Bow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning everybody, especially distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the first rows, good morning. I was reading a talk of Suzuki Roshi, who founded Zen Center, and in the talk he said that he went to the Sunday school at Sokoji, and the children saw him meditating and they immediately got into meditation posture and they said, we can do that too. And then, as soon as they got into the posture, then they said, now what do we do? So, I thought this morning, with the young people, I would meditate with you, just for a few minutes.

[01:01]

Are you ready for this? Wait a minute, they haven't decided yet. Are you ready for this? Yes? Well, I'll take that as a yes. Okay, and I thought that maybe it would be good to meditate standing up, because it's better than sitting down, you know, sitting down is so squirmy. So why don't we all stand up, that means everybody, why don't we all stand up. So we're going to do some standing meditation, okay? Okay, so the first thing is paying attention to being standing, probably you stand all the time, you don't notice. So pay attention to the bottoms of your feet, can you feel the bottoms of your feet on top of the cushion, soft, steady, can you feel that?

[02:05]

Who can feel the bottom of their feet? Yeah? You can feel. Isn't it something, the earth underneath this building is supporting you all the time, whenever you're standing up. So feel your whole body's weight held up by the bottoms of your feet on the floor. So now, see if you can project your mind's eye into your belly, feel your belly, like just like you just had something very good to eat and you feel it in your tummy. And feel how your breathing makes your belly go in and out. So take a good deep breath in, and deep breath out, and feel it in your belly. Okay, another one. Can you feel that in your belly, can you feel it?

[03:07]

Now pretend the breath is coming from the bottom of your feet all the way up to the top of your body. You can even lift your hand up like this. Deep breath in, deep breath out. It starts to feel calm after a while, doesn't it? It starts to feel like when you breathe in the air, it's like taking a drink of water, you can feel it coming in so clear. Oh, that feels good. Mmm, that feels good.

[04:16]

Somebody's hiding over there. The mysterious twin breathing baby is hiding in the forest of Dad. Where are they? There they are. Okay, now, feel how that feels. You can feel a little tingly. Who feels a little tingly? I feel tingly. Okay, now we're going to do something very complicated. You ready? Very slowly, paying close attention every minute, we're going to lift our two arms up slowly by slowly by slowly up over our heads until our fingertips are pointing up toward the ceiling,

[05:22]

and now we're going to breathe in and stretch for the ceiling and breathe out and breathe in and stretch for the ceiling and breathe out. And when we stretch now, this time we're going to go up on our toes, stretching up and down, breathing out and up, breathing in and down, breathing out and up, breathing in and down, breathing out, and now we're going to very slowly breathe in and out and let the arms come slowly by slowly by slowly by slowly down at our sides and feel how that feels. Can you feel how that feels in your body? Now we're going to breathe by filling up a very large ball.

[06:25]

Put your arms out in front of you. Pretend you're holding a big balloon. Okay, that's it. And when you breathe in, you're going to fill up that balloon and when you breathe out, it shrinks back in. Fill it up and let it go back. Inhale Exhale [...] That's great. Yeah, when you're a kid, they always tell you, learn how to share.

[07:26]

Did they tell you that? They used to tell me that when I was a kid. Learn how to share, which is difficult to do. But actually, do you think about it? We're sharing the same air. Think about that. We're perfectly sharing the same air all the time. Nobody's taking more than anybody else. We're sharing the air that you're breathing. I'm breathing the same air. Isn't that nice? So, we must be pretty good friends. We're sharing something very intimate together, the same air. Now, let's sit down and have just a few minutes of sitting meditation. So, just a few more minutes for sitting and then we'll be finished. And then you guys can go and do yoga and other things that I know are planned for you this morning. Now, this kind of sitting meditation is very special.

[08:33]

First thing you have to do is sit up straight. And the way you do that is you imagine... You've seen puppets, right? Pull from a string. You've all seen that on TV in different places. Yeah, like Pinocchio, exactly. So, pretend that you are a puppet. And there's a string that comes from right here, the back of your head. And the string is coming from way up in the sky. And someone is very gently pulling on that string and pulling your back up. So, you're lifted up and you feel almost like a bird flying. You feel lifted up by that string. Very gently they're lifting. Not yanking it, but very, very gently lifting. So, you're sitting like this and all of a sudden it feels like you're coming up. Okay? Now, just like we were a minute ago, feel your breathing.

[09:38]

Take some big breaths. It feels so good, doesn't it? What a nice thing. I know that everybody is very busy. You kids probably have many appointments and things. Very busy. But when you breathe, it's just like a refreshment. You don't have to worry about anything. Feel the breathing through the whole back. Okay, now here comes the important part. Pay very close attention to this part. Our meditation will be that we're going to listen very closely to the sound of the bell. Micah is going to hit the bell three times. Now, let's pay attention. Now, this is very important. He's going to hit it once and then big pause. And then another time and big pause. And then another time, big pause. Now, what I want you to do is be breathing and listening very carefully to the sound of the bell.

[10:46]

When the sound of the bell disappears into the sound of the raindrops and you can't hear the sound of the bell anymore because it's dissolved into the sound of the raindrops, stand up. And then after you stand up, sit down again and we'll do it again. Three times. So you have to listen very carefully to the sound of the bell. Okay, so we'll hear the sound of the bell. We'll hear it fade away into the raindrops. When it stops and becomes only the raindrops, then we'll stand up and then we'll sit down again. And we'll hear it again. It's very hard to pay attention that strongly but also it's very interesting because it's hard to tell. You have to really be quick and clever to tell when the sound of the bell disappears. Are we ready? Everybody ready? Okay, I'm not ready yet. Hold on. I have to get ready. Okay, I'm ready.

[11:52]

Everybody else ready? Okay. You're ready? Okay, we're all ready then. Here we go. How come we all stood up at the same time and we all waited for me to stand up? I'm the only one with ears around here? It can't be. I thought surely one of the children would stand up first. Okay, that's one. Okay, here we go. And when you're standing up, can you remember your feet?

[13:09]

Can you feel your feet? Okay, that's twice. Once more. That's good. You still hear a sound? It's hard to tell in a way, you know, when the sound ends. I heard it. Did you? I heard it. You heard it too? Yeah, you could tell just when it ended? You have good ears. You have great ears. Well, thank you very much. I think we're finished. You did a great job there. And if anybody asks you, do you know how to practice meditation?

[14:12]

You can say, yes, I do. Okay, so you guys can go if you like. Now, if you want to go out, do you have your shoes over here? Because I was thinking that before you go out, I was so impressed today by the Buddhas on the altar that before you go out, maybe you can just go for a second and just take a look at how beautiful those Buddhas are on the altar. And then you can go out and do yoga and everything. That big one is bigger than a person.

[15:39]

Bye. Bye. Bye. Goodbye. Bye. Okay. Okay. So good morning again. That was pretty exciting. I thought I do have a talk prepared for you this morning on the case 11 of

[16:56]

Mu Man Khan, but before I begin that, two things are on my mind that just occurred to me, and I wanted to share them with you. First of all, I don't come to Green Gulch as much as I used to, and so I don't have a chance to bow to the statues on the altar very often. So I was startled and impressed this morning to come in and bow to these beautiful figures that we have and that we were fortunate to get. We've been feeding them with incense for all these years, and they become more beautiful with the time going by. So I was startled, and maybe you noticed I took longer than usual to bow because I didn't want to leave. But it reminds me, I got a phone call from a friend who told me what I already

[17:56]

knew, which is that the Taliban, who is the ruling elite in Afghanistan, is now systematically based on Muslim ideology, their understanding of Muslim ideology, destroying many, many... Afghanistan was very important in the history of Buddhism, coming from India through Afghanistan on the Silk Route, and many, many important Buddha images, priceless images, exist in Afghanistan, and they're being defaced, literally blown up. And I don't know what any of us can do about that. But certainly to be aware of it and to express, if we can, our shock and dismay, if you blow up Buddha images, you seldom do that in a context in which you're

[19:02]

kind and peaceful to everyone else. In fact, the Taliban regime is not kind and peaceful to its own people, and the blowing up of the Buddha statues is only a symbol, in a way, of the way that it runs its regime. So we don't control what happens in Afghanistan, but at least as human beings we should express ourselves somehow to whoever it is that is worthwhile expressing ourselves, if only to each other or someone else. Anyway, I just wanted to mention my sorrow over that. And then also, as I was driving here, I was listening to Click and Clack. Maybe it sounds like some of you know about Click and Clack. They're very smart people, and they began their broadcast with a news item. It seems that in a publishing house in New York, which had many employees,

[20:06]

one of the employees died at work, at their desk. And it was five days before anyone realized that the person was dead. He was sitting there, he had had a coronary heart attack, and he was sitting there for five days and no one realized that he was dead until he died on Monday. And on Saturday, the cleaning person sort of asked him, why were you working over the weekend? And when he didn't reply, he realized that he was dead. Apparently this is really true, that this happened. The people in the publishing company explained that he was a very diligent worker, that it was not unusual for him to be sitting at his desk for five days, not talking to anyone, and just sort of sitting there because he was so diligent. He said very little. So they all thought that he was just, as usual, hard at work and didn't realize that he was dead. So Click and Clack mentioned this because they said, well, we have a large staff, and we were worried that maybe that's true on our staff.

[21:10]

So they said that they went around shaking people to make sure that they were alive, and they all woke up and said that, yes, they were alive, it was all right. So they were relieved. They often mention, by the way, Click and Clack, that one of their sponsors is Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. And I was in Cambridge last week, Massachusetts, where their program originates from, and in fact, I don't know if it's, but there is an office building. You see, when you walk down the street, you look up in the second story, and it says on the window, Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. And I've never gone up there. I've seen it before. I've never gone up there to find out what kind of a firm that is, but it is there. Anyway, it just, this story made me wonder, are we all alive? Is everybody here alive? Or are we actually all dead?

[22:16]

I'm not sure. Hard to tell sometimes. Yes, did you hear that? Those of you who were far in the back, there are now free seats because the children have left. If you want to come up front, feel free to do that. Anyway, really, sometimes it's not clear. Whether we're alive or dead, something to pay attention to. Anyway, so, now that I got all that off my chest, Case 11, Mu Man Khan. Here's the case.

[23:22]

Zhao Zhou visited a hermitage, knocked on the door, and shouted, Anybody home? Anybody home? The hermit held up a fist. Too shallow here to drop anchor, Zhao Zhou said, and went on. Another time he came to a hermitage and knocked on the door, Anybody home? Anybody home? Hermit held up a fist. Zhao Zhou bowed deeply with reverence and said, Free to give and free to snatch away, free to kill and free to revive. So that's the case. Mu Man's comment on this case. Both times, fists held up. Why did he approve and then disapprove?

[24:23]

Disapprove. Tell me, where is the core of the complication? If you can give a turning word on this point, you will see that Zhao Zhou's tongue has no bone in it. He is free to pick up or push down. Be that as it may, do you see that it was Zhao Zhou who was seen through by the hermits? If you say the one hermit is superior to the other, you have not yet got the eye of Zen. If you say there is no difference between them, you have not yet got the eye of Zen. So that's Master Mu Man's comment on the case, and his poem goes like this, Eye like a shooting star, activity like lightning, the sword that kills,

[25:26]

the sword that gives life. So that's our subject for this morning. So in this story we have, those of you who have heard me speak before know that Master Zhao Zhou of this story is one of my favorite Zen masters. So here he is again. He appears many times in the classical collections. This morning he's testing some hermits, although it is not entirely clear whether he's testing two hermits or the same hermit twice. There are other stories in which Zhao Zhou engages in this kind of testing, but not in the way that one might think. If you remember Zhao Zhou's personal story, he practiced for 40 years with his teacher, Nanchuan, and when Nanchuan died he said, I'm just a beginner, and then he went on 20 years of pilgrimage

[26:30]

to try to improve his understanding, and at the age of 80 or so he settled down to teach. And you have the feeling that after all of this, Zhao Zhou was beyond almost anything, including Zen, and that his teaching must have been very mellow and very seasoned. That's why I enjoy his teaching so much. So many of the koans have to do with this issue of testing, testing to see who realizes the way and who doesn't, testing to see who realizes more and who realizes less. On the one hand, this kind of testing is very valuable, because it's through this kind of dialogue and debate and dynamic exchange together that we learn and refine our understanding, which is always changing.

[27:32]

Yesterday's understanding is yesterday's understanding. It's no good for today. Today we need the understanding of today. So we're always investigating, always looking to see what is true, and then what's true now. And of course, this is not just something philosophical or some finery of doctrinal points. It has to do with how we intimately see the world we actually live in, and therefore how we live in it. So testing is something very important, very good. The spirit of testing, constantly working on our practice for the sake of practice itself, taking a vital and intense interest in our practice is something necessary, because the alternative is to think that there is some resting place.

[28:35]

And not only is that not so, but also it's the ultimate cause of suffering. So we have to have testing. It's very good. But on the other hand, testing is a problem, because it implies that there's something correct outside, some kind of gold standard that's in somebody else's possession, and that can be used as a yardstick to measure us. And that is not useful. In fact, the whole idea of testing plays into our human confusion on two levels. First of all, psychologically, it plays into our natural, deep-seated human lack of self-confidence. Now, of course, in this world there are very confident people, and there are other people who are not so confident, but that's just on a conventional level.

[29:37]

When it comes to ultimate matters, I think every human being feels deep down a tremendous sense of inadequacy and dread, everyone without exception, because we all know that we don't know, really. We all know, as it says in one of the psalms, that we are like grass that springs up in the morning and is mowed down at night. We know that all that we build up falls down. And we're all like children when it comes to ultimate matters. Life and death matters, since none of us has ever died, at least that we remember. And none of us has really come close to seeing ourselves naked and face-to-face.

[30:40]

So when we get that close, we all feel this dread. So, naturally, when someone brings up testing, we feel very nervous. And we automatically assume that we're wrong, and that the authority, whoever that may be, in our minds is right. Whoever's facing us must be right, and we must be wrong. That's how we think. The second level on which testing plays into our common human stupidity is a metaphysical level, because our language and way of thinking seems to be constructed to look for and to expect to find some fixed truth. We are very susceptible, I think, all human beings are very susceptible to the idea that such and such is the truth,

[31:42]

and that everybody else either better believe it or they're absolutely wrong. This explains the actions of the Taliban. They have found the fixed and ultimate truth, and they feel sure that they ought to be rooting out anything that isn't that. These days, for many of us, we don't believe in a fixed truth because it's much more currently fashionable to believe that there is no fixed truth, that the truth is shifting in relative, and then we believe in that as a kind of fixed truth. So, actually, we're not so different because our human minds are simply not nimble enough to be able to float in reality as it really is,

[32:43]

changeable and constantly in motion, and yet at the same time, just like the ocean, which is changeable and constantly in motion, having always one taste wherever you stick your finger in. So, testing is something difficult because it plays into these two habits, psychological and metaphysical, that we have. So, we always have a tough time with testing. Zazho, on the other hand, being this old seasoned Zen master of so many years training, no doubt, was long past caring who was right and who was wrong. He only wanted to live this day clearly and kindly and happily and to help others to be the same if he could. He was certainly someone who never had anything to gain and never had anything to lose

[33:48]

in any kind of encounter. So, he must have taken on the issue of Zen testing with a kind of delighted chuckle deep in his throat. And I'm sure he always had lots of fun with the monk's need to feel that there was a right and wrong and that they were going to find it. That there was a shallow and deep and that they were going to find the deep and let go of the shallow. The story brings up a specific moment of testing but really and truly we are tested on every moment of our lives. Every moment. Every moment we are tested and every moment we are passing and failing the test. That's our life. Better get used to it. No matter how we

[34:51]

react, how we understand every moment we are always failing and always passing. And yet on the other hand it does definitely matter what we do. It matters how we fail and how we pass. And it's clear that there is a right and there is a wrong. Definitely there is. The idea that there is no right and wrong is certainly wrong. But right and wrong, you see, are not fixed, externalized facts out in the world. They are fluid. They are dancing with our lives. So right and wrong are the gold standard. But like gold they are always changing shape according to conditions. Whether it appears as a ring or a bracelet

[35:54]

or a gold-leaved Buddha, it's still gold even when it's white gold which looks like silver. So good and bad are relative but not only relative. They are also absolute. And yet to think that you can know them in some kind of graspable or possessible or even definable way is definitely not right. That's wrong. So in the case in front of us, Zhaozhou is testing some hermits. As I say, this is possibly two different hermits on two different occasions, although it may well be the same hermit being tested twice. Probably it makes no difference which of the two is the case but it actually might be a little clearer if it were the same hermit being tested twice who made exactly the same response both times. So first a word about hermits who do appear with some frequency in the Chinese Zen literature.

[37:02]

You hear about them less in Japanese Zen literature in which cenobitic monasticism is mainly emphasized but in Chinese Zen, very much like in the early Christian monastic tradition, the idea was that you would live in a monastery for some time as a training to be a hermit. And this is expressed in the rule of St. Benedict where in the beginning Benedict says what is to follow is a simple rule for beginners. I'm sure in saying this, St. Benedict was being very humble and modest as he is throughout his rule but also I think he really meant it. I think he was really serious that he meant that he was writing a training rule for beginners. And this was true in early Christian monasticism. People would go out after many years of communal training and not just one year or two years but many years of communal training

[38:06]

they would go out and be hermits. And that was considered to be the graduate course. This became more rare in the Christian tradition as time went on and Thomas Merton had to argue for about 20 years to be allowed to be a hermit about 100 yards away from his own monastery because it became less common. But this kind of tradition was the same thing in China where monks would train monastically and then they would live for some time as hermits and then perhaps they would return to the world to teach or otherwise find some way in simplicity to benefit society. So a hermit in a narrow sense means someone who is secluded living away from the monastery in a hermitage far from others, probably somewhere in the mountains

[39:07]

in the forests. But in a wider sense a hermit means a monk who is now living separately from the monastery in a kind of utter or ultimate solitude in freedom of being oneself having left all desire for everything else behind. In other words in terms of what I'm speaking of this morning a hermit is someone who lives by no external standard and no standard doesn't mean no sense of restraint as if one were lawless and self-centered it means freedom from inner and outer confusion, freedom from inner and outer fixed standards in harmony and fluid with what is. Thomas Cleary

[40:08]

who has written commentaries to many of the cases of the Mumonkan, to all the cases actually the Mumonkan writes this in his commentary to this case 11 he says Zen hermits were illuminated graduates of Zen schools who isolated themselves for a period of time in order to develop their transcendental insight and practical knowledge in such a way as to prepare them to re-enter the ordinary human world in a very special state of balance. To be complete Zen masters they needed to be effective communicators at some common level in order to contact society yet they also needed to be free from this is a beautiful Clearyism yet they also needed to be free from personal nostalgia for the human condition in order to contribute to society be free from personal nostalgia for the human condition it's quite wonderful

[41:08]

in order to be free contribute to society a range of knowledge genuinely beyond the fluctuating and vulnerable subjectivity of ordinary human psychology with all of its anxieties and wishful thinking isn't that great in spare terms therefore a Zen Buddhist hermit he has in quotes a Zen Buddhist hermit is someone who has attained nirvana and is thus inwardly beyond the world the isolation of the hermit need not be grossly physical seclusion in quotes is a symbol and also a description of the psychological independence both emotional and intellectual that comes to the individual through the experience of nirvana so in other words being a hermit is an inner condition rather than something

[42:10]

literal so in that sense I think our practice for all of us is to aspire to be Zen hermits and lately I feel like a Zen hermit myself we had my wife and I have two sons grown up young men and we don't see them that often but over the Christmas time holidays they came to visit us and the four of us were together constantly during that couple of weeks sometimes I have my in-laws live nearby so sometimes they were with us too there was quite a gang of us together and we had a great time actually it was one of our most successful visits they haven't all been successful, this one was and we have a pretty small house it's kind of like one room more or less

[43:12]

so the four of us were sleeping together, eating together getting up at the same time, going to bed at the same time it was a real exercise in togetherness and the whole time I really felt like a Zen hermit I mean I felt completely a part of what was going on and I really enjoyed myself but I really felt also like a Zen hermit and I don't know if I can explain what I mean by this without making it a misunderstanding because I don't mean to say that I was aloof in any way or beyond what was going on in fact quite the contrary I felt a greater ability in myself to engage and be part of my own family than I have ever felt so I was very involved with what was happening very happy and full of joy to be with my family which is these days such a rare

[44:14]

occurrence and yet at the same time even though the four of us were constantly together in this little space I didn't feel cramped I was involved with everything but not cramped and maybe some of you can relate to the fact that sometimes a family can be quite cramped to the point where it can become painful that which we're all yearning for you know the human being is yearning for love and family and all this and then you have love and family and you say boy this is really a tough situation in fact I didn't know there could be this much misery in human life and it dawns on people as a great surprise well how did that happen because a family can be extremely cramped and when it gets cramped everyone feels the pressure of that cramping

[45:16]

and everybody is in pain and hurting one another even though everyone may love one another and have a good heart so I think that in our practice people say oh is there any practice for families well quite the contrary I think if you have a family or are in a family as we all are you need to practice to make a little more space so you're not so cramped so in this sense I think we all really need to be hermits always in seclusion always utterly alone full of spaciousness and also never alone always connected but in freedom in spaciousness and openness so that's my little commentary on the idea of hermits these are the hermits that he goes these are the kind of people he's visiting

[46:17]

two hermits or one hermit anyway he goes to visit them now hermits are always home so when he knocks on the door and he says anybody home it's not like he thinks they're not home as usual in Zen dialogues something very simple and everyday is the taking off point you don't need to look for profound philosophical questions to bring up the everyday questions that we take for granted are to bring up the whole truth things like how are you? what's new? good morning what could be more profound than these sorts of questions anybody home?

[47:20]

everything raises the whole truth all the time if you are willing to look closely enough so he asks anybody home? and the hermit holds up a fist so here we could wax philosophical about the fist we could really get into this the fist stands for oneness the fist stands for emptiness the fist, the fist, suchness and so on, we can go on fill in the blank or we could say it's a fist a fist is a fist, just a fist that would be good we could do that so all that is good we could amuse ourselves to no end it doesn't matter really what we call it

[48:24]

or whether it's a fist or a toenail it's a simple hermit's answer it reminds me of this very strange answer that's repeated many times in the bible God calls out to Abraham and Abraham says here I am probably in the story of Jesus Jesus says here I am somewhere, I'm sure Moses for sure is called on by God and he says here I am in Hebrew this word is hinani which is the Jewish koan here I am, it's the Jewish fist the old testament fist nothing fancy about this, nothing coy about it it's something very straightforward in other words, without fear or irony or intellectualization or non-intellectualization, it's just

[49:25]

life, every moment calling to us and whether we intend it or not, whether we like it or not whether we know what we're doing or not, we stand forward when life calls us, there we are this is it here I am, on this moment of time here I am this moment is the moment in which I am created I can't get this moment back when it's gone I can't eliminate it it's unrepeatable, it's unique it's endless it's an infinite opportunity if only I will seize it and it's not subject to discussion or evaluation it's not communication it's presentation to be present

[50:27]

being alive to what is it's beyond subjectivity beyond objectivity this is the fist of the hermit this is the fist of every moment of our own lives, if only we would be alert to it like this morning, standing whoever notices the bottoms of one's feet standing, and yet we're standing, supported by the earth all the time, someone says, I need support, I need support but the support is there, the earth supports us all the time, if only we would notice that it's so in commenting on this fist, in his commentary to this case, Shibayama Roshi quotes a marvelous old Japanese poem that goes this way whether to call it crazy or rude I leave it to someone else to judge peach blossoms are by nature pink

[51:28]

pear blossoms are by nature white how you come forward, how I come forward is different how I come forward now, how I come forward later how you come forward now, how you come forward later is different each according to its conditions so that's our test then the next part is the test results you wait for the mail to come to get your test results so now though, we have a different sense I think, of what the test results are yes, it's a test because it's human to test and be tested but also we're beyond that, all of us

[52:32]

and so even though we're tested we're always free of testing too shallow here to drop anchor, Zhao Zhou says in the first instance now this is a very typical saying of Zhao Zhou like all of his sayings, it's simple clear and also highly ambiguous on the one hand it means, oh you're too shallow your answer is no good, I'm not staying around here but also shallow is something really good actually shallow and deep are both shallow and deep shallow water is really good it's clear and you can see right down to the bottom and not being able to drop anchor as he says, it's too shallow here, I'm not dropping anchor not being able to drop anchor is also something very good it means that you don't rest anywhere, you just float along

[53:35]

with the current and during the holidays I was telling you about our son's coming one of the things we did is go kayaking in the Elkhorn Slough, which is a really wonderful thing to do and in the Elkhorn Slough the water is quite shallow and the current is not very swift and we just floated along which kayaks seem to do quite well I don't know if kayaks have anchors but these didn't, it's hard to imagine going out and kayaking and anchoring unless you're going scuba diving or something kayaks don't need anchors they're very light and streamlined so you just keep moving easily through the water so this is the Zhaozhou's judgment on the first hermit or the first instance of the hermit since you always have to make judgment we're called on in this world to make judgment and discrimination because that's what the world is after all

[54:37]

judgment and discrimination that's what you and I are, we are judgment and discrimination so we have to make judgment and Zhaozhou's judgment in this case is bad in a way and good in a way then he gives the test results for the second hermit or the first hermit again this time he sees the same fist and he immediately bows oh wonderful, wonderful free to take life and free to give life free up, free down, he says the same fist, same response maybe even the same hermit so it would be clearly as we see from the commentary really not right to say that the second hermit is better than the first one or the same hermit improved the second time or that Zhaozhou saw it differently the second time around his second response is really the same as the first and also different

[55:40]

the first response was bad and good, this one is good and bad and that's freedom after all, good and also bad freedom is readiness commitment and also acceptance if it's good, it's good if it's bad, it's bad Zhaozhou's responses were only his own fists raised Zhaozhou was only saying here I am I am Zhaozhou and that's how it is for now in the midst of his judgments he made no judgments he neither held on to nor rejected these two hermits he was free and so were they as Master Mumon makes clear in his comment when he says do you understand that Master Zhaozhou was seen through by the two hermits just like shallow water

[56:45]

Master Zhaozhou is fully transparent there isn't a mysterious bone in his body and he does not come on like a profound Zen Master he's just an ordinary person with nothing special to hold on to it's easy to see through Master Zhaozhou I'm sure if you're looking for an old Chinese Zen Master you can see through that if you're looking for an elderly gent hobbling along a mountain pathway you can see through that too profound Buddhist insight or a doddering old man sometimes it's hard to tell the difference either one or both together are easily seen through for the hermits there was nothing at all to see through they had no image of Master Zhaozhou at all and to be sure they weren't put down in the first instance or puffed up with pride at their being praised

[57:48]

in the second instance they probably felt the breeze of Zhaozhou's words and they appreciated it another poem on this point quoted by Shibayama Roshi goes the spring breeze in a tree has two different faces a southward branch looks warm a northward branch looks cool and I'm sure they also felt the judgment side of Zhaozhou's words when they were told too shallow, too shallow they thought, oh, too shallow, better work harder and then they felt also when told how beautiful taking life, giving life, perfect practice they felt one movement, one wave I imagine that there was a beautiful feeling

[58:51]

of warmth and recognition that passed between these old Zen hermits it's very pleasant, I think, to meet and recognize another traveler on the way meeting another path treader, you feel as if you knew each other a long, long time you feel encouraged in your own path and also quite ready to move on that's how it must have been for Zhaozhou and the hermits when they encountered each other and I'm sure they were having some fun with each other because testing is ultimately something quite funny because human consciousness is ultimately something quite funny tragic, of course and its consequences sometimes

[59:54]

so we can't deny that but at the same time usually pretty funny there's a line from Tibetan Lama Longchenpa I think it's Longchenpa that says, everything being void is perfect and so one can't help but burst out laughing and similarly an old Zen master, Yunnan commenting on this case that I'm talking about said, when you see clearly how can you suppress a laugh so I think spiritual practice always has a sense of humor in the middle of it if not, think again so

[60:55]

I think these old hermits in Zhaozhou were having a good time together enjoying a good laugh for us however who are still in training still working on it, not quite where they are yet we still we notice quite reflexively attached to good or bad especially when it pertains to ourselves and how the world reacts to us for us we need to appreciate and contemplate this old story these old Zen masters are demonstrating for us that there is good and there is bad that good and bad really do matter good is good, bad is bad and yet it is always alright and peaceful either way buddha nature is always buddha nature, whether it appears as good or it appears as bad so I think a good practice

[61:57]

for all of us is when we find ourselves puffed up with praise or in despair over criticism or self-criticism when we find ourselves overjoyed with our glorious successes and good luck and disgruntled semi-permanently with our failures and our bad luck we need to study this case we need to learn how we can hold up a fist all the time whether we're praised or blamed in other words just pay attention clearly to our suffering, how suffering goes try our best to feel it, not deny it but yet at the same time not be caught by it

[62:57]

and when we do inevitably get caught by it, to note ah, caught by suffering again because I think we all know that ultimately there's no preventing difficulty our practice is not a question of eliminating difficulty if we live in the human world if in fact we are alive and we do have a human body definitely trouble comes so it's not a question of eliminating trouble it's a question of how do we receive and understand what happens to us whether it's trouble or not trouble the culminating spectacular event that happened at the very end of our visit with our sons

[63:59]

was that the night before they were to get on the airplane one of them staying out of course all night long before the early morning flight lost his wallet and the keys to his apartment so we all had to go through a great deal of trouble to deal with this question of how do you get on the airplane with your e-ticket when you don't have identification and how do you get into your apartment in a big industrial building of artists when you don't have a key and there's no doorbell under the best of circumstances it's hard to get into his apartment building but this time it was really going to be hard because he was arriving at something like one in the morning so this was pretty bad but

[65:05]

I was very proud of him and also of the rest of us because he just sort of like dealt with it and tried to figure out what he was going to do and in the end he did figure it out and fortunately none of us went berserk got mad at him and told him how stupid he was and irresponsible and anything like that we just all said oh this is a problem what can we do how are we going to get through this what are we going to do with this yes definitely he lost his wallet and his keys yes definitely this was a problem so we had to figure out what are we going to do and then do it which is what happened if Zhao Zhou were around I think he would have done the same thing so it's always nice to speak with you

[66:08]

thank you for being so patient sitting there all this time enjoy the rest of your rainy Sunday afternoon may our intention may our intention

[66:23]

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