This morning I'm going to comment on a well-known koan that I have talked about before, which is in the Muban Kan, called Zui Gan Calls Master. His Chinese name, of course, is Zhu Yan. Zhu Yan. But I'm going to call him Zuigan in the Japanese style. So I'll read the koan. I have a lot of notes here from my previous talks. But I'll just read the koan first. The priest Zuligan called himself, called himself, the priest Zuligan called master to himself every day and answered himself, yes.

[01:19]

Then he would say, be aware and reply, yes or okay. Don't be deceived by others. No, I won't. That's the co-op. Then Mr. Mooman has a commentary. His old zooey God buys himself and sells himself. He brings forth lots of angel faces and demon masks and plays with them. Why? Look, one kind calls, the other kind answers. one kind is aware, one kind will not be deceived by others. If you cling to understanding, you're in trouble. If you try to imitate Zuligan, discernment is altogether that of a fox.

[02:27]

And then Mulan has a verse which summarizes something around the column. Students of the Way did not know truth. They only know their deluded consciousness up to now. This is the source of endless birth and death. The fool calls it the original self. So, coming back to the case, the priest Zuligan called master. So there are many koans that revolve, some koans that revolve around master. One koan which is very common is, who is the master? That actually, who is the master is implied

[03:35]

There's this question, who's he talking to? When we talk about our, from the point of view of our constructed self, there are three divisions. Me, myself, and I. When I was a little kid, we used to say, I have three selves, me, myself, and I. But it's true. These are three constructs that we think of as myself. So which one of these selves is Master Zuigan addressing? Or is he addressing any of them?

[04:38]

Suzuki Roshi often said, you should be the boss. I think he meant, you should be the master. But he said the boss because he liked realisms. You should always be the boss." Well, what does that mean? Who is the you that should always be the boss? So then, when he called Master every day, he answered himself, whoever that is, and said, Which is an affirmation. It's not a question. It could be a question. If you said, if I said to somebody, Joe, Joe would say, yes.

[05:47]

He might say, yes. But usually we say, yes. What do you want? But he's not asking anything. He's simply making a statement. Master. It's kind of like an orientation. It's an interesting statement. What does he expect when he says such a thing? But he answers himself and says, yes. So it's an affirmation. Well, what is he affirming? Then he would say, be aware.

[06:52]

So this is a kind of warning or an admonition. Be aware. And then he said, to another affirmation. Then, don't be deluded by others. So, when you said, don't be deluded by others, it really means, don't be self-deluded. Because, you can't be deluded by others. You can only be deluded by yourself. And at least, this is on the level of self-delusion. Somebody may tell you a lie, you know, and you believe it, but that's not what's meant here. What's meant here is don't be self-deluded. Don't get caught by yourself. Don't get caught by you, yourself, and you, me, myself, and I. Don't step into that trap of me, myself, and I. Okay.

[08:04]

So, then the commentary, Old Zurgan buys himself and sells himself. he brings forth lots of angel faces and dragon masks and plays with them. So one mask is the mask of, he puts on a mask and says, Master. And then he puts on another mask and says, Yes. And then he takes another. So he's got this little play going on with what's called these masks, right? They're not really masks, but they're different characters. So he's making a little puppet show with these masks.

[09:13]

It's a little drama. So he brings forth lots of angel faces and demon faces and plays with them. So why? Why is he doing that? One kind calls. One kind answers. One kind is aware. One kind will not be deceived by others. So, who is he talking to anyway? And who's answering him? You see, if you still cling to understanding, you're in trouble. Your discernment is altogether that of a fox. So what he's saying is, you can't depend on your intellectual understanding.

[10:18]

That's what he means by understanding. Even though you may understand it intellectually, you have to let go of that and actually find yourself in the deep sea of the void. without a boat. Suzuki Hiroshi used to say, practice is like taking a sieve and throwing it into the ocean and just letting it sink to the bottom. You can't save yourself by plugging up the holes. Plugging up the holes is intellectual understanding. create a structure that saves us. And we keep being saved by that structure, but it doesn't, in the end, it doesn't help. Nothing helps. It's like when you sit Zazen, maybe as a novice, or not, and you're in the third day of Sashin, and you don't know what to do, and nothing will save you.

[11:31]

No matter what you call on to save you, all your ideas, your faith, your whatever it is, nothing will save you. Call on God, it doesn't help. You just have to let the boat sink. Let the sieve go down to the bottom of the ocean without any help. And there you are. Free. But we think that we're not. That's the problem that we have. So we cling to our constructs to save us. It's okay, you know. We have to cling to our constructs to save us until we can actually let go. So this is called understanding and sympathy and compassion. So, if you cling to your understanding, you'll be in trouble.

[12:41]

If you try to imitate Zuigan, your discernment, all together will be that of a fox. A fox is a shapeshifter. It's easy for a fox to be slippery and even change their appearance. In Japan, a fox is really a very well-known animal that there's a lot of mythology about. As a shapeshifter, someone wakes up and finds that their wife is a fox. They thought it was their wife, sort of a beautiful woman, or a man. Anyway, but you know, sometimes that happens to everybody. Somebody that you thought was, somebody who turned out to be a fox. So, in other words, you can't imitate Zui Gon, even if you want to.

[13:49]

You have to find your own Zui Gon within yourself. When you find, when your motivation is pure and not tainted, then you can practice like Zui Gon. But it's your practice. It's not something that you steal from Zui Gon. We should all practice this way. But what does it mean? So I move on to the verse, he says, students of the way do not know truth. They only know their consciousness up to now. I put in deluded, but I just leave it as consciousness because that's good enough. Because mostly our consciousness is deluded, so it doesn't need to be said.

[14:54]

This is the source of endless birth and death. The fool calls it the original self. So, me, myself, and I, which one is the original self? Neither one, because they're all constructs. So who is Sui-Gan addressing, and what is the cause of birth and death? in the Buddha Dharma, the Mahayana, birth and death is the birth and death of the self. The self is me, myself and I, which is called in Western language the ego, which is maybe different from Western ego, but it means a self, constructed self, which is constructed out of the elements of consciousness.

[16:03]

Students of the way do not know truth. They only know their consciousness up to now. So we have to explain a little bit about consciousness, which I do almost every time I give a talk. So I will do it again. We are conscious through our senses, and we are conscious through the discernment of our senses. And then we are also conscious through what we call, it's called the alaya consciousness, which is the storehouse of all of our impressions and actions since beginningless beginning, whatever that happens to be, and holds all the seeds for our continuation. So causes and conditions interact with

[17:18]

the seeds of our consciousness, which produce new seeds, which produce new actions and thoughts, and so forth. So this is what we call the mind, basically. We identify that as the mind. But the mind has various levels of consciousness. And the one in the middle, the seventh one, is designated as our false self, which is me, myself, and mind. Me, myself, and mind. Which is called eco-consciousness. So we mistake that for our self. That's what he's saying here. We mistake consciousness for our self. That's the mistake we make. So it's a kind of impediment. And when that impediment of self, consciousness, is no longer blocking away, then a true self consciousness appears, because it's always there.

[18:24]

It's called buddha nature. So buddha nature is like the higher consciousness, the ninth consciousness, which is the self of everything. We're all one self. And then the individual self, individuated self, is what we identify with. So sometimes when people are dying, what are they afraid of? Or what are we afraid of when we're dying? Well, we're afraid of losing our be-myself-and-I, our ego-self. That's what we're afraid of. So because we identify the self with that consciousness of individuation. But if we identify with our true nature, then there's nothing really lost, because the only thing we can lose is something temporary.

[19:37]

Nevertheless, when we identify with life itself, instead of simply this individuated aspect of life, then we have our security, because nothing can be lost. The only thing that can be lost is certain forms. All forms are lost and gained. and lost and gained and lost and gained. This is the ocean of reality. The great vast ocean. And when the wind blows, the waves arise. So we identify with our wave, our wavelength. And the wavelength is not very long. the ocean arises and returns to the ocean.

[20:49]

Suzuki Roshi, when he went to Yosemite, somebody took him to Yosemite when he first came, and he was watching the waterfall, big waterfall at Yosemite, and he saw how the drops, when they fall, they separate. But by the time they get down to the bottom, they're all together and they come back to the one body. So, all forms are simply one body, separated as drops of the waterfall. And then they all come together as one. So, there's nothing really gained or lost. adventure. Recapitulation. Like a piece of music that starts out with a theme and then all the variations of the theme go through this adventure and then at the end they all come out again with a statement of,

[22:06]

So, you know, the first five consciousnesses are the senses, since the eye simply sees an object. But the eye doesn't do any cognition, it's the mind, it's this consciousness, of course, we know that. Consciousness cognizes what we see, hear, smell, touch. And then another level of consciousness transmits that information to the alaya, the storehouse consciousness, which waters the seeds and through this mechanism they're seeing, hearing, touching, and so forth. And the world is recognized through the senses.

[23:14]

And then the mind, the seventh consciousness, discriminates as a self, which is I see, I hear, I do all these things, I think, and I, [...] I is formed. So then there's another level of consciousness called Amala, Vishnata, which is designated as Buddha nature. This is just a model. Don't worry about the nomenclature. It's just a model. But it's a model of how Buddha nature encompasses all of it. You can't grasp Buddha nature, but it's the essence. my sixth ancestor, it's that which is the most vital aspect of every activity, of every cell.

[24:24]

So, he says, students of the way do not know truth. They only know their consciousness up to now. in Buddhism means the birth and death of the self, which is the ego. When the ego arises, self arises. When the ego is no longer arising, self is not arising. This is called the meaning of birth and death. Otherwise, there are simply transformations and the transformations are not called birth and death. Birth and death is the birth and death of the ego or the separate self, the false self. This is what in Buddha Dharma is called the round of birth and death. We keep creating our own circumstances for birth and death. So as we are taught in Mahayana Buddhism to be free from birth and death is what that means.

[25:43]

In earlier Buddhism, it meant you will never be born again when you're free. But that's not what it means exactly in Maya. We stop creating the circumstances that create suffering through the arising and ceasing, which is called birth and death. It doesn't mean that his body and mind disappear or appear. So often people are at peace with themselves when they die. To be at peace with themselves when they die means that they let go I wrote something called, The Goose is Out of the Bottle.

[26:48]

I don't know what I meant by that, but I'm trying to think, what did I mean by that? There's a poem about that. How did you get the goose out of the bottle? Yeah, so it means the ego, you free the ego from its trap. And when you free the ego from its trap, the goose is out of the bottle and you're at peace. Actually, this is what this koan is about. Master. Yes. When we sit Zazen, it's like... And when we get off the cushion, it's like... But in between the moments of... The more we recognize those moments where we can actually go...

[28:16]

And it's like, because our activity is momentous, from moment to moment, it looks like there's no gap. But actually, there are gaps. And the gaps are where we can actually experience stillness, or the fundamental. Because our life is geared towards creating a momentous activity, we're afraid to stop. Not everybody, of course, but there's a fear of stopping. When you're having a conversation with a number of people, and suddenly the momentum stopped, and there's this gap, and it's called an embarrassing silence. That's the valuable moment. where everybody just shuts their mouth.

[29:20]

Cutting your throat, shut your mouth. And we have the opportunity to just let things be. To just let it be. That's the moment of Zazen. But it's rare. And we're embarrassed by it. the world, in our worldly life of activity, it's important to find those moments and let them be. That's called a rest. So that instead of doing all activity and then all rest, we're resting within our activity. Just like our activity is within our rest. so that we don't get tired out and we're inducing energy instead of simply expending it.

[30:23]

We're inducing energy at the same time that we're expending it because we're always open to that fundamental moment. Suzuki Roshi talks about the movie and the screen. We're always watching the movie. Our life is like a movie. We are in this drama that we call our life. But the drama is being played out on the screen, on the empty screen, the blank screen. When we sit down then, there's the blank screen called boredom. But the movie is still being played out on the screen and we can see how the movie is being played out on the screen, the movie of our minds. being played on the screen of emptiness. And it's the same thing when we're off the cushion, except that we don't recognize it.

[31:27]

So, when the movie goes off, we can enjoy the movie because we know that it's a movie on the screen of emptiness. The blank screen. And so, although we take our life seriously, we don't have to take it as seriously. Because we know that we're creating this movie on the screen. And it's being driven by our sense of self. So we're self-creating in the sense of We're always creating, we're rebirthing ourselves all the time. We're being born and dying and born every moment and we're creating that momentum.

[32:32]

I'm not saying that's bad, it's just what's happening. But it's the cause of suffering and the cause of delusion. So, how do we act in the world? in a non-diluted way. That's the point. And who is the master? There's another koan in the Book of Record, Koan number 45. I'm sorry, it's in the Book of Common. This Shakyamuni and Maitreya are servants of another. Who is that one? So it really applies to this Goan. Zuigan is the servant of... Who is Zuigan the servant of? Who is he serving? He says, Master. Then he answers, Yes.

[33:32]

When he says, Master, who is he talking to? Is he talking to his ego? I don't think so. Is he talking to his Buddha nature? I think so. How do you talk to your Buddha nature? How do you address your true nature? Sometimes I give people this koan. I say, this is a good koan for you. Because, for various reasons. But, we should all address our Buddha nature. You say, well what is Buddha nature? I don't get it, you know. It's just a word. But we should all address our Buddha nature. All the time. This was Suigong's constant practice. Addressing his Buddha nature.

[34:42]

Not just talking to his ego. He's bypassing his ego and he's talking to his essence of mind. But he doesn't expect anything. He's just saying, Hi. And his essence of mind is telling him what to do. That's where he gets his sustenance. It's called being totally empty and being directed by essence of mind. And essence of mind is cooperating with his brain. It's not like he's not thinking. When our thinking mind and our essence of mind and our heart

[35:48]

and body are all co-operating, then there's no self. There's only self when one of those elements takes over, without the co-operation of all the others. When our aura, our brain, thinking mind, our heart and our body and the various, every part of our body-mind is totally cooperating. There's no self. It's only when one aspect takes over. So this is what happens in sadhana. Our thinking mind, our hara, our heart, our our body, our breath, are all harmoniously working together without any one of them usurping control.

[36:51]

How are we doing? Eleven. So, there's a Samadhi called Jishu Zamai. This is called Samadhi of Self-Mastery. This is where Zuigan is. Zuigan is practicing Samadhi of Self-Mastery. Samadhi means being one with, totally being one with, without self-centeredness. People say, what's the difference between concentration of someone who is painting or someone who is skiing or someone who is totally concentrated in some way. The difference between that and Samadhi is that Samadhi is that kind of total concentration without being self-centered.

[38:08]

There is no self-centered motivation in that concentration. So Samadhi is concentration on our essence of mind. And essence of mind is the motivating force. So Jishu Samadhi is Samadhi of Self-mastery. So Zui Gan says, Master. Self-mastery is simply being free of ego. It's not that you master things or dominate or something like that. Being the boss doesn't mean that you boss people around. It simply means that you know who you are.

[39:11]

It's called humility. Humility is simply knowing exactly who you are, which is rare. It means you don't think less of yourself, you don't think more of yourself. You simply know, this is what I can do, this is what I can aspire to do, this is where I am, and there's no self in it. So it's being totally at ease with yourself. So the question is, who is the master?

[40:23]

And that question is not a question. It's, who is the master? Or you turn it around, and it's, the master is who? Dogen uses this kind of language. Who means nature. for lack of another word, who is like it in a way. It doesn't refer to anything in particular, but refers to everything or anything. You can point to it, but it doesn't have any special nature. But it can be anything. Who is the same? Who is the master?

[41:27]

Because you can't say anything about it. But it's all for me. So how do we let go of ego? That's a big question. How do I feel? What do I do? If I think of ego, it's going to direct me. How am I going to, you know, operate? Because I've been operating with ego for so long. Well, I think that the way to deal with ego is to offer ego up to Buddha. You offer ego to practice.

[42:29]

And then Buddha will take it and say, thank you very much. offerings, being a cow or a chicken or something like that. But it was kind of a mistake, because nowadays we should be offering our ego to the altar as a burnt offering, to be free of it. So little by little you become free of it through practice. That's what practice is about. We know everybody's got ego and problems and all that. So we are very sympathetic to everyone.

[43:33]

And we are very careful not to criticize too much. Criticism is good when it works. But if we criticize too much, You know, when we become free, sometimes we criticize, we see others are not, and so we kind of criticize them, but we should be careful and compassionate because we know that we are also like that. And often we criticize people who are like us, but we don't realize it. And people we don't like so much are the people that really like us. So it's a kind of projection. So we should be careful. Don't be deceived by your self-centeredness. Do you have any questions?

[44:44]

So you talked about we have this intellectual understanding that we should let go of ego, but we should actually do that and have the experience. When that happens, like when I'm sitting and I actually start to let go, two things will happen. Either I'll get scared and think, I might really need that later. I better hold on to it. Or I think, I must be doing really good meditation right now. And then it goes away. That's right. As soon as you say, oh, this is really good, this is just right. So it shows you how your ego controls things. Yeah, it's like a reflex. Yeah, right. Because everything is changing. And as soon as we get to the thing we want, we want to keep it. And when the thing we don't want comes along, Get out of here. So aversion and clinging are the two aspects that need to be let go of.

[45:56]

So that's why when we sit something, we let go of wanting anything. And there's no result. And when something comes that we don't like, we just accept it. just accept it, to everything you just accept, but you don't cling to either one, so we don't allow ourselves to be attached to that which we don't like, and we don't allow ourselves to be attached to that which we do like, because each one, if we cling to them, will cause suffering. So that's the trick. That's it. No discrimination. In self, no special self, so let go of ego.

[47:02]

In other, no special self also. So if I touch this, it's smooth wooden thing, and I mean to have something else, you know, I'm skin. If there's no special self anywhere, how do I realize this difference between you and me? If there's no special self? Yeah. When you talk about that movie screen, it seems like everything just dissolves. No. I still see you. No. We need the movie. I didn't say the movie was bad. are wrong, are not there. We need the movie. So it's not being fooled to see you as you?

[48:03]

It's just, when I see you, I see someone called Linda, but I also see Buddha. Which one is fooling you? This one. You're both Buddha and Linda. You are both Buddha and Linda. Can you see Buddha and love Linda? I love Buddha through Linda. I just love. It has nothing to do with Linda or Buddha. Yeah. Is bowing a way of offering up our... Yeah, bowing definitely.

[49:07]

When we bow, everything is gone, and then we come back again. That's why bowing is so important in our practice. We bow to everything. We bow to cats and dogs, and Pillar, and the Zuka Masyo, and the servers about, you know. Sometimes you think, well this is a little play, you know, what's going on. Which it is. It's a very formal kind of play that's going on. But within that play is practicing letting go. The letting go of our ego? Well, just letting go. Just letting go. Down at the bottom. So the bow, you know, this is getting there and this is being there. Even though getting there and being there is not two different things, but this is getting there and this is being there at the bottom.

[50:11]

Boom! Everything's gone and then we come back to life again. I mean to our usual existence. So we have the opportunity to actually let go and that's where we meet. We actually meet right there. Everything in the whole universe meets right there at the bottom. because there's no hindrance. And then we come back to self. So, you know, when you're in the monastery, like at Tassajara, not as much as it used to be, but still, when you meet somebody, you always bow. You don't have to talk to them. Just everybody bows to each other. And so it's just something going on all the time and it becomes part of your being. And I remember the first time that I came out of Pasahara after doing my first practice period in three months.

[51:12]

I went into the grocery store. And I bought something and paid the clerk at the counter and then bowed. Oh, they don't bow back do they? Your groceries were about that. That was about it. Nowadays, they might go back. It's getting very popular. Now, it seems to me when talking with Zillion, there is an important distinction between dying and not continuing to live. Say that again. There's an important distinction between dying kind of logical distinction between dying and not continuing to live. So I'm wondering if those who have gone may have been at ease with the fact that he was about to die. But he was never going to feel sad about not continuing to live.

[52:16]

No. There's always continuing to live. Continuing to live is within... Life is within dying. Life is within death. Death is within life. There's something called birth and death, but not life and death. There's something very beautiful that's created by pure experience and appreciation and curiosity, something that's at the interaction between the self and whatever's out there that's being stumbled out like you stumble on a beautiful flower when Ziyan died, it seems to me that that's something sad. Well, yes, there's something called wabi-sabi, you know, the exquisite-ness of dying, you know, and the sadness of living.

[53:17]

Or, you know, some combination. So, yes, you know, we need some ego. You know, we need some ego. That's important. We need to play in the... We need our play. We need our drama. But ego should not be out of control. It should be under the control of our buddha nature. Ego actually has a function, and when it's functioning well, we don't recognize it as ego. Its ego characteristic doesn't appear.

[54:23]

The ego characteristic appears when it's taking over. We have to have some sense of self, you know. Here I am. I need that. But it should not be in control. When it's in control, then it's called ego. When it's not in control, well, not out of control, but when it's not, when ego is not the boss. Ego usurps the position of the boss. although it's operating harmoniously, it's no longer called ego. And that seventh consciousness has, as a messenger between the other levels of consciousness, it's doing its job, it disappears as ego. But when the boss is out and puts his feet up on the desk and

[55:31]

orders, then it's called ego. But when it's doing its job, it's not called ego. That's when the ego disappears. So as we say, be like a white bird in the snow, or like a white bird against the moon, or a snow in a silver bowl. To be harmonious with the circumstances. Not to stand out, but yet there you are. To yet one.

[56:15]

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