So I told a story about Chinese history that in China some people observed the daily life of Buddhas and ancestors and they didn't mention anything about scriptures. They just were walking around, drinking tea and eating rice, and talking. And the talking they gave was the Buddha Dharma. And then people thought, wow, they had this wonderful thing they're doing, but they're not giving any teaching. And they're not even teachers. They're just ordinary people.

[01:01]

And Dogen's teacher said that in the practice of true Zen, we don't think about Zen teachers. And the great teacher Wang Bo, the Chinese Zen master, said, don't you know that in all of China there's no teachers of Zen? This is what some Zen teacher said. Zen teacher says, didn't you know that in all of China there's no Zen teachers? And when Wang Bo said that, a monk came up and said, what about all these monasteries where there practicing together and having lectures and stuff like that. And one said, I didn't say there's no Zen. I just said, there's no teachers of Zen.

[02:12]

And then Linda told us about the description of the behavior of Prospero. in The Tempest, going out in the forest and enjoying the forest. The woods. No, that was as you like it, not The Tempest. Not The Tempest. A different forest. That's happened in The Tempest too. Another duke. Anyway, so they're out in the forest having a good time. And I just wanted to mention to you that, I don't know if you've noticed, but On some TV shows, they have what are called commercial breaks. And now they have this thing of, on the commercial break, it says, if you'd like to have something simpler and quieter to look at, just, you know, agree.

[03:22]

So then you press the button, and then it says, enjoy. You're Zen. And then it has a picture, not of a monastery, but of a forest, moving through a forest. So, moving through the forest and enjoying the trees, these people think, that's Zen. They don't. They don't say, enjoy Zen and then show people in a monastery sitting still, like today. But they could. For these bodies to be sitting like this is just like many pine trees sitting. And also up the street here a ways there is a gym that I go to and on the walls they have these TV screens that show

[04:27]

people doing all kinds of death-defying activities. And it says, superhuman, superhuman. And then it says, and then one day I saw it all broke. And again, it was just moving through a forest. And again it said, enjoy your Zen. So the, yeah. Such things are going on in this world. that people are contemplating the possibility right in the middle of everything of practicing Zen without any teachers and then after there's no teachers of Zen in all of China then Dogen comes back and says and teaches absolute

[05:28]

total devotion to a teacher. So part of our background is there's no teachers and part of our background is find a true teacher and be totally devoted to a true teacher. That's part of our complex background. There's no teacher and... then there's complete devotion to no teacher, but nobody knows who the no teacher is. So we're devoted to something we don't know what it is, and we're devoted to it. In Japan. In China they said, no, no, forget that. But again, that's after they were devoted. So there's an alternation to, there's no teachers, and then there's teachers. Who figures out who the teachers are? And I would say, in some sense, another way to put it is, aside from saying there are no teachers, they just say, if there are any teachers, nobody knows who they are.

[06:49]

And again, part of the background of our tradition is kind of alternating between there's the teacher and where'd the teacher go, or what is the teacher. Yes? Can I say something about that? Yes, you may. Yes. Yes, you may. Teacher man. I was considering that we... Impute that teacher means person, but being devoted to a teacher could, I'm asking, could be devoted to each conversation. Not even a person, but whatever it is that's happening in the middle. That's right. And that's another part of our background is that some people would say that in India they were devoted to the teacher, which is universal. the teacher which is the intimate conversation between beings, they were devoted to that.

[07:57]

Because that is the teacher, this conversation between all beings, that is the teacher, that is the Buddha, and they were devoted to that. But in Japan, somehow the teacher got converted into a person, a particular person, and they were devoted to the particular person. So part of our background is being devoted to a particular person who is embodying the universal conversation among all beings. A person is the representative of a universal teacher. But in India, it wasn't so much that way. It's more like devoted to the universal Buddha. But in Japan, which is part of our background, It's devoted to a particular person who's kind of like a representative of the universal Buddha, which is a universal conversation of all beings.

[09:00]

Being devoted to a teacher, a person, it's in my mind and still what happens between them. Yeah, and you will discover if you're devoted to a particular person that there really is no person there separate from the conversation. So, but once, but you know, I'm just saying we have a complex history of devoted to a particular person to realize that you never can find this particular person or any particular person in order to verify that the true Buddha is ungraspable and all-pervading. So do you stay away from focusing on a particular to realize that, or do you focus on a particular to realize that? And different parts of our history in different countries are different, and some people might say that the Japanese culture has a tendency to give absolute attention, complete attention,

[10:15]

particular phenomena in order to discover the absolute. Whereas maybe in other countries, in other times, they focus on the absolute in order to become free of the particular. So I'm just saying, I'm sort of telling you, what do you call it, a complex story about our background. And where do we land? Do we have, we try both styles of there's no teacher and also this is a teacher and I'm going to focus on this teacher to realize that the teacher cannot be found. Yeah, so there's devotion and loyalty in order to realize something which is beyond what we're devoted and loyal to, or not beyond, but which is much bigger than what we can see.

[11:24]

Did somebody, yes? Yes, I was just listening, so what I'm hearing is at some point this mind of absolute, mind of wholeness was when we went to Japan, It took a persona, it took a form of a teacher or a teaching or some kind of a form. And what I'm questioning is that it must have, from what I see, it must have through time, the form somehow became corrupted. There is some corruption in the existence of the history of this form. that it kind of fall off from its absoluteness, from its total clarity. And something has happened in the form.

[12:27]

Maybe so. Because I love the thought, the understanding, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. That is when form is showing itself, it's coming in its totality, its total presence. That's where there's no duality. That's where people don't get confused about teacher or absolute or relative reality. So I'm questioning why this form became so corrupted. Well, I don't get that part about the form being corrupted. I think if you have a form and you corrupt it, then you have another form. So that's not really corrupted, that's just something different. It's another form. You can discover the Absolute in this form or a corruption of this form.

[13:32]

They're both available to realize the Dharma. They're both the Sutra. is duality. I see the duality. So if this duality kind of... Everything I say is more duality. And if you try to get more information about duality, that's more duality. And if you try to get rid of duality, that's more duality. Pardon? Duality gets in the way. I have to chew a lot of the duality. Duality gets in the way, and I'm not arguing with that. I'm just saying that that statement about duality is another dualistic statement.

[14:35]

That this duality gets in the way of something. Fine. I'm okay with duality. I'm okay with something that gets in the way. Everything that gets in the way... is a sutra. Yes, are you getting in the way? I'm interrupting the dharmato. It is the way. Thank you. I recently, very recently, saw a reference to Is the Buddha appealing to everyone to be devoted to awakening, not to the Buddha as a person? Yeah. But what about the Buddha as a person? Should we be not devoted to that person?

[15:39]

Because awakening, as far as what I think is awakening is devoted to everything. Being devoted to Buddha, you might not be devoted to a demon. But being devoted to awakening, then you would be devoted to Buddhas and demons. And devoted means you want to help them be free. Yeah, awakening isn't trying to avoid anything. Awakening is open to it all and wishing to liberate it all. Yes? I don't want to speak for anyone, but... Yeah, don't. I understood what he was trying to say. Okay. Sometimes when we're talking Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, it sounds like a thing, thing, thing, person, person, person.

[16:41]

But I don't think you mean it that way. What are you talking about, person, person, person? I don't mean when you're devoted to a person. You don't have to make that person a thing. But if you have a person and you're making the person into a thing, I would say, well, be devoted to the thing. What about making the Buddha into a thing? Making the Buddha into a thing. People, generally speaking, most people do make Buddha into a thing. Like I said before, you know, when you first are... when you're first devoted to a teacher or a scripture, you make it into a thing. That's the way you start. However, as you mature in practice, you realize there's no thing there. But to try to avoid making things or making whatever into it, in order to avoid making life into things, is another thing. But to accept that

[17:44]

And to notice that this thing-making is going on, and it's suffering, thing-making is suffering, and to be compassionate to suffering, you become free of thing-making. But thing-making, becoming free of it doesn't mean there's not any thing-making going on. It means you're free to help all the thing-makers. Those infinite sentient beings are thing-makers. They're inexhaustible. Sentient beings are numberless. Thing makers are numberless. I vow to save all the thing makers. Rather than try to stop thing makers from being thing makers, which is another thing maker, I want to embrace all the thing makers and liberate all the thing makers. It's getting close to five o'clock and some people are or you're starting to fall asleep, which is understandable.

[18:49]

Okay? So go ahead and make things with your mind and notice that it's suffering and be compassionate to that painful process of thing-making and then you will see that the things are empty. Making a thing out of Buddha is not suffering, is it? Yeah. I could get into how bad it is to make a thing out of Buddha. I could, but I'm not really going to get into it. But just say, to make Buddha into a thing is something that most people do at the early centuries of their practice. They make good old Buddha into a thing. And Buddha... Buddha can see that it's kind of an insult, but Buddha does not feel offended. Go ahead and make me into a thing, Buddha says.

[19:52]

It might be useful. And now that you've made me into a thing, then maybe I can say to you, don't you know that in all the universe there's no Buddhas? After you make Buddha into a thing, then Buddha tells you there's no Buddha. And that might help you say, oh, wow. Buddha's not a thing. but Buddha is devoted to all thing-makers. Yes? You quoted, was it Wang Bo? Yeah. I understood that saying there are no teachers of Zen in China meant that Zen is not a thing that can't be taught. And you can't get it from somebody. but I would like to quote the short verse of Kabir. He uses the name God, but you can put in Buddha or Awakening or whatever.

[20:53]

Guru, teacher, right? Guru and God are before me. Who should I bow down to? I bow down to the Guru who showed me God. Thank you. Now sing it in the original. I can't remember. Whenever I get a chance. Fifteen minutes from now I'll have it. Maybe after Angela speaks. Angela? Are you ready to speak? Possibly. We'll see. Anything more you want to say? So when you were saying the thing maker and when making the thing maker something, I thought about how you spoke recently about the Rumi poem and that threshold where the two worlds meet.

[22:01]

And at that threshold is that balance of the thing maker, the mind making something. Yeah, and actually now that I've said that, I feel like the mind is not totally responsible for thing-making because the mind didn't make itself. So thing-making is the function of the whole universe. And the whole universe has made thing-making go on in our life. But we don't make the thing by ourselves because that would be a thing making the thing. We are this un... vast emptiness in which things are being made by the whole universe in our own consciousness. So, homage to things appearing in this world. Thank you. May we say thank you to all the appearances of things.

[23:06]

And so thank you again for this wonderful day and this wonderful practice. as it starts to get kind of cold now today. And the next time we meet, the days will be getting longer. So enjoy the cold darkness, because it's not going to last forever. Thank you so much.

[23:40]

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