but in the present you can't use it much. Imagination is an opportunity to make the present more interesting, fill out this thin, insufficient moment with past and future. As a matter of fact, mostly be involved in past and future because there's not much to do here. Well, what about it? Well, of course. Of course it is. They do? Well, we all use imagination. That's the only time we ever do imagination is in the present moment.

[14:24]

So that's what I'm saying. You use imagination for the present moment to make it more interesting by adding past and future to it. Doesn't that make it more fun? Sort of? except sometimes you make it. It's not so fun, but anyway, it's more interesting than just plain old thin, poor present. So yeah, but of course, not of course, but what I'm suggesting is renounce making the present more interesting. Your imagination can do that, making the present more interesting. Let go of embellishing the present with before and after, with completing its poverty and insufficiency with the power of your imagination. It is a power that we have. So it's power. And then...

[15:28]

Another comment which a Zen scholar made was that the theory of Zen is a theory of immediacy. We just deal with what's immediately happening, and we renounce imagination. That's our official policy in Zen. But in practice, we play the game of using almost any type of imagination. So we have monasteries and stuff. There's other kinds of religion that don't have monasteries, and exercise programs, and all kinds of exercise equipment. The kitchen and everything, all that food stuff, is part of our imagination equipment. that we use in Zen.

[16:32]

We have, as a matter of fact, in all the different kinds of religion, there's probably none that have more stuff, more stories about the kitchen and the grounds and the trees and the mountains and the rivers and the animals. We use all that stuff and the relationships among the people. So it's this... One side, we enjoy the self, which means enjoy the imagination. The other side is we forget the self. We forget the imagination. But we have to use the self and use the imagination to forget self and imagination. itself won't be forgotten. It has its own self-generating momentum. And it is an art.

[17:34]

It is an art to use the imagination in a way that releases us from itself. Yes? Yes? Yes? That kind of also Yes, it does, definitely. So the main thing about Parikapita is that we imagine in that school, We imagine that the subject and object are different in being, not just different in appearance, but different in being.

[18:38]

Subject and object are not the same, but they have no separate existence. You can't have a subject without an object or vice versa. All subjects have objects. All objects have subjects. And yet we can imagine. that they have two different beings, that they have two different existences. They aren't totally dependent. We can imagine that. That's the key parikulpita creation, which also then makes it possible for us to imagine that objects are out there on their own, like we're over here on our own. This is imagination. This is the key of this and that. This is what we have to give up. But again, it is a great artistic feat to successfully give it up, to have it. And that's what we've been struggling with all practice period.

[19:41]

It's an imaginative feat. It's an artistic feat to actually imagine relaxation. Yes? Uh-huh. You mean what he taught? I think that his saying that Zen is not art is part of the art of Zen. Pardon? I mean that was his attempt to, you know, an artistic teaching expression to encourage us to let go of art. Probably somebody was attached to art, so he said Zen is not art. which it isn't. But you have to use art. Instead of using art, you can be unartful and try to unartfully detach people from art.

[20:47]

Are you following that? Well, I don't know. You look kind of like you're someplace else, like you're caught in your imagination, that's what you look like. That's my subjective behavior. So are you with me or are you not? Okay, so Zen's about renouncing imagination. It's about renouncing art. It's about renouncing everything. Okay? So that's the beginning anyway. That's not the whole story. That's the key to get into Buddhadharma, is let go of everything. Does that make sense? So he's probably saying let go of art. So Zen's not art. But him just saying that, if he doesn't say it in an artful way, he won't fall for that, and neither will you. He had to do it in the Suzuki Roshi way in order to get people to really join that program of letting go of art.

[21:50]

But that's an art, the art of teaching. of how do you encourage, how can you make letting go more interesting. That's an art. And when it's really beautiful, people will go for it. They will be attracted by the beauty. Like Keats said, they will be attracted by the truth, which is beauty, and the beauty which is truth. It will be conducive to them entering into letting go of all attachment, including attachment to art, but that kind of expression is definitely an art. Well, this is a very kind of delicate thing here now.

[23:19]

This is going to be, for me, an artistic challenge to respond to this. But one thing is, One way to go, let me just tell you a story about Suzuki Roshi. He asked me to come down here and learn how to chant from Tatsugami Roshi. So Eric's bringing up Tatsugami Roshi, coming to Tatsuhara to teach us traditional, in a way, Eheiji-style monastic exercise program. Eheiji-style imagination. He comes and teaches that to us. Then he asked me particularly to be on the Doan Ryo. Yesterday, Charlie showed me the roster for the 1970 January practice period. I looked at it and I couldn't see mine. It said Doan Ryo. I didn't see my name. I said, oh, there it is. So I was on the Doan Ryo, and particularly he wanted me to learn chanting. Tatsugami Roshi was the Ino at Eheiji, so he was a particularly good chanter.

[24:27]

So I did learn chanting, and then when Suzuki Roshi came down to Tatsuhara that summer, he asked me to chant for him. He wanted me to show him what I learned from Tatsugami Roshi. And he listened to me chant, and I was kind of like... You know, like the Japanese people, sometimes Japanese people copy Western music. So, like, they copy the Beatles, and they copy the Beatles so exactly that they even copy the Beatles' coughs and stuff. So, I copy Tatsugami Roshi very closely, and he, Suzuki Roshi, said, you have actually, but for Tatsugami Roshi, chanting that way is nice. For him, it's good. But for you, you shouldn't do it that way. For example, he chanted with an accent from a certain area of Japan. So I had copied his chanting with an accent from the area around. So with Siddharthi Roshi, I felt like he was doing, he was in stone one in the summer, and he had me go over the echoes again and again, and he was like ironing my echo, ironing the bumps out of it, which I had learned from Tathagana Roshi and put in there.

[25:35]

So I was doing all kinds of little ornaments and stuff, which I had learned from him, and just went through and ironed all those out. Okay? So... One way to see that story is that I used my imagination to learn a form, even you could say an art, so he could come in and iron, not so much the art, but iron I had. And it was very difficult for me to experience with him because he was like coming in there and asking and getting me to let go of various things I'd learned. So the art form was an opportunity for him to help me let go of the art form which I learned. So it's important to use the art form as a way to let go of the art form. But if you have no art form, or whatever you want to call it, any craft, it's hard for the teacher to come in and help you let go of your craft. And we have all kinds of crafts, or you could say art forms, but anyway.

[26:40]

But we won't usually let somebody come in and get us to let go of our habit. But if we're learning some art or some craft and we have a teacher in that, the teacher can say, let go of that part and let go of that part. And we oftentimes, in theory anyway, we'll go along with it because this person's the teacher of this thing. A large part of what the teacher is teaching us is once we learn the form, now you've learned the form, now let go of it. You still know the form, but do you know how to do it without letting go? I mean, with letting go. So it's not these forms as an opportunity to let go of them. And then we hopefully do that with everything. And so it isn't the zen is those forms. The zen is to let go of those forms and let go of other forms. But we sometimes need forms. Somebody who's supposedly a teacher of those forms and that person can say, you know, you have learned this form, okay, congratulations, that's good.

[27:47]

Now that you've learned it, let go. Now that you're good at it, let go of it. Now that you're like, you know, famous for it, let go. And sometimes that's the important thing. But that's not the end of the story. That's just the entry into the actual nirvana. And then from there, we come back in and do the form again and help others learn the form and help others let go of the form. So it is those special forms that is the practice. They're just opportunities for the actual practice of renunciation. And it is difficult. It was kind of difficult to learn the forms, but it was fun to learn the forms, too. It was kind of difficult to learn them and have Tatsugami Roshi listening and correcting me. It was more difficult to have Suzuki Roshi kind of like dismantling what I learned in some ways.

[28:49]

But both were wonderful, and the more intense was the dismantling process. Because, I don't know, there I felt even like less what was going on. And that was one of those experiences which I've told people about where Here I was, I came to Zen Center to practice with Suzuki Roshi. He gave me an assignment, I did it, and then he came back to me and worked on my completed assignment. In other words, I got exactly my ideal teaching situation, ideal learning situation, I got it, and I really wanted to get out of that Pine One. And so every time we finished the echo, I said, thank you. Okay, I'll see you later. He said, no, no, stay. Do another one. I really wanted to get out of there because it was just so intense. I was so exposed, you know, and he was like remodeling my in this very nice way, but it was like so intense. I just, I was so embarrassed, you know. But it was great. It was like, you know, and here I'm telling you about it. So that makes me very understandable about how people want to be with a teacher.

[29:56]

And then as soon as they get with the teacher, they want to get out of the room. It's really like looking at them and really noticing and working with their attachments, which is what they want, right? So does that speak to what you're bringing up better? Pardon? Yes. So all the teachings, you learn those too. You know, the doctrines, the intellectual presentations, the systems, all that. You learn those things and they are opportunities then, again, for the and iron out your your particular way of holding it, and owning it, and possessing it, and getting credit for it, and blah, blah, blah. And so the art of teaching, then, is the art of how to do that without the student totally freaking out and giving up. And some people haven't got enough yet so that they would .

[30:59]

If you start asking the student to detach before they even got to hold, then sometimes they just wander off into the horizon and get into some other attachments which isn't as wholesome. So that part of the art of the teaching, and I told this story before too, but it comes to mind very strongly now, is I saw this movie called Mao to Mozart. Did you ever see that? So it's a story, a movie, I mean, about Isaac Stern and his piano accompanist going to China and teaching music. So Isaac Stern taught the violin mostly. So he had this, looked like a 20-year-old Chinese kid, pretty tall kid. taller than Isaac Stern. And this kid was playing Western music on a Western violin. I don't remember what it was, maybe Mozart or Bach. And he was very good, if you listened to him.

[32:03]

And Isaac Stern said, you know, you are very good. You've got the technique down right. But he said, you know, you're not really like, you're holding too tightly or something like that. You've got to make this instrument sing. So he had the guy play again, the guy was playing, and then Isaac Stern came right up close to him and started singing to him. It's like this, and he was, you know, and this kid was good enough, so he didn't drop the violin and fall into pieces, you know. There also was a big audience, like maybe a thousand Chinese people watching this teaching. So he was good enough so he could keep playing while Isaac Stern was like... talking to him loudly so they could hear him, and singing to him. And the kid let go. And you could hear the... It started to... The violin started to sing.

[33:04]

It wasn't just like being done properly. He let go of the discipline. But that discipline was what let him... That was how he could let go. He had something that he was good at that he could let go of. But it still... You still know how the violins were still played. It's just that he let go of it and it started singing. And you could hear it. And Isaac Stern could hear it. And the kid could hear it. And everybody could hear it. And it was just this wonderful transition from, what do you call it, from impeccable to ineffable. You know, from... Somebody this morning, in this little note I wrote about some other story like that, discipline is freeing. But also you have to be disciplined so you can let go of your discipline and then you're free. But suffering is completing. Completing.

[34:05]

So the key to Buddhism is discipline and then let go of the discipline. That's the key of Zen, is discipline yourself at something like sitting or all these monastic practices Monastic forms are communal yogic exercises in Zen. So you discipline yourself with these monastic forms and then the teacher and the other community members help you let go of your attachment to these monastic forms. And then in order to complete the training, you enter into the practice of compassion and the suffering that's brought to you brings this practice to completion. So just becoming free isn't enough. You have to then bring that freedom to suffering. Like, again, like Yeats.

[35:06]

He got free through his art. He had the art. And he celebrated that art for many years and he was world famous and his art is virtually eternal. As long as there's English, even after English, there'll probably be Yeats. But then he liberated himself from his art, which is something that was born and dies, and entered this other realm. But then he used that freedom to come back to the world of mire and blood and birth and death to complete his life. So in the end, well, in the end, he was complete. It's too bad he didn't, that wasn't foreshortened a little bit. That's one of the nice things about Zen is that some of us, some of you at are already kind of sick of birth and death. It took Yates God to get about 75 before he got it. He was having so much fun.

[36:09]

But then when he escaped, it was sickness that brought him back to the world. OK? And so the teacher has to have an art to free the students from the art of the practice. So when the students learn the art of the practice, the teacher comes to free them of it so that the practice sings. So like the Daons have learned how to do but now hopefully someday they would get to the point where they would let go of their discipline and the practice would move into another dimension. Yes. The dogs playing, yes. And then based on the joy, that kind of practice, they can become more proficient and then let go of that.

[37:46]

And then become more proficient and let go of that. until it comes to the point of complete renunciation through the art of music. And of course, the teacher who's trying to release the student from the art, they also have to be like letting go of their art, which means they have to adjust to the student in front of them and not have it fixed. The student also keeps the teacher, forcing the teacher to let go of her art. her skill of helping the student let go of their skill. But there seems to be... skill, you know, is another word for wholesomeness, or, you know, the word kushala in Buddhism, which means it's translated as wholesomeness or skillfulness. So we have to have some skillfulness to let go of. To let go of unskillfulness is a skill. You can't let go of unwholesomeness unless you have wholesomeness.

[38:53]

Unwholesomeness naturally perpetuates itself. But skill, then, is what we work on to get the person to let go of the skill or the art. OK. Yes. Mm-hmm. It's interesting. You come back and you say, in these poems, the word complexity comes up. Complexity is part of what he was trying to escape in the first poem, the complexities of human life. He was getting sick of it. He wanted to escape them. And so you use art, you wanted to use art to escape the complexities and the dualities.

[39:58]

Yes, please. Yes. Yes, exactly. If you want to become then make a play about the complexities and fully express yourself through the play of the complexities. exert the complexities, express the complexities fully, and as a way to become free of them. Which is the same as saying, almost, yes, it is, no, it is not, it is practice. It is practice to use complexities, which means use the imagination. Imagination creates the complexity, so you use the imagination of the complexities an artful way to free yourself from the complexities.

[41:01]

And the basic complexity is two different things. Complex means a not. That's the suffering. The basic complexity is duality, is self and other. Complexity, we use which has come from the imagination. We use the imagination to address that complexity and express that complexity more and more fully in order to become free of that complex. But if you use the imagination on the beat the complexity up or pull the complexity apart, you tie more knots. So there's an artful way of dealing with complexity that releases us. And there's a way to dance with complexities and sing to complexities and massage but not massage them to try to get them to do something, but massage them just to play with them, to see what happens.

[42:06]

There is an artful way of relating to a not, to a complexity. And that way of relating is another complexity. Because artful imagination and unskillful imagination. Unskillful imagination is basically disrespect, aversion, and clinging, or seeking and grasping. So we have to develop, find an imagination, find the seeking or grasping anything. That imagination is the imagination that releases imagination. So we have to find a complex way of being, which is what we are, which somehow isn't grasping or seeking. And that way of being releases us from this nation. That's the art which we are trying to learn. Yes. Trying to learn the art.

[43:15]

Trying to learn the art. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. Well, first of all, they just iron out a bump. But that bump is part of what you made. And it isn't that the bump is the holding, but just that when they iron out one of your little creations, if there was any holding, it probably would surface. It would kind of be like, oh, that was one of my favorite little bumps there. I put that little decoration on that book on purpose.

[44:15]

This is not, you know, don't take that off. So maybe it naturally responds, but sometimes the teacher hits a holding place, and then you get to feel that holding place. and meditate on that. Well, you said, what about when there's not a formal relationship where you allow someone to come in and say sing? What you do is you get some forming relationships like that.

[45:34]

You need those. So if you don't have them, you don't have to get them. So that kid and those people invited so that he would do that. So you have to invite somebody into some realm. They asked him to do it in the area of violin. So you need to invite someone into a position of where you're making some effort where they can make some comment. But before you invite them, you don't have the person. So you've invited me to make comments, and in Zen, well, in my case with Suzuki Roshi, I invited him to pretty much whatever, right? Which included these traditional forms, but he could also comment on other things if he wanted to. But mostly he did comment on the traditional things because he didn't understand the American culture in ways. So it's easier for him to comment on the way I chanted or wore my robes or wore my hair or conducted my relationship with people in the Zen Center. So those were the opportunities he mostly took advantage of because they were very clear for him.

[46:35]

And I feel he sort of invited me to comment on your forms, on your form. And so there it is. You've got that person. And who else have you invited in to comment on your forum? So think about that. she worked in her life, or the students who didn't have such a close relationship with you. But you didn't get to spend, I guess it was just that you got to spend these moments, this duration . You mean, have other people also been able to comment on my form? Yes. Yes, right. So all of you are invited to comment on my form.

[47:42]

So if I don't have a situation where people could come up and press on my form and suggest it be shaped differently, if I don't have that, if I haven't invited that, then I need it. So we need feedback, but we need to ask for it. So, as some of you know, I asked you recently for feedback. And you gave me some. So I continue to invite it, and I continue to get it. And even if I don't invite it, I still can get it. And I can get it from somebody coming to me and saying, I'm giving you feedback. But I also get it whenever I do anything, if I watch what's happening, there's some response. That's feedback too. So we're not as see it that way. then we're not in a training situation, we're not in a learning situation. So we need to somehow use our imagination to see how things are telling us that we're holding.

[48:55]

If you never hear anything , then you probably need to invite more strongly something to tell you that you're holding. On the other hand, if you feel like you're being told quite frequently that you're holding, then probably you have some feedback. Either you think you're holding, and or other people tell you, you know, you seem to be attached and tense here. People are coming to you and saying, you know, you look really depressed, you look really upset, you look really like a wreck, you're not functioning very well. People are saying things like that to you. Well, in some level, you're inviting it. that they would dare to say those things to you means that they feel like, this person is saying a few comments I have about them. But if nobody ever says anything to you, probably they don't feel invited. Probably. Now maybe everybody feels invited, but nobody has anything to say to you because you're perfect. So that's possible. Or you've invited people, but nobody cares about you enough to say anything.

[49:59]

But if you beg people strong enough to, you know, you beseech them to give you feedback, some people, even who don't care about you, say, oh, okay, all right, okay, okay. You have bad breath, you know. Oh, geez, that's really hard to hear. It's really bad. So would you back up a little bit, please? Trying to cope with, you know, that's why I don't say anything. I'm just like, you know, trying not to breathe around you. So do you have people telling you, giving you feedback? That's a good sign. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't invite more because, you know, invite even more. But if you don't have any, then start inviting it. So by learning to chant, I invited him to invite me. He said, learn to chant. I learned to chant. That means so that it makes sense that he would call me in and ask me to show him what I learned. And I did invite hard.

[51:01]

Even though I knew right at the time, this is really nice. Why am I trying to leave here? So do you have people in your life that you invited to do this? You don't know which of these people to ask for feedback? Relax with your greed to get feedback, and then after you relax, ask for it. And if, as you start to ask, you feel the greed coming back, try to relax as you speak.

[52:16]

Say, you know, I'd like some feedback, but if you're too busy, it's okay. I'll go now, if you don't have anything to say. I didn't necessarily want any right now. And then someone might say to you, well, did you get some feedback on your request? And you might say, yeah, quite a bit about myself while I asked for feedback. So that's a start. Yes? . I mean, where is this?

[53:36]

So do you want some feedback? So if I want to fix myself and make myself into the best person around, or one of the best, and in order to be a really good person, I want feedback. because I think that will help me really fix myself. And then I go and ask someone, would you give me some feedback? The person might say, do you want me to give you feedback so that you can make yourself better? And you might say yes. And the person might say, well, do you want some feedback now? You might say yes. And I say, well, I don't want to do that. That's the feedback I have for you.

[54:44]

I don't want to get into your self-improvement thing. That's the feedback you might get right away. And then you might say, oh, okay, well. Then you might come back a little later and say, I'd like some more feedback. And the person might say, did you improve after I said that to you and that's why you want more? And you might say, well, actually, I did improve, sort of. I kind of, like, felt good, you know, about that interaction and I would like to have another one. And the person said, well, what's the point of the feedback? And then you might say, well, actually, I want the feedback to help me let go of me trying to make myself better. I'd like your feedback to help me let go of my concern for my own quality of life. It isn't that I don't want to have a good life. I do. But that my concern for my quality of life, so I would like your help to let go of me fixing myself up. And the person might say, okay, I'll be happy to help you with that.

[55:51]

If I see you like really being concerned about you having, you know, you getting to be a good person, if I see you're really concerned about that opportunity, I'll let you know that you look like you're really concerned about your life. And I'll give you that feedback and maybe that'll help you relax around your concerns, relax around your imagination that you have a life. that's different from my life, and so on. And also, you know, relax around your concerns about your defiled approach to feedback. Like, maybe it's okay to have a defiled approach to feedback, as long as you, like, let go of trying not to have a defiled approach, which is a defiled approach to feedback. Does that make sense? In English? Yes. You want to go way back?

[56:59]

Yeah. mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm Yeah, it is kind of silly. And so we should use silliness to free us from silliness. We should be silly about it. We have that silliness that we get into, like good and bad art.

[58:03]

And I don't know if it's true, but it crossed my mind that maybe Yeats, for the many years of his life, was just so good and so skillful that he was just really reveling in his art and he was attached to it. He was attached to how good everybody loved him. And he finally got sick of it. But he developed this skill, which was a self-correcting skill. So he had his own teacher built into him. So he could, like, through a feedback system around this art, he was able, I think, from his own attachment to his great art. to his liberating, not liberating, but world-enhancing, world-appreciated artistic expression that he could let go of finally. But he used art. Well, maybe he used his poetry. I don't know what other arts he used, but he used his poetry to free himself from his poetry.

[59:08]

So you can use silliness to free yourself from silliness. Yes. It's a critical part of human being, yes. So... And I think that some people's interpretation of Zen is to, rather than let go of the imagination, rather than use the imagination to let go of the imagination, is to kill the imagination or pretend like you don't have one. So many Zen centers, even this Zen center at certain phases of its history, have looked like the people were like zombies. Or, you know, they thought Zen was to not express yourself.

[60:14]

Whereas actually Zen is to express yourself into freedom from yourself. To express your imagination to free yourself from imagination. So, even if you don't want to practice Zen, you'll get sick if you kill your imagination. But if you want to practice Zen, then this healthy way of relating to your imagination ...free you from this essential human quality. Which is again what I was saying before about what is essential to humans is judging this and that. But judging this and that is intimately related to imagining this and that. ...this and that if you haven't imagined them. So some people like to separate judgment and imagination, but other people think it's ridiculous to try to imagine. They're inseparable. So the essential human quality of judging this and that, existence and non-existence, is basically part of the power.

[61:20]

And it's also the source of our problems. But to try to kill it is just really, really a mistake. Killing is not good to do. It doesn't help. What helps is to treat things with great respect, which means that you just put your hands together and look at them. You don't grasp them and possess them, and you don't try to get something else to happen. And you can use your imagination to approach everything that way. which means to approach your imagination because there aren't any things except under the sponsorship of imagination. There aren't any things out there. Imagination makes things. There are things that conventionally exist, but they depend on imagination.

[62:28]

And so, yes, yes, yes, Say it again. Your imagination does what? You mean you imagine you have no imagination? Yeah. Which, of course, obviously is not true. Because you just imagined this amazing event. You just imagine something anyway, which you call, you know. You're talking about your imagination functioning, calling itself non-existent. You're wondering what?

[63:34]

Relax with it. Put your hands together. Bow to it. Honor it. This is an example of your imagination imagining it isn't. Like I said, the basic thing is it is and is. Your imagination is imagining one side of a duality. Namely, there is . But this is your imagination. So deal with that extreme view with respect. It is a powerful propensity. It is an essential quality. or essential product of your mind that doesn't exist. Honor it. Don't push it away. Don't hold on to it. Try to find that way of being with it. And again, this is an art to find that way of being with this thing.

[64:36]

And part of being is part of art, of course, is to be patient with yourself in learning it. It's going to take a while to learn this this way of getting over this strong habit to when you think something doesn't exist or when you think something does exist very hard not to tense up around that virtually impossible so this is a great artistic breakthrough to be able to overcome this deep tendency to grasp and cling to what we think exists yes Well, and also another aspect of it is not wanting him to see how I would respond to the feedback. So it's feedback, but I didn't want him to watch what happened to me when he gave it to me.

[65:43]

Because it's like you're chanting along, you know, and he gives the feedback, but then can you continue to chant? Are you going to like, it's all going to fall apart. It's like juggling. You know, you're juggling three balls, and the teacher says, okay, you ready for four? And you kind of want to try four, but you happens when he throws you the other thing right you don't want to watch him you don't want to see you drop the balls so it's partly that you want the feedback and you do want the feedback but what you don't want is him to think that you're think badly of you when you get the feedback and can't adapt to it very well that's what i Because I had this way of chanting, which I was quite proud of, and he liked it. But could I then learn right in front of him a new way? Or would I lose my old way plus do the new way wrong? I had this old way, which was very nice. So now he's asking, would you be a beginner now and try a new way? Okay, so I try a new way, but I don't get to do the new way, probably the first time.

[66:45]

So what's first going to happen there is he's going to watch me fail. My teacher's going to watch me fail. Maybe. So I'd rather just, thanks for the feedback. I'll go practice over in another room. When I get it down, I'll come back and show it to you. It's that kind of, sort of that kind of, that was more details. Well, yeah, it wasn't that he wouldn't let me leave, but he was more like, oh, no, you don't have to. I didn't say, also, I didn't want to. I was getting really nervous, and I want to get out of here. You know, here you are, my teacher, and I really want to be with you, and I really appreciate you spending your last few hours on the earth with me. And, you know, I'm so grateful, and I would like to now get out of the room because I'm nervous. I didn't tell him that. I didn't say I'm nervous and self-conscious. It's not that I'm not grateful for this. I just want to leave the room. I didn't say that. I said more like, well, thank you very much.

[67:47]

I don't want to take any more of your time. And then he said, no, no, it's okay. I have nothing else to do. Here, do it again. So if I had said, you know, really I'm nervous, he probably would have said, well, please stay. And, you know, it's okay that you're nervous and you're uncomfortable. I don't mind. I didn't tell him that. But anyway, he gently encouraged me to stay. So I never did leave the room, practice it, and come back. I just kept working on it until it got smoothed out. And he actually until I learned it. And I did learn it. By the time I left, I had learned it. But I was really, I wanted to get out of there before I actually had learned it because it was so, I felt so embarrassed. It was so risky, I thought. But again, risky means I think that he cares whether I'm good at chanting or not. Obviously, I was already good enough for him to be spending his time training me.

[68:48]

But I already felt that he was honoring me by this, and I guess I thought I would lose that honor if he saw how bad I was. And then I wouldn't get another chance, maybe. Whereas if I could get out of there and come back and then show him a perfect chant that the way he taught me, then I get more honors and more time with him. But actually, in order to do that particular approach of keeping in control of my relationship with him, I had to leave my relationship with him. Actual, vital, challenging moment I would want to go away with from so I could come back and have a more lukewarm, controlled relationship. So I wanted to stay in control and I was losing control. So actually I had control when I went into the meeting because I already knew how to do the chants in a certain way. And then his interactions with me meant I was losing control. And losing control means I was losing control of whether he would like me or not, whether I would impress him well.

[69:50]

But it's ridiculous to think that he would think that way, which he didn't actually, I don't think. But somehow, anyway, I didn't leave. I got through it. And so now I know that nobody has to leave the room. And it's okay if you lose control, and it's okay if you think all these thoughts, because actually the teacher doesn't mind. And you're not in there because you're the best student. You're in there because the teacher cares. And if the teacher wants you to leave, the teacher will tell you, okay, it's enough, you can go. And if they don't, You don't have to, but if you want to, you can try to leave. And the teacher may say, okay, bye. Or they may say, please stay a little longer. Because maybe they didn't finish the lesson, even though you're done. What's the hurdle that I crossed to allow the magic to happen? Right.

[71:03]

Well, so you said one thing that you said about this hurdle that had been passed, and then you talked about this thing about what you said you were interested in is what about this position where you say no more feedback? That's the hurdle. I could have left the room, but that would be pretty far out for me to leave the room, just walk out of the room. I mean, I could have, but that would be amazing, wouldn't it? Just to walk out of the room. Very unusual for a student just to walk out of the room. They almost always say, excuse me. And there's a form, you know. You bow when you come in and you bow when you go out. So you know that if you bowed when you came in, it's going to be hard to get out of the room without, like... It's going to be outstanding if you, like, just walk out. Now, some people do walk out, but that's a definite statement that they're making.

[72:19]

And wonderful, actually, that they do that once in a while. But it is violating a form. So do they really want to say that? And sometimes they do. And sometimes... It isn't that they want to, but they can't bring themselves to bow. So I certainly wasn't angry at Suzuki Roshi. So to get up and walk out and bow, that would have been... Anyway, I never got close to that. But still going back to your thing about what about when you get to the point... What I thought actually was that the one thing that you said there was a hurdle that was crossed before something, and I thought what hurdles were crossed before that meeting... to want to be at the meeting in the first place. What was it about him that attracted me in the first place? And the first thing that attracted me actually was his feet. I just saw his feet on the floor, you know. I was sitting in meditation and he walked by. The first thing I saw was his feet. I didn't see his face first, I saw his feet. And I just saw his feet walk on the floor while I was looking at the floor.

[73:22]

He was walking around the Zendo over in Japantown. And I looked at the feet and I thought, I trust those feet. I just trusted the way he was walking. So he could convey to me his practice through the way his feet walked on the ground. And then when I saw his face, we bowed on the left, I saw his face, I wasn't so sure exactly what would happen, but I thought, I didn't know, he kind of looked at me and I looked at him and he looked at me and then he looked away. And I felt like I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know if I had made a mistake. I wasn't supposed to be looking at him. And I didn't know if when he looked away it meant that he didn't like me or that I had made a mistake. Or maybe that he liked me so much he looked away. Or maybe I did the perfect thing and he just entered into great happiness. I did not know what happened. I really didn't know that I made a mistake. And I really didn't know I didn't make a mistake. Really not knowing what happened between us.

[74:23]

But just within a few seconds I thought, this is what I came for, this kind of meeting where I would be looking carefully at my relationship with somebody and wouldn't be veering off into it was okay or it wasn't okay. To live, to be that way. This is the kind of relationship I want. This is what I trust. Of not like, yes, he likes me, or no, he doesn't. But see that those issues are hovering around all the time. But that somehow he and I together would allow neither being really so. And that there was, but still that there was a great love there between us for the dharma of our actual relationship. which is neither of these extremes of like or dislike or approval or disapproval. So I really felt in that first meeting a real confidence in our relationship. It's hard to stay there. when you're performing something, and not just veer into, well, now I'm performing something, does he like it or dislike it?

[75:30]

Am I right or wrong? It's very hard then. But that's what really tests your non-attachment. A lot of people feel non-attached until they get up, well, like the dog, they get up and chant, right? They feel maybe in practice they feel like, you know, we do this practice, and they get into practice, and they go up and chant, and then sometimes something else happens. Because they become... concerned with the other, you know, or the self, one of the two, bouncing back and forth. So then when I went into that meeting, basically I had this deep relationship, but still it was difficult. And, but to leave the room, yeah, I just, I never got to that point. Now, I'm not saying you never do get to that point. And another thing I said to him one time was, how come, you know, we never have any difficulty, you know. in parentheses, kind of... Zen teachers and Zen students have difficulties sometimes. In the books, they do. But we never have any difficulties. It's just always easy. And he said, we will eventually.

[76:31]

But in fact, I didn't really have a hard time with him. He was always very... He pushed me, but always very indirectly... Like that time I told you about where I moved a Zapaton with my foot at Choson one time in his room. And he turned to Steve Weintraub who was standing nearby and said, we do not move the Zapatons without feet. And Steve kind of didn't know what he was talking about. But he expressed with great energy. that we don't do that. And he was telling me, but he did it to Steve so like I could hear the strength of his, you know, he really did care about this, that this is a big deal. And yet he didn't do it right in my face because, you know, he didn't want me in defense, which I probably wouldn't have done, but I might have if he'd screamed at me like that. So he did it this very skillful way of like, I got the message and just like went right in. And I'm still thinking about it.

[77:34]

Every time I meet a Zabatan, his teaching's there. Does Zabatan deserve my respect? Suzuki Reggie, I'm sorry. I can't. I got to move with my foot. No, I won't. Yes, I will. No, I won't. Get the to move it. So anyway, he was skillful. But in that situation, he was skillful too. But it was very direct, what he was doing. It was very hard. But somehow, there was enough confidence there so I could stay in the room. Very soon. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no.

[78:57]

Want some feedback? Those things do not undermine practice. Those things are what practice is about. Practice is not those things. This is how you relate to those things. So those things may pass and you may have other problems than those someday. But if they don't, then they're just constant, not constant, but they're repetitive challenges to basically your no mind. They're continual or almost continual. I mean, a lot of people like to go out in the woods and in the mountains because they like to look at objects that aren't subjects. Because objects that aren't subjects do not judge you. Rocks don't judge you. Trees don't judge you. Mountains don't judge you. So they like to think, I feel perfectly comfortable and fine.

[80:01]

But what do you do when you're with a situation where nature is a subject, where nature is looking back at you, and nature is in the form of a human being which can say, you are one miserable, lazy bum. What do you do with that? Well, what you do is you're kind of like you're concerned. So in a sangha, because we don't get tested by rocks sufficiently. So this may go on a long time, but it doesn't undermine practice. What undermines practice is nothing. There's nothing that undermines practice. However, there is because it can't meet certain challenges. But it isn't that the challenge undermines the practice. It's the challenge is too much for it sometimes. It doesn't really undermine it. The practice is a sufficient strength or a sufficient development. And when some people compliment you, you just don't have enough practice. Finally, somebody understands.

[81:03]

Reality is struck. Or when someone criticizes you sometimes, the practice isn't strong enough to not tense up. But it isn't that that thing undermines your practice. Your practice is just what it is. Namely, it isn't... don't grasp this thing. But these things just keep coming and coming and giving the practice a chance to meet them with this no mind, to learn to meet whatever with no mind. And if these things keep happening, they'll keep happening until we've learned all our lessons. And they may happen a long time, but the practice may grow and flourish in that environment of these tests. Not may, that's where it grows. So people go out where there's not tested, where things that happen to them don't make them be concerned about is and is not, approval and disapproval. If they aren't concerned about this stuff, these tendencies of mine are just latent. And then as soon as they're back in a situation where somebody they care about is looking at them, these things flare up again.

[82:07]

So the things are just waiting there in our nervous system to be judged, to be activated. So they're not really undermining. They are what we work with. And the way we respond is sometimes quite unskillful. But that's what we have to see is that the skill level is this level, where I cling to this or I tense up around this. We're not going to see it if we go out and hang out with the rocks. That's right. Only in Zen, you know, almost nobody gets to go out and hang out with the rocks. So somebody has offered, two people have offered to build retreats here, hermitages here at Tazahara, and I've said, that's not Zen practice to go all out on a hermitage. That's not Soto Zen practice to be on a hermitage. There may be traditions where they use hermitage in a way that is commensurate with bodhisattva life, but the way Americans approach hermitage is like to go and be with things that don't make you nervous.

[83:19]

And then you're relaxed, right? You're relaxed because nothing's provoking your habits of tensing up. And there are stories in the Shobo Genzo of these great teachers who are out on hermitage. But these are people who lived in the monastery for a long time and got to a point where approval and disapproval were like, you know, I don't know what it was like. They were the food that they turned into love. They didn't, they just, you give them approval, they just kind of like, I love you. You give them disapproval, I love you. You take away the love, they say, thanks. No matter what you do, they aren't caught anymore. These are the people who leave the monastery and go sit in the woods. But they aren't sitting there to be on hermitage. They're waiting for the people to come and start a new monastery where more people can be tested with approval and disapproval. And Dogen says that. He says, on retreat, they're just waiting for their students to come and bug them and test them and for them to be tested.

[84:28]

We don't go away from the people. But sometimes we go away so we can come back more fully. So we have sashin, where in a sense we go away and we don't talk for a while so that we can come back more fully engaged. So, yeah, so we... We sometimes sit in the zendo where the wall's not harassing us, and so our mind harasses us, and sometimes our mind stops harassing us, and then when our mind stops harassing us, or rather we stop clinging to our mind, then when we leave sesshin, we can relate better to people. And they test us again. They say things to us which would tempt us to grasp. They do various little things in need of correction or manipulation or elimination.

[85:30]

You notice? Yeah. Yeah, so those are the things to use your imagination to find some way to relax with those, not to hate them, not to wish they would go away, and not to try to make them more, even stronger than they are. They're strong enough, they deserve our respect, pretty much. And that's a very nice response. And then they come back again. And can you meet them again that way? If so, great. And this is the way. Yes? Could you start over again?

[86:37]

You talked a little too fast for me. You started out by saying, is this imagination? And you're going to ask something about imagination now, OK? and people coming to talk to you and look at you yes Let me say something before I answer your question.

[87:38]

First of all, you said, use imagination to meet these things. Did you say something like that? First of all, I just want to make the point that these things that you're seeing depend on your imagination. So what you're seeing, whenever you meet someone, what you're meeting is your imagination of them. And when we imagine things in certain ways, we grasp them or reject them. So you meet something, which is your imagination of this person, and depending on how you think of them, you attach to them or seek something. Now you're saying, can you use imagination to meet them? Can you use imagination to meet them in a different way Yes. So you use imagination however you want. Like, you go to meet someone and you know that you're meeting... This is your imagination. So how are you going to let go of this phenomena? How can you use your imagination to meet yourself, to meet what's happening in this relaxed way?

[88:46]

How can you talk to yourself? How can you say, Relax, dear. Relax. Relax. Relax with this. Or, I love you. This is me. These are ways of using your imagination to help you relax with your imagination of this person. I imagine this person's treating me with disrespect. I imagine this person's really tense and angry and they're angry at me and they don't like me. I imagine that. Now can I relax with what I imagine them to be? I don't know. I'll just keep asking until I do relax. So that's using your imagination to meet your imagination. Using your imagination with no mind. Using your imagination to imagine what it would be like to meet someone in a very skillful way.

[89:47]

But do we imagine when we meet, are we attending to this person as an important meeting? Try to use the imagination to meet this person in a relaxed, open, respectful, non-seeking, non-grasping way. When I say these words to myself, the imagination is being used in a good way. And also, we can ask for feedback from the person about how did that meeting go? How was it? They might say, really good. Or they might say, it was really bad. And then try to relax with the really bad. So the stories that attracted me to Zen were the stories of where Zen people responded to these meetings in this way.

[90:54]

This is what really attracted me and still does. They use their imagination to free themselves from what they thought was happening. We almost always think something's happening. And what we think is happening is what we think is happening. So I think somebody said, I feel like I'm in the prison of my imagination. And I said, I am too. We're in the prison of our imagination. But we can use our imagination prison without taking the walls down, but realize that these walls are actually doors. The distinction between creativity and imagination?

[92:03]

Imagination is one of creation's children. Imagination is one of creation's children. Would I say that when you renounce imagination, that's creativity? I would say that when you renounce imagination, you're more intimate with creativity. That is creativity. No. The self-receiving and employing or the self-enjoyment is creativity.

[93:12]

And the imagination does not interfere with that because that's one of the things that you receive. But the imagination can be used in such a way as to split the self and the receiving, or split the receiving and the employing. The imagination can do that. So imagination can screw up this creative process in a way and cause suffering. But this creative process Imagination. And imagination is always there in this process. So the question is, how do you use imagination so we don't pull the different parts that are working together apart and cause this misery? And I would like to focus on this self-enjoyment, that samadhi. talk about that. And imagination, in order for this discussion, we're going to have to use our imagination to talk about this.

[94:16]

So this is... But this creative process does create imagination. And imagination is always there in this process. So the question is, how do you use imagination so we don't pull the different parts that are working together apart and cause this misery. And the next class, I would like to focus on this self-enjoyment, that samadhi. And imagination, in order for this discussion, we're going to have to use our imagination to talk about this. So this is the teaching of the self-fulfilling samadhi or the self-enjoyment samadhi or the self-receiving and employing samadhi. This teaching is Dogen's use and other people's use of imagination to let go of the imagination being used in such a way as to interfere with this process of Buddha's mind.

[95:28]

Yes? No, I don't think so. I think imagination makes the known. Imagination makes these known things. There aren't any known things before imagination. So imagination . It forms things. Imagination makes the forms and the feelings and the perceptions. Without imagination, there aren't any known objects. Imagination, anyway, is a power of the mind to make forms and images.

[96:32]

The mind can do that. But without that power of mind floating around waiting to be made, waiting to be recognized, another part of the mind recognizes it. That's the basic cognition. But cognition of objects depends on the imagination creating there on its to be known. Owl's next. Yes. I think I don't want to make a, you know, totally ironclad rule about it.

[97:40]

We already have views that there's things or that there's self, okay? That's enough. You don't want to now have views that there isn't a self. So views of self cause suffering, but views of not-self, you become incurable, according to Nagarjuna. If you go around with views of no-self, if you actually have views of no-self, you're incurable. If you have views of self, you're curable because you're suffering because of your views. Do you use the imagination about no-self? Well, we do use the imagination to the extent that we say the word no-self. But to actually think that you're seeing no self, to say no self is one thing. But then the imagination is involved there. So we use the imagination to tell each other that the realization of no self will be a really good thing. But the realization of no self is not a view of no self. It's not using the imagination to grasp no self.

[98:45]

That would be more of a problem than grasping the imagination of a self. More of a problem. there about it. Selflessness means innocence of imagination. It doesn't mean killing the imagination. It means the imagination isn't harming things anymore. It just is part of the creation of things, and that's it. That's freedom of imagination. That's no self. Emptiness of imagination. But to make emptiness or freedom from imagination something else you imagine, to help you, generally speaking, forget it. It's worse than a waste of time. It's very dangerous. So don't do that. Just work with the imagination you've already got of making things. Don't think that you can see as an image no self.

[99:50]

Yes. Work with your imagination to imagine, to enter into this process, this ungraspable process. So as you enter into meditating on the self-fulfilling samadhi, as it says in the text, you realize that this is not something you're going to be able to grasp. As a matter of fact, interferes with the process, the flow of it. The grasping splits the self from the receiving, from the experiencing. So basically when the, or the acting, when the employment and the receiving are united in time and space, then there's happiness. When they're split apart, we suffer. So to meditate on that hopefully will be something that you would realize quite quickly you cannot get a hold of this. So you use your imagination to think about relaxing with this material that you can grasp. So it's basically a meditation on trying to relax and not seek to get anything out of this samadhi.

[101:07]

Because what you're already getting, it's really a samadhi of what you're already getting is exactly what you need. This is the Buddhadharma samadhi. It's the samadhi of Buddhadharma, always. Yes? Did you still have a question, comment? Is it synonymous? Yeah. Mental imputation. So you mentally impute means that something's happening and you put an image on it. You impute an image to it or a concept to it. So conceptualization, conceptuality, imagination, they're kind of interchangeable. And no conceptual elaboration means using the imagination in this way of imagining that you don't have an imagination.

[102:15]

Imagine not being able to elaborate on your imagination. In other words, that whatever image you're looking at, that's it. This is a product of your imagination which you don't elaborate on, which you don't. So in other words, you have an image. Respect it. Got an image. I see it. I respect it. I got a conceptual or mental imputation, you know, which is, there's this person, you know, these are my, I'm not saying you're not there, I'm just saying, but when I see you, what I'm seeing is my version of you, my imputation on the universe, which I call you. It's also an imputation on you. Sorry.

[103:18]

To some extent, by my mind, my mind's making a simple story of you that I can see with my equipment. Actually, there are many other things, but I don't know how to include those in my imputation, and so I have a nice, simple, usable version of you, which is my imputation of you. And, you know, I can't help it. I'm a human, so I'm going to... When I see you, I'm not just going to see you, I'm going to, like, impute something to you. And that happens before I have a chance to do anything. It happens before I'm consciously aware of you. I impute something to you, and then I'm consciously aware of what was imputed to you afterwards. So practice is about how I hopefully don't fall for my imputation about you, how I don't think that what I think you are is what you are. If I think you're, like, I don't know what, the greatest Zen student of all time, this is my imputation on you, which you might not mind.

[104:28]

But my practice is to relax with that so I don't grasp you are the greatest Zen student of all time. So I should, like, bribe you into being a student. So then I will be the teacher of a great student. So, you know, get into all that. Or you are the worst student of all time, and I should make arrangements to have you deported to another practice area. Because basically, what I'm doing is potentially harming you by what I think you are. Not by what I think you are, but grasping what I think you are. What I think you are doesn't harm you, believe it or not. If I think you're great or I think you're a jerk, it doesn't really harm you. What harms you is if I grasp what I think of you is just my little show that I'm running about who you are and the rest of the world is. My practice is to protect me and you from that, from grasping what I think you are.

[105:37]

You're in trouble if I think you're great, and so am I. And if I think you're not great, and I grasp that, you're in trouble, and so am I. So I asked someone, what's the practice? And he said, noticing, grasping, and seeking. And then he said something about to control himself so he won't hurt people. Because if you're grasping and seeking, you can hurt people. So then you might think you want to control yourself so you don't hurt people. But that's just more grasping and seeking. And it doesn't protect people for you to try to grasp and seek yourself. Grasp and seek. So you have to protect people. That doesn't protect people. As a matter of fact, they're more endangered when you're grasping them and then you try to stop yourself from grasping them. Or rather, the actual person is more endangered Well, the actual person's endangered when you grasp your mental imputation of them, or your imagination of them.

[106:47]

They're in danger, and so are you. Then if you try to control yourself not to be that way, the person's even in more danger. Yeah, I will. But before I do, I want to finish this. So what I thought was, though, that what does protect people is not trying to control yourself from not grasping and seeking around them, Again, what protects people is not to try to control yourself from not grasping and seeking your imagination of them. Because you're not really the person you're grasping and seeking around your imagination. Actually, we don't grasp people. We grasp our imagination of them. But somehow, the person sometimes gets involved in that, because they're sometimes nearby. So it's dangerous to grasp the imagination of someone. That's dangerous. Or harmful. Actually, it's harmful. What's dangerous is to have an imagination of someone.

[107:51]

That's dangerous. So we're constantly in danger because we constantly have imaginations of people. That's dangerous. What's harmful And then what is more harmful is to try to control yourself not to do that, or after you're doing it, to try to control yourself. Because then you're grasping your idea of yourself as a dangerous person. So you're amplifying the harm of trying to control yourself from not being this person who's grasping his idea about people. That doesn't protect people, I say. What does protect people is to confess to yourself and others that you are grasping what you think they are. And also, before you grasp that you have this thing. Like, I see you and I say, could I confess to you that I think you're really a great student? I want to do that so I don't grasp it. And you might say, well, it's OK.

[108:52]

In this case, it could be hard to grasp. I don't mind. If I can be somewhere in the neighborhood of you grasping that thing, that would be nice. No, I didn't tell you that. I told you that so I wouldn't grasp it. Oh, OK, don't grasp it. Or I have this idea that you're really a lousy Zen student, and I just want to tell you that so that I won't grasp it. But of course, we don't usually say that to people. You say it to the idea that you're a lousy teacher. And I'm telling you that so I don't grasp it. Because I want you to be my teacher, but I really think you're lousy. But I wanted to tell you that so I don't grasp it. I think it's fine that I think you're a lousy teacher, but it's dangerous. So I want to get the dangerous thing out there so that in case you ever see me grasping that you're a lousy teacher, I want to do it. You mean if you ever think I'm a lousy teacher, you don't want to grasp that ever, like ever believe that? Right. OK, I'm happy to help you with that. And also, if I ever think you're a great teacher, I don't want to grasp that. Will you help me with that?

[109:54]

I say, oh, OK, OK. I'll help you. Not grasp that I'm a great teacher. I know I should do it. Confession of your grasping and seeking, that protects people. It's the confession. It's the disclosure of this imagination, which is not bad in itself, and the grasp, which is really what harms. That is what protects people, not the trying to control yourself to not be human. So Catherine wanted an example or a story about what? What's the topic you want a story about? You forgot what the topic was? If I think you're a bad Zen student and I grasp it, I might be mean to you. And if I think you're a great Zen student, and if I don't just sit there and say, OK, now here I am thinking she's a great Zen student.

[110:57]

OK, now this is dangerous. Now, if I recognize it and just see it's dangerous and don't grasp it, then you're safe, because I'm just sitting here looking at you, dealing with my own ideas about you. And you're not getting hurt, and I'm not getting hurt. But if I think you're a great Zen student and I grasp it, then that tends to lead me to want to possess you, or get control of you, or being the way you are, and not change from this nice Zen student into the way you were yesterday. So I start manipulating, controlling you if you start to veer from what I've already seen, from what I think is right for you to be. Yeah, so like if I looked at you and I thought you were a good Zen student, and I started to notice, I started to like, what do you call it, see that I'm trying to grasp that idea and I'm actually believing it. I actually believe that she is a good Zen student. If I notice that, then I say, no, this is what I'm not supposed to do, so I'm going to try to stop that.

[112:05]

Try to control my mind not to do that. That's even worse. Because, first of all, I could just... Well, for example, I might, again, not notice that I'm doing it because I sort of want to talk myself out of it. So I go ahead and continue to do it, talk myself out of it. Maybe I try to say, well, she's actually a bad Zen student, so I'll switch to that one. There's all kinds of trouble I can get into by trying to deny what I am, which means grasping on top So now I have also the opinion that I'm doing something wrong, and I address that. And then I have an opinion that I should address that. So it just amplifies and continues to contaminate the situation the more I don't relax with it and let it go. And also, I would say, in all these examples, I'm continuing to use my imagination. But the way to use the imagination to control what's happening is really generally speaking, a really unskillful way to use it. Because imagination is not about control.

[113:08]

But it can be used as a basis for control. So to use the imagination to imagine not trying to control, but maybe use the imagination to express what's happening so we can be free of it. That protects beings. yeah yeah right Well, you said something like, I usually wait until I'm feeling safe before I express that I'm grasping something. Is that what you said? Yeah, face to face.

[114:10]

Face to face, yeah. So first of all, we're always in danger because of our mind. Until our mind is completely trained, we're in danger. Because it's always producing these images, and these images are often produced with the belief that they're real. In other words, in their grasp. So we're in danger all the time. And actually, even more in danger, we're hurting ourselves. So the situations that are safe to express these things, to confess these things, are special situations that need to be carefully constructed. You can't just tell anybody about these processes for many reasons. One of the reasons is you do not want to stuff and then have it go badly and then think you shouldn't tell people. You know, say, well, see, there I expressed myself, and what did I get?

[115:11]

You see? So it's obviously not a good idea to express myself, because now I'm in big trouble. So you need to express yourself in a situation where you need a context or a container so that you feel that you will be able to express some bad things, maybe. and that you won't get kicked out for it. The person won't hate you for it and stuff like that. So that's why we have a confession set up with people. It's not necessarily the person who you're clinging to that you tell them about it to get it out in the open. Because the other person isn't the one that needs to hear about it. You're the one that needs to hear about your clinging. They don't need to hear that you're clinging to them or rejecting them. At the beginning, they don't need to hear about it. You need to hear, but you need Because it's your danger. So try to find some situation where it would be safe to tell how you're feeling. And that's probably with a person who's not involved, who has very little self-investment in this attachment story that you're telling, because maybe it's about some other situation.

[116:24]

So they can listen. You feel fairly safe to tell them. And then you can hear yourself say it, and then you can understand more about your attachment. And you're expressing it, too. OK?

[116:35]

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