The form of having Dharma talks provides a venue for telling stories. It also provides, creates, in a sense, some might say, a place for practice of the way, or a place for enlightenment, bodhimanda or bodhimandala. Setting the time aside in the day, setting the place aside in the world, a space has been created for enlightenment and for speaking in an enlightened circle or a circle for enlightenment. A story I will say this morning is a story about the first eight months of this year that there has been some effort to bring forth ancient teachings on the nature of phenomena, the nature of reality, for practitioners to listen to and contemplate in hopes that their minds and hearts would open to the true nature of phenomena. That they would move ever more intimately with the ultimate true nature of phenomena which we call a lack of inherent existence, an emptiness of inherent existence, suchness, the thoroughly established character of phenomena, the consummate nature of phenomena. This ultimate nature of phenomena, this emptiness of independent existence of all things, is the object of a king of wisdom which we call wisdom beyond wisdom, the supreme wisdom. Prajna Paramita. The mother of the buddha. The kind of wisdom that all the buddhas are born with and continually practice. So the first eight months have been a great joy to me to share and study these teachings, to walk around the circle of enlightenment and gaze at the teachings of emptiness for bodhisattvas who wish to realize the perfection of wisdom.
   In our ordination ceremony, in our bodhisattva initiation ceremony, which includes the giving of the bodhisattva precepts, as I mentioned before, the ceremony begins by purifying the space, by purifying the bodhimanda, the practice place. The Japanese word dojo which you’ve heard, which is sometimes used for zendos, but also for martial arts studios, do means way, but it also means enlightenment, and jo means place. So dojo literally means a place for the way, so it could be judo, the place for practicing judo, or the place for practicing karate, or the place for practicing zen, but also it can be translated as the place for enlightenment, so we start the ceremony by creating a place for enlightenment, a place for attaining the way and we offer incense and we bow. The ordinees or the initiates come into the space and then the first thing we do is again now we invoke, we invite the buddhas and bodhisattvas and all the ancestors to come and be present in the space for attaining the way, for touching the way, for realizing enlightenment. And then the next thing that happens, after everybody’s here, this first part’s basically setting up the place and arriving, the first big act once things are set up is renunciation. It’s just a short little part of the ceremony which for many people is symbolized by cutting a little bit of their hair off, a slight alteration of their coiffure, and for monks, for priests in entering training, we cut all their hair off and in the ceremony they’re mostly shaved when they arrive and we cut the last little bit off and then we even cut more off. So the idea is to let go of attachments but also to let go of false views. Let go of the false view that things inherently exist so the ceremony of realizing the way is a ceremony which starts by giving up the attachments to the views of inherent existence. In a sense the ceremony is over at that point and then you just receive the precepts which will enable you once you have realized wisdom, you know, they’ll be your sort of like driving instructions.
   So this year so far the effort has been to encourage the renunciation of the belief that there is actually an existing self. There isn’t a self. Not at all. But there is the belief in self. And there is suffering which arises from the belief in self. But what we’re believing in when we believe in a self, an independent thing, that independent thing does not exist, There are no such things. There are no independent things according to the enlightened ones. But we do recognize that people do have beliefs. Now these beliefs don’t have selves, but they do appear and they do exist and beliefs arise in dependence on conditions and mental imputation. And we do have beliefs that things exist independent of mental imputation. We believe that, inherently. Innately, we believe that. So we want to encourage beings to give up the belief in inherent existence, belief in self, belief in the substantial body of self. So we set up a space for people to ritually express renunciation and after that we spend minutes and hours and months and years studying, meditating on teachings which say that over and over and over, and talk about the relationship between the way things appear, the way things exist dependently, and how they lack independent existence, in other words the relationship between form and feelings and all mental phenomenon and physical phenomenon and their lack of inherent existence, how they’re not really separate. Everything comes with this ultimate nature.
   And so we had a priest’s ceremony, and then after the priest’s ceremony the abbess Linda Ruth gave a talk, and she talked about this spiritual communion between request and response, or stimulus and response, the relationship between those who are not enlightened yet but who have the potential, and those who have realized the potential. This communion between them she brought up, and then I brought it up at the beginning of sesshin again partly to set the context for the understanding of how we study the teachings of wisdom. I think it’s helpful to note that just like in the ordination ceremony, we set up a space for the study, for the practice of renunciation, and then we invite the buddhas to come, and with the buddhas present we then give up our attachments. We give up our views of inherent existence. It’s in this communion that the actuality of the practice arises, I propose to you, and there is that teaching floating around in Chinese and other East Asian forms of Buddhism, of buddha teaching. And now it’s circulating a little bit in America.
   I think it’s helpful not to view the study of wisdom as something you do by yourself, but when you start studying, when you pick up a text, or listen to a teaching, realize that you’re, that this idea you’re doing it by a self is exactly the opposite of what you’re trying to see. So the feeling that you’re practicing together with everyone, or at least listening to that teaching, is visualizing a context for your study of selflessness which is selfless.
   So I intended to just sort of set up that context, that vision of how practice arises. Again, as you may have heard me say, the actual wish to achieve supreme enlightenment for the welfare of the world does not, is said by our ancestors, not to arise from you or from me or from the buddhas. The wish to become buddha does not arise from you or the buddhas. The wish for you to become a buddha can come from a buddha, but your wish, the wish in you, to become a buddha does not come from the buddhas. The wish in them for you to be a buddha does not arise in them. They do have that wish, but that wish does not arise from them. And it doesn’t arise from you. And the wish in you to be like them doesn’t arise in your or them. The wish for you to be buddha and their wish that you would be buddha arises in the relationship between you and buddha. The wish to be a buddha arises in communion between buddhas and buddha maybe wannabes. And also it arises between buddhas and buddha not wannabes. Some people are walking along not wanting to be a buddha and suddenly this unexpected, unanticipated, overwhelming desire wipes away the person who didn’t want to be a buddha and is replaced now by a person who does want to be a buddha. But the person does not make it happen and the buddha does not make it happen. I suggest to you the proposal that it happens in the actual relationship between the person and buddha and that’s also what I intended to say at th beginning of the talk here and I think maybe I did. And I’m just going to do that and then move on to study the renunciation of all misconceptions of the nature of phenomena. But somehow it seemed like you needed more time, so we spent the whole seshin on it, and who knows how much more time will be devoted to this. I actually kind of enjoy losing control that I never had.
   I was in Japan one time, I think I was in Japan, I was some place on this planet, I’m sure I was on this planet, and I was with some Japanese priests, and somebody asked them what this thing was for, this thing I have in my hands, this is made of wood I think, it’s called a kotsu, and this one’s got almost like a little hook on the top of it. They’re not all shaped quite so hook like, but anyway it’s got a little hook and the person said, what’s this for, and he says, “it’s for pulling the buddhas and bodhisattvas down into the room.” You reach up and pull them into the room for the ceremony. At the time I thought maybe he was kind of kidding because he kind of was smiling when he said it, but that’s what he said. Some other people say it’s a back scratcher. And of course it also looks like one of those party favors. Those things you blow and they open up. This is the fully extended form of a party favor.
   Student: Looks like a cobra.
   Reb: I thought she said, looks like a cro-bar. This is for prying people away from their belief in inherent existence. Let go. Let go.
   When some people came to see me during this sesshin, and I looked at them and I thought wow, you’ve got a new, I didn’t say this necessarily, but I thought wow, these people have really nice new robes. Like Gwen has a nice new robe, don’t you Gwen? Not so new? You have a nice robe. And I actually am not big on getting you people all to wear these black robes. My bulldozer tendency does not apply in that direction. I really am not into that too much. I don’t know who is besides the people who make robes. I’m into the top robe. I’m into the okesa and the rakusu. I’m into the traditional Buddhist robe. I’m into somewhat. Maybe not as much as some of the fanatics around here. But I think they’re really great and I’m really happy and I think it’s wonderful, but the other robe I’m not so much into, but I noticed people are wearing them. A lot of people have nice robes. And other people are observing the form, the regulation of wearing muted colors in the zendo. Did they say that to you, to wear muted colors? So we have that form. And before people come to sesshin, we suggest that they do two one-day sittings. And regular one-day sittings. There are some one day sittings that don’t have oryoki meals in them. They’re offered here. There’s not much formality. But we suggest you do regular ones because a lot of people, if they don’t have that introduction, they come to these sesshins, and they don’t know, they hear about it, but they don’t know what it feels like to sit through an oryoki meal or to serve or to do this chanting and bowing. And then sometimes other rituals happen during sesshin. So I personally and know other people too who are taking care of these retreats, I’d rather not have people come here and see the forms and then sort of reject them and leave, or just sort of spend the whole week fighting. I kind of prefer for people to you know see what they’re like and then if they want to do them, come and do them, but not feel like we’re forcing people to do these things. They’re like being offered, and so if a person wants to try it, fine, but if you don’t come and try it and see them you don’t know necessarily whether you’d like it. You might think you would like it. So you know like most vipassana centers in the United States, they don’t have a formal meal ceremony as far as I know. They have quiet meals. And also even the other Zen centers don’t necessarily have as much formality as this Zen center, as much rituals and ceremonies, so I think it’s good for people to know about them beforehand and see if they like them and want to do them, want to practice them. So these forms and ceremonies somehow seem to be part of the practice here. But another part of the reason for people seeing that is that Zen is often presented as anti-ritualistic, and anti-formalistic, and anti-ceremonial, and you know I wasn’t attracted to any stories about Zen monks doing ceremonies. I was attracted to Zen monks interacting in daily life situations in wonderful ways and then interacting in those situations and wonderful ways, I didn’t see as rituals or ceremonies. I just thought they were wonderful and I wanted to be able to be like that. But when you come to the Zen centers, almost all of them, especially Soto Zen in American and Asia have ceremonies. There’s one of the disciples of Philip Kapleau Roshi, as you may know, separated from that school or that lineage and formed another lineage where they have almost no forms or rituals. And a number of people here right in this room right now have gone and practiced with that person and that group and find it you know good. And one of the students, Sawaki Kodo Roshi, whose also an important Soto Zen teacher, and a number of people who are practicing in America are students of his students. At his main temple in Japan, they have very little ritual, mostly just sitting. They didn’t carry a stick and I don’t think they had oryoki meals. I don’t think so. And no chanting sutras and stuff. So there are Zen people who just do that. And in what you’ve been chanting at noon service it says from the first time you meet a master without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting buddha’s name, repentance and so on just whole heartedly sit and thus drop away body and mind. And another translation of that is from the first time you meet a master avoid incense offering, bowing, chanting buddha’s name, repentance and so on. Just whole heartedly sit and drop away body and mind. Dogen said that. But Dogen wrote a number of treatises explaining in detail rituals and as I said to you over and over he taught Gikai, the grandmotherly mind about not only teaching him rituals but the rituals of daily life in the monastery should be done so wholeheartedly as to not think there’s any other buddhas (##in the mat?). So we had this kind of little bit of a problem which I leave you with now, that there’s a conflict here in the presentation of Zen, but I actually myself think it’s superficial.    For example when Dogen says, from the first time you meet a master without doing these things, or even avoiding doing these things, just wholeheartedly sit, to me I think he’s just saying the main ritual is to just sit. That’s the form he’s telling you. He’s saying do that form. Sit upright, cross legged, if you can. And drop off body and mind. That’s the main ritual that he wants people to concentrate on, but he teaches all these other rituals. He’s one of the main people to ritualize Zen in Japan. It could be less ritual, but he upped the ante and Keizan continued it. Sometimes you also hear that Dogen had this pure Zen of zazen, you know maybe just one ritual, and Keizan brought in all these other rituals. I don’t see it that way. I see Dogen had one ritual, one central ritual of sitting, lots of surrounding rituals, and Keizan just kept going with that. That’s how I see it. But you can meditate on this as you go forward with everybody in this American Zen practice, and also if you go to Japan or China and you can see they’re more into ritual than we are generally speaking. You can see how that is.
   Another way that it’s presented is that these rituals are things, are skill and means for lay people because lay people can’t do this just sitting and dropping off body and mind, but if they see these ceremonies, they’re impressed. They’re in awe of the ceremonies, because once they actually see somebody sitting they might be in awe of that, but they might just sort of say what are you doing there? But when the ceremonies start happening, certain things happen which are maybe easier to see, and so some people see it as a skill and means or even as a way of, the priesthood dominating the lay population by doing these awesome ceremonies. In the time of Dogen, when they did ceremonies, and while they were doing ceremonies auspicious signs occurred, like you know celestial flowers fell. Flower arrangements appeared on altars. People went outside and saw incredible, not incredible, credible auspicious displays in the sky. And they were even encouraged to write out, you know, witness in paper and have their witnessing noterized for records that Dogen’s ceremonies could manifest these auspicious awe-inspiring signs. When I was reading about those things, part of my mind went, you know, if you’re in a zendo and you look at a red circle or something and then close your eyes, you see something afterwards. If you see these ceremonies and you concentrate on them and you go outside in the sun, you start seeing stuff in the sky. So these Zen priests could do these ceremonies and while you’re in there they’ve got you your senses ##tuning this thing and when you go outside you see a whole other world outside. So anyway, part of the story is that these ceremonies are skill and means for lay people, to help them, or at least to help them think that priests are fantastic and give them donations.
   But another side of the story is that people think that really what Zen’s about is to internalize all this formality, that that’s really the Zen thing to do is to have all these ceremonies inside, including upright sitting, so that you can go out into the market place and you’re sitting upright dropping off body and mind in the market place. You’re making your walking through the market place a ritual of upright sitting. Wherever you go, you’re being upright. And you’re using whatever situation to invoke this upright buddha into the world and then to respond to people.
   Student: Are you saying that lay people are not able to drop body and mind?
   Reb: I’m saying that’s what some people think. They say, lay people have to grow rice, you know, and build houses and so on so they can’t sit zazen and drop off body and mind. That’s what people say. But you thought I said that. See, that’s what happens around here. So anyway, that’s what some people say, that these ceremonies are for lay people. They’re not for the monks. The monks can do zazen, right? This is skillful means for the lay people who can’t do zazen. That’s what some people say. In other words, the monks wouldn’t even do these ceremonies if there weren’t lay people. They would just sit zazen. And a lot of people think that that’s what Dogen would have taught. He would have just had his monks, just sitting all the time. They wouldn’t do anything else. But because of lay people who can’t come and sit with them, they do these ceremonies so lay people can come once in a while, see these ceremonies, and go wow, Buddhism really is possible. Look at this. That’s what some people said. I don’t agree, but that’s what some people said. Thanks for clarifying that. See, you might have been going around thinking I was saying that you can’t, I should become a priest.
   Student (Gordon): ?
   Reb:  Did you hear his question?  It was a question about hearing about the phenomena of rebirth.  He hears people talking about rebirth, past lives – he hears that language and he says, “How do people deal with that?”  Is that what you said?
   Student: Yes.
   Reb: There’s a question about in particular the teaching, not the teaching but the phenomena of hearing about rebirth, you hear people say rebirth, past lives. He hears that language, and he says, how do people deal with that? So Gordon’s particular take on this is he hears about past lives and rebirth and he sees kind of a conflict there between past lives and rebirth and the teaching of no self. That’s a problem he has. Other people have a slightly different problem. They hear about past lives and rebirth, and they don’t necessarily think of the conflict, they just have a hard time understanding why Buddhism’s talking about that. Other people hear about it and they say, great, I believe it. People in Asia, for example, say great, that’s right, there’s past lives and there’s rebirth and they deal with it by happily accepting it. But my understanding would be that for a disciple of buddha, when you hear about rebirth, when you hear about anything, you’re supposed to apply the buddha’s teaching to that phenomena. So that’s what we started to do. You probably started to apply the teaching of no self to the phenomena of rebirth and you got a problem. But I just wanted to say that for American and Western reception of Buddhism, when we hear about rebirth we hear those words and we think of those ideas and hear that talk, it’s like hearing other kind of talk. Whatever kind of talk you hear, we need to develop a middle way view about that talk. Whatever kind of phenomena we see, you need to develop a middle way view of that phenomena. And based on that middle way view of phenomena, you can realize the no self of that phenomena. And so you’re starting to try to apply the no self to this phenomena of rebirth and there’s some struggle there, right? So this is an example of, okay, here’s a phenomena. The buddha actually witnessed, he thought he could see rebirth, so he said there is rebirth. He saw his past lives. He said there are past lives. So buddha said there are past lives and there is rebirth, just like there are present lives, he said there is life. There is death. There is rebirth. And there are past lives. He saw all that stuff. And other people in his culture saw that stuff. But the way he understood it was unprecedented. Other people who actually could see rebirth, in yogic states, like the buddha could, and could actually see people’s past lives, like buddha could, they all interpreted it in one of two ways. Either they said that the rebirth, that in death means that the person dying is annihilated and there’s no rebirth, so it’s a different person and there’s no connection. No connection. They’re not the same, which undermines the whole theory of karma. Or they said, it is the same person that gets reborn. That goes well with karma, but it makes a self. Buddhism has a problem. It’s a very subtle problem we have of justifying that there’s not an independently existing self, and yet karma works. And there are consequences. There are consequences for a person who thinks that they have a self and acts based on that thought. So if you think that you independently exist, then you my think that your speech and your thoughts and your actions are done by you, the independent person, and if you think that way what you do and think and say are called karma. And what you do within that view will have consequences and the consequences will be for you. The buddha says that whatever is done on the basis of attachment to self comes to maturity on the side of the attachment. So that’s the law of karma. Whatever you do, wholesome act, skillful actions or unskillful actions, let’s talk about the skillful actions. If you do a skillful action, or rather I should say, if your body and mind are in thought are in activity which is skillful and you think that you did that by your own independent agency. If I think I speak by myself, by my own power, if I think I think by my own power, and if I think I make postures by my own power, then if those are skillful powers, activities, they have consequences and those consequences ripen back to the place of the attachment to self. So if you do skillful things with the view that you did them by yourself, then the consequences of those come back to you. If you do unskillful things the consequences come back to you. And there’s more details on that process, but that’s basically it. Everything you do, every activity that’s done under the auspices of a belief in self has consequences for the person who thought that way. When one does not have that view anymore, then the activities which are done as that person, the activities of that person, the consequences do not mature back to the place of attachment because there is no place of attachment. The activities, because of this freedom of view of self, are now the activities of all beings, all buddhas in the entire world. And in this process, there’s no birth and death. In that view. This is liberation from birth and death. But whatever the phenomena is that you hear about, we’re trying to understand (not?) what is the selflessness of the process of rebirth, how is the process of rebirth selfless, but that also requires how does the process of rebirth happen, how is it powered by the belief in self. The process of rebirth is powered by the belief in self. Just like right now we do exist. But we exist not inherently but dependently. Without our mental imputation we do not exist. I don’t exist and you don’t exist for me and vise versa without mental imputations. But we do exist with mental imputation. Our pains without mental imputation do not exist. Our birth without mental imputation does not exist. But it does exist with mental imputation and there is mental imputation which also exist with mental imputation so there is existence. We do exist. We do suffer. If we understand that process, we understand that that way we exist dependently on mental imputation is exactly the same thing as that we don’t exist at all independent of that mental imputation. In other words, emptiness is none other than form. So there actually isn’t, for the Buddha there isn’t a contradiction between no self and rebirth just like there isn’t a contradiction between present existence and no self. Our present existence is something that happens in dependence on mental imputation. And because our present existence happens in dependence on mental imputation, our present existence does not have an independent existence. In other words, it’s selfless. Our past existence also exists in dependence on mental imputation. Our future existence also depends on mental imputation. But because they all depend on mental imputation, they all have no self. So it’s not a contradiction but it’s hard to understand how it’s not. This is our wisdom work to find this middle way, this balanced way of looking at phenomena and hearing about teachings. So it just occurred to me that it’s nice that Buddhism proposes that there’s rebirth… (tape is flipped over) …those simultaneous ones which are quite similar. This is what Buddha saw when he was enlightened is that myriad Buddha realms with people studying and myriad Shakyamunis, this is what the early Buddhism Buddha said, and then later people really rhapsodized on it. So there’s buddhas appearing to these suffering beings all over the universe apparently. That’s a story for you to enjoy.
   Q: …scientific American?
   Reb: Scientific American recent, yeah. It’s amazing, I thought, Scientific American, this sounds like it’s right out of the Avatamsaka sutra. But you know mathematically validated.
   Q:
   Reb: Correct. Nothing exists. Nothing exists. There’s no things existing without mental imputation.
   Q:
   Reb: No, there weren’t clouds before mental activity. Just like there’s no color. There’s no colors floating around in the universe. Colors only happen when minds meet electromagnetic radiation.
   Q:
   Reb: No. There weren’t planets before there was minds apprehending them. And there aren’t planets there now, without mental apprehension. Nothing exists without mental apprehension. No thing exists without it. But that doesn’t translate to that there isn’t anything. It’s just that for things to exist, for the existence of things there must be mental imputation but you don’t translate that into then there’s nothing. That’s a little bit something to work on called the middle way.
   Q: Is it like a dream?…
   Reb: Yes, exactly. Things exist because of dreaming. That’s right. And the way they actually are is that they don’t exist at all apart from the dreaming, but not existing at all apart from the dreaming does not mean that ultimately they don’t exist. They just don’t exist apart from dreaming. They do exist with dreaming. So the ultimate perspective doesn’t annihilate the dream. If it did, why would buddhas care about these suffering people, these dream people? But buddhas do care about dream people. They’re dreaming about the people too. And they care about them and they have the medicine for the suffering dream people. And the suffering dream animals. Which is to get them to give up this view that things exist independent of mental imputation. That there are planets out there really without any mental imputation.
   Q:
   Reb: As far as I know that’s true that rocks don’t worry about other rocks either.
   Q:
   Reb: But they have compassion. This thing has arising in them which never died.
   Q:
   Reb: It is for self believing phenomena.
   Q: But they want to change them.
   Reb: They don’t want to change them. They just want them to be free.
   Q: Why?
   Reb: Because of compassion. Compassion is this kind of like weird thing where you actually want people…
   Q: But that’s a selfish thing of compassion…
   Reb: But they don’t see a self of compassion. That’s why after you realize selflessness you have to go back and empty the compassion. The way you empty compassion, once you understand selflessness, then you go back and you practice giving, precepts, patience, diligence, Samadhi, and prajna and you empty them all. So you got a nice empty compassion now. But that doesn’t annihilate the compassion. You still have this compassion which exist in dependence on mental imputation. Compassion doesn’t inherently exist either. It’s selfless. Hatred’s selfless too. So when you realize the emptiness of hatred, you’re free of hatred. You realize the emptiness of compassion, you’re free of compassion. When you’re free of compassion you can do compassion in this transcendent unhindered way, which buddhas do and they’re very happy about that and that’s why they’re buddhas is because they like to practice compassion even though there’s no such thing as compassion independent of mental imputation. Isn’t that wonderful? It’s just wonderful. I like this teaching. (laughs) Just remember it. It’s really good. And forget it and it’s really bad.
   Q:
   Reb: Does he have a hindrance to understanding no self? I don’t know if he will be able to understand no self or not. He might be able to. Some great teacher may be able to help you understand no self. But he’s kind of in a limbo between where he is now and…he’s constitutionally yearning to get an idea of self. I don’t know. It’s like some people can’t practice zen because they think they need to get a little richer before they practice.
   Q:
   Reb: Most people at Zen center anyway have got it down. A few people need a few patching up, even as a non-professional psychotherapist, I can put a few patches on their holes in their self enough for them to get, oh, there it is, okay now give it back. Most people have got nice solid egos, or enough so that with a little psychotherapy and some assistance from their friends they can make a nice little package there that they superimpose on everything.
   Q:
   Reb: Not patched back together. It needs to be, first of all, most people, as far as I can tell, they don’t have much problem projecting self onto things from childhood. This boy has that. It’s a more complicated thing to project self onto an extremely complex psychophysical organism. This incredibly complex, wonderful thing called a human. To put on that independent existence, they’ve got to look at the relationships that make a person grow up. The mother, the grandmother, the grandfather, the school teacher, the brothers, the sisters, (##?)…all that stuff interacting so that you have this person. Now to put an independence on that is quite a trick. It’s easier just to put an independence on a color. So children can put independence on colors and forms pretty early you can see. But it takes them about a year and a half or more to put this whole, this false impression upon a complex thing like themselves and their mother. But they get it together usually and then they can suffer fully. Got the regular suffering, and regular fear and anxiety that comes from putting the self on things. Then you put another level of suffering by putting the self on persons, and on this person and that person. Then you have full fledged suffering which then, as I say, when you run hormones through it really gets intense. And that’s why teenagers are the most off people and the most unconscious. It is so overwhelmingly, mind bogglingly challenging. So if you don’t get to that stage, if you have a background that is driving you toward that, you might not be able to put that aside in order to listen to teachings about, because you’re yearning for it so strongly, but it might be possible for such a person with somebody who’s really…it might be possible. I don’t know. I haven’t dropped everything in my life and gone and spent my time with that person to, because that’s probably what it would take is one full time or ten full time teachers to somehow get him to try on the teachings of selflessness before he can even like find his own, because he’s so scared and having so much difficulty. But it might be possible. I have nothing against some other way of doing this than what we’ve seen so far.
   Q:
   Reb: That sets up the possibility of realizing emptiness of these forms.
   Q:
   Reb: You do the gassho fully and then somebody can come up to you and say that is not a proper gassho. And then you can see if you believe that that is a proper gassho, or if you don’t think it’s a proper gassho someone can come up to you and say, would you change your gassho please. And you could say, you may feel like, well, I don’t think this is a proper gassho but I do not want to do a proper gassho. And the person may say, well, do you want to practice zen here or not. And you may say, no I don’t want to. And the person may say, okay, and you’re not. And now you’re not. And then you’re going to make that into an inherently existing not practicing zen. And if you do, now we got you. And you got yourself. You’re stuck on that. And if you’re ripe, the interaction, the pivotal opportunity, the arrival of energy, the (##?) can come out and you can realize that this form of you not being a zen student, or this form of you being a zen student, or this form of doing your gassho right, that that thing lacks inherent existence. Then you can go back and teach everybody on the planet gassho. Go around and teach them gassho and help them use that form as an opportunity to be happy. Some people, there’s no school of people teaching you to eat shit on a regular basis, but some people once in a while that kind of thing works. But a lot of people this gassho works for. A lot of people are willing to do this. And then if they do it whole heartedly, as you get to do it whole heartedly you become ripe, you become ready, and then the pivotal opportunity you can see the other side. You can see the emptiness of the form. It’s all about realizing wisdom and these forms are for that purpose.
   Q:
   Reb: Wholeheartedly listening to a friend? Yes, you’re wholeheartedly listening to a friend and then the friend can say something to you like you’re not listening to me. In other words your listening is not listening. Are you ripe for that one? That’s basically what you’re saying. If the person’s doing the gassho, you’re saying your gassho’s not a gassho. Do you understand? Right. Empty means there’s no gassho in that gassho. There’s not a little gassho inside the gassho that makes it a gassho. The gassho is empty of gassho. The gassho doesn’t have a gassho in it. And when you’re listening, there’s not a little listening inside the listening that makes it listening. But we think there is. We think there’s a little listening in there and if that’s in there then it’s really listening. I’m really listening to you means, does it mean? I can say that. I’m really listening to you and you can say to me, no you’re not. And if I think that there’s inherently existing listening inside that listening, then I’m kind of pushed out of shape. But if I’m ripe, when I get pushed out of shape I can drop it. I can realize freedom. So these little things are possible. Like I tell that story about my wife. We were out to dinner with this couple and my wife says to the guy, where do you teach school. And he says, I teach at U.C. Irvine. So then my wife says to the guy, well, what’s Irvine like? And he says, it’s beautiful. And his wife says, it’s ugly. And then he says, it’s ugly. And then my wife says to me, you should learn that. (laughter) I can say, it’s just an empty form you know. I mean it’s like you’re just going to invoke that form of selflessness. When you say it’s Tuesday and your wife says it’s Wednesday, you say it’s Wednesday. In other words, she’s telling you that Tuesday’s not Tuesday. Do you understand? You’re a zen master. How come when you say Tuesday’s Tuesday and I say Tuesday’s not Tuesday how come you argue with me. You’re a disgrace. But you have to wholeheartedly say it’s Tuesday. If you say, eh, it’s Tuesday and she says it’s Wednesday and you say, yeah sure. But you say it’s beautiful and she says it’s ugly and you say it’s ugly, that switch there. You should learn that. But also it should happen inside that you really understand that the listening you’re doing is not listening. The listening you’re doing lacks the inherent existence of listening. And if you’re whole heartedly listening and the person who’s speaking says you’re not listening. In other words they think you’re listening but they’re just testing you to see if you understand emptiness so they say you’re not listening. And you say, my listening is not listening. Thank you. I finally understand karma. Then you keep listening to them. But now you listen to them free of the belief in inherent existence of listening to them so your kindness and your compassion of listening to this person all night long is emptied of compassion of listening to this person all night long. You’re free and your compassion is now transcendent compassion. It’s compassion gone beyond compassion. It’s compassion that’s not compassion. It’s empty compassion. Do you understand now? So it’s a matter of being ripe and ready to renounce this belief.
   Q:
   Reb: You clean the vase and then you smash it for you to understand the vase. But can you smash the vase without smashing the vase and some people you can’t so some people you have to actually smash the vase to show them that the vase is empty of the vase. So Zen teachers sometimes do that. They sometimes break the vase. They have the student take care of the vase, take care of the vase year after year and then they come in and break the vase to see if the student’s ready to realize what the vase is, which is…one story is they reassemble the vase with gold glue and put it on the altar as a testament to the moment that that monk woke up to the nature of the vase. And then it’s even more precious and then who’s going to break it next. When you break it for the person who takes care of it, who whole heartedly gives himself to it, then they’re ready to take it away. And when they take it away they have a chance to give up any misconceptions about the nature of the vase. So it’s maybe kind of mean to break vases for this purpose but maybe for the sake of this student it’s worth breaking the vase. So maybe it’s the teacher’s vase so that you take care of the teacher’s vase and then you can let the teacher break his or her own vase. Maybe it’s better to break your vase because that one you’re going to have more sense of…your vase maybe doesn’t inherently exist but my vase does. That’s why sometimes we have to use the student’s vase rather than the teacher’s vase. And even the teacher’s vase you say, well, it’s not really the teacher’s vase, you can’t break that one either. So there’s always some little difficulty at that point so that’s why teachers have to be really careful and that’s why sometimes teachers are a little scared to like break the vase so you have to sort of beg the teacher, here, here’s my gassho, please break my gassho. Take my gassho away. You really want me to take it away? Yes, I do. Really? Okay. That’s not a gassho.