the song of the precious mirror samadhi. The word samadhi has different meanings and one possible understanding of the word in this case is that samadhi is a type of awareness Where Wherein the subject and the object are One point Not separate So the precious mirror is sung about in the song, but also the awareness of it, the awareness of the precious mirror is also sung about.

[01:57]

So there is a teaching of suchness, there is an intimate transmission And this intimate transmission is called Buddhas and Ancestors. So the song is celebrating an awareness of Buddhas where the awareness of the Buddha and the Buddha are not separate. So we practitioners, when contemplating the Buddhas in Samadhi, in that type of awareness, the awareness of the Buddhas and the Buddhas are one point. Or the awareness of the intimate communication and the intimate communication are one point. It's not like I am aware of an intimate communication separate from myself.

[03:10]

The awareness I have in Samadhi is an awareness where subject and object are one point. It's an awareness of this intimate communion, which is a precious mirror. But again, it's not that I'm focused on the precious mirror, but that I'm aware of it in a non-dual way. But when I'm aware of it in a non-dual way, I'm also not distracted. When we're aware of things dualistically, then we can be distracted from them. We can also be concentrated on them in the sense that we can be paying attention to them. But if we're paying attention, and we are separate from what we're paying attention to, that type of awareness being dualistic is also unstable.

[04:16]

Yes. Unstable. If I try to focus on something, I can only do it for a very short period of time. Because I and it are changing all the time in duality. But the one-pointed awareness doesn't really change. It's stable. But it's not me trying to focus on that. It's me and that being in focus as one point. Being in non-dual focus. When the subject is aware of object, and the object is understood as separate from the subject,

[05:23]

that's unstable, that's somewhat agitating or very agitating. Dualistic awareness is unstable. Non-dual awareness is stable. It's not disturbed by duality, by believing any appearance of separation between knowledge or knowing and known. So this is the kind of awareness of this very precious thing. What is the precious thing? The teaching of suchness which relieves all suffering. But again, when the awareness of this teaching is such that the teaching is not separate from the subject, then that's the recommended mode for receiving, listening, observing, and being mindful of this teaching.

[06:39]

So when we first hear this teaching, we might just listen to it. And we might listen to it undistractedly, without even trying to listen to it. We're just listening to it. And that might realize one-pointedness. samadhi, non-dual concentration, which again turns out to be in accord with the intimate communion. It's like the epistemological counterpart of the teaching.

[07:50]

The teaching is saying that there is this intimate communion, so it's an epistemological state that is very kind of literally in accord with non-duality. Would you say that louder? Well, the teaching of suchness is, for example, that we in our limited human condition are not the slightest bit different from perfect enlightenment.

[08:52]

That's the teaching. It's saying that. The teaching is saying, you have this teaching, whether you think so or not. Any duality that you have about having or not having this teaching doesn't apply to this teaching. And in terms of describing awareness, one-pointed awareness is like the one-pointedness of living beings and Buddhas. Living beings and Buddhas are actually like a one-point, because there are no Buddhas separate from living beings. That's the teaching of suchness. And the awareness that's appropriate to have with that would be a one-pointed awareness, where the listener and the speaker, or the listener and the words, are also one point.

[09:55]

So the awareness is describing kind of like the psychological or epistemological condition for what? For the reality of our life. which we don't really know that. But the way we know what we don't really know is Samadhi. The way we know things is subject knowing object. That's the way we know. But certain types of knowing, called Samadhi, are a special type of knowledge where subject and object are still operating as in normal knowledge. but they're one point. And when subject knows objects, and they don't seem to be one point, then the subject feels some agitation, or a lot of agitation.

[10:59]

So the Samadhi is describing the quality of awareness, and the teaching is describing the quality of our relationship And the intimate communion, again, it's so intimate there's no duality. You don't know who's communicating to whom, or who's receiving the transmission and who's giving the transmission. So the intimate communion is another teaching. So the way to be aware of intimate communion is with an awareness that's intimate, not an awareness that's split. So a non-split awareness is appropriate to a non-split relationship, which is appropriate to the teaching of the way things are. And then there's other kinds of awareness which we don't call Samadhi, which are basically distractions from Samadhi.

[12:05]

Like we think we're separate from what we are aware of. We think we're separate from the people that we see or hear. That's not called Samadhi. The Samadhi is there in reality, but we're distracted from it. We're caught up in the appearance of separation. So in Samadhi, it's not like you have to destroy the appearance of separation. It might still look like that. It might still look like she's over there and I'm over here. It might look like that. But that way it looks is not separate from the one who is aware of that appearance. Did you get that? A false impression, a false appearance, like that you're separate from other people, that's an appearance.

[13:08]

That's an object. The object is separation. The object is I'm not him. That appears. Okay? I'm not him appears. And I'm aware of I'm not him. But the awareness of I'm not him is not separate from I'm not him. The object, which is an appearance of separation, is also not separate from the awareness of that appearance. So false appearances, there's still a subject-object there, for whatever they are, and one type of false appearance, which is very common, is the appearance that objects are separate from subjects. That's one of the most common appearances. So in consciousness, there's the appearance of a world, and the world is perceived as separate from the one who's aware of it.

[14:18]

That's the way it looks. It's a false appearance. The appearance is deceptive. Actually, there's Samadhi there. In other words, actually, I am not separate from the world that's appearing in consciousness. The self, the subject, is not separate from the appearances, like trees and animals, but also the appearance that they are separate from me. I'm not separate from the appearance of separateness. All the appearances, all the objects, are actually inseparable from the awareness of them. They're all one point. But people often fall for the appearance and think that the appearance is separate, which means they don't believe in Samadhi. So they feel somewhat agitated. Not believing in mental one-pointedness is believing that you're not mental one-pointed. Did you get that?

[15:22]

Not believing in mental one-pointedness... I don't know about other kinds I've read now. I'm just saying the technical term is one-pointedness of mind. Not believing in one-pointedness of mind in Sanskrit, citta, mind, ekagata, one-pointed. Not believing in one-pointedness of mind is like not believing in Samadhi. Even if you say, I believe in Samadhi, if you say you don't believe in mental one-pointedness, in some sense you're contradicting yourself. Because that's the definition of Samadhi, is the one-pointedness of mind. It is our nature to have a mind that's one-pointed, but usually we have to train to realize our nature.

[16:32]

And when we realize our nature, it's that we have samadhi, then we feel calm and concentrated, because we're not arguing with our nature anymore. That's the samadhi that goes with the teaching. If you are hearing a teaching, and you feel separate from it, and you believe the separation, then you have not really realized the teaching. Unless the teaching is, life is instability and pain. Then that teaching, if you felt separate from it, would be confirmed by the sense of separation. Yes? Is the way in which we're not separate Consciousness itself is one-pointed.

[17:37]

In regular consciousness, where there's a self, there's a sense of subject and a sense of object. That's normal in consciousness. We have other cognitive processes where there's not a self that's aware of objects. There's cognitive processes which don't have a self, which we often call unconscious processes. But in conscious process, where we work to develop and appreciate samadhi, there is a sense of self and there's a sense of other or object. And it often looks like they're separate. But actually, they're one-pointed, because the world is consciousness, and the sense of self is part of consciousness. And if they were separate, consciousness would collapse. But they're not separate. They're one happy mind.

[18:40]

But it's a one happy mind which says, this mind is split, and the world that's appearing in this mind is not the mind. It's a world that's not the mind. And this is really true. We're not kidding about this. And also, that sales pitch is subliminal. So it works all the more powerfully. So now I'm trying to put a super title over everything. Namely, the appearance of separation is an illusion. To balance the subliminal message underneath the appearance, that this isn't just an appearance of separation, this is really true. The world isn't just an appearance of something that's not you. The world that appears to be not your mind really isn't. But that's subliminal. So we don't notice that we're being sold a bill of goods, as we say.

[19:42]

And that's not going to become... You can't get that out of there. It's hidden in there very nicely to make things look really not the way they are. To make things appear really true that aren't. So we have to put teachings on top of the things that are deceptive to say this is mind and the fact that it appears as separate is not true and contradictory to its nature. Its nature is actually, that is one point, but that doesn't mean when you realize that the subject-object structure disappears. They're still subject and object. They're just not separate. The more you appreciate that, the more you're in samadhi, the more calm you are, and the more your state of mind is realized, and realizing your state of mind, you also realize the teaching, because the teachings are saying, your mind is actually your true nature. The teachings are saying, your mind is your true nature, and then developing samadhi

[20:50]

helps you enter that and realize that. Yes? Tony? Is Samadhi something that, for example, when a woman has a moment with her daughter or her son, knowing that that son or daughter was a part of him or her or whatever, but she's also connected in a way where, you know, looks into his or her eyes Is that a Samadhi moment? Is that what we're talking about? Or another wild example, you know, you're driving... Just a second, just a second. I think it's... to use that example, I would say that when the mother is giving birth, and she's conscious, and she's not resisting the pain anymore, like, I'm here, And here's the pain, which is connected to this baby opening my body up.

[21:56]

So I would say sometimes I think, apparently, that for whatever reasons you can say that the mother becomes, enters, realizes Samadhi at the certain phases of the delivery process, where the subject and what is known, the pain, are like not separate. And the story you might tell is that she enters into this process like an ordinary woman, namely thinking, I'm here and pain's over there. Ordinary women, when they see pain, there's a subliminal message which says, this pain is separate from you. And they believe it. And men do the same thing. They have pain and they think, there's the pain, I'm aware of the pain, and I'm not the pain, the pain's not me. Therefore I could get away from the pain, etc. Both men and women, and whatever else you want to talk about, have this false appearance.

[23:03]

But in childbirth, I think, from what I understand, what happens sometimes is that the mother is trying to get away from this pain that's out there, separate from her, and she more and more senses that this is contraindicated to her well-being. Because pains that are outside of us are much more painful than pains we're one-pointed with. So by the... What's the word? The... The harmful... The harmfulness of believing that we are separate from our pain, sometimes when the pain gets really strong, we realize, I think I should give up this idea that it's separate. I think I should stop trying to get away from it. And the more you give up trying to get away from it, the more you realize you never were away from it.

[24:06]

You never can be away from your pain. So I think sometimes in childbirth, the mother realizes Samadhi. she realizes that she and the pain are not two. I could say, does she also realize she and the baby are not two? And actually, once you get on the not two wagon, a lot of things come along with it. So once you... But it's not so much... The mother isn't like feeling more and more pain because she's feeling more and more separate from her baby. She hasn't been trying to get away from... Most mothers are not trying to get away from the baby in their stomach. But as the pain gets stronger, she might, by habit, want to get away from the pain. But even if you take medication, still there's some pain. And again, you still might try to get away from it. But when you don't try to get away from it, you're more and more open to the fact that you never could get away from it. And in that, you realize Samadhi.

[25:10]

So you still might be able to say me and the pain, but you have realized that me and the pain are not two, they're one point. And then, although you're in considerable pain, you're calm, tranquil. And even though you don't think it, you might feel intuitively that this is the greatest moment of your life. Because you're now in your Samadhi. And in that Samadhi, you get to also realize that you and the baby are not two. But again, most people are not... There's no pressure on getting over the sense of separation from the baby. The pressure is on getting over your separation from the pain, which some women get over in childbirth. And of course some women get over it when they're sitting Zazen too. They have pain in their body.

[26:13]

I've heard this from some women. They have pain in their body. But to me, and my body... me and my pain, and they are... not only they have pain, but they have suffering, because it's me and the pain, and the me and the pain are separate. And then somehow they hit this groove, where there's me and the pain, and they're not separate. And then the pain doesn't... it seems like it disappears. But really the pain doesn't disappear, what disappears is the misery of the pain. So you have pain and tranquility and peace. I think when the mother is looking at the baby and the baby is looking at the mother, from most of the stories I hear, it's actually learning, excuse me, it's learning the self. It's learning how to separate. And you learn how to separate by somebody looking at you and saying,

[27:15]

Somebody looking at you and saying, you are the greatest that there is, and I'm so happy to see you, and you're so happy to see me. It's like this thing between mother and child is part of what gives birth to the sense of... to really initiate and establish the sense of separation by this tremendous, mutual, joyful appreciation. Like you are the greatest and you're just like me. And I don't know who you are, but you're really like me, and it's a big comfort, and I'm having a really good time looking at you smile at me. And I can see through your eyes your brain, which is really getting excited, and now mine is too. And mine needs to, for certain cognitive processes to be initiated. This is just the greatest, and now I've had enough of it. But this is one theory of how the self develops. through this interaction which is necessary to become neurologically well-equipped to suffer and so on.

[28:26]

So that's the face-to-face transmission of the illusion of separation. which later will be overcome by the face-to-face transmission of non-separation. And so when you're in samadhi, your awareness is ready to receive that teaching and be like the teaching. So your mind and body become like the teaching, which is saying, you're not separate from your mother. You already learned how to think you're separate from your mother. That job's done. Now we're going to overcome that with the teaching which says you're not separate from your mother, and she's not separate from you, and there's no mother without child, and you're not separate from Buddha, and there's no Buddha without you. Got that teaching? Now we want to make our mind like that too. That's the Samadhi part. Yes, Kurt? Do babies, when they're newborn into the world, are they just in a state of samadhi?

[29:38]

Or do they have to have that sense of self before? Because my sense of them is that they're just open to the world. I think, again, I'm proposing that actually our nature is that we are in samadhi. But we get distracted by appearances that we're not. And I think the new-born baby is not yet so distracted, but they still don't understand that they're in samadhi. And some, I think more than others, do understand they're in samadhi, so some are quite calm. But then often something happens and they lose it. And they lose it for a long time. And then actually their loss of samadhi is enhanced by socialization process. But they never really lose the samadhi, they never really lose the intimate transmission that they have with their mother and father and brothers and sisters and Buddhas.

[30:41]

It is innate experience and it never goes away, we always have it. It is our true nature. that we are in the midst, that our life experience is actually an intimate community. That's our actual life experience. But we don't realize it without teaching, and then without training ourselves with the teaching. So the baby has it, the teaching of substance, as much as you do. And the baby delusion processes are somewhat different, but they will soon be like ours. And one of the differences, which I was talking to someone about earlier, between babies and adults, is people find it quite easy to adore these little deluded beings, who totally believe their stories, are totally believed in separation, totally upset about it, or totally ecstatic about it.

[31:47]

But if an adult was the same way, a lot of people would have trouble adoring them. And so a lot of people think, since I don't find adults who are really deluded to be adorable, and I find children adorable, I'm going to not notice that children are deluded. But I feel confidence that it is really possible to adore deluded people. And I understand that Buddhas adore deluded people. They are totally devoted to beings who do not understand what they would like them to understand. And from the Buddha's perspective, everybody who's not up on this is a child. And this loving devotion to them brings them to the place of facing their delusion, practicing kindness towards it, listening to the teaching, and developing samadhi.

[32:53]

And if they haven't got it before, they should get it now. If they haven't got this kindness before, give it to them now. Justin? Just going back just a little bit, you had said that sense of subject and object almost always appears in separation. Does it almost always appear in separation? Or is that sense of separation just the name of appearance? What? Yeah, that's right, that's right. I was laughing because I was looking for my fan. And Tracy says, no. So what was the question again? I'll go back to the fan later. I was explaining while I was laughing. So the last thing he said was, is it just the nature of appearance that it's... Appears separation.

[34:05]

Yeah. So appearances appear separate. Appearances are just appearances. They appear separate. And they also appear to be true. Even though we call them appearances, we act like they're true rather than just appearances. For example, you and Lee and Angela are not appearances. You're not appearances. You're like living people. But when you're converted into an appearance by one of your friends, then you look separate. But you're not an appearance. You're not separate. You are not separate from your friends. But your friends' minds make you into appearances, and then your friends' minds see you as separate, even though you're not. But appearances naturally appear to be separate, and not only do they appear separate, but again they have this subliminal statement which is, this is really true.

[35:11]

this appearance is what the person really is, and their appearance of separation is really true. That's the way appearances normally occur. And that's a necessary way to communicate, right? It's not something to necessarily... It's something that will never change, you just... No, I wouldn't say... I think you're going a little farther to say it'll never change. It's always changing. To say it's never changing is going a bit far. But it is necessary because, again, if a child doesn't get that, they won't thrive, they won't grow up. They have to get some of that, otherwise their brain won't develop properly. So we kind of need it. We need this face-to-face thing with other humans to become a normal human. And some people don't get it and it hinders their development of normal human problems. They get other human problems then. So it is normal that it happens.

[36:14]

We do kind of need it. We need to go through this process of developing a sense of separation. But it's there when we're born. It needs to be enhanced, though. And it does, in most cases, get enhanced. Otherwise, the baby will die often. Even as adults, and from what you were saying a few minutes ago, we're all kind of children, basically. But even as adults, for me to say, oh, there's Reb, hi Reb, I mean, that's appearance. I mean, that Reb I just said hello to is an appearance. No, I'm not an appearance. I'm not an appearance. But if you want to say hello to an appearance, you can say hello to any appearance you want to. including an appearance of me, but I am not an appearance of me. I do not agree to that. Any appearance you make out of me, unless just to be fun, I'm not going to say, yeah, that's actually me, that appearance.

[37:15]

Like you say, you appear to be like a below average teacher. I say, that's not what I am. You appear to be above average teacher, that's not what I am. No matter what you say I am, based on your the appearances of me that are appearing in your mind. I do agree that appearances are probably appearing in your mind, of me. But I'm not those appearances. I've got a life. And if you have appearances of me, it doesn't hinder my life. And if you have no appearances of me, it doesn't hinder my life. If you look away and have an appearance of Tracy and forget about me, I'm fine. I'm still alive. and you can make appearances out of me all you want, and it's not going to kill me. It's not. I'm glad. Even if the appearance is very complimentary, and you say, you really are above average, it's not going to kill me.

[38:17]

Especially if I know he's talking about how I'm appearing in his mind. I was more speaking about using it as a sense of convention, not believing that that person is an appearance, but recognizing that we're using appearances as convention. We're using appearances as convention? Okay, you can kind of say that, but really we're using conventions to make our appearances. Conventional reality is misleading and it's a bunch of appearances. Conventional reality is a wonderful world of appearances. The wonderful world of appearances is conventional reality. It's all words. It's not the reality of the things of our life. But we do that. I just want to explain about the fan. I was looking for the fan because I wanted to use it to make the light go up.

[39:24]

But the fan I was looking for was this one. I couldn't find this one because I had this one. This might be relevant. This is relativity theory also, right? Is this the fan or is this the fan? What is the fan? It's not this, the thing that's appearing to you. It's not this that's appearing to you. It's a living, breathing fan. It's not the wind that's appearing to you. It's not the wind blowing the Heart Sutra. It's a vast, inconceivable mystery, this fan is. But, We need it to appear so we can know it. And then when we know it, it looks like the appearance is separate from the knower. And now you are being told. That's an illusion.

[40:28]

But don't be mean to it or try to get rid of it. It's not a disease, it's just a... It's temptation! The appearance isn't a disease, it's a temptation. do not yield to the temptation of appearances. What are they tempting you to do? They're attempting to get you to say, this appearance is not an appearance, it's reality. This appearance of a friend is not just an appearance of a friend, it's really a friend. We're tempted. It looks like a real wonderful friend. We're tempted to like, yeah, that's true. Rather than, wow, this is a great show. Which, I'm not trying to get rid of the show. I just don't want to fall for it.

[41:30]

Because if I fall for it, it's going to be harmful. Sometimes just a little. But that little sometimes can turn into a big. Homa is your name. But that's not who you are. So what I heard was there was a belief that you believe in the state of samadhi and you believe in the state of duality. You mentioned something about believing. Yeah, I said something about it. If you believe in duality, then in a sense you don't believe in Samadhi. If you think that things are really separate, in a way you don't believe in Samadhi. Samadhi is that things are not separate.

[42:32]

Mind and object are not separate. That's Samadhi. So you may not feel like you've realized samadhi yet, but you might say, well I believe actually that that is samadhi and I would like to develop it. But when you actually look at things and feel that they're separate at that moment, it's like you believe that they're separate. And so in that moment you don't realize samadhi, even though it's right there. So not realizing it is similar to you don't believe in it. Okay, so not realizing it is similar to not believing, but it's not that you believe it, because of your belief you experience samadhi. It's not... Actually, if your belief got strong enough, that subject and object weren't separate, your belief might make you realize that state. Okay, because I never thought of it as a belief. I see the state, but then I never thought that this is something I believe.

[43:38]

How about this? Do you ever see that things seem separate? Do things appear separate to you ever? Yes, it appears separate, but I don't think that separation is because I believe it's separate. It just appears separate. Yeah, exactly. It appears separate, and it looks so real that you believe it. Most people. It really looks like it's separate. It's so convincing that I actually believe that you're separate from me. And you didn't try to believe it, it just was such a good trick that you said, okay, it's like a card trick. You believed that it actually happened. I didn't mean to, but in fact I actually did think that that person did that trick. It was a magical a magical illusion, and I believed it. So when I believe in separation, I'm believing in an illusion, and at that moment I don't really believe in Samadhi. In other words, I don't really believe that you're not separate from me.

[44:40]

But we don't exactly try to talk ourselves into it. We try to not be distracted from and by the appearance of separation. to give up distraction. Okay, so here I am, state of separation and believing in duality and then buying into it. Yeah, that's normal situation. Okay, and then state of samadhi and believing into it and buying into it. Gives me an experience here, an experience here, so I don't see any separation. They're not separate. However, when you actually do believe in separation, in that belief, you don't realize Samadhi even though it's not separate from you. When you believe in the sense of separation, when you buy into it, at that moment you don't realize Samadhi, even though the Samadhi is not separate from you.

[45:45]

It's right there with you, but because you believe this, you don't realize that. When you're in Samadhi, you don't believe in Samadhi realized, you just realize it, and when you realize it, you don't believe separation. You can still see it though. When you're in Samadhi, you can still walk up and down the stairs. You can see the stairs and put your feet down and stuff like that, but the stairs are not separate from your feet anymore. They never were. Matter of fact, that's what stairs are for. They're things not to be separate from, except when you're moving it to the next step. So you put your foot on one step, and you take your foot off the last one and move it to the next one. There's a sense of separation there. But you don't believe it, and that helps you walk. It's really nice. And if you realize the Samadhi of walking up and down stairs, you can still walk up and down, but peacefully. Yeah, you're in a tranquil, concentrated process of walking.

[46:52]

So we don't get rid of the appearance of separation. We just see it as a magical creation. We respect it. Just like the chat we did, we're nice to the people who are most cruel to us, we're kind to them. We treat them like Buddhas. In this way we develop a sense of non-separation. Sure. You may. In that non-separation, are there differences? Yes, there is non-separation with all the differences.

[47:54]

So there's Karen is different from Robin, is different from Linda, is different from Laurie, is different from Elenia. See the differences? There they are. When there's Samadhi, it's the same. What's the difference between Samadhi and not Samadhi? All these differences are one-pointed with the discrimination of the differences. Not in Samadhi, there's discrimination and differences being discriminated, and they're separate. That's not Samadhi. And that's not really our nature. That's what creates a turbulent, disoriented state. And that's our normal... Statistically speaking, that's the normal state for the bell curve of Samadhi. most people are like believing it. Believing all the differences. But it isn't that we eliminate the differences or eliminate the separation.

[48:59]

It's that we engage it in such a way as to not believe the separation or all the differences. So, when we're studying the the summary of the Mahayana, that's the summary of the great vehicle. There's a part of it which talks about what's it like when you enter into understanding, when you have insight into conscious construction only, which is another technical term for the precious mirror. What's it like when you realize that everything appears is actually an appearance? It's just conscious construction. It's threefold. Number one, when you enter into understanding that everything's just an appearance, all things that exist are just an appearance, number one is that it's one-pointed, it's a unity. Number two, it's a duality.

[50:00]

Number three, it's a multiplicity. A multiplicity. So when you enter into understanding this precious mirror, number one, it's a unity. You look at the mirror, and the mirror is you. But also the mirror is not you. It's a unity. And there's a subject and an object. Subject, me, mirror, object. There's a duality. There's not a duality, it's two. And it's multiple. So the enlightenment about the nature of mind includes unity, duality, and multiplicity. So we spent a long time studying that teaching about conscious construction only. This teaching about the precious mirror is a Chinese Zen reworking of the same teaching.

[51:04]

which I'm sorry that some of you who are new to this situation don't know what I'm referring to, but if you stay here twenty years or so, you'll know everything. Yes? Thank you. The part in the Precious Nurse Samadhi when it talks about the archer and the arrow, and when the two What you're talking about right now seems like that's exactly what it is when the two points actually meet, and that makes me think of the position that this is also the arrow where the two points meet. Yeah, so in the later part of the song it says, when arrow tips meet, what does this have to do with the power of skill? And that refers to a story.

[52:14]

I told you the story, didn't I? About Archer Lee? Archer Yee? Yeah. Archer Yee. I don't remember. You don't remember the story? No. Well, it's getting late, but I'll try to tell it quickly. Once upon a time there was an archer. And his name was Mr. Lee. Mr. Yee. And he had a student. And his student got very skillful. And the student thought one day, I'm the best archer in all of China, except for one person, my teacher, Mr. Yi. If I killed my teacher, then I would be the best archer in China. So he proposed an archery match with his teacher, where they would shoot at each other. Now, I don't think his teacher was intending on killing his leading student, because he was already the best archer in China, and he didn't particularly want to kill the second best one.

[53:20]

But he agreed to the match, even though he didn't want to kill his student. But the student actually wanted to kill the teacher. So they got away from each other. The student shot the arrow, which would have killed his teacher, and his teacher shot the arrow, which wouldn't have killed his student. because he wasn't trying to kill a student. He was practicing intimate communion. And so the arrows went up, and they met in mid-air. And it didn't even... They really met. It wasn't like one pushed the other one over that way a little bit, or vice versa. They met in perfect agreement, and they dropped together to the ground. And when they hit the ground, there was no dust. And the comment is, in a situation like this, what does this have to do with the power of skill? At that time, we dropped this burden of I shot the arrow, or I shot the sheriff.

[54:31]

We realize that we're not doing this by ourselves. But sometimes there has to be this kind of meeting for us to realize it's time to let go of, I'm doing things over here, separate from you over there. But that meeting is the teaching of suchness. That meeting is Samadhi. And I don't get to Samadhi by my own power. I do have some power, But this real, enlightened, concentrated mirror is not by my power. It's by our intimate communion. And intimate communion means that I'm aware of non-intimacy. In other words, the appearance of separation. Non-intimacy appears. But non-intimacy is just an appearance. Okay?

[55:34]

Don't worry. Non-intimacy is just an appearance. And intimacy is not another appearance. So non-intimacy is just an appearance. It's not real. And intimacy that's an appearance is not real intimacy. The real intimacy is not an appearance. The real intimacy is your life. Your life is real intimacy, and that's not an appearance. But part of being human is we like to see the real intimacy. But as soon as you see it, it's an appearance. That's not it. Or like somebody said to me today, my talking to you now could be an expression of suchness. And I said, that's right. And he said, and it actually could be suchness. And I said, no.

[56:35]

What you're doing now is an expression of suchness. It's an expression of teaching. What I'm doing now is an expression of a teaching of suchness. You can see this expression or this functioning of the teaching of suchness. This is it. You're seeing it right now. And I'm seeing your expression of it. But what you're seeing is not it. And that's another appearance of the teaching of suchness. Anyway, he laughed more than you're laughing. And now he's not laughing at all. But we are expressing it all day long, but it's not how we appear to be expressing. It's not the appearance of my expression that is the expression. But nothing can stop the expression. And also we're not trying to stop the interpretation of the expression as appearance.

[57:43]

We have to learn to be kind to the appearances And when we can be one-pointed with the appearances, we can open to the actuality that the appearances are based on. Thank you very much for another great Saturday. You're welcome. May we meet again on the Great Way. May our intention equally extend to every being and place. May this true merit of the Buddha's way. Beings are numberless.

[58:38]

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