kind of anxiety or dilemma, which is the problem of birth and death. So sometimes we think about the problem of birth and death. It turns up to us. But it gets lost and the problems of our daily life. We get immersed in the various problems that we have in our daily life in a relative sense. And that becomes a kind of focus for us and sometimes obscures the deeper problems So no matter what the existential problems or problems we have in relationship, underneath is this underlying problem of birth and death.

[01:17]

When am I going to die? And what will that be like? And what happens? but all of these problems are connected. They're not two different sets of problems, even though it may seem like it. A deeper problem resonates in the upper strip and places a kind of base notes of our life. And while we're living out our dramas, that deep base tone is over there informing your life.

[02:21]

So when we really kind of grips with it, it's a big problem. present this koan. This is case number five in the New York Times. You're probably all familiar with this koan. Oh wait. This is the koan of the Carolians, a man on the tree. disciple of Yisang, Zenji. And Yisang was a very famous Zen master in China. And one of the founders of five schools of Zen in China.

[03:30]

He and his disciple of Hyozo co-founded the school of Zen in China. So it's called Yihyo in China. by combining the two names in the Ikkyo School of Zen in China. Just like the Soto School is the combination of the names of Tozanon and Sozanon by turnaround. stories about Isan and Keoghan and Keoghan three. I think Keoghan and Keoghan were Isan's two main disciples. When Keoghan was studying with Isan, Isan realized he was very bright and really had a lot of

[04:42]

but he was also very intelligent and learned and depended a lot on his learning and he was pretty scholarly and this kind of was a barrier for him because it was pretty hard for him to depend on his intuition you know if you depend on your scholarship It's hard to depend on your intuition. Because instead of going to intuition, you always go to your thinking mind or to your references. So it's hard for a human to get beyond his thinking mind and to the bottom of his self. So one day, Isang, his teacher, came up to him and said, wow, Hyogen, please tell me a word about what it was like in your original fest before you were born.

[06:06]

And Hyogen was speechless. And he went back and went through all his books. He went through his library, trying to get the right answer. They couldn't remember anything. So he went back to Yi Sun and he said, please, teacher, tell me. I can't find it. Please tell me. Just why don't you teach it to me? And Yi Sun said, I could do that, but it really wouldn't help you. What I teach you is not your own, it's mine. So I'd actually be doing you a disservice if I explain it to you. So Hyogeum was really dejected.

[07:10]

And he became very depressed. And after a while, he decided that he really couldn't do this. Of course, here's a man practicing for years, real-alarm practice. And suddenly he come to this conclusion, because his practice was really worthless, and that he wasn't really up to it. So he decided to leave. and he left the monastery and he arrived up in a little shrine of the national teacher whose name was and just spent his time cleaning the shrine just as an ordinary monk He actually was quite satisfied.

[08:13]

It felt good to him to do that. He didn't have any responsibilities. He was a man of no rank, completely without any efficient feeling that he had nothing to gain. He was just an ordinary person. And one day, one went to the swimming. A little stone. a little sweat out by his brain when I hit a piece of bamboo and it cracked. And this little crack opened his mind completely. And all of this knowledge can keep each other away. And you can see clearly this whole life. So he went back to his hut and offered good sense to his teacher.

[09:23]

And then went to visit his teacher. And when he saw his teacher, he saw him. And he said, the main thing that I haven't done before, yes, you can tell me the answer. have told me the answer, I never would have been able to break through my own mind. This is a very important point. We love to know something. We all want to know something. But what we want to know can't be told to us. Why do we practice? It's to discover for ourselves. A good teacher will always help a student by not having too much.

[10:27]

If you help too much, then the student doesn't have but an opportunity. And of course, if you don't have enough, the student will be discouraged. So it's a very fine line how to teach someone. In a sense, low teaching is the best teaching. Putting a student in a difficult position is the best way. That's why a good student is a student who will allow himself or herself to be put in a difficult position. Because your own dilemma or your own problem is what you have to work with.

[11:44]

Sometimes students This is too difficult. Why do you do this or that? Of course, nobody does anything to anybody. But the difficulty that we have is our real treasure, although it's not easy to see that. Sometimes very difficult for us to realize that the difficulty we have is our real treasure. So we try to get out from under our difficulty. But our teacher helps us to stay within our difficulty. When I used to go to Ziphi or Ziphi or Ziphi with my difficulties, this is what I had to say, men would add something to my problem.

[12:48]

And he said, I'm sorry, you can't create a problem, and I've just given you more problem than that. But I felt very good, because I knew it. You didn't have to give me more problem, it's what I needed to have. Let me give you this poem. Kyogi and Hosho said, It is like a man up in a tree hanging from a branch, but it's not. His hands grasp no bow, his feet rest on no limb. Someone appears under the tree and asks him, What is the meaning of bloody dramas coming from the West? If he doesn't answer, he fails to respond to the question.

[13:51]

And if he does answer, he will open his mouth and lose his life. What would you do in such a situation? The prong has a beginning, actually. A monk came up and asked, here are you. Without falling into a relative or absolute way of speaking, what is the essence of Zen? And then Yomi said, it is like a man of a tree, hanging from a branch by his teeth. And then Mulan has a comment, and he says, even if your elements flow like a river, it is of no avail. Though you can expand the whole of Buddhist literature, it is of no use if you solve this problem. He will give life to the way that has been dead until this moment, and destroy the way that has been alive up to now.

[14:56]

Otherwise, he must wait for my transglutative and ask him. And then I move on in his poem, and in his poem he says, Hyogen is truly thoughtless. His vice and poison are endless. He stops up the mouths of the monks, and devil's eyes sprout in their bodies. It reminds me of one of those, I don't know if you've ever seen those little rubber dolls, kids have, and you squeeze them, and the eyes go, and the tongue, and the ears go. So I can know he's kind of complimenting curators. This is the kind of way of saying something and meaning the opposite. So this is, of course, this is Yogan's description of his own predicament, his own problem that he was faced with.

[16:10]

There was no way out of his problem. There was no way out of his problem by a man or a man by the skin of the teeth by a branch if you open your mouth you fall and if you don't say anything you fail you either fail or you fall which is there's another story which is somewhat related to this one a similar kind of circumstance but a little different a man is running with a tiger being chased by a tiger and he runs off the cliff or gets to the edge of the cliff and there's no place to go but down the cliff except this one branch sticking out of the side of the cliff so he grabs off the branch and down below is the wine

[17:29]

waiting in the mouth of him. So he doesn't know whether to go out or come down. And then two little rats, one's a black and one's a white, they kind of start knowing the base of a branch. So he looks around and he sees a strawberry, a lot of strawberry, like growing on the hillside, right there. beautiful lush with a beautiful lush red strawberry and that's yeah it looks like a lion it looks like a clean ice and he leaves out of the box of strawberry in his mouth I don't know what it is someone uh I thought that eating the strawberry was lenient, you know, used in doing something nice when there are all these problems to deal with.

[18:46]

But strawberry, you know, is a lot of strawberry that is inside. There's always something to do. Kyogen's man, a tree, has the opportunity to make a great statement. he's doing it's a great statement if he doesn't know what he's doing it's sheer hell if he knows who he is no problem whether he falls or fails no problem whether he wins or loses no problem

[20:05]

Probably falling and failing can be wonderful. Falling or failing is like dying. So here we are back to the core of our existence. Being born and dying. what do we do? can we know what it means?

[21:13]

this person, named by Skinner the King, is all of us, each of us, at any moment. Not just feeling or some idea. What will we do with ourselves? How will we cut through to the real meaning of our life in this position? Do we need to change the position? And what will happen to us if we did not fall or fail? Maybe we have some questions about it. But finish it pretty well. I don't really grasp what you're going through there.

[22:34]

Well, in this story, failing would be to not answer. According to the person that asked. Right. Someone asks, and you fail to answer. Someone is always asking something. In other words, life is always asking something. You know, this question, why did Bodhidharma come to China? It was a very common question in those days. And it was unused as a quote. Why did Bodhidharma come to China? I mean, what is the essence of Zen? Or what is the meaning of your life?

[23:35]

Yeah, someone says, what is the meaning of your life? So you're hanging there. I don't understand how that relates to what you were talking about before about the other story that ended up No, or for that. Right, and staying with the difficulty of the teacher.

[24:43]

Well, you have to come up with the answer. I just don't see how that relates to this co-op. staying with the difficulty part. That's what grabbed me. Let's hang up on the teeth. This is a kind of story put into a... This is a story of Hyogen's experience put into a little... Go on. into an imaginative story, an angel of a magical story about a man hanging from his teeth.

[25:48]

So this was Kierkegaard's, come on. This is the way he expressed it to the moment. He said, this is the way I was. I was like a man hanging from his teeth, from a branch by his teeth. I'm not able to put my hands or feet anywhere. And a question came out, which is, the question is Tinkja asked him, what was the original face before you were born? Same question. And if I opened my mouth, I fell. And if I didn't say anything, what should I do?

[26:59]

so if we don't answer this question we fail When I answer this question from our intellect, we fall. It's a good moment we do. The story that you told about Kyogen sweeping the pebble and hitting the bamboo. In these stories, it's like you said, his mind open. but would it be more correct a feeling that I get when you hear the story is that his heart opened because he actually saw his connection with the sweeping and the pebble and the bamboo and he wasn't because I mean that's where you answer when you that's how you answer from hanging from the branch you have to remember that heart and mind it means the same thing shin it means the same thing

[28:09]

heart, mind. So mind opens heart and heart opens mind. And these are two sides of one mind or heart. So when you say mind in this way, you also mean heart. When you say heart, you also mean mind. But it's not thinking mind. It's like the heart of the mirror, which is big mind. practice is to open up that line. Not to mean something, but just to come forward with who we are. Well, I think he felt unburdened.

[29:30]

Felt what? Unburdened. I'm glad he dropped something. And felt very pretty. says a little bit about that. He says, if you solve this problem, you will give life to the way that you've been dead until this moment and destroy the way that you've been alive up to now. So the old life, which independent with all its props dead, and real life, in which the big spirit supports our life, comes to life.

[30:38]

Oh, Kirwan had a poem, in the end of the day. This is his enlightenment poem. He says, one stroke and it's all gone. That's the bamboo. one stroke and it is all gone. No need for strategy or cure. Each and every action manifests in ancient life. This is the point of the call. Each and every action manifests the ancient way. Hanged by his teeth from the branch, he manifests the ancient way. If he knows who he is, whatever he is, whatever he is doing, that is the true way. It's like nothing changed.

[31:40]

It's just that the world is exactly the same place. But it takes on a different aspect. It's like that old story of Heaven and Hell. Someone said, what's the difference between Heaven and Hell? Someone said, well, it's Heaven and Hell, exactly the same place, look exactly alike. And in Hell, there's a huge banquet table filled with scrumptious food and all these people are sitting around it but they all have these long chopsticks and when they get the food the chopsticks are so long they can't get them in their mouths this is a description of heaven heaven is exactly the same place same table same food the same people and the same chopsticks but people have chopsticks

[32:50]

and then pick out the clue and put it in the mouths of people across the table. So, being awake and being deluded are the same place. But there's no difference. He says, my spirit is never downcast. Interesting statement. My spirit has never done it yet. No matter how things are going, no matter what's happening, my spirit has never done it yet. This is an important point. Some circumstances, although they affect your life, and we may go this way or that way, still there's always this boring feeling, which is not affected by going this way or that way.

[34:03]

It's the place we find in Zaza when in the middle of Sashin, when things go this way or that way, there's always the one that's just very calm and boring. I leave no tracks behind me. Enlightenment is beyond speech and beyond gesture. Those who are emancipated call it unsurpassed. Simple. Very simple. So, Master Moumont says, Kyokin is truly his office.

[35:07]

That's a concept. His eyes and voices are endless. That means he's wonderful. He stops at the mouths of the monks, and devil's eyes sprout from their bodies. It really gives them a good problem. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[35:52]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_64.64