I'm not trying to increase the number of signups for Doksan, they're just about right, I can keep up pretty well so far, and still be able to sit almost half the day, so they're just about right for me. However, I just want to make clear that when I said the other day this thing about you bring your worst to a psychotherapist and you bring your best to a spiritual teacher, maybe Doksan you bring your worst and your best, and in between don't worry about it too much, that's up to you, but definitely you should check in with somebody at the worst time, when you're just about ready to give up, that's a good time to go talk to somebody, and when you think you don't have any more problems, that's another good time to talk

[01:01]

to somebody. Also, is Kathy Cook, did she leave? Yeah, there's someone with a vision. Hm? Yeah, there's someone with a vision. Well, she wrote some poems when she was here, and she came and read them to me, and one of them she called, Canyon Spring Lethal, I think that's what it said, and when I heard it I thought, Doksan, green calls to new green over the noisy bubble, over the noisy bubble of this rock filled stream.

[02:04]

Green calls to new green over this noisy bubble, rock stream, rock filled, rock filled stream. So I'd like to continue today a little bit more on the sixth ancestor of Zen, and a little further comment on the, on those two verses, the one verse, what is it, the body is the Bodhi tree, the mind is the bright mirror stand, make every effort to keep it clean and don't let dust collect. One of the versions of the Platform Sutra said that this was going to be, this was put on

[03:27]

the wall in an area where they were planning to put some kind of pictorial representations of the Lankavatar Sutra, and they decided to leave the poem there, so it kind of displaced the Lankavatar Sutra, and in a sense, this poem is a little bit more in line with the Lankavatar Sutra. The Lankavatar Sutra is almost entirely psychological content, has almost no imagery in it, it's about the mind, it's the Mahayana, Mahayana Abhidharma, and as you notice from Huineng's poem, and also the fact that he was originally enlightened from hearing the Diamond Sutra

[04:33]

and at the time of the transmission of the Dharma, the fifth ancestor transmitted the teaching of the Diamond Sutra to him also, that we associate the lineage of the fifth patriarch to Huineng with the Diamond Sutra. In these two Sutra lineages, the Lankavatar and the Prajnaparamita texts are the two main streams of Mahayana. And actually the Prajnaparamita texts come first. Although when they're ranked in terms of philosophical hierarchy, the Prajnaparamita texts are put in a more ultimate position, because in fact all the psychological teachings

[05:41]

wind up to be empty, and insubstantial too. The teaching of mind only is also just a teaching of mind only, and it's empty. So, although historically, the Prajnaparamita texts and the teaching of the emptiness school of Nagarjuna occurred first, and then later came the Yogacara and the Lankavatara. In terms of actual psychological experience and then insight into it, it's the reverse, because if you approach psychological material without understanding of emptiness, there will be some problem. So, the Sutra school, which has come to be more associated with Zen and people's minds, doesn't exclude this Lankavatara teaching, but rather puts the Prajnaparamita teaching first, and then comes the Lankavatara teaching.

[06:42]

So, in all Zen monasteries, I think probably they chant the Heart Sutra, and the Lankavatara Sutra, or the Mahayana Abhidharma and Theravada Abhidharma, are things that Zen students study after that. In other words, in accordance with historical, natural historical development of a person. But that's the reverse of the hierarchy. So, you study the ultimate first, and then you study what you might call the compensation for it, or the compensation for the ultimate, or the coming back to the world, which is sometimes called, first you study, in Zen, first you study the profound, then you study the magnificent. Does that make sense?

[07:47]

No? Not to you? What? What is the Lotus Sutra? Lotus Sutra is emptiness text, it's the Prajnaparamita text. Yes? Well, in the Abhidharma class you were saying that most of us probably need to do some psychological work before we can actually begin. Well, this is the impression I got from that class, and it seems kind of the opposite of what you're saying now. We begin first to practice, and then... Well, you have to do and have enough psychological sophistication, for example. You have to have enough psychological sophistication, for example, to be able to be aware of your feelings. You have to have enough psychological awareness to be aware of your feelings enough so that they don't become a screen or an obstruction to your sitting still. If your feelings are happening and you don't know what they are, then you'll be upset about

[08:57]

But if you understand what feelings you have, then you can calm down. Does that make sense to you? Well, kind of, but it seems like if you understand that if you practice, if you just practice with knowing what your feelings are or not, that that would be first instead of having... Everybody here is practicing, so everybody here has that basic psychological... Is that what you're saying? We're all okay? I mean, we all have an understanding of our feelings? No, I didn't say that. I did say you're all okay, but not everybody here is aware of their own feelings all the time. No, that's not true. I'm not. What I'm saying is, if you have, for example, a painful feeling and you don't know it, okay,

[10:03]

then you can't concentrate. For example, sometimes if you're talking to somebody or sometimes if I'm talking to somebody, if I have to use the toilet, but I don't know I have to use the toilet, I can't concentrate on the conversation. But once I realize I have to use the toilet, then I can concentrate on the conversation. And one of the first things I might say would be, excuse me, I have to go to the toilet. But before I realize that what's distracting me from the conversation is this pressure in my bladder, I just sort of, I'm there, but I'm not really paying attention to what's going on because I'm not aware of my feelings. But as soon as I'm aware of my feelings, I'm immediately more present. Okay? And some of us are sometimes aware of those feelings and sometimes we're not. If we're aware of them, they don't harass us. They're just feelings. If we're not aware of them, they really push us around. Same with emotions and other things. If you're aware of them, you can calm down with them. If you're not aware of them, you're their slave.

[11:04]

So that's psychological work. Yes, and you have to do that before you can calm down. Okay? And you have to calm down before then you can turn around and look at those feelings and look at those emotions and look at those conceptions and realize that they're empty. Okay? Once you realize they're empty, then you can go back and now study the psychological stuff again, but having realized emptiness. So the Zen way, as I've talked about before, is go down fast and come up slow. So you go down, I don't know where, maybe down to hell, and you get your emptiness flashlight. And then you come back up the cave and you shine your flashlight on all the stuff as you come up. But you come up slowly because you shine your light on all the different phenomena. And you understand, ah, empty, [...] empty. You go through all the vast complexities of your psyche with your little emptiness fire.

[12:09]

Which you realize on one thing originally. You have insight on some one little feeling or one little color or one little experience of seeing. On some concrete phenomenal event you realize emptiness. And you use that realization then to wash or penetrate all phenomena, which is a slow coming up. Okay? But in order to go down, in order to develop your drill, which is your concentration practice, you have to do some psychological work in order just to sort of, well, just like a good drilling, you know. You know, it's the same example. If you have to go to the toilet and you start drilling, you can't concentrate on drilling. You're half there, you know. Then if you go to the toilet and come back, you can go to work. Okay? So it's not a black and white situation. You do psychological work at this level. And then you can concentrate. And you take that concentration down, down, down, down to the bottom.

[13:12]

And realize emptiness of something, whatever is happening at that moment when you get to the bottom. And you take that realization of emptiness and you come back up through stuff. But it's very slow coming up because when you went down you were just sort of working on concentration. All the stuff that was flying by you are coming up. You didn't stop and say, you know, what's that? What's that? You just kept coming back. Drill. So you can go down pretty fast that way. But coming up, now there's no problem. Got a flashlight? Don't have to worry about these demons. You can shine your light on them. What? Ghostbusters, right? On the way down we're not ghostbusters. We're chickens. We're chickens with our head in the ground. But you can't really concentrate if you don't recognize some of your feelings to some extent. For example, if you run to the Zen Dojo and leave your kerosene lamps on, or you don't really check whether they're off or not, you can't really concentrate.

[14:16]

You have to go back. I mean, please, go back. If you're not sure, go back. Or if you leave your kid without a babysitter, you shouldn't concentrate. You should make sure you have a babysitter. So that level of psychological work you have to do. It's called casting aside worldly affairs. But you don't cast aside your psyche. Not straight off. That's pretty hard. You have to realize emotions before you can cast off your psyche. Okay? That make sense now? Yeah. I'm just thinking about positional issues. Pardon? Want to retire being what? Would that be you? Maybe so.

[15:19]

Maybe the Prajnaparamita is female and the Mantra Star is male. I don't know. But anyway, yeah, you have to take up a board with the Prajnaparamita. Check out with the Prajnaparamita. Let me check out. Excuse me. What? What? Well, it's wisdom is usually considered female. The deity, the Prajnaparamita deity is a feminine deity. And from the male point of view, the way wisdom acts is like men think women act. Very complex, subtle, elusive. Won't just sit there and let you have it. But also, you know, you get into the game too. And also in Greek teaching, wisdom is personified as a female goddess, Athena.

[16:19]

And again, if you look at that dialogue between Odysseus and Athena when he gets back home, it's very subtle and tricky and they're both trying to deceive each other. Pull tricks on each other. But they love it. Okay? Yeah. You feel you need to be thoroughly familiar with your psyche in order to what? You need to really walk around in this structure. Well... Yeah, right. Some people have to do it that way. And there's other kinds of Buddhism, like Tibetan Buddhism is more that way. Tantric Buddhism is more that way. You have...

[17:21]

But I... In other words, as they go down into emptiness, not they, but anyway, that method, it's not really Tibetan Buddhism, it's more... It's actually what you might call a Dharmakaya method or a Sambhogakaya method. The more Sambhogakaya method is going down slowly. As you go down, check things out as you go down. Give more attention to the imagery and the symbolism of things as you go down. And so you go down much more slowly. But once you get to the bottom, you come up fast because you've already done all the work. So that's another approach. It's going down slowly. And some people, given a certain type of psychic structure, that's better, to go down more slowly. And... You don't quite realize emptiness until you get to the bottom still. But you need, in order to avoid repression, you need to go more slowly and give them more attention as you go down. That's another method. But, again, what I say is a typical picture of Zen,

[18:25]

as presented by the Sixth Patriarch, is Prajnaparamita first, and then Lankavatara Sutra, or first go down and then bring in all the complexity, once you've realized emptiness. Some people can go down very fast, without a deep understanding. They just understand enough so that it's not obstructing their concentration practice. And then they use that concentration practice to burrow down to the bottomlessness of things. Then they do their psychology. They have to do it too, but they do it second. Other people do the psychological work first. That's the Northern School. The Southern School of Hoi Nam is just sudden. And then, after you suddenly get to the bottom, you spend many years integrating that insight. The Northern School is more gradual. And you sort of polish for a long time. Down, down, down, slowly. Then when you get to the bottom, you're practically done. You're practically good. But some people in Zen get to the bottom in weeks.

[19:30]

I mean, well, you know, they look like they do anyway. Their first session, they break through somehow. They get enough concentration. So they break through in their first session. But they're still, you know, I don't know what to say. They're okay too. But they're, you know, very mature. All their habits are completely intact. They haven't changed at all. Except they've had this insight. They spend many years cultivating that insight and spreading it out through their life. So different types of people. So there's two methods. I'm just saying that the typical picture of the Southern School is this rapid drop to the bottom and slow integration. And the Northern School is often can be pictured as a slow going down and then to wrap it up. Okay. And so each of us may fall to continue, I guess. We may fall somewhere. Somewhere in that continuum.

[20:38]

Maybe not completely over on one side or the other. But some days, maybe. Maybe some days you're Southern School. Maybe some days you're Northern School. Maybe you're generally the Northern School. Okay. Yes. Pardon? Or just converted? Um. Well, we say you just drop it. Just dropped off. And dropped off means everything's enlightened. Including the psyche. Speaking of which, I just wanted to mention this image that has been haunting me, a demon. I want to exercise it for myself. Because saying to myself doesn't seem to work for Andrew. I've seen, somebody gave me this

[21:40]

this thing about this guy named Kobori Roshi, who Paul studied with in Japan. He said, Chinese Zen is a strange, I think maybe dragon, that has a Taoist body, Confucian feet, and Buddhist eyes. And I was thinking, well, I don't know, in a hundred years from now, I don't know if they'll call this school, if it's still around. Or two hundred years from now. But they might say it's a, I don't know what animal you want to say, but I think what animal. A dragon's good, because you can put a lot of different stuff on a dragon. But I thought you could still have the Taoist body if you want. And I don't know what kind of feet. And you could still have the Buddhist eyes, but maybe you'd have a Christian heart and a Jewish stomach. And a Greek psyche. American tennis shoes. Yeah.

[22:40]

The feet are American know-how. And the tennis shoes are made in Korea. I don't know if they'll still call that Zen, though. This particular school has been absolutely fascinating. Yeah. The yoga's in the eyes, too. Okay, well, that's enough review. I'd like to get into a little bit of the essential or main teachings of the ancestor here. Where he says, first of all, the first thing he says, basically, well, not necessarily the first thing he says, period. And that is, this basic teaching, which is that everybody's perfect, but they don't know it. Because, because of their opinion. That they're not okay. And to their attachments

[23:44]

to not being okay. Because it's so much fun to play with not being okay. Okay. That's the first thing he says. The second thing he says is, my teaching of the Dharma takes concentration and wisdom as its basis. And Dao Shin says, Bodhisattvas know that the Tathagata teaches emptiness and tranquility as the basis. The two different ways of saying it. Wisdom and concentration or emptiness and tranquility. Or emptiness and concentration. If I say those two together,

[24:44]

if I put those two teachings together, then I'm saying emptiness and wisdom are the same. Wisdom Wisdom is no other than emptiness. But neither is emptiness. So maybe that's confusing. Never under any circumstances, never, [...] never say that concentration and wisdom are different. They are a unity, not two things. Concentration itself is the substance of wisdom. Wisdom itself is a function of meditation or concentration. This word substance

[25:46]

could also be said to be body. Concentration is the body of wisdom and wisdom is the function of concentration. At the very moment when there is wisdom, concentration exists in wisdom. At the very moment when there is concentration, wisdom exists in concentration. Good friends, this means that meditation and wisdom are alike. Students should be careful not to say meditation gives rise to wisdom or wisdom gives rise to meditation or that meditation and wisdom are different from each other. To hold this view implies duality. So another way

[26:52]

to say this, which I think might be helpful to us, is that emptiness or maybe stillness, sitting still, is the substance of emptiness. Sitting still is the body of emptiness and emptiness is the function of sitting still. Stillness itself is the substance of emptiness. Emptiness is the function of stillness. So someone asked me, you know, what does mindfulness of posture and breathing have to do with sitting still? Emptiness and having no objects

[27:52]

of thought and that kind of thing. Sometimes in sessions I feel bad to feel kind of like I'm sticking our noses down in the dirt to make us meditate. You know, just keep emphasizing concentration. Get down on the ground and look at the dirt rather than lofty topics of Zen Buddhism. Because I think there is some feeling among some of us like this concentration just to sit and be mindful of your posture, just to keep working on your posture hour after hour in pain and tired and all that stuff. It seems like dirt work, shit work. Then we get to the good stuff.

[28:52]

Well, complete stillness sets up the possibility of witnessing the first movement of thought. It sounds like polishing your hair. Oh. Well, you said that's the dirt work when you're shoveling off all the dirt to... Definitely not. Don't shovel any of the dirt away. We're down in the dirt. Just quick fix right flat in the dirt and just keep the dirt there. That's what I'm talking about. And then right down in the dirt you'll see a little worm will stick up. Now, don't clear the dirt away. If you clear the dirt away

[29:55]

you won't see the first movement of mind. Definitely not. No. This is to go down in the dirt right down there by the dirt line there and wait and watch there. And then something will happen. Something will move. Right there. And that thing that moves will be a movement that there wasn't a movement before it. You got down to the end of movement and then something moved. You catch the first movement right down in the dirt. But you need the dirt. If you took the dirt away there wouldn't be any movement. Okay? Yeah. Before the movement or something? Oh, no.

[31:13]

It's not a thought. Not necessarily. More questions before I respond more? At the same time? Pardon? Okay, so a big part of what I'm talking about is actually to see something which you usually don't see as thought as thought. That's what this first movement can be. For example you're sitting there and maybe you're looking at the floor. It isn't that the floor moves but

[32:18]

that the mind moves. But the movement of the mind is simply the floor. And you see that the floor is your mind moving. But the movement is not that the floor is moving or really that the mind is moving but simply that the floor is moving. That you separate the mind from the floor. And you see the floor. Just before that there was no movement. In other words the part of the mind which is aware of things was united with the part of the mind which can be an object like the floors sounds. When there's stillness there's unity. And the active part of the mind that can be aware

[33:18]

of the passive part of the mind they're united. And then when suddenly there's a sound which is separated at that point you see that that sound is the mind. And that's the movement of the mind. The mind moves and it recognizes the sound. However you see that the sound is not sound it's the mind. And you realize that the sound is mind when the mind first moves and says hey this is something separate from itself. So as it emerges from the oneness you realize that. Dr. Robinson's question. It may not be shoveling or detergent polishing here but it certainly sounds like a goal. A what? A goal. It sounds to me like if I sit long enough correcting my posture or watching my body and breath that someday I will experience this physical movement. And I think we're going to continue in that shape. Do you like to practice that way?

[34:24]

Right now I'd like to practice just sitting doing that shit work. Right? Right now I'd like to just continue sitting doing the shit work without thinking that I need to see this first movement of my body. Well then it's not shit work. Well I can see like that's where you disagree. No. See remember I brought this up by saying you may wonder some people ask me what does this have to do with this good stuff? Okay? That's the origin of this thing, right? Of the connection between this concentration work and this insight work. I'm showing that relationship. I'm coming from them being separate. I'm trying to show the relationship. But you don't have to make them separate. You can say not that what you're doing is shit work you can say that you're sitting is itself see another thing that the Quang Nam says is they're not separate, right? The sitting you're doing is enlightenment. It's not a

[35:30]

there's no goal to it. It is the goal. Okay? It's not shit work. It is Buddha work. Alright? It's not shit work. You're already in the family. You're doing Buddha work. But some people who are doing Buddha work say what is this work I'm doing here have to do with meditation on emptiness that I'm hearing about or having no objects of thought. Right? So you want to know the relationship between this Buddha work you're doing and these things we're talking about then I show the relationship. But as soon as I show the relationship then we get into a goal. Because what you're doing will also set up the realization of the Buddha work not only is Buddha work itself but it also sets up the realization of it being Buddha work. It not only is enlightenment but it can cause

[36:31]

it causes enlightenment. It's the effect and the cause depending which way you look at it. So if you don't want to look at it as cause then look at it as effect. But the question comes from someone who is asking about how is just sitting there suffering away working on my posture how is that related to these effects I hear about like meditation on emptiness realization of emptiness having no objects of thought. Okay? So in that sense I'm explaining a relationship. When there's a relationship when does a cause affect a relationship? But I think you right now would like to practice from the point of view of effect that you're doing the effect rather than the cause. But I still say that it's probably good if even if you're practicing from the point of view of effect if you understand the cause if once you understand for example that the you may hear

[37:31]

from other Buddhists say well first you concentrate and then you realize emptiness so then say well I'm just doing concentration. So it's good to understand how the concentration practice you're doing is really meditation on emptiness. But after you understand that then I would say forget about it and don't be sitting there doing your concentration practice saying well actually this is really meditation on emptiness this is really enlightenment. After you understand it you should definitely do well to forget it. Before you understand it it's good to remember it. Understand? When I took mathematics a professor did a proof on the board and somebody said I don't understand he said Leibniz says if you don't understand memorize it. So

[38:33]

if you don't understand that the sitting you're doing here is enlightenment itself and enlightenment is the sitting you're doing if you don't understand that then memorize it. And keep telling yourself that what you're doing is enlightenment until you do understand it. And then some people are going to come along like me and tell you a little bit about how they're how that's so. But what if you do understand then forget it then you forget the teaching that they're the same and you forget the understanding of how you see that they're the same and you forget the experience that showed you that they're the same and then just go back and do it. Because once you forget you can always remember again once you understand. But if you hold on to it after you understand you're wrong. I had this image of what you saw of the sitting there correcting the posture watching the breath and eventually the bell rang and a voice said

[39:34]

we're all across to the shore now. You can keep sitting. Now you can really keep sitting. Now you don't have to worry anymore that maybe you're wasting your time or that you should be doing something better. Now you are doing something better. How is that like it doesn't exactly speak for the usefulness of the method here's the great fifth patriarch with a thousand monks working away and none of them apparently realize we have a wild cart coming in and realizing it without having done any of the formal practices. I'm

[40:51]

sorry to say folks although it has maybe a Christian heart and a Jewish stomach it doesn't necessarily uphold the Protestant and in the hierarchy you know of students of course those who are enlightened and have understanding and practice are the best they're most like Buddha but those who aren't enlightened and practice are junior to those who are enlightened and don't practice but still Huinan was already enlightened when he arrived right and he was pounding rice out there the pounding is sitting but again sitting is not when Huinan teaches sitting sitting for him has nothing to do

[41:53]

with the posture of the body he doesn't say anything about the posture of the body all the way through the lotus the platform he doesn't say anything about crossing your legs except maybe to say you shouldn't you know do that he doesn't give postural instructions he's speaking about sitting in a different way the way he's speaking about sitting sitting means that outwardly there are no thoughts there are no thoughts outwardly which means there's no outward there's nothing out there that's not out there you know I'm not out there I'm your mind that's what sitting means he was already doing that when he heard the Diamond Sutra the Diamond Sutra said give rise to a thought that doesn't

[42:54]

depend on any objects and he did he walked in there already not seeing anything as an object he didn't see the ancestor as an object he didn't see the community as an object therefore he didn't know he couldn't talk and say whatever he wanted to he thought it was all his mind and he was happy to jab her away he had already realized what sitting really was sitting cross-legged the way we're doing it here is an expedient device and after you're awakened it's a celebration of your awakening where confessation is a celebration of our awakening and if you don't understand that memorize it or believe it and if you do understand it well then celebrate it but that still doesn't address his point you don't think

[43:54]

it does I think it does he doesn't think I addressed his point because that's not the way she would have you address it you know he's saying that the a thousand disciples working away a boy practicing this method and then somebody without training or practice walks in with a deeper understanding he had the result of the practice he was a Buddha already and he was more advanced than them doesn't mean he didn't do the practice he did it already he didn't do it the way they did it he wasn't a monk even but he had what they were heading for but it doesn't exactly make a case for doing what those thousand monks were doing I think is the question as we still do it some people

[44:57]

have to practice faith they were practicing faith they were demonstrating their faith in the teaching by doing that practice but they didn't have the realization of why not right it's exactly that case that doesn't exactly foster faith into the practice what? it's exactly that story that doesn't exactly foster faith in the practice I think the point is that you know Manoing probably was very lucky other times he would have been locked up right away it's to walk around with that kind of understanding with much training and cultivation you're likely to get in trouble too to walk around with that kind of mind without training and cultivation that goes along with it without practice yes

[45:58]

he is in other circumstances he probably would have gotten into troubles like he could I know a few people who I think had pretty deep experiences and got into nuts houses yeah well he was already in a little bit of trouble because he already had a big congregation around before he went to the fifth patriarch's place right he already had lots of disciples before he even went there which wasn't conducive to his development at that point right so he was already a little bit but he managed to spot it and leave yeah well that's sort of mild trouble if you're the head of the congregation even though you may be somewhat limited but I know stories of you know worse stories than that well that really they were getting very confused and people would think that they are very confused in modern time

[47:01]

we describe it in the psychosis and things like that people go around like the one straw revolution and just any recognition of any way of figuring out what actually is going on well he this guy we're talking about he was still he didn't get too far off did he because he even could see that he that he was kind of resting not resting but stalled so he didn't really get much trouble and even after the transmission he was still in danger he wasn't quite ready so he had to hide some more so anyway I guess you're making a point that the story that we just went over you think does not foster faith in the practice that they were doing there under the fifth ancestor well it could be

[48:01]

viewed that way yes well we don't want to foster the practice that they were doing under the fifth ancestor do we because it didn't work we want to foster the practice that the sixth ancestor did that's the fun word foster so you people should go out and live in the street for all we know the work of the thousand monks could have been the cause of Huainan's effect didn't you also say that it seems to me like we're getting a little seventh school propaganda didn't you also say that Shin Shui was also a very prominent teacher of Huainan so maybe we're not getting the right story yeah but even if we are even if we're not getting the right story okay still let's not

[49:02]

let's not be defensive of the fifth patriarch let's call him a bad teacher of a thousand people and a good teacher of one that's possible but in fact the the story of Huainan going into hiding for a while and being obscurity for ten years reflects and also that the the fifth patriarch said Shin Shui is really good he said that to everybody that reflects also the fact that Shin Shui was phenomenally successful as a teacher in the north he was the most renown Buddhist teacher in the whole country it's just that in later generations his disciples got cut down by certain henchmen from Huainan which we of course are very ashamed of we have some gangsters in our lineage yes it seems to me that all these stories can be pretty discouraging

[50:02]

and this one in particular but and so anyway it seems like a good idea to think that we all came to Huainan that there was a start something came up that started us to practice so in those ten years of hiding we didn't have this to show it just seems like we aren't so separate from Huainan because something came up that we knew about practicing it may not have been the same but it's okay it may be just a story of Huainan which you can see oh I'm Huainan you know that's my story too you mean before we heard that story before we heard that story we it seems

[51:06]

dull to think that Huainan was the only person that did it right and there were a thousand or more people that came out of the monastery and practiced during the time that they all a thousand were practicing one practice that was wrong it seems odd that that the patriarch himself immediately recognized the attainment of Huainan and therefore it seems that he would be had a sense of that kind of what it looked like and therefore would be teaching in some way or at least in the personal chemistry at that point so we don't know the political contingency and circumstances at that time in that monastery it's a romantic

[52:07]

story when Huainan comes from the outside it's kind of like Jesus going away coming back all of this and it's attractive to the imagination and so on but to draw the conclusion that this is one person that is somehow recognized and therefore has in somehow some special way separate and different from thousands of other people we don't know this and I'm more of a mind that many of those monks and many people all over China and all over the world have similar ideas but they're not very interesting to talk about but it's a good story it's a good story and it's a good story and in fact my I like it I've always liked the story

[53:07]

but I don't trust the conclusion that there was a monk teaching a class in the monastery and I think that that part doesn't need to be there but it's a good point I'll keep it one parallel that occurs to me is Hongren himself was originally enlightened and he met Daoxin who recognized that he his name was Bridge of Nature so I wonder how he wasn't recognizing him the story pointing in the same phenomenon somebody who was originally enlightened but didn't come up to the literature well also that when the fourth ancestor met the fifth ancestor and the fifth ancestor was seven years old you see that the fifth ancestor when he was seven years old was actually just a reborn practitioner right so

[54:09]

again you know it's when did our practice start where do you calculate the beginning of it and all that stuff so it's yeah well he didn't exactly teach Zen he just he did go and study Sufism for a while I don't know what he did when he was with the hunters but he wasn't teaching he ate meat he ate meat yeah I don't know what he did then but anyway at a certain point he he he went to a Buddhist temple

[55:11]

and he started talking to people there and what they were talking about he found interesting he had some ideas about it and they thought he was had a really good take on it so then they said hey this guy this person and this person understands really well so he started studying with them and they were Buddhists and finally he got ordained as a Buddhist became a Buddhist priest took the Buddhist precepts he could have taught something else though but he lived in a Buddhist country that sort of was his situation it's just a causal nexus it seems like for some of us this deep into this session it's on the one hand we're very psychologically susceptible and

[56:14]

on the other we made a lot of effort so it's easy to get to sort of glom onto the aspect of this story that says a lot of effort no effort it doesn't matter if you're there or you're not you know and to say of course this is useless because you either come out enlightened and get recognized when you're seven or it happens when you're on the street and it seems like a big mistake to glom onto any story but that maybe well for myself in terms of the effort and the significance of the effort I get a lot more out of the other story than one about the second patriarch standing there in the snow with his severed arm saying I can't pacify my mind help me you just said

[57:19]

it doesn't seem good to glom onto some story okay and I would suggest to you it is good to glom onto some story the reason why I suggest you do that is because you do glom onto stories human beings glom onto stories you can't avoid it okay so consciously glom onto a story please there's many stories you can choose from one of my favorites is the body it's a story glom onto it the breath it's just a story glom onto it thoughts the story of the second ancestor the story of plane nine pick a story glom onto it because if you don't glom onto one on purpose it's going to glom onto you from the back and it's going to be a demon and you're just going to run around in circles so consciously glom onto a story and that glomming will be your salvation

[58:22]

that conscious glomming maybe we got a cliché

[58:32]

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