And it'd be easier in sashimi, too, since there's less of us for everyone to sit on this side. Don't move. Now, I have to eat. I'm sorry I'm not joining you so far on services and chanting and meals. It's still a little difficult to eat, and I can't put my head down lower than my body so easily. And chanting, especially. I can chant by myself, but with everyone the vibration is so strong on that thin membrane. It's a rather interesting feeling. I think all of us must be practicing Vajrasana because we've found, maybe I could say that it polishes our jewels, but at least it helps us to bring out

[01:41]

to act on our nature, what we find to be our nature. And to act on is important, I think. Someone asked me yesterday at Pingo about memory. They were afraid of This isn't exactly what they meant, but maybe partly. They were afraid of losing their memory if they stopped thinking. And actually Zen practice, when you can see things from many points of view, brings, maybe reaches into the most remote corners of our memory, bringing up many associations.

[02:49]

But the difference is probably that memory becomes, the associations become something we can act on. So one of the most noticeable things, I think, for someone who practices darkness, is while many things come up in our meditation, while we notice many things about ourselves or about something we can't quite call ourselves, it becomes possible to act on or act with that which we notice. Can you hear me up here in this room? So first, of course, we notice what kind of particular person we are.

[04:07]

having such and such a tendency, a habit, attitude. And then you notice some universal nature. some nature that's joined to everything. And some people, of course, decide or find themselves devoting themselves entirely, completely, to that nature which you can't name as particular.

[05:15]

Some people don't see that side so much, and it's difficult for them to understand why some people practice the way they do. But actually, even if you are a person who through your meditation and through your life conduct, your particular nature on everything, to the extent that you can act on it and that you notice it in the way I'm speaking about, actually you are noticing the particular and the universal. The teaching of Buddhism, or koans, Zen stories, are to introduce some stone, maybe, into the stream, some first principle.

[07:17]

clear point or example of where our universal and particular natures are joining, where our activity extends to everything. So this stone in the stream, or this koan, as Suddhidhiroji said, meant to be understood by you through your experience, through your thorough experience of yourself and others, and especially through your practice, from many points of view. So the story I'm talking about is about Toksan and Issan.

[08:45]

And I've been talking about other stories about Toksan, but the main story, which some of you don't know, is Toksan comes to Issan's temple. Issan is a very, very famous Zen master. living on Kwaishan Mountain, which is named Kwaishan Isan, the same Chinese vocabulary. And he is again, travelling with his pilgrims, robes, bowing cloth, zandu, Nishidana, and some kind of backpack.

[09:56]

He comes to Nissan's temple, where maybe 1,500 monks are living. And he goes into the zendo and paces from east to west, west to east, and he says, nothing, nothing. And he leaves. But he gets to the gate about to leave the temple, the monastery, and maybe he thinks, I should enter this monastery more formally, my visit should be more appropriate. I was too hasty, perhaps. So he turns around and makes a formal announcement, when you visit, perhaps someone hits the Han,

[11:04]

He must have seemed like more than just an ordinary visitor, because he came to pay his respects to Isan and the temple, and Isan came to greet him. And so he came into the room and said, Teacher, Master, or something, and spread his bowing cloth. And as he started to bow, Esang, who was sitting in front of him, picked up his whisk, his yak-tail whisk, and he started to pick up his whisk, and Togsang said, Quacks! and picked up his bow and arrow, and shook his sleeve, and went out. Satchel commented on when he came and went east and west and said, nothing, nothing.

[12:38]

Satchel said, seen right through. And then when Goksan shouted, quiet, and left. Setso again says, Seemed right through. And in the evening of that day, Isang turned to his adhisha and said, That young man who came here this afternoon, this morning, Where is he?" And the Jīsha said, he put on his sandal and he left immediately. Hengo.

[13:46]

Hengo comments, drawing the bow after the thief has left in the story. And Isan says to Jisha, that young man, he will go to some precipitous mountain, and build himself a solitary hut and abuse the patriarchs and Buddhists. Fetcher comments, a piling frost on snow.

[14:52]

In a story like this, you already know something about Toksan and his encounter with the rice cake lady, and his encounter with Yutan in person. And I think you know about his blowing out You know that story? Some of you know. Well, anyway, I'll tell you. Thank you. This story is a little bit... These teachers are all so famous that there's many, many, many stories, maybe twenty or so, that directly relate to this story. I don't know if I can tell you all of them. You have too many stories. What was going on here?

[16:04]

You did this, what would you be doing? Is this just a foolish story or is it realistic? Can you imagine it happening? What could their motivation be? Did somebody win or lose this encounter? How did these two men, Isan and Totsan, understand each other or not understand each other? What was happening is the question. Can you put yourself in Togsang's shoes and Hisang's shoes, and would you act the same way? Quite naturally.

[17:07]

Hisang, you should know, has no pushover. He was Gyakujo's Pai-chan disciple, Gyakujo who founded our Zen monastic life. How Isan got to Isan Mountain is some old hermit came to visit Gyakujo. and said, there's this wonderful wild mountain which needs some Buddhist teacher there. Is there anyone in your community who can take this responsibility? And Yakujo said, what about me? And the hermit said, no, Yakujo, you are a bony

[18:15]

This is a fleshy, grand mountain. If you went there, you would only have one thousand disciples. This mountain is suited for fifteen hundred disciples, a large community. Yakucho said, there might be someone here, and the hermit said, let me meet them one by one. So first the head monk came in, and the hermit asked the head monk to cough and walk across the room, and so he did so. And he said, no, not him. And then they asked the chief cook, the head cook, Tenzo to come in.

[19:24]

Tommy came. And he took one look at Tommy and said, he's the one to go to Hisan Mountain. What if I did that to Tommy? sent you to some wild mountain, asked you to go. So, at the evening, Yagaja called the head cook to his room and said, you should go to this mountain and live and establish a practice place. And the next day the head monk heard about it and he was rather perturbed. wondering, I'm a monk and first in seniority in this monastery, why was I not chosen?

[20:33]

That's really a reasonable thing to feel, not just ambition. He asked, and Yakujo about it. And Yakujo said, if you can say something directly, accurately, appropriately, in front of everyone, let's see. So, there was a water jug Perhaps it's used for washing your hands before you handle sutras or something like that. I don't know. He said, if you don't call this a water jug, what will you call it?

[21:42]

And the head monk said, it cannot be called a wooden jug. or a wooden shoe, I don't know exactly, different versions. And that answer wasn't so good. And he asked, Potenzo, and Tommy came over and just kicked it over and walked out. So anyway, the Isan was sent to Guizhan, to Isan Mountain, which was quite a wild mountain, I guess. Nobody lived there at all. And he lived there more or less by himself for nearly twenty years, I think. He built a small, simple hut.

[22:50]

But by the time he was an old man, there were maybe 1500 people practising in his community. Anyway, those stories I'll leave with you. Saturday I spoke about conduct, the second paramita. Maybe conduct for us as a practice is how to join your motivation with your action, how to act on your motivation.

[24:20]

So practicing Zazen, as I said in the beginning, you come to know your nature, and you find various motivations which you try to sort out, or find being sorted out. And it's maybe a rather cooperative process. You don't do it yourself exactly, it's rather like Starting to practice Buddhism, you're born and you have a body, and parents, and some life circumstances, and which you accept and adjust to, pretty much. And then at some point you come in contact with Buddhism, And you find something being called out of you, called forth from you by Buddhism.

[25:32]

And you don't quite understand why. And you didn't exactly make the decision to practice Buddhism. Buddhism is making the decision for you, sometimes, it seems like. And you draw back a little and go forward with it. wondering why this ancient practice has this mysterious hold on us, some sort of marriage. We didn't invite it in. So, practice is much like that.

[26:39]

You're actually not sorting out your motivation so much as practice sorts things out. And you see when you're fearful or possessive, or trying to add something or subtract something, and when you feel your motivation is rather pure or complete, And you try to act on the motivations you feel, by less involved with fear or possessiveness. And other motivations you try to not kill or turn away from, but to find out what's really going on. your motivations, how to sustain some action on your motivations, not to be pushed about.

[27:50]

I talked about the precepts Saturday. The point of view I was talking about the precepts taking them in their simplest form, do not kill, do not steal, etc. We can add the do not think. We say always, do not, don't think so much. So you can say, do not think you can kill someone. Do not think you can steal someone. Do not think you can commit adultery. Do not think you can tell a lie. Actually, you can't tell a lie. Everything you do just reveals you. It doesn't fool anyone. But you can think you can tell a lie.

[29:04]

And you can try, you know, to tell a lie, to fool someone. So these precepts cover our tendencies. Do not kill, or do not think you can kill, trying to remove something. Do not think you can steal, add something. Do not commit adultery. talked about in some detail. Do not think you are creating karma. Do not think you can lie.

[30:08]

Do not think you can sell liquor. Selling liquor, you know, is understood as a power. Being caught by something or trying to catch others by something. example maybe of how a crazy person tries to make everyone else crazy. Craziness is maybe a person who tries to adjust the world to them rather than willing to adjust to others and the world. Or someone trying to get some power, is to try to be able to make the world adjust to So they said, don't just take liquor, but don't sell liquor. It means, don't try to make people adjust to you.

[31:14]

Don't try to force Buddhism. Don't try to sell Buddhism. Buddhism is wonderful. Come join. This is to try to get the world to adjust to you. Don't sell something. don't sell anything, all we do is we offer something free. Somebody may pay us for selling in the sense of adjusting our what's meant in this do not sell liquor. So this way of looking at the precept is to look at our motivation and how to work with our motivation, not in a Dostoevsky sense of, if you think you're going to kill someone, it's just as bad as killing somebody.

[32:28]

But rather, how do we act on our various motivations to kill or not to kill, to steal or not to steal, to understand something or not, to accumulate something or not. So what was Togsang after? What was his motivation in meeting Isang? To criticize Isang? on holding on to something and Issan letting go, or was Issan holding on to something?

[33:35]

Anyway, to understand our motivation in some encounter like this, basic encounter between teacher and disciple. between practicing and not practicing, between... Like this basic encounter between teacher and disciple, between practicing and not practicing, between... Even if someone knocks down his seat in his monastery, he doesn't mind at all. So if you can sit, it's a sheet in this way, not minding anything. Unconscious, not asleep, and not conscious exactly either, in the sense of figuring out or controlling.

[35:00]

Pain, or moods, or bizarre thoughts or experiences. Just like so much weather. around a great mountain. Try to sit in this way.

[35:49]

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