Master Hongjue said, the unique breeze of reality, can you feel it? Continuously, creation works her loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the patterns of spring, but nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. I take heart in this verse this morning, particularly the part about nothing can be done about Manjushri's

[01:09]

leaking. Manjushri's leaking is that Manjushri talked, he said, look, here's the dharma, but nothing can be done about this babbling of bodhisattvas. Because they have to do it, on and on, and they're willing to have this outflow, because otherwise beings don't get a foothold, even though, as Linji said, the really dignified way of the Zen school is just not to open your mouth. But, if you do that, a lot of people won't understand what not opening your mouth means. Not opening your mouth means what I've been babbling about all practice period, but did

[02:11]

you understand that before I came and didn't say anything? I don't know, maybe you did. So, I take heart that even Manjushri had to do it, so I'm being so silly as to talk all this time. If you can feel a unique breeze of reality, then why don't you leave this place and go out and help people? Now, if you don't feel it yet and can't see creation weaving the ancient brocade right in front of your face, if you can't see it, then in order to be able to see it, we have Zen practice for you. For the sake of feeling this truth and watching it unfold throughout creation, we have our practice and basically it is that we go down to the deep stillness at the seat of our heart.

[03:30]

And, I spoke about Kanzeon, Kanzeon, the Bodhisattva who hears the cries of the world. She takes our hand and walks with us down to that seat, or she takes our hand and walks with us up to the summit of the mystic crossing, of the mystic passageway. It's by this compassion, it's by compassion that we walk our way to our seat of stillness. And, this summit of the peak of the mystic crossing is not the human world. Again, the Bodhisattva of compassion comes to our aid and escorts us to the realm which

[04:45]

is not the human world. It's the world of giving up the human world. Great compassion supports us, embraces us, encourages us, wipes our tears and says, come on sweetie, it's okay. You don't have to hold on to human life. You don't have to hold on to human sentiments, human cravings, human concerns. You can relinquish them. Come down deep, come up high to the mystic crossing which is not the human world and leave your, check yourself at the door. Here at Tassajara, in the old zendo, the one that burned down, before that it was a

[05:46]

bar and they used to say, check your guns at the door at that place. When we first started Zen Center, we didn't tell people to check themselves at the door, but gradually the word gets out. But again, let me stress, it is by great compassion that you will be able to renounce worldly affairs. It's by listening to all the cries, oh do I have to give this up too? Yes. Can I bring this with us? We'll get it later. Just set it over there and if you want it afterwards, we can pick it up. It's not going to go anywhere. It's built into your nervous system. Okay.

[06:49]

You promise? Sure. How do you know? I did it, I left it there the other day and I came back and it was still there. It'll be all right. Come on, let's go. Let's go up to the summit of the mystic peak. Let's go down into the green dragon's cave and play with the big dragon, okay? Come on. Now this Avalokiteshvara, you know, it's not like some kind of like Buddhist deity, some kind of like deity, some idol, you know, don't worry. Some people think, oh, it's our inner kindness, it's our deep, encouraging, courageous heart that guides us away from our attachments and that's true, it is. But it's also all around us. You know, we had this card, this year-end card a few years ago of Kamsayan sitting up at Shu's Ridge, lounging on Shu's Ridge.

[07:52]

And she had, you know, her vase and her flower and stuff and she was like pouring, she was like real relaxed and her vase was kind of like tipping out of her hand and all the liquid, I don't know what the liquid was, was oozing out and down the cliffs to Tassajara. These mountains too are encouraging you to sit still, kindly, lovingly, in whatever way possible that will help us. These mountains are saying, hey you guys, what do you think we're here for? Get to work, please, if you have a chance, if you're not too busy. Whenever you have some time, sit still. So we go down, or we go up anyway, we go into the Dharma world, which is not the human world,

[09:02]

we give up all human concerns. We give up all messing around with what's happening. We give up all kinds of trying to fix things. We give up all kinds of trying to improve things. We embrace the reversed thought and then we sit still again, we continue to sit still. And then, Kanzeon has done her job, she says, goodbye, see you later. And then another great Bodhisattva comes, basically another kind of compassion, Kanjizai Bodhisattva comes now, and this is the Bodhisattva that says, okay, now that you're here and you've reversed your mind, now, look at your thinking, you're still thinking.

[10:05]

What are you thinking? Emotions, feelings, mountains, rivers, sky, and the great earth. Now because you're thinking, right at that place where you're thinking, something gets born called the self. That thinking is the birthplace of the self. Right there, you watch your thinking, you're looking at the locus of defilement. That self then gets born and then that self gets projected out on the mountains and the rivers and inward on your feelings, your perceptions, all your impulses, and they all get made into selves, they all get thingified. This vast, swirling, whipping around cuckoo bird mountains, you make them into nice thingified

[11:10]

mountains. You make the rivers stay in their channel and don't let them flow upward and downward and sideways and backwards. But that's the way they really are flowing, so it hurts. The whole world hurts because we insult it, but we can't help it because the self was born and the thinking then spits it out on everything, inside and outside. So everything hurts and everything's hungry and we want to look away, but Kanji Zaibosatsu says, no, no, stay here, keep looking at this, you've got to watch this stuff, you've got to see what the self does, you've got to see what the self does, you've got to see how it works, you've got to see how it really exists. That's my name, I miss how the self exists. See, I'm okay, come on, keep looking at it, it hurts, I know, but watch how it hurts.

[12:17]

Why does it hurt? How does it hurt? How does it happen? You see how it's because you're holding on to things that it hurts? You see how the swirling, turbulence, anxiety, pain, fear happens around the holding? And how the holding's around the self? And how the holding's around the things that you make into selves? You see how that works? We study this, we study the suffering, and then finally, Kanji Zaibosatsu, in us, with her help, we see that really the things that we're holding on to are not things, but are mysterious, codependently arisen things, and we don't grasp them anymore, and we're saved.

[13:20]

You know, we feel saved, you can feel it, it has this effect of feeling saved, you're relaxed, fearless, and so on. And then, as I pointed out in great detail, even though some of you don't think, haven't experienced that you got to this place yet of being saved, I'm just saying that to warn you in case it happens, because it could happen at any time. And that's why priests are supposed to carry their bowing cloths, because you never know when it might happen, and then you have to open your bowing cloth and bow in some appropriate direction. Anyway, what I've gone into great detail about is that there's a little, kind of like what I would call an intermezzo, an intermezzo happens there, a little intermission in the program, a kind of bardo state, where you get released but then you get a little excited

[14:31]

and it becomes a pitfall. You make it into something, you see how useful, you see how wonderful this is and you want to figure out how you got there and something like that. Anyway, it's an optional intermission, you can go straight through. You can see that the self is codependently created, you can see how it gets projected out on things and causes misery, you can see this process and then finally just see right through it and fall through it and go straight on without ever grabbing onto the process again. But a lot of people take this optional break. A lot of great masters have told stories about how they took the break. The case we've been studying, this very fine monk took that break. When he got to that point, Yangshan said, well do you see anything here now?

[15:38]

He said, I don't see anything existing at all. Now somebody else could have said that and it might not have meant that but in this case it looks like he was stuck. He camped on the mystic peak. He camped in the freedom that came from entering the world which is not the human world, the world of Dharma. And Yangshan said, well that's good, you got entry into Buddha land but you're not supposed to camp here, so run along. Do you have any further instructions or not? No, I'm not going to say whether I do or not. You just run along now and see on your own. You have anyway no permission to camp here. And Yangshan himself could spot this because he had the same experience with his teacher.

[16:39]

He had this kind of release and it was even a little higher quality because, well I don't know if high quality he said anyway, he didn't even have any completion or any release and nothing was cut off. He thought, well that should fix it. I'm not even saying I finished. I do have something to tell you though. Even that was too much. So he knew, he took that break too. This is called Zen sickness, that camping. Anyway, somehow if we're lucky and tell somebody what we've attained, rather than keeping it to ourself for a long time, like that superintendent Si did, he didn't tell Fa Yan that he had

[17:41]

entry and he was all fixed up. So Fa Yan couldn't help him for three years. He sat there camping. Fa Yan had so many students that he didn't have time to search out the superintendent and figure out why he wasn't coming. But at the same time you have to wait a while to see that somebody's not coming before you know they're not coming. So after three years he said, where you been? And he found out this guy was camping. So he gave him some encouragement, which he saw. So in this case, you know, what did he do? The guy was listening to some words when he gained entry.

[18:42]

So the teacher said, well what are the words? And the guy said the words and he watched them and he said, uh-uh. He felt some, you know, some hanging out, some holding to that realization. The guy got upset by that reorientation, split, but he came back and he held the same words up again, same ones again, to try to, you know, cause this attunement where there isn't any grasping. And it worked. It's so close, you know. And then the other story about Fa Yen, you know, he's talking to Xu Shan and he says

[19:50]

to Xu Shan, if there's a slightest deviation, if there's a hair's breadth deviation, it's like the distance between heaven and earth. How do you understand this? And Xu Shan said, if there's the slightest difference, it's like the distance between heaven and earth. A very nice attunement. Then Fa Yen says, okay, but in that kind of matching, how can you get it there? And Xu Shan said, I am just thus. How about you, teacher? And Fa Yen said, there's a hair's breadth difference.

[20:56]

It's like the distance between heaven and earth. And Xu Shan deeply bowed. This is the attunement of the spirit. This is the attunement of the released self, attunement of the forgotten self. And then again, Fa Yen was teaching a monk, a monk asked Fa Yen, what is a drop from the font of the sixth ancestor? And Fa Yen said, it's a drop from the font of the sixth ancestor.

[22:00]

The monk who asked the question, I don't know what he did, but standing nearby was the future national teacher, Shao. When he heard it, he woke up and then he wrote the poem. For him, he could see the exact alignment between those two same statements. So he said, what did he say? He said, crossing the summit of the mystic peak. It's not the human world. Where's the mystic peak?

[23:10]

What's a drop from the font of the sixth ancestor? It's a drop from the font of the sixth ancestor. Where is the mystic peak? Where is not the human world in that human dialogue? Two men talking to each other, what does it mean, not the human world? Can you see the unique breeze which runs through that story and all these stories? Can you see it? Are you still enough? Have you renounced enough to open your eyes and see the breeze run through that story? It's not the human world. Don't bring the human world with you to see this. Be kind enough to yourself to let yourself into the chamber where this is revealed. So, he said, crossing the summit of the mystic peak is not the human world.

[24:21]

Outside the mind, there are no things. Fill in the eyes are blue mountains. This guy didn't have intermission. He didn't camp. He went straight from being saved to saving. Fa Yen said, this one verse, this one verse carries on the life of my teaching. So, Master Punggye says, all embracing with no obstacles.

[25:57]

He's commenting on the story of Yangshan and this monk, all embracing with no obstacles, penetrating with no obstruction. This is the mind. Gates and walls like cliffs, bolts and locks redoubled. This is objects. When the wine is always sweet, it lays out the guests. Though the meal is filling, it ruins the farmers. This is the bardo. This is the monk camping out in his realization. Not just tasting the wine and saying thank you, but drinking it and falling sick.

[27:05]

Once you get relief from yourself, you should immediately go on. Don't look back to how it happened. Don't hope for it to happen again. Or, if you do, just set that down and go on. Or another way to put it is, if you should happen to get a break, to see the self in a new way, to realize Kanjizai Wosatsu's realization that the things you're holding on to are really ungraspable. If you lose your grip of yourself, then at that time, don't move. Don't try to get it again. Don't try to lose it again. Just stay relaxed and calm, and ride forth on the peacock with your friend.

[28:20]

Then, at that moment, bursting out of this emptiness, bursting out of this vast open sky of liberation, breaking free from your liberation, the Garuda takes wing on the wind, breaking away from the deep peace of liberation and tromping and treading over the blue sea. The dragon follows the thunder, and the thunder follows the dragon, chasing each other around the ocean. And then, chasing yourself around the ocean, chasing yourself through the sky, being lifted

[29:40]

by the air, being supported by the water, meditating still on how this freedom is dependently co-arisen and how this freedom is supported by the wind and the water. And what are the wind and the water of these Garudas and these dragons? The wind and the water are suffering beings. Your flight is lifted by the cries of the world. So, you let your hand down, and you join hands with beings at the busy intersections, and you walk with them, and you walk with them to their seat, and you sit with them,

[30:43]

and you tell them that they can sit, or you don't even say so. You just sit with them, and little by little, they too join the process. So, people ask for some instruction of going forth from the mountains. Sometimes some concrete instruction, and basically,

[32:11]

whatever point you're at at this process, you see, if you're at the phase of the process of getting yourself to sit still, you could see it that you haven't finished the process, that you're still trying to renounce the world and sit still. You could see it that way, which is fine, but the fact that you're there, the fact that you're considering sitting still and renouncing the world, is you're not doing that by yourself. The being of infinite compassion is there with you, helping you. And is that being of infinite compassion a beginner? Well, yes. She doesn't need to be separate from you and advanced from you. She's willing to be a beginner again with you. So, a beginner is not a beginner, but anyway, if that's where you are, that's where you are.

[33:13]

But as we say, after generations of nobility, you're temporarily fallen into poverty or the beginning state or the beginning struggle. So, if you settle down and renounce the world, are you now quietly exploring the farthest causes and conditions of this self? Is that the phase you're at? And are you just starting to develop your relationship with kanji zaibosatsu, with the being of infinite compassion who supports your inquiry into the self and how clinging develops? Is that where you are? Or are you at the phase of breaking free into open space? Or are you at the phase of going beyond that and back into the world and back into encouraging

[34:25]

yourself and others to sit still again? Wherever you are in the process, can you feel how you're supported and how you're supporting? Can you feel how compassion is supporting you and guiding you? And can you feel how you are compassion's job security? How compassion is saying, thank you for giving me something to work on. At the end of the process, these dragons are just causation themselves. That's all they are, is causation. They enter into hell, they enter into heaven, favorable, unfavorable circumstances.

[35:26]

And they're nothing more than those unfavorable circumstances, nothing more than a person there. Long ago, they entered the realm which is not the human world. They have now come out of that world and re-entered the human world, if that's where they are. And they're completely one with these conditions. If you're not this fully liberated being, then if you look at conditions, you may feel like, oh, I'm here and conditions are over there.

[36:28]

Or I'm here and all these beings are supporting me or harassing me, whatever. Anyway, I am completely born by the beings who are harassing me. I'm completely born by the people who support me by harassing me. When I understand that, I am nothing but causation. And, in fact, there's never a moment, any time in our life, when we don't have causation all around us. Therefore, there's never a moment, at any time in our life, when we aren't like these great bodhisattvas, because they're no different from that. Every moment you have conditions, you have conditions to work with, and you have no alternative

[38:55]

to what they are. You're never lacking in the requisites for the practice. The question is, are we attuning ourselves, are we attuning our spirit to what's being given to us? Or are we shrinking back from it, or trying to get ahead of what's being offered? Or, leaning to the right a little bit, and trying to remember something about Zen? Or leaning to the left a little bit, and trying to remember what we learned yesterday that was so helpful? Not being rushed, not being scared, not reaching for some resource someplace else, but using

[39:59]

this, using this. And maybe we don't feel completely attuned yet, like in all those stories of attuning, a drop from the font of the sixth ancestor with a drop from the font of the sixth ancestor. My body temperature, my feelings, align those feelings with those feelings. Align my vision of your face with my vision of your face. Align my walking with my walking. All day long, attuning my walking with my walking. My speaking with my speaking.

[41:00]

My thinking with my thinking. And working with this, and attuning this with this. And looking, is there a hair's breadth difference? And is the hair's breadth difference because I'm a little lazy, or I'm a little rushed, or I'm a little scared, or I a little bit think that this isn't worthy of my full attention, and something else would be better to be paying attention to? What are the causes for the lack of complete attunement with what's being offered? Look, look, look, again and again, all day long. They say that this is what the ancestors did. They recommend it to us. They say that because they did this all day long, they were able to let their hand down

[42:06]

into the marketplace, and help beings find their seat, and knock out the pegs, and glue. And, this attunement, it doesn't mean that you have to check all the time to see if it's right, but there are ways to check.

[43:10]

And the ways of checking are everything that's happening. So again, you attune, and the way you check to see if you're attuning is to look at what you're attuning with, and to see if there's any part of the world that you're not attuning with. Are you attuning with your inner states? Are you attuning with your friends? Are you attuning with the mountains? Are you attuning with the rivers? Are you attuning with the recycling area? Are you attuning with the kitchen? Are you attuning with your room? Are you attuning with your posture? Are you attuning with your walking? Everything will be your way of telling, will be your way of checking, will be your way of continuous practice. Only by great kindness would one be willing to do this work. How can we be kind enough to ourselves to get us to keep at this work?

[44:15]

So, I tell the old child's poem about how to paint the portrait of a bird. If you want to paint the portrait of a bird, get a canvas and paint a cage, a bird cage on the canvas, and then inside the cage, paint something pretty, something beautiful, something useful and something simple for the bird.

[45:32]

This is Avalokiteśvara doing the painting, some very kind painting to get the bird to come and inhabit this seat. Don't think of yourself, think of what would get yourself to come and sit still. Like I said, the path, the channel, the cavern leading you down into the green dragon cave is coated with seductive honey. It's okay to encourage yourself down there. Anyway, paint this nice thing and also paint the door of the cage open, that's important.

[46:36]

Be open about this. Put this canvas with this open cage and these nice things inside, put it against a tree and then sit and wait for the bird to come. It may take a long time for the bird to come, the bird may come right away. And how long it takes has no rapport with how good the painting is. Now, when the bird comes, if the bird comes, at that time, continue to sit quietly and now observe even a more profound silence, because when the bird comes there's a tendency to get excited. And when the bird comes and enters the cage, then take the brush, later, take your brush

[47:45]

and you paint away the bars, but you don't camp out there with this bird in empty space. You don't camp out there. In fact, of course, you do camp out there. Great Zen masters have camped out there, so you probably will too. But anyway, eventually, it's time to start going back to work again. Take the brush and start painting a rice cake for the bird. Paint some bamboo for the bird. Paint some bananas for the bird. Paint a beautiful branch for the bird's feet.

[48:49]

Put beautiful leaves on the bird, on birds. Paint mountains and put feet at the bottom of the mountains so they can walk. And put rivers at the bottom of the mountains so they can splash their feet. And paint a big blue sky and put insects in it, especially flies. And remember who painted them. And maybe even paint fly swatters. And insect netting. Paint the whole world for the bird, the released bird, to live in, to fly in, to roost in,

[49:53]

to peck in, and so on. And then it's time to see and listen if the bird sings. The bird needs to sing. And if the bird sings, that's a good sign. It's a sign that you can sign this painting. And then comes a part that people don't like. You reach over to the bird and you pull one of the bird's feathers out. You sign this thing using a bird feather instead of your brush. A little more pain from the liberated bird for you to sign it.

[51:01]

And you sign your name. I can see Avalokiteshvara, both as the listener of the worlds and the contemplator of the self, guiding this process round and round. It requires infinite compassion to drive this process to completion. It requires 100% devotion, a hair's breadth difference, the slightest lack of attunement, and the process stalls. And we're miserable, fortunately. The misery tells us it's stalled. And says, okay, get up off the floor, come on. Get back on those tootsies and let's walk some more. Or get back on that fanny and sit some more.

[52:05]

Gotta keep going now, come on. I don't want to. Oh, really? What's the matter? I want you to do it for me. Can't you be my practice? I'll just say, you know, I'll just say, Namo Kamsayon. How about that? Well, that's a good start. Go ahead. Say Namo Kamsayon. Namo Kamsayon. Now, what does that mean? It means I should get up. That's right. That's right. So, come on, let's go. I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to use this opportunity. I want a better one. I want to go back to Tassajara. I want to go back to the zendo. I want to get out of the zendo. I want a younger body. I want better food. The food's too good here. It distracts me.

[53:06]

I want better practice leaders. The teachers aren't good here. The teachers are too good here. They don't leave anything for me to do. Well, how do you feel now? I feel better. Good enough to get up and go sit again? No. Well, what do you need? Nothing. I don't need anything. Are you sitting now? Yes. Are you up right now? No. Yes. Am I doing your practice for you now?

[54:12]

No. Are you practicing with me? Yes. You're practicing with... the regarder of the cries of the world, are you? Yes, I am. You're practicing with the regarder of the way the self exists in the world, are you? Yes. You're seeing how your self exists? Yes. You're seeing how it creates attachment? Yes. You're seeing how it causes suffering? Yes. Okay. Looks like we're back at work now, aren't we? Yes. Are you ready to practice together with us forever? Yes, I am. Even after acquiring Buddhahood, will you continue to practice this way? Yes, I will.

[55:17]

Can I leave now? Yes. Yes, you can go. I don't need you anymore. I'm on the right track, and I see now how, when I fall off the track, I see how to catch myself and admit it and get back on. So, you can go. I'll continue this work. I'll continue this work. I will continue this work. All day long.

[56:22]

I'm a big boy now. I'm a big girl now. And I'm sad that I'm not a little boy anymore. I'm sad that I'm not a little girl anymore. But I'm very happy as I look off at the horizon of the summit of the Mystic Peak, and I know that I will climb that and cross it. You've helped me, but I'm going to do this myself. I'm going to do this with you. But not asking you to do it for me. It's hard, but I know I can... I know I can... I know I can do it. And maybe when I get to the top

[57:31]

of the ridge, maybe Blue Mountains will be filling my eyes, just like the ancestors. We'll see. Who knows? It might be a Green Valley or a Red Canyon. But I'm not going to rush. I'm not going to rush up there. I'm going to walk carefully, step by step, until I'm done. So you can go. And I thank you uh-huh for holding my hands for a while. My dear Avalokiteshvara, thank you so much. I hope that that was concrete enough

[58:34]

for you to understand how to carry on. With your practice. How to extend this beyond the Sashin, beyond this wonderful practice period, beyond this Blessed Valley. And if it wasn't concrete enough, I'll do it again sometime. Because nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. Nothing can be done about Ulysses fighting. Nothing can be done.

[59:53]

So, we're all sad to let go of all our little selves that have enjoyed this practice period. But just look up at the great horizon of practice before you. At the great opportunities for your unfoldment in practice. And mixed with that sadness will be great joy at the prospect. So, I say, congratulations to all of us. Congratulations to the mountains and rivers that have supported us. And thank you.

[60:54]

Thank you, thank you. Thank you.

[61:09]

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