So last week I gave a talk here and I talked about a coin from the Blue Cliff record and tonight I'm going to give a talk. I'm going to talk about the same case. Repetition is okay in Zen because it's never the same. Sometimes I think someone came to talk to me this morning in Dagestan and they said to me, every time I come to see you and talk to you, I have the same question. And it made me think, I think for many of us, I know for myself, that it feels like my whole life is the same question. What the hell's going on? Something like that.

[01:17]

Sometimes I try to pretty it up and say my question is being fully alive or something like that. You know, I'm doing a yoga retreat with Anne and a bunch of other people, Anne O'Brien and Anne Baker. And in the middle of our retreat, the Buddha tray would come in, you know, this offering to Buddha. And it's so striking, you know, in the midst of that activity, to have something like this happen. You know, here is the Buddha mind, the Buddha heart is being nurtured, is being nourished. before the physical body.

[02:27]

What is that nurturing? How is it enabled? What is it to nurture your spiritual being? What is it to nurture the aliveness of our inquiry into our life, our engagement, What is it to nurture the fortitude, the brilliance, the patience that goes beyond egocentric thinking? So last time when I talked about this, I was talking about contrasting alive and dead and the struggle for survival, which is a wonderfully sneaky thing. Sometimes habit becomes I have to have, you know. I have to read the newspaper before I go to work or I have to have a cup of coffee or something of that nature.

[03:36]

It's a wonderful game of treasure hunting to search through your lives for the things you have to do or have to have. to survive. Most of them are amazing. They're amazing because they don't really make sense. But somehow they glue our life together. And it's like the great matter of birth and death is like Manjushri's sword. it cuts up this stream of preoccupation, this inner dialogue, this wondering and worrying that we keep going through. Is everything going to be okay? Am I going to get what I want, avoid what I don't want? Then something just interjects.

[04:43]

So very mischievously, As the doan was bringing in the Buddha trade this morning and then did the offering and then was about to take it off the altar, I took her by the wrist and asked her a question. It's a dangerous world here at Zen Center. You never know. But I asked her a question because I felt very close to her. You know, having done Dogasan, I just felt this deep appreciation, you know, for the people I spoke to, for all of you working here this summer. The patience, the diligence, the sincerity of your practice.

[05:50]

And... for this wonderful place and my own years of practice here and the many people who have practiced here. Like a great Buddha body, you know. And in my imagination, the Zendo is like the navel of the Buddha body. And then this offering comes right into the middle of the Buddha body. Here, Buddha. What is it? What is the offering? And how do you know if it's nourishing the Buddha body? Is your spiritual life being nourished, enlivened? Is something lightning, something, some curiosity, about who you are and what your interactions are all about.

[06:58]

Do these have-tos that sew your life together, can they become curios? Can they become something that you look at? How about that? What a strange and wonderful thing. Just that. So somehow when our questioning can come from a place of connection, not an accusation, not a competition, not an oppression. What's going on here? What's this amazing, wonderful thing that's happening here? What is it? The great matter of birth and death happening here right in the Buddha body that we are all part of.

[08:15]

How could we not be? So I'm going to say a little bit more, and I'm going to read the case, and then we're going to have questions, and then we have to, have to end by 9.20. Let's see. The Eno has given me a stern warning not to repeat last week's catastrophe. So sometimes life and death Besides being a wonderful play, it's hard to know where's the life and where's the death. Here's a story I read recently. It was about a man. He lived up in Washington, and he had a house, and the sun was shining on it, so he planted maple trees along the south side.

[09:16]

And the trees started to grow up, and they were, oh, I don't know, 10, 12 feet tall. And these aphids came. First of all, one or two. And then pretty soon, there were just masses of aphids all over the leaves. And his neighbors came and said, well, here's how you get rid of aphids. You spray them with this. And he didn't do it. And then his mother came and she said, well, wash them off. Just use water. And he thought, that's a good idea, and he didn't do that either. And then the aphids started to eat the leaves. And he was thinking, I wonder what's going to happen. You know, the aphids are eating the leaves, and if they keep eating all the leaves, the trees will die. And I don't want the trees to die. So it turns out that aphids, when they're doing their thing, they secrete a sweet substance.

[10:29]

And so pretty soon, the tree was covered with this kind of sweet substance. And then yellow jackets and hornets and wasps and other kinds of flies and insects started to come. And of course, this guy was nobody's fool, because as we all know, What eats aphids is ladybugs. So he was watching for the ladybugs. A whole week passed, leaves are falling, no ladybugs. Another week passed, one or two ladybugs. And then eventually the ladybugs just came in swarms. So, so is that a happy ending? Or is that an unhappy ending? What if you're an aphid? How would you like a big ladybug chomping your dine? By the dozen.

[11:32]

You and your brothers and your sisters. What is it to just let life unfold? What is it to not rush in and fix it? I got a phone call today from someone who had been here during the No Race in May and he was telling me how his son had a recurrence of melanoma and he was on this brand new experimental treatment. Ferocious. They just take your system apart. They lower your immune system. They give your whole body this incredible chemotherapy and then they build your immune system back up.

[12:37]

And then I got a phone call today saying it's not working. So sometimes life and death doesn't seem like a cute puzzle. Are you a ladybug or an aphid? Sometimes it's stark. It's more evident and impactful than we want it to be. So how do we, as Zen practitioners, realize we're always coursing in this stream of life and death? How do we wake up from the dream of survival?

[13:41]

This anxious preoccupation with flights of desire. And diversion and fear and regret. How do we do that? So here's the Zen way. First step, get in touch with what's going on. Second step shut up and listen sometimes called silent illumination Third step Just keep learning what the heck's going on Allow that to be

[14:50]

the way life is engaged and death is engaged. Sometimes called great doubt. So in Zen, koans are to hone our great doubt, to get us wandering. The person I stopped and asked a question of, the Doan I stopped this morning and asked a question of, she confided to me later. She said, when you asked me that question, I went into a state of shock and fear. And I didn't even know what I said. Yeah. Sometimes that's our life. And then we left.

[15:53]

It's very helpful to have each other's support in this process. That was that upsurge of appreciation that I had this morning. What a blessing to be able to do this together. Yeah, it hurts. It's difficult. It's challenging. It's perplexing. But it's a blessing all the same. So, the last piece of my primer. How am I doing? What's the time? Oh, God. Last piece of my primer. This is all just the intro to the case. It's a little bit of a poem by Rumi. He's talking about this very thing, about being nurtured.

[17:07]

It's easy to put food in our mouths. Actually, it's not that easy. But it's not that easy to be fully present for putting food in our mouths. But what is it to nurture our spiritual inquiry? So first of all, he talks about intimacy, getting close, making contact, stage one. It's like a baby at the mother's breast, knowing nothing of the visible or invisible worlds. Everything is milk. Though it could not define that, it can't talk. This is the riddle that drives the mind crazy. That is the opener and what is opened. They're the same.

[18:12]

It's the ocean inside the fish that burs it along, not the river water. The time river spreads and disperses into the ocean with the fish. Seeds break open and dissolve in the ground. Only then will new fig trees come into being. So you must die before you die. So now you're fully prepared for this. Here it is. Tao Wu and Chen Yan went to a house to make a condolence call. Yan hit the coffin and said, alive or dead? Wu said, I won't say alive and I won't say dead. Yan said, why won't you say? I won't say.

[19:14]

Halfway back, as they were returning, Jan said, tell me right now. If you don't tell me, I'll hit you. You may hit me, but I won't say. Then he hit him. So Cohen is like a Rorschach test, you know? It's like, look at this inkblot, what do you see? Listen to this Cohen, what do you hear? So, let me read it again. What do you hear? What stands out? Where does your mind go? Where do you find yourself in it? What shape does it take? How does it point to the great matter of life and death? How does it reveal the activity of who you are and what you are? Wu and Yan went to a house to make a condolence call. Yan hit the coffin. Alive or dead?

[20:16]

I won't say alive, and I won't say dead. Why won't you say? I won't say. Halfway back, as they were returning, Yan said, Tell me right now, teacher. If you don't tell me, I'll hit you. You may hit me, but I won't say. Yan hit him. What did you hear? How does it inform your life? Where does it resonate with what happened in your day today? Yes, Danny. It throws me a feeling of grasping. A feeling of grasping?

[21:17]

He wants to know the answer, but we don't see him. It's like a burning question. He's got to know the answer. He's So what about today, Danny? Where did that question take shape? Oh, there were so many things that didn't go well there. Did you hit them? And what did they reveal?

[22:24]

What did they teach you? What did they show you? I don't know what else I'm doing. I work day and night. I work day and night. I work day and night. Yeah, thank you. Somebody put their hand up, please. What was that first phrase? Yes. And some of these say it's dead, and some of these say it's not alive, it's dead, it's going to rot in the block.

[23:31]

I think the world would really listen to me anyway. But not say, you know, be really quick to not say whether or not it's alive or dead. You know, I don't want to tell anyone. I mean, they're curious. You know, they'll just get down, or they'll go blind. And the great human being out there, it's just, it's just a little problem. So what came up today that mystified you? That held up doubt? Earlier today someone came and spoke to me about blood in the eye, they sleep in the water. And I realized there was a long story, like a... Mm-hmm.

[24:43]

Mm-hmm. [...] How was it? How was it? To just answer the question? Yeah? I think, as I'm saying, I think that's when it touched me less a little bit. I couldn't quite understand the, you know, the realm of it, you know. And I think they quite, they worked very well.

[25:47]

Okay, thank you. Please. The student sounds like a child? Yeah, like a child asking... Why is this five-year-old, all of these questions? There's this receivable desire to know, and there's also this expectation that the person you're asking can actually give you the answer that they know, you know, that the other person knows, but you don't tell them that they know. And all you can do is hit them and shake them or ask them, and they'll give you what you want. Yeah, and that came up very clearly for me today in the wisdom, where I was asking the questions, and at the end of the long and very hopeful conversations, I felt like I hadn't gotten the answers to any of my questions.

[26:52]

And I actually said that, you know, and I felt this feeling of frustration. It's interesting, isn't it? Sometimes it seems like We're doing something, and it's almost like some other part of us is saying, why are you doing this? You know this isn't it. Sometimes it's helpful to take a call and think of it as an internal dialogue. It's like two parts of ourselves talk to each other. No? Please. Thank you, Bob. I've done a lot of programming, and to use it, I've done it again with Eric.

[27:58]

For a popular social, it's always, it's a normal thing for me to use it in a way that I'm creative about moving to. Ask a super question and go out and ask questions and such. And it's just how I... I think that sometimes it's been really creative. So I think what I'd like you to look through today is right now, [...] Please. Why he has to hit him?

[29:08]

What do you mean you don't understand it? You don't understand what a hit is? Or why he'd be motivated to do such a thing? Well, keep it going then. What happens next? What do you say? I mean, these are stories meant to stimulate... the our engagement in practice? How does that stimulate your engagement in practice? I'm not saying you have to approve of it, or agree with it. Something not implying that, how does it stimulate your practice? Do you have a response?

[30:32]

I don't know yet. Okay. Well, that's pretty good. After all, this is Zen. Not knowing is pretty good. Great doubt. Yeah. You're going to say something then? I was going to say, it's such an obvious call for me today, you know, talking about my letter. Right. And I can see, you know, that desire to separate life from death and my desire to separate my life from her death in thinking about it. Right. My life wants to go over there. And then you said, you know, sometimes you practice the ways right there and you're looking all over trying to find... Yeah. ...what else it might be. Right. So what hits me is that desire to separate and that finding out And then Rumi takes it and inverses it and says, the ocean is inside the fish.

[31:41]

Not only are we not separate from it, we're like filled with it. Please. I was thinking the reason why this is the teacher is, like we were saying earlier, about trying to change the condition of life and death and not letting it just be the way it is, but he's actually acting out because he knows the answer and that he won't accept it. So he's trying to change what he knows the teacher has sent him. So is that what you do? Do you try to change the answer you already know? Not anymore? Congratulations. Please. The urgency.

[32:45]

Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay, last question. Last comment, please. You've done hospice work, haven't you? I have, yes. Have you been in the company of a person that's been going with you? I have, yes. What can you tell me about that experience? It's very obvious.

[33:54]

The person breathes out. and they don't breathe in again, and they're dead. And it's mysterious. For me, it was like my cognitive mind simply could not comprehend something that seemed so utterly obvious. It was like... one of my species had died and something on a cellular level was struggling hard to figure out what that was and what the implication of that was and and it seemed to be as much about

[34:54]

entering life as it was about witnessing death. So that's what I'd say. Okay. And one last poem. This one is about a follow-on on Rumi's notion. We're filled with it. and that this very devious and determined struggle for survival that we all seem so intrigued by, that maybe there is an alternative. And this is one by Roque. This is a suggestion. You must not understand life. Only then will it become a feast. and let each day happen to you, like a child who goes along and lets herself be showered with blossoms. To gather them up to save never enters the mind of the child.

[36:00]

She lets them go from out of her hair and holds with open, outstretched hands her dear young years to whatever comes next." So, may we all be so lucky and may we each day make that offering to the mind of awakening, the heart of awakening, to something in us that brought us here. We came here to do this. Whether we came as students or we came as guests, this is the beating heart of our Buddha life. May we always stay close to it. And may we help each other in the process. Thank you very much.

[36:52]

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