What am I trying to say? It's always helpful. There's a saying in Zen, if you can't explain it to a three or four-year-old, you really don't know what you're talking about. I don't know if I'm going to pass the test on that level, but here's what I'm trying to say. When we engage the practice, the usual way, the fixed way we experience reality starts to shift in two ways. One, the way we construct reality becomes more evident, and even that construct becomes less permanent. And as that starts to happen,

[01:01]

creates within us a capacity to inquire into just what's going on in a different way. When we're stuck in the constructs of self, well then, our questions are predicated by that. Why is everybody being mean to me? And then we start to see the mind that... Okay? No? Yeah? It's okay? Okay, sorry about that. We see the constructs of self. Maybe that's it. We start to see them rather than live inside of them. And then we see something beyond that. As we see the self

[02:07]

this marvelous realization. There's more to what happens than what I think there is. And then how do we help to create the body and mind of that way of being? And then more than the first half of the practice period. I bored you with the notion of directed attention, receptive attention. And then as if that wasn't bad enough, I bored you with the notion of interbeing, the sense of experience being a fluid process, an interactive process, rather than we're dealing with some fixed expression of being. that has all sorts of challenges implicit in it.

[03:09]

If reality is fixed, then we're stuck. And then what that sets up, both that deliberate practice, but then that deliberate practice also sets up a disposition, which in Zen is called not knowing. You know, we can think of the first koan in the Blue Cliff Records that almost every shusoul uses. And that's the Emperor and Bodhidharma. And the usual way it's thought of is like this. The Emperor is rich, powerful and stupid. And Bodhidharma is the kind of...

[04:10]

radical free spirit who's clued into what's happening. But you can also turn it this way. There's a notion in Chinese Zen of what is the first principle of practice? It's really like saying, what is it to practice? Or like saying, what is it to do zazeng? It's an inexhaustible question. You can't You can't say, here it is. That's the totality of it. Unless you say something that includes everything. So we could say, the emperor asks Bodhidharma, what is it to practice? And Bodhidharma says, shunyata, interbeing. There's no rigid... statement about practice that holds all of practice.

[05:22]

And then the emperor says, well, how does a human being engage that? Where did that come from? I mean, who are you? What mind generates? What mind expresses? What mind-body embodies that being? And Bodhidharma says, don't know. How do you engage in that way? Don't know. Why did I just say that as an example of turning. We think of things one way, and when the mind is fluid, we can turn it. Maybe the emperor wasn't such a dud after all. And maybe Bodhidharma wasn't lording it over him saying, hey, stupid, there's no such thing.

[06:29]

And who am I? I'm not telling you. And I'm out of here. And in the Shashina I read Billy Collins' poem about ignorance. And I wondered if it was against the Shingi to read a poem in a class. I sort of think it is. I'm going to test it a little bit by just... he said, talking of himself, he said, and there I was, like Samuel Johnson's. Just to think, a few hours ago, I was as sour as Samuel Johnson after a few bad sherrys. Slander.

[07:32]

Slander? He's dead, so you can't slander a dead person, legally speaking. Thank you for that. Okay. And then he said, to think further, I have no idea what might have uplifted me. What changed his mood? Unless it was when I opened the front door and looked at the sky, so extensive and burdened with snow. Or maybe it was when the dogs scared the ducks up from the water and I stopped to watch them flapping low. All seven, the leader hurrying and the rest following. And then that other poem from Seamus Heaney, which I know is emblazoned in your minds now.

[08:34]

the girl carrying the ashes. We don't know the context, we don't know the conclusion, just that moment, the precision, the effort, the concentration. Here's my suggestion about how to hold those two poems. So the first mind is Shoshin, its fluid mind. He's watching his mind and he's noticing it doing its thing. A sour mood, as sour as Samuel Johnson with a few bad cherries, which I assume is pretty sour. And then it turns.

[09:41]

What happened? How does that happen? How can you be in a bad mood in the morning and then by afternoon you're optimistic, friendly, hopeful, resilient, dedicated? but he holds his own notions with a lightness. It's the territory of the self. To study the self. So not to study it with some ponderous attitude of I have to get the right answer. I have to draw the right conclusion. A kind of not knowing. And here's the conclusions that arise right now. And then the other mind, the directed attention enlivens the activity.

[10:56]

And the activity becomes just itself and all-inclusive. And in case that makes some sense to you, I'm going to quote something that Dogen wrote, which hopefully will utterly confuse you, or at least startle you. Here's Dogen's quote. He's talking about the Samadhi of Samadhi. Same way of talking about the same thing. And he says, in the Mahaprajna Paramito Desa, It says that the dragon king, when he sees a human as a coiled dragon, he's frightened. And coiled dragon there is doing sasen, sitting in sasen. Even more so when that human's mind is not afflicted and that human's body is at ease. So there you go.

[12:03]

That's what Dogen says. What does he say? He says it in Zammai, O Zammai. He makes a long quote, but I thought I'd just try to start you with that piece. When the dragon king sees a human sitting like a coiled dragon, shaken, he's disturbed. Even more so when that human is sitting with the mind at ease and the body at ease. Which might explain why there haven't been a plague of dragon kings this practice period.

[13:05]

Well, that's one conclusion, right? Or to extend that a little, in this way, this amazing way we've taken on a heritage of Japanese Zen, which took on a heritage of Chinese Zen, which took on a heritage of Indian Buddhadharma, and its tradition. extraordinary, complex, rich, wise, added its imagery. And now here we are. And what are we doing with it? Is that quote I just made an instant throwaway? Oh, well, that's nonsense. Or is that something to ponder and discover within its symbolism

[14:08]

some profound relationship disaster. And we can hold it with either mind, right? You can notice, what did it stir up? Maybe it was so alien, you've already forgotten it. Something about dragon, whatever, you know? Or maybe it just peaked your interest because it was so weird, you know? That's what I was hoping for. That's what happened to me when I read it. And looked up in the notes, you know, where did that come from? I'd never heard of the sutra before. Paramito...

[15:10]

Dessa. Sounds kind of Italian, doesn't it? Paramito. Paramita. If you're Italian, yeah. So that. That sense of holding a mind that doesn't draw conclusions. Or maybe we could say it doesn't grasp conclusions. And then both these minds support that. One is, in its fluidity, it has that quality of, is that so? Watching your own workings. Sorry, Masha, I just want to just check.

[16:14]

So the third one is Shoshin or Shoshin? S-H-O, Shoh. Mu? Did I forget to say Mushin? Thanks, Kim. M-L-O. M-U. You know, as in, does a dog have Buddha nature? That Mu. And also doesn't. And of course, this is just sort of like conceptually setting the stage for what enables that. But it's good to know what we're setting. It's helpful to have some direct, straightforward appreciation. then it holds it closer to availability.

[17:15]

Like when your stuff comes up, can you hold it lightly? If your mind reaches out and grasps something, do you immediately negate that as if it's real? and needs to be annihilated, suppressed, changed into something else? Or can it be, is that so? And then in those moments of directed attention, can there be a willingness? Yes, I will. Just this is it. And can we, as we go through our day, can we see the interplay of those two?

[18:18]

Whether the emphasis is in the directed attention, we're engaging this task, and we engage this task as if it was the whole world. And to quote... Zen Master Dogen again, in being time, Uji. The being time of all beings throughout the world is in water and on land, in water and on land is just the actualization of your complete effort now. The being time of all beings throughout the world in water and land is the actualization of your complete effort now to do each thing that way. Yes?

[19:23]

With all these Dogen quotes here, who is the translator that you prefer most? Because they're good ones. Thanks. But I personally prefer being an inveterate skeptic, is to look at as many translations as possible. And then somehow triangulate between them and come up with something. And then to remind myself, and even that is just... a suggestion. And maybe the following from that is, does the suggestion reverberate?

[20:24]

Because there is some way that whatever way we're taking in the Dharma, or the Buddha Dharma, the Dharma of Awakening, some process of not exactly making it our own but relating to it in a way that reverberates with our sense of practice. Would you say that directed attention dissolves more and more the longer we practice into receptive awareness? Would I say that? Not exactly. I would say at times. I would say they're interwoven. And I would also say they balance each other. Each of them without the other can evoke its own kind of shadow.

[21:27]

There's one Dogen Fasikho that I was reading that I can't remember the name of. Right now he was talking about practice as medicine. And he says, medicine can become poison. The directed attention can be an issue of control. It can be trance-like. It can be dissociative. It can be, this is what should be happening, and if this is not happening, then things are going wrong. receptive attention can lose its acuity. It can lose its clarity. And in presenting those two minds is to say, which is my own notion, that I think they both give a valuable access to what's happening in the moment.

[22:35]

It's not an either or. And especially as we're moving through our day. To kind of meet a moment and say, this should be entirely different. Well, maybe it should or it shouldn't, but it is what it is. It's just much more skillful. Can you meet the moment as it is? If in that moment your mind is agitated and distracted, can you be with agitated and distracted mind? If in that moment you've settled into... conscious attentiveness in an activity, well, be with that. And so that's where we got to in the third day of Sashin. You remember that, right? Go ahead, James. The Mediterranean?

[23:45]

Okay. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. somehow whether we recognize something that is more intimate than we know ourselves. Yeah. And there is, you know, a saying in Zen which is not knowing is most intimate. Yeah. And then we can tweak it a little bit and say what knowing reveals what knowing realizes through engagement is that which is most intimate.

[24:50]

Then the experience, the realization happens in the realm of experiencing and just sort of bend language a bit. It speaks beyond words. It communicates beyond words. And as Dogen says in several of the fascicles we chant, you may not be able to conceptualize this, because this goes beyond the conceptual mind. And yet when we experience it, there's a knowing authority in that experiencing. And what I would say is for each of us to find what gives us access, what inspires us, what draws us into the realm of practice.

[25:58]

And not to worry about, you know, does it come from this tradition or that tradition? I mean, to my mind, all the traditions are weird and wonderful. You look at Catholicism and you get into the cosmology of angels and all sorts of things. You think Buddhism has its purity until you read Dogen's quote about dragon kings and called dragons and demons. And then, can we come back to practice not exactly knowing what practice is? Not negating the

[27:08]

the beautiful accumulation of life that brought us to say, yes, I will. But to let that, yes, I will, have within it its own not knowing. That this is an exploration, an engagement, and a realization. This process of Zen. Zen very much emphasizes the kind of inside out. Each individual goes through this process. That's the emphasis, but it completely upholds the sila and the shingi. It completely upholds the dedication and the diligence to the foundations and the fundamentals of practice. As Suzuki Roshi says, Hinayana practice, Mahayana mind.

[28:13]

So with that, with those foundational and fundamental practices, this mind of not knowing. Yes? Well, essentially that's what I've been talking about. I've been talking about how to relate the consciousness in a way that it enables awakening. And that's different from saying, here's the diet you should eat, here's the exercise regime you should do, here's the kind of community you should live in, here's the admonitions you should comply with. We could say that's setting up the context, setting up the structure, relating to consciousness. You know, the cultivation of consciousness is from the inside out.

[29:17]

That's what I meant. And then in Shishin, I started to talk about, you know, what Kaz translates as ceaseless practice. And Nishijima talks about this observation and observance of pure conduct. And then if you think about it, it seems almost like a contradiction. It's like, oh, suddenly we've shifted from the inside out, how you relate to anything and everything, to pure conduct. But in the Zen school, the cultivation of conduct the cultivation of consciousness is pure conduct. And that's our reference point. This is Bodhidharma's one-mind precepts.

[30:20]

So when we do the full moon ceremony, first of all, we chant the prohibitory precept, and then we chant the one-mind precept. This coming from the consciousness that realizes how that prohibitory precept enables liberation rather than just another do and don't imposed on a human life. Okay, is that enough about that? So, there does seem to be a temporal difference between ceaseless awareness and... pure standards, shingyi, if it's a causal relationship. If deep in samadhi we understand the shingyi, then they don't arise together.

[31:29]

So am I misunderstanding? Could you say that last sentence? If they don't... If they... What I heard, and maybe I misunderstood, is that ceaseless practice gives rise to pure observance of conduct rather than colorizing simultaneously. Well, when we talked about it before, what I was saying was that it's interesting that the same phrase... has been translated by the translators in remarkably different ways. And in fact, one of them seems to be Mahayana. I didn't quite go there, but yes. But true. We could say this one is upholding some code of conduct, and this one's upholding a fluid process.

[32:34]

Which will. naturally give rise to the code of conduct. But there's a time gap. Sorry to bring time into it, but there's a time thing. You see, and one of Dogen's core tenets was that there isn't a time gap. Practice, realization are simultaneous. So that's what he would say. He would say, no. This is not in preparation. or in cultivation of this, engaging like this is expressing it. So it's both the practice of it includes both the cultivation and the culmination all at once. And that's why in being time, he says, when you engage like this, that's it. enlightenment in nirvana, there's not a moment's gap.

[33:44]

It makes the circle of the way. It's just where I was going next. Yes? When you said the cultivation of consciousness is pure conduct, is consciousness there what you've been speaking of as awareness or what you've been speaking of as citta or discernment or is the point of this all to collapse a little bit the distinction between awareness and citta? Wouldn't it collapse? Well, maybe you could say it that way. But sort of to collapse the distinction between these two. Because, you know, so Dogen has his core tenet. of saying, you know, practice and realization are one thing. And then in Gyoji, as Tanto just quoted, he lays out this that sounds like, oh, there's one, two, three, four.

[34:52]

Did I answer your question with that? No. When I said pure conduct, I was saying, The emphasis, you know, as Suzuki Roshi says, Mahayana mind, the wind of Mahayana mind in our school has this not knowing as its basis rather than we're engaging this code of conduct to produce that result. It is this step-by-step or moment-by-moment realization. And then your other point was... My question was more about which consciousness are we talking about when you use the phrase the cultivation of consciousness? Which consciousness? You refer to it as awareness or the discernment that you've been trying to harness as the robber's horse. Well, the refinement of discernment as not knowing

[36:03]

as skillful beings. But the awareness of all states of consciousness, you know, that's what makes it Mahayana. And then the disposition is all-inclusive and that's what allows it to be ceaseless practice because otherwise we're in the practice state of being and then we're not and then we are. I think just that phrase, the refinement of discernment of not knowing, is really helpful because we don't generally think about discernment as the cultivation of not knowing. We think of discernment as the cultivation of separating one thing from another. So it's Manjushri's sword of discernment, making two into one, not one into two. Yeah. Very simple. I don't understand more, but it could be that one mind... that not known man, Bodhidharma standing there, he was facing what is coming, meaning the unknown, and the other mind starts from a conceptual construction thing.

[37:15]

He's facing what's coming? Whatever. I don't know. Do I know? I was trying to understand what you meant, Cecilia, when you said... It's when Bodhidharma is there. Yes. Right? And the king that's not that stupid poses some questions. So, and then he has to, he doesn't have nothing, really. So, what? So, he says, don't know. And then the other mind is something that comes... I don't know if there's time here after that. After that fact of not knowing, which could be in Spanish, it's called asombro. So we could say this is exactly what the emperor's follow-up question was about.

[38:21]

What is that answer? How does that answer come into being? How does that response come into being? I ask you a question. about the foundation of practice, you answer this, how come? I mean, are you talking from your intellectual knowledge? I mean, is that what you read when Dogen wrote it? Or did that arise out of being? And there it is. And then Bodhidharma responds by saying, don't know. And then I've been sort of co-opting both questions and using them to my own devices and saying, well, here is don't know mind and the methodology of don't know mind or the methodology of here's interbeing and the methodology of interbeing is not having conclusions.

[39:29]

And then I said, and the practice of not having conclusions includes both direct attention and receptive attention. And the practical wisdom of that is that our practice doesn't exist in the abstract. Our practice exists in meeting the experience of the moment, of being the experience of the moment. And whatever conceptual framework we're working from, meeting the experience of the moment will reveal something. And the hope of the Zen School is that what revealed is not grasped, but rather seen as an illustrative example of what is. So whether it's a state of mind, as Billy Collins says, oh, this state of mind.

[40:34]

And how come? Was it the way when I opened the door and saw the sky? Was it when my dog chased the ducks? And right away you can see he's not so hung up on his own question. So it could be like when the absolute and the real meet. So there has to be a merge. I don't know. What happens there? Well... Maybe I'm in another story. Well... When we say the absolute and the relative... Really, what we're saying is the relative, the constructed description of what's happening.

[41:41]

And then the other one is the experience of it that goes beyond our constructs. And then we could say, well, the relative is the territory of Shoshin in the realm of practice. And going beyond is the territory of motion. And that's what I'm trying to sell today. And it's free, so take as much as you want. So, as the tantra just pointed out, then awareness, practice, awakening, nirvana. And Dogen lays it out there. as he's talking about continuous practice, and he lays it out as a continuum, and then he also says, but it's spontaneous.

[42:43]

And I would parse it like this, because sometimes we are working with, actually most of the time, we're working with the constructs of our mind. And when we're experiencing beyond the construct of our minds, usually we're in a state of celebration. Look at this. Isn't this fantastic? I want more of this. But within those constructs, then... constructed practice. In the moments of direct experience, in the moments of realization, if it's not broken, don't fix it.

[43:47]

Just soak it up. And I think he's saying both. He's saying, let's talk about practice. Or as I was saying earlier, you know, notice, acknowledge, contact, experience. You know? And he says, awareness, practice, realizing nirvana. But they're both just notions. Did you want to ask a question? Yes, sir. Did you say the first time, instead of realization, awakening? I did. What's the difference between awakening and nirvana? Um... Nirvana has the attribute of cessation.

[44:49]

And in cessation, there is the attribute of residing. If you think in Sashin and before, I introduced this notion of be aware when you're aware. And it's just a peculiar way of saying, when you reside in the experience you're having, when the mind is busier, it's like we're chasing after the experience, we touch it for a moment, and then something else happens. When the mind is more settled, capacity to reside. And how do we reside in awareness? We reside in awareness when we've dropped away all the agitations, the grasping and the aversions that keep making now ephemeral and difficult to make contact with.

[46:10]

And when they drop away, now has more of a quality of availability. And that's why in our sitting it feels both affirming and almost like a relief. Just this is it. And in that dropping away, the cessation of the afflictions has come into play. And that's why the dragon king gets upset. Because the afflictions have fallen away in nirvanas. And I think the dragon king doesn't do well in nirvana. But that's a personal notion. So to have in our practice, we always return to basics.

[47:12]

It doesn't matter how marvelous your last period of Zazen was or what an extraordinary insight you've had. Next time you go back to the cushion, next moment, return to basics. And this is very much I would say the style of all practice, but very much the style of Zen practice. The next time you sit down, you're a beginner. There's no... There's no knowing the mind of this period of sasana. Yes.

[48:13]

So when you say return to basics, like you sit down on your cushion, very first thing, are you talking about kind of breathing the breath through the body and then kind of extending the exhale a little bit? Or are you just saying, don't think about anything, whatever happens, happens? Both and neither. That it's about... rediscovering and reconnecting as thoroughly as we can to what is it to be Zazen. And both of those can open a Dharma gate, and either of them as a construct, as something that should happen or should not happen, can be a distraction. So every time we sit down, the challenge for us is to kind of meet that con. to discover right there what is zazen.

[49:15]

I would suggest, it's like the emperor's question, the bodhidharma, how do you practice? Some questions are inexhaustible. It doesn't matter how much zazen you've done or how much practice you've done. What is zazen? What is practice? In the words of nonsen, it's always confronting you like a cliff. And not knowing is the point of accessibility. And that accessibility, when it's engaged in that way, it ripens. And then in Sashin, which we'll be in very soon, this sense of ceaseless practice. We keep coming back to the next period of Sajan. We keep doing the next thing.

[50:18]

And the great gift of practice spirit is something in us knows, something in our bones learns that this is practice. You just meet the next moment. And sometimes your mind is filled with the fervor of dedication, and sometimes something else. And we learn the alchemy of giving over to immersion. And this is a key point in our practice. And it's facilitated by this Mahayana mind that says, whatever consciousness arises in your condition to being, you know, practice. What is it to practice with this?

[51:21]

And then the challenge for each of us, what is the frame of reference that makes that accessible? And then to study what are the subtleties of practice that make it accessible. And maybe that's giving ourselves more credit than we do, to say the subtleties. Sometimes it's one of the basics of practice. Complete effort. how easy it is at this time in the practice period. Oh, we're gonna sit for 20 minutes? Yeah, I can do that. But can we sit a 20-minute period like thinking, this period of zazen lasts forever.

[52:29]

It's beyond time. It's just like total engagement. How do we stay close to that? Contemplate your own mortality every day. The time to say, contemplate your own mortality. I would say this. Find for you, you know, what is it? And I would say, maybe have a variety of points of access. As you may have noticed, I find poetry a point of access. I read some of Billy Collins, and I'm kind of amused, relieved, and inspired.

[53:36]

But I don't mean to say, that's it for everybody. So the continuity of practice as initiating, engaging, experiencing, abiding, and in all to say, they're all saying, working with what you are in that moment as thoroughly, as skillfully as you can. And what you are in that moment as the expression of interbeing. And Dogen said, the more we engage like this, the more this reveals itself.

[54:39]

And in the very process of engaging it like this, we are expressing. When we engage with this kind of fluid don't know, we're already expressing into being. And how does all this come about? Don't know. We don't have to have... a conceptual map that tells us how all the pieces fit together. In fact, it's better if we don't. It's better if you give a little plausibility to the notion of a dragon king. Or the notion of a coiled dragon. Coiled dragon as someone sitting Zazen. How about that? And then apparently I got to... I remember I was in Sushin and I had a dogasan.

[56:00]

And someone was talking to me about their sustenance of sugary treats. Without mentioning it directly, I mentioned restraint. And here's what I would say. When we're engaging practice as thoroughly as possible, what we discover is it asks for everything we've got. If you think, oh... And then I can step over here and I can get involved in all the stuff of me and all the habits and indulge them. And then miraculously I can step over here and be pure light. So you can be pure light while you're indulging and everything?

[57:03]

Is that what you're saying? Exactly. That's just where I was going with that. I would suggest if it had the element of indulging, Maybe that's something to note with show sin, of course. Well, I would say when we get to that problem, we'll deal with it. But maybe to follow that idea a little further. As we venture deeper into the practice and we see it asks for everything we've got, it gets kind of scary. You might notice in the depths of Shashin, or maybe even in your anticipatory involvement in Shashin, there's a kind of apprehension.

[58:15]

as if something in us knows what's being asked of us, and some other part of us is going, whoa, wait a minute. Let me think about that one. The emphasis on, think about it. And the alchemy of our practice is this all-inclusive practice. If that's what comes up, okay, that too. Explore that. How is that? What is being denied by the request of practice? And who says it? And often, when we come against our edge, It's dangerous, it's anxiety-provoking, and it's usually a powerful place for discovery.

[59:32]

And this is a very interesting proposition. Dangerous, anxiety-provoking, and a powerful place for discovery. And Sashin is a marvelous place for that, because normally when we have that in our usual life, there's all sorts of clamor in the mind. Then that sets in motion a whole array of more afflictive emotions. We're upset, we're angry, we're resentful, we're critical of ourselves or others. But in the Sashin, in that more settled mind, there can be another kind of investigation. I would encourage you if such things occur, if such dragons appear, can they be experienced?

[60:35]

And sometimes that may be in the body, sometimes that may be as you're exploring letting the body breathe and the tightness in the body becomes all too apparent. Sometimes it might be grasping a certain way of thinking and the mind is in a kind of obsessive state. Don't know. What is it to practice with this? And with those two, the intensity, the connection, and don't knowing what is it to practice with it, then we start to enter the realm of what I would call one of Zen's gifts to Buddhist practice is koan. The inquiry and the engagement the inquiry creates displays the Dharma.

[61:46]

this very mind is an example of what is. And engaging this mind is to engage the exploration of liberation. Not that I used those words during Shin, but they came up just now. And then I moved on to that wonderful true story about Harry Sheba spending 60 years in the world. And I didn't search YouTube to see if there's a video of it, but who knows? That notion, did you want to ask something? Go ahead.

[62:51]

That's okay. Harasiv is used to waiting. Going back to interbeing and expressing interbeing through what I heard as this kind of fluid, not knowing... Yeah. So the two I were putting together was... Let go of conclusions. And what is it to practice with this? So letting go of conclusions invites us out of the definition of reality that conditioned mind is creating. And then what is it to practice with it? It's both inviting us to remind ourselves, oh, I'm here to practice. That's what my primary agenda is.

[63:56]

And then that fluidity of minds, like, well, is this a matter of patience? This is how it is. Is this a matter of attending to the body? Is this a matter of forgiveness? Even though they said that awful, horrible thing to me, just... let it flow, it's just our shared karmic life. The fluidity of engagement that isn't righting a wrong or upholding the virtuous in denial of something else, it's flexible, it's Shoshin. Does that answer your question? The Dragon King's fears, like all the rest of our fears, are in relationship to mere constructs.

[65:29]

When the Dragon King realizes the suchness of what is, he will, as it says in the Heart Sutra, he will let go of his fear. Can we save him from his own or her own karmic constructs? We can support him or her as thoroughly as we can to work with their constructs. And even if our own efforts in practice stimulate that fear, maybe it's an admonition for us to practice in a way that challenges us to imbue it with compassion.

[66:36]

Yes, Miles? Apparently. On the following our desires towards she or anyone else, it seems that we're not just supposed to be good boys and girls, but we're actually just not to miss a key arising of a part of us that we can see clearly. Do you think that's how you are? No, I don't. Do you think you push it away? Internally, I think externally I want to be a good person, so I think it's even more complex. I'm always rushing to be a good person, so I think there's an internal part of me that wants to resist it, but then there's a part of me that wants to be liked and treated well and looked at well, and so it's complex.

[67:47]

But if it's just an opportunity for me to see, oh, here's candy, what's mine else doing? I think it motivates me more to... investigate that than to maybe move into another area that just becomes cloud. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. And I would say, you know, okay, drop any notion of being a good person. I would say that's not it. The challenge for us is can we engage, you know, the rigors of the structure we've given ourselves over to, can we engage them in a way that reveals to us what's going on for us and where we're grasping and clinging and what it is to discover a way of engaging that

[68:54]

that reveals liberation rather than compliance. And I would say, in our tradition, the engaging is an agent for that realization, more so than just saying, oh, well, I'm going to do whatever the hell I want. If any one of us adopted that attitude, in less than a day, we would be bored and agitated, you know? And I think we all flirt with it at times and discover that fact, you know? And then we renew our dedication. And that back and forth, you know, has some significant dharmas for us in terms of conditioned existence and in terms of engagement in practice.

[70:06]

Maybe you can give me the same response. I have a long and pleasurable relationship with chocolate during sashim. And what's kind of curious for me is that while I've been working with not being averse to my own suffering, I'm also working with not being averse to pleasure. You know, not being a restaurant with pleasure. So this is something that's pleasurable. I enjoy doing it. Treat it with great reverence. Have one or two pieces of chocolate, you know, with the correct attention and pleasure. And let it start. Where's the problem? Have you ever heard of the expression, wild fox spirit? No. Well, I assume you don't know the coyote spirit. Okay. They both are interesting. They're completely different traditions.

[71:09]

But they both represent, you know, flirting with this boundary between... Here's the Shingi, and here's the kind of... What would you call it? The skillful contradiction of the Shingi. Yeah. And so in Zen, the wild fox spirit is in that territory. It's like, yeah, I know what it says here. I know what it says here literally. And here's... a skillful, beyond the literal involvement. And the wild fog spirit, it isn't like, well, that's an awful, terrible thing and don't ever do it.

[72:13]

It's more nuanced than that. It's more like saying, when you get into that territory, pay extra good attention. When you get into that territory, you really need to be watching. The wild fox does not ignore cause and effect. The wild fox does not ignore the constructs of the shingi and the schedule. So how that's being engaged. say the same thing about like a request of the Eno that you're not abiding by or you're not complying with the rubber ducky thing? No, I'm being serious.

[73:15]

So it's like... You elaborate the rubber ducky thing a little. In the words of the venerable Eno. I don't know about venerable, but no, is that so I ask that we not But whoever this Bodhisattva is that's helping me to see my mind around this. There was a small rubber ducky on my Zafu, my Zapatama this morning with a little note that said quack in the mouth. And so, you know, I think it's like, so you're talking about compliance because when Kim said something about eating chocolate and I guess what came up for me is... you know, what are we not allowing to arise because we're eating chocolate? What is it that we're not allowing to arise because we're not being compliant? I mean, I loved how you put it, that this is not about compliance. It's about an aid to awakening or an aid to liberation. So, like you said, it's a very fruitful place to be in that dynamic of, well, I'm going to still put out these rubber duckies or I'm going to still eat chocolate even though this is against the shingy because I'm doing it mindfully.

[74:20]

And it's like... We're missing the opportunity that this container provides if we are not taking an opportunity to look at what that noncompliance is about. And this is coming from somebody who is, you know, hard for me to be compliant as the, you know. You know, it's a place for me to practice with, too. It's like, do I go through and check everybody's cabin to see who's kind of lying about this, you know? Do I ask everybody about the rubber ducky? Do I just, like, laugh it off? Do I let go of it? And I'm just putting it out because most of the Sanda is here, so I just think it's kind of interesting what you're saying about liberation versus compliance. I think it's really well, a really great distinction and a helpful one for me as well. I remember many years ago I came across this Native American mind training and when something comes up, you know, that sticks in your mind, challenge yourself to think about it in six different ways. by the time you've constructed six different ways, the inclination of mind to grasp it as this is the way to think about it has loosened up.

[75:36]

And that's part of this, you know, only don't know or restraint from conclusion as best we can. And so the question you raise is are wonderful. Even just on a personal level, they're wonderful on a collective level. And is there a single conclusion we should all comply with? Yes, the one I'm asking about before. No rubber duckies in the Zen, though. Well, because, you know, it's interesting. It's very interesting to me because, like, I mean, I have constructed six ways to look at this. I mean, I have looked at this in different ways. And I think what's interesting is how can you do that, hold it all lightly, and still enforce, if you will, or still ask people to abide by the shiggy? I mean, that is a very interesting dance, right?

[76:40]

How do I, you know, I think I'm a funny person, right? And I can see the humor in it. And at the same time, I'm in this role where... I'm not supposed to be humorless necessarily, but I have to have some kind of, you know, what's, so where's, you know, I'm just asking that, like, where is the shinging? Where, where is it like the, where will I go? And so what I've been saying, Heather, is we come from, as best we can, we come from the mind of interbeing. I just, I'm sorry. vision of all these rubber duckies. So we hold all the nuances and variabilities. And it's very interesting. When we orient ourselves like that, when we find our Dharma place within that interbeing,

[77:47]

then I would say the presentation that comes from it, the way we present it to the sangha, it's taken as an invitation to the same place. And then when we say, and in my role, that I've taken on in the service of your practice. I'm saying this. And then it's like, hmm, well, do we want to make it difficult and challenging and upsetting for this person to do their role? Not to say that's definitive, but it's neither definitive nor is it all-inclusive.

[78:58]

This is the nature of our Shingi. We present a particular way of doing things but with Mahayana mind. It's inclusive. And... And in a way, we take complete responsibility for our own mind. I don't know who's doing this. I don't know what's going on for them in doing it. I don't know if that was to kind of criticize you or to make you laugh or to kind of display their ability to not be limited or controlled by you. I don't know. And I suspect neither do you. So we put it forth and it's like holding up the flower. It's not like, and this flower controls the world.

[80:02]

This flower offers an illustration of what is. We speak in that way. And as I said, it carries the import of, I've been asked to do this role, I'm doing this role, and from that place of commitment to being of service to you, I'm saying this. Does it remind us all of our practice beyond the realm of rubber ducks and dragon kings? Well, just one final thing, just when you said this about Obviously, I have no idea what the motivation is or the intention. And when you said about not being limited or controlled by me, what came up was, well, how are they being limited or in control by their continuing to do this? Because that's how I look at stuff that continues to come up for me.

[81:05]

It's like, how am I being limited or controlled by this karmic momentum that I'm not able to comply? Thank you for discussing this in the context of Shoshin and Mushin. Thanks for your question. It's like our homegrown koan. Yes. I have a question. What the Eno is asking is something that... kind of been up for me too around just observing how we do or do not respect this word respect has come up for me and I thought it was interesting that you mentioned the Native American tradition because respect means to look again do we look again at what we're doing not only what we wish for ourselves but at the potential impact that we have upon others and community

[82:14]

Do we review our intentions? And I'm wondering if one of those views that might come up, of the six views, can manifest in the form of a request that invites other members of the sangha to look again. Can one of those views be to invite the sangha to look again? Look again as respect. Respect to see. to re-see, to re-look. And what I was saying to Heather was, I think when we embody that, you know, okay, I'm looking at this as thoroughly as I can. This is not just a knee-jerk response. I want you to do what I tell you, and you're not doing it. And I'm pissed. It's not that it's coming from a more thoroughgoing, examined place.

[83:18]

And I'm inviting you to also come from a more thoroughgoing place. And I think that has respect within it. And if you remember in Sushin, when I was mentioning this thing about restraint or honoring the Shingya, and I said, because I'd watched the Tanto close the door, he'd say, No, you're late in thinking. It's really hard to be put in the role of the one who sets prohibitions, who has to be the scolding parent. You're being a naughty child. I don't think anyone wants that role. It has a kind of... the uncomfortableness to it. And that's part of what I hear in the Eno's voice.

[84:23]

It's like, yeah. And yet, if I don't uphold something, then the shingi, the container of the shingi, it might not be so clear what that is and how that manifests in this moment. No? I just remember years and years ago, I was in the bishop with a, what's called in French, a juge d'instruction, which is sort of this weird thing between the judge and the district attorney, the person who, for example, in terrorism cases, instructs, how all this happened. He was a bit of a terrorist himself. One of the things he brought out was the fact that, in fact, everyone somewhat transgresses.

[85:25]

So it's interesting to see where is your point of transgression? Is it chocolate or is it driving five miles over the speed limit or is it wherever it is. So his idea was that there's this universal tendency to transgression. So of course it's very interesting to study it yourself. What is my point of satisfaction? Personally, I'd love to eat and walk. Do we ever get beyond that? Do we ever get beyond that point of transgression that seems to be universal in everyone?

[86:32]

Or maybe there are perfect people who have no transgression. James, the great gift of impermanence is, while we may have those tendencies and we may enact them in certain moments, in other moments we enact other things. Are there moments of deep dedication, devotion, and discipline? And that's the realm of interbeing. That's the character of interbeing. To make it all black and white and fixed is a misinterpretation of the nature of existence. And this interplay of letting it all, the other image I used was in meeting the moment

[87:39]

Can the experience of the moment turn the fixed mind of karmic self rather than the fixed mind of karmic self dictates what the moment is? This moment is this. This is what's created here from this experience. Can that kind of engagement eliminate what's happening here? Okay. Let's see. Ah, well, we never did get to Harishiba. And we never got to shape-shifting, but so what? Which last topic? Say more about it? Do you want to say more about it? Oh, go ahead. each e-no, what I've loved is the enthusiastic effort and that you can't, like, even though you're being pushed in different ways, yeah, I guess, I don't know, it just seems as an epitome of enthusiastic effort because the e-no has to be really

[89:36]

doing the role of the Eno. And that for me is a joy, to see that. And this play of people doing something that pushes the boundaries. And I guess seeing both that continually... like the enthusiastic effort, but also allowing your own personality to show through, like, that you can laugh about it, but also continue to say what you think is, what should be followed. Mm-hmm. And, yeah, so I think that... I am not a person who plays the rubber dance.

[90:41]

I think that's one of the beauties of living in this way. And I think that's kind of what we do as humans. That's how we grow is to push boundaries, but also to respect them. and allow yourself to be pushed back. And in times when I've pushed boundaries here, I do have moments of like, oh, was that too much? And that kind of regret that it's too late, but then getting to watch it unfold and just seeing how the container still holds me even if I have made a mistake. I guess I think, yes, absolutely. Yeah, thank you. Yep, so there we have it, our homegrown koan.

[91:48]

Maybe in future generations the Shusoul will start their Hoshan Shiki with that koan. Did you put your hand up? No? Okay, thank you. I hope those basic ideas got through and you can metabolize them. Sometimes when you metabolize more like a feeling, than a sort of prescription. And even if you find yourself thinking, well, that's not so right. Explore your own, that's not so right. Then what is right?

[92:53]

And maybe that's a more useful consideration for you. And then as I was saying earlier, some basic notion. Okay, what does practice ask of me? This. And if this is in opposition to this, well then, how can that be? How could that be our practice? If this is everything goes, and you don't really need to pay attention or have purposeful engagement. Really? Surely anything short of Buddhahood will be influenced by the karmic habits and constructs. And as we head into our final sushin,

[94:01]

is this great opportunity where we have all this way in which the practice period has worked us over. You know, we'll flow into the sitting. And I'd really encourage you to keep this Zen mind, this Mahayana mind. And right in the middle of it, the diligence that every period of zazen is a chord, okay? We sit down. Remember, I have a student on the East Coast and she's a sculptor and an artist. And she says, I go into this studio and I'm totally intimidated. And she's quite renowned. I'm totally intimidated by the request of my art. Sometimes I just have to sit there and try to bear being present.

[95:11]

And eventually I come into relationship to it. What would it be like to sit on our cushions like that? The intensity, the immensity of this request. The not knowing. So that kind of corn. And then each incident in our life, whether it's a rubber duck or a fixed state of mind, or just some spacious moment where... It's almost like you can see the air. Or what you're looking at is three-dimensional rather than two-dimensional. Or what you're hearing echoes in space silently rather than just being some abstract experience that's interrupting the internal.

[96:32]

narrative. It's all like this. We're close to this mind. And we can fritter it away very easily. The number of days is getting so small now, even if you're not good at arithmetic, you can count it. But why would we do that? After all this heroic effort. Okay, that was my pitch for Sashin.

[97:15]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_89.82