So this is the shuso talk during this session, which is the conclusion of the practice period. And the traditional shuso talk is on the first case of the blue cliff record, which is Bodhidharma's highest meaning of the holy truth. So let me read the case first. When you see smoke on the other side of a mountain, you already know there's a fire. When you see horns on the other side of a fence, right away you know there's an ox there. To understand three when one is raised, to judge precisely at a glance, this is the everyday food and drink of a patchwork monk.

[01:17]

Getting to where he cuts off the myriad streams, he is free to arise in the east and sink in the west, to go against or to go with in any and all directions, free to give or to take away. But say, at just such a time, whose actions are these? Look into Sveto's trailing vines. In this case, Emperor Wu of Lian asked the great master Bodhidharma, what is the highest meaning of the holy truth? Bodhidharma said, empty without holiness. The emperor said, who is facing me? Bodhidharma replied, I don't know. The emperor did not understand. After this, Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtze River and came to the kingdom of Wei.

[02:21]

Later, the emperor brought this up to Master Chi and asked him about it. Master Chi asked, does your majesty know who this man is? The emperor said, I don't know. Master Chi said, he is the Mahasattva Avalokitesvara, transmitting the Buddha mind seal. The emperor felt regretful, so he wanted to send an emissary to go invite Bodhidharma to return. Master Chi told him, your majesty, don't say that you will send someone to fetch him back. Even if everyone in the whole country were to go after him, he still wouldn't return. So the pointer seems to be pointing at how do we recognize our true self?

[03:32]

Does the emperor recognize his own true self? So when you see smoke on the other side of a mountain, you already know there's a fire. When you see horns on the other side of a fence, right away you know there's a knock there. So, in Bodhidharma's response, his whole being is there in what he's saying. Or the whole is totally there in the part, in this part, in this word, in this silence, in this moment, in this action. So, it's like hearing the lion's roar, or the roar of the lioness.

[04:35]

Upon hearing it, immediately we know that the lion of the lioness is in our midst. So we recognize Buddha with our Buddha-I. And with that recognition, we go about our everyday life and everyday activities. Such seems to be the pointer of the case. And it says, cutting off the myriad streams This seems to be, on the one hand, sort of the cutting of the flow, the stream of consciousness, cutting the flow of thinking in zazen. So how do we do that? And there is Dogen's famous koan of thinking, non-thinking, which means that the only way we can cut the flow of

[05:53]

The movement of the wheel of samsara, the myriad streams, is to flow with it, is to go with that flow. So perhaps it's a little bit like riding a horse. To ride a horse, you have to meet the horse and follow it at the same time. The horse is our own mind, our thinking mind. Maybe not just our thinking mind. So when the horse and the rider are in harmony, then both horse and rider disappear into this perfect function. wherein all dharmas, or all beings, or all things advance and realize the Self, as it says in the Ginja Koan that Nel has been talking about.

[07:15]

Sashin feels more perhaps like writing a book, than riding a horse. More like a bull than an ox, actually. Let alone a cow. A cow already is it. like the Hindus will know. But Sashin is like grabbing a bull by the horns. So, this cutting off the myriad streams, you know, we have to let go of our wishful thinking, which

[08:26]

transcends our conscious mind and our unconscious mind. Whether we willfully decided or not, thinking arises. So, in this letting go of our wishful thinking, brings back our ungraspable desire. You know, we have this desire, but actually what this desire is, is rather ungraspable. It's not just desire for an object. Within the desire itself, there's nirvana. And The nirvana in this desire is what is ungraspable about it.

[09:30]

What do we want? What do you really want? So in letting go of our wishful thinking, then we bring our desire back home. Okay, in the case itself, we have Emperor Wu. You know, Wu is Mu in Chinese, as we all pointed out yesterday. And so his name is asking for it, isn't it? He's really asking for the Dharma's response.

[10:31]

So Bodhidharma just gives him what is already naturally his, in his own name. So if we notice, all of Bodhidharma's answers are negative. No merit, empty, no holiness, And woo means no. You can say woman, woman. So woman, what is woman? This is the true, not person, of no rank. And everything a modern woman does not appear to want.

[11:34]

And yet this not-person of no rank is not a dualistic form of submissiveness. It's the actual surrender or not-self from which all authority springs forth. So it's a kind of benevolent depersonalization. So what is this highest meaning of the holy truth? Seems like a pretty smart question. So you could say, well, you mean as opposed to the lowest meaning of the profane truth? just a big and deep pile of shit.

[12:41]

That's the highest meaning. So this empty as a response cuts through this higher and lower duality that's implied in question. This duality of the sacred and the profane of conventional reality and ultimate reality. So just emptiness cuts through the duality that's posed by the question. If we try to objectify holiness, then holiness disappears. Then the emperor says, Who are you? Or more like, since the case says that the emperor really doesn't understand, it's more like, well, who are you anyway?

[13:50]

You know, to be asking me, the emperor, to be responding to me, the emperor, in that kind of way. So, the emperor is kind of surprised by the response. So Bodhidharma doesn't respond at the same level that where the question's coming from. It responds from a different level, from a different perspective, from a different place. And that's the surprise. The surprise that cuts through the entanglements of the question. So it's really like responding from a place or a position of not-self. And this reminds me a little bit of the everyday practice of a Freudian analyst, actually, which is not to respond to questions directly.

[15:10]

not to respond to questions or to the problems that are being posed or the way the problems are being formulated because the question you're being asked and the problem that's being presented actually lock the person into their neurosis or into their trap. So how to sidestep the the lock in the question to open the person's mind. So it's like addressing the real directly from a different place, from a place of not-self or a place of impassivity. Talk about passivity and activity. Zazen appears to be like extreme form of passivity, like just sitting there.

[16:17]

But actually practice means activity. So it's the activity of non-activity. So perhaps the word is impassivity. which is using one side of the duality in a non-dualistic way. So that reminds me of the position of the analyst. It's also in that position of impassivity, of non-duality. You know, because, you know, often, We ourselves and people come to see a psychotherapist with problems, you know, presenting problems. And the real is not necessarily within the presenting problem.

[17:21]

Like in the question of the emperor. So Bodhidharma is addressing the real. And yet at the same time you have to respect what people are saying and the problems that they're bringing to you. And of course the real is also in the manifest. So empathy in this sense is, or compassion, usually we think it's just empathizing and being one with a person suffering, but actually it's also about putting up with a lot of bullshit for a long time. Putting up with being shitted upon, putting up with

[18:30]

So it takes a long time for us to see our original face before our parents were born. And this is not unlike the relationship with a teacher. I think Mel has to put up with a lot of that shit for a long time. And he probably knows what our problem is right from the very onset, but you can't say it. So, the I don't know response is a response which transcends knowing it and not knowing. Wisdom and ignorance. If you will, it's a kind of wise or calculated foolishness. You know, if they ask you for ultimate meaning, give a senseless response.

[19:52]

If they ask you for wisdom, then speak foolishly. You know, Socrates said that most people, we all appear to know But we really don't know. And at the same time, we appear not to know, and yet we do know. So, this is the, again, using the duality of knowing or not knowing, and using one of the terms not dualistically. So that's what Loy Dharma is doing with this, I don't know. Appearing not to know, yet he does know. And then his leaving and not returning, which is the next point.

[21:04]

I'm sort of going by the key elements of the case. It's an expression of his or our determination to cut through all the conventional truths and mores. all the conventional truths that bind us in some way or another. So in a way, is he a terrible guest or is he a terrific host? He's behaving very bad, like a terrible guest, but at the same time he's being a terrific host. And then the, it's interesting that the, in different books I read it differently, but in the Brookleaf record, then the commentary on the case then tells us that actually the story started before, there was a prior dialogue.

[22:19]

I'm not sure why it doesn't appear on the case directly. So the commentary says, when Bodhidharma first met Emperor Wu, the emperor asked, I have built temples and ordained monks. What merit is there in this? And Bodhidharma said, there is no merit. So that's the dialogue. And I'll just read a little bit of the commentary. If you can penetrate this statement that there is no merit, you can meet Bodhidharma personally. Now tell me, why is there no merit at all in building temples and ordaining monks? Where does the meaning of this lie?" So, true merit

[23:24]

K seems to be saying, Bodhidharma seems to be saying, that true merit doesn't come from outward appearance of performing good deeds for the benefit of a reward. Well, if I build all these temples, if I ordain all these monks, will I get something? Again, this question seems to be on the level of gaining or losing, or good or bad. So, it still seems to have some kind of gaining idea in it. So again, Bodhidharma gives a a negative response that takes everything away.

[24:30]

So, actually, you know, there's nothing wrong with good deeds, but the point is, you know, how to do good deeds just for their own sake. just doing the good deed. The deed itself is the end, the end in itself. It's not a means to get something else, but it's the end in itself. This point has been also an ancient point of contention between Judaism and Christianity, the question of good deeds by faith alone. So Christians are criticizing Jews for trying to use the good deeds of the mitzvot, the commandments, for some gaining idea.

[25:39]

But actually, the good deeds of the mitzvot are just for their own sake. That's the way to understand them. Which is equivalent to how in Zen and Buddhism we approach everyday life. Just being one with our activity. That's the good deed. So if we take this question further, I mean, is there any merit in being a Buddhist? Is there any merit in being a priest? Is there any merit in being a layperson? Or even, is there any merit in practicing zazen or in doing sashimi? And I think that Bodhidharma would answer all these questions with no merit.

[26:45]

So, you know, we can't sit zazen in order to become a Buddha, right? That's like, what's the merit? There's that famous story of Nangaku Ejo and Baso, and Nangaku Ejo was, well, Baso was sitting zazen and Nangaku Ejo asked him, what are you doing? He said, well, I'm studying Sāsana in order to become a Buddha. And so, when Nāgācārīja went and started polishing a brick, so he asked him in turn, well, what are you doing? Trying to turn a brick into a mirror. So this addresses the same point of no merit, no gaining idea. And that's at the root of Suzuki Roshi's Beginner's Line.

[27:51]

And actually that's the only way we can get through Sashi. We all struggle very much with this very question. So, you know, and yet, you know, part of life is to have some aim and to have some purpose. And so, you know, you can't You know, we all come to practice with some aim and some purpose. Otherwise, we wouldn't come to practice. And yet, in order to practice, at the same time, we have to let go of that aim and purpose. And that's kind of the corner of practice, and it becomes strikingly real for us in Zazen. So, no aim or no gain, or just accepting our pain, seems to be kind of like a definition of death, or falls on the side of death, since life is about having some aim and some purpose.

[29:28]

course of development. And yet in that very moment of death, there's a clarity and a luminosity that stays with us as we go back into our everyday life. So it's dying and being reborn, and dying and being reborn moment to moment. So we can't say it's not about life and it's not about death, and yet life and death are in it, or neither life or neither death. So we can't say if are we living or are we dying. So I'll stop here.

[31:03]

I think we have some time for questions or you'd like to say something about the case. Yes. Why would Bodhidharma not come back if he sent the whole kingdom after? Well, the story says he... went to the Shaolin temple to sit for nine years facing the wall. So coming back to what? To the activity of the kingdom, activities of merit, and he was really determined to cut through all these, to see into his own nature.

[32:17]

Not that there's a duality between that, But that's what needed to happen in that moment in order to establish Buddhism. I think there was a question. It's just that what our desire seems to want is not what it really wants, or we don't know what we really want.

[33:35]

So we pursue these different things in the hope that this will be it. So we're always looking for this it, you know, this real thing. But this real thing is ungraspable. And that's the the truth that we come to find in Zazen. It's a little bit like falling in love. When you fall in love, you have this feeling, this overwhelming feeling that you can't explain or describe and you're all out of words to express it and you're shy about it, don't know what to say, you know, let's drink some coffee or let's do this, let's do that.

[34:44]

So that is this ungraspable desire that's seeking And yet once it finds an object, which appears to be it, you know, our loved one or the loved person, pretty soon it turns into something else. You know, so people talk about the romantic phase of a relationship. and then it turns into something else. It doesn't have that feeling anymore. So we have to come to practice to reconnect with this desire.

[35:47]

And then we can go back partner or a mate and perhaps reconnect with them in the way we felt originally. I've always kind of had a reaction to this case. I can't, you know, if Bodhidharma He's so free. How come he can't be an ordinary guy in an ordinary situation, you know? Here's Emperor Wu, basically... I mean, he's more harmless than harmful. He could be much more harmful. He's been doing nice things, you know, and here's this... I don't know. You know, I thought, well, maybe it's a good idea that Bodhidharma went to face the Wall Nine warriors. Is Bodhidharma leaping free?

[36:58]

Which I don't know, would that be? Well, you know, it depends what we mean by ordinary. Do we mean ordinary or do we mean ordinary? I don't know. You know, if... You know, we have to do... some practice, you know, get out of our ordinary routine in some way in order to soften the grip of delusion or to find a way out of suffering.

[38:19]

Because our ordinary routine, in a way, seems to just continue to be reinforcing this grip. So you have to step out of it and, you know, say, cross to the other shore, you know, or relate from a different place in order to find our true nature. And then, what is our true nature? Then we come back to, well, it's just, you know, our ordinary activity. So we're back to there. That's only gay questions.

[39:42]

Don't tell. Very foolish. Yes? I have a concrete question that maybe you can explain it. When you're reading the pointer, holding up one finger signifying... No, it's the horn. If you see the horn, then you know what's behind the fin. Right away you know there's an ox there. Right. Go on. To understand three when one is raised. Right. What three? There's just three is one and three. I think it's an expression just for the one and the many or the part and the whole. I was always interested in what party analysts did.

[41:35]

Now you know. Now I know. Well, that's like the question about the ordinary and the ordinary. Maybe that's a good place to stop.

[42:09]

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