A man named Lung Ye went to see Sui Wei and he asked, ìWhat is the meaning of Bodhidharma? What is the meaning of the patriarch coming from the West?î And Wei said, ìPass me the meditation brace.î I forget, but I think it's a board you put under your chin to sleep when you're meditating. He said, pass me the meditation grace. He did, and then Wei hit him with it. Not funny. And Lung said, since you

[01:06]

hit me, I'll let you, but essentially there's no, in essence, there's no meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the Patriarch coming from the West. Later he met Linji and said, what is the meaning of the Patriarch coming from the West? And Linji, this is very interesting, same Perception. Linji said, pass me the cushion. Meditation cushion. So he did. And he hit him with it. And he threw it at him. Like a basketball. And Kriya said, since you hit me, I let you. What? In essence, there is no meaning. Bodhidharma, a picture coming from the West. Introduction to the story says, Mountains piled on mountains. Ranges and heaps up against walls, pressed against barriers.

[02:34]

if you linger in thought and don't realise your... don't act your potential, you'll be bitterly cramped, it says. So... and then goes on to say, with one stroke, to turn over mountains. and oceans and so on. Usually, the first day of session I talk to you about your posture and your breath, but today I want to emphasise, the emphasis for today, for your practice is What is substantial reality, or is there any substantial reality? Where do you find, if you like, your identity? And you should not give up easily.

[03:53]

Especially not by saying, oh, everything is changing. Buddhism says there's no self, so there's no self. In essence, there's no meaning of bodhidharma coming from the West. That's not good enough. And even if you find the most substantial thing in your own mind or body, and after, a while you conclude, even if it's not substantial, please don't give up at that point. But through that which looks substantial, see, find something beyond that that's substantial. What is substantial? Or emphasize earth, you are meditating on earth. or material, your body, your buttocks sitting. Are your buttocks sitting or is your restlessness or your mind or some idea sitting? But today, what is the most substantial thing for you?

[05:15]

I think for most of us it's our way of life that's more substantial than anything, and the most difficult thing to get at and the thing we are most unwilling to give up. Most unwilling to give up. We saw it recently in people's church. They were willing to kill their physical bodies Many were willing to kill their physical bodies and give up their way of life or their identity mixed up with each other's identity. Whole society is also that kind of identity. Our identity mixed up. Most politics, radical politics, ultra-conservative politics, are reactions against.

[06:50]

One, the right thinks it's not organized enough, and the left thinks it's too organized. Just two types of people. Some people want it more organized, some people want it less organized. The problem is, when you create a chaotic situation, if the chaos ends, the most organized people take over. then you have no situation. I think if you didn't find Buddhism... If we didn't find Buddhism, we might be very political, left or right. And the people involved in politics, I think, are rightly worried about yoga and meditation and so forth as taking people out of politics. Taking, so you don't find your identity in a political realm, in some government. You don't think some government's going to solve your problem.

[08:23]

Although it's a very terrible thing, a recent killing. Harvey Milk and George Moscone and Congressman Ryan, three assassinations in California. But from historical point of view and also Buddhist point of view, the order of the day, not something... it's a terrible event, but not something you get depressed about. You already know this is what society is like. If you read Gibbon, for example, his pages are just filled with one person assassinating another.

[09:36]

And usually, for political power, it's not so bad, actually, when you have whole social identity, for personal power. But when you're trying to, you're involved with the way society should be, more people die, just if you're trying to get some power. Or if you read Su Su Ma Qian, great Chinese historian. Likewise, over and over again, such things happen. Even Suzuma Chien was castrated himself for trying to protect someone, defend someone who was being criticized. Empress Wu So if you're practicing Buddhism, your identity is not involved in it.

[11:03]

establishment, whatever particular government or society. You're not involved in government or political or even biological survival. So you take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, but what is Buddha, Dharma and Sangha? Is it something insubstantial or something substantial? I think you should not too quickly say it's insubstantial. We find so much our own consciousness in minute particulars. Although we are rather clumsy, most of us, I notice, again, Elizabeth. She is, you know, at first her hands are wandering about, scratching herself, bumping into herself, and not able to hold on to things. And then, in a few days, suddenly she stops scratching herself and can hold on to things.

[12:38]

But, you know, it's interesting to see something we wear. Robes are, again, so useful. I can look at your robes. Okay, so a promo or sitting robe. And many of us have not learned to stop bumping into ourselves. Robe is all worn in certain ways, like your shoes. heel is way worn, one side or the other. This is a kind of unconsciousness. I don't mean your heel should be perfectly flat and show nowhere at all, because you're floating. Very good if you can do it. Still, just how our clothes, our body, if you just change your shirts and You don't see it, but something you wear year after year after year, you can tell how roughly a person takes the fabric in their hand. And it's this fine-tuning that we also invest tremendous psychological energy. The cruder our consciousness, perhaps, the more we invest in it. It's like people get involved in putting razor blades under pyramids.

[14:05]

Somehow the razor you... You know, somebody will put their razor under the... Because you've used it and now it's getting dull. But when it's dull you take a razor just the same age out of your package and you open it and it's new and it's not dull, but if it's being cosmically dull, the ones in the package should be being dulled too. I'm not saying putting it under a pyramid doesn't work, but just that it's that indefinable area where we can't quite tell, can't measure, is it dull or not. It's so difficult, for those of you who shave, so difficult. Is the razor dull? I don't know. Is my skin different today, or is my mood different, or is my hand rough? Or is it the razor blade's fault? Very hard to figure out. Very difficult question. Much easier to study something and make analysis of it than to know if your razor blade is actually sharp or dull. But yet we have such premonitions. At that very area, if this is a good day or a bad day or something will happen,

[15:35]

two or more of the people who went to Guyana, the photographer and so forth, the congressman's assistant, had premonition. They said goodbye to people and made wills. What is the premonition? Is it real or not? Is it just I'm anxious? Am I intuitively psyching out the situation or am I prescient or clairvoyant? kind of fate or life, or biology. In Africa, most of the people are gathering firewood, gathering wood to make charcoal to support themselves, and by gathering wood they are turning their country into a desert. Some people say, don't do it, don't do it, but the people who say it are 5% of the people who have enough wealth, and the other 95% say, well, you're robbing us of our livelihood. So maybe it's a political problem.

[17:06]

five percent, or maybe it's a biological problem, overpopulation, too many people, or economic problem, maybe it's just a matter of distribution of some technical biological problem like salad is biology. Once it's a salad it's no longer botany, it's biology. Or your genes are 20% different from a horse, but only 1% different from a monkey. So the kind of fine-tuning, you know, just there. Collecting the firewood. How do you stop those people from collecting the firewood? How do you stop the country from becoming a desert? You know, if you... It seems pretty clear. I've never done the studies myself, but if you have a computer select things randomly, it's very mathematical, very mathematical.

[18:49]

But if you have a human being, select things randomly, it doesn't follow mathematics exactly. Pretty close, but not quite. At least, I'm told that fairly authoritatively. Or, you know, squirrels hide their acorns, and then they forget where some of them are buried. Luckily, they forget where some of them are buried or there'd be no acorn trees. So if they remembered them all, soon there'd be no acorn trees for the next generation to live under and to find acorn. So their forgetfulness is absolutely necessary for their survival. But how do you figure out the mathematics of forgetfulness? Which acorns you forget? How do you know the planning of your own life? Which acorns you are forgetting or remembering? Where does your consciousness reside at that minute level? There's some Chinese saying, probably Taoist saying, the dragons lie cold in the earth and must not be

[20:19]

disturbed by the buildings or graves of men. The dragons lie cold in the earth and must not be disturbed by the buildings or graves of men. If we followed such a rule, we'd treat the land much better than we do. Such a crazy idea. The dragons lie cold in the earth. But it's true. What is dragon? Like the sky. Some power of earth. Some fine-tuning of our consciousness. Dragons fine-tuning of your consciousness. Of your buttocks on the cushion. of your ability to sit here without anxiety of love or social pressure or your identity. Do you want to find out your identity in terms of this society or not? If you do, it means in a technical sense you are a layman. If you don't, it means you are a Buddhist.

[21:50]

Of course, we find provisional identity in terms of our society. It's interesting, you know, too, by contrast, I was... something I read, an article, a woman, a study a woman has done on people who are successful when they are young And almost, or virtually all of them, were outsiders in high school. They didn't share their identity with the other people, their family or high school kids. And also, they were not particularly involved in success. More involved in just working. They enjoyed working. And when they do something, they want time, they want to do something else next. And they're almost all also very involved in their mistakes in a positive way, like which acorns you forget. Not at all involved in the megalomania of invincibility.

[23:15]

This is very important to Zen too, sensualism. So Dogen emphasized it a lot, that phrase, life is one continuous mistake. How to remain ordinary, very ordinary? So a teacher should have lots of visible faults or be some genuinely very ordinary person. Or there's so much tendency to get involved in invincibility or being always right. I don't mean me, just about you, each of us, as our own teacher, as our own projection

[24:32]

John Ashbery has a poem, I'm not sure I can remember it, but it's called something like, As if Drunk and Thrown in a Packet Boat. I think that would be a good description of it. Sashim. As if Drunk and Thrown in a Packet Boat. He says something like, the time has come for something to happen, and even the most inattentive falls silent, and we wait for what is prepared. Something like that. We wait for what is prepared. Now, what is prepared? Who prepared it? Your blood, or karma, or good fortune, or bad stars? At this level of the tomb,

[26:31]

It's very minute, moment by moment. It's the kind of thing when anxiety gives us, oh, this means something. But when you're not anxious, still, that notice. And not just certain ones that your personality comes up, brings up. Driving out of here the other day, again. I'm a little embarrassed to keep mentioning Elizabeth, so I always say, again. Elizabeth, I'm holding her, driving out. Longest I've had a chance to hold her since she was born. Who is driving? Vanya is driving? Vanya. You went very slowly, so I had a chance to hold her for a long time. And someone had told her, because you were bouncing so much. But it was, according to Virginia, the smoothest ride she's ever had. But, still, for a baby, rather, bouncing. So I'm holding her.

[28:05]

quite conscious, you know, looking around and responding, and her head was against my cheek. And then, after a while, she went to sleep. And as she went to sleep, I could feel her go to sleep, because the heat left her head, drained out of her head. It was such a vivid example of that heat and consciousness. Your access to consciousness is your heat. Your access to this fine-tuning, this rising mind, not sinking mind, rising mind, or heat. How to find heat? in your hands, and evenly throughout your body. So this activity of what is substantial reality, how do you feel quite free to

[29:37]

Know your reality like we taste water, knowing it's wet. It is this way of life. One of dangers, I think a big danger, is to mix up Da and politics. The confusion of Marxism and people's church, religious ideas. It doesn't have to be Marxism, any political idea.

[30:58]

to try to look for, to confuse substantial on identity with substantial reality in the sense of government. It's dangerous to create. There's some danger in creating your own reality. Or, if you try to save the world, this is the best way to save the world. It's a very dangerous idea. Buddhism is the best idea. Very dangerous idea, because then the world becomes your enemy. And if the world doesn't agree, you fight with the world. Why don't you find out

[32:16]

But also it's dangerous just to take a given world as real. In very practical terms, where does your consciousness reside? Where does your identity reside? Are you projecting some personal fantasy of power? on everybody, on your future, on the world, creating your own world and making everybody come to it. We have such substantial ideas, most of them secret. We don't want to disturb something like a look in a glass. Have I been noticed? Have I been a look in a glass? I walk along shaking. Have I been noticed again as I am? Or have I escaped attention? Whose attention?

[34:00]

We talk about hidden practice. It doesn't mean you are just modest and you don't show your good works. At this level of fine-tuning of whether your razor blade is sharp or not, only you have access to it. This is only your work, the heat. The nature of your rising or sinking mind is your work. We can find some... Can we find some reality that's not defined by political or economic or even biological? Does it mean to overturn oceans or earth? When you take a step, is earth going to be there for you?

[35:15]

Do you trust it or expect it? Where are you looking for your substantial survival, substantial reality? Or are you just saying, ah, it's a game, I'll play the game. That's too easy. So this is not some Zen story or Buddhist question or academic question. It's actually how you live and the advantage of this packet book, of this session.

[36:17]

to have again a chance to confront yourself or your reality, where, what substantial ideas you have. And if you find you need It's essential to it. Everything is not relative. Something is substantial. Where is that substantiality? Show me that substantiality.

[37:02]

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