I feel that now that I've given a couple of talks and you've worked at listening to them, that I might ask you if you have some sense of particularly how your own work on your own state how that works with the process of learning about life in other words that again today I may say some things actually even already I'm saying things and I'm being the way I am and you all are being the way you are so that's that's enough material to study and learn.

[01:04]

And so the first point I made the other day was how to be in such a way that you can benefit or learn from what is happening. So even now as I say the sentence, how to benefit or learn from what's happening, Even that sentence is something you could utilize, something that you could be encouraged by or grateful for. And not so much because I said anything particularly interesting. I just said something that you could be benefited by. Just an ordinary sentence. It wasn't some great teaching. In another sense, what better teaching is there? It's not really better than the sound of the surf.

[02:08]

The question is, can we learn from what's happening? Can you use the experiences you're having? And if you try to use them, that isn't sufficient. You have to be more just in a receptive mood, a receptive state. And it may be somewhat surprising to you, but I'm proposing that the state of awareness of your breathing or awareness of your posture, or anyway, as I said last night, just to be very sincere about what you're doing, that that's a state of receptivity that will be helpful. It's a state of readiness. And you're not necessarily receptive to what I'm saying or to the sound of the surf, but receptive to everything.

[03:18]

You're not directing your receptiveness. You're directing your concentration or your sincerity on what you're doing. And that allows you then to be receptive in all directions, not just in the direction that you think is most important. The problem is that even in our most sincere efforts, we direct ourselves according to our habits, as you're more interested in some things than other things. So simply being... very sincere, you naturally become globally receptive. And then you can learn from things. So that's something I've repeated over and over. Does this sound familiar? So again, I ask you to be very sincere right now.

[04:27]

about everything you do. And I'll try to be sincere too. And now that I say that, it occurs to me that there is this close association between being concentrated and calm and sincere. They're close together. It doesn't necessarily mean you move slowly because you can do something very quickly and sincerely. It doesn't mean that you're necessarily going slowly. You can do things quickly. But even though you do them quickly, you do not rush. Sincerity, in this sense I'm suggesting, cannot be rushed. If you drop a pencil, that's a rather quick action. But if you do it sincerely, there's no rush in it. even though it's very quick, you do it completely from the beginning to the end.

[05:32]

Does that make sense? And that sincerity, again, is a readiness which allows you to learn not just in the direction you expect to learn, but in the direction that you can learn. So just approaching some, you may want to go study something over there, and that's fine, and you should do that very sincerely, but you're not necessarily going to learn over there. This is the thing you're going to focus on. It's not necessarily what you're going to learn. This is the medium by which you become ready to learn, and you may learn from over here. So we always have to go in some particular direction and do that sincerely, and then we wait and see where we're going to learn, what we're going to learn, what's going to be something that we're going to be able to utilize for the great fun of learning.

[06:51]

If I'm giving a... a talk at a Zen center, then everybody's doing this work of sincerity that's in the background. So I don't mention it so much because people are naturally doing that. But I just want to make very clear here that that's the context in which this material that I'm offering, but also the material that everybody's offering, that's where it's but placed. The question is not fully formulated, but when I'm sitting, I'm focusing on breath, and that's a technique to focus my sincerity in one direction that maybe the learning will come somewhere else. And when my mind is off here or there, you know, I've learned to note it, and sometimes it goes.

[08:03]

But in everyday life, driving down the highway, sitting, dining, whatever we're doing, are there special techniques to maintain mindfulness? I'll drift off sometimes for long periods of time into my mind going to a fear or into some things. I would love to have a technique like an alarm clock or a... electroshock buzzer to say, you know, where are you, Clint? Come on back here. And I just wonder if you have any umics. There is this, down at our monastery we have a little store and you can get all kinds of special meditation aids. And one of them is a little kind of electric device which you can hook onto your hip and connect to your body someplace.

[09:07]

And as soon as you get distracted, it gets you a shock. And I was thinking about self-investment. But I think actually that they're all sold out. He said, is there a special technique to continue the sincerity through the great variety of things you do all day? And there is a special technique in the sense that each situation you're in is special. Each word that you form, each breath that you take, each step that you make, that's a special situation.

[10:10]

Now, one way to say is that each one of those things is a special technique for being mindful, that they offer you the opportunity. Or another way to say is that the technique to be mindful of them is just a sincere heart or the determination that you're going to do everything that you do all day long sincerely. And then people want to know, well, how do you remember to be sincere? And as soon as you remember, you're already sincere. So there's really no way to remember to be sincere other than to remember. So you should remember. And the more you remember, it increases the likelihood of remembering again. But you cannot remember to remember. You know, you can put signs on the wall saying, remember to be sincere. But you forget to look at the sign. Or you look at the sign and say, oh, I know why they put that up there. But you have to remember that when you look at the sign saying being sincere, you have to sincerely look at the sign.

[11:16]

And so you can put another sign up saying, be sincere when you look at this sign. So it's endless regression. You can never put enough stuff in the environment to remind yourself, even in the toughest monastery, where, you know, if you blink, they hit you. Still you can forget. And some forms of Zen, when you're in meditation, if you do blink, or if they sense that you're a little bit distracted, they hit you. And that, again, promotes your mindfulness. But then again, you walk out of the monastery in the street, then there's nobody hitting you for being not unconcentrated. at least not right away, and eventually something will happen to you, like a car will hit you or something if you're too bad. But still, even so, the question is how to let people be adults and do this work that they have to do basically on their own.

[12:25]

But there are situations where the name of the situation is called Be Mindful. You go to a meditation hall or you go to a mindfulness retreat and you know that I'm here. What's the reason why I'm here? Oh, yes, I'm here to practice concentration and mindfulness and mindfulness and concentration. I'm here to do that and so I should do that. Even so, then people get upset that they can't do it even there. But still, you can sometimes do it there and then the question is how to do it. in an even more difficult situation. And basically you just have to try. You have to be determined that you're going to do that and do it in situations which are set up for it and do it in situations which aren't set up for it. Do it in both if you can. And that effort will gradually pervade your whole life.

[13:31]

After quite a few years, it's there all day. Jack Kornfeldt once told a wonderful story here, which was about a disciple who wanted to get enlightened. He was not satisfied with the progress he was making. So he came to the Master and wanted some kind of really safe recipe. And the Master brought a chess game and a sword. You know the story? And then he said, well, play a game of chess, and he who loses will get killed. And so this was this tremendous concentration with which the disciple was playing, and then when he was winning, suddenly he started feeling compassion for the master, so that he sort of played it so that he would lose, and then his fear of death was coming back. Somehow this situation... accelerated that process tremendously.

[14:35]

I think sometimes death can probably win. Mindfulness of death is one of the ways to encourage your sincerity and then the question is how to remember that you're going to die pretty soon. But that's often very helpful to remember that we don't have much time left, you know. And this is a precious opportunity to be a human being, as I talked about earlier. And don't waste any time. Yes? Well, this is the same question. I'm going to just ask it my way. If I could live at Esalon or live in a monastery, I'm sure that with, and I would enjoy it enormously, I would become very mindful. I would enjoy it. It's very pleasant to be mindful.

[15:38]

It's pleasant to meditate. But in my world, I can't do that. My mind is working, but when I read some Eastern teachings, they say, well, your mind is working all the time, but it's just spinning its wheels and you're wasting your energy and you really ought to be centered. Well, that's not true in my case. When my mind is working, I'm thinking productively. I'm thinking, well, for instance, I'll be thinking, let's see, this is Wednesday, tomorrow morning is Thursday, tomorrow I'm going to drive my child to school, and afterwards I'm going to go to my lectures, I plan my time. And then, God, it's 12,000 miles since my car's been in. Three years ago, I'm going to take that in, I'm going to take that in right after work. And Mrs. Jones, she's got this rash, and I was going to look that up, and I'll look that up right after I take the car in.

[16:40]

You know, my wife was very irritable today. I think I'll bring her some flowers, and maybe I'll do the dishes, and sort of give her a break. The mind's working, but it's not wasted. In my opinion, it's not wasted. And I would like the best of both worlds. I would like to be thinking productively and also to be mindful. And I don't know if that's possible. That's my question. Is that possible? These two worlds that you're talking about, between this description you just made of your thinking process and another world where there's no thought, they're actually non-dual.

[17:54]

And that reality or that That's an aspect of the awakened body, the non-duality of the description you just made, and another aspect of what's going on, namely that there isn't any thought really, or any activity, or anything being produced. Those two are really non-dual in your life. And the things you're experiencing as thinking... That stuff, just the way it exactly is, is the contents of non-discriminating wisdom. But you just told me about that because you don't think it is. So yes, exactly what you just told me itself is exactly the kind of stuff

[19:00]

that a Buddha thinks about. Or that a Bodhisattva thinks about. Exactly that stuff. And that is the type of contents that non-discriminating wisdom has. But there's something about the way you're thinking is that you don't think that that is non-discriminating wisdom. You think it's just thinking. And it is just thinking, but When it's thinking just as thinking and you know exactly what kind of thinking it is, then this is wisdom. And you do have the best of both worlds. As a matter of fact, the best of both worlds is working through you as that thinking. And that thinking is the vehicle for the manifestation of the other side of the story. And so, you know, you maybe heard this story in Zen.

[20:14]

A student, the teacher says, this teacher points to the moon and says, what's that? And the student says, it's the moon. And the teacher says, no, it's not, it's my finger. But if he had gone like this and said, what's that, and the student had said, it's your finger, he would have said probably, it's the moon. If I take my finger like this and just sort of, if I just sort of go like this and I say, if I say, what's that? If I say to you, what's that? You probably would say, it's my finger. You might. But if it's a full moon night and I go like that, towards the moon, and I say, what's that?

[21:21]

You might say, it's the moon. Before my finger's pointing to the moon, it's just a finger. But when I go like this to the moon, you say my finger's the moon. Before my finger points to the moon, the moon is just the moon. But when I point to the moon, the moon's my finger. Do you see? So your thinking is like the finger pointing to the moon. But your thinking is also the moon coming into the finger. Everything you do is pointing to the moon, and everything you do allows the moon to now extend itself into what you're doing.

[22:26]

But also, what you're doing, it becomes the moon. There's this mutual fostering of the individual thing you're doing and this universal world which is beyond creation, which is before anything happens. They foster each other. This universal thing, which is everywhere all the time, and this particularity of your thoughts in the place you are, your feelings, your emotions, your efforts, your confusion, all that, is like the finger pointing to the moon. And if you can live that way all day long, you have the best of those two worlds. As a matter of fact, you are the best of those two worlds. Your life is constantly the best of those two worlds. And that's, again, that's the same question, that both of you have the same question.

[23:34]

And how to have the determination and confidence and steadfastness in that conviction that your life is the finger pointing to the moon. And your life perfects the moon. The finger perfects the moon. And of course the moon perfects the finger. Our lives are bringing reality into its fullness. And reality is what brings our life into fullness. It's working through us, but also we're a vehicle for it. It's this dynamic. And again, you know, there's an expression sometimes to say, you say, so-and-so, you know, you meet somebody wonderful and you say, that person's one in a million. But that expression can go two ways. Namely, one in a million can mean, I'm just one in a million people.

[24:37]

Or, I'm just one in five billion people. That's all I am. And if any of us are, we're just one among this huge mass of beings. human beings not to mention all the other ones I'm just one and at the same time each of us is one in a million in the other sense of the word this is two senses so we are both we are both the center of the universe and we are also we are just satellites around other beings I'm just a satellite around you we're all just a satellite around you And you're just a satellite around us. This way. This is the total dynamic of our life. If you meet another person, they're part of the world that surrounds you, but you're also part of the world that surrounds them. They are the center of the universe.

[25:39]

You're just a satellite around them. Everything you meet, in that way you're a satellite around it. Not just are you a servant of it, but everybody's a servant of it, and the whole universe is converging on this place. But also, you're that way, too, and everything you do is that way. And then if you play this out, it gets very intimate. Okay? I wanted to say a little bit more about... the attitude of spiritual emergency. And by that I mean, in some sense, the attitude which I feel that Stan and Christina are trying to promote in this world towards, well, towards everything, but in particular towards certain forms of behavior that often come under a certain story.

[26:42]

Stan talks about the medical model, but another way to say it is the medical story. Okay? It's a story that makes people insane or crazy. According to that story, somebody's crazy. And the medical model, even doctors, people who aren't doctors, know the medical model quite well because it's on TV and you learn it in school and everything. So we all know how, to some extent, to be able to make insanity or make craziness. And so I'd just like to say a little bit more about the fact that, like Gregory Bateson said, this is Gregory Bateson up here, he said, in the case of schizophrenia, It takes two to make one. It takes a doctor who has a story and a patient who has a story to get one schizophrenic out of the deal.

[28:01]

If you have two schizophrenics, you can't make any schizophrenics. You wouldn't have two in the first place. You just have two people And if they were both acting like somebody else would call schizophrenia, then you can't have schizophrenia. You have to have a story that makes a schizophrenia. Which is, you know, we know why people do that kind of thing. It's basically for convenience. Stories are convenient. They make order out of something which is, they can make order out of something which is too complex to deal with unless you put it into some order. So there's a practical purpose of them. The problem is that they sometimes are not really respectful of the actual complexity of the situation. And by sometimes overly simplifying the situation, they're almost like a lie.

[29:06]

So I feel in some sense the spiritual emergency work is about is to try to develop a story which is of such a size and such dimension that it can include a great deal of variety and doesn't have to call things crazy but can really respect what is happening with a living being. And even a story which sees that this person is on this beautiful journey and that they're hitting a certain place in the journey, and at that place certain things happen. And you can also tell somewhat where they are on this epic journey by looking at the manifestation that occurs right now. And sometimes you may not be able to tell where they are on the journey by what they're manifesting. But you have a general feeling like you're going to be able to place them

[30:12]

in this wonderful spiritual journey which human beings have. But with somebody who has enough energy or life force to appear crazy, oftentimes you need a very big vision in order to include their life. A lot of people have thoughts inside them which are similar to the thoughts that some people who we have trouble containing in our story, our story of spiritual development, but they're so quiet about it, we don't have to put our story into action. We just let them wander by. So as I said before, too, I'd like to say again, is that either you have to have a very epic story for everybody, or the Zen style, which is more simple, is to have no story.

[31:19]

No story will also let you accept and respect whatever a person is doing. If you can imagine meeting a person with no story, and they start doing various things, maybe things that you've never seen before. or maybe things that even frighten you. But because you have no story, you can just say, oh, uh-huh, wow, this is really something, isn't it? You have no story which says this is not supposed to happen or somebody should come in and change it. You really respect it because you have no way to not respect it. You're really open because you have no story. And again, if you're really sincere about what you're doing, that's very similar to not having a story. At least at that moment, you're putting all your energy into telling your story rather than applying your story to something.

[32:21]

So if you can have no story or a very, very, very big story, then everything that happens before your eyes, either sort of as your own productions or what you see in other people, everything is a spiritual emergency. You see the spirit emerging through every thing that happens. And sometimes that's not such a big deal, like the bark on a tree maybe not being impressive some days. But that's okay. The point is that you can handle certain things without pushing them over into a little story which converts something beautiful into something crazy. And the story which converts things into... The story which squeezes things down too much is an ugly story. And it makes you see things as ugly.

[33:31]

You need to be an artist and make a story which makes things beautiful. Not makes them beautiful, but that can allow their beauty to come forth, that can reclaim the beauty that's lost by the other story, the so-called medical story, which says this person is a schizophrenic or a paranoid or whatever. It's just a real small-scale version description of a human being. But, you know, if you look at some of these epic stories, you could go in there and in certain sections of the epic, you could say, this person is schizophrenic. This person is paranoid. I mean, the same person, you could say, you could diagnose them with various illnesses along the way. Fine. As long as you understand that this is part of this huge drama and huge evolution, then you can name them whatever you want along the way. because, in fact, they are limited by some circumstance at that point.

[34:34]

And you can say, this is like what they call blah-de-blah. But you just have to remember that other side, and then it's not so bad. Looks like that makes sense to you, does it? Again, if you work with people along the path, and you see certain manifestations, oftentimes people in Zen have certain experiences and they come to the teacher and they say, well, this is happening, is that normal?

[35:44]

It's something unusual to them, but they know that they're now on a certain path that might bring some unusual experiences. They just want to know, do other people have these experiences? And so if you say yes, they're comforted. Or anyway, is this part of the process? And you say yes. And if you've had certain experiences of seeing it happen before, then because of that, you feel like you can say yes. But I would even take one step further, and that is, even if you have not had much experience with a particular manifestation, that even then, you might be able to have an attitude such that you could say yes to what the person is doing, even though you haven't seen this as part of the practice before. And that's why I mean if you have no story, you can even sincerely and confidently say yes to what the person is going through, even though you haven't seen it before.

[36:56]

And again, if you can say yes to that, then the person can see it, and without changing it, just by their awareness of that, they grow and move on to the next thing. So it doesn't require that you have seen the manifestation before that you can say, yes, I know this is part of it. Because again, as I said, really, Everything that happens has never happened before. And it's more a question of whether you can feel that nod in yourself, that agreement, that affirmation of what the person's doing. And also for yourself, whether you can find that, mm-hmm, that is enough to make the person aware of the thing as the thing. And then they develop this. proper wisdom.

[37:59]

There's a story, a Zen story about, let's see, I don't know which one, there's two stories which are very similar. And sometimes I tell them both and I feel like They don't work very well together. They amplify each other, but they're also redundant in a way that I'm not sure how well it works. But I'm going to tell it again and see how it works this time. And it's related to what I'm talking about the last few days. There were two There's two very prominent Zen teachers in China during the Tang Dynasty. They were both named after mountains because they were both abbots of those mountains, those monasteries.

[39:13]

One was called Guishan and his disciple is called Yangshan. Anyway, they're great teachers. And Guishan said to Yangshan, if someone came up... No, no. He said, how would you test the teaching, which is quotes... All living beings just have active consciousness or karmic consciousness, boundless, unclear, and no fundamental to rely on. He said, how would you test that in experience with someone?

[40:21]

And Yangshan said, if someone comes, I say, hey you. If they turn their head, I say, what is it? If they hesitate, I say, not only do all living beings just have active consciousness, boundless and unclear, but there's no fundamental to rely on. And Guishan said, good. So did you get that story? Maybe you said it after me, you'll get it. The fundamental The basic text is all living beings just have active consciousness, boundless and unclear, with no fundamental to rely on.

[41:44]

If someone asked you about this, how would you test it in experience? Say it. How would you test it in experience? Yangshan said, If someone comes, I say, hey you. If he turns his head, I say, what is it? If he hesitates, I say, not only do all living beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear,

[42:51]

But there's no fundamental to rely on. Grayshan said... Good. So there's two scenarios. One is if someone comes to ask about this thing, if you want to test this teaching on somebody, then you just say, hey you. If he or she turns their head, you say, what is it? When they turn their head, we say, three demons are knocked off the top of their head. Well, first of all, I'll say, when you call their name, there's a knock on the back of the head and you don't know where it comes from.

[44:06]

But you turn your head. This is what you call, if you're taking care of yourself, if you're being sincere about what you're doing, and you get a knock on the back of your head, What do you do? Turn your head. Who's there? What's that? When you turn your head, a bunch of demons fall off. And then when you turn your head and demons fall off, the teacher says, what is it? You're sincere. Somebody knocks. You say hello. Demons fall off and the teacher says, what is it? And this what is it is, they say, you know, he keeps the oven-like heat and strikes again.

[45:25]

Now, if the monk hesitates, if you say, hey you, and he hesitates, the demons don't fall off the head. And the reason why he hesitates is because of the demons on his head. What are those demons? Those demons are, gee, I wonder what I should say. Or the teacher's saying, hey you, I should probably, you know, make such and such a response. The person's not sincere like a child. not innocent of all concepts. And because of those concepts about what he should respond to when the teacher says, hey you, he can't turn his head. He hesitates. And then the teacher says, not only are all living beings just have active consciousness, but there's boundless and unclear, but there's no fundamental to rely on. And But Guishan said good.

[46:37]

And this good is said to be sweet words from a bitter mouth. Guishan doesn't say good so easily. Now here's the same story again. Slightly differently broken down. A similar quote from the scriptures is the fundamental affliction of ignorance is itself the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas. This deluded thinking that's going on all the time, also productive thinking, unproductive thinking, whatever is going on, that itself is the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas. And it's important to say, it itself, in other words, that type of thinking as that type of thinking, exactly as it is, is the immutable knowledge of the Buddha.

[47:48]

So some monk came up to another Zen teacher named Yudan and said, he quoted this and he says, this teaching seems to be really profound and difficult to understand. Do you think it's profound and difficult to understand? Fundamental affliction of ignorance is the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas. Is that difficult? Anyway, Yunnan said, oh, you think it's difficult? I don't think it's so difficult. I think it's pretty easy. He said, there was a boy sweeping nearby, and he said, I said, see that boy? And he said, hey, you. And the boy turned his head. And he said, Is this not the immutable knowledge of all the Buddhas? Then he said to the boy, what's Buddha? And the boy hesitated, was bewildered and wandered off. It's the other story too.

[48:51]

Hey you, if he turns his head, then you say, what is it? In this case, hey you, he turns his head and you say, what's Buddha? The second time he caught the boy. The boy says, oh, a Zen teacher's asking me, what's Buddha? And the demons came back on his head and he couldn't move. The idea, oh, there's some answer to that question other than the thing I've already done. Then the demons make you hesitate. And then he said, when the boy hesitated, he said, is this not the fundamental affliction of ignorance? So turning your head or not turning your head, it's right there. Whether it's ignorance or whether you manifest and are controlled by ignorance or whether you're manifesting Buddha's wisdom, it's all just in a turn of a head. Whether you're living in such a way that when somebody says hello, you go like this.

[49:53]

Without any stories blocking you. That you live a life such that you can actually respond appropriately to the circumstances. And it's no big deal. But if you'd say, hey you, to a Buddha, do you think that they have some special way of turning their head? Well, some people would hesitate even when you say, hey you. That's the fundamental affliction of ignorance. But it itself, at the same time, is the immutable knowledge of the Buddhas. Do those stories work? So there is ignorance and delusion and active consciousness, and there is Buddha's wisdom, and they're non-dual, and yet there's something about manifesting one or the other.

[51:26]

And it all is in this subtle thing of whether you can walk around without a story, in the sincerity of your life and just respond, or whether you hesitate and think you should do something better than what you already have to do. When I snap my finger, you all respond. But you may not think that your response was so good. And if I say, okay, in a minute now I'm going to do something and I want you to respond, and I go, then you respond and then you think, what should I do? You already responded. And then you responded again, but then you hesitate. You think, oh, I should give a right answer. And the boy was innocent when he said, hey, you, the boy was innocent and could just turn his head like a Buddha.

[52:31]

But when the teacher said, what is Buddha, the boy became guilty of concepts about Buddha. And he hesitated because he thought, oh, I need some special, there must be some answer to this question. He could have said, you know, when the teacher said, what is Buddha, he could have said, I'm scared. Or, you want me to answer? Or, who's asking? Or, you know, don't bother me. And on and on he could have had any answers. And he did have an answer, but he jumped over it because he didn't think it was the right one and he hesitated.

[53:38]

Hesitation means that you don't say yes to the thing you're doing. Hesitation is actually two ways to look at it. One way is it's impossible, and the other way to look at it is it's not hesitation. It's an actual statement. The statement is, I'm caught. I've been tricked. I've been caught. I've been caught by karmic consciousness. And among these three types of karma, three types of action, body, speech, and thought, thought is the origin of action.

[54:42]

It's the basic original type of action. Speech and postures are ramifications of that. And physical postures are said to be the substance or the body of action. And voice or speech is said to be the own being of action. Speech is, in a sense, the essence of action. Thought itself is the origin, but speech captures something. Speech is just, the way speech is, is just what action is. And as human beings, we are particularly caught by speech and by stories. So that's why words are very useful.

[55:53]

That's why Zen Buddhism and I don't know what else, but anyway, words are very important. The stories you tell really make a difference. And we say, you know, that water is tested with a stick and people are tested with words. Like, hey you, what's Buddha? That's the way you can test a person. Or, hello, how are you today? How are you feeling? And the karma of words is such that we get caught by them when we come under their spell. We do in the other kinds of karma too, but speech is really the essence of it. So speech or stories are what make us get... bound up and crazy, but also speech and stories are what release us from our bondage and instabilities and crazinesses.

[57:02]

New stories or turning the speech in a certain way is what releases us. Language is our bound up consciousness and language releases our bound up consciousness. I popped a little bit. We've been pushing you to do something in the spiritual room. And you told me a story about the man who thought he was Jesus. I love that story, if you could tell it. And I'm curious how you could apply the way his companion in the story, to join his story.

[58:07]

We're talking about our people who are paranoid spiritual emergencies. This is where we... a line for the sake of safety. It's harder to work with people who are rejecting that people will take responsibility for their own inner process. And that there are some people who believe that even that is a spiritual virtue. And that it's possible perhaps to join a paranoid person in this whole story. So I was trying to find out if there's anything that wasn't a spiritual emergency. And Christina said that, well, in a sense, if a person won't recognize what's happening to them as part of their process and doesn't wish to work with it, then we say it's not a spiritual emergency. But again, that's, I think, sort of a practical thing. You don't really feel that way, but it's just you can't work with them under that effort because they don't want to cooperate.

[59:16]

again, I'm thinking of this Carl Rogers thing, to be able to feel within yourself, yes, I see that this is the Buddha nature coming forth. If you can actually feel that, then whatever the person's doing, you can join. And sometimes the way you say, might be that you get angry. It's possible, too. I just heard that someone said, I get along... really well with paranoids because I get angry at them. But I get angry at them about something that they have control over. It's not anger as coercion, but anger in terms of helping them realize that they have decisions, to point to some area where they have some ability to change. And to naturally get angry at people for those kinds of things is compassionate anger.

[60:19]

To get angry at people for what they're doing when they could do it another way is different from getting angry at a person for just the way they are. So the story I told Christina was one about this wonderful therapist and hypnotist, Milton Erickson. He was visiting, I think, a state hospital in Arizona, and they had a patient there that thought he was Jesus, and he wouldn't relate to anybody unless they would join that vision or that story. If he didn't think he was Jesus, he would just ignore you and continue with his thing. And Milton Erickson went up to him and said, I understand that you're a carpenter. And the man said, yeah, that's right.

[61:24]

And Milton Erickson said, I wondered if you could build some bookshelves for me. And the man built the bookshelves, and during the process of building the bookshelves, he kind of woke up to who he was, you know? So he could say yes to something about the guy, right? And the guy could recognize, oh yeah, that's me. I'm a carpenter. That's part of my story. And in the process of being aware of being a carpenter and getting into that, he woke up to what he really is. So again, you know, this woman too I was telling you about that was talking to Carl Rogers, a single mother, little boys who need a lot of love. She doesn't want to be dependent, going out to work, balancing all these things, having feelings that she feels ashamed of, all that stuff. That's her story.

[62:34]

And Carol Rogers just said, yes, yes, yes. And she's not really, you know, if you can see that she wasn't a single mother or somebody else. I mean, she was, but she also wasn't a single mother and wasn't somebody who was ashamed and wasn't somebody who was worried about how taking care of her kids. There was somebody else there that was beyond all this stuff, all these feelings. Somebody very bright and beautiful. And if you looked at that person, you wouldn't say, no, there's a single mother or there's a woman who's ashamed of her feelings or something. You'd say, there's somebody who is just that person. And she was able to get to know who she really was, or not to even get to know who she was, but to be who she really was, through somebody else just joining her story and helping her see the story, reflecting it back to her. But with a paranoid like that, it requires real tremendous skill to figure out what way you can hook into it in such a way that...

[63:45]

the person feels like you're joining their world and at the same time you can throw them back on themselves in some real experience that they can work with. Because again, if you just say, well, yes, you're Jesus and you're the son of God and all that, there's no way that they can work with that. I mean, you can't get the whole hospital to sort of get around them and do this drama. But if you could, if the whole hospital is willing to do that, probably in the middle of sitting up there on the throne with all his disciples, he probably would wake up to who he was, if you're willing to make that much effort. The whole world reflecting back his story probably would, would probably be, it very well might work. But again, people don't usually care that much about paranoids to go to that much trouble, because they're, you know, they're mean and dangerous and all that. But if you could get the whole world to reflect back the story, then he would see the story and realize,

[64:46]

But the fact that the world's not reflecting his story back leaves him stuck in his story. He can't get out. You know, for example, there was a monastery, a Zen monastery, where the monks came to the teacher and said, somebody's stealing our... I think they're stealing their bowls, their eating bowls, or something like that. Some... implement of daily life that somebody was stealing day after day things were disappearing and after a while they said we think we know who did it you know and we want to kick the guy out and I might be skipping over some parts of the story but anyway what the teacher did is he asked all the monks to bring all their possessions to this guy so they all brought all their possessions and brought it to his room and gave it to him And they didn't ever kick him out, but he, you know, he got the message and stopped stealing.

[65:59]

I mean, there's an awakened reason for stealing. We want to steal things because really we kind of feel like everything belongs to us. And if we see something that doesn't belong to us, We want to get it. Especially if it's something that we really want, we really feel belongs to us. Something really beautiful. Well, that's ours, isn't it? If you can appreciate how beautiful a Mercedes-Benz is, doesn't it belong to you? So it's something weird if it isn't yours. So you want to get it and have it. Makes sense. So if a person wants to steal this kind of thing, what you should do is bring all the Mercedes-Benz to them. Just give all the Mercedes-Benz in the world, if possible, or at least all the ones in the area. And then they might see what it is that's driving them to steal. There's something really good that's driving them to steal.

[67:11]

And so how to reflect what they're doing back to them in such a way that they can see what they really are. Namely, this living surface that's being stimulated by reality to produce these results, which simple awareness of them will show the whole story eventually. Did that, was that responding? Yeah. I want to, you know,

[68:21]

I told you these two stories before, and I want to tell you them again. And this is kind of like beating a dead dog. It's a story about the dog. But it's also important for me that you get some stories that will stick with you. And this is a very basic story, so I want to tell it again. And that is that the monk asked the great teacher, Zhao Zhou, does a dog have Buddha nature? And he said, Mu. Then the monk said, but all living beings fully possess the Buddha nature. Why not the dog? And Zhao Zhou said, because it has karmic consciousness, because it has active consciousness.

[69:33]

Okay, that's that story. The other story is, the monk asked Zhao Zhou, does a dog have Buddha nature? And Zhao Zhou said, yo, which means, yes, it does. And the monk says, well, if it has Buddha nature, why did it come into a dog's And Jojo said, because it knowingly and willingly transgresses. Those are two stories. So, does a dog have Buddha in nature or not? Does a dog have Buddha in nature or not? No? Well, what's the answer? Well, it doesn't have both.

[70:39]

It doesn't have neither. It doesn't have either. And you can see by the teacher's response, one time he said no and the other time he said yes. So obviously it's not either one of those. And it's not both of them. And it's not neither. And what we need to do is be able, if somebody asks us a question like that, we need to recognize our response. You responded, but you didn't look like you knew it. And then you made some sounds. Does a dog have Buddha nature? Teacher says, moo. Now, when he says moo, it's a nice-sounding word because especially if you're a Westerner and don't speak Chinese or Japanese, when they say moo, it sounds like a cow or something, right?

[71:46]

Moo. It doesn't sound like no to you. But when you learn the language, then you not only hear moo, but you hear no. Really, the teacher just made a sound, you know? He didn't mean that the dog does not have Buddha nature. He just made a sound. And the sound he chose to make was a sound that meant no. And the student, on one level, the student was put into a trance or bewitched by that linguistic meaning of no. On another level, he was actually wise to it and was just kidding along with the teacher. And so he said, and it works on both levels. On the level of him being fooled and on the level of him being in on the story and getting the joke, on both levels, he could say, but all living beings have the Buddha nature, so why not the dog?

[72:51]

Can you see how you could be asking that question on both levels? Does that make sense? Even if you were fooled and you thought the teacher was saying, no, the dog doesn't, you might say, well, If it doesn't, that doesn't make sense because the teaching says that all animals, all beings have the Buddha nature, so why not the dog? But also, if you weren't fooled by it, and if you just went up to somebody and you said, does a dog have Buddha nature? And they just went, ugh! You might still say, you might still understand that in such a way that you would say, but all beings have the Buddha nature, why not the dog? In other words, you can follow this story as two people talking in ordinary language and being bewitched by language, or you can hear this story as two people vocalizing Buddha nature itself as they're talking, and both of them being aware of its manifestation. So we, you know, dogs...

[74:03]

You can say dogs have Buddha nature or not have Buddha nature. The teaching says that they are completely Buddha nature itself. And that does not mean that they have it or don't have it. And when I say it doesn't mean they have it or don't have it, I mean those words of have it and don't have it don't apply. That the point is, that's the reason why the dog and all beings are the Buddha nature, is because whatever you say about it doesn't matter. I mean, it matters, but it doesn't affect the Buddha nature. It only affects your realization of it. So, if I say, does a dog have Buddha nature, and I say no, if you're bewitched, you think it doesn't. If I say yes, if you're bewitched, you think it does. The point is, how can you not be fooled by me saying yes or no about the dog? When you ask, what does a dog have Buddha nature, even if I say no, that doesn't distract you from the issue.

[75:09]

And even if I say yes, that doesn't distract you. Either one of those are on one level, just distractions. Yeah. I would answer, what would you want that answer to me? Yeah. And if you say, what would you like me to answer to you, another way to say that is moo. Another way to answer it that sometimes happens is the teacher hits the student. There's a language there too. There's words in that too. What are the words behind hitting a person? One of the words is, you're a bad boy. That's a language that could be there. Another thing they could be saying is you're a good boy. What is the story? Is the story you're a good boy when you get hit, or a good girl, or is the story you're a bad girl?

[76:21]

What is the story? Or is getting hit with a stick just getting hit with a stick, and you don't know what it means? So then he says, no, that's the end of that story for now. Then on the other one he says, does the dog have Buddha nature? And he said, yes, it does. And that does not mean that the dog does have Buddha nature. It means that when you ask, does a dog have Buddha nature, and somebody says, yes it does, then the meaning of that is that the dog has Buddha nature. That's what that means. That that makes sense according to the rules of language.

[77:25]

If somebody asks, does a dog have Buddha nature, and you say yes, it doesn't mean that the dog has Buddha nature, it means that the meaning of that statement is in the grammar of that utterance. And that makes sense, doesn't it? Does a dog have Buddha nature? Yes, it does. That makes sense. Two reasonable sentences put together and they have meaning. And what is the meaning? The meaning is the dog does not have Buddha nature, right? That's the meaning due to that expression, those words. It does not apply to the dog. It's not about the dog. It's about the language. The language is talking about how language works. It's not talking about dogs or Buddha nature. Language cannot talk about anything. So when he says, does the dog have Buddha nature? He says, no, that's not talking about the dog.

[78:31]

The meaning that you get from that interaction is about the way those words work together. It's not about the dog. Language does not refer to anything other than itself. That's the way it's built. And the same with our consciousness, with discriminating consciousness. Discriminating consciousness is of itself. As I said, you know, it splits itself in half through the bifurcating function of the mind, the mind organ, splits itself in half, and it's aware of itself. The active part is aware of the passive part. The active part is called the mind, usually. The passive part is called objects. And language is also only aware of itself. It only talks about its own workings. And if there's no meaning, that's because the grammar is not working properly in such a way as to produce meanings. If there is meaning, it's because the grammar works in such a way as to produce a meaning. So, does a dog have Buddha nature?

[79:35]

No. What's the meaning of that? It doesn't have Buddha nature. doesn't refer to the dog. In the same way, if you say, does the dog have Buddha nature? You say, yes. The meaning of that in language is the dog does have Buddha nature. It doesn't apply to the dog. But we think it does because we are caught and bewitched by language. Then on the same level, the monk says, if to the answer, yes, it does, he says, well, why would... Buddha-nature come into the form of a dog? And he says, because he knowingly and willingly transgresses. The story on that line is, why does the dog, why does Buddha-nature come into a dog? And there's a certain grammar there, a certain meaning, certain syntax and word usage. And the answer is, oh, the meaning of that is, you're wondering why enlightenment would come into such a lowly form. Why wouldn't it take a human body?

[80:38]

And the answer is because enlightenment always transgresses when it comes into the world. It always has to corrupt itself in some way, limit itself in some way, like the moon coming into the finger. It has to do that. And again, the meaning of that statement is within the statement. It doesn't refer to the actuality. The actuality is in both stories, running through both stories is the actuality. What's that? And if I tell you what it is, then again you may think that what I say is referring to the actuality. But it's not. It would just be another linguistic expression that would make you comfortable.

[81:42]

But both of these stories, these two people, are perfectly manifesting Buddha in nature in both cases, and they have no questions and no answers. And every syllable of the way, the same story is occurring. And neither one of them really think that dogs do or do not have Buddha nature. They really don't think that dogs don't have Buddha nature or do have Buddha nature. They don't think that. I mean, they think that way, but that's not what they're doing. And that's because the Buddha nature is a strange thing, which is both a combination of the world of linguistics and the world of words, and of the world that's not words.

[82:50]

I didn't say that, you said that. That's right. So when you make a linguistic statement like this about dogs or something in Buddha nature, Those are not referring to anything. So where would you look for what's going on? Where do you look? Yeah, here, but where here? In what I just talked about, where would you look for what's going on? All I'm getting from this is you're telling a story, and I'm not getting it, and I feel very uncomfortable.

[84:14]

Because I can't put it into some frame of reference or pigeonhole in my storehouse of memory or experiences where it fits. I don't have a file to put the story into it. And I feel very angry and very hot and uncomfortable. So if you wanted discomfort... Reply? You said you didn't want to explain the story to make me comfortable. Well... And I'm only feeling uncomfortable. Do you want to feel more comfortable? No, I just wanted to tell you I feel uncomfortable. You don't want to feel more comfortable? Oh, I like that. I prefer to feel comfortable. Okay, I'll try to make it more comfortable now. So where do you look? What do you look at in a situation like this? If I tell you that these stories don't refer to anything, that this discussion about, you know, does a dog have Buddha nature?

[85:28]

No. Or does a dog have Buddha nature? Yes. And then all that stuff that followed. If it doesn't refer to the dog or Buddha nature, then... And it's... then what would you study or where do you put your attention or what's the subject that you're studying? What? You point here? Yeah. You point here, but what do you mean? Let's have some concrete examples of what you mean by it. What? How you feel about it. Yeah, but even before that... The words themselves. This is not a put-down of stories. This is trying to get you to see what stories are. So, stories don't refer to anything, so therefore what you have to work with is the story, not what the story is referring to, because the story does not refer to anything.

[86:31]

But the bewitchment of the story is, the bewitchment of language is that language has the ability, and so does discriminating consciousness, of creating the illusion that it's talking about something. Language does not talk about anything. Language only talks about itself. And it has meaning or doesn't have meaning according only to the grammar of language, to the usage and common sense and agreed upon conventions of how we use it. It's just a game? It's just a game. And it's a game, a special kind of a game that bewitches you and makes you think you're playing a game about something rather than you're just playing a game. And language is just like discriminating consciousness because discriminating consciousness, and that's the only kind we've got, is by nature, acting as though it's thinking about something, rather than that it's thinking about itself.

[87:39]

But it's built to make us think, to create the experience that there's an awareness of something. And language is on the same model, that language is though it referred to something. So when you say, that is a tree, people think that that linguistic utterance refers to something. And you read, don't you? That is a tree. So you think that my finger's referring to it, the language is referring to it. And why do you think that? Because that's the way you're built. And what you're experiencing is not the tree, but something about the way you function. And when you speak language and use language and you get a meaning out of it and think it's about the dog or about Buddha nature, you're not learning about Buddha nature. When you hear those statements, you're learning about language.

[88:45]

You're learning about mind. Language cannot refer to ultimate reality. It cannot do that. But it does definitely create the impression that it can refer to ultimate reality. And the only way to ultimate reality is through language. And the same with your mind. Your mind cannot be aware of ultimate reality. Ultimate reality is actually the way your mind is working. But the way your mind works is that it it feels like it's thinking of something. And that fact that it works that way has something to do, if you can see how it works, that allows the realization of the real story, which is beyond all stories.

[90:00]

And beyond them means it's also not afraid to come right into them. Ultimate reality is not scared of being in the stories. It's dancing right in the stories. All the stories, it's right there. And again, when it comes into stories, it starts pointing all over the place, and we get fooled by the way it's pointing. And if we can catch ourselves being fooled and see how that fooling, illusory process goes, we become released from it and can live a happy life even though we speak a language. And even though we have discriminating consciousness, which is constantly pointing us someplace else, it's like the finger. You're comparing the situation of, let's say, sitting in a movie theater and being able to turn your awareness from the screen to the process that's creating the illusion of this world.

[91:05]

Yeah. which is another way to say it is you see what's happening on the movie screen not as an object. You see that as mind itself. Or you see that as the movie is not telling you about how you're working. It's not telling you about how somebody else is working or how something else is working. Various ways to try to turn it around. Got to figure out some way to turn it around, turn the process around and go the other direction from the way it's usually running. So language is running like saying, oh, I'm talking about language now. Now that's a good example because that's really true. But almost any other object that I would say that I can talk about points us away in a certain direction.

[92:07]

Now, yep, okay, that's in the context. Our consciousness is doing that all the time. It's pointing us out. You have to turn that around and realize that what you're aware of is actually telling you something about yourself and about how the whole mind works. And if you start doing that, lots of feelings will come up. So you might In some sense, the fact that some people feel uncomfortable with this kind of talk, part of the reason why you feel uncomfortable is because you're starting to learn who you are. What you actually are is quite free of language and discriminating consciousness. But as that starts to dawn on you, you may feel uncomfortable because, in fact, freedom is something you're not so used to.

[93:16]

So it's a little uneasy because you can't use your, you know, you can't use your usual bondages in freedom. You can't use your usual chains in freedom. So you sort of worry about what we do with your chains now. chains. Should we have a museum for them or what? I went to this ceremony in Japan one time. It was an animal-releasing ceremony. So sometimes Buddhists try to release animals that are in captivity. They put goldfish back into a pond or release chickens or something. So they had this animal-releasing ceremony and they released these chickens from these cages. They opened the cages and the chickens flew off. And they started wandering about, you know, all sort of around the area. And then the ceremony ended and the chickens just totally walking around in confusion. They crawled back into the cages. Now, I don't know if they trained them to do that so they could do the ceremony over and over again.

[94:24]

But I didn't feel like that. I really felt that the chickens didn't know how to handle their freedom. It was too uncomfortable because they could do anything, you know. So their usual routines were no more helpful than their unusual routines. Their usual habits were no more useful than anything that they might do. And we're not used to that, so we like to crawl back into our little area. So I've just told you something about language, and if you try it on, some of you might get quite upset. That's why you should try to stay calm and concentrated, but still I told you something which is conceivably quite upsetting. Namely, you're not ever talking about anything. And you're not ever thinking about anything. You're just under the illusion of talking about things and thinking about things. And that ability to produce illusion is the function of language and not the only function of it, but it is an important function, an inescapable function.

[95:31]

of language and consciousness. It has to do this, otherwise the whole thing will collapse. There's subject and object in mind and there's subject and object in language. The rules of language tell you about the rules of mind. And in some ways the reason why being a human being is so, it's a great opportunity is because our bondage is so clearly reflected in the language and other animals the reflection of their bondage in their language is not as clear as ours. However, they have language too, and their language is also their bondage. But human beings have this wonderful verbal and written language such that we can use it to express and objectify our confusion and attachments and bewitchment. And once you start studying that process, you can turn the language around.

[96:34]

And that's all you have to do is just find some place and just turn the language around. Just some little place and go. So in Zen we have this expression of a sentence head or the head of a sentence or the end of a sentence. So you take a phrase and you try to find some part of the phrase, either the beginning or the end often. Like you say, what is... Take the what. And what usually goes in a certain direction? It's like a question, right? It goes in that direction. But that what can turn around and start talking to you before it goes on to anything else. So if you can take a word of the teaching and take it and work with it, sometimes it just turns around and the language will start going in the other direction. so that questions become statements and statements become questions. So these stories I told you, particularly this one about dog having Buddha nature and not, those potential verbal expressions that you can use to turn on if you want to.

[97:45]

Yes? I'm inclined to want to answer that not lift words and Answer it by merging with the dog to find out what was going on with you. That's fine. I say. Is that what? Is that, oh, is that... Do you take that same attitude? Do you remember saying how the question with words and... take an opinion of students? Before you start working with words the way I'm just talking about, you're already, in this practice, you're already being aware of your experiences.

[99:25]

You've already settled into your experiences. You're already doing what you just described. Not necessarily merging with the dog, but anyway, you're aware of, you experience the awareness of the dog. That's you have that experience that should be going on all the time now there's no problem with that and then somebody's going to talk to you and then have you learned enough from your previous work, just working directly with your experience, have you learned enough so that when I start talking to you, you can not be fooled by it? So this kind of work you're referring to that you had a tendency to do, you should continue to do that work, but you still have to be able to cope with when somebody talks to you and not be caught by it.

[100:30]

And when I refer to something, you still have to be able to be aware of the fact that you get caught by that. And also free yourself from that and realize that I'm never referring to anything. And right now I'm not referring to anything either. And for you not to be caught by that, by the apparent reference I'm making to some other situation by this language, as though I'm talking about something else than just the way this language works. So we have to tune into our experience sincerely. That's the ground. And then we have to test ourselves and others to see if people are being fooled by what's happening. Because at the first level, what you're tuning into is illusion. You're tuning into and being aware of experience, which is ignorance.

[101:34]

But the nature of that ignorance is what you have to find out. So you don't try to get rid of the ignorance. You study it. And a fundamental kind of ignorance for us is the ignorance that creates language. So the thing you're talking about is the foundation of this work with words. is work with stories. And the story of merging with the dog, it's a story. It's a linguistic expression. I have another, I would say, that you cannot merge with the dog. It's another story I would tell you. And it's not about you or the dog, either. That just another... chunk of language that I offered to you.

[102:48]

Hmm? Another hook, yeah. You're trying to say something Maybe I've read it before somewhere. We are all part of a universal mind or universal flux or universal energy. It's a wordless world that we are part of everything and everything is a part of us rather confusing also there can't be such a thing as universal energy because that would be a relative term we'd have to compare it to something to say that there is energy so at the same time we are part of everything and we are part of

[104:05]

Nothing. I know it sounds a little crazy, but I think that's what you're trying to say. It kind of makes sense to me. Yeah, and you can't have free-floating energy. In this particular cosmos that seems to be happening, there's not free-floating energy. Energy only expresses itself through a dynamic of limitation. So that's why we are the way that the actual total energy is working. So my Buddhist name in Japanese is Zenki, which has been recently translated sometimes as total dynamic function. But recently it was translated as the whole works. And if the whole works is actually

[105:09]

A pun, but actually it's a multiple pun. But the basic level of the pun is that the whole works has both a colloquial and standard English meaning. The colloquial meaning of the whole works is everything, right? But the standard meaning of the whole works is that the whole is working. So the word the whole works has this dynamic in it that it means everything and that the everything, the totality, is working. And where does the totality work? It works through a particular situation. So the total energy of the cosmos is working through a particularity, through all the particularities.

[106:11]

And also the particularities in that way are the whole works. You see, they are the whole works in the sense that that's the only way that the whole works. So they are, and they are also the whole works. You see? That's language working well. See how it turns and the energy in it? That's not about anything. That's it. The way that language is working is the thing I'm talking about itself. It doesn't refer to anything. Even though it's talking about the cosmos, it's not really talking about the cosmos, it's demonstrating the very fact that we're talking about, namely the whole works. It's demonstrating the whole works. Can you feel that? Can the people who don't speak English as a first language feel it? Very good. Really, you can't feel these two sides at once.

[107:19]

You flicker back and forth between... Can you hear the whole works? And hear the whole works? Can you hear the two? The whole works. The whole works. And that same thing is going on in this story about the dog. Monk says, does a dog have Buddha nature? That utterance is the whole works. Do you feel that? And then the master says, moo, that's the whole works. And then the monk says, well, you know, why not? I thought everybody, I thought all beings had the Buddha nature. That's the whole works. And the teacher said, because it has karmic consciousness.

[108:22]

And that utterance is the whole works. It's not referring to anything. And yet, each one of those statements could be heard as referring to something. And the conversation goes along and makes sense on that level. And also corresponds to Buddhist teaching. Right? Which I told you about. The only reason why you don't realize Buddha-nature is because of karmic consciousness. It won't let you see it because it says this can't be enlightenment. So the monk's question actually was coming from karmic consciousness in the first place. Namely, oh, all beings have the Buddha-nature, so how about a dog? He knew that, you see, he asked that question because he was thinking, well, all beings have the Buddha-nature, well, I wonder if dogs do then. They should, right? So I asked the teacher, and the teacher said no. Well, but teacher, the language says that they do.

[109:24]

In each case, you see, first he's asking the question as though he's referring to a dog or something about a dog. And then the teacher says no, as though he's saying no about the dog. And then he says, but what about this teaching that says, you see, it all works on that level too. So at the same time that there's the working process, of this consciousness, which is distracting the issue and pointing other places, each one of those places is the whole works. Or each one of those sections of there is the whole works. Both levels are going on at once with this story. And you know it's the case because this is a great Zen master in this story. But notice that the great Zen master does not violate the simple rules of grammar. He plays the game according to the rules, and he doesn't make up weird things. What he said makes sense. Both each sentence makes sense, but also the teaching there makes sense, too. Do you see? Namely, okay, all beings have it. Does this one have it?

[110:25]

No. Why not? Because of this. It makes sense. It makes sense ordinary language-wise, and also it makes sense according to teaching. But the other part of the teaching that's going on is that the whole works all the way through there. And they're never fooled by this story that they're playing. But they play it. There is definitely that, that it's a great joy when somebody gets it. It's like recently I taught my daughter how to ride a bicycle. And I was looking forward to that moment for many years.

[111:28]

Because I just thought it would be a great moment. And it was. And I even used... The future of my daughter learning how to ride a bicycle, even before she learned how, I told people about it, what was going to be happening when she did it. And I said, my daughter doesn't know how to ride a bicycle, and someday I'm going to teach her. But I love her now, and after she learns, I'm going to love her too. And still, it's going to be a great joy for me to be with her when she learns how to ride a bicycle. Now, a subtle point here is that, strangely, even though you love your daughter and you want to be with her when she experienced riding a bicycle, sometimes in the process of learning to ride the bicycle, if she doesn't learn quickly, you sometimes forget that you love her. Even though, of course, you know that whether or not she can ride the bicycle doesn't mean whether you love her or not.

[112:34]

And really, the reason why you want to watch her learn how to do it is because you love her. It'll be such a thrill. But you can actually get caught in the process there and lose sight of the fact that the reason why you wanted to have this happen is because you love the person. Okay? But still, it is a joy to see somebody learn something. It's almost as good as to learn it yourself. And if you're a teacher, the joy that the student has in learning is your joy. Okay? Now, in the story of Zen... Zen practitioners, the teacher loves a student before the student learns the thing, but still wants to have that joy of watching them learn. And also, just like a father teaching daughter how to ride a bicycle, in the process of learning, the teacher may actually forget that he loves a student and beat on them. Who knows what might happen? He might lose sight of that because he wants this special, this learning to occur,

[113:39]

that sometimes he forgets about the love maybe a little bit. Or he doesn't really forget about it, just that his prompting of this learning is the love. So there is that. But this is a different story. This is a story between two enlightened people. And there they're not learning anymore, they're just dancing. This is a case where they're just playing a game. And the game goes on on several levels. They're just constantly demonstrating the whole works, the whole works, the whole works, the whole works. Every moment they're doing that in the story, in both stories. So in this story, the monk is a master too, I would say. The monk doesn't really learn. He's just feeding these, he's a straight man. Feeding these lines to the teacher for him to sort of spew out these dynamic... karmas, these dynamic actions.

[114:40]

So to share in the experience of learning is wonderful, but at a certain point, some people don't have anything more to learn, and sometimes they're surrounded by other people who have learned everything, and then they just dance the old dance. And to some extent, even beginners, in Soto Zen anyway, even beginners and advanced people, when they sit together, the feeling is we're just we're just all not really learning anything anymore. We're doing something that is not learning, it's just doing it. You're actually manifesting the understanding at that time. But even in that context then, of already established love and already nothing more to learn, still there's learning. So again, your feeling about your child is they don't have to learn anything for you to love them, you don't care if they learn anything, and yet it's also a joy for them to learn. And this is another example of the whole works. You see, when you look at your child, I mean, that is the whole works.

[115:46]

But also, you want to see the whole works, or see the whole working. There's those two sides. There's nothing to learn, and yet there's plenty to learn. You shouldn't come over on either side of that and rest on either side. There's this dynamic. So when the teaching of the whole works completely fills you, naturally you feel something's missing. Even though the teaching is, nothing's missing, and the nothing missing is working through what you are right now. When that teaching fills you, you naturally feel something's missing. And that something missing is another example of the whole works. But if you take a little bit of this medicine, it doesn't really fill your body and mind, then you may feel like, oh, I'm done.

[116:50]

So that happens sometimes. Or if I tell you I have nothing to learn and you take that in quite a bit and it starts to fill you, but it doesn't quite fill you completely, you might think, oh, great, I can retire. But when it finally actually fills you completely, then you realize you have a lot of work to do. a lot of work to do. In other words, the whole works. Anything else?

[117:39]

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