Is it on now? Okay. So, earlier this week? I think it was earlier this week. Is that better? Okay. So, earlier this week, our good friend and Dharma brother, Al Tribe, And Al Tribe was Carol Paul's husband. And before that, he started practicing. He and his wife, Fran, started practicing in the late 60s. And we were at Tassajara together with Suzuki Roshi. or something like that. No, 67.

[01:01]

Tassajar began in 67. 68. Yeah. And Al went to medical school, and then he became a psychiatrist. And he was a well-known psychiatrist in the Bay Area. And they practiced together with Suzuki Roshi, and then they decided to move to Berkeley. So they practiced in Berkeley, 68 or something like that, 69. And Al kind of He got too busy to really practice steadily, but Fran practiced quite steadily. She was reluctant at first, but she really took up the practice. So Al was always very supportive of our practice.

[02:09]

I don't want to go through his life story, but I want to talk about how we feel about birth and death. So someone's death brings about a lot of feelings, a lot of emotions. a lot of caring, a lot of grief, and so forth. And this is from our side. All this is from our side. Then there's the other side of what actually happened. What is this all about? This is a delicate, and necessary subject for us to understand what really happened and why and how.

[03:20]

And should it happen? Shouldn't it happen? What's going on? It's the most common thing in the world. It's the most, aside from being born, It's the most common thing in the world. Everybody does it one way or another. But we don't talk about it very much. So I'm going to talk about it today. So what happened? We all loved Al a lot. He was a really wonderful person. and very compassionate and generous and loving. And we all feel the grief and our emotional feelings.

[04:24]

So that is my introduction to this koan. Many of you are familiar with this koan. from the Blue Cliff Record. It's case 55 in the Blue Cliff Record, called Dogo's I Would Not Tell You. And Engo, Master Engo, has an introduction to this go on. Absolute truth, direct enlightenment. Positive activity, immediate understanding. Quickest sparks and lightning, don't go. Cut through the complications. Sitting on the tiger's head and grasping its tail, he is still like a thousand foot cliff.

[05:29]

Be that as it may, is there any case for giving a clue for others' sake? So see the following. Main subject. One day, Dogo, who was a Chinese, this happened in the Tang Dynasty in China. Dogo was a teacher. One day, Dogo, accompanied by his disciple, Zengen, went to visit a family in which a funeral was to take place. in order to express sympathy. Zengin put his hand on the coffin, bam, dead or alive. Tell me please, is this life or is this death?

[06:31]

Dogo said, I would not tell you, I won't say. I won't say." Zengen said, why won't you tell me? Dogo said, I won't say. I won't say. On their way home, Zengen said, Osho, Osho means priest. Osho, please be kind enough to tell me. If not, I'll hit you. So this Zengen was really seriously troubled by death, the idea of death and dying. He wanted to know something. He was really desperate. So, please be kind enough to tell me.

[07:34]

If not, I'll hit you. Dogo said, hit me if you want, but I won't say. I won't say. Zengen struck Dogo. And then Dogo said, you know, this is, you're not supposed to hit your teacher. If anybody finds out about this, if anybody in the sangha finds out about this, you will really be in trouble. So I want you to go away. Just get out of here for a while and let this all cool down." So later, Dogo passed away. He died, they say. Quote, unquote, died. Zen Gen came to Sekiso. Sekiso was a student of Dogo.

[08:35]

who had his own temple. So, Zengen came to Sekiso and told him the story. And then he asked Sekiso, dead or alive? And Sekiso said, I won't say. I won't say. And then Zengen said, well, why won't you say? And Sekiso said, I won't say. I won't say. Upon these words, Zingyan attained a sudden realization. It was about time. There's more to this story, but I want to stop there. So Dogo would not say dead or alive.

[09:54]

We usually think in terms of either you're either dead or you're alive. There's the body and where's the person? The person is no longer there. So we think in terms of the body and the soul That's one way of thinking about it, or the body and the spirit, or the body and the person. We think in these ways. Every spiritual practice has some idea about what happens when a person dies. You go to heaven, you go to hell. Buddhism has heavens and hells too, actually, but they're all right here. This is hell, and hell is where we dwell. But that's beside the point. Where do we go?

[10:58]

Where did we come from? So we think in terms of birth and death as two opposing dichotomy, as a duality, birth and death. We're born at a certain time, and we grow up and live our life, and then we die. But that's short-sighted thinking. That's our experience. So there's what happens as reality, and then there's our experience. So we experience birth, and we experience death. But in the Dharma, Buddha Dharma, we don't talk about, although we use those terms, as the parameters of life. So I don't use life and death as opposites. Life is the coin that one side is birth and the other side is death.

[12:03]

But birth and death are both expressions of life. So something doesn't come out of nothing. So we say, life is, you know, like in the East, in the countries in the East, we don't count our birthday as the day that you came out of the womb. we count your birthday, the first year of your birth of your life is in the womb. So, when we say how old we are, according to that system, you're one year older than the way we think about it.

[13:05]

You're already one nine months old, so to speak. We call it a year. Nine months old when you were born. So, and what happened before we were born? Well, the potentiality for birth is always there. Potentiality, like this spirochete makes love to the egg, and then something happens, and The womb is kind of like an egg, actually. It holds the juices in the water. But what happens before that? Our actual life is beginningless. Our actual life is beginningless and causes and conditions

[14:10]

come together to create this embryonic person who appears, manifests, we use the term manifests, manifests in the world. So rather than saying born, we say manifest. You can use those terms, we use those terms, but actually this manifestation of causes and conditions And when the causes and conditions are no longer supporting the person, the person unmanifests, deintegrates. But then what happens? Is that the end? So something doesn't come from nothing, and something doesn't end at a certain point, even though if the manifestation ends, something is still going on, even though we don't see it.

[15:26]

So we call it death, but actually, Death and birth are continuously happening. So what we call life is continuous transformations. So one way you can talk, you can express the term life is continuous manifestations of birth and death. In order for something to manifest, something else has to give way. So birth initiates death, and death initiates birth. Birth is the foundation of death, and death is the foundation of birth, for everything. So because we identify with ourself as the center, we suffer, because we're always changing,

[16:35]

You can say life is continual transformation. What is life? Life is continual transformations. Everything, as Suzuki Roshi said, the only truth, the only truth is everything changes. So because everything changes continuously, There's no stopping. No such thing as stopping. There's only transformations. Every single moment is a moment of birth and death. And as I always like to say, if you want to study this, of course, we study it all the time because it's the most common thing. You study your breath, inhaling, is manifesting.

[17:38]

Inspiration. We call it inspiration. Taking a breath is inspiration. Letting go of the breath is expiration. So inspiration, expiration is one cycle of birth and death. Within birth is death. Within death is birth. You cannot say which is which on each moment. If you take a moment and say, is this birth or is this death? because it's simultaneous. Each moment is a moment of change, a moment of transformation. This is called the world of transformations. The transformation world, world of suffering, because of desire. So we want things to be a certain way, but the blood runs through the body unasked for.

[18:50]

We can't control it. We do control it, but not purposely. Our thoughts and our feelings and our emotions control how the blood runs through our body and how the thoughts run through the brain. and how the emotions affect everything we do. They affect our postures and our actions in the realm of transformations. So we have our feelings and so forth, but to actually be able to see clearly is difficult. So Buddhist training, Buddha Dharma is to see this clearly. So we have two sides. One side is our feelings and emotions and how we are affected. The other side is to clearly see what is actually happening, objectively.

[19:56]

So according to the Dharma, we are always here. We don't go anywhere. because we are not something that goes, comes and goes. The breath, we don't have anything to do with the breath except for our feelings and emotions which affect it. But the breath, we are being breathed by the universe. So what we do is identify myself as the center. of the universe, but actually we're just simply being moved around by the universe. We're cosmic beings. The cosmos is, everything in the cosmos is contributing to what we call this manifestation of myself. So if we identify as cosmic beings instead of just my separate self, then we have some understanding of how things work.

[21:14]

Because there is no separate self. Everything is manifested, manifests because of everything else. We're simply being moved around by the cosmos. And we have what we call will. Free will or not free will? I don't know. I like to think that we do have free will because we can decide to do things, but our decisions are caused by the effects of our surroundings and our interrelationships. So If we understand that death, so-called, is the result of birth, and birth, so-called, is the result of death, then we have something that's called insight. And if we have insight, it eases our emotional responses to this problem.

[22:23]

when someone, I've sat at the bedside of quite a number of people and a number of our members. And I've done funeral ceremonies for a number of them as well. And although I have feelings, emotions, thoughts about my relationships with everyone, When I do the ceremony, I feel like I'm sending that person off. I don't feel like they should still be here, or I regret that they're not here, or try to keep them from being here or from leaving. I send them off. Great. This is wonderful. It's not awful. It's awesome. It's not awful, it's awesome, it's so awesome that it's beyond feelings for me.

[23:47]

Roshi, when he was Kobujino Sensei with me, and he said, when a person's dying, you should help them to die. Instead of trying to keep them from dying, to help them to let go and release themselves. This is the end product, the end, which is to stage for a new beginning. When a person gets very old and they're, you know, feeble, like me, and to actually help them to let go of all of their, anything that's hindering them from leaving. there's a phrase, a hospice phrase.

[25:05]

Just stay close and do nothing. Stay close and do nothing. And instead of crying at a bedside, you should be happily, deeply, involved in subtly helping them to leave this world, even though you can't leave this world. Because the energy that, we say energy doesn't get lost, it continues. And the energy contributes to other forms of life. So instead of thinking that death is this big black hole, to allow ourselves to move into contributing to other forms of life.

[26:15]

Thich Nhat Hanh talks about watching the leaf fall off the tree and nurturing the ground. in which the tree is planted. You know, we don't, garbage stinks, but garbage is so valuable. We put it around the plant and the plant grows. Without it, the plant doesn't grow. if we can realize that contributing our life to the universe, to help the universe to contribute to other forms of life, is very positive. It's not just an idea.

[27:19]

It's not just a hope or something. It's actual. our death contributes to life, never ending, continuous transformations. Whatever, I've always felt that whatever people believe happens, good happens after death, I don't argue with that because everybody needs something. optimistically to face death. Why not let it be the truth? All of the Zen students whose bedsides I've sat at have always died a very nice death.

[28:25]

a lot of understanding, and they have the ability to let go at the right, even if it's little by little, to let go. So at the end of a funeral ceremony, I often give a shout. It's short, but it's energy. and say, go. Go, wherever you may be, go with our blessing. So, first, dead or alive, I won't say.

[29:35]

I won't say. It's the wrong question. Life itself is birth, and life itself is death, and death itself is life. Even though death is totally death. Life is totally life. Birth is totally birth. Do you have a question?

[30:40]

Yes, Dean. Thank you so much. Very many of you said that's not the right question. I started thinking, well, what is the right question? Is there the right question? I've been thinking about something you said earlier about, you know, don't be all sad and crying and don't be all crying. I thought, I'm kind of a cry baby, so I will. Maybe for me, maybe there is a question, and it's how to hold them both. How to hold them both, and how to, yeah, hold them both. Yes, how to hold them both, even though they're one thing. Cry. Cry the good cry. You should cry. You know, we say when Shakyamuni was on his deathbed, all the arhats were crying.

[31:45]

He says, they don't understand what's going on. They just don't understand what's going on. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't cry. The arhats didn't understand. No, I don't want to say that. In spite of their understanding, they were crying. Yes. When Suzuki Roshi was dying, all of the disciples were in his room, and everybody was crying. But, you know, theoretically, you're not supposed to be crying. But you should cry. So life is not so simple.

[32:50]

It'd be easy if our understanding superseded our feelings. Our understanding and our feelings should be one so that because all of that history and feelings has to be expressed. There is a person, even though the person is actually kind of delusion. So delusion and enlightenment are one. I can't help but make a connection to also the myriad feelings I'm feeling today over what one could call death of civilization, death of civil society.

[34:04]

How, what, what helps you to, whether it's death of a person or not, not get lost? Civilizations come and go. They're born, so to speak. They manifest. They manifest and they have a life, just like a person. And then they disintegrate. And then the disintegrating activity is suffering. It's like you think that the world's just gonna disappear. But actually, the end, initiates the next manifestation. And it just keeps going on like that. The world just keeps going on like that. The birth and death of civilization, the Roman Empire, the American Empire is on the way down. It may not go all the way down.

[35:06]

It's a big fight, but it looks like it, you know. it looks like it's gonna disintegrate. And I think it will disintegrate, but that's the life of human endeavors. Because we are, a person is a microcosm of the universe. Each one of us is a microcosm of the universe. So the way to study universal cosmic activity is through understanding ourself. The purpose of our life is to understand ourself beyond our feelings and what we want or would like or expect, to just see it as Occam's razor, which

[36:12]

does not, is not influenced by anything and looks directly at reality. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Well, I think we have to understand one thing.

[37:24]

We have to understand when life is cruel. Life is cruel. We call it cruel. From our side, we call it cruel. Life is just life. But we say it's cruel, or what can you do? That's from the human side. But nature doesn't care that much about your feelings. This is a touchy topic, very touchy topic. Does the universe care about me or not? It's a touchy topic. You can say, well, you know, nature just does its thing. Mountains crumble, you know. But on the other hand, well, what about us?

[38:26]

What about me? Doesn't nature care about me? So, yes and no. Oh, oh, oh, I won't say. In our liturgy, actually, there's a whole series of ceremonies that we do to help the I would say, because it's part of our tradition.

[39:41]

It is particularly to help people work through the formative entanglements. And yet, you know, it's hard for some of us to start to believe in my mind of it. So what part of it are you, you mean whether you believe in the ceremony or not? Yes, what I would say about that is that one thing is it's wishful thinking. The other thing is that it's for us, it's not for them. We project that it's for them, but it's really for us. They're gone.

[40:42]

You can't change somebody's trajectory. Once that event of disintegration of their body-mind is, nature takes care of everything. Nature will take care of them. I totally firmly believe so. my prayer would be to please take care of the nature, to appeal to nature, Buddha nature or whatever to take care of this person. I can't do it. So the 49 days is like Master Hua told me that he sat on his parents' grave for about two years after they died. So that's kind of like the 49 day thing. It's like expressing your feeling for your parents.

[41:48]

That's very Chinese. Expressing your feeling for your parents. So it's wonderful. But the effect is mysterious. So I can't account for mysterious effects. If you believe, if you want to believe in something like that, and it's comforting to you, do it. Whether it's real or not, do it because it's comforting. Why not? I mean, but way in the back, somebody had their hand up. Yeah, back, Peter? Well, in the realm of reciprocation?

[42:56]

I know, but you're talking about reciprocation. Oh, okay. Well, yes, by acknowledging their karma. I don't know if it's our karma or not. But I think that we have to, you know, we all like the idea of getting rid of our karma. And that's kind of wishful thinking. whether we get rid of our karma or not. They say even Shakyamuni had to deal with his karma. So the way to get rid of your karma is to repent and turn around and don't do the things that created karma anymore.

[44:02]

That's the way, that's the formula. Just repent wholeheartedly, turn around and don't do it anymore. Go straight, which is hard because even if we repent of our karma, it's still there in some way. And so we have to experience the suffering of our bad karma. That's what actually relieves us of the karma by taking the consequences. We don't want to do that. We'd rather be free of our karma, but to take the consequences and work through it, at the same time, going in another direction, this is called residual karma.

[45:06]

The residual effect of our past actions has, you can't shake it off. So just take it, you know. Just eat it. But it does have an effect. And it relieves you of the suffering to a large extent. I just have one story, and that's the end. In relation to that, there was a, in China, a man, who had an affair with a woman. And it turns out that he killed the woman's husband.

[46:07]

And the son wanted to take revenge. But the man felt so bad about it, about killing, he said he wanted to repent. So there was a trail that went around a mountain that was very dangerous. So he said, I'm going to dig a tunnel through that mountain as a repentance. So he started digging the tunnel. And he dug and he dug, and every day he was out there. And the son of the man he murdered came to his, found him, and he said, I'm going to kill you. And so the digger said, That's okay with me. You can do that. But first, I want to complete this tunnel. And the son said, okay, but you know, just sitting around.

[47:11]

And so he started digging too. And the sooner I dig it, the closer I'll be to be able to kill this guy. So he digs and he digs and he digs. They both dig and, you know, it's hard work. They just have hand tools. And they finally get to the end. And the guy who did the murder said, okay, now you can kill me. And the son said, how can I kill my teacher?

[47:44]

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