Vern, somebody said, I feel like it's a miracle that I'm here. I don't remember exactly how the conversation went, but I thought, hmm, a key factor in this miracle of being here is being here. And if I'm here, then another aspect of the miracle of being here is I'm anxious, unless I really understand myself well. So then, if being here means, if I don't understand myself, and being here means I'm anxious, then I tend not to be here.

[01:06]

And when I tend not to be here, then I lose my energy, and then I can't remember that it's a miracle that I'm here. So, that's related to this koan. This koan is something about the fact that it's a miracle that we're here, but then it's kind of hard work to like keep being here and enjoying the miracle because you know it's also a miracle that we're anxious it's also a miracle that we don't understand ourselves very well sometimes that we think we're going to independent isolated beings that's also a miracle It's a miracle that anxiety arises with incomplete understanding of ourself. It's all a miracle, whatever way we're here.

[02:07]

But if we're not here, then we gradually lose touch with the miracle side. This case is kind of a an encouragement to work on this. So the introduction says, roundabout explanation is easy to understand. Or another way to say it is detailed explanation is easy to understand. It imparts with one hand, or it imparts with only one hand.

[03:22]

Direct explanation is hard to understand. Direct explanation is hard to understand. It opens up in all dimensions. I urge you not to use clear speech. For if speech is clear, getting out is all the more difficult. If you don't believe, let's try to bring this up. So a monk asked Here it says John Fung, but some other places his name is spelled with a Q, I believe, like on this chart, which is Chan Fung.

[04:24]

Yeah. Qian Feng. So, it's either Qian Feng or Jian Feng. This person was a disciple of Deng Shan. And... But he's not very well known. This is the main story he's known by. And... So he's a dharma brother of Saoshan, another important disciple of Dongshan. And he's a disciple of Yuenju, who our lineage comes from, Dongshan to Yuenju. So our lineage doesn't come directly through the main, through Qian Feng.

[05:43]

He's a Dharma brother of our ancestor. So a monk quotes the Surangama Sutra, which is called the Heroic March, translated as Heroic March. he's quoting the sutra and he says, the blessed ones, literally the Bhagavats, of ten directions are all on one road, the gate of nirvana. Now where is that road? The Bhagavats in ten directions are all on one road. And the road they're on is the gate to Nirvana. Where is that road?

[06:46]

And Changpong takes his staff and draws a line in the air. and says, here it is, here it is. And then the monk apparently didn't understand, and he went and talked to Yunmen, who was a much better known Zen teacher. Yunmen actually studied with Jiang Feng, and Yunmen also studied with... Saoshan. Yunmen didn't study. He was born a little too late to study with Dongshan, so he studied with those two disciples of him. Maybe the monk thought that Yunmen would understand what John Peng's teaching was.

[07:49]

And then Yunmen said, he probably had a fan in his hand, and he said, the fan leaps up leaps up into the heaven of the 33. It says here the 33 heavens, but it's really a heaven called the 33rd heaven. This fan leaps up to the 33rd heaven and hits Indra on the nose. It says, Emperor of the Gods, that's Indra. And then the carp in the eastern sea is hit once with a stick, and rain falls in buckets. Literally, it's like, it says, rain falls like, you know, if you take a tray that has water on it and you tip it, it just comes out all at once, just, right, rain just goes. And then he says, understand, understand.

[08:55]

So there's quite a bit of material here, even though it's quite simple. So simply speaking, this sutra is saying that all the enlightened ones, all the blessed ones, all the purified ones, all the compassionate ones in ten directions throughout the universe, they have one road. That's one understanding. And that's, you know, I think that's one sort of proper understanding. The next level, deeper, is that the Buddha is in ten directions. Ten directions doesn't, you know, it means all directions, right? It means in all directions. That make sense? But it doesn't mean like, you know, like here and then skipping a little space, you know, like in the lawn or from the parking lot. It means ten directions, but ten directions means...

[10:25]

Everything in ten directions means the entire... the entire ten directions, not just like every few miles or every few, you know, Buddha lands that you have a Buddha. So the Buddhas are like omnipresent in all the places. Buddhas in ten directions means... Buddha is jam-packed throughout the whole universe. The universe is chock-full of Buddhas, is the image of the sutra. There's not much space between the Buddhas. And these Buddhas all are on one road to nirvana. That's the first meaning. The second meaning is, of course, since they're omnipresent, that everything... They must be co-existing with everything. So everything, all the things in ten directions, every place in ten directions is on one road, too.

[11:29]

In other words, it's a miracle that each thing is here, where it is. Right? That's a little deeper. It's not separate from the first meaning, but it points to the things that are all over the place in the universe, plus the space between them. All those are also on the same road. So all the Buddhas are on the same road, plus all of us are on the same road. Trees are on the same road. Everything is on the same road to nirvana. And the next level is that all those things, everything in the universe is the one road to nirvana. So the monk says, well, where's the road? And so I guess you know, right, after all that,

[12:38]

You know where the road is. So there's an answer, but before the answer came, you already know the answer, right? You don't need John Fonda to do this thing in the air. If you look at this question, if you see the statement and then the question at the end, then you see the answer, right? Generally speaking, That's, generally speaking, in Zen stories, when there's a question, the answer's in the question someplace. This one is very, very strongly that way, that the answer's in the question already. So there it is, a nice question where you just carry that question and you also have the answer, which is, in some sense, better than having the answer, in a way. If you carry the answer around, If somehow it's like you're carrying the answer, but if you carry the question, you get the answer. And getting the answer is better than carrying the answer.

[13:41]

I think so, in a way. So you just work on that question and you get the answer. And you might not express it the same way, however, as Changfeng did, if you were asked the question. Or if you ask yourself the question and the answer comes to you, you might you might not express it the same way. And the ways that they express it are kind of interesting. It's kind of interesting that two people probably who looked at the question and saw the answer had different responses. And then, if we can look at the responses, then we can also, like... hopefully develop the right attitude towards the fact that we have different responses from the same answer, which is in the same question. So I wouldn't be surprised if you understood what I was just saying. That wasn't too complicated, was it?

[14:43]

You can't not point at the right place. Isn't that right? You can't not. Right. There's no place where you would be able to point which wouldn't be the one road. That's right. There's no place where there wouldn't be Buddhas who are on the same road as the Buddhas in the other places. There wouldn't be any place that wasn't that way. So, of course, where you're sitting right now is the one road. What you're smelling, what you're hearing, what you're seeing right now is the one road. What you're feeling right now is the one road. Right? Must be so. Can anybody look at that question and see anything else? Maybe so. I don't know. So what is it when there's a finite time where there's no Buddha or no Dharma?

[15:49]

What is what? The other night, Jonah Macy was telling us about these Tibetan reflections where it says, you give thanks for being a human, you give thanks for hearing the Dharma, thanks for liking the Dharma, for being in a planet-time where there is the Dharma. Yes. So what is it, what happens when there's no time without Dharma or without a Buddha? Like we live in an era of a Buddha. Well, you'd be living, there you'd be, someplace, let's say you, if you ask the question, there you'd be, and you wouldn't be hearing the Dharma, which is telling you that you've got Buddhas jam-packed in your body and mind. You wouldn't hear that teaching. So then you might not be able to ask, well, where are they? Or you might not be able to ask the question, well, where are all the Buddhas that I hear are all over the place, including all over my body and mind? you might not ask that question unless somebody told you that they were all over the place.

[16:51]

But even in that world, there's still Buddhas all over the place. It's just that they're not delivering Dharma because the people aren't in the mood for listening. But even where there's beings who aren't in the mood for listening to the Dharma that we have here, the Buddhas are totally there, too. They don't, like, thin out in rough neighborhoods. laughter But in rough neighborhoods, people have a harder time hearing. So you're lucky if you can hear this kind of, well, any kind of Dharma, this one in particular. You're lucky if you can hear it and are listening, and you're lucky if you appreciate it. And then you're even luckier if you, like, concentrate on it. Yet you can absorb yourself in some question which arises in relationship to some teachings. And there are situations where, I guess, even in our human life, there are maybe times when we don't think we were hearing the Dharma, and or we didn't like to hear the Dharma.

[18:00]

I shouldn't say didn't like it, but we not only didn't like it, but we rejected it. So at those times, in a sense, we're in those places. So it isn't just being a human being that's so precious. It's being a human being and being able to hear and appreciate teachings which would help you appreciate what's going on, which would help you realize that this is a miracle. Including, it's also a miracle to be a human and not know that it's a miracle. That's also a miracle, but you don't think so. I don't know what you think, but maybe you think it's like a bum deal. I've got a bum deal. This is not good. Rather than, I'm anxious, and it's a miracle that I'm anxious. I'm in pain, and it's a miracle that I'm in pain. Because if I feel pain, that's very closely related to the Buddhist teaching. So I'm not actually, I could consider it a miracle that I'm here, and that I feel pain.

[19:07]

And of course, if you're in pain and you think it's a miracle, then your pain is different than if you're in pain and you feel like, you know, that, you know, you don't deserve it or you think there's an alternative or something like that. Which again means you're not into being here. Because sometimes it's, you know, really hard to be here. And sometimes when we haven't been here and we haven't been here because it was hard to be here and then we try to run away from being here and then we experience that running away makes it even worse and then we sometimes come back. When we first arrive back is when we sometimes feel like, oh, it's a miracle to be here. so then we're ready to start again. It's not only a miracle, but it's very fortunate. It's a miracle in which we're very fortunate. But it is also the case in the universe that some beings... Every being is a miraculous event.

[20:28]

but some beings are in a condition that they don't appreciate hearing certain kinds of information which are very happily received by other people, which is really, you know, the Buddha's cry for beings. I maintain that beings are that way, but they also realize that's the way the world is. That's part of the evolutionary setup, is that some people don't want to hear. that there's Buddhas in ten directions on one road. Maybe there's even somebody in this room who doesn't want to hear that. But, you know, it's a miracle. So that's one step. That's the first step, the question. And in some sense, it would be nice just to end the class now and have the rest of the class just be meditating on that question.

[21:38]

Meditate on that teaching and the question that the monk asked until you really feel the question come out, the answer come out of the question. So you can see that's And that's the answer. Now whether you trust that answer or not, that might be somewhat different. But I guess if you really were interested in that scripture and you thought that might be true but wanted to know where it was, that might be enough for you to be able to appreciate the answer. Since there's one road, the gate of Nirvana, at Nirvana does the road end? At Nirvana does the road end? Does the road end? No. Oh, it's a mirror.

[22:50]

Pardon? What's a miracle? I don't even know. Does anybody know what a miracle is? I love the Spanish. El milagro. El milagro. El milagro. It's inconceivable. Huh? Inconceivable. Is it inconceivable? Well, the inconceivable is a miracle, but the conceivable is a miracle, too. It's sort of like it's there, but it's not something you can grasp. It's like a... I don't know. When I think of miracle, I think of a feeling, like a perception that you can completely, like... It's like embodying you, but you can't have it. You can't have it, though. This is a miracle.

[23:52]

This class is kind of a miracle. And it's that miraculous feeling that keeps me coming back. But I couldn't make it a miracle. I couldn't say it's a miracle because Rev is the teacher and I'd have Rev be the teacher of a class and that therefore would be a miracle. It's just like this is a miracle. One definition of miracle is, miracle is everything that happens except what you expect. Everything that happens except what you thought was going to be the miracle. But everything else is. It's also like a miracle is everything that you can't explain, but in fact, you can't explain anything. Can you explain that?

[25:02]

Miracle is what is. This is a miracle. Anything that is, is a miracle. Things that we imagine and we have explanations for and so on, they aren't really happening. They're not there. It's a miracle that we have those explanations, but... Yeah, I think that it's okay if you have a miracle, if somebody's sitting next to the miracle explaining, I don't think that takes away the miracle. No, that's another miracle. I wouldn't say that a miracle doesn't have an explanation on it. I don't think the explanation will hurt the miracle. I think you could have, you know, they've got this, and an explanation. And if you compound the two... then that might obscure your appreciation. It's true. But that's a miracle too, that it works that way. You know what I mean? If you have whatever this is, I don't know, something arises and then you have an explanation about it, a word, a story,

[26:06]

That doesn't take away this being a miracle, but it might interfere with my appreciation of it. If you confuse it. If I get over to here and think that this is about that, rather than saying, oh, I got this, and now I got this explanation about this. You know, Raj is now explaining whatever this is. Isn't that fantastic that he's doing that? But if I'm looking at this and looking back at you, then I miss this and I miss you. If I just let this be, and then now we have the Raja show. Yes, Martha? Well, something, this experience I have, or a phrase that comes up is, it just hit me. You know, they use it as hitting the car, hitting the nose, it has that quality of miracles, it's like, oh, wow, you know, just from nowhere there's that kind of, that sense of the miracle. You don't know where it comes from, it just hits you. Aha. Yeah, like the carpet in the room.

[27:15]

But it's not always, I mean, it's not only that it hits you. I mean, like, I would say life is a miracle. It's not always it hits you, right. That's part of the next part of the story. First of all, we have the question, we have the statement, the question, and the answer is already there. Then we have what two Zen masters did. Okay? And the way that they set this up, Jian Feng did this, right? He had his way of responding to it, which is not the same way that Martha was just talking about. He didn't hit it. Okay? So you have these two different responses, and they're kind of like paradigmatic responses, these two ways of responding, which is part of what as part of what lays in store in this particular case, is these two different responses. And other people responded too, I think, but in history, sort of the way they put the story together, these two responses were the pair that they seem to keep putting up.

[28:24]

because they're two different styles, and we haven't discussed this so much, but I think tonight would be a good night to discuss it, since it's in this case. Yes? I think it's, in the foreground at least, like two movements, like one is kind of the horizontal, and one is the vertical, and that's also the way that they say one like this, and Westerners say one like this, which is a very different... You say Westerners go like this, and who goes this way? Because we have the one like this, right? Yeah. Oh, I see, yeah. Westerners have one like this, and in Asia, in China anyway, they have one like this. Yeah, and those are kind of... One response is called... One response is called... holding still... And the other response is called letting go. Or, you know, the grasping way and the granting way.

[29:33]

And those two ways, those two teachers represent these two responses to this question which we already have answered. Right? Does anybody not have the answer to the question? Everybody have the answer to the question? I'm stuck on what Raja said. Can I back that? Sure. Are you stuck? It's a miracle that you're stuck. So can things be explained? Can things be explained? Yes. Can things be explained? Actually, in a way, everything must have an explanation. That's part of what... That's part of what each thing needs to be. In order for something to be, it has to sort of have an explanation or a story. It needs that. But the thing is not just the story or the explanations, but you can't have a thing without an explanation.

[30:35]

By definition. Yeah, that's one of the ways that things happen is they have like a story or a mental imputation. But you can't just go have mental imputations on things. They have to satisfy other requirements for that to work. But one of the ways things happen is by having an explanation or a story, a designation, you know, a word or a story about something. That kind of mental imputation is necessary for something to come together as an event for us. We have experiences, you know, we live in an experiential realm where we're not related to things, you know, but that's an important part of our life, it's not a thing kind of realm. But that's not the realm where we have self and other and suffering. In the realm of self and other we have things, in order to have things you have to have explanations, but explanations aren't really the thing, They're just part of how the thing appears.

[31:40]

They're not really about the thing, even though they say so. Because there's not really a thing there, because if there was, if you took away the explanation, the thing would still be there, wouldn't it? But in fact, there isn't something there without the explanation. They come up together. It's not like they're two separate things. That was kind of a tithe. Mark and Dino. So, if there were no people on the planet and there were trees... There'd still be trees. There'd still be trees? Would there still be trees? Well, there would still be trees, but they wouldn't be like trees like fang trees. That's kind of what we're saying here. But they wouldn't be the trees that we have in terms of things to us, huh? For us, to the extent that trees are things for us, there wouldn't be those kinds of trees.

[32:43]

There would be the possibility that if a person came to this visit to this planet, that trees could be made into things by the person thinking that way. That would be there before the people arrived. The possibility. The possibility of a thing, of a tree thing. Before that, there's not any things. There's just like whatever there is before we make, before we segment things and put them in the little thing packages. There's things there. There's possibilities, not things, but there's possibilities of many, many things. Actually, everything has a possibility all the time. And that's true with the entire universe? That's true with the entire universe, yeah. Everything? Yeah. Which I guess pretty much everybody agrees to now. Don't they? but not everybody agrees that what it takes to congeal things congeal possibilities into things is mental incutation that's a Buddhist thing which modern science is kind of coming over to now that there's some relationship between the possibilities being rendered into things being connected to the observer right

[33:52]

So there would still be all you, there would be everything you need to have trees if there were no people with language and mental imputation. It would be everything you need for a tree would be here. And that, in that sense, all the possibilities for trees and the requisites for trees would be here. It would be life. But there would be no things. There would just be like non-thing trees all over the hillsides. taking in non-thing carbon dioxide and giving off non-thing oxygen. But it wouldn't be, it would really just be possibilities of carbon dioxide and possibilities of giving off oxygen would be happening. We wouldn't be here to fix it into that that was happening. But as soon as we arrived, the world would start coming to things again. as soon as you report the people. And the trees would like to cooperate with that. So that opens the door to unlimited possibilities and potentials, which could conceivably be miracles, or construed as miracles.

[35:03]

The unlimited possibilities are prior to when we impute things. When we impute onto possibilities, possibilities that are prior. But the imputation in conjunction with the possibility makes a thing, and that's a miracle. It is a miracle. But it's also a miracle prior to that. It's just that there's nothing to point to as a miracle. So when you make things into things, then you can point at all the miracles. And it turns out every single thing is a miracle. It's a miracle. It's wonderful that we create the universe and the universe creates us. That's the miracle. Because we're creatures that go around imputing things all over the place and making things and then the world lets us do that and says, kind of like, thanks. Thanks for making us into things. We wish you would keep track of the fact that you did that and not treat us as though we were substantial realities prior to this imputation because then you'd be kinder to us. Because you'd realize that we're miracles.

[36:05]

We're not like... We didn't come that way. It's not... The world wasn't there before you arrived. The world we live in was not there before us. It arises at the same time as us. And we arrive at the same time as this. We aren't there either before that. Because we also are just possibilities until we make ourselves into, you know, the consequence of our explanations or our stories. You know? Miracle is sort of when there's no explanation. And as you were pointing out, there has to be an explanation. We create these stories, but at the point at which there's no story, We call it a miracle. I don't agree.

[37:11]

I can have a story about you. I can say, oh, there's Dino, my old pal. That's my story, okay? And I can feel like you're a miracle. Or not, you know? And taking away my explanation of you doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to appreciate you. You know, if I haven't even, like, made you into a thing, it doesn't mean I appreciate you, because I really can't appreciate you at the same way when I make you into a thing as I can when I appreciate you as a possibility, although I can appreciate you as a possibility, too. It's just that I don't know where to look to see you. Because, you know, there's so many possible dinos, right? There's basically an unlimited number of possible dinos. But I tell a story about one and then I get this one and for me that can be a miracle. But it isn't that you necessarily can explain, you know, it isn't necessarily that you understand the process of how the thing came to be that is necessary for you to feel that it's a miracle.

[38:19]

If we can just let go and appreciate how things happen, even though we can't necessarily articulate the process by which we understood how they happened, we can still appreciate it. It's that we're expecting this miracle that blocks us to see the other miracles. It's like, I don't know, what comes to mind is that, you know, Dogen says that All the various ways you think prior to realization are not of a help to realization. All the ways you try to practice and the nice ways you try to think, those don't help realization. But that's not because those weren't good ways to think. Those thoughts actually were realization itself. It's just that you didn't think they were because you thought these thoughts were going to bring on realization. You thought these thoughts were going to make the miracle. They were already a miracle. But thoughts don't make miracles. Thoughts are miracles.

[39:24]

So all the thoughts you have, which are trying to help you appreciate that things are miracles, they don't necessarily interfere either. It's not the thoughts, it's that you don't appreciate them that's interfering. Because there already are miracles, but you're like, okay, now let's do this, and let's do this, and let's do this, and eventually we'll have a miracle, but you're missing all these miracles. And if you say, well, doing this, this, and this, then he says, but doing this, this, and this is not going to help you have a miracle. But it's not because there's anything wrong with this stuff. What helps the miracle is the miracle. That's really all that helps. And you say, well, it doesn't help to get out of the way. Yes. But that isn't something. Yes. Is that all there is to it? Is that all there is to it? That's often, that's the, that's the, what do you call it? That's the one road, yeah.

[40:28]

That's the one road. However, that doesn't mean that after you're on the one road, that there isn't more work to do, because it isn't like it ends at that point, because then there's different responses to that one road, and these different responses look different, and then you can again get caught by thinking that some miracles are better than the others, or some responses to the miraculous are better than the others. So we have two responses here. And that's important, too, to not be tricked by what comes up out of the miraculous. Not just the miraculous, but your response to the miraculous can be different. So you have two different responses of people that can see it. Two different people who can see the one road and both understand that it's here, but they don't both say that it's here. They don't both go like this and say, it's here. One of them says it's here, and the other one says what he says. The other one's more like us. Yun Men is pretty wild, you know, but actually he's more like us. We don't usually talk like that, but we talk another way, which is just like him.

[41:34]

Do you want me to explain? Like, if you, you know, if you explained, you know, if you saw, not if you saw this, but if you were going, let's say you didn't see that all the Buddhas were on the one road, and that really, of course, if someone asked where it is, you understand it's right here. Let's say you understand that, okay? And then someone asked you where it is, then if you would say something, you know, in a whole variety of things you could say other than, it's here. All the detailed ways you could explain that, like one of your poems, you know, or one of your poems upside down, or one of your poems translated into Chinese, or one of your poems put into a toaster, you know. Everything you do like that, you know, that's the things we would do in response to seeing this, right?

[42:47]

Yin Man shows us that it can be anything, you know. It could be anything we do. It's like what he did, you know. But the other guy is just saying, it's right here. Or, if he was a Western man, it's right here. See this? Watch. Where is it? No. It's right here. Now that's not the way we do things around here. We do all our different stuff, right? We have our different bodies and our different thoughts and our different activities. Yuen Mun is saying, yeah, you guys can all be the way you are. Because he can be like that. So you can be like you. Now some of you think, no, no. he's too restrictive, you know, I can't, I still can't, he still couldn't include me. Well, you probably wouldn't, though. Isn't he outrageous enough for you?

[43:48]

I mean, his response doesn't make you feel confined, does it? Like, huh? No. He's showing you, you can really be yourself. You can be totally, totally outrageous and outstanding and unexpected and, well, just like you are. Plus, you can also be like half of what you are, a third of what you are, a tenth of what you are. You can also be much less than that. You can be anything. But the other guy, he's the strict one. But then you think, well, which one's better? He's the one where it includes me and I can be like I am and I can also, and Yunman can be like Yunman. Is that the better way that allows us all to be like we are no matter what? Or this other way which says, it's right here and that's it. And of course it's always true. But we don't always act like that. We live our life, right? Which is something other than walking around going like... If he can jump up and poke the god in the nose, you can shake hands with people and go to work.

[44:59]

put your glasses on and take them off, if that's okay, then everything else is probably too. That's what that's saying, right? So that's one response. He's seeing the same thing as his teacher. Same thing. That's a miracle too. That's what the miracle can be. That's what the one road can be. But the one road also can be this other way, which of course, everybody knows that must be the answer, right? It's here. It's here. I mean, you know that's the answer. And that really is the answer. And they must all agree with that. But do you think they all agree with everything else you've ever done in your life and all the other ways you've been? You're not so sure that all those are the answer, too, are you? Well, but Yunmeng says, he shows you that every way you ever were is that way. But also, it's different from this other way. And is one better than the other? And there's some tendency to prefer one or the other. Like, some people might say, well, I like the square where I can just be whatever I am.

[46:04]

The other people are like, that's too easy. I want to be the strict way. And the point is that these guys are giving us these two ways. They didn't do both. Except maybe they did. That's part of the story, too. Yvonne? Well, I guess, you know, I'm sort of troubled because what I got out of it is being mainly sort of obscuring the definition is further to the point where, I can just go to this later, where he is adding oil to the fire, you know, by trying to define it even further with that sort of wording. See, you could do that. That's what someone could say, is that by letting people know that whatever they do is it, that might obscure it. So some people think it's better to say it's not whatever you do. It's just this. You've got to stick to the just this right here part of what you do rather than the full range of the phenomena.

[47:16]

Well, in a way, that's part of what this koan's about, is that you need this koan because they're kind of like the same. That's what this koan is partly about. It's partly about this simple, wonderful thing that there's Buddhas all over the place, and including right here. That's part of what it's about. That's important. That's the teaching, right? And it's part of about a monk wondering where is the road. It's part about that, and it's part about the answer to that question is there too. But there's different answers. And the fact that they're kind of the same is why we need this koan, to look at, well, are they really the same? Are they really different? Another way to put it is, is there a difference between everything is one and one is everything?

[48:18]

Is there a difference? In some ways you could say, well, I don't see the difference, but somehow. If you don't, then we've got this koan here. Which doesn't say you're wrong, it just says, some people think there is a difference. That's why they say it in different ways. And there's different sutras which emphasize these differences, actually. And then some people think one sutra is better than the other. And so on. And that's the, what do you call it, that's one of the dangers of of this, what do you call it, of the responses to this wonderful teaching is that you might think that the different responses are better or worse. And again, so I'll just use the language, you know, which has appeared before, but I haven't talked about it. It's the granting way, the releasing way, and the grasping way, the holding way.

[49:22]

So one way is absolute negation of whatever it is. The other is absolute affirmation. One is very strict and doesn't feed the phenomena. The other is very open and accepting and affirmative. These are two different ways of responding to this teaching and all teachings that are used in these Zen stories. And in case, the last case that was going on too, we didn't talk about it, and that love story between the male and female buffaloes, they were switching off between granting and grasping, but we didn't bring that up. And they were switching off and they were doing it together. They were granting together and grasping together. They were being affirmative and negative with each other. Yes, Joan, and then Roberta, and Wilms.

[50:30]

Is that it? And David? Yes? It really helps with my delusion of separateness, that that sort of goes away. What does? My grasping separateness, or my anxiety about... The grasping goes away? And the feeling of separateness. The feeling goes away or the grasping goes away? Both. Both? What happens when the feeling comes back? What happens when the feeling comes back? Did you grasp it then? What happens when the feeling comes back? Well, yeah. Well, okay. [...] Too bad. Okay. Anxiety. Okay. Fine. Okay, suffering. Great. Yes? Going away is not what it's about.

[51:33]

Unless it goes way further. They're not grasping it, that's the point. It's not going to a place where it doesn't happen. So, if this sends you on vacation, that's okay. It's a free country, you can go on vacation. But this is not about going on vacation from from the feeling of separation. It's about not grasping the separation. Okay. We have to be able to go to the land, you know, the land of separation and somehow see that it's not possible to grasp. I'm calling on you ahead of Roberta, is that okay, Roberta? She sort of had his hand up there and I was looking at him. Yes? What grasps? What grass? What grass? Grasps. Yeah, what grasps?

[52:41]

It's not that there's a thing that grasps, but grasping is a function. Well, the mind can do that, but it isn't that the mind is doing it, just the mind is there, and it can do that, or it cannot. It's just like a function. It's not like there's a subject, necessarily, of the grasping. However, when there's grasping, usually, then that establishes a subject, because that's usually what we're talking about, is grasping this subject-object duality reinforces the idea that there is a subject. And maybe that the subject's doing the grasping. And it isn't that when the grasping stops that the subject evaporates. It's just the grasping stops. And then the subject is relieved of what it's like to be grasping things. Okay, I hear, I see you, I see you, and I see you, who would I see back there?

[53:54]

I see you, and now it's your bird's turn. And then Martha. Don't these two responses, when I think of it, it's like a very strict and focused response, and there's wild one that flies, don't they really just co-create each other? They co-create it, yes, they do. It seems to me more like a rhythm, like day and night. Yeah, it's like rhythm, it's like rhythm, yeah. It's the rhythm of Zen teaching. And in this case, one person seems to be taking the role of one side of the rhythm and another person takes the other side. But if you look more closely, each one of them can also play both, respond both ways. As a matter of fact, if you look most closely, you might see later, it might be revealed to you that both of them are doing both. But on the surface, it looks like John Fung is doing the strict one.

[54:56]

And Yuen Mun is doing the granting, affirming one. But if you look more closely, you might see that they're both doing both. Rebecca? Well, I see that as obviously grasping creating a sense of subject, but it also is creating a sense of object. Yeah. But we don't need to say the object does it. But what I was thinking is that when we even just label its universe and say that's a tree, In a sense, that's a form of grasping. Is it a form of grasping? By labeling it and making it be an object.

[55:59]

Well, maybe. You've got to do that in order to have a thing to grasp. In that moment that you label it? I don't know if it has to be grasping because I think it's possible if you understand how that all happens that grasping won't happen. because you'll see that there is not a thing there to grasp other than the story, and you don't grasp the stories. So if you... Basically, you're thinking like two channels at one time. What are the two channels? In other words, you're seeing yourself labeling, and you're also seeing or understanding that the label is not the thing at the same time. And then you're not grasping. We say you, but anyway, there is an awareness that the arising of a thing depends on the story. That awareness sees that the thing depends on the story, and then there doesn't turn out to be this additional thing called putting on top of that substantial existence.

[57:05]

So when you see that whatever it is depends on the story, again, take away when you see, but the awareness that the arising of this thing cannot happen without the story, then you see that this thing is not a substantial thing. But if you lose track of that, then you put on top of this a substantial existence, like an entity, and then you grasp it. But if you see just the thing and the story coming up together... then you don't see the substantial thing other than the story. I keep thinking of this one story because I had this one story, you could tell another way, but anyway, the basic principle is the reasons why you think something is true are exactly the reasons why it isn't. the reasons why you think something really is substantially true, those reasons by which you really, really see that obviously it is really there, those are actually the same reasons for why it isn't substantially there.

[58:15]

And if you see how those reasons make the thing be there, that's the way you can also see the thing lose its substantiality. So I use the story of this person who came to tell me that she had this roommate and she didn't trust her roommate. And I knew her and I knew her roommate. I thought her roommate was a perfectly trustworthy person. You know, perfectly trustworthy means a normal person, right? You know, no more or less trustworthy than anybody else. Just a regular person. Like, not especially, like, you know, top of the line untrustworthy. The one person in Hetasahara that you wouldn't trust, kind of thing. So then this person told me a reason for why this person was not trustworthy. And I thought, oh, I didn't know that, that's interesting. But still I didn't see, all of a sudden, I didn't see this untrustworthy person. And then they told me another reason. I said, oh, that's interesting. And I didn't disbelieve, I was just listening to these conditions and I watched the second condition up and I started to see something started to form. And then I saw a third reason.

[59:17]

Wow, it's kind of like this is a whole new picture here of this person here. And then the fourth one, and when she got the fourth reason I saw like an actual solid... untrustworthy person there. You know, this person just conjured this person up with me by giving me these four conditions, you know. And then I thought, but what if you took away one of those conditions? Then this thing wouldn't hold up. And if you took away two of them, so actually the very reasons why it was substantial, if you took those away, you'd realize there is nothing there. But until you see the thing become substantial, it's hard for you to see that if you found out later that one of those things wasn't there, that somehow this thing which was now there, the thing gets deteriorated when some old condition goes away. But here we are, here I am all substantial, and you take away one of my teeth, it isn't like I've become less me, right? Right? In fact, if you do use my teeth as one of the ways you really do make me come into picture, then when you take away my teeth, it does sort of like start... So, anyway, I could just see, I just saw so clearly, I saw this thing conjured up, and then take away one thing, to take away the conditions, and there's nothing there.

[60:34]

But when you have the right conditions, something is there, but if you lose track of that dynamic, then you put this other layer on there. which there isn't a condition for, except we call that ignorance, where we put this additional thing on top of the thing. And then you can't help but grasp, because you've got a thing. It's so wonderful to finally have produced a solid, substantial thing. You've overcome reality. You're the champion of the world. You've defeated truth. You can't let that baby go. So you don't. But then you're in direct opposition to it. Then you direct opposition to reality and so you're suffering because you know that the reality police are going to come and bust you any minute. Because you have just violated dependent core rising. You have just shot down interdependence and said that this thing doesn't depend on anything else.

[61:41]

Even if you took away all its conditions, it would still really be there. Because it's a thing. So you're in trouble. But if you see it, you don't grasp it. If you don't grasp it, then it's just miracle after miracle. When a miracle first happens, you don't grasp it. You just put your hands together and say, thank you, my God, I'm alive, I'm here, it's happening and I'm it. I'm here, it's a miracle. Right? Then, if you start putting something on that, then you start getting anxious. When it first appears, you're just like, hey. Try to get a hold of it. The anxiety comes and you start backing off. You lose the miracle. You're out of town again. Eric? It seems like a lot of this discussion has to do with the line that I find perhaps most intriguing, which is the urge not to use clear speech or if speech is clear, getting out of it is all the more difficult.

[62:42]

seems related to this idea of grasping that the clarity of speech is part of what lays that extra substance on top. No, the clarity of speech is what tempts you to attribute, you know, substantial reality to things. My question is that we also already seem to have discovered that it's not about getting away from explanations or getting away from stories. So what are those stories and explanations that are not clear in this sense, but aren't muddy either? What are the explanations that aren't clear? What are the words or the speech that's not clear in the way he's urging us not to be clear? Well, I think these Zen masters both did it. One, it wasn't a detailed, clear explanation, in a way, even though we knew the right answer. He didn't explain in detail how that was the case.

[63:44]

He just said, it's here. I don't think that was going too far. But is our speech too clear? Well, when our speech is like, it's not too clear. But you can do whatever you want. But you shouldn't modify what you have to say so as to make it clear. You should just say whatever you have to say. He was showing us that we... that we can be like we are, and that can be the road, right? Because wasn't he pretty far out, what he did, the way he had, what he had to say? That just happens to be the kind of person he was, that he's into like that stuff, you know? He's just a weird yogi, you know, who's into like carps and eastern seas and that kind of stuff. But you guys, you know, if you're really who you are, you're just as far out as he is. It's just that maybe you don't dare be yourself the way he did.

[64:45]

But he wasn't trying to really explain, make it clear. He was just being this amazing Buddhist priest, right? But each one of you is amazing Buddhist, whatever you are. And when you're just what you are, you're not really clearly explaining. And if you are who you are, you're not making it more difficult to get out. But if you're trying to be who you are in some special way, other than just really allow... that you can work with what you are, then I think you try to make a better explanation, and I think you muddy it and make it harder for yourself and others to get out. Get out is one word. Another translation would be not to get out, but to get out of the prison, right? But another one is to come forth, but not so much to come forth like to get out, but just to come forth. So if you're meddling with your expressions, to make it like a better explanation, then you block yourself coming forth because you hesitate to say this because this isn't clear enough yet.

[65:50]

But he didn't wait to say something clear when he said that. He's just like, I think it just came right out of there. Don't you think so? Because I want them to be clear, and they're not. And I'll probably get a lot more out of them because they're not. Well, to me this is clear, but it's not clear. No, it's clear, but it's not clear explanation. These guys aren't explaining, they're expressing themselves. But they express themselves in different ways. But each of them could do the other kind of explanation, the other kind of expression. So they're different expressions. Neither one of them are detailed, roundabout. They're both direct expressions and they're two different styles. And I think both of them are not really good explanations. Don't muddy it, and encourage you to play one side, which is very strict, or be the other side, which is anything in your life.

[66:53]

And one more thing I want to say, and that is that you kind of got to do one and the other, not halfway between. And when you do one, the other one's there. But if you do half of one, you sort of miss the other one. So you're stuck in half of one. And so you don't really express yourself fully. And you're kind of getting into explaining. and then you're over on whichever side you're leaning towards. But if you do one side completely, you really just be yourself, honestly and fully, without trying to make that into explanation, but it's really your response. This other side, which is very strict, and not the affirming whatever you are side, it's there. And if you do the kind which rejects all particularity, and with just the only one way kind of thing, the very granting and letting go and gracious and affirming way is there too.

[67:56]

I just want to say that, and maybe that'll take some time to explain, but I just want to say that because I didn't want to forget it. Now, who had their hand? Oh, Martha was next. When he draws his staff in the air, what if he just left it at that and didn't say he was here? Is it the granting way? No. It's the grasping way, I would say. Yeah, my sense was I just... It's that he actually defines it, that he kind of speaks of an attribute that is here, rather than just... He could have walked out, too. That would have been fine. He could have just left. That would have been fine, too. That would have been another, what I would call, kind of the grasping way. Okay? What's the one road when he takes a walk? That's pretty clear, isn't it? But it's quite... In other words, we usually don't do that. That's not our usual way, right?

[69:01]

Except, of course, that's always our way, is we're always doing what we're doing. So, just walking out of the room or saying nothing, those would have been the grasping way. That would have been like, basically, holding still. You know, holding firm. Negating every... Basically, doing something which shows I'm negating everything other than this. So this is pretty close. It's here. But he also could have just sat still. That would also convey that it's here, right? Or he could have walked out. What road? He could have walked out. Or he could have drawn a line on the ground. Various things. But it's pretty much like... Our daily life is not like drawing lines in the air and saying, it's here. Our daily life is all this... Whatever, you know? So I thought that was... pretty strict, and there's other examples that are kind of strict like that. It's kind of like saying, no, I'm not going to explain.

[70:03]

The other one is, he's not saying, no, I'm not going to explain. He said, I'm not going to say, I'm not going to explain, and I'm going to do all this stuff, and if you try to make that an explanation, of course, it's not going to work. But, anyway, I think They pretty much, they both did, I think, really clear examples of these two different responses which come from the same place of appreciating the same teaching, the same question, and the same answer. That's what I feel. But the subtlety is in their responses and that we can that we can relate to their responses with no preference, not getting caught by either side, so we don't get caught on either side if we should happen to ourselves respond from that place someday. So again, another way to put it is, how can you fully express yourself in one way or the other without getting caught by it? Which, in other words, preferring the way you chose.

[71:07]

or the way it was chosen, I'd have to say. David? What would it be like, uh, uh, to, as you just said, to do halfway, or try to be, to be both? Um, what, what you just said not to do, what would that look like in this koan? Well, uh, Before I say what's halfway, I would say, how about doing neither? How about just straight out trying to explain? You didn't read the introduction, right? So then you try to explain. Somebody says to you, right? Where is it? And you try to explain. That would be just another way. But if you had this feeling of, well, I'll just express myself, because since it's here, and since it's whatever we are, and since it's whatever we're doing, I'll just give an example of... I'll give a good example of what that is. And then that giving a good example, with that intention to explain, that would be kind of halfway.

[72:17]

Because I would be compromising my feeling like whatever I did was... a good example. So that would kind of muddy that. That wouldn't be a full expression of, you know, I'm going to show it what it's like for it to be anything. So then, because of that, you wouldn't be able to see that really the strict side was there too. Because obviously I'm just doing a sloppy granting side. a sort of half-hearted granting side, where's the strictness in that? There's a strictness in wholeheartedly letting it go. There's a strictness in really relaxing. Like that was the story we heard last time. Really relaxing. There's a strictness in that. Like, not sort of relaxing, not doing it so it looks like relaxing, not doing it so I think it's relaxing, but really relaxing. There's a strictness there. There's a kind of holding still in that. And similarly, to let yourself really be uptight and negative and rejecting and close and tight and holding still.

[73:22]

That's one of the ways to let yourself be. But if you don't go all the way on that, you're kind of saying, well, I can't be that strict. Which means you can't be that relaxed. you won't let yourself manifest that. So there's a very generous granting way in letting yourself practice the grasping way. And in practicing the grasping way, no, there's a generous, very generous granting way in practicing the grasping way. And when you practice the grasping way fully, you have to do that in a very strict way because you can't hold back on being what you really are at that time. If you make any deals or compromises on just who you are, you're being sloppy about being who you are in all your uniqueness. So the strict way isn't there when you half-heartedly relax. And I think, you know, that's part of practice is you have to know how to wholeheartedly relax, wholeheartedly rest, wholeheartedly let it all go.

[74:36]

Not half-heartedly. Not sort of let it go. Not sort of take a break. And, you know, like, this is not really true, you know. It's just one of those moments when my wife had a hallucination. One time she looked at me and she said, she said, you're always like this, but you're always ready to go like this. No, I'm not really that way, but That's the way we should be. Like, always like this, you know, the strict, holding, grasping way, but always be ready to go like this. Or, always be like this, and always be ready to go like this. In other words, be totally relaxed, like totally flop dog, you know, whatever, man. I mean, really. But then be ready, okay, I'm here. Completely upright, balanced, ready and awake. Be willing to give up this for this. Or vice versa.

[75:38]

I'm totally present and upright and I'm willing to be totally relaxed. Be ready. But you're not doing this half-heartedly and kind of like, well, I'll go down all the rest of the way. Or I'll go this way and this way. But of course, this way includes this way, and this way includes this way. But to see that this way includes this way, you have to do this way fully, and to see that this way includes this way, you have to do this way fully. So you have to do both sides. You can't half-heartedly do either way. So I think here we have a case where we're talking about this wonderful, miraculous way of living and two different ways of expressing it. Yvonne and Liz? Well, now they sound like they're exactly the same thing, because either you're really strict or you're really relaxed. Either way, you're giving it to them yourself, right? Right. And so if you think they're, what do you call it, if you think they're the same, then you have to look at this koan because they're not. They're not the same, but they look the same. So that's part of what's good about this koan, is that it's particularly good for people who are looking at these two sides and actually kind of can't see the difference, but need help to see the difference

[76:48]

Even though, of course, they're not really different. But you have to be able to see that they're different if you can't. And if you can't, then that's fine, because here you can look at it and meditate on it. And if you think they're different, or it's not important that they're, and that's not an issue, then Koan's good for you, too. And Yvonne? You know, I'm still stuck on this commentary. It says that you have meant full self-expression, just like pouring oil on fire. That's what I don't get. If he's fully expressing himself, then how is that pouring oil on fire? How is that... Um... Where does it say that again? I saw that. Where is it? Right before the verse? How about fanning to melt ice?

[77:51]

You got a problem with that? Well, why don't you meditate... Why don't you look at that for a while? Just stare at that thing about what the commentator said. It doesn't necessarily mean that something's wrong with them. Maybe this is a good fire. But it says to stop a fire.

[78:51]

So... Like the purpose is to stop it, but you're adding fuel to it. Does adding oil to fire ever put a fire out? Never? Never. Well, let's let that sit then for a while, okay? And maybe we'll come up with that the commentator has a problem with yin-yang. Okay? I mean, if... I mean, Yun Men is somebody that's, you know, it's okay if a few commentators don't like what he does. Is that all it is, though? Is that all it is? Well, or that he likes what he does and what he thinks he did is contradictory. Okay? So what's the problem? You have a problem with this? What's your problem? I guess I really don't understand the commentator's perspective.

[79:58]

Yeah, so that's why I say, just study that for a while, see what your perspective is, and if there's some fault in you and men, this is great, because, you know, it's nice to find fault with you and men. It's nice to find fault with a Buddha, right? But what is the fault? So maybe you can look at that, so maybe you can see the fault, and you can tell us. Maybe you just say you don't understand the commentator, and then maybe somebody else will understand the commentator. Is there anybody who has not spoken tonight that would like to speak before we stop? Because we're going to stop pretty soon. I want the dog over here a little bit. Razi, Razi, Razi, Vern wants to see you. Would you come over here, Razi? Would you come over here a second? Come here, Razi, come here. Come here, come here. Come here, come here. Notice the position of the hand, the way it's bent there.

[81:06]

Every little thing, you know, she's genetically programmed to do all these little moves, you know, the placement of the paw. Okay, so I'd like to work on this koan another week. It's got more stuff. The verses are coming. Lots of verses here to study. What happened to the verse lady in the carol? Did she die? She's in where? Frank. Tell her we miss her. You know Carol? She's a poet. She makes poetic remarks now and then. Carol Snow. So please help Yvonne with this thing about the oil and to stop the fire. And look at these two responses to basically the issue of one

[82:10]

way you know the one way that all of us are on with all of who it is look at that and then there's these two responses to that and what's that about and you only and how do you work with those those differences okay meditate on that and then we can We can discuss more next week about this case. And this case is also the 48th case of the Mumon Khan. So you can also get the perspective of the Mumon Khan on this case, case 48. The last case of that collection is the same story. With a different take, a little bit different take. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[83:03]

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