I would like to say something that I've said before. You may say that I'm repeating myself. Now I'd like to repeat myself. Do you allow me to repeat myself? I'd like to talk again about, kind of summarize or review about Samatha and Vipassana. So what's Samatha? What is it? Only going to the source. Shamatha is going to the source.

[01:02]

Tranquility. Tranquility. It's going to the source, but also remember that it's not just going to the source, but it's following the stream to the source. Don't forget we need the stream. On the source, what does the source look like? It's a pool. Does it look like a pool? By sitting quietly? Any other ideas on how you can find this pool? Follow the stream. Follow the stream. There's a pool, maybe someplace, but it's up in the mountains.

[02:12]

From here you can't see it. You have to meet the stream to find it. Yes? Which way do you think? No, the stream doesn't flow towards the source. It's like the source of a river. So our effort is to go uphill, back to where the water starts. It's translated as insight. That's a common translation.

[03:15]

Another translation is higher vision. Are you familiar with the Japanese Buddhist term that was coined by Dogen Zenji, puji? Are you familiar with the term fuji? Not so familiar with it. Well, one of the words that Dogen Zenji has created for us, or created for us 700 years ago, is fuji, which means being or existing. So it's often translated as prime being or existence time. Time being is not so great. That's perversely. Fu is existence or being, and ji is time.

[04:16]

So it's the existence time or being in time. So in that sense, you can say shamatha is to observe or look at uji. So for Zen Master Dogen, existence is always caught up in time. Whenever you look at something existing or something being, it's inseparable from time. The vipassana is to observe being in time. And the yogi or merging of shamatha and vipassana. What's that? Nirvana. It's nirvana. Any other names for it?

[05:17]

As a practice. It's the practice of nirvana. Being yourself. Being yourself. Any other names for it? No other names for it? Just one more, please. Zazen. So at the Zen centers, our practice is usually called Zazen. And Zazen is a combination of shamatha and vipassana. When Zazen is proper Zazen, it's about perfectly built and nourished. And what we went into detail about was the fact that we can view Samatha as a kind of like a palm, basic, nutritive.

[06:19]

And the observing of existence is a kind of lotus that grows out of this void. So in this way, we can see that the lotus depends on water for its life. observe the being term or the time of being, you need this tranquility. And to actually, the other side, though, which I didn't emphasize, goes the other way, too. So we emphasized more or less the fact of how insight depends on composure. Our flower of insight arises from the pond of tranquility. But it goes the other way, too. Because the pond needs the lotus to be a beautiful pond, to be a beautiful lotus pond.

[07:27]

So the lotus enhances the pond, and the pond is the source or base of the lotus. And it's the same with composure, with tranquility. In other words, there has to be some insight in order to have calm. That calm leads to insight, but before calm, there's insight. You have to have some insight in order to in order even to think about sitting down and facing your life, you've already had some insight. So there's a cycle of insight, tranquilization, insight, tranquilization of a stable, calm situation, nutritive situation, which is enhanced and beautified by some involvement in things.

[08:34]

And this involvement in things is insight. But that insight then drives one column again, which then produces more insight. This cycle has two members in it. Column, column, insight, column, insight, column, insight. But you can expand it. And the next in the cycle, which is usually put in, is effort. And that goes between repassion, inside of repassion and concentration. Because what happens is when you have concentration, the mind is stabilized.

[09:38]

But if it's too true concentration, as we said, it flows. It becomes destabilized. It gets agitated. So true composure of a living creature gives rise to some agitation, some thought, some objectivity. That fragments and disturbs and actually innervates the creature to some extent. When you're concentrated, you have your maximum energy. However, maximum energy naturally flows and gives up, gives up. It doesn't pull onto its energy. Maximum energy doesn't. Less than maximum, or less, I should say, not maximum, but optimal. Less than optimal might very well want more or hold onto itself.

[10:44]

But optimal energy, optimal intensity naturally says, OK, I'll give away some of my energy. I'll get involved in something. I'll become fragmented and agitated. So the insight, although it beautifies and brings the full vitality to composure, it also, in a sense, disturbs the energetics of the situation. That's why the next stage, before going back to concentration, is a kind of energizing phase, where the energy has to be collected again. Then one becomes concentrated again and then agitated again. You go round and round like this. Maybe that's a good lesson now.

[12:05]

with you. I don't know what you think. Any questions? If these are always associated with what makes it possible to experience mostly one or mostly one or the other, how does one perpetuate an unbalanced state? Well, you know, another way to talk about this is being another way of talking about it, that comes in Samatha when it's fully established. It's like pure being. But pure being of a living creature naturally flows into becoming. So another way of thinking about this is a kind of balance between being what you are and becoming something. So, again, the paradoxical language is that by being mindful of your being, you separate yourself from your being, in a sense, and turn it into becoming.

[13:34]

But this mindfulness of your being, which itself is as you keep doing it, becomes pure, become pure being, which naturally then reflexes into becoming. So in other words, there is some difference between just being and in a sense what you are. There's some separation there. So everybody's walking around just being. but also most people are going around either becoming something from that or being aware of what they're being. If they're aware of what they're being, they are becoming. But the mindfulness of your being, which is becoming, leads to just being. So,

[14:38]

You can do one or the other. But whenever you do one, the other one's right there. Because becoming is actually simply an awareness of the other side. And being is simply the culmination of being aware. So really, they're both always there. If you emphasize one or the other, that's a good one. So tonight I'd like to broach the topic of how our practice of zazen, how this practice of shamuta vipassana is how you give it or how you receive it. So in a sense, in a way, I've been experimenting with you for two days.

[15:44]

and you've been experimenting with me for two days, about giving and receiving shantabhipashin, or giving and receiving this poem by one or giving and receiving the practice of zazen. Now, I don't know who is giving and who is receiving, You may think, well, I think it's pretty clear. Since you're taking the role of sitting in this place, you're giving and some of us are receiving. And if I say, well, I'm not so sure that I'm giving and you're receiving, maybe I'm receiving. You may think, you may have trouble understanding that. You may have trouble understanding how you are giving me, how you are transmitting to me.

[16:49]

zazen practice or this shamaka vipassana, you may have trouble seeing it. And I'm saying to you that the transmission of the practice in Buddhism only occurs if it's mutual. So if you don't feel like you're giving me the practice of zazen, I'm not giving you the practice of bhagavad-gita. So if you don't feel like that, then that's the way it is, and I'm not exactly sorry because I'm not in a hurry. I don't mind if you don't feel like you've given me the practice of zazen, which means I haven't given you the practice of zazen. However, I would like to give you the practice of zazen and have you receive the practice of zazen, and I would like you to give me the practice of zazen. I would like that very much.

[17:55]

That would be wonderful. So we've been practicing, we've been practicing and talking about how to do the practice. But now the question is, have you, has it happened or have you just been listening so far and you're getting ready to receive it? But again, If you're ready to receive it, then also you have some responsibility that you have to take to be processed. This is also, of course, the transmission of compassion. No one said compassion.

[18:56]

I said, what's another name? Same for this, for Zazenji's compassion. So this is also the transmission of compassion. Compassion is also not one-directional. So there is an expression again, Dogen Zenji's expression, well, it's not actually his, he took it from the Lotus Sutra, but he wrote a bicycle on it, in Shogun Genzo, called Only a Buddha and a Buddha. This is from the Lotus Scripture, which says in Chapter 2, Only a Buddha and a Buddha can exhaustively penetrate or comprehend things as it is. In other words, one person by herself cannot look and see reality.

[20:00]

Now, one person by herself can look and see quite a bit, a kind of reality, but not exhaustively, completely, deeply see the bottom of reality and the top of reality. And not only that, but it doesn't take one that's pretty good and another one who's fairly good. It takes two Buddhists. Not one Buddha and somebody who's almost a Buddha, but two Buddhas. It takes two Buddhas to see reality. If you see reality, but you don't think that I see reality, then we say you don't see reality. If you see reality, you think I see reality, but I don't think I see reality, we don't see reality.

[21:05]

Or if you see reality, and you think you do, and you think I do, and I think I do, but I don't think you do, we don't see reality. Not only do we have to mutually create reality, but we have to even see, even know that the other one is creating reality, and not anymore, not creating reality anymore or better than I am. It's this kind of communication that's necessary in order to achieve compassion. You know, when I say it that way, you may say, well, this sounds impossible. It's not an agreement necessary before there can be some compassion in this world. What can you do in the meantime? This may take years. But for a while, and just say that, I don't know, it doesn't take, it actually doesn't take any time at all to do this, but it does happen any time.

[22:30]

So now how can we, if we, if two of us can How can two of us get together and realize that each other affects us often? How can we check each other out? How can we use each other to help each other? And just as an example of how we work together, you know, Hoffman is just as a kind of a partial sketch, you know, which is, this sketch is not done, this story is not done, but just to give you some sense of how one might work on something.

[23:42]

Let me give an example, namely the example of my personal history with the poem which I've been talking about. In my middle years, I'd become rather fallen in the way. I retired to the South Hill area. This is not McFarland, but the South Hill area is an area near was the capital of the Tong dynasty. So not too far from this huge capital of this vast empire, he had this little retreat at a place called South Mountain, South Hill.

[24:57]

I retired there, and when the spirit woos me, I go off. to see wonderful sights that I must see alone. I walk upstream to the place where the war ends and I sit and I look for the time that I caused the problem. Or, I may meet someone, pray, and Forget about going home. Laugh and talk and forget about going home. That's the point. And this is, I have a personal involvement with this poem for quite a few years.

[26:01]

And also, a number of the Zen Buddhists have had a personal involvement with this poem over a number of years. And many of those people have had a personal involvement with myself. So I'm entangling you in this web. Involvement with this poem. Before I entangle you in the web, I wanted to mention something. And that is, someone told me that I said something, which I may have said, but I want to make clear. One point, and that is, When Wang Wei says, I walk upstream to the source and sit and watch for the moment when the world comes up, or I may meet someone and we start talking and laughing and I forget about going home.

[27:05]

Going home means either back to his hut or to the source, either way. Some of the thought I said, and that's not compassion, to get distracted along the way. But I'm not saying that. To be walking, to be doing the meditation, to do the tranquilization practice, and to meet another living being and start talking and laughing with them and forget about it, to the calm place. That's an alternative. To forget about going home is also possibly compassion. Is that what you're saying? Anyway, that's how I feel.

[28:10]

That can be compassion too. You don't have to, and that's why I say don't take it too seriously, this practice. Because again, what is this practice? What are we talking about? I'm giving you these words and making these gestures. But these words and these gestures are not, you know. I'm just flailing about here, you know. So last thing I said last night was body of truth, arms and legs of lies. In other words, you have a body of truth that you unshakable sitting, unshakable,

[29:28]

unification, shamatha and vipassu, you feel that. And you take that with you everywhere. But your arms and legs say all kinds of stuff. And your mouth too. You say all kinds of things. Which in a sense are wise. But may not completely accord and perfectly demonstrate your essential feeling of practice. But the example of the Buddhas is that they're willing to do that. We say, if you relegate the way you speak it, or as soon as you put it into literary form, it's relegated to defilement. As soon as you try to convey it, it always gets corrupted.

[30:34]

But the daily activities of Buddhists is to wave their lary hands and feet. But they know their lies. The feet are connected to the body, a body of truth. So how can a body of truth with lying hands meet another body of truth with lying hands on each other? As soon as the truth comes out into my hands, it's a lie. As soon as it comes out of my foot, it's a lie. My feet and hands cannot capture it. But in fact, I have to, I have to, I have to bend it into some form, some partial form.

[31:49]

And so does the other person. So that when the hands and feet meet, and the lies meet, the body, the body, So it's mind-to-mind, and body-to-body, and finger-to-finger, face-to-face. Got to match all that up. The things you're matching up are lies, or just defiled versions of it. In England, although I hardly noticed this, when you meet people, you listen to what they're talking about, oftentimes they spend quite a bit of time saying almost nothing to each other.

[32:57]

And they're willing to go through this because they know it's necessary, that you have to sort of mumble and grunt and say nonsense for quite a long time until you can find out who you're talking to, and then you can start talking. They're listening for various intonations and nuances in the language to find out what kind of person this is. Just like the example that I used of Latin American people won't go to work with somebody until they have some kind of relationship. This kind of talk is not really the work. It's not really communication, but you need to waste time. And same way between husband and wife. Look, there's a lot of reason why people have trouble being married is because one of the to waste time like that.

[34:02]

Just, you know, for example, let's go shopping here. And one of them says, where are we going to go? Okay, well, let's go to Dayton's, okay? So then, we get in the car, or whatever, it'd be better to start walking to Dayton's, okay? And then as they're walking to Dayton's, one of them stops and looks in the window of the store that's not Dayton's. And the other one, maybe keeps walking, and says, why don't you stop before we go into Dayton's? Rather than stopping with the other person, And not so much that there's something interesting in the window, but that they stopped. You stopped too. It's more important to stop with them and be with them than it is to get to dating. Going to dating is not the point. If it is the point, then you have to get there together. So somehow, you know, both, you know, and the one who stops also should be aware that the other one didn't stop.

[35:19]

And maybe they should cut short their view of the window a little bit. But neither one of them getting ahead or behind too far. Both of them trying to tune into the other one. That kind of thing is necessary in order to convey this, the body of truth. A lot of stuff can be conveyed, you know, where you're going two knots an hour and I'm going six knots an hour. A lot of stuff can be conveyed like that. I can toss you something even though you're going a little more slowly. You can toss me something even though I'm going a little faster. It's possible. But what you toss then is lies. Lies is the wrong way to put it. But in other words, tentative, interpretable truth. And you can learn a lot that way.

[36:25]

But to learn the actual thing, you have to be very close to another person. So in our form of Zen practice, the most advanced faith are conveyed physically. And so after you become, after you have what's called dharma transmission, after you inherit the teaching for that part of your training that you become a dharma successor, after that you do a practice called dharma transmission. It means follow the body. You just physically go around in a sunbed. And that's somebody, it says follow the body, but actually they're following each other. This poem, especially the central part of this poem,

[37:36]

was written in calligraphy on the screen, the place next to the head, on a Japanese Zen teacher named Sensei. When he died, he had this central part of the poem, following the screen to the source and sit. He had that next to his head as he died. And he had studied that poem for 30 years. That was a name for 30 years. Whenever people asked him for a sample and his colleague would say, you'd write that. And this person once posed for a photograph of himself sitting on one of these calming mats. And the photograph was from his back. And the light is coming into the room from the front. So what you see, the chaperone's back is in the darkness.

[38:49]

You see the silhouette on this lit and lighted grass map. And that photograph was put into light in 1954. And sometime after 1954, I opened Life magazine and saw the picture of this man sitting on that mat. I thought, I want to be like that.

[39:55]

I want to look like that. Then 20 years or so later, that man died. And I read about the fact that he had that poem next to his head. And all those years, independently, I had discovered that form of food was very important to me. The man whose body was photographed, which made me want to start practicing meditation, was also working on this poem right along with me. I didn't even know it. Anyway, in many ways I have I've been working on this poem for quite a long time myself, and I found it to be very helpful. And many people that have also been helpful to me have also found this poem.

[41:00]

I started reading it because I heard that they did. I just later found out they did. So when you're working on something, many causes come to help you keep working on it a long time. And some things you do work on a long time. Just like Suzuki Roshi's teacher, Suzuki Roshi, my teacher and founder of Zen Center in San Francisco, his second teacher was named Kishizawa Roshi. And when Kishizawa Roshi was a young monk, not too long after he became, had his head shaved, he was studying in a temple in Japan and It was raining. And he was sitting in meditation. And he could hear the rain falling off the roof, from the ground.

[42:06]

And also he could hear a waterfall. And while I was listening to the waterfall, somebody hit a wooden board for meditation. So he heard the board, the waterfall, and the rain. Then he went to ask his teacher, he said, what's the place? What's it like when the waterfall and the horn, the wooden board, sound? and rain are one. That's a life in there one. What you say? I told you. That's a life in there one. Please tell me.

[43:18]

Don't be afraid. You are welcome to say something. Nobody wants to say anything? Why not? Nobody has any thoughts in any of their minds? Everyone wants to put the ball in the basket. Throw it in the basket. Clarity. Clarity. What else is it like? What? Ingenuity. Ingenuity. What else? What else would you say? A poem. A poem? A poem. What's a poem? Nothing to say. Nothing to say? But it's right that the poem starts from that place where the rain and the fartfall and the sound of the horn are one.

[44:32]

That's where poetry comes from. You could also call that place the threshold of death. The threshold of death, you could also call it the threshold of birth. The birth of the fullest home is at that place. So at that place where they're one, we say true eternity still flows. At the place where they're one, the Zen monk said, break that mirror. Break that oneness and come and have a seat. Well, that's what the teacher said to him. I said it the other night, but he went and asked, he said, what's it like when the rain, the waterfall, and the calm, they want?

[45:34]

The teacher said, break the mirror and come and I'll see you. Now, he didn't know that story at the time, the story that I told you. And he didn't understand. And so he worked on it for 30 years. And then he had a little bit of understanding. Where they're one is the grave. Do you understand that it's the grave that makes sense to you? It's the threshold of death. Like Walt Whitman, if you read the poem, The Song and Myself. But not just that song, almost all of the poems are grass.

[46:41]

Where does grass grow for Whitman? From corpses. Grass is always growing on top of graves for Walt Whitman. Have you noticed that? Now, of course grass grows other places, but he doesn't talk about other grass. What Walt Whitman sings songs about is the grass on top of the graves. So he's walking through the fields, sees grass. But when he gets to the grasses on top of the grave, he starts singing. And what does he sing about? Himself. The grass coming up on the grave is breaking the mirror. And coming and seeing you. The threshold of birth and the threshold of death are right next to each other.

[48:06]

The threshold of the birth of the poet's tongue is right next to the threshold of the death of the poet, not the poet's tongue. And the poet realizes that she's completely susceptible to impermanence and lets go. Her tongue comes alive. This is personal creation. This is how you personally create the world. By breaking the near, by going to the place where the waterfall, the rain, and the crickets sound are one.

[49:25]

From there you create the world. your world, your personal creation. Now, how do you convey your personal creation? You're joining your oneness and your personal creation, which is your compassion. How do you convey that to another? This is the relationship between teacher and disciple. But again, it's a relationship between a Buddha and a Buddha. The daily activities of a Buddha are to practice Zazen.

[50:31]

Daily activities of a Buddha are to calm down and break the calm, and go back. Wherever they go in this world, they continue to do this practice of calming, of tranquilization, and insight. And tranquilization, insight. Wherever they go, As Suzuki Roshi also says, it's pretty easy to, he says, to be enlightened when you're sitting. The part is to extend that into daily life. Or you could also say, I don't know if you're really meant to be enlightened, but anyway, to become enlightened when you're sitting. To get up and carry it into daily life. Do it harder. Any relationship between a teacher and a student, or between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, the fundamental thing, the first thing, the first layer, the base layer, is some feeling of respect or appreciation

[52:15]

And if you're practicing meditation, if you're calm, if you're sitting still, and something happens, you will appreciate that. If you fly on a wall, if it's a person's face, you will appreciate it. You will be grateful for it. So if you're practicing this kind of meditation, you will appreciate and be grateful for all you do. However, even though you completely accept another person, you may still expect something more, not of the person, but of your relationship, or of the relationship that is both of you. I know quite a few people that I... I know quite a few people, both fairly close and some are far away, who I appreciate completely.

[53:33]

Now, maybe I'm bragging to say it, but I do know quite a few people. But even though I respect them, I may have almost no relationship with them. Almost no... no sense that we have created together a shared reality. I think they've got a great life, and they take good care of themselves, and their reality is a great one, but I don't know what it is. But I really appreciate whatever they're working with. And they, I think, maybe appreciate me too. But we don't have a thing that we make together. So I don't really approve of other people. or disapprove of other people. Or I maybe do it, but it's a problem I have. It's not my practice to do so. It's just a bad habit.

[54:37]

Or not even a bad habit, just a habit. To judge others or to approve of others and not approve of them. That's just a habit I have. And it's, you know, it's not that big a problem to me. I don't do it that much. Basically, I accept people. However, I don't approve of my relationship with almost anybody. Not because I don't like it. Not that I don't like my relationship with each of you. But actually, I have almost no relationship to any of you. Why? Because I don't know what you think. You never told me. In fact, I asked you to say something and you didn't help me at all. I don't know how you understand how you see the world. And I also don't know if you know what I think is happening.

[55:41]

So I expect more of my relationship with almost everybody I know, even though almost all those people, as their practice, as they take care of themselves, I feel fine about. So how can we have a sense that we are mutually creating a reality? But not one of us is doing more work than the other. How can we do that? That's the question in conveying teaching. So in one of our Zen poems it says, Yi, with his archer's skill, but hit a target at a hundred paces.

[56:59]

But when air points meet head-on, what does this have to do with the power of Archer's skill? This refers to a story. The story is about Mr. Yi and Mr. Kisho. Yeah, Kisho. These are two Chinese gentlemen who lived, I don't know when, maybe 2,000 years ago. Maybe they didn't even live, I don't know. But anyway, there's a story about these two people. They're both archers. And Mr. Yi with Mr. Qi, Mr. Qi Shou's teacher. And Mr. Yi told Qi Shou, all his secrets about archery.

[58:04]

After that, after Mr. Kisho got all of Mr. Yi's secrets, he decided to count the number of people in the world who were better at archery than him. He only got to one, and that was Mr. Yi. So like, what is it? nearer and nearer on the wall. He thought, well, if I bump off my teacher, then I'll be the best in the world. So he challenged his teacher to archery match. And he went out and started shooting arrows at each other. But in this case, the arrows went like this. They met head on in midair and dropped to the ground. no dust came up. And China's always been famous for being a dusty place.

[59:08]

Usually I skip over that part about why no dust not coming up, but tonight I may face it. Anyway, they kept shooting their arrows and they kept meeting in mid-air, falling down the ground, and no dust coming up. And finally, The master, Mr. Yi, ran out of arrows, and his disciple had one left. And his teacher received the arrow with a bone branch. After that, they cried quite a bit and decided to be friends forever. So, years later, a Zen monk, once again, the same Zen monk who said, but I have eyes and I have ears, he wrote a poem called Hokusai Umiya Awareness.

[60:21]

And in that poem he said, ye, with his archery skill, create a target at a hundred paces. But when arrow points meet head on, what does that have to do with skill? So, I may know something about Buddhism, or you may know something about Buddhism, or I may know something about meditation, or you may know, or both of us may know. We may be very good, we may be able to hit harder than 100 paces with our meditation, it may be so powerful. But when your points meet, what's power got to do with it? The point is they meet. And when they meet and they fall on the ground, no dust comes up. What'll happen? No dust comes up.

[61:24]

You don't know, and I don't know, why no dust comes up. And nobody else in the world knows any more than you. So anyway, that's Mr. G, who's his disciple. And so it's very important that, you know, tonight I'm talking quite a bit, and it's always set up. How can I talk yet, even not sort of get involved in the idea that I'm doing more than you? Do you feel I'm doing more than you? Do I feel I'm doing more than you? What? No. You don't feel I'm doing more than you? No. Thanks. Because I don't feel like I'm doing more than you.

[62:25]

Especially maybe more than you. But, you know, it's important that you're not doing less than me. If you feel like you're doing less than me, then you kind of... That's a problem. I have to talk you out of that. Because in everything I'm saying about Buddhism, if I'm saying it more than you are, it's not yours. If you don't feel equally responsible for the stuff I'm talking about as me, then you have to adjust that a little bit. It's not like I'm bringing all this stuff in here that's in my pack and laying it out for you and I'm going to put it back in my pack and walk out and you're left with and maybe I'll bring it back again. No. When I put it out here, you have to say, you have to carry it out too.

[63:29]

It isn't that you get a few scraps and I still get most of it. If it is that way, then you probably shouldn't want any of it anyway because it's not Buddhism. And there's something wrong with me that I get into that game with you. And yet I set up so I'm doing mostly talking. So let's take that. If you have any problems, take a responsibility for all this. Speak now. Because, yes? Yes.

[64:41]

So there's this difference, right? It's part of this package too. It's set up. So you're sitting over there and I'm sitting over here. Now what are we going to do about that? Pardon? I was referring to your statement that that's not Buddhism. and you have a sort of wonderful, wonderful studio, you know, and you're playing with somebody who's giving and somebody who's receiving. Yeah, I see how it's done. That's not Buddhism, right? Well, the illusion... Yeah, the illusion that the kicker's giving and the student's receiving, okay? That's not Buddhism, but Buddhism plays that game. Okay? It's not Buddhism that... that you're over there. All of that's true.

[65:42]

And we don't set it up so that as soon as we walk into the room, we get everybody squashed together in a big puddle. But that's kind of what we really want to do. We want to squash all the people together, and not just squash them together, in such a way that the people on the outside of the puddle can touch the people on the inside. And it's not just that we're all touching somebody, but we're all touching everybody. That's what we want to do. But that's no fun unless we're all separate. The fun of it is that we're separate. If there's no difference between men and women and teachers and students and Bernese and Americans, then there's no fun of unifying. So we play that game. We've got to play that game in order to have the thrill of the invocation. I swim in the, in San Francisco, I swim in the bay.

[66:46]

And, uh, when I'm swimming, you know, even in this lake, if you're swimming like Calhoun, but it's particularly true in the bay because there's sharks in the bay. You can't catch anything, you know, if you're swimming in the bay. He touched like a little, he touched a leaf. It's a big thrill. You feel like, you know, you're like out in like big open space, you know, bigger than a life. This huge open space, all by yourself when you touch a leaf. You don't know what it is. Shark, seal, boat, another person. If you do touch another person, it's usually even more actual. One time I heard somebody touch a seal. The reason why she screamed is not because she was afraid of seals. It's because, again, if you went to the zoo and you saw a bunch of seals and you reached out and tapped the seal, you wouldn't scream.

[67:54]

It's when you're swimming alone and you're by yourself in the water. Then you really, some big change happens. Even though seals almost never bite people, we don't care. It's a living, big living creature that will touch you. Nobody's ever touched a shark today. They've downed all of you. But there are big sharks in the bay. But even here in Lake Calhoun sometimes, some people swimming there, they hit a little piece of seaweed in their screen. It's because you're alone that you're strong. If you're embedded in seaweed and you touch seaweed, it doesn't move. So we have a very, for us individual people, touching another when you're alone to touch something is a big event.

[69:00]

The more alone, the more the shock. So when you assume you're in a big open space and all of a sudden you touch something, you're really shocked. If you assume you're in a place where the people are not too far away when you touch, it's less of a shock, but it's still pretty strong. But what's wonderful for us is when we can do so much that we lose that sense of separateness. We crowd. So when you're first in a crowd, you feel snowy people get away from you. It's so uncomfortable. But at a certain point in a crowd, there's a time when you give up. And the crowd becomes one. And this is a magnificent moment. But if it wasn't for that, we wouldn't have this feeling of liberation So the hierarchy is not Buddhism. But to recognize the hierarchy and find some way to unify that, that's the practice.

[70:03]

How can the lower include the higher, and the higher include the lower? That's the thing. So I ask, how can we do that? And then is there some case where you feel separateness where you can't do that and you have to work on that? So one of the other guidelines in this process is that neither the student nor the teacher should give more to the other one.

[71:12]

Neither one should overwhelm the other one with generosity. They both should be giving things to each other all the time, but neither one should be in the giving process. And neither one should give the other one more than the other one can eat. And eat means... you know, that you can get it in your mouth and chew it up and swallow it. In other words, eat means that you can take it in and just transform it. So if I am taking the role of the teacher in this and I give you some Buddhist... meditation practices. If you can't get them in your mouth, chew them up, break them down into something that you can use for your life, then I gave you too much to eat.

[72:16]

I mean, I gave you too much. You can't eat it. It should be something that you can get a hold of and break down into something that you can use. And if it's too long, too big, You can't get any of them off, so to speak. Then, I've given you so much that I haven't given you anything at all. You have to be able to transform it into your thing. So then you can feel like you're responsible for it, but not like it's outside of you, but you're responsible for it because it's in your body now. You can't get rid of it. So part of what I'm asking you, did I give you any pieces that are too big to chew? So part of it, coming one with the main life form, there's chapter in here, I think it's interesting, that come, I would see, I think it's totally awesome.

[73:29]

But do you feel good about the... Yeah. Okay. But I don't know where I am and what direction do you go. She said that when the teacher said, again, actually, the story is just two mugs, right? And one's asking a question, the other one's responding. But they aren't really, they're just two monks. Two people. We don't even know that one's a teacher. They both may be teachers. But they're having this dialogue where one's asking the other a question. It looks like one has better understanding than the other. But you can't be sure. Because it's very kind of one to look like he doesn't understand so well, so the other one can... Like this one, for example, at Zen Center in here too, at Zen Center in San Francisco in here too, we give introductory gaza instruction to people.

[74:57]

At Tassajara, our mountain, all summer, to guess. And the people who give Zazen instruction, they tell people how to do Zazen. The basic introduction is Zazen. But while they're telling these people, they think to themselves, or they may think to themselves, this really sounds interesting. I'll do this. But if those people already knew, the person who's telling them wouldn't be able to tell them. Because he said, well, I can't tell them. They already know how. But since they're telling us how, then they get to give the food. And while they're giving the food, they say, oh, I need some myself. So, but if the person wasn't, just give me anything, just anything, let me have a little scrap of Buddhism, I'll take it.

[76:04]

Then they couldn't eat it themselves. So, there seems to be teacher and disciple, but, you know, it's just, it's something that they do for each other. The disciple is a disciple, so the teacher can be a teacher. Teacher loves. You can't disciple without a teacher. You can't have a mother without a child, and a child without a mother. You can't just think about mothers making children. But children make mothers. There's never a mother before there's a child. As soon as there's a child, you've got a mother. You don't have mothers without children, you have children without mothers. They make each other. A mother needs a child to be a mother. A child needs a child in order to be a child. They need each other. But they're kind of them. These monks were folk masters. And they had this conversation. And at one point, one says, Break the mirror.

[77:07]

Come, and I'll see you. Do you understand? What does he mean, and I'll see you? Yeah, that's what we talk about. So you understand, you understand, break the mirror. Is that right? Yeah. Break the mirror means... The mirror is a grave, right? The mirror is a grave. It's a pool where there's no eyes, no ears, no nose, no body, no mind, no nothing. It's all gone. That's a mirror. It's a grave. And on that grave, grass grows out. Walk with me in the grass. Walkman's graph breaks the mirror. You're asking about, well, what about this common house seed? But just as I said, when Walkman sees the grass growing on the grave, he sins.

[78:13]

The person sins. When the mirror is broken, the person sees the grass growing on the grave, a person can sin. I don't know, because they do that. That's what he did, right? He saw grass. Grass growing on a grave is the same as a mirror being broken. The next story is this one. It's about a famous Zen master named Yangshan. Yangshan was a disciple of Guishan. And I could go off on who's Guishan's teacher and so on, but let's just say Yangshan. One day Yangshan was... walking around doing Zaza in some place, trying to return to the stores and let the grass come up. And the monk said to him, Hi. He said, Hi. He said, Where are you from? He said, I'm from Hunan.

[79:14]

He said, What's it like there? He said, Well, we have cows and sheep. Yeah, sheep. We have cows and sheep and buildings and domestic servants and lots of hot food and so on. He didn't really say that, but when he said it, I thought to myself, I don't remember what it was. And Yangshan said, think back to the mind that thinks. And then the monk said something. And we don't know, it might have been just a second between when he said think back to the mind that thinks. Or maybe many years. The monk might have gone up to the monk and talked back for many years to try to see, to think. The thinking of the mind that thinks, what do we call that? This little thing you're doing here, the last few days? What's thinking of the mind that thinks? Yeah.

[80:18]

Follow the spirit of the spirit. It's another way to say, think of the mind that thinks.

[80:25]

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