with. I think I've talked about this several times. Case number 43, tosons, no cold or heat. Toson, there's several tosons in Zen literature. This toson is the toson And Master Engo has an introduction, and in his introduction he says, the words which command the universe are obeyed throughout the ages. The spirit able to quell the tiger and the rhino amazes even thousands of the holy ones. His words are matchless, his spirit prevails everywhere. If you want to go through with your advanced training, you must enter the great master's forge.

[01:08]

Tell me, who could ever show such spirit? See the following." And then there's the main subject. The main subject, a monk said to Tozan, when cold and heat descend upon us, how can we avoid them? Tozan said, Why don't you go where there's no cold and no heat? The monk said, where is the place where there is no cold or heat? Tozan said, when cold, the cold kills you. When hot, the heat kills you. And then Secho has a verse. about the case. The verse goes like this. A helping hand, but still a thousand fathom cliff.

[02:09]

Show and him, no arbitrary distinction here. The ancient emerald palace shines in the bright moonlight. Clever Conroe climbs the steps and finds it empty. So in the introduction, Ingo says, the words which command the universe are obeyed throughout the ages. Words which command the universe mean something like if someone can say something which hits the truth. applies correctly to the way things really work, then these are the words which command the universe, if these words are really in accord with reality.

[03:25]

So he's talking about Tozan's statement to the monk. Why don't you go where there's no cold and no heat? He says, where is that place? And then Tosan tells him where the place is. And then he says, the spirit able to quell the tiger and the rhino amazes even thousands of the holy ones. The tiger and the rhino course, is our own nature. Our great spirit which needs to have direction.

[04:36]

In other words, if you can truly give direction to this. The spirit able to quell the tiger and the rhino amazes even thousands of the holy ones. So that expression or understanding or spirit which gives direction to our powerful spirit It's very valuable. His words are matchless, and his spirit prevails everywhere. He's talking about Tozan. If you want to, there's another way of expressing that, which is, without obstruction, the whole being appears equally everywhere. I think it's a very nice way to express that.

[05:40]

Without obstruction, the whole being appears equally everywhere. And this really refers to the case. How does one avoid heat and cold? Without obstruction, the whole being appears equally everywhere. So he's alluding to this understanding. When the whole being appears equally everywhere, there's no obstruction. But I'll get back to this. If you want to go through with your advanced training,

[06:43]

you must enter the Great Master's Forge." What is the Great Master's Forge? It's also another way of saying this is, if you want to, in order to understand this, you have to have the tools, the hammer and tongs, and go into the Master's Forge. The Master's Forge could be how you train with a teacher. But strictly speaking, the Master's Forge is Zazen. If you want to get through this koan, the simple way to get through this koan is the Forge of Zazen.

[08:04]

Zazen is like a forge. It's like going into the heat and the cold. the temperature. When things get too hot, where is there to go? And when they get too cold, where is there to go? So then he says, tell me, who could ever show such spirit? See the following. And then is the main subject. A monk said to Tozan, When cold and heat descend upon us, how can we avoid them? And Tozan said, why don't you go where there's no cold and no heat? And the monk said, where is the place where there's no cold and no heat?

[09:11]

Tozan is setting him up, you know, setting up this monk. and giving him a really wonderful problem. Where do we escape to? Where is the place where, if there's a place with no cold and heat, maybe this is heaven, right? Or nirvana. Where is the place where There's no more problem. How can I get out of this problem? But the problem we always have, of course, is the problem of being here in this world, where there's pain and heat and cold.

[10:28]

pleasure, and delusion, and enlightenment, and illusions, and everything is constantly changing. Nothing is stable. How do I get out of that? How can we avoid these problems? Heat and cold, you know, are just examples. Heat and cold stand for problems. Discomfort. Naturally, when it's hot, we like to have a cool put on a t-shirt, and when it's cold, we like to sit by the nice warm fire.

[11:45]

This is how we want to balance everything out. And so we're always adjusting, constantly adjusting. But the monk says, this is the world of suffering. How do I get out of the world of suffering? This Saha world. How do I transcend samsara? So Buddha promises, you know, he says, this is the world of suffering. And there's a way to transcend suffering. We talked about that a few days ago, a few last week. How do we get out of suffering? So Tozan says, why don't you go where there is no suffering?

[12:57]

I said, well, where is that place? The monk says, where is that place where there's no suffering? Tozan says, when cold, let the cold kill you. And when hot, let the hot kill you. So what does kill you mean? Another way to translate it is to say, when it's hot, just be completely hot. When it's cold, just be completely cold. But the original actually says, let the cold kill you and let the heat kill you. Kill you means kill your mind which makes distinctions.

[14:04]

It means let go of discrimination and enter the realm of unity. But he says, even though Tozan puts his hand down, it's still a thousand foot cliff. And so in the verse, Satcho says, a helping hand, but still a thousand-feathering cliff. Even though he puts his hand down to help him, still, like, wow, what? How can I do that? You tell me, teacher, to just let go. But how can I? It's still a thousand-foot cliff. No matter how much you tell me, it's still, you know, When my legs hurt, my legs really hurt and I want to move them.

[15:12]

When painful things come, I really want to get out of it. I really want to escape from it. So then the next line of the verse He says, shou and hen, no arbitrary distinction here. Shou and hen mean absolute and relative. These are Chinese terms. I guess these are Japanese terms, Japanese transliteration of Chinese terms. But Tozan, Master Tozan, described the various stages of the winter here. But Sho and Hen is the absolute and the relative, or form and emptiness.

[16:21]

So it's Sho and Hen, no arbitrary distinctions here. In other words, Tozan is not making any distinction at all between Sho and Hen. He's not making any distinction between nirvana and samsara are between absolute and relative. He says, when it's cold, let the cold kill you. When it's hot, let the heat kill you. When it's cold, just be cold through and through. When it's hot, just be hot through and through. So, you know, in his first statement, the mug asks Tozan, how can we avoid heat and cold?

[17:27]

And Tozan says, go to the place where there is no heat and cold. Go to the place where there is no heat and cold means the realm of the absolute, where there are no distinctions. The reason why we feel cold is because there's such a thing as heat. And the reason we feel hot is because there's such a thing as cold. The reason we feel pain is because there's such a thing as pleasure. And the reason we feel pleasure is because there's such a thing as pain. And so forth. In the absolute realm, heat does not have an opposite, or heat or cold is included in its opposite, and heat is included in its opposite.

[18:33]

Pain is included in its opposite, and pleasure is included in its opposite. So, within pain there's pleasure, and within pleasure there's pain. When there's nothing but pain, then no problem. When there's nothing but pleasure, no problem. When there's nothing but heat, no problem. When there's nothing but cold, no problem. Because there's nothing outside of heat. There's nothing to distinguish heat from anything else. This is complete delusion. If you want to be deluded, be completely deluded. When there's nothing outside of delusion, then you have enlightenment.

[19:39]

And then Tozan said, then the monk asks, well, where is the place where there's no cold or heat? And Tozan says, right here where you are. Right within the relative world is where you find that place where there's no cold and no heat. Where is the place of transcendence? Right here, right in the problem you have. Right in the problem is where you find your release, or your freedom. So then the verse says, The third line of the verse, the ancient emerald palace shines in the bright moonlight.

[21:00]

The ancient emerald palace means like the place of truth or reality. And the moonlight usually means enlightenment. So he says the ancient emerald palace shines in the bright moonlight. Clever Conroe climbs the steps and finds it empty. This clever Conroe, this last line of the poem, refers to a story, an ancient Chinese story, which is the story of a minister who is trying to persuade the king from going to war. And he gave the example of someone who had a dog, of a minister who had a dog, and Conroe had the dog.

[22:08]

There are various versions of this story, but some people say Conroe is the dog, but actually Conroe had the dog, and a big black dog who could chase rabbits and catch them. So he set the dog out to catch a rabbit, but the rabbit ran so fast that by the end of the chase, both the dog and the rabbit keeled over dead. And so it was a kind of futile effort. So Conroe climbs the steps and finds it empty. It's a kind of allusion here to the dog chasing the hare into the Emerald Palace and finding it empty.

[23:10]

Nothing there. So in a way, it's like the monk, the monk's pursuit of The monk wants emptiness. He wants to escape from heat and cold. But it's like Conroe's dog, you know. As soon as he entered the Emerald Palace, there was nothing there. It was futile. But then what does futile mean? And what does empty mean? And what does pursuit mean? So Tozan brought the monk to the end of the line, to the end of his ability to... The monk has, you know, got a good question.

[24:16]

It's a great question. And he's pursuing it. And suddenly he's at the end of the line with nothing. And even though Tozan pulls down, puts his hand down to help him, it's still like, a thousand foot cliff. And Tozan gives him, hands him his gem, And Tozan's words are actually the words which turn heaven and earth. And there are no arbitrary distinctions here between the absolute and the relative, between escaping suffering and entering suffering.

[25:31]

We want to. The monk is like a spokesperson for everyone. How do I get out of suffering? Tozan says, in order to escape from suffering, you have to completely enter into it. Stop running. You can't. Like Kamuro's dog, the more you run, the worse it gets. So I like to use this koan as an example of zazen. Entering the Master's Forge is Zazen, and Zazen is the great teacher for all of us.

[26:43]

And our practice is never perfect. Sometimes we can unify body and mind with the forces of the universe, and sometimes we can't so easily. But practice, maintaining practice, is the way to deal with this problem. Sometimes we're good at it, sometimes we're not. Sometimes we're right on, sometimes we fall down a thousand foot cliff. But when you fall off, just get back on. So unifying body and mind with the universe means

[27:49]

And to unify body and mind with heat and unify body and mind with cold is called killing heat and cold. Killing means to be one with. Usually we think if something is killed that it's gone. But killing has two aspects. One is it's gone, and the other is it's unified. So in our practice, to just be one with each moment's activity and with what each moment presents without escaping and being present.

[29:27]

Even though there's some discomfort when it's hot, Just be hot. Let the heat kill you. When it's cold, just let the cold kill you. Just don't take this completely literally. If you take it literally, you may freeze to death. Out of the mountains. But actually, when it gets cold, you can actually let yourself be cold with the cold. And you can actually enjoy the cold. People from Minnesota, who grew up in Minnesota, can enjoy the cold, actually.

[30:36]

Many people. who grew up in cold countries actually enjoy the cold. There are people in Patagonia who run around in the snow without any clothes on. That's their life. It doesn't feel cold to them. It just feels like what it is. So we have a lot of flexibility in our life. ability to change our shape, so to speak. And in Sazen, it's absolutely necessary to, while sitting still and not moving, to change your shape. We change our shape to cover

[31:38]

the feeling that we have in our body, to include the feeling we have in our body. And we change our shape to include the thought in our mind. This is called having soft mind and flexible body. Even though you're sitting completely still without moving, your body expands to include the heat and the cold. As soon as you think, I don't like this, or where can I go to get rid of this? Then you create something. You create a condition. And then we get stuck in the condition that we create. until the bell rings.

[32:45]

So then we start waiting for the bell. Fortunately, our lives are saved. But the best way is to just take the form of the condition without creating else. So in order to be able to sit comfortably all day, we just allow our body and mind to take the shape of whatever's happening. So when there's some feeling in the body, to just let the body be that feeling without closing off or wishing for something else.

[34:17]

Then there's no opposite. As soon as we set up an opposition, from the Garden of Eden, so to speak. But when we don't know, when we let go of the knowledge of good and evil, then we're back in the garden. notion of comparative values, we're back in the garden. And sometimes we experience that, and sometimes it's hard.

[35:28]

You should know at least what you're doing. We should know what we're doing and how to make it work. And there's no trick, no special trick, other than accepting exactly what's there. Not completely accept. then you have great freedom. But if we don't accept, then we become a victim of our divided mind. And then anger and delusion arise. And confusion. I like the way that it's described as going into the Great Master's Forge, because I think most of the time when we get in, when we start practicing, that it seems like, okay, we're going to do this thing and then we're going to relax and we're just going to have a good time.

[37:33]

And it's more like the way that it's described there. What goes through the forge, all the dross drops off and the metal goes through the forge. And when it gets tempered and beaten over and over, then just the essence remains. The most essential part remains. term for a zazen practice. Tempering is more and more refining the metal, the essential material.

[38:44]

practice. And those are two aspects of forging. One is heating up and the other is cooling off. Heating up and cooling off. So when the metal is hot, it's very malleable. And when it's cold, it's very rigid. But a good sword, or strong metal, also very flexible. Otherwise it snaps. And metal, which gets very hot, also holds together very strong.

[40:04]

Otherwise it melts away. So what we're left with is the essential thing. And the essential thing can be either hot or cold. about losing itself. And when it's hot. One was that the master of the room can take you to the edge, but then you have to fall.

[41:22]

And the other thing was about practice. You said sometimes practice is good, and sometimes it's not so good. Sometimes you fall off, and then you have to get on again. Well, the first one, I don't remember, but I think that that was between the lines of what I said. The second one I do remember, and I don't think they're exactly the same. The one, if I understand what you said, is coming to the edge, and then you have to Find your way. That's reading between the lines. And very good reading. The other... What was the other one?

[42:32]

Practice. Practice falling. Oh yeah, coming back up. When you fall off, you come back up. Yeah. Well, here, you know, Master Tozan is leading the monk. He's giving him the helping hand, right? But it's like a thousand foot cliff, even so, for the monk, because he's still, even though Tozan tells him, he still has to find his own way. Tozan can't help him any further than that. And in our practice, sometimes we really hit the mark and sometimes we just can't you know and sometimes we fall off and when we fall off to not be discouraged because we think that we're not hitting the mark and we have to get back up you know even though

[43:40]

So to not be discouraged by not being able to do this, because practice itself is the matrix for both being on and being off are both included within practice. So that when we're off, it doesn't mean that practice is bad or that we're no good. But we shouldn't let that be discouraging, because within the matrix of practice, both being on and being off are correct. So it's very hard to judge our practice, whether it's good or bad. You may feel that you're doing very good zazen because you can handle yourself pretty well.

[44:54]

But that may not be good zazen. And you may feel very discouraged because you can't handle yourself very well. And you may think that's not good zazen, but actually, you can't judge. We're not in a position to judge either one, because if we start judging, then our judgment creates a duality of good practice and bad practice. So it's very hard to judge. All we can do is continuously do our best no matter what the result is. That's what I mean by getting back on, is not to be discouraged by what you may consider to be unsatisfactory breakfast.

[45:56]

So in the same way, it's like the way we view our life. Sometimes it's successful and sometimes it's a failure. But our life is just the way we live it, moment after moment. And sometimes we say, well, maybe life isn't worth living. And then we jump in the river. My nine-year-old son, It's gotten to the point where he's saying, he's wondering if life is really worth living. And so he said that, and then I said something like, well, why don't you let life, why not let life live you? And he thought about that. That's really a terrific statement. He really liked it.

[47:20]

But we do get into this position, you know, where life's a drag. And then we have to turn ourself over to life at some point. Stop trying so hard. Because we get into this position when we try to control our lives too much. We have to balance our ability or desire to control our life with the fact that life is actually living itself out through us. So we have some purpose, but at the same time, we have to see what life is offering and cooperate with it.

[48:56]

So in a sense, we say, just let it go. And letting go can be very difficult because we really have a clutch, a clutch on our idea about life. And Zazen gives us the opportunity to let go of our clutch and just see what life is saying to us. And see how we can accept it.

[50:02]

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