Well, in our class, our practice period in class, we've been studying the Bhagavad Gita Heart Sutra. The key phrase is form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. So today, it's reminded me of a koan in the Mumon-Kan, Master Mumon's collection of koans. And so I'm going to talk about this koan today, in the light of formless emptiness.

[01:01]

So this koan, number five, is called Kyogen's Man Up in a Tree. So this is the koan. There's no introduction. Kyogen Osho, Osho meets priest, said, it is like a man up in a tree hanging from a branch with his teeth. His hand grasps no bow. His feet rest on no limb. Someone appears under the tree and asks him, sir, what is the meaning of bodhidharmas coming from the West? He fails to respond to the question.

[02:21]

If he does answer, he will lose his life. What would you do in such a situation? So, this is your situation. He's talking to you. What will you do? Because you are, right now, in this situation. So, here's Mumon's comment. Even if your eloquence flows like a river, it is to no avail. Otherwise, you must wait until Lantreya, Buddha, comes and asks him." And then Mulan has a verse which kind of sums things up.

[03:30]

He says, Kyogen is truly thoughtless. His vice and poison are endless. He stops up the mouths of the monks, and devil's eyes sprout from their bodies. So, this is a great predicament. Kyogen was a student of Isa, Master Isa. Isa is a very famous Zen master. And he was a very erudite monk. Here's a description. Kyogen stood seven feet tall, and was a scholar of great erudition. His learning, for a long time, stood in the way of his enlightenment.

[04:33]

This can be a big problem. But Isan recognized his innate ability. One day, Isan asked Kyogen, when you were with our teacher, Gyakucho, They were both students of Yahweh Jehovah, but now Kyogen was a student of Isa. You were clever enough to give ten answers to a single question and hundreds of answers to ten questions. However, sagacity, being a sage, does not help you in studying Zen. In fact, it stands in the way of your enlightenment. Now I'm going to ask you about what you have learned from the reading. I'm not going to ask you what you have learned from your reading or from your study or the sutras. Instead, tell me this. What is your real self? What is your real self that existed before you came out of your mother's womb, before you knew East from West?

[05:41]

So, this kind of threw Killian for a loss. He didn't know what to say. Does it matter? Here I am now. Why does it matter where I came from? Kyogen was stupefied and didn't know what to say. He racked his brains. I don't know for all sorts of answers, but Isan brushed them all aside. Nothing will do. What I said to Kyogen said, I beg you, please explain it to me. Isan replied, what I How can that benefit your mind's eye?

[06:52]

So, in Zen, the point is to find your own understanding. under yourself. Be your own light. Discover your own light. No one can discover your own light for you. The purpose of practice is to reveal your own light. Teacher is a guide, but When Master Dogo, Dawu, and one of his students was invited to a funeral, this is a well-known story, when they came to the coffin, the student knocked on the coffin, dead or alive, teacher, and Dawu said, I won't say.

[08:18]

I won't say. This is a very famous answer. I won't say. I won't say. Come on, teacher. Tell me. If you don't tell me, I'll hit you. I won't say. I won't say. Later, they were walking down the path and the student said, teacher, if you don't tell me, I'll hit you. The student did hit him. And then he left. And he went to... He visited one of Dawu's other students. There's some time in between. And he asked him... He said, you know, when I was with Dawu, I asked him this question. And he said, I won't say, I won't say. Now I want to ask you this question.

[09:21]

And then there's the story of the teacher, the monk who was making obeisance to his former teacher. And someone said, well, why are you making obeisance to your former teacher when so-and-so is your other real teacher? I always felt that way about my teacher. He never revealed the answer. That was so wonderful, because I had to dig myself. So practice me digging deeply for yourself. If you dig half-heartedly, you'll get half the answer. If you dig whole-heartedly, you're bound to have

[10:35]

the answer. So I urge everyone to dig wholeheartedly. So Kyogye went through all of his books and the notes he made on authorities of every school that could find no words to use as an answer to Isang's question. Sighing to himself, he said, you cannot fill an empty stomach with paintings of a rice cake. He then burned all his books and papers, saying, I will give up the study of Buddhism in this life. I will remain a rice-gruel monk for the rest of my life in a hoard torturing my mind. Sadly, he left Isang. This is the best thing that ever could have happened to him because he solved the problem right there.

[11:37]

So this story is Killian's story about himself. So he would tell this story about the person hanging by his teeth. self-revelatory confession of his own search. This is Kyoge's story. It's like a person hanging up in a tree from a branch with his teeth. His hands grasp no bow, his feet rest on no limb. Someone appears under the tree and asks him, What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West? Well, that's Esan asking you a question. What is your original faith? This question, what was the purpose of Bodhidharma's coming from the West, was a famous question in the Tang Dynasty.

[12:47]

And there are all kinds of answers, which sound weird. Three tons of flags, so what? Meaning, what is the meaning of your life? If he doesn't answer, he falls. If he responds to the question, he fails. He falls. So either he fails or he falls, one or the other. And so, this is when Ethon, I mean, went to Kyogre and said, I give up. That was his letting go. Giving up is where it's at. This is the way a teacher tests his students.

[13:54]

A person can be practicing for 30, 40 years with a teacher and not understand why the teacher doesn't actually Practice is confirmed when you give up. When is it that you give up? That's a good question. I'm not going to answer that. But you already know. So Kyogen burned all his books and papers saying, I will give up the study of Buddhism in this life. I will remain a rice gruel monk for the rest of my life and avoid torturing my mind. That's great. So sadly, he left Isan and coming to Nanyang, where the remains of the national teacher Chu were buried,

[15:05]

Nanyang, Nangaka Ejo, was the disciple of the sixth ancestor, Huineng, and the Rinzai school is descended from him. The remains of the national teacher, Chu, were buried. He took on the self-appointed job of gravekeeper. In other words, he just swept the monument and kept it clean and well taken care of. In his spirit of dejection, he found his humble task best suited for him. So one day here when he was sweeping the ground, a stone struck a bamboo.

[16:19]

It went... Did you all hear that? The sound echoed through his mind as the sound of a falling He gives a little explanation of how that happens. Men is a word that means something like this moment of consciousness, this moment of conscious awareness, just this. But there are variations, various men, various or hearing a sound or a sight as it is.

[17:29]

In other words, the car goes by and you hear this, and that hearing hears the sound of the car, but it doesn't say that's a car, it says simply a sound. It's just this sound Or that was an airplane going by. I heard it. Or I saw it. So the I arises with the second NEN. And then the third NEN elaborates on that. He says, I think it was a Ford. third perception or the third mind is an idea about the second and the first.

[18:34]

So there is more and more elaboration and the more elaboration there is, the more thinking there is and the further away we get from direct perception. So to have nothing in the mind and to simply let consciousness cognize is direct perception. It's necessary to have all three, but if you don't have the first, then our experience is simply mental. It's also experience through feelings and so forth, but it's a mental perception. It's a step back from actual experience. commentator. One day he was sweeping the ground and a stone struck a bamboo.

[19:39]

The sound echoed through his mind as the sound of a falling nut rings through the empty belly and hills at midnight. In other words, that's his empty mind, right? It's just simply, and everything fell away except direct perception. This was the intuitive first man ringing through his cleared mind object. Kyogen stood speechless, forgetting himself for a while. That's pretty rare. Then suddenly bursting out into loud laughter, or it could have been crying, he became enlightened. Enlightenment is consummated have to go into the description of the eight levels of consciousness, which is why we can do that.

[20:50]

But the point is, the letting go. How do you let go? Someone said, how do you leave your old body up to the Absolute? In other words, how do you let As a child, we're born into the world and mama takes care of us, hopefully. Maybe daddy, but we don't have to worry about thinking. We don't know how to do it anyway. But as we become more independent, we create various and in order for survival. And as we develop these various dependencies, we create a self around the dependencies.

[21:55]

And as we create the self, the self becomes solidified. And then we say, I am so-and-so, my name is so-and-so, and this is who I am. But it's not really who you are. It's kind of where we are, but... And then at some point we say, there's a big problem here, and I'm caught by this self. And how do I deal with that? Then we start practicing Buddhism.

[22:58]

And then we start practicing Zen. And then we start sending love in. from that self which is solidified and binds us. So we grew up with these dependencies and they're hard to let go of. And so we're caught by the branch, we're caught by our teeth. So this is the question, how do we find our freedom? How do we find our true self which is empty, basically, of these dependencies. How do we find our natural, true self, which is not conditioned? So when he sits us in, the purpose of sitting is we give ourselves over to our true self.

[24:19]

So true self is hidden or covered by our ego self. And it's difficult to let go. With Kyogen, the way Kyogen let go was he gave up his dependencies. said, well, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do this any longer. I'm kind of defeated. I know people who need to be defeated before they can come alive again. This is a problem. Before we become really truly alive, we have to die to the ego. it's no avail. So, though you can expound the whole of Buddhist literature, it's of no use. If you solve this problem, you will give life to the way that has been dead up to this moment, and destroy the way that has been alive up to now.

[25:32]

So the way that has been dead Because it's like, what's next? If I give up, what is there? That's the problem that we face. My trade, of course, is the Buddha of the future, who will come in 10,000 A.I.s, up in the Tushita Heavens. He's the Buddhist messiah, and he will bring in the era of loving-kindness, which is what binds everything together.

[26:46]

So, Mumon's verse says, Kyogen is truly thoughtless. That sounds like a day, but actually it's a compliment. He's not burdened by all the thoughts in his mind. He's not burdened by false thoughts. So, sometimes people call that foolish. The fool is the one who actually has the true understanding, but people call that person the fool because he's not operating from the ego. His vice and poison are endless, spreading his ego-killing poison. He stops at the mouth of the monk. from their dead eyes and the monk is struck dumb and only rolls his eyes with his whole body and mind.

[28:09]

without having faith, there's no way you can practice thoroughly. You can practice at it, but you can't practice thoroughly, because there's no trust. We have to be able to trust the unknown, or what we feel is unknown. But what is unknown is closer than any They say it's closer than hands and feet. Of course, it's closer than anything that we can drive. So we build up a self because we don't trust our true self. So we have to build a self in order

[29:36]

But if we don't have faith in our true self, then our built-up self becomes a kind of a sanctuary of avoidance. And we fight like crazy to defend it. And if you look at the way the world works, people are becoming more and more defensive. So this is like regaining your innocence. We can't go back to being a child. A child has a certain innocence, which means guilelessness and trust, basic trust. And then as we grow older, we question that trust and start building up our defenses and isolate ourselves.

[31:00]

The more defensive we are, the more we isolate ourselves. And then at some point, we let go of that isolation and that defensiveness and trust our true self, that if we really Because, how can it not? So, there are two things, you know. One, we're afraid of not having enough. And we're afraid of dying. You know the old man river? Tired of living and fear to die.

[32:03]

That's our human condition. But we have to let go of that. And trust that our true self knows what is supposed to happen. Otherwise, how could it not? How could it not be? Otherwise, life is just a joke. Someone called it a cosmic joke. We build up, and build up, and build up, and in the end, it's all wiped away. Well, it's got to be more than that. Well, it is. So, to let go and trust our self.

[33:09]

Let go of our defenses and trust our true self. That's what this koan is about. That's what the Heart Sutra is about. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Emptiness is a term that we use, shunyat, for us, interdependence. Everything is a part of everything else. There's nothing, we don't exist by ourselves. And our self-existence, you know, as Sugiyoshi put it, independency. We are interdependent, But we are dependent on everything. There's nothing. You can't exist without being dependent on the whole universe.

[34:15]

The whole universe is what holds this figure up. This is Gutei's answer to everything. When someone asks Gutei a question, he would say, yourself. But yourself, you can't escape from your ego, but you can't escape from yourself. So this is actually Buddhism. You can change your karma. So our self is built on You can change that, you can go in a different direction. So we have to be very respectful of karma, but not bound by it.

[35:18]

So we turn ourselves over to our true self, our big self, which is universal ego. The ego of the universe. And when we realize our equality, our ego vanishes. That's our understanding. So, Kyogen, returning to his hut, Kyogen performed the than even that of my parents.

[36:30]

If you had explained the profound cause to me, and I begged you to give me an answer, I should never have reached where I stand today." So Kyokan's verse on this occasion runs, One stroke and all is gone. The bamboo, the stone eating the bamboo. One stroke and all is gone. No need of stratagem or cure. Each and every action manifests the ancient way. My spirit is never downcast. I leave no tracks behind me. Enlightenment is beyond speech and beyond gesture. Those who are emancipated call it the unsurpassed." Then when Kyogen finally continued his great erudition understanding of Buddhism is a great asset.

[37:39]

You know, the sixth ancestor, Huineng, was asked by a monk to explain Buddhism. And he said, I can't do that. And the monk said, why not? And he said, I don't understand it. So, we create this sense of permanence on the basis of impermanence. Everything that we build up doesn't last.

[38:45]

for any time at all. Some things seem to last longer than others. So to be able to flow with the current and to give ourselves to it, and at the same time to co-operate, we have to have some ego. It's important to have some ego. But ego has to be served in, rather than being served. This is our problem. serve without expectation or without wanting something, everything comes to us. Everything we need comes to us when we are servants of our true self, servants of emptiness.

[39:47]

Everything will come. The more we give and the less we feel that we want, the happier we are. This is like letting go and trusting. Since we hear that there is no self, can you help us understand what you mean when you talk of your true self?

[40:51]

Yeah. Although there is no self, that doesn't mean that there isn't. There is a self, but the self is not a self. And what's not a self is the self. The problem with talking about no-self is you think that there's something not there. That's the dualistic understanding that is the problem. That's why we have to speak in this way. It's not like there's no-self. There is this form. There are my feelings. There are my perceptions. It's like the Arabian Nights, you know, you rub the lamp and the genie comes out of the bottle, and you watch the genie come out of the bottle, and then there's the genie, but you can see the smoke and stuff, and it's coming out of the bottle.

[42:10]

So, the bottle, you choose the stuff in the And then it's always changing. So the true form is no form. The true form is no special form. But then there's the temporary form, which is called me and you. We're all temporary forms of the true form. So to say there is no self. also right. So if you say there's no self, then that's denying that there is a self. If you say there is a self, that's denying that there is no self. So the self is not a self. And that which is not a self is a self.

[43:12]

A self is only made out of everything else around it. In other words, as is explained sometimes, form. So your true self is the whole universe. That's who you are. You are the whole universe, and the whole universe is you. Nevertheless, you have this feeling that you're a separate self. And so this separate It's a co-operation.

[44:18]

And when we're not cooperating, we suffer. When the small self is not cooperating with the big self, then we self-separate. So how do I co-operate with myself? Co-operate. So that makes two. How can the co-operation be one? So there's no distinction. no separation, even though it seems separate. So we think and we have a willpower, but we also have a willingness. Interesting term, willpower and willingness. So willpower is a grrr, whereas willingness When wanting and doing are the same thing, no problem.

[45:25]

When what you want to do and what you need to do are the same thing, that's cooperation. When what I'm actually doing is what I want to be doing, whether it's good or bad or right or wrong, But doing wholeheartedly as if we're cooperating with our big self and our big selfish. and

[46:20]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ