this Blue Cliff Records story about Wong Po. I think by this time you must have some feeling for the story. And that's enough if you can just have some feeling for the story and follow that feeling. To try to figure it out exactly is not the way we study Koan. Such a story will give me a chance to talk about things that in other circumstances my mouth must be shut. and give you a chance for things to come up that otherwise might not come up.

[01:22]

if you can understand or develop a feeling for even one or two of these stories thoroughly. The other ones will be quite easy when they come up. For some reason we persistently try to defeat ourselves. It's almost a characteristic human trait of everything people do, even people who are only interested in success and completely ambitious.

[02:59]

seem to be followed by the feeling that they're going to fail, that failure is there unless they try to succeed, that somehow success is the antidote to the failure that has to be there. We seem to have some deep-seated fear that sticks to us like glue. To be all alone, to be out on a limb, some deep resistance. that is almost impossible to shake off, to seeing things, deep resistance to seeing things quite simply as they are, quite simply as this life is.

[04:25]

Wong Po says there is not even a teacher of Zen anywhere in time. If there ever was a period when there were teachers of Zen, it was in time. Sometimes, if you study Zen, sometimes you wish you lived in the Tang Dynasty. Everyone lived just down the road from many great Zen masters. But one thought is, all of Tang know teachers. It means the lineage has passed to you.

[05:57]

Ingo tells various stories about Wong Po. The stories, as they occur in different places, are a little different, as they should be. And even when Suzuki Yoshi would tell a story, So the differences are not very important if you understand the essence. One story here, in one collection, everything is the reverse of what it is in the blueprint. They say just the opposite. But it's exactly the same story. Anyway, one story is Wong Po is quite well known. He's on Tendai Mountain, and he sees someone, he meets a monk with very bright eyes, and so he thinks, this will be good.

[07:35]

very bright, steady eyes, you know, and then practice. We don't look around much. You may think this is strange, a coercive thing, to have to always keep your eyes down, but it's easier than stopping thinking. So that's a good way to practice. Not exactly. aggressively down, so people can't get you to look at them. But if you stop thinking, if you no longer are seeking everywhere, you don't look around. You're not curious about what happens over there, over there. So one of the rules, strict rules in

[08:39]

zendo in Japan, is that you do not during service look around. During mealtimes you don't look around. What you're doing, you just do. There's no need to have your eyes shifted. In no dance, which has been so influenced by Zen. One of the attributes of a good dancer is that even though he's in the midst of various movements, his eyes are completely still. So, Huang Feng was this man with very still, bright eyes. and decides to travel with it. So in the valley they come, it's quite typhoon-like, torrential rain, and the stream is quite deep, and when they come to the stream,

[10:00]

says, what, what next? And the other monk says, let's cross the stream. And Wong Po says, after you. So this guy takes off across the water. And Wong Po says, oh, you jerk. If I'd known you were nothing but a spook, I would have cut your legs off from the start." And the spook turns into our heart and flies off. Indeed, you are an instrument of the Mahayana. Anyway, when Wong Po went to see

[11:32]

Yakujo, this is a very great lineage of teaching. Sixth Patriarch Nanaku, Baso, Yakujo, Wong Po, and Rinzai. comes to see Hyakujo. And Hyakujo said, when they first meet, where do you come from in such high spirits? And Obaku

[12:37]

In such high spirits I come from between the mountains." Anyway, and Wong and Yakujo says, what did you come here for? And Wong Po says, nothing special. Yakujo seems to have been impressed by this visitor. And, you know, there's two kinds of traveling, to visit teachers. They're rather confused in the stories, because many times one is disguised as the other. Sometimes. Well, always disguised, but sometimes

[13:42]

One way is, after enlightenment, or after you have some understanding, you visit teachers as part of your maturing, and you visit as ordinary monks. Another is, you're seeking for a teacher. But the most traditional way, at least as Suzuki Yoshii expressed it, You rather follow circumstances in finding your place of practice. And when you arrive there, you sit. Already you have some truth or some feeling. And you, your zazen is not seeking zazen, you are just sitting in truth. So, until the time comes for you to do something else. So, Wong Po was traveling in this way. Rather, he was already a rather alert person. And,

[15:13]

The next day he was leaving and he went to see Yakujo. Yakujo said, where are you going? And Wong Po said, I am going to see Great Master Baso. And Yakujo says, he has already been transformed. And Huang Po says, I've had such a deep feeling to meet him, but I guess my circumstances or my feeling was not deep enough to allow me to meet him. Not deep enough to allow me to meet him. But I so want to receive his teaching. Please tell me what he was like. Tell me something about him.

[16:17]

So, Hyakujo said, the second time I met Baso, the second time I went to see Baso, when I came in, he was holding his yak-tail whisk up in the air. And I said to him, How do you teach without this means?" And Yakujo and Baso put his whisk down and for a long time was silent. And then he said, Will you teach without using your mouth? How will you teach without using your mouth? So, Yakuja picked up the whisk and held it up. And Bhasra said, and how will you teach without using this knee? And Yakuja put the whisk down and then

[17:50]

Baso let out a terrible cry. It made Yakujo, Yakujo said it made him deaf for three days. This is the first time that in any Zen literature there's any record of this kind of shout. So Baku began to tremble all over and his tongue stuck out at this story. Someone said he had epilepsy. I don't think so. Or it attacked him then for the first time. Yakujo, that you are Baso's true successor. And Rompo said, no, I will lose all my sons and daughters if that's true. Through you, Yakujo, I have known, I know Baso's pure, clear mind.

[19:22]

If the teacher's understanding, if the student's understanding equals the teacher's, because the teacher's influence or teaching is diminished by half, only if the student exceeds the teacher can we say that transmission truly occurred. And Yakujo says, you better look into the son and father, father and son relationship in the house of Yakujo. Later, Hyakujo came, Huangpo came to Hyakujo and said, how to transmit correctly to our successors? Asking this question.

[21:04]

Yakucho didn't say anything. He just sat there for a long, long time. Wong Po said, I thought the transmission should not be interrupted. And Thakur Cho said, I thought the successor was you. And he got up and left. Later, Wong Po became close to a government official named Pei, who supported Wong Po in many ways. And one day he brought a scroll in which he'd written some poem.

[22:50]

to Wong Po. Wong Po just put it on the table and sat there, again, not saying anything. And finally, he said, And the official, Pei, said, but you've not even read my paper. Wong Po said, if you would have understood already, it would have been all right. As I said before, practice in many ways is like a woman having a baby. She doesn't know how she makes a baby, but still she does it by her continual activity.

[24:27]

We make our practice by the same effort that we don't understand, that we can't express by our mouth. you may hear some whispering in yourself which gives you some guidance or some feeling or clues that you have to be ready, able to hear and respond to. But it's so easy to overlook it or neglect it. This is why we practice concentration. You can understand in a flash that there is no need to look around. No need to.

[25:51]

To do it, to exercise it, requires your ability. So I've also been talking about in this session your ability to exercise your practice by deep, complete relaxation and concentration. If you're not relaxed, your concentration will be narrow. If you're relaxed, your concentration will cover everything. And when your concentration is pretty good, your will will begin to act.

[27:09]

and you will see quite clearly in the midst of events and through people how to do something. And if your will is in accord with circumstances, which is really what will is, the ability to act at one with circumstances, everything you do will be like a good pool shot quite clear what to do. But if you are still thinking and distracted, your will can't function. So this skill of being one with your breathing and practice, one with the cessation of breathing,

[28:11]

is necessary to exercise now. How to be in accord with circumstances. First learning how to adjust yourself. Dogen emphasized this point, and Susukiyoshi was particularly struck by how to live in America. Many people, when we first moved to Page Street building, found it very strange. And some people left, because it was too much like a YMCA. And some people left because we hid the fireflies in the Buddha Hall behind the altar, and it wasn't American enough. But you can imagine how difficult it was for Suzuki Roshi, such a big, if you lived in Japan, such a big, strange fortune.

[29:45]

and hard surfaces everywhere. But he, because of this understanding of adjusting yourself to circumstances, he tried very hard to find our way of here in America. This characterized his way. America. He did not try to make us be Japanese. Things which he could find no way to express except in the Japanese way, he expected us to adjust to. The universal way of Buddhism which he said made us beautiful, was the gassho. He said, this is our fundamental way to adjust ourselves to circumstances. Wherever we are, Japan or America or any place, if in a circumstance we can adjust our gassho, out of this attitude we'll find out how to take care of things.

[31:13]

He was talking about how aging is a clean, just thing, naturally. So you can't do something Unless you first prepare your place, it can't be too dusty or not taken care of, or you can't find a place to put your cushion. So first we prepare our place. But we must know our priority is always that. If you understand this point thoroughly, worldly things are quite simple. because they're simply something you take care of to allow yourself to do satsang. They're not important. We can build a building here, or plant the fields, or take care of many things here and in the city in Tassajara, as we've been doing, to prepare a place for practice, where we can concentrate on the many aspects of Buddhism.

[32:43]

If we always know that the second priority is Zazen, which means Zazen is first, of course. So we don't have to squabble about what kind of building or how to do this or that, because we are not involved in it, it's not important to us. Just to get it done. well enough that it will allow some of us to do justice. We can't do it perfectly. Somebody in the future will have to do it too, so they can do better. With this understanding, many daily problems of career and jobs and are put in there, taken care of in their place in a natural way. So this is, too, where practice begins. Adjusting ourselves to our circumstances and taking care of our situation, circumstances.

[34:09]

volume of care, how our lungs are used, where we do zazen, how we support ourselves, how we take care of our apartment or room. Without getting so emotionally, so much psychology, psychological aberration, desires are attached room and facilities and clothes and appearance and career. But when you know these are just preparation for nothing, they're not a problem anymore. You may take care of them in any way you wish. So Zazen practice begins with this taking care of things. And if you do this well, this is a wonderful and tremendous and easy help to practice. If you rush into some mystic experience without taking care of your room,

[35:36]

Your sasana will always be mixed up, and the many contents of your mind will overwhelm your practice. So, please trust to your own, what Sugiyoshi calls, your own innermost feeling, which allows you to practice, and try to cast

[37:06]

the many resistances to being out on a limb, or taking responsibility completely for your life and your practice, and this world, this community, that naturally will come upon you when you see what you're doing. Not as some burden, but just as the obvious extension of what everyone is doing. We're so frightened to see that life isn't all we'd hoped it to be, not sure we can face it. So we either make it horrible, or we glamorize it, or we hope for something in the future, or we simply choose distraction.

[38:13]

But without distraction, suspending discrimination, with one breath acting, is the way of practice. The absolute moment, which cannot be discriminated or observed. in which you find yourself linked to everything. By that one alone We are all so lucky, you are and I am, to have this profound teaching to encourage us. But it's up to you, not the teaching.

[40:08]

You may get the hint, but you must act on it. You must go out on your own way with no one around you, taking responsibility for heaven and earth. You mean in the story about the tile? He was arranging for us to have a good story.

[41:51]

That's true, in those stories you shouldn't neglect the set-up for the punchline. Don't you want to be... do you want to become a Buddha? See, it takes a great deal of nerve to say, I want to become a Buddha. You have to be able to say that. Hmm.

[45:05]

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