I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Let's try the Chinese version. Let's try Master Sheng Nim's. I think that'll be the most different. It's the one from... Not Essential Zen, the one from the Poetry of Enlightenment. It looks like this in the front. It's the Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi. It says, Po Po Ho Ho. That's the Chinese pronunciation of Baba Wawa.

[01:00]

In Chinese it's Po Po Ho Ho. It says, It is this very Dharma the Buddha and Patriarch secretly transmitted. Page 75, that's the number at the bottom of it. Does everybody have a copy of that? It's on the back. There are a lot of things about this translation I don't really like so much, but here and there it's... Anyway, it'll be interesting to do a different one. Po Po Ho Ho. There are a few things where it's interesting. One difference is that he's translating directly from the Chinese, which Pal is too, I guess, by the way. I would doubt that he's consulted the Japanese version and Japanese commentaries on it,

[02:07]

whereas the others, theories and causes, and probably even that Pal would have been familiar with it. So his interpretation is not sullied by the later readers. Right, and it's also not informed by him. Anyway. Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi. It is this very Dharma the Buddha and Patriarch secretly transmitted. Now that you have it protected well, Like a silver bowl of snow Or an egret hidden against the bright moon They are similar but not identical When mingled their difference can be recognized The meaning does not lie in words If those who are right must be taught As soon as you act it is a dead issue So consider their very attainment Rejecting words or clinging to them are both mistakes Like a blazing fire useful but dangerous

[03:09]

It is only expressed in language The precious mirror will be stained At midnight it is truly bright By daybreak it no longer shows It serves as the law which governs all things Used to outbrute all suffering Though it is not a way of action Still notice not without words As before a precious mirror The form of reflection gaze on each other You are not it but it is just you Just as an infant is equipped with five sense organs It neither knows nor comes Neither does it arise or abide Ho! [...] A phrase but without meaning You can never get the substance of it Because it is not correct language Doubling the lead trigram makes this line The outer and inner lines mutually interact Stacked they become three ears At most they can transform into five

[04:11]

Like the five aromas of the discipline Or the five branches of the vasoceptor The exact center subtly harmonizing Drumming and singing simultaneously Penetrate the goal and you will fathom the weight In order to lead there must be a road To be wrong is auspicious, do not oppose it Natural and subtle It is neither ignorance nor enlightenment Causes and conditions have their time and season Tranquil and dominating It is so small it enters the spaceless So large is the odd dimension If you are off by a hair's breadth Then you would be out of harmony Now there is sudden and gradual enlightenment In order to establish the fundamental guidelines While fundamental guidelines are clearer They become the rule Realization of the basic principle is the ultimate standard Genuine, constant, yet flowing

[05:14]

With still body but racing mind Like a tethered horse or a mouse frozen by fright Past sages pitied them and liberated them with Buddhadharma Following their upside down ways they took black for white When inverted thinking disappears They realize mind of their own accord If you want to merge with the ancient track Then contemplate the ancients At the completion of the Buddha path Ten kalpas of contemplation will be established Like a tiger's laying foot Like a shoeless horse because there is a defect They seek a jewel bench and a priceless altar Because you are astonished You become soulless lays and white oxen Holy, he uses his skill to hit the target at a hundred faces As soon as the arrow hits the mark Of what further uses his skill When a woman man breaks his song

[06:16]

A stone woman gets up to dance Since this cannot be understood by reasoning How can it be analyzed? The minister serves his lord The son obeys his father If he doesn't obey he is not filial If the minister does not serve he is not supportive To cultivate in hiding Functioning in secret Like a fool, like a dog If only you are able to persist You will be called a master among masters There's a few things in there I like Are there any... well We could look at some of this in more detail The place where we were up to last time was We started to talk about

[07:19]

If you want to conform to the ancient way Please observe the ancients of former times When about to fulfill the way of Buddhahood One gaze would be a tree for ten eons But I want to go over that Is there anything before that? Either from what we just chanted Or anything else that anybody has any Comments, questions, reflections, thoughts Revelations, epiphanies One thing, I looked for this For my notebook Where I had some notes about Lacan Because I wanted to find this reference Where Lacan, the psychologist Talks about mirrors And I couldn't find it But I did remember this one thing he says Which is kind of interesting Because of the part about the mirror If I can just say it quickly That he describes What he calls the mirror stage Where the infant first realizes That his or her reflection in the mirror Is his own face

[08:21]

And that there's this terrible sense of loss Because the infant understands At that point that it is him And that he's seeing himself As if from the outside And so he's no longer the whole universe The separation we were talking about before Where the infant doesn't even know That the mother's breast or the trees Are not part of its own body That union is lost When it sees its face from the outside And sees that it is a discrete entity And he says, Lacan says That there's this separation Anxiety and grief and loss That occurs at that point And that the mirror And the reflection of the image Is an understanding of separation That's so interesting That's very relevant to this stuff And the rest of it The whole thing about the mirror consciousness

[09:24]

So part of what Part of the meditation instruction, if you will Part of the awareness that's talked about At least in part in here Is being like a mirror Like the phrase wall-gazing Bodhidharma's wall-gazing And I know Rev has talked about it at times That it's not about looking at the wall It's about being the wall So you're actually there And so to be upright, to not move To just be there Whatever else is going on And you can talk about it In terms of mirror consciousness In the same way, I think this is like Being the mirror But there's another For those of you who know the case About the stage of faith and the stage of person There's a jump that happens In the place where we're at right now And there's a story Which I can't remember exactly If Rev was here this week I would have called him about it

[10:28]

But it's about Something about the mirror consciousness And a dialogue between a master and a student And I don't know where it's from So I couldn't find it But the last, the punchline is Something about breaking the mirror The student talks about the mirror consciousness And the teacher says, break the mirror And come and I will see you So there's a stage We talked about the five ranks Or five degrees There's five different perspectives on the same thing I don't know if that's related to this or not But at any rate There's an aspect of this mirror samadhi Of this bright jewel of mirror samadhi Where you reflect Where you're like the baby Who doesn't realize that they have That you can hold a mirror up to them too You're just the baby Reflecting whatever comes up in front of them Like a babe in the world

[11:30]

Like a common infant But then there's this other stage Where it's not that you abandon the jewel mirror samadhi But you break through it And I think that's what it's talking about In this last part that we're covering today In various ways And it has to do with bodhisattva practice too And getting beyond The common Zen student disease Which all of us who have done Zazen Have had to some extent Of just feeling great just sitting Zazen And just kind of feeling really calm And not wanting to kind of Step beyond that And deal with the menu Or getting the food out Or whatever Dealing with the ordinary As opposed to being in this wonderful samadhi state So there's an aspect of the jewel mirror samadhi That has to do with getting Beyond getting caught in it

[12:30]

And I think it's talked about In terms of breaking the mirror sometimes It's like getting beyond feeling You can be in a samadhi Where feeling down there A pleasant feeling Self affirming Right It's also I think it has to do with this relationship That you were sort of talking about About self and other Like the point at which the baby Has an awareness of Discreet individuals And also that she is a self Looking out at that She's the other to somebody else's self Right, that's where there's a split in the self Instead of it just being all Kind of one thing in some way So At that point Then there's Subject and object and all of that I'm sorry Lee I was going to try this back to what you were saying

[13:32]

Just now and I lost the thread You were talking about feelings Well it's just that You can be in a state Where it's like God bliss or whatever Something that seems totally You want to be right there This is where you've been Looking for this It can be a mirror like Non-dual state But the part that isn't You can take the feeling Personally You like it You grab the feeling And of course It won't last forever And you basically have to give it up And move on And meet the next thing You can't go back and keep the feeling It doesn't have to do with feelings It has to do with a kind of pleasant state Yeah, it's not really emotions Right Feelings in a technical sense Right So that's like You're satisfied This is good

[14:32]

That's a good way to talk about it You're satisfied At the time When you're satisfied with your meditation You know I mean we all go through Our minds racing around Worrying about this and that Or wondering if we should have done it that way Or the other way Then at some point We've all gotten some glimpse of Okay, just being there And it's satisfying Does everybody resonate with that a little bit? You know that there's sometimes When it feels okay Just to be there sitting But this is talking about Something The next step of that Which is Stepping back So I'm going to get too many metaphors mixed in here But talking about the baby I think in the mirror Is about this because There's a stage of the baby Just seeing everything as mother or whatever Then there's the stage of Language and the baby

[15:38]

Distinguishing self As a separate thing that can be seen In some other mirror And all of that And then what happens in Zazen sometimes Is that there's this What you were describing This feeling of just everything being Connected as it is And then this is talking about Something Beyond that What we're coming to Is talking about that And we can talk about it in terms of Bodhisattva practice or we can talk about it In terms of stage of person In terms of actually accepting Coming back to the sense of oneness But then going back and accepting The level of the particular Or doing Bodhisattva work in the world Or taking care of others Realizing that you imagine You do imagine that there are others And that we have this Connection so we actually Take care of How do we take care of our relationships with others How do we take care of Practical things like

[16:39]

Getting meals out Answering the phones Making the beds And all of that So I think that's We're working back towards Now towards the host within the host What is that Do you know if there is any book or study About mirror imagery And mythology It would be interesting So many cultures and mythologies Have stuff about mirrors I don't really know Of anthropological studies Or psychological studies Or symbolic studies But yeah it's a very rich Image I think maybe not all of you were here When I talked about the idea of mirrors In China and Japan Which is that a mirror isn't necessarily A piece of shiny glass which Reflects everything It's

[17:40]

A mirror I first experienced this with a Japanese fellow Who showed me this round Metal plate and there was a handle To it and it looked like a mirror that you Hold up to yourself but it was this Relief sculpture of cranes and turtles And it was beautiful this landscape thing And he said this is a mirror And oh So Sometimes images can be Called mirrors Or they have mirrors that don't reflect in the way we think Of mirrors as reflecting But it's still the idea of it is that it's a mirror And you look into it and you see that you actually are These cranes flying over the lake or something Yeah I don't know how much they articulate it They just call it a mirror It wouldn't have to be that Because mirrors you can call it an angle You know what I mean Oh yeah that's true The cranes in flight Well actually There's this book that Actually I haven't had it with me And I wasn't even thinking about it in connection with this But since you bring up mirrors There's this book that Rip had mentioned

[18:41]

About reflections And how light is reflected By Feynman's Strange Theory of Light and Matter So this isn't about mirrors exactly But it's this Strange concept of how How modern physicists Understand light being reflected Off the surface And it's actually a fairly complex event Because of the thickness of the glass There are cycles Of how the light is reflected From Light is reflected from the front of the glass And the back of the glass Both anyway So for the physics Of mirror Of reflection and light That's a reference You know my experience with People Of Chinese origin When someone dies in the house The first thing they do is turn the mirrors to the wall Right I've heard of that What is that about It's something about not wanting the spirits to come back I'm more interested now That we're talking about

[19:41]

I just know that it's bad luck Somehow for the person To move on and to go ahead To move on to where they're going to They might get trapped by their own reflection Yeah just coming back up Until somehow the ghost Would come return But it's actually It would help the person move on and away Right well we know from our own culture That it's bad luck to break a mirror Right And also that vampires can't be seen In a mirror Oh I didn't know that It's useful I don't know if this is true In all of the versions of that In all of the studies That have been done on this At least in some of them they claim That vampires cannot be seen It's a defining thing So to be alive is to have a reflection Sure And in Jewish tradition after someone dies They cover the mirrors But I always heard it as

[20:46]

It's not so much about the person that died It's that You don't look in the mirror Because actually you're staying with what is Rather than kind of You know sort of seeing your own face And getting pulled into yourself Or that whole thing That it does when you look back Or see whatever So it's to keep in mind The departed For that period There's a whole focus Rather than A reflection Rather than reassuring yourself that you're alive By looking in the mirror Yeah Anyway Well there's that book Of autobiography of a face That came out recently By a woman Who's extremely disfigured By some surgery She had cancer in her face She had to have all these horrible operations And her face got really disfigured And she's in her 30s It's a very moving book About her experience of that

[21:47]

And how she sees herself In the world now Anyway For a long period of time She didn't look in the mirror at all She never looked at herself in the mirror And she avoided looking at reflection In a store window or anything like that And she tried to sort of be a person Without a reflection That's very interesting Also she was a person Not only like Was she without one But she also got no reflection In a way Because people didn't know how to respond So they sort of pretended they didn't see her At one question and answer period There were a number of people Who were talking about how And somebody came up afterwards And talked to me about How they were Looking in the mirror And they're getting old But inside They don't feel like They're the same person Their consciousness is clear But they look in the mirror

[22:50]

And there's this old person In that mirror And it's disconcerting Susie Clymer used to say We're all sixteen year olds Trapped inside of aging bodies That's good But then there's the idea Which That whatever our face is As we age is actually An accurate version Of the face we'd wish to have That we're responsible For our own faces But this is from a Talking Heads song But that But that we might Make a mistake and actually Wish for the wrong face I mean actually have an image That's not really the face that we should have We could actually have the wrong idea Of what our face should be And then our face would become that And it would be a mistake And then we'd be sorry And it would be too late Of course as soon as we think It's our face We've got a problem Then we have a tendency to die

[23:50]

At that point And we're worried about that We're getting old But if it isn't our face Hmm Well Then to return A little bit back to the Okay now that we've It's all been about this Jewel Maryasamadhi All of this is the Jewel Maryasamadhi These are the different facets of the jewel Part of what's going on here with the mirror Though is also there's this theme About teachers and students There are various themes here There's the theme of the universal and the particular There's the theme of language And how do we talk about this And then there's also this theme of teaching And teaching the students And how do we learn And part of in the Zen tradition Part of what Part of what teacher and student is Is this face to face thing So that's also That's actually the mirror in a sense For this, that's one motif of the mirror Eyebrow to eyebrow Mind to mind, face to face Transmission it's called

[24:52]

So how, what is it To look in another face And how is that your face And we can see it in terms of Formal setups of teachers and students But also just in terms of how do we Communicate face to face How do we meet each other How are we mirrors for each other So if you want to conform to the ancient way Please observe the ancients of former times When about to fulfill The way of Buddhahood One gazed at a tree for ten eons So this is a particular reference To a story I think I mentioned In the Lotus Sutra And it's about a Buddha And This is the perfect The name of this Buddha Is something like a perfect realization Penetrating knowledge Buddha I think it's Penetrating knowledge Buddha Is this particular Buddha And The story is that for ten kalpas Which is a pretty long time

[25:54]

He sat still Still under the Bodhi tree Like at the same point That Shakyamuni was Just as he saw the morning star Okay This is Buddha Mahabhishnana Bibhu The Buddha of supreme penetration and surpassing wisdom And Apparently it's in the Avatamsaka Sutra too But it's actually mentioned in terms of the Lotus Sutra And And It's interesting the way it's used here And there are various ways to see it here This is also One of the cases in the Mumonkan Case nine So there's a couple of Zen koans that are coming up right here In these few lines The student asks The teacher This Buddha sat on the side of enlightenment for ten eons But the realities of enlightenment Did not become apparent to him And he was unable to fulfill the way of Buddhahood Why was that? And the master responds

[26:58]

Your question is quite clearly to the point The monk said Since he was sitting on the side of enlightenment Why was he unable to fulfill the way of Buddhahood? The master said because he did not fulfill Buddhahood So One interpretation that's made of this Is that this Particularly in this context of the Jhulmere Samadhi Is that it's kind of a Criticism of this Buddha For just sitting still for ten eons And not moving And not responding And not interacting with the world One of the stories in Lotus Sutra is that During these ten eons The devas rained flowers on him And all these wonderful celestial apparitions Happened And he just sat there Like a perfect Zen student Without even appreciating it? Well, he didn't We don't know But he didn't move He didn't start giggling or anything The other way of interpreting it though

[27:59]

And Cleary suggests this And I think he's right That in a sense he's praising this In the way, from the context of Like a tiger leaving part of its prey horse With a hobbled leg That There's this idea Particularly in the Soto lineage Of not But also just in all the Bodhisattva practice Of you don't quite finish You know Eighty to ninety percent is the best You know That The Bodhisattva is one who Doesn't finish Buddhahood Because the Bodhisattva Acts to help beings in the world And to wake up together with everyone So this is the Basic point here And Actually in a lot of Zen koans It has both sides And is playing with the fact that there's both sides In the ways, why didn't he Why did he just sit there all that time The other side of it is He was actually aware

[28:59]

That he should not quite Grasp Buddhahood He should stay sitting there As an image of Not being complete That that was his way of doing Bodhisattva practice So you can see it either side But the point is the same, either side This thing about not being complete But about to fulfill the way of Buddhahood But did he then After ten eons went by Did he finally say, okay, now I'm going to Let myself have it Yeah, apparently At some point he let himself go So it's like a tiger Leaving part of its prey These are images of incompleteness I am not referring in this part To the characters, but anyway The white left hind leg It's a kind of Chinese expression For a withered or hobbled leg

[29:59]

It's a particular character That refers to this Withered left hind leg But basically it just means A hobbled horse A horse that's not completely You know A perfect race horse or something Slightly hobbled So does that We had a long discussion about Erroneous imagination In the affirming mind Acknowledging or forgiving itself Erroneous is really upside down So this is now introducing This image of What does one do When the acquiescent mind

[31:01]

Realizes itself What do you do When erroneous imagination Ceases, what happens And there's this affirming mind Or acquiescent mind Or consenting mind Accepting mind Which is aware of itself And then According to the ancient way There's this practice of Gazing at a tree for ten eons This next part is We started to talk about last time Because there is the base There are jewel pedestals, fine clothing This particular sentence Is the one I have the most problem with In this translation Literally the base means low class In this case Vulgar, it doesn't mean like the base of a table So this particular So I think this Is a little misreading the way it's worded

[32:03]

But because there are low class Literally means because There are the low class People Yeah I don't know if anyone's following In the Chinese it's section 32 But it's because there is the base There are jewel pedestals, fine clothing Because there is the certainly different There are black cat And white bull I don't think Well I can tell you what's in the characters But The first part is pretty clear Because there are Because there are the low class Because there is the Because we So I don't think we have to see them as those people out there Either because we have Because part of us is Is Part of ourselves is Kind of inferior and Vulgar We are attracted to jewel pedestals And fancy brocade robes And so forth So one way of reading this part

[33:03]

Is that this is talking again about Expedience How to In a way it's more like basic approaches And guiding rules But it's kind of after Sitting for ten eons What do you do And How do we meet the teaching So In a sense The vulgar I think you can read it As a value judgment or not Just because there are the Because we have this aspect of Kind of Crudeness There are We have jewel tables And fine clothing You mean to balance it out Or in order to attract us I think to attract I think that's the meaning I think you would have to have it In order They each define each other There's that too

[34:05]

That's right That's right Good So good is Defined by bad Rich is defined by poor But I think there's also It's also talking about Kind of skillful means But it's also just the way things are Because you have lowly Then you have the upper class I don't see how skillful means again I think Well okay One of the translations You know in the Lotus Sutra Of the burning building And the ox carts I think it kind of has that feeling Something you could attract them with Right And has that So it's the realm of the Lotus Sutra And how do you attract How do you You get a jewel post Right You could have a nice jewel post Right and you know You go to Japan And you see all these priests with these amazing brocade robes

[35:07]

And stuff And it looks very high class But So I think both are true I think what Sonya's bringing up is that this is just the way things are But it's also I didn't bring it that way Well I used to think of it as Because there is the base, like the base of a table Before I knew that it meant that But it's not that at all That's why I don't like that word choice Because it could be misinterpreted But I think it's both I think it's the way things are And I think it's also We could say how do we attract people to the teaching But it's also how do we help people to Realize their own Jewel mirror awareness And also their own personhood And that's what this is all about Again going back to the very beginning This is about the teaching of thusness Which has been intimately communicated By Buddhist ancestors Now you have it so keep it well So this is about how do we intimately communicate

[36:08]

With each other And how do we keep it well To me the entire text is a commentary On how to keep it well And various aspects of that So we haven't referred back to that yet today So that's the sense in which I see this This is also talking about As you were saying about expedience Does everyone know the story of the ox carts In the Lotus Sutra The man comes home And finds his house burning And his children are inside playing And he says come on out The house is burning And they say no we're playing We're having a good time And he says come on out I've got great toys out here And he describes all these wonderful carts With all these fancy trappings And wonderful animals And they say oh let's go see them And they get outside And it turns out he's only got one old automobile Or whatever it is And there's just one vehicle

[37:08]

But then it goes on to say That he wasn't lying He was just using skillful means To get them out of the burning house And that the one vehicle Is actually wonderful And includes all of those images So this is kind of How do we What do we do In that incompleteness Of watching a tree for ten eons Or having hobbled legs or whatever How do we keep the teaching well How do we intimately communicate it Or intimately receive it And the next part is a little more A little trickier Because this translation That we're used to reads Because there is the startlingly different There are house cat and cow Some time ago I actually spent A long time researching this house cat and cow thing So the first part

[38:13]

Because there is the startlingly different Another way to read that Startlingly different That compound Because there is the wondrous Or the miraculous Or the amazing So as a compound It means it has that feeling There's also In the first character There's surprising or frightening And the next part And the next character is eccentric or different So it has all of those overtones But it's the kind of But I think the primary feeling of the compound The wondrous or the miraculous Or the amazing And This is a parallel with the last one So William Powell In the translation I gave you From the Record of Dongshan I think that's causes But the one I'm referring to

[39:14]

Is For the benefit This is interesting For the benefit of those with inferior ability He reads it clearly in terms of the skillful means thing There is a jeweled footrest and brocade robes For the benefit of those capable of wonder So he's reading For the benefit of The character that means Because It could be read as because But it could be read for the sake of Also, so that's right For the sake of those capable of wonder A wildcat or white ox Because those things are so wonderful Or because they're so ordinary I think because they're so ordinary Because That's one way to read it And that's the way to read it that's parallel So this is a very tricky These two lines, this sentence These two phrases are very tricky Usually in Chinese poetry Which this is, this is a song after all There's this parallelism, this structure So often you can interpret it based on that In this case I think there's a twist though One way to read it would be

[40:15]

Because they're For the benefit of Or even just because there is the amazingly different Or this wondrous or the miraculous We have these Ordinary things Now this House cat and cow It's not a cow, it's a white bull Definitely And or a white ox The character for that This first character though It's an unusual There's a compound And it's an unusual character The first one And as a compound it could be translated As a cat or an otter I think it's just a cat But the translation That we read This is maybe more Detailed than some of you Want to hear about It's a difficult translation The Chinese thing That we just recited At the beginning of the class Says you become sallow slaves And white oxen

[41:16]

And sallow slaves is actually a literal translation Of the two characters Separately but as a compound It means a cat or a wild cat And the first character Also could mean black So there's parallelism It doesn't mean a black cat But it's a character that also means black So it's like a black cat and a white ox But together it doesn't mean a black cat Are they ordinary? Yes And the white ox is ordinary Well okay There's an edge to this There's a way in which it's ordinary There's a way in which they're special I think that one I actually don't think it's a house cat I think it's a wild cat Are you going to talk about The note 187? Um Yeah Why don't you read that? Nanshuang is recorded as saying It is frequently said Patriarchs and Buddhists did not know reality Wild cats and white oxen do Right

[42:16]

Yes I'm about to get to that Right Yeah that's in the Book of Serenity But before we get to that part There's a particular reference to a koan here So But Before we get to that even Just the basic meaning of it Is I think For those capable of wonder For those For the amazed For the startlingly different There are In a sense cat and cow So I think there's the ordinary meaning But the fact that it's a white bull Also implies The ox-herding pictures So there's a very rich and complex Imagery going on here in this particular line So The ox-herding pictures There's several different series of ox-herding Pictures some of you may have heard of That are part of Chinese Zen lore And there's One set of them that's ten And there's another set that's six And they go through the stages of

[43:17]

Trait There's usually the pictures And they have verses that go with them Go through looking for the ox Seeing traces of the ox Seeing the ox, catching the ox Taming the ox, riding the ox home And then the last stages Are something like Boy alone with the ox forgotten And then there's just emptiness And then there's Like the very last stage you see Like Hotai coming back into the marketplace So that's one standard version Of the ox pictures And that last one again refers to This kind of bodhisattva ordinariness Which is implied In this section But also in some of the Sets of pictures There's a, in addition to all The white, did you say? Yeah Well thank, that's neat That that happened because it Reminds me of what time it is That we may not get to the Host within the host, and that's okay I want to know about that host But no, it's like better to be, you know, not quite complete

[44:19]

Like waiting for ten eons Ten eons to get to the host To find out For the tigers And the I don't know I mean he was waiting there for ten eons He was sitting there, well I don't know I think he was sitting enjoying his asana But he was knowing that he wasn't complete That he wasn't quite a Buddha He knowingly Deliberately didn't do that Maybe Anyway we're talking about Cows and bulls and ox And the white ox then is the completion So in that set of ox-turned-in-pictures It starts out as a black ox Enduring as you see the ox And the picture is going from being seen To being tamed, to being ridden home To then, one of the pictures is the ox And the boy just kind of hanging out together In the field, and then that last one The ox is completely white So the ox goes from being completely black To being a little bit white, to being half white To being three quarters white or whatever To being, I don't think this is a racial thing

[45:19]

But in the end it's just a white ox So that's kind of an image of Perfection or completeness or purity Or something So this is definitely It's not a cow It's a white ox In the original With all due respects to Mr. Cleary So for those capable of wonder There are, I would read it as For those capable of wonder There are wild cats and white bulls A white ox One little thing I hear in this I don't know if you would Think that this is in here as well So I was thinking about the relative and absolute It's like those capable of wonder Which is thinking Then you see the discrimination I always thought it's like a discriminating mind Like you can see the differences Or you sort Oh, good question That's not what I meant I don't think that's the wonder That's here But it does refer back to the Hiding a heron in the moonlight, doesn't it?

[46:20]

When you read them and they're not the same When you mix them you know where they are Because that's a white heron against a white moon So that's what I thought That line was kind of like Not the same, of course Well, that's really interesting I don't That's not what I thought I'd have to think about that Let's just tell the difference between The two animals There's discriminating them I don't think so Because when I said wonder I don't think it's discriminating wonder This compound That Cleary Translates as Stardomly different I think it means It doesn't mean to wonder As in to think about It means awe It means to be amazed It means to be startled To be... I still hear it I understand what you're saying I still hear it The wonder is that there's all these Different manifestations Even still

[47:22]

I'm still discriminating Either I'm wondering about it Or the wonder is that it can take So many different... In fact, it takes all these different forms Well, I think the wildcat and white ox Here does represent the ordinary Even though this is the ordinary of the white ox As opposed to the black ox Or the half... You know But I think the distinction here The parallelism is the I don't know what the word is Base, vulgar, common It doesn't mean common It means low class And that's opposed to This amazement Or the capacity for amazement So In a sense The low class See riches And want them Whereas those capable of awe See cats and cows And are amazed That's how I would gloss this But there's a lot going on in the sentence

[48:22]

When they talk about Those capable of wonder or awe Is that someone more enlightened? Is there some sort of implicit understanding When someone is... I know that's... There does seem to be A... It's not literally Those capable of wonder So I don't want to lean too heavily on that But yeah, there seems to be discrimination there But also If we take Sonia's interpretation Of the first half of Okay, you have the low class So you have the upper class Then you can read it that way for this part too Because there's the amazing and there's the common The cats and cows Okay? So I think that's actually That way of reading it is actually Definitely one of the major ways One of the meanings But there is this other thing About how that's an expedience That's there too, definitely But on a sense Because you have the lowly You have jewels and fancy clothes

[49:24]

Because there is the amazing You have, you know Cats and white ox Ordinary cats and cows So that's probably The base meaning But there's definitely implied in that Because it's coming after this talk Of being Of Not fulfilling the way of Buddha Vajrayana There's also this implication of These are part of the karma Of how this is worked out And how we come to see this This samadhi So Then there's the level of this other case From the Book of Serenity About Nantuan That was in that footnote that we was pointing out And this is In the Book of Serenity Case 69 And it's a very simple story It's about Nantuan And Nantuan has this complex Symbolic relationship To cats and cows And many references to cats and cows

[50:27]

In Nantuan's teaching This particular case Nantuan said to the assembly The Buddhists of past, present, and future Do not know it is Cats and cows know it is And it's the same cats and cows It's not quite as obscure A version of the first character But it's the same four characters As in the song of the Jomar Samadhi Slightly different version of one But Same characters So it's definitely a reference to this So, and that fits in with the interpretation We were just talking about About the ordinary So Buddhists of past, present, and future Do not know it is So it is This refers back to You are not it, it actually is you Or teaching of thusness Or just this is it So this is a reference to thusness Buddhists of past, present, and future Do not know That it is

[51:28]

Cats and cows know it is And Nantuan is famous for killing a cat Does everybody know that story? Or can I tell that story again? I don't know why you get to host within the house What's that? I don't know why you get to host within the house I don't know You can tell us quickly We can sit here for 10 eons You can't tell us Seeing if we can keep talking Without getting to host within the house You are doing a good job Ok, just real quickly There were The people in the kitchen And the people in the guest department Were arguing over this wonderful cat And They were Some people wanted it in the kitchen Some people wanted it in the office And finally Nantuan came And held up the cat and said Ok, you guys, say something Or else I'm going to kill this cat He held it up and held a knife Nobody knew what to say

[52:30]

So the story is that he killed the cat He divided the cat like Solomon Yeah, right Well, Dogen somewhere says he didn't really kill it Dogen says he didn't really kill it Yeah, Dogen says at some point It's impossible that he actually really killed the cat Because it wouldn't have been such a nasty guy He couldn't have done that It wasn't in him to do it No, it wasn't that it wasn't in him to do it He just wouldn't have done it He may have You know, kind of Right He may have cut the cat into one Instead of cut the cat into two I don't know But anyway We can spend a long time on this story Let's start The last part Of the story though is that later on Jiaozhou was Nantuan's student The famous Zhou Shu who said Put a sandal on his head Right, so he came home And Nantuan told him the story about the cat That he had done something to And Nantuan put his sandals on his head And walked out And Nantuan said, too bad you weren't here

[53:34]

You would have saved the cat Anyway, that's a cat story Ask Norman Fisher About There's a thing in Chinese folklore About putting your sandals On your head It has nothing to do with that It's just an old Chinese image Of putting your sandals on your head And walking out Which Norman told me about Which doesn't help at all Do you know it, Lee? Do you know it? No, I don't What I heard Is that putting a sandal on the head Was a sign of warning Maybe so Anyway Cows, there's lots of stories About Nantuan and cows There's just tons of stories What are some of them? Well, okay Some of them appear Actually in the commentary of this very case Oh Now, it's interesting that it doesn't mention In the commentary about the cat

[54:34]

But when Nantuan Was about to pass away, the head monk asked After you die, where will you go? Nantuan said, down the mountain To be a water buffalo The monk said, can I follow you? Nantuan said, if you Follow me, you must come with a blade of grass In your mouth So anyway, Nantuan was going to In his next life He had already decided he was going to be An oxen Down the hill There's a bunch of other stories about oxen It's good life, after all Yeah, but the main point Of this story, though, is what we were talking about In the beginning, about children and marriage You know, Buddhas Of the three times This is particularly relevant To what we've just been talking about Because here's this Buddha of ten eons And he says, the Buddhas of the three times Of the past, present, and future Do not know it is Cats and cows know it is And this is a very simple case I mean, you know, just Cats and cows

[55:37]

Just look at them and you can see they know it is And we're all caught up in all of this Thinking So, yeah, cats and cows know it is And Buddhas and ancestors don't know it is Hmm So this is the For those who are Capable of wonder Of awe, of amazement We have cats and cows Well, it's funny Because I could actually sort of read that Differently. Well, Buddhas and ancestors don't know It is because they're not caught in knowing Right So why do you eat cats and cows when we are? Why are you just regular old Beasts Caught in That's why these things are great koans Because you can turn them both ways Or, you know, 80 ways or whatever Yeah, right And it talks about that in the commentary too So, but it's like

[56:40]

Turning this mirror, you know Which side are we on? Are we the Buddhas and ancestors Thinking we have Ideas about things, you know I mean Not knowing is nearest Right, right But then the other side of it is that actually cats and cows You know, I mean, if you look at a cat Sitting there, I mean, that's As good as you'll ever do, you know I mean, cats are really amazing I live with Five cats right now My goodness But realization Does a cat have realization? Yes Yeah, so how about this See, that's the whole point though Cats and cows don't need to have realization Cats and cows are like the baby who never Looked in the mirror Now, I don't know If that means the IQ Of cats or not They know if there's a mouse In the vicinity They know where the worm is

[57:40]

At the bottom of the room They certainly do They don't know how to open those cans But they know how to get us To do it for them But it also says That so and so That was very clever Even as clever as he was And he could hit the target in a hundred cases He still had nothing to do With it in the end Right, so this is about Samadhi is a state of mind This is all about All of these images in this song Are turning this thing What is our state of mind What is our awareness How are we being in the world And it's turning it in all these different ways And yeah, these two lines Because there are the lowly There are jewel pedestals, rich rows Because there is the amazing There are wild cats and white bulls There's just a lot in that Just the

[58:43]

So that the What you were saying Martha, about That echoes The added sayings with that case So I'll read those The Buddhas of past, present and future don't know what it is And the added saying is just because they know what it is Cats and cows do know what it is And the added saying is just because They don't know what it is So that turns it Again, what you were saying But So if we have So people have ideas about Knowing things Buddhas and ancestors actually have realization So this is also about Getting rid of realization This is like the Buddha sitting for ten eons Not That's on one side of it But this is about Letting go of whatever realization you have This is about coming back to the world And being with ordinary people This is about breaking the mirror And being like a cat or a cow This is about just going to work in the kitchen

[59:45]

So there's that side of it too Which is why I sort of saw that as discriminating mind Right Right, that's there too I'll read you the Hongzhe's verse This is just Limping and pulse-y, tattered and disheveled A hundred can't be taken One isn't worth it Silent, knowing himself the peace of his state Ebullient Who says in his guts he's a fool All throughout the universe Everything becomes food Nose hanging all the way down One may freely seek to repletion So that's the satisfaction We were talking about before But I think all of this has to do with How do we know Completion It's also like Satisfaction, completion, perfection On the one hand And intentionally or unintentionally Not knowing And the different kinds of not knowing So all of that is here And I'll just

[60:49]

For the heck of it, I'll just go to the next sentence Ye with his archer's skill could hit a target at a hundred paces But when arrow points meet head-on What has this to do with the power of skill So Ye was some famous archer From way back when in China When they had all these legendary people and stuff And he could hit a target At a hundred paces It literally says he could hit the center He could hit the bullseye at a hundred paces This thing about arrow points meeting head-on Some of the translators Interpret that as Ye He Could Hitting Or you know Could you make that happen? No, no, I'm sorry There's another There's a story Another story about arrow points meeting head-on This has to do with teachers and students And the story is that there was an archery teacher And he had a very fine student And The student became so good That he realized that if the archery teacher

[61:51]

If his teacher wasn't there He'd be the greatest archer in the world So he decided he should kill his teacher And he Aimed an arrow at his teacher And his teacher knew that And he aimed an arrow back And the arrow points meet head-on In the middle of the air And then the student said Well gee, let's just hang out together then So That's the story Huh, that's an old Chinese story? It's an old Chinese story That's the arrow points meeting head-on It's also though In the merging of difference and unity What is it? The box and cover joining? Like two arrows meeting head-on Uh-huh How does it go? Relative and absolute Work together like a box and its lid Uh-huh Phenomena exist like Box and cover joining Principle accords like arrow points meeting

[62:52]

So this, okay I'm sorry to do this to you But this brings back the five ranks Uh And that has If you want to get to those within the host We have to talk about the five ranks again Because guest and host are metaphors for Relative and ultimate Or wherever you want to put that So that's what this last section is about too But Without getting into the five aspect of it There's There's this thing about The absolute and the relative meeting But there's also this thing which is getting to now About form and form meeting Um Phenomena Mutually interpenetrating Non-obstructing phenomena Um Which is the fourth Of the four dharma dhatus Relative, absolute Interpenetration of relative and absolute And just interpenetration of phenomenal things

[63:55]

It's like Just the phenomena meet So Which one of the five ranks is that? I don't know It's not actually No that's not one of the five ranks That's the four dharma dhatus Which is kind of the basis For the five Which the five ranks kind of But this idea of This idea In the merging of different Phenomena exist like box and cover joining Things just work together That's So this actually is Like Because there are the lowly Jeweled tables And fancy clothing Because there's the amazing You have common cast and count Is that like two arrow points meeting? No this is like phenomena So the two arrow points are like phenomena Meeting But phenomena meeting like Um Well it says principle accords like arrow points meeting

[64:55]

But The principle is right in the Box and cover joining The absolute is in the things Of this is again going back to Just functioning in the world This is back in the phenomenal realm Things work together When you've gone through all of this When you have seen These different aspects You just go back to Cutting the carrots or whatever I think that's what this is You know the realm of this is about Um After the two arrow points meet You go back to cutting the carrots Um What has this To do with power Right you forget about trying to get power You forget about trying to get skill You accept It's like the acquiescent mind realizing itself It's like just things as they are Things as they are But the thing about the arrow points When two arrow points meet head on That isn't how things are In my life I mean I never saw

[65:56]

Two arrow points meet head on That's sort of pretty Absolute Uh huh Doesn't seem like part of the phenomenal world I think what this I think what this is saying is That's what the phenomenal world is We don't see it that way I mean we do not see it that way It's like when you do the perfect Editing job or something Or just everything to me it's like When a sentence comes out And it's just the way it is Then you realize they are When you sit down The cushion pushes up Uh huh Now it's like two arrow points meet Don't we wish Or it's like For some of us it is Or it's like You know you put a little bit more Right You put a little bit more salt In the soup and you taste it Just And there's that clicking in It's the clicking in

[66:57]

That's it it's the clicking in Um And I think what this is saying Beyond our Powers of skill Beyond our knowing or not knowing Beyond all of our ideas about it Here we are And it's almost like arrow points meet Is another way of saying Justice Good yes yes yes Yes It's like right on Oh yeah Yeah well But we don't know it I mean we don't But when the wooden man begins to sing The stone woman gets up to dance So this is again This is about communication This is about teaching and students This is also about language This is very much about language This is about inquiry and response Come up together and Could it say

[67:59]

When the stone woman gets up to dance The wooden man begins to sing Could she be the one to do it first That is a really interesting question What if the stone woman started this Well or dance But would her dance elicit a response From him or does he have to start Don't you trust Remember when Dan Howe and his wife did this In the skit I don't think I remember this I don't think it was me When you remember I don't remember that How could I have missed I don't remember Yeah She was a stone woman Did she dance like a stone woman Well she was Making noises He was a wooden man Stone took on a different meaning Actually Alright

[68:59]

Alright Well stone woman also technically Means barren That's what it means It's a common Chinese Phrase Well it has that The implication of Well stiff Then my man wrote it But also You know that song by Hank Williams About the cigar store Indian What's it called Yeah that's it Can somebody sing it for us Aww Sonja would have gotten up and danced It's a ballad It's a sweet song Elijah was a wooden Indian In front of a cigar store Elijah

[70:02]

He's a cigar store Indian And he falls in love with the Indian maid And he's afraid to say what Is in his mind And in his heart So he never got a kiss Yeah Is there anything in that Other than communication and teaching Somehow I remember Rick talking about Having to do with The relative and the absolute Somehow coming together I mean it's so vague in my memory Okay In Hongju's Commentary Verses for the five ranks In Cultivating the Empty Field The first rank The partial within the true Or the relative Within the absolute It says The blue sky clears And the river of stars Cold flood dries up At midnight The wooden boy pounds on the moon's door In darkness The jade woman is startled from her sleep

[71:06]

That's the first This is before he's Started to sing Before she's gotten up to dance What's the reference for that That verse Cultivating the empty field Page 41 And There's no direct reference back To the wooden man But in the second one The absolute within the relative Or the true within the partial Ocean and clouds rendezvous At the top of the spirit mountain An old woman returns With hair hanging down Like white silk So this is after she danced maybe And a shy leaf faces the mirror Coldly reflecting her image There's the mirror I also thought maybe if this was just Like two air points meeting In midair it was kind of a Miraculous event happening That we could beyond Our rational powers To understand Right

[72:08]

Yeah Dogen talks about the green mountains walking Actually I talked about it before The blue mountains walk on water That Verses on the five ranks Are kind of commentaries on Dongshan's verses Which you have on page 61 It's the section Before We don't have to go into this We could go into this in detail But we won't get to the host But Dongshan Himself Verses on the five ranks The first one the phenomenal within the real At the beginning of the night's Third watch before there is moonlight Don't be surprised to meet yet Not recognize what is surely a familiar Face from the past So that's In Hongzhi Takes that and says at midnight the wooden boy Pounds on the moon's door

[73:10]

In darkness the jade woman Has struggled from her sleep And then The second one Hongzhi talks about oceans and clouds Rendezvousing at the top of the spirit mountain And the old woman returning with Hair hanging down like white silk Shyly facing the mirror Told to reflect your image Dongshan's verse was An old crone having just awakened Comes upon an ancient mirror That which is clearly Reflected in front of her face Is none other than her own likeness Don't lose sight of your face again And go chasing your shadow Or facing your shadow And go chasing your shadow So Anyway these are really rich images And they have to do with mirror And what you were talking about before About aging So aging is you know The old sage Is in a way the image of the absolute Or of

[74:11]

Now we can talk about host and guest We're finally ready to talk about guest and host And sometimes The absolute and relative are talked about In terms of lord and vassal Or lord and minister Sometimes they're talked about In terms of host and guest And host and guest also is used for Teacher and student But they're also used As images for this Relative and absolute stuff So this is stuff that's very Dense and complicated It would take us another six weeks to untangle it all But there's these Images that I think Would start to resonate with you Why is the host More absolute than the guest? What's wrong with being a guest? Nothing's wrong with being a guest In fact The way it works though Is that often in the stories itself And in some of the commentaries on the Five Rents The position changes So sometimes When the student comes

[75:12]

From the point of view of the relative The teacher presents the absolute And vice versa If the student comes and presents Everything as one The teacher will hit them Ask them about How the carrots were In the kitchen or whatever But the host is like a teacher But yeah, it's used as an image for that Right The guest just comes and goes The guest is outside too The guest is the particulars of the world Right Also the guest creates the host You know, the guest creates the host You become a host when the guest comes Right If there's no guest Then you can just sit for ten eons Get under a tree But the host is kind of rooted in a place Or something like that Is that present? It seems to be, maybe I mean, one way to sort of Is the absolute Well, you know, there's also They talk about this in terms of The upright and the inclined

[76:14]

So in that sense So there's this kind of Field of images That are used for this And they kind of play off each other So if we talk about the upright Then what you said makes sense That then the host is the one Who's kind of just rooted there And the inclined is the one Who's moving around So we can talk about it in terms of wisdom And function too The wisdom is just this, what it is Function is what moves around To take care of This particular phenomenal situation So, okay When the wooden man begins to sing The still woman gets up to dance It's not within reach of feeling or discrimination Have there been a bit of consideration and thought Well that's, we were talking about that before That's pretty straightforward It's just, you know, this is beyond our usual Cognitive faculties, right Arrow points meeting head on It's not what we usually see Or the still woman

[77:17]

Getting up to dance So You know, Hank Williams was talking About the phase before The wooden man started to sing So Not obeying is not filial And not serving is no help It's kind of straightforward Oh, the minister serves the lord The son obeys the father So those are images again I mean We can't I think it's a mistake to just kind of Reduce these To images of absolute and relative That it's not just that I mean, these are Definitely should be taken at face value But underneath that There's also, it's playing With You know, how do we Know how to keep it well How is this teaching Communicated So Minister serving lord is also an image of Student and teacher Or of bodhisattva and buddha Or of master and disciple

[78:19]

Or of You know, this kind of Feudal relationship So up until recent times The way that the teaching was Transmitted was through this Apprenticeship And mentor and apprentice That's the pattern In all of East Asian culture Not just in Zen Buddhism But in all of the arts This was the basic social pattern So in this sense The minister and the lord It may be that the master is just Staying there upright And the minister is the one who's going out And taking care of The phenomenal situation And taking care of the newer students And taking care of putting the carrots And whatever But anyway, it's also like Just this It also is definitely operating on Just this basic level of Each thing in its place Arrow points meaning head on

[79:21]

Each thing is doing Because there is the lowly There are also fancy clothing Each thing is just Fist like boxing cover So a minister serves the lord His son obeys the father That's the way it is In traditional Chinese culture But also the way it should be And it's also just actually what happens But then there's also this other possibility Which it brings right up Not obeying is not filial Not serving is no help So it's acknowledging that that can happen And that we can miss it And then this thing practiced secretly Working within as though a fool like an idiot Is really wonderful And we should talk about it for ten eons I'll talk about it for a teeny bit Why should you practice secretly? Or does it mean secret? Yeah So literally

[80:22]

Yeah It's actually pretty rich For any of you who are into the Chinese It's section 36 And it's The first character means Submerged or secret Or hidden or dormant And the second character means To go or to travel But it's also the second character For shugyo, for practice For Buddhist practice So it implies practicing As a common compound It means to travel incognito So it does mean To do your practice in a hidden way And then the next part Which is kind of repetition Means Mitsuyo we say in Japanese Secretly or intimately This is the same as the intimate communication It's the same character Teaching of thusness has been intimately communicated By Buddhist ancestors That's the same character That's translated here as Within Working inside, working intimately

[81:27]

Would be Another way to translate it would be Practice Secretly Or hide your practice Functioning or working or serving Intimately, serving carefully But it also has this implication of Secretly In this case It has more of that sense And then it says straight out Like a fool, like an idiot So the two characters are translated As fool or idiot, really don't mean So much different there One is fool or dunce The other one is foolish or stupid They're common words for foolish For stupid So it's saying To practice secretly Working within Like a fool or idiot So the secret practice is Also an image for going back in the world For Functioning, for practicing Bodhisattva practice As if you're not practicing

[82:28]

Yeah As if you're not boasting As if you're cutting carrots, not practicing Right, just doing it It also refers literally to There are all these stories about Great Zen masters Going and practicing incognito Just living in the world Anonymously There are many of the greatest In the stories Of some of the greatest masters They spent some time Like the sixth ancestor for example Who after he received transmission Went and was a cook for a group of hunters And did not reveal for many years That he was actually the sixth ancestor So that's an example of this There are many examples Of There's one Soto guy A century or two ago Or maybe earlier this century Who Had a He had a Some kind of peddler just in the streets of Kyoto Maybe he made sandals Anyway there's another

[83:29]

There are a few of them who just became sandal makers Or You know it's like the old woman who's selling rice cakes Near the monastery Who's like totally accomplished You know Is that just out of Modesty and humility Or is it also To protect the Dharma in some way I mean If you're not a famous person like the sixth ancestor Then why couldn't just a regular person Like me let other people know That I'm actually practicing Buddhism Does it do some harm For people to know that I'm doing it I don't think it's taking that Intention onto that Well it would be Practicing moment by moment I mean if you wore your practice On your sleeve You know And people would pass a remarking at it Or you were pointing to it It would be a very awkward Situation That's why it's very difficult to do priest practice You know especially when we have our head shaved

[84:29]

But To do To actually kind of Take on that thing Is counter to Actually the main Impetuses and practice It's like intentionally standing out Is that what you said? Also it seems arrogant To make it a secret somehow Okay but that's the point If you're doing it to be If you're doing it to be special That's not practicing secretly Working within It's also for yourself It's also It's like The sixth ancestor was refining his practice It's like part of the understanding Of this You know even After realization Will you continue to practice the way We say in lay and Priest ordination And you're supposed to say yes I will Even after acquiring Buddhahood Will you continue to practice So it's this thing It's about gazing in a tree for ten eons Is about Instead of still gazing in a tree for ten eons

[85:32]

Is refining So even if we understand all the principle Still we have this karma From Numerable lifetimes or whatever Numerable thought moments in this lifetime And we have to Refine that With just Just being ordinary Practicing in the world So that's part of it There's all these stories about There's the story of Daito Kokushi He's another famous one He was founded this great Rinzai Zen Monastery complex He was this great One of the great Japanese Zen guys And after he was awakened He went and Practiced He was a beggar in the streets of Kyoto And at some point after some years He hung out under the 5th street bridge And after some years The emperor heard that there was this Accomplished Zen master who was living with the homeless people In Kyoto And he sent his minister out to find him And they found out that he liked melons You know this story?

[86:32]

They knew he liked melons So the minister serving the lord Serving the emperor of Japan Who wanted to build a great new Zen He was a great devout As well as being emperor A great devout Zen patron And practitioner And he wanted this great enlightened Zen master Who was wandering amongst the homeless people of Kyoto To be the abbot of his new monastery Which he was going to build Didn't he give away marshmallows? Marshmallows? Marshmallows I don't think it was marshmallows But anyway But anyway So the minister went down under the bridge And said okay I'll give this And he had these melons And he said I'll give this to anybody who can take it without any hands And poor Daito Kokushi That means national teacher Anyway he said Give it to me without any hands and I'll take it without any hands And they knew it was him And they grabbed him and they carried him away And they made him be the abbot of the biggest monastery In Japan But they only recognized him Because all the other beggars before

[87:35]

Just kind of looked at him And scrapped their hands I'm not sure I had the exact exchange That's pretty good But anyway So this is a model in Japanese history Of practicing secretly working with I'll tell you one from America Nyogen Senzaki And then we'll stop because it's past time We're not going to get to host within the host You did that on purpose Okay I'll say one thing about the host within the host There's the four guests and host There's the guest within the host The host within the guest The guest within the guest And the host within the host And that's a system that was developed by Rinzai So this is all We're all one family Can I say something about host? Yes but I want to tell the story about Nyogen Senzaki Go ahead Do you want to do Nyogen first? No you say your thing first Stuart's falling asleep right here Hurry up So what I was thinking

[88:36]

When you were thinking about the word host And I don't know what it is In the Catholic thing But I was thinking host is the thing that you Yeah It doesn't host mean body Is that what it means? I don't know I don't know if that Anyway I was thinking of guest and host And I thought The way I hear this We talk about it out there And I keep trying to say how is it here And I was thinking If I'm the host so to say Then who are the guests And I was thinking of all my thoughts as guests Good yes exactly Yes yes yes It's also on that level So the guy sitting still Or the gal sitting still And all the guests coming by are thoughts Yes it's used in that way It's used in that way The mirror mind is the host And all the images Crickling in front of it All those thoughts are the guests That's right And all the beings to be saved

[89:36]

Right exactly So essentially beings to be saved in Bodhisattva work Is not about other people It's like Okay And then okay And for your reference on Cultivating Empty Field Page 42 there are Also verses about the four guests And hosts The guests within the guests The hosts within the hosts And the hosts within the hosts And I didn't check to see if there's any reference to mirrors But I don't think so But you might want to look at them anyway It starts out The affair at the heart of a whole life Knits up the eyebrows The dust has been blown over the whole face And the temples have grayed As always going out of the gate without artifice How can one continue On today's destitute road That's the guests within the guests That's a good question Okay I'll read you the hosts within the hosts The hosts within the hosts Without disturbing the golden sun Ten thousand virtues are perfected The palace mosque without design

[90:37]

Contains the moon Above all avoid speaking the forbidden name of the emperor Who would presume even once To offend the sage's countenance That's Cultivating the Empty Field Okay I will tell the story of Nyogen Senzaki Who was this great American master Who practiced secretly working within First anybody who needs to go please go Okay Nyogen Senzaki Practiced and was a disciple of Soyen Shaku Who was the first Zen master To come to America In the Chicago Parliament of Religions in 1890 He was the great Rinzai master One of his students was D.T. Suzuki Another of his students was Nyogen Senzaki Who became a great American Zen master And had a Well okay I'll tell the story in sequence First he was just a student of Soyen Shaku And there was this woman Who lived out in The sunset I think

[91:38]

Near Ocean Beach Named Mrs. Russell And she and her husband had gone to Kamakura To N. Gakuji where Soyen Shaku was the master I guess they first met him in Chicago And talked him into coming back To America to spread the Dharma in America And what they did is they set him up In her house In San Francisco In Ocean Beach And basically he was like Their [...]

[92:05]

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