give my talk, I just want to say that a lot of you have trouble holding your mudra correctly in Zazen. And one of the reasons for that is that you have to trim your thumbnails. Zazen students and recorder players You have to have short thumbnails. How about if you play the guitar? Not if you play the guitar. You can use a pick. But, you know, we hold our thumbs like this, with the tops of our thumbs touching each other. And if your thumbnails are in the way, then you're kind of trying to find some comfortable position, and you end up going like this. So, that's the sacrifice you have to make.

[01:07]

Is that the only one? The only one. Today, I want to discuss case number 45 in the Mu Man Khan. I talked about this case before recently, but I want to talk about it again. This case is titled, Wu Tzu's, who is that other? Wu Tzu, He was the teacher of Yuan Wu, who compiled the Blue Cliff Record, and kind of Dharma, great-grandfather of Mumon, who compiled the Mumonkan.

[02:35]

So this is a rather short case, and in the Mumonkan, you know, Mumon didn't have any introduction to the case, like in the Blue Cliff Record, but I'm going to add my own introduction to the case. And my introduction to the case is a well-known poem of Isa, or maybe Tozan, one of the two. The blue cloud is the parent of the blue mountain. The blue mountain is the parent of the white cloud. And the white cloud is the child of the blue mountain. All day long, they depend on each other without being dependent on each other. The blue mountain is always the blue mountain.

[03:40]

The white cloud is always the white cloud. So the case, Master Wutsu said, Shakyamuni and Maitreya are servants of another. Tell me, who is that other? And then Mumon has a verse, or he has a comment. In his comment he says, if you can see this other and distinguish him or her clearly, then it is like encountering your father at the crossroads. You will not need to ask somebody whether or not you're correct." And then in his verse he says, don't draw another's bow, don't ride another's horse, don't discuss another's fault, and don't explore another's affairs. So in my introductory verse, which I think many of you already know, are familiar with, the blue mountain is the parent of the white cloud.

[05:00]

The white cloud is the child of the blue mountain. All day long, they depend on each other without being dependent on each other. Blue Mountain is always the Blue Mountain. The White Cloud is always the White Cloud. This poem, wonderful poem, has the feeling of merging and difference, or independence and dependency at the same time. Blue Mountain is maybe like In Zen terminology, there's host and guest, or prince and minister, or absolute and relative. So Blue Mountain is like foundation, something very solid, something very essential.

[06:11]

And White Cloud, clouds are very ephemeral, and they're always moving, always changing. But the blue mountain is standing up like this, and the white cloud is kind of dancing around the mountain, changing its shape and passing by, and yet the mountain and the cloud have some relation to each other. because of the cloud there's the mountain. The mountain and the cloud seem different, but yet in the picture they depend on each other for the total picture. Yet the mountain is just the mountain, the cloud is just the cloud.

[07:13]

Mountain is independent, cloud is independent, and sky is independent. So, mountain is like, takes the host position, and cloud takes the guest position. So, Wu Tzu says, Shakyamuni and Maitreya are servants of another. Tell me, who is that other? Shakyamuni, of course, is the Buddha of this particular millennium. But according to Buddhist mythology.

[08:30]

There are many Buddhas and each Buddha is the Buddha of a certain millennium. So there are innumerable Buddhas who have appeared in the world before Shakyamuni. And Maitreya will be the next one. So according to Buddhist mythology, Maitreya Buddha is waiting in Tushita Heaven to appear in the world. And Maitri means loving kindness or love. And the implication is when Maitreya appears, that will be the era of understanding and harmony.

[09:34]

I think in the West, people call it the Aquarian Age. I remember in the 60s, or maybe it was the 70s, People used to talk about the Aquarian Age, and the flower children and the hippies were all trying to bring in the Aquarian Age. So Maitreya is like, maybe comparable, a counterpart to that. But, you know, the question that comes up here is, who is Shakyamuni? Who is Maitreya and who is another? Are they the same or are they different? Is the blue cloud on the Blue Mountains the same as the white cloud or different?

[10:49]

And the question that comes up is, What do we depend on? And how do we know or find what we depend on? And when we do find out what we depend on, then what do we do? And who does it? So all these questions are implied in this question. Shakyamuni and Maitreya are both servants of another. Another, the character for another also means that one. It can go either way. It can mean either another or it can mean that one. So if you say, you can also say both Shakyamuni

[11:57]

and Maitreya are servants of that one, which is maybe a little easier to relate to. So it's not so difficult, actually, to answer this question. In a way, it's sort of obvious. In Tozon's Five Ranks, in one series that he presents, The second rank is called submission. And submission means putting yourself in a subservient position, which means dropping ego. Or, you know, subservient position means that putting ego in the service of something, actually.

[13:07]

Because we say to drop ego or to kill the ego or to get rid of the ego, but that means for ego to find its true place, so that it's no longer called ego, but has an actual function in the harmony of things. We call it ego when it's out of harmony with things. And when the seventh level of our consciousness, which is between our deeper nature and our sense nature becomes corrupted. So when we become self-centered, it's called ego. So when we put ourselves under submission, we take ego out of the center and give it another place.

[14:18]

Get off of center stage and take this part rather than the central part. Then ego has a function and it functions as will and determination and all kinds of good things without corrupting the process. So when we take ego out of the center, off center stage, and give it a function, which is in harmony with, in universal harmony, then who is that one? Who is that other? When ego takes its proper place in the hierarchy of things, then that other becomes clear. So, you can call it all kinds of things, but maybe better not to say anything.

[15:31]

Because if we say something, then we say, oh, that's what it is. So better to not say what it is. Where does our power and our motivation come from? When we put self-centeredness aside, then we have the opportunity to see where our true nature comes from. This is called meeting your grandfather at the crossroads, recognizing Your grandfather at the crossroads. Grandfather means something like true face. You know, oh, that's really my grandfather. No mistake. It's like looking into a mirror.

[16:36]

That's my grandfather, but he looks just like me. So we also say, you know, each one of us is nirmanakaya Shakyamuni Buddha. Innumerable nirmanakaya Shakyamuni Buddhas. We can think that a Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, as the founder of Buddhism, who lived 2,500 years ago. But actually, when you when you find your true face, then actually you are the founder of Buddhism.

[17:45]

And when you are dedicated to harmonious love and selfless activity, you are Maitreya. Who else will serve this function? Who is there to wait for? I think somebody will come and save us. But who is that somebody? Can someone save you? Each one of us has to be Maitreya Buddha and save ourselves. When each one of us becomes Maitreya Buddha and saves ourselves, then all the bodhisattvas can go to nirvana.

[19:04]

So then, Mumon has a verse, he says, don't draw another's bow. Don't ride another's horse. Don't discuss another's faults. Don't explore another's affairs. You know, even though we let go of everything and say, well, let Buddha nature come forth. Still, if you depend on that, you have a problem. Sometimes we think, well, I won't do anything because I'll just let Buddha nature do everything. kind of fatalism, in a way.

[20:20]

It's true, that when you let go, Buddha will do everything. But, you know, we have a saying, God helps those who help themselves. God helps themselves too. It doesn't mean you don't do something. You have to do something. You can't depend on anything else. You can't say, well, Buddha will do it. You have to do it. So, don't draw another's bow means don't depend on someone else's knowledge. You have to depend on what you know, even if it's just a little bit. We think, you know, that the more we know, the better off we'll be, or the better we'll be able to manage things.

[21:32]

But actually, in our practice, you may know just a little bit. But if you really know that little bit, then you can use that little bit of knowledge. Because if it's true knowledge, then that little bit of knowledge is like the end of a piece of cloth, the corner of a piece of cloth. It belongs to the whole cloth. So if you move with that knowledge, the whole cloth is there behind that little bit of knowledge, that little bit of understanding. It's not so much how much we know, but the depth of that little bit of understanding. But don't depend on someone else's knowledge or someone else's wisdom.

[22:41]

Buddha says, do not depend on what I say. You should find out for yourself. and other religions, although I don't want to criticize other religions, but no matter what is taught to you, you have to prove it to yourself. That's why we're always emphasizing practice. So we don't say, come every Sunday and we'll tell you what it's all about. You should just practice every day yourself and find out. And then he says, don't ride another's horse, which means something like don't depend on, don't ride on someone else's achievement.

[23:46]

It's kind of easy sometimes to ride on someone else's achievement. to write on the achievement of all the ancestors and to think that because there's such a thing as Zen or Buddhism that we can depend on that. You can't depend on that. Actually, you have to go beyond Buddhism and beyond Zen and have your own achievement. And then he says, don't discuss another's faults, which is very difficult because people are always offending us, right? And they're always at fault. But to always look at our own faults and see where the problem lies with us.

[24:54]

If we see where the problem lies with us, then we can deal with other people's faults. You can't avoid others' faults. You can't close your eyes. But if you try to deal with others' faults as others' faults, it doesn't work because you just make everybody defensive. As soon as you start to complain, the person you're complaining about or to becomes defensive. And you are on the offensive in order for you not to be defensive. Because when someone does something and is at fault, then you feel a need to be defensive. And so you transfer the defense, your defense as offense to someone else so they can be defensive and you can be defensive. And so it goes back and forth. So how can we deal with, you know, the sixth ancestor in the Platform Sutra says, do not take up other people's faults.

[26:09]

Do not find fault with others, even if they're wrong and you're right. Even if others are wrong and you're right, don't find fault. If you want to have some realization, you have to deal with that koan. How do you do that? If you can deal with that koan, you'll find that that will lead you to realization and a way to deal with a difficult situation. the habit of fault-finding. It's not that you shouldn't see the faults of others, but without finding fault.

[27:17]

It's like, in some way, the Blue Mountain and the White Cloud depend on each other. All day long, they depend on each other. without depending on each other, without being dependent on each other. So, in a similar way, you can see the faults of others without fault-finding. In the Dharmapada, Buddha says, the person who is continually being complaining, he hit me, he hurt me, he took this away, he did that, blah, blah, blah.

[28:30]

This person is being bound by false finding and has no freedom. and no way to deal with the world. The habit of fault finding actually binds us. It takes away our freedom. But we jump right into it. Automatically. And it takes It goes against our grain to not find fault. It's kind of against our nature to actually let go of that. It's against our nature. But when you can do it, then you find that it's not really against our nature.

[29:34]

It actually flows with Buddha nature. And instead of becoming a reactive person, we feel that reaction is our nature. Then we find that response becomes our nature. And we feel also that our compulsions are our nature. But actually, they're just our compulsions. And then he says, don't explore another's affairs, which is very similar, both of these. Don't discuss another's faults and don't explore another's affairs. Take care of your own affairs.

[30:47]

Take care of yourself. You know, when we sit Zazen, we say, stop the conscious thoughts of the mind. But it doesn't mean, you know, that you can stop thinking. You may stop thinking for a little while, but then, before you realize it, the mind is thinking again. So instead of trying to push away the thoughts, we just take care of Zazen. You know, we just keep bringing the mind back to Zazen, bringing our attention back to posture and breathing. And then the thoughts will come, and then we'll start, our mind will start thinking consciously, building some fantasy on the thoughts. And then we call that being carried away.

[31:48]

And then you realize, oh, I'm being carried away. And then you bring the thought, your attention back to what you're doing. So we're always bringing our attention back to what we're doing. But if you say, these thoughts just keep coming up. I can't stop these thoughts. They're bothering me. I'm trying to sit still and these thoughts are bothering me. finding fault with the thoughts in your mind, which are just there, doing something. And the more you try to shake them away, the more you get caught up in fault finding. You think that there's something wrong. You think that we have a problem. But all we have to do is take care of our own practice. Don't meddle in the affairs of your thoughts. Don't find fault with your thoughts.

[32:54]

It's not your affair. Your affair is just to come back to your posture and take care of yourself. Then there's no blame. And the more we do that, the less effect thinking mind, which is automatic, will have on our atsasana, on our peace of mind. It's not that you can't ignore them, and you can't chase them away. If you try to ignore, then up in fault-finding. So grasping and rejecting become duality.

[34:00]

So the point is, how do we stay out of being caught by the duality of reaction and stay firmly in our own true mind? That's actually, this is like being the servant of the other. The other, when we are the servant of the other, there's no self and no other. And this is like Dogen's saying, to study the self is to forget the self. So, to study the self is an interesting term, because on the one hand it means to do something over and over, like zazen, and in another sense it means when you're in a situation

[35:22]

Instead of reacting to the situation, you say to yourself, well, what is my practice here? And as soon as you say that, then you step back from reaction. And how do I practice? What is my practice in this situation? And then it takes you out of the emotional. It kind of relieves the pressure of the emotional need to react. And it puts you in the realm of practice. And then practice becomes the most important thing, rather than retaliation. And then we have to figure out, well, what is the most important thing? This is how we practice presets. You know, we say, don't kill, don't steal, and so forth. Those are the written precepts.

[36:25]

The actual precepts are, what do I do in this situation? Well, don't find fault. That's a precept. So when that comes up, what do I do? What's the practice thing to do in this situation? It takes it out of your emotional content. You realize, if you do this more and more, that your life is a life of practice, or a life of intentional living, instead of just a life of emotional reaction. you can abide in the realm of non-duality.

[37:28]

So the positive aspect of don't draw another's bow is do draw your own bow. Don't ride another's horse is do ride your own horse. Don't discuss another's faults is look at your own faults. Don't explore another's affairs is do take care of your own affairs. The best way to influence the world is by taking care of your own affairs. We say, you should do this, and they should do that. But show me how you do it yourself. What do you mean by that? Do you have any questions?

[38:46]

The best way to take care of the world is to take care of your own affairs. Well, how large are my affairs? Is it rioting in Los Angeles my affair? Is the conference in Rio de Janeiro my affair? What do you think? Yes. So you should take care of your affairs? Can you take care of the writing in Los Angeles if you can't take care of the writing inside yourself? Can you take care of the ecology of the world if you can't take care of what's right around you? Yeah, that's true, but I'm never going to be able to take excellent care of myself. I mean, I'll try very hard and I'll do my best, but that problem is never going to be over.

[40:02]

The problem is never over. But excellent, you know, may be too much to ask for. Well, when do I just not worry while taking good care of myself? When do I just stop worrying so much about that? If I'm always concerned about taking care of myself, and this begins to go round and round, How do I then have time to take care of wider affairs? Well, taking care of wider affairs is taking care of yourself. Taking care of the earth is taking care of yourself. Taking care of your surroundings is taking care of yourself. So, we're not different from our surroundings. As a matter of fact, we are our surroundings. Our surroundings plus this person is what myself is. So taking care of myself means taking care of my surroundings.

[41:10]

Right now, my surroundings is this room. When I go outside, my surroundings is the environment. When I'm standing on the top of a mountain, my surroundings is whatever I can view from the top of the mountain. So it's not always the same. When you sit in zazen, zazen is the whole universe. This one act includes the whole universe. When I go outside, the particulars of the universe are what I have to deal with. So, sometimes myself is very tiny, and sometimes myself is huge and expansive. I think people know, at least on paper, how to take care of this spot here in the zendo.

[42:12]

The question is, when you go out into the world, that that expansiveness sometimes is overwhelming. Yes, that's right. Expansiveness is overwhelming. So one can only take care of what one can take care of. But at that point, at that point, that is your whole self. what you meet. You plus what you meet is yourself. So, you can't take care of, you know, when we say take, what do we mean by take care of, you know? We can't take care of a baby on the other side of the world because we never see that baby in a trillion years. Nevertheless, there is something that you can take care of. It's right in front of your nose.

[43:12]

Somebody offends me after there is a big emotional reaction. And I say, what is my practice right now? That is crucial. It is crucial. I can't go on from there, because obviously I'm defeated again and again. Sometimes I don't even ask, what is my practice right now? And if I do, that is so weak as opposed to the strength of the reaction. Well, first of all, you have to have a practice. Practice is, how can I save myself and this other person? Reaction doesn't say that.

[44:17]

Reaction just says, you may be mad, and now I'm mad. But response is, Bodhisattva vow is, how can I save this person and myself? in this situation. That's the practice. So how do I save this person and myself in this situation without one or both of us going under? So because I see the other person as an object that's making me angry, I can't help anything. So first of all, we have to be able to understand something about why this is happening. You may not understand exactly why this is happening, or you may feel it's unfair that it's happening, but there's still some reason why this is happening. So, if we knew all the background of a person that was offending us, we would probably not be offended.

[45:27]

even though their anger directed at us may not have anything to do with us. But on a certain level, we feel the dragon's fire. We feel the dragon's breath. But who is this dragon? And why is this happening? What is motivating this dragon to act in this way toward me. So this gives us a little bit of distance. You may not know why, but it gives us a little distance. And if we don't have that distance, then all we can do is lash out. And if we can't lash out, then we just suffer. So even though we may have some suffering, if we have the effort to understand, then it takes the focus off of our suffering and puts it onto our understanding.

[46:35]

And we may still feel some pain, but our focus is not on the pain, it's on the understanding. And then we have a way to start dealing with the situation. So what's the biggest problem in the world? Lack of understanding. And what is its manifestation? Pain. So always we should be putting ourselves in the mode of trying to understand. That way our attention goes to trying to understand. And even though we have the pain, it's something we can deal with. Because it's not taking center stage. When we feel the pain, that's ego taking center stage. That's all we care about, is our pain. And then what arises is our anger. And our anger is ego manifesting, taking center stage.

[47:44]

So we always focus in this way. This reaction always focuses on ego. Whereas response means stepping back from taking ego and stepping back and making an effort to see what's really happening here. Why is this happening? How is this happening? What can I do? How can I understand this person? Maybe an aim to start learning to deal with this kind of situation would be, okay, I'm going to lose sometimes because the magnetism, the attraction of the anger is so almost pleasant to me. It's like weeds. It's my right to be angry. It's my anger. It's very heavy. And sometimes the voice that says, what is my practice here, is not strong.

[48:46]

It's not as attractive as that moment, as to go after that. It's right. It's not. Winning and losing are the two sides that you know, we have to get beyond. If you think about winning and losing, then it's very hard to not react. So you have to give up winning and losing as your goal. And, you know, expressing anger, emotion is just emotion, and it's expressed in various ways. So anger is one way of expressing it. Love is another way. And neutral is another way. Neutral is pretty good. But love is great. Neutral can be even better in many ways, because neutral can include love, which is a kind of underlying

[49:52]

If you carry the underlying mode of love or compassion with you, then when the situation arises, that's what comes forward, rather than anger. So you have to practice it all the time. practice is nowhere, so maybe I should allow myself some time to... Well, here's where the judgment comes. You're judging, you know, saying, oh, it's just like the thoughts that come up in your mind, in zazen, or the feelings that come up in zazen, and you don't want them and you feel bad about them. You've got to get beyond that and just stay with what you're doing. Not feel defeated or because of that.

[50:56]

And as a matter of fact, maybe you do feel defeated, but you still have some place to go. The bad part about feeling defeated is that you have no place to go. And then you have despair. So if you always have practice to rely on, then even though you may be defeated, your practice is still there as a foundation, something that you can rely on. And if it's not, then you say, well, why isn't it? And then, where is my practice? That's really good. Wait a minute, where is my practice? Where is my foundation? And then you fight it, kind of groping it on the ground for it, but you fight it, and you can stand up. I don't want us to go on too long, but... You know, it doesn't always come out right.

[52:08]

And we can't always find our practice, you know. And we do react, and we do get angry, you know. But these emotions are just ways of emoting. And my model is like a big steam boiler. And the steam is always boiling away in the boiler. The fire is on and the water is there. And there has to be various outlets for the steam. Otherwise, the boiler explodes. And there's a safety valve, which is called tiers. You know, it's called love. There's one pipe coming up, it's called love. One pipe coming up is called hate, or anger. And various pipes, you know, for various reliefs of this boiler that's always creating steam. And so we can turn on the love valve, you know.

[53:12]

And when we get hurt, then we turn that off and turn on the hate valve, you know. But it's a stained steam, and it's just going in different directions and serving different functions. So it's a matter of, well, what valve do we want to turn on? And the safety valve is tears, or screaming, or something like that. But it really all comes from the same source, and it's the kind of decision, actually. It's not a compulsion, it's a decision. And we can decide where we want that to go, how we want to be. But we don't think it's a decision because of our compulsions, because our compulsions are so strong. And we think that that's the way life is, being always compelled to do something.

[54:21]

But it's not so. We can actually act out of our intention and not just out of our compulsion. And we really think about that. And that's our practice. And if you respond, if compassion And loving kindness is your practice. Then if you give way to anger, it's not that you shouldn't get angry. We all get angry. But if you give way to anger, then that's a kind of defeat. And then you should, oh, wait a minute, you know. Because what you want to be present is loving kindness and compassion. It has its problems. Big problems. But still. If that's where you want to live, then that's where you should live. And you shouldn't let anger and compulsion take over.

[55:25]

But they do take over. You know, that's okay too. We shouldn't think, I'm bad because that happens. It just happens because we're human. But we should continue to find out, you know, where we live, where we want to live. Where's the best place to internally for us to be, for our attitudes and our mode of being. And strive for that. And realize that we can't always be there. But when we fall down, we stand up again. Because we know we have something to stand on. I'm fearless.

[56:25]

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