I hesitate to make any distinctions, but I'm going to make a distinction between two approaches to the Buddha way. One is the approach that has for its goal the attainment of nirvana. And it's a path of developing personal purity leading up to liberation of the person from suffering. It's a path of trying to learn how not to make any mistakes. And then there's another path which is not a path of personal purity so much, although personal purity is an issue, but it's a path of compassion.

[01:08]

It's a path not necessarily of making mistakes, but people do make mistakes, but it's rather a path of examining mistakes and learning from mistakes. It's a path of quietly exploring the farthest causes and conditions of mistakes and realizing the non-duality of ordinary people who make mistakes and Buddhas. The goal of this path is to realize Buddhahood And Buddhahood is the non-duality of Buddhas and ordinary people. Buddha, realizing Buddha in this world is to realize how all beings are working together intimately.

[02:17]

It is the way all beings and all Buddhas are being led together into the Buddha way So this approach does not eliminate ordinary beings, ordinary people. It is not primarily concerned with improving ordinary people and making them better people, although that would be fine. It's about realizing the non-duality between all the ordinary people, all of them, both the so-called upper crust and the underworld, the non-duality between the leader of the worst of the ordinary and the Buddhas.

[03:24]

It's about healing the entire world of beings holding it. And the basic practice of this samadhi, which realizes this Buddha, which realizes the conduct of Buddha, which is, and the conduct of Buddha is all beings working intimately together with all the Buddhas, the practice is to First of all, take care of just this person, which was, as you remember, the teaching which Dongshan was given by his teacher when he left. Just this person. And just this person, that expression in Chinese, that phrase, it is a phrase which in medieval Chinese legal custom, it's a phrase that was formally expressed by a criminal when he confessed his guilt in court.

[04:58]

he would say the same thing, just this person. Which means, I confess that I'm just this ordinary person. And learning to confess that thoroughly requires bringing lots of compassion to the ordinary person and in particular bringing the compassion in the form of practicing the precepts to this person and bringing compassion in the form of practicing confession, confessing ourselves into being just this person. And the more compassion we bring to just this person, the closer we get to the realization of the non-duality of just this person and the Buddhas.

[06:05]

So again, ordinary person making mistakes, we bring compassion to this ordinary person who makes mistakes. Now this ordinary person who makes mistakes, this ordinary person who suffers, is not separate from her suffering. Sufferer and suffering are not separate, are not dual. The subject of the suffering and the suffering are not separate. They can be distinguished, but they can't be separated. Just like sentient beings and Buddhas cannot be separated, even though they can be distinguished. Generally speaking, suffering beings are not compassionate enough with themselves to be able to relax

[07:30]

in the midst of their suffering, and enter into the playful realm of creativity, where they will realize the non-duality of suffering and sufferer, of subject and object, of birth and death, of birth and death and nirvana, of Buddhas and sentient beings. Put positively, if a suffering person can be compassionate enough with herself in her suffering. And again, compassionate enough means practicing confession. It is compassionate to help yourself be thoroughly responsible for what you are. That is compassion. And we require compassion in order to dare to completely, finally, be responsible for being an ordinary person.

[08:38]

Just this person. If we can have enough, receive enough, accept enough, allow enough, welcome enough compassion, we can just be the ordinary person that appears here. We have to relax in order to be just this person. Now, when we're tense, of course, we are just this tense person, but our tension distracts us from just settling completely into this perfectly ordinary mud. When we finally settle into the mud completely, which means when we relax in the mud of being an ordinary person, we start playing with the mud.

[09:53]

It's quite natural. You eventually stick your finger in it. Or you just fall asleep and find your face in it. And you settle into and relax with your face in the mud. And then you lift out of the mud and shake your face and the mud goes flying all over the place in a very surprising way. And in this place of being relaxed with the mud, in this playful way, there is tremendous vitality. and dynamic energy. And it's because of the precariousness of the relaxation and the balance which you have settled into.

[10:59]

And being relaxed with all this energy one is ready in the midst of suffering, in the midst of playing in the midst of suffering, one is ready for the revelation of the non-duality of sufferer and suffering. One is ready for the revelation of the dependent core rising of suffering, the suchness of suffering. In other words, one is in the samadhi of the bodhisattva, Shantideva says, one law serves to summarize the whole Mahayana of the Bodhisattva. It is that the protection of all beings is accomplished in mistakes.

[12:06]

He didn't say, Not making any mistakes does protect somewhat. I'm not criticizing not making mistakes. Not making mistakes is fine, but that doesn't protect all beings because a lot of beings are making mistakes. All these beings who are making mistakes, how do you protect them? By examining your own mistakes. That's how they will be protected. examining your own mistakes, examining your own mistakes, until you relax with your own mistakes, then you can enter into the understanding of the non-duality between you and others, you and the Buddhas. And in this realization, beings are protected. All of them are protected. All of them realize the Buddha way. Rather than a couple of them getting cleaned up

[13:10]

I respectfully disclose some feedback I've gotten. Some people have come to me and told me the good parts of the Dharma talks. Said, I like this part. This part was good. Or that part was good. More of those, please. And those parts over there were kind of hard. A little bit less of those, please. Someone else came and confessed that there was some resistance to the teachings. He said, this isn't feedback on your talks. This is about me, that there's resistance to the teachings. Ordinary people resist teachings, especially they resist teachings that they don't understand. Ordinary people like teachings which they can get.

[14:32]

They don't like the teachings that are sort of flying by, especially the teachings that are flying by that are sort of advertised as the best teachings, the ultimate bodhisattva way. There's a resistance to that type of teaching. This is like an ordinary person would resist that. Or tense up. Okay, the best teaching is coming, okay. Can I scoop this one up? And then can't get a hold of it? Oh, no. Would you please rephrase that in some way that I could get? So if I'm talking about an ancient Indian text about the heroic stride samadhi, and it's hard to get, then you think, well, could you put that in a modern American context so I can get it?

[15:41]

Or if it's in a modern American context and you can't get it, would you please go back to the ancient texts, the real stuff, rather than try to do this new stuff? Whatever it is, anyway, ordinary people resist the teaching if they're not getting it. They would like to trade it in on a different teaching. Now, if they're getting it, then ordinary people grab it and keep it. And you can't get it away from them. And if you come in with a different teaching, then they'll resist that. Unless it's easier to get. And then they can have both and then trade in the old one. That's ordinary people do that, right? Perfectly ordinary. And the Mahayana is not about trying to stop people from being that way. It's about helping them to examine the furthest causes and conditions of this resistance. Because this examination of the causes and conditions of your resistance, of your tension, of your gripping, of your attachment to teaching or attachment to wishing that there was some other teaching going on, this ordinary activity, being examined, is the exact transmission of a verified Buddha.

[17:00]

Being an ordinary person who's trying to get something out of our practice, who's trying to accomplish something for whatever, who's not relaxed, who's not playful, who thinks dualistically, being an ordinary person is fine. But it's not the practice. The practice is being completely that person. And in order to be that person, you have to like confess just this person. And the confession of what this person is and the examination of the confession, that's the practice. That's the samadhi. That's cultivating the dharmas of an ordinary person. sweetly, kindly, gently, respectfully, lovingly, grandmotherly, take care of just this person, which includes confessing what's going on with this person.

[18:14]

confessing the karma of this person, confessing that this person, this ordinary person, thinks in terms of an individual. This is an ordinary person, I think dualistically. I'm an individual who's not you, and I do things by myself. Even though I know, I've heard the teaching that thinking that I'm not you And that I'm separate from you makes me uncomfortable and scared and anxious. And then I, because I'm scared and anxious, because I feel separate from you and I feel independent of you, I want to do something now to make myself more comfortable. And then that makes more discomfort. So now I really have to do something to make myself comfortable, which makes more discomfort. This is an ordinary person. Admitting that, admitting that karma, admitting the actions which emerge from the false view that we are separate, really, and can act independently, admitting that, confessing that karma, is compassion, which helps us

[19:47]

little by little be more and more just this person, and relax with it, play with it, and realize that there isn't an independent person here. And there isn't an independent Buddha here. There is actually the Buddha and the person, an ordinary person working intimately. I had a nice talk with this person who was resisting the teaching, and I mentioned to this person that I felt that while the confession was going on, there was also a resistance to the confession. In other words, there was a confession. But shortly after the confession was made, there was lots of more discussion and more words right after the confession, so that the confession really couldn't be examined by almost anybody.

[20:59]

Okay, so here's the confession. Now moving along, we have some other things to talk about here. the talk is so fast and energetic that the person speaking and the person listening cannot even remember what the confession was. So there's a confession being made, that was good, but now we're going to try to control to make sure what happens with this confession. So we have maybe some public relations comments about the confession and so on. Other examples of the confession, but It says, quietly explore. After you make a confession, be quiet. Make the confession and then be quiet. Let that thing go down. It's a depth charge.

[22:02]

The confession, when acknowledged, when you acknowledge your karma, and give it some silence around it, it starts to undermine the very basis of the karma. When you confess that you separate person resist and be quiet, that confession starts to shake up the whole you and it, self and other structure, which is the basis of what you just confessed. That's why it's important to confess to somebody else. Because somebody else can listen to you confess and then notice that there's no space around it. They can't say anything. There's no room to say anything afterwards. Like, could you clarify that? The teachings of karma are about, first of all, what is karma?

[23:25]

And karma is the activity of an ordinary person. And ordinary people are people who think dualistically, who have the false view that they are separate from Buddhas and other beings. who suffer because of that, and then try to do things based on that false view to fix the situation. This is an ordinary situation. They may also notice that they're an ordinary person who acts like this, and then they try to fix the ordinary person as a way to avoid being an ordinary person who suffers. Reasonable, right? According to ordinary people's thinking. The ordinary people suffer, change them into a different kind of person, then maybe they wouldn't suffer. This is karma. the teaching of karma is by studying this karmic process you will realize that all the things you do based on delusion are intimately related to the world you live in.

[24:39]

So by observing your action, which is based on thinking that you're separate from the world you live in, you see that you're not separate. And so by studying the very process of acting out the false view of independence, you realize interdependence. And the practice of a Buddha is to confess and examine the karmic activity and then demonstrate it, perform it, so that you can actually, like you and other people, can share the performance of the interdependence, including the interdependence of intentions which arise from delusion.

[25:47]

and the world we live in. And the interdependence of intentions which arise from delusion and the world we live in is the same interdependence as intentions which will arise from awakening and the world that the intentions that arise from awakening are intimately related with. And how the worlds that arise in relationship to the intentions arising from awakening are also interdependent with the worlds that arise from the intentions arising from delusion. And how all those are working together is the Buddha practice, is the samadhi of the bodhisattva. So that's part of the reason also why in Zen we say, starting with the sixth ancestor particularly, Buddha practicing or Buddha conduct, Buddha conduct, Buddha being led into intimacy by ordinary people.

[27:08]

Ordinary people are Buddha's leaders. Buddha doesn't sit there on the leader, I'm going to decide what's going to happen. No. So this gives a comparison, but you know, the grandfather is not the leader. The grandfather is just sitting there and then the grandson says, Rebbe, where are you? And the grandfather says, I'm hiding over here. Right over here, I'm hiding. The ordinary people lead the Buddhas into intimacy with ordinary people. Buddhas do not know where to find us unless we tell them where we are. And when we tell them where we are, they come. That's all they want to do, is come. And if we ask them where they are, all they want to do is tell us.

[28:13]

In a playful way. I'm not over here. I'm not over there. I'm not this. I'm not that. I have no marks. What are you? I'm playing with you. And Buddhas are also the leaders of the sentient beings. They tell the sentient beings where to go Where to go? The Buddhists say, just this person. That's where to go. Be present. And then if you're present, if you tell me where you are, I can find you and we can meet. So Buddhists say just this person, but you have to tell them, well, what teaching do you have so they can tell you the teaching? So Dung Shan, when he was a pretty young person, you know, Dung Shan is a name that he got when he became the abbot of Dung Shan.

[29:40]

Before that he was called Liang Jie, which means good servant. And when he was young, he was kind of precocious. When he was young, He went to visit Nanchuan, the great Zen master Nanchuan, who had a big assembly of totally engaged monks. And this young man goes to visit them. And Nanchuan's teacher is the great Matsu, who is also the teacher of so many other great Zen masters. And they were preparing to do a memorial service for Matsu. And the tradition is you do a kind of preparatory ceremony the night before the day of the person's departure.

[30:47]

And then the next day you do the ceremony. So they were doing this preparatory offering And Nanchuan said to his monks, I wonder if Matsu will come to our ceremony tomorrow. And he said to the big assembly, what do you think? Gentlemen? Nobody said anything. But this boy came forward and said, he will come if he has a companion. And Nanchuan said, hmm, this young person is, and he did a play on his name, he is good for carving. And then the young man said, you know,

[31:58]

I think, don't defile the good. So they're playing on the good part of his name, the word good in his name. Don't defile the good with these praises. So I don't know how old he was, but anyway, as a young person, maybe in his teens, he was publicly recognized by one of the most outstanding Zen teachers of all time. And he kept traveling. And then he went to visit another great Zen teacher named Guishan. And he came to Guishan and he said, I have a question about, I heard this story about national teacher Jung. So this is a story he heard. National teacher Jung, about his teaching that non-living beings expound the Dharma.

[33:07]

I don't understand it. Master, would you explain it to me? And then Guishan says, well, do you remember the story? And he says, yeah. I said, can you recite it? He said, yeah. I said, well, go ahead. So then Guishan says, National teacher Jung, was asked by a monk, what sort of a thing is the mind of the ancient Buddhists? And the national teacher said, walls, Tiles and pebbles is one translation. Another translation would be walls and tile rubble. So if you go to China or Japan or Korea or other places too, you see these walls around the monasteries or other, generally speaking, architectural wonders.

[34:20]

They have these walls and on the walls, sort of like the tea house, they have little tile roofs on the walls. instead of just a flat top on it, they have a little pink tile roof so the water washes off the wall. But eventually the tiles fall off the walls down to the ground and crack. So if you look at the walls, usually there's a wall and there's tiles, and there's tiles that have fallen down and broken. Some maybe, I don't know, maybe the teacher was sitting there in the courtyard and looked out at the wall. The monk says, what's the mind of the ancient Buddha? He says, walls and tile rubble. And the monk says, Walls and tile rubble? Isn't that something that's not alive?

[35:25]

And the national teacher said, That's right. And the monk says, well, can they expound the Dharma? And the national teacher says, they do so constantly, incandescently, and incessantly. And the monk said, then why haven't I heard it? And the national teacher said, although you yourself haven't heard it, this can't hinder those who are able to hear it. And the monk said, what sort of a person acquires such hearing?

[36:49]

And the national teacher said, all the sages or saints have acquired such hearing. the people of personal purity, the people who don't make mistakes, the people who are liberated from duality, not the ordinary people, the super-duper people. They can hear non-sentient beings expounding the Dharma. The monks said, Can you hear it, teacher? The national teacher said, No, I can't. The monk said, You haven't heard it?

[37:56]

How do you know that non-living beings expound the Dharma? The national teacher said, Fortunately for you, I haven't heard it. If I had, I would be the same as the saints. And you, therefore, would not hear the Dharma that I teach. Then the monk said, in that case, ordinary people would have no part of it. The national teacher said, I teach for ordinary people, not sages. The monk said, What happens when ordinary people hear you? The national teacher said, They are no longer ordinary people.

[39:05]

The monk asked, According to which sutra does it say that non-sentient beings expound the Dharma? And this next part can be translated different ways. This is really interesting. This is the key point in Zen. This translation says clearly you shouldn't suggest that it's not part of the sutras. Another translation would be, clearly, words that do not agree with the Scripture are not discussed among gentlemen. Another translation is, obviously, it's not found in the Scriptures, nor it is something that some noble ones have said.

[40:13]

This particular line we could talk about quite a bit. This teacher is being asked, what's the mind of the ancient Buddhas? And in a sense, he doesn't quote a scripture to tell the answer to the monk. He just says, walls and tile rubble. He didn't check with the sutra to see what the answer to the question was. He was just there, The monk comes, the teacher meets, the monk talks, the teacher speaks. And the teacher is in a walled area with tile rubble and the monk. So these words come. Although it's not fabricated, it's not without speech. Or although it's not prefabricated, it's not without speech either. Monk, China, Chinese architecture, ordinary monk, ordinary national teacher, ordinary Zen monastery, all that comes together and the Buddha is led.

[41:43]

by the ordinary people, and here comes the Dharma. Walls, tiles, and pebbles. The national teacher of China is an ordinary person. The monk is an ordinary person. Zen is not about the national teacher being the Buddha or the monk being the Buddha. Zen is about Buddha. And Buddha is the intimacy of the national teacher and the monk and the walls who are expounding the Dharma. and the fingernails of the monk that is expounding the Dharma, and the teeth of the Zen master that expound the Dharma.

[42:51]

All that working together intimately is the conduct of Buddha. This is what the story is about. Then it says, is this from a sutra, this first comment? And the teacher says, well, you know, it wouldn't be right, would it, if this thing that came out of my mouth wasn't in accord with the teachings? So then actually he comes up with something from a scripture, from the Albert Homsacker Sutra, which sounds just like it. So in Zen, it's really the ordinary people being just ordinary people and practicing confession and practicing confession in a quiet, thorough way, and really becoming an ordinary person. And then from this situation, the samadhi is entered.

[43:57]

And from the samadhi, words come out. Words that have never been spoken before, like all words, never been spoken before, not gone, gotten from someplace else. They're not in the scriptures, and then if you look in the scriptures, you find them. They're in the scriptures. And the other, second translation, which is Cleary's, I think I heard him make some comment when we were reading this one time. He kind of translated it kind of like this. So here's the translation. Maybe I could do it like, the monk says, what citrus is this in? And he says, well, words that are not in accord with the scriptures are not discussed by gentlemen, which is a little bit, you know, kind of like a mafia guy saying, well, of course, you know, we would never violate the laws of the country, would we?

[45:03]

No, not us. We're good. We're good Zen people here. We line up with the scriptures, don't we now? That wouldn't be, how would we dare say anything that contradicted the scriptures? So in one sense, we're completely sincere. We do not want to do anything that contradicts the scriptures. And also, we do not want to be uptight about not contradicting the scriptures. The most important thing actually, is to play with the scriptures. If we don't play with the scriptures, we're not practicing Zen. But playing with the scriptures does not mean to disrespect the scriptures. It is only because of being compassionate with walls, pile rubble, all living beings, all teachings, be compassionate and respectful of everything, that you can relax and enter into playfulness with the Scriptures.

[46:11]

And when you enter into playfulness, you will be free of the Scriptures. And when you're free of the Scriptures, the Scriptures will come out of your mouth and your nose. And if it comes out of your nose and someone says, what sutra is this from? You can show them. Because you have entered the realm of creativity, of dependent core rising, of Buddhas practicing together with the entire resources of the universe. So my grandson reaches over to my nose and squeezes it. Okay. He feels something wet on his fingers. And he goes, booger, booger. He starts wiping his hand on trees and fences and walls and tiles and pebbles. What scripture is that from?

[47:13]

It's from the Shurangama Samadhi Sutra, which says, the things of an ordinary person are neither conjoined with nor separate from the things of a Buddha." So that Jungtan Dungshan says this story to Guishan, the young monk says this, and then he says, Oh no, he completes the story and then Guishan says, that teaching of the national teacher, that teaching exists here in this temple too. However, one seldom encounters someone who is capable of understanding it. and young Dung Shan says, I still don't understand it clearly.

[48:24]

Master, please comment. And Guishan raises his fly whisk and says, Do you understand? And Dung Shan says, No, I don't. Please explain, teacher. Please explain, teacher. And Guishan says, I can never explain to you by means of the mouth of one born from mother and father. And Deng Shan says, still doesn't get it, and says, does the master have any contemporaries in the way who might clarify this problem for me?

[49:28]

And Guishan says, from here, if you go to Yushui in Li Ling, there you will find someone in cave, someone in a link, sort of a row of stone grottoes, caves. Living in those caves is a man of the way, yin-yang. If you are able to push aside the grass and gaze into the wind, then you will find him worthy of your respect." And then the young man says to Grayshan, just what sort of a man is he? And Grayshan said, once he asked this old monk, What should I do if I wish to follow you, teacher?"

[50:36]

And this old monk replied, you must immediately cut off all leakage. And then he said, Yuen Yuen said, then I will come up, then will I come up to the master's expectations? And this old monk Guishan said, you will get absolutely no answer as long as I am here. Another transition says, just don't tell anybody that I'm here or where I am. The story goes on, but I'm not in the mood to read it.

[52:06]

It's okay with you. Is it? No? It's not okay with you? It's not okay with you? Was it okay with you if I don't read it? Okay. Is it okay with everybody if I don't read it? First she said no, and now she said it's okay. Right? It's okay, but you'd like me to. Yeah, okay, good. Is it okay with everybody if I don't read it? Yes. Just like that one. You're the, I want to, but it's okay if I don't school? Okay. Can you tell us about it, Dad? I don't know. [...] You will get absolutely no answer from me as long as I'm here.

[53:07]

This is a traditional Zen rhetorical technique. It's called the apophatic technique. It means we tell you what we're not going to say. In the ordinary way, it's called teasing. Well, that's what you say. Anyway, I don't want to do this. Dungsan accordingly took leave of Guishan and proceeded directly to Yunyan's area. Making reference to the previous encounter with Guishan, he immediately asked what sort of a person was able to hear the Dharma expounded by non-living beings. Yuen Yuen said, non-living beings are able to hear it. And Dungsan asked, can you hear it, teacher?

[54:18]

And Yuen Yuen said, if I could hear it, then you would not be able to hear the Dharma that I teach. Do you hear some similarity there? So we wondered, was there a messenger sent ahead? They didn't have telegraph or anything at that time. But did the National Teacher send a monk over to Yuen Yuen and say, this guy's going to come and ask you about this, so when he asks that, say the same thing I did. Of course, maybe this whole thing didn't happen, right? This is just a made-up story, like other stories, like all stories. But how come they made it up this way? According to the Surangama Samadhi Sutra, Buddha knows how they did it this way. And we are intimate with the one who knows.

[55:23]

Or at least I am. You thought that was funny? I did too. You're the one who reads what he doesn't want to read. I'm also the one who reads what he will not read. And then the young monk, Dung Shan, says, Why can't I hear it? And Nyen Nyen raised the whisk and said, Can you hear it yet? Dung Shan said, No, I can't. Nyen Nyen said, You can't even hear it when I expound the Dharma.

[56:27]

How do you expect to hear it when non-living beings expound the Dharma? And then Dungsan asks, in what sutra is this taught? That non-living beings expound the Dharma. And Yuen Yuen said, haven't you seen in the Amitabha Sutra where it says, water, birds, trees, and forests, without exception, all recite Buddha's name and recite Dharma, expound Dharma? In this version of the story, in the previous version he just told the story to Guaishan and asked Guaishan what it meant. This time they acted it out. In both cases he didn't understand. And another version of this,

[57:29]

In another version of this story, at this point where he says, I don't understand, and then he says, what sutra is it in? In another version it said, and he had some insight. In this version, it doesn't say he had insight, it just gives the poem here he recited. Ordinary people... dear things that they are, are concerned about whether this ordinary person got insight or not. And there's records written by Zen monks who are ordinary people of stories like this where they point out that at the end of the story the person did get something. So then ordinary people like to read the stories about these monks, these Zen monks, who got something at the end of the story. But sometimes they forget to mention whether they got anything or not. And then ordinary people sort of wonder, well, what happened? Did they get something? He did write a nice poem, though, which I'm not going to read.

[58:34]

What did you say? Yeah. Oh, thank you. So what I have to say about this is these are stories about people practicing together. And Dung Shan, at this point in his life story, has finally met his teacher. And ordinary people would like to know, now that he's been a teacher, well, now did he understand something? Did the ordinary person understand something? This is like important to ordinary people.

[59:37]

But the teaching of the samadhi is that to cultivate the samadhi of the bodhisattva, we're in the non-duality of ordinary people who understand and ordinary people who don't understand are non-dual with the Buddhas who do understand. in order to enter into the state of affairs of the intimacy of Buddhas and living beings, in order to enter into the condition where living beings are saved from being living beings, where ordinary people, without changing from being ordinary people into something else, are liberated by the non-duality of the ordinary people and the Buddhas. Zen stories are about ordinary people being just this person. And by being just this person, you realize the non-duality of this ordinary person and the Buddhas.

[60:49]

And that's the realization of the Mahayana, which is what the world needs for the whole world to be healed, according to this teaching. And so Roberta wants me to recite a poem. Is that right? Is that what you want, Roberta? Huh? You did? Oh, thank you. She heard it. She got something. Aren't you happy? Somebody got something. It's great. Lynn's got her hands raised. The people in the front have their hands raised a lot. Why is that? They didn't ask for these seats, right? And yet they've got these seats and their hands go up at a higher percentage than the people way in the back who didn't ask for those seats, right?

[61:53]

Why is that? I don't know. We'd like to get some grasp on that, right? Or I would anyway. Okay. So nobody else has got their hand raised, Lynn. Oh, there's somebody. Can you wait for him? Because he hasn't asked a question yet, and he's trying to break up the pattern of the people in the front. Yes, Brian? Halfway to the back. Here, halfway to the back, yeah. Here. It's been a while since I heard that story, but I seem to remember that there is a practice system. I don't know if that's getting something, but There's a practice described there at the beginning of the story, I think, about not listening to your ears, but with your eyes. Uh-huh. As a response to... You remember the story pretty well, that's good. As a response to... Well, as a response to the Elongated's question, I can't hear it.

[63:01]

That wasn't really a response to his question. That was Nyangje's poem. It was his own poem. It was his own instruction to himself. But you're right, it could be seen as an instruction, but it's a restriction from the student. Instruction from the student? The student's the one who said what you just said. Liang Jie said it. Not, not, huh? Yeah. The teacher didn't say it. The student said it. But it's true that what the student said was a good instruction, according to the student. But it was from a student who still was completely an ordinary person. And he studied with Yun Yan for quite a while longer. And then after studying with Yun Yan quite a while longer, he said, I'm going to go now.

[64:06]

So what should I say as you're teaching if anybody asks me? And the teacher still said, just this person. The teacher still said, just this ordinary person. Now maybe Liang Jie had come along because this person, this ordinary person was also a very important person in the history of the world. I mean, he's the teacher of millions and millions of Zen monks and lay practitioners. So he plays this very important role as an ordinary person, and the instruction of his teacher to him about the main teaching is just this person. Just this ordinary person. Be responsible for being an ordinary person. That's how we're going to realize Buddhahood. That's the school of yin-yang and dung-shan.

[65:12]

It's the school of ordinary people. So, of course, we're welcome in such a school. However, even though we're welcome, we'd rather not be in this school. We'd rather be in a school of extraordinary people. So most of us are probably shocked to find out the school that we wound up in and are looking for another school. But as you see, this school's got a really nice location. Some of these better schools are like, you know, in slums and places that have really high humidity. So there's something very auspicious about this teaching of just this ordinary person. And this teaching of just this ordinary person, which Yunyan said to Dengshan, supposedly, in the Tang Dynasty China, what sutra is that from?

[66:24]

Doesn't sound like any Indian sutra. I never heard the Buddha say, just this person. Did you? Yes, I did. I did hear the Buddha say that. What did the Buddha say? The Buddha said, if you want to cultivate, if you want to practice the samadhi of the bodhisattva, the supreme samadhi of the bodhisattva, practice the things of an ordinary person. The teaching of yin-yang to this young monk as he's leaving is exactly the teaching of the Prajnaparamita, of the Mahayana in India, but it has to be new. It has to be playful. It has to be creative. So it sounds like a completely different thing, and it's exactly the same thing. Just like that teaching, when it was said in India, was totally shocking. To say in India, the practice leading to the realization of supreme enlightenment is to take care of being an ordinary person, and to see that an ordinary person and a Buddha are not a duality.

[67:38]

This is an amazing shock. to the Indian Buddhists who were trying to be extraordinary, pure, liberated saints. And actually were successful at it. Unfortunately, that left out the people who weren't extraordinary saints. So only part of the world got liberated, which is still excellent, and we still praise these saints. They're like, you know, totally awesome. And we have a dedication we do here in the evening. We ask those saints to help us because they've got tremendous power. Give us good facilities. Protect the temple. You know, we're Buddhist disciples too. We're ordinary ones, unlike you. But we're trying to help out by giving our lives to being

[68:38]

totally devoted to the bodhisattva samadhi. We want to be just this person, to learn to be just this person, so we can see that just this person is not conjoined with or separate from the Buddha Dharma. So please, great sages and saints, please help us do this work Because of course the sages want to help the world too. But they're doing it from the point of view of them getting pure. rather than admitting our impurity completely. And in that total admission and complete relaxation with our impurity, we start to play with our impurity. And in playing with our impurity, we realize the creativity of our impurity.

[69:42]

And in realizing the creativity of our impurity, we become liberated from impurity while still being impure. as it says again in the Self-Fulfilling Samadhi, without moving a particle of the dust, without polishing a little bit of the rough edges, without improving this person an iota, the world is saved. And this is going on right now, so please welcome it if you have a chance. And thank you very much for recognizing my poem, Roberta, so I didn't have to reach under the shelf to get one. I don't like to do that. Another front row arm has been raised. Yes? I apologize for being the front row question asker. Thank you.

[70:43]

Do you confess it also? I confess, and I apologize, but... I have a concern. Could we have some quiet around that confession? Would you like to confess also? Would you like to? No? You're not ready to confess? Yes. What do you want me to think? That I'm a front row questioner. Oh, yes, I am a front row questioner. Yes. I'd like to confess also. I'd like to confess that I want to be a front row questioner. But so far you've just been a front row confessor. Is there any question you'd like to ask? So we can have a whole row here?

[71:45]

Okay, and how about you? Sure what? So you have like three just this person, four just this persons here. That's great. With four like this, we're all set. Did you want to say something more now that we've quietly explored some of the conditions? Yes. Excuse me. Could I interrupt you one more time? How are you doing, Mia? She's in the side row. Oh, she's in the side row? Are you in the side row or front row? I'm in the front row today. Okay, Jackie. I have a little bit of sense of uneasiness about this teaching.

[72:49]

Yeah. And it's almost dangerous if you're too relaxed and you think, well, this person just is it. It's sort of justifying the wrong actions. Right, but justifying the wrong actions is another thing to confess. I didn't say justify the wrong actions, I said confess them. It makes you very relaxed. Hopefully. That's the point, is to relax with your ordinariness. With this teaching, if there is a hair's breadth deviation, like heaven and earth. Yeah, right. But even without this teaching, if there's a hair's breadth deviation, it's like heaven and earth.

[73:51]

That's already the situation. This teaching is about how to relax with this hair's breadth deviation situation. And if you get frightened... with this relaxation, that also is a normal part of the process. When you're playing, playing is always vulnerable to being frightened because playing is very precarious because you're balancing when you're relaxed. You're balancing and that can be lost easily. It is dangerous, it is vulnerable. Yes, When you're in an extreme situation, when you're tense, when you're on one side or the other, you're doing that because you don't feel safe to relax. So you're holding on to either your version or you're complying to their version. You're going along with the teacher or the institution.

[74:53]

You're complying or you're like fantasizing But you're doing that because you think that's safer than letting go and entering the space of being who you are. It feels dangerous. But I'm not saying justify your ordinariness. I'm saying confess it. Compassion is not going around justifying. It's leaving yourself alone and coming there and admitting what you are and being patient with what you are That doesn't take away the danger. It's just that that's what I'm talking about. There is danger. You can easily lose the balance. That's why we like to be off balance, because when you're off balance, it's easier to stay off balance. You can be off balance and just sit there for a long time and just be all safe and tight and uptight and tense

[75:55]

Of course, you're hurting yourself and everybody else, but you're safe there. You're safe in the closet. But to come out and start dancing, this is a very dangerous situation. So when you feel that danger, that's actually a good sign. Now, if you feel too much, then we have to sort of like take a break, rest, go take a little nap. Yes. Like I just said. You just said it. But if you say it and quietly explore the farthest reaches of the causes and conditions of it, it's not just the saying it, it's then being quiet with it for a while.

[76:58]

And also to say it to somebody else. Because they might be able to point out to you that you said it, but you weren't quiet around it. That you made some justification of it. Like people say, sorry, I'm sort of late. Or sorry, I was sort of stupid. Or sorry, I was stupid. And then they start saying something else. So you may think you're confessing, but there may not be the quiet examination of the confessing. So if you confess to somebody else, they may notice that you're not examining what you just said. For example, you confess and then you say something in the next breath which nullifies your confession, which takes it back, which you didn't even notice. You may even thought there were two confessions. So rather than make one confession and actually feel it, you may make ten confessions, the sum total of which is totally obscure as a whole event.

[78:09]

But if you say it to somebody else, And then after you finish, you say, well, did I pretty well establish that I'm just an ordinary person? The person may say, yes, you did, but you sounded like you didn't get it at all. So again, ordinary people talk about becoming, you know, getting rid of their ordinariness, but they don't understand that trying to get rid of ordinariness is ordinary. You need some reflection. So the process of confession, you can do it somewhat by yourself, but you have to actually do it together with somebody. Actually with Buddha, sort of. So learning how to confess means learning how to confess as compassion. Learning how to confess as practicing the precepts.

[79:12]

So when you practice a precept and you notice you're off and you confess it, that's how you understand the meaning of the precept. Which again, I want to mention that the precepts, the word, sort of the esoteric understanding of the word regula, or rule, it has an origin which means not so much a ruler, or a straight line, but meaning a trellis, that the precepts are like a trellis. And ordinary people, when they relate to the trellis, and they relax with the trellis, or even if they don't relax with the trellis, when they connect to the precept, then they go off and do something other than the precept. But that's what a wisteria does on a trellis. It doesn't just hold to the trellis. It goes off into mid-air and then it connects to the trellis again.

[80:16]

So how you actually relate to the forms and ceremonies, to the precepts, is that you confess, you become aware of where you're connecting and where you're not. And that's part of the growth. of your practice in relationship to some behavior. So it seems like a given that you're an ordinary person, but to completely settle in that is the practice of just sitting. So you all know that you're ordinary people before you came here, right? So you come here and you sit down at one place for several hours, and it's hard to just sit there and continually confess that you're an ordinary person and not try to be somebody else. Have you noticed? It's hard just to be ordinary person, ordinary person, ordinary person, ordinary person. Of course you're doing it all day long, but you don't face it. You don't actually live it. And living it means relaxing with it.

[81:20]

And when you can relax with it, then it's not so hard to be a person. But part of being an ordinary person is to resist being an ordinary person. And again, to relax with resisting being an ordinary person requires confession of your resistance to being an ordinary person. And not just confession, but confession and then quiet around the confession. One, of all people. When you say ordinary person and the resistance to it, is that the sense that you spoke of being separate and trying to fix it?

[82:23]

Being an ordinary person, most ordinary people resist being ordinary people. So that's sort of like the same thing. Okay, now what's your question? Is that the same thing as feeling separate, not feeling one with Buddha and trying to fix it in some way? It's related. Ordinary people, because they feel separate, because they think that they're separate from the world, they also apply that to their own experience and to the way that they see themselves. They feel separate from the way they see themselves. And feeling separate from the way you see yourself is uncomfortable. I don't understand being separate from the way you see yourself. Like you think there's Lynn, plus you have this view of Lynn. You're standing up looking at this thing. You feel like you're separate from your own qualities. Because you feel that way, you have a mind which knows things. For example, you can know your own fingernails.

[83:27]

But you have a mind which thinks that those fingernails are separate from the knowing of the fingernails. In other words, you think subject and object are separate. That's an ordinary person. So you think your awareness of your fingernails is one thing and the fingernails are another. And then you think your awareness and the object of another person are separate, too. And you think your awareness and you are separate. You think there's a you plus your awareness. This is like normal. This is like ordinary. Well, except that that's a step above not being aware at all. No, no. This is like normal awareness. Normal awareness is you think you're separate from the world. You are somewhat aware. Now, to notice that you think that, to notice, oh, I think that I'm separate from the world, That is more aware, you're right. And also to hear the teaching that most people, most ordinary people, all ordinary people, have that misconception that they are independent of the world, rather than the world is intimately related with their mind.

[84:39]

So you hear the teaching that you and other people, all ordinary people, think that they're separate from the world, separate from each other, and therefore separate from Buddha. This is an ordinary thing. Or they think they're the same. The same or separate, those are both misconceptions. We're not the same as the world. We're not separate from the world. We're not the same as the Buddhas. We're not separate from the Buddhas. It's just that there's no difference because we're so intimate. We totally depend on each other. That's the teaching about the way things actually are. In the meantime, we admit that we're ordinary and we actually do not agree with that teaching in terms of our own perceptions. So Dungsan, when he was a little boy again, when he heard the heart sutra which says, there's no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue. In other words, there's no eyes or ears or nose and tongue separate from awareness of them. He said, but I have eyes and ears. So he was willing to be an ordinary person from the time he was a little guy.

[85:43]

Rather than say, okay, I'm a Buddhist, I get it. Okay, no eyes, no ears, fine. No, he said, hey, I'm an ordinary person. This doesn't work for me. So that's why he was extraordinary, because he was willing to be just this person from an early time, and he got better at it. So ordinary people, if they hear about what an ordinary person is like, and then they notice that they're like that, that is a growth in awareness, yes. still ordinary person, but you're now an ordinary person, you can say, well, this is an extraordinary person because this ordinary person knows that he's ordinary. So that's really extraordinary. Okay, fine. Thank you. So it is, I would say, it's a growth in awareness to be aware that we're ordinary and what ordinariness constitutes or what constitutes ordinary, which is a belief, In an illusion. We believe an illusion is true. There's an illusion that things are out there separate from us, and we believe it.

[86:47]

Or there's a belief that things are out there in the same as us, and we believe it. These are illusions which we believe when we're ordinary. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay, got it? Okay. And is that the way it is for you? Do you notice that you're like that? Yeah. Okay, good. So you're noticing that you're like what's supposed to be an ordinary person. Okay. That helps a lot. Wow. So can we relax with being this way? To confess it and relax and relax and confess until we're completely settled being just an ordinary, deluded person who has these

[87:57]

has a body and mind which create illusions and has a body and mind which grasps the illusions as real. Can we accept that and relax with that? And if we can, we can start playing with it. And when we start playing with it, we start to see how the world of illusion is created, and we start to see the inconceivable Dharma, which is not separate from the processes of delusion. Matter of fact, the processes of delusion themselves are exactly the immutable Dharma. How they actually happen is the Buddha Dharma. So we just got to get intimate with it and we'll be intimate with the Dharma and that's what the Bodhisattva is trying to realize. Intimacy with the Dharma. Intimacy with the Buddha. But it's, you know,

[89:00]

It's very challenging and dynamic and we've got to have a lot of compassion to be able to stand the tremendous energy of playfulness. Playfulness is immensely vital, so we have to be very compassionate to ourselves so we can stand being alive. And I think it looks to me like you people, from what I can tell, are being quite compassionate to yourselves. I talk to you, you look like you're aware that you're an ordinary person, you're confessing to be an ordinary person, and you're being more and more compassionate to the ordinary person. Some of you are a little bit unsure that it would be all right to be compassionate with the person that you are. Some of you think, well, I can see being compassionate to some people, but not me. We have to be really compassionate to ourselves in order to be able to play in the midst of suffering.

[90:12]

But when you're really suffering and you're really kind to yourself, you can say, Oh, maybe I could move a little bit. Now I'm going to bring a lot of compassion here. Okay, yeah. Okay. Oh, wow, this is really something here. Okay, relax with it. Oh, God, I'm alive. How did I get here? This is called upright posture. Whoa. Okay. Ah, okay. I'm ready to play.

[91:43]

Okay, let's play.

[91:45]

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