That's true. What's that one? I don't know. Leaning ahead with even a hundred thousand million colors. Now I can see and hear it, accept and maintain it. May I unfold the meaning of the Siddhartha's truth. A monk once asked a young man, what are the teachings of a whole lifetime? The young man said, an appropriate statement.

[01:06]

So how do we express Buddha according to time and season, according to causes and conditions? What is an appropriate statement? And a statement is not just a statement. A statement or a question can be a statement. A statement can be a question. This is about how we respond to the situations of our life and the world. What is an appropriate response? How do we meet each thing arising in front of us? So the traditional teaching of skillful means, of upaya, is to Use whatever's at hand. How do we be helpful and healing in the midst of our life, in the midst of confusion, in the midst of this difficult world?

[02:29]

The young man said an appropriate statement or an appropriate response. The teachings of a whole lifetime So in Chinese Buddhism long before Yunmeng, they developed ways of seeing the whole lifetime of Shakyamuni Buddha and all of his different teachings in terms of phases of his life and how the different teachings and sutras fit together. But also, we say that Throughout his 45 years of teaching, the Buddha didn't say a single word. And any single word I say is not, can't touch, can't contain, can barely hint at the richness

[03:43]

and rawness and fragility and tenderness of the next breath, of the next moment, of the next meeting. What are the teachings of a whole lifetime? So this whole lifetime is right now. Everything you've ever said or seen or done, all the people you've ever known, are part of what is on your cushion or chair right now. An appropriate response. How do we meet each situation and recognize that all the different situations, all the different people, all the different beings, including all the different beings on your Kushner chair right now, how do we respond?

[05:07]

So some of us have been sitting for three days or sitting all day today. And in that kind of experience, get to see many aspects of that which is on our cushions or chairs each moment. How do we respond appropriately? How do we respond appropriately to the difficulties of our friends or family members, to the difficulties of our world, to the perilous situation of our society? So another time, Great Master Yunnan was asked, when it's not the present discriminations and it's not the present phenomenon, what is it? And Yunnan said, an upside down statement.

[06:15]

So we are upside down, our response is upside down, topsy-turvy, when we do not see this present stream of babbling thoughts, this present phenomenal situation, the sensations in our knees, or our shoulders, or the sounds all around the Zendo, and sometimes even out on the street. An upside-down statement. So, I've been suggesting that this is a way of seeing Buddhist or Bodhisattvas and ethics Our precepts are guidelines to how to respond appropriately.

[07:25]

Benefiting beings, not harming, not holding on to anger, not taking what's not given, but being generous. All of these are just appropriate responses, so it's not about good and bad in the way we usually think about it. It's about what's appropriate. How do we meet this difficulty or this wonder, this joyfulness? And the transcendent practices too, patience, enthusiasm, skillful means, generosity, commitment, are ways of seeing how to act appropriately, how to respond appropriately to our life. So, you're all here

[08:44]

Whether you're here for the talk, or for the day, or for three days, this is your whole lifetime, and here you are, and you're here because you care, in some way, about the quality of your life, of our world, of how you engage with our world. How do we find appropriate response? It's pretty good. What's the teaching of a whole lifetime? What's the expression of a whole lifetime? Just an appropriate response. It's pretty good. Yun Men's amazing. He has these short answers that really go deep. And it's said that every statement that Yun Men made contains three aspects.

[09:53]

or there's three statements in one. And I would suggest these are also aspects of our own appropriate responses and of our zazen and of our practice out there in the world, responding appropriately. So one is just that this statement, this response encompasses heaven and earth, it says in the commentary. The whole world, everything is here. We may feel that our life is small, but it includes the entire world. So each response, each statement is vast, spacious, comprehensive, even when it's not comprehensible. So, that's one aspect.

[10:57]

And the second aspect of each appropriate response or each statement of Yunmin is that it cuts off the stream. So one can do this in one period of Zazen, but often for most of us, coming and doing a day or a few days of sitting helps to go deeper so that we can find a way to just stop. So there are various kind of meditation exercises that can help do that. But basically just to be present right here, to let go, to drop body and mind, as Togon says, to just, we say, to turn the light within.

[12:02]

to not get caught up in all the thought streams and sensation streams. So that's the second aspect. And the third aspect is to follow the streams, to follow the current. to join the world and go along with the flow of our life and everything around us. So these three aspects, again, are that each statement of the Unmanned or each appropriate response, it includes, encompasses all phenomena, everything, the whole Earth. Second is the aspect that cuts through. like Manjushri's sword of insight, cuts off the streams. And then the third is that there's the aspect that goes along with the streams of the current. So these are all aspects of our practice. In each period of Zazen, in each engagement with the world, in each attempt to

[13:15]

express our awareness in our practice in the world. We can see these three. And sometimes we focus on one or the other, or sometimes one or the other aspect is what comes up to meet us. But all of this is about recognizing differences. skillful means, appropriate responses to appreciate how each situation that we respond to has some different aspect. It's not that there's one response that is appropriate for everyone or that meets every situation. So, how do we see this in our world, in our life? Well, one time a young man said, I don't ask you about before the full moon, try to say something about after the full moon. And nobody in his assembly said anything, so he said himself, every day is a good day.

[14:23]

Do you see how this encompasses Heaven and Earth, do you see how it cuts through? Do you see how it follows the stream? Every day, every day is a good day. There are times, especially, when you might feel every day is a bad day. Maybe that's the same thing. Don't want to get caught up in good and bad. But anyway, every day is a good day. Every situation is an opportunity. Every day there are many Dharma gates. How do we meet our life? So every day, every situation is an opportunity for an appropriate response. And practically speaking, As human beings, a whole lot of the time, we don't quite hit it.

[15:34]

Occasions, sometimes I can recognize, oh yeah, that was just right, that was an appropriate response. But then, you know, there are times when I will, for myself, feel just totally crummy, just really painful about the response that wasn't quite appropriate. It might not have been terrible, it just, you know, I could have, if only I'd said this, you know. So we probably all have that kind of feeling. and things in our life we regret where we didn't respond appropriately to some opportunity, some dharma gate, some situation. Oh, if that happened now, if I was there now, oh, I could have done that, oh, anyway. And yet every day is a good day, every day is, you know, we can try again to respond appropriately. And, you know, in each response, there is these three aspects.

[16:37]

And so we don't always know what's appropriate. In fact, the point of skillful means isn't that you have some instruction manual telling you what to do in every situation. Impossible. What's right in front of you? How do you meet that? How do you meet the person right in front of you? Whether it's somebody you know or somebody you're very close to, or whether it's yourself. Every day is a good day. We can see every person has Buddha. Every Buddha is a good Buddha. So how do we respond to the world, seeing the possibilities, without denying or ignoring or pretending that the sadness and the difficulties and the pain is not there?

[17:45]

So how do we actually respond and meet each situation? So I wanted to comment on these three statements by you and then with We've been chanting a verse by Hongzhe, who lived, young men lived in the 900s, Hongzhe lived in the 1100s in China, a great teacher in our tradition. And it's a guidepost for the Hall of Pure Bliss. So if you feel like it, you can look on your chant book. I think it's page 19? I think it's 12. OK. But you don't have to look at it all. I just wanted to pick out some appropriate statements that are part of this longer teaching poem that we chant sometimes when we're speaking.

[18:47]

So it starts off by saying, seeking appearance and sound one cannot truly find the way. This is kind of the beginning of our practice. We start to see that we need to turn the light within. We need to step aside from the appearances, the surface, the surface fashions and sounds of our world, trying to, you know, get happiness by, you know, accumulating all the consumer items that are available and getting the newest toys and, you know, all of the, ways in which the appearances and sounds of the world around us distract us from appropriate response, from truly finding a way.

[20:04]

It's just true that we're living in this incredibly corrupt consumerist society. with a worldview and a culture that is an economy that's based on war and weapons and fear. All we have to sell is fear itself. Be afraid. There's always something to be afraid of. This terrorist or that terrorist. We're being terrorized by all this talk of terrorists. Ebola, there's always something to distract us from actually just finding the true way. So, the first beginning of practice is turning against the stream, cutting through the stream, not being caught up in surface appearances and sounds, not falling for that, maybe not knowing where to go, but at least you know, part of our practice is, you know, on a beautiful Sunday morning in Chicago, here we are sitting around in a room, you know, we could be out doing all kinds of wonderful things, and we could be, you know, there's all kinds of entertainments, and there's all kinds of, you know, things we could be doing, and there's, anyway, we turn away from the stream of

[21:43]

This has always been true. As bad as things are now, there's always this worldliness, and in some ways, our practices and sangha is a kind of counterculture to that. So we come together to look at what's appropriate. And there's not one right, appropriate response. Each of us have our own appropriate response to this. But first, we turn away from that materialists wrote in some way, each in their own way. A little later on, talking about this deep way, this deep source of realization, he says, intimately conveying spiritual energy, it subtly turns the mysterious pivot. When the mysterious pivot finds opportunity to turn, the original light, the fundamental, light of reality, auspiciously appears.

[22:47]

So this is what happens when we are willing to stop and sit and face the wall, face our lives, face ourselves, be upright in the middle of that. There's this mysterious pivot. Something happens. There's some shift when we take on practice, when we really take it on. And one way to talk about that pivot is that when we turn the light around to Shantideva, when we actually are willing to look at how it is this body and mind can be Buddha, can respond appropriately, then we shift maybe first as that pivot includes the cutting off, and then it includes going back out. So it's difficult, you know, if you come and sit for a few days or even a day or, you know, in December we'll have five days. If you immerse yourself in this turning away, and it can happen in one period of Zazen, then we have to go out into the world.

[23:56]

What do we do? Oh my gosh. It's difficult. And people want to hold on to whatever, you know, you've seen coming off the street, whatever you've seen. by settling, settling, calming. Some clarity or some sense of creative energy appears and some blissfulness. And it's very difficult because we, you know, it's good and it's painful out there. The first noble truth is that it's difficult out there. So how do we, how do we, find this mysterious pivot which turns this around, and we can find our way to follow the stream, the third aspect. So intimately conveying spiritual energy, this spiritual creative energy which is the function of this deep interconnectedness that we start to feel, that we glimpse, or sometimes get hit over the head with,

[25:08]

or hit him in the knees with, or whatever, when we really take on the practice. There's this pivot, this mysterious pivot. It works both ways. It's not about one then the other. It goes both ways. I am not it, it actually is me. Just this, just this. There's this shift that happens subtly. We don't... Usually we don't even recognize it, and that's okay. It's not about understanding and figuring it out and getting a hold of it. And yet Mysterious Pivot finds the opportunity to turn, to feel the way to go in and out of the gate. And the fundamental light auspiciously appears. A little further down, he says, one beam of light's gleam permeates the vastness.

[26:12]

Somebody told me this weekend they don't like vastness. That's OK. You don't have to like it. But still, one beam of light's gleam permeates all of space. Dogen says in his early writing about Zazen, when one person sits Zazen, even for a little bit, a little while, and fully presents, displays, expresses the Buddha Mudra, complete body and mind, all of space awakens. You can't get your head around it. But what does that mean? Well, one thing it means is that our practice is not just about ourselves. sitting here silently facing the wall. Everything is there. It encompasses the whole world. We're not just sitting for ourselves. Well, of course, we are sitting for ourselves, too, because we're included in the entire world, each one of us. So one beam of light's gleam permeates the vastness.

[27:22]

This gleam permeates all directions from the outset, not covered or concealed. Nothing in the world has ever been hidden. even though there are huge corporations trying to conceal all kinds of things about what's going on in the world. And there are deep psychological aspects of each of us that are trying to hide from ourselves, trying not to recognize stuff. And yet, the teachings tell us from the outset, nothing has been covered or concealed. Catching the opportunity to emerge, amid transformations it flourishes. Following appropriately amid transformations, the pure bliss is unchanged. So this practice is about transformation. There is a transformative function to settling, to awareness, to bliss.

[28:22]

It has an effect when we are willing to face our lives and the world. And so awareness itself is transformative, but dysfunction also allows us an appropriate statement, an appropriate response. What is that? It's not one thing, and it changes every day or maybe every breath sometimes. So great Zen teachers like Tsumaki Roshi said, because Aizen is good for nothing. Well, yeah, it's not that you're going to get what you, you know, what you think you want. It's beyond our human discriminations and appetites and ideas.

[29:25]

And yet, it includes us. It includes all of us too. So amid transformations, it flourishes, this light, this bliss, this sense of wonder. So again, that's going out and following the stream. We have to. We may. settle and feel our deep interconnectedness. But the point of that is not to become some expert meditator for its own sake. It's how do we then carry that out into the transformations. So he says, all dharmas, all phenomena transcend their limits. All gates are wide open. Through the open gates are the byways of playful wandering.

[30:26]

I like this description of our practice. Playful wandering. There's a kind of play here. We don't know. how you remember Buddha, how you demonstrate Buddha on your cushion or chair is, you know, a kind of play, a kind of theater, a kind of playfulness. And it shifts, it wanders. It's not one thing. We're alive. The practice is alive. The world is alive. There are many possibilities. There's also all kinds of terrible distress and damage and so forth, but we don't know how that works. We don't know how our appropriate response, each one of us, and as a Sangha and as the various Sanghas and communities that we are, that we encompass, how our response, how our appropriate response will help us.

[31:31]

So these Everything transcends its limits. So, you know, part of our practice is to recognize our limitations. We have to honor our human limitations. Sometimes we feel sad about stuff that goes on in our hearts and minds. Sometimes we feel bad about the stuff that goes on in the world, of course. But how do we see the way to enter the gates? All gates are wide open. Everything transcends its limits at the same time that we recognize its limits. It's not limited by our limits. We are not limited by our limitations. Each limitation is an opportunity for an appropriate response. Through the open gates are the byways of playful wandering.

[32:34]

So the last piece of this teaching poem I'll mention is a few lines down. The others die from being too busy, but I maintain continuity. In the wonder of continuity are no traces of subtle identification. So yeah, we do get caught by subtle identifications. We do get caught by holding on to ideas, presuppositions, prejudices about who we are and what the world is. We get caught up in our views. And yet, this whole process that I've been talking about, including encompassing the whole world, including cutting off the streams, including going out and flowing along with the waves of the world, the point is to, as he says here, to maintain continuity. Even amidst our busyness, you should know there's one who's not busy.

[33:39]

So there's this wonderful continuity. So the point of our practice is to sustain awareness, to sustain our practice. That's pretty challenging. It's easy, you know, people sometimes come and practice for a while, then go away, then they may come back, and that's fine. But to sit regularly, or to just to attend to practice, to attend, to remember Buddha, in our body and mind regularly, to continue this, to sustain this. That's the point of our practice. Because our practice is alive, the world is alive, and it continues to need appropriate responses. So another line from Yunmin speaks to this, and Yunmin is famous for a very, very short responses, really sometimes very funny responses, but someone asked, what is the meaning of the teaching?

[34:49]

What is the meaning of the whole Buddha's teaching, the whole Buddha's path? And Yunmin said, the answer is not finished yet. So, you know, one way to read that is he was commenting on this student who was asking this, You know, beyond that, the answer is not finished yet. Whatever situation we are, we want to respond to, it's not finished yet. Buddha is always going beyond Buddha. So whatever sadness you're caught in or whatever joy arises, or realization arises in our practice, there's more. There's more to do. This is kind of a wonderful thing about our practice. It's alive and it continues. And, you know, we can take different forms and we can, you know, make changes in our life.

[35:54]

We can start new relationships. We can move to another city. We can take on a new job. Still, this opportunity, this Dharma gate of appropriate response is available. So many of us are here for the day, and we will have a... opportunity over tea this afternoon to have some discussion. But I want to appreciate the people who joined us for this morning for the talk. And so I wanted to just take a few minutes if anyone has a comment or question or a response, whether it's appropriate or whether you think it's appropriate or not. Comments, questions, responses, please feel free. Nicholas.

[37:07]

I won't. One appropriate response I felt like I had during this sit was to just really get, like, it just came in my body, the impermanence of all of my thoughts. Yes. Which was just so, such a release. me the appropriate response was just the embrace of the permanent nature of reality that included

[38:19]

Great, thank you. Yeah, so we do have the idea and the thought that we are what we think, and then we sit down and see all these thought streams flowing around all over the place, sometimes very busy, sometimes not so much, but still, that has its own life. The brain continues to secrete thoughts as we sit, and so, What, I thought that? So just to let go of our sense of who we are and what we think and just to pay attention. Yeah, good. Anybody else? Comment or response? Yes, yes. Maybe you talked about the first day. yeah that's such a wonderful kind of thing and it really

[39:30]

appropriate response doesn't say what the appropriate response is. And I'm not going to tell you. Yeah, well, go ahead. No, you know, but it but I mean, it seems like in that it's a sort of notion that, you know, just think we'll decide about identifying with our own thoughts, you know, so there might, you know, might be a little dangerous at one time, or may not meet time and season now. And so we're called upon to come up with our own response. And I mean, it's very much this matter, as you were saying, of practicing alive and stuff. Practice isn't about duplicating what Gauguin did. Of course not. There's obviously going to be certain resonances and so on, but it's all about

[40:40]

going forward. Yeah, so we have these wonderful teachings and I talk about these teachings from the good men of the 900s or 1100s or Dogen or even Suzuki Roshi back in the 60s. But it's up to us right now. So we have to take to find our own appropriate response. And we have this wonderful legacy and tradition and practice that's been conveyed generation after generation. But how do we do that in Chicago? How do we do that in the 21st century? What's the way to respond appropriately from a place of settleness, from a place of where we're hanging out with a mysterious pivot, So that's our wonderful task or opportunity or dharmagate here in the ancient dragon zen gate.

[41:44]

One last comment or question, anyone? Okay, silence may be the best response.

[41:58]

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