I've heard that it may be hard for some of you to hear what I've been saying after the hot drink. It has? Oh. Okay. Not for you, still. So, I'll try to talk louder, okay, sorry. Someone slipped me a little note, which said, why not talk about contrapuntal aspects of Zen and, I love it, and turning question. So maybe I'll answer it contrapuntally, by relating the two things, because perhaps, more than perhaps, if they both occurred to your mind, they may be related.

[01:07]

But I'll see if I come to it also, which is my way of answering it. What were the themes of yesterday's talk? I think they were doubt and trust. They were, I think. Doubt, you know, questioning, and trust, credible. Credible, I think when there's a physiological base to a word like credible, it's at least

[02:18]

where to begin, and maybe the most accurate sense of it. But credible means to put your, literally, to put your heart into, to put your trust into. So, you want to put your heart into, your trust into, your child or your teacher or your lineage. And as I said last night, that's what lineage is all about. And compassion or oneness, naturally, how can there be oneness without trust or compassion? They're just different names for the same thing. If you are one with something, you feel empathetic or sympathetic with it, or you at least understand it. One of the things that comes up as a difficulty in practice,

[03:35]

and is related to ego, of course, is the ability to be an agent for Buddhism, for someone else, for me, or to trust someone so that you can do what they want you to do. This is very important in practice and it scares a lot of people. I've been getting, you know, I sent a letter out trying to help Charlotte Selber and Charles Brooks get their teaching started on the West Coast because they want to live here and not so many students, people know about them, like in the... and there are so many competing things now. In New York they had many old students who came regularly. So, moving to California and coming to live primarily at Green Gulch, I thought maybe

[04:55]

we could help them in some way. And I know Werner Erhardt, you know, Werner Erhardt met Charlotte Selber and Charles and me and Suzuki Roshi all at the same time when we did a benefit at Fugatsi Auditorium, where there have been many poetry readings, in about 1967, something like that. Weren't you there, John? No? Second. Anyway, Werner came and was a student. And since then he's always credited Charlotte with part of his own teaching. And he... Charlotte says he was the most eager student she's ever had. And that's what I've heard from everyone, that Werner is an excellent student. Whenever he gets involved in something, you know, he is completely concentrated on it

[06:01]

and seems to be able to open himself completely to it and just very alertly follow and absorb whatever's going on. I've heard from other sources that when he came into their work, he just took to it, they thought, like a duck to water. Then he goes to do something else. Anyway, so as a kind of experiment, I wrote a letter to people connected with Zen Center and said that Charlotte and Charles were giving a workshop and I thought their work was interesting. In fact, Charlotte and Charles gave a workshop in a format that I suggested to them over ten weeks, as a way I thought would work for the kind of people who know Zen Center.

[07:07]

And at the same time, I happened to see Werner, same day. So I talked with Werner and he wanted to sponsor it too. He wanted to help Charlotte and Charles too. So I wrote a letter which said that such and such and such and such, and that Werner Erhard also was sponsoring the thing. And I know Werner's a pretty controversial person for many people, but I don't care. So anyway, the letter went out. And since then, we've been getting all these letters and anonymous phone calls, stay away from Werner, tell Baker Roshi to stay away from Werner Erhard. Coming into the office, you know, and people writing letters, I thought you were such and such, but the governor has gone to your head and now you're associating with the likes

[08:17]

of Werner Erhard. Anyway, I've gotten quite a few letters like that. Or I've been making regular contributions to Zen Center and now I'm not going to anymore. Even Paul's mother got mad. Paul talked to his mother on the phone and she said, what's happening over there? Zen Center's associating with Werner Erhard. Sorry Werner. But I don't see what's so bad about Werner. As far as I can tell, I haven't met all 80,000 of the people who have taken his toiletless weekends. But everybody I've met who's done it has either benefited from it or been neutral.

[09:27]

I haven't met anybody who's, I guess someone told me there's been a few people who've been disturbed, but Jesus has been disturbed by Zen too. Quite a few of us. So anyway, and I told you the story of the Chicago train station thing where that guy came up, I thought that was rather nice. Anyway, what I think worries people, and Werner's quite visible, and he doesn't have the justification and permission of a tradition. First they see this big ego, they think they see at least, this big ego on the scene preaching submission to him or egolessness or something. And it looks like the worst kind of ego to them, to people I think.

[10:33]

And I think they're particularly bothered by the idea that there's all these little Werners walking around all dressed in the same cashmere sweaters and so forth. You know, people are quite scared of it. They think of Nuremberg trials, you know, the Gestapo carrying out orders unthinkingly, Milarepa building houses and tearing them down. But the difference is, I don't know, you know, Werner or his situation enough to know, but basically the difference in something like Zen or with a teacher is whether you trust the person or not. If you trust, I don't know, if you trust the Gestapo, then I don't know if you can.

[11:47]

But if you trust another person, you should be able to act as their agent. Do it just because they want you to do it. That's very important. I talked about this once before, about how Dogen expressed it, you know. If your teacher says that toads and earthworms are the Buddha, then toads and earthworms are the Buddha. But it's very important that you be able to step out of your own situation and do something someone else wants you to do, whether you believe in it or not. And this is very disturbing. I think this is basically what disturbs people about Werner Erhardt, is they think people have lost their integrity or something. But it's fundamental to practice to be able to step out of your own ego and do something,

[12:55]

whether you believe in it or not, because someone you believe in, or trust, rather, wants you to do it. The lineage is nothing but this kind of agency. You're an agent for Buddha, secret agent, an agent, cleansing agent, you know. I'm your agent, you're my agent, and so forth. But it's interesting. I talk with Linda and every one of my assistants a lot about this, to call up somebody and talk to them about something or other, not from whether they feel it or understand it,

[13:56]

but just because I asked them to do it. It's rather difficult for people to do. And sometimes I make it more difficult by discussing it in a way which will make whoever my assistant is at the time feel very ambivalent about it. Knowing what makes them feel ambivalent and what gets their goat, I will discuss it in a way that they get very uneasy about it, and then I'll say, do this, something they feel uneasy about, you know. Then they don't do it so well and they have to find out if it's really so, or whatever. Then I give them a hard time, because I want you to be able to be an agent, and to trust me, and to trust each other.

[15:00]

And it's the activity of trust even more than whether I'm trustworthy. You know, I don't mean that because Philip Zenshin and I practice together, that because I like a particular poem, he should like that poem or poet. He doesn't have to agree with me like that, you know. But I hope he trusts me that I'm doing what is best for our practice, his practice and our practice. Or if I let Zen Center, the assembly of Zen Center become 1500, like Isan's assembly,

[16:04]

and others, as I discussed, he will feel, he will trust that if this wasn't the best way for us to practice, I wouldn't let that happen. That kind of trust is necessary. And in Zen, the Sangha is the teacher. I'm Buddha, only if you're Buddha. A point has no meaning, only a relationship. I remember as a kid saying to my father, twelve o'clock doesn't exist. This is an interesting point for me, I've told you before. Because it's either a second before or a second after. It's never exactly twelve o'clock doesn't exist, you know.

[17:09]

A point in geometry is dimensionless. So my father, being fairly smart, he said to me, well, we say that something that is approached and then passed exists. I thought that was pretty good answer. But it brings, points out that relationships are what exist. A point doesn't exist, but a line exists. Or contrapuntally, a counterpoint is two separate melodic lines which are in harmony. So, going back to the Sangha. So in a way, I don't know if I can bring out to you the degree to which Sangha is the teacher

[18:17]

and Sangha is the mind. And it's not, I hope to be a good teacher, you know, of Buddhism, but it's not so important whether I am a good teacher, you know. What's most important is that I have a good disciple. That's more important than whether I'm a good teacher or not. I should have a good successor, better than me. And this emphasis solves a lot of problems, too. You don't have somebody trying so hard to be good that you exclude everyone else. Emphasis in Zen is completely on inclusion. And my job is primarily, first of all, and to the exclusion of all else if necessary, to have a good successor.

[19:17]

So also, my successors, you know, are the teachers, too. So, you'll find, practicing together, that, you know, I remember practicing with Suzuki Yoshi when I was with him all the time, and when making, always making space for people to join him, the situation actually became richer because of what happened with his son than when I could spend a lot of time with him. The important point is that your teacher enter your psychic, I'll say, psychic life, and that your teacher be someone who, in that sense, primarily, and every sense, though,

[20:24]

can make things count. Doesn't matter how much you see your teacher, him or her. But whether they can make things count and whether they enter your own personality, happen in your own psychic space, and happen through so many agents. I am nothing but an agent of the lineage, and we have so many agents to practice with. So many melodic harmonies. You know, if you put a pendulum, like Claude Dallenberg's father, made as a kind of sport

[21:35]

made grandfather clubs. So they had many of them in the house, and always, soon, all of the pendulums would swing together in the house. I notice if I lie still in the bath, soon, water is swelling and rising with my heartbeat. Whole tub have a strong heartbeat. You have to lie quite still, but water will start to move and pick up. I can see all the kicking of the ruby out of the bath. Wait a minute, I have to try this. Dirty, dirty, foamy water. But very small rhythms are always present.

[22:48]

Someone says, I don't know, it's interesting, I'd like to try the test myself, that testing an unfertilized egg, chicken egg, bought in a store, has a beat to it just as if it had a fertilized circulatory system. Whether that's true or not, still there are many tiny beats, many melodic lines. And we don't know, when we live together in the sangha, how profoundly we are actually coming together. Now maybe I should change the topic slightly.

[23:57]

In Zen you may have read in books about sinking mind and, what do they call it, rising mind. Have you read that? Anyway, they warn you against not letting your mind sink. And this is, maybe we can call it disposition and predisposition. This is, again, a point at which Buddhist psychology, the active point of Buddhist psychology is different from the active point of Western psychology. All of us have, to put it in exaggerated terminology, all of us have a pathological mind and healthy mind. And, if you put anyone under stress, sometimes sasheen, but anyone under stress, their pathological

[25:11]

mind will come out. And there are many thoughts, terrible thoughts we have, that we just don't, that give us the shivers to even think of. And you can catch, like when you read something in the newspaper, some horrible thing, sometimes you don't want to read it, it makes you shudder. It usually means that you have that same... you also feel that way. So, practice brings out many things we don't like to face, make us feel we're going crazy if we even think it, to be so out of control, or to entertain such ideas. This is real, really samsara, which is also nirvana, which is also we turn around.

[26:18]

So we want to see our pathological mind, and if you're healthy, you can identify your pathological mind. You don't deny it. You notice when it comes into effect. And it may be some kind of... something you've got, some predisposition, you know, something you've got from your parents, or great-grandparents, or from George Washington, or somebody, who gave you such a thing. And the more it's present, the more it gives you some pathological feeling about yourself. Usually, something worthless, or something grand, or one compensating for the other.

[27:30]

So, sinking mind, we can say, is when that pathological kind of mind is present. You slip into some tired or negative frame of mind, or if you're walking along and you fall into a quicksand, or quagmire, or something, you know, if you have pathological state of mind, you'll say, I should have known I made another mistake, I'll keep making these mistakes, I better sink. You know, you'll just think you deserve it, or something. If you're healthy state of mind, you'll fall in, you'll say, God damn, I made another mistake, I'm going to crawl out of this mud and I won't make it again. It's same event and same mistake, but one is a sinking state of mind, and the other

[28:54]

is a rising state of mind. So Zen Buddhism doesn't say, figure out your predisposition, the whole reason why your state of mind, or you think such and such, just notice when sinking mind, or rising mind is present. And don't let your mind sink, don't worry about the reasons why, just don't let your mind sink. And you know, this rising state of mind, sometimes a kind of superficial buoyancy, is characteristic of practicing quite a bit. You can get completely bubbly and joyous about doing your laundry, or putting on a new shirt, or looking at the bent, how wonderfully we bent the rocks at the corner of the building,

[29:56]

here. Do you know what I mean? We laid those rocks and then we bent them right around the corner. I'm always amazed by it when I walk by. Such silly things, you know. Whatever it is, can seem wonderful. You know, back to dreaming and so forth. Erickson describes the function of dreaming as a kind of self-aggrandizement, or ego power,

[32:05]

that restores psychological and historical coherence. That throughout the day you have so many unfillable desires, and unfulfilled desires, unfulfillable and unfulfilled desires, that you get rather depressed, your mind sinks. And you need to dream, dream that you are quite powerful, and so forth. And by this process, the healthy person... And it's a kind of contract, you know, a kind of contract with society, how you dream. And I'm convinced, for example, that Japanese people, and you can see it in their movies and so forth, dream differently than we do.

[33:12]

So even how we dream is a kind of social contract, I think. But dreaming restores, as Erickson describes it, a balance with your psychic needs and your personal history, or the historical facts of your life. But in Zen, we're trying to turn this over, you know, literally turn the mind over so that dreaming comes out into your everyday life. We can call... I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get across exactly what I mean today, but I'll make an attempt.

[34:14]

First, you know, we try... Okay, let me say something more. That dreaming, by reducing conflict and ambivalence, releases your energy. So the point in practice is you can't eliminate, you know, we say, cut off your desires. So there's two aspects. One is you do try to reduce your desires. Same time, you try to not reduce conflict or eliminate conflict, but create larger harmony or inclusive topography, topography of conjunctions. This is also counterpoint, counterpuntal. So, in a sense, here the sangha becomes your mind or sangha becomes dream. And I think you could define, we can define thinking, conceptual thinking, as censored

[35:33]

dreaming. That I would say, in fact, all literature and so forth, all thinking is actually dreaming. And usual conscious thinking is censored dreaming. Now, dreaming also seems to have two functions. One is this blending, this coherence, you know, or, yeah, coherence. And the other is, again, what Erickson or somebody or other calls sponsorship, which I would call permission, a permission to take some course of action or forbidden course of action. Descartes supposedly dreamed, you know, he went to bed very agitated.

[36:33]

And with this feeling of some new thought or new science, and he dreamed, he had supposedly three dreams, which gave him permission to say something so big, to link himself with history. And dreams perform that kind of sponsorship, too. They allow you to decide something that you couldn't do in your censored thinking. So a dream receives censored material and sponsor or permit, give you their kind of permitted activity. Well, again, in Zen, in Buddhism, in the Sangha, we force this process out into the Sangha. So the teacher is giving you permission, and the Sangha is giving you permission. So, the vow, the vow to save all sentient beings, is exactly the same as God's grace.

[37:52]

Now, grace has two sides to it. Grace, one side is, you have the favor of God. It's a kind of, again, contrapuntal grace. Contrapuntal. Melodic, two melodic lines going. God's in the earth, and you're in tune with divine providence. And you beat people up, like Luther or Calvin did, rather. And, also, grace is presence. You exist in the presence of God. Now, this is, in Buddhist terms, very simply, you have a continuous presence. You have a continuous presence. And that's sometimes done by mantra, by namo amida butsu. By the presence of amida butsu, you feel.

[38:57]

But in Zen, again, it's the question, the turning question. We face a wall. We don't know how to enter this wall. So we ask a question. How do I enter this wall? That's all. Where is the door? And you don't know where it is, so you just ask, Where is the door? Where is the door? Now, if you can get your mind to rest on this kind of point, you open yourself up to many conjunctions or counterpoints. A wide topography, where you see relevancies, synchronicity in Jung's terms, that you would not have seen before. So it's very synchronic thinking. And this is how we solve our problems.

[39:58]

This universe, this world, is so complex. Birds and leaves and water and people. If you're limited to your normal censored thinking, censored dreaming, you don't have the necessary... It's too exclusive. So Freud used free association. We have to use something to get you out of that framework. So Freud used free association. Jung uses dreams. And Zen tries to force, as you know, we don't sleep so much, to force dreaming into your zazen. We want to force dreaming, dream thinking. Or sometimes we say in the seventh consciousness there's a revulsion or turning of the seventh consciousness

[41:01]

in which the subject-object dichotomy is seen as expedient. So the attempt is to literally make the sangha your mind, to make all of us agents of each other. So you don't have to get this permission. And self-given permission is very dangerous or initiation. Descartes had to get permission from himself by this dream, which is sort of also not by yourself, in order to do something big. By do something big I mean to feel that your life is part of the life of human beings

[42:09]

or part of the life of Buddha and that what you do affects people and your response, how can I put it, it's a kind of renunciation and affirmation, a renunciation of just an individual life and an affirmation of a larger life. And this is also satori. And the vow to save all sentient beings is actually realized, to actually realize it, we can call it a satori experience. Often is. There's some weeping or tremendous relaxation and feeling a tremendous connectedness with people. But to do that you need some permission or your ego is inflated.

[43:11]

Or you can't deal with the experience of connectedness and responsibility with others. So again, we get that permission from the lineage, from a teacher. We, for this wide contrapuntal conjunctive topography, macro paradigm, in the bop neon night of America, isn't that Michael McClure's line? That's what I heard. That's what Michael used to say. Kidding. I don't know. Anyway, this...

[44:20]

experience or pivotal experience means you begin to experience other people in yourself as part of your own personal life. And it's a fundamental initiation. And it's a fundamental initiation. Or permission. And we're not trying to do it in dream time or some big ego or to reduce conflict or fulfill unfulfillable desires. But to turn that state of mind inside out. So again, the turning question,

[45:50]

the main major technique of Zen Buddhism is to give you something. Since it's non-theistic and nothing to believe in, we must question. But you're also trusting. Trusting the question with not sinking mind but more grateful mind or thankful mind or credible mind. A feeling you can put your heart into. Grace, I believe, means to praise and also is the same root as the root for bard or poet. So this praising or grateful or thankful state of mind. Trusting state of mind which is concentrated in a question.

[46:51]

Not a question which is depressing you but a question from this rising state of mind. And to completely focus on that question so that all else is aside, then this contrapuntal or wide topography can begin to function. This no mind, activity of no mind, non-conceptual mind. So it's always struck me that the ending of the apocryphal sutra of the Sixth Patriarch is, he says to his disciples as he's dying, if they tell you X, tell them the opposite. If someone asks one thing, answer the opposite. This opposites to establish wide field,

[47:56]

two lines, to always demonstrate relationship. It's the only way we can teach is to keep jarring. You know, I've used the word stupor. Stupor is a little torpid but... But it's also the word which means stupid and student. It means to press on something and steeple and deep. But to press on something but maybe also, and it also means stunned, you know, but maybe more startled state of mind as if you've just been startled. That receptive, alert state of mind is the necessary condition

[48:59]

for this revulsion of or turning over of consciousness. To open yourself to that realization of our mutual responsibility and identity with others, the vow, to actually realize the vow or grace, the presence of emptiness. And... Tsukiyoshi says, death is the accumulation

[49:59]

of our whole life. How we die, how we face, coming and going, form and emptiness, life and death. And this state of mind, you know, is needed all the time. We are always preparing for death. This wide, inclusive, empty state of mind. And... Well, I covered some of what, two-thirds of what I want to talk about. And...

[51:20]

Well, now it's time for a bath, or a break.

[51:23]

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