One way to talk about this koan is that it's actually laid out. It's kind of in two parts. And yeah. And the two parts you could, in some sense, make, I could present them as kind of parallel to the way Zen practice is sometimes presented. Sometimes Zen practice, Soto Zen, is presented as, in Japanese they say, shikantaza and sanshimonpo, or just sitting on one side, And on the other side, going to the teacher to inquire into the Dharma or discuss the Dharma.

[01:03]

These are two sides of Zen practice. And this story, in a sense, can be seen as portraying these two sides. And last week I gave you some, I suggested you study this case from the side of just sitting with it. From the side of the instruction, just this person. Now, it's in some sense more dynamic than that because, you know, there is an instruction given to you to just sit. So there's an interaction there where you receive the instruction of just be the sitting person. But still, after you hear the instruction, the instruction is just drop everything and just be this person that you are moment by moment.

[02:16]

And then from the practice of just this person, then you go interact with the teacher, in a formal sense, to go see a formal teacher, but also you interact with the world. So this story has these two sides. On one side, the monk comes and is given instruction in just this person, and he actually accepts that instruction obediently and practices it fully, or he practices it quite fully. And then the teacher invites him to interact, but he's unable to do so. So the side of going to the teacher and asking about Dharma, that part of the process was not completed in this story.

[03:30]

So you might say the first part of just sitting was completed in this story, and the second part, in a sense, is not completed. And I also mentioned that these two aspects of practice could be called... the first just sitting instruction or just sitting practice can be considered to be like a fiery initiation and the going back into the world and interacting with another being or other beings as a watery initiation or initiation by water. I will unfold that more. The case will also unfold that more. So in the spirit of just sitting and just being yourself, I encourage you not to look at the commentary.

[04:34]

Oh, by the way, some new people, do they have copies of this text? No? How many people need a copy? Back there to John. How many over there? Three? Four? Also, Taigan found a somewhat different version of this story, a somewhat longer version of this story in a book called The Original Teachings of Chan Buddhism, which has translations from Transmission of the Lamp, a Chinese history of Zen interactions. By the way, I think it's Keiteki Dento Roku, not Keitoku Dento Roku. Wait a second, I think it's Keiteki.

[05:44]

And I have copies of it, but I'm not going to pass it out to you because I don't... I don't want to introduce that variable yet, but I'll give it to you. I'll give you another version of the story. And here comes, you know what his name is? His name's, there he goes into the closet. I think there's a chair in there. Tom? Tom. There's some chairs up here if you want. So the story is about these two sides, and last week I asked you to study the story from the first side. The other way to study the story is to study the story from the other side, from a more interactive way. So if you did your homework and studied the story from the way of just sitting with it, then this week you can study it more from the point of view of watching yourself and the story and your whole life interact around this.

[07:03]

And also I mentioned last week, and I'll say again for your benefit and for new people, when the monk heard the instruction, when our ancestor heard the instruction, just this person, he didn't understand. And then when he was walking over a river and saw his reflection, saw his reflection in the water, then he said, you know, I'm traveling alone, Well, first he said, he had awakening, and he said, earnestly avoid seeking outside. I'm traveling alone, but everywhere I go, I meet her or it. It is nothing other than myself, and yet I'm not her. It must be like this. if you want to understand suchness.

[08:17]

So again, the principle is, if you just sit still with yourself, in other words, you understand that everything that's happening to you is yourself, then you'll realize that everything you meet is yourself. And you'll also understand that it's not you. And this dynamic will be set up. But it's set up first by establishing this one thing. And then it starts vibrating. So I first work for the story in this way of just dropping everything away. And if you can get that, then the story will start vibrating back and forth and resonating all around. So this vibration or this mutuality in this dynamic is what and settling into that awareness is called studying dependent co-arising. But the entrance into studying dependent co-arising is to just be upright.

[09:26]

And again one definition of uprightness or one presentation of uprightness is that nothing is caused by itself Nothing is caused by something else. Nothing is caused by itself and something else, and nothing has no cause. This is the first verse of Nagarjuna's Mula Majjhama Kakarika's fundamental teaching of the middle way. So when you really are sitting still and being yourself, you don't you yourself but you don't think there's not like you causing yourself or something else causing you or something and yourself causing you and you're also not without cause there's just this complete uprightness and nothing reaches it and nothing goes away from it and this way of this yoga is the entrance into how everything causes everything

[10:33]

Nothing is caused by itself or by another, and yet everything is in the process of mutual causation. So the gate into this dynamic awareness is this uprightness. So now, maybe this week, if you feel like you did your homework last week, You do it again, in a sense, and then look at the case from this other side, as though you're dialoguing with it. But don't do it on purpose, like talking to yourself, like forcing the dialogue. Just go to your life, like going to ask a question and see what the answer is. Don't make the other side happen. It will naturally come to you.

[11:35]

and it will be not what you expect it to be. So, you know, it won't be the answer you think would be your answer, so you'll have trouble spotting it, probably, according to your preconceptions, but you will get an answer. If you didn't do your homework, then do it this week. Do what you're supposed to do last week, do it this week, until you feel like you've done that part of it, and then switch to the other side. Meantime, here in class we're going to be talking about both sides. And the story switches back and forth, and also the commentary switches back and forth, and the verse switches back and forth. And you can become more aware of the switch back and forth as you study. Now the process of just sitting, there's a dynamic there, too.

[12:37]

And that will be the dynamic in the basic instruction here. The basic instruction is that the ability to think So maybe I should write, again, the Chinese on the board. I think it's helpful. This character, this character, the ability, the ability for, it's also a grammatical marker. And when it comes to the character after, the verb means active verb, transitive verb, I guess.

[13:42]

In other words, the verb now, this piece of the ability or the activity of doing this verb. This character means that he is. This character is mine. Except for here. Yes, the Chinese character for mine, you have a heart. And it's the word of Chinese that was answered with . Consciousness in the sense of that which cognizes. or that which is the overall impact, the moment of consciousness. So the ability of the active thinking is this consciousness or this thought. And this is the marker which means before a verb being passive.

[14:48]

Oops. So that which is thought is an object. And in this case, it is Yangshan's mind and objects, or mind and environment, irrespective of whether you can be an object or environment or so forth. OK? Again. This character here is thinking. And this character also in thinking is the overall shape or pattern of the moment of consciousness, the moment of this thought of consciousness. It's pattern or shape of the way it seems to be moving, even though it's not moving because it's just a moment that's holding still. But in that flash of consciousness, The shape of consciousness, it is characterized by, they use this word for that shape in this book, and that word also means thinking.

[15:55]

So the shape alone of consciousness is its definition as action, or definition of action is the shape of consciousness, or the definition of action is thinking. And there's three kinds of action, thinking, object, Speech and action have been translated into sound and posture based on this pattern, first of all. This is the basic psychological setup that he talks about. And then he gives the instruction That's an instruction, but then he gives kind of another instruction and he says, this character needs to be reversed. Turn around. Turn around your thinking.

[17:02]

Or turn around the pattern of your consciousness. Or turn around the definition of action. And then cast character thing in. This is my grammatical thing here. Save capture for the model. Turn the thinking around or reverse the thought or turn around and think of the mind that thinks. Or turn the thinking around and think of thought.

[18:06]

You can understand it. Just turn the thought around to do this kind of thinking. Or reverse the thought, and the way you reverse the thought is to think of the mind. And my here, this mind here, this character of the mind that we have defined over here, has the ability to think. So to think of mind, that character means to think of the mind that you think, or think of the thinker, if you want to sound more. That's the basic instruction that Yangshan gives to this monk. Some of you tried this.

[19:11]

I have a Over the years, I've brought this case up and brought this instruction up and watched people try to do it and tried to do it myself. And so rather than tell you what happens, maybe if anybody tried it, they could tell you what happened, how it was when they tried to follow this instruction. You didn't have to do this. You're not in trouble for not doing this if you didn't do it, because I really didn't assign you to do this. I just said, just sit, what the instruction was. But then this instruction is embedded in the overall instruction. Did anybody try it and have any experience with it? Yes? I tried it. I kept seeing new things. But the most, I think, probably most interesting thing, I was reading of Brother David Stenoweth's book and Fridtjof Capra's book on becoming the universe.

[20:19]

And Brother David had a quote from the Koran for this mom, which said, I was a buried treasure. and start to find myself, I created the world, which I kind of thought was perfect. Right. Yeah, that's talking about the same dynamic. Now, in this case, though, if you think you found the world, now you need to turn the mind around and look at that which thinks that what it sees is not itself. Or look back at that which thinks there's a world out there. Now, thinking that there's a world out there is the way that the self finds out about itself.

[21:20]

That's the first step. But everybody's done that. Now, turn the light around, or reverse the mind, and look back at that which has somehow thought that there's a world out there that can think of something. So you said you saw some new things. Well, the all-engracing thing, there's no outside, so... You saw that there was no outside? That's what the verse said. Something really striking. What new things did you see? Well, this dependent co-arising. I always felt comforted by that. But in a way, isn't that what we're trying to get out of eventually?

[22:22]

Get out of what? it's kind of that whole samsara, or the wheel, or that which we keep being a part of, but keeps creating us and causing harm or whatever. I'm lost here. But isn't that what we're trying really eventually to get out of? To get off The whole concept of that thing, which is what dependent co-arising is. Well, there is dependent co-arising of misery, and there's also dependent co-arising of liberation and awakening. So by studying how misery dependently co-arises, how cyclic birth and death co-arises, by studying samsara, you have a chance to realize the nature of samsara.

[23:36]

And realizing the nature of samsara is dependently co-arising awakening. So awakening dependently co-arises also. So we don't get out of dependent co-arising. First of all, the person that we are is nothing but a dependently co-arisen event. We practice, first of all, just being this sitting, this dependently co-arisen thing. We just are this dependently co-arisen person. And then, by that means, we settle into dependent co-arising. Completely thoroughly, we settle into our dependently co-arisen existence, moment by moment. And then we realize to what extent that dependently co-arisen existence gives misery and cyclic bondage. We see that. And by seeing that thoroughly, we realize dependently co-arisen Dharma. We realize awakening.

[24:40]

So we don't get out of it. Because actually, if it really was there, if samsara was real, then we should just settle with the reality of samsara and be happy about it. But if it's not real, then you don't have to get out of it. The nature of samsara is called nirvana. And this story is about that. Stuart? I've tried to do this practice many times, and my experience with it invariably is trying earnestly to put two more poles of magnets together. Right. So how did that feel when you tried to do that? It feels...

[25:43]

It's very frustrating. Yeah, frustrating. That's a common emotional response. Okay, yes? I can't even see my thought. I find that... You can't even see your thought? I can do the first half of that, which is to observe my own thought, because I only seem to be able to observe my thought after I have the thought. I can't observe the thought while I'm thinking it, because they're the same thing. Observing your thought after your thought is observing an object. Right. You can't observe objects. Yes. Right? But I can't observe it when it's happening. You can't observe your thought when it's happening. You can observe your thought when it's happening, but when you observe your thought when it's happening, it feels like you can't observe your thought when it's happening.

[26:56]

That's the way it feels when you do it. When you do that, when you do it, you feel frustrated. That's what it's like when you do it. So that's kind of like you're right when you feel that way, when you can't do it. There's other nuances of this, what is it called, this wall, or this... Sometimes people feel like they're short-circuiting, they're clinking in a way, or they're blowing a fuse, or they get overheated, things like that. There's other responses that people have when they try to do this. Yes. I tried once being, I was successful in being very, very passive. Usually I somehow get attached, I get involved with the thoughts and somehow thinking the thoughts. And one time I was able to To just kind of watch everything sort of happen, it felt like I was in a sort of a Disneyland ride in the dark, you know, and these things kind of pop up, you know, or dark corridors with the sounds and voices.

[28:04]

That's not this exercise. That's not this, okay. That's when he says, where are you from? And he says, I'm from Disneyland. What do they have there? And then you tell them all these fantastic things that happened there. Now, in that space where all this fantastic stuff's happening, where you're riding these rides in the dark, now, think back to who's watching that stuff. That's what the instruction is. And then there won't be any fantastic stuff there that you'll be able to find. However, if you try, you have various experiences, which maybe more people could say. Also, how do you go about looking back to that which is thinking of this ride? How would you do that? Where do you look? Fundamentally, you use your mind in a way that you don't usually use it. And the reason why, and it's actually you use your mind in a way you almost, you rarely use, but you try to use your mind some way like that, and if you try to use your mind that way, then you can't do that.

[29:15]

But that attempt is not it. That's just what happens to you when you try to do it, because trying to do it is still not reversing the mind. Trying to do it is more in the realm of that right-hand column where you're using your ability to think. However, if you notice what it's like to use your ability to think in this way, you notice that your ability to think gets frustrated, but you're still... what you're doing is exercising your ability to think in a very unusual way now. But you're still over on that side. You haven't switched over to this side where you reversed your thinking. What you're doing is you're trying to use your ability to think and then you're trying to think of the mind that thinks. And then you will get these reactions, frustration, falling off the back of your head, overheating, feeling various kinds of psychic disturbance, upset will occur, which is a sign of faith.

[30:28]

It's a sign that you have applied yourself, but you're not yet reversing your mind. Another way of reversing your mind, which I talked about last time, would be to use your ability to think to think that other people were you. To think that what is not you is you. That's another way to use your ability to think to reverse your mind, because usually you think who's not you is not you. Well, reverse it. that will also make you somewhat dizzy. It has some benefits, all these kinds of dizziness have some benefits, but that's not quite it either. But to understand, to understand that what you're looking at is you, That is what it's like when your mind's reversed. And there you cannot see who's thinking that or what it is it's thinking.

[31:37]

It's no different than usual. There's no new label on people called me. And yet you have a totally different understanding of the situation. So also to go and sit zazen, the... the willingness to sit zazen and get nothing out of it is also a... is reversing the mind. And it's reversing the mind and it's looking at what's doing the thinking. To spend your time doing something that makes no difference is a reversal of your thinking. Yes?

[32:38]

What is it that's looking at what's looking at me? What is it that's looking at... What's looking at me? First of all, looking at the thinking is thinking. When you look at thinking, thinking is then something that is thought of. You can think of thinking, but that's not thinking. When you think of thinking, then thinking is that which is thought of, so that thinking is not thinking anymore, that thinking is an object. Like a billboard, you can put a thought, you can write a thought on a billboard, or you can listen to somebody else's thoughts when they talk. You can also, you know, put your own thoughts out as an object, your own thinking as an object, but then you are thinking of an object, okay?

[33:42]

So thinking is the ability to think of something, and think is one of the things you can think of, okay? Is that okay? Now do you have a further question? Do you want to take another step? Well, it seems like there is something else that happened. You could just keep spinning with that. There is nothing more that's happened. It's the same thing happening again. Is it the same thing happening again? Is what the same thing happening again? It's just more thought looking at more thought. Is more... I feel like you're referencing something and you're not telling me where it is. Let me say this, that when there is thinking of something, okay, there is nothing more happening than that. There's not like some other stuff going on. There's not like somebody out there doing the thinking about this stuff. We think in a moment before or a moment after that, we think that there was somebody there who was thinking of that, but there wasn't.

[34:50]

If you looked, you would never find such a thing. But you can, in some moment before or after that kind of thinking, you could guess that there is somebody there doing the thinking of something. Okay? But there's not even the mind which is able to do the thinking. The mind which can do this thinking, there's not even that. And one of the ways you find that out is by trying to find it. Right. Now, not being able to find it is not proof that it isn't there. Because we're actually not trying to... I'm actually not majorly into proving to you that there is no thinking there or no mind there. Rather, what we need to do is get an experience of something which we actually assume is there and feel how it's not there the way we assume it is. And part of the way we do that is by not finding it. But by not finding it, you can stand and not find it. You get a feeling of something which you don't usually get a feeling for.

[35:56]

Namely, being in a realm where you don't, you're not any longer thinking that there's something out there. Because you have now just put out there, in there. So you've now entered a realm where there's no objects without messing around with anything, but just by reversing the way you think. Again, sitting zazen without... The part of you that's willing to sit zazen without getting anything out of it is a part of you that's willing to do something with no object, with no purpose. This is a reversal of the usual mind which can do things. This is called the backward step. And this is the instruction inside here. And again, another backward step is the way you learn how to do this

[37:02]

is by just sitting, because that also is the primary example of reversing the way you live your life. And the way you live your life is the way you think. The basic definition of everything you do is what you're thinking. Yes? I gave up too easily. When I came up with this instruction, I thought, you know, it's just impossible. It's like asking the eye to look at itself or asking the end of the finger to touch itself. Yeah, it's impossible. I mean, I could look at somebody else's eye or a reflection of an eye in a mirror, but my eye can't look at my eye. Right. And my mind can't think of my mind. Right. You know, it can think of the mind, it just can't be successful at it. It just can't have it as an object. The mind, the consciousness, that Chinese character, the Sanskrit word citta, that can have objects.

[38:12]

Consciousness has objects. It can have objects. If it doesn't have objects, it doesn't arise. It always arises with objects. There's no objects, there's no consciousness. Consciousness is of something. And anything can be an object of consciousness except itself. So we walk around live our life with a mind that has objects. And that's when we have the ability to live a life of moment after moment having a consciousness which has an object. Now, what we want to do is we want to reverse that process and spend some time, a moment at least, living our life in such a way that we don't have any objects. But rather than like closing our eyes and trying to eliminate the world, all you got to do is use your mind in a different way and you will enter a realm where there's no object. So how do you reverse your mind?

[39:15]

It is not impossible to reverse your mind. It is impossible to reverse your mind in this way and find an object. You can't find the object if the object is the mind itself. You don't want to find the object because you want to get a feeling for what it's like not to have an object. You want to practice objectless meditation because when you practice objectless meditation you get to see something about yourself that you can't see otherwise. But you could also just realize that all the things you see are not external. If you understand that, it's the same thing. If you could just understand Sometimes you just understand that this is me, like that guy did. When you see it is no other than yourself, when you see it that way, it's not like there's no Tom out there, but just that I understand, without telling myself that, without saying, okay, now, that's me. I just see you and I understand that's me.

[40:16]

That's, understands, that's the reversing the mind. And that can happen. But if I try to do that, I will be unsuccessful and I will be frustrated. Reversing the mind is not something you can do. It's an instruction to something that's already going on, because you do, part of your mind is already operating in a realm where there's no objects, where you don't think other people are external to yourself. So this instruction is cueing you into something about yourself that's already going on. It's the part of you that's stupid enough to do this practice. It's a part of you that comes to this class and somehow feels good at some point in the class and feels good that you came when you leave.

[41:19]

And what did you get out of it? You've got to spend some time, probably, with this person who doesn't have any objects of consciousness. So this is an instruction which the person who... This is an instruction which the mind that has the ability to think hears and tries to do something. But it's also an instruction to somebody else who doesn't have the ability to think and also is not that which is thought of. I don't know if you followed that, but... But you can't... And you don't have... You didn't have... You didn't have to try what you tried and were unsuccessful at. But in some ways, if you're sincere about this instruction, the part of you which thinks it can do stuff and has the ability to think, it'll probably try.

[42:22]

Just because you're totally wholeheartedly involved in this, that part will probably try and get frustrated. But if it doesn't try and doesn't get frustrated, that's okay. You didn't have to do it the way you did it. It found to be unsuccessful. But if you do try to do it, you will be unsuccessful. And that unsuccessfulness is telling you a little bit about what we're trying to do. Namely, you cannot think of the mind. Why can't you? Well, partly because it's impossible because of the way the mind works, but also it's impossible because it ain't really something that can be an object. That's a part of the truth, is that the mind, it cannot have objects. Part of the mind cannot have objects because part of the mind is so calm that it doesn't have objects. It can't and doesn't is the same thing. This part of the mind which doesn't have objects is completely undisturbed.

[43:29]

It's completely undisturbed. It's not disturbed by any externality. And so this meditation is a kind of initiation, a fiery initiation, a, what do you call it, a circuit blowing, potentially a circuit blowing, frustrating initiation into a realm that's already right here. It's not like this realm is made up when you do this practice. It's already sitting there. It's just a question of going into this place. faded and went away. And I kind of cuckooed it as kind of an intellectual exercise. And then later I started sinning more or less regularly. And it had very little to do with what I'd read and how I'd kind of addressed the world for that brief period of time where everything had quite seriously seemed different after having

[44:37]

What can happen here is that the teaching of the Dhamma Sutra can then be put, again over on that right-hand side there, and you have the ability to think of the Dhamma Sutra teaching as an object. Okay? And if you take, or you can even have the experience of the Diamond Sutras teaching in yourself and then put it out into the objective realm and think about it, and that will produce what we call nihilism. And then you'll think various things like cause and effect don't matter and so on. So maybe, I don't know exactly how it got initiated, but that's what I think you finally wound up with, is a kind of a nihilistic, you got into kind of a nihilistic thing for a while. Yeah. But that's bringing back, that's either bringing a teaching of no objects,

[45:57]

into your objective realm, or it's bringing some sense of that, some experience that you had of that, some insight into that, up from that place where there's no objects into the realm where there are objects. And it doesn't apply in the realm of where there's objects. And one of the ways you know it doesn't apply is you find yourself to be a nihilist. And then people start pounding on you and stuff. Or you start pounding on them and they tell you they really don't like it. It does matter, they say. These slight differences do matter, they say. And that's part of what we, some people do drift into Zen Center that are kind of nihilists. I mean, I was talking to somebody a while ago and she said, well, it hasn't mattered in the past, this particular little point, you know, that we're discussing. In the realm she lived in before, the people she hung out with before, these kinds of little differences didn't matter that much. But the tiny little differences, you know, like an example of, you know, I use the example that it was, you know, she signed somebody else's name to a credit card, and she assumed that she had the person's permission.

[47:20]

and the other person didn't think so. But even if the person did think so, the credit card company does not say it's okay for you to sign somebody else's name to it, even if they tell you that you can. So, like, I opened a checking account, I mean, not a checking account, but a savings account for my daughter at the bank. I put the money in, I opened the account, but... But if she gives me a check and she says, would you cash this check for me? I can't sign her name to the check because the people at the bank, if I write her name on the check, they either think that it's her name, I mean it's her signature, Or they think it's my signature, but if it's my signature, they will not accept it. Even if she calls up on the telephone, even if she stands next to me and says, I let him do that.

[48:24]

They won't do that, right? Is that right? They won't do that. For them, it makes a difference. That lets you put money in, though. Yeah. And I do put money in. I put all the money in, but I can't... And I can also draw the money out. because it's in my name too, but I can't make deposits. If she gives me a check, and I give her the money for that check, and then I take the bank, and it doesn't have her name on it, and then I sign it either in front of them or before I get there, if I do it before I get there, they're assuming that's her name. If I give it to them, I understand that they think that she signed this, but she didn't, so I'm lying in a sense. Now, if it would do some great benefit for the world for that to happen, maybe I would do that. But it would still be lying because I'd be misrepresenting what they think is happening. And if they know that that's happening, they won't accept it. If I say, I signed this, she told me I could. They say, well, I don't guess what.

[49:28]

Maybe what they'd do is she would sign again. That would be okay, I guess. These little things do matter. Why do they matter? Why do they matter? They matter precisely because all this stuff lacks inherent existence. That's why it matters. But if you bring the fact that things lack inherent existence out into the objective realm, then you think that things don't matter. It's a fun thing. It's what Gregory Basin used to call, I think it's called, what do you call that? It's a category error. You have things in the wrong categories. It's a categorical . Yeah? I'm making the assumption that the realm we're talking about is prajnaparamita. Is that a wrong use assumption?

[50:28]

What realm? The realm of no objects. No. That's not the realm of prajnaparamita. I'm glad you did too. See, in the realm of where you bring the lack of inherent existence of things up in the objective realm, then it would be the realm where you wouldn't have to even ask that question. You could just think that it was and let it go at that, not ask me any questions. So it's not the realm of... The realm of objectless awareness is not the realm of prajnaparamita. However, it is probably, I'm not completely sure, but my understanding of teaching is it is a necessary initiation that you go through to realize the teaching of prajnaparamita. The teaching of Prajnaparamita is not that all states of mind lack inherent existence.

[51:31]

That's not the teaching. It's also the teaching that the lack of inherent existence is all states of mind. The Heart Sutra didn't stop after it said that form is marked by emptiness and feelings are marked by emptiness. It then turned around and said that emptiness is marked by feelings. Emptiness is marked by thoughts. Prajnaparamita is this dynamic both ways. So prajnaparamita is entering the realm of objectlessness which is simultaneous with the realm of objects. Objectlessness has no meaning and no function aside from objects. So the objectless realm is not the realm of prajnaparamita, and the realm of objects is not the realm of prajnaparamita. But the nature of the realm of objectlessness is prajnaparamita.

[52:34]

And the nature of the realm of objectlessness is what? Huh? Is objects. and the nature of objects is objectlessness. That whole dynamic is prajnaparamita, which is the fullness of this story. But the first is the initiation into objectlessness, where you disentangle yourself from objects, where you don't see the world as external, and you realize the mind which is not disturbed by externality. It's not that there are no externals. It's just that they're not external. And it's like there's nothing. So he says, nothing. And so there's a little dot there in this translation.

[53:37]

It says, what does he say? Reverse your thought to think of the thinking mind. Another translation is, reflect upon the mind that thinks. And there's a dot there, or two dots, right, or two little dashes. Now that could symbolize quite a long time. A lot of these stories... you can understand that there could be several years between the D and the A. There could be several years between those two. In our class, there's only one week. Some of you have tried this before, years before. So for some of you, this is several years already. between when you heard that instruction and when you can come back and say, when I get to there, there's nothing at all.

[54:41]

Some people, it might be just right on the spot. But in many of these stories, we know for sure that there were several years between those two parts. I don't remember what I heard about this story. I think I heard... Oh, you know, the other one, which is a similar story, where Bodhidharma says to his disciple, Huayka, you know, outside, don't activate your mind around objects. Inside, no coughing or sighing in the mind. And then Hueca comes to him and says, I have no external involvements. I have no further involvements. And there was quite a long time between those two conversations. So anyway, so the monk comes back and says, there's nothing anymore.

[55:57]

I have no external involvements. there's no objects anymore. By doing this exercise, I looked for the mind which was able to think, I looked for the mind which was able to thought, and I kept looking. I spent my time looking for something which I couldn't find, and now, actually, I can't find anything. I mean, you know, he obviously can see his teacher, he's looking right at his teacher, and he says, I can't find anything. I can't find a teacher. I can't find these words that are coming out of my mouth. I can't find anything anymore. He's not saying there isn't anything. But just, I can't get a hold of anything anymore. I can't get anything anymore. I'm in a realm of objectlessness. For me, now that I've got to this, now that I've been doing this practice for some time, now that I've got to this place of this practice and I'm totally settled here, for me it's like there's nothing at all.

[57:10]

And again, that state is every little thing matters. It's not like there's nothing at all, I don't care. It is because every little thing matters that there's nothing at all. And because there's nothing at all, every little thing matters. Do you know what I mean? Does that make sense? In other words, your breathing, right? Breathing is kind of important to people. Or the breathing of some other people that you know, that you care about. Their breathing is important to you. All right? Right? Right. But some people's breathing is not too important to you. Right? Some people's metabolism is not kind of like a major event in your life. But when there's no objects, everybody's metabolism is important to you. Everybody's breathing is important to you.

[58:18]

All breath is important. All breath is equally interesting because there's no way to say, well, this person's real close to me, so I care about this one, but that one way over there, well, you know, I can't get this one or that one. Everything is my life. Everything is equally important and everything is equally important. In other words, everything is ultimately important because I can't wait for the next moment to live. So this is important. So it is when you realize objectlessness and when you realize you can't get anything, then everything becomes important. Or like I was, somebody gave me a book in there, I think it was in that book or something. When you realize, you know, that nothing matters, then you realize everything matters. So that's why it's not like you should go around, well, it's okay.

[59:20]

It's a good exercise. Go around, tell yourself everybody's important, everybody's swell, everybody's important, everybody's swell, everybody's sacred, all that stuff. That's great. But the real initiation into really believing that is when nothing matters. When you can't find anything, then you don't have to tell yourself anymore, oh, everybody's really great. Everybody's wonderful. Blue jays are swell. Skunks are great. Raccoons, they're wonderful. We love them. Now, a lot of people around here, I don't know, they're just, you know, they're just very tolerant of the raccoon. We have raccoons busting in all over the place here. And people around here are very kind. You know? But, you know, to tell you the truth, and this is kind of a snotty thing to say, but I say they're very kind given if they haven't yet realized that nothing matters. They're kind, you know, they're working hard to be kind. And that's good. In the meantime, it's nice to be nice to these raccoons.

[60:21]

But when you understand that nothing matters, you don't have to, like, It isn't necessary anymore to care about the raccoons like an effort. You just will. But you won't care about the raccoons in general. You'll care about the raccoons when you run into one. That's the real test. Do you care about this raccoon right now when it surprises you? Or when it's doing something, coming into your house? Well, you do, actually. This is really who you are. So that's his fiery initiation. It initiates you into these important relationships. But you have to give up all your ideas of compassion in the process. Because of your vow to be compassionate, you have to give up your vow. How do you give up your vow?

[61:22]

You don't do it again by giving up your vow the way you think about giving up your vow. You give up your vow by being yourself. And being yourself is reversing your thinking. You still talk and use the word relationship as if there is something. I do? Well, you just said it's an important relationship. I said, what did I say that about? well to the raccoon in the state of objectlessness? Oh, when you meet a raccoon and you care about the raccoon, okay, that's not objectlessness. That's what you do when you come from objectlessness. That's the Garuda bursting out of empty space, or the condor. breaking out of empty space or breaking out into the sky.

[62:25]

You're coming from objectlessness in meeting. But when you meet and care about the raccoon, you're now meeting something, but you're coming from objectlessness. That's why you have a good relationship with the raccoon. Now you're coming from just sitting, you're going to see the teacher. And going to see a teacher, you know, ideally, classically, would be like going to visit a raccoon. Or going into a room and then having some raccoons come in, you know, unexpectedly, and you don't know which direction they're going to come from. That's what meeting a teacher, that's what asking about the Dharma could be like, you know. You're coming in to ask about Dharma with that kind of wild, with a wild, unpredictable feeling. Was that a comment? What did you say?

[63:28]

I thought it was an alligator. Yes. Yes. It's confusing because it makes me feel as if you're talking about the thinking me. And you're not. You're really saying that in this objectless place, there is no thinking me at all. Otherwise, because the thinking me, wherever the thinking me is, is object. It has to be object at all. So the problem with the word view is that it always brings us makes us think that we're going there to this object, that I, the thinking me, is going to be in this objectless place. And I'm not, because as long as I'm in any place, there's going to be objects. Yeah, but because the place you're going is so perfectly objectless, I don't have to protect you from my language.

[64:32]

And I can say all I want, and you can get confused and distracted and misunderstand what's going on as much as you want, because the place you're going to, it doesn't matter how much I jammer about you, you, you, and me, it's not going to hurt you once you get there. And until you get there, if I start talking in such a way I avoid saying you and me, that's not going to help you get there at all. Because then you're going to think, well, if we stop talking like that, then we'll be able to figure out how to get there. No. That's another way, the same trip. So I'm just going to keep talking this way, and you're going to keep getting spun around by the language, and you're going to say the same things to yourself, and you're going to keep getting back into the same trip because it's a powerful habit. But meantime, the one who's reversed the thought and who's doing this useless thing a practice who has given up everything, is sitting there in this realm already. And you need to drill at this until you can more and more be the person who's getting spun around by this dualistic thinking and this kind of thing.

[65:43]

And the more thorough you're that way, that thoroughness is again an example of reversing your mind. Being thorough is not our habit. Because being thorough, especially being thorough for no reason, other than just this is what's happening. Well, for no reason, there is a reason. The reason is faith. That's why this is called the stage of faith. Because you are so concerned with the realization of this teaching that you really put yourself completely into it. which means you put yourself completely into being the limited individual creature that you think you are who's getting spun around by this instruction and experiencing frustration or not. Who's maybe saying, I'm not going to do this practice that I just heard about. Or I tried it and it was annoying and frustrating and I'm not going to do it.

[66:45]

But to be completely that person is to do this practice And if you're completely that person, after a while you will not be able to find out who that person is, or who that thinker is, or what this thinking is. At the exhaustion of whatever trip or whatever approach you take, the realization of reversed mind will occur. And you won't find anything anymore. There won't be anything at all. But not in the nihilistic, like making an object out of nothing, but in the real satisfying sweetness of nothing. Of nothing mattering. There should be goosebumps when you hear nothing matters. And it should make you feel encouraged to deal with all these objects around you. It should be a refreshment. I'm going to nothing, so now you can come back refreshed and deal with leak. In total appreciation.

[67:48]

When you're talking about this sweetness that you feel, I mean, again, it sounds like that's an experience where there's a subject and there's an object, this sweetness that you're experiencing, which, again, is back in this realm of dualism. Right. Right. But the realm of objectlessness does not need to have a pause in dualistic activity. That's part of the reason why it's so sweet. It's that kind of utter, thoroughgoing nothing that doesn't need to interrupt the world of something. And still, however... When there is a realization of this nothing, it is sweet, and then the sweetness comes up into the realm where it may be made into an object. But when it's made into an object, you couldn't make that sweetness happen. It did happen, but it happened in a realm where it wasn't an object, and that's what was so sweet about it, is that it was so sweet because everything was equally sweet.

[68:58]

And the real sweetness of things is that they're not objects. But then, at the same moment or the next moment, that experience of sweetness gets transmitted up into the realm of concepts, been made external, and you can see sweetness. However, that's good, and that's what this monk didn't do. He stayed down there in that sweetness. He stayed in the sweetness so that he didn't even feel the sweetness. So that's what he did. He was this thing in the verse. He got drunk and he fell asleep and he stayed there. He didn't come up and say, ooh, sweet. Oops, here I am again. He couldn't even, he got there and he stayed there. He couldn't find the sweetness. He was totally inundated in the sweetness, but he couldn't move from there. And so the teacher said, well, that's good. you've got the robe, you've got the seat. This seat of sweetness, of the sweetness of the objectless realm, of biological bliss, the bliss of being a biological organism who does not know her own death and therefore doesn't have a self.

[70:15]

This is the basis of the Buddha way. But the perfection of that sweet meditation, that blissful meditation, the perfection of it is, throw it away. And come in the realm where you say, hmm, that was sweet. And as soon as you say that was sweet, you've just disturbed yourself. Because the sweetness is an object. You can still maybe feel the ripples and the vibrations of the sweetness. But you've just re-entered the world. But if it's a deep realization, you've just come from there, you can carry forth, you know. But you're not in that realm anymore at that moment. That's right. But you can even realize that that's what's happening. That when you're saying that this is sweet, that that's already a... you're already objectifying. You can be aware of that. Yeah, and you probably would be, because you got into there by messing around with this stuff for quite a while, being very thorough about noticing how you mess things up.

[71:26]

If you notice how the way you see objects disturbs you, and you completely be a person who's disturbed by the fact that she sees objects, and sees how seeing objects is what's disturbing her, if you watch that and be that kind of a person, which we are, then you realize that there aren't any objects. And then when you come back from there, what you taught yourself to get in there, now you apply to come out. So it says here, what is it? The dragon treads on the ocean. Huh? Treading over the ocean. Okay, that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it, another way to translate it is the dragon is stomping up and down in the ocean. making, you know, splashing, making big splashing stuff. So you, you go, you go down in the dragon cave. And there ain't no, and after a while there ain't no dragon, there ain't no you, there ain't no dragon, there ain't no cave. And then you, and you burst out of that dragon cave and you come into the ocean and you start jumping up and down the ocean, making a big scene.

[72:35]

Objects, disturbance, you're back in the world. You're an active personality again. You have objects. Your death's out there making you. You're totally again back in the world. And it was because you were in the world before and willing to be totally in the world that you got to go to a place that wasn't the world. But you shouldn't stay there. This monk in this story got a little bit stuck and couldn't come out and meet the raccoons. Couldn't meet the objects. So he did realize, apparently, the teacher says, you have realized objectlessness. That's good. So you get a seat. The seat is the realization of objectlessness. That's where you sit. That's just sitting.

[73:38]

And you get the robe. But now, but that's not yet the person. The person is you can go forward and really interact with people and set up a situation where you can make a mess with people. And everybody you meet is equally important, equally interesting, and you then make a mess, make a world with them. And then again, hopefully, take full responsibility for that. As I said, you know, After Dung Shan said the teaching of just this person, not Dung Shan, after Yun Yan said the teaching of just this person, then he said, when Dung Shan was thinking, he said, now that you've assumed the responsibility of this heavy burden, assumed the responsibility, the heavy burden of being just this person. And again, I mentioned, That idiom, that phrase he said to Deng Xia was an expression that in Chinese culture means that when a criminal accepts responsibility for crime.

[74:54]

In a sense, being a person is a crime. It's a heavy responsibility. If you can accept the responsibility for separating yourself from all sentient beings, by thinking that you have a separate existence, this is what he was saying. You have accepted this. And because he accepted this, he accepted this and he walked off accepting the responsibility, having the responsibility of the crime of being a person. of forgetting that all beings give you life. But then he woke up and saw this relationship. So this accepting of our crime or our limitation is a way to enter the realm, to actually enter the realm which is not an experience.

[75:57]

Because, again, experiences, you have objects. It's to enter a realm, a non-experiential realm, but the entry into the non-experiential realm is to take full responsibility for every experience. So you're completely grounded down into the deepest mud. You go down into the most earthy, gutsy aspect of your life, and you're completely settled there with all the shit. and you sit there completely. Then you enter into a realm where there is no shit, there is no self, there is no other, and then you come out from there. Not yet. Not when you first come out. You don't know how to do that anymore. You can pick it up again like that, though. which is good. And catch yourself, splash, splash, splash, oh, I can hide things now.

[76:59]

How cool. Let's hide. And then again, take full responsibility for hiding. Well, consciously hiding is different. Exactly. We do choose to hide, and to be conscious that we're choosing to hide is different than to be unconsciously choosing to hide. That's much more thorough. Be thorough about what you do. Not only do what you do, but completely admit it while you're doing it. That's the taking full responsibility. That's being just this person. Just this person means using all your energy to be this person. Don't use anything. Don't waste any of your time being anybody else. And if you do that, That will be hard on other people. They will have a hard time with you. When I got my name, when Sri Sankaracharya gave my name Ten Shin, he said, Ten Shin means Reb is Reb.

[78:04]

And when he said that, I thought... Of course, anybody who says, you know, somebody says, Cynthia is Cynthia, you say, well, of course, you know. But my name was meant... that Reb was Reb. And I guess everybody maybe would think, well, now that shows he really understands me. But I really, I don't know if you'd all think that, but I really felt that he really understands me, he gave me that name, Reb is Reb. And then he said, and people will have a problem with that. Not me being, they won't have a problem with me being kind of Reb is sort of Reb. They'll have a problem when Reb is Reb. That will be a problem for them. And my name is saying, work in that direction. In other words, tension is another way to say, Rebbe's Rebbe is another way to say, just this person. And people will have a problem with you. And if they have a problem with you, that will be a problem for you.

[79:06]

Because if they have a problem with you when you're yourself, they'll know where you are. Because there you'll be, and they can find you and get you. And some people will give it to you for being yourself, because it's hard on them. Because it reminds them that they should be doing the same thing. Last week you spoke of active and passive mind. And so it seems that the sitting is the active mind, and we're going out into the world, and just this person is passive mind. And that's a reversal when we think about how we use our mind.

[80:17]

so for me to go with what she just said for me is a reversal of my mind I don't know what she's talking about but I'll try I'll try to enter that realm I've got notes yeah but for you that's just the way you are so you should forget that but I'll come over there and hang out with that Woo. Not that bad. It's not bad. It's wonderful. I'm getting those goosebumps again. I don't know where I am. Thank you. Half the thinking is the mind. Half the thinking is the environment. I remember. That sounds familiar. Now I feel more at home. So then this evening you're talking about two parts, sitting and going out into the world, just this person.

[81:34]

Right. So in that, where does the active and passive fit in? I'm practicing right now. I don't know what this is. Well, fire and water, fire would be active and water would be passive. Is that your understanding at this point in the class? I think water's passive. It explodes. Where's the water? Fire. Fire is there. Hurry in. Well, We can go on about this.

[82:41]

Maybe the other people will go home. It's passing on. And so there's more on this case. I'm asking you to go... I'm not suggesting you go in an active direction or a passive direction. I'm suggesting... that you go into the dynamic. If you've already done this thing, of this fiery thing, where you've been working on accepting responsibility for this being this person, now see if the dynamic is set up. But maybe you're not ready for that, especially the people who are personality class. But that's what I mean by the watery initiation, is to start experiencing the dynamic around this the movement around stillness. The first week is stillness, and the next thing is movement, or dynamic.

[83:42]

Dynamic means movement, doesn't it, or change? So there's stillness, and then shift to the movement. But if you don't feel still enough yet with this case, then just do that for another week. And deepen this fiery initiation. And see if you can... enter into the realm that comes by reversing your mind as something that you don't do. Because again, doing things is your usual mind. But again, the way, the thing we don't usually do is we don't usually, the way we don't usually practice is we don't usually do the practice of simply if you use the expression, Sonia being Sonia. And Sonia being Sonia is hard for Sonia and it's hard for other people. And I could say that about some other people in this room.

[84:51]

But like I say, it's past nine o'clock. Perhaps you can apply it to yourself. Think about how hard it is to be yourself. Think about how, when you try to really be yourself, how you feel like, no, this can't be so. They won't accept this. They won't let me. It's too much. Now, some of you may not feel that way, but a lot of you do, I think. And actually some other people... There's another thing about this, is that the funny thing is that when a person is completely herself, or working on that, and other people start having problems with it, you know one of the problems they have with that is that they take it personally that the other person is being herself. Isn't that funny? That when one person is being one person, other people have a problem with that person being thoroughly that person.

[85:55]

And they think it has something to do with them. Even though the person's effort has nothing to do with them and it's just that person's difficulty, that person's struggling with, the other people oftentimes take it personally. And it does have anything to do with them, but it's not that person saying anything about them. That person isn't directing anything towards them. As a matter of fact, the thing that's causing the problem is this person is withdrawing projections and turning them around and accepting them. And as that person struggles with that, at that reversal and all the pain and fear that comes up or whatever, the other people see that and think it's going out towards them, even though the person is actually doing the opposite. It's funny, isn't it? And it does have to do with them, and at the extreme of this person's effort, this person will realize how completely it is that being yourself completely connects you to other people.

[86:59]

That's how to really do it. Rather than reaching out to them, which really means you go like this, go like this, and you get them. When you complete it, you get the other person. In other words, you understand it, that they're you. But this is hard, and part of the reason why it's hard is other people say, lay off, this is scary, because they see you struggling with this reversal, you know. And also, I would say one more thing, and that is, you're a doctor, and maybe you shouldn't be doing this if you're doing an operation. Or if you're driving a car, that's why we should do this kind of thing. In sitting is a good time to do it because you can get confused and scare people if you're trying to make this reversal because you're having a hard time reorienting your whole perspective. So actually that's one of the advantages of doing this in a quiet situation where you don't have any kind of complex verbal and physical things to do.

[88:04]

Once you get the hang of it and you get in to that place, then you can come out and interact with people from there. Then that's safe. But the entry point is difficult because you're burning. Anyway, I've gone on too long. But we'll continue next week to go a little bit deeper into this case. In the meantime, please continue to carry your responsibility. We're all depending on you. The eyes of Green Gulch are upon you. I suggest we hang out with the same portions of the text. Yeah, I would say to just that you just keep it simple one more week.

[88:47]

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