thank you and now we are hidden how we've we've plunge into winter for a time and you may
but it's invigorating country the the cold
so
last saturday drinks machine ah i spoke gave the first of to talks about for guns as mg hand that is duggan's ah one of his released writings at least that's the idea ah
after he returned from china and came back to japan and and with establishing a practice or he wrote this instruction for thousand
and actually over the over the years he he kept working on it in different ways but
what's interesting about this is that it follows in the tradition of
other zombies that were written in china ha most prominently we have the zoo chinese
ha giang loop jeff who is in the lineage of master gunmen
and ah
the whole sections of
ha
the the drow me is that are have that kind of lifted and incorporated into duggan's work
but in almost every case he he expanded
philosophically and directly on
the meaning of this practice and we're going to talk a little more about that today
one of the things that is really do this is an excellent book ah by called your offered ah which is a
scholarly work on duggan's zen is zazen and manuals ah is probably in our library
and is an interesting passage from
from ha
carl that i want to read for you
but i want to start by reading again the beginning of two contests andy
dog instead the way is originally perfect and all pervading
how could it be contingent on practice and realization so that's a question
the dorm of vehicle is utterly free and untrammeled what need is therefore concentrated effort
that's another question concentrated effort is more familiarly what people would identify as meditation
as
meditation as concentration
indeed the whole body is far beyond the world's dust who could believe in a means of russia open to brush clean
that's the third question ah since since there is no dust
fresh and clean which is as i said last week an echo of ah vs that were written by the sixth ancestor we name ah in a poetry contest
ah it is never apart from you right where you are
what is the use of going off here and there to practice
that's the the final question in other words
ah
i don't think that was a that was not a
a criticism of going on pilgrimage it was a reminder that the dharma buddha-nature are right here everywhere we are
ah and if we'd go off
two different places
it still right there
so that is his introductory paragraph two kinds incessantly
carl bill felt rights
there is a sense in which zen buddhism appears to be an empty medication school they think this could be news to many of us rate ah but he gets into what he means ah up
for whatever zen monks may talk about in private when they discussed their practice in public they often go out of their way to distance themselves from ancient buddhist practices of samadhi and to criticize the tradition
tunnel cultivation of gianna
so in other words it doesn't in the zen tradition
ah all although we to a lot of sized then it's not strictly speaking samadhi concentration practice or gianna which is another another aspect of concentration practiced ah
the two japanese zen churches rinzai and soto
have their own characteristic ways of going about this
the former rinzai
often most often attacks absorption in trance as a mindless quietism where it's sometimes called ghost cave of the spirit
so in other words the the criticism of
that
rinse a school my level had both an ad soto and at other schools buddhism he is that it's it's quietism ha and that it's you know it's about the effort to kind of
dissolve oneself into nothingness which is not good as awakening
the rinzai claims to replace it with do more dynamic mess technique of connor or call and study
the latter rejects the utilitarian component of content of contemplative technique the latter is soto
soto rejects the utilitarian component of the country contemplative technique in other words it makes the case against rinzai as ah striving
the striving as it says to make a buddha and we will return to this later in the passage ah and that it's that's it's it's critique de soto critique of of ring size often that ah it's conducive to a gaming idea
and offers in its stead when it considers the less psychologically
million more profound stay practice of she can taza for just city so
each school may have it's critique of the other and also of
of the standard practices of meditation and it's not so what they're saying is it's not about meditation and this is what we come across in the she can you know for cancers mp which we all we will come to its have
well to or
spoiler alert ah it's it's not about becoming a buddha it's about being the buddha
so
it
has don't in goes on here
we read we read the first paragraphs and then ah then he comes to his instruction
hand
he says for the practice of zen a quiet room is suitable
eat and drink moderately
cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs
do not think good do not think bad
do not administer pros and cons cease all movements of the conscious mind engaging of all thoughts and views
so
some of this language is
ah lifted from the from the earlier chinese a zombie and some of it is also listed from or i think we're familiar with parts of the the shin mean of the third ancestor ah oasis in the
ah
the great way is not difficult if only we avoid picking and choosing
hen dogan is is different to that so he's talking about not just the the technique of zazen
but
the whole
mental approach of zazen do not think good or bad
do not administer pros and cons do not ah
gage thoughts and views meeting do not evaluate or judge your thoughts and views this is a really important piece of our zazen practice that we've been instructed in very very carefully just you ever view fine that's just
the just like something that's been secreted by a brain for cormac reasons that are beyond our understanding and
don't get caught on your opinion about up and accepted and let it go
just let it go ah

cause we're losing you and sorry
nicole lot this is my my point today ha it speaks to what karl was speaking of ah
it says have no desire is no second bite
oh
mr said amen
yeah

can okay
your frozen have and you have been freezing off and an have ah now we can hear you fine but you're still your video is frozen really i'm afraid i'm there were starting to see action there you go
those the action yes but it's not
ready for prime time ha i'm not sure what to do at seek i'm in north star precept the noise for precept count are you kidding me okay and now years seem to be good thank you i think she's just tried i changed the network on minutes see what happened okay i'm sorry
yeah if that happens in in the future for any of us we should we should tell the speaker ah i know i will i was on the wrong network sometimes use computers you know default to something else and what they had previously been okay i'm looking ahead
so
he says his sentence have no designs on be coming
i have no designs on becoming a buddha
the practice of zen
has nothing to do with the for bodily attitudes of moving standing sitting
or lying down so i'm okay
this is really this is the for me this is the fun part ah
read you what call on which is what is this referring to having no designs on becoming a buddha
this is referring to a very famous
come on and i got it i'm sorry i meant it the focus
a
take it few my for press

well no valuable than a down the stream merrily merrily merrily merrily life this bird again
that's good
rowing you both is dynamic activity
okay ah
so this is a very famous call on which we have studied before in different contexts ah it's case eight and in this case of reading it from duggan's shinji show again to which is his collection of poems
mr bhatia do to of cozy in the car district served as master number to ages
tricia is is attended and immediately received ah buddhist minds ceo
he lived in the temple constantly sitting in zazen and was the most outstanding have mastered non-gaap whose disciples
best nanga to knew that mr bustle had exceptional ability for studying buddhism
master non-gaap who went to master bustle and est now great monk what is your intention in all of this practicing zazen constantly
and bosco said i intend to become a buddha
nanga to eh joe picked up a piece of a brick and began to polish it on a stone in front of bustles hot
basso came out and said master what are you doing
non-gaap who said i am polishing this brick to make it into a mirror
barrasso said how can polishing a brick turn it into a mirror
nanga who said how can sit in zazen make you went to a buddha
basso said asked well what's the right thing to do
long gotten said
when a person is riding a carriage if the carriage does not go forward what should we do
straight the carriage or straight the or ox which is drawing the carriage

in the commentary
ah this is common by well dogan comments on money to see dog and comments on this in
at least four different places
ah the whole of the text of shop again as ascension is a comment on this
you'll also find it in ha
show began to a co-ceo which actually is a wonderful that like could study at some time with with you it's a it's a collection of mirror stories are various mirror metaphors that are used in sin you find it in his zazen and
yo jinky in so you should show up again so you're drinking and also in a in the show to bend a whole
so doting came back to the story a lot i find is very encouraging by the way or because it means there's a venerable tradition of all teachers repeating themselves ah so maybe after worried that that so much
surgeon seem to do it as well
i'm

so why to read you something from
ha
from this commentary if i if i have at here is twist ah this is from job gains a copy off
oh and he tells a story the same stories told the ah
and
what dogan says is for hundreds of years now many people were held the view that in a story
non-gaap who is earnestly endeavoring to encourage bustle in his practice ha it also seems to me that he's he's criticizing so
in the context of and this is what what
guilford was alluding to in that earlier he stood at read that in line with dawkins idea of practice enlightenment
we don't practice to become
a buddha again we practice because we are buddha
so this idea of an instrumentality of zazen as an instrumentality is
far from the point that that dogan wants to emphasize in ah in phuket cancers amy
but as is often the case with again
ah he turns things on their head
and in the case of some of these commentaries he is actually putting forward zazen ha and thereby
ah says
polishing a break is exactly the heart of our practice
and
that's another so that's a a different way that's that's an include at inclusive of ah
the two poems
that we read in the
platform sutra
that the
master winnings palm there is no dust there is no mirror you know why why tried to wipe it clean is a response to ah his dahmer brother sheng shoes changes or changes palm and so
like or practices every day wiping a miracle he just constantly wiping berkeley and i think that dogan comes to the place where he is asserting both of these things are necessary
so
he says
if great saintly teachers did not have the dharma of polishing a brick how could they possibly have the skillful means to guide people
even though the tile was the thing that came to hand it was just an everyday household object the brick if it were not an everyday object or some household utensil then it would not have been passed on by the buddhist faith
family
in other words the brick or the roof tile how are you however you have translate that ah
is itself an expression of
the infinite miraculous nature of the buddha
and we should not be neglectful or
rejecting of an of an ordinary object
he goes on
we should truly comprehend that when the polished brick becomes the mirror basel became buddha and when basel became buddha basel immediately became the real buddha
and when basel became the real gouda he's sitting in meditation immediately became real seated meditation
so

that is why he says the ancient mirror was made from a brick
polished it was already without blemish in its unpolished state
the brick was not something that was dirty
it was polished simply because it was a prick
on that occasion the virtue of making a mirror was manifest and it was the diligent effort of an ancestor of buddha
so we go on hum

when the polished brick becomes a mirror
also became buddha when passa becomes buddha parcel becomes
the real basel
and when he becomes the wheel basso then he's sitting in meditation no longer has
an instrumentality to it
if that makes sense to you that
in other words
basso sitting
in
just
constant meditation
no matter what he said he was doing
had transformative power
in other words he trusted
zazi
and if we fully trust in
then we can polish a brick into a mirror
because
it's a brick as a really good metaphor for who
for who i am
thick as a brick
ah
ordinary
rough edged
made of everyday material
necessary for the creation of a wall
part of everything

brits are interesting in just them
i was in awe
i guess us was twenty years ago so i was in bangladesh and in rural bangladesh to were a lot of there are a lot of brick factories they build stuff at of bricks ah
so you know they kick sand and mortar
and bake them
hair and make these bricks
but then
the interesting what was really not interesting to me was her outside of the brick factories
you will have groups of poor workers with a big pile of bricks in front of them
pounding the bricks
to turn them into gravel
and it struck me how you know we can be adding a step here he took
from gravel are you bored and to gravel you will return
i don't know ah but i'm i'm sure that there was a reasoned that they were doing it that way but it ah
all these bricks and concrete as they will hand it's really hard work that was actually one of the first things that i did when i came here we used to have a big pile of bricks you can see all the brickwork around right on the on the property ah we
he had a big pile of bricks and in a when he had come from but they had the mortar you know the concrete or the the border between them was still stuck on to the bricks and suturing work period often
just sit there try to pound the the mortar to clean the bricks to pound the mortar rough the bricks and that was it was
hard work wasn't so physically hard overall but was hard with quite jarring clear to your wrists and arms ah but i remember that you know i'm just thinking
oh look how much look how much work has to go into even this
this simple activity ah preparing these things which are necessary for building so i like this metaphor for brick

have no designs i'm becoming a buddha the buddha
then he goes into ah the conventional thousand instruction and are
all of us fed the southern instruction and but gonna go through it today how we had a a really good session yesterday afternoon hob as as and instruction ah
based on my understanding the thousand and stuff from from soldier and from and from and from others ah i did that will be
oh that'll be on on the website and also there's a wonderful ah instruction forty five minute instruction by sojourn on website so for the first for the details as as instruction seizure ha

then having established you posture have been established your breath
settle into a steady unmoving sitting position
think of not thinking
how do you think i'm not thinking non thinking this itself is essential on of zazen i could we we talked about this last week this is a dialogue that's also the content of ah
shop again to sanction a monk as the way on
what does one think of when sitting motionless lee in zazen wage on replied think of large thinking the monk said how do you think i'm not thinking
ah wish on had to non thinking
so what is now i'm thinking
and this is the essential art of zazen
what i would say as i said yesterday for me
non i'm thinking is
the act of receptivity
the meditation ah
the an open awareness
in which all of your senses are functioning
your mind is functioning as one of as the sixth sense mind consciousness
and you are allowing this information in
but what i would say is in a particular way
you mind is functioning but it's not acting on those perceptions so in other words one way you can think of it is your eyes are slightly open so you are
you are seen
and receptive sense but you're not lucky
same thing was true and ear with our ears and this is something that i've been doing try to do in size and is just
open my ears to the fabric of constantly arising and feeding sounds
and
seeing if i can hear them
without
listening to them
great now as i sit here and realize what would just came in and measly can i make a recognize you know there is a bird call and there's an owl someplace nearby
but can i really just hear that sound without putting a name to it's very very tricky it's hard for us because once we learn language
it's really difficult to
when folk it
but to me that in the afternoon thinking is really like
the metaphor is like sitting by a scream
and just seeing the water flow by
every now and then
one's vision or one's ears get caught by something in the stream and you follow it downstream
and when you do you just return
without judging without gauging your thoughts or opinions
so in the next paragraph again dog in his philosophical the zazen i speak of is not learning meditation so the know the design he speaks of is not
intending to become a buddha it's not trying to get anywhere
it's simply the dorm gate of repose and bliss
so that it's the dharma gate repos rest
and when we are at rest we're open to whatever arises and we just include that when were at rest
in bed ah
drifting into sleeps
anything that we perceive
may turn into a piece of dreams
it's just open and reflective that the trick is so that
repose
can easily lead to sleepiness
and the state of mind of zazen that dog and his speeches of a lead surgeon spoke of former teachers because his alert
it's an alertness it is it's not asleep it's a wake
and it's a wait to itself to its own awareness
ah
and that
that's sometimes beyond our bodily energy it's a moment
so we make an effort to to be weighed but that repurposes is an active state
they think that that's because the dharma a reposed in place is also another way of describing she can taza or just city
tony says it is things as they are in sexiness
just as they are
no traps or snares and ever reach it
once it's heart is grasped your like the dragon when she reaches the water
you're like the tiger when she enters the mountain in other words
your home
you are in your native environment and you know exactly how to be there with our new question
and the speaks to their acts and speaks to what i was a nobel alertness you must know that when you are doing zazen right there you are authentic dharma is manifesting
manifesting itself striking aside dullness and distraction from the first so that's a challenge

i want to cut towards the and here
so if we use us and this way tobin said you have gained a pivotal opportunity of human form
ha that is the opportunity to manifest being buddha which has been truly human do not let your path time cast in vain you are maintaining the essential function of the buddha way
honored followers of zen you have long a cop you have been long accustomed to groping for the elephant
please do not be suspicious of the true dragon half i think you know the story of the to drag cause if not just briefly it's an illusion ah to a story and then nirvana sutra of a king of our country of
it's from a han history of a man named he come to who love dragons he had dragons all over his house he had paintings a drag its and carving of dragons and or one day a dragon was flying by and saw this
i really like drags
and he said i think i'll go visit him he'll be very happy
ah so the dragon and flew down and stuck his head in the window and the man screamed in terror
ha

the golden suggests not getting stuck in loving carb dragons but loving the we'll drink
the real dragon
yeah
that
drag and nature is in each of us so it's actually accepting
who we are accepting her own true nature sometimes a brick
sometimes a dragon
sometimes that diluted human
and sometimes a buddha
all of those
states are being
we strive to find a way to include that
except it in included in our i
and then we can be awake
something to stop their lives in time for questions
ah and i think he called will call and people right
that's right everyone now please feel free to raise your hand and i was spot a you and you can ask your question
i'm waiting to see the populated list if you have already raise your hand it's taking a moment to come to me

if you did as from there we go okay we have made them at this moment nathan
okay please feel free to ask your question
i'd better i'm new yourself there you go
oh who's i did you said i'm speaking about them
you're listening practice and your attempts not to conceptualize where you're hearing to hear it without concept
i struggled a lot when i'm sitting
not with what i'm hearing but with what i'm thinking and often times the recognition that i am not
the that i become involved in my thoughts
requires me to conceptualize of my thoughts and say oh that's a thought i'm going to oh
going to
remove myself from it and try to refocus on
is that mistaken it somewhere it is is be the naming of that on low i mean they're different meditative approaches ah and that's fine i think that the emphasis that lee said
that we were instructed him is when you find yourself taking
go back and re-establish your posture and your breath so when i asked sojourn roshi a lot of people ask them what do you do in zazen and he said i give myself czars and instruction so that's what i do when i find myself
ah
creating a story or narrative and then of course all kinds of things come back from that when i when i see myself doing that and i return ah do have
that my posture my bread pudding effort sitting up straight ha
you know feeling my legs checking my murderer
and basically
putting my attention someplace else
but important
if you have these thoughts and you find yourself ah story making
as you change your focus
don't judge yourself
this is out this is just our natural propensity

thank you nathan has on we have a am
let me do this a question in the chat and then
and that is
should being this is from robot william gordon should being okay as you are and needing a little improvement or any of the other metaphors that he abused today have equal weight in our practice i'll repeat that should be okay as you are and needing a little improvement have equal weight
in our practice

i think we have to accept ourselves
essentially
we have to as you know apart from all of the messages that we may have gotten from
society from a family of origin your lots of messages that
say that one is not okay
the messages say that
there's something missing and
if you buy these shoes of war uses shampoo amazes being ah
really mundane ah we
i've been sold these things to complete ourselves so in that sense there's a fundamental
issue of coming to grips with being with accepting oneself
and i think that
if the deepest level
and this is hard for some post to accept
that you yourself are buddha
if you accept that
yeah if you truly accepted
then your buddha and then there's no problems for you
however
most of us are still on that path
and so this is why dogan
no ha
this is my dog in advocates
polishing a brick
that's the little improvement
part a brick is just fine
ha
polishing the brick from it is just like in ginger oaklawn when at the end of ginger con have the masters fanning himself and the students is why are you fanning is it you know if the wind as if nature windows prominent why are you fanning heh
and he's of you understand
ah
you don't understand the either the nature of wind or the nature of fanning if you don't understand why of fanning so
buddha is not about sitting still
buddha is an activity
buddha is polishing the brick buddha is fanning buddha is living our life and paying attention to what we're doing but living our life from a place of accepting i and every been
use of worth and value
equal weight and value
so that's what i would say thank you william
okay we have a question from duty
one moment duty as for you
the gala
looking was on
deep and broad
here of this
i
i'm wondering how you see this in context of
trauma and particularly the travelers on while sitting personal experience ah with trauma history of freezing so there is a sensation in the body like a tightness in the chairs to the heart
re say and
without being aware of it
i go into a lockdown or a freeze so i think i'm sitting zazen i think i didn't me with this thing
but what happens is that are for instance that that sweeping sleepiness
and ah
sometimes and over time when i've noticed is that the response to that and also this conversation around what's appropriate for the people living with that to working with a shorter meditation and get off you know roddy awareness
all these things and i could think of those as techniques so ah what i noticed over time and getting educated on these things which i use things that there is a natural opening the aware necklaces i heard you speaking to
ah
but in the beginning you know in working with this for people in a war zone you know whether find situation
how do you
what instructions might you hear that would frameless was the practice of zazen rather than six
concentration editing
in a certain way i think i would kill the dishes above my pay grade
ah that ah
you know what i know from my own experience in from others it's others experience is that ah

what might in a healthy zone b
ah open awareness letting it was again ah for someone who experiences trauma is her
a necessary scanning
or a boy a gay trained scanning for dangers and scanning the whole environment so you're already there's a motivation for how you open when you open your awareness you not open it to be vulnerable your opening it so that you know what risks
and dangerous or there and so i think that
what would be really ideal somehow is if there were a collaboration
between a zen teacher and
ah
a person who is trained in
the work of helping people with trauma and various physiological approaches to to that that are quite interesting to me ah you know there's not any one one of it but i think it would be great if they were working hand in hand
and so that they weren't working at it in some appearance of cross purpose with with designated patient in the middle
ah i think that would be really helpful process headend i'm not sure i've seen that happen any place
can you
yeah i was thinking of chris for you just me being a zen teacher and i you know retire surface allows an ominous early specialization of call me institute is due to work on news through their spirit rock collaboration that i do think it's a really important
area because also i think about it of now my dharma kin that i'm sitting beside and were practicing when we're in person in this end of body body
and we don't know the trauma is people might be sitting there and
how do we support but one thing i will say i knew somebody that i've been working with ah
who would be doing a r
ah
in you want to
really a trauma crowded drama and her
i feel it we talk about that a lot and then what we talk about also is
in the context of the work that this person is doing
how houses what is houses johnson feeling how is an unfolding
yeah i think that
that's really useful i think of harm work that lorry and our friend sandy caro used to do not exactly thing with with any grim study and it thinks it's sunday car abroad to the enneagram work was looking
at how once fixations or one's character logical ah basis manifested in certain qualities are aspects of one's meditation and so i think this is very fruitful conversation when people but people when people open that door
our to go there
don't thank you
we have time for one or two more will we have none more that would be linda let me bring her up
warning file under high before i asked my question am i just wanna say something about what judy just brought up which i think is so such an important question on there are people who are very consciously working gen teachers and the one i mentioned
and i know about is you know her was on that machine ikeda they know people who are working with what they call trauma informed meditation so yeah that collaboration you were talking about is out there was really really worth looking into
somebody called somebody got in touch with me who was trying to do meditation to deal with her own
experience and it brought forth more trauma because it took her to those vulnerable places but anyway there are people who are really into this and thank you for for bringing it up today
my question it goes back to the beginning of your talk of near the beginning where you were telling the bustle story and
the question was asked i guess to him do you strike the
carriage or the ox if you want to go somewhere and then
well kelsey has raised a question about the bridge drive in the chat
yeah i mean basically pointing out there couldn't be petted or could we feed it instead of striking it but for a moment we entered in a stick
we could just we could just assume that this is a non-violent with striking and then my question is
ah i don't i don't i don't see the ox on how do i find that oxen ah what does it mean to strike
nonviolently

the ox is very close to you
it's the ox in the room
the art cinema in the room
ah
the ox is urine you know the y-axis your enlightened nature
and sometimes you see it and sometimes utah
what would i be doing striking my enlightened nature

you have to train your nature
and i wouldn't say strike desert desert these are traditional stories yeah i don't mean that violently i
i'm accepting the word strike as a non-violent strike hit straight so i think that with your aspects of our
of our personality there's the buddha aspect
and there's the diluted being aspect
and we we
we have both of those aspects in how we live and so that's what the whole
that's the thrust of the the ox hurting pictures
ah is to the ox begins as
wanting to go wherever it wants to go which is totally understandable
and we befriended
and when we be friendly it be friends us
and so that's that's part of the process
that that's a
the attorney pictures or a map of from one perspective of the path
so it's not
i mean it's like having a dog
we offer training to the dog and the dog is constantly training us right
you know that
the dog is showing us
how it wants us to be so that we can have an effective relationship
the same thing with the ox
zach will see
right now
thank you everyone for your questions has on there are no more questions i could ask you one if you'd like or not
i'm a question i have is a basil polishing the brick are common self as we sit and punish ourselves perhaps in zazen and the one thousand hands the intuitive knowing what to do so i would present a character who is sitting and polishing their brick
and that character becomes empty minded in the sense of ah
preparing themselves for buddha dear to present in that presence is that where we have the intuitive knowing how what we what actions we should actually take
perhaps but we're not preparing if you're polishing a brick you're not preparing yourself buddhahood you're polishing a brick
understood and and but if we're polishing our com and self
and not trying to do anything special with ourself in the seat
it strikes me and from other teachers quotes who are not buddhist
get it prepares the empty self
which is ready it
it may do that
you know but i don't think

i think what you're nice to someone
you're not doing it
to prepare your empty self for buddhahood
you're you're doing it
because this is how you feel we should be with each other
heisey i imagined scraping off mine coverings as i was polishing the brick
yeah ah
set that aside
we thank you very much a hand a letter practice period continue for