I see roses are red. So again, we just sang a song. And this is a song about our practice in this particular school. And there's some other songs too. So this could be called the song of Zen practice. It could be called the song of the precious mirror Samadhi. It could be called the song of Zazen. It could be called the song of self-receiving and self-employing Samadhi. So we have different names for our practice. It could be called song of the Buddha way. And as you know, it starts out by saying, the teaching of suchness, intimate transmission, Buddhas and ancestors, now you have it, so please take good care of it.

[01:20]

On Saturday at No Abode, I talked about one simple description of how to take care of it, taking care of what's already been given to you. And the first word that's used is clean the temple. And then the next word is sit. So in the, this teaching of suchness is bright just at midnight. It doesn't appear at dawn. It doesn't appear any place. The teaching is not an appearance. The intimate transmission, the intimate holy communion, which is Buddha. Buddha is a holy communion. It is the holy communion of all beings. That Buddha, that intimate transmission, that teaching, is not in appearance.

[02:33]

It is bright at midnight. It doesn't appear at dawn, which means it doesn't appear within the kind of cognition where things appear. It doesn't appear there. It appears in a cognition where there's no appearances, where things are not appearances, where things are intimate communion. Cleaning the temple could be first understood as cleaning what appears, like a room, like a body. Cleaning what appears, cleaning perceptions. Which means relate to perceptions in such a way that there's no resistance

[03:46]

to this intimate transmission. This intimate transmission, this teaching of suchness, acts as a guide to beings. Its use removes all suffering. Cleaning the temple means be kind to everything in the temple, be kind to all your perceptible appearances in such a way that the imperceptible intimacy is realized. The imperceptible transmission is the guide.

[05:00]

The guide is not perceptions. A perception of how to take care of your relationships with people, that's not the guide. The guide is the intimacy of your perceptions, which is not visible, which is not an appearance. By cleaning the temple, we can realize the actual guide which removes all pains. But in order to do that, we have to really be kind to all the things that are appearing in consciousness. For example, desires to be in charge, in control, desires to be an individual self. These things occur in the temple. And we have to clean them so that they don't hinder us from realizing the intimate transmission.

[06:14]

We have to let them be we have to let them be themselves. If we don't let what appears, which is our feeling and our thinking and so on, if we don't let our fears and our attachments, if we don't let them be, then we won't be able to make everything we do the expression of this transmission. When we sit, sitting is just three letters and it could also be said that the sitting means that when you're sitting, when you're in that posture, that posture expresses the intimate transmission. If you're sitting, That posture expresses the teaching of suchness.

[07:23]

And if I think, how could sitting here be expressing the inconceivable, unthinkable, intimate relationship of all beings? If I think that, then in order for that thought not to distract me from using this sitting to express suchness. I need to let that thought be. Otherwise that thought will cause a hair's breadth deviation from using this sitting to express the Buddha mind seal. One of our school songs says that when you express the Buddha mind seal in your three actions of posture, speaking, and thinking, when your thinking is expressing the Buddha mind seal, the entire phenomenal world becomes the Buddha's mind seal, and the whole sky turns into enlightenment.

[08:45]

But if there's a hair's breadth difference, we fail to achieve the proper attunement. Attunement to what? To the intimate transmission. It's already been given to you, but we can be out of attunement by trying, for example, to control the transmission. Like you could offer your posture right now. This posture is offered to the Buddha mind seal. That way you would be using this posture to express the Buddha mind seal, which is to offer, to give every posture to the Buddha mind. in your temple there may be some idea about how that's going to work or how it might not be working and try to get it to go that way and that attempt to control the process can cause a little difference between what you're doing right now

[10:14]

and the Buddha mind. Starts off by saying, whatever posture you're in right now, you have it. However, you have to take care of it. If you don't take care of it, it's possible that somebody will slip into some power trip. In the world of appearances, there's usually some power trip going on. There's usually words. There's usually turbulence. To clean that situation up is to let the turbulence be turbulence. Let the fear be fear. Let the trying to control the fear be trying to control the fear. There is no control, but there's the thought that there could be.

[11:21]

And if there's a thought that you could be in control, and if there's a wish that you could be in control, that can be in the temple. We let the wish to control into the temple. That's part of how to clean the temple, is to let everything in. and then we let everything be, and then the temple is clean and it's ready for what we're doing right now to be the Buddha way. The teaching of suchness is that the Buddha way is the suchness of what you're doing right now. The Buddha way is not the least bit different from you listening to me and me talking, from these hand gestures, And your hand gestures, there's no other Buddha way than what you're doing right now as expressing the Buddha way.

[12:26]

And yet, you have to take care of what you're doing and use what you're doing as an opportunity to affirm this intimate communication, which doesn't appear. Last night at Green Gulch, someone spoke of the feeling of intimacy. There are feelings of intimacy. And also there's feelings of not intimacy. The feelings of not being intimate are not intimacy themselves. And the feeling of being intimate is not intimacy itself. The feeling of intimacy is something that can appear in the temple. In the temple there's some people walking around feeling intimate, and they're allowed to be there. There's some other people walking around not feeling intimate, and they're allowed to be there too.

[13:29]

There's even some people blaming other people for the lack of intimacy. But there is no lack of intimacy according to this teaching. Our school song is, there's not a lack of intimacy. There's not a lack of intimacy. Intimacy is the truth. That's the teaching. That's what Buddha is. It's intimacy. There's no lack of Buddha. But there seems to be a lack of realization of Buddha. In other words, sometimes people think, I've got, excuse me, I'm busy, leave me alone. This is not a right moment to realize Buddha. This is not the time to use this conversation. This is not the kind of conversation that we use to realize intimacy. So then that's called a hair's breadth difference. Or maybe a big difference, like, I don't want to have anything to do with you.

[14:31]

But even though I might wish to be kind to you, I might a little bit think, what do you call it, a sneaking suspicion that maybe this conversation is not expressing the Buddha way. And that thought is one type of karma, which can then be used to express the Buddha mind. And when that thought of maybe this isn't the Buddha way is used for that purpose, there might be no discrepancy and therefore that's the proper attunement. It's the attunement of our ongoing activity in our consciousness to this inconceivable liberation and peace. There's no lack of peace. There's no lack of intimacy. But there is a lack of remembering to clean the temple and to attune every action in every moment to this teaching.

[15:42]

it seems to be necessary to remember the teaching and to remember to apply it to this situation. And if you can remember to apply it to the situation, then you can practice it. And in remembering, you may notice that you don't think it would be possible to practice it in this situation. And that thought, that it's not possible to practice in this situation, there's another situation to practice it. And you might say, oh wow, there it is. If somebody else tells me this situation, I can't practice in this situation, I can see, oh, there's a situation for you to practice in called I can't practice. Or this is not practice.

[16:56]

Or practice should be some other way. And I want to get it to be that other way so that I can practice. Every one of those things is an action that can express the Buddha Mind Seal. If I remember and say, yes, I am going to use this moment of speech, of thinking, of opinion, of discrimination. This wonderful liberating intimacy is not within reach of feeling or discrimination. Our consciousness does not reach it. The discriminations and feelings of our consciousness don't reach it. It's not within that realm.

[17:57]

But the nature of our feelings and discriminations, the nature of our feeling is intimacy, is the Buddha mind. So again, cleaning the temple is let our feeling and discrimination be so that we're ready to use them to express the Buddha mind seal. But if we mess with them a little bit, then we fail to accord with the attunement to using them and them only at this moment to realize the way. The Buddha way is not realized later. Until later. Yes? Oh, the intimacy of perception?

[19:07]

I can say some things about that. Part of the intimacy of perception is that Perception is intimately related with a wish, which is actually a will to power. We want to make our life into something that we can get a hold of. So the perception is closely related to the power of rendering our life into graspable appearances. Perception is also intimate with the things that it depends on. For example, I cannot perceive you without you. My perception is intimate with you and depends on you. However, my perception of you, as you may know, is not you. But although it's not you, it cannot arise without you and without me.

[20:15]

My perception is dependent on me and you, my whole history, all the people in the room, your whole history. It's dependent on all that. And because it's dependent on all that, what I'm perceiving is a very reduced version of all that with which it is intimate. and with which it is an opportunity to realize that intimacy. Although you are a reduction, although my perception of you is a reduction of you, if I leave my perception alone and let it be a perception, then I can use this moment of perception in service of the Buddha way, and using the perception in that way rather than as a way of knowing you and getting control of you and making you what I want you to be, all that, which is what perceptions are set up for, then I open to the inconceivable you, which is the intimacy of you, which is unlimited

[21:28]

inconceivably complex and rich, but which my consciousness doesn't know and my consciousness might be somewhat addicted to knowing things as appearances. But still, the process of making appearances is intimate with what is the basis of the appearance, and the basis of the appearance is an inconceivable causal process. You are an inconceivable causal process. You depend on inconceivable supports. The only thing you don't depend on is yourself. You depend on me, but not yourself, and I depend on you, not myself. That intimacy is not separate at all from the perception, but it's not the perception. And if I don't respect the perception and leave it alone as it is, then it's as though I think the perception is real, so I'm trying to move the perceptions around, which then turns into a lack of attunement.

[22:43]

So I attune by really doing everything possible to let you be, by being generous with you, careful with you, I should say, generous with my perception of you, careful of my perception of you, letting you be, not trying to be possessive of you, not pushing you around, not putting myself above you, not lying about what I see, and then being patient with the situation, and then relaxing with it. Yeah. Why is what intimate? No, no, no. That's not intimate. Trying to control people is as intimate as giving up trying to control them.

[23:51]

It's just that if you are trying to control them, you're resisting the intimacy. When you give up trying to control, the controlling is not the intimacy, and the giving up control is not the intimacy, but it's necessary to give up trying to control in order to open to the intimacy which no one can control. It's not that what you're doing is the intimacy. It's just that certain things put you out of attunement with what you already have. You already have it. But if you succumb to any of the power trips in consciousness, well then, you're out of attunement. But then if you are kind to the out of attunement, If you let the out of attunement be out of attunement, if you let the discrepancy between what you're doing and what you think should be going on, if you let it be, now you're back in attunement and now you're realizing, not in the way your discrimination can reach, but you are actually doing the work of taking care of the Buddha mind.

[25:09]

And when you're taking care of the Buddha mind, although you don't know it, you are taking care of it anyway. And if you're taking care of it, you're making peace in the world even if you don't know it. And it will help you. It will help you inconceivably to continue on this path. But it doesn't seem to like help you inconceivably to continue with no interruptions. Because the interruptions in the intimacy are intimate with the non-interruption. So the being out of attunement is intimate with being in attunement. Which is another reason why the bodhisattvas do not mess around with stuff. They try not to mess around. Like get things to be not what they are.

[26:16]

So we naturally desire what isn't the case, like to be a permanent self, to be in control, to be the master of the situation. I was talking someplace recently about my granddaughter, who her grandmother and I call Taranta Regina. You've heard of Tyrannosaurus Rex? That's a boy. We have Taranta Regina. She is a little tyrant and we love her and we try to give up trying to control her. We try to let her be our little tyrant. That's our way of remembering this teaching and practicing this teaching and transmitting it to her so she can feel that she's allowed to be a tyrant.

[27:22]

And then she can allow herself to be a tyrant. And then she can enter this teaching. Yes? Is there a word that would be like the synonym for intimacy? A synonym for intimacy. I don't know. Mystery? The inconceivable? Peace? Harmony? Life? Oneness?

[28:26]

You like that? Intimacy is a little bit more like the non-duality of oneness and two-ness or oneness and many-ness. Intimacy isn't just oneness and it's not manyness. It's how they don't exist without each other. It's how they're inseparable. And it's also about how we have habits of separating. Yes? Could you speak up, please? Well, the power I'm talking about is

[29:49]

is power that's very closely related to ownership. It's a power which somebody owns. It's a control that somebody is operating. Bodhisattva powers are not The bodhisattvas don't own the powers. Like, when there's practice of giving, there's not an owner of the practice of giving. Like, I got the practice of giving over here. I could loan it to you if you need it. And also, I don't own the practice of giving. And I don't own the position of being the giver. I don't own the position of being the receiver. I don't own the position of being the gift.

[30:51]

In the practicing of ethics, I don't own the practice of ethics. I'm not in control of the practice of ethics. I wish to practice ethics. I do. Right now, I'm here and there's a wish to practice ethics, but I don't own the wish. I wasn't in control of making the wish arise. I can't choose what wishes I have. But I do have wishes. And I've heard the teaching that I'm not in control of what wishes I have. And I Another expression is bodhisattvas don't mess with their powers. They have powers, and you have powers too, but the bodhisattvas don't mess with their powers. They just are their powers. So I often use the example of, how would I call it?

[31:57]

Well, a scarecrow is one example. The scarecrow has a power, or used to before crows got really smart. and figured out all those humans, we're not fooled by those anymore. So now people are trying to find new kinds of scarecrows for the smart crows. But a scarecrow is like doing this thing of scaring crows, but it doesn't think, oh, well, I'm like a good scarecrow, and I own the scariness that's right around here. Bodhisattvas are like that. It's like, you know, they're kind of like, this is really scary. This is so scary. Wow. Amazing. But they don't own it and they're not operating it. They are, you know, this is so compassionate. This is so generous. Wow. There's so much generosity around here. And there's so much gratitude for it. And everything's a blessing.

[32:59]

That's where they live. But they don't think they own it or that they can choose to be there, and yet they're there. And because they're there, they're so grateful that somehow they get to live the life of a bodhisattva, which is a very powerful way of living. And also, they get to hear the teaching that everybody is a bodhisattva with them. But not everybody knows it. the people who know it and the people who don't know it are the same and if you know it you need to be careful of not trying to be possessive of it and if you don't know it then you probably won't be possessive of it but even though you don't know it you're still involved in this enterprise we're all involved in the enterprise of embodying and practicing this intimacy, this bodhisattva way.

[34:06]

We're all involved in liberating beings from suffering and helping them realize the truth. But we all also are at the same time, you know, we've been willing now to be living in karmic consciousness. And anybody who's not willing to live in karmic consciousness is not here. In order to live in karmic consciousness, you have to be there. If you're not there, we don't have any karmic consciousness. Anybody who is here is living in a tough situation and also is really a bodhisattva. And the bodhisattvas don't mess with the tough situation. They practice with it, but not in a possessive, I'm in control kind of way. More in a kind of like amazed and wondering way.

[35:09]

How can it be so good to be able to practice these practices? I just feel so grateful and so fortunate. When I got married, I think I said something like, No, it wasn't when I got married. I think it was when I was made abbot of Zen Center. I said, I don't know why I'm so fortunate to have met Suzuki Roshi. You know, I look at... I think of many of my friends who are... They seem to have... In my... Looking through my eyes, I perceived them to be more virtuous than me. And they didn't get to meet Siddharasi. How come I got to? And some people know why. Like some people say, well, the reason why you got to is you needed to. They didn't. But I don't really know if that's the reason.

[36:13]

Because there's a lot of people who need to who didn't. But some people who are great didn't get a chance to. I don't know why I did. And after I said that, his wife, after I made that statement, his wife said, I know why. But I never asked her to tell me what she knew. Because I really don't want to know. I just want to be in awe and in wonder of how I got a chance to meet him in his life. Is that enough on that one? So there's an ongoing process of caring for our consciousness, because if we don't care for it, we'll trip over on it and fall in a pit. So other instructions in this song are turning away and touching are both wrong, for it's like a massive fire. That's speaking of, you could say, this teaching, this intimacy.

[37:16]

If you touch it, you'll get burned by it. If you turn away from it, you'll freeze. But it's the same with your perceptions. Although, yeah, if you grab your perceptions, you'll get burned. If you turn away, you're turning away from a vital thing, a vital process. So the way you treat appearances is basically the same way you treat the imperceptible reality of liberation. But we can't, you know, and so how do you treat the peace which you can't see? How do you treat the peacefulness and harmony which is bright at midnight, which is bright in a cognition where there's, you know, which consciousness doesn't reach? Midnight is a cognition. It's a mind that doesn't get reached by feeling, discriminations, consciousness.

[38:19]

How do you take care of that? Where is it? I don't know where it is. How do I take care of it? Well, I remember it, and I don't try to control it. I don't try to bring it into the realm of consciousness. I say thank you to it. I say good morning to it. I say may I be of service. I celebrate it. How do I celebrate it? Well, I'll just ask you and you can answer. How do I celebrate the thing that I can't see? How do I celebrate that which relieves all suffering? How do I celebrate it? I think about it. What? I sing about it. Yeah, I sing about it. Right. Sing about it. I teach it, I talk about it.

[39:20]

That's how I celebrate it. I sit about it. I sit with you and my sitting is a celebration of an inconceivable peace which I want to realize with you and I want you to realize with each other. By making what you're doing the celebration of an inconceivable freedom and peace to make it real, to realize it. Regardless of what you feel, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, no matter what, you're going to celebrate peace and freedom and harmony. You're going to go into a war scene and celebrate it. At least you aspire to be able to do that. the Buddha could walk into a war scene and celebrate peace.

[40:23]

However, he told some of his students, don't go into war scenes to celebrate peace. You're not yet ready to do that. But as Buddhism developed, more and more of the Buddha's disciples went into difficult situations, which previously they couldn't go into, to celebrate peace in those situations. But, you know, sometimes the teacher might say, you know, I think you should stay in the monastery a little longer before you go out into that situation. I think you're going to get distracted. I don't think you know how to clean that temple yet. But later you will be able to. I'm sending some of your older friends, more mature friends to go in there. I think they can remember this teaching. Remember not to try to control this turbulent situation and thereby transmit disharmony.

[41:29]

Stillness. Yeah. So I think you will be able to remember stillness even in that situation. So one noted Zen teacher used to take his monks out of the monastery. They'd get on horses and they'd go riding through the market of Tokyo just to see if they could continue to be still as they're going through the tumult of the Tokyo market. Hakuin. And also there's many Zen stories about monks who are trying to remember to be still and they go see the teacher and the teacher shakes them. Can you remember the stillness? And sometimes they say, yeah, it's great. Now I really understand stillness. But one time Hakuin shook somebody and the person wasn't ready and And Hakuin said, I made two mistakes with my students.

[42:38]

That was one of them. I shook somebody who wasn't yet ready to be shaken. But many, many other students, many, many, he shook. And they found the stillness, which is not the appearance of stillness, the real stillness, which nobody can shake. No matter how, and by training ourselves, we approach the possibility of being shaken all over the place. Whole lot of shaking going on. And at the same time, now I really understand we're still Miss Citizen. He was like, I would say he basically went insane. So he was very arrogant. He had some realization, and he told his teacher about this realization. He said, I'm going to go talk to a really great Zen master now.

[43:40]

And his teacher says, don't be hasty. Maybe you could just calm down a little bit with this. He said, no, I'm going to go see Hakuin and show him my understanding. And the teacher sent a note along with the student and said, OK, well, give him this note. And the note says something like, please take care of him. He's full of himself, but please take care of him. And when he came to see Hakuin, he barged in very arrogantly. And Hakuin said, kind of like, OK, you can do that here. You can be on a power trip with me. And then he read the letter. And then he said, I'm going to shake that guy. And he shook him, and the guy just crumbled. And Hawkwind could shake just about anybody, but he usually shook the right people. You shouldn't shake children. Almost no children can stand to be shaken and be able to stay present and calm when they're shaken.

[44:46]

I was with my granddaughter and she used to enjoy my car. She called my car her fort. She used to go in there and play. Did I tell you about that? She loved to play in my car and her favorite thing in my car was the hand sanitizer. This liquid hand sanitizer. She'd pick it up and use it over and over and she still hasn't run out of it. He said, over and over, a little bit more. He said, this is my favorite thing. And then we're having a good time playing with the hand sanitizer. And she just suddenly hit me hard in the face. And I said, oh, well, maybe that was a little bit too hard. And then she went. It was really a gentle evaluation. I said it really quite kindly.

[45:50]

I did not yell at her. But that was like right at the edge of what she was going to survive. That was about as bad as anything that happened that day. But she got through it about as fast as I just showed you. And I said, you know, it doesn't really hurt me when you hit me, but I don't want you to hit me that hard. Because if you hit your friends that hard, it would really not be good. So probably good not to hit me so hard. So that was OK. That didn't destroy her tyrannical behavior. She's still very alive and not insane. I mean, she's a little bit insane because she thinks she can control the world. And she definitely can control me. Yes? I don't know.

[46:51]

He didn't say. He just said, I just read, he said, he told that story, and that story is in being upright, I think. Is it? I think it's in being upright. And then after he told the story, he said, I made two mistakes, and that was one of them. But he was a very... very energetic teacher and when he interacted with people they got spun around sometimes but he usually did it with people who could spin like a ballerina and stay balanced and then get all kinds of new perspectives and wake up from their entrenched views so he was apparently very successful at waking people up from their delusions but at least once he made it, the person wasn't ready for his gift.

[47:51]

And people often ask me to give them gifts like that. And I say, I'm happy to give it, but the time has to be right. I might not be able to, even if I see some gift, I might not be able to offer it. I might not feel like it's the right time. Yes, Pat? Verbally. the verb the verbal equivalent it might be something like I just want to apologize to you because I'm I'm really I'm such an arrogant person and the person might wonder why is he telling me about his problem with arrogance And then they might think, I wonder if he could be possibly indirectly saying that to me. That would be a gentle one, right?

[48:58]

Suzuki Roshi generally did that with me. Like he would show me something and he'd say, I don't want to tell you to do this. I don't want to, you know, he'd write something and show me something. I don't want to tell you to do this. And I'd say, but you want me to do it? That turned me, you know, it didn't knock me over. But that did shake me a little bit. It got me to look at this thing. And the way he did it was like, it wasn't like I said, I didn't really resist it. I didn't even know necessarily that he was telling me to do it. But then he told me he wasn't telling me to do it. So I thought, well, maybe you do want me to do it. And he said, yes. That turned me. And we turned together. And that was successful. And then he took a piece of paper, a used envelope that had his name on it.

[50:07]

And he drew us, he made a diagram of five vertical arrows. And one of the arrows was taller than the rest of them. And he pointed at the tall one and he said, we don't have that one in our practice. In other words, it's not like one aspect of your practice is way above the other ones. So again, I think, and I think then he gave an example. For example, a monk could be really good at such and such. It's okay to be good at such and such, but everything else should be up at the same level so that such and such doesn't stand out. Some monk might be able to sit still for many, many hours. but not take care of some other aspects, or take care of the other aspects but not be able to sit still. So he wanted, like, don't be super good at ethics and not good at concentration or vice versa.

[51:09]

So he did things like that, which turned me. But he didn't crush me ever. And maybe I am getting ready for a crushing turning. But there's many stories of people that got really shaken verbally. Often the shaking comes from the verbal thing, which I didn't do just now, of shouting. Also, children really do not like to be shouted at. They like to shout, and they're good shouters. but they often do not like to be shouted at. And sometimes their mothers say to them something like, you don't want me to shout at you, do you? And they often say, no, I don't. So shouting is a verbal equivalent of physically turning somebody, shaking somebody. And there's lots of stories about

[52:10]

Buddhist teachers shouting, especially Zen teachers shouting and turning people. And sometimes they shout and the person doesn't get turned sufficiently, but they don't get crushed either. Does that make sense? Looks like you're thinking about something. The shouting is what? An assault. An assault, yeah. Well, the shaking can be an assault, too. It can be. But that's the point is that here's an assault and the person sees the assault coming and they experience the assault and then they realize that this is the teacher giving his whole life to you.

[53:31]

This is the teacher saying, I only care about you and I'll give my life for you. And that's what I'm doing here. So it's a relationship prior to... No, not necessarily prior at that moment. Could be prior to. The teacher might know the person for quite a while and feel like they're ready for them to receive something which they weren't ready to receive before. Now they're adult, so I can give them... my full, I can give them my whole heart. Before they couldn't receive my whole heart, so I didn't give it to them. Now I'm going to give them my whole heart and as it starts to come, they may feel like it's an assault. And then something happens and they open up to it. And they realize that this assault was what was necessary for them to open the doors to love. that before they were going around trying to get love through this little door.

[54:39]

And maybe the teacher was patient with that for a long time. And then the person, even while they're holding this door partly shut, they start to relax and enter into a state of tranquility. So they start to have a little loose feeling on the opening of the door. And the teacher comes in and pulls it open, which could look like an assault, and the person says, Last night, again, I was telling a story at Green Gulch about one of the great relationships in history of our school between a teacher named Wong Bo and a teacher named Lin Ji. So here's a student who's quite mature. And he was encouraged by another teacher to go see this teacher. And the teacher hit him. And then the person encouraged him to go again, and the teacher hit him.

[55:41]

And the teacher encouraged him to go again, and he hit him. And then after three, he said, I'm not going to go anymore. I don't know what I did wrong that he's hitting me. He thought that those were assaults. That's what he thought. Teacher kept giving him this teaching of kindness, which he thought was an assault. And then the person who sent him said, oh, he said, I'm not going to go again. I'm going to leave this monastery. Obviously, there's something wrong with me that I don't understand what his teaching is because it seemed like an assault to me. I don't get the point. But he wasn't destroyed at all. But he didn't want to do it anymore. But his elder brother said, well, at least you have to go say goodbye to him. So he went to say goodbye. He said, I'm leaving. And the teacher said, you don't have to leave. Just go over the hill. There's another teacher over the hill.

[56:43]

He'll be able to explain to you, brackets, what I'm doing, what I'm trying to show you. So he goes to see the other person, and he tells him what happened. And he says also, I don't know what I did wrong. I don't know what I did wrong. And the other teacher says, how amazing. He was so totally grandmotherly kind to you. I'm just awestruck. And then he understood the kindness. And then he said, there's not much to his teaching. And in a way you can see there wasn't much. Just infinite love delivered in a way that requires you to open up in order to receive it.

[57:44]

You can't see it with your old eyes. And then he understood and then he said, there's not much to the teacher's Zen. And then The second teacher grabbed him and shook him and said, speak, speak. And he punched that teacher in the ribs three times. Boom, boom, boom. That teacher released him and said, okay. In other words, okay, you're enlightened. I get it. But I'm not your teacher. Go back to see the other guy. So he went back to see the other guy. And when he got back, he told him what happened. How he woke up and understood everything. the kindness. And the first teacher said, that guy's too talkative. Next time I see him, I'm going to give him a beating. And then the student, the newly enlightened student said, no need to wait till next time.

[58:45]

We can have a beating right now. And he punched the teacher. And the teacher said to his attendant, take this crazy guy to the meditation hall. You're shaking your head. What do you mean by, what does this shaking mean? Huh? It's just difficult to grasp. It's impossible. If you grasp it, it won't be it. This is ungraspable. But it's just saying that we're trying to develop an understanding of intimacy that nothing can crush it. Nothing can crush. We're trying to find a contact and a realization so that no matter what people give us and no matter what we give ourselves, we never get distracted from compassion. And we need wisdom so that when people are cruel to us or cruel to each other, we don't get distracted from compassion.

[59:52]

No matter what's happening, we show compassion. We demonstrate it. which means we demonstrate wisdom. And these are stories of where it doesn't look like compassion, and it was, and the student woke up to it, and then the student transmitted it. And from this student, almost the vast majority of the Zen schools in China came from him. Sort of what do you call it? The fire and the lotus. The lotus and the fire. Pardon? Come from that student, Lin Ji. Lin Ji. He was the founder of one of the houses of Zen.

[60:56]

There's five houses of Zen. But his school was the most prolific in China. A very powerful transmission of intimacy that transformed the history of the world. towards the direction of a compassion that not only doesn't necessarily look like compassion, but wakes people up to see compassion where they couldn't see it before. If you went to practice with those people, you might think, God, they're so compassionate. It's amazing how compassionate they are. And after many years of appreciating their compassion, they might yell at you. And you might think, that wasn't very compassionate. And then they might yell louder.

[61:57]

And they might say, that was even less compassionate. And they might yell louder. And you say, now I get it. Thank you. Yeah? I have a short story that I realized is related to this. My assistant would always love to argue. Your sister loved to argue. Yeah, especially with her brother. And since we were kids. And it wasn't until recently that I could understand her shouting as... Yeah, as not... Her expressing... It's non-incestual. Well, incest is having sex with your brother or sister, right? Okay. That's incest. But this argument is her way of expressing her love that's not incest.

[62:58]

You know, it's permitted. Okay. Well, right. Okay. Some sisters do cuddle with their brothers, you know, and to a certain extent people say, okay. And then if it gets more intimate they say, no, no, no, no, don't do that. For various reasons. But still sisters and brothers sometimes really want to practice being intimate with each other and arguing is sometimes the only, the way that's, the avenue that's open. And so now you understand that that was always her love for you. her way of practicing intimacy with you. Now you see that. But whether she sees it that way or not, because I don't think her perspective has changed. Well, maybe she always knew. Yeah, this intimacy is often kept secret.

[64:01]

Well, it's time to go. Thank you very much.

[64:15]

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