This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. The title of this series of meetings is something about the 10 oxerating pictures. Is that right? So I've heard that in India the image of an ox or a bull or a cow was used to describe the process of practicing the Buddha's teachings and realizing in India, realizing personal liberation, becoming a wise person.

[01:14]

And then in China, within this tradition called Zen, in maybe the in the 10th century, some people started to write verses and draw pictures of the process of evolution of a bodhisattva. And so there's a number of different series of pictures and series of different verses. There's a number of different ones. There's ones with five pictures, six pictures, and ten pictures. And then, among the ten picture ones, there's different versions of the pictures and different verses describing the process.

[02:19]

So I thought for this fall, just to choose one of the versions. And so if that's okay with you. And I can talk to you more about how to relate to that. But the first thing I want to talk about is... Well, actually... No, wait before I call the board. First thing I want to talk about is that Zen, I think, is... Most people would describe Zen as presenting a... very discreet realization a very discreet very abrupt a sudden realization not a realization over time but a realization I wouldn't even say in the present but a realization

[03:28]

of the reality right now. A realization of our current reality in every moment. Zen's well known for that. And on Sunday actually I kind of spoke of a more the more sudden picture of Buddhahood. So the reality of Buddha, which I mentioned, is that Buddha is not something by herself. To be a Buddha is not to be something by itself. And that is the case with everything. None of us are

[04:29]

ourself by ourself. A rock is not a rock by itself. The universe is not the universe by itself. Everything depends on something other than itself. Everything depends on not itself to be itself. And not itself also depends on itself. And that pivotal relationship is the way everything is. And Buddha is the realization, is the cognition, is the mind and the illumination which is this way things are. And so it's not like you don't take time to get to be the way you are. However, the way you are, if you're a human being, the way you are is that you come with time.

[05:36]

Being a human being, you have consciousness, and if you have consciousness, you have time. And the time also doesn't exist by itself. It depends, for example, on consciousness. Time depends on consciousness. Time depends on a sense of self. And a sense of self depends on time because sense of self comes with it. So time doesn't exist by itself. Self doesn't exist by itself. Consciousness doesn't exist by itself. Buddha refers to the cognition of the way things are that way. And that cognition is not... I mean, it's that cognition. It's not another cognition. It's that one. It's the cognition of that. And if you have a cognition of something other than that, like, well, maybe things don't depend on something else. Maybe things do exist on their own.

[06:39]

It's not like the cognition is a little bit of that and more of this. The actual correct cognition of reality is what we mean by Buddha mind. by Buddha practice, by Buddha activity. It's a knowing, it's an illumination, it's an activity. The way each of us is pivoting with everything that's not us, that is Buddha activity, and that activity is a kind of knowing. It's a Buddha knowing. and also kind of get used to the vocabulary I'll probably be using for a while, probably all fall, is I propose three basic kinds of cognition.

[07:42]

Cognition. Also could be called three basic minds, or what's the other one I could do? Three basic knowing. One is Buddha cognition, and this is a symbol for Buddha. So, there's Buddha cognition, and then there's consciousness, And consciousness is, most human beings are quite familiar with it. It's like, it's a kind of knowing where somebody's there. Like, there's knowing and I'm here.

[08:49]

And I know you. That's the way, that's kind of the way consciousness is, the way I'm using the term. And consciousness is a is a narrow kind of knowing. It's a narrow way to know even the self, and it's a narrow way to know the other. But it's very important, and we've got it to deal with and take care of. And then the third kind of cognition I would bring up is unconsciousness. And we all have that too. And there may be some living beings, I have a feeling that there are some living beings who have unconscious cognition, unconscious mind.

[09:50]

They have a mind, and they're alive, and their mind is wonderfully complex and serviceable in various ways, but they do not have a mind where there's somebody here who is aware of somebody over there. They don't have that kind of mind. And I'm not sure what living beings have only unconscious mind. I'm not sure. For example, dogs, I feel pretty confident. Dogs have unconscious mind, like we do. And they have conscious mind. Dogs seem to be very much aware. I'm here. You're there. This is mine. That's yours. All that kind of stuff. This is my house. And that's your house. And cats, I think, have that, but they're not so assertive about it.

[10:51]

And, you know, cows have it. Bears have it. I don't know if bacteria have consciousness. If somebody finds out, let me know. I don't know. But I think bacteria do have mind. They have cognitive processes in service of their body. And we do too. And our cognitive processes are... Our unconscious cognitive processes are... I wouldn't say exactly unlimited, but they're much less limited than consciousness. They're much faster and more reliable than consciousness. But consciousness has all kinds of virtues that unconscious doesn't have. Consciousness, for example, can entertain speaking English.

[11:55]

English can go on in consciousness. English is not going on in unconscious. However, the conscious is supported by the unconscious. We cannot speak English without unconscious cognition supporting it. So those are three kinds. And the Buddha cognition is a mind and it is, for example, the cognition of that you can't have consciousness without unconscious. It's that cognition. And you can't have the unconscious without the body. And you can't have a living body without cognition. And you can't have self without other. Buddha is the cognition of this pivoting quality of every event it's the cognition of that it's not and it's not it's not embodied it's not embodied and it's not separate from bodies because it is the understanding of how bodies are pivoting with not bodies

[13:02]

It's the understanding of how bodies do not exist by themselves. That cognition is not separate from bodies and it's not in bodies. And it can be transmitted to bodies and unconscious processes and conscious processes. And when it's transmitted to bodies, unconscious cognition and conscious cognition, the conscious cognition becomes liberated, becomes illuminated and free of... the deceptiveness of itself. Because consciousness is a narrow version of phenomena, including itself, that has subliminal messages like, this appearance is real. Consciousness says, I'm not consciousness. Consciousness says, this is not consciousness.

[14:08]

And that's, of course, nonsense that consciousness is not consciousness. But it's also true that consciousness is not consciousness. The sneaky part... It's that consciousness tells you it's not consciousness without telling you that it's telling you that. It subliminally tells you that I'm not consciousness. And it subliminally tells you this picture of what's going on is a reliable picture. So not only it says this is not consciousness, it says I'm not consciousness, it also says I'm actually the way things already are. And I'm also not even telling you that I'm saying that. Then we come to the ten oxygen pictures, or the nine oxygen pictures, or the five oxygen pictures.

[15:21]

These seem to describe... I think, you know, we can see them as describing a process of deepening realization of... the reality of all phenomena. A deepening realization of Buddha cognition. And, you know, a reliable version of the process of deepening realization of Buddha cognition that people have been discussing and feeling it's a pretty good story about how that goes. So it's a gradual process of a cognition of the way things are right now. So I'm kind of like warning us at the beginning that we're studying a story or a picture of a gradual process of awakening about the way we already are.

[16:34]

theoretically we could know right now and then we wouldn't maybe be able to see ten oxygen pictures to get here. But it is traditional to both present the way things are right now and the possibility of a correct understanding of that right now, of right now and then also to say that people do, human beings for example, do go through a process of deepening the realization of the nature of all things. In consciousness right now there is a phenomena which is just consciousness, that I'm really hot. May I?

[17:47]

Yes. Are you warm enough? And here's another basic practice principle I suggest. Well, yeah, here it is. if you are living in stillness right now you will be not you will not be stuck in right now and you will move forward if you're living in stillness you will move forward you will evolve you will change you will become more and more illuminated about the nature of yourself and others if you live in stillness.

[18:48]

So we're studying pictures and stories about a gradual process of movement and evolution and whatever stage we're talking about in this process if we are if we don't move we won't be stuck in whatever stage we're in. If we move in whatever stage we're in, we'll be stuck. If we don't move, we won't be stuck and we will evolve forward into deeper understanding. It may be that in this room we have somebody representing each one of the ten pictures. I don't know. It's possible, right? That some of you are in stage number one, picture number one. Some of you are in picture number six. But even if you're in six, or seven, or eight, or even nine, if you move, you'll be stuck there.

[20:05]

And you might say, well, I don't mind being stuck in number nine. Some people see some of these pictures and they say, I love that one. One of the most popular ones is Riding the Ox Home. A picture of this young person just blissfully playing a flute or something, riding on the back of an ox. It is a wonderful stage. I recommend it. You might check it out at some point. But if you move, you'll be stuck there. And after a while, can I just tell you this? After a while, riding the ox home, playing that flute, you're going to start feeling like, something's wrong here. I'm stuck on this, riding this thing home.

[21:11]

And then even more advanced stages, if you move, you get stuck. And even though they're very advanced, being stuck is what we're here to realize is not so. It's not that we're here to stop being stuck. We're here to realize that nothing is stuck. You can't be stuck because you're not something by yourself. Everything in the universe is constantly unsticking you into the next moment. But if we try to get to the next moment, like if you're in stage one and try to get to stage two, you try to get to stage two, then you're successfully in stage one. And usually, trying to get to stage two, you don't skip over stage two and go to stage three. You just stay in stage one and so on for each one of the stages. So it's a kind of a... Yeah, so I guess I'm recommending as we study these things and discuss what this one's like, what this one's like, what this one's like, whichever one you're discussing, go ahead and discuss it without moving.

[22:29]

And then you won't be stuck in the discussion or stuck in that state, and you move forward into the next topic of consideration. That's one of my main kind of suggestions to you. Now, if you're not even concerned with, and you might not be, say, well, actually, I'm not even in this room. I didn't come to this class because I'm not interested in the 10 oxygen pictures. All I'm interested in is realizing Buddhist cognition right now. So I don't care about learning about a process of deepening realization. I just want to be perfect realization right now. And I understand the way to do that is to completely be myself right now. To be who I am, what I am, without moving from that and without abiding in that. That's all I care about. And I would say, yeah, that's all there is to it, except that that can deepen.

[23:33]

And if you have no interest in deepening it and just work with it as it is right now without trying to deepen it, it gets deeper. So you can't stop yourself from getting deeper except by trying to get deeper. That seems to make you not get deeper. You can't stop yourself from evolving positively except by trying to be somebody other than who you are. So by being tempted or dabbling in being other than I am, I seem to not evolve positively. So you can be a success at being stuck by resisting being yourself. Not forever. You won't be stuck forever. Even if you try... Even if you're resisting yourself, you will not eternally be successful at resisting being who you are right now.

[24:35]

Eventually you're going to give up resisting and being yourself and move forward. As I also said on Sunday, Buddhahood is your future. You're going to be... Because you already are. Excellent. So, another thing I want to play... of Chinese characters a little bit. And I will continue to play with them on Thursday night this week. Do you have any other panesthes here? Yeah. So here is... Here is... This is a character for... What's that character for? Buddha. Buddha.

[25:36]

Hakobun Sang, what's that character for? What does that character mean in English? In English, what does it mean? I'll tell you. It means danger. Danger. This means danger. Danger means, what does it mean? It means a possibility of harm or injury. Danger is not injury, it's the possibility of it. Being harmed, there's a possibility of it, so there's danger. And then there's this character here, which is a big character for me in my name. And this character means opportunity or occasion.

[26:47]

It also means machine or mechanism or working. Thank you. You hope these work? Yeah. And so the combination of the word for danger and the word for occasion or machine or working is crisis. Two characters together are crisis. So on one sense I'm suggesting to you that it is our nature and the nature of everything to be a pivot and a pivoting. So I am a pivoting and I am a pivot.

[27:52]

And so are you. with a possibility and that possibility is working and again I suggest and people didn't seem to be wincing when I said it like they disagreed with me I said I feel many forms of crisis now I feel economic crisis political crisis health crisis interpersonal crisis personal crisis Racial crisis. Environmental crisis. Social crisis. Zen center crisis. Zen center sangha crisis. This is normal. That we are in a crisis here. We are... There's a possibility of danger to us.

[28:56]

Of harm. And we are at a turning point right now. And right now we are... every moment at a turning point in our life, individually and together. Crisis. So I feel that these pictures are pictures of crises. Each picture is a picture of a crisis, somewhat different crisis. Related economic crises are related to environmental crises. Economic crises are related to racial crises. And so all these are related, but they're a little different. And it's good to find the turning point in each one. And that will be part of finding the pivot point and the way each one is a pivot. And realizing the pivotal activity of things is realizing Buddha cognition. It also occurred to me, this compound occurred to me as not only a nice word to use in relationship to the first picture of the 10 oxygen pictures, but also kind of related to the word... Please excuse me, but can you guess what I'm going to write?

[30:46]

And here we go again. What am I going to write? Samani. What's next? Satori. Samsara. Samsara. Or, as some people say, Sam and Sarah. Samsara means etymologically turning around like a circle. Samsara is a crisis. It is the crisis, our life crisis, that we're turning, that we're rotating, that we're pivoting.

[31:52]

This is a Sanskrit word, right? In Chinese, the characters they use for samsara are birth and death. There again you have birth. It's not just birth and death, it's birth and death turning on each other. So these ten oxygen pictures are turning on each other. They're going round and round. And each one is a crisis and each one is a pivot. Okay. Now, I'd like to give you copies of the verses for you to look at. Ready? Here they come. Two versions. We have two versions of the... We have two versions of the same original verses.

[32:55]

No, that's... Thursday night. So on Thursday night... Is that just pictures? We're going to want me to get... Another description... So this pitfall activity is also called in our school. Yes, please call. Buddha's cognition in Soto Zen is sometimes called Zazen.

[34:11]

So it's in zebra. Zebras are the famous humans I think. Now, I know Max heard that, but Watson missed it. Humans I think is the same as zebras I think. Actually, they're very territorial, and the answer is yes. Okay. It's your birthday. This is your birthday present. Thank you.

[35:38]

Thank you. Thank you. Two more sheets. Okay. Okay. I think I was the first one.

[36:41]

There's three or there's four? There's three. Just go. I have to pick where is it? You don't have to keep? No, I don't have to keep. We have to keep four. There's this. There's one handout. You have one of the handouts? This is a copywriter.

[37:42]

Something's wrong here. This is one which has, this has the ten verses on it and ten pictures. And how many people did not get on the game? So, a lot. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. So we need about 15 more of these. So this has the 10 verses. And this has 10 pictures. This is 10 pictures. And this is two pages which have the same ten verses and a preface to the ten verses. Okay?

[38:45]

Any questions? And how many people don't have the one which has this one, which is... It's two. One, two, three, four... 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Make it make 12 of each. Okay? So, any questions about which you just got? Well, if you don't have questions, then I'll say that my understanding is, without much scholarly research, that the most popular version of the 10 ox herding pictures is the 10 pictures, the verses by a Chinese Zen lineage person named Gao An.

[39:48]

Gao An. Shir Yiran. In the 11th century. Song Dynasty. Person in the Rinzai lineage of Zen. Gao Nan? Gao Yiran. Gao An Shir Yiran. It looks like Gao Na, or... Oh, Gao. Oh, sorry. Guan An. Guan An. You saw that? Hmm?

[40:53]

I'm just accustomed to Guan in the Celtic. I'll check the romanization. After I get the spelling right. So that's the one I'm handing out, the verses by this Chinese monk. And there are other verses written by other Chinese monks. And some Japanese monks also wrote the verses. And there are verses for different numbers of pictures, too. And Whoever this person is, which I'll tell you later, he did pictures too. But I'm pretty sure those pictures do not exist anymore. And the pictures you have there, I believe, are done by another Chinese person, actually done by a Japanese person, in the 15th century.

[41:59]

the sheet that has the kind of paintings. And the drawings, those line drawings, they're done by a Japanese person in the 20th century, like around 1905. These kind of simple line drawings were done in the 20th century by a Japanese artist. These, I believe, were done in the 15th to 14th century by a Japanese artist. The author of the verses, Chinese Rinzai Zen person, 11th century, and the

[42:59]

And the preface was done by his students. I just wrote it wrong.

[44:00]

It's go-on. What did I spell it wrong? Sorry. In Japanese it's kaku-on. Are there any questions on the material? I've seen these pages on temple doors in Japan. Maybe you saw the original. Maybe that's the original you saw. How do you know which one you're at? How do you know which one you're at? Well, you might read the verse. We might start pretty soon.

[45:02]

And you might think, yeah, that's kind of like where I am. And then we could talk about it a little bit more and say, maybe, yeah, maybe you are. And then I would remind you that if you can just be still with the way you are, if you are in that stage, if you found out, if you can be still with that, you won't be stuck there. So even though you might be way down low, If you can totally be still with that, you won't be stuck there. And not being stuck in the lowest level is just like Buddha. And being stuck at an intermediate or advanced level is not like Buddha. In reality, whatever level you're at, you're not stuck there. And when you realize that you're not stuck by not

[46:04]

to get out of there that's what Buddha is Buddha whatever stage you're at Buddha the way Buddha would experience would be just like you except Buddhas are really good at experiencing whatever is to be experienced and we have to train at getting more wholehearted about being at stage whatever because we have we have some history of resisting being at stage one or stage three. And when we resist, we're stuck. When we wiggle, we fall into a pit. Now, once we're in a pit, if we don't resist it, then we're out of the pit. Yes, Helen? I was wondering how you chose this I chose it because it is the most commonly referred to, and I don't recommend that you read ten commentaries written by people about this.

[47:21]

I don't recommend it, but if you want to, this would be the one you can find lots of commentaries on. This is the most commented upon and well-known one. but there's also other ones that are fairly well-known, but this is the most well-known one. And yeah, you see it all over the place. I saw it, I saw actually, I saw it on the wall of a yoga room over at Berkeley recently. And people had been walking by that picture for a long time and not noticing it. And they would give a class and they still didn't notice it. And then I point out, well, you know, these pictures are on the wall outside the room. Oh yeah, there they are. So this... Is this kind of a danger machine in itself? Because it does feed into that desire to be at the next step. Yeah. That's why I get that warning at the beginning. This class is a crisis. It's a crisis about... It's a crisis where we're going to study crisis and learn how to be in crisis...

[48:32]

which means learn how to be in samsara. So there's samsara and there's zazen. Zazen is not someplace other than samsara. Zazen is not separate from samsara. Zazen is not separate from crisis. Zazen is Buddha's cognition. And Buddha lives in samsara and therefore There's no being stuck in samsara. But we have to be willing to be in samsara as fully as Buddha is in order to realize that Buddha is in samsara, to prove it, to verify it, and to verify that we're not stuck in samsara. Because samsara sometimes is the crisis, it seems like it's not just Not only is there a danger of harm, but I am experiencing harm right now.

[49:39]

I'm injured right now. And I'm kind of resisting being injured right now. And not only am I injured and not only am I resisting it, but I'm in danger, but I'm in crisis with this injury. Which again, this injury can get... more injured or less injured any moment. Was there any further questions at this time? Yes. Jody? I'm not really sure if I'm going to phrase this correctly. Me neither. supposed to use these as tools for labeling where we're at?

[50:41]

And if so... Well, should I just say no before you go further, or do you want to go further? I do want to go further. Okay. How could you pick one, so to say this is where I'm at in life, if each moment is bringing something new? couldn't you find yourself in each situation in a period of a couple of minutes, depending on what's coming up, what's happening? Yep. You could. I have not done sociological research on this, but although you could, It could be like you just talked about. Most people I've met would have trouble telling me that they were in all ten of these situations in a few minutes.

[51:51]

But it is possible, especially if you have been in the tenth picture. Once you're in the tenth picture, you would have a pretty easy time being in the other nine in less than a few minutes. You could be in all nine, you know, very fast. Once you get to the tenth. Before you get to the 10th, it may take a little bit more time to check out the other nine. And in the first picture, yeah, so I offered a class in this room, shortly after this room was built, about almost 40 years ago, we had, we studied the 10 oxygen pictures on a Sunday morning, and I found myself saying to the class that the 10th first picture and the tenth picture are basically the same picture. And I told you that, and you've heard that, but before you actually realize the tenth picture, you're not really confident, fully confident, that the first picture and the tenth picture are the same.

[52:58]

Therefore, if you're not fully confident of that, you may have some uneasiness with the first phase. But they're basically on the same page. The tenth picture is that the bodhisattva is perfectly comfortable living in the first stage, which is the marketplace where there's a crisis going on, and not only that, but there's resistance to it. So the one who has overcome resistance is happy to live in resistance, without resisting resistance. and show other people who are resisting that they're fine resisting. If Buddha was experiencing their resistance, Buddha would experience their resistance just like they are. Except Buddha can do it completely. After you go through these ten stages, you can be in the lowest state 100%.

[54:00]

And therefore, you're in your highest state. When you can be in the lowest state 100%, you're in the highest state. If you can be in the second lowest state or in the next higher state 100%, you're in the highest state, which is comfortable being in the lowest state and the second lowest state. Again, that's the same principle I suggest to you to remember while you're studying these different states. And another principle I would say right off, just to keep checking out, If you do experience yourself going through these different stories, these different pictures, can you not abandon any of the previous pictures? Can you let them go? Yes, you can. And when you let them go, you let them go by not trying to get away from them. When you don't try to get away from them, they drop away, and then you move forward, but you don't abandon them.

[55:08]

So when you're at stage seven, you have all the previous six are with you still. You haven't abandoned them. You're still caring for your history, if you used to hang out there. You're still caring for anybody who is in those states. You're not trying to get away from them. And you transcended them by not trying to get away from them when you were in those states. So you transcend them by not trying to get away from them, and you really don't get away from them. They come with you. They're always with you. So all the stages are always with the Buddhas. All the stages are indestructible. They're not going to go away. We're not trying to get rid of any of these stages. That's the way they are. And we realize that by fully exerting each one when we seem to be there. You don't have to stay, oh, I'm in stage three, but you could. You could say, yeah, this sounds like I'm there, and I'm practicing with that stage.

[56:11]

So I feel like maybe, maybe we could actually look at the first stage. You can look at the picture. So I can't tell if it's a girl or a boy. It might be a boy. It's not usually, people don't usually see an old man or an old woman who looks like a young, pomp creature. And so, would somebody like to read the verse? In the trees. Sorry. In the trees. In the trees.

[57:16]

Someone misspoke. Beating about the endless wild grass, you seek and search. The rivers broaden, the mountains stretch on, and the trails go ever deeper. Your strength exhausted and spirit weary. No place allows you refuge. The only sound, evening cicadas, shrill. So that's one translation of the basic verse. Another translation says, In the pasture of the world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the ox.

[58:23]

I don't think ox is in the original. I'm searching, I'm searching, I'm searching. You could say, well, it is for the ox, but I don't think the original says ox. Following unnamed rivers lost upon interpenetrating paths of distinct mountains. My strength failing, my vitality exhausted. I cannot find the ox. Does that, anybody ever been there? A couple of years ago. So we have a recent denizen of that phase. So that's the situation.

[59:30]

So at this stage, there seems to be a sense of being lost. and some sense of searching for something other than this. Yes? So in the beginning, You're not really know what you're searching for. You're searching, but you don't know what you're searching for. Yeah, you don't know what you're searching for. At the beginning, you don't know. You might think it's for such and such, but you're not sure. Not so sure. And you're kind of, I think, you're somewhat anxious about your searching, but you don't really know what you're searching for.

[60:42]

But you do feel... trying to find something you feel exhausted your vitality is in danger of harm you're actually doing fine you're alive but there's dangers all around you and maybe you think you're searching for a place that's not dangerous a world where the mountains aren't so far away and the paths are not so tangled and the river's not so high whatever There's some sense of this is not quite right and maybe there's something better, but I don't know what it is. But there is maybe a sense that there might be something better than this. And I kind of would, maybe, I'm kind of wanting to find it, but I don't know what it is and I don't know how to search, but I feel the impulse to search it out. Something like that. Yes, two people?

[61:47]

Neil, you? I was wondering if you could say more about the third line, your strength is exhausted, conspirately weary, and no place allows you refuge. No place allows you refuge. So again, when I feel like something's wrong with this, and someplace else would be, you know, better. When I think that, feel that way, my energy, at some rate, maybe fast, maybe slowly, my life energy seems to drain away from me because I'm fighting my life. I'm saying this isn't it, or I don't want it to be this, I want it to be something else that drains my energy and makes me, yeah. And maybe while I'm searching, I think maybe this will be a refuge.

[62:50]

Right. Like whatever, you know, fame, drugs or whatever. Wealth. But I'm not finding a refuge. I'm not finding something that will bring me back to my full vitality because I'm not accepting what I need to accept. I'm looking for some refuge other than being the way I am. And I've already somewhat tampered with the way I am for a while, so now I'm kind of exhausted from flailing around. Yeah, so when I read this, it felt less like I was feeling that this isn't the right place, than the place itself wasn't the right place, which I thought was strange. So you said again, you're feeling less... When I read this, what it said to me was rather than I was thinking it was the wrong place, but the place itself was the wrong place.

[63:56]

It seemed strange to me. Strange to you that you would think like that? The place would be where no place allows you... Yeah, so maybe that translation is not so good. It's not that the place... I don't like that so much. It's not that the place doesn't allow your refuge. You don't allow the place to be your refuge. Because I don't allow my ordinary trashed life to be a refuge, I trash my life again. Anyway, you just keep trashing it by not allowing this to be the place you should be completely not resisting. So after I resist, it gets worse and worse until finally, if it gets bad enough, I stop resisting. And when I stop resisting this situation, which I didn't allow to be a refuge, I find a refuge.

[65:06]

And so then I move into the next phase. And so, you know, a lot of people say somebody comes to see a doctor about trying to rehab around some addiction, and sometimes the doctor says, you know, you're not ready. You have to, like, more thoroughly see that you're still resisting, you know, the reality of your situation. that's caused by you resisting, you're still resisting. I think you need to, it maybe has to get worse before you stop resisting if you have a problem. You're a little bit too relaxed about it. Your relaxation isn't ready to be applied. That'll be later. Yes, would you? Daniel? Just struck me when you described the search in a way that you...

[66:12]

One didn't know what one was searching for and didn't know how one was searching. But nevertheless, there was a kind of yearning. It seemed to me that language was very reminiscent about the way, in a Western context, the Holy Grail was searching for the Holy Grail. Yes. Yes. Yes. I kind of liked that translation because for me it speaks of the mind of being in that place. And the mind of being in that place is not the mind that understands that everything can be a refuge. I mean it almost feels like the cry of the heart in that particular moment. So in that state, unfortunately you're not in that state so you can't understand thinking that the state won't allow you to be a refuge, you understand, unfortunately, so you can't be in the state.

[67:19]

You have to forget that state doesn't allow you, but you don't allow it. You already know that, so now you're not in the state. Too bad. And then there's also a little preface to this. Somebody want to read the preface? Till now, the ox has never been lost. Why, then, do you need to search for it? Turning away from your own awakening, you become estranged from it. Then, enclosed by dust, in the end, you are lost. The hills of home will be seen farther and farther away. You are lost as soon as the path will die. Reading and losing consume you like flames. Right and wrong rise around you like flames. That sounds like I already said this.

[68:25]

So we've never been apart from where we are. But we can't, because we can't accept where we are. we feel estranged from what we are. Where we are is our true case. Because we resist the feelings and thoughts we have, we feel estranged from it. Well, Judge, you know, that thing about that line, winning and losing consume you like flames. That's saying, oh, now I'm losing, now I'm losing, and I'm not winning, and that's really judging you. Even so, if we can be still with this, we won't be stuck and we'll move to the next stage. And you can... Yeah.

[69:30]

And you're noticing that little difference between not allowed and doesn't allow us, or I don't allow myself, Noticing that will come to you when you accept what it feels like to not feel allowed, to think that the situation is not allowing you. And when you notice you're not allowing the situation, you actually have moved out of that position a little bit. But to have that illumination, you have to have some experience of I'm not allowed. I'm not allowed to have a piece of refuge here. The situation's not allowing me. I'm not healthy enough. I'm not supported enough. I'm not liked enough to be at peace rather than I think that way. When you accept this delusion that you're not allowed to be at peace here, then you get to see a little bit, well, I didn't allow myself.

[70:34]

And then you move forward. That's what it's like when you move forward after accepting That you were not accepting. Accepting that you were not accepting. Being still with your not accepting is accepting your not accepting. Being still with your not accepting responsibility for where you are. You accept responsibility for where you are. Which is, I think this is not good enough. First of all, it's not good enough. I think it's not good enough. you say stage and sometimes you say state. Do you mean state or do you mean stage? I think there could be a state that you don't think of as a stage.

[71:36]

That word stage is not an issue. But in these pictures, they seem to be states that are also stages. Because usually we don't use Stages. Yeah, and that's part of the warning of these pictures, is these pictures seem to be stages. So, in the first stage, there is a stage where you think things are not so good, and because they're not so good, you cannot be at peace with them. This is too much pain for me to be at peace, rather than, I can't let myself be at peace, is an advancement. But that comes to you, that's revealed to you by doing what you just said you couldn't do, namely accept this difficulty. That if you stop moving to try to make this better, you're not stuck in this. And again, not moving from making this better doesn't mean that if you stop trying to make it better that it gets better.

[72:42]

It's rather you don't get stuck in it getting better. So then you move forward. But you don't necessarily move forward into, well, it got better actually. But if you do get into, it got better actually, and you don't resist that, then you won't get stuck in, it got better. So some people have trouble not resisting, it's bad, I can't be at peace here, I don't have a refuge, and it's not possible to have refuge. They don't resist that, and then they don't get stuck in that. And then when they're not stuck, they might think, this is really much better than that situation which I accepted and I'm not stuck in anymore. And then it is better, they may think. And then if they really think it is, and it really is better, then they're stuck in that. And again, Buddha is not stuck in the lower stage.

[73:43]

And some people who are at a higher stage than Buddha are stuck above Buddha. But if Buddha were to come to the next stage, the Buddha would be stuck just like they're stuck, and then the Buddha would not be stuck. And if they would totally accept their stuckness in thinking that they've gotten better, they wouldn't be stuck there. And then again, they might think, well, now this is really better. and that's fine every time you move to another stage you can think this is actually better than the last one that's fine at some point you probably won't do that anymore in the later pictures there's no more doesn't look like there's any more this is better than the last one but there might be a lot of people would think this is better than the last one a lot of people who came here would think boy this is where it's at I can see that point of view.

[74:50]

Yeah. And I'm kind of like not resisting that delusion. So it's now getting close to 15 minutes before 9. And part of me feels like it would really be good if we just enjoyed the next week. of just really working at noticing if we're resisting whatever's going on in our life. And really, like, not resisting what's going on. See if we can not resist and not resist what's going on, including not resist that we are resisting if we notice that we are. In other words, See, for one week, we could just kind of like open to the possibility of the first stage, or any stage, and just basically work on being still with whatever stage we seem to be at.

[76:04]

And it's okay if you think, what can I say? I'm sorry, but I think I'm actually in stage six. It looks like that. I read the material, and I seem to be in stage six. and I'm not resisting being in stage six, and I'm also not resisting if somebody comes up to me and says, excuse me, friend, I just happen to know from what you told me that you're in stage one. If you're in stage six, you will be fine with them talking to you like that, and be fine with that being so, that you're stuck there, or at least that you're resisting that. So again, stage six, is not really supposed to be stage six resisting stage one. You get stage six because you didn't resist stage one, two, three, four, and five. That's stage six. So you may find yourself there and then see are you resisting stage six or are you trying to hold on to stage six, which is that really nice one about riding the ox home.

[77:10]

So check it out. Check out where you're at and then see if you, by any chance, would be able to be where you're at or where you seem to be at. You don't have to get into whether you're really there, but get to where you seem to be, how you feel you are, where you think you are, how you think you are, your opinion of yourself, your opinion of this temple and this community. Whatever it is, see if you can be that with no resistance. And then again, if you do have resistance, see if you can be aware of that and not resist that. That would be like the main thing that we do in all the pictures, starting with the first one. And it'll be the same practice with each one. But let's start with this first one. Even if you don't think you're there, see if you would be willing to be there. See if you could imagine not resisting this lowest state. And you may feel, well, I'm just imagining not resisting the lowest state, and I'm also not resisting that I might be in the lowest state, or the first state.

[78:20]

But I actually think I'm in the third state. And I'm not resisting being in the third state, and I'm not abiding in that I really am in the third state. But if you ask me, honestly, I would say, I think I'm in the third picture. That would be the picture I would choose to describe where I'm at. and I feel good about the previous two in the sense of I'm willing to go back and be in those states if that was given to me. Or I'm willing to go forward through the remaining seven pictures and then enter the first two again. So again, being willing to go backwards is kind of like going forward. in being willing to re-enter your previous difficulties with a fresh enthusiasm of being generous and careful and patient with old problems that you haven't seen for a while.

[79:30]

Rather than, okay, I haven't seen it for a while, I've got new problems, I don't have the old ones anymore, and I'm willing to go back and go through them again and again. How wonderful. How wonderful. Or, I'm a little bit, don't want to go back and do that again. Okay. And that could be, yeah. And that could be number three, number four. I'll tell you the end, there still could be some resistance to going back to your earlier problems. At the end, you're really willing to have whatever problems there are in this universe. So for now, what problems do you have? What resistance do you have? See if you can, like, for the first week of this class, yeah, accept your resistance totally and verify that that will liberate you from your resistance without changing your resistance at all.

[80:36]

So can you accept and work on that? Yes. I want to, too. I'm going to try. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[81:26]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_91.47