I think it was Yoda. Well, I'm supposed to say something. Mark has turned on the TV.

[01:02]

And I... You seem to want me to say something to keep you interested in Zen practice. But I'm going to go away. You go away. At least a little. Of course I want to say something because I want to do something with you. What I really want to do with you

[02:18]

This is about the closest I can get to remind us. You know, recently they noticed for the first time that a polar bear's hair is not white. It's clear, has no color. I discovered it because I'm taking pictures of animals from airplanes with some kind of film that took pictures of heat. In polar bears, there was no heat. There was no... Their skin temperature recorded on the film was the same as the outside air. Which means they weren't reflecting any heat. So, their hair couldn't be white.

[03:48]

So they took pictures with some other kind of film, and they saw a dark, the polar bear showed up as a dark shape. Anyway, it turns out the polar bear, each hair is actually a little clear tube, and from sores, makes a little tunnel, where all the ultraviolet heat goes directly down the tube, into the polar bear. The polar bear gets very warm and gives off no heat. Very clever polar bear. So now they think they can make heat collectors for houses and things, little tubes. And I noticed rosy shoji today. Shoji up there is all rosy from the tablecloth. The light. The tablecloth made the red of the light come out.

[05:37]

and spread it all over everything, including the shelter. Which are white, or red, or is the tablecloth red? Or is the light red? Light has, again, the power of containing all things. I get pretty bored with these Zen stories, and this story is special. And that's the point of the story, actually. So, the question is the same.

[06:38]

Why did the patriarch come from the West? Twice. And it's a very, very traditional question. So the question is the same. And the answer is the same. It's a very traditional answer. The most accepted answer is, there is no meaning of the patriarch coming from the West. So some people, some Zen teachers say Ryuge or Lunya, who later became one of Tozan's successors, they said he was very strongly demonstrating no meaning of Patriarch coming from the West. But I noticed he did not understand the realm of no meaning. Patriarchy coming from the West. So Tsui Wei handed him. So in response of Tsui Wei and

[07:59]

Linji is the same, questions the same, answers the same, response of the two teachers are the same. So this story is about repetition, about wave following wave. But Linji's response, oh, pass me the cushion, and Sui Wei's response, pass me the chin rest, are the same. But because we know they're good Zen teachers, we also know they're not the same. Each one is trying to give him something to do. He says, since you hit me, I'll let you. But actually, they hit him just... He said, didn't you notice I just passed you the cushion? I just got you to pass me the cushion. Didn't you notice it? So they hit him.

[09:40]

Someone said, if all of Six Patriarchs' waves were the same, people would be drowned on dry land. Successors of the Six Patriarchs are Lin Ji, Sui Wei, and so forth. The emphasis here is they are not the same. I was reading recently, someone had, some one person had, one woman, at 44, I think it was, single birth. She had an aboriginal child every 11 months from puberty to menopause. Can you imagine? She knew nothing but to pregnancy care. And some man, by two wives, had 87 children. And every birth was twins or triplets.

[11:16]

Can you imagine running into them in the street? You wouldn't know who was who. How could you remember? Eighty-seven children's names. And grandchildren. Eighty-seven children. All of them. And yet, you know, again, as I mentioned here, 90 people between you and the Buddha, between me and the Buddha, 90 people. We can know those 90 people better than that man knew his 87 children, I think.

[12:23]

So, as the story I told you last time about what is the sound outside the gate, it's the sound of rain. The point of that story was already, to already hear the rain. Before the question is asked, you hear the rain. So your answer won't be dead. You won't be. As we say, study living word, not dead word. And this story emphasizes not already hearing raindrop, but what you've not yet heard. or unrepeatable, or unmeasured. Conceptual thinking, you know, I mentioned last night, do not linger in thought. Conceptual thinking. Understanding is not thinking. Insight is not thinking. Memory is not thinking. Conceptual thinking is not a mode of understanding.

[14:01]

Why do we think so? Because it's secure and measurable, controllable. But conceptual thinking is good for keeping track of your possessions or cataloguing something. So again, courage and existential freedom, freedom from your repeatable life. As I was saying yesterday, in politics, most people I meet aren't really political in the true sense of that. There is some emotional rejection of society, so they look for some alternative. And you could define religion as giving you some alternative to establish society. But Zen doesn't give you some contrary or contrapuntal alternative, even that study of those successful people I mentioned.

[15:35]

They aren't loners. We're not loners in the sense that they had another reality they brought to everybody's reality, but they had the willingness or courage to see things differently, see things in some way. unpredictable way. This is very much like Zen. So this story emphasizes, you can't use meditation rest, you can't use cushion, you can't use zazen, you can't use koan, you can't use the answer to, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? You have to pierce into that realm where there's no meaning. There's no meaning. Momon Roshi always emphasized being like a baby, with no experience and no knowledge, but joy of being a baby, not something. A baby doesn't need some corn.

[17:00]

We are like counters on two long strands of breath and heartbeat. Two long strands of beads from birth to death. Each bead of your heart, one bead. Each breath, one bead. Each day, we can say, Meeting with one being. You are near, comfortable. I think when you go to sleep at night, as you know when you leave the Zen Dojo, I want you to bow. Since we don't sleep in the Zen Dojo, Let's bow. Two. If we sleep in a zendo and sashin, you bow to Buddha three times on the floor, and then bow to your sleeping place. So since we don't do that, you can bow to Buddha.

[18:32]

and toward your sleeping place, or toward your cushion, as you wish. Then in bed, you might try counting your breaths. I think you'll feel your strand of heartbeat coming up. Different, right? Intertwined with breath. Maybe when you wake up in the morning, you'll still be 2,700. Probably you won't, but you might. Go to sleep that way. Maybe all some visual, some vision or some hall Speeds are like long haul railroad cars.

[19:37]

So what this story emphasises to is, you know, very fluidly it says, a dragon mountain has no eye. Lung Yat, he lived on... his name is a mountain, Dragon Fang, and it's Dragon Fang Mountain. He lived on Dragon Fang Mountain, so the poem says, Dragon Mountain has no eye. Still water never revealed the Dharma. I don't know if you know the paintings of Jacob van Riesdael, I don't know how to pronounce it in Dutch, or Chardin or Corot, but Riesdael's paintings The landscape is very, like it's really there, some kind of object. When you look at Corot, Corot's paintings are for a western landscape painting, most like Japanese and Chinese paintings. It's not quite clear it's really there. Tree and water, it's all movement.

[21:27]

Something not repetitive. Repeating but not repetitive. Degas' painting I find a little boring because he repeats same color here and there in the painting. Chardin's still lifes, they have more static moment, but not some fixed feeling. But these are Western painters, not so necessary to know Duval art. But in our own tradition, just painting a landscape, you can see something different, a different period. And you can emphasize, as yesterday I said, emphasize. Today, in your meditation, emphasize what repeats but not the same. Repeating but not repetitive.

[23:01]

or liquid, or fluid, or water, or your blood, or lineage, or breath. You do not need meditation, Krishna, or koan, or chin rest. You need to give a lecture. I want Zen Center to be as uninteresting as possible. We have something to do together, and we should be able to take some pleasure in living together. How we live together. I'm Dosendo, and I like this walkway very much. Don't you think it's a great, funny, tiny walkway? So I can hit you with a walkway.

[24:03]

of this new zendo. This is where first sashimi, isn't it? Yes, must be first sashimi, this new zendo. Which may become a budo. We'll put zendo down later. So, we have the pleasure of using new walkbacks. But I don't want to give you something interesting, some... The Zen part of Zen Center, I want to be... You can't get it or do nothing to give yourself some easy satisfaction. So many teachings.

[25:11]

try to give you the sense of you've accomplished something, or they try to make it accessible. And it's very interesting, the more accessible the teaching, the more it attracts talented people. We're a bunch of dummies now. Not so many talented people here. But if you make it accessible, talented people want things to be accessible because that's what they're used to. I'm used to things being accessible to me. So if we want fancy students, we should make the teaching more accessible. But I don't want fancy students. And if you are fancy, please give it up. Well, I don't want us looking around for some alternative, other alternative to beat the world to death with some other political philosophy or some great insight or satori. We say in Zen, don't sit guarding the stump.

[26:39]

And Lumina, he probably had some insight, you know, so he used a term, ah, no meaning of victory, and then he just repeated it. He wasn't ready to start over again. So there's really no attainment. Always ready to start over again. Just fishing beside the stream. Not expecting to catch anything. Someone described Mumumushi like that. Talking to him is like talking to somebody who's just sitting beside the stream. Half asleep. He is like that. So the fluid is the unrepeatability. Still water never reflected the ancient way. Stagnant water.

[28:26]

So although we practice together and take joy in being together, doing things with people, doing things with everything, still Zen practice makes us terribly individualistic. We don't need any particular philosophy or reality to beat the world with. to be quite easy without any viewpoint at all. Maybe it's wrong, maybe it's socially irresponsible, but anyway, it's the emphasis of Zen. Free from the whole universe, just fishing. Just counting your breath beats and heart beats. Not bringing any reality or expectation to each beat.

[30:15]

I think it means you have to somehow, existentially, cut quite loose when you really need the world to prove itself to you. You need to have the world acknowledge or justify you. You're not quite complete until you get some verification. I am not it, it is I.

[31:24]

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