Good morning, everyone, and welcome. I've been doing this series of talks on the cases in the Book of Serenity collection, the Shoyo Roku in Japanese. And I'm continuing this weekend focusing on case A, about Bai Zhang's Fox. And there is so much to say about this, and I'm going to bring in related material and kind of try and cover the whole terrain today, and then go deeper the next couple of days. But I'll just start with the case itself. When Baizhang lectured in the hall, there was always an old man who listened to the teaching and then departed with the crowd. One day he didn't leave. Baizhang then asked him, who is it standing there?

[01:01]

The old man said, in antiquity, in the time of the ancient Buddha Kashapa, I lived on this mountain. So that is to say that he was the teacher there in this Well, previous age, previous Kalpa, previous Big Bang, whatever. He was Baizhang. He was the teacher at this place, because teachers were named after the mountain, the place where they lived. So he goes on. A student asked me, does a greatly cultivated person still fall into cause and effect or not? I answered him, he does not fall into cause and effect. And I fell into a wild fox body. for 500 lives. Now I ask the teacher, Baizhang, to turn a word in my behalf. Baizhang said, he is not blind to cause and effect, or does not ignore cause and effect.

[02:03]

The old man was greatly enlightened at these words. So there are so many aspects to this story. It's obviously a story about karma. And one thing to say, well, there's so many things to say. The two sides are not falling into cause and effect or not subject to cause and effect. And then there's not being blind to cause and effect. So how do we not ignore our ancient twisted karma? How do we not become blind to our ancient twisted karma? The other side is not falling into cause and effect, which is to be beyond conditions. So referencing some ultimate awareness beyond ordinary cause and effect.

[03:13]

So just to note, this is also, I'll come back to this, this is also case two in the gateless barrier, wumen guan, or mumon kan in Japanese. And some of you may have first heard this story in terms of the common English translations of that. So Aitken Roshi, Shibayama, Imada Kōan, Sekita, all say, all read it as does an enlightened person, does an enlightened man still fall into cause and effect or not? That's not what the characters say. So Stephen Hine and Tom Cleary's translations say, a greatly cultivated person. So the same story as in the Book of Serenity. But that's given a kind of a tinge to this story. I'm guessing, but I think it's probably reasonable to think that,

[04:22]

This is a common interpretation in Japanese Rinzai Zen, or in some of Japanese Rinzai Zen, because they all translated the gateless barrier as an enlightened person. Does an enlightened person not fall into cause and effect? Anyway, the original, the Chinese is clearly, does a greatly cultivated person, someone who's practiced a lot, fall into cause and effect? I'll come back to that, and I'll come back to the gateless barrier. story because there's a whole second part of this story which appears in that case and also appears in the Book of Serenity just in Wansong's commentary on it. But I first want to just look at the basic issue here. What is our relationship to cause and effect? And after great cultivation, does one still fall into cause and effect?

[05:24]

So again, Hongzhe is the person who originated the Book of Serenity, picked the cases and the verse, wrote the main verse commentary, and then later Wansong wrote commentaries on all of those. Wansong says in his commentary to the case that in terms of not blinding to cause and effect, he based his logic on actuality. Not falling into cause and effect is forced denial. So it's interesting that in the Gateless Barrier, this is the second case right after the case about Dog's Buddha Nature and Mu, which is presenting emptiness teaching. really an elaborate way. Here he says, not falling into cause and effect is forced denial, a nihilistic view. So one understanding of not falling into cause and effect would be to ignore

[06:36]

the conditions of the world and to think that one's practice had provided one with some kind of superiority or something, some kind of separateness from ordinary conditions. The one song goes on, not being blind to cause and effect or not ignoring cause and effect is finding the wondrous along with the flow. So to be in causes and conditions, and find the wondrous there. This is, in some sense, basic Mahayana, that Nirvana is right in samsara. Nirvana is not escaped from samsara. And emptiness teaching has all too often been misunderstood as a forced denial, as Wansung puts it, a kind of nihilistic view to be So something that can happen, particularly maybe more, we have some protection against it being a non-residential urban center in the middle of the city and cause and effect is in our face every day, but if you're immersed in monastic or long meditation and really commune with this aspect of

[08:04]

that which is beyond cause and effect, one can use that as an escape. One can use that as, one can feel like one is caught in, sometimes it's referred to the dragon's cave or the cave of emptiness. This is, throughout Zen history, a warning. There's a warning against this. So the issue here is about the relationship between cause and effect and not being blind to cause and effect on one side and not falling into cause and effect on the other. That's the basic issue in this story. Now, it's interesting that there's so many different aspects to the story. I'll tell you the second part of the story with Huang Po, in which there's a kind of exorcism, so there's a supernatural side to this.

[09:10]

And foxes, I think in Native American culture, are kind of tricksters, but can be benevolent. In almost all of East Asian culture, foxes are malevolent. So that needs to be said, and in some ways, There's also a question or an issue about this old man, this previous Baizhang, being freed from cause and effect just by Baizhang's churning word. So that's also a question. In some ways, Baizhang has performed an exorcism and gotten rid of the, and exorcism was part of Buddhist practice and Zen practice and Soto Zen practice in Japan too. dealing with demons and spirits and so forth. So one can see the story in those terms. So much going on here, but Baizhang himself is, represents as a kind of figure in Chan and Zen, Baizhang or,

[10:18]

Hyakujo is the Japanese pronunciation for those who know that. Baizhang is said to have written the first monastic regulations for Zen. And whether it was actually Baizhang who wrote the first monastic regulations, there is a short text that is attributed to him. Also though, Bai Zhang is famous for a story when he became old and his monks didn't want him to go out and work in the fields and tried to protect him and they hid his tools and he refused to come out of his cabin and refused to eat. And then finally said, a day without work is a day without food. So this is not being blind to cause and effect, to see that one needs to be involved in the world of cause and effect, the world of causes and conditions. But again, as Wansung said, not being blind is to

[11:26]

to cause and effect is finding the wondrous along with the flow, right in the flow, to find the ultimate, that which is unconditioned, right in the world of cause and effect. So there's a turning and a tension around all of this. I'll read Hongsha's verse comments and say a little bit about that. A foot of water, a fathom of wave, for 500 lives he could not do a thing. Not falling, not blind, they haggle, as before entering a nest of complications. So this three-day session could be called a nest of complications. Sorry, here you are. So Hongzhi's verse goes on. Ah ha ha, understand?

[12:30]

If you are clear and free, there's no objection to my babble. The spirits, songs, and shrine dances spontaneously form a harmony, clapping in the intervals, singing la-di-da." So this is Hongzhe's verse comments. There's lots of other comments to this. And I want to talk, maybe focus on Dogen's comments. to some extent, but first I want to go back to the story, because there's the longer version of the story, which is the whole case for the gateless barrier, Mumonkan or Wumenguan, includes something that Wansong just adds into the commentary to the case. So Hongzhe apparently felt that just going to the, just going as far as, you know, The old Baizhang being enlightened after hearing, not blind to cause and effect, that turning word, not ignoring cause and effect, that's the crux of the story.

[13:45]

Hangzhou did not include the rest in this case. But in the Gateless Barrier version of the story, Well, I'll read it from the Gateless Barrier. It's also in the Wansong's commentary. I'll read this version of it. So I have numbers of translations of all these different things. This is Tom Cleary's translation. The first part is the same as the Book of Serenity, basically. Little differences, but nothing significant. So the old man asked, are greatly cultivated people still subject to causality? So they fall into causality, and Baizhang said they're not blind to causality, and the old man was greatly enlightened at these words.

[14:52]

Then the story goes on in the Gateless Barrier, bowing, the old man said, I have shed the wild fox body, which remains on the other side of the mountain. I am taking the liberty of telling you and asking you to perform a monk's funeral." So the master, Baizhang, had one of the group hit the sounding board, that's the han that's out here, and announced to the community that they would send off a dead monk, have a funeral for a dead monk after mealtime. So funerals for monks or priests are a very elaborate affair still. The community was startled and debated about this, wondering how it could be so, seeing that everyone was fine, all of the regular members of the sangha, and there had been no one in the infirmary. After the meal, the master led the group to a cave on the other side of the mountain, where he fished out a dead fox with his staff.

[15:55]

Then he cremated it and had this service for a dead fox. And there's a whole book about this koan by Stephen Hine called Shifting Shape, Shaping Text. And I think he has pictures in here of the place where they found the fox body. Anyway, so there's so many, this is such a funny story. So he performed this ritual monk's funeral for a fox, which just that is scandalous. Here's Baizhang, who's the representative of monastic regulations, the master of forms, doing a fancy monk's funeral for a fox. Foxes, again, are these malevolent creatures that take over and possess people. So, that's the second part of the story. The third part is that evening, this is all in the Wumengon, that evening the master went up in the hall.

[16:59]

and recounted the foretelling events, the foregoing events, including his dialogue with this old man. Huang Po asked, Huang Po was a great student of Baizhang, who later became the teacher of Linji or Rinzai. Huang Po asked, an ancient who gave a mistaken answer fell into the state of a wild fox for 500 lifetimes. What becomes of one who never makes a mistake? I don't know if any of you know such a person. But Huang Po asked this question, challenging his teacher. And the teacher, Baizhang, said, come here and I'll tell you. Huang Po approached and then he gave the master a slap in the face. Master Clapton said, I thought foreigners' beards were red. There is even a red-bearded foreigner here. So this is acknowledging. So this is a reference to Bodhidharma, who was called this foreigner who had a red beard.

[18:06]

Some say he was from Persia. Anyway, it's basically by Zhang. approving of Wang Po. So when Bai Zhang asked Wang Po to come up, we might guess that Bai Zhang was going to slap Wang Po. In that school later on, in that lineage, that became one mode of teaching. So the question again, there's all kinds of questions about who is it who can say what is, beyond causes and conditions, or not falling into cause and conditions. But there's also a reference here when he's talking about foreigners' beards were red. In addition to the reference to Bodhidharma, there's also the fox, the red fox. So anyway, so that's the longer version of the story, which is in some later versions of the transmission of the lamp.

[19:11]

It's not in the early version. And I don't know if Dogen actually even knew that version of the story. He just comments on the Dogen, as I've said, Dogen did not have access to the Book of Serenity and Wansun's comments. But he did have Hongzhi's cases and verses. In the Gateless Barrier, there's shorter commentaries. There's not the extended, there's not the verse commentary and the comments on all of those in the introduction, like in the Book of Serenity and the Blue Cliff Record. But I'll say something about, I'll quote what Woolman says. He has, for every case, he has a brief, prose and verse commentary. If not falling into cause and effect, how could one degenerate into a wild fox? Right? So one couldn't have become a wild fox if they hadn't fallen into cause and effect.

[20:15]

If not blind to causality, how would one be liberated from being a wild fox? Is that a violation of cause and effect for this wild fox to be freed from Baijiang? What's the cause and effect here? If you can set a single eye here, then you will know how the former resident of the mountain gained 500 lifetimes of elegance." So in that comment, he almost implies that these 500 lifetimes of being this horrible wild fox were actually 500 lifetimes of elegance. Maybe the former Baizhong deliberately transgressed and knew that he would or was willing to become a wild fox for 500 lifetimes just for the sake of this story that we're talking about now. I don't know. There's all kinds of ways to turn the story.

[21:16]

Then Wu Man's verse is important in terms of the dynamics of what's going on. He says, not subject, not blind, two faces of one die, or two sides of one coin. Not blind, not subject, 1,000 errors, 10,000 mistakes. OK, so there seems to be a traditional interpretation in Chan, in Chinese Chan, about this story. It's there in Hongzhi's verse two. So Hongzhi says, one of these different texts. He says, not falling, not blind, they haggle, entering a nest of complications. Ha ha, do you understand? Hongzhe implies, he doesn't quite say it, that, again, that not falling into cause and effect and not ignoring cause and effect are two sides of one coin, to put it that way.

[22:29]

There is, in most of the Chinese commentary, that sense of, well, ultimately, they're not separate. So I want to talk about that, and I want to talk about how we might see that. But that brings me to Dogen. our founder in Japan, who brought this Koan tradition in the 1200s to Japan. And Dogen commented on this story many times. In fact, there's two different Shobo Genzo essays about this. One earlier one is called Dai Shugyo, Great Cultivation, great practice. And he kind of takes in that one this side of seeing the possibility of the non-separation of not falling into cause and effect and not ignoring cause and effect.

[23:36]

This is a little bit problematic. In a later Frobo Genzo essay, one of his latest, Jin Shin Inga, Deep Faith in Cause and Effect, Dogen takes a very different view and very strongly comes down on the side of not ignoring cause and effect and emphasizes not ignoring cause and effect and emphasizes precepts and ethical conduct. You know, for those of you who've looked at Dogen, there has been some stereotypical, typical idea of there being an early Dogen and a late Dogen. And actually, it's much more complicated than that. Stephen Hein's book, Did Dogen Go to China, goes into the various nuances of Dogen's career and finds nine different phases. My own feeling is that Dogen does not change his view on anything.

[24:42]

Except this. Except this story. Basically, the shifts in emphasis from his earlier career in Kyoto to Eheiji could be a function of the audience he was speaking to. When Dogen got to Eheiji, when he moved in 1243 from Kind of abruptly, he moved his whole community from Kyoto to the deep mountains of what's now Fukui and founded Eheiji. He was emphasizing monastic practice and the virtue of monks. But really, I think the one shift in Dogen is not about that, but it's about this story. So, again, these two, maybe I'll talk more about these two Shobo Genzo essays in the next couple of days, but in Daishugyo, Great Cultivation, or sometimes it's translated as Great Enlightenment, I don't think that's accurate, is,

[25:48]

sort of takes this side that Hongxia and Wuman take of, they're both, they're related. In Jin Xining, A Deep Faith in Cause and Effect, and this is the very, that was in the very end of Dogen's career, died in 1253, basically his last teachings are from 1252, when he started to emphasize the precepts, and we do the 16 Bodhisattva precepts here, and the importance of ethical conduct, okay? So in addition to the Shobogenzo, in He Koroku, there are several places in Dogen's extensive record where he talks about this case. So I picked out three of them that I want to read and talk about what's going on here. So the first one is Dharamhala Discourse 94, This is from 1242, so still in Kyoto, a year before he left. And that was the time when most of Shobo Genso was written, within a few years of that.

[26:57]

So this Dormohol discourse, after relating the story of Baizhang and the fox, And I'm not sure if he has the part about Huang Po. I would guess not. Anyway, Dogen said, mountains, rivers, and the great earth are the cave of the wild fox. So this phenomenal world is the cave of the wild fox. Receive and discard one piece of skin, flesh, and bone. Cause and effect are very clear and not a personal matter. Partridges sing incessantly in late spring, and a hundred flowers vanish. So here he's celebrating the world of phenomena, the world of cause and effect, the world of conditions, mountains, rivers, and the great earth. They can also be the cave of the wild fox, but how do we recognize this as very clear? And then he has this poetic passage about the partridges sing, which he refers to in a number of other places as a kind of way of expressing the beauty of the world.

[28:09]

But he has this line in here, cause and effect are very clear and not a personal matter. So I want to talk more about that. I think that's very important to how we can work with this koan in our situation of cause and effect. So that was 1242. In 1246, he has another dharma hall discourse, number 205. After relating the story of Baizhang and the wild fox, Dogen asked his assembly, because of the previous Baizhang saying that he did not fall into cause and effect, why did he descend into a wild fox body? As to the later Baizhang saying he was not blind to cause and effect, how did this or how could this cause the release from the wild fox body? So he's questioning.

[29:11]

This is a place where we see Dogen really intensely questioning both sides of this. And then Dogen said, I can't stand this wild fox monster shaking his head and wagging his tail. Stop, stop. So clearly, Dogen struggled with this story. On the one side, why is it, how is it that the old man saying that he did not fall into cause and effect caused him to descend into 500 lifetimes as a wild fox? But then, the later Bai Zhang saying, he's not blind to cause and effect. How could this cause the release from the wild fox body of the old man?

[30:14]

This is the question. And Dogen is having a hard time with it. I can't stand this wild fox monster, he calls it. So again, my own view is that Dogen, this is the one place where Dogen really had a shift. Okay, here's another dharma hall discourse from 1252, number 510. This is one of his last teachings. His last year of teaching, one of the later ones. Students of the way cannot dismiss cause and effect. If you discard cause and effect, you will ultimately deviate from practice realization. And we know the story about Huineng saying to Nanyue, that practice realization cannot be defiled.

[31:16]

But here, or Nanyue saying it and Huineng saying that's exactly, and Sixth Ancestor saying that's exactly what all Buddha ancestors take care of. But Dogen here says, if you discard cause and effect, you will ultimately deviate from practice realization. And I referred to the Japanese Rinzai Zen reading of great cultivation as enlightenment. And we have seen in the history of American Zen people who thought they were above cause and effect getting into lots of trouble through their transgressions. And this keeps happening. So this is an important matter. says, again, in this last Dharamhal discourse, if you discard cause and effect, you will ultimately deviate from practice realization. Then after relating the story of Baizhang's wild fox, Tolkien said, someone doubted this, saying, a wild fox is an animal.

[32:17]

How could it remember 500 lifetimes? So, there's lots of things about just this fox and its nature, and what's going on in the story, and the exorcism, and what are wild foxes anyway. This doubt is most foolish, Dogen says. You should know that various living beings, either animal or human, are inherently endowed with the power to know past lives. which is another, you know, it's a whole separate issue, but very interesting that sometimes knowing past lives is considered one of the powers of the Buddha, but other beings besides Buddhas can know past lives. And Dogen here is saying that various beings, either animal or human, are inherently endowed with this possibility. So this opens up, and Stephen Hine in his book about this koan goes into much more detail about what's going on in terms of the nature of the supernatural and foxes and the whole.

[33:29]

mythology about that in China. Anyway, Dogen goes on. Someone said, not falling into cause and effect and not ignoring are one and the same, and yet either falling or being released simply happens spontaneously, unquote. Dogen says, such views are completely outside the way. In effect, heretical. Today, I, Ehe Dogen, will add a comment If you say people of great cultivation do not fall into cause and effect, you are certainly dismissing cause and effect. If you say they do not ignore cause and effect, you have not avoided counting the neighbor's treasure. Are you ignoring cause and effect? After a pause, Dogen said, after many years of residing on this mountain, A black staff becomes a dragon, and this morning arouses wind and thunder.

[34:34]

So Dogen had been up an agey area for almost 10 years. So this is a great caution to us about not ignoring cause and effect. I want to go back though, so there's so much to say about all of this, but I want to go back to the first dharma hall discourse I read from Dogen. Mountains, rivers, and the great earth are the cave of the wild fox, receiving discard one piece of skin, flesh, and bones. So cause and effect are very clear, and not a personal matter. Then he talks about the partridges and the hundred flowers. So for us, looking at this koan, the issue of karma, the question of karma,

[35:46]

And then the whole idea of rebirth, like this fox for 500 lifetimes, is a very complex question, a very tricky question, one of the more contentious issues in Buddhist and Zen philosophy, to put it that way. Not to overgeneralize, but I think in most of Asian Buddhist and Zen history, they've thought of karma as personal. And here, Dogen is saying it's not a personal matter. So there are lots of stories in folklore about rebirths and past lives in Japanese and Zen tradition in China, too. And usually it's understood as, you know, if something good happens to you, that's because you did something good in a past life or vice versa.

[36:51]

If something bad happens, it's the result of your previous wrongdoing. And Dogen talks that way sometimes too. But there's also this teaching of non-self and this teaching of interconnectedness. And I would say that karma is not just a personal matter. And we see this very clearly now, here, in our time and place. So there's also collective karma. And I've talked about the effects on all of us of the collective karma of our country, of slavery and racism, of killing off many Native American cultures. That previous karma affects us maybe as much or more than our personal karma. So I'm not saying there's not personal karma. Of course, what we do that produces wholesome results eventually and vice versa.

[37:58]

But we have this powerful example today with this huge climate damage storm Florence in the Carolinas. And I guess it's affecting Virginia and Georgia too. I just went before I left to come here around five or six this morning. The eye hadn't hit the coast yet, but there was tremendous flooding. And, you know, people will be killed. People will lose all they have. And I would say this is not because of their personal karma. Well, maybe they decided to live there or they were born there. It's kind of amazing because most of the TV weather people do not mention that this is affected by climate.

[39:05]

change and climate damage and that which warms the water and very much increases the intensity of these hurricanes. And we have the example of California fires and now East Coast hurricanes, all natural events enhanced greatly by the fossil fuel industry. To their knowledge, back in the 70s, they knew the effects of climate damage. And North Carolina that's now being battered, the government there outlawed any mention of climate change amongst their officials. It's illegal for them to mention climate change and the scientists who work for them and so forth. And the Trump government recently, very recently, transferred $10 million, maybe you've heard this, from FEMA, who is responsible for responding to storms and the effects of storms and the people who are damaged by storms.

[40:13]

They transferred $10 million from FEMA to ICE, to the immigration agency, who is now building more detention camps. Some of them are in southwest Texas, but they're also around the country, but there's now 12,800 children detained indefinitely in camps in our country because they tried to come into the country or in some cases maybe because they're the wrong ethnicity. So this is the collective karma. that we should not ignore, that we cannot ignore. And of course, it affects people personally, but this is ancient twisted karma that goes way back. It's not just the current government that has created this problem. Anyway, there's a lot more to say about all of that.

[41:15]

But it's certainly relevant to what Dogen's saying and what this case is saying. And there's so much more to talk about all of this. What is, on some level, perhaps not ignoring cause and effect while also ignoring That which doesn't fall into cause and effect might be as much of a problem as the wild fox had because of ignoring cause and effect. So I'm not going to say the two sides are the same. And I'll stand with Dogen emphasizing the importance of the precepts in our ethical conduct. Dvaipayana das remembers to many beings.

[42:27]

I heard that one of the problems in North Carolina is going to be they have many hog farms right near the coast, and there is manure and other waste from that that is going to now be very toxic and is going to now go into all the waterways. So the after effects of the hurricane are going to be not just what happens in the next several days, although they're going to have massive amounts of rain, for several days in that whole area. But is there a not ignoring cause and effect that can be informed by not being caught by cause and effect? How can we ignore, not ignore cause and effect, in a way that we don't get caught by it? Which is to say, how can we respond, so the Bodhisattva way, and maybe the old Baizhang did this by becoming a wild fox for 500 lifetimes, so we could talk about this.

[43:33]

Part of our practice is the integration of, not just part of our practice, the whole point of our practice, is the integration of seeing that which goes beyond cause and effect, while not ignoring cause and effect, while not blind to cause and effect, while not turning away from even the collective karma that's, destroying people's lives in the Southeast right now. How do we face cause and effect, including our personal karma, and at the same time bring to that something of the deeper communion into the ultimate unconditioned reality which is not caught by cause and effect. So that's my attempt at some synthesis there.

[44:39]

But there's lots of ways to turn this story. That's why this koan has been studied for a thousand years along with the others, but any part of it that we go to many implications. So just to throw in one more piece, talking about the interaction between Bai Zhang, the teacher who did a monk's funeral for a fox, and his student, Huang Bo, who came up and slapped him. Later, Yang Shan, another great master, said, this is in that one song's commentary to the Book of Serenity, Bai Zhang attained the great capacity.

[45:41]

Huang Bo attained the great function. They didn't have their names for no reason. So great capacity and great function. So our capacity communing with that which is beyond cause and effect, or includes cause and effect, is Baizhang's churning word, but then there's this great function. How do we actually go up and respond to the world? Sometimes with a slap, whatever. How do we respond to the authority that insists that there's no climate change, even as California burns and the southeast coast is deluged with floods? Well, there's lots to talk about here. For those of us who are here for the day, we'll have a discussion period this afternoon over tea, and we'll be talking about this for the next couple of days.

[46:46]

And basically, I've laid out all the material of this today. But there's so much more to talk about. But I'll take a few minutes now if anybody has any comment or response or question about this right now. Yes, Phyllis. Well, part of the story is that you can't go beyond. But to see that which is not caught by, I think that's a way of putting it. Does not fall into cause and effect? Maybe we fall into cause and effect.

[47:48]

Of course we do. Every day. But how do we... You know, the partridges sing. Flowers bloom and fade. How do we... right in cause and effect, not be caught by it, be willing to pay attention and respond. That's what I would say. But maybe somebody else has something new to say. And this is also the way we deal with this. It's not a personal matter. You have the idea. Yeah, but he's dead.

[50:24]

It's a dead fox. So this just keeps turning. And I'm tempted to throw in the dispute between Stephen Batchelor and Bob Thurman, but I don't know if that's too much. Yes. Being caught in the mud of the world. for the benefit of all beings. And that, you know, as I mentioned before, history was, you know, history was the sort of second,

[51:28]

Right. And there are people right now who are getting splattered by mud and soaked as they go to respond and try and help the people who are caught in, who didn't evacuate and are caught in, you know, anyway, there's a cataclysm going on right now. And I have friends and family in North Carolina and It was in the area where this, have been in the area where this hurricane touched down. So it's, yeah. And then you're bringing up bodhisattva activity. How do we respond? How do we get caught in the mud? So one of the many things that's going on in this story is the question of rebirth. This old man, who was a former Bajang, gets reborn as a fox. And again and again for 500 lifetimes. And so the question of rebirth, so there's rebirth which is just like, you know, each period there's another Zazen.

[52:46]

But then there's this idea of rebirth and from body to body, like reincarnation almost. I don't know which one to present first, but Bob Thurman, Robert Thurman, who Uma Thurman used to be Robert's daughter, but now he's Uma Thurman's dad. Anyway, he's a great Tibetan Buddhist scholar, and he said you have to believe in rebirth and reincarnation to do the Bodhisattva practice, because we're not going to fix all of this. We're not going to switch from fossil fuel to renewable and stop trying to take advantage of the planet. you know, in this lifetime. So we have to do this over many lifetimes. So Robert Thurman asserted that you have to believe in rebirth to do the bodhisattva practice. I don't agree, but I also don't necessarily disagree about the possibilities of rebirth that he talks about.

[53:49]

Stephen Batchelor, who's another very well-known, more secular American Buddhist scholar who was a monk in Korea and had extensive serious practice background says that in the West we have to discard that idea of rebirth and reincarnation, that that's a trap and that it's dangerous. that, and I was once at a conference with Stephen Batchelor, and I said that I sort of agree with both sides, and he got very angry, and he said, no, you can't. We have to do the work in this lifetime. Don't wait till, if we think we're gonna have other lifetimes to take care of things, that's terrible. You have to, so anyway, there's that. That's part of the story, too. Yes, Asha. is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

[55:08]

So if we're like, just for a specific example, if we're binge drinking every day, we are going to, maybe for a while, it will seem like we're getting away with it. Maybe we're hungover, but then you get up, you go to work. But eventually, we're going to wind up with a whole host of diseases, some of which we're not going to be able to undo. Right. But still in that person who's in that state, there is food in nature. So the possibility of change is always there. That's right. But there's still Buddha nature, right?

[56:09]

So how can we respond to the situation, given our particular position? Well, yes. I agree with all of that. But there's also, in this story, and in the Stephen Batchelor and Robert Thurman talking about rebirth, the literal version of rebirth from lifetime to lifetime. So that's a question, too. But yes, I agree. Yes to everything you just said. But he's talked about his own past lives. He spoke, according to the sutras, talked to his disciples about who they were in a past life several hundred lifetimes ago and who they were going to be in future lifetimes. So it's part of the tradition. And Stephen Batchelor's saying we should throw that part of it out. Anyway, that's maybe a footnote in this story, but it's there with Bai Zhang and the fox.

[57:10]

It's not about predestination. That's important. It's not. not ignoring cause and effect means that everything we do right now will have an effect. And even if we have been a binge drinker in the past, what we do today makes a difference. That's basic. So study of karma and study of cause and effect is part of the implication of this, that yes, we have to look at the possibility. I mean, a current, but, uh, A notable example, I heard somebody on TV talking about a prominent politician who lacked empathy totally. But they said, well, maybe they don't lack. And he was asked if he was a sociopath and said yes. But it's not that he totally lacks empathy.

[58:13]

It's just that it's buried very, very, very deep. And he can't recognize it. That was what was asserted anyway. Just on, you know. Well, but if you're somebody who comes to Zen practice and you've done some bad stuff or you've acted in unwholesome ways, it's not so academic. No, but that prominent politician is not coming to Zen practice as far as we can tell. Well, not yet. So whether it's there or not is an academic question until you have conditions to. Maybe we're getting off the track of the fox koan, but maybe this is exactly the fox koan, that we get caught in this with all these wild foxes. And there is the story of Angulimala. You all know about Angulimala. Phyllis, you don't know about, he was one of the 10 great disciples of Shakyamuni who had previously been a serial killer.

[59:19]

And Shakyamuni got him to stop murdering people. And then he became an arhat. So he still had to face the consequences of his previous actions when some of his victims' families came after him and did him in. But anyway, we can go on and on and on. But we're having to face the consequences of our ancestors' previous actions. That too, yes. So that's maybe the way in which things are reborn. Lots of ways, yes. Yeah, and then you can go ahead and do anything to anybody because you're enlightened.

[60:38]

Okay, we should stop, but we have a whole weekend to keep going. Did you have something, Levi? but I can save it for this afternoon.

[61:04]

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