Good morning, everyone. Good morning. So these technical challenges provide us wonderful opportunities for the Watchtowers outside. So here we are. Welcome to the people online. I can't see you, but I hope you are. I want to speak this morning about Dongshan, one of the stories from Dongshan, who is the founder of our tradition in China, Soto Zen in Japanese, Zao Dong in Chinese, Dongshan is Ozan in Japanese, and Dongshan was the founder of this lineage, or we could say maybe he teaches before me more part of that, but in the 800s. And I want to talk about a particular story about Dongchang from my book, Just This Is It, Dongchang and the Practice of Suchness.

[01:04]

This story is not in the collections that we usually look at, the Book of Serenity, the Book of Echo, the Greatness Barrier. It may well be in some of, it's in Dongchang's reported sayings, and it may well be in some of the other many go on collections that were in China. But anyway, this story has to do with how our family style, our lineage, kind of starts at the top. Our basic cells and practices sometimes called objectless meditation. No, not focusing on any particular object, not with any particular objective, but just to be fully present and aware with each breath.

[02:06]

Just to see what arises and to settle there. And teachers from other schools are sometimes very surprised when they hear that this is our basic meditation. I think there are a couple of people here who have meditation instructions, so welcome. Usually this kind of objectless meditation in other schools is not allowed for practitioners for years because it's an advanced practice and a lot of book study is required first in some languages. At any rate, We start at the beginning. We start at the top. We start with the understanding of sudden awakening, the understanding that reality is present everywhere and can be realized immediately. And whatever it was that brought you here in some way includes all of the awakening.

[03:13]

Of course, there's a lifelong process of unfolding that. But anyway, the story I want to focus on this morning was about a monk who showed up at Dongshan's temple. And Dongshan asked the monk, where have you come from? So this is a kind of basic opening question. Where have you come from? His sixth ancestor said to one of his students, he said, where have you come from? What is this? Who are you? What is this? How is it right here? Anyway, Dongshan asked the monk, where have you come from? And the monk replied, from wandering in the mountains. Dongshan asked, did you reach the peak? The monk said, yes. Dongshan asked if there was anyone on the peak. The monk said, no, there was not. Dongshan said, if so, then you did not reach the peak.

[04:16]

So this is an interesting and funny story. And the monk says he's been wandering in the mountains in China, Japan, and now practitioners wander around the temple. So mountains is a name for a temple for a teacher. So he was literally wandering the mountains, but also he was wandering around checking out different temples, perhaps checking out different temples and teachers. Everybody hear me on zoom back there? So Dongshan asks him, did you reach the peak? And the monk said, yes. So, you know, in some traditions, there's this kind of encouragement or incitement, sometimes very active to reach some peak experience in our civic.

[05:20]

In our tradition, that can happen. Peak experiences do happen. More in prolonged sittings, but that's possible. But that's not exactly the point in our tradition. Dung Chun asks, But when the monk said, yes, you've reached the peak, Dongquan asked, if there was anyone on the peak? And the monk said, no, there was not. So sometimes such a peak experience is described in terms of the teaching of emptiness. No person, no being, just boundlessness, another way to say it. Just full reality right here. So when Deng Xian asked if there was anyone on the peak, the monk said, no, there was not. And then Deng Xian said, if so, then you did not reach the peak. So this is a very deep question. In some sense, by definition, if there was no one there, it was the monk.

[06:28]

However, This monk replied, if I did not reach the peak, how could I have known there was no one there? This is a wonderful, wonderful response. If I did not reach the peak, how could I have known there was no one there? How could I have seen vast boundlessness and emptiness and non-self? probably smiled at him, but then he asked, why this monk had not remained on the mountain top? And when one has such an experience, when one sits in the mountains for a long time or just practices for a long time and has such a peak experience, of course, it's really wonderful and tempting to hang out there.

[07:32]

It's blissful, joyful. Everything is right here. Each inhale, each exhale is part of fullness of all things. So Dongshun asked the monk, how come he didn't stay there? Back up on that mountain top. And the monk said, very honestly, that he would have been inclined to stay. But there was someone from the West who would not have approved. Someone from the West in China refers to the Bodhidharma or maybe Shakyamuni Buddha himself. Dongshan then praised him, saying, I had wondered about this fellow. So the story is very deep. I want to add a couple of more commentary stories, but What is the heart of our practice?

[08:34]

When we're wandering around the mountains. And maybe in Chicago area, we could say wandering around the prairies, anyway. In China and Japan and California when I trained, there are lots of big mountains. But the point is, Did you really have this brief experience? Was there anyone there? And they said, no. And Don Shaw asked, if you really reached the peak, how could you have known there was no one there? How could you have known that? And the monk said, back to exactly what the monk said, If there was no one there, you did not reach the peak.

[09:37]

But this monk proved that he had deep understanding. If I did not reach the peak, how could I have known that there was no one there? Nothing there, just vast emptiness. But then, the end of the story is that, well, it was part of the story in a way. We don't know what happened with that monk. Usually in these stories, if the monk was asking a question, later became a famous teacher, they'd give his name. In this case, they didn't. But this was a great practitioner who said, I would have liked to stay there. But somebody from the West, Bodhidharma, had brought who founded Chan, or Zen, in China, came from India. And Shakyamuni himself, the founder of Balinese, who lived in what's now northeastern India, about 500 BC, give or take, they wouldn't have approved if he had just stayed at the peak.

[10:51]

So this is a real practical problem. I practiced up in the mountains at Tassabhara Monastery, Monterey County for three years. There's a couple of people there now who've been there like 10, 11, 12 years. But the practice in Zen is not to stay on the mountaintop, not to stay in the monastery, but to come back out and share yourself and share your awareness in everyday life. with your friends and family and co-workers and fellow students or Sangha members. We share our experience of the peak or whatever part of the mountain we've been on. We share that in our everyday, everyday lives.

[11:53]

So practicing as a non-residential temple is for now in Chicago, we're sort of beyond the peak. We're back in the world. And this is very challenging practice. And maybe we don't have the facilities now to do enough extended sittings with people to reach the peak. And it's OK. Wherever you are is the peak. Wherever you are is full. Full Buddha nature is available. And yet, and yet there are lineages and Buddhist traditions that said, if you don't reach the people, it doesn't matter. But he started the people. Worked our way around. So a related story, separate story, is about another great Chinese teacher named Yang Shuang.

[13:03]

from a slightly different lineage. He was born the same year as Yangshan, so he's contemporary. Once, Yangshan requested that a monk reverse his thoughts to think of the thinking mind. And then Yangshan then asked if there were many things there. So this is another basic meditation instruction in our tradition. Dogen talks about it. Dogen, the founder of this tradition in Japan, who brought it from China to Japan, said, take the backward step to turn the light away from you and eliminate yourself. So we study. We pay attention. Study isn't a funny word, because in English it But we pay attention to this experience.

[14:07]

Take the backward step and turn your light, your awareness inwardly to illuminate this self, this person. And of course, is the primary Buddha's teaching of no-self, that who we think we are, our idea of ourself, cultivated since childhood, is an illusion. That really, who we think we are is just a small part of reality. Anyway, the story continues. Yangshan said to the monk, please reverse your thoughts. To think of the thinking mind. What is it?

[15:11]

Who is it? How is it that your thoughts and feelings arise, that your deliberations arise, that your awareness arises? Who's there? What's that? So the story goes on, the monk responded, And, you know, it seems to me he must have, there must have been a little time lapse there, because I think the monk needed to do that practice of reversing his thought to think of the thinking mind. But then Yangshan asked this monk, well, there are many things there. And he did that. He turned your awareness around to look at the thinking mind. There are lots of stuff, there's lots of stuff there. The monk said, when I get here, I don't see any existence at all. So turning deeply within, there's nothing. There's no existent things to hold on to.

[16:13]

So in the commentary to the story, which is in the book of Sri Lanka, the monk is monk is praised for saying that, but then Yongshan responds, that's okay for the stage of faith, but not right for the stage of person. So this relates very much to Yongshan and the mountain top. Reaching the mountain top or even roaming around high up on the mountain. and seeing if there's nobody there. That's what the stage of faith, and that's great. And faith, trust, confidence is very important in our practice and in our tradition. One needs to have trust just to show up on the mountaintop, or the mountainside, or wherever you are. Just to show up on your seat for zazen, just to show up in your zen zen.

[17:24]

So deep conviction, commitment, faith. So the English word faith is problematic because it's connected with theistic traditions where you have faith in something else up there, somebody else up there. But just deep trust, not in yourself, not in somebody up in the sky or wherever, but just in reality, trusting this situation that we are in, including all the problems, including all the troubles in our world, including all our own personal heartaches, so forth. He said, this is, Namchen said to the monk who said when he turned to the light again, there was nothing there. Namchen said, that's okay for the stage of faith. but it's not yet right for the stage of person.

[18:28]

So the story about the monk on the mountain, from the mountaintop who came to see Dongshan is also about the stage of person, the stage of taking one's dharma position, of being responsible for one's practice, for one's caring and kindness and insight in the middle of this difficult life and world. Sometimes difficult, sometimes joyful. Should not ignore that. At any rate, a stage of faith and a stage of person. So one more story that relates to the first story. And this is a story about Dongshan and one of his main disciples. He had many successors. But this is a story about Yunzhu Daliu and Gou Douyou. who was the successor of Dongshan, from whom Haoran was promised.

[19:31]

They came to Dogen, to Japan, to Suzuki Roshi, to America. At any rate, this is a story about Dongshan and this important student, Renju. There were other important students of Dongshan. Anyway, once Dongshan asked Renju where he'd been. He must have been away from the monastery for a while. And then she replied that he'd been walking in the mountains. So, you know, there's reaching the mountaintop, peak experiences, but there's also, I remember once when I was younger, camped out in the mountains, sort of near Boulder in Colorado, one morning climbed all the way up to Of course, there were many peaks further west, but it was amazing because we could see funnels of steam or clouds rising from the valleys to form clouds.

[20:33]

It was early morning, of course, with this sunrise. And then we also saw these bald eagles flying. So being up on the mountain peak literally was quite an amazing experience. So it's hard to do, I guess, in the Midwest, as some of you may have been in places where there were high mountains. But there's also walking in the mountains. Just walking, you know, around the same level of the mountain or a little off the ground. Just walking in the mountains. And walking is, in Sino-Japanese, also refers to conduct. living one's life and conducting oneself, but walking around in the situations where one can see God.

[21:34]

I don't know if it's some prairies in Chicago where anyone can see at great distance. feel like in Chicago compared to some city. I used to live in New York City where there's big skyscrapers everywhere. In Chicago, unless you're in the loop, the sky's not far away. Buildings are, you know, two or three floors high. The sky is wide open. Anyway, Yeonju told Dongshun that he'd been walking around in the mountains. Dongshun asked if he had found a mountain to reside on. So Zen temples and Zen teachers are referred to as mountains, even there in the Midwest. So at this point, Renju had trained with Dongshan. Dongshan asked, oh, did you find a place to build a temple? This is an important question for all of us.

[22:38]

Renju said, None of the mountains were suitable for the residents. Eventually, Yen-Chu became a great teacher. It was a mountain, wasn't it? But anyway, Dong-Chun asked him, oh, Yen-Chu, did you visit all the mountains in the country? See all the mountains? Are you sure there's none that's good for you? And Yongzhu said he had not done so. Then Dongshan commented to Yongzhu, well, you must have found an entry path. Because here you are. You come back and here. Yongzhu said, no, there is no path. This is an important teaching in Dongshan's

[23:40]

that there's no particular path. In many Buddhist schools, there are roadmaps of how you get to somewhere else, how you get to the mountaintop, or how you get to the peak experience. But Yangju said very emphatically, no, there's no path. Dongshan said, if there's no path, I wonder how you have come to lay eyes on this old mountain. If there was no path, how could you have gotten here? But Yangjoo said this really interesting thing. If there were a path, then a mountain would have stood between us and Dongshan would have stood the same. And said that henceforth, even 10,000 people could not hold down Yangjoo. So if there's a path, then we're not, then you're not here.

[24:47]

Then you're trying, then you're, you know, there's some space between you and your teacher or your true self or full awakening. This is challenging teaching. This is top of the mountain type teaching. Of course, there are many systems of the Eightfold Path, and Ten Perfections, and Six Perfections, or Wonderful Flower Arrangement Sutra. There are various depictions of stages of various paths. But don't try. For most of us, teaching is very emphatic that, no, if you want to be on a path, then you're somewhere down there. You're not really present in your life. So we have some new people here. This might feel like scary and challenging teaching. For some of the people who've been here a long time, it might feel that way too.

[25:53]

I'm just saying, if there is a path, there'd be a mountain between us, between myself and truth, between myself and reality. So again, this is the fundamental teacher of our school, of our family style. However, having said all that, one of the things that happens when you realize that there's no path to somewhere else, that we're already in sudden awakening, we're already right here, Buddha is available to each of you on your seat right now. Buddha is actually there on your seat right now. And of course, each one of us expresses Buddha in our own particular way. This is the stage of person.

[26:58]

And it's not that you should skip over the stage of faith, but just to, you know, I'm presenting the fullness our tradition. However, however, however, when you are at the top of the mountain looking down, it's often helpful to fill in the pathways. Oh, how is it down there in the pits in the middle of wars and pestilence and pandemics and just each of our own individual sadnesses and confusion and obstacles. So sometimes one fills in the path from the top down. And this means that even if you're sitting in objectless meditation, inhaling and exhaling and paying attention to how it is right now

[28:03]

allowing thoughts and feelings to arise and drift away and come back to being present. There are what are sometimes called techniques to help settle, to help open up. And many schools in Buddhism and other spiritual traditions emphasize such methods to reach somewhere else. And for us as well, it may be very helpful to look at those. But if you think that you're somewhere separate from right here, that's not the way our point of view of this. I'll just read a little bit from the perspective of objectless meditation and suchness. Reality, as it is, is perfectly fine to indulge in more limited meditation on objects, including stages of progress and attainment, as long as one does not get fooled or caught by such programs.

[29:14]

So I think it's very helpful, and I encourage you, if it feels helpful, to look at various meditation objects. So deep meditation, one word for that in Sanskrit is samadhi. And there are objectless samadhis, but there's also samadhis concentrations where we focus on particular objects. So there are ways that you can help settle and open up and sitting, even though they are not the point, but just to focus on breathing is one. There are many ancient teachings talking about practicing with breathing. But just to pay attention to that and enjoy your exhale.

[30:20]

So one particular way of Working with that, that some people could do if you'd like, is to count breaths. So at the end of each exhale, silently, one, two, and so forth, up to 10, and then start over again. Try and see how high you can count. Or if you lose count, I used to have trouble getting past three. Anyway, if you lose count, just start again at one. Or you can let go of the numbers just in here. So this is not our ultimate meditation, but it can be a tool to help in that. Also, it's meant to sound. It's the sound of the fan right down here. But here at Ebenezer, we could just settle into the world of sound.

[31:31]

Pressing up right in the middle like that. With that help, in terms of settling in. Then you can let go of these things. You don't have to spend a whole period with that. You know, there's many others. There's just thinking of the word of the phrase from the teaching. So we will be chanting later, the song of the Jewel Marrow Samadhi, which is attributed to Dongshan, one of our founding songs. So you can, so the first line is the teaching is such this is intimately conveyed by Buddhist ancestors, now you have it preserved as well. So you already have it, you don't have to get to some other mountain. But you could take a line like that from one of our teaching songs and repeat that to yourself, like a mantra, for a little while to help you settle.

[32:38]

We'll let go of it. And there are many classical mantras, Sanskrit mantras, or Sino-Japanese mantras, from our tradition. So the end of the Heart Sutra, which we chant sometimes here, the ending of the Heart Sutra is a kind of instructional mantra practice. It closes with a wonderful mantra, kate, kate, padagate, padasakate, bodhisattva. Roughly translates as, gone, gone, gone, beyond, completely gone, beyond, awakened, arrayed. But just to chant the Sanskrit, Sanskrit, very silently to yourself over and over again, until you, until you settle in there, you can just let it go. And there are many such mantras in Buddhist tradition. So there are many, many concentration objects that you can use to fill in the path in the top of the mountain down to.

[33:50]

Or to help others see the top, see the peak. Those are just a few of the meditation techniques. There are live scrolls, books with texts that talk about all these different meditation techniques and ethics. Now, even in our objectless meditation, they help to feel free to use them. But I want to go back to it, close with the basic story again. Dongshan asks a visiting monk, where have you come from? The monk responded, from wandering in the mountains. So we know just from that that this monk has experience. Dongshan asked, did you reach the peak?

[34:51]

A provocative question. And the monk said, yes, immediately. Dongshan asked if there was anyone on the peak. No, there was not. Nobody there. last openings. Dongshan said, if so, then you did not reach the peak. Dongshan was a very crafty and subtle teacher. If there was no one there, then you did not reach the peak. But, it's not said If I did not reach the peak, how could I have known there was no one there? I mean, it breaks through our usual sense of logic and linear rationality. If he had not reached the peak, how could he have known there was nobody there?

[35:56]

And then the important follow-up on this story and that dialogue is, Don't you? And said, oh, why didn't you stay there? Why didn't you just hang out there? And this monk, really wonderful monk said, you know, I would have liked to do that. I would have liked to hang out there. But someone from the West, Bodhidharma or Buddha, would not have approved. Yeah, we can't just hang out, you know, in Satori or whatever. Our practice is Bodhisattva practice. We are here in the world, of the world. We awaken in the delusions of the world, through the delusions of the world. We express our uprightness, our caring, our breathing, our inspiration in the world.

[36:58]

So this monk said, I would have liked to have stayed up there, but there's somebody from the West who would not have approved and don't praise the monk. So that's the story. And we have some time and I'm interested in any comments, responses, questions that any of you might have online or here at the research. So please feel free. If you're here at Ebenezer, you can raise your hand, or you can raise your hand. If you think, if you somehow have the belief that you have not reached the peak, it's okay.

[38:14]

You can still ask the question in front. Kathy, I wonder about reaching the peak and no one being there. Can you hear her online? A little bit louder, Kathy. OK. I wonder about reaching the peak and no one being there. Like, does that imply that when you reach the peak of practice, you're going to be on your own? That's a really great question. I wouldn't see it that way, because up there on the peak are all the Buddhas and ancestors. But you said no one was on the peak.

[39:19]

Right. And all our ideas about oneself and Buddhas and ancestors are just ideas. So in some sense, yes, in some sense, yes, it's lonely at the top. Is there a Randy Newman song about that? Yeah, it can be lonely. It can be. You can feel like there's no one there to support you. You can sense that there have been people who've gone before, Buddhas and ancestors. Yes. So we're hearing stories about these Chinese monks who practiced in the mountains, practiced And in the mountains, it's not just literally. Practice in sangha. Practice together with others. Practice with teachers. And some of them reach this peak experience. That's another way to talk about it. But yeah, that can be lonely.

[40:21]

If one has such an experience, it can be helpful. You can also get into a lot of trouble. to think that you're special, wasn't it? So this is not just China and Japan. All of this happens right here back in the USA. Thank you, Cathy. Other comments or responses or questions? other perspectives, reflections. Hi, David. For me, having hiked in the mountains, in the sense that Kath says there's no one there, in essence, when you're in that place, in the mountains, everything is there.

[41:27]

Yes. And it's not that we are by ourselves, but in essence are with everything. And I would say that's what part of the message that the monk is saying. That coming back, the thing is to come back to society, to share our experience. Right. We get in touch with everything. There is everything there on the mountain top. We take that experience and bring it back. I remember being, you know, saying maybe different mountain range in Colorado and just seeing the peaks and just seeing everything. Yeah. So, you know, nothing is there. This is a complicated and sometimes problematic term in Buddhism, emptiness or shunyata.

[42:32]

My friends Kusama Hashi and John Halifax, that is boundlessness. So to see emptiness is to see that we are connected with everything, everything. So as we sit in zazen, everybody we've ever known is part of our experience. Some, you know, thoughts and feelings that arise, some may come more than others. There's some new people here, so I sometimes ask, how many of you remember your third grade teacher? Kathy, Ruben, David, Alex. How many of you have thought of her or him in the last month? Ah, Jerry. All the people, family, friends, pets, acquaintances, former lovers, anybody who's been part of our life is part of our life right now, whether or not we think actively about them.

[43:47]

So in that sense, yes. David, yes. When you reach the top, there's no one there because everyone's there. So, but yeah, it's also, sometimes it feels like no one is there. I'm not there, nobody's there. It's just, you know, the open spine, the eagles and the clouds. So yes, thank you, David. Alex, did you have a comment? Yes, for those of us like myself who don't feel like we have reached the mountain top. There seems like these stories all sort of have a chronology or linearity where we first awaken to the infinite chunyata emptiness and then we return to help other people.

[44:49]

So here we are, it doesn't feel like it's appropriate to just sit in Zazen or wander around 24-7 until we have this awakening experience and then help others. So how do you suppose we balance that? Yes, yes. Thank you. Yeah. Well, you know, right now, Everybody here is sitting up right. I don't know about the people on Zoom, but in some ways, because they're here on Zoom, that's true too. So it's not that we have to, whether or not we think we've reached some people's experience, or we think we've not reached some people's experience, which some teachers kind of, you know, driving to their students so that they'll work harder, or whatever that means.

[45:51]

The point is that everything is random, whether or not we realize it. And it's important to realize it. That's part of what we're doing here, is that we realize that. But it's not like you have to have some great peak experience where the fireworks or whatever. Suzuki Roshi, the founder of art, in California, came from Japan, said, walking in the mist of a fog in Golden Gate Park by Roadskill. We're doing this practice. The point of this practice is just to keep showing up. That's, we can say it's the stage of faith, I can also say it's the stage of person. That's trust. not trusting in something out there, not trusting that the people in the siren, in the police car, that the police in that siren are going to go and take care of whatever problem there is.

[47:10]

We don't know. But whatever it is that brought you to consider doing this physical practice of sitting upright and turning the light within, studying, becoming familiar, becoming intimate with all that is your so-called self, just to take that on and keep turning up, just to show up on your on your seat. Just to show up in your body. Upright. Silence. Breathing. Yeah. And then, you know, keep at it and share that. Is there somebody on Zoom? Ed? I think, can you hear me?

[48:15]

Yes. Am I audible? Yes. Well, thanks for your teaching today, Tighe, and it prompts part in me a little bit. It challenges me on the idea of experience itself and our habit of characterizing our experiences. And of course, maybe when we characterize, we're instantly reductive about what it is the experience was. And it is a foolish endeavor, of course, to characterize our experiences in a way that we imagine them comprehensible to us, even in the most casual events in our lives. And so to me, the story sort of points to this fact, and it's a significant one. So thank you. Yes. There's a very, one of the finest American Buddhist scholars, Robert Scharf, talks about the fallacy of experience.

[49:20]

I forget the name of the article, but yeah. Conventionally, we talk about experience, experiencing breath, experiencing uprightness, experiencing Buddha, experiencing us, but yes, And that's right, that's in the yinzhen story where he says, if I reached, if there's a path, I'd be a mountain top away. Because as soon as we, our experience is this reality, then suchness is made for that. But If we say anything about it, if we have any thought about it, that's not an experience. That's a mountaintop apart. That's an afterthought. So yes, the richness of experience. So this is also, in some ways, the heart of Zazen, just to be present.

[50:22]

So this objectless meditation is just to be present in this reality. Now, without naming it, without thinking about it, without figuring it out, without saying, oh, that was wonderful, or oh, that was terrible, without making judgments, just to enjoy, inhale, exhale, and facing the wall, this reality. But conventionally, of course, there are such things as deep experiences. If you, you know, after the fact, call it Kensho or something, that's not it. So yes, thank you very much, Ed. That's important. Just to enjoy your life, and your liveliness, and your awareness, and your inhale and exhale, being upright and being pleasant in this dharma position.

[51:25]

in this situation of your life here now. That's the point. Fine. Joshi. I can't resist responding to that. A little louder. I can't resist responding to that. That's in the direction of what writing haiku or creating haiku is about, that this immediate experience in the least diminishing way to express. And it's even hard to say what it's about. But a direct experience with reality translated into a very short verbal expression of it. Very, very, you know, not about these witty things that people come up with which irritate me.

[52:32]

But reality translated into 17 syllables that are as close as take it. Very hard. Impossible, but wonderful to attempt. Thank you. Thank you so much, Gyoshin. And yes, Gyoshin has led Haiku Nature Walks and is doing one next month, a month from now. I'll include that in the announcements. But yeah, Haiku is a way of expressing something that's not caught in expression or looking back at some experience. one of my favorite Japanese haiku. So haiku is a very refined Japanese form for expressing this. Shizukasaya iwani shimieru semina poe. This is, I think, Basho talking about experiencing that on one of his long, long journeys.

[53:39]

And it could be translated as such stillness. Iwani-shimi-iru, penetrating the rocks. Something that has sounds of cicadas. So it is, in some ways, a sometimes visual expression of a moment that turning it. Anyway, you know, sometimes instead of haikus, Zen teachers just, ah! So I try not to do that so often. But you know, that says it. And whatever it is goes beyond any shout or haiku. So we're reaching into that, which is before we analyze it.

[54:41]

David Liner, did you have a comment? I want to follow up a little bit. I want to follow up a little bit. I felt I was very inarticulate before. It's hard to express the inexpressible. And it's just, there's a sense of feeling or experience of just being so connected to reality. And I've had it. And I think my foible is that I'm constantly trying to get back to that. Yeah. I'm constantly trying to go back to that experience I had. hiking in the mountains. And, um, but it's just inexpressible. There's just something that happens and it takes, I don't want to say it takes over me, but I've let go of myself and I've surrendered to what is, and it's just, it brings tears to your eyes. It's my eyes. My, my foible, my, my mistake is that I'm constantly

[55:47]

Well, that's not just your foible. That's, you know, it's very natural that when we have, when we experience suchness, we want to get back to it, you know, because it's lovely, but we need to, you know, we can't experience it again in the next moment. Yes, Jerry. Is it possible to have a big experience and not know it? Oh, sure. Yes, yes, that's true. And, you know, on some level, some modern Zen teachers have said, it's nothing special. You know, and it's not, it's just what's always here. But yeah, yes, that's possible, that happens. So if that's possible, I mean, I guess, in my mind, the assumption is if you're aware you have a weak experience, somehow that changes your life or practice or the way you look.

[56:58]

So if you have a weak experience and you don't know it, then does your life not change or does your experience not change? And if it does, either way, what difference does it make whether you have a weak experience or not? Right. Well, that's Suzuki Roshi 1, you know, walking through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco where there's a lot of fog. So part of this practice is just to continue. In fact, maybe the most important part of Zazen practice. It's not, you know, what somebody, you or somebody else judges the quality of your experience. Like it's common for Zazen people to say, oh, that was a great period of Zazen or that was a terrible period of Zazen or sleepy or mindless racing or whatever. That doesn't matter. Those are just your descriptions, your ideas about something that happened before. So just to keep showing up regularly, I encourage sitting every day or several times a week at least, sit at home for, you don't have to sit for 30 or 40 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever, just to keep showing up and be present in this body, this body light, this body light.

[58:14]

And whatever happens is okay. But yes, it happens that people have noticeable fancy experiences. And sometimes they get in a lot of trouble afterwards. But it does change how he is. Is there anybody else on Zoom who might have a comment or question or response? We have time for maybe one more. Anybody? Oh, David Ray. Thank you, Taigan. I'm thinking about the exchange that says if there were a path, there would be a balance of thought in between. The idea of a path is really, I think I'm really attached to it. I'm really attached to the thought of life as a path.

[59:16]

And even if I'm not thinking about progress and going somewhere, except that I am, It still feels like time is a path, and life is a path, and blah, blah, blah is a path. Yeah. And we do think that way, of course. We're trained in our modern, consumerist, capitalist world to make progress. The economy has to get bigger for it to be healthy or whatever. We need to. And we're trained. first grade, second grade, third grade, seventh grade, 10th grade, whatever, college, graduate school, whatever, or various rungs of positions in a corporation, whatever it is, we have been conditioned to think of some path and progress. So I would suggest, and it's okay, it's not that that's bad,

[60:17]

And sometimes it might be helpful. And there are wonderful Buddhist teachings, like the Flower Ornament Sutra, where there's a whole six stages. And, you know, we can see that. But in our family style, the tradition is to see those systems and stages of progress and paths and so forth as just, you know, kind of part of the mountainside. But really the point is, who is this that just comes? How is it that he was here now? What is it like? How does it feel? What my favorite American brother said, how does it feel to be here? So thank you all. Appreciate everybody. These old stories are kind of thin bread and butter.

[61:28]

We digest these stories. I think they're helpful.

[61:36]

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