Well, this morning I seem to have a cold. So, I hope you can hear me okay. I just got a phone call from somebody I've known for a long time who is associated with KPFA. And he said that someone is doing the programming who doesn't understand who Alan Watts is. And this person is eliminating the Alan Watts lectures which have been a kind of key stone of KPFA for many, many 25 years or something. So he said that if you want those programs to continue, to call KPFA Monday around noon, which would be the time, the most opportune time.

[01:20]

So you might keep that in mind if you're interested. This morning, this is the first lecture of the year, 1992. So I want to talk about this koan that maybe the most, one of the most famous koans, so everybody, most people know this koan, of Joshu's Wash Your Bowl. I talked about this at Green Gulch last Sunday, being the last lecture of the year, A monk came to master Joshu and he

[02:42]

asked for instruction. He came to the monastery, to Joshua's temple. And he said, I've just entered the temple. Please give me some instruction. And Joshua said, have you had your rice gruel this morning? The monk said, yes, I have. Joshua said, Go wash your bowl then. That's the story. Go wash your bowl. And then Master Mumon in his comment says, Joshu opened his mouth and showed his gallbladder, his heart and his liver. Completely exposed himself. And then Mumon says, I wonder if the monk really heard the truth.

[03:46]

I hope he didn't mistake a bell for a jar. This bell here could be mistaken for a jar. What's that? Something that you put, if you don't know, you can put something in there. But actually, that bell is like the bowl. Matter of fact, we don't put something in there. We keep it empty so that it will have some resonance with whatever comes its way. We don't hit the bell. People usually say, well, when I hit the bell, we don't hit the bell. We sound the bell because the bell makes a sound according to our intentions or according to our mistakes.

[04:59]

It mirrors our inner condition when we play the bell. So playing with the bell is a very exposing kind of activity. It exposes our sensitivity. It exposes our inner condition and our disposition and our intentions. So it's a little bit risky. So we keep the bill empty. So that it's like a mirror, actually. The bell is like a mirror. And it mirrors all those things. And expresses what we have to express. So then, Muban has a verse about the case.

[06:05]

And he says, because it's so very clear, it takes so long to realize. If you just know that flame is fire, you'll find that your rice has long been cooked. So in the beginning of this case, a monk said to Joshu, I've just entered this monastery, please give me some instruction. When someone first comes to practice, we teach them Zazen teach them how to sit Zazen and then at some point they come and have an interview with the teacher and when they come to have an interview with the teacher in that interview space many things can happen so often the first

[07:16]

interview is Who are you? Yeah Where do you live? What do you do? What do you want? And Then as a If the student continues to practice Then the interviews become more deeper and more concerned with the person's practice and with the relevance of questioning. Often people come and they say, well, you know, I really have no question. But this no question is, why is there no question?

[08:23]

Everyone has a question. If you have no question, it means that you're so thoroughly enlightened that there's nothing to question. Or because the question is so vast that I can't formulate the question. but often the person doesn't notice on this level, even though they understand it on this level. So, I come to see you, but I don't have a question. Usually means, my question is so hard to formulate that I don't know what to say. So that's very good, actually. And sometimes a person comes with a question and the question is very superficial.

[09:30]

And they say, well, this is a stupid question. So a stupid question, though, is a good kind of question. Stupid question. If you say, this is a stupid question, it kind of means, I'm a little bit stupid. I'm capable of being stupid. And the fact that we allow ourselves the opportunity, or expose the fact that we can be a little bit stupid, or allow ourselves to be a little bit stupid, is the beginning of enlightenment. So a stupid question, if you know it's a stupid question, is actually a kind of enlightened question. And with the stupid question, the stupid question is connected to the deepest, most profound question. So through the channel of the stupid question, we can get to the real question.

[10:36]

So any question is okay. Any kind of entrance is okay. So a lot of people say, well, the reason that I don't come to dokes on is because I only have a stupid question or no question. But the good student brings a stupid question. This is a stupid question, in a way. The monk has been practicing for a long time. The student brings a kind of testing question. And then there's something to deal with. There's a ball to throw back and forth. And we always say the student should have some distance from the teacher. The teacher should have some distance from the student.

[11:38]

If there's no distance, then there's no place to play. no field to play. So when there's some distance, you can throw the ball back and forth until you finally, until the ball comes to rest. So the monk comes to Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe Shu, and says, I've just entered the monastery. This actually is not a stupid monk. He says, please instruct me. So this please instruct me is already give me some instruction. This is already kind of letting go.

[12:42]

Often people come, I don't need instruction. I don't need to talk to you. I know what I'm doing. I read some books on Zen. I know what this is about. People come with their opinions and their outlook. There's some very good stories about this too. But he says, please teach me. Please teach me is a way of laying everything down, if he really means it. Sometimes a person says, please teach me, but they don't really mean it. And Joshua is in a position to say, well, do you really mean this? Is that what you really want?

[13:49]

What are you willing to do in order to allow me to teach you? See, often what we want is knowledge. And what Joshua teaches is not knowledge. As a matter of fact, Joshu takes all of your knowledge and pulls it out and throws it away. Scatters it to the four winds. Zazen, you know, is like brainwashing. The other day, My son Daniel was watching Patty Hearst review the SLA on TV.

[15:01]

And he came up to me and said, what is brainwashing? Because she'd been brainwashed by the SLA. So I thought about brainwashing, and brainwashing is where someone changes your understanding or your ideas about things, takes your ideas about things out of your head and puts something else into your head, puts some other ideas into your head. That's brainwashing. But in Zen, brainwashing is taking your ideas out of your head but not putting anything back. Just washing the mind, actually. Zazen is washing the mind.

[16:04]

The mind gets very clogged up. It's like maybe a screen or a filter. And this filter gets very greasy, full of lint, mind lint and mind grease. It needs to be cleaned up. So Zazen is the cleaning process. So there are actually two sides of practice. One is to put everybody into a mold, like little toy soldiers, chocolate soldiers, putting everybody into a mold of Zazen. If you want to practice, you have to put yourself into the mold. And with slight variations, we all fit into the mold.

[17:09]

So whether you're big or small or tall or short, we all get put into the mold of Zazen. And the other side is that with the student and the teacher, we take care of your most intimate personal concerns. Just you as an individual. So people say, well, what is Zen training? What is the training of a priest? Sometimes it doesn't look like it's anything. On the one hand, it's zazen. On the other hand, it's just your personal life.

[18:13]

How you Since there's no special form of zazen or practice, we create a form of practice and we fit into that form. But the other side is that all the forms of life we have to see as the form of practice without trying to make them into something. These are the two sides. That whatever you do becomes the form of practice. Though it doesn't look like anything special. This is how a Zen student practices.

[19:16]

In that way, whatever we do, That is Zazen. That is practice. That is our Zen life. On one side you can see and recognize this is the form called Zazen. On the other side you can't see anything. It's invisible. Or invisible in the sense of it doesn't look like. the form of Zazen. So at the end of the Hokyo Zomai, the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, it says, practice like a fool, like an idiot, in secret.

[20:25]

without exposing yourself. Just do the work without being visible. That's the other side. And this is the side where you have relationship with the teacher Of course, with both sides, but this is where it's very important to have a relationship with the teacher, so that you know the teacher keeps the student on the path, or, you know, the teacher helps the student to stay in the right direction.

[21:30]

So the monk comes to Joshu and he says, please instruct me. I'm new here, please instruct me. And Joshu says, have you eaten rice gruel? In Zen, Although we talk about, we use technical terms like nirvana and enlightenment and dharma and so forth. Joshu uses very plain words and instead of saying, have you had any realization? He says, have you eaten your gruel? This is Joshu's code. Have you eaten your rice gruel? And since the monk is not new to practice, he should understand what Joshu is talking about.

[22:40]

So the monk says, yes, I did. Now, this is very key right here. Yes, I did. What does he mean by yes, I did? If he's naive, he just means, yes, I ate my breakfast. If he understands Joshu, then to say, yes, I did, is a little bit arrogant. Nobody says, yes, I've had enlightenment. Yes, I've had Kensho. Yes, blah, blah, blah. You have to say something else. You can't say that. So this is where Master Uman says, I hope the monk didn't mistake the bell for a jar. Does he really understand or not?

[23:48]

So Joshu says, well, then go wash your So this has, you know, there are many, several meanings here. The highest meaning you can't even say anything about. But on another level, wash your bowl means if you really are saying this, then stop saying it. If you really are saying that you have some attainment, drop it. Even though we have some attainment, we don't carry our attainment around with us like a badge or like some kind of honor or something like that.

[24:58]

As soon as you have some attainment, You bury it as deeply as you can and just go on. If you really have attainment, you don't need to say anything. You don't need to do anything. Just continue in an ordinary way. Because real attainment means just being confirmed in your ordinariness. If one has real attainment, then you really feel confident in your ordinary life. And some people Some people's ordinary life is rather extraordinary.

[26:03]

If someone's ordinary life is rather extraordinary, then that person doesn't see it as extraordinary. But if you see your life as extraordinary, then you should be very careful. Others can see it as extraordinary, You should be careful not to see it as extraordinary. As a matter of fact, it would be good to feel a little embarrassed if someone says, oh, I hear that, I think you're pretty extraordinary. You should be a little bit embarrassed. enlightened person just goes about their business.

[27:11]

So Joshu says, if this is the case, you should go wash your bowl, clean out the traces of So in a sense, this koan is a kind of beginner's mind koan. Maybe this is the koan of beginner's mind. Every moment is a new moment. And if we retain something too much from the last moment, then we can't really experience this moment fully. So when we hang on to attainment, we're actually doing ourselves a disservice because we can't really enter this moment with an empty mind. So the point here is how do we enter each moment with an empty mind, completely unassuming,

[28:29]

very difficult. When we come to Zen practice, we have various ideas and various opinions. And our training actually is little by little to let go of our opinions and our ideas and just let our mind be completely open. When you listen to a Zen lecture, you shouldn't be thinking about anything. You know, just listen, even if it's a little bit stupid. Just listen. But often our minds are going, you know, he's not so smart. I heard that before. But what we should hear is just the Dharma. We don't have to worry about the person so much. But actually, Zen practice is a kind of process of wearing out your opinions and your partiality and allowing small mind to dissolve

[30:18]

and allowing Big Mind to appear. So Big Mind is vast, empty mind which can't be described and is open to everything without opinions and without partiality. So, Bhuman says, because it's so very clear, it takes so long to realize. It's like unlearning. Because it's so clear, it's really hard to realize. You know, we... Buddhas are eating bowls, monks eating bowls.

[31:32]

A monk has three to five eating bowls, and the main eating bowl is called Buddha's head. This is Buddha's head. So the bowl is taken care of very carefully and eaten out of very mindfully and very carefully. Just eating, just washing it, just taking care of it, just wrapping it up without any idea. Just paying attention to each stage of the activity. When we pay attention like that, to each stage of the activity, the whole universe is... this activity covers the whole universe.

[32:49]

But if we fill our mind or our bowl with partiality or ideas or opinions, then our ideas or opinions cover the whole universe and block it out. So we keep getting smaller and smaller rather than expanding our awareness. So, because it's so very clear, it takes long to realize. Very simple. The simplest thing is the hardest thing to realize. Actually, because it's right in front of us. It's right under our feet. And then he says, if you just know that flame is fire, flame is fire has several meanings.

[34:06]

But if you realize that your smallest activity is universal activity, then you realize that the rice has long been cooked. When our bowl is clean, then all of our activity, each moment's activity, is the activity, the great activity of the universe, not just our small activity. Then we feel at one with universal activity, with the universal mind. And this is enlightenment.

[35:09]

In all of our activity, the simplest, most seemingly insignificant activity is the universal activity, not just my activity. The whole universe participates. There is no selfness in anything. But our true self is the whole universe. When we let go of our small mind, the universal mind does everything. So it's very important to have deep faith in our true nature.

[36:14]

Universal, big universal mind, which is actually doing the activity. Then, even though we have good times and bad times, it's insignificant because we can appreciate everything. And we're not just limited to feeling good or feeling bad. or feeling right or feeling wrong. So, Joshua's response to the monk was very clear and very deep.

[37:23]

When you enter the monastery, when you enter into Joshu's realm, all you have to do is wash your bowl, which is probably the hardest thing in the world to do, and yet it's the easiest. Our true mind is always present. Big mind is always present. But we cloud it over with our opinions and partiality and one-sidedness. There's a poem by somebody that says, do not think the moon appears when the clouds are gone.

[38:39]

All the time, it has been there in the sky, so perfectly clear. In the beginning, he says, have you had your rice gruel this morning?

[39:46]

If he's talking about realization, why would he ask him, have you had realization this morning? Does he mean like, have you had understanding? Yeah. Why was he pointing to it having happened that morning? Do you know what I mean? Well, have you had your rice gruel this morning, yesterday? Can you just talk about realization in this light? Is it pointing to everyday life? Have you had your, have you had your rice gruel? It just means have you had some realization? I can't explain it any further than that. It's just a way of speaking. It's just funny to have somebody point to that and talk about unusual conversation.

[40:52]

Well, the monk came to dokasana. It's not like they were talking out of the porch. He came into the teacher's space for a specific purpose. And he said, I just entered the monastery. Can you teach me? And then, Joshu said, have you had your rice gruel? Well, he asked for teaching. He didn't ask for casual conversation. So when Joshu says, have you had your gruel? He could have said a lot of different things. Well, if the monk did have some realization, then what would a more appropriate response have been? What would you say? If I tell you what the more appropriate response would have been, it wouldn't be the appropriate response. The appropriate response has to be the appropriate response at that moment.

[42:00]

So everyone has to have their own appropriate response. Why do the Japanese always use these terms? They use one word, but really they mean something else. Why do they use metaphors? This is Chinese. Because if you say something one-sided, then you fall into duality. The language is using dualistic language to say something in a non-dualistic way. But isn't that setting yourself up for all kinds of misunderstanding? Yes. It's setting yourself up for all kinds of misunderstanding.

[43:11]

So what is the advantage of the misunderstanding? Well, the misunderstanding should come to understanding. It's setting up, that's right, it's setting up a whole field for misunderstanding. And then the monk goes away with the misunderstanding and comes back again. Or goes off, you know. And the monk has to break through the misunderstanding to get to the understanding. That's right. It sets up a whole field of misunderstanding. And this is what the monk has to work with. That's why the West might be It doesn't make sense because it's not a sense-oriented question. Yeah, it goes deeper than sense.

[44:18]

It doesn't make sense. It's not concerned with sense. It has its own logic, which is non-dualistic logic. has to do with either-or. And the koan cuts through either-or, cuts through duality, cuts through good and bad, right and wrong, this and that, black and white, and gets to the essence of the matter. That's why, if it was easily answered in a dualistic way, it wouldn't be a koan. It makes sense, but not in a dualistic way.

[45:24]

When you understand the sense, it means that you are understanding in a non-dualistic way. You keep trying to, well, you know, you give up after a while and you say, ah, heck with that stuff, you know, those koans, you know, they don't, it just makes me angry, you know, that they don't fall into duality. And we do that, you know, when we start reading the koans, I don't understand this book at all. misleading. And it gives your mind a big problem because our mind wants it to be this way or that way.

[46:38]

And it's like we have the mean here and we want to either go this way or that way. It's very hard for us to be right here at the balance point. between yes and no, right and wrong, good and bad, light and dark. Very hard to stay there because life is movement and we have to move somewhere. And we don't want to stay still. We need to move. As soon as you move, you create a duality. You create a comparison between this and that. And only when you stop comparing can you understand. So our mind, which is always comparing, gets very distraught when confronted with a koan. That's why I think this is such a wonderful koan, actually, because even if you

[47:50]

Even if you stay with, did you have your breakfast? Go wash your bowl. That's sort of like, that's the way life is in a monastery. You have your breakfast, you wash your bowl, you do the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. And you have your enlightenment, you go do something. You go wash it away, you go live it out, you go. And so it seems like there's something for everybody in this koan that's right on the surface. Which is not true of all kinds. So if you just stay with it, eat your breakfast, wash your bowl, you get to the point if you can stand it. Just like if you eat your breakfast and wash your bowl, come to Sazen and go to work, you get there sooner or later. And I think that's why, at least for me, this is a koan I keep coming back to, because it has a real easy kind of an entry point, and the point's right there.

[49:03]

Yeah, it's a very easy entry point, although it's a very deep koan. That's right. Well, like you said, it's not so easy. That's right. It actually looks pretty easy, because it's very Simple and plain, except that when you can drop into the endless bowl, which has no bottom. So that's right. The life of practice is when you're in this situation, just be in that situation. The next moment is the next moment situation. The next moment is the next moment situation. There is some kind of continuity, but each moment is its own whole life. Each moment of existence, of your existence, covers the whole universe.

[50:16]

When you were speaking, you said that after the student said, yes, I did, when he was asked, did he? Your comment on that confused me a little bit. What did I say? You said, he should have said something else. Oh, he should? And then when she asked, So there was a way in which what he said was appropriate in the story. What he said was appropriate. Did I say he should have said something else? You said one doesn't admit to having a wife. If that was the question, you wouldn't say, yeah, I have a wife. I didn't say he should have said something else, literally, but I said that. One one doesn't one it's very risky to say yes, I have Yeah That's the highest What what it's very risky and the monk goes ahead and says it and

[51:58]

It seems like it will be okay. Yeah, it's okay. I didn't say it wasn't okay. So, the risk is the same. Why is there a risk? That's right, because if he hadn't said it, the koan wouldn't have appeared for us, right? He could say that. That leads to something, you know, that he's expressing himself where he is, right? Maybe he's expressing his arrogance. That's good. Maybe it's not arrogance. Maybe it's not. That's right. We don't know for sure. Only Joshu knows. So whatever you express is okay because that's where you are. The monk can only express where he is, where he's at. That's what he should express. And then Joshu can deal with it. If the monk expressed something else, then that would be very confusing.

[53:04]

Could be. Unless Joshu... Joshu's pretty good, so even if the monk said something else that wasn't as revealing, he still would have understood, I think, and approached him from a different way. It also seems like Joshu could have used the same response. The same? Joshu could have given the same response no matter what the monk's response was. That's right. No matter what the monk said. That's right. So that's why, in a sense, it doesn't matter whether the monk was being arrogant or truthful or just naive or what. The response goes for either way. I have a stupid question. Who washed your bowl? Does that mean that you don't have enlightenment, or does it mean that you're arrogant?

[54:05]

Well, it doesn't mean either one. It just means wash your bowl. You ate? Wash your bowl. It means keep your mind open without conditions. regardless of what the condition is. It's a statement which just covers everything. It's called a statement that just covers everything. The fundamental statement. I was just thinking that the students are always the straight people in these stories.

[55:08]

Like the student never answers the master's question with a poem. Yes they do. Oh really? Yeah, quite often they do. Timidly asking a question. I don't know, it seems to me that whenever I see something that seems really huge or impresses me in some way as being bigger than myself, or something like a sunset or something, and it seems like there's something to be learned there, or something that I then want to cling to or carry with me or inspire me send me forth some way, and then I, how do you, I'm clinging to that, but how do you learn? Well, it was interesting that you said, because when you said, when I see something bigger than myself, right, well, everything is bigger than yourself.

[56:17]

Right. So some things amaze us, and some things seem insignificant, but everything is bigger than myself. See, have a good year, 1992. Let's all practice together.

[56:56]

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