Here is one of a series of talks by spiritual
leader Lola McDowell Lee, spanning two decades
from the early 70s through the 90s. Lola was
a Zen Roshi whose Rinzai lineage included Dr.
Henry Plutov and renowned Zen master Shigetsu
Sasaki. Lola was a religious scholar as well
as an ordained Christian minister. While the
talks are focused mainly on Zen and Buddhism,
Lola drew on many spiritual traditions, including
those of Jesus, Plato, Lao Tzu, the Hindu Vedas,
Meister Eckhart, and Gurdjieff. talk of some
kind, a lecture, discourse, they show. They have
a chair that they sit on, and the chair is very
elevated, so they're sitting above. You know,
the monks are sitting on the floor, and they
sit up, so they call it a high seat. Interesting.
They sit up there with their little... It's thick
with the... This thing whisk on the end so they
keep the flies away. Because everything is open,
you see, in the monastery. Anyway, ascending
to the high seat, see, so he goes up to give
a talk. This Dogen Zenji said, Zen Master Hogan
studied with Keishin Zenji. And once Keishin
Zenji asked him, Joseph, Where do you go? And
this Hogan replied, I am making pilgrimage aimlessly.
Cation then asked him, what is the matter of
your pilgrimage? And Hogan answered, I don't
know. So Cation Zenji then said, Not knowing
is most intimate. And Hogan suddenly attained
great enlightenment. Boy, they sure do it neat
in stories, huh? Little word and they aren't
there, you know. But this not knowing is most
intimate. Very puzzling thing, isn't it? That
you are very intimate with the not knowing. Of
course, you must remember what kind of a not
knowing that is. Anyway, Dogen Zenji was the
founder of the Soto Zen sect in Japan. And he's
born around 1200 in Kyoto. And at this time,
Buddhism had been in Japan for about 600 years.
was brought over from Korea. Now, in the social
scheme of things in Japan at that time, values
were shifting, as they very often do. Our values
in our society are shifting now also. And they
don't really stay still very long at any time.
But anyway, values were shifting. The values
in Japan up until that time had been on the refinement
of things, the delicacy of things. People living
in court, in the emperor's court and everything,
they wanted everything very refined and very
cultured. And Dogen's parents were of this aristocratic
class. But anyway, at this time, the values were
shifting and the emphasis now was on strength
and discipline. So the samurai came about and
you know they came about mostly in the Kamakura
area. And it seemed like for a while there was
a lot of confusion and religion sort of had gone
to pot in a way. Not that kind of pot, but in
that kind of pot. Magic prayers were being sold
to the wealthy and at the same time The major
monasteries had armed monks, had these samurai,
armed monks who engaged actually in combat. And
they served under the emperor and they had these
little skirmishes around and about. And it was
called the Decline, the Age of the Decline of
the Dharma. Because the practice had strayed
so far from the teachings of the Gautama Shakyamuni,
who was called the Buddha. And there arose at
this time, more strongly, the belief in Amitabha,
who was the Savior Buddha. I mean, they do have
still Amitabha, who they consider about in the
same sense as we consider Jesus. He's the Savior.
The Christians consider Jesus. So here's Amitabha
is the Savior Buddha. And he is the one who promised
to lead the people to the heavenly Pure Land.
And all of this was spreading so that the people
were doing lots of... What's the old chant? Amitaba.
Nimbetsu Nambitaba. Nimbetsu Nambitaba. Anyway,
so that they could go to the Pure Land. And the
reciting of his name, Amitaba, was taught as
the easiest way. to get to the Pure Land. Just
repeat his name. And Dogen, being brought up
in this era, he had lost his parents by the time
he was eight. And when he was 13, he went to
a monastery at Mount Hiei. And the following
year after that, he was there and worked for
a year, studied for a year, whatever you want
to call it. And he was ordained by the head of
the Tendai sect. which was at Mountie. Still
is, I guess. Now, this Dogen Zenji, he lived
with a question, and it was a very compelling
question for him. Some people, you know, they
do live with this question, and it varies to
some extent. But it is almost as if that question
drives them into seeking. I mean, it could be,
you know, who am I? But his question was that
both the esoteric and the esoteric teachings
explain that a person in essence, a person in
essence, has the Dharma nature and is originally
the body of the Buddha nature. I mean we are
already all of this that we are seeking. If this
is so, why do all the Buddhas in the past, in
the present and in the future arouse the wish
for and seek enlightenment? Why do people brought
up in the in the Western world so we are Christians
rather than Buddhists? We have this the everlasting
light That light at every man that cometh into
this world Why do they seek that light Some of
them do you know why do people seek that light?
If we are already that, why seek? And there are
people in this world who put forth a great deal
of effort to this question. You know, almost
a life's work. They spend literally their lives
looking to find out what or who they are. Why
does anybody seek enlightenment? Well, Dogen
couldn't find a suitable answer. So he went to
another monastery, another Tendai monastery,
and asked the abbot there, and this man would
not give him an answer. But he suggested, this
abbot did, that Dogen go to China. He'd make
a trip to China and find out. Now this abbot,
Yisai Zengzhi, had been to China, and he had
been introduced to the five, the then extant
five schools of Zen. And then he made a second
visit, and on the second visit he had met Rinzai.
And in the Rinzai, or as it is called in China,
the Linqi school. It is this tradition that carries
on this vigorous sometimes dialogue between the
teacher and the student. And it was at that time
the most prominent Zen school in China. And so
this Isai Zenji brought this teaching to Japan
about 1190. But because he had been in the Tendai
thing and still was to some extent the authorities
thereof, the Orthodox Tendai, were very opposed
to his presenting Rinzai Zen. But they would
allow him to present this Zen as one of the four
practices of Tendai. So he taught from the Lotus
Sutra, from the Mahayana precepts, and the esoteric
rituals, and then he taught Zen meditation. So
that is in the Zen, in the Tendai thing. And
this man died in 1214. But Dogen continued on
with this man's successor, Myozen. And in 1223,
both Myozen and Dogen went to China. And here
they went around to the different monasteries
of southern China, specifically southern China,
which to me is interesting because the Zen in
northern China would say, somebody would come
from south China and they'd say they were seeking,
how can you even be bothered to look? You're
from the south. You're from southern China. No
good ever came out of southern China. It's like
about Jesus, you know. And they said, from Nazareth?
No good ever came out of Nazareth. How could
there be a master in Nazareth? In the south.
And the south is considered the gradual school,
and the north is considered the abrupt or the
southern school. And the Rinzai was considered
a northern school. You know, they have this tremendous
lineage in Rinzai Zen of Obako and Hwangpo and
Matsu, Matsu, one of the greatest that ever was.
Anyway, Dogen found in this Rinzai Zen thing
that the people did this Koan practice. You know,
they were given questions, and at that time the
questions were not so many. I mean, it certainly
not included all the 1700 that they have today,
but they had maybe 10, 15, something like that.
They grew through the years, you know. All starting
with that one, before your mother and father,
what are you? You know. That's the basic one.
All the rest of them grew from that. Anyway,
Dogen thought that these con ignored the meaning
of the Buddhist scripture. Well, at that time
it probably did, because now it's part of the
1700, it includes things out of the Buddhist
scripture. But at that time, no, it was just
this, always this pointing to you as to what
you are. After two years of looking around and
making up his mind that this really wasn't what
he wanted. He decided to go back to Japan and
then he remembered a monk by the name of Rujing
and who was supposed to be an authentic practitioner
of the way. So he went to this Tian Tong Mountain
in the summer of 1225 and he at the time was
62. And at this meeting, Dogen wrote about it
afterwards. with Rujing. He said, I first offered
incense and bowed formally to my late master,
old Buddha Tiantong. And in his abbot's room
on the first day of the fifth month of the first
year of bowing of the great sun, he also saw
me for the first time. And upon this occasion,
he transmitted the Dharma finger to finger, face
to face and said to me the Dharma gate of face
to face transmission from Buddha to Buddha ancestor
to ancestor is realized now. So he went back,
he carried us back to Japan after his study with
this man and he died in Kyoto in 1253. the founder
of Zodo Zen in Japan, Dogen Zenji, great man,
great man. Now, the Zodo Zen teaching centers
around a single -minded, single -minded, single
-minded sitting meditation, single -minded, which
is called Shikantaza. Single -minded, you know
what that is? So you set aside all your involvements
and You let the 10 ,000 things just go just let
them go Just fill the rest You don't have to
keep them stirred up Meditation is not thinking
of good Meditation is not thinking of bad Meditation
is not introspection It is engaging yourself
in this single -minded meditation as if your
head were on fire. And then there are some instructions
as to mind training. First, foremost, first.
Learn the preliminaries. You know, in other words,
you start at the beginning. You start at the
beginning. You know what the beginning is? You.
So that every time you start, in a way you start
at the beginning, there is you. And in a way,
because of what goes on in your world of appearances,
you seem to be different every time you sit down.
naturally now so you sit and the mind single
mind now you sit and the mind is still then you
realize truth is truth is not something that
you create truth is. It is not something far
away. It is. Truth surrounds you like an ocean
surrounds a fish. The fish are not aware of the
water. Are you aware of what you're surrounded
with? And don't tell me space because that's
not true. Space is a concept. Like time is a
concept. Space, what we ordinarily call space,
is like we have, we measure. You know, we're
measuring people. So the measurement between
where you are and where I am, what is in between,
we call space. What is really in between. What
is really in between. I mean, you know, you can
take a look at your brains. And you've got a
right -sided brain and a left -sided brain. And
it has communication from left side to right
side. What is in between? But through what does
it communicate? OK, fish are not aware of the
water, and we're not aware of what we're surrounded
with. Once the fish becomes aware of the water,
It is immediately enlightened. The fish is born
in the ocean, it lives in the ocean, and one
day it disappears in the ocean. So now, in what
do you live? You were born into this world, you
have your existence, and then you die to this
world. What we need is a kind of awareness which
seems either to be missing or somehow eludes
us, this awareness. It's there, every one of
you have it, this particular kind of awareness.
But as you go about your ordinary business, are
you aware? Are you really alert? Are you mindful?
Do you know what the word mindful means? It means
full of mind. Are you mindful? It doesn't mean
to be full of appearances, it means to be full
of mind. Do you know how to watch? Do you know
how to observe? Do you know that truth is? Can
you have faith in it? Truth is. Then we come
again to this mind, and the mind is a barrier
to our alignment. All that keeps you from the
perception of the very fundamental truth is your
own mind. And it is not the mind itself, it is
what is in the mind. What is the content of your
mind? We have to get past the content of this
mind, somehow or another, in order to see the
mind. This content that we have to deal with,
everyday thoughts, our dreams, dreams of the
past, remembrances of the past. Dreams of the
future, you know, how things should be. And we
can have long discussions with ourselves about
this, how things should be. We have sometimes
dreams of great ambition and dreams of great
achievements, like becoming instantly enlightened.
And we have dreams of small achievements. Just
let me get through the day. Let me cope. dreams
and our desires. The stuff of the mind. Mind
stuff. The Greeks called it. And this mind stuff,
in a way, is what surrounds us. Because you don't
seem to be able to see anything but this mind
stuff. And it blocks us just as much as we had
put the China wall around us. And it is because
of this mind stuff that the fish remains unaware
of the water. And then we come to the other thing
about the mind, which is called no -mind. No
-mind is the door. And it is sometimes called
bodhicitta, or it is called gushin, or it is
called gushin, or buddha -mind. in the state
of no mind. That is, mind with no content, mind
without thought, mind without a hope, mind without
dreams and mind without desires. So they say
no mind because usually we call our thinking
mind. You know, our thinking is called mind,
I should say it that way. Yeah, but it isn't.
The thinking is the activity of the mind. And
when the activity isn't, we say, well, there's
no mind there. But the mind with a capital M
is present. It is the mind itself and not the
activity thereof. And for this no mind, the mind
without content, for this one strives. This is
the effort. A mind which dreams no more. You
know, we spend our... our dreaming states. It's
almost as if it were a basis for living, our
dreams. And we're no longer deluded by the desires
of the dreams. So that then there is this mind
which is crystal clear, I mean crystal clear
and extremely aware, very sharp. to realize this
mind as it is what it is, such as it is. And
that the thinking and the dreaming are just the
activities of it, you know, because here we have
a body and we know the activities of the body,
but the body itself, you see. And we go on diets
and here's this, we know something about the
stomach, how it operates. And we know how there's
some way about the muscles, how they operate,
you know, in yoga. So now can you tell me how
the mind operates? And certainly it's as much
a part of you as your stomach or your muscles.
So you just, you know, look a little bit. And
then to realize that phenomena, the appearances.
Phenomena are like dreams. Phenomena are like
dreams. It is not that they are dreams, they
are as if they were dreams. They are like, similar
to. Whatever you experience is phenomena. We
consider this and this and this, you know, they're
objects. They're just sitting there. Fine, that's
an object. That's as it appears in the mind.
What this is and what this is and what that is,
we don't perceive because we're just using the
senses. The objects of the mind are to be treated
as phenomena. And some people, the objects of
the mind are also to be treated as phenomena.
Your emotions are to be treated as phenomena.
And some people find this very difficult. My
feelings are only phenomena? You know? Well,
think about it. There are objects of this world
like trees and rocks and clouds. And then there
are objects of the mind, their thoughts and dreams
and hopes, and even some spiritual experiences.
They're like objects, they're appearances, they're
phenomena. If you have a spiritual experience
and it is taking place in the psyche, it is an
appearance. And it is necessary state to go through.
I'm not running it down. It is very necessary
and it is of utmost importance. You know that
that they do appear But it is making it is the
making Objective of something within You may
you know, it's like all of a sudden you're pervaded
by this great light and it's just flooding through
you and oh boy, you know That light is phenomena.
You go outside and you see flowers. Roses. Fragrance
is amazing. It's a phenomena. So you go back
and you sit and all of a sudden you see the rose
in the heart. You know, that's the Rosicrucians.
They had this thing of the rose in the heart.
That's phenomena. You perceive outside and inside
You see what's going on in here More or less
to some extent almost Yeah, as something's going
on out there something's going on in here you
see something immediately something's going on
in here it has to be Yeah See I look out there
and I look in here always We are the seers, you
see. You are the perceiver. When are you ever
the seen? You are the experiencer. When are you
ever experienced? You are the witness. When are
you which is witnessed. What are who experiences
you? You know you can go walking down the street
and you can look at the people and you look at
the shopkeepers and the customers coming and
going and all as if it were like a dream. Like
a dream. That's a very, very famous expression
in Zoro's end. Like a dream. Like a fantasy.
The houses and the buses and the trains and the
cars and the airplanes. Like a dream. Phenomena.
then maybe a question might occur, perhaps. If
all this that I perceive, all these objects,
are all like a dream, am I a dream also? I a
dream? If that which is perceives what is, like
a dream, an appearance on this mirror mind, then
who is this I? If the object is like a dream,
is the subject like a dream also? If you pay
attention, pay attention, if you're very now
alert, questioning yourself. I mean, these are
the ways you should question yourself. You will
feel that something is loosening almost. as if
there had been a tightness in you and it kind
of loosens. And what has loosened is your idea,
your idea of the ego. Now, some people call an
ego function a by -product. If one thinks that
this object, whatever it is, that stands there
in front of you, is what it appears, then the
ego can exist. The illusion, the ego lives with
this illusion that whatever you see is true,
instead of it being like a dream, a world appearing.
The observation of phenomena The observation
of object and subject is of extreme importance.
Subject and object, object and subject. These
are to be worked upon over and over and over
and over. What is subject and object and what
is the relation between the two? Now if you really
work with this very seriously, it can lead to
another phenomenon. That of dreaming. When you
sleep, you dream. Let me do that. But this is
a little different kind of dreaming. In this
kind of dreaming, you know that you are dreaming.
You know that the dream is a dream. And if you
can catch yourself at that moment, because you
have been observing, so you should be able to,
as this happens, The dream disappears and for
the first time you will experience deep sleep,
deep sleep, but you will be awake. Try this subject
-object stuff. Once you have seen your dream
disappear and you remain, you know, the quality
of consciousness changes. It has like a new flavor
to it. Now you begin to have an inkling of what
it is to be awake. Other mornings you get up
and you thought your alarm goes off and you jump
out of bed and you stand there, you know, and
you thought, no, okay, I'm awake. But the morning
after this experience of waking while you're
sleeping, your eyes will be so clear, you know.
Everything will look so colorful. The whole world
is so alive. It's crystal and clearness. Even
the rocks, they seem to breathe and pulsate.
So when one is awake, the whole existence changes
its quality. Transcendental consciousness. A
witness. that is not a me -I. So we then step
into this next phase of examining the nature
of the unborn consciousness, of the unborn mind.
One examines the nature of awareness. You look
into it and you look very deep into it. And then
you will smile. This unborn, this undying has
always been. It is eternal and it's timeless.
And you smile. It's about all you can do. How
fearful you were of death. How fearful you were
of old age. And how fearful you were of a thousand
and one things. And yet, it's all like a dream.
And we smile. Unnecessarily fearful. Unnecessarily
greedy. Unnecessarily selfish. Unnecessarily
suffering. As if we'd been living in a nightmare.
All because we didn't see. That is with the mind.
Then comes something that's rather difficult.
To let go the remedy. Don't cling to a particular
method. Which is the remedy. I mean, Buddha,
they call Buddha the great healer. He had these
remedies. for our disease, all these remedies.
So when the work is done, don't cling to it.
And yet we do, because this is the last ditch
of the ego to survive. It comes in from the back
door and begins all its extra effort with begins
right at the beginning. All phenomena are like
dreams. We start right there again, and it wants
to hang on to that. And that stops any further
effort to become further aware. That eagle rears
its head, and funny thing, at this point, that
teacher gets nasty. Nasty. It's a matter with
her, you know. It can't be me. I'm making such
progress, you know. You want to cling. And once
you start clinging, you're back in the same old
rut. The ego has many disguises. You hold on
to anything. You cling to it, and that ego is
just stomping around the fire. Something else.
The ego is very dependent. We think we are very
independent. The ego is very dependent. It needs
things. Possess anything, anything you possess.
Even a spiritual method, a upaya, which is a
device for doing something, can become a possession.
This is my way. Oh yeah. Which you'll be very
surprised. You are possessed by it. Yeah. Be
it money, be it something, whatever it is that
you possess, you will be possessed by it. And
you will be so fearful of losing it. You own
it. You're so fearful of losing it because it
has made this turnaround and it possesses you.
The ego is that dependent? When you practice,
whatever it is that you practice, any of these
methods, do not possess it. It is something you
are practicing. Therefore, I always say, you
are practicing meditation. You are practicing
meditation. When you have experienced what this
particular device this particular method is supposed
to produce and You want to keep on and on and
on and on with it? Then you're possessing it
When it has produced what it is to produce let
it go When the experience has occurred now you
be very alert the ego is very cunning It will
say, even after one experience, you see the light
once. Okay. Then the ego says, look, you are
no longer an ordinary person. Of course, you
don't have to experience spiritual things to
say that. Look what you have attained. Look,
you are enlightened. One experience. You are
enlightened. This is how the ego talks to you.
You think you don't have conversation with something?
Yeah. Look, what I have accomplished, this is
the goal of all human beings and I am that one
in a million. One in a million. You feel so good
about yourself. You're holier than thou. You
look special to yourself. Spiritual and saintly
and righteous. And for the birds. The whole thing
is lost. Through the remedy, the diseases come
back. The Buddha used to tell a story. There
were five idiots. Five idiots, huh? You get it.
They were passing through a village and seeing
them The villagers were surprised because they
were carrying a boat on their heads. It was a
big boat. And it almost crushed these five idiots.
You know, it was big and heavy. And there was
no water around there to use a boat. The little
ponds were little. The boat was bigger than the
pond. So people asked them, you know, of course,
you know, what are you doing? You've got the
big boat, what are you doing? And panting with
exertion, these idiots replied, we can't leave
this boat. It is the boat that helped us to come
from the other shore to this shore. How can we
leave it? Because of it, we are here. Without
it, we would have died on the other shore. We
will never leave this boat. We are indebted to
it forever. We are carrying it on our heads in
sheer gratitude. So one could very well ask,
how many boats are you carrying? So you let the
remedy go. Be free. this Yisai Abbot from the
Tendai sect who advised Dogen to go to China
and that he had gone and he had studied under
the great Lin Chi, the great Rinzai. Now Rinzai
had formulated some very basic principles. Which
are intended to lead us to enlightenment and
seeing that this is what you're going to be spending
the week trying to do This is your effort is
to wake up Totally. I thought you might like
to know his fourfold principles The relationship
between the questioner and the answerer Let us
say that that is between the ego and the self.
The ego questions, it gets a true answer from
truth and the self. The four processes of liberation
from subjectivity and objectivity. And these
steps lead to the transformation of the limited
ego self. to the unlimited universal self. In
other words, to the true man, to your true identity.
Now, the relationship between the answerer and
the questioner. Pin chen chu, which is the guest
sees the host. The guest, of course, is the ego,
the ego self. True is a host, and that's the
universal self. As we are ordinarily, as we know
ourselves, we are the guest. Welcome to the party.
We come and go. The host remains. The host is
the unborn undying. remains. The questioner,
the guest, is in the form of the ego and he meets
the answerer who is in the form of the self,
the true self. Okay? That's the first thing,
the first principle. That's a nice beginning.
And then we come to the thing of the host sees
the guest. This is not so simple, no? This means
that the questioner is in the form of the true
self and he meets the answerer who is in the
form of the ego self. been a switch. You know,
when it's suddenly the self looking at the ego.
It's the ego looking at the self. Then we come
to this chu chen chu, which is the host sees
the host. The self sees the self. Truth sees
truth. Then we come to the Last stage of pin
-chin -pin, which is the guest sees the guest.
That means that both the questioner and the answerer
are in the form of the ego. Now these are the
four positions of questioning and answering.
the four processes of liberation from subjectivity
and objectivity. Now in Rinzai Zen, and very
often we will hear something about the teacher
slapping the student or hitting him with the
stick, you know, you get a stick and, you know,
what is this? You call it a stick and I'll give
you 30 blows. You don't call it a stick, I'll
give you 30 blows. What is it? So then comes
this in the middle of something very quiet or
the student, the teacher has asked the student
a question and the student is trying to formulate
things in his mind and all of a sudden that teacher
says, Halt! Or just maybe like Rinzai used the
phrase, Halt! And this sudden yell. Evidently,
Obako used it, and Whang -Po used it, and so
Renzi picked it up, and it's used today. After
all, we are still aping or mimicking or whatever.
The con, this problem with which we work, I mean,
the question which you are given to work with,
or the statement. You know, it can be a very
simple statement such as, the plum blossom floats
in the air. Now, that doesn't make any sense,
does it? or the frog jumps into the pond to pluck.
Great koan. The koan, it's really interesting.
They liberate us from our unseen entanglements.
They free us. And this is the use, this is one
of the purposes of the koan, these problems.
is to free us from both our seen and unseen entanglements.
It opens the mind to liberation and this involves
these four steps having to do with object and
subject. So first we come to this take away the
man but not his objective situation. Take away
the man, but not his objective situation. That
is to be free of the entanglements of subjectivity,
but to let the objectivity remain. Everything
is object, no subject. And there was a master
out of the Rinzai sect, long time ago, his name
was Fen Yang. And he wrote a little poem. Under
the moonlight are the towers and the chambers
of a thousand houses. Lying in the autumn air
are lakes and rivers of myriad lee. Blossoms
blow in the reeds, differing not in their colors.
A white bird descends the white sand bank of
a stream. In that whole poem, there's no mention
of a subject. He never says, I see or I hear.
It is sheer objectivity. It is object. When the
one is freed from subject, objectivity only remains
to take away the man, but not his objective situation.
I hope that some of you have been trying at least
to look at what is subject within yourself. Now,
then we come to the next one is take away the
objective situation but not the man. To be free
from the attachments of objectivity but let subjectivity
remain so that all is subject. Non -attachment
to objectivity liberates one from the bondage
from all the outer and it leads to enlightenment.
Then we have to take away both the man and his
objective situation. Oh, what's left? You take
away your objective situation and you take away
the man. Here's the subjectivity. What's left?
Well, liberation from both subject and object,
naturally. But man alive, it's what you're looking
for. It sure is. You know, there was a little
monk, and his name was Ting, and he came to his
master, who was Lin Chi, and he stood there in
front of him and he... asked him, what is the
essence of Buddhism? What is the essence? It's
like somebody would ask, what is the essence
of Christianity? What is the essence? The master
came down from his high seat and slapped his
face and pushed him away and tinged this little
monk questioner. He stood there. I mean, you
know, he was frozen. He didn't expect to be slapped,
he expected an answer. He expected an explanation.
Don't you? Yeah. So instead of that, he got a
slap in the face. So there was another monk standing
close by to him. He said, ting, why don't you
bow? And as the monk did this, he started to
make this bow and he suddenly saw. So this illustrates
this use of the slapping and the pushing, which
would be, you know, insulting in our everyday
circumstance. You know, somebody, you ask somebody
a question and they slapped your face or they
yelled at you, oh! You know, it's insulting.
But when it's used in this Chinese Zen or Chan,
by a teacher, it becomes a method of opening
the mind. It is it is if you watch your mind
when you hear something like that that sound
all of a sudden it goes of course comes right
back together again, but there is that opening
for that split second and That frees us from
bondage of this subject object thing You know
Rinzai when being asked this question he could
have gone on and on and on about him What is
the essence of Buddhism, you know, but instead
of trying to explain something? which would have
left this little Ting exactly where he was before.
There would have been no transformation. No.
Instead of, he just slapped him. You know, something
opened. And in this little Ting's response where
he started to bow, there is no intellectualizing
about essence or anything else. There is no reasoning
out anything. There's nothing subjective. Now
I should do this and now I should do that. There's
no help from all the traditional scriptures.
to add to his understanding, he was lost in a
world where there was neither subject nor object.
And he just stood there, frozen, not thinking,
not feeling, not anything, until all of a sudden
when he did start to bow, it was like a dam opened
in him and all these waters of enlightenment
poured through him. Yeah. from subject object.
And then we come to this takeaway, neither the
man nor the situation, and you let both the subject
and the object be what they are. Of course by
now they're a little different than what they
are now. And they are identified one with the
other. So Rinzai used to say about this thing,
and others have said it's something like it,
fellow learners, You know, to achieve Buddhahood,
there is no need for cultivation. Just carry
on an ordinary task without any attachment. Wear
your clothes, eat your meals, when you are tired,
lie down. The fool will laugh at you, but the
wise man will understand. again, but an identification
one with the other, which is very different than
what we have now. Now, to illustrate something
like this, where there is this identification,
this togetherness, when Chao Chiu was looking
for his enlightenment, He went by foot travel
and in China the monks used to wander around
the mountains looking for the masters who very
often lived by themselves in little huts in these
mountains and In China it used to be that you
lived there after you received Your ordination
or whatever you want to call it that you went
into the mountains and lived for two years or
seven years I've forgotten how it was in isolation
to further that and deepen it. And then when
you came out from that, you were ready to teach.
So the monks used to wander around in these mountains
looking for these people. And it came that this
chao chu came upon Lin Chi. It was Rinzai. And
when he came upon him, Rinzai was sitting there
by a little mountain stream and he was bathing
his feet. And Chau Chu moved up quite close to
him. And finally, being right next to him, he
asked him, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma
coming to the West? And Master Lin Chi looked
at him. He says, you ask at a time when I am
bathing my feet. So this chow -choo moved a little
closer and made a gesture, you know, that maybe
he was listening. And Master Lin Chi said to
him, Do you want a second ladle of dirty water
poured on you?