Once, in China, in the Tang Dynasty, a disciple of Buddha was sitting. His name was Yaoshan, that was his name, which means medicine mountain. Yaoshan is one of the ancestors of the lineage of this temple. He is 36th ancestor in a line of about 91 or two or three. Now it's up to 92.

[01:03]

92 generations up to the present. And he was sitting, and a monk came up to him and said, what's it like? How is it for you? when you're sitting so still? What kind of thinking is going on? What kind of feelings do you have when you're sitting so still? And Yao Shan said, I'm thinking of that which doesn't think.

[02:28]

And the monk said, I was thinking And Yao Shan said, . Uh, would you mind playing kind of like a church theme? I'll say something and you say something. Is that okay? Sure. Okay, so, I'm sorry.

[03:38]

I'll say, I'll be the monk. You'll be the Yosha, okay? You'll be the medicine monk. What's it like when you're sitting so still? I had an easier time thinking about it. You made a mock-up in your shop. What do you mean? I'm thinking about the unthinking. Nothing can help you to . What's it like when you're sitting so still?

[04:55]

How is thinking of the unthinking? Thank you. the actual expression that the monk used was interesting one. He said in Japanese, the Japanese translation of this is, in Gotsu Gotsu Chi, Gotsu Gotsu Chi, Gotsu is a Chinese character which is written, I'm going to write it backwards so you can see it. It's got a horizontal line which is drawn like that, and then another line coming down like this. This is a horizontal line. There's a line coming down like this, and a line coming down like this.

[06:05]

This is like a horizontal line with two legs coming down. And the image is, you know, like this. A monk sitting, or a person sitting, holding up the heaven like that. How about all mountain? Gozu, that's character gozu, which means, you know, stable like a mountain. Okay? And the monk says, gozu, gozu, and gozu, true gozu means even more stable. and she means earth. So in this immovable, immovable earth, in that kind of stillness, what kind of thinking is there? But added interest here for me in that expression is that gotsu gotsu also means

[07:23]

wobbly, like a drone. So in one sense, the monk is asking, what's it like when you're sitting with a still? But in another sense, what he's asking is, what's it like when you're sitting in the actual dynamic of life, which is sitting like a immovable mountain and also very wobbly? The sitting that this medicine mountain was doing was in one sense immovable, but in another sense it's fragile and it's fleeting and dependent on many things.

[08:41]

This stick is a symbol of right speech. It's also a symbol of Buddha's tongue. Or the other way, Buddha's tongue. So Buddha's tongue speaks the truth. And when I hold it up in my hands, in one sense, I try to hold it still. If I don't try to hold it still, if it wobbles, I think the reason why it's wobbling is because I'm not really trying to hold it still. But if I try to hold it still myself, I see that it never is still. They walk, right now, shaking like a leaf in the wind.

[10:14]

Can you see it? All living beings in the world, all living beings in the world, throughout every planet, are holding this up. I can't hold it still by myself. If this ever holds still, it's the stillness that all living beings hold it in. And Buddha's right speech is not something that Buddha does, but Buddha sits up there and speaks the truth. The truth that Buddha speaks is a truth that all of us let Buddha speak. The stillness that we sit in is a stillness that all living beings create together.

[11:30]

Sitting in that stillness, that stillness is real stillness. That is a stillness that I, as an individual person, or you as an individual person, cannot do. Sitting in that stillness, Yarsan said, there, in that stillness, sitting that way, is thinking. of that which doesn't sink. So if you sit down and... Is that okay to sit on the floor like that? You can sit on here for a moment. It's softer for the cushion.

[12:53]

If I sit, maybe I can sit pretty still. Really, I mean really, I'm moving. Blood's flowing through me. Things are gurgling around in my intestines. A lot of things are growing and dying. It's actually a very dynamic situation. There's a cartoonist who draws pictures for the New Yorker named Booth, I think. And one of his cartoons, the man sitting in the bathtub singing, coming back and he said, I'm like a duck in a pond.

[14:13]

On the surface, serene and classic. Under the surface, my feet are paddling like hell. I once met a key teacher of the Borasenpe School. I'm . I met a teacher at the school. school. means front door, I think. means back door. The right? Reverse. And he was like number two or number three in the whole school.

[15:22]

He was 78 years old at that time. That was about 10 years ago. And he was going to give a tea class, tea students and tea teachers. He came in, and I was immediately favorably impressed, very impressed, very calm, loving creature. And he talked with tea class, various tea teachers came up and did their various tea ceremonies, and usually somewhat esoteric aspects of tea ceremony. And he would make comments and teach them various things. At the end, there was some mix up in his schedule. So people said, why don't you do tea? And so he did tea, and he did the simplest, most basic form of tea. You know, he showed the most basic thing.

[16:24]

And he did it in such a way that I would say, I would actually, I would say now, but also I would quote my tea teacher who said, when he did it, he was just tea. I mean, there was nothing there anyway but tea. He didn't even look good. You know, it wasn't like, wow, do you see the way he did it? He was just tea. They were just keeping me. There was no brilliance. Of course, he did it correctly. He didn't make any big mistakes. But the impressive thing about him was that there was nothing to keep. He had a wife who was there with him. And she was running all over the place. making possible him being just tea. She was a tea teacher too, but he was not just tea.

[17:36]

She was doing various kinds of arrangements to make possible just tea. Still, I'm not saying we shouldn't try to sit still. We should sit still. But that stillness which I can do, that stillness which you can do, which is sometimes pretty still and pretty nice, that's not complete stillness. The complete stillness is a stillness which is actually made possible, brought to you by everything. That's there too. That's where Buddha sits. And that sitting gives thinking of that which doesn't think. It's not like the person sitting there and sitting there in the dynamic sitting, the truly profound sitting, which no one person can do.

[18:42]

Not even Buddha can do it. But the sitting that all living beings make possible. In other words, the actual sitting. Just like when I hold the stick up from a distance, you may think it's still. But up close, it's much more dynamic than that. It's much more vital than that. It's actually what's happening. And that is viewed very well. Sitting in that place is not like this stick is thinking all of a sudden, but this stick is thinking of something else. This stick is that which we call thinking of the unthinking. And sitting still in the true stillness, the stillness which no one person can deal with, that sitting, it's not like you're sitting in there and you're thinking of something in addition to that sitting.

[19:43]

That sitting still is stillness. the thinking of the unthinking. And there actually is thinking, but the thinking is exactly the sitting still, the actual sitting still. And then the monk said, how is thinking of the unthinking? And Medicine Monkey said, non-thinking. Another one of our ancestors commenting on this story said that when the monk said, how is thinking of the unthinking?

[20:59]

that that is the answer. That is an explanation that is further instruction in thinking of beyond thinking. In other words, thinking of beyond thinking is how. And how is also instruction in true sitting still. How is also instruction in speaking the truth. I don't have a truth before I meet another person. The truth is something that, again, comes up on that occasion in the complexity of the meeting. Now the point that I can't decide whether to stop or not is something else I want to talk about.

[22:50]

Are you filled to the brim now? Quiet. I'll just sit here a little longer, and if anybody wants to say more, let me know. OK, Della. There was a book out now, and it's called a load less route.

[24:12]

You know, it's called A Road Less Traveled, I think. And it's, I think, been on the bestseller list for 299 weeks or something. And... Just for the fun of it, lately I've manifested the form of a crusader or an underdog or something like that. Because this guy's got this bestseller out there. He's putting out a certain truth about Buddhism on the first page of his book. And I have a different version. So here I am squeaking this little voice here. He's got millions of copies out there saying it's something different. But I just feel like I'm going to say it. So what he says at the beginning of the book, he says, life, I think he said life's difficult or something like that.

[25:20]

Well, that's true. But then he goes a little further and he says that this is something that's been said by Buddha, too. And then he has a little footnote and says, Buddha said life is suffering. But that was the first truth of Buddha. But Buddha didn't actually, as far as I know, say that. Of course, he didn't say it in English, but he didn't say it, what he said was in Sanskrit, he didn't say it in Sanskrit either, but what his statement is translated as into Sanskrit, is that what he said was something like . The five aggregates of existence is frustration and suffering.

[26:25]

The five aggregates of our existence, when we cling to them, this is a definition of suffering and frustration. So Buddha's teaching is that, and then he explained that there's a way to drop this cling. Right when you have an existence which has these five components, is a way to stop the clinging, or even when clinging, to let go. And when you let go of that stuff and just let it be, also the suffering drops away. So life itself is not necessarily suffering if you don't cling to it. As a matter of fact, whether you cling to it or not, it's just life. But if you cling to it, you get an extra bonus called misery and frustration.

[27:35]

So life is this thing that's completely sitting still and wobbling at the same time. Life is this dynamic, ungraspable, total event that everybody's included in and nobody can be outside to play with it. Everybody's in the wash. Everybody's churning around in this fantastically white situation. And if you try to hold on to it, you get an extra kick called suffering. That's what Buddha said. So if you want to get rid of that extra kick, then all you got to do is stop cleaning. The instruction I just gave is for the story about sitting still. is an example of a practice in, there you go, of the external. Again, try to sit still.

[28:48]

You know, when you're sitting still, that's your life. you try to hold onto the city still, and you get in there and hold onto the city still, and you grasp the city still, you'll be frustrated. If I try to hold this stick still, I will be frustrated. The stick will shake. But if I join the way the stick actually is, which is a stick, the way the stick is made by all of us together, and just let it vibrate as it vibrates. And let my body and let your body vibrate as it vibrates. Vibrate, be impermanent, be conditioned by everything. Then these little cleans grievously drop away.

[29:51]

I mention that because in the process of going from holding sticks by yourself to letting, to joining all beings holding sticks, the transition from there is sort of sad. It's not suffering unless you're clean to the sadness But there is a little pain in the transition from me holding sticks to joining the world where everybody holds a stick. There's some pain in the transition or some grieving in the transition from me sitting still, from the sitting still that I can do. It's not going to be sitting still, but from the sitting still to the extent that I can do it, and the sitting still that I can be proud of. And I can be pretty proud of my sitting still. Sometimes I say pretty still. Going from that proud sitting still, giving up my pride, and going to a sitting still which is really sitting still, which is the big stillness that everybody joins in and everybody makes possible, and me no more than anybody else.

[31:10]

Joining that big sitting is where Buddha sits. But moving from my little manipulated stillness over to this one, there's some grieving there. That grieving, again, is not frustration and misery. It's just a natural grieving from giving up an old and unnecessary pal. It's like, I'm very sorry to lose my 5,000 pound teddy bear that I've been carrying on my shoulders. It's sad. Even though it's bending me over and torturing me still, when I put it aside and I feel relieved, I'm still sad to see a poor guy or girl. And the teddy bear is not really anything other than my pride, my pride that I could sit, or I could hold a stick up, or I could speak Buddhist truth, or I could understand, or I could help.

[32:22]

Moving from that I can help to that I join all beings in helping, moving from that I could open my little heart to the reality of my heart gets opened by everybody and everything. Moving from that little reality to the big one, there's some sadness. And again, if in the process of moving you try to control that, there'll be misery around the sadness. Some people try to control the amount of grief that they go through in the transition. There are two aspects to that.

[33:31]

One is called sitting, sitting still, which I've been talking about today. That's one aspect, sitting still, OK? And at the beginning, they trick you, and they tell you, the sitting still, that's as bad as the sitting still you can do, because almost no one would dare try to do the big sitting still right off, because that would put the teddy bear down immediately. You have to put your pride aside right away. That's too much to ask. Some of you may be just coming here today, so I'm sorry. So you practice with some pride maybe for a while. Well, I can sit still now for 40 minutes. Pretty good. Or 20 minutes or 10 seconds or whatever. And eventually, anyway, as you get stronger and stronger, You need to have enough pride so that you can face the fact that you can't do it. And then you start sitting still.

[34:37]

So that's one aspect of Zen practice, sitting still, this true sitting still, which is the same as thinking of that which doesn't think, which is the same as how. is called Hao's sitting, or the sitting of Hao. The other aspect of Zen practice is to go to a teacher and ask about the Dharma. In other words, act out this dynamic sitting. Act out the dynamic stillness in a relationship This is the sitting, and all living beings are the same. This is the sitting still you do. It's you doing the sitting for everybody, and you act that out with another person or another living being.

[35:39]

That's the other aspect. To get it outside and do it times two, and then keep going. There are many examples of us getting it outside. Actually, the story I started with is an example of a monk and Yaoshan. The story between them is the same as the story that you enact in your own certain skill. The story between them is also That story is a story about sitting still. And what they were doing with each other is demonstrating what we mean by sitting still. Sitting still includes all this chatter that we do with each other.

[36:43]

Sitting still includes all the stuff we're doing together. That's sitting still. You see how still sitting still is? You see how nothing that happens between us What was disturbing? Once there was a whooping crane. This whooping crane, a female whooping crane, was born in, I believe, Austin, Texas, in a zoo. And her keeper was a male Homo sapien. You know what Homo sapiens are? That's what we're trying to find out. And when she was born, the first thing she saw was this male Homo sapien, and she imprinted on him.

[37:47]

In other words, she'd fallen low. She thought he was the was the whole that she thought he and she were the story of life of a whooping crane. So she grew up, and the zookeeper tried to, whooping cranes, by the way, are an endangered species. They fall in love with other species. This makes things much more complicated. The same thing happens in different kinds of Buddhists. Some Zen Buddhists are falling in love with people from other schools. That seems very complicated. So anyway, when she grew up and became a mature female whooping crane, they tried to make her with male whooping cranes, but she wasn't interested in whooping cranes. She only liked men. So anyway, that was the problem.

[38:56]

Meanwhile, up in Wisconsin, there was another male Homo sapien who was also interested in, what do you call it, raising or propagating whooping kernels. And somehow the zookeeper, and he got in touch And the female whooping crane was sent out to Wisconsin. And the guy up there named her Tex. And it turns out that female whooping cranes, maybe quite a few other birds, maybe most birds, I don't know. the egg will not descend until she dances.

[40:03]

And she won't dance unless the male dances. So this man studied and found out about how male whooping cranes dance. And he got dressed up as a male will be framed. And he danced. And he danced, and he danced. And finally, Tex got up and danced. And because she danced, It came down and then she was artificially inseminated with regular male whooping crane seminal fluid. And it took.

[41:06]

However, in a sense, being a single parent, and living in captivity, With all those stresses, the single parents in captivity were subject to nervousness and pressure, all these things. The egg came down, but the shell was too thin, and the baby didn't survive. And this man went through the same process three years in a row. And each year, something went wrong. Each year, a text got advanced, and it came down, but something went wrong. The baby didn't live. And then the fourth year, she was too busy to spend the time courting texts.

[42:12]

And so he skipped the year, and then the next year he decided that this year he was going to really put total energy into his relationship with X. He wasn't just going to do the dance and then split. So this time, he went through the same courting process. But then after they created the fertilized egg, he moved in six. He built a little house where they both could live with straw where she could sleep. And he slept next to her. And he slept less than she did. So he was a writer. He had his typewriter there in the little house. And when she was sleeping, he would do his writing. And when she went out forging for food, he went with it. He did everything with it.

[43:15]

And this additional participation, this additional effort, allowed the process to go to completion and make a strong egg. everything, and she related the egg as what's necessary. And it worked out the day he was born. So you see I'm making the proposal that this is a sit still. that this is what I mean by city is built. Also what I mean by city is built is sitting with your legs crossed and entering the stillness of all living beings. But also when you get up and move around the world, city still is like that, I would say.

[44:23]

That total engagement, total generosity, total patience, total concentration, total honesty and ethical straightforwardness, and insight and wisdom and compassion are all there. And that's what we mean by sitting still. When we're sitting alone, all those things are happening with me. and then your relic wouldn't go out among other living beings, that's the way it is. This is also an example of what we mean by life when you're not clinging to it. It's not easy to do this because you gotta keep putting down all these huge teddy bears You have to keep putting aside all these things which you have become accustomed to but don't need as a matter of fact are bending you out of shape and not letting you get up and dance.

[45:43]

But it's funny, you know, for a grown homo sapien to get up and dance in front of a whoopee train. But that's what she needed. That's what he needed. Before he danced, I bet he felt sort of some reservation about it, I would guess. But when he actually got into it, I bet he felt good. And when she got up, imagine how he felt. And what I would say is that This is not a very good thing to say, but I would say that sitting still is that much fun. It's as much fun as mating with other species, not to mention your own.

[46:46]

And some people think it's even more fun than mating. But anyway, they're both sort of, from what I would say, they're either They're both sort of like the two most fun things that living beings can do. And they both have to do with reproduction, with giving rise to the next birth, the next generation. The next generation of flesh or the next generation of happiness and freedom. and shakiness with all living beings. But who wants to be shaky all the time? That's the answer. Who does? Who you really are, or the really that you're who, is willing to be still, be shaky. But Buddha is actually kind of nervous, kind of shaky.

[48:02]

Buddha is so free that Buddhists are willing to be kind of stupid. I don't even have enough of it. And Yao Chang said, you're too brilliant. And Bai Yun said, well, what about you? And Yao Chang said, I've lived for long. Ungainly in a hundred ways. Awkward in a thousand ways. Till I go on like this. This is the still of the Akshan. This is not clean to self. This is doing many dances with whooping cranes.

[49:16]

Or at least the style of practice. You don't have to practice that way. Just like you don't have to be a whooping crane. Each of us have our own way. You know, when Baiyang said, I don't even have nothing, did you feel how neat that was? Wasn't that nice? But a little bit too brilliant, maybe. A little bit too brilliant. A little bit too much like holding a stick still, all by yourself. But Yaoshan, Yaoshan's a little bit limping, a little bit limping because, This body is done by all living beings. It's not going to walk the way I want it to. It's going to limp. It's going to be a little awkward. When you first start doing a mating dance, if you're going to do it with a whooping friend, probably you don't know how so well.

[50:36]

You're going to be awkward. When you first start sitting still, as Buddha said, still, you're going to be awkward. You're not used to that. You haven't been doing Buddha sitting for a little while. You can't remember that you're Buddha. So it's kind of a little shaky at first. And at second and at third, it's always going to be shaky because it's always a new dance. So this is how students It's not exactly, this is how to think, or this is how to sit. It's a little bit too much to be finishing it all. It's rather, this is how to sit. Right now, the sitting you're doing, the breathing you're doing, the thinking you're doing, this is how's life.

[51:36]

Please do everybody a big favor. Please do everybody a big kindness and keep Hao alive. Please keep Yaoshan's Hao alive. Good day to all the world's saints and children.

[52:33]

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