Yesterday I cited a story. Maybe some of you heard it. It's one of these famous stories. It's one of the stories that the first time you hear it, you remember at least part of it. Because the image is so vivid of a so-called great Zen master picking up a roof tile and polishing it with a rock and saying he's making a mirror out of it. The full story is a little bit harder to remember, but over the years you might be able to remember it.

[01:16]

And afterwards, someone told me that he felt somewhat excluded from the story. And I said something about In the talk yesterday, I said something about, I might be asking some of you some questions about seated meditation or seated Buddhas. And he felt excluded from that. He thought, maybe you're going to ask the in-group that question. I probably won't be asked about that. He thought maybe that this was some esoteric thing I was bringing up for a few of you here, and he was listening in to this esoteric teaching.

[02:52]

This is definitely esoteric teaching, but nobody's excluded except by our own attitude. But it's not so easy to have the attitude which opens the story to find that attitude. It's not so easy. I said to this person, do you ever hear a poem and feel excluded from it? And he said, yeah. I said, well, what do you do? He said, well, maybe read it again or read it under some other circumstances.

[03:59]

I said, yeah. I said, what I usually do is it takes more than that from me. I usually memorize a poem. And in the process of memorizing it, I don't feel excluded anymore, especially if it's a long one. I took a calculus course in college from an interesting teacher. And this teacher, he said one time, after he did a proof, he said, Leibniz said, if you don't understand a proof, memorize it. That course was the first course and the only course in college that I got an F in.

[05:17]

It's not funny, Rain. And then I became a math major. Now, the guy who gave me an F was not my advisor, but Anyway, I became a math major after that F. I took the class again and got an A+. It doesn't always work that way, but that's the way it worked that time. It doesn't always work that you get an F either. So that's just my way, okay? Give me an F, I'll sign up again. ANOTHER ONE OF MY TEACHERS WAS DOING A PROOF AND HE STARTED TO DO IT AND HE SAID, OH, IT'S TRIVIAL.

[06:29]

TRIVIAL MEANS IT'S NOT WORTH MY TIME TO PROVE IT ON THE BOARD HERE FOR YOU GUYS AND GALS. AND ONE OF THE STUDENTS RAISED A HAND AND SAYS, HOW IS IT TRIVIAL? AND HE SAID... HE WALKED OUT OF THE ROOM And he came back in about, I don't know, five minutes or ten minutes, came back in the room and said, it's trivial. I said, yeah. This line of discussion could be elaborated, but I will stop at this point and return to more difficult matters than the next two or three jokes. The story sitting there, you know, you heard it.

[07:48]

Some of you heard it like maybe the first time yesterday. Was that the first time you heard the story yesterday? Have you heard it before? Was it the first time you heard it yesterday? Yeah. Mature person, been living in the Bay Area for a while, and this is the first time you heard the story. Kind of esoteric. It's not circulating freely through the society. I first heard that story a long time ago. And I heard it from Suzuki Roshi. And he probably laughed when he told it. He loved Matsu. And I've heard that story and read that story many times over the years. And I'd been just patiently hanging out with it. little by little, slowly, slowly, closing in on it. And it's been closing in on me.

[08:49]

During the Sesshin, I got a little closer to it. During the Sesshin, it's come a little bit more alive to me. I've come a little closer to meeting the dragon of this story. I definitely can see you know, further horizons where I can, you know, get closer, get more intimate with the story. I have not finished studying this story. For 30 years I've been studying it and I have not finished. And the more I study it, the more I love it. And that's the way it is with everything for me.

[09:56]

So if you feel excluded from this story, you get an F on this story, whatever, point is, take care of your health so that you can study it for a long time And there's many other stories too. Now, this is one of the best, but there's many others that you might also want to become intimate with, just like there's many other sentient beings to be intimate with. And some, you know, you feel excluded from, but you just keep coming back, putting in your time. And I've had the experience of reading Buddhist texts or reading Buddhist stories or hearing about Buddhist practices. And when I first look at them, they seem like, you know, a rock. But if I sit with them and face them for a long time, the rock starts to sweat blood.

[11:08]

It always was, but I didn't notice it. So some of you may plunge right into this story and feel intimate with it. Some of you have heard it before and may feel more intimate. Some of you may be left cold. That's part of the study. The first pass may be cold. And actually, when I was going to introduce this story, I was going to say, well, are you ready for a trip to the North Pole? Because this story could be very cold. But it's been taken care of for all these centuries, for 10 centuries. Zen students have taken care of this story, and Zen teachers have been enthusiastically chatting about it and asking people questions about it.

[12:23]

But there's another thing I want to say about this, and that is, when I ask you, you know, As you're sitting in meditation or as you're in the practice of seated meditation, if I say to you, you know, what are you figuring to do? Bringing that up so that you can become more intimate with the story, which means to become more intimate with seated meditation. may disturb you. The story may disturb you. The question may disturb you. And some of you have already told me, you know, I can't take this question on. I just want to try to sit up straight and balanced and maybe just watch my breath go in and out.

[13:39]

I can't deal with this question. What am I figuring to do sitting here? What am I up to? That gets me too excited or too disturbed. Well, if it does, Just take the question and set it someplace gently, like in front of you or over to the side or someplace nearby in case you need it later. And then just go ahead and sit quietly and enjoy the challenging situation of sitting and dealing with gravity and so on. This question is not intended to disturb you. This question of what are you up to sitting there is intended to help you understand what the practice of sitting is.

[14:47]

Really. In other words, what the practice of being you is. It's intended to help you understand what is a seated Buddha. Now, if you're not up for, like, thinking about what a seated Buddha is, it's okay. Just let that consideration... Just let it be. Don't pick it up yet. And I hope that... my bringing it up doesn't disturb you too much. Too much means I hope it doesn't disturb you so much so that you can't

[15:58]

so that you don't feel enthusiastic about sitting and feeling what it's like to be disturbed. Someone asked me, you know, how do you, what's the way to, you know, carry the tranquility of sesshin or the sesshin work in today life? Well, it's to work with the upset of sesshin during sesshin. Now if there's no upsets during sesshin, then it's going to be hard to take the sesshin into daily life. And so that's what I'm here for. I'm here to give you, in case you don't have enough upset, I'm here to offer you an upset and then you can deal with the upset

[17:04]

and me at the same time if you want to, because you're going to get upset when you leave the sesshin. But if you're working with the upset here rather than in some state of calm where there's no upset, then when you leave sesshin, although you may be able to continue that calm, which is fine, you will be irrelevant to the people who you meet they will say, oh, they may get angry at you, but they may just say, there she goes. And, you know, you may feel some deep connection with them from your elevated position, wondering what their problems are and wishing that they would understand that there really isn't one. But they will feel out of touch with you.

[18:11]

You will not encourage them. But if you come back with problems that you're open to and engaged with more heartily than when you left, then they say, ah, maybe I could face my problems too. He seems more willing to face up to daily life than when she left. This is encouraging. This is relevant. This is the point of the sitting. But still, if you want to just set this disturbing material aside, it's fine. I really mean that. Because naturally, it's out there, because here I am talking about this stuff. infecting your mind with ancient, challenging, ungraspable, seated Buddhas.

[19:20]

But this isn't being stuffed on your throat. This is being offered to you. And then you, when you're ready, you come up close to it and look at it when you feel balanced. Because it doesn't help if you just like hysterically run at it That won't do any good either. So running away from it, running at it, it's okay to hold on to your composure. And when you feel, okay, I got it, I am composed, then you can say, maybe I could open to this story. Maybe I could take a little peek at what am I fixing to do here? What am I up to sitting here so calmly? What's it about? Okay? Okay? So here's the story one more time, I mean another time. And this story is, you know, two different ways of presenting it. One is that the future great master Matsu was not yet the great master Matsu.

[20:36]

Another way of seeing it is that he was already great master Matsu. But anyway, he was sitting all the time in his hermitage and his teacher decided to pay him a visit. His teacher, Nanyue, came to visit Matsu and said, Worthy one, what are you figuring to do sitting in meditation? What are you up to or down to in seated meditation?" And Matsu said, his Buddhist name by the way is Dao Yi, which means, Yi means one, so it's the oneness of the path. Yi Dao would be the one path or the path of oneness. His name was Daoyi, which means the oneness of the path, or the path oneness.

[21:49]

That was his Buddhist name. So Daoyi was sitting. Nanyue comes up and says, what are you up to? And Daoyi says, I'm fixing to make a Buddha. I'm designing... to make a Buddha. I'm planning to make a Buddha." And then Nanyue does this amazing little thing. He goes and gets a roof tile, sits in front of the hermitage and starts polishing it with a rock, or rubbing it with a rock, I should say. And Matsudao says, Master, what are you doing? And Nanyue says, I'm polishing this tile to make a mirror. And Matsudao says, how can you make a mirror out of a tile?

[23:02]

And Nanyue says, how can you make a Buddha by or out of seated meditation? Dali says, what is right? Then what is right? And Nanyue says, are you studying seated meditation? Or are you studying seated Buddha? Are you studying seated meditation?

[24:08]

Are you learning seated meditation or are you learning seated Buddha? If you're learning or studying seated meditation, meditation is not sitting still, or actually it says, it doesn't say sitting, it says sitting or reclining. If you're studying seated meditation, then meditation is not sitting or reclining still. If you're studying seated Buddha, Buddha is no fixed characteristics. If you're studying seated Buddha, this is killing Buddha.

[25:19]

If you grasp the mark of sitting, you are not reaching its principle. Now I skipped the part that Neil wanted me to talk about, so now I'll do it again. Then what is right? Nanyue says, when a person is driving a cart, if the cart doesn't go, should he beat the cart or beat the ox? Matsu did not reply. Nanyue said, are you studying seated meditation or are you studying seated Buddha? And so on.

[26:28]

That's the story. Now you've heard it two or three times at least. Do you feel a little bit closer to it? Does anybody feel farther away? Okay. That's part of it sometimes. Sometimes you get real close and you think, next day you feel, you study it again, you feel, oh no, it's got away from me. Last night it was real close. This morning it's far away. This morning it was real close and this afternoon I never want to see it again. If I look at the story, I see a story about our practice.

[28:10]

Namely, here we are, innocent, some of us innocent, some of us guilty, but some of us innocent Zen students just sitting here in meditation, following the schedule very nicely. And then somebody comes up to us and says, What are you figuring to do sitting here like this? Now this person who's coming to see you is your teacher, right? you want to study the Dharma with. So your teachers come in and you say, what are you figuring to do sitting here?

[29:15]

Now, In his case, he said this thing which most of you probably wouldn't say. But, you know, now that I... Anyway, he said this thing, right? Well, I will mention it. Maybe you should try that on sometimes. Just ask yourself the question and then give that answer and see how you feel about saying that strange thing. I'm figuring to make a Buddha. That's what I'm up to. could you actually get behind that statement? And I think a lot of you have already told me, I don't know, that's not really what I'm doing. I'm not really fixing to make a Buddha here. Fine. But you might just try it, just say it, and just see how much you don't feel that way when you actually say it. You might find out, well, I said it, and before I said it, I said that wasn't what I was doing. But when I said it, I felt like it was what I was doing when I said it.

[30:38]

It might happen. That might be worse than before when you weren't saying that, but it would be nice for you to check out what world is that that you would be talking like Matsu. In America, we have adopted some Asian forms of training, and one of them is that we have practice periods. And then we choose one of the people, one of the usually fairly senior people, to take the position called head monk or head student. And this practice period, Klaus has been asked to be the head monk, and he's been the head monk. And now at the end of the practice period, day after tomorrow night or something like that. There's going to be a ceremony where everybody's going to ask Klaus a question, and then he's going to respond.

[31:44]

One way or another, he'll respond. His response will be whatever happens after the question. That's the response. It will happen. There will be an after the question. In Japan... the way they do it in Soto Zen, a lot of Soto Zen temples, is the head monk learns, goes through a book and learns all the answers to certain questions. He actually, he learns the questions and the answers, but all he has to learn is to say the answers, and then he knows which answers to go with which questions. The other monks learn the questions, and they may also know the answers that are supposed to come. But anyway, they ask a definite traditional question, and the Shusho is supposed to give that answer.

[32:48]

And I guess maybe it would be, you know, kind of a problem if he didn't give that answer. That's not the answer in the book, somebody might say. Now, to us Westerners, that seems kind of strange. It seems so, what do you call it? Fake? Japanese? Japanese? Traditional, et cetera. Anyway, we don't do it that way. Some people do ask traditional questions. There are some traditional questions, and some people ask traditional questions, but the shuso often doesn't even know what the traditional answer is, so they give some other answer, which everybody feels good about often, which is fine. That's why we do it. But today, what I'm bringing up is someplace kind of in between. In between, like, okay, they don't ask a traditional question, they just ask whatever, and you just give whatever.

[33:56]

In those ceremonies, I've heard these monks memorize the answers, and even the answers that they're memorizing, when they read the answer, they don't, They don't understand what it means. It's in Chinese. And some of them don't really understand Chinese, but they memorize the answer. And even if they study it, they can't quite see why that answer would go with that question. And sometimes they can't even understand what the answer means by itself, because their Chinese is good enough. But they memorize it. They can memorize it. Like, uh-ba-uh, you know, they can learn to say that. By the way, uh-ba-uh means, are you hungry or not, right? Yow-ba-yow, does that mean good or not? And so on. They can memorize these things. And so then they go to the ceremony, and the guy asks the question, and then they give this answer, which they didn't understand.

[34:59]

And when they give the answer, sometimes, as they say it, they understand. which is what's supposed to happen. So there's a traditional story, okay? You're sitting and somebody says to you, what are you doing? What are you up to sitting there? And you say, I'm figuring to make a Buddha. And maybe when you read it, you don't, you know, you understand it, but you're left cold. But if you say it, suddenly you might understand what's happening. You might understand what you are up to. This is a certain way of practice, which I recommend you try someday, because there is a bodhisattva vow called, Dharma gates are boundless.

[36:07]

I vow to enter them all. This is one of them. I recommend you enter it when you're ready. If you enter before you're ready, you aren't going to be there. It's not going to help. You've got to have your feet on the ground and say, okay, one, two, three, I'm going to walk through the door. And I'm going to feel the door when I walk through. So a teacher asks a question or somebody asks a question, what are you up to in your practice? In particular when you're sitting, what are you up to? What are you figuring to do here? And you say either what you have to say or say what Matsu says. then the teacher does something, in this case, does this wonderful thing of polishing this tile, and then you say something after that. When you see it, you see it? You see the teacher doing this thing in response to what you said you were doing?

[37:12]

You're doing something, somebody asks you what you're doing, you say what it is, and then they do something. They do do something. And then, what did they do? Now, maybe you look and maybe you know You look and you say, oh, she's polishing her shoes. Fine. She's putting on lipstick. Great. He's pulling his hair out. Swell. I can see that. But that's not what happened in the story. What happened in the story was then you say, what are you doing? That's important to say. That's kind of like the big deal there. The teacher was interested. The student was working. The teacher was interested. The teacher expressed the interest by asking a question. The student said what he had to say.

[38:15]

The teacher did that thing. And the student said, what are you doing? And then the teacher said, I'm polishing a tile to make a mirror. And the student says, how does that work? And the teacher says, how does it work for you to be practicing like you're practicing? How are you going to make a Buddha out of sitting meditation? Now, he didn't say, you can't make a teacher, you can't make a Buddha out of sitting meditation. He didn't say you can't. He could have, but he didn't. He said, how are you going to? Didn't he?

[39:18]

And then the great student, the mature student, had no reply. No, he did have a reply. He said, then what is right? He didn't say like Adolf Hitler, then might is right. He said, then what is right? And Nancy is not here today, but she asked the other day Well, when you ask a question, aren't you seeking something? But this is a good example of where you can see that that question is a very, what do you call it?

[40:36]

It's an endless statement. It's an endless statement. It's saying, okay, teacher, if that's what you're up to, all right, You're asking me a question like that? You're asking me, how can you make a Buddha out of seated meditation? You're asking that? Okay. Then, what is right? That's a question, but that is not seeking anything. That is expressing to the teacher... the answer to his question. That's how you make a Buddha out of seated meditation. What is right, or in other words, what is the right way to make a Buddha out of seated meditation?

[41:39]

That's how. That's an example of asking a question without seeking anything. That's a question of expressing the Buddha's truth as the student to the teacher, teaching the teacher the answer to the teacher's question of how to make a Buddha out of seated meditation. Do you feel excluded from that statement? Then what is right? What about just what?

[42:57]

Well, then the teacher probably would have said it again. How do you make a Buddha out of seated meditation? What? How do you make a Buddha out of seated meditation? What? I'll say it one more time. That's it. What? But you could have done it that way. You could say, what? He'd just say, oh, I see what you're driving at. But anyway, he didn't say that apparently. He said, in this rendition anyway, then what is right? Then what is right? Four Chinese characters. The character what... No, they don't have question marks in Chinese or quotation marks. But the characters convey... That character what usually conveys a question mark. And if you translate it in English, you probably should put the question mark in. But this statement could be... This question could be a statement that's not seeking anything.

[44:09]

It is, however, expressing something. It's expressing something, something very wonderful called alternate reality. So then he says, then the teacher responds to this statement question, what is right, by saying, if you're riding in a cart and the cart doesn't go, do you hit the cart or do you hit the horse, I mean the ox? And Matsu did not reply to that question.

[45:13]

I mean, he didn't say anything. And yesterday Neil asked, you know, some question about this, and I said I'd talk about it today, so... Neil, did you want to ask your question again? Is that what you said you'd like to understand that? Is that what you said yesterday? What do you want to say today? So the question is kind of a mysterious question.

[46:24]

Is that what you're saying? The question, if the cart doesn't go, do you hit the cart or do you get the horse or hit the ox? That's a mysterious question. Is that because usually people think if the cart doesn't go, you hit the ox? Is that why it's kind of mysterious? Yeah. It's not common worldly practice to hit the cart when it doesn't go. Although some people, when they feel frustrated, hit the cart, right? Like they kick the car. But it's more common for them to go, if it had an ox in the front, to go hit the ox rather than hit the cart. So that's kind of a surprising thing, right? So you kind of want to understand that better yesterday. Do you still want to understand it? Or would you rather just live with the mystery one more day, please?

[47:28]

You're not feeling impatient? Great. Are you feeling patient? Do you want to work with it one more day? All right, thank you. Because it's getting late. And... I don't want to, you know... I don't want to give you too much today. You had enough? It's enough to work with? Well, that's kind of like, you know, you wouldn't expect somebody to ask about hitting the cart, right? Could these people coming in, poor little people coming in here on Sunday, be exposed to this thing, you know? Could they stand it? You wouldn't expect it.

[48:36]

You'd think, geez, like innocent bystanders, right? But I think it's hopeless. You know, I can't stop this cart. I think they're going to hear about this cart tomorrow. Because of Neil. Got to take one more step. Okay, Neil? Now, by that time you may understand it, so you may come to me and tell me, forget the cart thing. But, you know, that's not really the way. I'm not saying he would say that. Because even if you understand it still, there's endless horizons to understanding this thing about the cart. I think so. Maybe not endless. Maybe finally you get to the horizon and you reach down and you touch the dirt and you say, oh, this is good enough right now.

[49:37]

I finally see this is like dirt. Yeah, it's good enough. I got it. Now we can go to some other horizon, some other story, but this is good enough on this one. I'd feel content. My study is complete on this story. It's possible that can happen. But then there's another story. As you often hear, you know it's SOME TEACHERS SAY IT'S NOT SO MUCH IMPORTANT TO GIVE PEOPLE KNOWLEDGE, YOU KNOW, LIKE TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT THESE STORIES ARE ABOUT, BUT TO HELP THEM THINK, TEACH THEM HOW TO THINK ABOUT THE STORIES, HOW TO STUDY AND LEARN ABOUT THE STORIES. SO I'M MAINLY EMPHASIZING TODAY HOW TO STUDY STORIES AND HOW TO STUDY THIS STORY AND HOW TO STUDY YOURSELF IN SEATED MEDITATION.

[50:40]

SO YOU HAVE THE REST OF THE DAY, AND TOMORROW YOU'RE GOING TO BE DOING SEATED MEDITATION. This is just a little bit about how to look at what you're up to. And the story is a kind of like way of saying that your ancestors in the Zen training program have been looking at this question for thousands of years. What are we up to when we're sitting? What do we What are we up to? What are we intending? What are we figuring? What's this about? Okay? And once again, if this is too much for you to consider the question, just set it down for a while, and when you feel calm, if you're up to it, Bring it up. If it's too exciting or too upsetting, set it down. When you feel calm again, bring it up.

[51:42]

But it seems like, you know, you've been dealing with a lot of trouble this week, pain and stuff. So maybe you can, like, look at this. Maybe it'll be good. Maybe it'll help you. understand who you are and what a seated Buddha is. Because there is a seated Buddha at your seat. All the seated Buddhas have taught that. But what is the seated Buddha and what has the sitting meditation got to do with the seated Buddha? And what are you up to Sitting, you and the seated Buddha. How do they all work together? Okay. Thank you for helping me study this story.

[52:45]

Like I said, you know, at the house where I live, there's this nice lady that lives there, and every time anything good happens, she always says to me, Is this because of seated meditation?" And I always say, mm-hmm. And when she comes into the house, she often finds me and she comes over to me and she says, it's just amazing. You really love your work, don't you? You love to study Zen, don't you? Here you are. She's studying that Zen stuff. You really like it, don't you? And she sometimes gets and looks at the book and says, oh, yeah, seated meditation. She loves that I love these stories. It isn't that it could be anything. She loves that I love this stuff.

[53:52]

And she loves that whenever there's an opportunity, I'm always looking for a chance to study this stuff. You know, take a bite of a peanut butter sandwich, read his end text. chauffeur her to the shopping mall. She goes in, does her thing. I sit in the car, read a Zen text. If I don't have a Zen text, remember one that I memorized. She loves that I'm this kind of a thing. She loves that I love my work. And I do love my work. I love being a Zen student.

[55:00]

And I say, Yeah, and this is such an interesting story, and there's so many other ones. I'm going to die pretty soon, but I feel so lucky that I got to study a little bit, and maybe I can study a little bit more before I'm gone. And... And... Nothing. Nothing. Amen.

[55:36]

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