This morning I want to talk about case number 12 in the Muan Kong. This case is called a Zui Gan calls master. Zui Gan was a disciple of Gensha and quite a famous Zen master in his time in China. And the koan goes like this. Every day, Master Zuigan Shigen used to call out to himself, Oh Master, and would answer himself, yes. Are you awake? And he would ask and would answer, yes, I am.

[01:04]

Never be deceived by others, any day, any time. No, I won't. This is the koan. Then, Mumon has a commentary, Master Mumon, who put together this collection of koans, has a commentary. He says, Old Zuigan himself sells and himself buys. He has a lot of masks of goblins and demons to play with. Why? A calling one, an answering one, an awake one, and one who will not be deceived by others. If you take these different appearances as really existing, you are altogether mistaken. If, however, you would imitate Zuigan, your understanding is that of a fox. And then Mumon has a poem.

[02:09]

He says, those who search for the way do not realize the truth. They only know their old discriminating consciousness. This is the cause of the endless cycle of birth and death. yet ignorant people take it for the original person. So every day, Master Zuligan used to call out to himself, Master, then he would say, yes, Master, We have to be careful here that we don't just think that Zuligan is keeping track of himself in a kind of mindful way. In a way, he is. This looks like mindfulness practice.

[03:11]

And I can't say that it's not. But mindful of what? Zuigan calls, Master. And then he answers, Yes. Question here is, who is the Master? There's a koan, Who is the Master? Actually, a very good koan for all of us. Who is the master? Master is masculine, but here, master doesn't mean either masculine or feminine. Master is original face,

[04:25]

buddha nature, dharmakaya, true self, many names for this master. And then, Zuighan answers. So who is the true master? The one who's spoken to or the one who's speaking? This is another little koan within this koan. And then he says, are you awake?

[05:32]

And he says, yes, I am. Awake here means various things. When we talk about awakeness, In our Zen practice, there are various words for awake, various terms for awake. Awake means, or awake, one term for awake is samadhi. Samadhi means the awareness or beingness. of the present moment, moment after moment. The beingness or reality of the present moment, moment after moment.

[06:38]

And sometimes it's called Jijuyu Samadhi. Jijuyu means self-joyous awakening or the use or enjoyment of our awakening. So when he says, are you awake? This is what he means. Sometimes we call it shikantaza. Shikantaza means just this. Without any explanation or discussion. Shikantaza, sometimes we say Shikantaza is our practice.

[07:42]

The practice of just this. When sitting, just sitting. No past, no future, no goal, no discussion, no separation. No separation between Master and Yes. Master? Yes. That's it. Just calling and answering.

[08:52]

That's all. Maybe the koan should just end there. But, he says, are you awake? And he would answer, yes I am. Never be deceived by others, any day, any time. No, I won't. Never be deceived. Deceived also connotation is deluded. Don't be deluded by others. Who are these others? How can we be deceived? Others also has the meaning of anything in between

[10:05]

Master and Yes. Don't be deceived by anything that comes in between Master and Yes. What can come in between Master and Yes? Various desires, various states of mind, angry mind, possessive mind, lazy mind, deceitful mind, money mind, jealous mind.

[11:12]

Any state of mind that we cling to is deception. So, various states of mind arise and we make a reality of them, and we become deceived by them. We get fooled by our own mind. Pretty difficult to have pure, clear, just this mind without separation. So he says, never be deceived by others or by anything.

[12:38]

yourself. Don't fool yourself. Don't let yourself be carried away by yourself. Don't get caught by yourself. The world does not change us. The world has some influence on us, on each one of us. But our mind, our consciousness of each one of us is free. And we each have to seek our own freedom, realize our own freedom, freedom from our own deceptive consciousness. If somebody fools us, we get very angry.

[13:51]

But if we fool ourself, what do we feel? When we find out we've been fooling ourself, we have maybe deep compassion for ourself. So, Muban has this commentary. He says, Old Zui Gan, sells himself sells and himself buys. Means that in various ways, you know, he's dealing with this. He's taking one position, and then he comes over to the other side and takes the other position. Then he goes over to the other side and takes that position, comes back to this side and takes this position, playing both sides, playing both sides of himself.

[15:03]

It's not that there's some other side, but he's playing. He's having a very good time with himself, playing both sides of himself. This kind of play is the play of self-joyous samadhi. He doesn't get stuck on one side or the other and freely goes, freely moves. He knows who he is thoroughly and completely and doesn't get caught or stopped anywhere. So, Muhammad says, old Zuhiqan himself sells and himself buys. He sells something to himself and he buys something from himself. How else can it be? He has a lot of masks of goblins and demons to play with.

[16:09]

Those are the various faces. He puts on one mask and asks, and then he steps over to the other side, puts on another mask and replies. Calling one and answering one. An awakened one and one who will not be deceived by others. If you take these appearances as really existing, you are altogether mistaken. These appearances of Zui Gan going back and forth are really his, as I said, his play. And this also applies to the various states of consciousness which arise. We say in one model for consciousness, of course, is that there are six consciousnesses, the five consciousnesses of sense, taste, smell, touch, sight, and hearing.

[17:33]

And then the sixth consciousness is mind consciousness, which discriminates between the other five, and discriminates by saying, this is hearing, I've seen something, I've heard this, I've tasted that, I've touched this, I've smelled that, and thinks. thinking consciousness. So these are the first six consciousnesses, the senses and discriminating thought. The seventh consciousness is consciousness of individuality or ego consciousness. And the eighth consciousness is called alaya-vijnana, where all of the seeds of our actions and thoughts are stored And the seventh consciousness and the sixth consciousness, which are awareness, take this eighth consciousness as our self.

[18:45]

In other words, memory, thinking, creative ability, and so forth. we take these eight consciousnesses as what our self is, but there's a ninth consciousness which underlies the eight, which is pure consciousness. And this pure consciousness is sometimes called Source, or Pure Mind. or original face, or Buddha nature. And it has no particular mark, no particular identifying mark. And when Zui Gon calls Master, this Master is this ninth consciousness.

[19:55]

dharmakaya, just basic consciousness before all the others. And the play of The other eight consciousnesses, or states of mind which arise, are like waves on the ocean of this ninth consciousness. The ninth consciousness is like the ocean, deep ocean, bottomless ocean. And the other eight consciousnesses are like the waves on the ocean. They look independent, but yet They're just movements of the ocean. So, Zuligan puts on his masks, his demon masks, his devil masks, and his God masks, and goes back and forth.

[21:15]

And these masks are just waves on the ocean. They just come and they go. He doesn't hold on to anything. Old Zoologon lets go of everything. But he rides the waves. He knows how to ride the waves. Did you ever ride the waves? When a wave comes, you catch the wave and then the wave gets to a peak and then disappears. And then you go out and you ride another one. over and over again. If you miss one, or if you don't time it right, the wave throws you under and you scrape your nose on the bottom of the ocean, on the sand. So Aum Zui Gan knows that the wave is the ocean, and the ocean is the wave.

[22:34]

He doesn't get fooled. Don't let anything fool you. No, I won't. Don't get fooled thinking that all there is is this movement. The ocean is a great stillness. When we sit zazen today, We touch bottom with the ocean of great stillness with nothing interfering.

[23:38]

Even though there are many waves in our mind, even though the mind is full of stormy seas, it doesn't hinder our still clear, deep mind. So, Mubon says, if, however, you would imitate Zui Gon, your understanding is that of a fox. If you just go superficially try to do what Zuigan does, you miss the mark. You have to touch the bottom of the ocean yourself.

[24:41]

You have to come from your own ocean. The ninth consciousness is like the ocean where every individual thing finally ends up. All the streams meet in the ocean without their identity. Their true identity is the ocean. Our true identity is the ocean. Suzuki Hiroshi used to describe it as when we eat, eating our meal, we eat a little bit of tofu and when we put it on the plate, everything is separate.

[25:52]

Tofu, salad, potatoes, tomatoes, whatever, pickles. And then as we eat each one, they begin to dissolve. And as you eat your dinner, it all changes form and starts to come apart going down this way. And pretty soon, it all one whole new entity. And then it turns into something else. But when it goes toward the ocean, it loses its identity, loses itself, and just is ocean.

[26:54]

This is ninth consciousness, just the big ocean of awareness. So this is zazen. This is shikantaza. This is GGU samadhi, self-joyous samadhi, where nothing interferes. We're not diluted by the waves of our mind. So when we sit today, even though we have many waves in the mind, we're not bothered by anything. So our sitting is calling out, actually, Master, Master.

[28:14]

That's our zazen. Master. And response is, yes, but there's nothing in between. Then Mumont says, those who search for the way do not realize the truth. They only know their own, their old discriminating consciousness. Never having reached the bottom of the ocean, all that we're familiar with is our old discriminating consciousness. Dogen has mentioned our practice is like a swimmer who, while swimming in the waves, is at the same time has his feet on the bottom, walking on the ocean, walking on the bottom of the ocean.

[29:34]

This is because of the endless cycle of birth and death. Yet ignorant people take it for the original person. So in our daily practice, people ask, how do I practice Zen in my daily life?

[30:47]

Our effort is to stay with our feet on the bottom of the ocean. That's all you have to remember. Sometimes I say, come back to your breath. Keep coming back to your breath. Breath is like practice of returning. Returning to still, calm depth of that ocean. to stay immersed in the deep ocean, then our activity is based on that depth.

[31:56]

And this is enlightened activity. enlightened activity is to be the ocean and ride the waves. So who is the true master? How are we informed? Where do we come from? Someone sometimes asks, where are you coming from? We have that phrase, where are you coming from? In the old days in China, the masters would ask, sometimes ask the student, where are you from?

[33:13]

Sometimes the student wouldn't get it. He'd say, oh, well, I'm from Qingdao. How's the weather? But that was always a koan. Where are you from means, where are you coming from? Anyway, we should be ready to deal with that question. Anytime. Where are you coming from? Thank you.

[35:00]

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