My job and my special pleasure is to practice with you. And to try to share practice with you. And in this way to... And primarily in this way to present the teachings to you. Yes, sometimes we have to bring the teachings a little bit out of our ordinary activity. so we can see them, or better, so we can feel them like a blind person feels braille.

[01:16]

Hmm. Now, I find that I also have to present the world of the Zen yogic world to you too. Now, I have found this to be the case. since I began practicing.

[02:31]

In order for practice to take hold, we have to see what kind of world Zen practice assumes and generates. we have to... We have to what kind of world Zen practice both assumes and generates. Yeah, I sort of have an assumption that after a while it'll be... The world that Zen practice assumes will be clear to all of us. But I keep finding it's not true. It's the different world that's assumed and generated.

[03:38]

How different it is. Constantly actually surprises me. But maybe it's a second gate for us. We have the gate of the teaching. The practice. But we also have the gate of kind of like, aha, the world is a little different from the point of view of Zen Yoga. The world is a little different from the point of view of Zen Yoga. So, you know, some people have said, you know, hey, you haven't talked about koans for a long time.

[05:13]

Couldn't you talk about some koans? So the other day I brought up this koan 55 of the Shoyu Roku. Which is also, yeah. Which is also Koan Case 13 in the Mumonkan. About Deshan and his bulls. Yeah, you know, I'm... Although... Quite a few of you who are in the Sesshin were not in the practice first three weeks of the practice month. We conceive of this Sesshin as a continuation of the practice month.

[06:15]

So we'll continue as we would at Crestone, the same service we had during the first three weeks. This morning it somehow appeared out of the dawn as a shorter service. But he's been severely corrected. Oh, I don't know. It's fine. What appears, I thought, hey, a short service is okay. Maybe out of his compassion, he'll do a short service tomorrow, too. And I should continue some of the themes I've been speaking about.

[07:22]

How to do this, I don't know, but we'll see. I asked this morning, Just now sitting, what is this world? Dogen says in this Samayosamay piece, fascicle, The world of sitting, of still sitting is not the same as other worlds. You know, you just have to ask yourself what does he mean? Yeah. What do we notice when we sit?

[08:37]

How do we notice? You know, teachings are procedures for noticing. Teachings, any particular teaching, if you look at it, it points out what to notice. And it points out how to notice. Usually that's the case. So... And Dogen says, as I said this morning, he says, just now, at this moment of sitting, what is it? Is that a strange question for you? Or do you, here we are sitting all day long, do you sort of get it, like, what is this moment of sitting? Such a question is a procedure.

[09:50]

It points you at your sitting, asks you to notice your sitting at this moment. and to ask, what is it? Does such a question make any sense? What happens when you ask such a question? At this moment of sitting, examine the question, too. Is the world of sitting what we notice? Is it limited to what we notice? If it goes beyond what we notice, how do we know what that going beyond is? If it goes beyond what we notice, how do we know what that going beyond is?

[11:06]

And Dogen says, is it a leaping acrobat? That's one of the silliest remarks in all of Zen Buddhism. How often do you see leaping acrobats in your Zazen? You've got a video stuck in your stomach. Click. And he says, is it a darting fish? I added a school of fish. But it's seldom a leaping fish. It's seldom a leap. Your zazen, when you examine it, is seldom a leaping fish.

[12:24]

I've seen flying fish. It's seldom a leaping fish. I've seen such flying fish. They're very beautiful. They land on the deck of the freighter I work in. On a what? on the deck of a freighter ship. We pick them up. But for most of us, this is not what our zazen is. So do we know zazen by noticing what it's not? We notice it's not a leaping acrobat. Why is this? How is this world different from other worlds? So anyway, this koan of 55 and 13, some of you would be familiar with it.

[13:43]

It falls into the category of nanto koans, one of the more difficult, the most difficult category. Yeah, so... I'll just tell you about it. So Deshan comes down to the meal. Carrying his orioke. And Shredo goes out to hang up a cloth or something like that. And Xue Fang is working in the kitchen of Deshan's monastery. Yeah. Deshan is pretty old. He's, I don't forget, 80 something. He's three years before he died. And Xue Fang became a famous Zen master and his congregation assembly was often a thousand people.

[15:02]

No, I think we can feel You know, our life in these stories. And he was always willing to work in the kitchen. At this time he's 41 years old. And the room in which the kenzuryo, the kitchen people live, In a monastery you live in the same quarters with the people you work. And that room often is called traditionally Shui Fung's room.

[16:12]

In Japanese, it would be Seppo's room. That's what he's called in Japanese. Seppo. Seppo, yeah. Anyway, he's working in the kitchen. And the meal seems to have been late. So probably on time, down comes Deshan walking to the kitchen, down into the dining hall. They probably ate on low tables like we do sometimes. And Shui-Fang sees him and says, What are you doing, old man?

[17:29]

Well, the meal isn't ready yet. Dachshund doesn't say a word. He just turns around and goes back to his place, his quarters. Dachshund says no word, turns around and goes back to his room. And Xue Fang is a little surprised at this. Because Deshan is a really famous Zen master. And he was first, he was called, I think, something like Diamond Joe or something like that. Diamond Joe. Joseph, Diamond Joseph. Because he was an expert at the Diamond Sutra. And he was really suspicious of all the Zen guys from the southern part of China. So he decided to go to southern China and straighten out those Zen guys he'd heard about.

[18:52]

Straighten out those Zen guys. Correct them. Who talked about pointing at mind. So, you know, on his travels, there's also a famous story, he stopped to have a little dim sung, which is a kind of varieties of Chinese dumplings. Canoodle, yeah. There's a canoodle shop in China run by an old German guy. In this case, a woman now. One of the famous women in Zen.

[20:15]

She was running this dim sum shop. And she said, what's that huge box you're carrying on your back? And he said... Oh, it's the commentaries of the Diamond Sutra. He was a young guy, you know. And he didn't know he'd met an adept. And she said to him, well, I'll donate this dumpling to you, this canoodle to you, if you can... answer my question. He said, oh, okay.

[21:16]

He said, yeah. He had a German accent. And She said, the Diamond Sutra says... The past mind, the bygone mind, cannot be attained. The present mind cannot be attained. The future mind cannot be attained. With what mind do you intend to eat this dumpling? He hadn't even got to the South yet and already this, you know, he was... He was lost.

[22:30]

So he packed up his... He paid for his dumpling and packed up his commentaries and off he went. And what happened next, maybe I'll tell you tomorrow. This is a serial, you know. Episode two comes tomorrow. So... So anyway, here's this Diamond Joe Deshan, who was also famous for saying, if you say anything, if you speak, 30 blows. If you don't speak, 30 blows. There is this diamond, Joe, who is also famous for saying, if you say something, if you speak, 30 times, if you don't say, 30 times.

[23:45]

Deshan is actually in our lineage, but he's the person who started this shouting and striking as a pedagogical technique. And he was, which was strongly adopted by the Linji school. So here's this, you know, tiger. And Xue Fang says, lunch is not ready yet, and he just mildly turns around and goes back to his room. So Xue Fang, who's You know, he finds it a little peculiar.

[24:48]

He didn't say anything to him, and he just kind of... I mean, because there was a certain challenge. What's wrong with you, old man? Dinner's not ready. Your lunch is not ready. So he goes to Yantou. He's one of... I really like Janto. He's quite a good person. He later became known as Ferryman, you know, like across the river. Ferryman Janto. And at some later point, he was murdered by brigands. And he let out a shout, supposedly, when he was killed. It was heard in Goreville. Or at least Harris Street. No, I mean, although our life is similar to these guys, probably that won't happen to you.

[26:15]

But we never know. These are our ancestors. These things happen to people. I even know two or three people who were stabbed to death. I know two or three people who were stabbed. So these things aren't just stories, they do happen. These things are not just stories, they really do happen. Yeah, so anyway, Yantou, who was only 35 at the time, Shui Feng is 41. Anyway, Yantou was 35 at the time and Shui Feng was 41. Yanto is his senior in understanding and experience.

[27:16]

Probably his ordination date is earlier, too. Yanto says, when he hears the story, he says, well, you know, The old tiger is toothless. The old tiger is toothless. And he never really got the last word anyway. This remark was overheard and repeated to Deschamps. Deshan, with some amusement, called Yanto to see him. And... Deshan says, what was that about? Nyanto went up to him and whispered in his ear.

[28:39]

And... Deshan said, oh, okay. So the next day when he came down to give Tesho... Perhaps... Janto told him the last word. Anyway, his lecture was much brighter than usual. So afterwards, after the lecture, Janto went out in front of the monastery and said, the old guy's finally got the last word. So that's the story. So what did he tell Yanto? What did he tell Deshan?

[29:40]

And what's the last word? The last word means the secret of Zen. or the essence of mind. Or something like that. Now, when you're practicing zazen, and you examine your sitting, is it vertical or horizontal? Somewhere in the back of your mind, you kind of hope you'll see a rock that you lift up and the secret of zen will jump out? The last word also means the feeling that we're missing something. Do you have a feeling you're missing something?

[30:40]

So that's the subject of this koan. How do we respond to the feeling that we're missing something? Now, when I walk down the hall here in the building, underneath my rooms, As I'm walking, I hear Sophia up above me saying, Papa, Papa. Papa, Papa. So I go upstairs all excited to see her.

[31:49]

And I come in the room and she doesn't look at me. And I could feel Hey, you just called my name. Why can't you greet me and look at me? But actually all she did was notice my footstep. So when I come in the room, I just notice what she's doing. And she knows I'm noticing. I remember when she was first beginning to examine things. If she examined something with her hand, she tended to look away and just concentrate with her hand.

[33:05]

And my daughter's music teacher says, when you listen to a note, sometimes it's good to look away and with soft eyes. And one of these koans, one of the commentary on this koan says, one of the commentaries on this koan says, it's like Grabbing a blind man's stick. Turning him around and throwing him down. What's he going to do? Is that restaurant in Zurich called, is that in the blind cow, is that in Zurich?

[34:08]

Maybe we should all go to the blind cow instead of sitting sashimi. I haven't been there, but it's a restaurant I'm told run by blind people and it's completely dark and the food is served in the dark. That's so you can't tell whether there's a finger or a fly in your soup. But anyway, you eat everything on... Complete darkness. I like the idea of paying the check in complete darkness. Here, take this. So, you know, So I'm talking really about noticing.

[35:26]

What do we notice? You know, if we played, let's call it the Orioke game, you get five points for everything you notice without looking. that you notice immediately. You get three points if you notice it after a while without looking. You get one point if you have to look. Mm-hmm. And if it has to be pointed out to you, somebody has to tell you, have you noticed you're not doing this? You get minus 100 points. So I don't want to point things out.

[36:31]

I don't want you to have minus 100 points. But I, you know, there's a... Quite a percentage of things most people don't notice. And I'm trying to understand what is it that you don't notice. So far it seems to be you don't notice things that are conceptually familiar before you study the orioke. Hmm. Or are there things which you, like washing a setsu stick or something, did you think your job is to wash the setsu stick? Or you've been told at one time, some time ago, and you told wrongly and you just keep doing it.

[37:58]

Do I really care whether you do it exactly right? Is there something called exactly right? But it does interest me that you don't notice. Since when did we first start doing sashins here? Five years ago? Yeah. Six years. For six years, I've been taking my little mat that we get to put the Yoyoki on, and I slide it under my Zabuton. So the first section of it is under the sabutan. And that makes the aisle smaller for serving. Yeah, it makes the space here smaller and the aisle wider, yeah.

[39:17]

In six years, I think only twice has anyone noticed I do it. And I've been waiting for six years for it to be noticed. I'm getting a little tired of waiting, actually. I expected the two people on either side of me to pick it up within a meal or two and then rapidly spread throughout the Zendo. But it doesn't happen. Everybody just takes this rectangular object and puts it in front of them. I suppose if you all learn to do that, I might start doing it some other way. So now I've mentioned it, so maybe you'll try it.

[40:48]

You know, I watched a woman in Hamburg. I've told this story quite a few times. With two kids. And one is... One didn't speak yet, and one spoke. And one of them was, they were both crying. And the one that didn't speak yet, she was comforting, and the one that was speaking, she was telling verbally to behave itself, be quiet. I found that extremely interesting. I watched it for quite a while. And I find myself doing it with Sophia. And I find myself doing it with Sophia. with a certain firmness in speaking and asking her not to.

[42:11]

She does listen and stops doing something. But I don't want to take away the... I don't want to take the other way of knowing away from her. I don't want her caught up in the last word. Or even right now, the idea, oh, I didn't notice certain things that I'm not... Yeah, it's okay. You don't notice. Who cares?

[43:15]

And yet, if we can be, there's a continuum. If we call this an interior world and this an exterior world, in practice it's a continuum, interior, exterior. And what do we notice? Now the striking with the stick. Now we don't do it in the West, I've discovered. I've discovered that we can't do that in the West. Because, as I said the other day, there simply is no psychological free zone for Westerners. There's always the feeling he or she hit me.

[44:19]

Yeah. It doesn't, you know, you understand what I mean. Yeah, so you understand what I mean. But I remember Tsukiyoshi used to, probably with this stick, it was his stick. The blind man, he would knock me to the ground and just hit me. And he would shout in front of everybody. The whole, everybody's there, you know. I'm on the floor getting... And he's saying, you should understand under my words.

[45:27]

You should understand under my words, under my blows. But they don't tell you what... He never told me what he was hitting me for. It's like, say that you were sitting beside me, we're at an orioke. And during the meal, I noticed you do several things kind of mixed up. So after the meal or some other time, I sort of give you a good swat. Sorry. And you being in a psychological free zone... And you have the capability of trusting and just assuming, yeah, this probably is all right, whatever it is.

[46:38]

And you wonder, what was that about? Was it the Yoyogi meal? Was it something else? Was it because I think I'm a good student? You don't know. Because the point is to get you to notice. It's not about correcting you, it's to get you to notice. So this striking and shouting was used to get you to hold, to get you between thoughts. Or to get you to notice. I mean, we can't take this away entirely in practice. But in the West, shouting and striking doesn't work.

[47:54]

But some other kind of, you know, a little bit of a shock is needed sometimes. But then we get into the power issues. Why can one person shock another? I don't know. It's endless. And you feel inferior and disempowered. and you feel inferior and disempowered. But in this story, these three guys, they're just like... It's just, it's a kind of... Dharma theater. But in this story, these three guys, it's like a Dharma theater.

[48:56]

Janto is trying to create a kind of problem for Xue Feng. Because here is Deshan. Deschamps is famous for trying to get people to notice with extreme methods, extreme to us. And here he is, he just, confronted by Xue Feng, he just turns and walks away in silence. So what is Xue Feng noticing? What did Deshan notice?

[50:10]

What did Yanto notice? Something wasn't being noticed, so Yanto created this idea of this last word. Do we notice that we have some longing or feeling that we're missing something? When you're sitting, what is it? You know, in general, the rule is in Zen, you never... If possible, you never point out anything. And if you have to point out, you point it out by showing. Like this morning, excuse me, Dieter, but if you're going to say leave the four boards empty, it's better to show the four boards empty than to say the four boards empty.

[51:34]

Just by moving a mat or something. If you have to say it with your voice, everyone loses 100 points. Because we really need, if you're going to notice your zazen, you really have to get extremely subtle at noticing. If you have to confirm what you notice with your thinking, You'll never notice whether your zazen is vertical or horizontal. That's the point of this koan. Yeah, I'm sorry I went on so long. Es tut mir leid, dass ich so lange geredet habe. ...

[53:05]

My God, all of your children say I am. My God, all of your children say I am. The beings are countless. I believe to guide them. The desires are unachievable. I believe to give them up. The dramaturges are unachievable. I believe to write them down. The path of the Buddha is unachievable. I believe to realize it. We don't know if James is the owner of that person, but I believe I look up to him.

[54:33]

Satsang with Mooji Here we're at a very fundamental point in the practice of Zen and the practice of Sashin.

[56:07]

The beginning was here. Here we are at a very familiar fundamental point. That these stories that I happened to tell you yesterday bring us to. Yeah, which is also what the word seshin means. Something like to gather the mind. Mm-hmm. Now, I believe I believe St. Augustine thought that thinking was gathering the mind.

[57:10]

And he related cogitate and cogo, and cogo or cogio being to gather. and to cogitate, to think about. To gather. But he meant it, seems to have meant it, to gather memory and associations. So what do we, we are using the word also, sashin, to gather the mind. What's the difference? Well, first of all, of course, we're all sitting together.

[58:20]

So there's an assumption that we... are more likely to gather the mind and notice the gathering of the mind when we gather the mind with others. Yes, it's not the same if you did a sashin by yourself. Now, yeah, it's something like, it is true that we feel we're entrained, entrained, entrained with others in sitting. I don't know a word, though.

[59:24]

I know what you mean. Just say entrained. Yes. We talked about it during the practice. Like grandfather clocks swing together, that kind of idea. let's say we open ourselves to entrainment. And somehow if we open ourselves with each other, which actually requires some kind of suspension of comparing yourself to others, and just being here in the presence of another.

[60:29]

And the more you just feel the presence of another, without thinking about that presence as a person or something like that, The more that somehow that releases you into your, let's call it presence, your own presence. Your presence that you don't own but you live. And this somehow also opens us to the presence, presence of, I don't have many words for this, opens us to the presence of the physical world.

[61:54]

The way nature can sometimes affect us when it's extraordinarily beautiful. But now even the smallest things have that effect on us. So what mind are we gathering? Somehow just being stuck here in a posture, you know? Somehow just being stuck here in a posture. In a particular place. Our thoughts are not In fact, our thinking tends to make it more difficult to sit and stay in one place.

[63:23]

And if comparative mind arises, we have more difficulty with how long the period is and so forth. So if a comparative mind and thinking tend to make the scene more difficult, We can assume that that's not the mind we're gathering. Again, we can go back to Dogen's question. Is the mind vertical or horizontal? What is the posture of the mind?

[64:24]

Of the body? And sometimes, you know, when our posture is a certain way, our mind feels bigger than our body. What's that about? Is this something elusive, like the mind of falling in love? Or to take special circumstances to appear? Does this mind that I just said you might feel is bigger than the body, Is this dependent on these circumstances in Sesshin?

[65:35]

Or are we somehow discovering a mind obscured by our usual And our usual lack of entrainment. Entrainment with our posture. Entrainment with our posture. mental and physical, entrainment with our breath, and some other more we can really just pay attention to our breath.

[66:41]

the more we can just give attention to our breath. The breath kind of gathers mind like perhaps a gossamer fishnet. Gossamer, do you know? Gossamer? Gossamer. It's very fine, like lace or silk or something like that. Like a cobweb or something. Now, if we go back to this story of Deshan and this extraordinary old dumpling-selling woman and there's various ways of understanding this story.

[67:49]

And it's good to see these stories, and it's in our tradition to see these stories as open-ended. There's not one answer to them. There's no last word or secret interpretation. At the particular point in your life when you practice, enter such a story, will gather in you and gather from you different things than at another time. So there's no last word as in the story of Deshan as an old man.

[69:27]

But here we have Deshan as a young man. And what happens? He's carrying the Diamond Sutras. There are commentaries by somebody named Chin Lung, I think. And what happens? He gets the Diamond Sutra defeated by a dumpling. Because you've had to look at this in an iconic sense. You have this guy walking around like the hump-backed flute player The what?

[70:28]

The humpback flute player is something found in caves and things of a man seemingly walking with a backpack on his back playing a flute. So in this case, he's got his... This hump is his backpack full of the Diamond Sutra. A hump is what? A hump is like a camel's hump. Ah, buckel. He's got this big hump, which is interpreted as a backpack. In this case, he's carrying the Diamond Sutra on his back. And all his learning is to no effect. And everything he learned has no effect at all.

[71:31]

Diamond Joe. It's actually C-H-O-U, but anyway, Diamond Joe. So, the Diamond Joe. Mm-hmm. So this woman asks him a powerful question. What happens? He's stuck. His lips are frozen. So actually, this is good. Most of us can't be stopped. Most of us would have an argument. Well, you can't apply the Diamond Sutra to a dumpling, you know. Just sell me the dumpling and shut up, old lady. You can't confuse the profundity of the Diamond Sutra with a dumpling.

[72:41]

It's not practical of you. You should be selling me a dumpling. Please sell me one. So he doesn't argue. He just is actually... The presence of this woman And the question, and the fact that this seemingly ordinary person knows the Dhamma Sutra, he doesn't know what to say. So it means that sometimes, I mean the way Zen would look at this is that sometimes You should be stopped. She stopped his mind. That's also sometimes the moment when the mind gathers. Now this resonates, of course, with the earlier story of the

[73:45]

sixth patriarch, Hui Ning. Who in this case is an uneducated woodcutter, supposedly. And he overhears somebody reciting the Diamond Sutra. And some mind, excuse me, some line, I can't remember, something like, let the mind flow freely. And on hearing this line, this young woodcutter was enlightened.

[75:04]

So he went up to the monk who was reciting and said, where are you from? And he said, I'm from, studied with a teacher named Hung Jin. Now, these stories are all the basis of the kind of atmosphere of Zen practice. And the basis for much of the teaching of Zen. So he goes off and finds Hangzhen, a so-called fifth patriarch.

[76:11]

And Hangzhen recognizes his potential right away. But wants him to hide his light. He doesn't go up to him and say, hey, you've got a big light, go hide it. If you have to say this, the guy doesn't have much light, huh? He just says, go work in the kitchen and chop wood and grind rice.

[77:11]

So he does that for a long time. And then we have another story, which I won't go on to now. You all know it anyway. Okay. In this case... He was enlightened hearing a phrase from the Diamond Sutra. And here we have Deshan burdened down by the Diamond Sutra. At least he's not hearing the Diamond Sutra or he hears it from this woman. As a Hui Neng heard it from this traveling monk.

[78:29]

What's the difference? Anyway, as you know, she says the past mind is not graspable. Quoting the Diamond Sutra. Present mind is not and future mind is not graspable. Gogan says the whole body grasps, the whole body throughout this very 24 hours. Is ungraspable mind. Help. I don't know. Here we are sitting here. Is your mind graspable or not? What experience do you have?

[79:43]

It's interesting that St. Augustine at some point realized his mind was not limited to his thoughts. Somehow there was something, it wasn't all contained in his thoughts. And he seemed to think that what wasn't contained in his thoughts and memory somehow came from God. But what's uncontained or ungraspable? How do we gather ungraspable mind? Yeah, what is this? How do we investigate this mind at this moment? as it appears on the sound of my voice, or it appears in the feelings of your body.

[80:56]

Or on your thoughts. Now, Dogen doesn't seem to have really approved of Deschamps' realization. And I actually myself have never really liked Deschamps' arrogance or way of treating others. As they are in the stories. And he feels that Deschamps really... This dialogue should have gone further with the old woman.

[82:18]

You know the story of Daito Kokushi and the Third Street Bridge? Kokushi. Daito Kokushi. Who got tired of being the abbot of Daito Kokushi. Perhaps too many doksans, I don't know what. And one day he just disappeared. And he wasn't found for a long time. But they knew he loved melons. And melons are pretty rare in Japan because it's not dry enough to produce melons.

[83:30]

And melons are quite rare in Japan because they are not dry enough to be grown. So a single melon can cost 50 euros or 100 euros or something like that sometimes. It's unbelievably expensive as a present. So a single melon can cost 50 or 100 euros. That's incredibly expensive. Or at least 20 or 30. Anyway, so, I don't know how expensive they were in those days, but anyway, they went looking for him with some melons. And they went under the Third Street Bridge in Kyoto. And they went under the... And there was a lot of bums hanging out there. And one of the bums had particularly bright eyes.

[84:33]

So they brought... And when they got the melon near him, his eyes kind of... So he reached out for the melon. And this man said to him, take it with no hands. And the bright-eyed monk said, give it to me with no hands. So he was discovered. So Dogen suggests that... Deschamps could have said to the old woman... With what mind did... With what ungraspable mind did you make these dumplings?

[85:45]

Mm-hmm. Or she could have said, hey, I'll give you a dumpling for the past mind, the present mind and the future mind. And she should have seen if he reached out for it with his hands. So by Dogen taking this story and imagining different endings... He's trying to teach us how to investigate these things. Or the old woman could have said, well, if you can't answer my question, ask me a question, see if I can answer.

[86:49]

Some strong spirit should be present here. The woman left and he was, and Deshan was speechless. Dogen thinks they didn't show much spirit. Dogen says, I would have said to the woman, you only understand that the dumpling can't refresh the mind. This is all a pun on the word tension, which means to refresh, but it also has in it mind, shin.

[87:58]

Dogen would say, you don't know that the mind can refresh the dumpling. And the mind can refresh the mind. And the mind can refresh the mind or liberate the mind. So then he goes off to... He was on his way to meet a man named Lungthana. And on his way to Lungthang, he stopped and had this encounter with this woman.

[89:04]

And so he continued on. When he got to... Lung means... Dragon Marsh. Lungtan means Dragon Marsh. After being defeated by or stopped by this woman, he didn't have much modesty. And so when he got there, he said, Lungtan, I don't see any dragon around here. I don't see a marsh. So Lungtan says, you have arrived at Dragon Marsh.

[90:07]

So they talked a few times. Lungtan was somewhat disappointed in him. And it had become dark during their conversation. And so Lungtan, I mean, Deshan was going back to his room. And since it was dark, Lungtan gave him a candle. And as soon as he was stepped outside, Lungtan blew out the candle. Mm-hmm. And of course, what's happened is, you know, it's the old punchline, he was enlightened. Dogen doesn't think either was much of an enlightenment.

[91:24]

Either? And either the experience with the woman or with Lungtan was really much of an enlightenment. You know, Dogen can be skeptical of these stories. You can be skeptical of these stories. But that doesn't mean you also shouldn't open yourself to what's going on. Yeah, so, you know, I'll finish these stories in a while. You must be getting tired of these stories.

[92:09]

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