Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I have achieved the truth of the Tathagata's words. Do you suppose when we say, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words, that means that you will, that I will chew them with the Tathagata's mouth? I mean, that always puts the lecturer on the spot to say that, the Tathagata's words, but

[01:04]

what about, you know, the Tathagata's ears or the Tathagata's mouth? Anyway, you're it too. Maybe I just think about this because of the Shostanasambhavi. Yesterday, I thought some more about what I was talking about, I had been talking about the bird or fish, if a bird or fish tries to reach the end of its helmet before moving in it, or rather than moving in it, it will not find its way or its place.

[02:07]

And I thought about a different way too, another way too, how I noticed, how we sometimes do that, how this is related to the whole business of how I want things to be. The way I'd like things to be, how things should be, how it would be right for things to be. And so we, you know, we sometimes, you know, we raise some questions and what do I do about

[03:20]

my legs hurting or what do I do about anger, what do I do about fear, how do I stop smoking and so on. And so the idea seems to be to get rid of something, that there's some problem about fear or anger or sadness and so on. There's some problem about greed, hate and delusion. There's some problem about being attached.

[04:26]

And we find ourselves in some contradictory situation of enjoying something but also finding it empty or meaningless. Or it doesn't seem to be what we really want. But we can't get out of it. But it makes me mad. But I don't want to be angry. And so we have that kind of dilemma. And so sometimes we can raise the question, what's the problem about that?

[05:44]

What's the problem about having problems? Particularly the, what kind of problems we have sitting sitting. There's such wonderful problems to have. Unlike the kind of, you know, it's so simple. The problem of sitting in one place and crossing your legs and doing whatever you do there. It's such a simple problem compared to, it has a rather straightforwardness to it compared to, oh my life doesn't seem to work very well and I don't know what to do now. This is happening and that's happening and so on and so on.

[06:52]

It's all kind of vague. I know some people out there are starving and this is happening and there's nuclear weapons and so on. Anyway, to sit this way brings the problems of, our problems to a very, to rather a practical level where we can actually sit with them and learn what to do to resolve our problems. Instead of getting rid of them. So at some point, so this is, I raise this as some background to this trying to go beyond our experience or reach the end of the element. It's like this. Somehow we get this idea that the thing to do is to go beyond all these things to reach the end of the element.

[07:53]

To not have anger, to not have fear, to not get depressed. Basically to not have feelings, to not have thoughts, to not have any experience that we shouldn't be having or that's not acceptable or something. And of course this turns out to be quite impossible. And it's very aggravating because then as soon as we have experience, as soon as we have feelings, as soon as anything happens in our life, we go, Oh my God, it's still happening. I haven't been able to get rid of it. What's wrong with me? I should be able to get rid of this. I shouldn't still have these problems. I've been practicing Zen. I'm old enough to not have these kind of problems anymore, but I still do. This is terrible. What a miserable person I must be. You know, you call talking like that, is that a problem or not? No, what's the real problem there? Is it what came up in the first place or is it the fact that you didn't want any of that stuff around?

[08:58]

So you say, Oh my God, it's still happening. I'm still, in fact, I'm still alive. I'm still having experience. I'm still breathing. How awful. So this is what happens anyway. And why we can say we won't find our way or our place if we're continually rejecting our experience in that way because it's not beyond enough. It's not accomplished enough. There's something wrong with it. It's not accomplished enough. It's not grown up enough. It's not competent enough. And then we have to ask ourself, well,

[10:04]

we can also say, well, has it worked? I mean, in a certain sense, that's a kind of way to motivate ourself. You're not competent enough. You'll have to try harder. Oh, yes, yes, I'll try harder. I promise. Really, I will. Honest. I'm going to be really sincere now. I'm going to really try hard now. I guess I wasn't trying hard enough before. I'm really trying hard now. So you can motivate yourself in that way. And then, of course, you can not measure up again. And then you can further motivate yourself. And you can do this for years and years and years. And does it actually get you anyplace? Has it gotten you anywhere? Have you gotten any more competent? Have you gotten any more accomplished? Have you gotten any more realized by rejecting your experience in this way, by rejecting yourself over and over again, by rejecting, rejecting, putting yourself down?

[11:07]

Has it worked? Has it worked? Have you gotten anywhere? Well, I don't know about you, but I never got anywhere doing that. Where I got to doing that was feeling miserable. And that's, in a sense, that's another way, another way to describe the First Noble Truth. That when we, in fact, are thinking about things this way, conceptualizing things this way, then to have any experience at all, any experience is suffering. Because it's still experience. It's still mundane. It's still ordinary. You're still not enlightened. It's still not good enough. And that's called suffering.

[12:14]

It hurts. It's painful. So, the alternative is to try to see clearly, to move in our element, which is all this stuff, this experience, these feelings, thoughts, perceptions, impulses, consciousness, form. To move in it. And to see what we do, what we're doing. To see how to try to get rid of experience like that hasn't worked. When we see it, that's when practice can begin. When we see how life is suffering, how trying to get rid of

[13:17]

what we don't like and become accomplished and competent and so on, grown up, is how that is suffering. Then what's the alternative? Then we can turn to practice. We can turn to having some looking into anger, looking into fear, looking into what comes up with some compassionate feeling, compassionate attention to the details. To some examination of what is this about? Why am I why would I behave like this? What do I want

[14:21]

from it? And if I one conclusion is I don't want to suffer. That was why we did all that stuff in the first place. I don't want to suffer fear and anger and frustration so I put myself down to motivate myself to try harder so I won't have to suffer that stuff in the future. So we had this vow or intention all along not to suffer the problem was we just didn't have a very useful or appropriate or functional way not to suffer. It was a way that didn't work.

[15:22]

And so just for it to be alright to have problems that's a whole lot of suffering that we put a stop to. Just for it to be alright to have problems just for it to be alright to have experience what a relief that I don't have to be perfect, that I can have feelings that I don't have to be completely serious that I don't have to be perfectly enlightened, that I don't have to be completely realized that I don't have to be whatever what a tremendous relief and how buoyant I can feel when I'm not

[16:47]

pushing myself putting myself down for still being like this after all these years and I told you before you shouldn't do that you never listen to me we keep nagging ourselves but what a relief just to stop nagging yourself ... [...]

[17:49]

... [...]

[18:50]

... [...]

[19:56]

... ... ... the deer, and she got up to it, and just as she was about to shoot the deer, the deer looked up, and looked her in the eye, and sang this wonderful song, and the daughter just broke into tears at the beauty of it, and dropped the bow and arrow, and went back home, and said, I can't shoot that deer. Then the father asked the son, and the same thing happened, and then he finally said, why do you get anything done around here, you have to do it yourself. So he goes out, and of course, exactly the same thing happens. He's very determined and serious, and he's going to get rid of that damn deer anyway. It's eating up all his crops, and he goes to shoot it, and just then the deer looks up, and looks him right in the eye, and starts singing, and he goes, wow, you know, he can't do it anymore. He completely loses track of his intent to get rid of the deer.

[21:00]

It's in this way that when you're trying to get rid of something, you see it as some nuisance to your, you know, you're trying to do, you're trying to grow your crops by golly, and you know, and do this nice little project, you've got this nice little project in mind, lined up, you know, you want to make a nice kind of a person, or a pretty Buddha out of yourself, and you know, and this, whatever it is, is eating away at it, you know, and chewing it up, and it's, you know, it's annoying, it's, you know, you want to get rid of that bugger. So, but if you really stop for a moment in that, trying to get rid of it, and look straight at it, and look it in the eye, and hear it sing, you find out, you know, it's not exactly

[22:05]

something you can get rid of so easily, and you find out how intimately it's your own life, and the depths of your own life, that have been trying, you know, that have been calling, you know, out for so long, and don't know how to, don't have the means to, to end their fulfillment in some, you know, in the farming that you're doing, you know, in the project that you have in mind. And so then, starting from there, we can study, and, you know, too. And the, as I've said before, the, you know, if you take, whether it's the man and

[23:10]

the, the wild man and the boy, or the ox-riding pictures, the rider has, rather than taming the ox, mostly we have to tame the rider, and the rider needs to not have such a particular idea of this project or that project, and how things should be, but learn to ride this wild ox. And eventually, in the ox-riding pictures, of course, the rider and the ox disappear. So there's some unity or wholeness. The last part of the Genjo Koan is about the story about the fanning. I think you must

[24:26]

know, Master Bajie was, of Mayu, was fanning himself. One assumes that this was, you know, in the heat of the summer, rather than in the cool winter. And a monk came up to him and said, Why don't you go someplace where it's not hot and not cold? And he said, Why don't you go someplace where it's not hot and not cold?

[25:52]

And he said, Why don't you go someplace where it's not hot and not cold? And he said, Why don't you go someplace where it's not hot and not cold? And he said, Why don't you go someplace where it's not hot and not cold?

[27:17]

And he said, Why don't you go someplace where it's not hot and not cold? [...]

[28:49]

You understand that the nature of wind is permanent, but you don't understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere. So then the monk asked again, What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere? And the master just fanned himself. And the monk bowed deeply. Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma

[30:27]

Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma

[31:32]

Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma [...]

[33:02]

Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma [...]

[34:47]

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[36:12]

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[37:39]

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[39:09]

Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma

[40:39]

Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma Dogen says that the actualization of Buddhadharma

[42:09]

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[43:34]

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[44:52]

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[46:33]

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[48:04]

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[49:33]

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[51:03]

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[52:34]

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[53:52]

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[55:34]

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[57:03]

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[58:32]

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[59:59]

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[61:31]

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[63:00]

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[64:10]

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