Tao Wu's Condolence Call

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without much hair
what is this peter relics that's what we're going to talk about today well it's of here
okay thank you
ah
so little what
i'm not hearing any feedback so it's a schedule
prior to that novak have ah now
let's vote on it
ah
okay
ha

and they've ruined my mood
and i'm gonna get back into it ah
yeah the hairs of the buddha are these are relics the seriously ah gonna talk a bit about relics into the skyline in ah in srilanka i visited the temple of the tooth
which is a very famous are and for three revered dub
place in our city of kandy ah and a point there were hundreds and hundreds of people filing by ah the purported tooth of the buddha which was ah held in a box that was in a box that was in a box that was in a
boss that was in a box men probably more ah and then just recently in in burma the shwedagon pagoda which is about three hundred and forty feet high
ah contains two pairs of the buddha that
he shaved his head you on the gives one pause how been with his hairs and and i was gonna bring you and i i forgot off at a meeting i went to last year they gave every participant to know about three hundred of us little plastic cases with are relics
carrera ah purportedly of the booth and you know if if all of the
relics of the end cares and various tastes and were paired up ah you know this would make a buddha that was probably toys in the empire state building so ah i don't know
at any rate the question that seem to be on people's minds who was incomplete yesterday and then ah some people talk to me about it is this perplexing question of ah
what
had he reckoned with the fact that the buddha was saying he had a choice to live till the end of this world system
ha ha this is quite aside from
thoughts if people had about
how he was in relation to have
ananda not ask him the question but really help the questions how could he have had a choice ah and that's
that's an interesting question
which will have to go unanswered
ah i think we're thinking about it
last night i realized it's it's as perplexing a question as perhaps go back to the gospels the resurrection is
yeah so
if we're talking about a man a human with a body how does this work how is it resurrected ah or how does it live forever
and then i was thinking i was listening to the the echo ah as sir
as ross with reciting it yesterday and the first two lines of the echo in the ceremony is
the dorm of body of the buddha cannot be seen within duality
for the dorm of body there is no coming or going for it fulfills all things
in the sutra and in those sutras and even more in the my and etc
there's not a distinction made between the dorm of body and the you and his manifesting human body
so the dorm of body cannot be seen within duality in what is the body that we are seen
and what is if this is true for the buddha
and we are all
embodiments of buddha nature
then
what body is it
that i am seeing if i look at
alexandra or a look at math or look at su
which body is that it
can we actually make a distinction and also
how much or how little of it
am i seeing
and when it comes right down to it how much or how little of that dharma body of my own dime of body am i see

i think again and again the buddha was exhorting
his followers ah when he was saying be a lamp unto yourself
to do this difficult task of seeing your own light
the has you can
and how do we do that for that's actually that i think why we're here this weekend right
ah even if we may not know quite clearly that that's the reason why we're here we may not be able to answer if somebody asks us but what when you're doing this this weekend ah
our dorm of body
brings us here our dorm of body knows why we're here
so ah
it will come back to this
the question of birth and death is of course the perplexing question for all of us
and we get scared understandably i've been there i'm sure many of you in this room has been there
ah
touching the fear of one's own
death whether it be imminent or
at some unknown time in the future
and touched by the death of those
that we love
even though in some
deep way
we comprehend that all things are fabricated and compounded
ah

they can last about a week or so ago but i was in on the east coast i had dinner with of food as a player could play music and bar and one of my oldest musical friends as a new his new girlfriend or partner ah and he's
said or she really wanted to get together because and have dinner because she had been a very close student of allen loop
ah people november l l lu was a busy student ah that's where he began his is a poet and of a rabbi it was a beth shalom this does anyone know
ah and he is a paw sort of cold teacher and partner and collaborator with a so cancer norman fischer who also began practicing here and they were both students of surgeons for for a time and saw that as their route and helen how after a career as a or not
a career as a job a time as a bus driver ah decided that he was gonna go back to school and he became a rabbi
ah and
he was ah
he combines and key chain with judaism as a his friend and call and fellow poet norman combine them as well until they did a lot of teaching is a very a wonderful teacher with a great hard for people in a great heart for society
he pub and he died very suddenly about four weeks ago ah from his out for a walk and he had been training some rabbis in baltimore and he ah he just died of heart attack
so this woman of
my friend's friend or
we had dinner together and you know what she which he asked was what have what does one do when one's teacher does
and what came to mind was the following call on which you probably know and

they said i told her the story and then i when i got home i i copied it out for her
this case fifty five in the blue cliff record
it's called tau whose condolence call darwin was one of the of
only one of the early com dynasty masters ah
he was a
it's a very strong teacher and there's there's there are other cases involving him so douche and his disciple to new on went to a house to make a condolence call ah when they got their to new one hit the coffin
and said alive or dead
wu said i won't say alive and i won't say dead
you on said oh why won't you say
that was it
i won't say
ah
little later after they had done the service
they were returning to the temple
and new ten
you can have to tell me right away
because if you don't tell me i'm gonna hit you
ah which is kind of radical behavior for student towards a teacher
that was a you may hit me but i won't say and then genuine actually did him
ah
when they
ha after which when they got back god
those suggested that ah
genuine should probably leave the temple for his own safety
even though ah
you know
you would imagine nobody could see
this exchange still ah
everything
everything comes out there are no secrets
so of later
douche after the who had died twenty one went to another ah
another student who had become a master another student of gallows she's one
and brought up the story and said well you know when you have to say about this ah sheesh wong said i won't say alive and i won't say dead
you have you once said why won't you save sean said i won't say i just won't say and at that work at that moment genuine
awoke he hadn't if he had he can't assume some awareness
so then the story continues
ah
a little later can you on
i took a whole into the dharma hall
ah a place where they would do their reputations and enchanting ah and a he went back and forth from east to west and from west to east with his whole ah
and chitwan came in said what are you doing
he want said i'm looking for relics of are less of our late master
you know where else would you look for them but in the dorm hall which is where sir
dharma is transmitted and conveyed
szechuan said vast ways spread far and wide forming billows flood the sky
what relics of our late master are you looking for
ah
he won
comment in response to that was this is just where i should plot apply my effort
so that's ah
that's the story
now we thought i would talk about tech just a little bit palm

this is an urgent question for genuine questions of
that compelled him to
strike the coffin
ah it was clear that
this physical body that was contained in the coffin was not alive
it had died but alive or dead
it perplexed him it worried him
i was thinking this morning for some reason occur to media i have friends who collected music in madagascar
and in madagascar they have this interesting have ritual fiscal path some medina for turning of the bones
ah every year
families go out to the cemetery
and they dig up the bodies
they dig up their ancestors
and ah
they unwrap them had erupted in
expensive cloth they unwrap them and kind of tape measure of what's happened to these are compounded things in the previous and in the near the just com and then they have reroute them
in fine cloth and then they take them out and they parade them all around the village and they have a big dinner and the course is the guest of honor
because they wanna make sure that the ancestors are not of uninformed about what's happened in the village in the in the previous year
ah and this is still a tradition that that lives on there
and i think that one could realistically cask ah
dead or alive
when they are taking out the corpse
in a sense i think it's because what they are really caring about is the dome of body
ah and that whole body
is
then a relic
so that's one realm of relics
but this is an urgent question and i think that the we can often look further if we look at genuine question alive or dead
perhaps he's coming from one place
but where is the woof answering from
the woof
won't say
i think because
he's reluctant to answer the question that he believes twenty one is asking this that makes substances he has different he has an entirely different question about
what his life and what a person what his death
ah
he's coming from a place where and i think this goes back to off
this goes back to
the heck of that we use he's coming from the place of understanding that for the dorm of body there is no coming or going
and if he were to answer
can you on he would be putting
he would be putting birth and death in a box which is precisely what he doesn't want to do
he wants to new on to understand
how
to see reality
as something that cannot be put any place ahead in this poem at the end of this corn

rabbits and horses have horns
offices and rams have no horns nary a hair nary a wisp like mountains like peaks
the golden relics still exist right now
with for me with white foaming waves flooding the skies were can they be put there is no place to put them
even the one who returned to the west with one shoe has lost them
these lines are the golden rule relics exists still exists right now with white foaming waves flooding the sky where can they be put there's no place to put them there's no
ah
the relics of the buddha
the the dharma body is includes everything
it includes all of us and includes this room and inclusive planet
it was everything that
his happening at this very moment you can place them anywhere because you can't separate them from
what is continuously unfolded
i went down we went to new on went to fish one can ask the question
all the commentary say issuance response was fresh
fish one wasn't just
say it wasn't a saying you know you don't get this so i'm going to
i'm just gonna give you the same answer that that will give
ah
i think
the freshness of this response to the sense
one way that i'm looking at it is
that
sheesh lungs refusal to answer
was head of his understanding that douche
had given genuine everything that he needed that it was right there
and for him to give an answer
would have been to put their whoop in a box
so maybe this is a little abstract
but i think when i was talking to this woman sarah
and she was saying how do i
what do i do
when my teacher has passed on
hum
there's really nothing to do that can be yourself
and to recognize how deeply
one has been changed one has been transformed or affected by
once teacher and i use that word very broadly
in point of fact that includes
our parents or friends anyone who's influences every everyone with whom we are in relationship and interaction transforms us in ways that's very difficult for us to see but ah but absolutely
and that's what i think sichuan was was paying respect for
there's another story which evolved heard many times a half
oh that sir
the farewell story of another of our ancestors don't shine when he left his teacher ah when he left a teacher union union said
as thompson was prepared to go after the separation it will be hard for us to see each other
function understood
the some degree and responded correctly rather it will be hard for us not to see each other
an injunction as union
after you have completed this life what shall i say if anyone asks i can you still recall your masters to face
after a long silence union said
just this one is
just this one is
this puzzled vientiane
and he didn't really have a response with this story
he set off on his journey and when he came to a stream
he saw his reflection
and was awakened to the meaning of justice one is and the decomposed averse
ah that it speaks exactly two
both to how were transformed by
all of our teachers
and what responsibility that places upon us to be ourselves says vs do not see him anywhere else or he will flee from you
now that i go on alone
i meet him everywhere
he is the same as me
yes i am not he
only if you can understand this can you manifest sexiness
so this is
what suzuki roshi was getting at when he said when you are you zen zen

often i suspect if you're like me you compare yourself for kind of think about yourself in relationship to your teacher
ah fortunately he's not physically in that sink right now so you know i can say this ah
no i am not key
but whom would i be
if we hadn't met
i can't imagine i actually i don't even think i'd be alive
but that goes for others to
there's both joy and grief in that
i was thinking thinking about relics i was taking this morning
my father died about twenty nine years ago
we did not have
a great relationship
om
it was difficult and i loved him
and he loved me
but he didn't know we didn't know how to deal with each other federal
and there was nothing i could do for him that was
right are acceptable
nothing
ah
except when he died
when he died then i had to deal with the dorm of body
and also had to deal with the relics
i got there soon after he had died and his body have been shipped off to the mortuary for cremation
and it wasn't the he didn't believe in funerals or rituals of any kind ah
but we needed to do something the immediate family and his wife and ah my sister's path
so ah relative had a boat my father was very was on the water all the kindness was in florida and with i went to the mortuary got the earth ashes hundred and has any have you ever done that
it's like so like chemists like little cardboard box in a plastic baggie with a with a twist tie and i of oh this is very tacky but in all its ah yeah it was as box and little a little heavy you know this kind of chapter bones
ah
but that's none of that was the residue of his physical body
it was precious than it was
ah uncomfortably my name
can we took it when we took out on a windy morning we took them out
miami beach out the ah whole over the outlet where the inlet where the see runs into the bay and out a couple miles to where the gulf stream begins and you can see that because the color of the water changes from a greenish blue to dark indigo
and ah
it was a
they have intermittent sun and clouds and i remember because we had to unpack this box and
ah scatter the ashes which was my job was something i'd finally something i could do
and i still with absolute vividness remember
this kind of
sound as the ashes joined with the water
and as the sun
glinted off
the little particles and specs of white bone as they were they went quickly down through blue waters
that
his part of the dharma body
that is now
indelibly part of who i am and yet i am not he
yeah i seen the way i am body
the good things and some of the bad things about who he was
so i want to close with ah
when i when i wrote to sarah this student of allen lose ah
with the the whole case
she said
she removed by it ah and she set me back this poem which had been in the last teaching that she had received the part of which is only like a month or two ago and with alan loop and ah it was
a from whitman
from song of myself and it's completely
on the same point
the spotted hawk supes by and accuses me
he complains of my gab and my loitering
i too am not a bit teamed hi to an untranslatable
i sound my barbaric york over the roofs of the world
the last skirt of day holds back for me it cleans my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed wilds if causes me to the vapor and the dusk
i'd the port has ear i shake my white locks at the runaway son
i refuse my eddie's might pay a fuse my flesh in eddie's and drifted in lacey jags
i bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass i love
if you want me again
look for me under your boot soles
you will hardly know who i am or what i mean
but i shall be good health to you nevertheless and filter and fiber your blood
failing and failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged missing me one place search another
i stopped somewhere waiting for you
so if if you have some thought the question kiss

a song
fathom five gap or father lives of
those are pearls for his eyes
cj such ambitions for it
his
though
thank you
we've all
age after age
across all the cultures across all the world
we have the same concerns i think
the manifest in different ways
sometimes we
return the relics to the sea
sometimes we take them out and pervasive to the town and sit down and have dinner with them
the right here in his room
living and breathing

hundred singles
chris guess
yeah
susan to
really don't improve british ancestry
require some
in ancestors
in an investor muffin
you
for the ancestors for
it is
charlotte
one here it's good
it's good to study them have
the all those ancestors up to up to the women ah are in the danko roku
the transmission of light
ah
and i think we're just about to have a a class in march on the five houses of than which cover a bunch of the a bunch of the ancestors
but i would turn it back
to you in a broader way
who are your ancestors
not just it's good to know as any and sisters but that's not the entirety of the story you know you've got these two
these streams that me in you
you know ah this is where i think it's an unusual we have we have this biological stream and then we have this spiritual scream and sometimes we have actually we have more than one spiritual street
ah how did they manifest for new and then i was thinking this morning of a then how's it gonna be for my son and daughter
who never did know my father my mother
or laura's father they know her mother
what continues in them
performed the kids
changing into
you know what i have
provides enough to care price as good as i have a

plotted outlet that she hasn't fighting
congress is what i didn't remember anything
a precise science
and instead of seeking have thought why not
and as you were talking heads realizing that when somebody dies cycle
there's something about
all the in pardon
how they stay alive with him and consequently i think about it differently they treated differently i think about what the site let live in firefly
and i think it was something of that
facts are relatively close
the got up and zero
play people that
this talking about alive or dead then how it is scientifically sundays after a alive in my life or not
i don't have that children
this community interesting and as you're speaking what i'm realizing his is a i hold them
i am relieved to take responsibility for for their life in a way that's different then maybe how i feel when they're life
i don't know this but i can probably each of us does that in a different way and has different door
the different process for yeah thats relief i think it's very powerful
matt
forever other practice them
our fears around gathering sleep
surprise here some other earth is burning for
my ancestors and then
i kind of all our savior ancestral lineage on your hands on one hand i have a really great reverence for the references with nobody
after a practice
ah i never have
often times i say
is unfair monster first about your needs and and i started are important to balance your have zero for a few relics flickr hat on little
preserved
his some
and
a that's both you from the ownership of crown
throughout his rallies but also either had a house it
after this category
the streamer practice
and i don't really need to reconcile these two where's the folder or the one hand he reference the other hand he references
harris there ah

how is it that we
it's like how isn't that will take what we do our activity or action seriously
respectfully without taking ourselves
seriously
without taking these things seriously things go away
ah
and yet we have to take this we have to have responsibility for her actions you know the buddha i didn't read this and the whole long section of the part of this sutra yesterday where he talks about how you prepare his body and what you do with if he never says you should worship these relics
but then of course immediately after he dies they had to have a whole conference ah about how to divide them and they've got divided into eight portions and you know shipped out to these different tribes and groups ah but that wasn't actually his instruction
how sandra
yeah
always transforming yeah relatives for an answer
rome for mode is to transform and transmit she was sincere wisdom
what whatever it is
team they we meet to make each they try to make change and they will only make change so long as we're willing to work with what we're given sometimes and resisted
right but they're always offering the offering is discuss continuous offering
it's this is the challenges for us and practices islam what do we do with what offered
faith
but
theme that does not change
dharma quiet
the in your first know that some of that stream the top of them
it's not a thing yeah
as soon as you call that thing you've got a problem
but it's hard to talk about right
acknowledge it you can dry up in the world monday
i like
the dogan as one from festival drinking is total dynamic working
it's like there's constant activity there is stillness in the activity in there's activity in the stillness it's ah
no
it was something else
i was wondering up
and
deficits with i'm fighting a rela

also see my body
when he talked about
are your children are going through never use our see it when the relic
wondering about
is that our time on that experience
us says not about his predecessor
understood
it's encountering you can't get your mind around the dharma body it's too large or it comes and goes freely but you need it in different ways in different places you mean has of it your children me aspects of it
hum
i wonder if at it
vote
i met it for a moment but i wasn't done
that did not resolve all of the difficulties that i had with my father but it was really really important
ah
we always have this work that we can do
salaam is were alive
a place to to end for today

interesting stormy day
thank you