It occurred to me that it would probably be a good idea if I read to you a little bit of the poems that this case is based on. The shin-chin-mei, sometimes called shin-chin-mei. The believing mind. Or the mind of faith. Faith in big mind. by the third, purported to be by the third ancestor in China, Kangxi Sosong, and maybe the oldest known Zen poem.

[01:00]

So, I think I'll read a little bit of that. The supreme way is not difficult, if only you do not pick and choose. Neither love nor hate, and you will clearly understand. Be off by a hair, that's the critical line. Be off by a hair and you are as far apart as heaven from earth. If you want it to appear, be neither for nor against. for and against opposing each other. This is the mind's dis-ease. Without recognizing the mysterious principle, it is useless to practice quietude.

[02:04]

The way is perfect like great space, without lack, without excess. Because of grasping and rejecting, you cannot attain it. Do not pursue conditioned existence. do not abide in acceptance of emptiness. In oneness and equality, confusion vanishes of itself. Stop activity and return to stillness, and that stillness will be even more active. Only stagnating in duality, how can you recognize oneness? If you fail to penetrate oneness, both places lose their function. Banish existence and you fall into existence. Follow emptiness and you turn your back on it. Excessive talking and thinking turn you away from harmony with the way. Cut off talking and thinking and there is nowhere you cannot penetrate.

[03:09]

Return to the root and attain the principle. Pursue illumination and you lose it. One moment of reversing the light is greater than the previous emptiness. The previous emptiness is transformed. It was all a product of diluted views. No need to seek the real. Just extinguish your views. Do not abide in dualistic views. Take care not to seek after them. As soon as there is right and wrong, the mind is scattered and lost. Two comes from one. yet do not keep the one. When one mind does not arise, myriad dharmas are without defect. Without defect, without dharmas, no arising, no mind. The subject is extinguished with the object.

[04:11]

The object sinks away with the subject. Object is object because of the subject. Subject is subject because of the object. Know that the two are originally one emptiness. In one emptiness, the two are the same, containing all phenomena. Not seeing, fine or coarse, how can there be any bias? The great way is broad, neither easy nor difficult. With narrow views and doubts, haste will slow you down. Attach to it and you lose the measure. The mind will enter a deviant path. Let it go and be spontaneous. Experience no going or staying. Accord with your nature. Unite with the way. Wander at ease without vexation. Bound by thoughts, you depart from the real.

[05:14]

And sinking into a stupor is as bad. It is not good to weary the spirit. Why alternate between aversion and affection? If you wish to enter the one vehicle, do not be repelled by the sense realm. With no aversion to the sense realm, you become one with true enlightenment. The wise have no motives. Fools put themselves in bondage. One dharma is not different from another. The deluded mind clings to whatever it desires. Using mind to cultivate mind, is this not a great mistake? The erring mind begets tranquility and confusion. In enlightenment, there are no likes or dislikes. The duality of all things issues from false discriminations. A dream, an illusion, a flower in the sky. How could they be worth grasping?

[06:16]

Gain and loss, right and wrong, discard them all at once. If the eyes do not close in sleep, all dreams will cease to themselves. If the mind does not discriminate, all dharmas are of one suchness. The essence of one suchness is profound. Unmoving, conditioned things are forgotten. Contemplate all dharmas as equal. and you return to things as they are. When the subject disappears, there can be no measuring or comparing." This is very much all of these, bear down in this case. Contemplate all dharmas as equal, and you return to things as they are. When the subject disappears, there can be no measuring or comparing. Stop activity, and there is no activity. When activity stops, there is no rest.

[07:18]

Since two cannot be established, how can there be one? In the very ultimate, rules and standards do not exist. Develop a mind of equanimity and all deeds are put to rest. Anxious doubts are completely cleared. Right faith is made upright. Nothing lingers behind. Nothing can be remembered. Bright and empty, functioning naturally, the mind does not exert itself. It is not a place of thinking, difficult for reason and emotion to fathom. In the dharma realm of true suchness, there is no other, no self. To accord with it is vitally important. Only refer to not to. In not to, all things are in unity. Nothing is not included. The wise, throughout the ten directions, all enter this principle.

[08:21]

This principle is neither hurried nor slow. One thought for ten thousand years. Abiding nowhere, yet everywhere. The ten directions are right before you. The smallest is the same as the largest. In the realm where delusion is cut off, The largest is the same as the smallest. No boundaries are visible. Existence is precisely emptiness. Emptiness is precisely existence. If it is not like this, then you must not preserve it. One is everything, everything is one. If you can be like this, why worry about not finishing? Faith and mind are not two. Non-duality is faith and mind. The path of words is cut off. There is no past, no future, no present." I read the whole thing. I couldn't find a place to stop. Well, as I read that, I could see so many references to this case all the way through.

[09:32]

So this first part of the poem is the exposition, and the rest is commentary. The first part of the case is, I mean, of the poem is, the supreme way is not difficult. If only you did not pick and choose, neither love nor hate, and you will clearly understand. be off by a hair, and you are as far apart as heaven from earth." That's the subject of the poem, and the rest is commentary. And just like this case, it's also commentary on the poem. So today, tonight, I can't remember exactly where we stopped, but we didn't get very far into the verse.

[10:58]

We did, we did, I did read the verse, I think, when, about the fly and chosen the balance. But we didn't finish that commentary. But I think it would be good if I just read through the case up to that point to bring us up to speed. I don't want to read too much without some kind of a dialogue, but I think it would be helpful if I read the case up to that point, and then we can deal with the last part. Somebody opened the door, but I think they were afraid to come in. Anyway, in the introduction, well, the cave, Fayan's Hare's Breath. A hare breath's distance difference tips the balance on the scale, is a more literal meaning of the title.

[12:06]

So in the introduction, he says, a pair of solitary wild geese flap on the ground and fly up high. A couple of Mandarin ducks stand alone by the bank of the pond, leaving aside for the moment the meeting of arrow points. What about when a saw cuts a scale beam? Or when it's time to get rid of the scale beam? So in the case, Fa Yan asked Zhu Shan, A hare's breadth's difference is as the distance between heaven and earth. How do you understand that? Zhushan said, a hare's breadth's difference is as the distance between heaven and earth. Fayan said, how can you get it that way? Zhushan said, I am just thus. What about you? And Fayan said, a hare's breadth's difference is as the distance between heaven and earth.

[13:10]

Xushan thereupon bowed, or as if he got it. And then in the commentary, the master of, this is the first example, the master of Xushan and Fayan both studied with Dizang, deeply benefiting from the power of refinement of studying from the side. This public case is the same as when Fa Yan broke down Superintendent Zhe, who was thereupon enlightened. Superintendent Zhe was Chan Master Zhuang Zhe of Bao An Monastery in Jinling. Fa Yan asked him, who have you seen? And Zhuang Zhe said, I saw Master Qing Feng. And Fa Yan said, what did he say? And Zhuang Zhe said, I asked, what is the student's self?

[14:13]

And Qing Feng said, the god of fire comes seeking fire. Actually, the fire boy comes seeking fire. The spirit of fire comes seeking fire. Fa Yuan said, how do you understand this? And Zhuangzi said, fire boy is in the province of fire. To seek fire by fire is like seeking the self by the self. Fayan said, even understanding this way, how could you get it? And Xuanzang said, I am just thus. I don't know what your idea is, master. And Fayan said, you ask me and I'll tell you. Xuanzang said, what is the student's self? Fayan said, the fire boy comes seeking fire. Xuanzang was suddenly enlightened with these words. Fa Yin had chisel and awl in his hands. Taken away, the seal remains.

[15:17]

Left there, the seal is ruined. He broke up Superintendent Tzu's barrier of feelings and pulled open or unlocked Master Zhu Shan's chains of consciousness. In the third ancestors' poem on the mind of faith, the Xin Xin Ming, which I just read. It says, The ultimate way is without difficulty. It is only avoiding being choosy. Just don't hate or love. Be naturally open and pure. If there is even a hair's breadth of difference, it is as the distance between heaven and earth. Fa Yan used this to question the master of Xushan. making of it a piece of tile to knock on the door. Nowadays, if you asked people about it, 1,000 out of 1,000 would make a logical understanding, or else just stay in the realm of non-striving. This one here, meaning Zhushan, didn't fall into speculative thought.

[16:26]

He just said, a hair's breadth's difference is as the distance between heaven and earth. He quite evidently had the relaxation of mastery, but then Fa Yen, after all, didn't accept him, but said, how can you get it that way? This is why he was the fountainhead of the Fa Yen stream, so Fa Yen could see through him. At this point here, I always tell the students to consider in two ways and look. When Master Zhushan said this in the first place, why was it not accepted? Then afterwards, why did Fayan turn around and say the same thing? In the meantime, Zhushan said, I am just thus. How about you? He was looking for an utterly new sun and moon to make a separate life.

[17:28]

Now, Fayan didn't slip a bit. Like before, he said simply, here's Brett's difference. He says, the distance between heaven and earth. I had written down, he had the words, but not the tune. Dong Chuan-chi, the master of Zhushan, responded in this way. No, I'm sorry. Dong Chuan-chi said, the master of Zhushan responded in this way. Why didn't Fayan agree? And then, when he questioned further, a second time, Fayan just said the same thing. Thereupon, Zhushan got it. Tell me, where is the puzzle? If you can see through, I would say you've got something to go on. I say, I say, how could you get it this way? This is why it is said it is the same way as ever.

[18:31]

When you meet someone and talk about it, then it becomes confusing. Zhushan thereupon bowed. He understood, all right. But intellectual reasoning is hard to admit. Wu Zujia would have struck Zhushan right across the back and fai instead. I say, so it turns out. Some books have Fa Yan saying, the master of the mountain has penetrated. I think the master of the mountain here means is Yushan. I say, neither of these fellows has done with playing with a mud ball. If at that time Fa Yan had said to me, how could you get it that way? I would say to him, long have I heard that you have this functional key, teacher. or else I would just wash my hands and walk away. Seeing to it that it is settled all at once.

[19:36]

When he doesn't believe, let's ask Tian Tong. His verse says, and then we go into the verse of Tian Tong. This one. Yeah. Usually there's a straight man and a funny man. Often there's a straight man and a funny man. Two straight men. Who are the two straight men? Zhi Shan and Fei Yang. And Fei Yang? Oh yeah. They're both playing straight? Well, but it wasn't equal to begin with.

[20:48]

It was only equal to end with. Yes, sir. To begin with, Jishan thought it was equal. That's the point of the story. He thought it was equal. He thought he understood it. He thought his understanding was the same as Fayan. That's why he never came to ask Fayan a question. Like, how do you say it? It's very hard not to relate to this intellectually as we're doing this study. Well, if you look at this case and read it, what we're doing here is trying to find out what is actually happening.

[21:57]

The main thing here is to look at what's actually happening here, and what are these people actually saying, and what is going on here. As far as the question, does the fire, what is the self of, or how do you understand a hair spreads difference. That's up to everyone to find out for themselves. Actually, maybe my question is not impertinent, it's confessional. Confess. Fess up. I confess that I'm... Baffled? No, I'm unavoidably sucked into trying to Right. Well, do you notice that we're not really doing that? No. We're not trying to answer the question.

[23:05]

But I bet there's more than me in this room that's trying to answer these questions. But you should be trying to answer the question. Every one of us should be trying to answer the question. It's the question of everyone. This is our question. The question is, How do you not create the gap? And I'm not asking you to answer that question with words. But how do you demonstrate not creating the gap? That's the point. But there's also a way of Fayan and Zhushan are actually discussing with words, right?

[24:18]

Yeah, they are discussing. They are. Because Qing Feng, he asked, question, and the teacher, he discussed it with the teacher, and he gave the teacher an answer. And the teacher apparently said, that's right. But that was his intellectual understanding. It wasn't his true understanding, even though it was the right answer. But it wasn't his right answer. He gave the right answer, but he didn't understand it. He understood it, but he didn't own it. And it's only after going through it with Fa Yen that it became his own. And it only became... I told you the whole story, which isn't presented here, where Fa Yen...

[25:22]

study, you know, was with Fa Yen for three years without asking him any questions. And then when he finally had this dialogue, he left. And he said, Fa Yen has a thousand students. He must be a good teacher. And then he came back and bowed. And that was his actual demonstration. That, that's how he, that, his bow was closing the gap between heaven and earth. It's not stated here. I kind of think that it should be in here, because that's what opened his mind to closing the gap, was his humbleness, his letting go of self. When he bowed to Faiyan, And that was his letting go and closing the gap.

[26:35]

That's why bowing is a very important part of our practice. And to understand how to bow is our koan. Genjo koan is knowing how to bow. What do you do when you bow? What do you think that means? How do you present a bow to your teacher so that you close the gap? So when you bow, think about it. How do you bow? What are you doing when you bow? And how do you close the gap? How do you let go? How do you let go of everything when you bow? So, if you can really understand bow, that's closing the gap, and it's letting go of everything.

[27:50]

To be enlightened is not so difficult. We put a lot of emphasis on enlightenment as if it's some really, you know, distant, unreachable goal. But it's really quite simple. Enlightenment is not the difficult part of practice. Well, tell us what is. The difficult part of practice is how to maintain enlightened practice, moment after moment. The koan is, how do you bow without bowing?

[29:10]

Which happens everywhere. How do you bow without using your hands? or letting go. Yes, but that has to be, that's good understanding, but it has to be demonstrated. Should I bow? How do you bow with your mouth? Well, I find your own words very But I can't help thinking that we're studying this koan to get something equally helpful and clear out of it. But it seems so subtle.

[30:11]

I mean, we're hearing about a student who's gone off, but cannot perceive that he's gone off in a wrong direction, say. And we can barely perceive his going off, let alone our own going off. And it just seems like to be the most helpful, shouldn't we all just be sitting zazen? I don't want to be impertinent either, but I don't understand how, in studying this case, what we're supposed to get out of it. Well, if the case is an illustration, it's illustrating something. All the commentary, the case is very simple, right? The master said this, the student said that, the master said this. That's very simple. And so the commentary is illustrating what's going on. So that's what we're dealing with, is this illustration and making sense of the illustration.

[31:20]

But the koan is something that you have to deal with. So what we're doing is making sense of the commentary. And the commentary keeps pointing to something all the time. It keeps pointing to what's actually happening in the case. You see, now this illustrates the case, and then an illustrator from that point of view, and then an illustrator from this point of view. There are all these arrows pointing to, you know, looking at it from different sides. But are we not better off trying to understand ourselves? Well, that's what this is. This is your koan. That's what I just said. This is the koan of each one of us. This is a basic koan for everyone. Yes, try to understand it.

[32:23]

Of course. Don't forget it. How do you close the gap? That's the colon. How do you understand this? A Hare's Brits difference is that it's the difference between heaven and earth. How do you understand this? That's the basic question. That's your question. And then the case. And then all these commentaries pointing to help you understand. To help you understand it. To give you some depth of direction. You can take one koan and work on it to the exclusion of all other koans for 30 years.

[33:26]

But that would mean we would never be able to, there wouldn't be any sense in reading the rest of the book. So it's interesting. There's a lot of things going on. It's more than just trying to understand the koan, the meaning of the koan. I mean, of course we want to understand the meaning of the koan, and each koan is about ourself. Every one of these koans is about ourself. But there's also a great richness of Zen lore, and there's many things going on at once here, and history, and what Chinese Buddhist Zen was about, and the interplay between the various teachers and students. and how they dealt with it and so forth. All that's very interesting and vital for understanding, yes. I was going to say that it seems like a good question to ask, you know, what's the reason to study this historical text?

[34:33]

We could just be talking about it. But when we study it, as you said, it's really important. to see that the essential matter is the same, whether it's thousands of years ago, in a different culture, or now. That when you get down to it, the question is the same. And that's very profound, and it really connects us to our practice. Rebecca? Speaking of... Do you have to speak up? Therefore, I'll go back. And he goes back and bows. That hardly seems necessarily like a humble bow. I mean, we've seen in our own larger Zen center practice some things that have happened with people that have been followed by many, many students, where the teachers who were followed by fewer remain.

[35:47]

I mean, there's sort of a popularity thing there, you know, this teacher is important, therefore... No, I don't think that's the sense. You can get that sense from it, but that's not the sense. The sense is, you realize that there must be something about this teacher that rings true. Not that he has a lot of followers. But I can see how you get that idea that comes up there. But there's another meaning is he has many enlightened students. Anyway, his bow sets up the condition for his mind being open to Fayan's repeating the statement again, in which it really penetrated all the way to his bones.

[37:17]

You said earlier that he had the words but not the music? He had the words but not the music? Yes. Or not the tune? Right. It seems to me that the koan itself seems very empty in itself. And when I read the commentary it fills it out a little bit more. But my feeling about the koan itself is that it's just words. And I wonder if it's missing something. And this is a good example, because the same thing is said three times. Was it said the same way in those three times? And if we were there, would we understand it better? Well, each time it was said differently. I mean, each time was a different time. But the first time was the question.

[38:22]

And the second time, the student repeated it. Then the third time, the teacher restated it after telling him that it was wrong. So here we have the teacher saying, no, that's not right. And then when the student comes back, he repeats the same thing. It is right. So what was wrong? That's what it hinges on. Well, that's right. Just add water. He had the words, but he didn't have the tune. And then he got the tune.

[39:30]

But what was wrong the first time, we don't know enough about him to know what was wrong. Or is it in the story? It's in the story. What was wrong was that he knew the words. That means it's in his head. And when he got the tune, that meant it penetrated all the way through. So, if you... You have to be able, you know, you have to have some understanding, have some background in Zen lore to kind of understand what's going on. And otherwise, you know, it's just words, you know, which don't make a lot of sense. So the more you understand, kind of zen, you know, lore and study more koans, then you begin to see, you kind of know, get a picture of what's going on.

[40:42]

Because within that context, in the context of non-discrimination, If you don't know that it's within the context of discrimination, then you think about it forever without coming to any conclusion about it. So you have to understand that everything is metaphor, for one thing. And for another, that everything that's being talked about in all these cases is about non-discriminating mind. It seems to me that if the teacher says, makes a mistake, and the student then says, I understand it the same way, and the teacher says, well, what do you mean by that? Or how could that be right? And if the student is flustered because he said the same thing,

[41:43]

fixed. But what is sought is not being attached to this has a specific meaning or I'm saying something about the nature of things. I think that the students in then the teacher knew there was less understanding. But when the teacher then says the same thing again, indicating clearly, not being attached to the words. It's like in that little chant we do, the meaning is not in the words, but in response to inquiring impulse. So the meaning is not in the words, but saying the same thing, but then behaving as if Ah, see, this is how you're not attached.

[43:04]

far away. And I'm used to the idea of what you know is a process. And I look at that and it's impossible for me to ever do that. That's why it's a koan. That's why it's called a koan. Right, right. So I'm just taking one-sided, right? In my representation. Yes, you are. You still got to divide it. As long as it's As long as there's the slightest gap, then it's as if there was the most enormous gap. It doesn't matter how big or small the gap is, it's still a gap. That seems impossible. Yes, that's right. It always seems impossible as long as you fall into one side or another. It seems to me that it's not so much about getting it as it is about deepening one's understanding.

[44:38]

Well, first one has to get it before one has understanding. Oh, shit. Then one deepens one's understanding. But you have to have understanding before you can deepen it. There's so many ways. What? There's so many ways to deepen one's understanding. Well, there are many ways to deepen one's understanding. I don't think they have to do with have to do with attaining the Self. And the answer verifies that. The response verifies that the person has attained the Self, has attained themselves, understands their true Self. That's what the answer is about. The answer comes from that place. It's not something in your head. It comes from the place where you are.

[45:42]

That's what this whole case is about. It's not about, he gave the right answer, but the answer was from here. So the difference between the first time when he didn't get it, and the second time when he did get it, has more to do with an internal sense? Of course. Yes, it does. Completely open. So there's no gap. You had to be at the place of no gap. It's hard to, you know, you can say many things, but they're metaphors for your absolute and relative form of emptiness. Every day we say this, form is emptiness and emptiness is form. That's what it's about. It's about form is emptiness and emptiness is form.

[46:48]

It's about really experiencing that. Yes? Why couldn't heaven and earth be both earth as heaven or heaven as earth? Earth is heaven and heaven is earth. Of course, that's the no gap. If you see a gap between heaven and earth, this is the problem with most religion. I got a letter from a 13-year-old boy at King Junior High studying Zen. He was studying religion and he needed He wrote me a great letter. I couldn't believe it. But the first question was, does Zen believe, or Buddhism, or Zen believe that there is a God outside?

[47:51]

See, people think of God as outside. Something other than what we are. Even though we know that it's closer than hands and feet. Still, we think that it's out there. God out there, you know. That's the gap. That's the gap between heaven and earth. God is out there somewhere. We supplicate. Well, actually the supplication makes sense because it means basically the desire for oneness or for unity. But people feel that there still has to be that separation. and it's built in to religion, to Christianity anyway. Not completely, I mean, you can always argue it, but still, most religious practice is dualistic.

[48:55]

They pick and choose, they pick Him instead of Earth. They what? Pick, they pick and choose. Well, Heaven is out there and Earth is here, yeah. Heaven is... Heaven is out there and this is Earth, you know, and so when you die, you go to Heaven. And this Earth is just, you know, Buddhists believe that Earth is also a kind of hell realm, you know, can be, but it, you know, Here's breath difference, and you have hell, or you have heaven, or you have neither one. Heaven is hell, and hell is heaven.

[50:04]

Is that good or bad? Well, I think it was bad. I think it was incorrect or error. Yeah. But he was really good. So we say samsara is nirvana and nirvana is samsara. But to live in that is to close the gap. So it's easy to say nirvana is samsara and samsara is nirvana. I mean, you can understand that, but to actually live it is something else. Yes? So when we close the gap, the whole world changes? Yeah. Yeah, you know, we have a view of the world, right? Or we have several views of the world. But when we have no specific view, then the world changes.

[51:29]

Because we create the world. The world is a manifestation of our mind. We're creating it moment by moment, according to our views. The way we see it and the way we respond to it. One person can create a heavenly place on earth. Someone else would create a hell. Just because of the way we think. The world is just raw material. And our mind creates heaven and hell. So I guess you can speak of a heaven and a hell, but it's all right here.

[52:38]

And we can see very clearly how some people are trying very hard to create a heaven, and other people are trying very hard to create a hell. So the tension is really dynamic. And heavenly realm doesn't manifest until everyone is living in it. But if we close the gap, doesn't it change for everyone? It does change for everyone, but everyone doesn't experience it. Then why does it change for everyone? Well, because you can see that everyone is intrinsically enlightened. You can see that everyone has the potential for enlightenment, even though they're not enlightened.

[53:49]

But that's not the same as changing for everyone. No, it doesn't change for everyone, but you can see that everyone, you yourself, your view, you don't have a specific view. You don't have a partial view. So you can see that everyone has, we say is already enlightened, but it means has the potential for enlightenment. You're talking about changing people. It doesn't really change that everyone has the potential. You can see that everyone has the potential, so when you see that, then you treat everyone as Buddha.

[54:56]

You treat everyone What you appeal to in people is their enlightened nature. It doesn't change everyone. But it changes your perception of everyone. It really changes your perception of everyone. So, to get on with the case, in the verse, when a fly sits on the balance of scales, you have a scale, with two sides, it has a pole, I mean a beam and a pole and two sides, I think that's the kind of scale we're talking about.

[56:06]

And you put some weight on this side, then you put some weight on this side and they may be even, evenly weighed. And then a fly comes and sits on it and tilts the balance. Just that, that slight bit of tilting of the balance throws everything off. That divides heaven from earth. That's the metaphor. It doesn't take very much. The balance scale of myriad ages shows up unevenness. Pounds, ounces, drams, and grains. You see them clearly. But after all, it finally reverts and gives up to my zero point on the scale. So then there's the commentary on this verse.

[57:09]

And the first line, he says, the commentary on the first line, He said, Tian Tong's opening line, but this opening line refers to the opening line of the case, not of the verse, which is a hairsprint's difference. So Tian Tong's opening line immediately sees through. A hair's breadth of difference is as that between heaven and earth. Master Hui Yuan of Lushan said, here's a commentator, Master Hui Yuan. He said, ultimately, how can basis and aspect come from the realm of origin and destruction or cessation, being and nothingness? A slight involvement with the shifting environment shows a force capable of disintegrating this mountain.

[58:18]

There's a simpler way to interpret that, which is, how can the origin come from creation or destruction or form or emptiness? How can that be? How can the origin come from creation or destruction. So the origin is not subject to creation or destruction. The origin of things is not subject to anything, although creation and destruction are its expressions. Even though there's nothing but change, even though things arise and disappear, the origin is not changed.

[59:20]

It's not affected by change, even though it is changed. It's like, maybe you have a ball of dough, a round ball of dough and you keep kneading that ball of dough and every time you knead it, it changes in shape. But it's still the same ball of dough and it hasn't changed at all, even though it's continually changing. And you can always make it into the same ball of dough again. So a slight movement can collapse a whole mountain.

[60:25]

That's the sense of the wrist. A slight movement can collapse a whole mountain. So just another way of saying a fly It can change the whole course of things. The third ancestor, Master Sosan, who wrote the Xin Xin Ming, said the word, he has the word avoid, but I think actually it's choice. Sorry. Kwan Lam says that word is really choice rather than avoid. But one way or the other, he said both of them, actually. He said avoid and he said choice. But the other word seems to be choice. The third patriarch said the word choice in his poem, Xin Xin Ming. When you pick and choose, then it's a problem.

[61:25]

Himself, already hating and loving from the first. So it's a kind of reference, kind of a way of saying, well, you know, the third patriarch is also, you know, from the first, even though he says this, he's also, even though he says choice and attachments or hating and, just hating and loving will cause you a big problem in discriminating mind. But from the first, he's also hating and loving. So this is, I think, an interesting point. But then he says, just don't hate and love. So here's this guy that's hating and loving, and he says, just don't hate and love. And be naturally open and pure. All of a sudden, realizing, which is not in there.

[62:28]

You people step back and examine yourselves. The poem says, just don't hate and love. What do you think that means? So what does it mean? Just don't hit them once. I think it's talking about attachment.

[63:48]

I think there's a point where, you know, yes, I'm hating and loving, and the third patriarch hates and loves. That's human. That arises within us as, you know, beings who want to survive. We have preferences. But, you know, when I'm in the midst of, I can't stand it, Is it okay that I can't stand it? No. Is it okay that it's not okay that I can't stand it? Yeah, there's a point where there's a detachment from that. And it's just, you let it be. Yeah, this is a very important point, you know. We talk about non-attachment, and yet, and we talk about We know that we have attachments, right? We know that we can't really exist without attachment. How does one hate and love without creating a gap?

[65:09]

Well, I'm not asking you to answer the question that way. I'm just throwing that out. How does one hate and love without attachment, basically? Without being caught by hate and love. So, if you just say, don't hate or love, without understanding this, then that's just one-sided. That's just denial. That would be completely falling into the deep pit of nihilism. Yes. And also then you're making a choice to not do something, you're still being choosy in a way. Yeah, you're making a choice, right.

[66:14]

So, this is why this is, that statement is a koan itself. Just don't hate and love and don't be choosy. The supreme way is not difficult if only you do not pick and choose, but we're always picking and choosing. Neither love nor hate, but we're always loving and hating. And you will clearly understand. Be off by a hair and you are as far apart as heaven from earth. That whole thing is a koan. If it was simply, don't hate or love, you know, Because everything that you say brings up its opposite. What about hate and love?

[67:18]

What do you mean, don't hate and love? How can I not hate and love? How can I not discriminate? We're discriminating all the time. Every time you make a choice, you're discriminating. But how do you discriminate? On what basis do you discriminate? On what basis do you hate and love? How do you live in the realm of attachment and non-attachment? If it was simply just to have non-attachment, that would just be one side. Whenever something is brought up, the other side is always implied.

[68:20]

Otherwise, it's not a koan. The koan is always, this is a very basic koan. It's about heaven and earth. How do you bring, how do you... Every single koan is about this koan. It's about how do you close the gap between Discrimination and non-discrimination. Discriminating means to seek to divide the world. Discrimination means division. And non-discrimination means oneness. When there's no discrimination, everything is one. There are no divisions. And discriminating means everything is divided. So the division is earth. The non-division is heaven.

[69:26]

And the koan is always about how to close the gap between division and oneness. So if you love, you have to love totally. If you hate, you have to hate totally. But what does totally mean? That's why a hair is bread, and the balance is destroyed. and sharing are wonderful traits. But you don't think of them as an equalizer or a middle way? Yes, well, yes, compassion and sharing.

[70:37]

Not sharing, caring. Caring, well, of course. It has to be on the basis of impartiality. As soon as partiality enters the picture, then you have division. That's the real choice. Choice means choice based on self or ego. or partiality. As soon as you make a choice based on ego, then that creates partiality. You can care about, you know, there are people that are very caring, you know, about their family, or their friends, or their this, you know, but they don't care about the rest.

[71:44]

So that's nice, but it's not enlightenment. It won't save you from picking and choosing. It won't save you from picking and choosing. People say, well, we should get rid of the United Nations, you know. Can you imagine? Try to imagine that people can have that much partiality. Base their assumptions on such partiality. To not include the whole world in your world is the height of delusion. To exclude some part of the world from your world

[72:47]

I'd like to hear something on the consequences of, and I think the thing you said about the United Nations leads into that, of the gap not being closed, what that means. I think people say, well, if I want to be a good Zen student, I'm supposed to close the gap. Well, it's more than that. There's a consequence. First of all, we do two things.

[74:06]

One thing we do is we do our own practice in order to understand ourselves. The other thing we do is forget ourself in order to help other people. So we do both of those things. When we help other people, then it helps our self-understanding. And when we work on our own self-understanding, it helps other people. So whichever you do, is correct, and we should do both of those things. If you only are interested in your own salvation, that's a gap, creating a gap. If you're only interested in helping others, that's better, but it also creates a gap.

[75:14]

So you have to be able to do both things. work for your own salvation and the salvation of other people. I say salvation, that's kind of a loaded word, but it's actually true. To bring yourself to realization and to help others to come to realization. So we can talk about the world, and we can talk about our own practice. And that's kind of endless. Talking about the world is kind of endless, because it's so complex. You can work in the world and still not have realization.

[76:33]

You can help people a lot. You can do wonderful things for people without having realization. But if we work also on our own practice realization, then we can offer that as something to help the world. We give people blankets and various things to make them comfortable. But the world's always shifting, no matter what you do. It's good today and bad tomorrow. It's this way today and it's that way. There's no end to the way it's shifting. You have a really good thing going, it's great. You think it's gonna be that way forever? And then you just crumble. I see it happening right in front of my eyes. So it's important to work on our own self-realization so that we can understand how to stand up within that changing situation, within that crumbling situation.

[77:45]

The situations where things bloom and then they die, and then they bloom and then they die. And if we don't understand how that happens or how to be how to understand ourself in that situation, how to understand what's really happening, and how to flow with it, then we just suffer. That's called the realm of suffering. This undulation, this world that's constantly coming together and falling apart, is a painful, painful world. And if we don't know how to live in it, And to help people to live in it, because it's not going to stop. It's not going to stop doing that. It's going to keep on doing that. And if we can help each other to know how to live in this world without creating suffering,

[78:51]

for ourselves and for other people, that's something. So, we didn't get very far. I don't know how I'm going to do this, because we have two more sessions and we have a very complex... One more. Well then we won't do the fox, we'll continue with this. So, there are various ways to study koans. But our way of studying koan is really zazen is koan.

[80:16]

Think not thinking is koan. Our whole daily life, moment after moment, the koan is arising there. And what I point out to you, my effort is to point out to you that what your koans are, moment after moment, to be able to see your own koans, moment after moment. So, studying in this way, we begin to see, identify, that with the koan is our own koan, and how it brings up this koan, moment by moment in our life. So always studying this koan, This is the koan of how to alleviate suffering. It doesn't mean that there is no suffering. It doesn't mean that you jump out of suffering.

[81:21]

But within suffering, how to be free of suffering. You're not going to jump out of suffering. The more you try to get out of suffering, the more you suffer. As a matter of fact, the biggest problem we have with suffering is that we try to escape it. And then that's what causes most of our suffering. We try to find various ways to escape it. Until you go into it. It's the problem of zazen. Zazen is the koan of suffering. How do you sit there in your pain without suffering? How do you close the gap? This koan is about zazen. How do you sit there moment by moment?

[82:27]

How do you live your life moment by moment without that gap? Somebody said, I've been sitting for 20 years and I don't understand Zazen because the gap has never been closed.

[82:48]

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