You know, I don't like this koan too much. Maybe it's because I'm having a jet lag attack and my body went 3,000 miles away. No, 5,000 miles. But it's not because I... sympathize with the cat, though, of course I do. As you know, I've a number of times had to kill kittens where there was too many to try to nurse when there was no mother cat. So it's a painful thing to do, but it wouldn't make me so much dislike this koan. And my guess is, although there's a lot of speculation and scholarship since that says, well, you know, he really didn't kill the cat.

[01:35]

My guess is that he probably did. that I don't see any reason why they... I mean, these stories are teaching devices, but I don't see why they'd make that up. It's probably based on a real incident. And those were much tougher times. I mean, there's quite a lot that hasn't been passed on to us. The Zen training of the time was how to defend yourself, because living in the mountains without phones and local police was actually fairly dangerous.

[02:42]

Maybe some of the martial arts are connected with Zen. And there's books of photographs taken in the early part of the century of old Chinese hermits, and they have all these things they throw and wrap around people and stuff. I didn't say they were Zen meisters, I said they were hermits. Yeah.

[03:44]

We don't know whether they were Zen masters or not. They were funky guys living in the mountains. The original hippies. Or the fantasy of the original hippies. Some of them. But what I find a bit depressing about this koan is really its view of human nature is pretty disillusioning. On the one hand, I suppose it's good he thought there was some hope for these guys, so he tried, went to some lengths to reach them. On the other hand, it's discouraging that you have to go to such lengths to reach people.

[05:04]

Even people's own impending death doesn't reach people unless it's, you know, months away. People do seem to shape up or get clear often when they get a serious diagnosis of a fatal disease. But I think the sense here in this koan is that the golden rule Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It's really in nature selfish. You'll do unto others selfishly. only as long as they'll do unto you back what you do unto them.

[06:22]

And I think the weaker we are as human beings, the more we'll follow that rule to protect ourselves. But when matters are serious in wartime and things like that, we do whatever we need to to survive. So there's a quality to this koan which is saying, we all understand really what's going on here, but we'll pretend we shouldn't kill cats. And that sense of the koan I find a little discouraging. You know, if realistic. Now there's another side to the koan here that I would like to bring out.

[07:46]

And we have several units here. We have the monks of the East Hall, the monks of the West Hall. And we have Zhaozhou and Nanchuan. And we have the water buffaloes. And I brought up this book about the water buffaloes because it comes up in this koan in the Hamburg lecture I did in the city the other night. So in the context of this koan, I should speak about it again. This idea of the water buffalo, I don't know exactly, but it seems to have been mostly a metaphor, a feeling, a teaching developed by Nanchuan. I mean, the white ox on the open ground is used as a metaphor for the Dharmakaya.

[09:14]

But the sense of taking care of your ox seems to be a Nanchuan's creation. And I've always thought that the ten ox-herding pictures were a little boring. It's too much emphasis on an understanding. It's this image of seeking your first practicing and seeking your true nature and finding it and then disciplining it. And then freeing it. And then entering the marketplace. And then living in a big empty circle. Of course we don't live in a big empty circle. And Zen is not so simple as finding, disciplining and freeing.

[10:53]

So Nanchuan seems to have said, well, I'm not going to let the ox disappear at the end. I'm going to live with this ox. And Nanchuan said, I'm not going to let the ox disappear at the end. I'm going to live with this ox. So for Nanchuan, the ox or the buffalo became something he took care of. And he spoke about it in ways like, I've had an ox, I've had a buffalo since I was young. Yeah, I've brought up a buffalo since I was young. And west of the valley, herding it west of the valley, I wouldn't let it eat the water plants of that country. And herding it east of the valley, I wouldn't let it eat the water plants of that country. Now it barely eats anything at all.

[12:04]

A bit here and there. And can't be seen. And as I said the other day, it reminds me of this movie I saw as a kid called Harvey. In which Jimmy Stewart had a six foot tall invisible rabbit. That he always was taken care of. Make sure that Harvey was comfortable when he went somewhere. And as I said, I remember loving Harvey by the end of the movie more than Jimmy Stewart. But Nanchuan's buffaloes are like this. And he, another, let's see what else can we say about this.

[13:19]

There's another statement related to this. In the koan about the buffalo. It says the wonder of the body of subject and object. Das heißt da, das Wunder des Körpers von Subjekt und Objekt. The wonder, now this is quite a strange phrase, I think, that we have to stop and not just skip over it. The wonder of the body of subject and object. Nun, ein ziemlich eigenartiger Satz. Wir müssen da innehalten und dürfen nicht darüber hinweggehen. Das Wunder des Körpers von Subjekt und Objekt. The entry is non-attachment The emerging is subtlety. So here the teaching is that if you can really be unattached non-attached dispassionate Can you translate all those words?

[14:39]

Not caught in likes and dislikes. So your mind doesn't automatically go toward likes and dislikes. And you think of things in terms of it's here or it's not here or it exists or it doesn't exist. In a fundamental sense, this is a kind of sickness. It's practical and it's the way we usually think, but it doesn't let us really know how we exist or how the world exists. So Nanchuan in the deepest sense is trying to cut through this world of likes and dislikes. And he feels, and the koan at least suggests he feels, The koan even does something that is quite unusual for a koan.

[16:03]

It imagines what Nanchuan was thinking. It says Nanchuan thought to himself, this tune is too lofty. In any case, the implication of the koan is that he felt a sense of a shared, what can I say, it's not easy to talk about, a body that arises when subject and object disappears. The relationship between teacher and disciple or between Nanchuan and Zhaozhou is sometimes described as two mirrors with no image. So it's two mirrors, but there's no image that you can grasp.

[17:09]

There's nothing you can see. It's like Harvey or Nanchuan's water buffalo. But this water buffalo or this presence of a body when the distinctions of likes and dislikes are let go of. And if you don't try to see it, this body is quite present. And you may even sitting zazen, shall we say, you hear something. Airplane, car, truck, birds. And the sound may almost feel like it's being heard in a kind of something thick, almost maybe.

[18:45]

I talked with Neil about the menu this morning, so maybe it almost sounds like it's in a pudding. I don't know what to say. It's like the sound, there's no words for it. I wouldn't say the sound occurs in the outside. And in a sense, we hear it inside. But if we really are more subtle, we could say that we hear it outside, inside and outside. Or we hear it inside, outside and inside.

[19:46]

In other words, I'm suggesting that experientially, at least, there's a third category or fourth that's not outside or inside and not both. It doesn't fall into the categories of outside and inside or a combination. But it has a quality, maybe not like pudding, but like a body of subject and object. Now, they throw these words into the koan, you know, which you, phrases which you, unless you have the experience, you don't know how to read them.

[21:09]

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But if you have the experience, it's like a tangible presence that you can't see, but, I don't know how to say, it's present, but it's not within the senses. It's a way of talking about the undivided world as, not philosophy, but as a dimension of being. Where our boundaries are not so... I mean, we still know exactly where we are at the same time, and it doesn't affect our personal boundaries, and yet there's another sense of a connectedness that doesn't fall into the categories of outside and inside.

[22:28]

And Nanchuan called this his water bartholomew. That's like the water buffalo of the 10 ox herding pictures. He realized he couldn't really let it go. He had to keep taking care of it. So right here in the sendo, there's a good, actually, if you look carefully, this is a green pasture, and there's several water buffalo grazing there. And you're not just taking care of yourself, you're also taking care of this water buffalo. So, I mean, we sort of think, how do we, if you don't take care of yourself, what, you just sort of live in a void? So instead of taking care of yourself only, you also take care of, what Nanchuan says, this water buffalo, which is a way of talking about taking care of this subtle way we exist together.

[24:04]

And friends feel this sometimes in conversation. It's not so much what you talk about, but you talk in such a way that something is activated between you, that you both are taken care of. And the whole practice of substituting self for other and seeing everybody as your mother and all those kind of practices. Or in the last koan to see someone as a fox. And to open that up into not having likes and dislikes about how you see each person.

[25:24]

And not having the categories of whether you'd like to be like that person or you're glad you're not like that person. And when you can start really dropping those considerations, which are always like mirrors and walls around us, another person appears as a powerful, miraculous presence. What you still have to relate to in the usual way, but underneath that you feel something. You feel you both know this water buffalo. But the entry is non-attachment. And the emerging is subtlety.

[26:35]

You have to not grasp at things. And you have to sometimes be able to see beyond, through, around likes and dislikes. And Nanchuan tried to cut through all that. So here we have two questions. How do we save the cat? Because if you can't... I mean, the basic rules of Buddhism are... if you can help someone help someone if you can't help them at least don't harm them so how do we save the cat how do we save ourselves at the same time how do we cut through so many of the obscurations obfuscations of the world

[27:40]

So we can really know ourself and how we exist. I hope you feel it sometimes in zazen or in your presence with others. And if you do, I recommend you not grasp at it. But relax into it. And give up your ideas. And just be present in what is without ideas about what is, is. It's obvious advice.

[29:01]

But the skills to take this advice or really know its depth requires some easing, some developing ease inside yourself. Thank you very much. May our intention equally penetrate every being and place.

[29:22]

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