Well, we, in this class, got to case 31 of this book last summer, and we worked on that case more during So Shin. And that is the case where, you know, where the great teacher, Yun Man, I think he said to his group, the Buddha communes with the pillar. What kind of situation is this? What kind of level of mental activity is this, is sometimes the way they translate it. What kind of psychic functioning is this? But the situation could also be, so what level of attainment what kind of a function is this?

[01:02]

And so that was the case. And that case is a case that there's considerable psychological interpretation that could have been made, but we didn't make. We didn't get into. It's not a case... where one sees a direct technique, meditation technique being offered. And yet we worked with it. The next case, case 32, starts out with an actual traditional meditation technique being offered. And also a lot of psychological teaching is embedded in this case. And, you know, it might take this whole class to even just sort of get into this case.

[02:19]

It's very complex. There's a tremendous amount of material in this story. And so, following the... the kind of language of Heidegger, I think that there has to be kind of like quite a bit of table setting going on before we can have the feast of this case. It's going to take quite a while to set the table. And, you know, I was thinking now, once this table is set and we start eating, about that time I think Green Gulch is going to start a practice period in the middle of October. and a whole new wave of people are going to come into here. I don't know how many of them are going to join this class or what, I can't predict it. So I kind of would like you people that are in here that are taking this class, I'd like you to really learn this case so you can teach the new people that come what's going on. Because they won't be able to catch up unless you help them a lot.

[03:21]

I'll try to give them some remedial courses. But I think this case is really important in the book, partly because for some reason or other, I've spent a lot of time on it myself. It's really somehow a wonderful, wonderful case. So I think if we study this, I think we're all going to go through quite a bit studying this story. I ask you to be really thorough about your study and be patient with your own mind that's going to be happening in relationship to this case as you study it. I'm also going to go back to Case 31. In the process of studying this case, I'm going to go back to Case 31 and show you how that relates to this case.

[04:26]

I'm not going to tell you about how 31 relates by going back to 31. I'm going to bring it up as we get into this case more. That's my plan at this point. Are there some people in here who are not going to take this class? Who are just visiting for the night? No? There are some people who are just visiting. How many are just visiting for the night? You're just going to be here for one night? Okay, so here are copies of this text for those of you who need it.

[05:37]

Oh, also I want to tell you that if you're taking the class, we have copies of the book, the whole book of Serenity, which you can check out with Pat or Maya. You still have some copies, right? So if you want a copy of the whole book to use while you're in the class, you can get a copy from Pat or Maya. If you just want this case... I'll give you the copy of this case. How many people want just a copy of the case? Is that all? Everybody else wants the book? Oh, you already have the book? They already have the case. Oh, you have to give me that back. Can I do one test? Yeah, it's coming, isn't it? It's coming. Anybody else need one? You can get a book if you want.

[06:41]

And when you get a book, you can give that back. Is there another one needed back there? Yeah, there's another one. One more? Want one more? So there's some new people in here. And the way this book is composed, the way it's put together was a Zen teacher whose name is Tiantong.

[07:47]

Tiantong Hongzhi. He was an abbot of a mountain called Tiantong in China. He, at some point in his life, collected his 100 stories. And then he wrote a verse to celebrate each story, to both praise the story and to express his understanding or his joy over the story. So then there was a little book of 100 stories with 100 verses. Then about 50 years later, another Zen teacher, closely related to him, wrote an introduction to each one of the stories and wrote a commentary on each story and a commentary on each verse. His name was Wang Song, which means 10,000 pine trees.

[08:53]

So that became the whole book of 100 stories with verses and introduction, commentary on story, and commentary on verse. He also wrote in the story, he also commented on the story. So there's the, in Chinese, now what you see in Chinese is there's the introduction, the story, and the story's written in Chinese characters. And in between each line of the story, the commentator makes these short comments between the lines. Abrupt comments between the lines. And those are what are called the added sayings at the end of the case. Then he wrote a discursive commentary. Then the verse comes. And between each line of the verse, there's these abrupt poetic comments on each line, line by line on the verse. And those are the added sayings in relationship to the verse at the end of the case. But in the Chinese, they're embedded in smaller characters between the original text lines.

[10:04]

I would suggest, since we're going to study this case for a long time, that you start studying this case, and we start tonight, by just reading the introduction... the case and the verse. And that you don't read the commentary on the case and the commentary on the verse or the added sayings, don't read those for at least a week. Just read every day, morning and night, in the morning, at night, every day, read the introduction, the case, and the verse for just at least a week. And sit up here if you want, Linda. And later we'll get into the commentary and commentaries on the commentaries and discussion of the commentaries.

[11:10]

But for now, try to just, you know, skip over the commentary, okay? So let's read the introduction to case 32 together. This case is called Yangshan's Mind and Environment. The character for environment could also be just objects, mind and objects, but it's understood here as environment. The ocean is the world of the dragons. Okay, that's the introduction. Now, the case. Yangshan asked the monk, where are you from?

[12:25]

The monk said, from you, Prabhupada. Yangshan said, do you think that that is? The monk said, I always think of it. Yang Zhang said, the finger is the mind, and the thought is the enlightenment. There are no mountains, rivers, and white mass. Buildings, towers, halls, chambers, people, animals, and so forth. Reverse your thoughts and think of the thinking mind. Are there so many things there? The mom said, when I am here, I don't see any existence at all. The young son said, this is right for the stage of faith, but not yet right for the stage of person. The mom said, don't you have any other particular way of guidance? The Aung San said, to say that I have anything particular or not would not be accurate. Based on your insight, you only get one mystery.

[13:29]

You can take the seat and read the book. After this, you can find your own. Can you not turn to the verse, please? Can you read the verse? Yes. Starts off all embracing. Find it? Everybody find it? Anybody not find it yet? Okay, all in Bracey. With all that we've seen, with no outside, penetrating with no obstruction, gates with walls like light cliffs, doors with walls re-doubled, when the line is unsullied, sweet, it lays out against, but the vehicle is still in ruins and barns, bursting out with clear sky, the carouda takes weight on the wind,

[14:33]

Okay. So I just told you just to read this thing and not read the commentary. So now I see I'm a little bit in a little bit of a bind because I don't want to give a commentary. So now exactly what should I do here? table setting different from commentary?

[15:46]

Part of the table setting will be commentary. That will be part of setting the table. On Sunday, I... I... I told a story about Dung Shan and his teacher Yun Yan. Yun Yan is the hero of a number of cases in this book, particularly case 21 we studied of where Yun Yan is sweeping the ground. Yunyan means cloudy cliff, and Dengshan is the name of the mountain that he lived on, and his monk's name was Good Servant. So when Dengshan was about to leave his teacher...

[16:49]

when Good Servant was about to leave Cloudy Cliff, he said to him, many years from now, if people ask me, if my students ask me about my teacher, how should I describe you? And Cloudy Cliff was quiet for a while, and he said, what did he say? Just this person. Just this person. just this person. That's how... So, like, you ask the teacher about his teacher and to describe him and he says to you, just this person. That's how to describe that. In other words, the way Yuen Yuen told Dung Shan to tell people about himself was to tell the people to look at themselves. Just this person. The instruction, just this person, is more fundamental than the instruction in this case.

[18:03]

Did you see the instruction in this case, the first instruction in this case? What is the first instruction in this case? Reverse your thoughts and think of the mind that thinks. That's the first instruction. really the first instruction is, where do you come from? But that's not a technique, that instruction. Where do you come from? Very closely related to just this person. Does that make sense to you? Yes? Or no? That makes sense. Mm-hmm. Just this person. So just this person is, in a sense, the essential description of the ancestors of our lineage. You want to know about them?

[19:05]

Study yourself. Later, and it's traditional in China to say to somebody, when you mean after they die, you say a long time from now or a hundred years from now. a hundred years from now, when people ask me about you, in other words, after you're dead, what should I say? And so then, after he did die, after the teacher, Claudia Cliff, did die, and a good servant was doing a memorial service for him, he put up a picture, a portrait of his teacher. And the monk said, well, tell us about him. What was he like? And he said, just this person. And then the monk said to him, when your former teacher, when the former master said, just this person, was it just like this?

[20:15]

And the good servant said, it was. So, just like in this story here, when he said, gave his instruction, it was the same situation as right now. Namely, it's the same situation of just this person. And the instruction of where do you come from is just like right now. That's the way you should understand that question. The question, where do you come from? It should be right now. It should be like that right now for us. You're being asked, where do you come from? And you can answer, where are you from? Answer.

[21:19]

St. Paul. St. Paul. Where are you from? Say so. So Ryuji. From across the ocean. From across the ocean. Over the bridge. But the instruction here is, in some sense, it's a subset. It's not really a subset. It's not the same kind of instruction. To think of the mind that thinks is not the same kind of instruction.

[22:19]

It's not as universal as just this person. Just this person will be the way I would suggest you practice with the instruction of thinking of the mind that thinks. The first way, the first way to study, to take care of yourself while you try to do, if you do try to do the practice of thinking of the mind that thinks, is to do that in a justice person way. So I would say that the first step that when asked, when the teacher was asked, you know, how should I describe you, and when he said, just this person, in that sense he was recommending what I would say is a kind of wisdom practice, a very abrupt and more like a Manjushri type of practice.

[23:40]

Just this person. just this person. And if we practice this, just this person, naturally we will go on to the next way of working with this, which is a more, you might say, compassionate or more like the work of Samantabhadra or of Lokiteshvara, that as soon as you settle on one thing and center yourself on just this person, you will notice that just this person is not just this person. You'll start to become, as I mentioned on Sunday, you'll start to notice that you're anxious. You're already anxious.

[24:41]

because you think you're a person by yourself. But as you just, this person, as you practice just this person, you'll become aware of the anxiety of being just this person. And you'll become aware of the anxiety of your relationship with all beings. And you'll think things, you might think things like, well, you'll think many things you might worry about, but one of the things you might worry about is well, if I concentrate on just this person, will that take care of my relationships with others? And you'll notice how the more you look at just this person, the more you practice just the person, the more thoroughly you do that, the more you'll realize that everything else starts relating to you around that and you start thinking of everything else the more you do that. So again, if you try to focus on this story and you try to stay with it, many things will come up for you.

[25:45]

And the more you stay with it, the more will come up. And at first I'm suggesting that you keep trying to just stay with the story and let all this stuff come up. I don't understand. I want to do something else. But I don't think you'll say, I don't understand and I want to do something else. You won't do that if you don't work on this story. If you just walk out of here and don't think about this story for the rest of the week, you won't have those problems. But if you try to work on this story, you'll have problems, something like that. You'll each have your individual problems. Various frustrations will occur. Various rebelliousness and agitation and restlessness will arise because of a lack of of total surrender to this case, which is a lack of total surrender to your ultimate concern of just this person.

[26:47]

So I'm trying to set this case in the context of a very basic teaching of this practice lineage, this just this person kind of practice. And before I... before I do anything else with this story. And so I want to know, do you understand this kind of practice? It's also called just sitting. And the first phase of just sitting is, you know, you just center yourself. The next phase of just sitting is to realize relationship. It's the first, where are you from, is the first instruction? Well, where are you from, if you understand that question, even if you answer St.

[28:16]

Paul or whatever, that question, where are you from, is actually directing you to just this person. Seems to me it is the first and last question. It's the first and last question, yeah. Or it's, anyway, it's the first question and you keep coming back to it again and again. It's part of a cycle. You start there and you flip back around to there. You keep coming back to this way again and again in your practice. This is stillness. Now we start with stillness. Just this person is stillness and silence. And the more still you sit, the more turbulence comes to visit. The more quiet you are, the more noise. The more you embrace the noise and accept the noise, the more quiet you realize.

[29:20]

So like we have the nice example of one of our members who just died yesterday morning. Yes. This morning. Who died this morning. It's been a long day. And about a week ago, she made a... It may have been started before that, but about Saturday, a week ago Saturday, she decided to... she decided to stop eating and drinking when she got out of the hospital. And her daughter had moved out of Green Gulch and gone to live with some friends in Mill Valley where she will now be living. And she felt relieved that that seemed to be working. But she also basically started to see everything from the point of view of gratefulness.

[30:28]

and be basically positive about everything that was happening. The attitude of gratefulness is embedded in just this person. Positive attitude towards everything that's happening is embedded in the practice of just this person. Just this person is what we call the self-receiving and self-employing awareness. It means you understand that everything that's happening is teaching you who you are. And you're grateful that this event is now teaching you who you are in another way that you hadn't thought you were. And you really feel grateful to everything that's happening

[31:33]

And it isn't just that the thing you most didn't think could possibly be you is now looking you in the face. It isn't just that, although it includes that. It's not just a kind of like linear reversal of whatever you thought you were. It's the opposite, or the reversal, but it also like flips you around and makes you feel like you're right back where you started also. It has that quality of circularity in it, which we've referred to over and over again in this case, in this book. In many of the verses it says, in many of the commentaries it says, the pearl in the bowl turns on itself. The spiritual work, the spiritual function, which is the same character that Yunmen used when he said, what level of functioning, what level of this functioning is going on when the Buddha and the pillar communicate?

[32:40]

That character, ki, is the same character which is the turning of the spiritual work. The spiritual work happens in the pivot. In that pivot where you constantly, whatever happens, you realize this is you being talked to. When this person is insulting you. When this person is not trusting you. When this sickness comes. When people hurt people you care about. It doesn't mean you don't care that they're being hurt. It doesn't mean you don't care you're being hurt. You do. But you understand this is teaching you about yourself. That everything that's happening is for your benefit. Cancer is for your benefit. It's teaching you your way. It's showing you... It's showing you your way to practice just this person. This story is teaching us and also everything that happens to us while we study this story is teaching us and everything that happens to us when we're not studying this story is teaching us.

[33:51]

All day long whatever happens is teaching you just this person. Then when you look at the story, it will be the same. So she, at one point, you know, she just literally opened her arms to us and said, come. She let us love her. And it's a funny thing, you know, before a person does this, it's not that easy to love them, because they didn't invite you. You know? I was talking to a young man a few years ago, and, you know, I'm not a homosexual, so anyway, I figured if I want to hug a young man when he seems to be upset, no problem, right? So he was upset and I gave him a hug and then he left and a couple days later he called back and he came back and he said, you know, you have to ask me before you hug me because I was abused by my father sexually.

[35:01]

So I have a problem around that. And it really hurt me that he said that because I thought, geez, I'm just hugging the kid. It's not some kind of sexual thing on my part, but I realized I had to ask him. I had to ask him. So, the funny thing is, when you go like this to your adversity, it comes to you in a different way than when you don't go like this. If it comes to you when you're holding like this, somehow it's attacking you. When you go like this, it changes. The story can be the same way for you. Another way I would ... I guess what I'm telling you is the teaching of just this person is not all of Zen.

[36:07]

It's just what he told him to tell people if they asked. It's more like the entrance, this just this person. So my instruction to you at the beginning of this class is that kind of entrance type of instruction. And later I will give instruction, something like, not so much exit instruction, but something like exit instruction in the sense of entering the space and coming out of it and bringing it into the world. I'm trying to guard us into the source of our being and then later we'll come out of it.

[37:10]

And this story is also built that way. So this is the beginning of my commentary. The first part of this story is an entrance type of, and the second part of the story is by exit. Or the first part of this story is an initiation by fire. And the second part of the story is an initiation by water. I'm kind of looking at this in a shamanic way. That's what's going on in this story. So I'm giving you a kind of fiery instruction at the beginning. And fiery in the sense that everything that's happening, you burn it away in the sense that you gather it in. Nothing will be outside. So again, in the story of Dungsan where he said to his teacher, what should I tell people?

[38:12]

And his teacher said, just this person, then he started thinking about what his teacher said, and his teacher said to him, now that you've assumed the burden, now that you've assumed responsibility for the burden, you must be very careful. So again, I guess I'm saying to you by this, I'm asking you to assume responsibility for the burden of what will happen to you if you study this case. Assume responsibility for who you are as much as possible throughout the day. And that's my instruction for how to begin studying this story. And then, when Dung Shan left his teacher, And he was crossing a river.

[39:14]

He saw his reflection in the river. And he said, earnestly avoid seeking outside. That's what I'm saying to you. Earnestly avoid seeking outside. This is what his teacher was saying to him. Today I travel alone. That's what his teacher was saying to him. Travel alone. Travel alone. Just this person. Today I travel alone. And everywhere I go, I meet him. Or I meet her. If you're a man, maybe you should say her. If you're a woman, maybe you should say him.

[40:18]

Anyway, I meet, not me, because I do not seek outside, and I travel alone. Everywhere I go, I meet the other. If you do not travel alone, you don't really meet the other all the time. So then he says, I think he said, I am no other than her, yet she is not me. Or she is no other than myself, yet I am not her. It must be like this if you want to meet suchness or you want to merge with suchness. That's his verse and his understanding of what his teacher was saying. I think that if I practice this way, this story will be very useful to me.

[41:29]

Already this story is useful to me even without practicing that way. But if I can practice this way, I think the story becomes much more useful. It gives me much more, because I try to get less from it. or rather I don't try to get less, I ask less of it and more of myself and it gives me more. I take care of myself only and walk alone and take responsibility for what I alone can take responsibility for. And because I'm not asking anything of this story, this story will give me great teaching. And when it comes, I still do not seek something outside as it comes. I realize that this is still just me. And the more I realize that, the more it will come. The more gifts will come. The more I accept them as myself and don't reach out to try to get anything.

[42:33]

The more, if I try to reach out and get it, I will not get it. peace of mind will come when I stop seeking outside. That's my proposal to you. And again, it's just a coincidence that this story is the first part of the story. We're giving the same kind of instruction. If we weren't on this case, I would still be giving, I think, I wouldn't, of course, but theoretically, I could be giving exactly the same instruction for any case in this book. But it just so happens that the case in this book is giving the same instruction I'm giving, by coincidence. And I'm also promising you that there's a different instruction I'll give later, and this book has a second part too, this story has a second part too. So I think maybe I can go through this story without exactly giving a commentary, but showing

[43:37]

how the story is in a sense, first of all, teaching you how to study the story, which I don't think is exactly a commentary, but it is, but I don't want it to be. I want this to be more of telling you not to do anything but be yourself. That's the way I want to read the story at this point. Okay, so he says, where do you come from? And he says, I come from you province, you joke. And he says, do you think of that place? And he says, I always think of it. So we've got an honest monk on the line here, which is nice. Now, it's not my comment, it's not my comments.

[44:43]

Yangshan gives a little lecture on Buddhist psychology here now. The thinker is the mind and the thought of is the environment. And we don't have it, what do you call it, a blackboard in here. But this is a beautiful little Chinese thing which I've written on the board before for you. Um, so if somebody wants to get a blackboard in here, I can write it on the blackboard. There's a blackboard outside there. Ah! Ah! Just this person. Just you two. I think you can just leave it back there and people can turn their necks.

[45:57]

Or they can stand up and the whole body is... No, I bet it wasn't there. Can you erase it? One gallon of burning gas equals one hundred and nineteen pounds of carbon dioxide. One gallon of gasoline equals nineteen pounds of carbon dioxide. One gallon of gasoline equals nineteen pounds of carbon dioxide. Don't get morbid. How do you write mom?

[47:00]

How do you write mom? That's right. What's this? That's candy. Like that? Yes. Something like that. And the other one can go, [...] go. Well, we're not sure of these two characters.

[48:03]

We're not sure of those two characters either. It's a passive marker. I don't know. Post-spoil. I don't... I don't... His foot's asleep. I feel a little fur on Brian's side. Yeah, a little fur. Yeah. Here? No, underneath, on the right. Oh, yeah. Okay, Rob? So here's what he said.

[49:03]

He said, there's a character which means active, able, or skillful character. And then he put together this character, which means think. And then there's another character, which means something passive. He put that together with the same character, which means to think. So the active thinking. and passive thinking. Active thinking is the mind. Passive thinking is the object or the environment. But you see, it's actually just, it's, it's, uh, uh, and not only that, but this, this, uh, the active and passive side of the mind, uh, the mind, when you consider the mind, you consider the environment.

[50:12]

The environment, the objective world, is a passive side of thinking. And the active side of thinking, people usually consider the mind. And this is an interesting character because this character is made of these two parts. This part here and the rice pad or field. This square with a cross underneath the rice pad or field. And the part on the bottom is right here. It means mind or heart. So together they mean thinking. But they also mean... It's also the character that's used to translate the Sanskrit word, which is called chetana. This character is the word they use to translate chetana. And chetana is usually translated as volition.

[51:20]

For the overall tendency of the mind, In Chaitanya, it's a definition of action. Or karma. It's not the same as karma. It is the definition of karma. It defines the type of karma that's happening in a given moment of consciousness. And what is the casket? The casket is a pattern, a pattern of the mind. Like rice, rice pattern, rice field. The shape of the mind. is what seems to be the will of the mind. The will of the mind is the definition of the action. So the active part of mind, the thinker, that which can think, is what we would consider to be the mind. That which is thought of, the passive aspect of thinking, is the environment. This is what Yangshan said, not me.

[52:31]

What? What did you say chaitanya is? Chaitanya is a word... It's the definition of karma. So like in a given... Every moment of thought that we have, every moment of consciousness we have, has a shape, has a pattern. And... The illusion we, the world we live in where we think we do things is made up of moment after moment of little images of action. And those, and the shape of that action, the shape of what that mind seems to be doing is this pattern, this shape of the mind is chetana. But that is also means, that is also what you could call thinking. it's the shape of, it's the active vector of the consciousness in a given moment. And those patterns of thought are how we make up this process we call thinking. And the active part of it is what we call mind, or the thinker, that which can think.

[53:37]

And that which is thought of is the passive side of the pattern of thought, is the passive side of the pattern of consciousness. Or you could say it's the passive side of action, in the sense that what we think of doing, or what we think we are doing, is the shape of our mind. And the ability to think of it is... You couldn't think of it if your mind wasn't, like, shaped that way. but the ability to think of it is called the mind in this case. Okay? So he says, where do you come from? When he talks about where he comes from, in a sense, he's talking about the object he's thinking of. So then he says, the ability to think, or the thinker, The thinker is the mind, or the ability to think is the mind.

[54:41]

That which is thought of is the environment. And in the environment, in the realm of that which is thought of, but you see from the Chinese and also from the Sanskrit, you see that what is thought of is really just the mind in its passive form. Because mind cannot meet something other than itself. It always meets itself. And where does it meet itself? It matches up those grids. Those rice fields meet. So one part of the mind can think of and the other can be thought of. And one part thinks of this pattern and the other is the pattern of the mind. and that's where they meet. And if you put them two together, the patterns cancel and you just have mind. But mind has a shape, and the shape arrives, and one part can think of it, the other part can be thought of.

[55:45]

They always are together, subject and object, Buddha and the pillar, but they also dance back and forth to make the mind. And in the part that's thought of, there are mountains, rivers, land mass, buildings, towers, halls, chambers, people, animals, and so forth. In other words, the entire universe. Can I ask a question? Sure. So when two people meet, how does this work? When I look at you, you mean? Well, on my side, you, to me, are, you know, I can, you have an effect on me, okay? And to my senses, right?

[56:51]

And, but I don't, on the level of sensory impression of you, I don't know anything, right? I can't think of something at that level. It's not thinking at that level. It's sensory consciousness. It's direct and it's not mediated by any concepts. For example, it's not mediated by the concept of external object. But I do have, there is consciousness of it. Then, That impression gets converted into, stimulates my mind to look for something in my mind which I could think of, which has some relationship to what just happened to my sensory experience. So the mind picks something in itself to represent what was just experienced in a sensory level.

[57:58]

And at that level then, the experience become known. But it's not the experience of what happened, it's a conceptual version of what happened. It's the best guess at something in the mind that's like what just happened in the realm of the senses. So I, just like when we eat something, we never actually, we don't function on hamburgers. We have to chew them up in little pieces and break them down into pieces You know, something which we're familiar with. Our body's not familiar with hamburgers. Not the part of our body where we actually make heat. It's familiar with proteins, carbohydrates. And they have to be simple carbohydrates for us to function. So we break down even complicated carbohydrates into simpler ones. Same way when people happen to us, whatever they are, we break them down into concepts in order to know them. But it seems in some way that as you're responding to me, I'm also responding to you.

[59:02]

And somehow that enneagram is coupled by itself because of the direction. Well, the question is where to go now with what you just did. Well, maybe it's best left. So, I don't disagree with you, I just... How are you going to work with this? Hmm? How do you work with this? I've been working with it already. How? How? Mm-hmm. The outside is the bud.

[60:12]

But when the two interact, there's two outsides meeting and there's two insides. But what I'm saying to you is, I'm not saying that that's not true. I'm just saying that what you're dealing with right now is yourself. That thought you just had is your thought. That's what it is. I'm not saying it's a true or false thought. I'm saying to you that you have just created, for some reason, you have just created this rather complex concept which you are now working with. That's what you've got now. That's what I'd like you to realize. And I propose that the more you can do that, the more you have a chance to have a real meeting beyond this concept.

[61:24]

Whatever it is. Yes? I was just wondering when you said the couple, it reminded me of when you went like this and said the meeting to... And I'm wondering if this person... His name's Lloyd. Lloyd is thinking the same thing, just having a different image of the way it's meeting, you know, in a couple room, the way that you put your hands in... Is that your concept? Did you catch your concept? Very hard to put into words. And maybe it's because it's not clear enough. Yes? I have a few questions. In terms of what you're saying, it seems to me that the thinker is taught. There's no, I'm curious about their distinction there. It seems to me they're exactly the same thing.

[62:31]

And if there are two people involved, then the figure and my thought of that person, my thought of that person is still my thought and really isn't him. And in this, from the other perspective, his thinking has a thought about me, that's also not me, what is him. So that's what's intertwined. Yeah. So I'm saying that it's not like other people aren't out there, but rather that the first thing, the main thing that other people, at this point in the presentation, the main thing other people are doing for us is not teaching us about them, but they're teaching us about us. Once you learn about who you are, you can understand who other people are, because they're like you. But if you think you're learning about other people when you see them,

[63:34]

then you're overlooking the fact that you always convert other people into yourself. We're only built to receive ourself. The way our mental life is, we're always receiving ourself to ourself. We pull something up out of ourself and give it to ourselves and part of what we give to ourself is ourself. Most of what we give to ourself is ourself. I mean, most of what we give to ourself is ourself in the form of calling it other. All of the other we give ourselves is just ourself pulled up and called other. And a little bit of what we give ourselves from ourselves, we call ourself. The part where you think the part of yourself that you pull out of yourself and give to yourself and call yourself, that's the part you should concentrate on first. Because we think that the part of ourself that we pull up and call ourself is ourself.

[64:42]

And that the part we pull up and call other is not ourselves. Okay? But if you concentrate on the part of yourself that you pull up and call yourself, and you really look at that carefully, and you do think that's yourself, if you look at that very clearly, you will see that it doesn't make sense. And you'll start to realize that actually the part that you call yourself which you pull up out of yourself, it is yourself, you're right. That is true. That is right. But that part is totally dependent on the part of yourself that you call the other. But you start by what you think is yourself and you see the contradiction of that. If you start with the part of yourself that you think is the other and you don't call it the self, well, you're right. But you can't do that. So, I mean, you can do it. You could do it. It's a kind of a theoretical thing to do. Like you go around and say, everybody, that's me.

[65:45]

That's me. That's me. Okay. There's me as Paul. That's a fine exercise. Okay. I'm saying that's true. And to be aware that other people are really you is good. But I'm not saying that you should go around and think that they're you. What I'm saying is you should concentrate on what you think is yourself more thoroughly and then you will be more aware of how intensely they're impacting on you. And why are they impacting on you so hard? Because they're you. I mean, that's the real life of you is these people who are really affecting you. And they affect you more when you be the small person. And then you really understand at a gut level that other people are you. So I'm not suggesting that you go around trying to think, oh, that's me. Now, if you're really up against the wall, maybe that's a good thing to do to protect yourself from striking out. Say, this is not them.

[66:46]

This is me. This is not what I think. What I think of this person is not what they are. This is just something myself, which I'm pulling up now, and they're helping me get in touch with that. This is a nice kind of like calming exercise. Patience. But the real way to get in touch with this is to be yourself as you think yourself is. And then, and again, when it comes to you, it will not seem like yourself, but it will be very alive. And that is yourself. It's not the one you choose, you know. Like, I choose Paul, right? That's me. It's the one you don't choose. And the one you don't choose is the one that comes to you most intensely when you're just the self you think you are. The self you think you are and the self you don't think you are, both of them come from yourself. In other words, the self you don't think you are is what you call the other. And some of the self that you don't think you are that you call the other does not bother you, which is fine.

[67:50]

But some of the self that you don't think you are does bother you. And that's the real pay dirt. And that's the part that comes to you when you are very much yourself. If you're kind of wishy-washy about being your small self, the other that comes to vision you is not as intense. Usually it's the other way around. Everything is usually the other way around. Yeah. So how so? Well, you know, when you like someone, you kind of think they kind of reinforce what you think about yourself. Definitely. Okay? And when you don't like, they kind of touch you different ways. Perhaps they don't reinforce some of the values you stand for, some of the images you have of what is right, what's wrong. Right. So how do you actually interpret what you just said to a situation where you like a person. You just said it, didn't you?

[68:54]

I thought you just said it. When you like somebody, they're basically playing in to your small idea of yourself. Right. So, you've got your small idea of yourself, and now you pull up yourself in the form of this other person, and that fits with your small idea of yourself, so this is nice. Now, the reverse of that is when it kind of blows you up or you get angered or whatever, they're not reaffirming that small idea of yourself. No, they're still reaffirming it. They're not exactly reaffirming it. They are affirming it, but you don't consider the way they're affirming it as affirming. It is affirming you. It's telling you who you really are. Or who you are not. It's telling you who you are not, and that's who you are. Whereas usually some people tell us who we are in a way that goes along with who we are, and that's fine, but this is not much help. It's just, you know, it's basically just a waste of time.

[69:58]

You're just basically coasting in delusion, which is fine if you know that's what you're doing. To say, you know, if you're going along and not getting challenged, it's good to just, you know, know that you're basically just dreaming. When you're getting challenged, you're starting to wake up. Because you're starting to meet what you really are. What you really are is everything that you aren't. You're completely identical and born of. The self that is freedom and happiness and where you can really be yourself is the self where you're being met and realize you are what you aren't. And it is, you know, you're not able to maintain your separation from it anymore and you're in trouble. But it's also that you just have opened your arms to who you really are. And the beginning of that is sometimes the first knocks, or not the first knocks, but the knocks on this little system are often painful and scary.

[71:13]

And the people who get the knock the most beneficial way are those who are willing to be themselves, they get the strongest knock. This is great. Themself in their narrow sense, which will soon be shown to be met by a complete contradiction and a complete paradox. My second question, however that is, how do you then judge? Where does judgment stand? That's great in terms of freeing yourself. You're totally free at that point where what you think of yourself or your values as one piece and the other person or the system. Give me an example of judgment.

[72:14]

Judge, judge, any criminal act? Judge, criminal act? I have an example. Okay. This evening, somebody came up to me and said something out of the blue, extremely rude to me, and I didn't know where it was coming from, and I reacted by saying, saying, how dare you talk to me like this? Mm-hmm. And... And there was no, there was just intense anger. And there was no resolution because I sat there and I realized that after I reacted that this person was sick and that I was going, okay, well, I know this person is having a lot of problems right now, and whatever the interaction was with me wasn't about me at all, it's just about whoever the person was, but my reaction to him was so violent, you know, and I just couldn't stand the way he talked to me about that.

[73:37]

I guess, I don't know, I was thinking of judgment. Right after it happened, I was very, very upset. I almost started crying, but I didn't even know why I was crying, because I felt like it really had nothing to do with me, and yet, Why did I take this thing and respond with such anger towards a situation which I felt I had no control over, and actually, in a sense, had nothing to do with me? I was just sort of being used for somebody who... Yeah, you had no control over it. I guess here's my mind. This is part of myself that I don't want to recognize, I guess, with myself, the person who responded really angrily to something that... they had no control over. And so I guess I was met, I thought the person was being screwed up or whatever. And I guess, I mean, I'm wondering how I could have responded differently or, you know, what was going on in my mind that I responded so partially to a situation which I felt had nothing, in a sense, to do with me.

[74:49]

And I guess that's the self that I think I am. That's the self that I feel like I'm caught in a lot, where I'm responding from a place that thinks I can't be treated this way because I'm this particular kind of person who doesn't deserve to be treated this way, because I'm actually not a person. Yeah, whereas actually you are such a wonderful person that you deserve to be treated that way. Right. But you don't believe it. I mean, you don't trust. You have not completely surrendered to yourself. And you're not the only one. And she was able to, in her state, she was able to judge very nicely. Now, do you have some problem? Do you think you're not going to be able to judge? By the way, you don't give up discrimination and judgment in this process at all. Not at all. People think you might do that, but you do not give up any kind of discriminating mind at all.

[75:53]

That's why I say it's a complete flip. You come right back to where you were before. So part of what she's saying, how could I behave differently? There's no thing about behaving differently in this kind of meditation. No thing about that at all. Worrying about judgment, completely go right ahead and worry about judgment. Worry about whether you'll be able to continue to judge. Worry about that. You're going to keep judging. Don't worry. She kept judging, don't worry. If she completely settles in this meditation, she will continue to judge. And she may or may not get angry at people when they treat her that way in the future. She may or may not. That's not the point. It is good, we recommend very sincerely practicing patience so that you don't get angry. It's very important to do so. However, when you do get angry, what happens?

[76:59]

Reality was just in such a way that it didn't work with your sense of self. And so, you had this reaction. That's what it is. I don't think it should have been otherwise because you are exactly at the place you are and you have exactly this understanding and that is the Dharma. The Dharma is you ended at a certain place and that person started at another place and there was pain at that interface. That is the Dharma. It should not have been otherwise. What can you learn from that? There was an example of who you really are is this thing which includes you and this thing you thought was not you. And you thought this thing which was not you was saying something to who you think you are, which this part of yourself that you think is not you shouldn't be talking to yourself that way.

[78:05]

You were talking to yourself in a way that you think you should not be talked to. And you just learned something about yourself there. And it was a painful learning experience. Because now I'm thinking of the guy who said, is that so? Exactly. And you need to be just that person in those situations. It isn't that you should have been otherwise. It's that you should have been more that way. You should have been completely that way so that you could have, right while being angry, also been smiling and saying, wow, look at this. This is amazing, this person I am. And this person you are is completely identical to this other person you aren't. That's who you really are. There wasn't another person there. This is you unfolding in the form of the ability to think and that which is thought of. These two are perfectly merged. However, in their separation there can be intense pain.

[79:09]

And judgment arises very nicely that there's pain and the fault of the pain is over there. Or the fault of the pain is over here. You can judge, attribute, blame, all that stuff like that. You don't have to worry about it. If it stops, that's okay too. If you hadn't judged and hadn't gotten angry, that would have been fine too. But would you have learned what you learned? What a magnificent creature you are that you can carry on these dramas with yourself. And the real meeting of people I propose... is the meeting of one person who is just this person with another person who is just this person. Two people meet who know they're not meeting each other, really respect each other and really respect themselves. If you don't respect yourself enough to realize your power of your imagination, if you don't respect yourself enough to realize that you're constantly dreaming up the universe and bludgeoning yourself with your dreams,

[80:11]

If you don't realize what a fantastic dramatist you are, then you can't really understand how wonderful other people are. You're not giving yourself enough credit, you won't give them enough credit. And if you can trust yourself enough, you will not only be able to meet them, but you will show people you meet what they should do. So what did the teacher say? How to describe the teacher? Just this person. He was teaching just this person. He was saying, I'm just this person. You... are also just this person. That's my practice, that's your practice. That's what I'm doing, that's what you should do. And again, I say that the more I practice being just this person, the more the whole world starts dancing around me and the more I think, can this possibly be so? That I can be this person. And therefore, since I am this person, the world completely challenges me And its challenge is, open your arms to us.

[81:14]

We are you. If I'm not this person, if I'm wimply this person, if I don't admit I'm this person, the world does not challenge me and ask me to accept it as myself as much. That's my experience. And that's the way I'd like to study this koan. And that's what this koan's about. And so this is an initiation by fire that I'm setting up for us now. I'm asking you to try to really stay with yourself. And every person you meet, stay with yourself. I know it's hard. Every conversation, especially when you're talking to somebody, realize stay with your small self and the more you'll realize that the other is coming at you and asking you to realize who you, who, who, who they really are.

[82:29]

They are no other than yourself and they're not you. They do not merge with you. If they do, that's not really the kind of person you are. You're a person who's identical with the people that aren't you and that are bugging you. They are you and they're not you. Both. It's scary and it's comforting. Both. Everything is confirming you and everything is asking you to forget who you are, but you can't forget who you are unless you completely remember who you are. So, So please, this case, don't read the commentaries, okay? Just study the case and yourself. And then maybe next week you can start studying the commentary. Try that, please. I won't read the commentary either. Of course, I've read it many times already, but I won't read it anymore. I won't talk about it next week. I'll just talk about this story.

[83:31]

That's enough. I'll talk more about this And I'm not even telling you to practice this practice in the story. I'm not telling you to do that, but if you fall into it, it's okay. In other words, the practice of looking back at the mind that thinks. I'm not suggesting you do that, but that's okay if that happens to you as you study. So next week I'll go into this practice that's in here of what it means to look back at the mind that thinks, or to think of the thinker. I'm so happy.

[84:11]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_82.27