So another tablet, ceramic tablet, has been brought. I'm starting to feel a little like Moses. But I remind myself, I comfort myself with late breaking news that Moses was not a Jew. Today's tablet says, Yun Men said, the ancient Buddhas are merged with the pillar. What level of activity is this? The assembly was speechless.

[01:01]

Yen Muns, in their behalf, said, on the South Mountain, clouds are cropping up. On North Mountain, rain falls. So that's the text. I've been in my talks with the group and with individuals and with myself trying to encourage us to enter into the activity where the ancient Buddhas merge with pillars.

[02:06]

and talking up the courage that's our way into this inter-sanctum where subject and object merge, where mind and object merge. And what sort of activity is this? It's been happening always. Epitomized by clouds coming up on the South Mountain and rain coming down on North Mountain. Epitomized by you practicing this saschine serving each other delicious vegetarian food.

[03:19]

Everything that happens is this kind of activity, really. How can we see this? How can we see this realm where mind and nature merge? How can we enter and witness the realm where we see the pattern that connects all living beings? So I think some people here are not having too much pain.

[04:53]

I've met some of them, the occasional pain people. And some other people are having a lot of pain. What do you call it? The Green Gulch establishment is not in control of the pain level. But I found an old piece of paper. I wrote some notes from some time or other, and I said to myself, for me, pain is not a problem. unless I'm separated from it. That's for me. I had that experience.

[05:57]

And being separated from pain, for me, means pain plus delusion. the delusion that I'm here and pain's at some distance from me, and that that pain has some independent existence of me, and I have some independent existence of that pain, and to believe that. Then pain is a problem for me. And also, then that pain that's a problem for me is a problem for others, too. But if I get so close to the pain that I can't tell which is which, me or the pain, sometimes I'm the pain and there's a me. Sometimes they just simply merge like the Buddha and the pillar. And then me and pain, what kind of activity is me and pain?

[07:11]

me in merged pain? I always think of Minnesota in the springtime on the first day that you walk outside and there's no difference in temperature. I've never tried it, but I say to myself that a tiger's not a problem in the backseat of a Volkswagen.

[08:21]

Yeah, getting into the backseat with the tiger might be a problem, but I believe that if I could somehow, if you could kind of like anesthetize me and the tiger and cram us into the backseat, or if not the backseat, maybe the trunk of one of those bugs, And when we woke up, I don't think there would be a big problem. I might be a little scared, but that fear would be thinking the tiger was separate. And then if you squashed a few more tigers in there, eventually I wouldn't be scared anymore of the tigers. I would be scared of being squashed, but not the tigers. But again, my fear would be of the squashing be something other than myself. The problem is always belief in separation. The problem is always disbelief in the wonderful pattern which connects, as Gregory Bateson said. The pattern that connects

[09:41]

the lobster and the crayfish that connects me and you and connects me and you to the lobster and the crayfish and connects us four with the ocean and the mountains. He also said, Gregory also said, that the real creative work, he felt, happens in the interface, or the interstices, is that how you say it? Well, intricacies, but interstices? How many say interstices is right? How many say it's wrong? How do you say it, Jordan?

[10:44]

Oh, that's your problem. Any other pronunciations? Yes? Interstices. In the interstices and the interstices. In the interstices between disciplines where the real creative word happens. So Gregory was a biologist. and I'd been a Zen monk, some real creativity happened between us, which was part of the reason why he went to my talks. Even though I was a kid, he saw the potential for creativity where he stopped being a biologist and started to be a Zen monk, but never quite switched. And for me, too, meeting the old biologist, the son of,

[11:49]

One of the main opponents to the Darwinian understanding of evolution in England, his father was Professor Bateson, also a biologist. That tradition was meaning that was a place of creativity for me. So to be upright, for me to be upright in the awareness of this interface between self and other, between mind and nature, is a source of real creativity. And it's also usually somewhat painful and frightening. It's frightening for the biologist at the edge of his discipline. It's frightening for the Buddhist at the edge of their discipline.

[12:54]

And Sashin is partly frightening because you're at the edge of your discipline, a lot of you. You're right on the edge of it. You're on the limit of it. How still can you be with what's happening? How close can you be to the tiger? And a little bit of difference, that little bit of difference is heart-rending. But that rending will be your way to reunion. And Wendy's going to tell a story about some heart-rending thing that happened to her with the Diamond Sutra. So part of what I see is in a sense that the first part of practice is to go in the opposite direction from our habit.

[14:15]

The opposite direction is instead of coming forth from a belief in our separation, to go back and face that separation. to be still with that separation until you see it collapse. And then, after that death of your usual approach to life, after that death of yourself which is not the other, and the birth of a self which is contradictorily self-identical with the other, then comes from this death a new life, a new life of cooperation with all beings.

[15:17]

But this is real cooperation because it's not based on you cooperating with them. It's rather a theatrical presentation of your understanding that you are not her and he actually is you. This is the level of activity of where the Buddha, the old Buddha, merges with the pillar. We used to... We have a nice zendo, right? And we used to have a nice zendo too, except that we were afraid it would fall down and hurt somebody's crown. So we rebuilt it.

[16:22]

And in old zendo, we used to have pillars that the Buddha, the Manjushri, could commune with. And Manjushri... happily merged with those pillars. He also merged with the stovepipe. Now there's no pillars for us to merge with anymore inside here. So the death of the pillars made room for this new situation for us to cooperate in. So death is useful that way. It makes room for the new. It gets rid of ineffective forms, or you might say no longer effective forms, things that used to be useful. And everything that's brought us to here at this point has been useful, and we should not be anything but grateful to our history.

[17:29]

But it's time to throw it away. Of course, it's being thrown away anyway, so just get with the program. Someone who practices sitting for some time now asked me, told me that he was somewhat successful at finally getting to the place where she could sit upright.

[18:54]

where her tensions in her body guided her to her uprightness and where her uprightness guided her to her tensions. The attempt to be upright uncovers the tensions and holdings and the tensions and holding imply uprightness. Back and forth this way she was able finally to drop these various things in the uprightness. And she said, well then what? What about compassion and stuff like that? Well I felt and I said that it was compassion that led you to this point. That sitting there working with your body like that is compassion. That's taking very good care of yourself. And it's It's getting into the passion of those clingings, the passion that causes and is represented by those attachments in your muscles.

[20:10]

Being willing to be there with the consequences of your history, of your past action. This is real compassion for yourself. Maybe if you're willing to be with your own tension, your own somewhat embarrassing attachments and tensions and clingings. Maybe you'd be willing to be with somebody else's too. I find that to be the case, that when I'm willing to admit my own problems, then other people's aren't quite so frightening. When I get close to one tiger, I'm encouraged to get close to another one. That's compassion and courage at the same time. And this compassion with your own body and mind leads to wisdom, leads to insight.

[21:27]

as to what the problem was, how it was formed and how it went away and what it really was and how it really wasn't and never will be and can appear again. By being able to be aware of your own posture and your own breathing naturally compassion arises, and that compassion will show you the nature of body, breath, and mind. And this person who was asking me, well, then what, unwittingly told me, and then what? Insight after insight poured out of her mouth. And I just sat back and listened to the music. She wasn't even aware that she was telling me about wisdom and compassion.

[22:36]

And you know, it's okay that she wasn't. She knew that she was happy. And you don't even have to know that unless somebody else needs it. And when they need it, they'll ask for it and you'll have it there to give. You don't need to carry it around. It'll come forth as soon as it's needed. I told you before, about this experience I had one time when I was in Paris. I went to a museum.

[23:38]

What is it called? Musée Guimet? Musée? Did I say museum in French? Musée? Huh? Oui? So I went to Musée Guimet. And they have wonderful Buddhist collection there. And I saw this statue of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of great compassion, in a feminine form, with Chinese clothes on and a Chinese face, guanyin, listening to the voice, listening to the word, is her name. And she was sitting in a beautiful stone grotto. She was sitting cross-legged, very erect. And next to her was, on either side of her in this stone cave, was a shelf. And on one shelf there was a flower, and on the other shelf there was a vase.

[24:50]

she had placed her implements of compassion on the shelf and took her hands away from active compassion and brought them together into this meditation mudra, which she placed two inches below her navel. Avalokiteshvara was practicing zazen. I never saw her do that before. And I said, of course, of course she does that. And then from this stillness, she comes forth. She picks up her flower and puts it in a vase and brings this flower to all sentient beings. And they say, wow, this is great, thank you. Where did you get that flower? Well, I sat in a cave and then I picked up the flower and brought it to you. Manjushri, on the other hand, we see often sitting, not running around giving flowers to people.

[26:04]

As a matter of fact, Manjushri is sitting there with a sword or a club saying, hey, what is that flower anyway? Maybe you should put it down for a while and think about it. Are you attached to that flower? Whose flower is that? Give me that flower. What happens when this guy gets up and starts walking? What level of activity will that be? When after communing with the walls here, for how many centuries he's been doing that, what would his activity be? Will it be these American people? These Czechoslovakian people? these Latin American people, these Indian people, these Swiss and German people, these Middle Eastern people, these Chinese people, these Japanese people?

[27:11]

Will it be these people? Will it be their lives? The stories that inspired me to come to practice Zen were stories of when Manjushri got up from his sitting, or when Avalokiteshvara got up from her sitting, got up from that stillness and that silence where the pillar merges with the ancient Buddha. They got up from there and they interacted cooperatively with all beings.

[28:17]

They saw the pattern which connects all beings. And then their action Their light emanated from that place. And I heard these stories of what they did coming from that place. And I said, I want to act like that. If I could act like that, that's all I want. And then I found out, I wanted to know how I could act that way, and I found out, oh, these guys just sit. So I've been doing that practice for some time, and now I'm still watching now.

[29:23]

When will the action which inspired me come forth from the sitting, from myself, from all of us? If it doesn't come forth yet, I think it's because we haven't sat still enough. in the real sense of sitting still, which will enter us into a world that's not dead, but that's extremely creative and alive. And as Gregory Bateson also said, this relationship, this pattern which connects, is not fixed. It's a dance. And he also, as I mentioned, gave me this teaching about the quartets, the still point where the dance starts, the still point of the turning world, the still point of the turning life.

[30:26]

There's stillness with our life, but this life is a life that's turning. If there's stillness with a life that's still, it's okay. Don't get too worried about it. Just be still with that. But eventually this life should start jumping and turning on itself. The life should turn round and round. This pearl should roll of itself. I say should, but I also mean it is turning. Life, what life really is, is turning on itself. Again, as Nietzsche said, speaking for life, she says, behold, I am that which is constantly going beyond itself. Can you see this life that's constantly going beyond itself?

[31:32]

Actually, where would you look to find the life which is constantly going beyond itself? It's right around pain. Because if we have any attachment, when life goes beyond itself, we often find it difficult to accept. When our dear ones are not doing quite what we want them to, life has just gone beyond beyond itself. But we are having problems adjusting. But having that problem of adjusting you know you're close to it. You know you're in touch with it going beyond itself. If you can just be upright, if I can just be upright with it maybe I can see that what I'm finally seeing is what life really is.

[32:42]

An ungovernable, uncontrollable, radiant function where clouds crop up and rain falls down and Buddhas and pillars dance. I have been growing a lawn around the house I live in for some time now. And for some time the lawn was subject to gopherian eruptions and holes. But gophers don't just dig holes, they dig holes But the way they dig holes, they push the dirt out of the hole and make a mound around the hole.

[33:46]

And my method of dealing with that was to use a hose and squirt the dirt back down the hole. And then sometimes plant grass over the hole and let it grow back again. This was my technique. For some time, I had to restrain myself from acting on thoughts of otherness from the gophers. My first reaction to seeing a gopher pile was not, what is the pattern which connects? My thought was, I have been attacked Someone suggested I have a seance or something with the king of the gophers, the gopher king.

[34:51]

And I made some half-hearted attempts at that. Some people accuse me of killing the gophers by squirting the hose down there and having the dirt go down there. But my feeling is that that gopher would not hurt at all because a few minutes later it would come up someplace else. I saw no decrease in gopher activity. Anyway, me and the gophers have been doing this thing for quite a while. And by the way, I'm from Minnesota, which is the land of the golden gopher. That's my mascot of my university. But it wasn't until after I practiced Zen that I realized the true significance of the golden gopher. Recently, another affliction has visited me, me and my lawn.

[36:00]

It is the cats. I don't know exactly which ones, but I think one of them, well, I won't name them. But anyway, a number of cats come into my yard. And in the morning when I get up, and also sometimes when I come back at various times of day, I find these big gouges in the lawn. where the cats have been digging away the grass and not tidying up after themselves like they do when they shit. Because they don't shit, they just dig the lawn up. So I thought after a while, oh, maybe they're digging up the lawn not just to be mean, but maybe they're looking for gophers. I thought, well, that's kind of good. They can have this kind of dualistic relationship with the gophers. But still, my first reaction, still when I see, I must say, still when I see my first seat, big gouge, I go, oh, shit.

[37:10]

Oh, no. More work. But little by little, I'm coming to the... Oh, by the way, I also noticed, guess what else? There's almost no gopher mounds anymore. Almost never do I see gopher mounds. I just see these cat gouges. So it's starting to occur to me maybe what the cats are doing is that when the gophers start to come up to the ground, the cats hear them and they go to where the gophers are making that sound and they start digging down to get the gopher. So the gopher never really gets up there because the gopher hears the cat coming down through his roof, so he backs off. So the cats, although they're making the gouge, their gouges aren't as bad as the gopher mounds. And actually this morning I found this big gouge and I looked down and it wasn't just a gouge, but under the gouge was a big hole.

[38:19]

And I put my finger down and it went quite a ways. So I think that what's happening is the gophers are coming up ready to do their thing, which is to not only make a hole in the ground and open the hole above, but also make this mound around the hole. And the cats come. and gouge at that thing and the gopher backs off. So I think the gophers and the cats have worked it out. And I just have to clean up after the cats now, which is a lot easier than cleaning up after the gophers. So it showed me that, you know, you can't be so sure about what's good and what's not good. It looks bad at first, but actually it's kind of good. I haven't hated a gopher for months. The cats are protecting me. I hate that they've been hating the cats. But now I'm starting to kind of like, when I see him doing it, I kind of like, it's almost like I'm almost ready to let him do it. Again, I remind you of this person who says, I just want to let things be.

[39:28]

I just want to leave things alone. But, you know, it's hard to just leave the gopher mounds alone if you've been working on your little lawn or your little garden. It's hard to leave the cat garages alone unless you study the self of the thing. And after you study it more and more, I think the more I study it, the more I really don't know what's good and what's bad. And come to think of it, that was exactly... One of the stories that most turned me towards Zen practice is the story of Hakuen where he was falsely accused and he said, is that so? And then he was vindicated and excused and praised for not only being guilty of the charge, but of having listened to it and wondered about it and been kind in taking care of the consequences that he was falsely attributed.

[40:31]

And then he was greatly praised and he said, oh, is that so? In other words, people are ripping up my lawn and ripping up my guts and falsely accusing me and people don't trust me and they don't like me and blah-de-blah and blah-de-blah and blah-de-blah. Is that so? I wonder if this is good or if this is bad. Hmm, I wonder. Maybe originally, oh, that's shit. But then after a little bit, maybe, I wonder if this is good or bad. Who knows? And then something really good happens. Even then, I wonder if this is so good as it seems. I wonder. This is the self-fulfilling awareness that I'm trying to practice and enter into.

[42:22]

When we're upright and enter into this self-fulfilling awareness, then these wonderful things can happen. This is a postcard of piggies, little pigs, lounging in the mud. On the back it says, this is a pig poster for the Humane Farming Association. They sent me as a Christmas card. On the back I wrote notes for this case. So here's the pigs rolling in the mud, quite happy and colorful. In the back, I have the Chinese characters for, what level of activity is this? The self-fulfilling awareness.

[43:34]

is where Buddhas and pillars merge. The self-fulfilling awareness is where clouds come up on South Mountain and rain comes down on the North Mountain. So self-fulfilling awareness is not so different from regular awareness, is it? Because we see the clouds come up on the South Mountain, don't we? And the North Mountain gets rain. It's not so different. In fact, it's the same thing. What's the difference? The difference is courage or not courage. The difference is the courage to study.

[44:41]

The difference is whether or not we wonder what's going on or just jump to conclusions and let it go at that. I was just about to read the introduction to this case, but I don't think I will. I'll read it tomorrow. But I intend to go deeper and deeper into what's written on this tablet, to go deeper and deeper into this story of the great teacher, Yan Man, and his question about The merging of mind and object.

[45:47]

The merging of mind and nature. So, Reb, now just take it easy. You have some more days. You don't have to finish it all today. There's a lot more things you want to say, but you've said enough. So stop. They got the idea. They're going to practice it now. You don't have to tell them again. And even the ones who look like they're not going to do it, who knows?

[46:52]

That might really be good. And the ones who look like they are raring to go. You know, what do you call it? We play requests here. So Wendy asked me to talk about Gregory Bateson. Did I do it? Huh? And Marlis asked me to sing a song. So I'll sing a song. And Norm is going to get really upset because I'm sure I'm going to get this off tune because it's really hard. The tune's really hard, so please forgive me, but it goes like this. I mean, I go like this. When she gets weary, women do get weary, wearing that Same shabby dress When she gets weary, try a little tenderness

[48:11]

She may be waiting, just anticipating things she will never, never, never possess. But when she's waiting, try a little tenderness. And we will maybe someday find out what was so funny about that. What's so funny about that shabby dress? What got you? Is your dress falling apart? I also contemplated, instead of saying, she gets weary, I was thinking of changing it to, yogis get weary. Yogis do get weary. But I couldn't get anything. to work there, so I just left it as she. But you could put he in there.

[49:15]

Around here, that would be no problem. So now, Reb, don't tell stories about dresses now. Stop. Stop. Stop.

[49:28]

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