Good. Tonight, I thought we might discuss case 65. The introduction has these sounds. Tut, tut. Sha? How do you say that? Sha. Sha? Sha. What does tut, tut mean? It means tsk, tsk. What does it mean? Do you furrow your brows when you say it? Disapproval. Disapproval? For sure. Like damn, damn? Too bad, too bad? Kind of like a facing. What does pshaw mean? Dismissive. Dismissive? And then stripping, or it could be ripping and removing, or it could be carefree.

[01:12]

Oh yeah, I do. Did you forget yours? No? Now we're just going to hand them off to everyone. Did anyone else need one? Didn't you people get them last week? No? No? Puff, whoosh, whoosh, vague, confusing, impossible to chew, hard to approach.

[02:17]

Tell me, what story is this? What is Buddha? A monk asked. Shoshan, what is Buddha? Shoshan said, A new bride rides a donkey. The mother-in-law leaves it. And it says in the commentary that there's a folk saying, It's backwards. A new bride rides a donkey, her mother-in-law leads it. I don't know if that means that the usual way is that the mother-in-law would ride the donkey and the bride would be leading it.

[03:30]

That would be the usual way. Because the mother-in-law becomes an indentured servant to them. I mean, the new bride becomes... an indentured servant to the mother-in-law. So there it is. That's what Buddha is. New bride rides the donkey. The mother-in-law leads it. Yes, Helen?

[06:12]

No? Just looking at your hand. How about the new bride being the arising Buddha-mind, the wisdom mind, and the mother-in-law, the guardianess, conventional wisdom practice? How about the new bride? The new bride being the wisdom mind, Buddha mind, the mother-in-law being the means towards death, the means for enlightenment, the means for more conventional wisdom, the eightfold path, practice.

[07:22]

the new bride, the Buddha mind, and the mother-in-law is the conventional practice leading to it? Yeah, mother-in-law upaya and new bride prasana. Mother-in-law upaya and new bride prasana. And the being connected, the inseparability of the two, the one leading to the other, going hand in hand, so to say. The one leading to the other, or anyway inseparable? What's a donkey? What's a donkey? Donkey is the mind in itself, everyday mind, very natural mind which when trained becomes fully enlightened, becomes the Buddha mind, fully enlightened mind.

[08:35]

Same like in the ox herding pictures, like the ox and the donkey, same thing. Everything turned upside down is still just right. Everything turned upside down is still, just right. Well, it reminds me of way back early in the book, something like the family way of the peasants is most pristine.

[09:48]

But maybe this is just a custom with me, whether or not It's the way things are, the way things are done, the way we talk about our life. We do. What's here, the beauty, is in the present moment, and it has nothing to do with old convention. The beauty is in the present moment? Has nothing to do with conventions? All conventions, yes. What is now is now. We can see the beauty in things across the world. What now is now? What now is now. We can see the freshness of the beauty. The beauty of the freshness. I wonder what it would be like if we said each other's names going around.

[10:57]

Like if I said, what if I said Carol, what if I said Roberta? What would that do? You wonder what it would be like? Go ahead, say it. Say what it's like. What do you think, Carol? What do you think? Carol. Carol. Roberta. Roberta. Probably because it only doesn't work for you. Pardon? It's easier. It's easier? Yeah, it's easier. How come it's easier? Because it's already divested, I tell you. It already doesn't belong to me more. Did she just leave the donkey to bring her?

[12:14]

Pardon? Oh, my God, she just... Roberta was a new bride and she just... Roberta was a new bride and she was a mother-in-law? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Trishan is quoting this phrase that's known to be a backwards phrase, and it seems like he's handing it to the monk, like he's saying backwards.

[14:09]

It's occurring to me how quickly a backward phrase could become a forward phrase, and that the tradition could become the bride, otherwise a new bride, a bride riding a donkey and the mother-in-law leading. That could then show the superiority of the mother-in-law. The character is actually... It is kind of redundant to say new bride, but I think character says wife, new wife. We might have already covered this, so I'm sorry if you already asked this, but what's the tradition? Does the mother-in-law actually ride the donkey? Is that why it's backwards? There's a folk saying, it says down below, the folk saying is, quotes, it's backwards. And is that what that means, it's backwards?

[15:27]

It says it's backwards, you know. And then it says, a new bride rides the donkey, her mother-in-law leads it. That's the folk saying. But later commentary says that they think it's quite natural this way. that's quite natural for this new bride to be riding the donkey and the mother-in-law to be leading it. But the folk saying is, I think it says, doesn't it say in the reverse? He says, stop saying these words are reversed. Phogwa is the commentator in the Blue Cliff Record. So he wrote this verse and he says in the verse, stop saying that the words are reversed. Or the words are reversed.

[16:28]

The new bride is drunk and rides on the donkey. So that's why the mother-in-law is leading, see? The usual thing is the mother-in-law rides the donkey, you might say, and the bride walks on the ground leading the donkey. But in this case... He's saying the bride's drunk from the wedding, so she can't walk. So the mother-in-law lets her ride the donkey. People laugh and laugh at the mother-in-law leading. So he's saying this is a reverse of the usual way, but it makes sense in this case because the bride's drunk. Sometimes at the wedding, the bride doesn't try to keep it together. She starts drinking and loses it. Two styles of wedding, right? The one where she tries to be able to talk to the people and stuff, and the other where she's totally gone and can't walk home.

[17:31]

I'm having a bunch of associations. One is what or who is this broad marrying? And what does she work on? And then I'm remembering another story where one of the nuns, I think, is wearing a sandal on his head. And I just, that keeps coming into my mind, the sandal on the head. And then I keep also having it come in my mind that the one who doesn't know anything, this new wife, is in the honored position. And I'm not being very rational about it. It seems like a wonderful thing that the mother-in-law gets to do. serve this. She gets to serve the one who doesn't know anything. Yeah. She could also be leading the one who doesn't know anything, showing their way.

[18:49]

I think she's very humble. I'm reminded where Loutz says, if it wasn't doubt, they wouldn't laugh. If it wasn't doubt, they wouldn't laugh? Yeah, of course they'd laugh. If it wasn't doubt, they wouldn't laugh. What comes up right now is that I would like to say people are very different. We people have very different views, but still we can all together practice in this way. And somehow this is... I think this thought for me comes up listening to all of you, but also in connection with this story.

[20:04]

This seems to be one idea or one line we can think about this. What kinds of views? But then what do we do? For example, here we sit with words. We sit with different views. We sit together. For example, I have personally, I had this impulse came up to contradict Martha. Yes. And I thought that very interesting that Martha's reading is that this case kind of confirms conventional reality. And I mean conventional in the conventional sense. Well, for example, my mind conjures up stories like, for example, it's very rare that women appear in these cases, so maybe this doesn't mean anything, but I give meaning to it.

[21:14]

And there's some reversal going on which goes as far as me thinking that In a way, the Buddha Dharma of the patriarchs is directed against conventional patriarchal react in a certain way. And I feel even this kind of interpretation is kind of valid. It can come out of reading this case. You mean your interpretation? This kind of violence? Yeah. Yeah, it could be. So we have this and this. In the same room. Yeah, and ordinarily this is big contradiction. But not here. Well, you say not here.

[22:32]

I mean, it's a contradiction that that's Buddha. What's Buddha? The contradiction. The contradiction is Buddha. At least in this case. That's why I say not here. Because here it's Buddha. Which means we don't attach to it. Here we don't attach to anything, right? So that's in the background, this story. There's a story down below where he holds up bamboo stick, bamboo staff.

[23:33]

Bamboo staffs, they're called shippei. The shuso uses a bamboo staff traditionally in the shuso ceremony, head monk ceremony, called the shippei. And so this monk here, this priest here, which is, it shoes on, you know, this show here is a, is the show of shoe and shoe show, shoe soap, head number, the head seat. So he holds this bamboo staff up and he says, he said, I call this a bamboo stick. What do you call it? He says, if you call it a bamboo stick, you're clinging. If you call it a bamboo stick, you're clinging. You do not hold a bamboo stick. You're opposing. What do you call it?

[24:42]

What do you call it? What do you people call it? What do you call it? So how do you not attach to it being a bamboo stick? How do you not lean over on the side of it being a bamboo stick? but also not lean over in the side of it. No? In other words, not being a bamboo stick, in other words, what's not a bamboo stick? We're starting to call on overhead. Were you asking a question?

[25:44]

Oh, sort of, yeah. So you're asking what is not a bamboo stick? Yeah. Well, everything else is a bamboo stick, too. I mean, a bamboo stick is what it's not. Yeah, so what's not a bamboo stick? Everything? It says the answers in the question. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Once it's broken, now it's two big sticks. Does he have twice the problem? Or does the problem go away altogether? No, he eliminates the problem. Well, there's still an activity. Was there a problem? Not here. What did he say, Miriam?

[26:55]

Well, there was some activity, and the activity expresses the ancient road. And that's what interested me, but when the world-honored one looked at Katsapa with his blue lotus eye, what did he say? And that... He was the one who just smiled. He was actually the first enlightened student of Buddha, wasn't he? That's one story. He just smiled. So that's the ancient, in ancient times, That's Buddha.

[27:58]

He made me wear this. He put this on me. And he told me, he says, don't ask, just wear it. Kevin. By the way, just a little comment. And that is that this tradition, one of the nice things about this tradition, I feel, this tradition, these stories, is that there's lots of animals in the stories. That's a good thing, that we have animals in our stories. And we don't have very many women, but we've got animals.

[29:12]

And I think that's a good sign when you have a tradition that has animals in it. Now, some of our teachings have almost no animals, you know. Like in the Mula Majamaka car, because there's not too many animals. There's a snake, however. There's a snake and there's a horse. And you know what the snake is? The snake is... this bamboo staff. It's a snake. And the question is, how do you pick up this bamboo staff? without getting hurt. If you pick it up the wrong way, you get hurt. How do you not cling to it or reject it? Either way of mishandling it, you can get hurt. This staff, this sheep pay, turns into a snake. That wasn't said to scare you.

[30:22]

I'm making an attempt, though, just to say there's an animal here in the shippei besides the donkey and the bamboo stick. Is the staff supposed to be an aid to walking? This is different from the staff, actually. The monks have a walking staff, which is longer. It's usually your own height or maybe higher, even. The sheep pays usually used more in, like, giving talks and so on, or in ceremonies. What's the function? What's the function? That's it. It's saying, what's the function? What's the function?

[31:25]

The function is the stick. Yeah. And so do you say it's a stick or not a stick? The answer is The answer is in the question. Is that what you said? Yeah. That's right, the answer is in the question. So how is the answer in the question? You dropped your stick. You dropped your stick. By giving this option, you have two options, there is no definite answer, which excludes the other one. They exclude each other, so how can you bring them together?

[32:31]

How can you bring these options together of calling it a stick and clinging? How can you bring together How can you avoid clinging or opposing, calling this a stick? Or how can you bring together clinging and opposing? How can you bring these together? This is what? What is this, bringing them together? In the myriad forms, the single body is revealed. But if it looks like a bamboo stick, call it a bamboo stick. Can you put a lever here with the single, with the right forms on the single body?

[33:41]

Pardon? In combination with this bamboo stick, I don't get the, you don't get it? No. Would you please help me? There's bamboo stick and not a bamboo stick. Mm-hmm. But if you grab to either one, that's wrong. But within them, right together, is the true body. Right. So what I said before, nothing can be really excluded, no position can be really excluded to the extent of the other being eliminated. There is room for both viewpoints without either one being utterly right or utterly wrong. They meet each other. How do you bring them together? Yes, Wes. What goes through my mind in terms of the imagery of this thing is that the one person missing, which is God, has been to the sun.

[34:55]

One person's missing? The husband and the son. And then it's essentially there because he is their relationship. Each to him or them to each other. And he's also, as the son, he's sort of the product of the mother's creation. And he's the ability to merge with somebody else. other than oneself in the light, and show the ability to create. And that whole cycle of leaving substance, the echo of birth and death. So that, in the same sense that to ask, you know, what is Buddha? you have a sense, you do have a sense already of what we've heard in asking it. The language, you know, takes you away from it in these potentially invidious directions. So the relationship between the bride and the mother is in some sense separate from the husband or what 100% they're getting to know.

[36:06]

And It's sort of like the ambiguity of which is first and being with conventional reality or projecting conventional reality. Clarify the sort of the right and the left, you know, creation and destruction, forward and backwards. So that's it. I guess just, you know, for me, to bring those together, they're simply just to kind of recall who he was and have that motion be like whatever the motions people would have found. Are you recalling who he was? Who were the husband and son? Are you recalling who he was? I think, if I understand the question correctly, that... It depends on whether I'm speaking correctly, connecting with what I'm saying to people.

[37:12]

You're not sure? If you're recalling him? What's your effort? At first, my heart was beginning to fast. Things were slow down. I wonder where they're going. You wonder where they're going? It doesn't say. It doesn't say.

[38:13]

But we know there's two alternatives. What are they? Huh? What are they? Home. Yes, and the other one is? Home. The new bride rides the donkey. Her mother-in-law leads it. Their appearance and style are indeed natural. How laughable! The neighbor girl's imitating frown.

[39:22]

To other people, it increases ugliness. does not make beauty. How come you brought up that story? Do you know that story? So there was this beautiful woman, and she was so beautiful that even when she winced in pain, frowned in pain, people thought she was even more beautiful when she made a grimace. So the neighbor girl started copying her, her frowning. How come you brought that story up? Well, she wasn't really for real, she was just imitating.

[40:29]

Right, I know, but how come you brought it up here? How come Tien Tung brought that story up at this point? This is the same kind of thing of, you know, the neighbor girls were looking at her being like, ooh, that's beautiful, we want to do that, and then everybody else is looking at the neighbor girls and saying, they're so stupid for doing this. So it's like opposing it, like... Where's the opposing and where's the clinging? The opposing is everybody else who's laughing at their birthday and calling this sort of cheap beauty. And the neighbor girl's clinging, you know, saying like, ooh, she says it's a dream. Oh, okay. She had a real pain. She wasn't. She was really in pain. Yes. So her pain was part of being beautiful.

[41:31]

Those other girls were just pretending to have pain, so they were not. And could you say even that the other girls were pretending to be themselves in the first place, so they were ugly? And then they see somebody who's not pretending to be herself, so they copy her, and become even less themselves. Isn't there a saying, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? There's something like that. Flattery will get you nowhere.

[42:32]

I think if you're beautiful, and then you start imitating other people, that that would be a sincere form of flattery, and you'd still be beautiful. Maybe the... the mother leading the bride on the donkey. Much like a real pain, that was an unconventional thing, but in the situation it was an appropriate response. And so it was beautiful. But if somebody else then did the same thing a week later because people went, wow, that was really striking, what happened last week. Then it would just be contrived and not natural and not beautiful.

[43:36]

Then there would be more just like, now you're just breaking convention for the sake of breaking a convention, not because it's appropriate. Yeah, and also look back at that story when he said, when Shree Fung said to, you know, Shoshan was there and Fung Shree said, in ancient times, the Buddha looked at Kashyapa with his blue lotus eyes. What did he say then?" And then Shoshan walked out. And then the teacher's attendant asked the teacher, "'How come Shang Nyan, which is Shoshan, didn't answer you, Master?'

[44:47]

And Feng Shui said, he understands. Then the next day, Zhou Shan and the gardener Zhen went up and stood in attendance on the teacher, Feng Shui. Feng Shui said, what is the world-honored one's unspoken saying? And Zhen said, the doves cry in the trees Their minds are in the hemp fields. And then Phong Shre said, why don't you, why are you making so much ignorant goodness? Why don't you investigate a spoken word thoroughly? Why don't you investigate a spoken word thoroughly? And then he asked Shoshan, And Shouzhan said, activity expresses the ancient road, not falling into a somber passive state.

[45:58]

And then Feng Shui said to Zhen, why don't you contemplate that saying, those words. Contemplate the words, you know. Why don't you study, investigate the saying, study the words. I said that twice. The famous story which I've told a number of times of when Nanyue Huairang came to study with the sixth ancestor. When he arrived, the sixth ancestor said to Huairang, Where are you from?

[47:04]

Huairang said, Mount Sung. And then the sixth ancestor said, What is it that thus comes? And then Huairang said, To say that it's this misses the mark. Okay? But what it doesn't always say in that story, which I don't always say in that story, is that there were eight years between the two lines. So he said, what is it that thus comes? And eight years later, Nanyue came back and said, to say it's this misses the mark. For eight years he investigated those words. So this is the last koan class for a while. And you people all have very challenging worlds that you live in.

[48:16]

Many things are going to happen every minute. for the next several months, until the next koan class starts. I would suggest that you investigate some words. It's not quite eight years, But why don't you think, you know, why don't you just sit here for a little while and just think about what word you would like to investigate for eight years or six months or three months or four months. Pick some, all these, all these koans we've had now, you know. All these stories, what would you like to study? What word would you like to contemplate? What saying would you like to work on? Until you can come back with something like that.

[49:27]

And in Linda's talk on Sunday, she made this nice image of, we've been talking about the dragon cave, right? over and over, and she talked about how the Dragon Cave is a kind of container. You have to enter the container. And when we enter the container, which is hard to get into sometimes, it's hard to get into the place where you're contained. And in that place where you're contained, in a sense, you can melt. and be reformed. So can you choose some words, something to study, which will be a container for you? And do you have a practice situation that can support that container and go in there and work with that until you become a new person?

[50:29]

to melt down and are sort of reformed in that container. So I asked you to think about what you'd like to work on to make this koan study be fruitful for you. And in that sense, it may be kind of Lonely path for you because you may not choose the same words as other people Could be any one of these cons or some part of the con But in the past People really worked with these things and really used them as an opportunity, and it's very important that their words like stick or a new bride rides a donkey, or something like that.

[51:34]

Is there anything that you would like to really study? Why did you say it's important that there are words, or did you say what words are helpful? Well, because, you know, Well, partly because he said over and over, you know, investigate the spoken word thoroughly and contemplate Shoshan's words. Okay? And he said, what is Buddha? And he talked. He gave words. Okay? He gave words. The Buddha gives words. That's words. That's words. Socks, shoes. Those are words.

[52:37]

There's no shoe there without the word shoe. Before that, there's no shoe. It takes the word shoe. It takes the conventional word, not just, you know, the conventional word to make a shoe. Not even the Chinese word, the different word, but that makes a different event in China. It's not the same thing in China. It's not the same thing. It's not the same appearance. It looks and feels different in Chinese. He says, he's recommending you study these things, these conventional things, like sticks, like a stick, like a sheep pig, bamboo stick. He's saying, what is this bamboo stick? This is the example.

[53:42]

And he's telling this guy, he asks, you know, what did Buddhists say? And this guy said this thing about the birds crying in the trees with their minds in a hemp field. And he says, you should study some words. And then he asked Shushan. And Shushan said this thing about the activity in ancient roads. He didn't tell Sushant to study the words. I think it's because Sushant had been studying the words and that's why he talked that way. Look at the difference in the words. How come we didn't tell him to study words? It's in the words. So, this class has been studying words. We study words, stories. But now I'm asking you to think about, are there some words you want to study thoroughly, that you want to study thoroughly?

[54:50]

Because we're not going to be going through any more cases for a while, so why don't you choose one of them and see if you can give yourself, really enter one of them, really become intimate with one of them. and see what happened. This is the way these people in the old days worked with these words. They worked with the words in such a way that they managed to find a way not to grab these words just as conventional, or grab them as ultimate. And Carl brought this thing at the beginning that he sees maybe the ultimate and conventional in the story. He split it into two parts, maybe.

[55:54]

This part's the conventional, this part's the ultimate. Are these words ultimate truth or are they conventional truth? Are they one or the other? Or are they the two like neck and neck, ultimate truth and conventional truth? Conventional truth is certainly there. Otherwise, there wouldn't be words. They would mean nothing to you. But they do mean something to you in English. Okay, so I'm just saying that to see if you can, in this landscape of stories you've been working on this fall, if you can pull something out, or even from before that, that you can pull something out and really make it into a container, a cocoon for yourself, where you can work.

[57:07]

You can be worked. Now, if you don't want to do it, okay. But here's an opportunity to really find out what this kind of study is about. And find out why or how these people were working with these stories and why they went to the trouble of transmitting them to us as ways to integrate conventional and ultimate truth in our life. Words... Words and language by which we create the world together with the ultimate meaning of the whole thing. How do you bring those two together? How are you going to get in there? Again, I know you're busy doing other things and have other practices that you may be involved with too, and I think some of those practices are very helpful to you if you're going to do this kind of work.

[58:21]

So, as I said before, I think, for example, all kinds of practices of compassion and loving-kindness and joy and equanimity, these practices help you enter into the inner chamber of the word. If you're not fairly comfortable and fairly kind with yourself, you're going to be irritated by this kind of work. The hindrances of your daily life and of your daily mind will make it difficult for you to really settle into the word and penetrate it or penetrate to its core where you can sit and dare I say, see all things come forward to realize the self. If you choose one of these things and really start working with it, something will start happening.

[59:31]

And you're going to have to take care of yourself to be able to continue to study because we do not usually want to do this. We want to move on to something else. We have other things to do. We don't get paid for this. You do get rewarded, though. You do get rewarded, yes. You get a reward. And your reward is that you will melt into a body of bliss. And then you can be reformed into whatever beings need you to do. So, you know, again, in terms of the precepts, the first three precepts, the precept of forms, of regulations and ceremonies, you have to take care of your life, you know, be careful of what you do, be mindful, okay?

[60:36]

Okay? And even don't be attached to your idea of what the forms and ceremonies are about. Be flexible, but try to understand them. But also take a word, take one particular form and enter it completely. And your reward for that will be a kind of meltdown of your attachments. in the middle of that form. Melt is a better word. I was thinking wearing blunder. I was thinking of wearing blunder. A wearing blunder? Because it was occurring to me that you could take these hundred stories and wearing blunder them all up And there would be an infinite number of ways they could come out as a hundred stories.

[61:40]

It would work. But on the other hand, we just couldn't grab in and grab randomly a hundred handfuls. They don't work that way. There's an infinite number of solutions, but it's not just mindlessly grabbing in. And I think if you were to do that, you would come up with an answer like, The doves cry on the trees, their minds are in the hemp field. Yeah, maybe so. What occurs to me is don't spend too much time trying to figure out what's better about the two answers. Maybe just study one of them, particularly you might study Sosan's statement, since that statement was recommended to study.

[62:44]

That's as good a koan as the main koan. That's as good what he called a public example of some words to study. But it can be any words, actually. But that's one example you might want to use. So I would suggest that you spend some time considering whether you're going to take on this assignment or not.

[64:37]

It's okay to say, no, I'm not going to. Maybe you can say that right now. But if you don't come up with an immediate rejection of the suggestion, then spend some time thinking about whether it really makes sense to you to actually take some of these words and to thoroughly investigate some of these words. And then if you do feel like it's a good idea, then think about what words you want to choose. and then make a commitment to study it. And I would be happy to hear, if you're going to, what it is. That would be helpful to you to tell me. And then, let's see what happens. Yes? How might you suggest going about studying or investigating the word? Well, basically, think about it all the time. until it's like all around you all the time.

[65:41]

Like you would study a colon? Yeah, these are colons. I know, but I mean, like a whole phrase that is a colon or just a word? It could be a word or it could be like, it could be this statement here, you know, which is this one. activity expresses the ancient road, not falling into a somber, passive state. That could be that whole sentence. Until that sentence is like, completely surrounds you. And you hardly need to say the words anymore. Or, you could, if you wanted to, you could just use one of the words as a way to contain yourself in this This becomes another opportunity for entering the dragon's cave, to choose something like that. But you can pick one word in it, but you understand it stands for the whole thing.

[66:48]

Or you may actually want to choose one word as the whole thing, that that's the only word you're interested in. But in most of these cases, the whole expression is the word, I mean the whole sentence or whatever. Or just meditate on this new bride rides the donkey, mother-in-law leads it. You could choose one word to represent the whole expression. I like, why are you making so much ignorant goodness? You could, that would be fine. That's a comb. Yes. You can choose any of these things, but the thing is, Have you chosen something like this that you can work on all day long? These are things you can work on all day long if you want to. And I recommend you try it. It's not going to hurt you. Now, maybe in some situations you maybe feel like, I don't want to work on it like driving a car or something.

[67:54]

You might not want to concentrate on it so much. Okay? So maybe when you're just like walking on land or something or swimming or sitting, you want to maybe get into it. But once you really get it into your system, you can do it even while you're driving a car or something complicated like that. Or whatever, you can do it all the time. One could choose what is the World Honored One's unspoken saying. Yes, one could choose what is the World Honored One's unspoken saying. This way you could drive also. You could drive it by driving. Well, how so? Well, you wouldn't have to come up with an answer. You don't have to come up with an answer with any of these. The dangerous part about them when doing some activities is that when you're focusing, you might become inattentive to the surrounding environment.

[69:01]

So that's one thing that I wouldn't necessarily say you really focus on these things while you're doing something like drive a car. But once you feel that you've gotten totally absorbed in it, then I think you can start going out and start trying to integrate this concentration with more complex events. But it would be a service to the world if some of you would enter these word caves and go in there and spend some time, put some hours, put some days, put some weeks in these caves of these words. And then come and tell us what it's like in there, what happens when you make that kind of concentration. And we'll be able to talk to you, because this is our language too. Although we may not have gone in there to find this out.

[70:04]

Like in graduate school, what a lot of professors do is they send their graduate students into these caves. for weeks, months, years, sometimes many years. They send the graduate students into these caves because they want to find out what the person can find out when they concentrate on some area. But they themselves can't concentrate on all these areas, maybe. And these are like new koans they're sending them into. And the graduate students go in there and they come back. This is how we deepen our knowledge and how human evolution can occur. By each of you opening up these frontiers of the jewels, the ultimate truth of this conventional world. But by

[71:07]

totally becoming intimate with the conventional world, which is language. We're not going to find the integration of the two by not completely giving credit to the world of convention. We have to do that. Some people have to be thorough. We need some people to be thorough about this. Except to go by daylight? You need to go by day? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Rev, I'm taken entirely with this entire first paragraph right now. It's like a gestalt to me. I feel of it as one. Is that appropriate? That's fine. Okay. Yeah. Maybe it can be quite big. But if it gets too big, then it doesn't contain you. Then you start getting dispersed again. So it has to be small enough so that you really feel that you can work with the whole thing as a unit, like a word. So it's like a digestible, something you could actually become intimate with.

[72:14]

It can be anything. It seems to me that... the two adepts in here, in a way they're replaying what happened between Buddha and Kasyapa. It's a replay of that, in a way. And that's what I'm feeling right now. And maybe after I do that, I will say, hey, this is where I want, just this small part. And maybe it will come down to that. Right, right. I just want to come back to your assignment because I think it confuses me. What I hear is like, I'm asked by you now to enter, let's say, another cave. Not a different cave, but a second one. But I don't think this is what you're saying. A different cave?

[73:16]

Yes. Or in other words, to take up the assignment, to take a word and study it, is that slightly part of what we call upright sitting? Does that come naturally out of upright sitting? Upright sitting will be the way you can enter. You don't have to do anything in addition. But when you practice upright sitting, you do run into words. Yeah, but this is exactly what confuses me. Let's say the ordinary situation in Zen though, to make a point now, I am actually sitting in front of a word. So it's right there. White wall. Yes, white wall is a perfectly good word.

[74:16]

You want to use white wall? Sure. So my confusion is, it sounds like... I mean, either it sounds like the task you are formulating kind of tries to make me aware of what I just said, that I am actually sitting... Let me just say this, okay? If you practice upright sitting and you don't want to choose white wall or brown floor, If you don't want to choose those, and what you want to work on, you do not want to choose some words to study. If you do not want to do that, then what you can work with is whatever's coming up. Okay? And that can be your cave. Your cave is, I'm going to enter into whatever my current experience is.

[75:20]

In the previous case, it said, This, it said this, in this public case, presently becoming. Okay? In the previous case, he said, in this genjo koan. In other words, you're studying this case, in this koan that's being realized right now, when you're studying this case. When you're studying this case, this is the koan that's happening to you right now. And this is the koan that's being realized right now. Do you get it? Do you understand it? That's the point. You should understand that this koan is being realized as you read it. If you're not intimate with it, you don't understand that. Now, if you want to turn the page, then you turn the next page and this genjou koan.

[76:25]

Now, if you don't want to have a book in front of you or a story in front of you, then this genjou koan. This text, so to speak. There's always a text that you've got in front of you. There's always words. Everything that you, everything, in order to make a thing, you have to impute some kind of conventional thing onto it. Otherwise, it doesn't get to be a thing. So you always have a text. And do you understand that? And if you can do it with everything that happens that way, then that's your koan. And that's, in some sense, fine. He's suggesting, and I would suggest you consider, maybe some of you, I would say there's two koans to choose, basically. There's the genjo koan, and then there's some particular words that you're going to choose that aren't just genjo koan. And there's infinite genjo koans, and there's infinite old story koans.

[77:34]

Okay? Okay? I'm saying, think about whether you're going to choose one of these old story koans, and if you're not, then say, I'm not going to. Then what are you going to work with? So I changed the assignment to consider whether you're going to take one of these old stories, one of these verbal expressions to study, and if you're not, then what are you going to study like that? What's going to be your cave? It's going to be one of these words, yes or no? If no, then what is going to be the cave? Is it just going to be whatever happens moment by moment? That's fine. But some of you might want to actually take one of these stories and work on them rather than just whatever comes up. It might be helpful to some of you. So I'm asking you to consider that And if none of you want to, then just make the dragon cave out of whatever is happening moment by moment.

[78:38]

That's fine, too. I'm suggesting you choose one or the other. But take the responsibility to choose which one you're going to do, and then whichever one you want to do, then try to be thorough at that decision. Does that make more sense? And whichever one you choose, then really enter that wholeheartedly. And there's a sashin coming up, so why don't you choose? Before the sashin, what cave are you going to enter? And if you're working in the kitchen, what cave are you going to enter? What cave are you going to enter? And how are you going to take care of yourself so you can actually enter and stay there?

[79:43]

And let that containment of that decision cook you. And whatever you decide, it's going to be hard to stay in there. You're probably going to keep flying out and have to go back. How many times have I gone down? You're not just going to go down once and stay there probably. You're going to go down and bounce up and go down and bounce up. You have to keep bringing yourself back. How are you going to encourage yourself to go back to work at this place of meeting yourself? Through some text which you think is not you. So again, I would say, please think about it, make a decision, choose one or the other style of text, and enter.

[80:51]

Enter. And whether you choose whatever's coming up, or choose a particular text, it's going to be a conventional reality. You're going to enter conventional reality. Yes? You may not want to say anything, but if you wanted to say anything about the comparative benefits or dangers of choosing one or the other, like the pitfalls or benefits of one type of game versus the other. Well, the benefits of the Genjo con are that, of course, you can work with whatever's happening. The pitfall of that is that you can also constantly not do it and not even notice that you're not doing it, because it can be whatever, right? The advantage of picking up an old story or part of an old story is pretty clear whether you're working with it or not.

[81:58]

The disadvantage of it is somewhat limited. Now, if you're really working on ganjo koan... whatever happens, and you really enter that, and you're in the Zen world, you will naturally have something to say about those old stories. You will be interested to enter all them. I think probably you would. But you enter everything then. Because that's what you've actually been doing. But you wouldn't exclude those. And The ancestors who taught Genjo Koan also studied these old stories. So Dogen taught, really, he really did recommend Genjo Koan, but he also was interested in all his other stories and entered all them and came back to tell us what they were about, too, after thoroughly studying all those words. So I think if you are not going to do the one, then do the other.

[83:05]

Do one or the other. I would suggest, please, choose one or the other. Either one's fine. Choose. Make a commitment. So I think those opportunities seem like would take care of everybody. You can enter whatever is happening, commitment, commitment to enter whatever is happening, or choose some particular example of a word, an old one or a new one. Anyway, some words that you choose, a set thing that you can work on. It's the commitment that I'm recommending, the commitment and the clarity of your commitment.

[84:11]

Just like you would commit to some person, you know, commit to this kind of study. You recommend committing even though you don't know what it is? You know, I'm dumbfounded. Of course. Of course you don't know what it is. You don't know what the word is. So definitely, you think it's a word, right? You think it's a stick or whatever. You don't think it's a stick. Yes, definitely. That's the reason. It's because you don't know what it is that you have to enter it. It's because of our attachments that we don't know what it is. So we have to, like, enter, give up our attachments, and then we'll understand. Then understanding will happen in that commitment.

[85:19]

Right? I mean, this is making sense, right? It's the commitment that's the hard part, and then following through. That's the difficult thing, The not knowing is completely normal, no problem. Even if you think you do know, fine, no problem. Enter there. Pretty soon you won't. And then even after you don't, then stay there longer. Then you're really cooking. In addition to that, aren't you reciting every time you meet, Dharma gates are boundless, we vow to enter them, and that's exactly what that's referring to. You don't in a way know the answer, but you know it's one particular fascicle of the Dharma, and you penetrate it, at least as an aspiration. Right. commit to a particular door, or commit to every door, one or the other.

[86:33]

But committing to every door, then you're going to have to, like, everything you meet have that kind of concentration, which is fine, it's great. Again, that has the advantage, but it has the disadvantage of you kind of, like, losing track of what you're doing. Or if you pick a particular word, you can tell, oh, I haven't thought of it for two weeks. Or two hours, or two minutes. The solitary revealed body. Got one? Got a solitary revealed body? Nine, you know? Use that word to meditate on your body. Or just meditate on your body. And everything that you meet, meditate on your body. If you can do that, fine. The question is to always be concentrated on it.

[87:37]

to have a clear enough commitment so that you can apply your whole energy to the practice. Okay? So there we go, here we go. No more koan classes for a while. Jump in the ocean. Here we go, one, two, three. May our attention

[88:08]

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