Good evening, everybody. Nice to see you again. This is Muwen Khan, Case 6, Buddha Twirls a Flower. You asked if we had any leftover questions from the last time. Can I ask one before you start? Sure. You posed the question to us, do we have Dogen's deep faith. And you asked us to talk about that. No kidding. I don't remember that at all. But I believe you. Go ahead. The deep faith of Dogen. I don't remember that. But anyway, that's a good start. Go ahead. Well, that's what I thought. Anyway, I thought on that for a while. I thought, well, I do have the deep faith of Dogen, but just not very often. And I thought, You know, because I'm not in touch with that faith experience very often, this doesn't seem that real.

[01:04]

And so I came back to, well, do I have it or do I not have it? And I just wanted to see what you thought about that. Well, it's a development, isn't it? You know, it's not, it's not, you know, for now and for all time, do I have this faith or not have it? I mean, I think that's what spiritual practice is, is a development of faith. So I would say, if I were you and that was my experience, I would take heart in the fact that once in a while I felt this. To me that would be great news, and I would think that's wonderful. So I'm encouraged, because I feel that way, to continue practicing and feel that way more. I could see where somebody might feel the opposite. They might feel, gee, since I only feel this once in a while and I forget about it most of the time, I quit, or I'm discouraged.

[02:12]

But I would feel the opposite. I would feel very encouraged by that, and practice is that. you know, if you can achieve continuity, so it's an ongoing effort in that direction, and little by little by little. Probably Dogen himself didn't feel Dogen's perfect faith all the time. Well, thanks for those words of encouragement. I'm thinking when you first start practicing, you think, you know, you're going to get it. You referred to some of that last week in the introduction, like your concepts about what it's all about. as you develop and mature, you realize that the impermanence, the changing nature of things, that you are fortunate to have some understanding and some faith as you kind of just peek into this vast mystery. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

[03:13]

When I left last week, I thought, Oh, now, if someone asks me what a koan is, I can tell them. And then as the week went on, I lost it. I think I should have written down what you said, but this is what I was going to tell people, kind of. It's the intersection where the relative meets the absolute. You're talking about the relative and the absolute. And so it's that place. And that seemed to really ring. Yeah, that sounds good. Although I wouldn't say a koan is that. A koan is a Zen story that's used as a meditation device for the purpose of evoking that experience in us and that feeling about life in us. But a koan is actually just a literary device, a piece of Zen literature that if we work with it

[04:18]

according to the method and teaching of the tradition, we hope it will have that effect of giving us a feeling for where ordinary, average, everyday life and the most profound experience of life intersect, which they do on every moment, but we don't see it that way. So the koan helps us to see that. I haven't, but I hear the word koan around here. hear a lot, and what is our koan and what is the koan we live. So still that would be a literary kind of thing if one wanted to type it out. I see, well in that case then if people use it like that, it's a kind of extension of the meaning to mean there's a situation arising in my life that has that same potential. If I could hold it in the right way, in the light of my practice, it has that same potential to show me that also.

[05:19]

Sometimes people reduce it to, it's a puzzle. It's something I don't understand. It's a puzzle or a paradox or something. But I think more deeply, it's more than just a puzzle or a question. It's a question which has that unique potential. I think the wise ones are the ones who say it louder. probably is meant to have the... The deeper meaning, yes, yes. The people I happen to think of who come to mind right now. Anyway, thank you. Sure. I'll never get to my talk. I really want to give my talk. I'm so thrilled about it. I have a question from last time also. My memory of the talk last time was what it seems to be about. It's not about whether or not an enlightened person is bound by causation, or whether he's free from it.

[06:24]

It's about, you said it real fast, and then you went on. And I didn't hear it because of all the foo-for-ah about the sound system. And do you remember, was that how it actually happened? And is there some brief thing that you could just say again? I don't remember what I said. I'm sorry. I'll look it up in my notes. Sorry. I don't remember. I must have misunderstood. There wasn't some short thing. I doubt it was. Yeah, it was probably not. So is it actually about that? Is it about what it seems to be about? No. No, it isn't about what it seems to be about, because it seems to propose a dilemma, an either-or situation. And the point is that, actually the point of the Koan is the recognition that although we're constantly caught on the horns of this kind of dilemma all the time, our life is never a dilemma like that.

[07:25]

It's always at a deeper, it's like we're standing on this rug. If somebody pulls the rug out from under us, we find we're standing on a much deeper ground. And it's about that deeper place that we're always standing anyway, that we're always missing, because we're constantly debating whether, you know, this kind of thing. So the Koan seems to set up that debate, but it's actually trying to push us beyond that debate. So that's why the answer of the teacher is when he says, and this is the tricky part of the Koan, is that it's It's very hard to translate exactly in English the sense of it, but when the teacher says, when the Bajang says, the enlightened person is not blind to causality. It's something that's neither free from causality or not free from causality. It's neither one of those two things.

[08:26]

You see, it's something else is not blind to causality. And then, of course, the question is, what does that mean? But it's neither one of those two opposites. And so we're always going around thinking, this or that, this or that, this or that, this or that. And we're stuck with this or that, this or that. And everything's, this seems not right, and that seems not right. And this is saying it's never really about this or that. We may have to make a discrimination. I'll choose this, or I'll choose that. But actually, that's not where we really live. Where we really live is somewhere below or beyond this or that. You're avoiding the word in-between. Yeah, not in-between, but something else. It's not just halfway in-between. No, no, no. It's not just halfway in-between or a compromise between the two. No, it's somewhere else entirely. Yeah, somewhere else entirely. And the funny thing is that that somewhere else entirely also is only there in the this and the that, but it's a whole different understanding of the this and the that, not the one that we usually have.

[09:27]

Somebody was telling me just a few hours ago, I was at another, I have a great job, all I ever do is hang around with people and schmooze about the Dharma, you can't beat it. And so I was just somewhere else, and somebody was reading to us all from Suzuki Roshi, this lovely passage where in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, in the chapter on the section called no trace, I think it's called no trace, you can look it up. He was saying something like how simple our practice is, all we're doing is just fully engaging with our living, and when we fully engage with our living, he says something of value flows into the world. I'm misquoting it, I'm sure, but something like that. And that's what I'm talking about. In other words, when you really embrace your life as this koan, and all the koans really, are encouraging you to do, then this and that is not so important and not such a pressured situation.

[10:38]

You might have to choose between this and that, you know, it's a practical matter, but there's some deeper life flowing anyway, beyond that, so that you don't have to get hung up on it. And then somebody else said in that meeting, she said, oh, I miss my previous job. Not because I liked my job so much, but because I knew what I was doing in that job. I felt secure. Now I'm in another job and I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm constantly off balance and constantly made to feel afraid and confused and uncomfortable. So I was saying, yeah, well, wouldn't it be nice if you could always embrace your experience the way that Suzuki Roshi is talking about it, so that even though you were in this job that made you uncomfortable and fearful and not knowing what you were doing, at the same time you were really rooted in the fact that you're alive, you're breathing, you're embodied, you're here on the planet, you're surrounded by others, you're having these feelings of being afraid and so on, that you were connected, so deeply connected on that level

[11:51]

that the feeling of being off balance because of not knowing what you were doing in your job was no longer oppressive, a feeling that you were trying to get rid of and feeling badly about, but rather it was something that you could hold lightly and take some joy in. And so I think that's what it is, you see. The this and the that is I wanna feel comfortable, I don't wanna feel uncomfortable. I wanna feel competent, I don't wanna feel incompetent. But beyond that, we're alive, we're Buddha. we're connected, we're engaged, we're here. And if we could really appreciate that and embrace that with some beauty, something of value flows from our life into the world regardless of whether we're doing a good job at our work or somebody thinks we're great or not, or whatever our work is, you know? So that's what, something like that is what, yeah. Okay, one or two more things and then I really, I've worked very hard on my talk. It's a really good talk, believe me.

[12:54]

Take my word for it. If we never get to it, you know, we'll, yeah. Yeah. So how can you know if your actions, if you can have positive consequences from negative actions and negative consequences from positive actions, how can you, how does this relate to karma arguing that you should expect positive consequences from positive actions? It would be too simple-minded to think that I do something positive and then there's a positive result that I can... In other words, that would be too linear. That would kind of assume that we were all living in a little sort of cellophane-wrapped bubble in which the only thing that mattered in our lives were our own thoughts and deeds and actions, and that the rest of the world had no effect on us.

[14:04]

But that's not really true. What happens to us is the result of a set of causal factors far beyond anyone's ability to understand them. So in a sense, it's a kind of faith that we have based on a kind of intimate and minute experience on our cushions of how it is that A positive thought leads to positive action and a negative thought leads to negative results. We see that intimately on the cushion and we have faith in it, but that doesn't mean that we can say, because I was a good boy today, tomorrow I'm bound to get some good reward. Life isn't that simple. Still though, we know that in the long run, far off into the future, the goodness has a good result. The law of karma, I think, and maybe this is what I was talking about, Dogen's deep faith in causality.

[15:10]

This is Dogen's deep faith. He has a fascle on this deep faith in causality, that we have deep faith in karma even though we know that we don't expect to see, like a cartoon, goodness pop up when we're a good boy. So that's one point. So we know that we don't want to do intentionally and knowingly harmful actions, because we just don't feel inspired to do them. In other words, you might say, well, I'd have to work for a year or two to get that television set. Why don't I just steal it? I mean, I could steal it in a couple of hours. And I have a way of doing it that I probably wouldn't get caught. But you don't do that because you know that if you stole it, you'd be paranoid and you'd feel guilty and you'd be always worried that somebody would catch you. In other words, you know that doing actions that give you a clear conscience and a kind of happy feeling about your life makes sense, even though theoretically, objectively, they may not.

[16:24]

Then the other point in the story is And then if you do, if bad consequences come to you, you can turn them into good consequences by your subsequent action. So you can't, in other words, it's not as simple. The next level of complexity is that sometimes bad results are exactly what you need. And that was the story in the case was that the old teacher needed those 500 lives as a fox to learn this deep truth, and in that sense he turned those 500 lives into lives of joy. So, karma is a very deep study. It's a deep reflection. It does involve simple ABC morality, but it also involves, I think, an understanding of life

[17:26]

that is much more nuanced and deep than that as well. So, anyway, I hope that helps a little bit what you're bringing up. It answers part of my question, but I think the rest should be left for another time. Good idea, yeah. Thank you, yeah. Rick, what were you going to say? I know you desperately want to get to your... Oh, I'm so done. It's okay. That's all right. I'm kidding. I have always known that about you. So I'll take this form so I can ask this. And maybe you can, you might just choose to answer a little later or sometime during the next few meetings. The question is, you have put a lot of energy into preparing something to share. And today, probably a lot of things happened that didn't seem like the absolute.

[18:47]

So my question is, how did you prepare for this talk in the course of the day when the relative keeps popping up with this thing that you have to get done, et cetera, whatever it was? there is no relative, and there is no absolute. To think that these are two different things is our problem, right? So if I was distracted by so-called relative issues or problems, this was only my own foolishness. This was just my own lack of wisdom. And if I notice this in myself, I try to remind myself, whoa, why are you getting carried away? Why are you allowing yourself to be confused?

[19:52]

This is also the Absolute. Everything is the Absolute. What isn't the Absolute? The Absolute is not some abstraction flying around in the sky. The Absolute only can come forth for us in this world as we know it. And that goes to the heart of our practice. Today, I actually did something I almost never do. I took a nap. I thought to myself, I'm tired. So I got up really early and went to bed late last night, and I had two different retreats over the weekend, so I thought, I'm tired. And I went to, took a nap, and that was the main thing I did for my talk, was take a nap, and then I got up and I exercised, and then, actually, it impresses me more and more as I get older, how much is involved, and just sort of like, taking care of your human life.

[20:55]

I was very busy. I had to feed myself, and then I had to wash the dishes, and then I had to exercise a little bit. I had to wash my body. I had tons of hair on my head. I had to shave it all off. This took a long time. Then it was time to do other things, and there was no more time left, really. But I found all that was quite enjoyable. because I sort of abandoned myself to those things and forgot about all the other things I had to do, of which there are many. So that's how I prepared for the talk, mainly, was by taking care of my, as the Tibetans say, my precious human body, which was very enjoyable. And then I had this other Dharma meeting where I hung around with friends and it was also very nice. I actually had a very pleasant day. How about you, did you have a nice day? Compromise seems unavoidable, yes. Well, now shall I, ready?

[21:59]

Okay, here we go. This is the sixth case of the Mumonkan. The case reads as follows. When Buddha was on Vulture Peak, He turned a flower in his fingers and held it up before his listeners. Everyone was silent. Only Mahakasyapa smiled. And Buddha said, I have the eye of the true teaching, the heart of nirvana, the true form of non-form, the ineffable gate of dharma. It is not expressed in words, but transmitted beyond words. This teaching I entrust to Mahakasyapa."

[23:01]

So that's the case. Mumon's comment. Golden-faced Gadama thought he could cheat everyone. He made slaves out of free people and sold dog meat as mutton. And he himself thought this was wonderful. What if everyone in the audience had smiled? Could he have transmitted the teaching then? And what if Ma Kashapa had not smiled? Could he have transmitted the teaching then? If you say that realization can be transmitted, you are like the city slicker cheating the country bumpkin. If you say it cannot be transmitted, then why did Buddha approve of Mahakasyapa? That's Mumon's pithy, profound comment, and here's his poem.

[24:07]

A flower twirls. The secret is out. Mahakasyapa smiles. People and gods are dumbfounded. So, as I'm sure all of you know, this is the story that is the beginning of the Zen transmission lineage. Although there are many, many lineages in Zen, they all start here with the transmission of Dharma between Buddha and Mahakasyapa. Buddha transmitting, as it says, the ineffable mind of Nirvana to his close disciple. Of course, you probably also know that scholars tell us that there is no historical merit whatsoever to the story. It's a completely made-up story. There is no mention of the story in any of the sutras in the Pali Canon or in the Sanskrit sutras, and although there certainly was an historical figure called Shakyamuni Buddha and

[25:18]

There almost certainly was, too, an historical figure called Ma Kashapa. There also is a place called Vulture Peak. This particular story on Vulture Peak between these two characters never happened, at least as far as anyone knows. One thing that's interesting is I was at Vulture Peak a few years ago. I visited Vulture Peak. You can go there. And it's amazing how small Vulture Peak is. You hear about it in the sutras and you imagine this unbelievably majestic peak. It's actually a rather modest place. And very small when you consider how the sutras say thousands and thousands of people were there listening to the Buddha. They could never fit on this little small place. It would be impossible. Maybe more like 50 or 100 could fit there. And even that would be a stretch. So it's kind of interesting to go. to Vulture Peak. Then, did you ever think about this, even if there were only 50 or 100 people, how would they hear the Buddha?

[26:27]

I mean, I'm sitting in this small room with you and I'm mic'd, right? The Buddha was not mic'd, so this tells us, and this is a very interesting point to consider, that probably the chief qualification to be a spiritual teacher in ancient times was to have a voice that could project loudly over a large crowd. Without that, what could you do? So the Buddha must have had, and Jesus and all other kinds of teachers of ages gone by, must have had some kind of fantastic ability to project their voices. Otherwise, how would many people, even if it was only 50 or 100, hear their teachings? Anyway, Mahakasyapa is one of the 18, traditionally they say there are 18, Buddha had 18 leading disciples, and each one had a particular specialty, a particular dharma practice that he was good at.

[27:33]

And Mahakasyapa, who was the one chosen by the Zen school to represent the tendency within Buddhism that Zen would inherit, it's interesting to note that Mahakasyapa's main claim to fame is that he was the best at ascetic practice. He was the best at enduring many ascetic hardships. If you read the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, you do find that Mahakasyapa is mentioned as one of the Buddha's great disciples, but he didn't hang around with the Buddha very much because he was off by himself teaching. It's a fact that from the early sutras you'd learn that in the Buddha's own lifetime, he had many enlightened disciples who went, who themselves had their own congregations. So that you think everybody would want to study with the Buddha, you know, like why would they waste their time with Mahakasyapa or Ananda or somebody like that? We want the Buddha, that's how we would think, right? We want the best, we don't want the like, I want to drive the Lincoln Continental of spiritual teachers.

[28:37]

Who wants a Ford, you know? But people didn't seem to think that way. Some were with Mahakasyapa, some were with the Buddha, some with this one, some with that one. And when the Buddha died, Mahakasyapa was elsewhere and very far away. And this is a powerful detail in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra where they put the Buddha's body on a funeral pyre and they're gonna light his body and burn it, but it won't ignite. And you can imagine, the weirdness of this, you know, they're trying to light the fire on their Buddha's body, and they're lighting it, and they're doing matches, and kindling, and nothing, it won't burn, you know. So they're probably either thinking, you know, wow, Buddha's like, more special than we thought, or he's really, you know, too damp to burn or something. Anyway, but finally Mahakasyapa shows up, you know, after some time, and Mahakasyapa touches the bottoms of Buddha's feet,

[29:37]

And then and only then will Buddha's body ignite. After that, Buddha's body does ignite easily. So this, I guess, tells us that Mahakasyapa and Buddha had a very strong connection. So even though maybe the twirling the flower story is made up, perhaps it's not made up, that there was this strong, almost mystical connection to them. Now in this same Mahaparinirvana Sutra, which I really recommend, it's one of the great sutras. I think if you haven't read it, you should read it, it's a really wonderful sutra. In that sutra, the Buddha knows he's dying, he's close to death, and he says, I think to Ananda, that he will not be appointing a successor to take over after him. That that's not his idea of how this should work. And this is when he makes the famous statement that many of you, I'm sure, have heard, which is one of the statements that the Buddha is most famous for and most loved for, making this statement.

[30:50]

He said, be a lamp unto yourself. In other words, I'm going to be passing away, there will be no more Buddha, and each one should be a lamp unto himself or herself. Obviously, he intended for his students to help one another out, and be kind to one another and assist one another, but basically in the end each one would rely on one's own understanding, one's own experience. From now on there would be no more Buddha to guide you. So this emphasis on individual study and understanding without depending on teachers was the feeling of early Buddhism and it really made sense to the Indians and the people in the Himalayan foothills where the Buddha taught. But when Buddhism went to China, I think this made the Chinese a little bit uneasy, this idea.

[31:54]

Because in China, there was always a question about the nature of religious authority. And the Chinese, when they received Buddhism, as you know, the Chinese culture was already very well developed. Unlike, say, in Tibet, where Buddhism came and met a kind of a thonic, aboriginal kind of culture, Buddhism in China met a very highly developed literary and ethical culture. And it had to deal with that. Plus, when Buddhism came to China, in India it had a kind of organic development because it started in India and one thing led to another and it sort of made sense. Whereas in China, they were getting maybe 500 years of Buddhism all at once. So they were getting later developments and earlier developments simultaneously coming to China and it was a pretty kind of confusing situation for the Chinese.

[33:02]

Now in China, as I'm sure you know, it was long held that the source of all spiritual authority came from lineage and family tradition. And the idea that you should forget about teachers and parents and forebears and be a lamp unto yourself, this would have made Gong Fu Tzu turn over at his grave. Confucius would have freaked out at such an idea. It would have struck him as absolutely wrong. Because in China, it was axiomatic and obvious that everything that really mattered and that really was true came from a social and familial matrix. So early on, the Chinese Buddhists felt a strong need to create a lineage, a family lineage in Buddhism. And since they didn't really find one, they made one up.

[34:04]

basically using this implied relationship between Buddha and Mahakasyapa as the basis of it, they made it much more sharply delineated. So maybe we could say, therefore, we could really just dismiss this whole idea of transmission and lineage because the Buddha didn't really have it and the Chinese just sort of needed to do that, so maybe we could just kind of ignore it. And that would be a kind of reasonable conclusion, I guess, but I think it would be a mistake because there's something to it that's profound and important for us as well. This idea of transmission and lineage, there's some inner meaning to it that I think speaks very deeply to the human heart, whether you're Chinese or not. And it's the essence of what this lineage and transmission mean at the deepest level of the human heart that this case touches on.

[35:10]

In order to talk about what that is I'm going to digress into the Lotus Sutra because the teachings of the Lotus Sutra didn't exist at the time of Shakyamuni Buddha but they certainly existed when the Zen school was formed and these teachings of the Lotus Sutra were very important to the understanding that I'm trying to say something about. So let me talk a little bit about the Lotus Sutra. So in early Buddhism, if you read the early sutras, they are kind of wonderfully straightforward. In those sutras, you see the Buddha as being a wonderful, extraordinary person, but a person. who was able to discover, through his own subjective experimentation, the root of human suffering, a tremendous achievement, possibly unequaled in human civilization.

[36:12]

And not only did he discover this for himself, but he also devised a method for teaching others how to find the root of suffering and overcome it. And then he spent 45 years of tireless work, honing down this method and developing it over time, and not only that, creating a fairly successful and elaborate communal structure in which this method could be offered. This is a tremendous achievement, and the sutras kind of give you the record of this achievement and how it developed. Then you open up the Lotus Sutra, and it's a completely different story. In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha actually reveals to the listeners that he's not a person at all. He's not even an extraordinary person.

[37:18]

He's beyond being a person. He is, in effect, he says in the Lotus Sutra, an eternal principle of the essential nature of reality. He says, I only pretended to be a person. I pretended to be born and die to avert confusion because at the time that I did that, people were not yet ready to see who I actually was. He also says in the Lotus Sutra that the various methods that he evolved and worked through to help people overcome suffering were actually also just expedient means that were useful at the time. And in fact, all those methods that he talked about in the early sutras are not really important. There's actually only one method for overcoming suffering, and that method is immediately seeing things as they are. That's the only thing necessary for really overcoming suffering.

[38:23]

So this is kind of pretty astonishing. When the Lotus Sutra first appeared in the world, it was very controversial. And it's upset many people, because they thought, well, gee, wait a minute. You're sort of negating all that went before. And we're not exactly negating it. We're just saying it was provisional. But it was quite a different vision of Buddhism. Now there are two really important concepts that the Lotus Sutra teaches that I want to refer to. One concept is one that is often used in Zen explicitly, suchness. Ta ta ta, suchness, which means things as they actually are, the world as it truly is. Now the world that we live in and that we see, the relative world that Brent was bringing up, is not actually the world as it is. That's a world that's a projection of our conceptions, our thoughts, our ideas, our desires, our confusion.

[39:28]

The world as it really is, is free of all of that, and that is the world of suchness. Now early Buddhism seemed to be saying that the world that we lived in, the conditioned world, is a veil of tears to be overcome by hard work, practice, purification, effort, But now in the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha says that in fact the world is not a veil of tears. It is and has always been a pure, perfect Buddha land. All we have to do is open our eyes and see it as it really is. So that's one really important concept of the Lotus Sutra. Another concept of the Lotus Sutra which is connected to the first one is the idea of upaya or skillful means. Just as the idea of suchness replaces the idea of suffering of the conditional world as the fundamental reality, skillful means replaces the earlier notion of method and practice leading toward awakening.

[40:39]

The earlier laborious methods were provisional techniques for those not yet capable of seeing through technique The skill in means actually means, in effect, there is no method because everything is a method. There's nothing that's not a method. You know, skillful means that you can use anything to further your spiritual practice if you really understand reality. So the method of Buddhist practice, in other words, is not limited to the various techniques and doctrines that the Buddha had earlier taught. Everything is potentially Buddhist practice and will be Buddhist practice if you undertake it in the light of suchness. So if the Buddha is not a human being born from his past karma into this world, as the earlier text had indicated, then how does the Buddha appear? And the Lotus Sutra says that the Buddha appears

[41:43]

because of, it says in the Lotus Sutra, the one great causal condition. The one great causal condition, which is compassion. The Buddha appears out of this need to benefit beings and free them. That need actually produces the appearance of the Buddha in this world. So the Lotus Sutra teaches that causality itself, purified in the light of suchness, in effect, is the Buddha. The nature of our lives, as they actually are, with their drama and their karma on a grand scale, seen as it were from the top of Vulture Peak in the light of suchness, is what the Buddha is. This is pretty much what the Lotus Sutra is telling us. to think that the Buddha was a person who walked around 2,500 years ago and had this great teaching, according to the Lotus Sutra, is to miss a deeper, more essential sense of what the Buddha is.

[42:55]

So this to me is really a marvelous perspective on our life. And it seems to me that it's very experientially real. Because it seems that being human, sort of the essence of being a human being, you know, is that right in the middle of your life, right in the middle of your heart, there's always a sense of longing or reaching out for something that's very, very large, larger than your own life could possibly be. but that somehow you want to experience through your own life. In other words, none of us are really satisfied with anything that we're gonna get in this lifetime, because there's something about being a human being that wants to reach out beyond that and experience that within the small circle of this life. So we're all searching for something like that. To me, this is the spiritual quest. Whether we know it or not, Sometimes it gets pretty twisted for some people.

[44:01]

But if you scratch somebody below the surface of whatever it is they think they want, I think there's this deeper, wider desire. And in a sense, the Lotus Sutra affirms that. The Lotus Sutra said, yes, that's right. Everybody is like that. And the Lotus Sutra kind of gives us a beautiful vision, a way of understanding that. Now, there's another. Now I'm slowly getting around to the case here. This is another, because I want to set the whole context for what the Lotus Sutra is all about and what it feels like and how it differs from earlier Buddhism. Now here's the line in the Lotus Sutra that gets us closer to the case. There's a very famous passage in the Lotus Sutra that says that true suchness is inconceivable. Nobody could ever understand it or embrace it or comprehend it. And then it says, only a Buddha and a Buddha are capable of embracing and understanding this suchness.

[45:15]

Not even a Buddha could understand it. Only a Buddha and a Buddha. It's a beautiful And, and, only a Buddha and a Buddha can understand it. In other words, no one by themselves could possibly appreciate and embrace this teaching. It takes a Buddha and a Buddha. This tells us that the teaching doesn't arise as an intellectual or even a spiritual insight. It arises as a result of a profound connection. That's amazing, isn't it? And this connection, this relationality is not a conventional connection or relationality as we would understand that. Two separate entities meeting and joining. It's a merging of the two.

[46:19]

So there's a kind of paradox. So the two remain two and yet they're one. and something else comes out of their merging. So it's what happens between them in the middle where suchness is realized. Suchness is only realized together through connection. So I think now you see how this relates to our case. So here's, again to return to the story, Buddha is on Vulture Peak, he's giving a Dharma talk. He's going to explain true suchness as it actually is. And in doing so, he doesn't say any words. He just takes up a flower and he twirls it, giving no explanation at all. And this is the Buddhist dharma talk. This is his demonstration of suchness. And it's not a trick or a device or something cute. It's just his way of showing at that moment the nature of reality.

[47:22]

no one understood, except for Mahakasyapa. In the original text, it seems that the Chinese has an expression very similar to ours. We have a colloquial expression, he cracked a smile, you know, cracked a smile. The Chinese seems to have the same thing because it says in the Chinese, in effect, Mahakasyapa's face cracked. And that's interesting, it sort of implies that Mahakasyapa is sort of sitting there in great decorum, in this assembly of great Dharma students trying to be serious, like everybody else, but he couldn't help himself, he couldn't help it, he cracked a smile when he saw the Buddha twirl a flower. It was just so wonderful and so funny that he couldn't help it, he cracked up. Maybe you've experienced this kind of thing when something funny goes on. maybe not like some joke from a stand-up comedian, but some funny, incongruous, wonderful thing.

[48:32]

And you see it, and maybe one other person in the room sees it, and you look at one another, and you go, you can't stop yourself from cracking up. The fact that everybody else is so deadly serious makes it even more funny. So it was kind of like that, you know. and the Buddha cracked up. And this is really the truth. Reality is so unlikely, so miraculous, so pathetic, so hilarious, so marvelous, and so absolutely unlike our projections of it. There is such a weight of irony in things being the way they appear to be, and so much not at all being the way they appear to be, that you just crack up, you know? You can't help it. In one of the commentaries, it says that Buddha and Mahakasyapa smiled one smile.

[49:40]

There was one smile between them, that they simultaneously smiled one smile together. They had a perfect accord in their feeling and their immediate sort of feeling for what life was. A perfect harmony, a perfect relationship, a perfect trust. And it's a very good thing that they didn't say anything, because probably if they had begun to discuss it, it would not have been so perfect anymore, and they would have maybe disagreed with one another and had various problems. Because as soon as you kind of come forth from this kind of ineffable center and this perfect harmony, and start doing things, there's always problems. But if you really experience this, you don't forget about it too easily. It gives you a kind of confidence that life has an integrity, and therefore, you don't need to be floored by all your troubles.

[50:43]

Based on this feeling of the integrity of life that you really know, then you can work out your problems and you don't have to be so overcome by them. The important point though is that this feeling of the integrity of life or whatever you want to call it, this wholeness, this clarity, it's not exactly a feeling or a thought or an experience that each one of them has. It comes out of the accord between them, the feeling of mutuality and intimacy And it's this moment in the koan is the enactment of the line in the Lotus Sutra. Only a Buddha and the Buddha can exhaust this infinite reality. So this is, you know, you wouldn't have thought this about Zen, you know. Everybody's sitting there all by themselves on their cushions. But actually, this story is the seminal story about the essential Zen transmission, and it's a story of relationality.

[51:51]

As long as our practice remains a practice that has to do with my spirituality, my experience, my improvement, my compassion, my understanding, and so forth, I'm really missing my practice. As long as my practice is something that my divided intelligence can name, understand, evaluate, and so on, I'm missing it. Only a Buddha and a Buddha means that I let go of myself And I'm willing to come out into the open and be met there by another who is also willing to come out into the open. And there, as our hands touch in friendship, suchness arises. So really, we're talking about a deep sense of trust. Isn't that interesting and surprising? That at the heart of our tradition, The sort of most deepest and most mysterious understanding is really all about a trust, trust in what's outside of ourselves, trust in life and in the other.

[53:07]

Not a kind of trust that says, I trust that you'll always be on my side, you'll never be mean to me, you'll never betray me. Not that kind of trust. But in the trust that we will find together by each of us standing out into the open and transcending those limitations, we become the Buddha of suchness. And then we can live our lives on that basis rather than ordinary self-interest. On what authority do we live our lives? With whose blessing? Did you ever think of how pervasive is our effort to seek legitimacy, how important that is to us? We all have our various diplomas and licenses and certificates.

[54:09]

We have our birth certificates, our death certificates. We didn't really die without your death certificate. We cede our authority as individuals on so many fronts to the various institutions that are recognized by society, the universities, the churches, the state, and we all accept those various authorizations so that we know we're here. But below the radar of all of this, I think we are longing for a deeper sense of authorization. You could almost argue that this is really the bottom line source of happiness or unhappiness in our lives. Whether or not we feel authentic, authenticated, that we are the author of our lives or not. I think a person can endure a lot of privation and hardship, a long time of not getting what you want

[55:14]

If you really feel that you are the authority, the author of your own life, that's more important than getting something that you think you want. And the converse is true. You could get a lot of stuff, a lot of honor and wealth and approbation from the world, but if you don't feel inside that you really are the author of your life, that you are really there in your life, that you are really in charge of your own life, really living your own life, none of it means anything. And it's sometimes amazing when you meet people who are incredibly successful and famous and wonderful, and in the middle of the night, they don't feel that any of it really answers their deepest human need. So this is a case, not of somebody getting a diploma or a license, but of real authority being conferred. Not by Buddha to Kshapa, now you have the certificate, you're authorized, but between the two of them, you know, reality conferring authority on itself.

[56:27]

Between them there is a brand of trust, the kind of deep trust emphasized in our practice. The trust that begins and ends with each one of us recognizing the truth of the suchness of our unique existence. And then standing on that ground, we come out to meet one another. So it's a kind of paradox. You know, the ultimate authority is a non-authority. There isn't any authority outside my own fundamental experience. And yet, unless I'm willing to be met there, I never really have my own authority. So Mumon's comment really brings out this paradox. What if everyone in the audience had smiled? How could he have transmitted the teaching then? And what if Mahakasyapa had not smiled? How could he have transmitted the teaching then? If you say that realization can be transmitted, you're like the city slicker cheating the country bumpkin.

[57:36]

But if you say you cannot transmit it, then what's this story all about? So this authority isn't something we have gotten or something that we have and somebody else doesn't have. Remember the story, the Zen version of the story of Buddha's enlightenment. Buddha stands up and he doesn't say, how great, I'm enlightened. What about all these other poor guys? Too bad for them. He doesn't say that. He says, how wonderful, how wonderful, all beings enjoy this awakening. Everyone automatically shares in suchness. So there's nothing special, nothing extra needed. So there's nothing to transmit. Everybody's already transmitted. Life transmits life. Time transmits time. To think there's something that's transmitted, some secret, you know, ineffable understanding,

[58:41]

is to misunderstand and reduce that which is really transmitted to something very limited. So it is a kind of a joke, like Mumon's comment indicates. It's a kind of a shell game. There's nothing to it. At the same time, you must give and receive transmission. There really isn't a teacher and a student At the same time, we need to have those relationships. That's how we activate the one great causal condition to save sentient beings from the sea of suffering. A later master named Tsong Khwa commented on this case. When Buddha held up a flower, he was so concerned for his children that he was unconscious of being unseemly. When Kashapa smiled, he stuck his brains in a bowl of glue.

[59:45]

So ultimately, we've all received all the transmission we will ever need, and we are already living our lives with the full authority of the Buddha. This is really the truth. And because of this, I don't really have to evaluate anybody, or worry about how they're doing, or get mad at anybody, denigrate anybody, no matter what happens, I know that everybody comes from that place. At the same time, out of kindness for each other, we need to find ways to meet each other out on the open causal ground. So we have to come down out of the cloud of our perfection and encounter one another. And then, as I said, there's bound to be trouble. With transmission, there is a great responsibility, an awesome responsibility.

[60:51]

I mean, think about it. Think of this vast world. Look up at the sky when we leave here tonight and think how big the world is. There aren't that many human beings in this world, a very small number. And each one has an awesome responsibility. To be born a human being is an awesome responsibility. There's freedom, but that freedom begins with a terrible responsibility. And the only thing we know is that for sure we will fall short of that responsibility. But nevertheless, that is what it is to be human, I think, to take up the responsibility. And not to take it up is to really shortchange ourselves. I think that's why we practice, because we know that, and that's our struggle. And that's my talk.

[61:52]

So now, I remember from last week that it's time for a break, so let's take a short break. I'd like us to have some conversations about some of the issues that I raised with this case. Thank you. Let's take about, what do we take, five minute break or something? I didn't realize how late it was. Let's talk for a second about, you know, last week we had those little discussions. How was that? Was that all right? Did you enjoy that or was that a bother for you? For me it was a bother. Yeah, I got the feeling that it was a bother for some people. I mean, I guess that you're kind of used to asking questions of the teacher, which is fine, you know, that's a good idea.

[62:55]

But also, it's one of my persistent thoughts that I mean, it's not that the teachings are up for grabs and one guy's interpretation is as good as the next. I mean, somebody who has studied and practiced for a long time, it does make sense to ask a more experienced person for their counsel and advice and understanding. So I'm not saying that that's not so. On the other hand, I think there's something wrong with that the only method is to ask the teacher a question, because I think that one of the things about our tradition is expression. We have to learn how to express our understanding, because we have an understanding at this time. It'll change, it'll develop, but we have some understanding. So I actually think it's a really important exercise. for us to be able to do that with each other, and it takes some getting used to, and I realize that, and we're only having four meetings, so maybe it's not worth doing, because maybe by the time you get used to it, it'll be over, you know?

[64:05]

But I think I was telling you that I developed this method in my Dharma seminar, and it works really well, and people really appreciate those discussions, and I think get a lot out of them. I also, the reason I got that idea is because, one of the reasons is that when I studied how to be a high school teacher, I was very impressed with research that showed that when you express something that you've heard, you retain it and understand it much better than when you're just listening to something. That that's how you learn, actually, is by your own expression. So I think it really is a good method. On the other hand, I'm not over here very often, and I don't want to not give you the time if you think you'd like it. We only have a few minutes. We're not going to do it tonight, but yeah, what do you think? Just having considerable experience with practice and tremendous experience with this technique, having done it three times with you now.

[65:10]

Which technique is that? Of talking together in groups? Yeah, of talking together. It's kind of changing my idea of the practice, and I find it extremely valuable to hear somebody else's thoughts and how somebody else relates to it. It takes some mystique out of it. It's always with the teacher, it's like I'm always feeling like I don't understand what other people are thinking. It just kind of makes it more like I can see what's going on in my mind, similar to what's going on in other people's minds. I haven't seen you in years. I was so moved to hear your talk last week. I feel, you know, it doesn't feel to me like a solid building. Four weeks, it feels to me like I'm just, you know, trying to fill myself with as much of the things that you're talking about.

[66:20]

sharing with us. I feel very strongly about that, because I think you can tell just by looking at me. This gentleman here has obviously had experience with you in this context that you're in now, and I haven't seen you since then, so I would really like to know where you're at these days, because I think your teaching is very helpful. and hang on to what you're saying. For the first time, I think it's worth the investment. You know, it makes it personal. You have to deal with it in your life and hear about someone else and they're dealing with it in their life.

[67:24]

And I think that's what it's about. And I'm very thankful for this method. If you had asked me about this method, I would say, oh, what a silly thing that is. But when you actually do it, and you take it seriously, it really is very hard. So I like it. Yeah, I think that is, it's interesting. As you all know, I retired from the Zen Center and set up a small organization called Everyday Zen Foundation, and that gave me, a little bit more space and freedom to think about what I was doing and how I was doing it and why I was doing it. And that is what you're saying is the kind of basic idea that I'm working with in everyday Zen is the recognition that everybody is living their lives in the ordinary world and they're not, although it's true that Zen is essentially a kind of monastic practice and teaching.

[68:25]

our monastery is the world. It's our families and our jobs and our things that we're doing in the world. So that's why I always try to, that's why I'm speaking about the cases differently and everything I speak about now is kind of with that in mind. And that goes along with people really sort of seeing how do I make use of this teaching? What does it mean for my life? How do I actually work with it? And to me, it's more important that you actually work with the teachings than that you have a perfect understanding of the classical teachings. I would rather that you have an understanding that is raw and useful to you than that you have an understanding that is official Zen. Personally, that's how I feel. But I really understand what you're saying, Marilyn, and I certainly wouldn't want to have these conversations at the expense of my interacting with you.

[69:28]

So I was happy in the beginning, actually, although I joked about it. I was actually very happy that people were asking the questions that they felt they needed to ask. And if I continue to be as long-winded as I seem to be, then we won't have much time. Because ideally, you see, we would have enough time for both. Because it only takes about 15 or 20 minutes to have these conversations. Tonight, I mean, I was shocked to look at my watch and see how long I talked, so too late tonight. But maybe if I can speak a little less long in the next, there'll be time for brief discussions so that everybody can express themselves on the case, and then out of that feeling of the expression to then come together in a whole group, and then I can be part of the discussion. Yeah? Just, you know, when you did these cases three years ago, Did you come to seminar then? Yeah. I look at my notes and I think about when I read. I find this much more usable.

[70:33]

You really change the way you teach it. And I think everyone here has the great opportunity to have the wonderful benefit. Did I do these cases here in Berkeley? No. Oh, you mean in the seminar, right. And this is much more, in terms of bringing it into your life, you know, a beginning way to do it, I think this is a much better method, at least for me. So it's a change in how you do it. Yeah, I'm working with the cases differently. Well, I'm glad. Yeah, that's another thing, that's right, I meant to suggest last time, and I forgot. It seems like some of you did do this. Take the case home with you and continue to reflect on it and work with it during the week. In terms of this case, you could ask yourself this week, between now and next week, where's my authority?

[71:41]

Where's my transmission? on what authority am I living my life? That would be a good koan to study. And the method would be, actually, the classical Zen way of meditating on a koan is one of the greatest spiritual inventions ever. It's really terrific. You establish your sitting and your breath, as you usually do in zazen, and then you raise this question with every breath. And you find a way to make it very short so that it's not a long, discursive thing that you're thinking about. So you might say, what is authority? Or where am I coming from? Or what am I? Or who am I? Or finding some way that works for you to raise this question up in your sitting. And then if you work on it enough, and usually you'd first sit for, you know, calm your mind and clear your brains out a little bit for 10 minutes maybe or 15 minutes and then work on the koan for 15 or 20 minutes and then let it go and just let it melt into your breath.

[73:02]

And if you actually worked with this every day, then you would find that it would not be that hard during the day. to bring it up, and using times like driving in your car or walking down the street or just taking a moment at your desk to stop what you're doing and go to your breath for a moment and raise this question. And I think you'd find that if you did this enough and intensely enough, you'd find it would pop up spontaneously, and you'd find that it would be an echo in the middle of a conversation that you're having with someone or some small decision or large decision that you're making during the day. and you would find that your whole kind of, you know, what would go on during the day would shape itself around this question and would become then an unfolding of it. So that's what I'm suggesting for those of you who are interested in doing that and see what happens to you as a result of doing that. Working with questions in this way is a particular

[74:03]

method of the Zen school, and it's a beautiful way to live, you know, to live life following your questions, one after the other, endlessly exploring, you know, what's really true in your life. So anyway, you could do that, and then you could, if there were things that came up for you in the week of working on the case, and that way you could bring them up next week when I come. So I offer that as a suggestion. It's a beautiful story, isn't it? When you realize, you know, it's interesting, it just goes to show you how much, how stuck one is on the idea that there is some external understanding and you don't know it. You know, we have this idea, right? It's so ingrained, right?

[75:06]

That when you read the story, usually what you think about is Gee, the Buddha and Mahakasyapa understood this deep thing. I wonder what it is. Maybe someday I'll understand it, you know. And you don't see that the main thing in the story is this connection. The fact that reality comes from this kind of connection. And think of the opportunities that one has in one's life every single day for this kind of same, exactly the same kind of connection. I don't just mean with a person, but think if you could be connected in that same way that Buddha and Mahakasyapa are connected. Think if you could be connected to your own thoughts in that way. Think if you could be connected to the sensations of your own body in that way, or connected to looking at the sky, or connected to another person. Wouldn't that be great? Every time you're connected, you're responsible.

[76:12]

That's our responsibility. Yeah, you have to come forth. I know a little while back you were reading Martin Buber. Did that connect? Yeah, that helped me to bring this site out. But I hope I was convincing that it's in the case, and it's in the Lotus Sutra. I mean, Martin Buber didn't write the Lotus Sutra. But yes, it definitely helped me to see this side. Yeah, it definitely helped me to see this side and bring this side out, which I'm convinced is legitimately at the heart of Zen. Don't forget, a word that's synonymous with enlightenment in Zen is intimacy. Right? Intimacy. In Japanese Zen, the word intimacy is a synonym for awakening. So yeah, yeah, definitely reading Martin Buber and many other sort of studies that I pursued out of that helped me to really discover this side for myself and bring it out more, absolutely.

[77:20]

Well, it is nine now. Is that what you were gonna say? Oh, you're supposed to be keeping us straight in line and now you're asking a question at nine o'clock? Oh, what time is it really? It's two minutes to nine. Oh, thank you. I'll set my clock. On the other hand, I think Rishabh Yama's interpretation, he says at the very end, somebody criticized some interpretation of this case, saying that they missed the delicate interplay, interpersonal interplay, between Mahakasyapa and Buddha. And then Shakyamuni says, this person totally missed the point. It's not that. Yeah. Well, you know, I don't disagree with that. Because this kind of connection is not an interpersonal connection.

[78:25]

That's what I said when I met. It's not about two separate people meeting one another and having a perfect understanding. It's deeper than that. It's relational. But the relation between two persons or between oneself and one's own thoughts or oneself and seeing the sky or hearing a bamboo pebble is just the same thing. In fact, if you study the Enlightenment stories in Zen, they're always only in response to meeting something, not necessarily a person, but something. In our tradition, if you read Dogen on this subject, he's pretty clear that this is not about how whatever fantastic experiences you have or your understanding of this and that, you must have a teacher and have this kind of thing. There must be this relation between two people.

[79:27]

But actually in the Zen tradition more widely, that's why enlightenment always occurs not in silence,

[79:36]

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