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Beyond Words: Experiencing Zen Awakening
AI Suggested Keywords:
Seminar_ Lay_Practice_and_Koan_Study
The seminar discusses the intricate interplay between lay practice and the study of koans, emphasizing themes of non-attachment and the limitations of understanding. Drawing from Zen traditions, the talk explores how one's experience and perception shape understanding, contrasting Eastern and Western interpretations of Buddhist practices. It argues for an experiential engagement with Zen that transcends verbal explanations and traditional paradigms, using koans as catalysts for internal awareness and spiritual growth. Additionally, it highlights the notion of continuity through teaching and practice, rather than reincarnation.
Referenced Works:
- Sandokai Poem: This traditional Zen text is discussed as a pathway to realizing an undivided world, independent of one's faculties.
- Thich Nhat Hanh's Teachings: Mentioned to illustrate the concept of integrating Buddhist practices into Western contexts, emphasizing non-attachment and interdependence.
- Nagarjuna's Statement on Making a Snake Straight: Used to illustrate concepts of mind flexibility and transformation through koan study.
- Dogen Zenji's Insights: His reflections on Yunju's self-awareness are used to discuss themes of identity and non-attachment in Zen practice.
Particular Zen Concepts:
- Complementarity: The dualistic and non-dualistic perceptions of the world as complementary rather than contradictory.
- Koans: Highlighted as tools to transcend explanations and embrace intuitive understanding beyond traditional teachings.
- Bodhicitta: Mentioned as the thought of enlightenment that integrates personal enlightenment with communal realization.
Analogies & Cultural References:
- Terminator 2 Morphing Scene: Used to metaphorically describe the fluidity of self-identity during meditation.
- Snake and Rope Analogy: A classic Buddhist story illustrating perceptions and mental constructs.
- Yogic Practices: Associated with harnessing energy and awareness, linking physical experiences to spiritual insights.
These references collectively weave a comprehensive narrative around the central theme of experiential engagement with Zen practices, emphasizing the importance of non-attachment and intuitive understanding in spiritual development.
AI Suggested Title: Beyond Words: Experiencing Zen Awakening
Now in this context of having gathered you together here to discuss this koan, and wearing robes and coming in here dressed up like a Japanese doll. Japanese doll. I like that. I'm supposed to have something to say about this koan. Hmm. And in some ways, I suppose I do have something to say. But, of course, at the same time, I don't really have anything to say. Mm-hmm. And I'm not some special person, even though I'm the teacher here, I'm not some special person.
[01:30]
When I gave the lecture in Hamburg the other day, Afterwards people came up to me, some people quite naturally and some people with some special feeling or relationship. And, of course, some emotion. If you feel something in practicing the Dharma or hearing the Dharma, you feel something, this is quite natural. But it really doesn't have so much to do with me or even you. It has to do with hearing the Dharma.
[02:33]
So anyway, it's important not to get confused about this. Dungsan honored Yunyan not because of what he told him, and not for his Buddhism, and not for his teaching, and not for the kind of teacher he was. But for what he didn't tell him. So this is not something I can explain to you, what he didn't tell him.
[03:44]
And there are several koans that again relate to this general area where the statement is, if I'd told him the last word, he would have understood. He said, if I told him the last word, he would have understood. But the point is, no one knows what this last word is. So I'm trying to create a picture of that. to the extent that it cannot be depicted. I'm trying to create a picture of that for you. I think of when someone asked a Japanese woman why she respected her father. Whether it's because of his virtues or something he did or how he felt about her.
[05:05]
And she said, oh no, I practice my father, I respect my father in order to practice respect. This is a very Buddhist sort of view coming out from this Japanese woman. So you respect your fellow student and your teacher and your friends partly because they may deserve respect, but mostly because you need to practice respect. Now, this isn't, you know, this is a little too simple an example to relate, to say too much about this koan.
[06:10]
But it gives you a feeling I think for a different attitude than we usually have about these things. Thank you for translating all this. Now, just before lunch when Angelica was ringing the bell I was trying to explain something to you and I was trying too hard and I failed to explain it to you And I didn't try to fail, but I failed.
[07:28]
Yeah. At the same time, my failing is a good example of this koan. In the sense that not... Well, first of all, when I'm trying like that, it's important for you to, it's okay to try to understand, but it's also important for you to not try to understand what I'm saying. Maybe to imagine what I'm trying to say. So, in other words, for us to actually understand this together, maybe I have to try and fail and you have to not try and succeed.
[08:38]
And even though I'm not very, I'm not thoroughly versed or even well versed in psychology or the various sciences, I think I must try to use psychology and science as part of my talking about these things. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, if you try to bring Asian Buddhism into the West, it will be like mixing oil and water. He says we must weave the Buddha Dharma in the West from our own experiences and our own cultural ingredients.
[10:03]
And this is my position, exactly. So, somehow... I'm always trying to find what is common in our experience and trying to juggle Western paradigms and language so that we can find Buddhism in terms familiar to us. Even if it's clumsy or the fit is not too good, we have to try. So that's part of what I meant when I started by saying, although I'm supposed to know something about this koan, in this practice I don't know so much.
[11:19]
And together we don't know so much. And yet I think if we can share directly and intuitively our actual experience, we may come to some understanding that will bear fruit. Now, when we're all, say, doing kin hin, walking meditation, and one of you has to go to the toilet or to the kitchen, or for some reason you have to pass by everybody.
[12:39]
Mm-hmm. Now, one way of doing that is to... I'll try this out. One way of doing that is as you walk past each person, or sweep past each person sometimes, You carry your own space with you. And each person feels your space brush past them. Another way to do that would be perhaps to walk through the the specific mist of each person.
[13:49]
As if any of you have seen the movie Terminator 2, I guess it is, where he morphs, is that what it's called? Morph? Anyway, something like that. Where he passes through the door or wall. In Terminator 2, there is the scene where Morph goes through this door. In the process of going through the door, he falls apart and then settles back together on the other side. So as you pass by Gerd, you sort of turn partly into Gerd and then reform after you get past Gerd. Maybe you turn into a guinea pig for a moment as you pass Gerd.
[14:50]
Gerd keeps the dharmasanga mascot of a guinea pig at home in Berlin. Who he discusses these koans with. It's true, isn't it? True. So... So if you don't have so much a feeling of bringing your space from, say, here to the door past everybody, but you can feel yourself become a little different as you go through Gerd's space and then Christian's space and Ulrike's space or Olaf's space, This is more what Dung Shan means by seeing his face in the stream. He sees himself, feels himself appear in each situation.
[15:59]
Of course he has some experience of being Dung Shan who's doing these things. But as his experience matures, he has less and less of this experience. So quoting Thich Nhat Hanh again, actually quoting another Vietnamese Zen master. He says, where is the only stable place to abide? The Zen master said, I abide in neither abiding nor non-abiding. How do you abide in neither abiding nor non-abiding? So, I talked about complementarity.
[17:24]
how this world is both divided and non-divided, or rather how we perceive it as divided and can perceive it as undivided. Or how we can perceive the world dualistically and non-dualistically. Now, these two ways of perception are, I think it would be accurate to say, are complementary. And this teaching of the two truths is asking us not to be one-sided. And to see things in terms of single causes or who created the cosmos.
[18:59]
Nothing is that simple. Or to see the world only in terms of something that can be explained or understood. So we can say that one antidote to seeing things in a one-sided way is to see things in a many-sided way. Or to see things as interdependent. And interpenetrating. But also it's to see things not only as one-sided and many-sided, but also to see things as non-sided. And to see the world as non-sided, you can't explain it. You can't grasp something that's non-sided.
[20:02]
So from the point of view of Buddhism, the world exists, can be seen practically as one-sided, can be seen more subtly and accurately as many-sided, and can be seen most fully as non-sided. So when this YN Sutra that's quoted says inner reality is complete, this means, this specifically refers to seeing the world as non-sighted. This is to see the world not as just interdependent but interpenetrating. Now, if we're outside the atom or a particle or a proton or electron, we can see it as a wave packet or a particle. Now, I don't know exactly what physicists would say, but a Buddhist would say these are modes of description of the particles.
[21:31]
Buddhism would say that whatever is being described is neither a wave packet nor a particle. But if we are standing outside the atom or the particle, we have to say that we can only talk about it through modes of description. And we can only measure it statistically through modes of description. But from a Buddhist point of view, we're inside the particle. We are the particle. So as soon as you have a description of yourself, you've pushed yourself outside yourself.
[23:05]
As soon as you say you're many-sided or one-sided or two-sided, you're immediately outside yourself. So you have to say perhaps non-sighted. And non-sighted means no explanation. Long Ya, as in this koan, it says Long Ya showed half his body. There's a conversation reported between Dung Shan and Yun Zhu. And Y-U-N-J-U, Yun Zhu. And Dung Shan said, what is your name? And Yunzhu said, naturally enough, Yunzhu.
[24:18]
What else did you expect? And Dongshan says to him, say something beyond that. And Yunzhu says, when I say something beyond that, I am no longer Yunzhu. And Dogen Zenji comments on this. When Yunju says he is no longer Yunju, he is hiding his body. And this is what Longyue means when the koan says Longyue showed half his body. So what I'm trying to teach you here and what the koan is trying to teach you is a language of non-attachment, a language of emptiness. That you can utilize in thinking about yourself by trying not to describe yourself out of the picture.
[25:27]
Now, what I was trying to point out by saying, I talked to two physicists who said most physicists don't really deal with the implications of a quantum world. was to say that this is a problem for Buddhism too. As we study these things, emptiness and so forth, but do we really deal with the implications in our own life? And a koan like this, or the Sandokai poem, which I read part of today, it says it doesn't matter whether your faculties are keen or dull. There is a way to realize this world, this undivided world.
[26:50]
And our understanding the way to deepen our understanding is to become familiar with this language of emptiness and non-attachment. And really, I can't say it too specifically. I can mostly give you hints. And one hint is to try as much as possible not to think in generalities or generalizations. Get in the habit of at least sometime each day to think in very...
[27:50]
only in particulars and it's a habit you get this stick in my hand when I look at the microphone the microphone lunch today there was the spinach or the green vegetable When I look at that, there is no other world. There is no extrapolation from that. There is nothing except that specificity. When I walk past Christian, say, in Kinhin, There is no world except that field created by the two of us passing.
[29:08]
Or now there is Ulrike's voice. And my voice. Now in a way you have to, even though naturally there are other specifics, you can't deal with lots of specifics. You can only deal with one specific or a couple and then generalities. So in a way here you're going from many-sidedness Which turns into generalizations. You're coming down to one-pointedness, or even, we could say, in a way, another kind of one-sidedness.
[30:13]
If you get in the habit of sometimes practicing a high degree of particularity, We could say radical particularity. A kind of one-pointedness applied to each moment of perception. To drop that one-sidedness It's not far to non-sidedness. And as long as you're either one-sided or generalizing when you practice zazen, you won't notice how we exist. So you have to... Now, if you're listening to my faulty explanation just before lunch,
[31:25]
It's hard for you to be comfortable when you don't understand what I'm saying. I mean, I would think I was successful in creating non-understanding. But how do you, in the midst of that, suspend or feel comfortable with not understanding? To be able to suspend knowing, to suspend the need to understand, And to suspend a kind of offense we feel at not understanding is necessary if you're going to notice.
[32:46]
Not knowing is a way of noticing. So to suspend knowing allows a certain noticing to occur. So Dogen says about Yunju, when Yunju no longer knows he's Yunju, Yunju is hiding his body. And his true form is revealed. So in a certain way you have to hide your body from yourself. Or hide your depiction from yourself.
[33:51]
So in zazen, as much as possible, you are letting go of knowing and trying to just notice or letting yourself notice what's there. Without putting it into a framework of explanation. So I'm trying to give you here a feeling for a part of the practice that's associated with this koan. I half agree, I half don't agree. So this attitude toward his teacher is, he didn't, I venerate Yunyan because he didn't explain everything to me.
[35:06]
It means I'm willing not to be explained, to need, I'm willing not to have an explanation. I'm willing to sit zazen without an explanation. This is really what it means to say to sit with no gaining idea. I don't sit to accomplish anything. If you're sitting to accomplish something, even to achieve enlightenment, or to become a Buddha, it's like rubbing the tile. If you sit with some explanation or idea like that, you won't notice.
[36:09]
So suspending knowing permits a kind of noticing. And your true body is revealed, as Dogen says. But we can't depict it. As soon as you try to depict it, you're outside it. So if you need to grasp it and say, I understood something in Zazen, this is not the point. You kind of relax into this not knowing. And not needing to know. This is something you can become familiar with.
[37:16]
Not grasp or understand. but you can become familiar with. It can even be like a companion. It can even be the way you join others most fully. It can be how Tungshan best, most thoroughly knew his teacher. So self, the small s, didn't estrange him from self with the big S. In a flowing stream you can't grasp your image. So this kind of practice of non-sightedness doesn't require any special abilities.
[38:26]
It just requires your intuition that this makes sense. That you're willing to offer yourself on this altar of not knowing. This offering of yourself to the unseen parts of yourself. which is entering this world in which a rose is a rose, and a rose is also not a rose in the ordinary sense. On one hand it's comprised of many non-rose elements, as Thich Nhat Hanh would say, clouds, water, sunlight the shape of air and so forth but it's also comprised of non-aspects it's non-sided as well It exists in ways that can't be grasped or depicted.
[40:14]
And the thing is that it's possible to live this way, in fact we do. But we only notice the sides that can be depicted. I noticed when my foot is asleep when I get up from zazen. And I put both heels down on the floor. The one that's asleep slides. They both have the same pattern on my heel. And yesterday the right foot was asleep and it slid forward. And this morning the left foot was asleep and it slid forward. So somehow if my foot is awake Whatever happens, the foot knows how to, the sole of my foot knows how not to slide.
[41:36]
And I don't know if this makes any sense as an explanation. I think I put my foot in it. Do you have that expression in German? But if somehow this non-sidedness in you is awake, you can't tell exactly, but sometimes you won't slip. So this koan is asking you to awaken your non-sightedness. Your willingness to not know. The willingness to join your teacher in not knowing. We feel something, but we don't grasp it.
[42:55]
As Suzuki Roshi used to say, practice penetrates our robes like fine mist. It's not big drops of rain. In fact, the air just doesn't even feel very damp. But pretty soon you're soaked through down to the skin. So this doesn't mean just this not knowing with your... Teacher, it also means to practice non-sidedness and not knowing with your friend and spouse and family. You also, of course, have to function through knowing. So Longya shows half his body.
[44:05]
But you also can function through not knowing. So Longya doesn't show half his body. So maybe this is, as someone said, not blind faith, but faith in blindness. Faith in not knowing. Or abiding in neither abiding nor non-abiding. It's hard even to say.
[45:07]
It's easier to do than say. Once you get the idea, and then let go of the idea, and really let go of it, But this really, really letting go requires a lot of trust. As I said, it requires the kind of love which is called non-attachment. To love each thing enough in its particularity to let it go. This creates a presence which begins to heal you, to heal and nourish you.
[46:27]
So I think I can't give you any more suggestions than that. The point is, you can't really understand it. The point is, you have to be willing to not understand it. But not give up on not understanding it. But put yourself down in the middle of not understanding. I think if you can be willing not to understand, you can realize your own non-sightedness. And the non-sides of us touch everywhere. So that's why the lineage is continued by one non-sided person after another.
[47:53]
Because the non-sided person touches everything. As Suzuki Roshi used to say, his or her ego covers everything. I really want you to understand that this is just how you exist. And you stop sticking to your idea of how you exist. And if you can sustain not knowing, you may even notice that this is how you exist.
[48:54]
This is knowing turning into not knowing. For a moment you know your not-sightedness, but that can't be sustained. But it's very refreshing. It makes your body feel very light. For a moment you know you're not knowing. For a moment you know you're non-sightedness. And that turns into not knowing. As the koan explains. For me, this koan is a kind of difficult treasure. It gives us the treasure of our own non-sightedness.
[50:16]
Thank you very much. May our intention... Helpful for... to remind yourself of I suppose most of you have read the it would be helpful if most of you have read the piece that was in the tree planters like Moss did but I think I mentioned this to some extent there In koans, but also in Buddhist way of thinking in general, but particularly Zen, I don't know quite how she translates the first part of a sentence when I don't know where it's going.
[51:23]
Anyway, is that words and ideas can have almost any meaning. And they can change meaning rapidly. And one thing can mean almost anything else. It's sort of like trying to push a cork under water. If you imagine writing on a cork different meanings, different parts of the cork and pushing it under and seeing where it pops back up. Every time it came up, it would be spun in a little different direction. You'd have a different meaning appearing. And there's not a system to it.
[52:30]
It's not like when you push it underwater and it pops up with a different meaning. That relates to all the koan at a different level. It's just a different meaning. That's particularly true in this case 59 we're going to look at. Everything's changing all the time. And things... All through the Quran, things are popping into their opposites. And I think this is the only thing we have comparable so often is dreams. Where in a dream, one image can mean many different things. And a bad dream from one point of view is a good dream from another point of view.
[53:43]
And what's funny about these koans is these people weren't dreaming, this is just the way they thought. Okay. So anybody, anything else on this first comment we looked at? It's bringing up a little bit of trust in practice. It's kind of reflective of what I've done, especially those two centuries I lived in. And at the university, actually, if now is me, I now am not it. That's what I think of it. Yeah, the trust I'm facing, but... Deutsch.
[54:44]
Deutsch. I think Kais Tanahashi Sensei, who was a friend of mine Through, luckily through her, him, I met Petra, the tutor. He did the cover of this book. And he, I think he tried to express what I was just saying about everything changing because, you know, here you have the characters. written in ink, and then you just have ink splashed on top of the characters.
[55:51]
And for Kaz, this is kind of the root character or primordial character. Yeah. Anybody else on this? Yeah. I have a similar feeling as I was meditating. It's hard to keep straight. It now is me. It is not I, not anyone. It's too simple. Yeah, it's like the carpet goes down. Right. And I also had this kind of feeling of trust and self-confidence, but also, I don't agree, it was very sad, a feeling of returning or coming home to a kind of point in the ground, which is so very sad.
[57:08]
I also had the feeling I ran along sideways. There was distractions, and so I felt coming home. I think many of our childhood memories are not really childhood memories. They're archetypal memories. They're the first time we saw rain falling into the last snow. Or the first time we were alive under a certain kind of sky. And I think when those archetypal memories are called forth to appear before us, appear into our future, we have then a very strong sense of the past.
[58:34]
And these stories, these koan stories play with that, play in that kind of territory. And it must be clear that this koan 49 is a terms on Union's death. And it's a contemplation of continuity after death. And you can see characteristic of Zen not once is reincarnation mentioned. Reincarnation is commonplace in Buddhism. In Zen teaching, it's almost nonexistent. Here's a koan central to this book. Did you notice that it's, as I said, it's the central koan in the book.
[60:11]
It's not number 50, it's number 49. This in itself is a teaching about avoiding the center. If you put yourself right in the center, then you're naming it. Like, to name this koan, to depict this koan as the center, would make it 50. So you put the center near the center. It's a kind of comment. You can see it in the sense that the center is everywhere, so you can't locate it even in Chinese and Japanese dishes.
[61:12]
They don't put the pattern in the center. They let it flow right off the edge of the plate. When you center something in a limited way, you make a fake center, because everything is centered. Anyway, in this koan which is one of the main koans in contemplation of continuity after death, And the continuity of the teaching from person to person, again, there's no mention of reincarnation. So this... So again, if you want to come back to this koan in your future, you can read it as a teaching about continuity.
[62:36]
Of course, the continuity of teaching and the continuity with a teacher. But it's not in any means limited to that. In fact, that really only arises out of the continuity you realize with everyone. So you'll realize continuity with... some special person in your life, a partner, a friend, or a teacher, deeply, if to the extent, very much to the extent to which you can realize a sense of continuity with the least person you know, So as Kistler says, this kind of continuity has to be based on a deep and fundamental trust.
[63:54]
In the face of many things that would make us mistrust. So it's called the book of serenity. Okay, somebody else with their hand up. Yeah. So records we have worked with so far have different aspects or show different aspects. I have always the feeling that they are always the same issues. That's my feeling. Well, if you look at the forums that I know, that have been published so far, it is the case that different aspects are discussed, or you can discuss different aspects with it, but it seems to me that they are the same themes again, or I always have similar feelings.
[65:24]
Yeah, sometimes they're... Very often they're just different doors to the same room. And sometimes they emphasize locating the door. Sometimes they emphasize what it's like to go through the door. Sometimes they... point out what it's like inside the room and sometimes they emphasize how to get out of the room once you're in it and the koans fall into various categories according to these distinctions I just made okay anything else I came to the choir first as a discussion, and that was very satisfying.
[66:48]
And then, after the session, I sat down and simply reflected for myself in the style of the remark As Dongsheng was presenting offerings before an image of Yunyang, He retold the story about depicting reality. We breathe through the leaves. A monk came forward and said, when Yunyan said, just this is it, what did he mean?
[67:52]
Two shadows and one tree. Dongshan said, at the time I nearly misarrested my late teacher. Meng said, did you know yourself know it is or not? Dongshan said, if you didn't know it is, how could you be able to say so? When the sun comes out, it ranges over the mountains. If he did know it is, how could he be willing to say so? Thank you. Gerd by luck or intuition.
[68:58]
Gerd has hit upon the essential and final, both the essential and also often the final way of working with a koan. Which is you answer the koan in its own language. and give your responses line by line to each part of the case. And I liked your responses. Thanks. Okay, so maybe we can look at this next case, number 59. And I'm happy to go back to this 49 anytime anybody wants to bring it up because actually these cases, these two cases have a lot of underpenetration.
[70:19]
Okay, so we don't have much time left before we're supposed to... you know, chew our food. So I would like to chew on the dead snake a bit first. So I'd like to, and I think we have to do this before we go on to the next, to working on the con. So I ask you, just off the top of your head, in the simplest sense, what is a snake? One or two word answers, anything you can think of. Yeah.
[71:28]
Eve seduced Adam with it. Eve seduced Adam. I thought I hadn't seduced Eve with it. No, no. All right. All right. Yeah, I know. I accept. Yes. Any problem that we have to meet. Yeah, any problem, right. Yeah. Yeah. Poison? Yeah, poison, right. Yes, danger. There's some danger. What? Poison and mind. Poison and mind. Yes, so the snake is both poison and it's also mind. Yeah. Dangerous head. A dangerous head, yeah. Life force. Life force, yeah. It's fast. It's fast. It's quick, yeah. Quick. Backbone. Your backbone, yeah. Freedom to initiate. Your energy, yes. The ego. The ego, yes. Strong emotional states.
[72:31]
Pardon me? Strong... Emotional states, yes. Wrong views. Wrong views, yes. Attachment. Attachment, yes. Wisdom. Wisdom, okay. Immediate danger. Immediate danger, yes. Absolutely, immediate danger. It's dangerous but attractive. Healing potential. Healing potential, yeah. Beauty. Beauty. I said Eve. Yes? Flexibility. Flexibility, yeah. Okay, so all of those, everything you've said is the snake. And it's changing all the time. And so I think we have to... And I'll add a few things from Buddhism here.
[73:35]
One of the most famous stories in early Buddhism is of somebody who's walking along a road. Many of you know the story, walking along the road, and he sees a snake and jumps back. After his initial fear he or she approaches the snake and finds out it's a rope. And seeing it's a rope, you see that the snake was just a construct of your mind. And then you look more carefully at the rope and you see the rope is also not just a rope, it's also a construct of your mind. So whether it's a snake or a rope, it's still a construct of your mind.
[74:40]
So that's a very basic example in Buddhism and entry into studying the vijnanas. So when somebody throws us in a koan, somebody throws a snake across the road, it has to be a reference to that story. Now, so that's one classic story that's present here. Another is, of course, the statement of Nagarjuna about how do you make a snake straight. And how you make a snake straight is you put it in a bamboo tube. And of course this is an image for the slipperiness of the mind and the yogic practice of putting your mind in your backbone.
[76:02]
So this story also has to be about yogic practice. It has to be about transforming a problem or a snake or a difficulty into your mind and into your backbone. So it has to be about how you recognize difficulty and how you transform difficulty. This is what I'd say. This is just family talk. This is Zen way of looking, Buddhist way of looking. And further... Kundalini is imaged as a snake or your energy your whole body's energy and your energy in your backbone so this also has to represent the energy of enlightenment imaged as a snake now
[77:13]
Particularly in Zen, the way in which language is used in Zen as a physical substance. And Bodhicitta, which is the... the bodhicitta, the thought of enlightenment. The thought of enlightenment is the acceptance of, the recognition of, the essentiality of realizing enlightenment buddhahood with each person you meet. That it's impossible to deeply think of enlightenment without including others.
[78:30]
And this This thought of enlightenment is imagined in Zen and in yogic practice as a kind of erotic liquid that fills your backbone. So that you turn this essentiality of enlightenment with others into a feeling in your body and in your backbone. And this feeling arises, and the deep desire to realize enlightenment with others arises from the very suffering and the problems you see. So you physically internalize the suffering you see everywhere as a desire for enlightenment with people, as a kind of liquid in your body.
[79:39]
And that's also a snake. So those things have to be, along with everything else you said, have to be in the koan. And so on page 249, It says this monk in the Hall of Great Compassion in the middle of the last paragraph. A little aside here, although we don't have a nice name like Earthgate Little Green Forest Sanctuary, We are going to call the new Zendo at Crestone the Hall of the Bright Moon. For those of you who are interested, we're putting in a new water line and electrical system and so forth right now.
[81:03]
Plus building a dormitory if some of you want to come there to sleep. And the new Zendo's foundation is there in case you want to have a place to meditate. So to finish this, going back to that statement here, The monk in the hall of great compassion wants to go to the central capital. The central capital means the emptiness or realization of enlightenment. And the direct essential road
[82:04]
Usually means wado or turning words. A direct essential road is sudden practices, yes, but it's also as a technique, it's the turning word practice. And the word wado means the head of something. So you have this connection here of the snake with words, with the thought of enlightenment, and turning words, the head of the snake. And then there's a question of whether it's dead or alive. So, this kind of, if we look at the snake, and you don't need any special scholarship to know this, You just have to see that this snake features in the whole koan and changes its identity in the koan.
[83:30]
So to work with this koan, you should work with what does it mean to want to go to the central capital? How do you face something like that? and you should bring up the present difficulties in your present life and see if you can turn the present difficulties or present whatever in your life into a snake because we all have this snake in our life all the time you too should be on guard teacher And so what are you going to do with this snake?
[84:33]
And I want to say one last thing, which is that in a way you could say that some of these things in this koan are symbols of something else. But I think that's not a useful way to look at a koan. These are always descriptions. When they talk about reed flowers or white flowers, Snow on both banks. The clear light filling the eyes. Those images of brightness, as Warwick pointed out, these are actually trying to describe experiences that relate to the snake and relate to your problems. These are not metaphors, but actual attempt to give you a feeling for images for yogic experience.
[85:42]
So look at these images and let yourself experience them. Feel the brightness of this. You feel the snake. Blow an ant and you feel the brightness on the other hand. The beauty of both. And the danger of both.
[86:06]
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