Good morning. The last class we were about halfway through Nangaku and Master Ma's exchange around Zazen. And I'd like to talk some more about that. But I'd like to start from this place. Recently, someone gave me an article written by David Brooks. David Brooks is a columnist of the New York Times. This particular article was called The Deeper Self. And he starts off by a point in art. the effects of different hormones and neurochemicals on our behavior.

[01:03]

He was saying that for heterosexual men, when they're the father of a child, the experience of being with the child lowers their testosterone, inclining them to be more monogamous. And then he went on and listed a few other examples, which reminded me one that I heard quite a while ago, and I'm not quite sure if this is maybe in the last, beyond the last decade, where there's a hormone, and someone did this experiment with prairie dogs. Prairie dogs usually, when they mate, they just mate and then go their own way. But when they spray them with, I think it's called oxytocin. Anybody knows that correct? Yeah. Spray them with oxytocin, then they became monogamous. What did you say, Greg? But it set me into thinking, you know, I had heard that swans, in their usual environment, were monogamous thing mate for life.

[02:26]

And I realized that I had set a certain kind of moral value. This was a good thing and therefore swans were a good thing. They had high moral character. And then we're faced with this ever more evident as we do more research about the makeup of mammals. We can't even restrain it to the territory of humans. The makeup of mammals, we are so influenced by the neurochemicals, the hormones, the other aspects of our physiology. And then David Brooks went on in his article in an interesting way to explore how we relate to this has a very significant outcome in terms of who we are, how we are, or what he was calling what creates a deeper self.

[03:46]

About a decade or so ago, I was teaching mindfulness-based stress reduction in Northern Ireland, where I come from. And I go there each year to survivors of trauma. And the person who ran the center, he died, had five family members killed in the sectarian violence. And at one point, These two men knocked on his front door, and he opened the door, and they said, we are the people who shot your sister. And he invited them in, and they had come to him both to confess, but in a strange and wonderful way, they'd also come to him for counsel. What do you do when you've done something like this?

[04:53]

And what struck me about this story was what an amazing person Brendan Breen was, that the person who had five family members had died. That he had the capacity to face and relate to this awful circumstance in his life in a way that literally supported others, even people who had committed one of the murders. And when I was reading this article by David Brook, I was thinking, yeah, what is this deeper self? How does it come into being? I mean, who hasn't faced frustrations, annoyances, disappointments, betrayals?

[06:00]

And then my mind went to the story that somehow, someone told me many years ago, but it stuck in my mind. In the Zendo, the person beside them won't pass to Damasio. And this just got so under their skin, that they said, I got to the point where I dreaded going to meal. And then one morning, I actually skipped breakfast because I'd rather not eat than have this person not pass to Damasio and then go through this sort of turmoil and torment. You know, and then when you put these two stories together, you know, of course our mind can say, oh, that person was lacking in whatever they're lacking in, moral fiber or character or all embracing compassion.

[07:11]

And this other person, Brendan Breen with his name, obviously was, you know, exemplary in that regard. Or we can look more deeply and say, what's going on? What's going on with any one of us that prompts us to be reactive rather than adaptive? What's going on with any one of us that prompts us to end the agitation rather than somehow Be deeply informed about the human condition and become wise and compassionate in relating to it. Okay.

[08:12]

So, believe it or not, that's what I think this koan's about. So, I think we all know the koan, you know? Master Mah's Dunsazen. Nangaku comes up, says, what are you doing? I'm setting to become a Buddha. So he starts rubbing a tile. Master Ma takes a break, says to him, what are you doing? He says, well, I'm making a mirror out of a tile. And he says, well, how can you make a mirror out of a tile? Well, how can you become a Buddha doing something? story would be in this conditioned existence, this interconnected being, this very existence where even though we create for ourselves,

[09:27]

and create with regards to others, stories of what's appropriate and what's good intention. Even within all that, within our own body, there are aspects of conditioned existence that influence us in extraordinary basic ways. So given that, what kind of intention is appropriate? What can we expect from our own involvement in practice? And you know, in first glance, the coroner is saying, without expectation, because to think you can make something happen is misleading.

[10:38]

Yeah? Anyone think, have a different notion about the primary message of the coin? Can you sit without expectation? Yeah. So on first glance, that part of the coin that I just cited so far doesn't seem to address that question. And then there's actually three versions of the coin. And then the extended version That's exactly what Master Ma asks Nanjaku.

[11:44]

Well, if that's not the way, what is the way? And then he responds to that. But I'll get to that. Which, of course, is a good question. I was in Bangkok, living there, and I would go to these classes led by a lady who gave lectures in Abhidhamma, Buddhist psychology. And her thesis was that meditation was inherently dualistic and was not part of Shakyamuni Buddha's practice. And each time she would say that, she'd look over at me.

[12:48]

So now she was a great proponent of mindfulness. She thought that you should practice mindfulness as diligently and consistently as you could. But she thought meditation, sitting down, Inevitably, unavoidably, you were doing something. Nice. Denied what?

[14:00]

Denied that that part of our school. Part of our school. So we have a situation where people do meditate during here, you know, that is hard to do, like, drop reduction, or, like, you can tell people, or, like, do a little bit of stuff, you know? But, um, it's hard to, essentially, think, like, why don't you just do a villa? If you do a thousand, then naturally do it. So why don't you just, if you want to do a villa, then you just use a villa. What does that mean? What does it look to do, the Buddha thing? Just realize how. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. When you look at the coin in one regard, you think, he's saying, just sit without an agenda.

[15:14]

let what is be completely itself. You know, if you remember, I mentioned teaching from Yoga Chara. You know, we have three states of mind. One state of mind is where karmic consciousness is generating the particulars of the moment. So that really what's happening is how the moment is being experienced is really a replay of my previous patterns. I don't go to breakfast because I'm utterly convinced the annoying person who sits beside me is going to be as annoying as they were yesterday, and I will be greatly annoyed and agitated and deeply pained.

[16:26]

So I make up that story and I live it as real. Then the next state of consciousness is what's called other-dependent. But there is an experience that's apprehended and influences what arises and influences the moment. And then the third one is the moment is just itself. And in the suchness of just being what it is, There's nothing added or subtracted. It's its own complete event, you know? And then last time I was saying that the intention of Jiji Uzaamai is that in the arising of what comes up, we experience

[17:45]

this complete being in the moment. And we also experience this interactive being, you know, where the information comes through, the conditioned nature of self comes to meet it, and we see how this unfolds. And this is how we discover how to be a human being. This is how we discover how to have a liberation within conditioned existence. And I was saying, and I would still say that this way of sitting, this way of being, this way of engaging is broken. primary how.

[18:48]

Not as exclusive how, but how to realize, you know? So here's the extended version. This is from Andy Ferguson's book. What's the name of that book? Do you remember it quick? Chinese Ancestry? Yeah. The Heritage? Zen's Chinese Heritage. Okay. Yeah. So, Nandakur sees Master Ma doing zanzen very diligently and says, well, what are you doing? And he translates it as, I intend to become a Buddha. I think a Miracle translation is to leave out the I and to just say, sitting, to be Buddha, to become Buddha.

[20:00]

I guess, become is the operative term. Vangagra picks up a tile, starts grinding it on a rock. What are you trying to do, grinding that? I'm grinding it to make a mirror. You know, this image of mirror in the realm of the Dharma, as I think Mel was talking about, when the prejudices of our karmic consciousness diminish, we see, we get a clearer reflection of what is. So, endeavoring to create a clearer reflection. And Master Ma says, you can't make a mirror by grinding a tile on a rock. And Nangaku says, well, if you can't make a mirror by grinding a tile on a rock, how can you become a Buddha by sitting?

[21:05]

But what Bergen does with those two statements is, to my mind, very interesting. In reading the different translations, I felt a little sad that I couldn't read the original characters because his language sort of plays back and forth. But essentially, his message is something like this. As Andrew was alluding to, It's not so easy to just sit without an agenda. Because just sitting without an agenda is sort of an agenda. And he says, don't be so quick to dismiss polishing the tile.

[22:17]

Don't be so... to think that sitting without an agenda is an accessible accomplishment, especially given this profound conditioning we have. that all these neurochemicals and hormones are circulating through our body as we sit. Even the consequences of what we ate for breakfast are the consequences of what we've been thinking and feeling in the last while and the consequences of our habituated thoughts and feelings.

[23:22]

If you remember, I was using these terms earlier, the hidayah and vriddha. Hidayah being this kind of core consciousness. I think of it as the same kind of territory as this deeply conditioned existence we are. It's this way in which our hormones, our neurochemicals, and other aspects of our physiology come to influence what's arising. And, you know, in the Dharma, it says, to a very significant degree, it's not accessible to our cognitive mind. And then I think for us, there's a very interesting question is, can we access it in any other way?

[24:28]

And so as Vedran starts to talk about polishing the tile, you know, getting to the physicality of being, coming into relationship to this territory, he says, this is something we study, you know? Unfortunately, in this chord, or in this classical, he doesn't offer his own notions as to exactly how you do that. My own notions are something like this, that as we work with posture and breath, that we start to create a what you might call an intelligent relationship with this fundamental being.

[25:32]

That there's something in sitting upright, there's something in allowing the body to be relaxed and open and settled that gives us a disposition that allows one more you might call it, allows the energy of being to flow, or facilitates the energy of being. And this is one form of polishing the tile. And then, of course, when we sit upright, when we attempt to relax, and relief. What do we experience? Well, we experience all the ways we don't relax and release. It draws forth our conditioned nature in a particular mode.

[26:37]

And then we need it just as it is. We try to notice, do I turn this into a moral play? Do I say swans or more have better moral character than prairie doves? Can I see that imputed, that arises out of karma consciousness, that imputed recognition of reality? I have difficulty with your words. Which words? and nobody defines it and it's not very clear to most people what I do when I sit and try to be relaxed or relaxing I'm not seeing that actually I am the contraction if I talk about the 7th consciousness or like the core consciousness that is already compact all it tries to do is

[28:00]

according to conditioning, is that really, I mean, chasing good things and running away from bad things. And so when we get to the mind of like any mind, or how do I stick without wanting anything? Because like this part, we need to tell the truth, like this part doesn't know how to do it. When you say this part, what? This part of consciousness. Doesn't know. Doesn't know how not to say. Or you have a gaining idea in his mind. Even when he sees that those gaining ideas are naturally tougher, even then he does not know. It's because he doesn't know what the cause is. I mean, it's like the way that things like I'm making myself.

[29:03]

It doesn't feel the whole ocean that it's waiting. The way it continues, it's things like I'm holding my own form. There I am. And it doesn't feel that actually the whole ocean is waiting in a particular way. And I'm a little bit maybe to the ally of the eighth consciousness. Not quite. You're actually closer to the seventh consciousness. Because the root consciousness is just a repository of potential conceptualization. But here's what I would tell you. In some ways, I agree with you when we use any term, right? So I was hoping for us to be more clear in the language of the root. When I say I think, you know, I think that swans have more moral character than furry dogs.

[30:21]

In a way, the example that arises illustrates the consciousness that brought it into being, you know. And that's a useful thing to remember, in fact, because I think I'm making a statement about reality, but really I'm making a statement about I. That's true, and I think is also another thought, and I haven't examined where this thought I think, and that is my thought, and I own it now, as it came from. So let me finish my thought, please. So that which is presented illustrates the eye. In the dorm, it says you can't see your own eyeball.

[31:21]

So if you turn it around and try to identify the eye, you're just creating another variety of constructs. Now, if you look at what's given wise, you can see in it part of the characteristic of that aspect of consciousness. I wouldn't call it a part of consciousness because I think it's more like the current expression of consciousness. You know, rather than here's a separate because then you start thinking, well, it's a consistent, right? The whole thing's utterly dynamic, right? And then where I would agree with you is then when statements are made,

[32:37]

implying, they're imputing a certain definition. But I would say it's only a problem when we take it as a permanent existence. In the same way as if we say, rather than creating a permanent separate reality, This is illustrative of the consciousness that produced it. What do you think of that? Okay.

[33:40]

Well, I thought I was heading in that direction. It's okay. Well, first of all, we were talking about it. In our normal way, in the normal way our karmic mind works is consciousness says that is such and such, you know. Swans have good moral character because they're monogamous. Now, if we extend that statement to say, I think and good moral character, then what I was saying was, then we start to see, well, actually, this is more of a statement about me than about swans.

[34:53]

That was my point. This is an expression of how this consciousness works. It takes a certain attribute And then it imputes onto that attribute a judgment called in some ways humorously anthropomorphizes the whole thing, right? You know, that somehow swans and I share certain kind of moral values. But it doesn't appear like that independent of my conditioned processing.

[35:57]

Yeah? There you go. And the fact that they made for life is no redeeming feature. Exactly. Each have our own story to tell. So back to this aspect of our being, and then my proposition was we can't contact it. We can't figure it out. But it's a little bit like this body, it's possible to be present for this body's working, experiencing the consequence of them, even though it's not possible.

[37:12]

I think maybe a great yogi can experience the neurochemicals in her brain, but most of us can't. of the coursing of hormones in our bloodstream. So being body, and then I would add being breath. The breath is also an access to the primary being or core being. In this other term, Vinta, which is a very interesting notion, it's learning through experience. And then if you think about it, what do we learn from experience?

[38:21]

So Brendan Breen did. had five family members killed, and apparently he learned something about acceptance, compassion, understanding human nature. I say apparently, right? Because I had a couple of conversations with him, and they were extraordinarily simple. He said something like, would you like some tea? Do you take sugar? I wish you a trip over. He was polishing the time. He was polishing the time? How much did you say that, Margie? What I was doing was disclaiming, having had some profound conversation with them.

[39:27]

That was the basis of the adjectives I just offered. There again, they're imputed. And just from watch from the story I heard about him and watching him interact with other people, he had a certain equanimity. Through experience, something appeared to have been learned, taken into its being. I don't know what verb is most helpful or what process is most helpful to describe. But I think you get what I mean. I mean, here, you can display a certain way of being as a consequence of what in most common ways of thinking and feeling would be Horrific things. I can remember someone else in that environment saying to me, they were involved in all that, and they said, I started off with principles and ideals, and now I'm filled with hate, rib, and revenge.

[40:39]

And I thought, yeah, that's what happens when you're around violence and things like that. And we could also say, well, that was a learned experience, right? This person was exposed to violence, and this is the consequence. So then what is it that inclines us one way rather than the other? What is it that inclines us to open? What is it that inclines us to control? What is it that inclines us to compassion? inclines us towards aggression, hatred. And then when we take that into the process of the awareness of Zazen, then it becomes quite an astute and refined practice.

[41:47]

And the way I read Dogen talking about polishing the tile is that he's saying This is the very territory of that process. Don't be so precaution to think, I sit here in freedom. I sit here beyond effort, beyond conditioned existence. No. Sit here, and these are my words, and take on the great con appropriate response. Of course, know the principle of non-attainment. Know the principle of just being. Know the principle of don't get carried away by your own imputation. But then within that, study.

[42:49]

Watch carefully. And there's another quote attributed to Bodhidharma. I think it's always helpful to remember. We're still not clear if there was a Bodhidharma. It's still an open debate. Andy Ferguson, the person I was referring to, is quite adamant that there is a Bodhidharma. He's found a little temple he was in, according to Andy. Anyway. these teachings that are attributed to them. And maybe it's good, you know? We call the teaching. Yeah, okay. Well, it's interesting. There's not a...

[43:52]

independent, unconditioned, Paul Haller, right? But there is a dependent arising, conditioned, Paul Haller. You've seen him, heard him, and whatever else. So in our conventional reality, there is such a thing. So conventionally, we're not so clear. And by Bodhidharma. Oh, that's a great question. I don't think in my reading of this that Durgin takes up the question.

[45:08]

can we not not polish the title? In this chapter, he's talking about what he considers to be skillful engagement of intention. So to me, I think he's assuming there is intention there. And it's a good question. Well, is there ever not intention? Very interesting question, regardless of how it expresses itself. But in this facet of the intention is in relationship to Zazen. And it's understood in the koan, in the story, that Master Ma is a diligent practitioner. He's not going up to someone who very seldom sits and says, well, what are you doing?

[46:16]

He's going up to someone who's very diligent about things. So I think the story as a premise has intentions there. That's the way I read it. So the body, the breath, Giving us some access to kardaya, heart consciousness. Heart, and that's the foundation of being. Or this aspect of being that David Brooks was trying to write about in his column. And then experiential learning. What is it we learn? And I'd offer you this notion. And then it's talking about the thing that Val talked about, you know, the mirror, where the mirror is clear, what's reflected is seen clearly.

[47:18]

So as we practice and we see with less of our own imputations, less of our own prejudices, Let's have our own construct. As Virgo said, when it comes forth and defines itself, that's awakening. This experience teaches in a way that supports wisdom. That's why we call it the wisdom mirror. clear wisdom mirror. And then Bhagavan is saying, in the process of sitting, as we attend to the experience with G. G. Yuzama, it's unavoidable that what arises

[48:32]

the flavor, the imputations, is perfumed by the character and the nature of self. But as we attend to it and continually, in our effort, see it for what it is, something is clarified. Does that make sense? Yeah, Michael. I was wondering, would Master Mahal's way of sitting being different if he thought differently about what he was doing? I don't think so. I mean, when he does that, he doesn't seem to be a Buddha. But if he thought he was just sitting in the present, he's not the fit. And would this the way he sits being different? That's a good question.

[49:42]

My understanding of a Dervin thing, and it's more or less my own experience too, is that, remember when I used to teach, I would never ask anyone what their intention was because I thought Your intention is just mere concept. They may be interesting and have merit in a conventional way. But when you sit, you'll go beyond concept. So why just even reread them in the first place, even if they have their own merit? But I've come to realize And also studying the teachings. So from my own perspective of thinking, well, our practice is beyond concept.

[50:49]

And then I would read some of the early sutras. And I think, it sounds like Shakyamuni is saying, think about this. And then recently I was reading Thich Nhat Hanh, and he was saying, think about this. No, think about a certain concept of practice. No, think about a certain concept of intentional involvement. This is a long-winded way of saying, I have come to think, and the way I understand several teachings, is that the thought process can be a helpful component to the city. Now, it's sitting intrinsically about going beyond the thought. Yeah. But even in this story, Master Ma and Nangako have an exchange, and then at some point Master Ma says to Nangako, well then, if it's not about striving, what is it about?

[52:07]

And he says, well, it's about birth. And the story says, and Master Maha had an insight. Then he practiced with that insight for 10 years. That's one version of the story. The concept can be instructive. It can guide the effort. I remember when someone came to me and they said, I've made a vow not to move. So no matter how bad the pain is, I just clench my fists, grit my teeth, and don't move. And I thought, that's probably helpful in some ways, but it's also potentially unhelpful in other words, to make that fixed idea about what the point of practice is.

[53:15]

So we're refining our thinking to support us to go beyond just expressing our own fixed opinion. Does that help? Well, the way I read Dürgen's commentaries in this, he's saying something like, yes, my basic teaching is just be present for anything and everything that happens, trying not to change it, just experience it as completely as possible. However, in the service of that intention,

[54:20]

plays a role. Effort plays a role. You know? He takes the work in my car, the straightforward interpretation of this, and says, no, the tile has a place. Intending to become Buddha has a place. Just don't get stuck. Don't let either intention be the goal. They are the engagement that keeps unfolding. And that's the nature of consciousness. As consciousness becomes more present, it becomes more perceptive. As experience starts to let go of how it's holding on to the imputation, what's arising then in the conditioned existence is not so singularly or dominantly me, my karmic consciousness.

[55:38]

So the I, and that's one of Dogen's other favorite phrases, is dropping off body and mind. What is the engagement? facilitate the experience to not do so much about me and more about the nature of what is, exemplified by this momentary arising. What about that? I feel that it's too much to me right now. Oh, okay, okay. Any other thoughts? Yes. I think somebody asked him, what do you think about when you sit zaza? And he said, I give myself zaza and instruction. And I would add to that, that as we continue to sit, that zaza and instruction becomes more and more subtle.

[56:46]

Yeah. Yes. Shinjin Datsuraku. Mm-hmm. Body-mind dropped off. If you don't say... I think if you say dropping body-mind, some people take that as, I have to drop body-mind. Or there's somebody who's got to drop body-mind. I've got to do this thing called dropping body-mind. So sometimes it's translated body-mind dropped off. Well, actually... Dovin takes the phrase, and then sometimes he says, Shinjin Datsu Raku, and then sometimes he says, Datsu Raku Shinjin. So it's commonly translated as, driving off body and mind, body and mind dropped off. And as if to say, there's an interplay between the intention and the realization.

[57:46]

the doing and the experiencing. Yeah. He will move them back and forth in a Dogen way. He is a teacher, right? Dogen and Ruben. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But in several levels, he uses both sides of that. He turns the phrase back and forth. Yes. Yes. And what I'm saying, Shogun, is like, to my understanding, that's the traditional understanding of this.

[59:09]

And then it's interesting that Doga takes it and almost like turns it inside out. Okay, striving was not a good thing. And Duggan says, not so fast. If you think that a human being is just simply capable of really being clear of their conditioned existence, it's a little naive. You polish to learn to experience going beyond college. We make our effort to realize non-efforty. And you know, in the last class I was talking about building, saying, maybe you beat the card or you beat the ox.

[60:16]

And then, of course, the conventional answer is, well, you know, you attend to the mind that's creating it all. And Jürgen says, no, you attend to everything. You attend to what's arising, you know. What's created by that mind and you attend to the mind. You know, you relate to what's arising, you know. If what's arising is irrelevant, then why are we here? Why don't we just kind of like stick with our regular life and say, just attend to the mind in your regular life? You don't need special conditions. Well, apparently we think we do. Anyone who thinks they don't have an epistemology has a bad one. Yeah.

[61:18]

When you say washing our boat, I was trying to talk in the context of Zazen. Could you fit that into that context? and then engagement, you have to engage each other with me, and allowing that, which is big for yourself.

[63:23]

And that's similar to watching the book? If I'm thinking about intention, and thinking about reflection, and I'm normally thinking about reflection as a kind of institution of our thoughts that that can, uh, uniquely, uh, hold on to Munich, uh, including something, um, and be kind of attached to that, uh, as, you know, as a deputy, um, uh, that, you know, uh, being, I mean, inspired by karmic people to see such, um, uh, that, that there's a value, um, to advocate the arbitrage Yeah, certainly. Hold what arises with me.

[64:26]

My impression is that, like, all the Buddhist masters have all, if they, when I ask the Chairman of Lighting, they'd be like, oh, me? No, no, no, no. I, I felt much better. And my question is then, like, how was Justin really able to say, uh, yeah, unlike? Was it just a compassionate statement to get people to practice? Or was there actually, you know, a threshold, you know, a dualistic question, but, uh, yeah, like, why, uh, how could he set you to do it? So we have the Pali Canon, right? And we don't have any recordings of what Chakyamuni said, like audio recordings or video. We have the Pali Canon, which was an oral tradition, apparently, supposedly, after he died, Ananda, with his perfect recall, recalled what he said.

[65:41]

So that was an oral tradition, as far as we can tell, two to three hundred years. And it was written on palm leaves, which in the tropics brought it out. So it was rewritten, I don't know, maybe every six months or a year or whatever for the next couple hundred years until we got paper. So in saying that... Here's where I was going with it. You have these amazing, wonderful teachings, and then there's a request of each of us to authenticate them within our own practice. It does seem like Shakyamuni did say, I have wakened up, woken up.

[66:54]

declare himself an unsurpassed Anyuttara, Samri, Aksham, Bodhi, Buddha. From the early canon, it doesn't seem like he made such statements. He did make other statements, though, that he had wakened up from the canon. I mean, this is what it says in the canon. that he saw profoundly the nature of human existence, the transmigration of how things come into being. And it seems like he taught with considerable authority. But if you could also say he taught what he had experienced. And that's all. And when things came up, that he thought was out of the realm of what he was trying to teach.

[67:56]

You know, the early canon, the later Buddhist texts, don't seem to say that, but the early canon seems to say, he just said, that's not what I teach, and that is not essential to the process of hypno, as I teach it. So, he'll die. It seems like he didn't particularly want to be rehashing and rehearsing these things. That's correct. It seems like he has recognized it as a minor to moderate irritation, and then he was embellishing it with all of these rehashing, pre-pairing, and whatnot. What, you know, so, to some degree, they'll become undifferent.

[68:58]

I thought it was a good idea to do that. What's the purported advantage of all of that? The advantage of it. Well, it's what was happening. And to answer your question directly, I would say sometimes it's edifyingly humbling to see some aspects of our unrelenting karmic consciousness. You know? And, of course, it can also be extraordinarily painful and frustrating and disturbing and disappointing and discouraging, right? Now, but to see it... and not take it personally, you know?

[70:02]

Then we, I think we see something informative. And that's when David wrote this article, you know, he called it the deeper self, you know? And the pieces of his article was, when we see this sort of stuff, we're more deeply informed about the human condition. And we receive clues, information. about how, you know, to put it in one way, how to be a deep person, you know, in contrast to just in casual terms, not what we might think of as a shallow person. You know, I would say that most of us think, you know, Brandon Breen, the person who met the murderers of his own sister and apparently had an engaging conversation and forgave them and talked deeply about the whole process that they were all immersed in.

[71:11]

And we would say, well, that person had some depth. They had some wisdom. And I think the great generosity of our practices would even see our own agitation around someone not passing the gamathio, there's a profound teaching, you know, in that. And then if you say, even if it just sort of stops you in your track and reminds you, you still got some work to do, that can be helpful too. maybe when Dogen was writing about the worthiness or equity of polishing tile, that he's not losing sight of the fact that tile is just a piece of fake red clay.

[72:23]

That tile is tile. What do you think of Kota Suwaki always saying, good for nothing? And until you realize it's good for nothing, it's really good for nothing. And, well, I think it's a provocative way to talk about the process of sense. You know, I mean, everything already is exactly what it is, and the assertion of our karmic consciousness neither adds or subtracts from that. So it's good for nothing. But as long as you think the assertion of your common consciousness will change it, improve it, well then it's really good for nothing. It's kind of a nice play on words. From my mind,

[73:32]

This is how my mind works. I want to take away the doable. I feel like if we're left with an intriguing, complicated notion, it's not so accessible. It's not accessible the next time you have a chance encounter that stirs up your karmic energy, your habitual desires or aversion. So then what is the kind of accessible teaching of all this? For me it's something like this. Whatever's happening is happening.

[74:33]

And that's why I like the phrase, what's happening? What's happening now? Because we live in a now. We live in a temporal space continuum, time continuum. So how to carry for yourself some expression of immediacy, some expression that in your workings, both mysterious and intentional, is a way of inviting presence, is a way of engaging now. This is it, however that might be.

[75:39]

And I would say, as the mind settles, it inclines towards a more wordless or even thoughtless expression. But I would say, as the mind settles. When the mind is not so settled, The intentionality of it is instructive. I'd say that. And that's how I read this. And I apologize that it seemed to get very complicated. That was my feeble efforts, not the teaching. But I would hope Where I had hoped to take this was to add in shunyata, the notion that in this conditioned arising, there's nothing to grasp and nothing to resist.

[76:49]

It's simply the arising experience. And so what our teachings in the Zen school say, and this is how I interpret Dogen, As we come into immediacy of experience, this is what is realized. There's nothing to grasp and there's nothing to push away. And it's all this energetic expression in the moment. And still polishing the tile. And still diligent effort, to go beyond effort. Yes? What are you reading?

[77:56]

What are you reading there? Do you think it works on iron? Yeah. Iron mind. Yeah. It's great. I think it doesn't stop her or because there is no other teacher. So people kind of get rid of something that we need to find, probably in the car. Maybe we should ask you, and I'm not you. Right after the day, I have to say, how people use in a car to realize you.

[79:00]

And then love it and say, should we be alive? Should we pour into a car? is the work of an Iron Man. He does not rely on the resources of others. I hear that song. And I would say, he's unabashed in saying, effort has its place. And I would say, this is has its place in the service of effortless effort. And that each time we come to sit, we start at the beginning. You witness and experience the body-mind of that moment and address it with

[80:04]

the diligence that you can muster and then take it from there. It's very... Dagon doesn't simply say diligence. He says diligence in addition. We don't just talk about effort. We talk about right effort. So we can chew forever on the person who didn't pass the gamasio.

[81:06]

And it can become more... You know, where we can start to see it, see its conditioned existence. As that person recounted that story to me, they were seeing it. They were marveling at, can you believe that this karmic consciousness has so much authority in my being? I mean, it kind of, it was an insightful expression. And I would say that kind of effort, that effort that's moving towards what you might call seeing through the construct. Or sometimes in the territory of our own conditioned existence, we see, oh, this is the current

[82:10]

expression of a dynamic that goes through my life, you know? And the reason it's so potent is because the dynamic is extraordinarily significant to me, you know? Because let's face it, if it wasn't extraordinarily significant for you, you'd just go, huh? You know? You will not be sitting in your cabin ruminating whether or not you're going to go to Brightwood. And so that too, it offers us a way to touch the depths of our own me. And even Vidaya consciousness, without its cognitive overlay, offers us a way to touch the depths of our being. That's the word that's created.

[83:15]

Say what? Yeah. Well, realized would maybe be a more appropriate verb.

[83:24]

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