So I've been talking about setting forth the mind and cultivating the way and compassion and now skillful means. And if I go along with the paramitas, next and last of the six paramitas is prajna. So I'm equating today to prajna and upaya, skillful means. Skillful means is not so skillful a phrase, actually. Rather confusing. For instance, right now,

[01:10]

We just found out that there's some sheriff driving in here to serve papers on one of us for some technical thing. Now he's going to require skillful means to negotiate the road. It's probably the most difficult papers he's ever served. I don't know if we should expect him or not, but you're going to, someone's going to take care of him, if he arrives. What to do when he arrives? Actually, whether he negotiates the road or what to do when he arrives, none of these have anything to do with skillful means, as it's meant in Buddhism. If you don't get your life in order, that's pretty dumb, from the point of view of practice. So, getting your life in order is not what we're talking about. If you are serious about practice, you figure out who you want to marry, and you get married. Or you figure out how you're going to support yourself, and you support yourself. You pay your debts, you know. You get that stuff straightened out, because it's a nuisance.

[02:38]

And then you do it, you know. That's all. Skillful means in Buddhism means that you realize, you share your realization. Before realization you find out how you share your suffering or your condition or your practice. but what to do when we understand how we share our realization. And it's particularly a problem as we practice because practice isn't stages, it's actually everything is simultaneous. So the beginner or the person who hasn't practiced is also sharing his or her realization.

[03:43]

This is maybe one of the, maybe the most important rule for monks, or practices, is that you hide your light. Even if you don't have a light, you hide it. Not to pretend you have one, but just on the chance that you might, you better hide it. So you don't take responsibility for others' practice. You don't give advice. You don't take some make suggestions about people's practice. Actually, when one of you can do that, the first time one of you can do that is shuso ceremony. And it means, I share my seat with Bill, with the shuso. And actually, nobody can perform wedding ceremony or funeral ceremony or any ceremony. It's very strict about Buddhism, Zen, except insofar as I share my robe with them. So we're actually don't, aren't so careful about this, about simple ceremonies.

[05:23]

But from Shuso on, there are various times and ways in which the teacher will share his or her responsibility. Eventually, before transmission, there can be a stage in which you give your robe to a person, but it doesn't belong to them. They use your robe. Then when they receive transmission, you give them a robe, but it becomes their robe, which they can then give. But when I just give my robe to someone and it remains mine, they can't give it to anyone. I can take it back. So there's some skill involved here, actually, because as you practice, people will, particularly outside Zen Center, people will ask you what to do, how to take care of their life, et cetera. You want to do nothing conscious.

[06:56]

as much as possible. Just to be polite, you may have to give some zazen instruction, because you find they're sitting, I don't know, on some odd way, unnecessarily uncomfortable way or something. And you can say, oh, use a cushion or keep your back straight. But some minimal suggestion. You must know the famous story about Hyakujo and Baso and the wild geese. Baso says they're on a trip somewhere. Baso says

[07:59]

What is it? What is it? What is it?" Some forceful way he asked, what is it? And Hyakujo said, oh, it's wild geese. And Baso says, where had they gone? And Hyakujo says, they flew away. And Baso grabs him by the nose and twists it quite hard. And Yakujo begins to cry. He cries out and cries. And Yakujo founded our way of life, hundreds of hundreds of years ago, and we're those wild geese actually. We're the solution to that problem. We don't know whether Hyakujo, how Hyakujo exactly understood

[09:26]

Baso's statement. What is it? Did he think he just meant the geese, or did he feel Hyakujo was asking something wider? Baso is asking something wider. And it can be understood that Hyakujo, who was no slouch was quite, was not separate from Basel and he may have been expressing something like returning to emptiness. There are geese but they're gone, returning to zero. But Baso, by turning his nose, Zero and Geese are right here.

[10:44]

I think it's, I forget, I think it's Hyakujo who, yeah, I think it's Hyakujo who asks three of his disciples, I believe, Issan and Goho and Ungan, Ungan Donjo. I'm not sure, but I think those three. He says, please say one, please say, can you say a word with your mouth closed?" And Isan says, uh, Oh, Roshi, you have, you've just spoken. Or, how do you say it? And, His teacher says, if I say it, I'll lose my descendants. And later he asks Goho, can you say a word with your mouth shut?

[12:43]

Goho says, it's up to you, Roshi, to keep your mouth shut. These are very simple answers. And Hyakujo says, in the wilderness I would expect to find you shading my eyes with your hands. No, shading my eyes with my hands. So, then he asked Ungan the same question later. What can you say a word with your mouth shut? And Ungan says something like, does the master still Possess a mouth or not or he's it can be translated various ways does is there still anything to say and Yakuja says my descendants are lost Mungan censors not so simple. It's rather intellectual. You know about emptiness whether we have a mouth or not

[14:18]

And the case, Hekigan Roku case, I want to give you a few more, one more story. The Hekigan Roku case, 46, in which Tsukiyoshi wrote, Give the monk 30 blows. How do we express reality on each occasion? He wrote out. Kyosei asks, again, like Vassa, Kyosei asks, what is it? And the monk says, it's the voice, what is it outside? And the monk says, it's the voice of raindrops.

[15:50]

And Hyose says, The monk is expressing here some feeling of not that the geese have flown away but subject-object or everything is mind or raindrops have their own voice. And Kyosei expresses, you're caught by this

[17:03]

this, he expresses it by saying, I am close to being deceived myself. And the monk says, what do you mean by deception? And Kyosei says, dropping body and mind may be easy, but to express reality on each occasion almost impossible, or nearly impossible. So then Suzuki Roshi wrote that statement. So, skillful means in Buddhism means you've found out how to express yourself on each occasion and how to take responsibility for that.

[18:52]

That's all I want to say on this point. It's something for discussion between us, individually, and for you to notice for yourself how your practice or awareness affects others. on this point will turn your development, how we share our realization with everybody. Do you have something you'd like to talk about? Yeah. What's the best we can do? It's your own experience.

[20:34]

It's on your nose if I twist it. Who said that? I think right now, I'd like to express it as I said yesterday, you know, realizing not to kill is that there's no way out. When you really feel there's no way out, you can take responsibility. You won't back up from it. You won't look around. We can say also, skillful means, upaya means, that you've fully realized this non-repeating universe, or that A and B

[22:12]

always equals C, not A plus B. That always it equals a third, which has its own past, present and future. That the world is some fertile, not added, but multiplied. And that multiplication is carried out. So our responsibility extends very far when you see this multiplier, how our practice or vision or realization is shared. Some detachment in this. Why we take individual forms? Like why you're different from Jim? Did you hear what she said? What would be the usefulness of an answer?

[23:38]

You don't take individual forms. It's one great big rolling mass. At one point we say, well that's Jim. That's Mary as it rolls by. Actually, there's some Wheeler. Wheeler. Wheeler is a physicist. And he says that time and space bend, and it bends and it bends back on itself and forms a kind of hole, and those holes are atoms. Anyway, you can take ... We were discussing yesterday, talking about Jundo. This is a clockwise, but clockwise and you dip it in here, but we can take it and infinitely tangle it up and still move clockwise through it. So one part is Jim and one part is Mary. But actually we don't need an explanation. The fact is, this is what you see and it's unimaginable.

[25:10]

Without explanation, you know, another aspect of upaya is reality is without explanation. There's only, there's not explanation or information, there's only activity. And that activity means you two are separate. with some expression. Those who are too late depend on words. And by the time you explain or try to figure it out, it's too late.

[26:25]

How do we recognize what effect we might be having on others? Why do you... That's a complicated question you just asked. Yeah. How do we recognize our effect on each other? Might it just be delusion? First of all, whether it's delusion or illusion, you have to find out. Some people say, it's all illusion, it's all illusion. But actually, you can see by their activity that they don't think it's all illusion. They're acting as if something was real. And so we have to find out for ourselves what we mean by illusion or delusion. And at some point you have to trust what you feel. So, yeah, right now. But as long as you are wavering, you have to try to bring yourself to that point where you trust something. Otherwise we can't live.

[27:51]

The problem of seeing how we affect others may be unavoidable, but the best way is to not note, not be involved in it. Forget about it. What do you mean by right intention? and sometimes I think it's clear and it's not. I can't always tell. Right intention in your practice now means don't lose your energy.

[29:19]

Do you understand what I mean? Don't try something by which you lose your energy. If you do, find out what your outflows are, how you leave. By noticing that, you can find out what to do. Sometimes you know, we lose that power, the same thing we do, it's wobbly. So not to wobble is the right intention. Yeah. Did you say we shouldn't be concerned about how we affect others? Yeah, that's just practical. This is difficult to talk about, but I want to give

[31:01]

us some suggestion, but it's not so easy because our activity is not that clear to us. We can take responsibility when our activity is intentionless, like the face of the mountain. But until then, You know, just to take care of your own practice. Honesty and stillfulness. Yesterday you said, you make the decision to be honest and that will require stillfulness. What I'm thinking of is, I guess I'm confusing it with Thailand.

[32:10]

Well, I'd like to emphasize in this session where we were yesterday, the identity of jhana and compassion. But compassion, you know, or now wisdom, actually we have some effect on others. And our emphasis in practice should be to let that occur with as little of our personal involvement as possible. And that effort is identical with the effort to let our own realization come out. You understand what I mean?

[33:51]

That's why we don't discuss practice with each other. We don't discuss dog sign. Someone asked, their teacher, What is, what does it mean my own mind is Buddha? Or what is ultimate reality? And his teacher said, a secret working. And monk said, what is secret working? and his teacher opened and shut his eyes. But that already is too much. Maybe for the teacher it's okay, but for us practicing it's, I don't know, you don't have to

[35:37]

how to express reality fully on each occasion. By your own experience is enough without being concerned beyond that. I'm not sure if this relates, but it appears to me that it does in some way. And he said to me, at some point, I was talking to him about relationships, and special relationships, and feelings about people, and desire. And he said, at some point, we'll learn just to hang out together. And he said, it's not so interesting. It doesn't prevent us from being annoyed as much as it's kind of less interesting. But at some point, if that happens, maybe we can just hang out together without trying to have some kind of intense relationship.

[36:54]

That's right. The more you can brush off some helping other people with their practice, which is the best way to delude yourself, the better. This? Well, it seems to me that the point gate of the Buddha and the Bodhisattva are completely intertwined. For example, as you're practicing, you're watching your outflows, you're finding out where the holes in your bucket are, and you find out that your holes in your bucket are actually those areas where you're stepping over people's toes. So at that area,

[37:56]

You're trying to just help yourself, but actually, you have to help other people. And also, as you go through, you just might need to be more careful and considerate. You're doing that for selfish reasons, perhaps, but also, the effect of that is that you're actually teaching the economy. So we need to switch back and forth. Yeah, it's a very confused idea, actually, Pratyekabuddha, and it's also used historically to criticize other schools, you know. But... it is possible to free yourself from problems, completely, and not be a bodhisattva. That's Pratyekabuddha, someone who has freed themselves from any problems, you know, but

[39:03]

it doesn't extend, or there's some feeling of limitation in it. So, by this... It's some way for Buddhism to point out, you know, false teachers. By someone who has this feeling, they then establish themselves as a teacher, but to support themselves rather than to support others. There's some area like that. And some Buddhist schools got into teaching that way. But it also means, you know, it's rather difficult to describe, but to be enlightened by some certain chance, you know, but not to understand thoroughly. There's various kinds of understanding. According to Mahayana Buddhism, it's mutual understanding without hindrance is the only way, full way to practice, is the idea of Mahayana Buddhism. Does that make sense to you? It's a little confusing, I know.

[40:39]

Actually, I'm not so interested in this kind of consideration. But, you know, Sashin is nearly over, and we're going to start guest season, and we have to... we should have some feeling of restricting our practice and letting just what we do be enough. You know, someone asked me yesterday. Someone's doing something and you notice it. By your practice you can make people feel quite naked. Because you just look at them and they feel

[42:22]

something uncomfortable. So this is maybe skillful means but it's rather not really what I mean but do you then pretend that you don't see them because it makes them feel uncomfortable? Or do you see them and let them cope with it? Or do you see them and go along with them, supporting them in their activity, which is rather confused? Or do you withdraw from the activity? That kind of problem we face in practical circumstances with people. Skillful means, we could say, also means accepting people's delusion and not trying to change it. Because delusion and enlightenment are the same. What would you like to say?

[43:52]

Yeah. Guest season we do because people ask us to. And it's rather good for us not to be here alone all the time. But maybe the best way is just to accepts people's delusions. We're not sharing our practice with them so much as we're sharing their delusions. Maybe it's better for you not to share your practice but to share others' delusions. Takahatsu means that you just go out and walk in the street and you shout,

[45:42]

I told you when I went to Takahatsu begging, I couldn't remember what you're supposed to say. You have to say something more than ho. You have to say, when they give you something, you're supposed to say something. I couldn't remember this verse in Japanese at all. And they surprised me by having me go out on some day when I wasn't supposed to go out to next week. So I wrote it in the brim of the hat. Anyway, it's rather wonderful to hear the monks coming because they come early in the morning, maybe six o'clock or so, sometimes in the afternoon, four or five, and rain or whatever, they're walking along with these straw hats, like mushrooms. And you can hear them, they just go, oh, like that. And there's eight or 10 of them coming. And they don't stop. They sort of go by really quickly. So you hear them coming, you have to quick find your rice bag or money or something. And by the time you're out there, the second or third monks are already by. And the fourth or fifth are fast approaching, and they will barely stop. Take it, say something.

[47:11]

But feeling is just like that, to go out and not teach Buddhism or do anything, just go out and say, oh. That's what Suzuki Roshi meant, that guest season is our way of saying, oh. Maybe we should put that over the gate, oh, for guest season. That's right. But we, you know, we give up maybe teaching Buddhism to ourself. We don't explain anymore. But if someone asks us, we say, oh, we hear the voice of the raindrops. To say that is to teach Buddhism. So it's some feeling of possessing Buddhism. I possess this thing which feels the raindrops, or I possess teaching. And that's a major delusion, major difficulty in practice.

[48:41]

So skillful means is how to cope with this problem. I think maybe just to share people's delusions is right. There's some poem which tries to express this. The wind is often associated with Buddhism or teaching. Poem is something like, in the river country, the spring wind is still, but from deep among the flowers, we hear the partridge cry.

[50:17]

So although we're practicing here and having some feeling for our innate capacity, do not leave this sasheen with any sense of possession of it. just recognize our deep identity with others.

[51:14]

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