Okay. Yesterday I mentioned, can you hear me okay over there? Yesterday I mentioned that sometimes the spectrum of Buddhist studies and Buddhist practice is sometimes put out as involving precept practice, concentration practice, and wisdom practice. And sometimes they go in that order.

[01:02]

And And sometimes they say, they present the precept practice and then they say, after they finish that, they say, having attained purity, the monk is ready for concentration practice. And I think that makes some sense to me. For example, after like, what do you call it, after you like detoxify yourself, get off drugs and calm down from running around the city and put aside lots of unwholesome activities, then you're probably ready to sit quietly. if you've just recently been doing lots of unskillful actions it's pretty hard to sit down because you're still vibrating from the activities and worrying about various things.

[02:10]

So in some sense the idea is first you purify yourself with ethical discipline and then you can like really be calm. And then If you're like ethically well-disciplined and you're really serene, then you can start studying wisdom. And that way of seeing things is a perfectly reasonable story. But the way I was telling it yesterday and I'd like to say again today is another way to see it is not so much that you receive the precepts and that you become necessarily perfect at them or even good at them, but they're more like something to work with. You receive the precepts as a medium and then you relax with the precepts.

[03:15]

and then you start playing with the precepts. And in the process of playing with the precepts, in this relaxed way, or I should say, because you're relaxed you can play with the precepts, as you play with the precepts, the interaction, the... The way it works, the way the precepts affect you and you affect the precepts, the way the precepts affect your relationships with others and the way your relationships with others affect the precepts, the way your understanding of precepts affects your practice of them and how it works with other people and the feedback you get from other people, how that illuminates your understanding of the precepts and how it shows you that sometimes you don't understand it very well. or that you understand them and then you didn't follow them. All this kind of interactive playfulness with the precepts is another way to look at the practices. So it's not so much you do precepts and then you do samadhi, but that you do samadhi and precepts together.

[04:23]

And in that playful mix you understand the precepts. And in the playful mix of samadhi, we enter into samadhi means we enter into kind of like, excuse the expression, a kind of pre-logical fusion of subject and object, or almost a pre-verbal fusion of subject and object, or mind and object. Minds are subjects, and they know objects. Some people have observed that when children play with things, there is a fusion of subject and object in their play.

[05:35]

What they're playing with is, in a sense it's an object, but in another sense it's their object. And we observe children very young have the concept of possession of objects. So they're playing with something that is theirs that's not them. So there is subject and object, but they're fused, they're inseparable. When we as adults relate to things that way, we're in a state of samadhi. So when you're working with the precepts, when you relax and start working with the precepts and become more playful with them,

[06:43]

they're not exactly like out there anymore. You're aware of them, but when you're playing with them, they're not somebody else's precepts. They're your precepts, but they're not you. And also other people then join into the practice of precepts with you, and other people are like yours. They're your people, but they're not you. So in this mix, which is available to us when we can play with other people and we can play with the precepts together with other people, we enter into this non-duality, the non-dual awareness but working dynamically with the objects that are non-dual with the subjects.

[07:47]

And in this mix we understand what the precepts are, we understand what others are, we understand what self is. So wisdom comes up out of that. And I also thought of a poem which Dogen's teacher wrote called The Wind Bell. And it goes something like this. A mouth hanging in emptiness.

[08:53]

It doesn't care whether the wind comes from east or the west, north or south. No matter what the winds do, it just responds. And that sound is the voice of wisdom. So we may think, you know, wisdom's like, oh, you've got this understanding up in your head someplace or in your elbow. But in this poem, the wisdom is just simply the way this flexible, relaxed thing responds to whatever comes to it.

[10:06]

It's just the sound or the response that happens in the play between yourself and others, between yourself and the breeze, between the breeze and yourself. It's not exactly you. It's not exactly the wind. It's not exactly the sound. It's all of that. So when we hear the wind bell, is that the wind bell or is that the wind? Some might say, well, it's actually not the wind or the wind bell, it's actually the air pulsing, touching your ear. But the air wouldn't be pulsing that way if it wasn't for the wind bell, and the wind bell wouldn't be pulsing that way if it wasn't for the wind. So it's, the wisdom is not like, the wisdom isn't like the bell or the wind or the sound or your ear.

[11:21]

It's the way all those things are working together is, is the wisdom. And the thing which sends the message, which the key ingredient there for the sound to be made is put onto the wind bell is Because without a wind bow we don't have this chime sounding. But you could also put it onto a tree, because the wind can go through, the breeze can go through the trees and whisper Louise, right? So then the trees, the leaves in the trees also, they don't say, oh please, let's not have a west wind. I want a south wind. If the tree has a preference then the sound of wisdom is hindered. If the wind bell has a preference and doesn't want a southern wind, Even if it gets a northern wind, it's kind of like, because of its rejection of southern winds, it'll have trouble moving with the northern wind.

[12:35]

But when it has no preferences, when it lets go and relaxes, it can be a perfect vehicle for this wisdom dance. And the wisdom dance emerges from the samadhi dance. And the samadhi dance is initiated when we relax with, for example, the precepts or any form that you choose. The precepts are good to work with as a, what do you call it, precepts are kind of an agreed upon form so we know what game we're playing. And a lot of people seem to be willing to agree upon, at least in certain groups, people seem to be willing to agree upon not killing. People seem to be able to agree upon not stealing and not lying.

[13:43]

That's something to work with. In fact, we don't necessarily follow those precepts, but we're willing to agree upon them. But we aren't necessarily willing to agree upon killing. Even though we kill, we don't want to agree on it. We don't want to say, okay, go ahead, kill me. Or, yes, I do want to kill you. So we don't necessarily want to play that game, even though we do do that. But we don't usually play that game in samadhi. So we agree on the precepts are the things that we, the forms that we actually would be willing to relax with. even though we had trouble relaxing with them, it makes sense that we would dare to be relaxed with not killing. And then we learn by relaxing with not killing how to relax with killing. But at first we'd be afraid to relax with killing because we think if we relax with killing we might kill.

[14:48]

But actually if you relax with killing, you won't kill. And if you relax with not killing, you will not kill. Another thing I wanted to say was that This samadhi here, this self-receiving and playing samadhi, this is a description, of course, of the kind of play that occurs in the pre-verbal fusion of subject and object. And in this samadhi, in the relaxation by which you enter this samadhi, in the relaxation by which you enter the samadhi, body and mind drops off.

[16:01]

And this dropped off body and mind resonates out and then resonates back to you. And your body and mind drops off. So when your body and mind drops off, it's actually that this dropped off body and mind has just resonated back to you. And then when it drops off here, it resonates out and comes back to you, back and forth, like this. Part of relaxation is, of course, to let down your defenses. to let them down, to drop them. The reason why we have defenses, of course, is because we might be vulnerable.

[17:07]

And vulnerable means susceptible to, or open to, or capable of being hurt. seems to me that we are capable of being hurt. We already are vulnerable. But if we ignore that vulnerability, by putting up some kind of defense. If you put up a defense and remember the vulnerability, then I think it's not a defense that interferes with samadhi. But part of samadhi is to acknowledge your vulnerability. If I can acknowledge my vulnerability, in other words, if I can acknowledge how I can be hurt, if I can open and also open to how I can be hurt, then I can open to how I can be helped and how I can help.

[18:40]

So part of samadhi is to open to how you can be hurt, but also it's to open to how you can be helped, and how you are helped, how you are being supported. Can I relax? And in that relaxation is there opening? Do I open to how I can be hurt? And as I open to how I can be hurt, do I also open to how I can be helped?

[19:46]

I can be hurt by people's words, people's bodies, I can be hurt by my own words, by my own physical actions, by my own thoughts. And I can be hurt by anxiety, feeling anxiety. I can be hurt by fear. Can you be? But if I can open to these things, not go look for them and ask for them, but just be open to them, then I also open to beauty and truth. I open to the winds. And then in that openness, the beauty and truth emerge.

[20:56]

So this is the This is the realm of the samadhi. This is a realm of spontaneously arising wisdom from this flexible, responsive field of play. So I went along with sort of the invitation to come here to Pittsburgh.

[23:04]

And I think there was kind of an assumption in the invitation that I was going to play the role of What role was I supposed to play? Pupil. Huh? Pupil. Pupil? There you go. He said, Pupil. See? We play as possible. Let me fill the room. Did it make me feel vulnerable? No, it didn't make me feel vulnerable. But because I was vulnerable, he could say that. He could dethrone me. So anyway, I went along with the invitation to come here and be a pupil.

[24:12]

But now, will you let me be the teacher? Andrew? If you say, what are you going to sing? You mean, I have to sing to the teacher? Huh? Yes? What should I sing? Do you want that one? Catherine, would you like that one? No, that's what I was about to say. I do. Maybe trouble ahead. But while there's music and moonlight and love and romance, let's face the music.

[25:19]

For the fiddlers have fled before they ask us to pay the bill. And while we're still in chains, let's taste the music and dance. So I will be without you. I mean, a different tune. And then there may be teardrops to shed. But while there's music and moonlight and love and romance, let's place the music in there.

[26:30]

20. 60. Yes. Are you 20? Yes. Are you 20? Are you 20? Yes, I'm 20. Are you 20? Are you playing? You want to? Are you? Are you playing? Are you playing? Are you playing? Well, I'm really watching you play. Are you playing? No. What? Rarely? Rarely. Rarely, he says.

[28:07]

You're rarely playing now? No. Not really. Now you have time. What shall we do with you? That's what I get for being honest. Well, he was honest, too. He said he wasn't playing. He was watching me. Did you get something resolved with Hitler? With that, what I really wanted to do with you. Any suggestions? Yeah. See what you're saying? What do you want me to do? Yeah, that's a good idea. Thank you. Do you want to dance? What? Do you want to walk?

[29:26]

You don't have to go out. You'll risk walking. I think I'll walk around this meditation hall here. Here we are in a Zen meditation hall. A Zen meditation hall in Catholic monastery. Is the Sokho Zen meditation hall? Yes. Sokho Zen meditation hall. Pretty good. And you received the 16th grade precepts of the Soto Zen School. So are you kind of into Soto Zen? You know, when Dogen was dying, you know what you did? You rode on a pillar. Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, Vassal, Kripa, Nidhvisa, Mata, I take refuge at this.

[30:34]

I take refuge in God. First he's saying, I think that... No, no. Is there anything else? What do you ask? I don't know. What do you think? Are you with me? With you? We're trying. I mean, we don't have tall heads or anything. I mean, we just kind of... We could skip or something.

[32:02]

Want to try it for him? I don't know. It really helps having a playmate. Are you coming? Andrew, are you playing? What? In your mind. In your mind you're playing? Yes. How's your body doing? Relax. Is your body ready to play? Yes. Okay. Are you ready to play? Sure. Come on.

[33:07]

How would you like to play? How? Oh, how? Yeah. With this game. Are you ready to play? I can play. [...] You want to play with these people? May I? Yes. Are you ready to play? Sure. Are you ready to play? Are you ready to play? Are you ready to play? Another squirrel has to play. It's another lecture. Are you ready to play? Are you ready to play? Are you ready to play? Why don't you just be speaking?

[34:42]

Just because I laugh? That means you didn't forget anything. You didn't forget the dance. I think we should calm down. I don't know. I don't know. They're talking about... [...] down the hall

[35:48]

That's a... Oh, this is a wild group. We started out so quiet. That's a wild group. The market's wild. The market's wild. The market's wild. Thank you.

[37:06]

in this world of birth and death where some deaths are seem to be quite natural and almost at the right time and others seem to be unnatural or anyway rising from cruelty and confusion. I hope that the spirit of relaxation and playfulness can be brought to our meetings with each other and promote serenity and presence and understanding.

[38:32]

promote it or create an atmosphere where we can stand up in a group and say just the right prayer. Say the prayer, express ourselves in a way that inspires people to love each other and protect each other and listen to each other. and to express themselves and live fully, and to see that listening to others and playing with others involves playing with each other. We have plenty of seriousness and plenty of denial.

[39:50]

We have plenty of turning away from life going on. So I'm hoping that we can promote turning towards life and meeting it with intimacy, intimately meet it without grasping it. Intimately listen to it, intimately look at it, touch it, be touched by it, and be flexible so that we can let go and be ready for the next moment and the next offering and the next gift. So all that's part of samadhi practice. And sometimes samadhi practice is conceivable.

[40:52]

We can kind of see how it's going. That's wonderful. And sometimes we can't see it. It's beyond our vision and our conception. But I hope we can open to the practices which help us enter all kinds of samadhis and learn how to use the bodhisattva precepts in such a way that we understand them. So I thought maybe you might want to say something at this time or bring something up. So if you do, I'm sure we all welcome you to do so. I really liked just sitting outside.

[41:58]

I thought that was great. Yeah, I think I did it like once, maybe 10 years ago. It just kind of gave me a different view of Pittsburgh. I've lived here all my life. Yeah, it was a good view of Pittsburgh. Yeah, tag along with that. I found when we're in the zen though, facing the wall, looking within, to all of a sudden go outside, there was that expansiveness. It was just a real turning that I really felt pretty strong. That's part of the merit of facing the wall and being inward. It's like, then when you go outward again, it's going to be quite fresh and surprising. I was saying to someone that, you know, respect means to look again, respectus.

[43:07]

And so I think the key factor of respect is not just that you think the world of someone, but rather that you look at them and then you look away and look back again. You know? And so, in some sense, going inward is a way to respect the world. You look at the world and you see, oh, well, there's good things, there's bad things. Then you turn around and go in. You come out again and you go, wow, oh yeah. You get a different perspective. Another perspective. A second perspective. So, part of respect is Part of respect is that you do see things a first way. And then the next part of respect is you die to the way things appear. And then you look again from your all fresh. So sitting indoors or going within, that's part of Zen practice.

[44:13]

And then after you go in, then you go out. And then when you go out, after you go out, you get sent back in. And then after you go in, you come out. So you should do both. You should be going in and then go out. And you can go out and just look and listen, and you can also go out and interact, ask a question. Go out in the woods and ask a question. Go in the teacher's room and ask a question. And then go back inward and look at your mind. See if it's relaxed. See if it's calm. If it's not calm, confess your agitation. Relax with that. And go back out again. So maybe you want to... Remember, that's a very important lesson, and it's strongly emphasized in Soto Zen. It's just sitting, and then you're going to see the teacher.

[45:20]

And asking about the Dharma or listening to the Dharma. The character, the expression is san-chi-mongpo, where san is to... is to practice or to walk. So it's like walk to the teacher or practice with the teacher. And then mompo means ask or listen. And po is or ho is dharma. So you practice with the teacher and listen to the Dharma, practice with the teacher and ask about the Dharma. But again, listening to the Dharma doesn't mean you just listen to the Dharma coming from the teacher's mouth. You go and practice with the teacher and you listen to the Dharma coming from all directions. Coming from the teacher, coming from inside your own heart, coming from the birds and the trees, coming from everything.

[46:25]

You go and listen to the Dharma with the teacher. Then you go sit by yourself and you listen by yourself. just by sitting. So back and forth between those two aspects of practice. And then, of course, going to practice with the teacher means going to practice with everybody. Shikantaza, just sitting, and sanjivampo. Those are the two parts of sottosana. But I think there are unavoidable principles in spiritual life. People who are active in the world need to go and sit. People who sit need to go be active in the world. You need both so that the compassion circulates. Yes.

[47:37]

I was sitting outside ten years ago. I think I was there at that time. With him? I'm nice. A number of us in this room have been practicing together, but our paths have been intersecting for about ten years now. It's not longer than that. That's right. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. This is my first time sending you this group. They were very welcoming, welcoming the group. So it's one thing to have a long history and connections with people, which is a great thing, but to be able to do that and also welcome new people, it's very special.

[48:47]

I've sat with a few different schools in different cities in the fall. It's something to offer, but the place ones, is something new for me. I really appreciate it and I'm really excited to be able to bring it into my life. A lot of people have shown me how I bear down on myself when I push so hard. The stories of playfulness may be an element in what attracted a lot of you to Zen.

[49:51]

For me, it was through the stories of playfulness that attracted me. Like that story of the two monks who were standing by the river and a young woman comes to the edge of the water and one of them carries her over and then they walk along for a while and one of the monks says to the one who carried him across, you know, you're not supposed to be embracing young ladies and carrying them across rivers. And the guy says, I put her down six miles ago. You're still holding her. So that kind of thing, that playfulness, that spontaneity, and that playfulness and spontaneity was because of non-attachment, because of relaxation, because he was playful in the first place probably. He knew the regulations. And he relaxed with them and did the right thing, give her a ride. That was fine.

[50:56]

And that was it for him. The game was over. Or not the game was over, but that particular playfulness was concluded. He was done. And then the story of the poet Ryokan sitting in his hut. Thief comes up to the hut, and he hears the thief coming. So he throws all his possessions out the window and his clothes. And standing there naked, he says to the thief, I'm sorry, I can't give you the full moon, too. So that playfulness, that's even non-attachment and the playfulness and the love and the generosity, that's what attracted me to Zen. But Zen training does have rigorous side, too. Because somehow we need to, part of being spontaneous like that is we need to learn how to relax with what's happening.

[52:09]

So we go in the room and we sit down and stuff starts happening, right? And some of it's difficult. So maybe we want to like leave the room because it's difficult, which is okay. But rather than leave the room, which is a kind of tense response sometimes, not always, sometimes you should leave the room, but sometimes leaving the room or going away from the discomfort is really an expression of tension and avoidance. We need to learn how to relax with a pleasant period of meditation. an uncomfortable period of meditation, a frightening period of meditation. We need to learn how to relax with these things. Then we can be very spontaneous and playful when somebody comes to steal our clothes. So that there is a training side which is kind of rigorous and challenging. But even there, right from the beginning, it's okay to learn to be playful with the rigors. But there are rigors.

[53:14]

There is a schedule. And we had a schedule. And we met the schedule. And we played with it. And we're OK. And I guess most of us learned a little this weekend. I learned a little about my legs as I'm continuing to learn about my legs from my broken leg. Every day I started trying to find out what they can do, how are they going to cross, how to take care of them. I learned a little bit of how to, again, I had this experience before, but I learned a little bit of how to relax with my bodily secretions, how to relax with that sensation of sweat. and skin and clothes, you know, how to like, and part of relaxing with it is reframing it. I kind of relax with it and try another perspective on it. Like one of them I tried was, if I was like, if I just, you know, forgot about these being my nice clothes and thought of them as my workout clothes,

[54:23]

and I was running around a human city like Pittsburgh, I would get all sweaty, and I'd be perfectly comfortable. I would like that feeling of the sweat, and I'd feel like, hey, this is like really working out. So then I wouldn't have any problem. But if I think, well, these are my workout clothes, This is my, you know, special outfit that I spend a lot of money on. And I just forget about that and just say, okay, I'm just sweating here. I'm just doing a workout here in the meditation hall. Then I'm comfortable. It's not that the sweat isn't going to be that painful. It's just the frame on it. So you relax, let the frame go, and then say, hey, it's okay. Okay. So I learned a little bit about that, partly because of the rigors. You know, that you didn't rent an air-conditioned place. During most of the history of Zen, they did not have air conditioning except in the winter.

[55:26]

And, of course, in San Francisco, which is always air-conditioned. Suzuki Rishi said, in Japan, it's always too hot or too cold. But in San Francisco, the weather's always fine. Asahara gets pretty hot. 120. But not humid. Almost never humid. So even with 120, it's not that bad. Huh? 150. It's not exactly uncomfortable. It's more like you just get real slow. Everything slows down. It's not that uncomfortable because it's dry. It's like a desert heat. Now, if you sat out in the sun, you'd just fry. But I mean, if you're in the shade, it's not that bad. But if you took a walk on the sun and didn't drink your water, you could heat stroke fast, sun stroke fast.

[56:41]

But if you cover your head and keep hydrated, it's not that... Actually, it's okay. Anything else you'd like to express? Yes. This is more a question or an observation. It seems I've been hearing you refer to this practice as Buddhist yoga. Is that the right word? Or you've thrown yoga in there. The Buddhist part of the yoga starts in Samadhi number three. Samadhi number two is not really Buddhist yoga. It's just regular Indian yoga or human yoga. So the sitting also, would you call that just yoga? The sitting posture is basically not necessarily Buddhist. We sit pretty much the same as Hindus and I don't know, whatever. The physical posture does not really belong to any religion. It's a universal human situation.

[57:46]

And even the relaxation process and letting go you know, meeting things without grasping and seeking, that's not specifically Buddhist. Other people would do that too. But when you move into Samadhi number three, then you have, in a sense, Buddhist yoga because not all religious disciplines focus on understanding the self as the key to liberation from suffering. So the Buddhist yoga starts in the third and fourth samadhi. Those are the Buddhist yogas, which are not all exclusive of other forms of religious practice. Those are completely included. We don't exclude anyone from that. It's just that some of the other religions would not necessarily understand that they're included there. But we would understand that we include them, because all beings are included in the outer circle. which includes all the yogis of all the different traditions.

[58:53]

But the Buddhists, the basic concentration samadhis are just standard human equipment or standard human potential. So the trance system that's presented in Buddhist literature is pre-Buddhist. Shakyamuni learned those trances before he was awakened to the Buddhist truths. But he continued to recommend those practices for some of his students. And he continued to practice them himself. Like, you know, somebody might play golf before their enlightenment and continue after and recommend it to her students because they found golf is a really good concentration practice. Which it is, actually. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's just, I had never heard it expressed that way, but it does make sense, yeah.

[60:00]

Yeah, the part of my reason for teaching samadhi the way I do is because of reading a Mahayana scripture which has a big chapter in it called the Analysis of Yoga. It's the yoga practices for bodhisattvas. It's called the Samdhi Nirmocana Sutra. And there's several translations. One of the translations of the scripture is called Buddhist Yoga. So the whole book, in some sense, the first part of the book is about the things you study in Buddhist Yoga, and the latter part of the book is about the actual yoga practices. And the way they treat samadhi there is not to focus on some object, some external object like is sometimes taught in early Buddhism or in non-Buddhist schools, but to focus on the nature of mind, to focus on the way the mind doesn't get involved in its objects, it just meets them. But the mind meets and knows without grasping, so you want to learn that

[61:05]

And that's the way that sutra teaches samadhi. So that's why I myself have tried to emphasize not thinking of samadhi as a concentration, as focusing on something, but rather as focusing on the way you meet things, focusing on the way you know things, rather than try to direct yourself to something, rather pay attention to how you meet things. So you turn the light back on. You don't look at things. Of course, you do look at things, but you look at how you meet things. In other words, you watch at how you understand them or how you know them. That's calming. You don't calm by looking at something outside. You calm by looking at your mind. And that's what that sutra teaches. By the way, I have a reading list of Mahayana Samadhis, which, you know, if you want, you can get that.

[62:14]

Yes, Carrie? It's occurred to me sometimes that maybe Zen is not the path for everybody. And therefore I'm wondering if people can reach the highest levels of Samadhi in another way, or whether this just applies to Zen practice. Everybody really is right now totally engulfed in this, in the highest level of samadhi. So Zen practice is just one of the ways to wake up to that. It's a certain style. There is actually in the scripture I just mentioned, there is a detailed description of the process that bodhisattva goes through to realize these samadhis, these great non-dual samadhis. And there are also other scriptures which teach in detail how you, what process you go through to understand these samadhis.

[63:24]

These are like what we call the scriptures. And we're actually, we're studying these right now, I'm studying these with people at Green Vulture. These are not Zen scriptures. all the different schools of Buddhism study the scriptures, but the scriptures are not really schools. They're schools which interpret the scriptures. And Zen, from its early days, was, well, I don't know how early, but at a certain point in the history of so-called Zen, a saying developed that Zen was a special transmission. Either you could say outside the scriptures, or... separate from the scriptures or beyond the scriptures. And part of the reason why Zen was described that way is that the Zen teachers were teaching a way of practice which if you looked in the scriptures you couldn't find what they were teaching. That's what I mentioned earlier.

[64:25]

You probably can't find what I just said to you in any scripture. And part of the reason for that is the Zen tradition is like At a certain point, they stopped trying to prove that what they were teaching was in the scriptures. In the early days, they were teaching from the scriptures, but gradually they started to become very creative and the teachers were coming up with stuff that they never heard before, but that seemed to be appropriate to the time. So for me, for example, I discovered the word relaxation. It seems to work for people better than non-attachment. But, you know, 50 years from now, maybe relaxation won't work. Or even 10 years from now, it might not be right. But for this culture, relaxation seems to be good. People seem to get a feeling for, a better feeling for non-attachment by that word. So I use that word. But you probably won't find that word exactly if you look in the scriptures. So that's part of Zen is to

[65:30]

is to come up with something that works for the people right now. And that's sort of one of the great things about Zen, is it came up with all kinds of new, what we call, skillful means for people, very creative, never seen in earlier Chinese Buddhism or Indian Buddhism or Tibetan Buddhism, and yet really worked for people. People were waking up left and right. with these Zen masters trying all this new stuff, like, well, some of you heard about, like, yelling at people. You know, look in the old tradition. You don't find the teachers yelling at people very often. Generally speaking, Buddhist teachers are pretty gentle and kind, you know. Buddhist, like, you know, nonviolence, right? Nonviolent communication. So, these Zen teachers were doing these outrageous things. things, and you call them techniques, but anyway, they're just being very creative and in the process these people were waking up. But some people, it maybe works better to do the scriptural way.

[66:40]

Some people like a more structured course. But there's dangers in the structured course. Like Angus was saying, when you see the structured course it's hard to resist grasping it as the way. Nice thing about Zen is that the way these teachers taught, it was pretty difficult to grasp it as the way, right where they were teaching it, because it was like nobody ever saw this before. So they weren't like grasping, so actually they had no choice, they let go. And when they let go, they opened up to the truth and boom. But then the next generation copied that. So you'll see after a while that Somebody did something for the first time, yelled or hit somebody, and then people start hitting people for generations. And it doesn't work so well anymore after a while. And so then they stop. And somebody comes and says, you people are just copying the old-timers, you know, who weren't copying the old-timers. So for some people, Zen is not the right thing for them.

[67:47]

But the scriptures are heading for the same place, it's just in a more systematic way sometimes. Or maybe in a more, what do you call it, using more like visualizations and things is sometimes what the scriptures do. Or sometimes through highly developed rituals. Zen teachers are more like, you know, meet the person, Get them to start dancing with you, and then in that dance, they understand who they are. But still, like I say, I also study the sutra with people. But since it's a Zen school, they're ready to get hit during the sutra class. I mean, I'm supposed to be ready to be hit, too, right? So yeah, Zen isn't for everybody.

[68:52]

But it seems like it has been for somebody. And it was very popular for a while there in China. Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are not that different in terms of the way Patanjali understands Samadhi. I feel like I'm in accord with that. But these are Mahayana Buddhist scriptures. The one I was referring to is called the Samdhinirma Chana Sutra. Yes.

[69:40]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_86.59