What I thought of was that a couple of things, a couple of images that come to mind are that somebody suggested that we have a class before the day off. That's like now, right? And then the canto invited me, sort of, kind of invited me to give a class or something tonight. So that's happened. But it's a little bit more like something, I think. It's not exactly a class in an ordinary sense. And I feel because because I've been away, and when I come back, right, there's this phenomena of me coming back after being away.

[01:07]

And so one image I have is like when orchestra, before an orchestra plays, there's this thing called a symphony or a concert. Beforehand they go, for a little while. And you're used to that, so it sounds okay, right? And they do it just for a few minutes. And they did it early in the day, too, though, probably. Kind of getting in tune again, right? So something like that goes on. And so I came back, and I was sitting with you, and on some level we We harmonized there in silence, but now we start talking with another kind of harmony. Someone wrote me a note and said that he thought it was good that I was away for a while. So what was good about it?

[02:16]

What was good about it? So anyways, some kind of like this, it goes on, you know, this kind of thing happens for a while. So that's part of what's happening, right? I don't know the particular way to do it other than just you start doing it. Start doing the... the reattunement process. And so I heard, I saw Jennifer while I was out, and I learned Tim's forest name. What is it? Should I tell him? It's Nut Trap. Nuthatch.

[03:25]

It's a nuthatch. It's a bird. Hatch are the hatch, right? So she's fine. She had a green gulch. And I heard that some people got sick. Some people got cold. Is that right? And some people got depressed, I heard. Oh, no. Some people got silly. But then everybody was kind. Most people were well by the time that she started, I guess. this year, sitting. And, you know, in the old days of Tassajara, sometimes when we had fairly small practice periods, not this big, I remember one time, I think there was like, it was a small, I think it was like 38 people in the practice period, and the day before Sesshin, a couple of days before Sesshin, there were 19 people sick.

[04:48]

I think that was the figure. And then during Sesshin, nobody was sick. Well, everybody was in Zendo. The day after Sesshin, 19 people were sick. I don't know which 19 was which. It was actually like that. So Sesshin, somehow, even though it's difficult, people somehow used to come back to the Zendo for Sesshin. And then sometimes they disappear again afterwards for a while. And when I was out there, the first thing I did was a workshop about intimacy. And I had two koans that I used in the workshop. One was case 98 of the Book of Serenity, where a monk asked Dongshan,

[05:56]

well, literally, among the bodies of Buddha. Sometimes you say among the three bodies of Buddha, but you can also say among the multifarious or, you know, multifold manifestations of Buddha. Which form of Buddha doesn't fall into any category? What manifestation of Buddha cannot be categorized? And Dumsan said, I'm always intimate with this. It's unclassifiable, uncategorizable manifestation of Buddha. So you know, in And then in the commentary of that case, after Dung Shan passed away, a monk went to Dung Shan's student, Sao Shan, and said, well, what did he mean when he said, I'm always close to this?

[07:17]

And Sao Shan said, well, would you like me to cut my head off and give it to you? And then... A monk asks Shui Fung, who also studied with Dung Shan. Well, what did he mean when he said all was close? And Shui Fung kicked the monk and said, I studied with Dung Shan, too. And... You know, Yao Shan... He had his two main disciples, Yunyan and Dao. They're the story of the one who's busy and the one who's not busy, these two guys.

[08:25]

There are two main disciples of Yaoshan. So coming up here, you have Saoshan, Sepul, Shrethbong, and so on, Yinju. And up here, you have Shershwan and Sheshwan. Where is Yaoshan? I think it's the second disciple of Master. He's going to go down from there. Zhaodong should be green. What do you think? This could be. Wait a minute.

[09:26]

This could be. Here's a zhongshan. A zhongshan. Okay. So then the monk said, what did the... So they asked, you know, they asked... They asked, Dung Shan said, I'm always close to this, so they asked him, and they won't tell on that side. On the other side, they asked Da Wu's student, Shi Shuang, well, you know, please show me some words that don't fall in the categories. And Shi Shuang looked. So then after Shi Shuang dies, they asked Shi Shuang's disciple, Jiu Feng,

[10:27]

or what did he mean when he gnashed his teeth, and Jiufeng said, I'd rather cut my tongue off than break the national taboo. And the national taboo in China is you never say the emperor's name. So both these major lineages of Yaoshan, one of the characteristic things about them is they just won't say. They won't tell you what it is. They say stuff like, well, I'm almost, what's the thing that doesn't fall into any category? I'm always close to that. They won't tell you what it is that doesn't fall. They won't categorize what doesn't fall into categorize. They won't point to the thing that doesn't get trapped. They won't do it. So that's an aspect of intimacy is to not not get it into some thing that you can get a hold of.

[11:29]

And then the other story is case 20 of the Book of Serenity, Di Cang, his intimacy, where Fa Yan's going on pilgrimage, and Di Cang says, where are you going? And he says, I'm going on pilgrimage. Fa Yan says, what's the purpose of pilgrimage? Ditsan says, what's the purpose of pilgrimage? And Palyan says, I don't know. And Ditsan says, not knowing is more intimate. So those are the cases that I talked about on the weekend. And then we went to Green Gulching. We had a translation conference translating the liturgy. We translated the Sandokai and the focused on the emerging of difference and unity and the Song of the Jilmir Samadhi. And then in the next two days, there was a scholars conference where scholars and practitioners got together and talked about what they do and what they don't do.

[12:33]

And then I had a couple more meetings and went to the dentist and gave a talk at Green Gulch and came back. No, we won't ask you to do anything you don't want to do. You can just do whatever you want to do. We won't bother you at all. Don't worry. What are we going to do next? What? What is going to happen? If you beg and promise to chant them every day, we'll show them to you. But they tried them in the city center and got nothing but resistance. So I think it's too much to ask people to do something different than what they're used to doing. So we won't bother you. Don't worry. We just work on these translations for a few years and we'll publish them in some secret journal.

[13:40]

We don't want to be bothered by them. Well, we invited either the leader of or a representative from most of the Zen centers in the country came. Soto, yeah. Just Rinzai and Rinzai doesn't chant the Jilinir Samadhi and the Merdini Divinti Muni. Hartsutra, of course, they chant, but most of our chants are a little bit different than that. Our meal chants are a little bit different, but quite similar, actually. Four vowels are the same. So when they're done, there'll probably be a book in the library to that effect, and whether or not we'll ever use any of them will remain to be seen. They're, like, for example, instead of all my ancient twisted karma, now we have all my ancient harmful karma, for example.

[14:51]

No, she's not resisting. She just doesn't like it. Yeah, so, you know, that's why I didn't want to bother you people. So in the scholars' conference, one of the first people we talked with, Gil Pronsdell, and he said that for him, one of the main things is like, that he's a scholar and a practitioner. For him, a practitioner statement is something like, everybody has a Buddha nature. That's kind of like a religious practitioner statement.

[15:57]

everybody has a Buddha nature. Whereas the scholar statement would be more like, the Buddhists, a lot of the Buddhists say everybody has a Buddha nature. That's what Buddhists say. And then somebody, I think he said, said, so the scholars are into like fact statements, and the practitioners are more into faith statements. And some of the scholars jumped on to saying, well, that's not exactly a fact. that Buddhists say that. But anyway, something like that. There's a difference of describing what the Buddhists do, talking about the Buddhists, and what the Buddhists say among themselves. And scholars don't get into theology. They say what theologies Buddhism has, but they aren't themselves making theological statements. And I realized that actually, I actually read theological statements, for example, by Dogen, and I actually say theological things, I think.

[17:06]

Like, for example, I say stuff like, for a sentient being to just be a sentient being is precisely what we mean by Buddha. It's a kind of theological statement. And I'm saying if you train yourself into being precisely as you are, as such, that realizes freedom from suffering. That's the suchness, training in suchness. If you train yourself so you get to be the point that you are such, that you are thus, just like all the Buddhists have been thus, then you realize the hundred-phile way that all Buddhists have been taken care of. That's a kind of theological statement. And someone might say, well, at least some Buddhists say what he just said. He said that, and actually you can find some other people who said it in English or Chinese or something in the past.

[18:09]

And I think one of the things Gil likes about scholarship is that it feels like it sometimes pulls the rug out from underneath the practitioners. Sometimes the practitioners kind of get stuck and lose their perspective and think that they're kind of like, I don't know what, saying the truth or something. Whereas actually they're maybe making statements of faith. So then a scholar might come in and say something that shocks them and maybe pulls a rug off and refreshes their practice. But one of the things on your reading list, is there a tape by Suzuki Rishi on your reading list? Yeah. So in that tape, when he's talking about Zazen, did some of you listen to that tape? Huh? There's a tape by Suzuki Rishi on the reading list I passed out. And in that in that talk, he says that, you know, Dogen says, you shouldn't be like the blind person, like the blind man, you know, or like this guy, I forgot his name now, this Chinese guy who liked dragons.

[19:30]

So, in other words, the blind man who, they bring three, the king says, oh, This king has said, I think blind people, they don't know what an elephant is. Show them what an elephant is. So he brings out an elephant, and he brings the blind people over, and the blind people go and feel the elephant, and he says, so that they can know what the elephant is. So then one feels the ear and says, oh, an elephant's a fan. Another one feels the elephant's leg and says, oh, an elephant's a pillar. Another one feels the elephant's tail. Oh, an elephant's a rope. And I forgot what the other one is. Oh, and he feels the side of the elephant and says, the elephant's a wall. So Dogen says, you shouldn't, and Zizekresh says, you shouldn't be like that. In other words, when you come to Zazen, if someone shows you Zazen, and says, okay, you can come and do Zazen, not feel Zazen, experience Zazen, you shouldn't be like the blind person and say, oh, Zazen's this, you know. So everybody comes away from Zazen with, you know, oh, it's this, or it's, you know, oh, it's a wall, or it's a fan, or, you know.

[20:34]

So he's, in a sense, he's not being a scholar exactly, but he's like criticizing our tendency to try to make, bring Zazen into a category. Which, you know, to some extent, we're like, we'll do that. We blind ourselves to the to the light of Zazen, which we can't get a hold of, we make Zazen into something which we can say, well, Zazen is this. And I was just reading a, well, I think if you read Sukhra, sometimes Sukhra says, and that's Zazen. Here and there he says, and that's Zazen. And that's Zazen. And other Zen teachers say, that's Zazen. No, they, you know, but then they have to sort of have to say that, but now that I said that, you know, I shouldn't do that. This is actually, like, really not Soto Zen. This is not Yashan's way. They don't go around saying that's Zazen back in those days. They wouldn't say what it was or what it wasn't.

[21:38]

But if we fall into that, then we should like say, okay, I give, I did that. I think just start over. So you should start over. When you first started practicing Zazen, you didn't, some of you, I don't know about all of you, but some of us, when we first started practicing Zazen, weren't going around saying, well, that's Zazen, folks. That's Zazen. well, that's zazen. We weren't talking like that when we first started sitting, remember? It's kind of like, oh, what's zazen? Or, I like zazen, but I don't know what it is, but is this zazen? May I zazen? But then after a while, I said, gradually, after a few years of practice, I said, that's zazen. Okay. So we should go back to the beginning when somehow we were interested in something that we didn't know what it was. Remember that? Can you be interested in something you don't know what it is? Can you be devoted to something you don't know what it is? Like your wife, or your children, or your husband, or your student, or your teacher?

[22:50]

Or can you only be devoted to stuff like, I'm devoted to that, and it's Zazen. But if he had this other Zazen that's not that, then I wouldn't be devoted to that. So how about starting over, not necessarily being devoted to like evil, ancient twisted evil, but how about being devoted to Zazen which doesn't fall into any categories called Zazen or not Zazen or It's Zazen, but you don't know what it is Zazen. Like when you first started. Somehow you went there, right? Looking for it. You kind of knew that you wanted to find this thing. And you also kind of knew that you didn't want to put it in a box, and that would be terrible. If you did, that would be breaking a taboo. So that was the way you started, and that's what you loved, and then gradually maybe you slipped, so now you have to go back to the beginning.

[23:53]

So in that sense, Suzuki Roshi is criticizing. Dogen and Suzuki Roshi are like scholars in a sense. They're like prophets in our own tradition. They stand up and say, don't do this to our tradition. And when the tradition isn't doing that, then the scholars... What do you call it? The auditors come. And they bust us. You guys are nothing like Zen people. You're saying that Zen is this and Zen is that, but it says right here in the text you're not supposed to be doing that. How come you're saying that's what it is? Or even if it doesn't say in the text, do you really think it's what you say it is? Do you really think Zen is Zazen? Do you really think that Zen is Kiwi? Do you really think Zen is Orioki? Or what if we say, Zen is not aureoke. So you don't have any aureokes here? This isn't a regular Zen monastery. Where are your aureokes? Where are the five ranks? And then he also says in that tape, you know, he says that story about the guy who, I told you about this guy before that loved dragons.

[25:04]

All his scrolls were of dragons. He had statues of dragons. Even his house was designed like a dragon house. They have, and I saw houses like that in China. They're shaped, the walls are actually dragons. And the house is like a dragon house. Dragons are the main thing in China. It is the main, it is the Chinese, it is the Chinese animal, the dragon. It is the imperial, it is the big animal. Bigger than elephants. Bigger than lions, bigger than tigers. They like all those too, but it is Dragonville. Dragon. Dragons on the ceilings, dragons on the walls, dragon buildings, dragons on their clothes. And it's coming way back from the shamans. The shaman's outfits, the Siberian guys, they got dragons on their chests in China. So dragon, dragon, dragon, right? So they like dragons from way back. So this guy liked dragons. So then the dragon heard about this and thought, well, if he likes dragons, he'd probably like to meet a real dragon, so I'll go visit him.

[26:11]

So he comes in to visit the guy at his house, and the guy is totally shocked and afraid, okay? And the way I heard the story from Suzuki Roshi first was the guy almost fainted when he saw the dragon. So if Zazen ever did take form, he'd probably faint. But the way he told them the tape was the guy got scared and drew his sword, almost drew his sword. That's another way to look at it, is that you might hurt the dragon. If you actually saw the real dragon, if Zazen ever actually showed up, you might kill it. So either you faint or you fight back. It's kind of a dangerous situation. And I also thought that was interesting what Suzuki Roshi said in that tape. He said, Dogen said, don't be curious about the real dragon. Usually the translation is, don't be suspicious of the real dragon. Now, like if you see the real dragon, don't be suspicious of the dragon that won't fall into any category.

[27:16]

He says, don't be curious about it. That's another ask. Don't try to find out what the real dragon. Well, what do you do about the real dragon? But don't be suspicious. Don't be curious. Don't put it in any category. And just make carved dragons. That's okay. You know, carved dragons are okay. Just make a little carved dragon. And then what do you do about this, the real dragon? What do you do about it? Don't categorize. Don't be curious. Don't be suspicious. What do you do? What do you do with the real dragon? Meet it. What? Sit upright with it. Be intimate with it. And intimate is, intimate is, intimate is, you know, like forget it, you know, forget intimacy.

[28:21]

You know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? No? One person doesn't know? Will people explain to him, this one guy here? How come I said forget it? Oh, you know you're doing a teeth thing, huh? You think copying is intimacy? It could be, right. That's the problem with intimacy. It's like it's not any of that, it's like who knows what it is, right? You don't know what it is. Intimacy with Zazen, that's like, what is that? It's like a dragon, yeah. So it's all kind of like just a hopeless situation. Like, you know, who in this room is intimate with Zazen and who isn't? We did this workshop here a few years ago where they asked this question and they said, just had a stand in the

[29:31]

in the, what do you call it, that building there, it's called the dining room, it used to be called dining room, and they said, would all the people who have, you know, would all the men, would all the women come over this side? No, no, all the people who are women go to that side of the room. Is anybody here for that? Did any people walk to your side of the room when they said that? Did you walk to their side when they said, would the women walk to their side? So that was, you know, for some people that was a rather traumatic experience. It actually hurt me when the women walked to the other side. And I kind of get angry. That was minor. Then they said something like, would all the abused people walk to the other side? Would all the people who have a life-dangering disease go to the other side? Huh? Remember that? Huh? Huh? Yeah, these various things, the walking from one side to the other, and it hurt when the... Huh?

[30:37]

Yeah, well, it hurt, you know, various people really felt hurt by that, by being, you know, set aside and stuff like that. So I was just going to ask you, would the people who are intimate with Zazen go over on that side of the room? With those who are not intimate and so on, I'm not going to really do that, but... So I also want just to mention, just as part of attunement, that I was not attracted to Zen. I didn't think I was attracted to Zen as anything to do with religion. I didn't think of it as religion. I was attracted to, because the behavior of Zen monks that I heard about, I thought, I like that. I like the way they behave, and I want to behave like that. If I could behave like that, that would be really cool. I'd be really happy.

[31:41]

And to the training that helps you become like that, I want to do that training. So then I got involved in Zen, as you may have noticed. And then I find out that it's a religion. And so here I am in the middle of a religion. Right? Some of you are also kind of around an area where there's a religion or something happening here. And so what is religion? This is not a question, again, that the faithful often ask. So one person said, I asked this question to a person, and the person said, religion arises from the apprehension of death. Religion arises from the apprehension of death.

[32:44]

And some people think that what religion does is it, after, when death is apprehended, then what religion does is it finds, it's a way for you to, um, obscure death? Some people say, no. What is it? It's a celebration of life. It's a celebration of life. What about death? No. What about death in the religious realm? Pardon? Yeah, but what about, what does the religion do for the death? Some people say that it obscures death. Preparation. Does preparation obscure it? That we don't die. That we don't really die. Actually, I find myself making theological statements somewhat to the effect of life is infinite.

[33:50]

I hear myself believing that life is infinite. That only... that there's a kind of life that's like about coming into limitation, about me being me, all by myself, and that kind of life gets born and dies. But there's another kind of life which doesn't exactly get born and doesn't die. I find myself thinking in those terms, and even by making theological statements about infinite life and a life beyond birth and death, called nirvana. And it's kind of like, well, that took care of death, sort of. I feel better. How do you know you're obscuring death? That's what I'm saying. It sounds like obscuring death, doesn't it? Kind of like, it sounds good, like life is infinite, but it kind of like obscures death. Don't the people just say that religion is exclaiming the truth?

[34:59]

Yeah, they might say that this is just the truth. Yeah. There's some facts out there that somebody figured out or had revealed to them, and they're just going to explain it to you. Right. But then the critic or the scholar might say, well, can you deal with this that I'm saying, that rather than talking about nirvana, you're just obscuring death. You're just trying to make yourself comfortable, real comfortable, And Buddha might say, well, yeah, I'm talking about unassailable comfort, stable, unshakable comfort in the face of death. I'm talking about major obscuration, like total permanent obscuration of death. Yeah, right, like no death. Like, no, uh-uh, no death. Yeah, we're obscuring it. And now this obscuration is going to work.

[36:03]

So there's like, got criticized, said, okay, guilty. And now guilty, but successfully guilty. We're going to triumph over death. There's no death here. Everlasting zazen. And we don't know what it is, so you can't hurt it. So do you feel better now? What? Do you feel better having arrived at this theological... Right. Is it a theological place? I don't know. Or did I just get there by theology? I got there by theology and also by letting the theology be criticized by non-theologians.

[37:12]

And that refreshes your theology. You take a theology and say, okay, out the window with that. Yeah, we're trying to deny the fact of death. That's sort of what we're doing. It sounds really bad. It sounds like not truth. But how about telling the truth? Yeah, we are trying to. There is suffering. There is birth and death. That's one truth, right? The other one is, what's the cause of it? There's causes. Is there a cessation of death? Yeah. The cessation is in emitting causes. Does that sort of like relieve you from the suffering of the birth and death and actually set up a situation which is not birth and death? Yeah, and that's theology. And then criticize that. And say we're denying it and see what we do with that. See if we get stuck. And if we get stuck, then that's exactly what causes the birth and death anyway. So the test of what frees you from birth and death is whether what frees you from birth and death is something you hold on to.

[38:19]

So we should criticize ourselves if we make that which frees us into something Somebody should criticize us for it. We should criticize ourselves. What about just kind of knowing that you might have even known this before you got into man or being a man or just the kind of inner knowing that some of these theological critics You know, some very big trap. What do you mean by knowing? I mean, at a very, very young age, you don't know where and you can't talk to and you can't say how to know that you just know.

[39:21]

Well, I asked you what you meant by no, and you said at a deep level of experience. It's like when you read, when you come across certain truths in the Dharma, there's a resonance. You go, yes, that's true. Now, I'm not, you know, just because you say it or some other people say it, doesn't necessarily make that true for me unless there's something in you that you or in my spirit of God then, or in how I'm feeling in this world, that resonates, that, yes, that's true. So I'm trying to, at that level of knowing, it's important that you know the truth. Yeah, but how does that relate to not knowing is more intimate than what you just said? Oh, it's just...

[40:26]

Yeah, but still you could temporarily, just for the sake of argument, switch from knowing to not knowing. Yeah. So you want to stay over in the knowing part? I'm probably not important. That's fine. I feel more comfortable. Everyone has a lot of questions. But Deep Song says, not knowing is more intimate. Because knowing puts it in the category of the knowable. And, you know, like in Heart Sutra it says, what does it say? when there's no hindrance, no fears exist. Literally it says when there's no obstruction of the kleshas, of the defilements, or of the knowable.

[41:31]

When your practice or your life doesn't even have the obstruction of the knowable, then you are not afraid. But if your practice is based on, and the resonance you feel is based on something that you can know, you're still a little bit, you're still a little bit holding on, still a little bit holding on. But there can be certainty. There can be confidence. And again, I think part of the confidence is, part of what makes you feel more confident is that people can criticize you and ask you questions and you don't feel afraid and threatened and gripped. Matter of fact, you feel refreshed when questioned and criticized. That would make you feel more confident, I would think. Well, again, if you mean by experience something, again, wouldn't something that you know, like I'm having this experience rather than that experience?

[42:41]

So it's not to say that it's ineffable. Not to say that it's ineffable, that you can't say anything about it. Yes? I wonder if you put something wrong with the vocabulary back there. Oh, telling stories is one of the ways of becoming intimate with something. Yeah. Same thing in this context, that theologizing is all of a sudden thinking of stories and making them something to really believe in, believing in stories. Theologizing is believing in stories? Yeah. Well, if it is, then the critic should come and tell you that he thinks you believe your story. and then see what you say to that. I think so.

[44:01]

I think so, yeah. I think you can say, like again, I was thinking, for me, religion is stories. Everything is stories. And religion is imagined and reimagined. And we choose the forms of worship from poetic tales. I remember one time I saw this movie about, it was about King Arthur. And King Arthur had this, for part of his life he was like, had this nice round table and like nice pithy armor and cute wife. And you know, he was a king, right? And then he went into sort of like he had midlife crisis, right? And he had to go find his grail, right?

[45:04]

So then he's this kind of stumble bum going around all kind of like, you know, he's not the executive anymore and he lost his wife, right? Something like that. He's stumbling along with a few trusty, you know, a few trusty round tablers with him. He's stumbling along through some dark alley someplace, and he bumps into this kid, and he says, excuse me, son, how are you? And he says, fine, sir. He says, what did you want to be when you grew up? He said, I want to be a knight, like King Arthur and his bounty. King Arthur says, what do you want to be a knight for? And the boy says, because of the stories they tell. I heard it. So, I was attracted to Zen because of the stories, but do I believe those stories? Or am I just attracted to them, but I don't know what they are? When I actually, like, get in the temple, crawl in the temple, they put my little shoes outside, and I come inside, you know, and I find the Zen monk, right?

[46:13]

And then I say, well, here I am. You know, I came to do this story then with you, not to do a Zen story. And we do the story, and they say, but by the way, do you know what we're doing here? And he says, mm-hmm. Do I like that better? Or when he says, well, no. I don't know, actually, what we're doing. Which one do I like best? You like mm-hmm. Yeah, you do. Because you're a bad monk. I think I actually like it more when he says or she says well no I actually don't know what we're doing here but we are having I'll give this life to this thing for this story because this is I love this but actually I don't know what it is and some people would like to be the world authority on Zen because you would be

[47:15]

pretty powerful and rich if you were. So this is kind of... But you shouldn't... But also, the nice thing about Zen is you're not supposed to be the world's expert. And if you get up and say, I am, then people say, oh, yeah, mm-hmm. So it's kind of nice, you know. And part of this conference, there were some Zen teachers at this conference, and one of them said something about... They said they were from the... They teach koans from the koan system. And they were saying... I don't work on koans the way Reb and some other people do. And then he kind of, he says, I think, kind of under his breath, I think the way kind of you're working on them is kind of like Jungian. He said, when we work on koans, it's kind of like a matter of life and death. I think we'd like our koans back... I think we'd like you Soto people to stop working on koans because you're not supposed to be doing it.

[48:21]

You're supposed to just do shikantaza. You're not supposed to be coming over into the koan area. This is our area. People like koans. These are ours. And you people, leave them alone. and recognize that you're not supposed to be working on it. And in that tape, Suzuki Roshi also says, oh yes, people say, well, Soto Zen is Shikantaza and Rinzai is Koan. But he said that way of talking about it is like, you know, real dragon and carved dragon. That's kind of like the elephant. This is Soto Zen, this is Rinzai Zen. That way of thinking about this is really categorizing both of them. Neither one of them really fall in that way. But maybe you can get a whole bunch of Rinzai people and say, yes, we do have koans, and we do like them, and we know how, we got them. They're ours. Maybe you can get a bunch of them, but I think some Rinzai people might say, what's a koan?

[49:22]

I never heard of a koan. No, we don't have any koans here. Yes, we have no koans. We said that, the imitation was... It's disturbing. This is so good. It's a feature of working on the koan. We live in that. It's respecting what the koan is. Right. Keep working. Right. Stop working on the koan. Right. And I also heard a rumor that there's different styles of working on koans in certain people who have the koan system. One style is the strict style, and the other style is the not strict style. The strict style is you get the right answer to the koan. The not-so-strict is you come up with the answer in terms of your own life. Sounds like genjo koan a little bit. So even within the koan system, some of them are kind of like blurring over towards that school that's not supposed to be working on the koans at all.

[50:27]

So anyway, I think anyway, Steve, that if we are working on these stories that attracted us to Zen or to Buddhism... If we get in the stories and we're dramatizing the stories, and if we forget that they're stories, we're sunk. And that's theology too. What I just said, not a theological statement. Now, the scholars would say that Zen monk said that if you get stuck in your stories that that's being sunk. That's their theology. For them, they don't like that. They don't like getting stuck in their system. but they don't like having a system. That's what they say in Soto's Lanzan. Other places they say, well, we have a system, but like Vasubandhu even says that in the Abhidharma Kosha. I mean, Vasubandhu is talking to himself, right? So then on one side he's presenting the Abhidharma and saying, well, this is really so. This is like, these dharmas are actually real. And then he argues and argues and argues and finally he argues with himself and finally he says, okay, okay, they're not ultimately real, but we have to say that in order to make the system work.

[51:36]

Because if we say all these different parts are like, you know, just convenient setups just to make the system work, then nobody will study it. So we say it's real, but now that you've cornered me, okay, okay, okay. So... But sometimes people forget that they set these things up just for convenience, just because it's nice to set it up. And also, if you say it's real, people really pay attention. This is reality. Okay, let's study that. You say, well, this is just something we've temporarily set up. It's kind of helpful, you know. People say, okay, that's nice. But there's a guy across the street who says, this is reality. I'll go over there. I told the truth, and I left. It's so boring. I just have this kind of like thing I just said, which is a story, where over there they're telling reality, which has the most juice, I mean, really. up and categorize that that really is the best way, right?

[52:39]

But we hope that if we're really quiet about it, everybody will come around and say, oh, you're so quiet and humble. You must be the true way. So that's why you shouldn't even get stuck in that story. Oh, we don't point. So sometimes you should point. This is it. This is Zazen. This is the truth and we got it, you know, and this is the true way and other ways are no good. So Dogen like bursts out like that sometimes, calls these people pigs, you know, and bald hellions and stuff like that, you know. But does Dogen believe it? Looks like he does. He even like sinks into like looking like he believes it. Does he really believe it? Is he actually falling for this? I mean, is our great ancestor like stuck in that? Did Suzuki Roshi even get stuck in liking Soto Zen better than something else? I don't know. Sometimes it's almost like he believes the stories he's telling. So then guess what happens?

[53:47]

Somebody should go up and say, Roshi, are you stuck? Are you getting stinky? Is your practice like getting all kind of like stale and habitual? And maybe he could say, oh, caught me. And then is that another story? Yes, and so on. So in the midst of all that, you still might feel like, geez, I love this. I'm certain I love this. And I don't know what we're doing But it sure is painful. So maybe that proves it's right. Which is another thing about religion, it's very painful. So what's that about? But anyway, I think it's time to call on Susan.

[54:51]

Yes? The relationship between not knowing and practice, the dynamic of that is what we're committed to. And what's the difference between that and just not knowing? I mean, how is the dynamic practicing and not knowing? I got distracted. Will you start over, please? I got distracted by looking at a piece of paper that said something about koans. It's okay. I won't look at the paper. Not knowing... Not knowing and practicing? Yeah. Yeah, right. It's not knowing about what you're wholeheartedly devoted to. It's being wholeheartedly devoted to what you can't control. It's not like That's what they're talking about.

[55:56]

They're not talking about, like, well, I don't know. I don't know what the point of going on pilgrimage is because, you know, like, I just... I never... Well, because I'm not even going to go on pilgrimage is why I don't even know about it. No. This guy's already packed up and got the little maps and stuff, you know, of all the little Zen monasteries. He's got that little chart over there. He's going to go visit all these guys. He's put a lot of energy into this trip and he doesn't know what the point is. That's... There's a lot of people you don't know, right? So what? But the people you spend a lot of time with and that you've had a lot of conversations with and that you're devoted to and yet you haven't put them in a category and you still don't know who they are and you're trying to get to know them without grabbing them, trying to get intimate with them without making them come to be something that you can get. But it's not like you're trying to prevent getting to know them either. It's just, in fact, the intensity of your devotion, they keep not, the fact they keep not being what you could make into something you knew.

[57:06]

They actually don't cooperate with you anyway in that way. Of course, some do. Some say, okay, I can tell you want me to be this, I'll be this. They don't tell you that part. See, I am actually this way. Isn't that nice for a break? But again, if you really accept that, then they start wiggling. Say, oh, you mean I actually don't have to pretend like I'm somebody else? And then, no, you don't have to. Go ahead. It's not funny. It's not funny. Doesn't taste good. Gold has no taste, right? So I guess that's about it for religion.

[58:16]

So we're all tuned now, right? What? We need a video? If you go on like this, we need a video. The tape won't be active. I get it. If I make faces and gnash my teeth and stuff, you need a video. We're working. We're in a play-by-play now. So I've been reading about American religions You know, and one of the, so two of the people who actually are kind of important theologians for me personally, but I think actually kind of in our background are Emerson and William James.

[60:11]

They kind of like, It isn't exactly that they shaped the way we see religion in America exactly, but somewhere between they shape it and also they described it in a certain way. They lived at a time when these unusual forms of religion were cropping up in America. The Mormons, Christian science, Jehovah's Witness, Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, What else? Shakers. Yeah, he was one of them. And the way that they saw, the way that Americans see religion is is more experiential in a lot of ways than Christianity, and also very self-oriented, very concerned with the self.

[61:23]

Anyway. Do you mean interested in the self or interested in dropping the self? I think interested in dropping the self, but through self-awareness. Awareness where faith is a self, or self is part of the faith. And it's closely related to, you know, it turns out it's closely related to Dogen. How do you put it? I guess I don't have it. Anyway, this little speech, part of a speech that Emerson gave to a divinity school, actually he gave it, this is given a year in which Joseph Smith was assassinated.

[62:41]

I say assassinated because, you know, People came to kill him as a religious leader. He had this big following in Illinois, and they arrested him for various reasons. And while he was in jail, a gang broke into the jail and killed him and his brother. 1838. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe it wasn't 1838. Maybe it was 1845 and he was 38. That's right. Anyway, Emerson said, Jesus Christ belonged to the truest race of prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it. And he had his being there Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of, if I may say, humans.

[63:52]

In all of history, he estimated the greatness of man, human. One human was true to what, one human was, I guess I have to say, one man was true to what is in you and me. he saw that God incarnates himself in man and evermore goes forth anew and takes possession of his world. He said in his Jubilee of Sublime Emotion, quote, I am divine, through me God acts, through me speaks. Would you see God? See me. or see thee when thou also thinkest as I now think.

[64:54]

And this is apparently, I don't know if this is a quote of Jesus, actually, or if it's Emerson making it up. I don't know. But did you hear what he said? He said that if you think, Jesus is saying, if you think like me, then then you can see God in your action, then God will be incarnated in your actions and your speech if you think like me. So actually, if you think a certain way, then you are, God is, then your action and your speech are God's actions and God's speech. When would you see God, see me, or see thee when thou also thinkest as I now think?

[65:58]

Now, I'm just quoting this to say that this is something that in 1838 is being said in America, and It hasn't been said before in the history of the world. It has been said before. Something like this has been said before by the Gnostics. The Gnostics were eliminated. Now we have somebody saying this in America, and he's not getting eliminated. As a matter of fact, he's perhaps one of the two most important theologians for this country, that people can say this. And the religions that grew up in America... are kind of like in line with this. Didn't they find some of the Gnostic Gospels around that time? Maybe so. But independent of those Gospels, people were having experiences in America and they were actually, aside from what Emerson said, people were feeling like this from their own experience.

[67:10]

They were feeling like this... this is it, or I don't know what it is, but I love it. And this is what I trust. And if it's not Christianity, well, let's make it Christianity. Joseph Smith, he didn't actually read these things, but somehow he dug them up, right, in the woods, and they were in some strange language, and he translated them somehow, and somebody else wrote them down. It's called the Book of Mormons, right? Joseph Smith says, you don't know who I am. I am, you know, this is it right here. And if you think like me, you'll be like that too. So Emerson goes on to say, but what a distortion did his doctrine, Jesus' doctrine and memory suffer in the same, in the next and in following ages.

[68:12]

There is no doctrine of reason which forbear to be taught by the quote big by capital understanding, understanding caught in its high. Can't high chant. What does that mean? What does it mean? Jargon understanding. Yes. Yeah. It's the same, but it also means jargon. I think, uh, understanding caught in his high jargon from the poet's lip and said in the next age, quotes, this was Jehovah come down out of heaven. I will kill you to say he was a man, unquote. But, you know, in America, people like, what is his name, Joseph Smith, are basically saying God was not just Jesus, but God was a man who by hard work became God.

[69:22]

That a human can become a God. And Emerson's saying, that's his understanding of this wonderful person called Jesus, is Jesus was a prophet. who said, if you, who said, I'm divine, and if you want to see God, if you want to see God in action, look here. If you want to hear God talk, listen to me. And also if you want to see God, see yourself when you think like this. You can become a God. He's saying, Jesus said. He's not saying this here. I'm just saying Joseph Smith said that. Joseph Smith said, by hard work, a man became God. Man ascended into heaven to become God. And by Mormonism, by hard work, you can ascend and become a god.

[70:25]

And Joseph Smith, basically, that's what he did. He ascended. He had a ceremony where he ascended and became God. you know, lord of heaven on earth. Secret ceremony. And Brigham Young had the same ceremony. So this is the country we live in, where there's this kind of theology, and it's to be criticized. It should be criticized. But Buddhism is not terribly different from this in a way that you can become you can become, through this practice of suchness or whatever, you can become, you can realize your Buddha nature. And it turns out that we live in a country where, strictly speaking, Christianity doesn't say this. This is not Christianity. This is Gnosticism. Well, it's not even Gnosticism, what Joseph said. Well, maybe I shouldn't say Gnosticism, but it's American Gnosticism.

[71:31]

It's Gnosticism in the sense that Gnosticism is based on experience, based on that by a certain kind of knowledge you can achieve redemption. Well, it's saying that, I think, it's saying that there is no difference between the divine and us. And that's really different than saying that to the part of work you can become God. Mm-hmm. Yeah, right. But it's both of them. There's no difference, and you can manifest God, you can manifest his non-difference fully. That until you work hard, they would say, if you don't work hard, the difference is still, you know, it seems like there's a difference. Right. Right. Right. And it sounds like Buddhism is saying that too. And it's hard work to study the self. This is theology, right, folks?

[72:35]

This is like saying, this is a teaching or a study of how to work with the divine. And I was also thinking, what is the divine? Is the divine... What is divine? What's divine? Shasta Abbey is divine? Now, what is divine? Is divine like... Is happiness divine? Is freedom divine? Is bliss divine? Is love divine? Is eternal bliss, eternal freedom, eternal peace? Is that divine? Is that what you mean by divine? Or does divine kind of like eternal damnation? Or even temporary damnation? What is divine? He said, Corey, you know, Emerson says, quotes him saying, I am divine. So, again, I didn't come to Zen about divine. I didn't. I came because I thought, totally cool.

[73:39]

Totally cool. But now I think of it, you could say it's almost like some of those stories I thought were kind of like, well, that's divine. Some of those, they're so cool, so lovely, so kind, so skilful, kind of like divine, but I didn't, that word just, And part of the reason why I didn't like the word divine, a lot of you don't, is what he says a little bit further, is he says the idioms of his, Jesus' language, the idiom of his language and the figures of his rhetoric have usurped the place of his truth. And the churches are not built on his principles, but on his tropes. on his figures of speech. Stories, yeah. And then he says, he spoke, Jesus spoke of miracles, for he felt that our life was a miracle.

[74:43]

And all that man doth, he knew that in his daily life, his daily miracles shine as his character ascends. But, the word capital miracle, as pronounced by the Christian churches, gives a false impression. It is a monster. So for me, when I looked at Christianity, I saw these miracles and they drove me away from it because I couldn't relate to these miracles that the church had. Without the church pointing to them, but when the church pointed to them, I thought, that's not for me. I had to leave. Now I find out that there are miracles in the Christian tradition that are kind of like Zen miracles. Miracles like somebody peeing off a boat. Or two old guys rolling in the tall grasses laughing.

[75:45]

Those kind of miracles are in the Christian tradition too. But I find I never heard of them. All I heard was the other miracles which were monsters to me. So... What do you think about the resurrection? That's a very good question, Annie, and you seem to think it's funny. Some of you, right? Right. Right. So you know what I have to say to that, don't you? I'm always near to this. Oh. So let's get cozy with resurrection, shall we? May our intention...

[76:47]

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