I remember stories. Some of the stories I remember are about you. Yeah. Like I have stories about you from more than 40 years. I remember stories about me more than 40 years ago. When I remember me, when I remember you, usually I remember a story of you.

[01:12]

You two women used to come to Monday night study of stories. We used to have a class where we studied our family stories and you came. I have a story about you. I remember you through that story. Consciousness is a storytelling space. It's a place storytelling self, a narrative self lives in consciousness. I remember stories, I remember consciousness. I study stories, I study consciousness. And that's another story. I remember that I asked people

[02:28]

I ask Zen students, what's your ultimate concern in life? I ask, what's important in life for you? I remember that I asked that question hundreds, thousands, not yet millions of times. But maybe if I speed up, I'll get to a million. I saw on BBC News that the second oldest person in the world, on the planet, in the United States, it's an old woman. She's 115. She's second oldest. The oldest is 116.

[03:30]

And I thought, well, in that case, I probably don't have more than about five years. So, what do you want to accomplish before you go again? I want to tell stories. The kind of friendship which realizes perfect wisdom. So I wish to cultivate a friendship where I ask people, what is important for you? And from there we go to work. I remember, it seems like 20 years ago, that a young man came to see me and I asked him, what's most important in your life?

[04:38]

What's your ultimate concern? And the young man said, to be held. Not too many young men might say that. I mean, young adult men. Not too many of them might say the most important thing is to be held. But he said that. And then I remember that I said, that wish, that aspiration, is actually in accord with reality. If you wish to be held, what's going on? You are being held, I said to him. longing to be held is longing for reality.

[05:41]

He didn't say, but there's another side to this story. He could have said, I want to hold. If he had said that, I would have said, that is in accord with reality. Now he's 20 years older, I guess, and he has children who I think he's the father of. I don't know if they're 20 years old, but anyway, he's got children. And I imagine, I feel that he holds those children, that he joyfully cares for those children. And those children hold him. This is reality. We hold each other.

[06:48]

I hold you and you hold me. I am held by you and you're held by me. That is Buddha's reality. Wishing for that is wishing for reality. Wishing to realize that is wishing to realize the truth. and realizing this truth is really inconceivably wonderful. Buddhas live in that truth. Buddhas live being held by all beings and holding all beings, by being embraced by all beings and embracing all beings. That's where Buddhas live and that's where we live too. And Buddhas understand that and realize that. And when we understand and realize that, we are happy Buddhas. I regularly go to San Francisco and go and pick up a little girl.

[07:57]

She's tiny. She's about this big. And these days in our enlightened Bay Area, we do not call those who are strong, we do not call them bossy. We call them leaders. So, we have some female leaders Some are not so tiny and some are tiny. I go pick up a tiny one on Tuesdays particularly. I go and I pick her up at daycare. She's gotten used to me coming to visit her. When I first started coming, she said, I don't want granddaddy. I want mommy.

[09:04]

This is what my leader said, I remember. Little by little, my leader accepts me coming to pick her up. Almost happy to see me. And then... I pick her up and put her shoes on. Sometimes she wants to, and then sometimes she... That sometimes happens. I put her into the stroller, and then sometimes she wants to do the lock on the stroller, the seatbelt. And so far she has not been able to do it. So she tries and she tries, and then I said, Do you want me to help? And she said, Yes, please. And then I help her. And she puts her arms in the shoulder straps. And off we go, up the hill, away from the Pacific Ocean. And I'm pushing this stroller.

[10:06]

I'm caring for this, my little leader. I'm holding her and caring for her. But I'm so happy to be And it's not just because I'm caring for her, but the whole world, all of you, the whole Sangha of practitioners supports me, holds me, so I can hold her. The world allows me to take care of my leader. I don't look forward to it. I intentionally do not. And every time it comes, the great happiness being held and holding. This is Buddha's wisdom. This is where we live.

[11:10]

That's a story I just told you. In this room, often we use the Japanese word for this room, zendo, which means zen hall. And we often say that we practice zazen, sitting zen, in this hall. Zazen is our family nickname for inconceivable mutual assistance. Zazen is our family nickname for the reality of holding all beings and being held by all beings.

[12:20]

Come and sit here and practice that. We sit here and embrace all beings and all beings support us to sit here and embrace them. We sit here and we, right now, enter the pure land of Buddha. We enter the realm of wisdom, we enter the realm of peace, and joy, and fearlessness, and freedom. Which is, the freedom is the freedom of the way we help each other. all the time in reality. We practice that here. It's called Zazen, or sitting meditation, or it's also called perfect wisdom. It's also called the Buddha. It's here right now, and if we want to realize it,

[13:28]

It's quite simple. All you have to do is give up everything. Number one, give up everything. I go to pick my leader up. I give up everything to pick her up. So she says, I don't want granddaddy. I've given up everything. No problem. She wants to put the shoes on. I've given up everything. I can assist her in attempting to do so. She wants to put the seatbelt on. I can assist her. So far, she has not been able to, but I can help her. This is Buddha's wisdom, that she supports me. She holds me so that I can help her. in that realm, it's not so much that I'm free, but there's a lot of freedom here.

[14:38]

It's that I'm joyful, but there's joy here. There's fearlessness here. There's courageousness. There is enthusiasm. And if I practice enthusiasm and courageousness, I will be able to let go. And if I let go, I will be enthusiastic about life. What's life? Well, basically, it's a story. And I shouldn't say it's a story, but for me, life is a story. For me, life is you and me. That's a story. My dream is of Buddha's wisdom and Buddha's truth and Buddha's freedom and Buddha's peace. That's my dream. So if I want to remember, the first step is give up everything.

[15:44]

Give up any idea I have about how to take care of my leader. And then Remember the story. Study the story of my leader." So the first step is, in practice of sitting, we give up everything. Next step is we contemplate the story or the stories. Like the story that we're sitting in a meditation hall. or a story of serving our leader. There's many stories of people serving their leader, serving their teacher, and teachers serving their students. There's many stories.

[16:45]

And we contemplate stories of mutual support. After giving everything up, we contemplate stories of mutual support. Stories of our family. Stories of the good friendship in which we realize the truth of good friendship. Study the story of good friendship. The stories of good friendship. And understanding the story of good friendship is most possible if we've given up everything before we start our study If you're taking care of a tiny leader and you're holding on to your idea of how to take care, it will be hard, it will be more difficult to study the story of what's going on in the interaction.

[17:57]

For example, to do something different from what you thought of doing. But if you give up everything, you can listen, you can hear what you think about doing, which you've given up, and you can hear what she is ordering you to do, and then you can do the appropriate thing, which will often be, in my case, to follow the leader's orders. But sometimes not. The leader does not order me to let her go into the street by herself. ...me to do that. She sometimes looks like she's going to try that, and then I have given up everything, hopefully, that's my job, so that I can study the story of being on the sidewalk with my leader who's about to go into the street.

[19:01]

So I say to my leader, I don't say leader, actually. She doesn't know that I consider her my leader. I haven't told her that yet. I say, I usually say, for a ranky or sometimes tiny. And she hears me and I say, if you want to go on the street, you need to hold my hand. And she's, I don't know what happens with her, but anyway, she stops and waits to hold my hand together. And so far that's worked out really well. And one day we were in her clubhouse, which is my car, and she said, hold your hand when we go in the street so the cars won't hurt me.

[20:04]

That's the reason I hold your hand." And I say, yes, I agree. But if I hold the idea of she must hold my hand when I do have that idea, I miss out on the joy of being with her and her being with me. I give up my ideas and therefore the best for both of us is realized, where our mutual ideas lead to a wonderful, inconceivable safety and peace, which allows for major distress to arise. For example, A little while ago, the pantry of her house took out a Cuisinart and brought it out onto the very nice wooden floors and threw the Cuisinart on the ground.

[21:09]

And we, her grandmother and I, said, don't throw it on the floor. You'll hurt the floor. And then she threw it again. She said, don't throw it on the floor. It'll hurt the floor. If you want to throw something, throw something soft on the floor. And she threw herself prostrate on the floor in total distress. It looked like this was the worst thing that has ever happened to anybody. She was wailing and wailing in distress that she was being told to not throw the Cuisinart on hardly onto the floor. And then she snapped out of it and we moved on to other things. Other... She's learning. She has not yet learned. She's learned. I should say she has learned. She's learning how to let go of everything.

[22:12]

And then she gets a little... She gets a taste of it and then we move on. Like one time I was with her and she was... She was... wanting her mommy, her most excellent mommy. And she was crying, and her crying was somewhat angry, and she was crying out for her mommy. She cried so hard she threw up. And she was by that. It's almost like she thought, maybe I'm going too far. It's like, what's this? And she was standing near a window which overlooks the street in front of her house. And so I picked her up and I said, let's pray for mommy. So we sat at the window. Mommy's coming. Mommy's coming. Mommy's coming.

[23:16]

Mommy's coming. We just kept doing that. And she calmed down. And quite quickly, and we were like happily chanting, Mommy's coming, Mommy's coming soon. It will be good when Mommy comes. And then we started watching the cars go by. Is that Mommy's car? No. And we calmed down into being there together. There we were. There was giving up. And there was contemplating the story. And there was entering into Buddha's wisdom. For the moment. And then we move on to the next opportunity. I'm not sure of the background of the following story.

[24:32]

This is a story I think about somebody who was contemplating a story. And the story this person was contemplating was one of the time-honored stories of the Zen tradition. The story has a nickname. The nickname of the story is Bai Zhang's Wild Fox. So this, actually I was talking to a Zen priest, and I didn't ask the background story, but I feel like the Zen priest was talking about this story to some people. The story of Bai Zhang's Wild Fox. And she said, I seem to be surrounded by very smart people who call me to account.

[25:50]

So I got the impression, although I didn't ask, that she told this story about Bai Zhang's wild fox and some very smart people to account for her understanding of the story. And she was challenged, you know. Her study of the story, which she remembered the story, but her study of it she felt was being challenged by these smart people. What does this story mean, I guess they were asking her. Tell us what it means. And then I think she tried, and maybe they said, well, that's really, what about this and what about that? And she was having trouble responding to their very intelligent study of this story, a budget, wild, what? And then she said, wisely, with my support, And I said,

[27:07]

I agree. You requested it. You requested these smart people to be surrounding you and calling you to account. I agree. I guess I'm fortunate to have such good friends who ask me questions about my understanding of the famous story of Bajong's fox. We have family stories and we tell the stories to help each other understand the stories. Understanding the stories, we become free of the stories. Understanding the stories of Buddha's wisdom, we become free of Buddha's wisdom and enter Buddha's wisdom. Understanding our dream of peace and freedom, our story of peace and freedom,

[28:12]

we enter into peace and freedom. But in order to understand the story, we must give up everything and then, together with our friends, study the stories. Traditional stories and daily stories, for example, of our relationship with our leader. Can I go on a little longer? What time is it? Ten till eleven? I remember a story that goes like this. Once upon a time, probably in China, much more than a thousand years ago,

[29:16]

One of our ancestors was named Bai Zhang. Bai Zhang means 100 Zhangs. A Zhang is like, I think it's like a yard. But it might be a foot. 100 times this length is the name of a mountain called Bai Zhang. And there was a disciple of Buddha, who was also called a great teacher who lived on that mountain, and all the teachers who lived on the mountains by the name of the mountain. So Baijong lived on Baijong. The man who lived on Baijong was called Baijong. And he had many students, and every time he gave a Dharma talk like this to In the back of the room, like now there's some people in the back of the room.

[30:31]

In the back of the room there was an old man who always came, who didn't live in the monastery. It was the monks who were residents of the monastery, but a man who didn't live there would come and sit at the back many times and listen to Bai Jiang's talks. One day, after all the other students left, the old man came up to Bai Zhang and said, I'm not a human being. I'm a wild fox. An inconceivable time in the past I was actually the head monk of this mountain. And a student of the Buddha's teaching came to me and said, a highly cultivated being fall into cause and effect or not.

[31:51]

And I said, not fall, not fall. Does a highly cultivated student of the Buddhist teaching fall into karmic cause and effect or not? I said, does not. And as a result of that answer, I have been born 500 times as a fox spirit. The meaning of fox spirit is the kind of spirit that is generated by not studying cause and effect. by ignoring cause and effect.

[33:02]

The ignoring of the cause and effect relationship of our actions, ignoring that gives rise to a fox spirit, a wild fox spirit, which is a very unhappy state. for us to give up everything and contemplate cause and effect. But another way to say it, which I said to this person was, the question could have been asked, does a highly cultivated being fall into storytelling or not? And I said, does not fall into storytelling. Another way to say it is, does a highly cultivated person fall into consciousness where there's a self who's listening to and telling stories?

[34:18]

Consciousness is basically the place of cause and effect, which we can study and learn about. It's a place where we can learn about cause and effect, where we can learn about how stories work, what it's like when we have stories and don't give up everything. So in the realm where we have stories and we do give up everything, we can study the stories. In the realm where we do give up everything, we can study cause and effect. So the person who's appearing like a man but who is enslaved by the fox spirit, by the effects of undervaluing, not honoring, being, says to the teacher, please give me a turning word.

[35:25]

Turn the word to liberate me. So he, the teacher, Bai Zhang, takes the word not falling and turns it into not ignoring. not obscuring. And when he turns not falling into not ignoring, the fox spirit is awakened and liberated. Now I am liberated. Now my karma is resolved. I am free. Thank you very much. Not ignoring can be put positively as studying. Not ignoring cause and effect. Not ignoring the stories of our life can be put positively.

[36:36]

Study the stories of our life. Another way to do this is not obscuring. A highly cultivated person does not obscure cause and effect. In other words, positively, a highly cultivated person illuminates or clarifies cause and effect. Clarification comes from the studying of the stories. And the stories are studied in the context of giving up everything. And giving up everything comes in the context of friendship. We cannot actually give up everything by ourself because we don't live by ourself. Our leaders help us to give up everything.

[37:39]

offers a chance to test, are we ready to give up everything and thus study the story, study the cause and effect of the moment. So part of the dynamic is, does a highly cultivated person fall into cause and effect? I don't say no. It does not fall. Do I say they do fall? I don't say they do fall. A highly cultivated person doesn't fall into the stories of her life, but I don't say that.

[38:42]

And I don't say that they do fall into the stories of their life. I say she studies the stories of her life. And by studying them, she knows that they're stories. She studies the dream of her life. And studying the dream of her life, she's liberated from the dream of her life. But the dream is not destroyed. The story is not eradicated. it is transformed into through letting go and studying what we let go of. So again, we let go of everything and then we study everything that we've let go of.

[39:47]

We let go of everything and we study in the midst of our stories of our life, in the midst of the dreams of our life. We let go of everything and diligently contemplate the story which we have let go of. All day long we're moving through stories, we're moving through dreams, They're available for study. And if we study them thoroughly, we enter into the reality that our stories of this moment are supporting and holding all beings. And all beings are supporting us to have our stories. When we throw the Cuisinart on the floor, not to throw it, and we enter into the story of great, great injustice. Intolerable injustice.

[40:49]

We are supported by our grandparents to have this story. And as we go into the of this story of not being supported to throw the Cuisinart on the floor, we have a chance to enter the reality that we are supporting our grandparents and our grandparents are supporting us to be here on the floor. On the floor, we wake up to Buddha's truth. I dream of Buddhahood. I dream of peace and freedom. And I study my dream In studying my dream, I question my dream. I'm attentive to my dream or the dream. So now people are moving.

[42:15]

Humans are leaving the back of the room. They're probably going to the kitchen to make more Zen stories. And we are supporting them to go to the kitchen. And they are supporting us to stay here. So again, one version of our practice of the Buddha way is give away everything, be totally generous, don't hold on to any stories, and then study the story. Let go of everything and study consciousness, where stories are unfolding. Stories of child care,

[43:19]

Stories of ancestral friendship where Buddhas have realized wisdom. Stories of contemporary friendship of realizing wisdom. Maybe it would be good to tell one more story. And maybe not. How many people want to hear one more story? One, two, three, four. Take your hands down. That's about 50-50. But if I vote for the story, that tips the scales. Okay, here's Fortunately, unfortunately, it's really long.

[44:25]

Once upon a time in the great land of China, there was a woman who became a monk. And she went to study with a monk named Yangshan. Yangshan was one of the great students of Guishan. And Yangshan, guess where Yangshan lived? He lived on Yangshan. Yangshan, Yang means venerate or respect or Yangshan means mountain. It was a mountain called Venerate the Mountains. That's where he lived. And this woman became a monastic in his monastery.

[45:33]

And the time came to choose someone of the guest house, of the guest program. Sometimes this is also translated as business office. Now, Anna's in charge of the guest program, guest house, the business office. Like her, it's like her. We asked her to be head of the guest program. So this woman was asked to be head of the guest program. And all the male monks of the monastery supported her to be in the leadership position. There was a group of Buddhist monks, 17 of them, who decided to make a great pilgrimage together in search of a master.

[46:56]

of a good friend. They were looking for a good friend. Someone who could help them enter into the reality of our life. I'm just struck by, you know, How wonderful it is for 17 young men to get together, to go on a pilgrimage, to find a good friend, a good friend with whom to realize perfect wisdom. What a rare thing these days for 17 young men to go on such a trip. But not totally unreal. I mean, sometimes maybe 17 young men get together and go off into the mountains. to realize the truth, like climb Mount Everest or something, in hopes of realizing at Everest that they support the whole world and the whole world supports them.

[48:05]

That's what it may take for some young men. But some other young men maybe go to different Buddhist monasteries. So they came to Yangshan, And they started climbing Yangshan. And the guest house was in the lower part of the mountain. So in China, Buddhist monasteries are called mountains. And usually they're often on mountains if mountains were available. And there are a lot of mountains available in China. So they would build the monasteries on the mountains so that people would have to make an effort to get up there. They wouldn't just sort of accidentally wind up there. They would climb. They would go to where there were mountains and they would climb up to meet the great and to practice with the great communities, to realize great compassion.

[49:06]

So this female, this nun, was in charge of the guest house. So as they came up the hill, They came to the guest house. They were accommodated and stayed at the guest house, which was under the leadership of this nun whose name is Miaoxin. Miaoxin, which means wondrous or inconceivable mind. So she was staying in the guest house and they were staying in the guest house and at night while they were resting, they were discussing Buddhist stories. They were studying stories.

[50:10]

I'm telling you a story about monks in China who are studying And one of the stories they were studying was a story about the sixth ancestor of Zen. The sixth ancestor of Zen, before he became the sixth ancestor of Zen, he was already enlightened. And he was traveling from his place of enlightenment. He was traveling to meet his teacher. And he was staying in a monastery.

[51:12]

And the monks in the monastery were discussing the story a flag and the story they were discussing was, what's your story about the flag? So the flag was there up on the top of the pole and it was flapping. Is the flag doing the flapping or is it the wind doing the flapping? which is doing, they're studying cause and effect. What's your story about that flag fluttering so brilliantly in the blue sky? And one group of monks said, it's the flag that's flapping. The other group said, it's the wind that's flapping. And the sixth ancestor who was not yet the sixth ancestor said, it's the mind that's flapping.

[52:19]

It's cause and effect that's flapping. It's the story. He said it's the mind. I'm elaborating. It's cause and effect that's flapping. It's stories that are flapping. It's And those monks were impressed by this person who said that. And they kind of asked him to be their teacher. But he said, see you later. I'm going to find my teacher. I just wanted to tell you a story that that story may not be told correctly. I'm not sure at what point in his career he has happened, but I think it was before he became recognized as the sixth ancestor. And if I... I'll go check that after the talks, remember? These monks were talking about that story and discussing it with each other, and the head of the guest house could hear them.

[53:30]

Maybe they were boisterously discussing the story, and she could hear them. And the way the story is told is that all their understandings were completely inadequate, were no good at all. And she heard them and she said out loud, some of her attendants were there, something like, these 17 monks have worn out many straw sandals in vain. So in China, the monks wore straw sandals. And as they went on their pilgrimages, they would wear them out. She said they've worn out. They come all the way from Shu. They came from Shu to Yangshan.

[54:33]

Shu, by the way, is the ancient word for Sichuan. They came from the to the eastern part of China and they wore out these sandals in vain. They don't understand that story at all. She said, what a bunch of blind donkeys. And her attendant went and told them what the head of the guest house, said. And rather than being offended or insulted, they received that, put on their formal monk's clothes, and went to her, offered incense, and bowed to her as a formal way of asking her to be their teacher. to be their good friend, to help them understand the story.

[55:47]

To help them understand their consciousness and liberate them. And she said, come closer. And they came closer. And as they were coming closer, she said, it's not the flag. It's not the wind. It's not the mind. And they all realized reality. They all woke up. And thus became her disciples. And they said, thank you very much. And they went back to Sichuan. They never finished climbing up the mountain to meet the great master, Yangshan, who was Miao Shan's teacher. Yangshan was Miao Shan's good friend. She was their good friend.

[56:49]

And their pilgrimage was a success. And they took Yangshan and Miao Shan's... friendship back to Western China. So we must give up everything and study and then we'll be free of everything. And in order to give up everything we need to be good friends to each other and support each other to give up everything and study everything. And if we can give up everything and study everything, we can be good friends to each other to support us giving up everything and studying everything. A story of the practice of the Buddha way. And by the way, I forgot one line that Miaoxin said about these monks.

[57:56]

She said, they don't even dream, dream of the Buddha's teachings. Having a dream of Buddhist teaching is fine. We usually need a dream of Buddhist teaching. But they didn't even have a dream. They needed a dream. And then she showed them how to give up everything. and enter into the dream of the dream and become free of the dream of Buddhist teaching and realize Buddhist teaching. She taught them that. Once again, give up everything, enter into reality.

[59:03]

And be a good friend to everybody and let everybody be a good friend to you because we need friendship in order to realize, in order to be able to give up everything, we need friends to support us to give up everything. We cannot do it without the support And so we have a dream of friendship with the friends we can dream of to support us to enter the inconceivable friendship which is actually reality. Here's a song from younger days which I like. I like the song. I hope you do too. I remember you. You're the one who made my dreams come true a few moments ago.

[60:08]

I remember you. You're the one who said, I love you too. I do, didn't you know? I remember too a distant bell and stars that fell like rain out of the blue. When my life is through, And the angels ask me to recall the thrill of them all. Well, I will tell them I remember. Tell them I remember. Tell them I remember you.

[61:17]

May our intention...

[61:25]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_91.93