What do I really want to say? You would be right. But most of it is, you know, it's just obvious. You know, fire heats, wind moves, eye and sight, you know, most of the poem. And I was looking at it again before I came over here and looking for something to grasp onto and there was very little. You know, if you don't know the way right before you, how will you know the path as you walk? I mean, it's kind of instructive, but, you know, when you really want something, it's a little frustrating. And I have some feeling that Tassajara practice is like that in a very useful way. And it's, maybe one could say this, I think it's like that, it's modeled like that because

[01:09]

that's the way the universe is. That Tassajara practice was, it's not that, you know, Tassajara is the only place to practice by any means. In fact, you know, practice is so way, way, way wider than Tassajara. And it may not even be that Tassajara is the best place to practice for any particular person at any particular time. But it, I think, does take this particular tendency of the universe and emphasize it. The tendency to be, to look ordered and reliable and then to fade beneath your touch. You know, to, when you try to get a hold of it, to just miss your grasp.

[02:14]

And I think that this has something to do with that story that I mentioned to Linda in the Shosan that I was interested in. The one, let's see if I can remember it, I think his name is Shosan, anyway, he asked an elder, he said, the Dharma body of the universe is like space. It responds to beings, it manifests in response to beings. No, excuse me, it was the Buddha's Dharma body is like space. It manifests in response to beings, like the moon and water. How do you explain the principle of response? Or what can you say about the principle of response? And you remember the elder said, it's like a donkey looking in a well.

[03:27]

And this guy, whose name I can't remember, said, that's pretty good, but it's only 80%. And he said, well, what about you, teacher? It's like the well looking at the donkey. So this principle of response, like a moon in water, I understand as there's water, it's just sitting there, being water, and then the moon or anything else comes within reflecting range and it reflects it. It doesn't have any problem doing this. And as it says in the Genjokan, it doesn't matter how big the water is or how big the thing it's reflecting is. It all just gets proportioned. If the water is tiny, then there's a tiny little moon in there.

[04:35]

If the water is big, then there's a big moon. So this story is saying that the Buddha's Dharma body is like that. It's like anything that comes along, it responds to it. So here we come. Monks trudging off to the monastery or monks going out of the zendo and running into other monks or monks going home for Christmas, running into those outside people. Wherever, whatever we're going, there we are meeting this mirror, this watery mirror of the universe, and it is responding to us, responding to us.

[05:42]

The commentary about where the donkey looks at the well, let me see if I can remember. I have it right here, and I may have to get it out. There's two different, there's a commentary for the story and then a commentary for the verse. Like a donkey looking at a well, the falling flowers consciously go along with the flowing stream. Like a well looking at a donkey, the flowing stream mindlessly carries the falling flowers along. So this, it's very interesting that it says the falling flowers consciously going with the flowing stream. I mean, we don't normally think of flowers as conscious, but since this donkey, I think

[06:51]

is connected with us and our idea of our consciousness. There we are flowing along in the stream, pedaling, or no, what do we do? Pedaling. Thank you. Pretty soon I'm going to need a lot of help giving lectures. Pedaling along in the stream, deciding which stroke to use, deciding which little beach we stop and have lunch at. We're making all those hard decisions to the best of our ability. Deciding I'm going to follow this schedule, deciding right now I have to not follow this schedule, I think I'm sick today. Deciding I will be nice to that person in spite of what I feel coming up about them. Deciding I won't be too nice to that person in spite of what I feel coming up about them. Or deciding yes, I will go ahead and be nice in spite of that it might have a little self

[07:57]

cleaning involved in it. So we're flowing along in this stream, doing our best to flow consciously with the stream. And then there's the stream carrying us along, carrying flowers along with the full force of its intensity as we can see this morning. It reminds me also of the story, what to do when a hundred thousand million things all come at once. Don't try to control them. Even if you try to control them, they can't be controlled. So we get a little worried at this point. Well then what am I supposed to be doing? Does it just turn into chaos? The rain falls and then the roads wash out.

[09:05]

Do I have any responsibility here? What if hate arises? What kind of responsibility do I have there? Before I go there, I want to mention the other, in the verse it says, the ass looks at the well. Even getting up at dawn, the well looks at the donkey, at the ass. There's already somebody going by night. So even, I mean this speaks right to our paddling along in the stream. Even getting up at dawn, still, something has been going on all night. There were those dreams. There was the rain. There was that person's response to what you said yesterday.

[10:09]

And now you don't have any idea where things are at. We may think we have some idea of where things are at. Oh, I said a terrible thing. They're probably really angry at me today. But actually, to be accurately flowing in this stream that's been flowing all night, or all day, and everyone else has been paddling along in it also, we have to stay in touch with not knowing. I think it's, you know, such a flimsy place to stand on not knowing. But I think it's really, it's our only place. Any grasping at things, and we're like, you know, we're flowing in the stream and we're holding on to some twig trying to stop ourselves, and the stream is flowing by. So it doesn't really work.

[11:10]

It's not exactly that it's wrong. It just doesn't work. There's no way to be accurate when we're holding on to some anything, you know, some rule, some idea, some feeling even. You know, I think many of us, when we start practicing, we discover some other part of ourself. And, you know, maybe everybody in their childhood, we learn to rely on something. And, you know, you may be able to pick out something, or, you know, several things, of course. And you may be able to pick out something that you relied on. So some people, you know, learn to speak very well, or either well or belligerently, or, you know, something. And then when something happens, they can defend themselves with that. Or they learn to think.

[12:12]

So let's take that person. When they come to practice, maybe they get in touch with their feelings, and they shift some of their reliance to, oh, okay, I can't think everything out. I see that that was kind of made up, and I was just trying to protect myself. So now I'll go on, well, how do I feel in this situation? But that, too, is not reliable. You know, it's not that it isn't there. It's just that it can't be grasped at. It has to be thoroughly respected. This is a big question for us, you know, how do I respect what is, and yet one way of saying it is not take it too seriously. You know, how do I take it seriously enough, but not too seriously? Or how do I, well, maybe that's clear enough.

[13:23]

How do I respect it enough, but not solidify it? Either what happens internally in my mind and body, or what happens externally. You know, if someone comes to me, and they're very, very upset about, oh, I don't know, you know, pick one of a million things. Let's say they're really upset that we serve gruel here. This has happened numerous times. Not this practice period, so I feel free to bring this up. So they're really upset with that. How do I respect that, take that seriously, and yet not give it more substance than what, than it deserves, than they actually want, than they might feel tomorrow? This is, I think, a real question for us. How do we, and it's a very immediate question. We don't always remember it, thank goodness, because we would not know how to walk around.

[14:26]

But actually, it's a question that comes up every minute. Like, how seriously do I take the floor? Can I trust it or not? Anyway, on and on and on. And really that question is, it has to do with form and emptiness. You know, it's about that relationship between form, if I can use form in its widest sense, to mean anything that we can see, experience, and emptiness. What is the relationship between, you know, how empty is form? What is emptiness anyway? Well, does form, is form so empty that it isn't there? And I think that we have a, we need to be careful, because whenever we think about something like emptiness,

[15:29]

we almost can't help but have an idea of what that is. So, when we start looking for the emptiness in form, it's very hard to do that without projecting something there that we're looking for. What does it mean that this person's feeling about gruel is empty? Well, we have some idea about that. So, I, myself, I think form is in some ways more reliable. Not more reliable, it's more, it's more, the word would be, it speaks to us in a language that we understand more accurately. It's like, if you have an erroneous idea about form, it finds a way to tell you about it. Whereas emptiness, if you have an erroneous idea about emptiness,

[16:38]

pretty much emptiness just goes right along, no problem. You know, you've got an erroneous idea, so what? You know, it's empty, fine. But, since we're somewhat attached to our mind and our thinking, and we want to think accurately, and therefore, we think, live accurately, it's somewhat useful to pay close attention to form, because it will talk back to you. Some form talks back more loudly than others. Like, people talk back real loud, often. Of course, they also talk in a confusing way. So, you know, if you have an erroneous idea about somebody, and you start acting off of that idea, they usually try to let you know about it. Of course, they may try to let you know about it in such a way that you get really confused. Like, they are not just talking about your erroneous idea, they're talking about that you're a bad person, or something.

[17:42]

So, nonetheless, if we take, like we do in this practice here at Tassajara, we spend a lot of time with inanimate objects, and also with human beings that have been forcibly quieted down some. They've been made to sit in a room quietly for a long time, including ourself. All those confusing things that we're saying, that, of course, we haven't found a way to forcibly stop ourselves from saying those, luckily. We sit with that for a long time. So, we sit with our Zafu, we sit with our bowls, we sit with the food that comes to us, we sit with the bells, we sit with the schedule. We stay there, and we see, I think, without even trying, actually, we experience the response that all those things have to our erroneous ideas.

[18:51]

Like, I have an idea, I can follow the schedule, and then I proceed to try to do that, and then various things happen. And then, either I can't follow the schedule, or I see that I am following the schedule, but I'm doing it in a certain way that's causing my back to go out. So, many, many things, many, many communications happen between us and the things, people, and all around us. And in that process, I believe that we learn, maybe so we can say it, but maybe not, about the emptiness of things. We learn, actually, how things are empty. You know, how they are impermanent, how they are dependently co-arisen,

[19:53]

where they come from, and how to live with them. Not in a way that we could write it down and have a little instruction card. Okay, how to live with Colin. Or how to live with Oryoki. Not that we could do that, but we learn how to actually live in a flowing stream. How to be a conscious flower, flowing along in the stream. It doesn't say the stream mindlessly carries the flowers, and then it gets to a place where there are no rocks in the stream, and the flowers are just floating along, happy. You know, the flowers have to keep bumping into rocks and twigs,

[20:53]

and I think that's the way it goes all through life. We keep bumping into things, and the bumps are especially painful when we have an erroneous idea about their nature, about how they're made up. But that doesn't mean this is bad. It just means it's an opportunity to learn, how do I interact with my parents dying? How do I interact with getting old? How do I interact with my hair being gray? I thought it was always going to be brown. I was sure of that at some deep level, and then suddenly, or slowly, it's not. How to be a conscious flower, flowing along in the stream

[21:55]

There's a story in the Ocean Seal Concentration, which I always think about bringing up in a lecture, and I usually don't, but then afterwards I think, oh, that would have fit in, so I'm not sure if it fits in, but I like it for some reason. And this is a simplified version. Basically, it says, The great ocean contains all existence. Oh, I hear that the great ocean cannot lodge a dead body. What is the great ocean? This one monk talking to a teacher. It contains all existence. Well, why can't it lodge a dead body then? It's not that existence are without breath in effect.

[23:05]

And then Dogen goes on and on about how the great ocean is not just any old ocean. It's not one of the seven oceans, or however many there are. So the great ocean contains all existence, and yet it can't lodge a dead body. How can that be? And the answer is, all existence are not void of breath in effect. And I think this is somewhat the same idea, that everything has an effect. So as we are sweeping along in the stream, and have to, because we are conscious flowers, we have to be making our decisions about what to do, where to go, how to paddle. There is no way to turn off our mind and just flow along like we were an unconscious flower.

[24:14]

We aren't. We actually have minds that have to interact in this. And everything that we think and everything that we do has an effect. There are no dead bodies in this stream ocean. Everything has an effect. And the universe, the stream, there's a lot of water, conflicting water images here. None, but anyway, it reflects that. Whatever we do, it reflects it. It's in a constant conversation with us about who we are, what impact we're having. This is a kind of scary, sometimes ungrounding thought, which is another reason why Tassar has set up the way it is, you know, consciously or unconsciously, why you have to walk through uneven territory to get to the Zendo. You have to watch out for the puddles.

[25:16]

You don't have very good light in your room. It's all by plan. Don't believe anything. Because it grounds us, actually, to have to take care of an umbrella, you know, to have to take care of an orioke, to have to take care of a lamp. You know, I don't recommend Aladdin lamps. They're more like having pets or children, which is okay. There's good practice. It's just, it's a lot to do at Tassajara. So if you take on an Aladdin lamp, do it after a lot of thought. But if you're ungrounded enough, you may need an Aladdin lamp to help you if you don't have other kinds of problems. You know, most people have enough other kinds of problems like themselves. They have their own feelings, their own thoughts that come up.

[26:18]

And so I guess maybe the most important thing I want to say is these problems that come up, they're the reflection in the universe, or the reflection from the universe. They're actually where our eye of practice needs to go. It's not to say, this is a problem, I have to get rid of this. I have to get rid of this before anyone else sees it. I must hide this problem. That's secondary. Whether they see it or not is maybe not even secondary. It's like way, way, way down the line. The first is, can we turn toward it with the eye of practice? Can we see it as the whole universe is our human body? The whole universe is my life practice, or my life of practice.

[27:24]

Can we notice our label for it, which may be, you know, this is a good thing or this is a bad thing or whatever, and separate it a little bit from the event, and then try to be open to the event itself, whatever label we've given it. Okay, this is what is being reflected right now in my drop of water, in my little ocean. This is being reflected. Can I respect it? Can I study it? Can I see what its nature is? And in that way, the donkey and the well, I guess when I think of the well, I actually think of the water in the well.

[28:25]

Maybe that's not accurate. I mean, I've never really thought about the well before. It's just he's looking down into this well, and there was the water, and the water is reflecting back. So I'll have to come back again some other time about the well itself. But the donkey and the well are so interconnected. You know, which one are we really? Where is the boundary between one and the other? And yet, I live in this body-mind, this eye and form, ear and sound, nose and smell, tongue and taste happen over here. So totally connected, whether I'm the well or the donkey or the water. And yet, I have to find sort of in my own body that place to study from. And I guess I think a place like Tassajara,

[29:38]

doesn't have to be Tassajara, but a place like Tassajara, and since here we are, really helps us do that. Because if we try to figure out how to do that, it's counter to the whole process. It's like taking my mind and trying to make sense out of this universe reflecting at me. It's me trying to control objects. There is no other way for me to do it. But in this setting where you're told what to do, you're told what to wear, you're told what to eat, and you do that, and yet, as you have that very structured, disciplined life going on, everything can come up. Anything can happen in that structure, as some of you know. Many, many unexpected things arise and can be met in that space.

[30:45]

And met and known, actually. And I think through that meeting, we develop courage, actually. We develop stability and faith, is another way of saying it. We develop faith and the capacity to meet the universe as it appears. Here or anywhere, actually. Do you have any questions? Yes, Danny. Mindlessly by the stream.

[31:51]

Danny asked whether I could say anything about the word mindlessly, which is in the stream flows, mindlessly carries the flowers along. Well, this is my thought, my mind about it, which is... I think it's pointing to the fact that the universe is not... It's not like thinking about you. You know... Okay, I want to say again, this is just me talking, right? But I think my experience is the universe is so responsive, individually, uniquely responsive, and yet, it's not... It's not like a mind there.

[32:59]

It's flowing. Every atom is responsive. But I don't know. As in the conscious flowers? Well, consciously and mindlessly, it seems like they are pointing to a different aspect, anyway. I wouldn't say that flowers in the stream or us, actually, are very different, but we have different aspects. And we certainly have a mindless aspect, and we have a conscious aspect. So maybe that's what it's pointing to. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Yeah, good question. Well, according to some teachings, no, there aren't. Embedded in ideas are words...

[34:03]

Ideas come in words, and words have to do with separation. And so we, basically, we're imputing a separation to a non-separated event. So I think there is some error in every idea, but that it's also, you know, we don't live without ideas. It would be foolish to assume, foolish and frustrating and actually erroneous, to assume that we're supposed to get to some place where we don't have these erroneous ideas. It's more like we should have them and know that they're erroneous. And we live in that realm. So even though they're erroneous, we have to take care of it. And if we don't, this is where it speaks to us.

[35:06]

If we don't take care of it, we hear about it. Even though we may not understand, we may think, you know, Devon is a separate person, there she is, and that may be erroneous. And yet, if I don't treat you with respect, suited to you, things won't go well. Thank you. Tova. I've been going over the line about the well looking at the donkey and what that means. Yes. And I wonder if that's related to mindlessness. The talk of Chaya, that you can't grasp what it's saying. Is there anything to that? Yes. That's the line that it's a commentary on. The well looking at the donkey. And I certainly also thought they're related.

[36:10]

And the Dharmakaya beyond our thinking. It's interesting that mindless would be the word. In a way, I mean, it was written by humans. So of course, mind is the kind of starting point for us. We have no other place to start from. So that we would think of Dharmakaya as mindless is probably a very human thought. But we are humans. I guess that's the kind of thoughts we have to have. Todd. What do you think is the principle of response? If you respond to anything, if you don't try to control. Well, I mean, yeah. In other words, if you give up grasping, then can there be any action that doesn't have some element of grasping behind it?

[37:12]

So what would that... What does that look like? Where does it come from? See, I don't know if... I don't know whether there can be any... There is action. We are constantly responding. We have no option but to respond. Not doing something is a response. So we are responsive creatures. Whether there is grasping always, some amount of grasping in that, that's a question that I've often thought of too. Or another way of saying it is, is there always some amount of idea of self until we die? Well, I guess Buddhas, fully enlightened Buddhas, can do ungrasping things and live without an idea of self. But for the rest of us, maybe not. I don't know that it's so important, actually.

[38:13]

I think what's more important is to try to recognize the ways that I grasp, or the ways that I, in a particular moment, is grasping recognizable to me now and can I relax my grasp? Or do I have an idea of myself now that I'm trying to protect in some way and can I loosen up around that and let the self that's actually here be here? So I think, you know, is there any place to get to where there isn't any grasping is interesting, but it's somewhat theoretical from where most of us are. And we have plenty of work to do while we don't quite know how far we'll go. Does that...? Jackie? I'm wondering if you think that instead of mindlessly impersonal would work.

[39:19]

Jackie asked whether I thought instead of mindlessly impersonal would work for the stream or the universe, I guess you're saying. You know, I'm on really shaky ground here because when I talk about, when I think about the universe, I realize my Christian roots. So I'm quite sure that I actually have a kind of feeling of person there. And I don't really know. Contrary to what I said to Danny. So maybe you better ask somebody else. Dion? Erroneous? Erroneous? What does that mean? Erroneous means wrong. Why don't you guys ask me, what do you do if you fall in love with someone

[40:34]

you shouldn't be in love with? That's my area. Thinking before, he wants to know, I think there's thinking before language. Yeah. Well, do you mean like before like a baby? Or before you say something? Oh, primitive humans. Babies, yes, I would say definitely babies. Having just watched Kaia last year, I think before she could say many things, before she had words for them, she, I mean, I don't know if her thinking was like our thinking, but she was putting things together. Did you say something when we were both talking at the same time? Thank you. Sonia? You couldn't hear what he was saying? He gave up.

[41:35]

I'm not sure whether he decided he didn't want to ask the question or he wasn't getting the answer, so. But I said thank you to him because that was enough for me. Sonia? I'd like to make a proposition and see if you have a response. Okay, she's going. Okay, proposition coming, if there's a response. Thinking about the mindless, the well, you know. So I was thinking that actually the world is created by karma, right? So we create the world. And this being carried along or the mindlessness, what occurred to me was like the alaya, you know, the shadow or the unconscious, or I think the idea of pre-set responses came up last night, or whatever night it was. But there's this place that we just, until, or that comes up against practice

[42:44]

that's just our karmic consciousness, which is really kind of mindless. And it's the eons of incarnation, or however you want to think about it, that's not active consciousness. Yes, yes. And so I was thinking maybe the mindlessness is actually the karma that just comes up, you know, just comes out of us when we respond before we actually, and that's what meets our eye of practice. So I'm putting that as a proposition. That sounds good to me. Could you hear that? Sonja was reminding us that the world is actually created by karma. We create the world and we are created by, you know, by our past karma, by generations or more than generations of karma. And maybe this mindlessly flowing stream is that karmic stream flowing

[43:46]

where we are, you know, we respond from our karma, and that meets the eye of practice. That's what the eye of practice meets is, in each of us, our karmic stream, which is kind of mindlessly flowing along, which, thank you for bringing that up. All right. Is there anything else? I think it's about time to end. Great. Thank you very much.

[44:19]

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