As a way of review, I wanted to mention again that I proposed to you that some people, some humans and some non-humans, have minds which are somewhat poisoned by greed, hatred and confusion. Confusion. But even though one might have a mind like that, or one might know somebody that has a mind like that, all those beings who have minds like that are supporting each other. And all those who are free of that kind of poisoning, the awakened ones, they are also supporting all the ones who have poisoned minds, and the poisoned mind people are supporting

[01:02]

the enlightened people. We're all together. And also, the people whose minds are more or less poisoned have the ability to have wholesome intention, to have intentions which have basically the intention to benefit life, to protect life, to not harm life. And, you can't hear me, because of the barking, would you do me a favor, would you come up closer, or just come up into that space between June, I'll speak up, but I want you to come

[02:09]

closer. Would you mind? Even if your mind is somewhat poisoned by confusion or whatever, it's still possible for an intention to arise in your mind which is good, in other words, which will bring benefit to beings. And it's also possible, of course, in such a mind to have an intention which doesn't bring benefit. That, of course, wouldn't surprise you, right? That with a mind poisoned by greed, hate and delusion, you could imagine some kind of relationship which might be harmful to you and others, which is true, that that can happen. But the other thing can happen too, that still a positive intention can arise in your mind.

[03:12]

Okay? That was kind of a review, was it? It's a little surprising maybe to hear that a poisoned mind can give rise to a wholesome thought. It can though. You want to know what? It's not surprising? Okay, fine. Yeah, okay, good, good. And then the additional thing is that if we get stiff around our positive intentions or negative intentions and also get tight around the positive consequences of our positive intentions, the positive fruits, and also get kind of stuck on the negative fruits of the unwholesome actions, that being stuck on this stuff is somewhat of a problem. But the main problem of it is that it blinds us.

[04:15]

But if we can learn a way to be generous and relaxed with these processes, with these intentions, we can open to the light, which is beyond these intentions. Then the next thing I wanted to move on to was to say that we were just starting to talk about the activity of consciousness. And again, the activity of consciousness, we're sort of talking about the same thing, but not calling it precepts. The activity of consciousness is also called its intention. Every moment of consciousness has an activity which can be called its intention. It can also be called its will. It can also be called its volition. These are synonyms, basically. It can also be called its thinking. So every moment of consciousness has activity.

[05:22]

Unenlightened beings just have that kind of activity. And it's unclear. And it has consequence. And it is moral. It's a moral aspect of consciousness. It is actually the moral aspect of consciousness, the intention or the activity. It also can be called the story of the moment. And so now we have a class at Green Gulch that Elizabeth's in and Catherine's in. Anybody else here? Gordon was in it for a while, but he came to Mount Madon instead. Anybody else? Nobody else in the class?

[06:27]

You're not in the class? I was asking Stephen, but you thought I was talking to you. Are you in the Koan class at Green Gulch? No, I didn't think so. And Stephen is neither. Am I? Marjorie, you're in it? And Dale? Okay, hi. So do you mind if I go over some stuff that we already went over in class? Can you tolerate it? If you get real bored, go have a snack. You want to close that glare? Go ahead. The front one? Sorry, Faraday. See? It's glaring on them. How about opening these over here? Okay, well. We got that taken care of. So now, I'd like to just mention something I mentioned at the beginning of the Koan class,

[07:36]

this last one, is that... That's fine. That's enough, thanks. What is it? What is it? Some people do not notice the Zen tradition talking that much about karma, but anyway, it really does, because Zen is so concerned with stories and storytelling. And again, storytelling is karma. Storytelling is karma. Karma can be defined as a story, a story in your mind at the moment. It's the storytelling function of your mind. And once again, I do not tell the stories in my mind. I do not make the stories in my mind. However, I'm a person who has stories in his mind constantly.

[08:41]

All beings create me. By the way, this is a story about the creation of me. All beings create me. Three particular conditions are necessary for me to be conscious, and therefore be me. And then all beings also contribute to the stories that arise in my mind. And some of the beings that give rise to the stories in my mind are past stories that I've participated in. So my past stories are not me, but I've had past stories happen to me, and those past stories influence my present stories. So the nice stories I have about all of you from earlier today are affecting my present story, the present story in my mind. The way I've seen our relationship last night and throughout the day, that is affecting my current story about our relationship, our friendship and practicing together.

[09:44]

In other words, my story of our friendship and practicing together influences my present story of our friendship and practicing together. So those are beings, those stories are beings that contribute to the story in my mind. I'm not making the story. I'm receiving the story. And I'm giving you the story. I receive it and give it. I don't make it. However, I contribute to your stories, and the story I have now will contribute to further stories. So this is a story about how stories work, how they arise and how they affect other stories. And it is therefore a story of moral causation, because stories have moral consequence. The stories in your mind have moral consequence. And they also are, in themselves, also moral consequences. And a lot of them, stories, are about people who have stories.

[10:55]

In other words, they're stories about people who have stories. And they're stories about people sometimes who are not tight around their stories, and who have not been tight around their stories for a long time. And therefore, because they weren't tight with their stories, they are now called teachers, because they see the light in their stories. And they see the light in other people, but they meet people who are tight around their stories. So some people in the stories come to the story, with a story, holding their story tightly. Other people are not holding their story tightly. And the ones who are not holding the stories and see the light in the stories, interact with the ones who are still holding the stories, and don't see the light.

[11:56]

And through that interaction, everybody in the partnership, both of them, realize freedom from the story. Realize freedom from the story. Realize the light in the story. Realize the light in the karma. Realize the light of the precepts. And therefore, they're free. Some Zen stories, the one who seems to be free, is not successful in helping the other person become free. Sometimes in Zen stories, the one who's free interacts with the one who's not, and the one who's free suddenly becomes caught by the story, and the one who's not free becomes free, because of the kindness of the one who was free, becoming stuck, so that the other one can become free.

[13:00]

This one comes seeing the light. This one comes seeing the darkness. In other words, they see how their story is stuck. It's dark. But they don't see the darkness. So when they meet the teacher, the teacher tells them, the teacher helps them see the darkness. And when they see the darkness and accept it, they see the light. So, I told two stories at the beginning of the Koan class, one that's from supposedly 1,300 years ago, and one that's from 36 years ago. And so these are stories where, again, we can look for the light of wisdom, and we can also see about the practice of compassion,

[14:18]

and we can also see about moral causation, and so on. So these stories are ways for us to exercise what we've been talking about so far. And I apologize beforehand, because one of the stories has some kind of aggressive behavior in it. So, if while I'm telling this story, you start to feel uncomfortable, and you'd like me to stop for a little while, so you can relax with the story, let me know. What is it called? It's Rated R for some violence, some graphic sex. And I also want to tell you beforehand,

[15:22]

to help me not forget, is that after we told these stories, I asked people then later in the next class, I asked people if they could see themselves reflected in the story. Because these are stories from the past, Zen stories from the past, but then the thing is, can you see yourself in these stories? Can you see yourself reflected in these stories? Can these stories be a mirror for you? Maybe I shouldn't have told you that before I told it, but anyway, now you know that it's possible to see yourself in these stories. That's part of what they're for. So here's this teacher in China named Wang Bo. An important Zen master in China. And a monk came to the temple named Lin Ji,

[16:30]

and he practiced in the temple for three years. And after that time, the head monk, his name was Mu Zhou, noticing that he'd been there all this time and hadn't come to ask a question, he... Would you move closer, Lusetta, please? Is that okay? You can put your chair right there next to Stephen. Between Stephen and Leon. I didn't... I wasn't accusing you of that yet. Are your knees comfortable? Okay. So the head monk, Mu Zhou, sees this wonderful person named Lin Ji, and he says, Have you gone to see the teacher? Have you gone to ask the teacher about the teaching?

[17:33]

Part of Zen practice is looking inward and checking out the activity of your mind. Looking inside to see what your intention is, moment by moment. Keep a track of your attention. Keep a track of your attention, okay? Look at it, watch it. Is it good, is it not? Is it wholesome, unwholesome? Watch that. That's how you will see the light, is by looking at your intention. That's part of practice. Give close attention to your intention. Give close attention to the activity of your mind. But another part of Zen practice is to go see the teacher and ask about the Dharma, ask about the teaching. But also that word ask can also be translated as listen. So go and ask the teacher

[18:35]

or go listen to the teacher. That's the other part of practice. So Linji was probably doing the first kind, I think so, because he was a very good monk. A monk who also became a great teacher saw this very good monk who was doing his work, keeping track of what was going on with him, but he wasn't going to see the teacher because things were going so well with him he didn't think he needed to. I don't need to see him, I'm fine. You know, everything's good here and I'm relaxed with it and all that. Head monk said, you should go ask him something. And Linji said, what should I ask him? He said, ask him what the true essential meaning of the Buddha Dharma is. Ask him what the true essential meaning of the Buddha's teaching is, of the Buddha's truth. So Linji went and asked him

[19:38]

and before he could finish the question, Wangbo hit him. And later the head monk said, how did it go? And Linji said, he hit me. And the head monk said, oh, you should go ask him again. Did I tell this story in San Luis Obispo? So he went and asked again and he immediately hit him. And then again the head monk saw him and said, how did it go? And he said, he hit me. Head monk said, oh, you should go ask him again. And he did. And again, Wangbo hit him.

[20:41]

Now, you may wonder, what's he laughing about, somebody hitting somebody? That's because I know the punchline. I'm laughing because I know the punchline. I didn't mean that as a pun. I didn't mean it as a pun. I wasn't laughing because of that. You got it before I did. I'm laughing because it looks like somebody's not being nice to somebody. But he really is. And I know that's going to turn out that way. So that's why I think it's so funny. That it looks like he's not being very nice. It's funny. So that's three times. And the head monk asked him three times. And he said, three times he hit me. But now Linji says, I'm leaving. As we say these days, I had it.

[21:56]

That's all it says. We can interpret that, but anyway, that's what it says. The head monk says, oh, okay. But you should go say goodbye. You should take your leave of him. And Linji says, okay. And then I add, from a distance, out of reach. And then the head monk goes to Wangbo before Linji gets there and tells him, he's leaving, he's coming to say goodbye to you, so take it easy on him. Help him. Wangbo says, I will. So Linji comes and says, I'm leaving. Wangbo says, don't go too far. Don't leave. Don't go too far. Just go over the mountain to the other side. And there's a person over there I'd like you to see. His name is Dayu. I think he'll be able to help you. So he goes to see Dayu. And when he gets there,

[23:05]

Dayu says, where are you from? He says, Wangbo. Wangbo means the place and also the name of the teacher of the place. I'm from Wangbo. And he said, well, what did Wangbo say? He said, three times I asked him what the true essential meaning of the Buddha's teaching was and three times he hit me. And I don't know if I was at fault or not. And Dayu says, Wangbo exhausted himself for your sake. He gave you his whole grandmother mind and you come and ask me if you're at fault or not. He gave you everything and you're wondering about whether you're at fault or not in the presence of that compassion.

[24:08]

And Linji didn't say, well, he hit me. Instead, he woke up. He had his great enlightenment. He was somewhat enlightened before. That's why the head monk sent him. He'd already seen the light a little bit by his own study. But that isn't enough. He had to go ask the teacher, too. And when he went to ask the teacher, the teacher pushed him to a deeper level and he couldn't go there. So he wanted to leave. So Dayu told him, tipped him off. And he woke up. And then I guess he showed his awakening in some way. Maybe by crying, maybe by bowing, I don't know. But Dayu said, what's up?

[25:13]

And he said, now I see there's not much to Wangbo's Zen, to Wangbo's teaching. And Dayu says, you bed-wetting brat. A few minutes ago you were whining about whether you were wrong or not and now you're saying there's not much to Wangbo's teaching. And he grabbed him and held him and said, speak, speak! And Linji punched him three times in the ribs. And Dayu let him go. He said, okay, all right. But Wangbo is your teacher. I have nothing to do with this enlightenment. So he goes back to Wangbo. And when he gets back, Wangbo says, coming, going, coming, going, will there be no end to this? And Linji said,

[26:19]

it's just because, it's all because of your great kindness and kindness. And compassion. And Wangbo said, what happened? And he said, well, I went to Dayu like you told me and I told him what happened and I was whining about it all and he tipped me off to how kind you were and I saw it. I saw the kindness which I couldn't see before. And so now I'm enlightened. And Wangbo said, that old guy is too talkative. The next time I see him, I'm going to give him a good swat. And Linji said, why wait for swatting? And he swatted Wangbo.

[27:23]

And Wangbo said, this wild fellow thinks he can pull on the tiger's whiskers. And then Linji screamed at him. And Wangbo said, attendant, take this guy to the meditation hall. So he had a story about, you know, what Zen was, or what compassion was, or whatever, which made him feel like he didn't need to go see the teacher. He was happy with his story. He was doing pretty well, but he didn't think he had to go see a teacher, even though there was a... teacher, actually more than one teacher, but there was a big teacher, and the head monk was a great teacher too, but Wangbo was there, and he didn't think he needed to go see him.

[28:29]

That was his story. And then when he finally went, he didn't like what the teacher was doing. That was his story. And he stuck to it. And because he stuck to it, he wanted to go someplace else, away from the story, get away from the story. But then he got free of his story. And when he got free of his story, he was greatly enlightened. And then he was like, you know, as you see, he wasn't really quite, you know, quite able to express himself with big teachers. He wasn't afraid anymore, and not attached anymore to any stories. And then the next story, I'll wait a little bit,

[29:34]

and I just wanted to tell you some reflections I got. So I asked people, do you see yourself reflected in this story? And various people came up and expressed how they could see themselves, how they could see their story, in the story of Linji. These are the stories of the enlightening stories. Can you see your story in these stories? In some way, like, this is my story and that story, and that's, you know. So one person told me, I thought it was interesting, more than one, but there were several stories, and maybe Dale and Marjorie and Elizabeth and Catherine can, if you can remember some other interesting reflections, let me know. But one I heard, which wasn't expressed in class, was the person said that in the story she saw her own hiding. So, the great Linji, right?

[30:35]

She saw him hiding. Not that he was, but she saw her own hiding in his not going to see the teacher, in his not coming forward. That's why I put this cushion here, for you to come forward, to encourage you to come forward and not hide. Okay? And the head monk may come and ask some of you to come up here pretty soon. So she's, anyway, she saw herself in the story that she kind of stays back and doesn't come forward. And then she said she also saw that when she does come forward, when she comes out of hiding and comes forward, she often gets hit. And then when she gets hit, she often goes back into hiding. But it's not so nice to be in hiding for so long. It's nice for a while to be in the closet.

[31:37]

Like, my little dog likes to go into Catherine's closet. She's a sweet little thing, totally, but she's also kind of scared. So she likes to go in Catherine's closet. But then she likes to come out. And she doesn't get hit, but she's afraid she will get hit. Anyway, she's got some problems, this dog. She's like a really neurotic dog. And so, of course, we love her because she... That's your story. Huh? That's my story. That's my story, yeah. And so, anyway, this person is hiding. She comes out. She sees her coming out, getting hit, and going back. But then she further saw that she comes out, and the place she gets hit is the place she's holding. She doesn't get hit at random. She gets hit right at the spot where she's holding. She saw that in the story.

[32:43]

Thought that was really good, to see that. Then I told another story, a story that occurred, like I said, 36 years ago. 36 years and two months. So it's March 1971, and Suzuki Roshi asked me to be his attendant on a trip to Portland, where he's going to do a retreat, a weekend retreat like this. And then pretty soon after the plane takes off, he says, I'm going to teach you to count people in Japanese. So Japanese have different counters for different types of things. Mostly in English, we say

[33:51]

one bottle of beer, two bottles of beer, three bottles of beer, one person, two persons, three persons, one piece of paper, two pieces of paper, or one book, two books, three books. But in Japanese, they have a different counter for counting books and cylindrical objects, like bottles and torsos, and flat things, and people, and so on. They have different counters. So it's a kind of ancient thing. I think in English, we used to have that more, too. Different counters for different types of things. We also have different quantities, like bushels and things like that. But they were used for, you know, originally had a physical correlate. They're counting things. Pound, a foot, a yard, and so on. Furlong. These are like physical correlate measurement things

[34:55]

that we've kind of lost the root for, and now we're into like metric, which doesn't have much body in it. Anyway, the Japanese still have these counters, but he was going to teach me how to count people in Japanese. And I said, OK. Whatever he wants to teach me, fine. And I also mentioned this in class, and I'll tell you, too, now I'm going to teach you something that a Zen master taught me. It's a direct transmission. And you might think, well, is there something else he taught you that you could teach us? Maybe you don't. Anyway, he taught me this, and I said, fine. And then so, one person is shtori. A person, by the way, one of the ways to pronounce person is shto.

[35:58]

Shto. Ishtodes means Ishtodes means good person. I good shto person desu is. It's a good person, ishtodes. Right? Right, Marjorie? So, shtori is related to shto, which looks like, we write it H-I-T-O. Looks like hito, but the way you say it is shto. So, one person is shtori. Shtori. Two persons futari. Three persons is sannin. Four persons is yonin. Five, gonin, rokunin, shichinin, hachinin, kunin, to. Now, do you want to learn this or do you just want me to finish the story?

[36:59]

Huh? Finish the story. You don't want to learn what I learned. No, I didn't think so. Actually, I didn't really want to either. So, I'm just going to let you be like I was before I was enlightened and leave you there. So, anyway, we go through that until I can kind of do it. And then he says, okay, you keep doing it. So, I'm counting away. Shtori, futari, sannin, yonin, gonin, rokunin, shichinin, hachinin, kunin, to. Shtori, futari, sannin, yonin, gonin, rokunin, shichinin, hachinin, kunin, to. I'm doing that. And he goes to sleep. And when he goes to sleep, I stop doing it. And when I stop doing it, he wakes up. And when he wakes up, he says, Shtori.

[38:02]

So, I go, Shtori, futari, sannin, yonin, gonin, rokunin, shichinin, hachinin, kunin, to. Shtori, futari, sannin, yonin, gonin, rokunin, shichinin, hachinin, konin, to. And he goes to sleep again. So, I stop. And he wakes up. And he says, Shtori. So, I say, Shtori, futari, sannin, yonin, gonin, rokunin, shichinin, hachinin, kunin, to. And I just keep doing that. And he goes back to sleep. But then I keep doing it for the rest of the way. And Portland is not that far from San Francisco. So, it wasn't that bad. And as you see, as a result of that, I kind of know how to count people in Japanese. And I was taught that by Suzuki Roshi.

[39:05]

This person in the history of Western Buddhism spent his time teaching this guy to count in Japanese. And it worked. And so now I can teach you if you want. Because he taught me. But I also want to mention that part of the reason why I stopped was because I really didn't think it was that important. I mean, I was learning Japanese. And so I was happy to learn how to count people in Japanese. But I didn't think learning Japanese was that important. I thought it was sort of important because he wanted me to learn Japanese. But I thought what was really important was to learn Zen. But the Zen master wanted to teach me to count people in Japanese. He didn't want to teach me a Zen text, although sometimes he did. But this time he didn't. Maybe he didn't know any Zen texts. Except the Heart Sutra, maybe. He could have said, OK, we're going to do the Heart Sutra.

[40:12]

Kanji, Zaibo, Satsugyojin, Hanya, Hara. Then I thought, oh, OK, that's a Zen text. That makes sense. But he didn't do that. He just naturally taught me that. And I was thinking, what's this got to do with Zen? In other words, my idea, my story of Zen would be Zen masters don't go around teaching Zen priests to count people in Japanese. They have other things to teach them. So this has become such a good story for me. Because even now, some of you, although you people don't have as much problem as some other people, but some people might think that what's going on here, they might think, this isn't Zen. In other words, this is not my idea of Zen. Some Zen students, if they were in this room, they would think, this is not my idea of Zen. You know, like, look at that woman. She's got her legs sticking out. This is not Zen. And she's sticking her legs out

[41:15]

just to see if somebody will accuse her of not being Zen for doing that. I'm not going to. I'm just telling you, some other people were here. Some unenlightened people, some unenlightened Zen students, they would say, she's not practicing Zen. Also, you're not practicing Zen either, they would say, sitting up there with that thing around your knees. They have an idea of what Zen is, and some of you are fulfilling it, and some of you aren't. And some of them who have some ideas about what Zen is, which you are not fulfilling, or which you are, some of them are tight around that. And some of them aren't. Even the greatest Zen master might have some idea about what Zen is. Like the greatest Zen master might think, Zen is teaching this guy how to count people in Japanese. That's what Zen is. And maybe he was kind of hung up on that, so he woke up and made me keep doing it. But maybe he wasn't hung up on it. Maybe he just thought, this is a good thing to teach him,

[42:17]

so I will. And if he doesn't do it, I'll keep encouraging him to do it. But not because I'm attached to it, but just because he's my boy and I want him to learn this. That's all. And if he doesn't, so what? I'll just hit him. And it won't hurt him because he's twice as big as me, so no problem. But there is a little thing in our mind, you know, is this, are we doing the practice of the Buddha? Or are we doing the practice of demons? Are we hung up? What's our story? Whatever our story is, that story has moral consequence. Whatever it is has moral consequence. And if you tighten around it, the moral consequence still occurs. However, if you don't tighten around it, the moral consequence also still occurs.

[43:19]

However, if you don't tighten around it, while you're studying moral cause and effect, you will realize that there's no self in the causal process. That the self, just like the self in the process, the independent existence of the process, is unattainable, just like you can't get a self in the cognition itself. You can't find a self in cognition and you can't find a self in your story. You can't find a self in your story. Your story does not have a self. Your intention does not have a self. Your consciousness doesn't. Your intention doesn't. And this is stuff you have with you all the time to study. And we also believe that our consciousness does have a self. We think somebody owns the consciousness. Somebody's doing the consciousness. We think there's an independent self there. If you study this with an open mind, you will see that it doesn't have a self

[44:20]

and you will see that nothing has a self. And then the light will come flooding in and you will see how to live your life. And you will be happy because you can see the truth. That was always there, but because we weren't looking at it, because we weren't paying close attention to our activity, we didn't notice it. We didn't notice our activity and we didn't notice the selflessness of our activity. Okay? And the story of me on the airplane with that very kind teacher, you know, it just keeps unfolding more and more light, more and more showing me it's not what I used to think it was.

[45:25]

And also, again, I hadn't seen before my story with my teacher reflected in the story of Wong Po and Lin Ji. Now, by continuing to study these stories, the old stories and my stories, I keep seeing more and more connection between my stories and the old stories. And the more you see the relationship between your story and the old stories, the more you get ready for the light. The more you see your stories and other people's stories, the more you see your stories in other living people's stories and other ancient people's stories. And you start seeing the ancient people's stories come into your stories and the light starts to develop. Yes? Could you come up here, by the way? Can you say a little bit more about what it's like

[46:35]

paying attention to one's intentions? Yeah, it's like noticing what story you're telling about what's going on right now. And then, you know, like in about 20 minutes, I'm going to probably say, OK, it's dinner time. And then you can look and see, do you have a story that is dinner time when I tell you it's dinner time? Like if I tell you it's dinner time now, you might say, well, that's not my story. You might see that you have a different story. Or I might say it's dinner time, and you might say, oh, I have that story too. Somebody else might say, no, that isn't what the schedule says. It says that dinner is at 5.30. And then someone else brings a piece of paper and it says, no, see, it says 5. I don't care what it says on the chart. I know it's at 5.30. That's your story. So I'm not going to go over there now, because it's not dinner time. So what you understand about when dinner is

[47:36]

will affect your intention about when to have dinner and whether to go over there or not. If you have a story that I'm somebody who loves you and appreciates you, then your intention might be to test it. I guess when I think of intention, I think of sort of like directed action. Yeah, it is the direction of your action. So if you see someone and you have a story that they're your good friend, the direction of your action might be to augment and take care of that good friendship. If you have a story that someone is dangerous, aggressive, and disrespectful, you might have an intention to get away from them. But your intention to get away from them is formed by your picture of your relationship. Sometimes you might have a picture that person's like that, and your intention is like to freeze into a rock.

[48:38]

And it can be inaccurate though, right? It can be inaccurate. It can be inaccurate. But even if it's accurate, it's not the actual relationship. So one of the consequences of our creating stories about our relationships is that we're always vulnerable to believing that the story is the relationship. So it's true. If you had a story that I was your good friend, that would be a true story. It would be accurate. However, my friendship is not your story about it. So it's accurate, inaccurate, but also all stories do not reach what they're about. However, they're always based on what they're about. But generally speaking, they cover what they're about. They obscure it. And that's why what they're about is your actual relationship.

[49:42]

And your actual relationship with people is enlightenment. Your actual relationship with people is light. That's your actual relationship. But we can't deal with that because in the past we haven't dealt with it. As a consequence, we tell stories about our luminous relationship with each other. And the stories make it so we can get a handle on our relationship so we can talk to our mother about it. I just met this guy. He's really nice. He's got a good job. He wants to marry me. And your mother says, Oh, okay. But you meet somebody without a story. She says, What's the matter with you? I said, I don't know. I'm just like bathed in light. She's worried about you. Tell me what this is about. Okay, I met this person. He's a really nice guy. He's really kind. He's got a good job. And she says, Okay. Got the story? You just made that up for your mother's benefit, right?

[50:44]

You really like to see the light. It's the light that turns you on. But then I don't want that. What am I going to do with that? Put a story on it. And you can talk to people about it and refer back to it. But it protects you from the radiance that you can't get a hold of and can't get under or around or whatever. Do you turn your ear to hear your own story? Yeah, turn your ear, turn your eye. Be aware that when you go from here over to the dining room, it's because you have a story. You're acting on a story. You're acting on a story that it seems like a reasonable thing to do, to eat at this time. Or you have some other story, like you have a stomachache and you think, I just don't think it would be good to eat dinner tonight. So there's a direction based on your understanding,

[51:47]

based on your cognitive version of your relationship of your body to the universe. It's basically your body. First of all, it's your body in the universe. Your body and your food, your body and gravity, keeping it going, because we need that for consciousness and life. So we have these stories about this relationship, this dynamic dance, and it has implications which seem to be like directions. Actually, you're not going anyplace, you just picture a direction, and then you picture another direction, and you put them together, like those Mickey Mouse things, you know, those cartoons, and you think you're moving. So we create these stories, and a story after that story, and then there's a storyline, and we go through this, and we live this, and you probably will use stories to get over to the dining room and back. You'll have a story about whether it's a good idea to come back tonight at 7 o'clock and sit again. Some of you will have a story, it's a wonderful idea, and you will come.

[52:48]

Some others will have the idea, you're not sure, but you think, maybe I should come anyway. Everybody's got a different story about dinner and tonight. We all do. You all have one, and you can look inside and see what it is. And you see, the story is, I don't want to come back tonight. The story is, I do want to come back. The story is, it'll be a wonderful evening. The story is, I think it'd be better if I just went and sat in the hot tub, or whatever. Everybody's got their stories, and some people will directly enact them. Some people will say, that's a bad story. I'm not going to say anything to anybody about this story. This is a bad story. This should not be put to words. This is a bad story. I'm not going to put it into action. You can think of some bad story, like, these are terrible people. I hate them. They're totally unsupportive of me, and I don't want to have anything to do with them again. But you might not want to act on that, because you can see, that's a bad story,

[53:49]

and I'm almost believing it. And if I believed that story, I probably would leave Mount Madonna without even saying goodbye to Reb. And he told me he wanted to say goodbye, so probably kind of a problem I got here. So maybe I should lighten up on this story. But I can see that story. This is a bum situation. That's my story. But I don't want to believe that story. I want to be generous towards that story. And then you do, and then suddenly, hopefully, you don't believe it, and you also don't believe another story. You just experience enlightenment by seeing that that story is not true. Because somebody says, Oh, those people actually were totally kind to you. And you wake up. I once had a story about a person. I was talking to her up in Tassajara. I was talking to her, and I said to her, I don't believe the story I have about you.

[54:50]

I don't believe what I'm thinking of you. I just said it over and over, because I was really on the verge of believing a terrible story about her. And I just kept saying, I do not believe it. And it kind of helped me to not believe it, and therefore everybody survived. But she heard me saying, I do not believe this story. So she was like, Okay, don't, don't. But you can see the story, and your story is your intention. You can see your intention. You can see, I want to hurt that person, or I want to help that person. I want to assist that person. I want to question that person. There's a story there. There's an intention. And it seems to me, though, oftentimes we're not telling ourselves the truth if we want to do karma. Yeah. When you first start looking, you're basically, again, you're looking at something which is basically, to some extent, it's actually covering what's really what you want to see.

[55:50]

It's covering the truth. Karmic formations are covering the truth, and your current story is covering the truth. So it's a problem. Karma is a problem. If you study it, though, you can start seeing through it. You'll see there's cracks in it. You'll see there's inconsistencies in it. When you first start studying it, it isn't that you should study it and believe what you see. It isn't that you should believe the story, like, I want to help people, and believe, well, you really do want to help people. You do want to help people, but the story of helping people is not the way you want to help them. So you don't have to believe your story of how you want to help people is how you want to help people. It's just a story of how you want to help people. And the more you look at your story about how you want to help people, you'll see that it's not really true. It's a story about how you want to help people. And when you want to hurt people, it's not really true. When you want to hurt people, that's a story about how you want to help people.

[56:52]

Nobody wants to hurt people. Nobody. There's nobody who wants to do that. Everybody wants to help people. Everybody wants to be generous. That's what we want. We want to be happy, not miserable. Hurting people is misery, is fear, is choking ourselves to death. So whatever story you have, if it's a story of helping people, fine. That may have some good consequences to help you see that that's not a true story and see the truth. Negative stories are harder to see that they're not true, actually. Because negative stories usually are living in inattention. They thrive when you don't look at them. Positive stories, actually, they get more positive when you look at them. And the more positive they get, the closer they get to taking their veil off and showing you what they're really about. In other words, it's a positive story.

[57:55]

It's a story about how you want to help people. But it's actually a veil over how you want to help people. Negative stories we usually don't look at. And then they get more and more negative and more and more obscuring of how you want to have good relationships. If you start looking at them, they start to loosen up and become more positive. The negative stories get more and more negative the less you look at them. The positive stories become more and more positive the more you look at them. Plus your vision gets sharper in both cases. And then you'll see that no story is really reaching what it's about. So your stories of our relationship, my stories of our relationship, even though today they're pretty nice, they're actually covering our relationship. But if you give them close attention and then even go talk to somebody about them,

[58:58]

you have a chance of not believing them anymore. Or you might say of understanding them rather than believing them. Don't believe your stories. Study them and understand them. When you understand them, you'll understand that they're empty of a self, that they're full of light. And then you see through them into their actual ungraspable, unreportable relationship with the world that your mother doesn't want to hear about. Unless your mother is a Zen master, which she actually is. That's not your story. Okay? Do you see how to find your intention? Yeah. You can find it. But once again, I just want to say one more time, she says, how do you know if it's true? It's not. But that doesn't mean you don't see how it looks.

[60:01]

And the more you look at it, the more you'll see it's not true. Until you see it's really totally not true. And yet, studying how it's not true will be the way you'll see the truth that the story is about. So you don't have to believe what you find is true. You need to understand what you find. And you'll understand what you find is that it's not true. It's just a covering that gives you access to the light because the story has light in it. It has the truth in it. Okay? You're welcome. Andy? Hi. I've loved hearing you talk about stories over the years. I'm surprised people aren't pointing to the ceiling.

[61:05]

Can you hear him? Could you hear me? Huh? No, they're getting so tired they're not raising their hands. They're just thinking about dinner. That was my story. They're just thinking about dinner. I loved hearing you talk about stories over the years. And one thing that's been confusing for me is as I heard you talk about Suzuki Roshi, I thought, well that story, that is your relationship. It doesn't cover it. So that in a way, what doesn't make sense to me is it's putting it as like a duality between there's stories about reality and then there's reality. It's not a duality, but they're not the same. But that becomes, to me, I guess that becomes now your story about your relationship with him, that is your relationship with him. No, it's not. It's a story about it. And how is that different than you and I's?

[62:09]

It feels like it just gets folded in to the relationship and that separation between story about relationship and relationship. Right, that's right. I didn't say separation. I'm not saying separation, but you are. I'm telling a story which is that you're telling me that there's a separation. Okay, that's the story I'm telling and I'm saying there isn't a separation. And you're saying there isn't a separation too. But you're saying that I'm saying there's a separation. But I'm not. They're not separated. And the story does get folded into relationship. Our actual relationship gets, our actual relationship, our actual luminous mutual support of each other evolves by the stories we tell each other. So the storytelling we're doing does feed into our relationship, but the stories are not our relationship. But they affect our relationship. They contribute to it. Everything does. But we don't think everything is the truth. We don't think the salt we put on our egg is the truth,

[63:14]

but it contributes to the taste of it. But we think our story of our life together is actually what's going on sometimes. Because that's our karma. That motivates our speech. Like I think you're my friend, so I say, thanks for being my friend. But I might not believe that and I still say, thanks for being my friend. We have to look and see. Am I caught by my story that we're friends? There's ways of testing. For example, I can say, you can say, you're not my friend, and I can say, wow. Or I can get in a fight with you because you say we're not friends when I think we are. So you can test me, I can test you, we can test ourselves to see if we're stuck to our stories about our relationship. And if we're stuck to them, then we can address that

[64:15]

by being patient and generous with being stuck. And then we'll be less stuck and we'll be more patient with our stories. And if we're more patient with our stories, we can wake up in the middle of storytelling to realize that our stories are not our stories. That our stories are other people's stories. And other people's stories who didn't used to be our stories are now our stories. So then we start realizing how we're working together. So like Catherine said, that's your story, and she thought my story wasn't her story. But she could have said, that's his story, but that's my story, but that's his, that kind of thing, you know. Whose story is it? Who are we? What are we? And storytelling and studying stories and being generous with them opens them up and we start to see the light. But there's no duality between, there's no duality between

[65:16]

the fact that we tell stories and our relationship with each other. We're storytellers who support storytellers and we're storytellers who support storytellers to be caught by their stories. But we're also storytellers who tell stories of people who get uncaught by their stories. And you love listening to those stories. But I'm not saying there's any separation between anything. I would only say the story that we tell the story of separation and that's an unhappy story. And it's only a story, there's only a story of separation. Without the story of separation, there's no separation. Separations are only mental constructions. There's reasons for them, like electromagnetic radiation is part of the reason why we have the story we're separate. Because there's a story that because of electromagnetic radiation,

[66:17]

I can't walk through you because of the electric fields around our bodies. You won't let me through even though there's plenty of room for us to walk through each other. But there's magnetic fields around us, gravitational fields and all that that interfere with us walking through each other even though actually certain beings can fly right through me and right through you. And they don't feel like, oh, now I'm going through Reb and now I'm going through Andy. They just say, I'm going through the Andy-Reb area. They don't know which is which or who's who. They don't see any separation. They just know we're both here, which we are. We're here. You and me. No separation. Right? I think so. Thank you. You're welcome. And one little question I would leave you with before dinner is the question of

[67:18]

do you see yourself reflected in Linji not wanting to go see the teacher? That was quick. So look at that about how you see yourself in his relationship with Wong Po. How do you work with that? And then we can talk more this evening. Did you want to say something before dinner? You have a question? It's getting kind of close to dinner, so could you wait? You can come and ask me individually if you want to. Can it wait? Does it affect the whole group? Okay, what is it? Well, it better. It's true.

[68:25]

It's the observer. The one that has a story is the one that is new. That has an interpretation of the reality of what happens. This is out of scale. This is too much. It's five o'clock. So you said it was short. It's getting too big, okay? So later. All right? Thank you. Did you want to say a small announcement? I think some people might want to know this now. She wants to make an announcement. This is regarding packing up to leave tomorrow. Oh, packing up. Mount Madonna would like us to be out of our rooms by ten o'clock tomorrow. So in case someone wants to start during break time. So by ten we should be in our cars. In your cars. Your stuff in your cars. But you can get out of your cars and come here. Put your stuff in the cars and bring your body here. Without your stuff. Huh?

[69:29]

Not separate. No. Not separate. Just your stuff in the car and you're here and you're not separate from them. But they're in the car not in your room. And being in the car is not separate from being in the room but they're in the car. That's the story. Yes. Ah. Leave your stuff in the room and they'll clean your car. But then you have to... And so leave your car here and we can take a bus back to where we're from. They might have a good dinner. So please. Do what you want to do with that.

[70:10]

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