So I guess this morning's talk will be about eyes. Today, we begin a seven-day meditation retreat, which is in the Zen groups around the world. The retreat in December is usually considered, in some sense, the most... celebrated because during this retreat we celebrate the awakening of the founder of Buddhism, Shakyamuni Buddha.

[01:21]

April 8th is the day we make that celebration. It's called Jodoe. Jō means attaining though the way. And A, I guess, is ceremony or occasion. It's the occasion where he attained the way. Sitting in the middle of this room, as you know, is the large statue of Manjushri. Bodhisattva. The pleasant splendor. Bodhisattva. The prince of sweetness and light. Prince of perfect wisdom. And in front of that statue is another statue which has a white cloth over it.

[02:25]

And that is a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha. It's covered because we just brought it in the room and it is being kept under wraps until the Enlightenment Day. And on that day we will uncover it and open the eyes of the statue. We will awaken the eyes of the statue. This statue was given to us by the Alan Watts Society for Comparative Philosophy as a gesture of friendship with Zen Center and our community here. So we will wake the statue up on the day of awakening of the statue.

[03:30]

And when we open the eyes of the statue, we recite a mantra. The mantra we recite is... It sounds nice in Japanese. In English, we can translate it as Eyes of compassion, observing sentient beings, assembles an ocean of blessing beyond measure. Eyes of compassion, observing living beings, assembles an ocean of blessing or virtue or happiness. You could translate that character in many ways.

[04:33]

an ocean of blessing, virtue, or happiness beyond measure. This chant is done over and over again until the statue opens its eyes. So during this sitting, during this retreat, we hope that we will be able to open Buddha's eyes, open the eyes of Buddha, open the eyes of compassion. It is our aspiration that these eyes could be opened, can open, and that when these eyes are open and they observe this world of suffering,

[05:38]

this world in which there is so much difficulty and misfortune and apparent non-blessing, so much harassment, so much affliction, that if we can look upon this affliction with compassionate eyes, that this contemplation assembles an ocean of blessing. It's not to... to deny the horrors of this world. It's just to observe beings who suffer in response to these horrors and to put our trust in the observing of the beings, not in fighting the horrors, not in running away from them, not in denying them, but actually to go to the beings who are in the midst of these difficulties, to go to them and to observe them with eyes that can see.

[06:47]

With eyes that can see suffering and eyes that can see the cause of suffering. So our practice is to recognize this suffering as best as we can now, recognize the cause as best we can now, and to practice meditation until we can recognize it more thoroughly and more accurately, until our eyes of compassion open fully. And the way I've been repetitively suggesting we might open these eyes, or these eyes might be opened, is through the complete thorough study of our self.

[07:47]

The reason for this being that our self-delusion or our delusion and not lack of understanding of what we are is what keeps our eyes shut or partially opened. And if we would understand ourselves thoroughly, we would have eyes of compassion. And so I say over and over, I repeat to you, that the total engagement of the self can be a path of liberation from self-delusion and self-clinging. That to over and over again, to completely thoroughly study this self over and over, this small thing, we will understand that it is not a small thing.

[09:08]

that it is actually identical with the whole world. This morning I heard a a Shakespeare sonnet, and it ended. To give away yourself, keep yourself still. And you must live drawn by your own sweet, To give away yourself, keep yourself still.

[10:25]

You must live drawn by your own sweet skill. The first way I heard this was, to give away yourself, keep yourself still. The first way I heard that was, keep yourself not moving. Don't move. So this is my habit to hear that. If you want to give your life in service to all beings, if you want to make yourself a benefit to all beings, then don't move yourself.

[11:32]

But then I heard it another way, and that is, if you want to give yourself away, keep yourself. If you want to give yourself away, hold on to yourself. And I think those two meanings, I feel, are both important. We usually think that in order to give away ourselves, we should let go of ourself. But I think that actually, ironically or paradoxically, to really give yourself away, you have to admit that you're holding on to yourself. So if you don't move, in one sense what you don't move from is you don't move from your self-attachment. You admit that you're holding to yourself. And by thoroughly admitting how you hold on to yourself, I won't say you let go of yourself, but yourself will be released.

[12:41]

From closer without moving. The principle here is that the more a thing is itself, the closer it is to transcending itself. The more you are yourself, the closer you are to transcending yourself. This is not the way the self thinks. This is the way the liberated, forgotten self thinks. A person came to talk to me a few days ago and said, I think he was referring to a kind of Zen principle, which you may have heard of, where the student is supposed to transcend or go beyond the teacher.

[14:23]

Have you heard of that? I think he said something like, Where do you go when you transcend your teacher's teaching? Where do you go when you transcend your teacher's teaching? And what came to my mouth was where do you go when you transcend a moment? Everything, everybody is actually constantly completing themselves and transcending themselves. Every moment you complete yourself and thereby transcend yourself.

[15:27]

Every moment completes itself and transcends itself. Everything completes itself and transcends itself. This is a kind of reality. It goes along with another reality where things don't complete themselves and don't transcend themselves. These two realities coexist. One's called the conventional reality of misery. The other one is the realm of liberation and peace. But they coexist very nicely. The one where things completely are themselves and by that completely being themselves transcend themselves doesn't have to go someplace other, doesn't need to be in some other world from, for example, the world where things don't quite wind up being themselves and therefore are stuck in themselves.

[16:39]

Most people have some sense of being stuck and miserable and doing things partly or being partly themselves. Most people have a sense of this. Some people are in total denial of that. So they don't even sense that. But if you can... to keep still. Keep yourself still even with your being stuck. Keep yourself still even with your partial participation with your life. If you can keep still with that, this will allow this to be given away. Any position, any situation in its thoroughness is liberated.

[17:47]

There is nowhere and there is nowhere that they abide. All these things, all these moments, all these selves, all these things that in their completion are liberated, there's nowhere that they abide. and you know the play on words that you can do there, there is now here that they abide. Now here is nowhere. And in nowhere, or in now, here, things complete themselves and transcend themselves. The question is,

[18:55]

for me, and maybe for you now, is do we, without moving, come closer to that nowhere, to that now here, where you and all things complete themselves and are liberated from themselves. You can't do anything to get to the present. You can only dream of being someplace else. But dreams are powerful, so we can feel like we are someplace else. And the places that aren't the present, that aren't here, they can be places and you can abide there. You can abide there. That's the advantage of them. The advantage of not being completely yourself is you can hang out there.

[19:56]

When you're yourself, completely, you can't stay there. You naturally move on to the next thing. This is what must happen in Zen training, is we must move on. We can't camp out, even in the highest state. We can't even camp out in our teachers realization in our teacher's teaching. But I say you can't, I mean you can't if you want freedom. I say you can't if you want eyes of compassion. But if you don't care about having eyes of compassion, and you want to be stuck, then you can camp out.

[20:57]

And you can camp out in really great places. That's fine. If you're going to camp out, you might choose a good place. On the other hand, it might be better to camp out in a bad place because you might be more willing to see what it is, and get out. But actually, I don't really mean that, because whether you're in a lovely place or a horrible place, it's the same practice. And when I said this to this fellow about, you know, he said, I said about these things constantly fulfilling themselves and transcending themselves, he said, well, why practice then? And practice is exactly that. It's not like you practice and then things complete themselves and fulfill themselves.

[22:04]

Things are completing, fulfilling, and liberating themselves all the time. So then again, one might say, well, why is practice necessary? It's not necessary over and above that. That is practice. Practice is the fact that you are right now completely being yourself and transcending yourself. Practice is to witness that that's happening right now. Okay. Take a moment and notice reality of yourself being yourself and being liberated from yourself. Witnessing that is practice. It's not practice on top of that or before that. Now, there are warm-ups, which sometimes people call practice, which is fine. I'm not going to argue about that. But it isn't really practice until you get to the place of where you really are yourself, and that fact liberates you.

[23:11]

That's practice. And the funny thing is, the practice seems to... prove that this is so. Just like now, if you would witness what I'm talking about, you would prove, you would verify what I'm just talking about. You could come forth and testify before the assembly. That it's so. That you were yourself there for a moment. That you, what? You kept yourself still for a moment. And you saw... that you were given away it's so close can you see that if you keep yourself still for a moment you can see yourself being given away and where do you get the scent where can you sniff out and watch this

[24:20]

Self. Yourself. Keeping still. You get it in living, which is drawn by your sweet skill. You have some skill? You have some skill? Not just skill, but sweet skill. What is your sweet skill? What is your sweet skill? I propose everybody has a sweet skill, a skill that draws us along in our living, a skill that gets us. The poet Mary Oliver says, you do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees

[25:22]

or a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal in your body love what it loves. You have to do that. Shakespeare says, you must, you must live You must live drawn by your sweet skill. Not somebody else's sweet skill, your skill, your sweet skill. This is a skill by which you love being what you are. That's why you're this rather than all the other things you could be at this moment.

[26:25]

And you're drawn along by the sweetness, by the sappiness, by the oozing livingness of this self. This is called admit what you're up to. And I think you've all heard, many of you have probably heard this joke of when you get to the, when you come to the, when you die, after you die, and you come to the gates, for example, let's say if you do come to the gates of heaven, if they're offered to you, They don't say to you, you know... Well, maybe they do say it to you.

[27:34]

Maybe they say, you can't come in. I hear you knocking, but you can't come in. And the reason you can't come in is not because you weren't good like somebody else should be good. Not because you weren't sweet like somebody else should be sweet. not because you didn't walk on your knees for a hundred miles to the desert repenting, but because you weren't yourself. Of course you were yourself every moment of the way, but you lied. You lied moment after moment. You lied. You didn't admit. You were yourself. Therefore, you're out of here. Now when you get to hell, they say, come on in. You tried to be good. You knew you were who you were, and you thought that wasn't good, so you tried to be something else.

[28:40]

So come on in. You had some idea about being good, and in order that you would fulfill your aspiration to be good, you lied. He lied about who you were because you didn't think it was good. So come on in. This is for you. This is the place for you. This is the place called eternal isolation. But when you get to the gates of hell, at that moment you say, well, at least now I'm going to be myself and I do not want to come in. And if you say at that time how you feel, I mean, let's say you don't want to come in. If you say how you feel, let's say you do want to come in, that's better. Let's say you say, oh good, I'm finally getting my comeuppance. I should be in hell because I've been lying my whole life. I've been pretending to be somebody else that I thought I should be. I've been following somebody else's sweet skill.

[29:44]

So hell is the place for me. I'm coming on in. And if you do that completely, they won't let you in. They don't want people like that in hell. They don't. They'll say, get out of here. And not only that, but you won't go to heaven. You won't go to heaven then. Because they don't want people there that want to go to hell. You can get into heaven, however, by behaving that way. They let you in. But if you're going to talk like that, the place for you is back in this world. Because you've got eyes of compassion. Eyes of compassion which let you be yourself. Which let you keep still. Which let you keep yourself still. And Shakespeare says, Buddha says, Mary Oliver says, keep yourself still and you give yourself away.

[30:45]

Keep yourself still and your eyes of compassion will open. And then if you use those eyes appropriately, which is to watch living beings in their myriad perambulations through the world of suffering, blessing will arise from that contemplation of them. Blessing in the world of suffering will be born in oceanic dimensions, without limit, without measure. in the smallest ways, in the biggest ways. I was very happy to find my glasses, let me tell you. Not only because I like to look at them, especially during lectures so I can see the people in the back, but also because I sensed that they were nearby. I felt like they were right within my grasp.

[31:53]

And I was right. They were in my pen's pocket. So I yearned for them because they were so close. And now I got them back. It felt so good to get my eyes back. In the meantime, I went to the optometrist and ordered another pair of bifocals so that during lectures I can look at my notes without taking my glasses off and still see the people's eyes in the back of the room. So in Zen practice, we offer forms to people, like the sitting posture, walking postures, and forms of meditation.

[33:55]

We have robes. We have bowing. We have scriptures. We have various rituals. We have forms. We offer these forms to you. We offer these forms to all beings. We offer these forms to ourselves. But the point of offering these forms is so these forms can be done thoroughly and completely and thereby forgotten, thereby given away. We wear these robes so we can take them off. We wear these robes in some sense rigidly and formally according to certain procedures and protocols. We wear them in that rigid way so we can be free. So we can realize through using these robes, these forms, to help ourselves more thoroughly admit who we are.

[34:59]

To move closer. To come closer without moving. So we use these forms, we use these robes, and we'll stop wearing them when everyone completely becomes herself and transcends herself. We also practice patience until that time. So I'm not like I'm saying, hurry up so I can take these robes off. But I'm wearing these robes as a symbol of your work too, not just mine. And I will rigidly follow this form and all the other forms of Zen until all sentient beings keep still with their form. until they give their form away. So probably you understand the principle of my talk, at least to some extent.

[36:03]

But as I've learned from reading the sonnets, this person named Shakespeare wrote 154 of these sonnets. And basically, they're all about the same thing. 154 ways of looking at the same issue. So because of that, I'm going over and over again the same issue with you. Total engagement of the self as the way of liberation from the self. Total engagement with the small self as the road embracing all others connecting with others by fully being ourself so I don't know if I can say it as poetically different ways as Shakespeare but this is my challenge so I will give 154 talks about total engagement of the self as the way to

[37:19]

liberation from the self. I've given about ten so far, so it'll take a while. I don't have to tell you that you do not have to attend them all. but I have to. But you must be drawn along by your sweet skill. When the great Zen master Lin Ji, the great Zen master Rinzai, To make a long story short, he was quite a guy.

[38:23]

He really cared about people and apparently had eyes of compassion. He would do anything to help his monks wake up. And what he often did actually was, when they come out to talk to him, he would grab them by their robes sometimes and shake them. This is not common in Chinese society to do that. It was very outrageous of him to do things like that. And he would yell at them. But he had a high success rate. It wasn't like what he called 100, 1,000% batting average, but he had many, many great disciples. And so anyway, his... He has thousands and thousands of disciples or maybe millions of disciples even today. But his method was apparently kind of rough.

[39:30]

And in many ways rough because it was meeting a very subtle and developed culture. He had to shake a well-established cultural edifice that was coming to him in the form of his monks. It wasn't easy to crack open the rigidity of such an immense cultural edifice as China had become. So he hit it hard. Anyway, as he was about to die, he said to his senior disciple... Don't destroy the treasury of my eyes of truth.

[40:32]

That's a long-winded way of saying my teaching. The eyes of truth. The treasury of the eyes of truth. After I die, don't destroy my teaching. Don't destroy my treasury of Dharma eyes. And his student, Sanxiong, which means three sages, said, how would I dare destroy the teacher's teaching? And Linji said, if someone comes to you and suddenly asks about it, will you say? And Sancheng shouted. I won't shout. Not because I'm humble, but because I'm chicken.

[41:49]

I'm chicken to shout because I have this amplifying system and, you know, well, maybe I will shout. Are you ready? You going to turn it down? So he said, if someone suddenly comes to you and asks about it, what will you say? And he said, I don't know what he said. I think he went. Is that amplified or not amplified? That was not amplified. Not amplified. I'm going to do it again. Ready? Plug your ears. I'm just kidding. I'm not going to do it again. Anyway, then Linji said, who would have thought that my treasury of eyes of truth would be destroyed?

[42:54]

by this blind ass. And this blind ass became his main successor. So I guess probably that story has been successful in making us all come back to where we were before.

[44:29]

Namely, every person in this room being the person that they are. I'll leave it to you to carry out the work here on. And I'll just keep saying the same thing over and over and say the same thing over and over. Unless perhaps you force me to say something new. You understand? If you force me to say something new, then that will be the end of my teaching.

[45:36]

My teaching will be destroyed. But until then, I'll just keep going over and over the same thing until you destroy it by your shout. You're so quiet. Is that your shout? It's a quiet shout. That's amazing that all these people have the same quiet shout. You never know what the shout will be like. But anyway, in case you didn't notice, that was an invitation for you to do your thing, which will put an end to me. so I can die with my glasses.

[46:43]

I have a question. I can make trouble if I'm compassion for the man who they caught, who allegedly had killed Pauly Cloud. And I was with the people last night, they were saying, you know, just to bring me back, just tell him, doesn't deserve to live. And I know that that's not right, but I'm here to tell if I shouldn't know him. And I don't know how. Would any of you people like to sit in their seats up here?

[47:58]

Anybody want to sit up here in these places? The seat here? So Elizabeth asked, she said she is having difficulty having eyes of compassion for a particular person who seems to have killed this little girl. So this horrible thing happened.

[49:10]

I mean, it looks like this horrible thing has happened. This girl's been killed and somebody, maybe him, killed her. When we see things like that, I don't think anybody unless they're completely, I don't know what, stoned on some drug or something. I don't think anybody doesn't get angry, really. It's like you should get angry at a child being killed or hurt. It's just a normal human reaction. But getting angry is just your response. So what about compassion towards all people? living beings at that time it's possible to be angry and feel compassion at the same time you may not notice the compassion but it's possible to see someone do something and think it's terrible and get extremely angry at them and still perhaps almost at the same time see that this person must be insane on some level and

[50:37]

I mean, just desperate to some kind of extremity that's pretty hard for you to understand. I think that if I examine myself thoroughly, I will eventually be able to see that there is no horrible thing that I have not done at some point. And that's sort of, so that's maybe hard for people to understand that you have, in the endless cycle of birth and death, that you have done horrible things yourself. that you have been involved in that scenario, and that you're not better than anybody on this planet.

[51:46]

So it's pretty hard for us to not think we're better than certain people at the time that they do these things. It's pretty hard for us not to think we're better than them. But to think that something's horrible does not mean that you have to think you're better than the person who did it. not necessary you can still see that this is terrible and get really angry about it and think of killing the person yourself without simultaneously thinking that you're better than the person to think that you're better than the person is primarily what blocks the compassion or to think you're separate from this person We are connected to this monster. And we're connected to this poor little girl.

[52:56]

I don't think we're better than the girl or better than the monster. But still, we can see a monster as a monster. And when monsters do monstrous things, we may have violent reactions. It's normal to respond to monsters to get very upset and do various things like, you know, tie them up or whatever, if you can. Disarm them if you can before they hurt anybody else. This is a normal, I think, appropriate reaction. Unless you can think of something better. I mean, maybe there's something better. But usually, the best you can do is disarm the person or neutralize them. And there may be tremendous violent feelings about it, too. But there does not have to be a feeling of separation. There does not have to be a feeling of being better than them.

[54:07]

You can stop someone who is insane or who is intoxicated from doing a bad thing. You can stop them without thinking that you're better than them. It is possible. I've seen it happen. And some people do it regularly. I mean, they spend a lot of their time stopping people from doing violent things, and they're just concentrating on stopping the people from doing violent things. They don't have time to get into thinking that they're better than that person, although sometimes they do. But basically, if you get into thinking that you're better than the person who you're preventing from causing harm, it's basically just distraction from your real work, which is to protect people from this person and to protect this person from himself or herself. That's your real work, is to reduce the harm. It may be even prevent any further harm. That's the most important work. This indulgence in I'm better than them and they're creeps, you know, that kind of thing is just... makes you less effective in doing the appropriate thing.

[55:11]

So these horrible things that happen like this are opportunities for us to think about what is our aspiration in this life? What good can we do now for the world? And things like this remind us that there is a lot for us to do. How can we help prevent further harm? How can we prevent other little boys growing up to be monsters? What can we do for them to help them so they don't become monsters? Little boys can become monsters if you don't take care of them properly, if you don't educate them well, if you don't give them useful and satisfying wholesome outlets for their aggressive energies, for those hormones that are flowing through them. If you don't take care of that, they're going to be monsters. And then when they're monsters, well, then the proper thing to do is tie them up. Hang them by their teeth. You know, stop them. But we could also have stopped this earlier if we... So there is a chance for us to rededicate ourselves to being helpful at this time.

[56:33]

and to accept the fact that some of us are extremely angry about this and want, you know, want to hurt back somehow, some way. It gives that energy, and everybody feels it to some extent. Or if they don't feel it, they're probably just sort of knocked off their feet and given something else, just knocked down. When they recover, they might get angry. But it's just, you know, it's just... It's just horrible, that's all. And I don't think you have to stop yourself from getting angry. Because you are. But compassion has to do with just not feeling like you're better than this guy. And like he's on some other universe than you. You're connected to him somehow. And so am I. We're all connected. We're all somewhat responsible in some way for the world being a place where people like this are born.

[57:37]

and get so perverted and so desperate and so crazy that they do these unthinkably horrible things. If you can do something now, well, do it. But when something like this happens, it's so big that it's kind of like nobody knows what to do. And in some sense, it's time just to sit down and assess the situation of our life and think about, now, what do I want to do? What benefit can I do in this world in a reasonable way as soon as possible? And if you see something, well, then realize it.

[58:47]

Make it happen. If you don't, then sit quietly until you see something beneficial. And when you see that, then go ahead. There's a lot of confused, upset people now to help as a result of this. There's a lot of people who, when something terrible like this happens, Just indulge in various kinds of distractions. They're there to help. But also this all is going on in your own mind too. So take care of your own mind. That would be a big help. Now that I have my glasses back, I can enter into the drama of keeping them in the lens. Keeping them in the frames. What is your message to the sky that you told me to see my father?

[59:58]

Do we go our own way and not listen to you anymore? Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I would say go your own way and listen to yourself. But, you know, in this very quiet way, listen to yourself so you can really hear what you're saying. If you hear what you're saying in all the many ways that you talk, in this world to yourself and to others, if you listen to all that and you be still with it, you will hear what you're really saying. You're really just saying one thing all the time. And it has all these complex ramifications, so sometimes we lose track of what the message is that's always there.

[61:08]

The root or the trunk from which all these different thoughts come. You will realize that if you can carefully, quietly listen to it, listen to it all. Listening to yourself is an example of observing sentient beings. You're a sentient being, your mind is a sentient being. Listening to and observing your own mind, if you have eyes of compassion, you'll see what you understand what you're saying. And you can forget about what I said. And then people say, well, what is that one thing that we're all saying?

[62:09]

But as soon as I say it, it's just another branch. But this, you know, to live by this sweet skill has to do with tuning you into this trunk. Because your sweet skill is always going on through everything you do. always there. Your skill at creating is always there. There's something fundamental there that is always transcending itself, that's always completing itself and liberating itself, and it has no abode. That's the thing we're talking about all the time. Everything we say is about that presence. A presence which doesn't hold on to anything, and yet is completely itself, radically, thoroughly itself, and then by the very fact that it is, it goes beyond itself.

[63:23]

This constant transcendence of form, and transcending form by taking a new form, not transcending form by eliminating form, but by taking constantly new forms of life, This is life. Life is always being itself and going beyond itself and being itself and going beyond itself. And you can't get a hold of it. It's too creative, too alive for anybody to grab. It can't be stopped. It can't be started. It is, and when it really is itself, it isn't. This is what we're always talking about. So if you listen to yourself, carefully, you'll eventually realize that that's what you're saying, and you're never talking about anything else but that. But we get caught by our own words, and we think we're talking about something else, and we actually mesmerize ourselves into following some storyline, and then we lose track of our source, and then we're sunk.

[64:33]

But if you can really listen carefully to everything you're saying and realize that these are a million ways of saying the same thing, you will transcend yourself. And there's a picture of this fish there in that drawing over there, jumping out of the water. A fish that's so much a fish that it leaps out of fish land. And there's a poem which goes, partly goes leaping up magnificently. Look at the great function. The beautiful fish won't agree to be sunk in a pickle jar. But the way you leap up out of yourself is by being yourself. And that means being the things you say being the things you think, and being the physical postures you take moment by moment, right now.

[65:44]

And if you take care of that stuff, you will successfully forget what I said. And you'll be hearing my intention. Then I can take my rose off. Just be a fish. When you talked about giving yourself away, I thought of two different meanings. One in which you're giving yourself to the rest of the humanity and universe, your presence, the gift of yourself by being yourself. And the other way I thought of giving yourself away is like when someone is fighting and they make a sound, you know, floorboard treats or whatever, they give themselves away that way. Now I was wondering which meaning you meant for both. This is Shakespeare, right? There's a quote on 40 Shakespeare. And I would guess nothing about what he meant.

[66:49]

But I've heard three, there's three. I've heard a third one. One is giving yourself to others in service. The other is revealing yourself. If you just keep yourself still, You will reveal yourself to people. People will be able to find you. And the place they find you, you'll be there. You won't be hiding or tricking them anymore. You'll be there. So you give yourself, you reveal yourself, you also give yourself. If you want to give yourself to all living beings, then be yourself. And the other meaning is giving yourself away, or giving yourself away means setting yourself free. which is also, you could say, the way to set yourself free is to serve others. But again, serving others by your idea of serving others is perhaps not staying still with yourself. You stay still with yourself, you realize, oh, here's my idea of helping others. It doesn't mean you shouldn't have some idea of helping others.

[67:51]

You probably do. That's fine. But you shouldn't, like, react to that idea of helping others. You should be still with that idea of helping others. And if you're still with that idea of others, then you will really give yourself to them. Because you'll transcend your idea of giving them help. A lot of us have ideas about what's helpful and therefore we can't help people because what they're asking from us is not what we want to give. So it's kind of a problem. And sometimes what they're asking of us, we shouldn't give. It's hard to tell the difference between what they're asking which we shouldn't give and what they're asking which we don't want to give. If you want to be able to tell the difference, what you should do is keep yourself still. In keeping yourself still, you'll be able to discern the difference between being stingy and not giving someone something that wouldn't be good for them. Which happens sometimes. If a little kid wants the keys to the car before they get the driver's license, you shouldn't give it to them. Unless the car has, you know, is totally locked in, you know, the brakes are locked and there's no gas and there's no motor, then you can give them the keys, I suppose.

[68:59]

But otherwise, It wouldn't be good to give them the keys. Because they might get hurt. And that's not really what they want. They probably want something else. When they ask for the keys, they probably want to go someplace. Or they want the experience of driving a vehicle. There's some other way to respond to what they really... What do you really want when you ask for the keys? You could ask. because it's not appropriate for you to drive the car. Maybe what they really want is to sit next to you with one of those little steering wheels that they have. You can go out on a dashboard and they can sit next to you. Or maybe they want to sit in your lap while you drive or something like that. Or maybe they want to sit in your lap when you're just sitting still in the parking lot and turn the radio on. Who knows what they really mean by that? Anyway, there's probably some intelligent reason, some good reason why they're asking for the key. And how are you going to find out about that?

[70:03]

Well, in order to find out about it, the first thing you have to do is find out about yourself. Because what you think they're asking for is only what you think they're asking for. You have no idea what they really want. When somebody asks you for the keys, it does not mean that they want the keys. It means that they asked you for the keys. It's like that thing about when somebody's in front of you in their car and they see their turn signal, their left turn signal on, that does not mean they're going to turn left. It does not mean they're going to turn right. It does not mean that they want to turn left. They want to turn right. All it means is that that light's blinking. But then you think, oh, that light's blinking. That means they want to turn left. Well, that's just one version of reality. Yours. You study yourself then and you say, oh, I'm sitting in this car thinking that that signal means, that's what I think. Then you're staying with yourself. And when you start realizing what you're doing, you're right. You can have a good sense of what you're doing.

[71:05]

You're thinking that. From that place, you're coming down to reality. And from that place, you're getting ready to respond to this car. Namely, there's a person in this car who thinks that means something like it. Then you can realize there's a person in this car who's just imagining that. Then you can realize there's a person in this car who doesn't know what the car in front of it is going to do. And that's reality. You don't know what they're going to do. And no matter what they do, you don't know what they're going to do. Now you're getting closer to having a decent relationship with this other car. Which is to say, eyes of compassion observe sentient beings. You just sit in your car and you watch them. You know, you watch and you see, what are they going to do now? Now they're turning the signals on. Okay. Now they turn the other signal on. Now they've got another brake light on. Okay, the brake light on. The car actually seems to be stopping, too, so I'm going to stop mine. Okay, now what? Do you ever try to do the analysis of the police officer? Police officers, don't ask me about other people's behavior.

[72:06]

Well, I thought it may be, you know, we didn't come out with my... I also haven't heard police officers. I've never been in a situation with a police officer where I've talked about anybody else's behavior. They seem to be talking about mine. And I haven't diverted other people too much. It just didn't seem like they'd be sympathetic. It seems like people are more sympathetic about me when I talk about my behavior. That's when I get the most sympathy. Because, in fact, people know that that's what I can talk about. And, in fact, that is what I can talk about. And there's not much else I can talk about. I really can't speak about other people's behavior very well at all. Except to the extent that I'm guessing that other people are something like me.

[73:11]

Blind. Blind. It doesn't make sense to me. I wonder what the symbol of the yellow I thought, if it was a rock. Yeah, I didn't explain that, so now I will, somewhat. You see, this teacher, one of the things he did, which he's known for, is yelling at people, shouting at people. If you're his disciple, you might learn his shout. So the teacher says, in some sense the teacher is teaching shouting, right?

[74:32]

So the teacher says, I'm about to die now, so don't destroy my teaching of shouting. So what does the student do? He shouts. But he shouts in such a way that he destroys the teacher's teaching of shouting. And that's a characteristic of if you're going to transcend something, the way you transcend something is by that thing. And they say that after that guy shouted, there was no further shouting in that lineage. After that, all the shouting was just simply mimicking the master. But the real shouting was ended. That guy put an end to shouting. He destroyed the shouting practice, the shouting teaching. but he destroyed it by shouting. And when you destroy your teacher's teaching by using your teacher's teaching, you become your teacher's successor.

[75:33]

You make your teacher obsolete by making your teacher successful. Once you teach something, it's over. The teaching is destroyed. That story enacts a basic principle of teaching and learning, a basic principle of the kind of reproductive side of teaching. And we don't like to admit this, but this is part of the story of the succession of authority in this world is you have to, in some sense, destroy the previous generation in order to make the previous generation really live. If it goes on, then the next generation doesn't live. And what a lot of children have to do with their parents or students have to do with their teachers is they have to do something that bothers the previous generation in order to see that they could bother the previous generation and disagree with the previous generation and still

[76:52]

agree with the previous generation. If you just do what they're doing, of course they're going to like it. But that's not you. Now, if you do something unusual and they like it, then you may think, well, basically they're just including this under their set of expectations, and so basically I'm still just sort of pleasing them. The only way you can be sure is by doing something that either really obsessed them or basically destroyed what they were doing. And the funny thing is that in this story, when he successfully destroyed the teacher's teaching, the teacher said, this is my boy. And he called him a blind ass, which also has to do with the eyes of truth, right? It's the storehouse of the eyes of truth that have been destroyed by a blind ass. You look a little more confused.

[78:12]

Well, as I said many times, one of the main rhetorical device in Zen stories is irony. There's just a few examples of the stories that last. There are quite a few stories where the teacher says to the student, you know, you are my boy, you are my girl. I'm so happy that I have such a wonderful successor, such a wonderful disciple. I don't know how I could be so fortunate to have such a wonderful... But then usually when they say that, people think they're being ironic then, too. In the most famous stories, usually the teacher says it in a little different way. But sometimes there are stories where the teacher says, this is it. Here it is. This is it. This is it. There are stories like that. This is it. Here we got it. But there's many more stories where the teacher says something more ironic.

[79:19]

And again, part of the irony, well, the irony is very dynamic, you see, and the relationship The true relationship between people is very dynamic and paradoxical. The relationships that aren't paradoxical, that aren't dynamic, usually have a flaw in them, in that they're usually taking roles, like the teacher is up here above the student, or the master is above the disciple, or the master is above the slave. That's a relationship that's not ironic. We know that one quite well, just regular dominance and submission between human beings, which is the state of affairs, and most of the time, around the world. You can also reverse it. That's not unusual, too. What's ironic or paradoxical is that you would assert yourself strongly in the presence of someone you really respect.

[80:25]

in the presence of someone you would really listen to, you would tell them to shut up and listen to you. And the person you most want to shut up and listen to you is the person you most want to listen to. So it's kind of a paradox that the person whose words you most revere and most value and most respect, that person you would say, okay, now you've talked enough. Now listen to me. But even then, that's not enough because if you get too much over on this side of like squashing the teacher down or squashing the parent down, you forget the fact that the reason why you're squashing them down is because you hold them up. That the reason why you have to put them down is because they're so highly valued. So you can't get too far away from that, otherwise you'll lose track of what you're doing because you must score this point. You must get this recognition and this approval from somebody who you simultaneously remember is someone who you're looking up to.

[81:28]

Or at least that you must, you know, look on evil, [...] on equal level with somebody who you have now acquired the ability to look down on and look up at. That you can look down on your teacher and look up at your teacher at the same time, which is kind of like looking straight ahead. And what... For a healthy tradition, it has to get to the point where you look eye to eye, where you're equals. But equals includes being above and below at the same time. It includes, I've got something to say, you listen to me, and you've got something to say, I'm going to listen to you. And I'm going to listen to you who is listening to me. And you are going to listen to someone whom you're asking to listen to you. And we don't have a lot of training and a lot of capacity for this kind of relationship.

[82:37]

I shouldn't say we don't have a lot of capacity. I would say we need to develop that capacity. If we have the capacity, we need to develop it. And what we do know how to do is split off and take roles and be either the boss or the follower. And it is good if you can play those two roles. Some people can only be a boss, and some people can only be a follower. It's good to learn how to be boss and follower. That's good if you can be both. Like if you can be the boss of your children, that's good, but also if you can be the follower of somebody else, the child of somebody else, that's good too. So if you can be both the student and the teacher, that's good. So if you're a teacher, it's good if you go and learn how to be a student. That's good. But what's really good is that when you know how to be a student and a teacher, to learn how to both at the same time. When you're teaching, to be able to learn from the students.

[83:40]

And when you're a student, to be able to teach the teachers. But when you're teaching the teachers, remember you're a student teaching the teachers. And when you're a teacher learning from the student, remember you're a teacher learning from the students. And then pretty soon you're a student learning from the students and a teacher learning from the teachers. Ultimately, the point is to be a teacher learning from a teacher and a teacher teaching a teacher. That's the ultimate. And this is the high hopes of the world that someday we can Be a teacher who learns from a teacher and be a teacher who teaches a teacher. So we teach all these teachers and learn from all these teachers. And when we get like that, we talk like some of these guys once in a while and call the students who are teaching us.

[84:50]

That student taught that teacher. That teacher was saying, don't destroy my teaching. The student said, how could I destroy my master's teaching? And he said, well, if someone asked you about my teaching, what would you do? And he yelled, and the teacher said, here it is. My student has destroyed, my student is teaching me. My student has shouted beyond all my shouts. I, the teacher, see my student teaching me. And the student at that time saw that he is the student, taught his teacher, who was his teacher. They switch roles without switching roles. And this is called succession. This is called new life. The same thing happens between a mother and a child. Yes.

[85:54]

didn't have a teacher there afterwards. But if the mother isn't dying and the child goes on, they're not happy. Well, the student, you know, the student then went around and adopted various other parents we know from stories. And he continued to go find other teachers to teach. He went around teaching other teachers who saw him coming. and said, here comes a student. And when they saw the student, they taught that student and saw that that student was teaching them. There's many other stories about this guy going around teaching other teachers, other great teachers. But what I mean by the same for a mother and a child is that The child is the mother to the mother. And the mother is the child to the child.

[86:54]

That's going on there too. And if they don't appreciate that, then they're stuck in those roles, which is, you know, the usual way to be stuck in the roles. And it's really tough. Same thing, and usually teachers and students get stuck in this stuff too. It's a usual thing. But there is this possibility of through being really, being, really being a student, really being a daughter, really being a son, really being a teacher, really being a mother, really being a father, it is possible through being those roles thoroughly, you can transcend. And part of being thoroughly a father is to realize that your son is your father. That naturally comes to you when you really do the father thing. When you really do this teacher thing, you don't do it all the way if you don't get that decision that's your teacher.

[88:01]

You haven't really done it thoroughly then. That never comes into play. But does that help when you know that the person that's giving you the most difficulty is actually your teacher anyway? If your child is giving you a lot of difficulty, that is your teacher. Yes. That's not the only way. They're also your teacher when you're not giving your heart time. They're being ironic in that case. Hey, you want a break, Mom? You're a good mom. What does that mean? What does that mean? That means they're saying you are a good mom. That's what it means. That's what you heard is what that means. But you should now try to understand what that means in any way. It's like, what did you mean by that? Ask some questions rather than assume what it meant, rather than mind reading.

[89:06]

But it's obvious what they meant, right? You don't have to ask any questions. This is not being very thorough. You already got the assumption down. You already got your interpretation down. You don't have to worry about that. That's been taken care of. Now try to find out something more. Ask some questions. We're busy, right? We've got time to ask questions. We'll just go on what we are mind reading. That'll be just fine until somebody blows up and starts teaching us. Because we didn't have time before the blow-up happened to ask what is happening. Or even just to tell them, you know, you said that and guess what I thought you meant. Here's what I thought you meant. Is that what you meant? I had this fantasy. I just made up this fantasy about what you just said. Was that right? And they may say, yeah. You say, I had this fantasy that you just said yes and you were sincere about that. Is that right?

[90:14]

But again, we don't have time for this guy, right? We've got something else to do. Namely, get on with the program. of doing things half-assed. Blind-assed don't do anything half-assed. Yes? I've had an experience that I feel as if I'm a parent and people are equal and when I realize that I'm still very free and very healthy fitness, I just want something else. What is your experience with your students becoming a teacher? Well, yeah, I'm emphasizing that I feel kind of bad because they're killing me.

[91:18]

And they're killing me by not being the kind of student that I want them to be. Because if they're the kind of student I want them to be, which is nice for me, they've submitted to me. Unless I just happen to find the one who just happens to be what I've been looking for. I'm always for one of those.

[91:45]

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