so much carefulness, tender carefulness has been practiced recently. So this has been a month of physical fragility, lots of Yeah, lots of kind of like fractures have occurred. And at one point in the process, I sensed that I had received a very fragile new body. I was kind of feeling like I was having trouble being ready to accept it and take care of it. The word for it is, it was a mess.

[01:02]

The doctor said, it's a mess. It's a fragile, but it's not a stable mess. It's an unstable, fragile mess. I was kind of like, I don't know if I want to take care of this fragile mess. But then I thought, oh, but this physical situation is like our whole country. So, yeah, my job is to be careful of this, like we're all being careful of this. So then I felt uplifted that I wasn't just taking care of this. I was taking care of this for the sake of a much bigger reality that we're all taking care of. So I'm feeling... ...by understanding that taking care of this is taking care of the whole world.

[02:08]

Working on the healing and transforming of this is working on the healing and transforming of the world. And that's... is part of the topic of the teaching I was planning on offering this first half of the year. Things often work out like that. That you're thinking of studying something or teaching something and your life becomes what you're planning on. One of the people... Have you been here before, Marga? Yeah? Is your name spelled M-A-R-G-A? Yeah. So, do you understand it to mean... There's a Sanskrit word, Marga, right? And that's her name.

[03:11]

And I'd like to talk about the word Marga at some point today. So I'm proposing that... I'll just say that Buddha's enlightenment is world transformation. It's not just about a person being really enlightened and at peace, liberated. Although it is that. The Buddha is at peace. The Buddha is wise and emanating great compassion and full of joy in emanating this compassion.

[04:18]

But the Buddha's joy and the Buddha's wisdom is actually the transformation of the world. The transformation of the world and Buddha's awakening is the same thing. And this is hard to understand, but this is a starting point for conversation. In the so-called Zen school, We use the word Zen, or I use the word Zen as a synonym for Buddha's complete, perfect enlightenment. It's shorter. Anyotara Samyak Sambodhi is shortened to Zen. So Zen meditation is unsurpassed, complete, perfect meditation. Zen practice is unsurpassed, perfect practice.

[05:22]

But Zen practice is easier to say. But that's what I'm understanding of our practice here in this Zen temple, this Zen school. And this Zen practice, this enlightenment practice, this practice of unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment is world transformation, is an intimate transmission. It's a transformation which is a transmission. It's an intimate meeting face-to-face. Zen enlightenment is a face-to-face meeting.

[06:24]

In that sense it's like enlightenment is a social phenomenon. It's an intimate conversation. enlightened beings and unenlightened beings. Everybody's in this conversation. So supposedly one of the famous definitions given for this transmission by the founder in China is that this is a special transmission outside the scriptures and directly pointing to the human mind, realizing its nature and becoming Buddha. But this pointing and seeing nature and becoming Buddha is not just pointing to my nature,

[07:36]

It's pointing in a meeting with other people pointing to their nature and them pointing to my nature and me pointing to their nature. It's a transmission, it's a conversation in which there is becoming Buddha through various kinds of understandings. But the understandings are occurring in a face-to-face encounter. It may be the case, I'll say it that way, it may be the case that right now what's going on in this room, in this temple, is a face-to-face meeting. That an intimate conversation could potentially be functioning here and now. I could also say that this intimate conversation is in fact what's going on and yet we may need to train, you know, each person may need to train in order to realize the intimate conversation which is enlightenment.

[09:07]

that's going on all the time. If we don't do our part, then we may miss the encounter. If we don't exert our own face, we may not be able to meet the other fully exerted face. So part of the practice is my face, like me taking care of my fragile body and my fragile mind. Me being me. Me face being me face. Until I have a face, it's hard for me. the other face. I shouldn't say hard. It's hard to realize the meeting with the other face that's fully being her face or his face.

[10:12]

And again, we can have conversations about how to have conversations. We can have conversations about how to be our face. Somebody was talking to me about how it's a struggle to be, to be herself. It often is a struggle to be ourself. And I just got the image of threading a needle. You have a thread and a needle with a hole in it. Sometimes it's difficult to get the thread in through the hole. even though it's kind of a simple thing in a way, you know, it's not like horrible needle hole and thread, it's just kind of hard somehow under certain circumstances to... The hole can be small, the thread can be big, the thread can be frayed. It's difficult to like really get everything lined up on itself.

[11:16]

I have a struggle in being, for example, Yeah. You know, being your body and being your mind, it can be kind of a struggle. And in order to actually do that, we can't do it all by ourselves. We have to actually be in order to be ourself. And again, another theme for this year, which I mentioned this morning already, is that this is a good place to build a sanctuary. A sanctuary is a place of refuge, a place to return to, for example, the practice of the face-to-face meeting wherein we become Buddha. And this means wherever we are is a good place to return to the practice.

[12:32]

I think maybe I have said enough to perhaps practice conversation with you, practice face-to-face transmission with you. Although I know, by the way, that even though I might think I've said enough, you might not be ready. Like someone told me, you know, she wants to have a face-to-face meeting with me, but she also wants to avoid it. Somehow, somehow the person you want to have this meeting with, because you have a sense that meeting face-to-face is really kind of where it's at in life, In fact, you want to avoid meeting the person that you want to do it with. Struggle.

[14:02]

Which again, if you look at the history of Zen, so many, you know, you know, thousands and thousands, maybe millions of stories of having face-to-face meetings and the difficulties that they're having. And one story just popped up just now, which I wasn't expecting to pop up, but it's the perfect story. It's called, About to Die. So there was a very wise and compassionate teacher in China, and his name was Lu Pu. And when he was about to die, he had a conversation with his people, with his group. I'll tell you the whole story later, but I just want to tell you the end of the story, which is when the teacher said, It's tough. It's really tough.

[15:11]

What is tough? This face-to-face meeting. And then he died. It's a story about a conversation with his students, and we can go over that story. Maybe this afternoon we'll go over it. But it's, yeah, it's a conversation. And there's so many things to talk about. And everything is an opportunity to have this intimate communion wherein this special transmission, this becoming Buddha is realized. Yes. Yes, interlocutor. Everybody know what interlocutor means? it means inter-speaker the person who you're talking with so here's an interlocutor confession and repentance yes to me there's a space before that embarrassment for me so I'm often embarrassed about what I want to confess yeah she said in the practice of confession

[16:40]

Often embarrassment. You know, embarrassment is almost a synonym for repentance. Like, you know, like you're trying to thread a needle, you know, and you're like, and you think, that wasn't very skillful the way I did that. That was kind of an unskillful move there. And you're kind of embarrassed because you're supposed to be a needle-threading teacher or something. Or you weren't very skillful, like being true to yourself. And you're kind of embarrassed. Like you're teaching a tech class on being yourself and you notice you're not being yourself very well. Kind of embarrassing. Here I am up in front of a lot of people talking about being myself and I'm really not doing a very good job. It's kind of embarrassing. And again, you might want to get out of that conversation. And the slight difference between repentance and embarrassment is that repentance is talking about the type of embarrassment which reforms you.

[17:53]

So, yeah, in the spectrum of, in the full spectrum of, ...regret or remorse or sorrow about your own actions or embarrassment. There's a type of embarrassment that makes you feel like, yeah, that wasn't too good, but I really do want to be true to myself and be honest with people. And I'm embarrassed that I wasn't. I'm embarrassed that I missed the opportunity to help that person, that I got distracted. I'm embarrassed. that makes me more confident that I do want to be true in the future. So embarrassment... What about lack of understanding rather than bad action? Well, lack of understanding means being not very skillful understanding. Your understanding is actually an action. The way I understand is the activity of my mind.

[18:55]

And like, nothing just popped in my head. You know, I lived in the Midwest where there weren't very many Italians. And I had this very narrow view of what Italians were. I thought Italians were like, you know, gangsters in the movies, right? And people who had pizza parlors and Italian restaurants. And, you know, kind of like olive skin and dark hair. And then later I was quite embarrassed that that's what I thought Italians were. You know, even though I knew about the Renaissance and the Roman Empire, somehow I wasn't very I wasn't working skillfully vis-a-vis Italians. So I was embarrassed that looking back in my mind, I thought, I had such a narrow view. And now, this is a big thing now in the United States, right?

[19:57]

A lot of people have views of other people that I think later they might be quite embarrassed about. In other words, their understanding of other people might be, this person is not my friend. Or, this person is not worthy of my respect. This would be an example of a type of understanding that you might be embarrassed about later. So understanding is kind of like a function of your mind. And if you under... Yeah, or like, I can give you a math problem now, like, you know, I don't know what. 25 times 25 is what? Do you know? Anyway, you might be embarrassed about not being able to do a math problem. Yeah, but if you've been studying math with a teacher for a long time and you still don't know the answer to 625, that's embarrassing. Yeah, it might even be more embarrassing if you've been studying for a long time.

[20:59]

And again, that's also quite common in in enlightenment practice, is that the people who have been practicing a long time, either themselves, either they say to themselves, or their friends say to them, it's quite a common expression in our tradition, that a friend says to another friend, such a venerable old chap, and you still talk like this? Very nice. You know, very respectfully, you still, you understand like this after all these years of practice? And this is part, this happens in the conversation. And then the one who is being, I don't know what to say, called in, the one who's being called into question, say, well, what do you say? And then the other guy comes back with the next step of the conversation. So even if I feel embarrassed, again, that's a whole of an ethical relationship.

[22:02]

And this wholehearted... This wholehearted communion is ethical. Zen is a special ethical transmission. It's an ethical conversation. And in ethical conversations, I have questions about myself. I tell you stuff and then I go, was that true? Was that kind? That's good. But also in ethical relationships, in face-to-face transmission, other people call me into question. It's mostly other that calls me into question. I mean, I can do a little, but the big other can do a lot more. And so if you feel embarrassed, this is a hallmark of ethical relations. So you're embarrassed inwardly sometimes, and then maybe sometimes others and that's also confession and repentance.

[23:06]

You say something, you do something, you become aware of it, and then you or others call it into question. And sometimes after it's called into question, you feel just how wonderful it's called into question, so other times you feel a little embarrassed or regret or shame or sorrow. This is This process, this conversation is the pure and simple color of true practice. Can I put my embarrassment confession on? Yeah, you want to give us an example? Okay. Earlier today you said something about Zen being outside the sutras. Yeah. And, yes, go ahead. And it reminded me of a constant source of shame something with the fourth Bodhisattva vow, the way it's said, Buddha's way is unsurpassable.

[24:10]

I vow to attain it or become it. Every time I come to that, it always sounds to me like we've got the right answer and everybody else has the wrong one. It's my confession. And it feels so unzen to be lording it over all other religions and practices in the world, but we got the right one. So I just get hooked in that loop every single time. Can't it just be... Are we saying we have the one true way? We are. We just... Welcome to my mind. This is a conversation, right? this conversation is Zen. If this conversation is one where we're being ethical and generous and patient and diligent and calm, where we're open to being called into question, then this is the Buddha way.

[25:23]

So the Buddha way would include the Buddha way being called into question. Some people have said about Buddhism that it's the first world, it's the first example either in a philosophical system and or a religious system that was self-critical. And you're supposed to examine it, you know, and not just pick it from... Right. But even when you say that, that Buddhism was the first to... Well, it sounds like you're saying Buddhism better. But if you're saying that you seem to be saying Buddhism is better, it's a little bit self-critical of Buddhism. And Buddhism would say, yeah, please, call Buddhism into question. So you did. Is Buddhism saying it's better than other religions? Is it saying that?

[26:25]

I would say that's not the Buddha Dharma to call it into question. But when I say that, you can call me into question. And then Buddha way is unsurpassable. And it's unsurpassable because Buddha way is surpassing itself. That's what the Buddha way is. You can't surpass surpassing. So, as Suzuki Roshi said, Buddhism is not one of those religions like Judaism, Mohammedism, Confucianism, Catholicism. It's not one of those. And Buddhism. Buddhism is not one of those religions like Buddhism. Okay? The Buddha way is not one of those ways like the Buddha way. ...on the Buddha way, which means the Buddha way is to go beyond Christianity. But not for Buddhism to go beyond Christianity, for Christianity to leap beyond itself, for Islam to leap beyond itself.

[27:38]

All these traditions, there are examples. I think Jesus gave a few nice examples of leaping beyond Jesus. In the Jewish tradition, lots of nice examples of leaping beyond itself. All these traditions, I think, are really what they really are. It's leaping beyond themselves. And Buddhism says, and that's what Buddhism's up to. But really, that's what they're all up to. They're all up to, what do you call it, getting over themselves. human beings, what we're really about is becoming free from our egoistic consciousness so we can open to reality. All the religions are about getting over themselves. All the religions are about not taking themselves seriously. And you can, in a way, you might be able to see that because obviously a lot of them do take themselves seriously. So clearly the job they've got is to give that up.

[28:41]

So if Buddhism looks like it's taking itself seriously, then if Buddhism is face-to-face transmission, then it should be called into question. And if you don't take yourself seriously, that should be called into question. Like you got a bunch of Buddhists and they, we don't take ourselves seriously. Well, what are you trying to avoid getting called on being self-righteous? I love all of this. The only word I don't love is the word unsurpassable in the fourth day. But I like to share with people. Whenever we get to that, I like to share. Unsurpassable is really not unsurpassable. Fine, in this room. But when you take it to your living room, you're speaking to people who hear that word. And I'm afraid they think it's frightening.

[29:43]

You're afraid of that. Yeah, so that's your thing. I know. So let's help. And so now I'm trying to help you. Now we're getting down to another issue. I'm in conversation with you to try to help you deal with your fear. If you can wholeheartedly be afraid and offer that person to a meeting, then we can have a conversation and you can become free of your fear and not try to change the word so you're not afraid anymore. But, you know, when you're not trying to change the word because you're afraid, you might change it for some other reason which might be justified, might be helpful. We'll see. By the way, it does say unsurpassable, but it doesn't say it's better than anything.

[30:52]

That's exactly what I mean. Why does it mean any other religion? It's just you can't go beyond because Buddhism is going beyond. Buddhism is willing to be the lowest religion. And then you say you can't surpass that. So anyways, it's just one of those little, what do you call it, one of those little opportunities for that line. And if you ever get over your problem with that one, well, you go back and maybe have problems with the previous three. I thought you were going to say... I thought you were going to say you had a problem with... In a sense, you have a problem with the third one, which is Dharmagates are bound to them. It's like you're having trouble with the third one, which says you're going to enter everything as Dharmagate, because you can't enter the Dharmagate of the fourth one. To you, it looks like an ugly wall.

[31:54]

It looks like a wall. you know, the Buddhists from the other people. So it looks like, here's this big wall. Buddhism's like, you know, where it's at. And you can apply for entry. And this is the best place here. Okay? But you're having trouble seeing, that's a door. That wall is a door. Right? And again, Zen practice is often, in these conversations we often talk about that the teacher often puts up walls for the student to walk through, puts up walls which aren't really walls. So one of our famous collection of Zen conversations is a gateless barrier. It's about how barriers are gates. that aren't gates, that are barriers. It's about the actual pivotal activity of the conversation where you can't abide anywhere.

[33:02]

So if you get a sticking point, we have a conversation there. And sometimes, even with a great teacher, it's tough to find somebody who can really be themselves with whatever the problem is. So you can keep... As a matter of fact, some Zen teacher might say, I assign you that line, that vow as a koan for you to meditate on and bring me your understanding, okay? That somebody might say that to you. Not me. I'm not qualified to make such assignments. Yes? Reflecting on that as I was listening to Tracy, I think the phrasing might have... a little bit of a challenge in there for saying that Buddha's way is better, because it's saying Buddha's way, and it's... It actually doesn't say Buddha's way, it says Buddha's way. That's what I was going to suggest.

[34:02]

If it's Buddha's way, there's a possessive there, and there's a divide between Buddha and the way. Yeah, it's not really possessive, it just says Buddha way, Is that what we chant? Maybe it does say Buddha's way. But I'm saying it's Buddha way. You could probably mumble Buddha way even if we're all using Buddha's way. Then you might feel better. And by the way... The word Wei, in that case, is this Chinese character which is a translation of Marga, which I'll talk about more later. Tish? This morning I was just reading an article about Banksy Steller. It seems so honest, doesn't it? Because this art piece is basically about... It's where the wall is between...

[35:08]

I don't know the geographies at Gaza, but wherever the wall is between Palestine and Israel. It's an article about a wall in... Well, it's an article about this... Art piece related... It's an art piece about this wall and this problem of how all the art there is about trying to not put one side above another. And it's all like the whole... It's like a hotel or a museum. It's not clear which it is, a hotel, and there's no windows in it. Banksy is an artist of walls, before they got cool, as he said. But it was just so on this, wasn't it? Yeah, that sounds like an art piece devoted to the possibility of face-to-face transmission. Yes, it is. And how difficult it is to have that. Very difficult. Because the piece, the article is about that, how this art, that's the challenge of this art, is to not have one side surpassed the other, but this wall that's dividing them.

[36:14]

But I'd like to go there. And it was so ominous. Everything is about this. Everything's about trying to meet trying to live in this intimate transmission. Everything's about enlightenment, in a sense, from this school's point of view. What we're really doing is struggling to realize this transmission. We're struggling to realize this intimate communion, which is reality. We're struggling to realize reality in reality. the Buddha wakes up and says, oh, everybody's doing this intimate transmission. How beautiful. Now I see it. They're all doing it together with me. And many of them do not understand. But that's what they're really doing. And then sometimes we think, oh, I'm going to do an art piece to express this.

[37:18]

And then you work on the of your studio and you forget. that what you're working on is reality and in the street somehow you can't remember that this is also the same as my artwork. Or I'm doing this artwork because those people don't understand this yet. It's tough. Well, I feel a little handicapped when we talk about being ourselves because, and I don't know if this is true, but this is what I feel. Did you say you feel handicapped? Yes. So if you feel handicapped, what's your job? Yeah, to be handicapped. And sometimes if we don't feel handicapped and suddenly we feel, oops, I'm being told I'm handicapped. Okay. My non-handicapness has been called into question. Am I ready to be a handicapped person? By the way,

[38:19]

I'll be right back. I get to apply to a handicapped parking plaque now. It's one of the great benefits of being handicapped. You get that. It's a great perk. Anyway, back to handicapped Yuki. Okay, so... Was having trouble accepting being handicapped. Yeah. And she says she's even... Handicapped and accepting being handicapped. So the handicap, I think, but I don't even know if this is true, but I think of myself as an introvert, and it's easier for me to be myself when I'm by myself. It's easier to recharge my batteries when I'm by myself. Yeah, so you're handicapped at the, what you might call, extroverted side, but you're not handicapped, you have an advantage in the introverted side. This process of intimate transmission has an extroverted part and an introverted part.

[39:29]

You working on being you is introverted. You checking on, okay, am I willing to accept my thought that I'm handicapped? Am I willing to accept my... geez, I'm really fragile. Am I willing to intimately commune with my feeling that I'd really rather not be the way I am? I wish I was less fragile. I wish I was, like, a little bit less fragile. I mean, I know we're all impermanent, but I would like to be on the... I'd like to be in the not extremely impermanent people. Okay, that's your introverted work. And introverts can really enjoy that. They can sit and really enjoy being kind to their thoughts about themselves and not talking to anybody. You have an advantage there. And then when talking, some people have a really hard time. Some people have an easy time with one.

[40:31]

But we need both. That's why we have quiet sitting. where you settle with being yourself, and then you have a conversation where your settledness can be called into account. You might think you're quite settled, and then you meet with perhaps a teacher, and the teacher says, gee, you're really settled. And you say, well, thank you. And he says, did you believe that? You're like totally hysterical. And then you get to see, can you be with that? Or vice versa. Some people are really good in conversation but they go sit by themselves and they just can't be there. Part of the practice is part of the meeting is solitary. Solitary is how you understand the meeting and meeting is how you understand the solitary. Again, if you think about Zen, there's a lot of pictures of Zen people like sitting, a lot of pictures of a one person sitting.

[41:38]

There's a picture in the community room there where you change. There's a picture of somebody sitting on the floor right now because the nail that was holding it up is inaccessible. So would somebody please hang that picture? Oscar or Elenia. Where's Elenia? Right here. Would you, one of you, It's a picture of somebody sitting. How beautiful it is to just sit yourself, by yourself, in a tatami room, looking at a beautiful garden. That's part of our practice. But also Zen stories are about people intensely interacting. But the thing is, these people who are intensely interacting, each one is like sitting by himself, totally there, sitting in that conversation, looking at a beautiful garden while they're like, this is really tough. So it's part of the deal. And so you feel like, well, I'm handicapped at this side or that side.

[42:43]

But it's like threading a needle. And as you practice more and more, you don't necessarily get bigger and bigger threads and smaller and smaller holes. But sometimes it seems like that. As practitioners, in a way, are just working with smaller and smaller needle holes and, again, developing more and more patience because it's really hard and it can be introverted or extroverted. Bodhisattva is going to, you know, eventually. I guess I'm wishing there was a way to adjust the dial when I want to adjust it. If you want to adjust the dial, that's a perfectly good thing to have a conversation with. And also, if you want to do it fully, you need to be in conversation with the dial, which you're doing right now. So I think many of you are doing a good job of sharing your inner dial turning with somebody else.

[43:52]

Pam and Jackie? So I want to talk about Batho and Nangapu and the tile, because that's about being yourself. So just to recap the story a little bit. So Batho is sitting, Zazen, and his teacher, Nangapu, comes up and says, what are you doing? And Batho says, I'm going to become a Buddha. Sound like, right? And Nengaku picks up a tile and starts polishing it, his teacher. And Baso says, what are you doing? He says, I'm polishing this tile to make it into a jewel. And the student says, how can you... Mirror. Mirror. And Baso says, how can you polish a tile to make it into a mirror? And his teacher says, how can you set Sazen to be a Buddha? Mm-hmm. So the idea is that, and in the commentary it says, when the force master, that's Basso, when he becomes fully himself, Zen becomes Zen.

[45:05]

So the idea is that, my idea is Basso sees himself in point A, as unenlightened. And he's trying to do Zazen to get to point B, is enlightened. And this teacher is saying that doing that is like trying to make a tile into a mirror by polishing it. In other words, it doesn't work that way. And so one idea is that when he's fully himself, Zen is Zen. So at first I was thinking that being fully yourself just means not pretending that you're somebody else. Like if you, you know, like not putting on airs or pretending to be something that you're not, but that wasn't what Basso was actually doing. Thinking that he wasn't, he just didn't know he wasn't already enlightened. And so the idea of becoming fully yourself, I think it maybe is not so much about not pretending that you're something else, but just about

[46:19]

fully present, and that is being fully yourself. When you're fully willing to be whatever your arising of yourself is in this moment, that's you being fully yourself. And that's Zen becoming Zen. And also, you being fully present and being yourself, you can't do that by yourself. So that's why the teacher comes up and talks to him. So is that just because when I'm sitting, I feel like I'm actually in relationship. I'm in relationship. ...being with myself. So there's kind of a face-to-face intimacy right there. Yes. But that's just part of it because my inner state could be completely diluted. Yeah. You could have that intimate conversation with yourself. That's fine. And that's part of being solitude.

[47:21]

In solitude you can have intimate conversation with yourself. You could work at being fully present and having fully Pam be Pam. That's part of your job. To be the fragile person you are and like say, okay, I accept this fragile and I'm working on that. And sometimes I feel like I'm not working on it very well and so on. You can do that work. That's part of your responsibility. That's part of you having a face. And as a reward for doing that work, call you into question and say, what are you doing? So Basso was doing his work. He was trying to practice being present, being Basso. And because he was wholehearted about that, he got visited by a great teacher who said, what do you do? Who called him into question.

[48:22]

And you just told me a story about that. And then I could call you into question too, which I do. Your story I call into question. So you're saying that Basso was trying to get something, but I could see that he wasn't trying to get anything. He was just sitting there. And then because he was such a wonderful not-trying-to-get-anything person, he got visited basically by God. in the form of a Zen monk teacher. And then God calls him into question. And then he gets to say something. So he says, I'm trying to make a Buddha. But how is he trying to make a Buddha? By being himself. But if you're trying to make a Buddha by being yourself, which, by the way, is in accord with this tradition, The way to make Buddhas is to be yourself fully.

[49:25]

But if you're being yourself fully, a wonderful teacher is going to come and ask you about that and say, how are you doing being yourself? And you go, well, I'm not so sure. And the teacher might say, because you're not doing a very good job. And you say, thank you. And he just says, you're doing a good job. And you say, thank you, and so on. So one way to see it is that Basso didn't understand that to make a Buddha is to be himself. And being himself was not to make a Buddha. Buddha is constantly making Buddha and going beyond Buddha. So my job to make Buddhism go beyond Buddhism is to be myself, to be this person fully. Does anybody come in to question me? And look, people are coming to question me. Maybe I'm not doing that bad.

[50:28]

We'll see. We'll see. Yes? I recently watched the HBO series, it's a ten-part series on the young pope. Is it a drama? Is it a drama? Or is it a documentary? It's a drama. Of a young pope. It's wild. It's wild. It's completely wild. But one thing, the writing is fabulous, but one thing that he questions... is the silence of God. And his faith is sort of questioned. He is the Pope. And that kind of hit me in my heart that there are times where I'm asking for help.

[51:31]

And this God is silent, you know, and to fails me short sometimes because, you know, the silent and still, being silent and still does not bring me the answers that I'm waiting for. So, and I question. You question? I question, what is Buddha? When you question what is Buddha, the response to that question is simultaneous with the question. It's not later. And in silence that question arises.

[52:36]

The question what is Buddha is in the middle of Buddha's silence. The word Shakyamuni means the silent one of the Shakya clan. So one of the epithets, one of the names for a sage is a silent one. So Buddha is a silent one. The silence of Buddha is the question, what is Buddha? But that question, or that calling for help, Or you could say, who are you, Buddha? The response to that question is simultaneous with the question. It's not later. It's not like, who are you, Buddha? Well, who do you think I am? Or Buddha's saying, I'm you, darling. Or here, would you like some water? That could happen too, but that's another story. Before anything else happens, at the very moment you question at the very moment you ask for help, Buddha's response is there.

[53:43]

And that question, that conversation is occurring in silence and stillness. So, words cannot reach this silence and this stillness of the Buddha mind. No consciousness can reach it. But it is not without words. But its words are your words. That's Buddha talking through you. When you say, what is Buddha? Buddha's response is your words. And it's difficult to understand. That's like very subtle. So it's not that Buddha is silence, but more like it is stillness.

[54:50]

It's more like stillness and silence is where Buddha lives, and that stillness and silence which no consciousness can reach. But the way it talks is through talkers, us. your questions, your doubts are the life of Buddha. And when you enter silence, you see that your comments and your questions are actually a conversation in silence with the whole world. It's me. It's me. It's this mind chatter. It's this mind, but your mind is in conversation with. Your mind isn't all by itself. It's in a conversation.

[55:51]

Your chatter is talking to everybody, and everybody is included in your chatter. Where is Buddha? Yeah. Thank you. What time is it, Ted? Twelve twenty-five. Twelve twenty-five. Anybody that has not asked one? Yes? What you are speaking is a state of self-less, where there is no self. In that state, yes. If you say it's a state where there is no self, if you say that, then I call that into question and I ask you, if there's no self, is there also no not self?

[56:56]

No self. Is there also no self? Yeah, okay. So in that place, self and no self are pivoting on each other. the answer is rising with it. So everything rises simultaneously. Yeah. That's right. I rise simultaneously with all of you. All of you arise simultaneously with me and then the world starts again in the next... This sounds like silence.

[58:14]

I wonder if it is. Did you have something, Helen, from before? Yeah, maybe I'll... I have something longer, but the brief thing was just about the Basso story. Yes. I just wanted to mention, and maybe it's a good segue, The response is not, I'm polishing, I'm trying to make this tile into a sandwich, into a mirror, which is not a, that is a kind of, you can kind of do that. You can't kind of make a tile into a mirror. Just that. You can make it into a sandwich, too. It seems really important that the meeting keeps going on.

[59:27]

It isn't concluded. The discussion of every story is open-ended. and that we feel inspired on this open-ended communication with others. So again, I'm saying Zen, emphasizing this communion, this trusting and being entrusted This including and being included, that's sort of the very strong, central practice principle of Zen. It's an early Buddhism too, but doesn't sound so literally so. Even though if you look at the stories of the Buddha, they're stories of the Buddha meeting students and having conversations.

[60:32]

But the conversations are not saying that this conversation is what we're talking about. But sometimes it is. Often, a couple of years ago, the topic for the year was friendship. Friendship. And I was actually stimulated to choose that topic partly by a statement of a new pope. I think his name was... And one of the first things he said was something like, this friendship opens the doors of freedom or peace or whatever. And I thought, Good. And I'll just take away the this, because by this means friendship. Buddha's teaching that the whole thing's about friendship. And it's friendship, and it's friendship with the Buddha. It's friendship, it's good friendship, and also friendship with Buddha.

[61:36]

That's the whole practice. It has all these different facets, but it's really all about friendship. And friendship is a two-way mutual transmission. It's a mutual entrustment. We are being trusted. We trust. It's a wholehearted finding my face and offering it and calling other faces into question so that they can offer their face fully to me. and they also call me into question so I can offer my face fully to them. This is friendship. So the early Buddhist teaching was about friendship. The Zen teaching is about friendship. The Zen more emphasizes this face-to-face thing. Of course, people have difficulty with friendship

[62:38]

But particularly people have difficulty really meeting another face because our faces are really very intense areas of our body where we have eyes that can't defend themselves. What were you going to say? I was going to say I want to give a progress report on my koan. Oh, well, yes, please. It's amazing. I've carried that down, father, for 20 or 30 years. And I had this conversation in childhood. My problem wasn't unattainable. My problem was Buddhist way. And so I just put it in lightening. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I can. And all of a sudden, it's like, wow. And hopefully this is not the end of the story. May our intention really stand to every being and place.

[63:56]

May our intention really stand to every being and place. Delusions are insurmountable. I love to run. Dharma geists are boundless. I love to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I love to become it. The chant we just did was a bodhisattva vow written by a person in what we call the Zen lineage in Japan named Tore, Zen master Tore.

[65:36]

So he was a bodhisattva and this was one of his vows that he wrote. And this morning we chanted another bodhisattva vow written by another more ancient Asian master named Dogen. That was one of his bodhisattva vows that we recited. And may we attain maturity in Buddhist wisdom. May we. And I mentioned this morning that I'm Somehow I was meaning to talk about this word, character, which you may be familiar with. It's quite, you see it around Asian bookstores and in the West a lot.

[66:42]

In Japanese it's pronounced , in Chinese it's pronounced , in Japanese . So it means a road, but in China and Japan you see maybe various streets, such and such. Like a lot of the streets in Kyoto have this character and then another character which means principle. Like third street is third, character for three, and then dori, this character, and another character which means principle. So it means a road or a path. In Sanskrit, this is a translation of the Sanskrit word marga, which means path.

[67:48]

They use it that way in China. So in Sanskrit, marga means path and also means practice. So this character means... You usually don't talk about it as practice, but the path in Buddhism is a practice. This character was in China, in circulation in China, long before Buddhism came. Buddhism came around 2,000 years ago to China, but before Buddhism came into use. And again it meant road or path or a way of life. But it also means speak. And so-and-so spoke. They have this character. And as you all may know, there's a very illustrious text, which is called a Taoist text. And where's Homa?

[68:53]

Oh, there you are. And it's called Tao Te Ching. Tao Te Ching. and Da means virtue, and Ching is scripture. It's one of the main scriptures of the Daoist school. The Daoist school is the school of the Dao, Daoist. And so it starts out by saying the true Da cannot be Daoed. In that case, it's the true Dao cannot be spoken. But you can also, that's the way they usually translate it, the true path is the path that cannot be spoken. But you can also say the path that's not the path. Or the true speaking is speaking that's not speaking. But they usually translate it, the true path cannot be spoken, this path here. So this means path, but again it means a way of life.

[69:56]

It's a great way of reality, of the nature of the universe. That's the Tao. But the Chinese Buddhist used this to mean a path, but they also used it to mean enlightenment. So in Sanskrit, marga means path or practice, and then one of the words for enlightenment is bodhi. So this character can translate marga and bodhi. In our tradition, the path, the marga, and the enlightenment are the same thing. So we often chant, the way is perfect and all-pervading. That's the way they usually translate it. And it's this character. But she calls this is perfect and all-pervading.

[71:03]

But if it's perfect in all, if the way, if the practice is perfect and pervades everywhere, which is the same as enlightenment, perfect and pervades, why do we have to practice? And yet, if there's a slightest discrepancy, in other words, if our activity is not in accord with this way or this path or this enlightenment, it's kind of like it's almost like the way doesn't pervade. And that relates to another story which many of you have heard is a Zen teacher is fanning himself and a monk says, the nature of wind is permanent and reaches everywhere, so why do you fan yourself? The teacher says, you may understand that the nature of the way, of the wind, is all-pervading, but you don't understand what it means that it reaches everywhere.

[72:19]

The monk says, what is the meaning about reaching everywhere? And the teacher fanned himself. Your practice is the meaning of the way reaching everywhere. even though it does reach everywhere, the meaning of it is your practice. So here's the great character which means both practice and enlightenment in Chinese Buddhism, and speak, which is also very interesting. If your speech isn't practiced, then it's like the way doesn't reach everywhere. So if the way, if the enlightenment reaches everywhere, why do you have to talk to each other? Now another

[73:28]

a word that I want to relate this to is the word for a practice place, which in many cases is called dojo. And that compound do, it uses this character, do, and another character which means place. So there can be Zen dojos, practice, but also it's a practice place, a way place, but it's also an enlightenment place. A dojo in Buddhism is an enlightenment place. But all these other traditions like dojo, judo dojo, karate dojo, And all those other arts, like flower arrangement, that's a do.

[74:35]

It's a path and it's an enlightenment. T-cern, archery, archery is kyu-do. The path of archery or the enlightenment of archery, they're all practiced in dojos. But dojo also means, translates to Sanskrit term called bodhi manda. So the dojo is a bodhi mandala. It's where you sit, where you practice enlightenment. So again, coming back to the theme of this year, this is a good place to build a sanctuary. This is a good place to build a dojo. This is a good place to build a bodhi manda. Wherever you are is a good place to build a dojo, a bodhi manda, where you practice enlightenment.

[75:39]

Enlightenment practice At Tassajara, outside the, I believe, outside, we have a little plaque given to us. It's a nice plaque from the headquarters of Soto Zen. It's not as good as a... It's a nice plaque, and it says that this is a place for practicing. It's a Sanzen, which means practice dojo. So this is our Chinese lesson for today. And this will be located in your friendly neighborhood temple kitchen. Can I have that book, please? This is the Book of Serenity. It's an English translation of a Chinese Zen stories of Zen conversations, Chinese collection of many 100 basic face-to-face transmissions.

[76:49]

And then in the commentary there's many other stories of face-to-face transmission. Wonderful stories of bodhisattvas, or at least people who are aspiring to be bodhisattvas, having conversations with bodhisattvas. And some of these stories Only the Buddha is talking. But again, I say to you, whenever the Buddha is talking, the Buddha is talking to everybody. And then again, the story I told you at the beginning is the fourth story in this book. One points to the earth, or points to the ground. The Chinese character there means earth and ground. So again, the world-honored one, the Buddha's walking along on the earth and points to the earth and says, this is a good place to build a sanctuary.

[78:02]

In this case, they don't use the Chinese characters for dojo, use the character for sanctuary. And then in his group, that he's always traveling in a group, even when you can't see Buddha's students around her, is this inexhaustible, inconceivable group, the Buddhas, sitting in the middle of it, of all living beings. Wherever the Buddha goes, all living beings go with the Buddha. So he's walking with his group. So this is a good place to build a sanctuary. And in his group is various divine beings. One of them is the emperor of the divine beings, Indra. Takes a blade of grass, sticks it in the ground and says, the sanctuary is built. And the Buddha smiled.

[79:03]

This is the conversation. Good place, okay, the response, put the grass in, the boy has a smile, that's the story. Number four. And then there is, what is it? Then there's number forty-one, right? Four, five, six, up to forty-one, on your way to one hundred. Let's see what number forty-one is. This is 53, which is another good one. But I'm going to go back to 41, sorry. So this is called... This is called Lu Pu...

[80:11]

Teacher Lu Pu is about to die. Okay, so I'm going to talk to you for a little while and then, because if you listen well, we're going to give you a treat. And some tea. Right, Linda? Okay, so, here's the introduction. You want to hear it? Yes. Who knows, this might be apropos of our world today. Sometimes, out of loyalty and sincerity, denying oneself, The pain and cramp is hard to express. Sometimes calamity extends, but one doesn't take responsibility.

[81:24]

What about to pass away, to die? We are cut down cheaply. At the very end, there is most care. Tears come from a painful gut. It's impossible to hide or escape anymore. But is there anyone with cool eyes? When Lupu was about to die, he said to his group, I have one thing to ask you people. If this is so, this is adding a head on top of your head. If it is not so, this is cutting off your head, seeking life. That's what he said to his group as he was about to die.

[82:35]

These are his final care for his students as he was about to die. If this is so, this is adding on top of your head. If this is not so, this is cutting off your head, seeking life. That's how he started. And then the conversation starts. At that time, a monk, or excuse me, not a monk, the head monk. So, a monk in a monastery, like over at Green Gulch, we have practice periods. Tassajara City Center, they have practice periods. And they have a head monk, like a shiso, which literally means first seat. So the shiso, the head monk, said, in mountains, Or, the green mountain is always moving its feet.

[83:46]

Don't hang a lamp in broad daylight. Okay, so the teacher offers this. The head monk says, the green mountains are always moving its feet. Don't hang up a lamp in broad daylight. they're having a conversation. He's trying to have a face-to-face transmission as he's dying with his group. And the monk comes forward to try to practice this with him. And Lu Pu said, What time is this to make such a speech? Or another way to put it, how can you talk like this at a time like this? Or this is no time to fool around with such talk. Then another elder comes forth.

[84:51]

His name is Yan Feng. And said, leaving the... What are the two paths? Did you hear him? leaving these two paths, I request the teacher not ask the question you just asked. Is that clear somewhat? If you say it's this, that's like putting a hat on top of your head. If you say it's not this, that's cutting your head off, trying to get something. The monk comes forward and says, you know, Why do you put up a light in midday?" And the teacher says, basically, Why are you talking like that? Then the elder comes forward and says, Putting aside what you just said, I request the teacher not ask what you just asked.

[85:56]

Okay? This is their conversation at that time back in ancient China. Lu Pu said, not yet. Speak again. In other words, didn't quite get it. Try again. Pretty good. I'm adding that. Not yet. Try again. He didn't invite the other monk to try again. Not yet. Try again. So then the elder, Yan Song, says, I don't care. You can say it all or not. Yeah. And then, I think this is a mistake, typo. But I think it means, this is funny.

[87:08]

It says, Yansong said, I have no attendant to answer the teacher. I'm not sure what's going on there. Anyway, that was their conversation in public. Then that evening, Lu Pu called the elder Yansong to his private quarters and said, you're most reasonable. you should experientially realize the saying of my late teacher, quotes, before the eyes there are no things. That meaning is before the eyes. It is not something before the eyes, not in reach of the eyes or ears. Unquote. Unquote. And then he says to the elder, which phrase is guest and which phrase is host?

[88:19]

If you can pick them out, I'll impart the robe and bowl to you. In other words, I will. How long has it been stopped? Five seconds. Okay. So the elder says, I really don't. shouted and said, how miserable. And the monk, a monk, I asked, not the elder, what is the teacher's meaning? And Lu Pu said, the boat of compassion is not rowed in your waters. Over the precipitous straits, it is wasted effort to set out a wooden goose. Wooden goose? Wooden goose, yeah. So sometimes, you know, when you're going through rapids, you might put a piece of wood or a wooden goose in the water to see where the goose goes so you can follow the

[89:30]

follow the goose." And he's saying, in precipitous straits, it's a wasted effort to put the goose out. Here's people trying to have a conversation, an intimate conversation. And we can talk about what they're up to, but the main thing I want to say today is here's an example of an attempt by Excellent students. And it's difficult. It's difficult. And that story is actually only part of it. Oh, actually, I think it also can be translated, it's tough, it's tough.

[90:44]

And then Lu Pu died right after that. we could converse about this story, we could converse about this conversation for quite a while. I can imagine that many things into question if we did. And I would be happy to do so. And there's many other conversations which we could converse about. for the rest of our lives. And these conversations are what the Buddha way is, according to some traditions.

[91:48]

According to this tradition, the Buddha way is for us to continue to have conversations about everything, including the conversations of the last 2,500 years. some of which have been recorded, some of which we do not know, but we can still talk about them. Is there anything you want to bring up? Yes, Katie? About what you said earlier about the two ways of the, what we talked about, the solitary time to get found and accommodation. And I'm wondering if you could say more about how to skillfully use those together when the conversation is difficult, when there is struggle, when

[92:53]

to move forward that difficulty, and when it's difficult to go away and spend a solitary time and settle, and what we do when we're in the middle of the struggle. Yeah, so you're initiating a conversation with me about what you just said, okay? And so when you were talking, I was thinking about someone who's in this room who came to see me, I don't know how many decades ago. And on more than one occasion, she said, when we were talking, she said to me, would you stop talking, please? because while I was talking to her, she was unable to, like, be aware of herself. And she sensed that she needed me so she could, like, be solitary.

[94:02]

she sensed that she was having trouble actually conversing with me because she was losing track of her side of the conversation, which is how she feels and what her posture is. So she asked me to stop so she could check in. So I stopped, and then she checked in, and she felt present again. And then she said, Continue. Do you remember that? Do you remember that? I hope that was okay to help you. But that's good. She sent on some occasions that she came to start talking to her. I think maybe she felt, you could say, overwhelmed by what I was saying.

[95:07]

And she, okay, fine, but just a second, where am I? So she asked me to stop. And I would say, in general, you can do that with me. If I'm talking and you're losing track of yourself, you can stop me. I'll stop. Find yourself again. So sometimes you feel like this conversation is too much for me. I have to go. I need some time alone. You sense that for yourself. I hear that from a lot of people that they're in an intimate relationship and their partner in the conversation, their interlocutor, is chatting away or yelling away or whatever, and they can't be present anymore. They're running away, which can be seen as abandonment, or they're going to fight back because they're on the verge of losing their integrity.

[96:12]

Okay? So I say, I think you should have an understanding with your interlocutor. You can have time out. You can go away for a while. And, you know, kind of regroup. But I also recommend that when you do that, especially if it's like somebody, not necessarily a teacher of Buddhism, but maybe an intimate person, that you say, I need space. and I need one hour or one day, and I will come back. Don't just run away. Because they don't know. Some part of them doesn't know if you'll ever come back. So, say, I need space. I need space to find myself and calm down so I can meet you in a skillful way. We should let people do that, and we should ask for it. We should learn to ask for it. And we should have an understanding that we can ask for it.

[97:14]

So with a Zen teacher, you should have an understanding about that, I would say. The other way around also occurs, you look at the stories, the student's chatting away, the teacher's okay with it, but the teacher feels that the student's not really present with what they're saying. Like, I don't know what, they're trying to impress the teacher or something. Or they're getting too much... Anyway, they're not really present, so then the teacher often says, go back to the zendo and calm down. You know, you're not following what you're saying or you're not listening to me. But they don't necessarily say that to just say, go sit. There are many stories like that where the teacher feels like the interlocutor is not able to be present and the interlocutor is not asking for the space to return to their presence. So you have to watch learn to watch while you're talking, while you're listening, are you paying too much attention to your own face?

[98:24]

Are you paying too much attention to the other face? And or too little to your own? Kind of the same. That's a very important point. Thank you. And in the middle of my answer, you might have needed to stop me, but you didn't. Reading that story, he says, if you understand this one way, it's like having another head. So that's kind of like a head on top of your head. Well, it's kind of like to make it into this is unnecessary. Yeah, you don't have to make what you have into this. and to make it not this, that's extra. That's adding something you don't need. And the other one is, if you try to avoid that tendency to make something into something because you don't want to get in trouble, then that's cutting your head off.

[99:35]

So then he's leading up to, well, what are you going to do? And this monk comes forward and He kind of says, you're getting colder. And then the other guy comes forward and does pretty well. But not quite, so he wants to try again later. Sounds like turning away and touching are both wrong. It's very much like that. Turning away and touching are both wrong. So I thought that the shoe sales response was a good one because it sounds like that's what he was saying. It sounds like the shoe sales were saying, you know, why do you hold a layup in the day? Yeah, why? Anyway, he thought it was good and maybe it was. And then the teacher said what he said. And then she said, shut up. And instead of him talking, the elder came forward and said what he said.

[100:38]

The shiso also said, maybe. And the conversation would have gone on, but the shiso also could have said, well, what about you, teacher? Or he could have shouted, it's tough, it's tough. A lot of possibility only he stopped it. He didn't go on. Doesn't mean he was wrong, just means, seems like his part of the conversation was then shifted to, you know, maybe he could say he passed the baton to his big brother. I don't know. Yes. really taken with the precipitous waters and the wooden goose and the way it's kind of hitting me today um is that um there's an immediacy just you can't there's nothing to follow it's echoing

[101:43]

when you said right after the election about we have to be the adults now. So it's kind of echoing that. There's nothing that we can find. Yeah. Barack's not going to lead us anymore. Barack's not going to set a good example for us. We have to look outside ourselves for dignity and poise. That being said, at that moment of death, there's nothing to follow. You just need to be in the water. You need to be in the water and don't look for... Again, don't look for some... Be in the water, in the rough water, rowing away without, this is the way to go. Yes, exactly. You could be, I think this is the way to go, but that's just me thinking. Yes. Again, to try to stop thinking that this is the way to go, that would be to cut your head off. Define the balance and not look to someplace else and also don't do it by yourself.

[102:47]

Nobody's going to do it for you and you can't do it by yourself. And I have this fantasy that you guys are okay with that. that you don't think you can do it by yourself, and you don't think somebody else is going to do it for you, but that you are going to do it in face-to-face meeting with the other, because that's what enlightenment is. And that's tough, some of the time. And if it's not tough, then it's tough later. And if it's tough later, then it's not tough later, and so on. It's very dynamic. These waters are really white and wonderful. It's a fragile situation. Let's be careful and let's meet face to face because the opportunity is always there.

[103:51]

And let's take care of being present with our own face because that's what we have to give. and look to help other people give their face to us completely. Which they are, of course, because the way of totally giving your face to this intimate communication is reality. But we have to practice it. Otherwise, it's not reality. It's like, we can be half-hearted. Well, yeah, that's true. And if you are wholehearted about being half-hearted, you'll be free of being half-hearted. So now, since you've listened so well, we will do our dedications and have a little tea party. Unless there's something else you want to say before we conclude. Yes?

[105:01]

Thank you for making the great effort to be here with us today. It was a joy. Everybody helped me. in many ways, and part of the helping was, you're going to do that? And people back at Green Gulch, you know, I had to convince them that I was going to not push myself too hard, so I asked for a bed to lie down, and Oma brought a massage table just the right height, and so I could rest. So I don't think it's hard today. And even though it was not difficult, I still enjoyed it. Usually my one-day sittings here are really hard because I see about 20 people and give two talks and sit 40 periods. It's pretty easy, and I think I won't get in any trouble now, right?

[106:05]

orientation, it will be extended to every being and place. We will marry on the Buddha's way.

[106:23]

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