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kitchen
whoa this morning i'd like to talk about another case
the little blue cliff record
a case of one hundred coins one hundred and ten stories
in this is case forty seven
young months six do not take it in is a with the case your months sixteen are ticketed
in the introduction to the case
by master suite though says
haven't never speaks
yet the four seasons follow their courses
earth does not talk but all things flourish
where the four seasons follow their courses you can see the substance were all things prosper
you can find the use
no tell me where do you see the monk
stop your speech your actions your daily routine
and closing your throat and lips say it
in the case a monk asked the young man what is the true body of reality
and new months said
six do not take it in
so that's our subject for today and
sway those verse on this case goes like this one two three or by six
even the blue eyed indian monk cannot count it
rashly they say showed and passed it onto shinko
or he clad in the robe journeyed back to india
india is vast and far
here is not to be fun
low since last night he has been here facing new home
so that's our we're going to talk about today if we can
if possible

so i always like to introduce the characters in these stories because sir
they're colorful wonderful
ah types then types
and this is a
in this case mr young man is one of the most famous of all and masters when the most important zen masters
he was one who founded his own school the young one school and it lasted for a while it doesn't exist anymore but it lasted throughout
this isn't the is dominate me answer cloud gate
and the psuedo the whose introduction
inverse i just read you it who is the compiler of the blue cliff record who who chose these one hundred stories chose a lot of stories by your mind because psuedo was in ones school he was at the two generations down after your money
so young man is kind of the godfather of the booklet record
and to give you a
little flavor for a and style and character i'll quote to you from
a book called the golden age of zone which discusses a lot of the
classical than masters
and here's what is the chapter on human in this book begins like this
john masters
like other people may develop maybe a divided into two types
some are slow breeders and others are fast breathers
of the founders of the five schools of chan
croatia i don't shine and fire belong to the slow breeders
indonesia is our the founder of our lives in so we belong to the slow breeders
while lindsay and young men belonged to the fast breathers
of these two lindsay breeds fast enough
but young man breathes faster still
lynch's way is like the blitzkrieg
he kills his foes in the heat of the battle
he utters shouts under fire
when the lion roars all other animals take cover
no one can encounter him without his head being chopped off by him
it makes no difference whether you are a buddha or bodhisattva or an ancestor lindsey will not spare you if he should chance to encounter you so long as you bear a title or occupy any position lindzey will send out his true man of no title
which is lynch's one of lynch's famous sayings
to kill you off in a split second
so terrible is lindsay
but even more terrible is human
lindsay only kills those whom he happens to encounter
it
but humans massacre is universal
he does away with all people even before they are born
to him the true person of no rank which is another way of translating true man of no title the to person of no rag is already the second moon therefore a phantom not worth the trouble of killing young ones seldom if ever resorts to shots or beatings
like a sorcerer he kills by cursing
his tongue is inconceivably venomous and what makes the case worse he is the most eloquent of the john masters
so i think that's pretty fair estimation of master young month
there is not recorded anywhere that we can find a kind word of gunman office words are very sharp into the point
but the this description is very relevant to the point that i want to make today and discussing this case the fact that young man
had a very ambiguous and interesting relationship to language and expression
lynch's bidding and shouting drives expression out
drives you back to silence
yeah man knew that nothing at all can really be expressed
or to say this same thing in another way
une manu that we are constantly expressing ourselves completely and everything we do
and that everything is constantly expressing itself completely
yeah man
new this
but unlike lindzey he expressed this fact
in language and words
very eloquent words
when he became a habit of a temple we have recorded his first words on ascending the dharma seat and giving his first dharma talk as abbott is what he said
do not say that i am deceiving you today by means of words
the fact is that i am put under the necessity of speaking before you
and thereby sowing seeds of confusion in your minds
if a true seeker should come see what i am doing what a laughingstock i would be in that person's eyes
but now there is no escape from it and he began giving the substance of his talk
so i over the years can relate to this saying of humans
after a while you get used to it
but when at first when you start giving talks
it's very difficult because
you know
that everything you say it's going to be wrong
and furthermore you think and who am i to say anything to begin with
so i was just up in the washington state giving says shane up there in one of my students who was a priest i usually purposely come a little late to the sushi and so she can give the first talk and she was suffering you know over this
what why to give a talk and everything i say is wrong i said i know exactly what you mean and so does master human
however in the schedule it says
thousand kenyans as and can talk
it's part of the practice that there's a talk
and if you happen to be the person who's giving the talk then you have to do it
and despite the fact that it's true that everything you say is wrong and
you have no business saying anything you still new bow and hope that in your bowing you will
already in advance
a tone for your sins
and then you get up on the seat and you start moving your mouse and the vocal cords do something and before you know it it's over
and you get used to it although i know that people many of us still suffer a return we have to give a talk but if you do it enough you get used to it
and it becomes more clear as time goes on
that you really not saying anything anyway
and also that people who come to the talk were probably
to whatever extent anyway that they were confused before they came they will be no worse off
when they live
so you stop worrying about it you know you just show up and you do it
some people are you know
fix cars and people
sell software and other people
give then talks
so what makes the world go round
so young man was quite aware of this on a deeply profound level and everything he said and did express this
i have to tell you just a few stories by human because they're very interesting stories i think anyone
like many of the or john where this of the classical period he was ordained very young
he was probably from the very poor family and if you're from a poor family it was just like in western monasticism
that was one good way to live as go to the monastery
so he went there when he was maybe ten or twelve years old and studied as many of them did the video that the the rule
a monastic rule which is very complicated study
but he wasn't satisfied with with this as a spiritual path and so he went out seeking a chan master and he found one who unlike most of the john masters who lived on mountains and and were abbott's of monastery is this man mojo was a settlement and a sandal maker
he made traveling sandals for monks and lived in a small hermitage in the village and your months sought him out
but mojo was of the type of zen master who who
really doesn't like students hanging around so it was hard to get in the door literally with mucho he would somebody came knocking on the door he wouldn't open it usually
so i had to have a lot of
commitment and persistence to study with mucho
so young would go and knock on the there are no answer one day
he knocked the door and mucho said who's there and he said human
what do you want
i'm here to clarify the self
so would you open to our little bit took a peek a human immediately slammed the door and space
the second day was the same
and by the third day you and mom realized that he was going to have to get physical
so when mucho open the door a little bit human sort of forced his way in
and mucho grabbed and immediately and said speak speak
and young man
startled you know couldn't say anything
so mojo through a up
physically
and with the words you ancient drill turning in a rut thrown out the door slammed the door and humans foot was in the way and he slammed the door on one's foot and it really hurt
and human was awakened that was the beginning of his
lively china career so it's not so hard to see why he was the way he was if that was just beginning

ah this the saying you ancient grill turning in a rut is actually like know when you call it a slang expression
many of the zen sayings where they used unlike other schools that used proper
ceremonial language or the zen elders were famous for using slang some street language everyday language and this saying drill turning in a rut
means you useless thing
but the
a real origin of the slang expression is quite interesting apparently there was a chinese emperor long ago
in ancient ancient times in china who decided that he was gonna build a city such as the empire had never seen before magnificent gigantic city
so huge that the tools to build it were not in existence so the first thing he had to do was build some sort of gigantic machinery drill of some sort and or to
quarry the stone or i don't know what for the city
and as things turned out the emperor was deposed in the city was never built but supposedly these giant drills that he had made so i sat there for a thousand years nearby the side of this city that was never built so it became an expression meaning you know something totally useless
so it's interesting to think
this is sir
like the self a gigantic drill to build a city that's never built this is the ego
so that's what would you set to human when he kicked them out
one word story about human and i think it's very interesting is he actually went to another teacher
chiffon and studied were on the shrike choi fung and was completed his training on a show a phone and then he went on pilgrimage as they often did from teacher to teach her to test their understanding and to learn more
so he was traveling around
and there was a monastery someplace
and it's a very typical thing in those days and even today that the abbot of the monastery appoints a head monk
the head monk i kind of like the second in command and serves as headman crap for a long time and then when the avid retires or passes away the head monk becomes the habit
so there was a monastery in which
the head monk seat was available and an abbott did not appoint a head monk
everybody wondered why don't you appoint head monk
and the abbott said well
my head monk isn't born yet
some years went by and people start saying when when why don't you have a point ahead working so well my head monk was just ordained
some years went by and
should point ahead markets really not write my head monk was just awakened
my head monk
just finished his training my head monk is on pilgrimage every every couple years you know he would say these things and he never appointed twenty years went by never appointed head headman finally one day he said my head monk is coming tomorrow
so everybody got excited you know the head wound was coming tomorrow
and
it just so happened that you know young man was on pilgrimage and he happened to come into the monastery that the next day then when it came in a recent head monk welcome
sort of what
but he did become the head mungkin
when the avid died he was appointed avid at the monastery and that's how he became abbot
so that's how these john guys did things
it's a kind of a wonderful way i don't think
to do things
paul heller who's
one of our senior priests over the city center he and i were talking and in nepal is from northern ireland has been living in united states for many many years but he's from northern ireland and we were talking and getting very happy and excited because paul has a dream
to do
then retreats in northern ireland with catholics and protestants dedicated to peace knowing it's a wonderful thing i really hope that he can do that sometime
and he was telling me that
you know ireland was a
ah the seat of some of the most powerful catholic monasteries on the planet
and he said that
to express and test their faith often the monks from the monastery would build a small boat
what six feet long
and i think two or three of them would get in the boat
with nothing but what they were wearing and they would cast out to sea
with the idea that wherever they landed whether it was in life or death this will be their destination and that this is how many of the monasteries were founded because the ship were just the little boat with this end up on the shore somewhere and they would crawl out and feel that this was where god
had sent them to build a new monastery and apparently number the monasteries were founded in that way
so the chung people are not the only ones who
do things like this apparently
so a young man was well known for his many source different styles of answering questions one of his famous styles was to answer questions with one word
which has called the one word barrier of your money
and so there are many many examples of this once somebody asked him what is buddha and he said cake
somebody once asked them what is right dharma he said completely
many many bliss of these humans one word various another technique of his was to get up on the dharma seat
and immediately pose an impossible question to the assembly and then hardly give them a chance to answer to that he would answer it himself was another thing that he didn't many examples of that also
once
he asked
a question of our ultimate reality and
he said body exposed in the golden wind
chow is that was very beautiful
saying apparently
quite elegant and in china classical chinese although i don't read classical chinese
so the present case is another good example of une months
way of talking
what is the true
body of reality he was asked and he said
six do not take it in
so the true body of reality
is an english translation of the term that may be somebody who are familiar with dharma kaja
reality body or truth body or dharma body
a buddha
and the others
a traditional teaching about the three bodies or buddha the dharma kaja body is one body the ultimate reality body a buddha
the second body has called a some bolkiah
which is often translated as the enjoyment body or the bliss body of buddha
the third body is called a near moniker the manifestation body of buddha
so the dharma guy stands for the
ultimate nameless
unable
beyond space and time eternal aspect of reality
and the sam boga chi the bliss body stands for that aspect of reality that appears as pure form usually associated with the meditation realms
in which
sometimes there are a visionary experiences and even the the ordinary world when one perceives that is purified have any imperfection
and the new monica body of buddha stands for this ordinary world that we all live in
corruptible
material things which are eroded
by time
so those are the three
our bodies of buddha
in the dharma chi as i say his ultimate reality which is by definition beyond space and time beyond words beyond our senses
so the student is asking what is that
we say a word about this
in men said the six do not take it him or it's beyond the six
no actually this is quite easy to understand in a way it's very simple because the six
means the six senses eyes ears nose tongue body and mind because in buddhist philosophy and psychology mind is considered a sixth sense
the six senses so there's no that's why in in buddhist psychology there is no
a fundamental bifurcation between body and mind
of course it's understood that there's a difference but the difference is not a fundamental difference and all and body and mind are all lumped together as that apparatus by which we apprehend
this world whatever the world is we really don't know how we know is that the six take it in
so
it's very simple what is the true body reality the six don't take it in it's beyond the six
very obvious
but the thing that's so wonderful about this cases that
when he said the six don't take it in and the commentaries to the case say don't get confused and think this means that the six senses don't
take in don't perceive the true body of reality so then what does he mean when he says the six don't take it in it's a very similar case in a way to the famous corn that appears as case number one of womankind master georgia
ask does the dog have buddha nature and he says no
and as everyone knows and my on of buddhism all things have buddha nature
so knowing this a monk asked does the dog had put a nature and judge said no
which is usually translated not translated into english as know but left in the japanese as move so we're all familiar right with this coin mo and they purposely don't translate it into english because the commentators say this mood doesn't mean know even though it says no it doesn't mean no
often the commentators say it has nothing to do with yes or no so what is it
in the same year the six do not take it in has nothing to do with the six do not take it in or the six do ticket in so what is it and there's a burden of this corn
the true body of reality has nothing to do with beyond our senses and it has nothing to do with within our senses so what is the true body of your own and this is what we have to discover
on our cushions

so i leave that job to you but today
i will i say something about it
for today i would say that yeah months answer
a point to the necessity of the absolute necessity of and the impossibility of
and the endless dimension
of expression
human expression

the more i live
in the more i
take my effort to teach the dharma
are the more i'm struck by the tremendous poignancy of our humanness
we humans
suffer a lot i think
and we get caught over and over again in the trap of our own minds
trap of our own confusion
being a person is always
always no matter how badly or how well we do it being a person is always a complete manifestation of truth
being a person is always a beautiful thing
and yet at the same time it's always a problem for for us
as we each one of us limp our way along the endless are not so endless
road toward death all going in the same direction
in part of our humanness an inevitable part of our humanness is our need to express ourselves deeply
even though whatever we say whatever our expression is
is always gonna be not quite what it is that's in our hearts
still it is necessary for us us to come in touch with our heart
and somehow try to express our heart
and if we're not in touch with our heart if we don't try to express her heart and wildlife will feel out of balance
not quite right
we will feel shut off from our deepest self
somehow as if we're not completely living our lives we will know that something is missing
and yet it's so beautiful to me so poignant that and yet even when we express ourselves has never quite
that which we
really need to express
somehow i'm not sure how or why but it seems to be true that
to express ourselves most deeply is connected
with a great sorrow
almost an endless sorrow sadness
perhaps the sadness of our own mistakes or inadequacies that we come to acknowledge
where the sadness of our own suffering what has happened to us that we come to acknowledge or the sadness of our griefs or losses are sometimes without any
apparent reason tremendous sadness comes welling up in us
in some in some way i think this need
to express ourselves is connected to suffering and sadness somehow it's related
then expression is also related
two are feeling which we may or may not be aware of
that that death is inevitably a part of our human life
that in each moment
death is present this is the nature of time isn't it
and in each moment there's a total loss of that moment of our life
so expression someone has to do with all of this with with an acknowledgement of the darkness
that is
inherent in each moment of our lives the darkness that we can't ever really
enter completely
i was recently in guatemala
and
i went to church
in antigua guatemala church of san francisco actually and
i was full of worshippers and they had a big line of people going to confession
and i never saw this before perhaps maybe you're familiar with it but i had never seen i've only seen confessionals that are kind of like various versions of a booth that someone goes in in which the
person confessing and the person hearing the confession or not seen
but this was a confession in the open and there was no enclosure there was a kind of piece of furniture with the
a piece of was looked like a canada
the hang of sudan a potential through bars like this and on the bottom like this aboard that the person knelt on when they made confession and on top and other board where they could put their head
as they were speaking and the press to seem to be a young girl young man
sat not facing directly but
facing this way and they are over to his left or right i forget which and he leaned over and listen very closely and the people waiting in line of course tried not to stand too close by so that they couldn't hear
ah but it was all the open you could see the people confessing and you can see their expressions and you could see an expression of the of the young priest
and guatemala you know is lot of very large indigenous population about seventy percent of the people guatemala are indigenous people still many many of them speaking the ancient language is still living and the same places where they've lived for thousands and thousands of years so there are many in
indigenous people standing in line many older people many women especially and
it was odd to me i watched for very long time this process
it was very beautiful to see them
bringing you know
their hearts full bringing that and expressing very sought as a softly in on their their hearts and to see the priest or listening to them
trying to say something
and then i'm leaving the next person come very long line hours worth of
confessions and i don't know you know anything about the practice of confession although so i was telling the story to someone and they told me that the catholic church has recently changed the concept of confession and they now call at reconciliation tried to know
in any case i have no idea you know whether this is a good thing or bad thing or what but this is my know that to my eye that time watching this i was removed by it
and although in buddhism we don't have a practice like that we do have a kind of practice of confession that we take to heart very seriously for us it's we we turned a verse of confession
to chatted with real intention
all my ancient twisted karma
from beginning this greed hate and delusion
a born through body speech and mind i now fully a vow or we chant
every morning
after before or after thousand and once on the full moon hopefully with our hearts really meeting that whatever we might have done what we know about an evil what we don't know about may we acknowledge it and let it go
and try to start fresh knowing that
even today
we will add more that will have to let go off tomorrow

tell this is a kind of deep human expression
that needs to be made and we make expressions like this in
various kinds of ceremonies and rituals wedding ceremonies or
funeral ceremonies or memorial ceremonies like one will have today where we have a chance to express
ourselves and our deepest heart make make an effort any way to express the inexpressible in our hearts say out our commitments are promises our griefs or hopes
i want to read for you a poem
by the poet paul salon the have i'm home i've been studying lately reading very closely
he was eastern european
it's hard to say what country he was wrong because
he was born in nineteen twenty and a time when in eastern europe when the country
you know changing what country was he was born in the austro-hungarian empire within it later became romania
he was also a jew
and if you are in
central or eastern europe at that time and you are a do you really did not have a place to be
and he didn't his family was
murdered at the concentration camps
he was himself i wore the yellow star and was later in a work camp but managed to somehow escaped that as younger people did often
but all his life after he eventually settled in paris and changed his name to salon to make it sound
more normal in french isn't but he always wrote in german
because he was from a german speaking part of
ah eastern europe in
this in itself was an enormous
contemplation for him his whole life through that he was writing expressing himself his deepest expression in german language that
had created terminology and an expression that was
quite
awful
anyway
oh and he he was born in nineteen twenty and died in nineteen seventy he was a suicide
in the drown himself in a sin mirror
anyway ah his poem is called speak you too
speak new to speak as the last
say out your say
speak
but don't split off know from yes
give your say this meeting to
give it the shadow
give a shadow enough
give it as much as you know is spread round you from midnight to mid day and midnight
look around
see how all things come alive by death
alive
speaks true who speaks shadow
but now the place shrinks where you stand
where now shadow stripped where
climb group upward
thinner you grow less knowable finer
finer a thread
the star wants to descend on so as to swim down below down here where it sees itself shiver in a swell of wandering words
read it one more time

speak you to speak as the last say out your say speak but don't split off know from yes give your say this meeting to give it the shadow
give it shadow enough give it as much as you know is spread round you from midnight to midday and midnight look around see how all things come alive by death alive speaks true who speaks shadow
but now the place shrinks where you stand where no shadow stripped where climb group upwards thinner you grow less noble finer
finer a thread the star wants to descend on so as to swim down below down here where it sees itself shimmer in the swell a wandering words
i think this is a poem of paul salons whole life and i think of our lives to
that we each of us has to speak
has to say our say
and we have to speak as if we were the last person
only our own truth which we have a responsibility
to find in our hearts and to say
it in are speaking we can't split off yes from know
only speaking in the light the things that we know about are the things that we would like to be proud of in our lives we must also find the know you must also find the darkness and speak in the shadow which is after all not dark and that light shadow
look around see how things all come alive by death alive
this is so true
death is a part of life as i said earlier every moment of life is a death and that's why things are alive because of death
this is true in every life
how much more true
in the life of paul salon who saw
death
in a way that i hope none of us will ever have to see
but things come alive
my death
when one
recognizes this
the place where one stands shrinks he says
where will you go
when you can find your true expression taking in the know in the yes
you have no choice but to climb he says climb grope upwards
this is the spiritual life this is the path
and in the process of the path thither you grow less knowable
very true you know
dogan says to study buddhism is to study the sell to study the self as to forget the sell the more we look inside with more and more honesty and more and more clarity
less we know about ourself or about our world
so where will you stand climb
you grow thinner less noble finer and then this wonderful image at the in finer like a thread i imagined it as a kind of spiders thread
hmm a thread that a star
up in the heavens
like the dharma chi of body of buddha
the star wants to descend down that thread that fine thread that becomes your life and star wants to descend on that thread
to swim here they'll below
summer
in the swell of wandering words
so the dome ah kiah put a body
which is outside the six
swims in this world shimmers
my our finest are thinness and r c of words
remember suede or said in the opening onto this case haven't never speaks yet the four seasons follow their courses earth does not talk
but all things prosper
now tell me where do you see the monk stop your speech
your actions your daily routine and closing your throat and lips
say it
the non-human universe
the heaven and earth
is always expressing itself perfectly
that there is a as a world at all but that there is any world at all
is a kind of
deep expression
and i think this is why
we love nature so much why nature is so healing
the prison because the very existence of nature is the deepest most satisfying eloquence of all
and i know many of us have had the experience of some time when we can let our human chatter just fall away
then simply look at the sky
or look at a tree where a leaf or flower
and we can feel as if we are being spoken to in the most beautiful way
a way that absolutely demonstrate to us a peacefulness and clarity
in a deep deep saturday
but we human beings must respond we must say our say
we've got to express the person that we are in some way
it's necessary for all of us to live the story of our lives
and to speak that story somehow
well we have to be careful not to get entangled
in our story
not to attach importance to it that can be an overestimation of what it is
our lives are small circles of light
a surrounded by an immense darkness
as if we're all living in a little cabin
on a plane with a little kerosene lamp and all around us endless space and darkness
and that little circle of light
is all that we will ever see
that's our place to work with
but we cannot
forget we cannot avoid
the darkness we must bring it in
the darkness is within our circle of light
it's the very nature of our circle of light as well
in our practice
we
enter the darkness on our cushions
it gives us a space and place
a safety impossibility to enter that darkness
can never forget it
and when we do that we get up from our cushions and we make the effort to express our lives
in the impossibility of any expression that could ever touch the immensity and what our lives are
how could we ever possibly hope to express ourselves to say or embody what's true
to say or embodied what really matters
the near at the same time with every breath it is there
so this is our human challenge
the group upward toward
that expression
and when we encounter it had the presence of mind to see it
to have the courage to say out our say
he swallows verse says one two three or five six
even the blue eyed indian monk cannot count it
rashly they say shot in passed it onto shinko or he clad in the robe journey back to india
india is vast and far he is not to be phone low since last night he has been here facing new home
so this has a lot of literary references in it than i to explain
ah the blue eyed indian monk is bodhidharma the original ancestor of chan buddhism and bodhidharma is often stands for
dharma makhaya in this case or
the true essence of the teaching so a typical zone question is why did bodhidharma come here
and which means you know what is the teaching all about
so one two three four five six it could be six gazillion
even the dharma kayak cannot come
the vastness
of our lives
the vastness of the darkness in the light
rashly they say showed and passed it onto shinko so showed in is another name for bodhi dharma and they say that he passed the dharma onto his disciple
or sometimes they say that he there's a legend about bodhidharma that he when he was buried he became a resurrected in
he lost one of his sandals so on one saddle he walked back to india sailing across the ocean after a while on a read is a legend about going down
so they say that about bodhidharma but actually if you look for body narva in india
you'll never find bodhidharma
india is as big as the whole universe you can't find money down in there
and i
this is last night he has been facing new whole new how is a pig
in the monastery of
soweto the author this palm so he's writing since last night although we can find body anywhere in india it's too vast actually he's here right here
facing this peak that is here as i'm reading this poem
so i don't have to tell you them
zen practice is not about bodhi dharma are you in mud or but some olds and masters whom we understand or don't understand
if you want to penetrate the endless
damn ah kiah the true body of reality you have to look right here facing a new hope pic of your own life
every moment
we have a chance to encounter new hope peak
we're always facing new hot pic
the true body of reality the inexpressible
the on form and time the own language endless
dharma
beyond birth and death always available
in the middle of whatever circumstances our lives bring forth
in our question is
how will we express it
thank you
a our intention a
what
right
on

hey there
ah that the know where you get eight when that a couple of that you want them the one that know that the commentary which is actually
ah i'm very
it's too much to let me now there were lot of green
i to up better shut up and wait for free
a as mine
the luna with in the green line with
i they they made me wonder how much when i'm ready
that we that in the colon
the math referred to as neighbor was not love that or how much one chefs up the website
i'll repeat the question that we shouldn't everybody referred that me if i'm not prepared correctly
hear me everybody hear me okay at last of this working
yeah i'm i might know so now you can certainly hear me john was ringing up this the problem of that
expression
then i was trying to
bring out the nuances of this in my talk
the fact that on the one hand
what expression is easy to get entangled in it's easy to overdo it or it's easy to rarefied experience
with expression
on the other hand to censor ourselves or to keep silent is not right either
so that's why i think the keto it is in the pointer to this case that i wrote up this morning where psuedo says we know with your lips shut tight and your throat closed say it
you see that that's the answer i think in other words
not to say that such a way that one is not getting entangled in it not getting not falling into attachment and entanglement
in the first place and in the second place to say it with a realization that we can never say it anyway and we're always singing it
so i can never express my grief because i might have whatever say i have sent grieving
for a particular reason a loss in my life well that loss in my life brings up the endless grieving that's endemic to time itself and to be human which i can never know and never express and yet i come into touch with it through my own
grieving in this individual case so my express it in my expression is most true when i have a when i when i'm conscious of that in my expressing
and also like i say when i when i'm not entangled in my expression so that's the that's the paradox in a way but i would say to be to be honest here and to be fair check the i was probably emphasizing in my talk expression more
then it would be emphasized in traditional perhaps more than it would be emphasized are in a way that it would in a way that it would not be so much emphasize traditionally and i did i did that and i do that on purpose because i feel that
for our western frame of mind
it's necessary to do that because sometimes
following the eastern path which seems to be more about silence that expression i think that we can often
the violence to our cultural need to manifest ourselves and expression
so it's a very fine point because certainly in the tradition they also talk about expression expressing the dharmas and how to do that without getting entangled in it and without missing the main point which is expression is impossible and it also constant is one of the main issues of of the tree of our tradition
actually a zune is very contemporary in that it's very concerned with language philosophy and mean it really is it seems to be it's really have clearly one of the number one philosophical issues that are expressed over and over again in the cause so i don't think i'm entirely making it up but i'm emphasizing it in a way out of my experience in
working with
western students
and seeing how sometimes people who practice in in the west end up feeling like it's not proper to express oneself sometimes you know and that's not that's not good for us i think
so how but how you do that you know this is we all have to find our way of and i think that that the that the practice than is
you know mindfulness looking within and seeing
so how am i doing now am i now you know wallowing in my expression and mean we can be very attached and my expression and rare myself and making a big confusion onto of my life with my expression or am i expressing what needs to be expressed in going onto the next moment how am i doing and i think suffering and ten
catchment is the guide when we see we're becoming suffering more and we we see our attachment is increasing we know oh yes well this is not go the way i'm expressing myself in the were than i'm focusing on this point so there's letting go in there is expression and i think that that kind that you quote of a that on
translation is also about that point
yeah
yeah the
the way that that case is usually translated into english and it maybe that it's different because it go through the vietnamese language it comes out different but usually translated from japanese food chinese the japanese to english comes out
everyday is a master would ask himself ah something like how are you today i'm good i'm fine don't be fooled by anything i won't be
that was a practice that he said to himself everyday don't be fooled by anything i won't be
he told them felt that everyday and so that's a very good way of you know that's a good practice right if you want to know how your expression is going everyday tell yourself john yes
the okay today yes don't be fooled by anything okay
and let's see now i'm but i'm i being pulled in here and let's say you know so we follow our feeling inside and see how our doing
yeah did you have something you have you in the atlanta say
driving a dirty air my i felt threatened
you
my thank you i'm glad

yes

that's okay

the

i'm on
or
here
with them
okay
no
yeah
i
ha ha
read with no
yes is
no simple formula

yeah well one of the one of the most important notions i think in my own a buddhism is the idea of rupiah are skillful means
and this is the idea that that teaching always fits the occasion
that that it's not that the dharma has an eternal means of expression or an eternal style that it's always presented in this way but rather than a response the conditions that are coming forward the dharma comes forward to meet those conditions in the most skillful way and it's one of the jobs of a teacher one hopes to be able to discern
what would be the most skillful way of teaching so well we're talking about the ancient masters in china you have to keep in mind the context in which they taught
students who were at least as far as we know now hes the reality is always more complicated than one historical documents you don't tell you but as far as we know if they were teaching people who were
a celibate monks
who are absolutely committed to liberation as the only thing that they were doing with their lives and who were already quite grounded and steeped in buddhist thought and buddhist practice so john was considered a kind of like capping
a study in your dharma stereotypically many of these monks would have studied as with master unit would have studied the vinny i would have studied other traditions and would be very grounded in all the teachings of buddhism in the teachings of emptiness compassion and so on and so forth they would have absorbed all of that and then they would say okay now i want to go to a child master
i am determined you know to to to achieve the particular kind of liberation that john has to offer and so i'm going there i know what's involved i'm ready for this i've gone through a lot of practice already and unexperienced you know so it was in that context that they taught not to mention the whole cultural context in the whole asian com
attacks that of those days
so i think that we have to keep that in mind not to me it seems to me that such methods would be highly ineffective
in in our present circumstances i think they would just be and some teachers do even nowadays even in the west do use methods like that because that has that became the tradition it became this is the way china has presented it became solidified into a kind of approach but i don't think that it was originally supposed solidified into an
approach it was a response to the possibility in other words yeah you get people like that who have that level of commitment and that degree of knowledge and then you create a pressure cooker atmosphere in which you can do certain kinds of things so it is valuable but i think it's very not so useful in our circumstances and is my opinion that that given
you know a chinese people in the eighth century you can imagine where where in many ways their psychology was quite different from a western people in the in the late twentieth century and so the teaching suited where they were at so i think that with the same essence and the same truths
we have to presented in a different style and i don't i think it's would be not skillful so
i don't know if i were a student and there was some i have encountered teachers like that in a who present the dharma in a very traditional called fashioned way so i i would just see what i could benefit when i could get out of it you know and i would turn out to take it personally you know i mean
yes okay they're going to maybe they're going to beat me up for they're going to shout and yell and okay that's the game what can i what can i learn from this and if i felt like nothing then i would say thank you very much but i'm outta here
and if i felt like i think there is something i was talking to a priest came to my session and in bellingham last week and she
is a western woman who is ordained priest who is going out of a place in japan where this is the way the training is they've actually beat up people you know except they didn't beat her up because they did they know that i mean the teacher said well you know we only beat up japanese guys we don't be the american women because it's not proper
but we don't hide you know where to them what i'm trying to you know we that we don't hide the fact that we're beating up and they do like a kind of a hazing is a hazing this i don't think was part of chinese in but in japanese and there's a kind of a hazing ritual almost like a fraternity and a young monk comes to their new they give them a hard time you know and it's into our eyes it's very cruel and i think it
re grew myself and i'm sure that they find a cruel also but it's just there that's what they're doing so
i mean if i was there i don't think i would you know i would say geez you know cut it out but she said well she said i i find that i get some benefit out of going there it's good for me you know in some ways there's something that i there's a dimension to my practice that i find valuable so then she has her eyes open she knows what's going on she said
she described it as she's actually also a therapist so she described it as the dysfunctional family from hell she said that's because it's a small it's a very small like there's about a dozen fifteen students there and she said it's like the dysfunctional family from hell but you know i want to go back there because i feel that there's something
for me you know that i can learn from them so
but like i say when i see that kind of thing to me
personally i mean there's just move it
i don't know it strikes me as kind of like ridiculous in a way more more ridiculous than cruel and just seems like people are acting out some sort of
fantasy
i couldn't i won't be hard for me to take it seriously when they shouted at me and this happened to me you know many places where they shout at me and i
a break are you kidding
and and they don't know what to think when you do that and the app but this is my actual honest reaction i was a one place there's one place in new york that has a japanese zen teacher who like that and it's actually kind of terrible guy in a lot of ways he also does other things that are you know beating up
as nice comparative so i think
but anyway
so i went there and i did something that was improper and not him he wasn't there but one of his lieutenants you shouted at me
and have to work he came up to me and all stern and i didn't really care you know and he didn't even know what to think you know because the other words there's that that's a whole system are you're supposed to feel a certain way when the shouting happens and then i didn't feel that way so the guy just didn't know what the thing
so that's my reaction to it but
on the other hand i suppose i maybe my friend i don't actually she didn't tell me exactly why or why she was going there but i think maybe part of it had to do with her wanting to work with fear
and to be able to go in there and come out the other end not being bothered by it will maybe it's good for i don't know
so if you can find some benefit in than good but if not i don't and i think that see what what's going on here is that we're having many people coming to nervous centers the average person who comes to a dharma center is not knowledgeable about buddhism enormously they're just they need to learn
actually one of the things that we've learned is that we have to teach not only zen but also general buddhism people have to learn many other aspects of buddhism besides this is it is one thing that's fundamental but it's not the only thing in buddhism so we have to teach many other things and also
basically people are coming they're not coming with a very strong and clear commitment they're coming with it with a strong and clear commitment i believe to their own lives and to the possibility of spiritual growth but they're exploring what that means and how to manifest that so to assume that everybody's coming as a hard core know was an addict is completely wrong
on and so when these to teach in such a way as the actually reach the people who are coming and not to teach in that way is really just not in accord with buddhist heart according to the my on sutras which said you know the buddha appears in whatever way one needs the would have to appear
so that's how i feel about that and like i say like especially in koreans in
i mean they actually take it to the extent where there are like standard answers to the questions
this is the question you must say this if you say anything else no matter where they're going to how wise it is it's wrong because you must say this and you must tap your stick in this way
you know and so that's how they turned into very asia asian old fashioned asia way of trying to you you imitate the teacher or the mom or dad and you do it exactly the way that they did it in a new teach your children that way and there's something beautiful about that not to say that that's a bad thing but it just doesn't really suit
our contemporary sense of what good teaching and learning is all about
so we'll see what happens in the in
yes
yeah good yeah
the question i think
apply
one my bad
well i don't know
riverside
much
requires you to f
or even happened you know nothing new relationships
one hundred the rash why my
i don't know anything but as i am out
i'm sure
grenada
yeah a lot us
so he's bringing up the the the contradiction between other one hand recognizing and oneself that one doesn't know radically doesn't know and society seemingly our social contract which calls on each of us to sort of be very self assertive and sure of ourselves and so forth and they seem like contradictions and how do we negotiate
i think it's a really good point to bring up the first point is that
our
coming into touch with that one who truly doesn't know that's not the same as doubt and confusion it's quite the opposite the ultimate sense of
groundedness and self possession so to speak and confidence is to be in touch with this not knowing because you see it's not a not knowing that comes from like while somebody knows or all know later it's just that right now i don't know i'm a big dummy
yeah it's not that it's like not knowing is like the ultimate truth
there is nothing but not know anybody who doesn't understand not knowing doesn't really understand so i've i've completely competent in my not knowing it's also not contradictory at all on the relative level you see because it's not knowing is on an absolute level it's not at all contradictory on the relative level to say yes that's in fact you could say yes that's it with much more comfy
since when you know you don't know
because if somebody so if you so yes that's it and somebody says no that's not a you say find
then it's that let's go as they so it's not a problem really it's not a problem it's it's well it's because we think that there's something to know that are that i don't know it looks like you i don't know you
no no no it's that i don't know this is like it i don't know you know it's like i'm totally i don't know and yeah then that then we can easily say it's this let's go this way
the and then if that turns out to be totally wrong and the next moment drop it and let's go the other way that's fun full confidence in this way now we have to change good for confidence in that way to so i actually really don't think it's actually a problem
but i also know that it's not easy to do that because we're working on this it's not like you know we've said all of a sudden like you know and there we are it's we're working on this so i understand that in the working on and it can present itself as a problem but
you know
even though we have these social conspiracies together you know like this at the same time i don't think anybody any one of us
if you can touch we can touch each other in our deepest heart every one of us also is concerned about this the issue of birth and death concerns all of us you know so we can all reach ourselves and each other you know at that level and i think if one has confidence in that and
their confidence comes from going back to the cushion and touching yourself at that level the more you touch yourself at that level the more you come to realize everyone else is also on the path and whatever place they are and sometimes you find over to i have found any way over and over and over again that the people who most insist on ignoring the
that part of their lives are the ones who have the biggest hurts and the biggest ones and the deepest need for it and so sometimes it's so you have to be
from enough in your own path not to get hooked into the
kind of thing that we do with each other you know as this clear how we do this to each other you know and it's possible just like this guy who shouts at me and the zendo and afterward waits for me to be hooked into the same reality here's an ico so what you shouted at me big deal you know i didn't say those words but obviously that's my attitude that he did you know that right away he dropped
he was kind of confused you know so it's the same way in with there were some worldly person
you know expects you to feel guilty or expects you to feel diminished by his or her nomination and so on and you don't feel that
you just you know your attitude toward them as a boot i want to meet you as a buddha even though you don't say that those words but that's where you're coming from then people eventually will harmonize with that i really believe that so our job is to constantly work on getting in touch with ourselves in that way so that we really see the world and
why we come from that place so i i think it's not a problem to get along in the world and be a practitioner in the world and it's not a problem too
do the things that we need to do whatever they are i think that we have to come from the place of suppose it all falls apart the pose i get fired and i have nothing i'm ready for that too we have to be you know if we're afraid if we're holding on and were afraid then definitely we can practice that way so we have to really i believe myself
i'm sorry to say this but i really believe that practices ultimately about renunciation even though we live in our house and we have our family and we have our job and everything that's fine it's not that we have to give that up but we have to give it up in our hearts that's the only way that we can live it beautifully
because if we're afraid in so far as were afraid of losing what we have than we are pray because that's what the social conspiracy is based on it's based on our mutual fear together that we would lose what we have and that's how we keep each other in trapped that's how we do it and if we can break away from
that than we can them were fine we can negotiate our way through the world and if ultimately because we're righteous we lose our job well i mean of course who wants to lose their job nobody wants the sergio
but if that if it comes to that okay so will suffer and will survive somehow i think so it's possible that i don't think there's a contradiction in the teaching in the life there's a contradiction in our hearts because we're still working on and so our job is to look at that contradiction and be clear about it not pretend
it's not there are say well wait and know he said this is how you bees in so i'm going to be that way no no you have to look and see we have that contradiction and it is difficult because of that we have to look we have to be very honest about it be mindful of it and keep going ahead and eventually little by little as we touch ourselves deeply in our lives that
little by little dissipates of ball the way so it's a great adventure you know what the practice in the way that were practicing you know it really is it's a great possibility
i hope we can we can do it more and more and i think that it gets it gets more and more possible all the time because there are more and more people who have more and more understanding of the dharma and the appreciation of them is spreading wider in the society i think so now you know like we have this ongoing series of retreats with people in business
you know practicing then in business
and more and more people are seeing that will they can tell their colleagues at work that they practice in and they find at first they thought go think i'm crazy they'll build don't think i'm flaky know but now they're finding actually in many cases they get respect for it than people say gee you know i'm glad that you're here i'm glad to know you're practicing
here and and then the hell of a sudden sometimes people come to them with a different spirit and sometimes the workplace takes on a new feeling because of that and that's more were happening so you know you find the wonderful thing where you know there's some body at the workplace that you know about are and then you tell them that you're studying and then they say
ah so am i
ha you find that half sometimes you know
so yes
a
and
yeah
yeah
yeah
yeah
now that
the
no
now
the
no
not
yeah
getting

yeah
no
it
yeah yeah you know the poor fellow right now if you'll say what
you know you excuse me grab the
and then it's like
yeah yeah
that
i guess
yeah

we are yeah
yeah yeah
one
yeah
the head
a time i god
yeah no i guess
yeah well as it's in in specific cases of course is very difficult to know what to do you know and sometimes one just
takes one bashar had you know have encouraged not to be afraid of doing what you feel is right but sometimes you know in a case like that right thing to do for us to leave the job sometimes maybe it's not i don't know but one thing i do know is that when you when you really contemplate in our karma and what kind of really is you
know that someone who is causing harm
you know someone whose life is so unaware that they can't help their home mode of being is disrespectful a harmful to others you know one can really know that that person is themselves causing harm in their own lives and to me someone like that is more to be pitied than to be feared or
oppose the necessary know whatever the heart of opposition and hatred you feel sorry for someone who know there are plenty of people who were so
miserable and so far from their own hearts in the lives that their living that the only way that they can have any that and if any feeling of satisfaction is to feel that they're dominating others and amassing huge fortunes of money which of course is not making them happy anyway but they feel like at least you know that that's the only thing that just
defies how far they are from their own hearts and this is not an abstraction to me at all i mean that seems to me that you can see this in the face and the in the body and the life of someone who's living that way to like to me it when i look at that i i look at such a person i just see it there it is right there the person is very far removed from
the humanness of being human so then when someone when you're on the other end of that kind of person rather than saying feeling of you know i'm mad at them or hate them they're be treating me this way in this way this way you feel ah sad this is that the person is has to be this way feel that they have to be that way now you
know realistically one they feel hurt in a lot of ways in so far as we don't have that vision of each other we're still working on it you know but it's very important to keep that vision in front of us and remember it come back to the oh yes i'm hurt by this person but really and truly i should remember that this person is is himself suffering
you know and that's where that is coming from now if we were if we're all buddhas you know we could go to the office and let them do that to us and little by little through our loving heart softened them up and be pretty soon before you know it we would all be nice to each other unfortunately we're not there yet
so sometimes you have to do things like quit our job or sometimes get angry if we if that's the only way that we have to express ourselves sometimes that's what happens and we have to do that and that's because that's how we are but it's just good to keep that vision in mind that people who are like that are suffering yeah comes and goes here
yeah yeah yeah
right
right right and you have to know yourself till you can you can't pretend l a buddhist i'm going to let take this and it will take it and i'm going to take it and going to take it and then you really in your heart you're not able to really take it and so then you have to make an adjustment so it's it's hard to know you know we have to just do our best and try to look within ourselves and discern what's really going on and what's the best thing for us to do
given where we are who we really are we can't pretend to be something that we're not yeah so sometimes we do what we need to do yeah

why
right
yeah
right yes that's what i'm saying
from now
i at and we can
right
the i
yeah yeah
right exactly here
we talked about
no
right
yeah yeah
yeah that's right so it's always completely we can never say you know here's how you behave in that circumstance when we never know it depends on the situation
i mean even yet today actually and twenty twenty thing about radical expression radical honesty guy never would have them treat with people where they scream at each other yeah yeah yeah
in a way you know it make them
begging begging then ah