Many of you have been saying in your questions that you've heard enough already. Too many things. If I don't say anything, it won't help you. So I think I'd better say so much that You'll be completely confused, if possible. I wish I could make you really fiercely confused, so you'd be angry about it. Then we could hit you. Today I was thinking about Gutei's One Finger. And mindfulness.

[01:22]

a number of you express at various times problems with the idea of effort, concentration. And I talked about that in many ways. I think the problem is when they say in a traditional Zen story from China or Japan, you should you know, concentrate on move, you know, your koan should fill, etc. I think we don't understand that kind of concentration. We think of concentration or effort as involving a decision and then something we do, we make an effort to do. And the sense of concentration that is meant by that kind of admonition is not to decide and then do something, but just to add to what's already there. Maybe like putting a wallpaper on. You add a topic or you add a subject.

[03:22]

to what's already there, the effort that's already there, or you intensify the effort that's already there. You know, I spent quite a few years I'm making big effort not to make an effort, especially in my breathing. I tried for about five years to not influence my breathing at all, not add anything to it at all. So it's a pretty profound question for practice, what is effort. You know, there's the story, I rather like these incongruous love poems used to illustrate Zen. There's one, I painted my eyebrows

[04:53]

and climbed the building, hoping the emperor would notice me. The other, another is Tozans. Spring comes and grass grows by itself. So what should we do? Paint our eyebrows or let the grass grow by itself? Practice takes a tremendous effort, but not an effort coming out of a decision, maybe effort coming out of desperation, or completely at a blind end, some futile feeling, which means you have to try what you're doing completely, your dualistic way, maybe you try your dualistic way completely.

[06:02]

Without some idea, well I know it doesn't really work so I'll wait for something else to happen. You better do what you can do. Mindfulness, the full part of mindfulness is very important. Because mindfulness is you fill up the boundaries of what's around you. And it's not simple repetition. Each step you think, I am stepping. But each step you're stepping into a new world. As I was saying yesterday, each moment is actually completely different. And you step with not knowing if the Earth will come up and support you. You don't have any idea what's going to happen. You give up expected ideas. So, the Earth then becomes your accomplice. There's kind of a conspiracy between you and the Earth. It's going to come up and meet you and you're going to put your foot down on it. Because you don't know. It might just go away.

[07:32]

That's how I feel stepping on this. Bill has forgotten to put the step back. But so far he hasn't done it. He'll test me when he's done it. And I'll be particularly sleepy. I like the words conspiracy and accomplice. Because conspiracy means to, you know, it means to get together with somebody and plan an evil act. But literally, it only means to breathe together. To conspire is to breathe together. So that's very interesting. If you breathe together, you're sort of outside the law. It's like Sam Long, you know? Mountain Gape, which puts you outside of civilization. And accomplish, I can't resist telling you. Because accomplish is partly from accomplish, which means to fill up. To complete, but actually it means to fill up. And accomplice,

[09:03]

means to fold together, and actually this part means flax. I couldn't resist that. So, to make everything your accomplice would be to fold it together, to breathe together with it. When I said companion breathing, actually you should make your breathing your accomplice. Companion is to eat bread with. Accomplice is better. We're going to have to make English work for us. So you make everything your accomplice. Mind only might be better translated as being only. Everything is being. So everything is your accomplice. You conspire with everything. And you want to push through your idea into the actual details. The authentic authenticity is manifested only in the actual details.

[10:33]

Your idea never quite fills up, you know, and you satisfy only yourself. The budding blossoms and the brocade of fall, the budding buds of spring and the brocade of fall, are past, present, and future, and they're in the details. If you are You fill the details. Your plans for the future are there. Your past, present, and future are there. So your mindfulness is to reach the boundaries, maybe like to make everything a container, but more than that, to go beyond the boundaries. But that going beyond the boundaries takes tremendous effort, some luck. Like blowing your identity or consciousness out. It goes out. Finally, it goes out. Out everywhere and out like a candle.

[12:03]

And maybe a sword has to be over you to do it. Gutei's one finger. You know about Gutei's one finger? This is a very important story to me because Suzuki Roshi told it several times. And it has many It has many treasures, and you get it, not by thinking, but you... It happens to you. Anyway, Goethe is... lived in the 9th century, and he...

[13:40]

he was living as a hermit in a mountain somewhere. One of the times, Srikirshi told the story, rather secretly several times, and once he told it in Sashin, very openly, and Bishop Yamada was there. And I think Bishop Yamada played Gutei. I can't remember. Or Yamada Roshi played Gutei and Tsukiyoshi played the old woman, I can't remember which. But anyway, they got really into it. It's a cushion in the middle of the room. And so you see, Gutei is sitting in his hermitage, being a good Buddhist, and this woman comes and she Normally in China, you take your hat off when you greet someone. So, Sugoshi is sitting on the cushion, and here comes a whole Yamada woman in with a zafu on its head for a hat. He strides around Sugoshi about three times, as the woman did to Gutei, supposedly.

[15:11]

Sakirshi is rather startled. Why haven't you taken your hat off? He doesn't say so. She says, I will take my hat off if you can give me one word that satisfies me. And says Yamada. And Sakirshi couldn't say anything. Like Gutei couldn't say anything. So she starts to leave and he says, it's quite late at night, why don't you at least spend the night? She says, you give me one word and I will. He can't say anything, so she leaves. And Gutei is quite ashamed of himself. That was his virtue, actually.

[16:12]

to be ashamed of himself. Because he felt ashamed that he couldn't answer, he decided to go visit many Zen masters to find some help. But he had a dream that someone would come to his hermitage. And actually, so he stayed, and actually a few days later, Tenryu came. And he said to him, he told Tenryu the story. And he said to him, what would you have said if Tenryu had just told you? And Gutei was likely, likely for us. So, Gutei used one finger. He never gave teaching, never gave lecture.

[17:14]

He never did anything except... whenever anybody said anything. I mean, he must have been quite a courageous man. It takes a lot of guts to resist giving lecture, you know. I wish I could do it. Come in here. Can I go up? And you could sit the whole period. What's wrong with him? So he did it all his life. And he had a young attendant. I mean, younger than John. Anyway, when people would come, they'd say, your teacher is quite famous. What is his name? And John would go, So, Gutei noticed this and waited till John was demonstrating it to some visitor. And he went, cut his finger off.

[18:40]

I was pretty upset. And he went running out. Gutei said, John, John, and John turns around and Gutei went. Well, that did it. John had had enough. So he became enlightened. Mungon comments on this story. If you think the finger has anything to do with this, or if you understand the finger has nothing to do with this, Tenryu and Gutei and the boy and you are stuck together with one skewer.

[19:52]

Tenryu Gutei, at the end of his life, said his last words were, All my life I have used Tenryu's one finger and never exhausted it. And he died. Remember, I too am always using one finger. never since Suzuki Yoshi showed me his one finger. But one finger is also good taste, readiness for

[21:11]

Gutes. Shang. Gutes. Reaching his boundaries. It's like a tent. You're in a tent and it's raining very hard and you have a sag and the tent roof fills up with water. Fuller and fuller. And if you touch it, underneath, water pours down into it. So it takes being filled up your tent full of water and one finger. When you understand this, you know why fish fly. pulse that branch is over. So it's moon. It's a different

[22:48]

Or is branch over the window? Is moon just the boundary? Just some infinite boundary? Or window and branch? Is there no moon?

[23:21]

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