uh [...] Thank you. Buh-bye!

[01:30]

I wanted to introduce myself to you. My name is Geshin. That is my Buddhist name. And I'm not accustomed to using titles. So, as a matter of fact, I feel much more comfortable if you call me only Geshin. I want to leave the Abbas at home because that only reminds me of a lot of work. And I came here to enjoy myself. which I am doing and also I did not come with the intention here to give another lecture or to talk to you because I'm sure that everyone has had wonderful experiences with the various talks we had and I feel rather inadequate when, well for various reasons, for one My English is rather inadequate and I'm just constantly astounded how well all the people that have given talks speak and are able to verbalize their realization or even to put the truth into words.

[04:01]

And part of Zen training, of the training of a Zen monk, and especially in the Rinzai tradition, which I follow, not so much by choice, but by necessity, because that was the master I met. He was of the Rinzai line. And I didn't know there were two, as a matter of fact. So, in that tradition, we're not even taught to explain anything about Zen or Buddhism or to teach other than through your own life. And the reason why I am here today is that various people have approached me and individually asked me for explanations of some areas in the talks that were perhaps not completely clear. And I feel I probably would rather add to your confusion, but I'm willing to put myself here in front of you.

[05:03]

And if you have any question at all, either related to the talks or unrelated or personal or about my life, I'll be happy to answer or try to answer. First question. In Rinzai Zen, it seems as though there's a very strong statement of the non-reality of self. One Christian writer has called that concept an affront to common sense, that there is no true individual self. There has been talk about the differences between East and West in terms of belief in a creator or not. That problem doesn't seem to me to be as strong as this, the concept of self. It seems as though the East does say no to the self, and the West says yes.

[06:05]

And that seems to me to be a much larger problem. Does the East say there is no self? It's a larger problem. My question is very simple. Does the East say that there is no self? I had never heard the East speak. I think the basic problem is, and I found this actually with the majority of the talks that were given too, not only the lectures but you know whenever we talk, We have a tendency to talk, and usually, unless we've had this particular kind of breakthrough and realization of what we call the true self, but all these words are really confusing, then we talk from a consciousness or mind, whichever term you want to use, which is one that is based upon

[07:16]

accepting the truth in terms of dualism, a dichotomy. In other words, we say the whole world exists in terms of black and white, good and bad, and night and day, and so forth, in oppositions. And we take that consciousness or state of mind as the only one that a human being functions from or can function from. And I think that's the basic error. Now, basically, there are no holy men. There are no holy or unholy men. There are no sacred or unsacred. There is no sacred space either. It's all, everything exists only as the one undifferentiated truth.

[08:17]

And this is not a dogma or a religion or a concept, even though it sounds as one now, the way we talk about it, we make a concept out of it. But in truth, even truth does not exist. And to come to that realization takes practice. So all the talking about it is really a waste of time. And when you realize everything is one, then you know, I know, you're not existing opposite me. Although I can clearly discern between you and myself, and I know you're a man, I'm a woman, and I know this is a stone floor and that's a wooden ceiling, but it's not based upon It has no value judgment coming along with it. And it has also no opposite. This is the important point. There is no opposite to a tree or a flower.

[09:24]

A flower is a complete and total manifestation in itself. It never worries about a bee or another flower or its color or whatever. It just totally, completely is in its own suchness, its own universe. And I really could give an endless lecture on this now because it becomes each Each manifestation, so I say God is not one, he's everything, all these things, you know, you and me and my hair and my teeth and the floor and the fly and the flower, and each one of these manifestations becomes an entrance way or can become a gate to the truth. In other words, you can practice golf to such an extent, to a point where you so completely, finally lose yourself and merge with that action of kicking the ball, because you have entered the Dharma through playing golf, and you have realized the truth through playing golf.

[10:26]

So you don't have to go to a Zen teacher, you don't have to sit for hours if you can't do that. Did I answer your question about the self? All right, now that state, this is what we call the true self, when you can manifest, just purely manifest the self without thinking of, you know, who am I or what. And like when you watch Roshi talking, you know, he just manifests himself, you know, he doesn't care about bells. At the risk of wasting your time, I have a kind of meta-question, which is a question about questions. In the Asceticism, as well as in other traditions, not just in the East, I was going to say all mystical traditions, but mystical is a difficult word in the East,

[11:29]

But one finds it also in Christianist beliefs to the effect that the ultimate is indescribable beyond means and forms. It isn't. I described it to you. When Bruce was talking to me he was doing this of the spirit. That described only the ultimate. Any other questions? But I'd like to make a comment on that. Of course, we are full of questions and it's really not a waste of time because the time is my time and your time and that's what we decide to do with it.

[12:30]

Usually, I think, people ask, at least in the western part of the world, we're trained to analyze things. So naturally, when we come up against something that we don't know, we say, well, why is that so? Why do you do this? Or why do you do it that way? And I found that rather than asking why, for myself, I found it would be much better to ask how. How? does that flower manifest itself? Or how do I manifest myself when I look at the moon? Rather than, why? Because, just your statement there, you didn't use the words to analyze much, or overmuch. It puts me in mind that there's a book, how recently, you can play with the book, Buddhism, the Religion of Analysis. It must have been written by a West End scholar.

[13:33]

Now what's interesting about this site is that I think he has taught something in the teachings of Gautama himself. In the teachings of Gautama he says that to preserve one does indeed find part of their exercises of the mind. that Gautama engaged his disciples in and commanded them to engage in. One that comes to mind is a meditational exercise to analyze the body in terms of its various parts. A very treacherous, logical field of analysis, perhaps to break it down, perhaps to exalt analysis itself, or to exalt analysis. But what impresses me is that when I come to the teachings of the Buddha, I am often overhauled by the dedication to analysis in the Buddha's teachings.

[14:38]

That's why we don't read books when we start to practice Zen. Maybe that's one of the reasons why the Masters don't let their disciples read books. Even Buddha himself, and I have never studied Buddhism in a scholastic way, so I cannot answer the way a scholar would answer. Buddha said, of course also it should be made clear, he had many disciples and people from different areas of life and of different levels of understanding. And to the very immediate followers of his and disciples, the ones that carried on the teaching, he said when he was dying, in all these years of my teaching, I have never spoken a single word. I have not said anything. And you should regard the teaching only as a raft which carries you to the other shore, which means the realization. And once you have realized, what is the use of carrying the raft around on your back for the rest of your life?

[15:45]

So throw it away. And books certainly have their purpose, and I'm most grateful to them because it's the books that I first read about Zen. And I feel I still like books very much. I like to read, but... We have to be able to... But, yeah. Earlier, I was told that a great deal of effort, energy and time has traditionally been given up. to using the balances, and in one way or the other. All I can answer you here is that it is not the Zen way. The Zen way is to manifest In other words, to synthesize, to make harmony, to complete the act, which is probably the opposite of analysis. But it's possible.

[16:45]

I don't say it's impossible. Maybe it's a way for the Western mind to arrive at something. I believe that everything, if you exhaust it completely, if you completely go to the ultimate end of analysis, you may arrive at something. I just want to reflect on some of the things that I have done not too much of. That's the Theravada form of mindfulness, awareness, meditation, what you said. Concentrate on your friend, and then allow all the visitors, with one say, to become the object of your meditation. And after you've gone through the traditional stages of dealing with external things, like how uncomfortable it is to sit there, and how disorienting other things have come from without, then the interior, and this may be the analysis, follow me,

[18:04]

that appeals to my mind. The interior begins to hurt. You know, feelings of tinger and resentment which have to be picked up and examined. And it's very, you know, the only way that I would ascribe it to someone who could not have done it would be by using psychological term that you are allowing elements from the subconscious to float to the surface and you pick them up and drive them off and place them in the conscious world in a comfortable place. Actually, one can. Let's say for instance you have this. It is just really that. Now, of course, every one of us can take this sound and manipulate it, do or whatever this action, and can break it down into all kinds of things. But ultimately, what meaning does that have?

[19:05]

And you have to ask that question yourself. It has really nothing to do with that. And any analysis the way I see it would remain on the level of intellect, would remain the way I see it. But at lunchtime we were talking about, I was talking about the possibilities that I can see for a Christian monk, how to arrive at that state of no-mind or samadhi or unity with God or whatever we may call that state is. And I believe there's not only one way, of course. Everybody knows that, to arrive at that. Now, instead we sit in a particular kind of posture. But obviously when I listen to the Swamiji talking, I know they also have a way of getting there. And when you read the Christian mystics or saints' records of their lives, you know that they also got there through prayer.

[20:10]

But I do feel or I have an inkling that it has something to do with posture. And the posture that you put your body in, you know, like in prayer, it used to be that I think you were kneeling on very narrow little benches, and I tried it one time here downstairs in the chapel. And when I do that, I find that it puts, the way that thing is built, it puts my body in a certain position where the sacrum is forward and the sternum is up, and I'm kneeling this way. And if you try just that, even sitting in the chair, it's kind of a natural thing when a person gets too depressed, a lot of pressure is on the abdomen, and then quite naturally, you may not be aware of it, usually what we do is straighten up and sigh. And by just doing that, by straightening up, the problem should vanish. As a matter of fact, all thinking vanishes, all questions vanish.

[21:14]

If you do this more and more and more, pretty soon, you know, nothing really stays too long here. I see that as a way for Christian monks to perhaps have good postures when they pray. And also in terms of analysis, I don't know where it leads to. I've never really tried it too much. How did you come to find Guru Rinzai Master? My second question is, I think comes out of that, perhaps it's a non-question. How do you know when you're experiencing what really is and not just experiencing your experience of what is. Thank you for your question. It's always very difficult to answer questions, I find.

[22:14]

When I start thinking, then I can't stop thinking, and I think on and on and on and on. How did I come to the Zen Master? And I cannot just simply say, well... Well, one answer is I just... But then where did I come from and where did that all start? There comes analysis. But basically the answer is, you know, it's just I walked in. I really don't know how I came there. And I can give you a place in time. It happened five years ago in Los Angeles and I was taken there to visit Roshi. I actually was not searching for a master or for any practice. At that time I was visiting with another person and then became involved in that way. And to answer your second question, you ask, how do you know or when do you know if it's a real experience and not an experience of an experience with him?

[23:22]

what is, who you're in, and not just your lens perception of what is. I don't think you ever know. It's just that you don't care to know. You don't have a need to know. And when you're free from wanting to know, or free from knowledge, both from knowledge and wanting to know, that is enough for me. If you prefer not to answer personal questions, ignore it please. I already can no longer ignore it, please go ahead. My question is, what was it like for you during that hour and a half?

[24:29]

What were you thinking of? What images? What kind of letters? What sentences did you think of? Second question. Well, I'll leave it at that. I'm going to go with that. Yeah. What would be the personal question you may have? My person is yours. I'm completely yours. I cannot remember really, you know, all. It was impossible to bring that all back, that that'd be the whole history of mankind, I think, to what's going through my mind. But I can give you a pattern, if that satisfies you, of what usually happens. And of course, one of the things that went through my mind this morning are the sutras, and where is the incense, and does everybody have a cushion, and that sort of thing. But once I sit, there is no guarantee what might happen. I don't know what, you know, any kind of thought, crazy thoughts come up, anything, everything. And so the pattern is, especially I think for a beginning student, now later on you're more able to just sit right down and not have a lot of this happening.

[25:40]

When I have been especially busy with all these activities that I have, sort of business-like activities at the Zen Center, and then when I sit down, and furthermore if I drink coffee that works for me that way, then the wheels start spinning. And what happens is that they spin for a while, but then as you sit inside Zen, the spinning becomes slower and slower and it slows down, and pretty soon it's almost like a soundless, weightless state where still you don't stop thinking ever, of course. I mean, as human beings we always have thoughts, always think. But what happens is that I, the best way I can compare it is to I feel like the blue sky, the sky. And here comes the thought. And I can feel it rise, coming from somewhere, I don't know where. And I don't even bother to find out where it comes from, but it just comes. And I'm sitting here, not moving, I'm the blue sky. And the thought passes like a cloud.

[26:43]

Now at this point, you have to be careful because Here is where we usually become attached, and the thought is fully risen into consciousness. Then we have a tendency to attach ourselves to the thought, and we do this so automatically that we don't even notice it. And that means another thought, [...] and pretty soon you're involved in a whole network of thinking. And still I catch myself doing this. Sometimes I suddenly awaken from this state. I said, Gosh, where did I go? Where was I? And I don't know how long that lasted. It's either immensely, immensely long, or just really a flash. And there's no concept of time there. So what usually, in a slowed down state, what happens is this arises, passes, and you just let it pass. And then it disappears again. And then maybe it's calm for a while. Maybe something else comes. nothing changes your state.

[27:47]

In other words, that stability of mind, you know, that you have, that mind no longer moves that way or that way or that way or that way. And like, again, like in the sky, you know, all kinds of objects travel through the sky, birds, jet planes, but nothing scratches the sky. It's just always there. The moon, the sun, all these things appear in there. And then it's just blue again. Do you have an object of meditation, or do you have any object of meditation? In order to help this process of getting to the mind to focus more onto one thing. Initially you have this in the Rinzai Zen practice we have what is called a koan. Now this is a problematic type example given to the monk in form of a question.

[28:52]

You take this and there's actually many different things you do with the koan. You keep it with you all day long. It's just somewhere here, you know. But when you do Zazen, you silently invoke the koan. So in other words, you… enter it completely, emerge with it, become one with it, without thinking about it. It's very difficult to do that, but you learn how to do it. And finally, when again, of course the koan just eventually becomes also like all the other objects that, you know, pass through. So when you reach this state of where the thinking is really slowed down, you find that you even forget your koan, you forget everything. And of course that's one of the realizations afterwards, to say, where was the core and where was I? But another aspect of the koan is that also during the day, during work, you do always have it with you and you're supposed to, the question itself is the answer, but you have to manifest yourself as that.

[29:58]

And so it means when the koan, which is the object in here, you are the subject, when they have become one, when they have merged, then you have solved it, you have solved yourself at that point. And for me it had also other meanings. For instance, when I first came to the Zen Center, I found it very hard to get up that early in the morning. And the first thought that would always be right there in the morning was, why do you have to do that? No, you don't have to do that. You can still stay in bed and sleep. And then I used my koan. The minute I opened my eyes, I grasped it. You go to bed with it, go to sleep with it. You wake up and you grasp your koan quickly. And then you don't let any other thought come in between there. And you just go out, get up and do your things, get dressed and go to the center. You see, my question is about all that was discussed last night. I want to practice. Do you, have you encountered any forms which, like mantra practice, or is, is mantra practice and koan practice so different?

[31:11]

You know, like with the mantra, you're repeating something, you're trying to become that and so on. Whereas, I don't know, maybe in Nosset Rises, We don't want to put so much weight on some thing to get into it at all. We won't really tread around in this ourselves as we actually are from the beginning. The way I understand the mantra, I would rather compare that to the practice of chanting in Zen practice. Chanting, invoking myself as sound, manifesting myself as sound. And the koan, I can't... I never have really bothered too much to think about what the purport is. I just do it. But I know now, in retrospect, I know some of the things it does for you.

[32:12]

One of the purposes is to solve the problem of yourself. What do you do with yourself in relationship to the Koan? And ultimately it should. Everyone has a koan. Somebody said this morning, I'm sorry, I think it was Brother Gabriel, maybe? Who spoke last this morning, Brother Gabriel? He said that, I'm sorry, I don't want to take away your problems, because we all like problems, and this is an ultimate truth. Because that's the human being. He has to have a problem. He can't live without bread. We have to have that. That's absolutely essential to living, to our life. And this becomes our corn in life. Everybody has something. That's his corn. That's his self, you know. Myself is my corn. And I have to solve that. Dissolve it. While I'm talking, I did work with you. I found that very commonplace a problem with myself.

[33:16]

It seems like, to me, that the persons I have seen associated with SAM have a greater ability to really do completely what they're doing. You know, they walk, walk, and they sit, sit, type of thing. And would you comment a little bit on how you find this, is it helpful to being totally present to what you're doing? Well, when you're doing that, that means you're totally present. So even now, when you're speaking, you're totally present. You're manifesting yourself as a speaking Buddha. as a speaking, pencil-holding Buddha. And just all you have to do is be conscious of that. Be conscious, you know, aware of this. Don't think, oh, I'm going to do it this afternoon, from three to four here and there, or when I walk, I'm going to practice this now on walking. But right now, you're doing it.

[34:18]

It's not only that or holding a tika, but this also and that. I saw one of the monks one morning during the ceremony, everybody was praying and poking. That also is manifesting Buddha. So, of course, once you realize that, and you already have, that means that you will practice it. And when you practice it, you'll practice it more and more and more and more. And it's like having a hobby. You know, it's like making your whole life into a hobby. Usually people have hobbies. Why? Because in a hobby I can forget myself. I can completely merge with that, what I'm doing. And that makes me happy. I have no self. Then I feel, I manifest myself and I feel pure relief, you know, of all the other things that are in my mind,

[35:21]

anything that I create through thought. And this kind of pure experience, we should turn every time I move my hand or whatever I do, I should realize that it is pure experience. I hear so many things being said by people of Eastern traditions, have tended to take a negative outlook, this is an observation, not a question, a negative outlook toward consciousness and mind and intellectual capacity. And I just realized as you were saying that, I began to think about the fact that I've been listening to you, whereas for a good degree of time I was just listening to you. That's a very good point. It has to be said that to be totally present also is a mind activity.

[36:27]

Well, this is how it works. Roshi has explained this earlier, but maybe in different words. When you are in that stage of unity, of prayer, when you're in it with praying or in Sazen, and you're in that state of mind of no thought, this state is exactly what Roshi meant. We cannot stay in that longer. He placed it, you know, within one hour. He said, no longer than an hour, but we could leave that part open. And then, of course, there come all the human functions in again. You have to get up, you have to go to the bathroom, you have to go and eat something and so forth. So both are our function. The one of complete self-forgetfulness, of being in that state of unity, harmony, of not knowing myself even, or pure consciousness, whatever you call it. And then the other of awakening from this state again as a human being and becoming conscious in a different way where we again live in the world of subject or object and discern between you and myself, man and woman and so forth, which is our human world.

[37:42]

And we have to, you know, you have to, you have to know or you'll be run over by a car out in the street. This precisely, both functions are manifestation of the same truth. Both. We function as both. We can enter this other consciousness. As a matter of fact, we are always in that consciousness, but at the same time, for instance, when we shake hands, when we shake hands, has no... I cannot really describe it to you, but there is a wellness linked to something happening, being nurtured. But why is that happening at the same time? She is the girl who has a brown nose and a colored shirt, and I am this person with a black shirt. And simultaneously, why is this wellness taking place at the same time? At the same time, there are all sorts of... I'm not talking about that.

[38:44]

and an exceptional prediction of the best of all. And yet, there's a pureness about my consciousness of my being conscious. You know, have you ever said that? Well, it goes so fast, you know, we go so fast, in and out, you can't give up on it, you just do it. It's impossible to grasp it in the head so fast. Realization is so fast. I'm just saying, is it not possible for me to be purely comfortable being like this with my consciousness of myself?

[39:49]

I don't know. Maybe you have to try that. Make that your koan. I think you are very comfortable as you are now. I mean, you're manifesting yourself purely as there's no other being in this whole universe that manifests himself just as you do right now. And you cannot compare yourself. That's why you cannot find an answer to that. You have nothing to compare yourself to because you're totally filling it all. I have to do more of this. Very difficult question to answer.

[40:53]

How can I know? From my experience, if there are people... Well, if I talk about the Zen way as a means to get there, I say, yes, there are people who cannot do Zen practice. It doesn't work for them, doesn't work for some people. Yes. He said, when you wake up in the world, you will have a koan, and then everybody is a koan. How could I find another great koan? You have to come to the Roshi and see him. He'll give you one. Or you can make your own, of course. But in this kind of practice, you need a mirror, see, when you have a koan, and you need the Master as a mirror, so he reflects. If the road begins, you go on, and are you still trying to... To get somewhere? What place does that have in the development that's possible for you?

[41:59]

Really, what I'm asking is the development that you see that's possible for you. Yes, there is development and people do different things, you know, within realization. And one is to become a teacher, not in terms of giving, going traveling around giving lectures, but just more and more deeply. realize yourself and manifest yourself all the time. That takes a long time of practice. You know, it's like a dancer. Somebody, like I wanted to be a dancer when I was a kid. But I couldn't just go out there. Of course, I could, you know, to dance around. But if you really want to dance, you have to train your body to do this. And so it's the same thing in Zen practice. There's a famous Zen master, Joshu, who started It was somebody that came to Josho. And he had a satori, that's sort of a dirty word.

[43:03]

And then he left and started teaching. And another master said, well, although he's a great man and he had a realization, but he should have gone back and studied for another 30 years. The other question is, do you still work with koans? Yes. There is a collection of about 1,700 koans. And in order to... You have to know a great many of them, not all of those, maybe a hundred or so too. You have to study a whole lot of koans. And not only from one aspect, but you study, maybe you have gone through a whole series, and maybe suddenly you get a koan that you had in the beginning again. Let's see, after a while. No, you're just expected to answer it in a different way. And I've heard students one time in the Vancouver group, a student wouldn't go to Sanzen. We're supposed to go every time. And I urged him to go and he said no.

[44:07]

I said, well, why would you go? And he said, well, because the Roshi gave me the same corn again he gave me last year. And he wouldn't go back to Sanzen. This happens. But he does it on purpose, of course. Well, it may be something to give you an example. A koan that he gave the group here is, how do I realize my true self when I'm listening to the sound of the crickets? Or, how do I manifest myself as God? Whichever way you want to put it when I listen to Sound of Crickets. Or another one would be in the same class group of koans would be, how do I realize myself as Buddha when I'm driving a car? And then there are other koans later on. For instance, there's a koan called A cow passes a window.

[45:12]

The head and the body have passed, but the tail didn't pass. Why? So that drives some people crazy. This is a koan. It's called a prayer that you make in Hinduism. Well, we have to ask Swami. These are different. This is your calling. It's yours, basically. Yeah. It's also, it is to solve my, you know, all these things that we take apart now and analyze is what we're doing, you know, really belong to one whole because they happen simultaneously. The minute you have solved yourself, you have solved everything.

[46:14]

You have solved the question of God and the universe and everything, but now what we do is we take it apart. We say it develops wisdom and you develop compassion and you have a different kind of understanding and all these things, you know, we analyze it now. But it's really just one thing that happens. Once you realize, you realize there's nothing to realize. Then what I say, I know, but you know, I don't usually carry them in my head. I have books of them. Can you think of one? Maybe you can remind me of one. Or perhaps you know one. You can tell. There's so many different ones, you know, perhaps you want to refer to one particular aspect of it because each one has... There are some famous koans.

[47:18]

The first one in the collection of Momonkan, which is a collection of 48 koans, and usually we study those first, is called Joshu's Mu. A lot of people have read about this in books, I'm sure, about Mu meaning nothingness and so forth. The Zen master, Joshu, who was a very famous Zen master, he did not study until late in his life, and he became a monk. He studied with Nansen, Master Nansen in Tang Dynasty, China. And he studied for, I don't know, he was, I think, 60 or what, when he began, they say, and he studied for 30 years, and then he taught for 30 years, and he died when he was 120. And one day he was standing there somewhere in a courtyard and a monk came by and asked him, there was a little dog was passing him, and the monk asked him, he said, does the dog also manifest Buddha? And Joshua said, this has become a very famous saying, maybe one of the most famous sayings in the world.

[48:22]

He said, Moo. which now, of course, we interpret everything. We translate it, we give it meaning, we interpret it. But he just said mu. But it so happens that mu also has a meaning in Chinese. It means nothingness or nonexistence. Mu means existence. But whatever he would have said at that moment, that mu doesn't really mean nothing. It's not a direct answer to that monk's question, not an answer of yes or no type answer. And later on, another monk asked him, he heard probably about this dialogue, and he asked him, does the dog manifest, Buddha mentioned. And then Joshua said, ooh. which is the opposite of moon. And he was a famous master with words, Joshua. I love him because I like to listen to words.

[49:23]

And he, one time was visiting, he traveled around from temple to temple to check on monks or to experience their insight or the depths of the insight. There is, you know, different kinds of depths get to an experience. And one time he was asking a monk who was presiding over a temple, a question, and the monk answered it. I forgot exactly what the question was, but the point is the monk answered it in a certain way, and Joshua said, the ship is still in shallow water. And he went on his voyage, and at the next temple he was asking the monk the same question. And he also answered it exactly in the same way that the first monk did. No, excuse me, he answered it in a very different way. But Joshua said, again, the ship is still in shallow water. What you should learn or understand from this is that Joshua was just always manifesting himself. He doesn't give answers to questions.

[50:26]

He's just manifesting himself. It's just Joshua. And Roshi, very often if you come to the talks, and I speak about him because I know him better than the other speakers, a lot of the times he doesn't answer the question at all. You may ask a question and he starts talking about bicycles. But it's always answering the question. Of course, it answers all of the questions, usually. Because to manifest yourself answers every question. Yes, sir? I mean, do you say anything other than how it fits itself, where you're going, the purpose of life? It's both mu and u. It's yes and no, there is and there isn't.

[51:34]

You mean the goal for myself, where I go, what it leads to? The purpose is to... Or to laugh, if you will, or to yawn. Then that's the ultimate goal in Zen. To realize yourself completely as a human being, as we are, without wanting to be anything else. And to just be that, but in truth. You must not try to modify yourself, think of yourself, have a concept of yourself, but really become truly yourself. And that self is one that's not attached to any kind of idea or goal or purpose, but that's free. So it can go here, it can step left, it can step right, it can go straight, it can go back, and I can invite you into my

[52:42]

I empty room and completely become you and then you leave and I can completely become this lady or the tree or the flower. And always I'm in harmony with everything. Not to separate myself. Is it considered possible for us as human beings to maintain that state continuously, or just approach it for more or less brief periods of time, or is it totally non-violent? I think only a try would give you the answer. You must start on that voyage. Do it. Try for how long you can do it. But the way Roshi answers that is he said, then that means you have to resign from being human. That means you have to retire from being human.

[53:46]

You have to become, have to give up being human, your human life. And you can't. We cannot escape from this planet. We cannot escape from, I cannot escape from my body. That's what I am. I can't just jump off the earth. I have no choice. Can't. When you're in a normal, it's a normal. In this worldly state of things, no matter, when someone grabs the woman's head and so on and so forth, one has specific objectives, you know. Somehow the cook, no matter how right he is, has to get the dinner done on time. And, you know, can do this with a certain amount of detachment should he fail in specific objectives.

[54:47]

I guess the real question is, what is the redundancy of the Zen mind on the world of purpose and subjective? You know, I cannot grasp your question, it's too complicated for me. Could you say it more simply, or give me an example of what it is? You know the quote, you know, I was getting lunch, right? You [...] know, I was getting See, what we're doing is we're always putting things someplace else. Now we're here, we're talking, we're having a good time, so why should we worry about a cook? He's in the kitchen and doing his thing. I'm doing my thing here, standing and talking. That's the point. Failure belongs to the, of course, if you want to use that kind of mind, you can, you see, you're free.

[56:02]

We're totally free. In my mind, I can go to the moon, I can say the moon is a failure. I can say the sun is a dirty devil. I can say anything I want. In my mind, I can do anything I want, but please do not mistake that for the concrete truth. I mean, this kind of reasoning or mind or thought process is not the truth or God. Could I ask you a question to the first part of your sentence? You said, I'm hung up on these things. Who hung you up there?

[56:49]

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