Good evening, everyone. Welcome. Tonight I want to talk about the Fox Koan. All my ancient and twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. So this is one of the most important stories in all of Zen. And before I talk about this particular story, I want to just give a little introduction to what koans are. I know some of you have heard me talk about this before, and some of you have heard about koans in other Zen traditions. So I just want to say a little bit about koans in terms of the Soto tradition, the tradition from Ehe Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, and Enmar Ueshiba.

[01:02]

So there's a lot of misconceptions about koans. So I'll say what they're not. They are not illogical riddles to solve. In some Zen traditions, particularly in America, there's a curriculum of koans that one meets with a teacher and tries to pass through and then graduates from. In our tradition, we don't work with the koans that way. Dogen, who brought the koan literature from China to Japan in the 1200s, was a Japanese monk who brought this lineage from China to Japan, was a master of the koan literature and brought it from China to Japan. But the way I work with koans and the way I think Dogen worked with koans

[02:11]

and the way my teacher works with koans is that we study them. We talk about them. I sometimes work with individual students with koans, but you never finish with any of these stories. So I'm studying this story with my teacher again, and I'm looking at this koan, and I've studied it and looked at it. Studied not theoretically, but sitting with it, getting into it. So when I work with a story with my students, they look at it. They sit with it. They respond to it with me. And when I feel like they have really absorbed this story into their practice body, well, we can look at another one. But you never finish with any of these stories. So that's one thing to say. They're not illogical either. They partake of the logic of awakening in various ways,

[03:12]

which is not our usual sense of logic and the Western sense of logic. There's a huge body of literature. So Zen is supposed to be non-words and letters famously, but there are libraries full of these stories and commentaries on the stories and commentaries on the commentaries, and we continue to create new commentaries on those commentaries. But there are these days three main collections of these stories, the Book of Serenity, which is the main one in Soto's Zen art tradition, the Mumon Koan or Gateless Barrier, and then the Blue Cliff Record. Both of those are used more in the Rinzai, the other main tradition in Japan, although we use them also. So that's just by way of a brief introduction. This story about the fox is, I would say,

[04:17]

one of the most important stories in our tradition in the Soto, or in Chinese, Zao Dong lineage. But actually it comes from the other lineage. So it's the main character. So there are various great famous masters from, many of them are from the 9th century in China, some of them more recently, some of them around that time. The main character in this story is Bai Zhou. This is Chinese name. He's called Hyakujo in Japanese pronunciation. He lived 749 to 814. And great master. He's a pillar of the monastic rules. He wrote the first monastic guidelines. So he's considered foundational to the guidelines and rules for community conduct. He was a student of Mazu, or Baso, the great course master, and who had 139 enlightened disciples.

[05:20]

And Bai Zhou was the teacher of Huang Po, who was an important character in this particular story. And Huang Po was the teacher of Lin Ji, or Rinzai, from whom the name of the other main tradition in Japan, the Rinzai lineage, comes from. Okay, here's the story. And I'm going to read the version from the, one translation from the Mumonkan, the gateless gate. And some of these stories are not so long, and there are different versions of each of the story. But anyway, I'll paraphrase this translation. Whenever Master Bai Zhou held a meeting, gave a talk, there was an old man who listened to the teaching along with the regular assembly, sat in the back. And when the assembly left, the old man would also leave. One day, the old man stayed behind, and the master asked him who he was. And the old man said, I am not a human being. In the past, in the time of an ancient Buddha,

[06:23]

from a previous age, I used to live on this mountain, which is to say he was the teacher on that mountain. He was the previous Bai Zhou. As it happened, a student asked me whether or not a greatly cultivated person, a person who had cultivated great practice, was subject to cause and effect. I said they are not subject to cause and effect. And I fell into the state of a wild fox for 500 lifetimes. Now I ask you to turn a word, to give me a turning word on my behalf, so that I may be freed from being a wild fox. Now I'll note here that in East Asia, foxes are, in Native American tradition, foxes are sometimes malevolent and sometimes playful, mischievous. They're kind of, they're mythic figures, but they have a mixed kind of sense.

[07:28]

Whereas in East Asia, they're almost always really malevolent. They're nasty characters. Anyway, this poor fellow had been turned into a wild fox for 500 lifetimes. The story says, so the old man asked Bai Zhou, are greatly cultivated people still subject to cause and effect? And the master said, they are not blind to cause and effect, or they do not ignore cause and effect. And the story says, the old man was greatly awakened at these words. He bowed and said, I have shed my wild fox body. Now it is on the other side of the mountain. I'm taking the liberty of telling you and asking you to perform a monk's funeral. Well, actually, he was greatly awakened. And some of the stories, the version in the Book of Serenity stops there. But in the Gateless Barrier version, it goes on. So, and these versions, these stories are also in other collections of stories besides the co-op collections

[08:32]

and the anthologies of the teachings of particular masters. And then the collections of the transmissions of the lamps. So there are whole different genres of literature from these great ancient masters. Anyway, I'll go on with this version of the story. The old man bowed, said, I've shed my wild fox body. You can find it now on the other side of the mountain. And I'm asking you, please, to perform a monk's funeral. So the master had one of the members of the assembly, one of the monks, hit the sounding board to announce to the community they would send off a dead monk after mealtime. They would have a funeral for a dead monk. Everybody was puzzled and debated, wondering how this could be. Everyone was fine. And there had not been anyone in the infirmary. After the meal, the master led the group around the back of the mountain to a cave.

[09:32]

And there he fished out a dead fox with his staff. And he had it cremated for the monk's funeral, which is a very formal, very high falutin ceremony. That evening in the farm hall, the master went up and sat on the seat and told the story. His student Wangbo asked an ancient who gave a mistaken answer, fell into the state of a wild fox for 500 lifetimes. What becomes of one who never makes a mistake? The master Baozhong said, come here and I'll tell you. Wangbo approached him and slapped the master. The master clapped and said, I thought foreigners' beards were red. Here is even a red bearded foreigner. That's the end of the story. There's a lot in that story. And of course, I'm not going to exhaust it tonight. And the point of these stories is they've been studied for a thousand years.

[10:37]

When he died in 814, so what is it, 1,200 years or more, they've been studying these stories. We've been studying these stories. There's a lot to say about it. One thing is that for Baozhong, who was the epitome of the guidelines and standards for ethical conduct, for monks to hold a monk's funeral for a fox, it's a big scandal. Foxes are these malevolent animals. That's just one point about this. The main point, the turning word, is that a greatly cultivated person is not blind to cause and effect, is not blind to karma, does not ignore cause and effect. So we have to pay attention to the cause and effect of this world.

[11:46]

In some ways, this is the central message, if you will, of the story. But that's not the end of it. This is so much to say. This is an important story for Dogen, the 13th century founder of Soto Zen. I would say that this is the one doctrinal point where Dogen actually changed his opinion about something. Now that's maybe a controversial thing to say. There are some very stereotypical views about Dogen's long, illustrious career, and early views of Dogen in the West particularly talked about the various changes from early Dogen to late Dogen. He came back from, he went to China from 1223 to 1227,

[12:52]

started teaching formally in 1233, and died in 1253. Huge body of work, one of the most prolific of all the Zen masters. I've helped translate some of it. So Dogen is challenging to read, but I would say very rewarding to read, especially in translation. Even Japanese people cannot, or it's very hard to read the original. It's like reading Chaucer in English or maybe Beowulf in English in the original because it's an ancient form of the language. But at any rate, I'll come back to this. But Dogen wrote two different essays in his master workshop about the fox koan, and he really changes his view about it. And part of the point of that is that in the first essay called Daishugyo,

[13:58]

Great Practice, he followed the viewpoint of most of his contemporaries in China, in Song China. And in a later one, Jin Shininga, Deep Faith and Cause and Effect, which he wrote later in his career, shifted to emphasize not ignoring cause and effect. So I'm going to go into all of that. This story, again, is really, there's a whole lot going on here. Stephen Hine, who's going to be speaking to us next Monday evening, wrote a whole book about this fox koan called Shifting Shape, Shaping Text, Philosophy and Folklore in the Fox Koan. So I'll speak in English about this story. So the main issue here is not ignoring cause and effect on the one side and not falling into cause and effect on the other side.

[15:01]

So in the first instance, the ancient master Bai Zhang, who became a fox for 500 lifetimes, said, a greatly cultivated person does not fall into cause and effect, is not subject to cause and effect. Bai Zhang, our Bai Zhang, in our history, said, a greatly cultivated person does not ignore cause and effect. This expresses a real practice issue for us, for us in our time, and for all bodhisattvas and practitioners. But there's a subtle issue here. So a lot of the commentaries from the classic,

[16:09]

basically all of the commentaries to the classic koan commentaries from China in Dogen's period, all the ones I mentioned, the Book of Serenity, the Shoya Roku, the Gateless Barrier, the Wumengkan, and other classic shan or zen masters from China, took a position, something, and I'm going to simplify it. It's complicated. It's subtle. But they basically said that to not ignore cause and effect is actually not falling into cause and effect in a subtle way. They talk about things like the 500 lifetimes of this old Bai Zhang were 500, they say things like they were 500 lives as an elegant fox bodhisattva, things like that. So, you know, from the perspective of, you know,

[17:14]

our practice ultimately is the integration of the upright and inclined, to put it that way, in terms of the five degrees. Some of you know the five ranks. Our practice in our tradition ultimately is to integrate our ultimate awareness, our awareness of the ultimate, our awareness of the universal, into the awareness of the phenomenal and the particular. So let me say a little more about that. That's, you know, the highest philosophy, the underlying deep philosophy of Zojo Zen, and that's a huge topic. But, you know, when we do Zazen, we get a taste of, even initially, we get a taste of something deeper, of some ultimate awareness, some universal awareness. The point of our practice is not just to reach some ultimate state.

[18:17]

The point of our practice is to deepen that sense of the universal, but then to bring it into our everyday activity, to bring it into our relationship with the ultimate. And there are, this is in the Jewel Mary Samadhi, which talks about this, there are five aspects of how this process of integration works. So, so what is, so, you know, from that perspective of integration, maybe when we fully avow our ancient twisted karma, in some way, maybe that's not ignoring cause and effect. So not ignoring, cause and effect is not separate from ultimate or universal awareness, ultimately.

[19:22]

Universal, ultimate or universal awareness, going beyond cause and effect, that's not separate from not ignoring cause and effect. But that's very subtle. What, so, so, you know, there's an expression of this in the first essay by Dogen, just to read this, just as an example of this kind of thinking. Dogen says, investigating great practice is nothing but cause and effect itself. Because cause and effect are invariably comprehensive and completely full, they are beyond a discussion of falling or not falling, or considerations of ignoring or not ignoring. If not falling into cause and effect is a mistake,

[20:31]

not ignoring cause and effect may also be a mistake. So, so this is a subtle argument. But then later on, Dogen comes to emphasize the other side in his second essay about this, which is that we really have to look at not ignoring cause and effect, not being blind to cause and effect. There's a Zen, Soto Zen slogan in Japanese, the house style of looking at, literally it means being mindful of each thread, being mindful of the details, taking care of the details, taking care of the details of the particular, particulars of the phenomenal world. It is the house style of Soto Zen.

[21:32]

That's the, that's, that's kind of a Soto slogan. So from this perspective, we need to take care of the phenomenal world. And even from the point of view of really integrating these two sides, we lean to taking care of the phenomenal world. Leaning to taking care of each particular thing. So it, again, attachment to emptiness teaching or to the ultimate or universal awareness kind of negates cause and effect. And that's really dangerous. We can get attached to calm. We can get attached to bliss states. That's the danger. That's what turned this guy into a fox for 500 lifetimes. We need to attend to the phenomenal world and not negate ethical response to

[22:38]

suffering. So Jinshin Enga, Dogen's later essay about the fox koan is part of his later emphasis on precepts, on bodhisattva ethics. So this is, this is an important part of our practice. We emphasize the bodhisattva precepts and how we respond in everyday activity. I mean, I can give some current examples, you know, well, I'll come back to that. I want to add, go back to what I said last week when I was talking about karma and, and, and systemic racism and how it applies to our world. Karma is not just personal. It is personal.

[23:40]

We each have our own karmic set of karmic cause and effects. Each of us has particular, particular consequences. Karma means that everything we do has consequences. Everything that happens has results, but that is not just personal. It's not just about what happened, what each of us does personally. It's also about our culture, about the consequences of all of us as human beings, all of us as a culture. So yesterday Florence Capper was talking about sitting in a charnel ground and she talked about the charnel ground of COVID, the charnel ground of systemic racism, the charnel ground of climate damage. Those are not,

[24:40]

those are, are karmic consequences, not of any one individual, but of a whole cultural system of causes and conditions that affects all of us, each of us in different ways, but each of us consequentially. And then we have, and then each of us can respond in particular ways. So, so we've been studying this. Karma is very much collective and communal, but it affects each of us in particular ways. So this is about not ignoring cause and effect. and, you know, we can say, well, I didn't do that. I don't, I never owned slaves, but our whole society and its wealth is built on 400 years of slavery and racism and mass incarceration and so forth. We cannot ignore societal karma. We have collective or shared consequences from the physical world. So not ignoring cause and effect,

[25:41]

not ignoring that aspect of the world around us is part of this, this bodhisattva ethics and message of this, of this koan, of this story. We all have individual responsibility. We each have our own responsibility of how we take care of this or respond to this in our own lives. And, and as we each act in the world and talk to each other in the world, but we're not in control of this because it's, you know, something that's going on in our whole society, but we each have our part in, in how we can act. and now we're in a situation in this pandemic where, you know, the world's going to be different afterwards in lots of ways.

[26:44]

Our sangha will be different afterwards. We know that. Buddhism in America will be different afterwards. For whatever, you know, which, which is maybe the least, I don't know, anyway, many consequences. So this is a story that's very relevant to us, just as Florence's story yesterday was very relevant to all of us. How do we take on not ignoring cause and effect, but also this other side of when we really don't take on cause and effect, how do we not get caught by cause and effect? So there's a subtlety to this. How do we simply calmly face the causes and conditions of this box body we are caught in as a society, as a culture, and in some ways, each of us, how do we respond helpfully? So,

[27:46]

you know, in the first essay by Dogen, he says, Dogen says the fox body was not caused by the first Baizhang, the old Baizhang from the former Calpa giving a wrong answer. Just giving the wrong answer wasn't the cause of him turning into a fox. So subtle. And Baizhang giving the right answer didn't cause the fox to become liberated. So there's a lot going on here. I'm still studying this story. And, you know, how do we look at cause and effect? How do we not ignore it? But how do we not get caught by it and not feel trapped by it and then move forward? How do we respond to it? How do we respond to the realities of the situations we're in,

[28:55]

individually and collectively? So, you know, I've been mentioning collective situations, but each of us individually has, you know, stories in our past that we feel caught by. Things that happened in our childhood or, you know, 10 years ago or whatever that we regret or that we feel, you know, impair us. How do we look at that? Acknowledge it. We have to not ignore, not be blind to causes and consequences. And yet we can face it and deal with it and move forward from it, act wholeheartedly from it. That's part of what our practice gives us a capacity, a resilience to face.

[29:56]

anyway, this is, there are hundreds of these koans, these teaching stories in Zen. Some Zen students take one and just stay with it for their whole practice lives. But anyway, this is a juicy one. So I'll stop now and invite your comments, questions, or responses. Please feel free to just raise your hand. Mark. Trying to unmute myself. When I heard your paraphrase, I was looking online at the same time to look at the cone and koan. And I loved your paraphrasing. When you said on the opposite side of the mountain, because the visual image that I had at that moment was like two

[31:01]

sides of the coin cause and effect. They're the same thing. There are two sides. Am I wrong looking at it that way? You know, my opinion about this is that when we look at a koan, we bring to it whatever we have. And so the point of it isn't to get it right. The point of it is to use it, to bring up what it brings up in us. You know, I won't say there's no wrong answer. There's helpful answers. There's helpful responses. It's not about getting an answer. There are helpful responses. The point is to play with the story. And use it to support your practice. And in our tradition,

[32:03]

the point of study is to encourage your own practice. Now I can add that in Stephen Hein's book, which we will be hearing from Stephen next week. He has pictures of the actual mountain, Mount Baizhang where Baizhang taught, and of the actual cave where supposedly Baizhang found the fox's body. So, you know, he went, you know, along the mountain and there was supposedly this little nook in the cave where he found a fox's body. You know, there's a lot of folklore involved in these stories as well. So you can look at the picture of the mountain and the cave in Stephen's book. But yeah. Anyway, the point is not to, that these stories have a mythic aspect and they've been played with and,

[33:04]

and interpreted for a thousand years and, and don't stop working, studying them or sitting with them. Study, not study. You don't, so in the Rinzai tradition where they try and, you know, they, there's this Koan introspection where they sit with Koan. You try and you, you find the turning phrase in story. And in a long story like this, there may be numbers of turning phrases. In this one, there are, but you sometimes sit with one phrase, one phrase or sentence or line or one word. But the point is to keep letting it turn you or to, or for you to keep turning it. Other comments, questions, responses to this story, questions about it or about cause and effect. And again,

[34:09]

this is an entry way for us to study Bodhisattva precepts and Bodhisattva ethics. How do we not become blind to cause and effect? Yes, Ed. Thanks, Taigan. I mean, I think the fact, and Mark alluded to this a little bit, the fact that we can't see all sides of the mountain at once within any given fixed timeframe is proof in many ways of the staggering influence our actions have in the phenomenal world. And that so far as our sense the senses that are available to us do not sense all that we have completed, the works that we've completed in the world. Now, alternative to that, of course, is given that situation, how do we understand the consequences of our actions? And I think to some degree, maybe ironically, it might boil down to at least a little bit on a focus of our intentions

[35:10]

internally and how those align with our own sense of self in alignment with our best idea of what causes and affects within our own individual consciousness. And so I think it's a neat colon in so far as it, it draws both those facts into one another in a way that makes complete sense, actually, in many ways. Yes. So intention is important. Our that was important. Try the intention to look into causes and conditions. But, you know, it's not about what you said in the beginning. It's not about understanding it. It's about continuing to study and consider what's going on. In the story. And in the story,

[36:10]

as it changes, it's about the process of of not ignoring cause and effect and cause causes, causes and effects. The process of causes and effects is constantly changing. And, and our, our intention, our activity, karma, the translation of karma in Sanskrit, it just means conduct. Our conduct affects things. So the process of our, so the process, so the process of studying or looking at what study makes it sound intellectual. The process, it's not about getting to someone, reaching some ultimate understanding. It's this ongoing process. Buddha going beyond Buddha, looking at what is the process of our intention

[37:12]

and, and developing our intentions and, and looking more and more at those qualities and the consequences and continuing to study it more and, and questioning it and, and being open to being questioned about it. So, yes, thank you. Other thoughts about it, Bo, did you have something? I think, Ian, did you have something? I saw you raise your hand before. Thank you, I think it's really important to, Louder, I'm happy. Okay. So the answer that the old Paishan gave was probably to our best understanding, like at the time that was correct. If we think about early Buddha, what we think of as like enlightenment,

[38:13]

that would be a true statement. This is a person that that's not affected by cause and effect. So, but we can also look at the, the story of Buddha, his kingdom being invaded after he was, became the Buddha because he left to become the Buddha. So he, even he cannot evade cause and effect. So it's how, why was he turned into a fox if he gave what's, I guess at the time, the best answer possible. And Buddha hadn't come around to teach everyone that this wasn't true. Well, okay. I think one understanding of this is that this was even before, before Buddha, that this was the Paishan from, from the time of a previous Buddha, from a previous age or Kalpa.

[39:13]

So it's not a matter of whether it was the correct answer or not, actually. It's, you know, so that, I mean, that's kind of what Dogen says. So, you know, your question is interesting. Why was he turned into a fox? Yeah, that's a good question. Why did he, he became a fox for 500 lifetimes. That's just, that's just given as a fact. Now we could question that whole process of, of lifetimes and, and humans being turned into animals. And, you know, what's that all about? So there's a lot in this story that's just weird. And, and the whole thing about Buddha's cosmology, which goes back to Indian cosmology, that there are these Kalpas, and, and presumably this is a previous Kalpa, which is a previous age, before the present age, before. So, you know, there's, there's about the seven Buddhas before Buddha. This was probably in the,

[40:17]

so we, we chant that, we chant this in the, when we chant the names of Buddha, we chant the, in Sino-Japanese, the Bashi Butsudayosho, Shiki Butsudayosho, the Shafa Butsudayosho, Kuroson Butsudayosho, Kanekon Muni Butsudayosho, Kasha Butsudayosho, then Shaka Muni Butsudayosho, he's the seventh. And those previous six were from six previous Kalpas. So six previous big bags, before the current cycle of history. I mean, that's, that's one way that the story is often understood. So it wasn't, it wasn't that he was a, from the Theravada time. It was, so anyway, that's, that doesn't negate what you said at all. Maybe it was like a Bajon from, you know, Shakyamuni's time or something, before Buddhism had came to China, and not Bajon, I don't know. Anyway, but your basic question is,

[41:19]

you say it's not a wrong answer. Yeah, it doesn't, I mean, it's, it's kind of, I mean, everything that you hear about enlightened beings is like, all right, you know, they aren't subject to cause and effect, you know, that's kind of a traditional understanding of it. Well, okay. First of all, this, this story itself doesn't, sometimes it's translated as just an enlightened person, is an enlightened person, person subject to cause and effect. Some translations say that that's not what it says. In Chinese at all. It's not about an enlightened person. It's about a person who has done practice, who's done, who's greatly cultivated, who's done practice of great cultivation. It's not a great enlightened person. It doesn't, it doesn't say that. So it's just somebody who's greatly cultivated. Somebody who's done great practice,

[42:19]

practice, great cultivation. So it doesn't set up some, some limit of, okay, this is some Buddha. It's not a Buddha. It's a person who's greatly cultivated. Are they subject to cause and effect? That's the question. And so that might be an Arhat. And the tradition, and you're right, the traditional definition of an Arhat is somebody who's not going to come back to another lifetime. And then that's kind of violated in the story because they come back as a fox. And the whole thing about rebirth is, you know, when we start talking about karma, there's all kinds of questions, you know, and then the six, you know, so do you all know about the six, six possible beings that in this realm, in this realm of existence? Do you all know that? Does anybody not know that? Should I go over that?

[43:21]

You want, you want that, David? Six, there's six, there's six kinds of beings in this world system. There are human beings. There are angry Titans. There are heavenly beings. David, in the David realm, then there are animals. And then more unfortunate than animals, there are hungry ghosts. So we do have a hungry ghost ceremony, usually around Halloween to appease the hungry ghosts. And then there are hell beings, which is even worse. And so from lifetime to lifetime, you can move between these six realms. These six realms are not permanent. When you go to heaven and Buddhism, that's not a permanent, eternal salvation. When you go to hell, it's not eternal damnation. Because, you know, you may live for a long, a hell being may be there a long time,

[44:24]

but eventually they can become an animal or even a human being. And same with the heavenly being, they can fall down into other realms. So there are these six realms. And they're also, they're also psychological states. So some of you, all of you look like you're relatively speaking human beings right now, at least as far as I can tell and assume. But, you know, some of you may have experienced heavenly bliss states at times, you know, through, I don't know what, through intensive meditation or through food or sex or whatever. Some of you may have experienced hell states where you were just really miserable and were being tortured in one way or another. And all kinds of other things are animal states where you were just, you know, beastly or I don't know anyway. So there's psychological states too. And that's even in the early literature. So anyway, those are the six states of being. And it's said that the best state to be in is that of a human being.

[45:26]

Because human beings are the, is the best state from which to find spiritual practice. Because you're not so miserable that you can't start doing spiritual practice, but you're aware enough that you can see the suffering in the world. Heavenly beings, it's kind of unfortunate because you're so, everything is so wonderful that, you know, why would you bother practicing? It's all just so lovely, you know? But then it's sad because eventually, maybe after hundreds of years, you see a gray hair and you realize your life is coming to an end. And you might get really upset about it. You might end up being a hungry ghost in the next life. It's very sad. So anyway, but the good news is that even though our human life is the best one to be in, to meet Buddhists, there are Buddhas or Bodhisattvas in all six realms.

[46:28]

Particularly Jizo Bodhisattva, there's a big picture of him in our kitchen at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate Temple on Irvingport. Anyway, Jizo Bodhisattva, who appears as a monk, goes to all of them, especially goes to hell. He especially likes to go into hell realms to help the people, the beings there, the hell beings there. And there's a great story about Zhao Zhou, Zhou Shu, who's the hero of the... You know, this is the fox koan. There's also a famous cat koan and a famous dog koan. And the dog koan, the main character is Zhao Zhou or Zhou Shu. And he was once asked where he was going after he was going to die. And he said, Oh, I'm going straight to hell. And he was asked why such a great Zen master would go to hell. And he said, Well, if I don't go to hell, who's going to be there to take care of you when you go there? Anyway. Okay, that's enough about the six realms.

[47:32]

Yes, Ken, do you have a question? Yeah, I had a question about the six realms though. Okay, go ahead. So the movement between these realms is as a consequence of cause and effect. Yes. Is that the determinant? Exactly. All right. So that's the whole thing. We can't ignore cause and effect. That's the whole thing. We have to look at what we do in our conduct. We have to look at it. And our whole society has to look at cause and effect. There's so many examples right now. You know, I mean, you know, it's a good thing for children and other beings to go to school and get educated. But if the consequence is that they're going to get sick from COVID and die, that's not a good thing. So, you know, we have to look at these things carefully. And take care of it. And how do we, you know, do this responsibly?

[48:34]

So, you know, there's all these, all these, all these things. Yeah. Other, yes, Beau. Yeah. So, you know, I feel like this tension between, you know, for we're sitting and we're sitting right now. Right. But then if we're studying too and we're following effects back to their causes. Isn't there a tension between sitting where we are right now and going backwards and maybe, you know, getting pulled from? The moment that we're in right now. I just, you know, how do you prevent getting kind of caught up? I mean, maybe that's what this is all about. But getting caught up in what is like what could just be endless sort of tracing backwards. Yeah. It's not that we have to figure it all out.

[49:37]

In fact, we can't. We can't. We can't. It's so I should talk. I should give a talk about time sometime soon. Time moves in all kinds of directions and we can change the past, you know. You know, it's very clear right now we can change the past. You know, tearing down the Confederate monuments is a wonderful example of that. We're learning what the Confederacy really was, you know, and we're learning about our history. We can change the past, which changes the future. I mean, oh, but we don't have to be caught by it. Karma and cause and effect does not mean predestination. We have a choice. We cannot control everything, but we can choose how we act in a way that makes a difference about how things move in the future. We can be responsible to try and move in helpful directions.

[50:41]

That's what bodhisattvas do. That's the, that's the, Ed was talking about intention. We can intend to move in ways that try to help all beings. So we're not caught in time, but time moves in, time moves around in different ways. So we have to look at the whole thing and feel the whole thing. We can't control it, and it doesn't need to control us. Yes, Phil. Maybe, so, and maybe cause and effect lose, like, definition in this way. But if we treat cause in a particular way, then are we changing sort of the effect? Or, I'm sorry, if we treat, like, the effect in a certain way, are we changing some way the cause? I mean, is that sort of what you're... That's what I mean when I say, which I've said numbers of times, that we can change the past. It doesn't mean we change, you know, the data of, you know, what happened at Gettysburg or something.

[51:48]

But we can change the meaning of it. That's what they did when they put up those monuments to the Confederate generals. Right. And, you know, they did that in, you know, like around 1900 when, during, you know, when the Ku Klux Klan was created and all. You know, the history is complicated. But, and they did it, they did it, you know, in Martin, Dr. King's time, you know. They changed the past of what the Civil War was about. We can change the past, the meaning of the past. You know, we have the power to change the meaning of the past, you know. And now here in American Zen, we're changing what these old koans were about by looking at them for what they mean to us in our time. So it's very dynamic, much more dynamic than we sort of assume on a daily basis, I feel like.

[52:50]

That's part of the whole point. The world is alive. We have, we can't control it, but we do have, we can't, we have agency. We can intend to allow things to move. And we have, and our activity and how we talk about it with each other makes a difference and can have an effect. We can't, none of us individually can control it, even, but it, you know, things move. And, you know, suddenly big changes happen after a long, after a lot of work. You know, a hundred years ago, women suddenly were considered worthy of voting, you know, for example. So it's about time to wind down if there's one more question. Ed, did you have your hand up?

[53:52]

Oh, thank you. Yeah, I think part of that dynamic quality is naming what the cause is or naming what the effect is or distinguishing between the cause and the effect. It's quite often when we flip what we assume to be the cause and what we assume to be the effect, we discover true history. So, I mean, I think the distinction between those two things is often, more often than not assigned, not a part of those things to start with. Yeah, but I'll add to what you said. Yes, and what we, the true fact or whatever, you know, it's, that's also dynamic because the truth is complicated, totally complicated. So there are very, you know, we have to continue, as I said before to you, we have to continue to study what the truth is and was and will be and keep looking and uncover more of that truth and it's dynamic.

[55:00]

And as the past changes, it will change the present and the future. So, and we have to continue to study the present and the future too. So it's not one thing. The truth itself is vast and contains multitudes. So thank you all very much. Please continue to study this story about the box. We'll close with the four bodhisattvas of the past. Do you want to lead us, Bo, with that?

[55:37]

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