I don't like to add something to your reality, something unnecessary. Can you hear me in the back? Okay. By asking, always as we do in Zen, what is our reality? why should we step out of what we're doing and ask, what is our reality? And some people actually, even though this questioning state of mind is the most fertile area, aspect of practice in Zen, still, for many of you, it seems rather unnatural to do so. agree with or understand that feeling. But at the same time, it's pretty clear that the reality we are in is most of the time, a good part of the time, not really in touch

[01:28]

So, the story I want to tell you again today is about this point. Dogo Enchi, or Dawu, was going with a friend named Chien Yuan. to pay a visit to someone's home where a family member had died. And when they came into the room, the coffin was there and Yuwan hit it and said, alive or dead? And Dawu said, I won't say alive, I won't say dead. And Yuwan said, why won't you say?

[02:53]

And Daul said, I won't say, I won't say. So, a little later they were walking along and afterwards and Daul, Yuan says to Daul, If you won't tell me, I'll hit you." Rather interesting response, that he felt so strongly. There's something, you know, we have to understand. When he said, alive or dead, when he hit the coffin, it wasn't just a casual question. It was a question which he invested his life. But at the same time, it's clear from the story, he did not know where the answer was, where the answer would come from. And he chased after Dao's words, why won't you say? So he said, even if you, he said, if you don't tell me I'll hit you. Engo, I believe, comments at this point,

[04:19]

It's like making a notch in a boat at where you were in the water. That's pretty good, isn't it? What to hit him was like making a notch in a boat to mark where you were in the water. And Dawu says, even if you hit me, I won't say. And he felt this question so strongly, he hit him, slugged him. And then Dawu had to help him leave the monastery because the head monk would have been rather hard on Yuan for hitting the abbot. the abbot helped him escape. Anyway, this proved to be the pivotal question for Yuan and he turned it several times on different occasions with other teachers and with his own investigation and was enlightened on this question.

[05:43]

The Ingo's introduction says something like, Is that Evelyn? Evelyn, please don't do that. If you do that, Evelyn, you'll have to leave. Anyway, Ango's introduction says, secure and intimate in reality, or with reality. Right there, realization occurs. In the midst, or one with the flow, you are able to turn it about. The feeling here is

[07:35]

that you're not carried along with the flow. The flow itself is you, and if you turn, the flow turns. So secure and intimate in reality. Realization takes place right there, one with the flow. There's some line, I forget, and then, how can we show people a continuous path in their home territory? It means something like that. Now, this kind of story, on the one hand, is quite simple. It's a pretty simple story. and yet it has many sides to it. And it, of course, has many applications. I think intellectually it's pretty easy to see that you can't find out

[09:02]

you know, pretty easy to see that Yuan got caught by the explanation or the words and he can't allow the coffin or the dead person to speak for themselves. He can't allow circumstances to speak for themselves. This is in a sense that I've used the word samadhi, meaning to receive correctly. And samadhi in this sense, in everyday activity, means your state of mind is not full of assumptions and patterns, but is able, moment after moment, to receive correctly. In Catholicism, as someone mentioned to me this morning, and Brother David talked about sometime before, the word obedience is used a great deal, but obedience means actually to listen completely, and the etymology of the word, and the way it's used in Catholicism also means, the essence means to listen completely, as I understand it from Brother David, at least, in monastic

[10:35]

This is very similar, to be able to listen completely. Now, this has many practical applications. You know, a lot of our, let's take, say, political activity, a lot of our political activity, we're beating a dead horse a good part of the time. The change we wanted to have occurred has already occurred, and we still are doing some kind of protest or activity or pushing, when the push has been made already, but we're not able to see it. So what we do, actually, is we, by continuing to push on a point with which we've already won, you make the other side stronger to fight back on your unnecessary pushing, and the issue gets quite You've won already, no need to point it out to the enemy. Let it go. But I would say ninety, ninety percent of political activity is after the fact of what you wanted to accomplish. And the same with people.

[11:57]

we make some contact with people or we, in our relationship, have some discussion. And even though the person continues arguing, if you are alert, you know you won the argument, you know, a long time before. There's no point in arguing. It will take three weeks or a month, but the person will realize, you know, what you were talking about. This doesn't have to be, it's easier to phrase it in the form of an argument because you can see it more clearly, but actually we are always with each other communicating about something, and we don't know when that communication has been received. So we're always fussing, you know, about it, or thinking we're not understood or something, and we've been quite well understood. So this is to receive correctly, or to obey. And to obey is an interesting term, you know. We were talking about this this morning and someone said, to call it, to listen correctly, listen completely, makes obedience more palatable. We who don't like the idea of obeying anything or anyone.

[13:27]

turn of it as obey is very interesting, because the ability to obey someone or something, the ability to take orders, you know, like many things that are paradoxical and have their opposite, is also the ability to be responsive and to freely move, to change the flow. For example, in this story of Dao and Qin Yuan, he didn't actually obey, but in another sense he was open, at least to move, the commentary says. This is a situation where, making a mistake, he bared his heart completely.

[14:32]

He didn't try to defend himself. When he said, I won't say alive or dead, he set himself up by saying, well, why won't you say? That's very good, actually, to set yourself up. So, as they say in this kind of story, the first arrow, you know, went in a ways, but the second arrow went right through. So, he set himself up as a target. He said, you won't say? Well, why won't you say? So this is an interesting way of questioning. He put himself on the line, and then when he said, I won't say, I won't say, he said, well, if you won't say, I'm going to punch you. He even made himself more of a target. It's actually a kind of obedience, a willingness to go into something. So he said, okay, hit me, I still won't say. So he hit him, and he didn't say. So to penetrate this thoroughly enough,

[15:35]

it became a real pivotal question for him. You know, in a simple sense again, if I say, such and such, this stick doesn't exist, or I say to you, you are such a ravishing creature, you may feel good. But if I say to you, you're a rather silly, immature person, you won't feel so good. But how to be secure and intimate in reality? So such words, you know what's actually meant. You know what actual communication is there. If I say, this doesn't exist, what am I talking about? So he says, alive or dead. I won't say alive, I won't say dead. He's not just talking philosophically about the boundaries of existence and non-existence, separate and together, as I've been talking about in Sashin and yesterday. He's talking about that too.

[17:06]

not just as a philosophical thing, that's not really what he's doing in this story, but rather the story is a question of how we practice. And from the point of view of how we practice, it raises the question of boundaries, the un-we've been talking about. When you examine closely the unreality of separate and together, This is not really something that can be realized gradually. This isn't some philosophical idea and it's not something you can wear away. Though much of our practice is based on, all Buddhist practice is based on repetition. Mindfulness and bringing yourself back to your breathing, etc. All repetition. Each moment freshly again doing it.

[18:08]

But this kind of thing, where you have opposites, night and day, existence and non-existence, form and emptiness, outside and inside, you can't realize it except suddenly. A physical experience, actually, of... Opposites are always defined in terms of themselves. So outside is a variety of inside, and inside is a variety of outside, and they depend on each other for their existence. So there's no real outside there. Outside is not really outside, it's just a variety of inside. So, what's the real outside? That you can realize only when you yourself transcend outside and inside.

[19:15]

by a disproportionate change, out-of-proportion change. In a simple way I've been saying, for example, your left hand and right hand are separate, you know, we think they're separate, but actually they're connected by your heart. As I said, this is I'm just one big hand that drooped in the middle. Where's the beginning and end? Ujjana Roshi in his book and in lectures illustrates this with a very simple story about squashes in the garden, just fighting with each other, about something or other, without realizing that the stem connects all the squashes.

[20:42]

That story is not quite as innocent as it seems because it refers to this chakra. Some experience we have of contact, actual, it's not just an intellectual idea. So this reality, it's not simply a matter of pay attention to the present or pay attention to what's right in front of you or your breathing. Or, why ask me about the coffin, because the coffin is there, look for yourself. It's not quite that simple. He says the stick doesn't exist, but obviously it's there, so he means something beyond words or mental formations, and to be in contact with the stick, secure and intimate with this reality, without being confused by my words. That's true, but that's rather beginner's practice, to be able to not be distracted by words and shapes and forms, but to maintain contact with what you're actually doing. But if you examine this, this also has its contradictions and

[22:09]

And it's rather, actually rather, it's too passive, too passive. That's more like being in the flow, carried along, rather than being the flow itself. So here again, as I was trying to talk about yesterday, we're talking about the inside which you can't enter. The inside, and we know intuitively, that's what we mean by inside, when we say, don't seek outside yourself, we mean seek on the inside of which there is no outside. An inside of which there's an outside is just a variety of outside, a variety of inside. So the phrase, don't seek outside yourself, has no meaning if you examine it carefully. What is really the turning point when you view things as outside yourself? And this is what Dogen is trying to emphasize in Zenki, with inner dynamic activity.

[23:37]

inner dynamic activity. I don't know how good a translation that is, but there's no equivalent in English, you know. An inner dynamic activity is not something related to outside or inside, actually. But inner in this case means the inside of which there is no outside. You know, if I can put food here and then food in my stomach. As long as it remains food, it's still food on the outside. You can vomit and come up with a potato, but at some point you can't come up with a potato any longer. That's more like the inside of which there's no outside. So it's a kind of activity that you cannot penetrate because it is totally itself, its own fulfillment or its own realization. So the boundary is not between inside and outside, but the boundary is between that which

[25:08]

you can describe or conceptualize, and that which is beyond explanation, or which is entirely interior to itself. That may, as I said yesterday, that may be an inside, you know, but that don't – what is it? I don't know exactly – inside, outside. They say, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and I say, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You know, we're 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. They understand quite quickly. But this is four insides, but if I do that, that's then, you know, that, that's two more insides, or two outsides. But this isn't what we mean by inside. If I can enter, that just makes two more insides. but some inside which you can't enter." Again, Joshua tries to illustrate it with the story when someone says to him, why does the dust, where does the dust come from?

[26:36]

Where does the dust come from?" And Joshu says, It comes from outside. As if he never heard of the Sixth Patriarch's poem, that there's no mirror and no dust, etc. Now the Sixth Patriarch there is talking about no mirror and no dust is the inside which there's no outside of. Because if you say practice is the polishing of the mirror, getting the dust off the mirror, what about the mirror? What about getting the dust off? That's all seeking outside yourself. So Sixth Patriarch says, you know, there's no mirror and no dust. But Joshu says, oh, the dust comes from outside. So this person pursues it again further. Why in a nice clean monastery like this does dust arise? And Joshi says, there goes another one. Alive or dead? I won't say, I won't say. So it means when you yourself

[28:08]

are in contact with this outside of which there's no inside, or inside of which there's no outside. That which you cannot enter, or that which there is nothing but entrance. This is inner dynamic activity. This is reality about which there's no question about. Secure and intimate, you know, realization occurs here. Existence and non-existence, separate and together, are just expedient categories. So samadhi is not passive in this sense, it's active samadhi, to receive correctly, and emphasis on the reception. And the word shouldn't be reception, both ways. Always. Anyway, this is the story, alive or dead, I won't say, I won't say. It means outside or free from cause and effect.

[29:38]

so you're not sane. Wind is causing the trees to move. Yes, that's true, but that's rather expedient. What's causing the wind to move? Something and something and something. When do you escape from that infinite regression? Well, our practice, by the development of your practice, by the awakening of your inner power, you can tell when you're receiving correctly and when you're not receiving correctly, when your reality is shifted to you in the outside, and you viewing things outside yourself. But when you have no time for such nonsense, and are always

[31:05]

sporting about in inner dynamic activity, joyfully, without any deterioration of your state of mind. You'll know, in that case, when to push. and when to hold back. When you've accomplished something and can go on to the next thing, how much you can accomplish unknowingness and being nudged and obeying that nudge, not resisting. Resisting is some really useless ego activity. But we don't mean imitation either.

[32:46]

but accuracy. The accuracy of your awakened eye, samadhi, which receives or sees correctly. Wisdom means to see with responsibility, my definition. But I think it's what wisdom means. And wisdom, as I discussed in the Sashin, has the sense of reproach in it. I think that's very interesting when you check its etymology. The kind of seeing which is so much a part of what you see that you have responsibility with what you see. So a seer knows things because he's known So you know how things are going. This is, again, to receive correctly, to see correctly. And I think the idea here too, which I want to throw out to you, is the ability to represent something. Again in this story, alive or dead, is he just trying to find out, alive or dead,

[34:18]

or some philosopher, or can he represent the dead person? Can Yuan, Qin Yuan, represent the dead person? So it's more than expression or acknowledgement, but a re-presentation, you know. So this is also a kind of responsibility. Inter-dynamic activity is not subject and object, but tekiteki sojo. I'm a re-presentation of Suzuki Roshi, at least of his teaching. This is not imitation. is being able to change the flow. The teaching may change too, but the teaching doesn't change. We have this freedom to disport ourselves. So it means also, in the Socratic sense too, of your responsibility or you yourself as a representative

[35:47]

of the human race, or humanity, or sentient beings. It's such a relief when we meet someone occasionally, like Charlotte Selberg, or Suzuki Roshi, or some good Zen student. Such a relief when we find someone who seems to fulfill what we expect of a human being. It can turn us around completely. Who knows that responsibility, doesn't see it as something forced or authoritarian or obedient, but recognizes many levels at which we represent reality or teaching.

[36:48]

and the degree to which other people, whether we like it or not, take their cues from us. I don't mean more than cues, but... goes back to the storyline or power of flesh and fantasy, the way we want to speak to our own flesh, our parents or potential or imagined lovers, or those who will praise us, those who will think we're important.

[37:54]

This level, which is always a kind of secret or deception, is not receiving correctly. You can't represent. You always are trying to actually degrade people into figures in your dreams. You can't allow them to represent themselves, or allow yourself to allow them to represent the dignity which we have. This is why we intuitively have such an uproar about something so ridiculous as this prostitution thing.

[39:13]

Because behind it, the level at which it's practiced, and the level at which it unconsciously bothers us, is when we treat someone a certain way. They'll survive it and they'll recover the next day, but we've at the same time missed the responsibility of wisdom or missed the opportunity to be with them what a human being can be. We think we can get away with this fantasy for a few minutes and the next day we'll recover. But this karma follows us, as the Dhammapada says, like a cart following the horse.

[40:35]

So, alive or dead, what is the dignity of our existence? And what a joy and relief it is for us when we meet someone who fulfills what we'd like to expect of ourself, realistically, what we'd like to expect people to be like, and how it confirms our sense, selfishness and shoddiness, when we ourselves don't expect it of ourselves, and we're confirmed in that laziness by others who don't expect it of themselves. So practice leads to the courage and confidence of this realization, that there's no room to deceive others. That there's no alternative to common, to our common life, to our mutual responsibility. For what you actually see when you're not seeing things as outside, when you see the inside of which there's no outside,

[42:21]

And you can try to locate the outside and you can't. So, by your zazen practice you will awaken this vitality. And by your sensitivity and ability to receive correctly, you'll learn how not to interfere with it. You, as a famous story says, you won't hinder that which sees it. And everyone wants you to do this. And the more you do it, everyone will support you. And your life will be a one which you'll be so grateful for. So please, let's not forget

[43:26]

If I say seriousness, I don't mean something not joyful or something dull, but let's not forget the seriousness of what we want to do, or the opportunity that Buddhism presents for us, you know, of finally finding something we can be completely serious about. that will be as much as we want it to be. And finding somebody we can take completely seriously and trust completely. And knowing this, seeing this, there's no reason why you also are not such a person. Just have confidence in that, and drop your need to adjust things. Understand what we mean by to see correctly, to disport yourself in this inner dynamic

[45:03]

Thank you.

[45:59]

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