Alan Watts searchable speech v2.0

a lecture on zen 00:00:11

a lecture on zen is always something in the nature of a 00:00:13

hoax 00:00:15

because it really does deal with a domain of experience 00:00:21

that can't be talked about 00:00:24

but one must remember at the same time that there's really nothing at all 00:00:31

that can be talked about adequately 00:00:36

and the whole art of poetry is to say 00:00:39

what can't be said 00:00:39

so every poet every artist feels when he gets to the end of his 00:00:47

work that there's something absolutely 00:00:51

essential that was left out 00:00:51

so zen has always described itself as a finger pointing at the moon 00:00:59

in the sanskrit saying that art thou zen is concerned with that 00:01:07

that of course is the word which is used 00:01:15

for brahman 00:01:16

the absolute reality in hindu philosophy 00:01:20

and you're it only in disguise and 00:01:22

disguise so well that you've forgotten 00:01:24

it 00:01:26

but unfortunately ideas like the 00:01:29

ultimate ground of being 00:01:31

the self brahman ultimate reality 00:01:34

the great void all that is very very 00:01:37

abstract talk 00:01:39

and zen is concerned with a much more 00:01:42

direct way 00:01:43

of coming to an understanding of that or 00:01:46

thatness 00:01:47

as it's called in sanskrit 00:01:47

so zen has been summed up in four statements 00:01:57

a direct transmission outside scriptures and apart from tradition 00:02:05

no dependence on words and letters 00:02:10

direct pointing to the human mind 00:02:14

and seeing into one's own nature and becoming buddha 00:02:22

that is becoming enlightened awakened 00:02:27

from 00:02:28

the normal hypnosis under which almost 00:02:31

all of us 00:02:32

go round like some ambulance 00:02:32

it's extraordinary how much interest has existed in zen in the united states 00:02:42

especially in the years since the war 00:02:47

with japan and naturally i've often 00:02:51

meditated on the reasons for this 00:02:53

interest 00:02:55

i think first of all the appeal of zen 00:02:58

lies 00:03:00

in its unusual quality 00:03:05

of humor 00:03:05

religions aren't as a rule humorous in any way 00:03:12

religions are serious and when one looks 00:03:17

at 00:03:17

zen art and reads zen stories it is 00:03:20

quite apparent that something is going 00:03:22

on here 00:03:24

which isn't serious in the ordinary 00:03:25

sense however sincere it may be 00:03:29

the next thing i think that has appealed 00:03:31

to westerners is that zen 00:03:31

has no doctrines 00:03:35

there is nothing you have to believe and it doesn't moralize at you very much 00:03:41

it's not particularly concerned with 00:03:47

morals at all 00:03:49

it's a field of inquiry rather like 00:03:51

physics 00:03:53

and you don't expect a physicist 00:03:57

to discuss authoritatively about morals 00:04:01

even though as a human being he has 00:04:03

moral interests and problems 00:04:05

but as a physicist he is not a moral 00:04:07

authority 00:04:07

or if you go to an oculus or ophthalmologist to have your eyes 00:04:13

adjusted 00:04:18

that is so you can see clearly and zen 00:04:21

is spiritual ophthalmology 00:04:21

another thing that appeals very much to western students about zen 00:04:29

is that they've read their zen from 00:04:35

suzuki 00:04:37

and from some of my writings and from rh 00:04:40

blithe 00:04:42

and these people present a rather 00:04:45

different kind of zen 00:04:46

from that which you will find today in 00:04:48

japan 00:04:50

they present what is essentially early 00:04:52

chinese then 00:04:54

from the old writings ranging from about 00:04:54

shortly before 700 a.d to a thousand a.d and that zen has a very different flavor 00:05:05

from modern japanese zen and so of 00:05:10

course many of the people who go to 00:05:12

study zen in japan 00:05:13

disapprove of dr suzuki thoroughly and 00:05:16

also naturally of 00:05:17

my exposition of zen because we don't 00:05:21

make a great fetish 00:05:22

of studying zen by sitting 00:05:26

in japan today they sit and they sit and 00:05:28

they sit 00:05:30

rh blythe asked the zen master what 00:05:33

would you do if you had had only one 00:05:35

half hour left to live 00:05:37

and he said i would do zazen which means 00:05:39

he would sit like a buddha here 00:05:41

and uh practice meditation 00:05:44

and oblite had given him several choices 00:05:47

would you like to listen to your 00:05:48

favorite music 00:05:49

would you have a dinner would you get 00:05:51

drunk would you like the company of a 00:05:53

beautiful woman 00:05:55

would you take a walk what would you do 00:05:57

or would you just go on with your daily 00:05:59

business as if nothing was going to 00:06:00

happen 00:06:02

in other words would you wind up your 00:06:04

watch 00:06:07

so he was very disappointed in this 00:06:08

answer 00:06:10

and he said you know sitting is only one 00:06:12

way of doing zen 00:06:12

buddhism speaks of the four dignities of man 00:06:18

walking standing sitting and lying 00:06:23

and so zazen is simply the japanese word 00:06:26

for sitting zen 00:06:28

there must also be walking zen standing 00:06:30

zen 00:06:31

and lying zen you should know for 00:06:34

example how to sleep in a zen way 00:06:36

that means to sleep thoroughly zen has 00:06:39

been described as when hungry eat 00:06:42

when tired sleep and 00:06:45

when the student got that description 00:06:50

he said well doesn't everybody do that 00:06:53

and the master said they don't 00:06:55

when hungry they don't just eat but 00:06:57

think of ten thousand things 00:06:59

when tired they don't just sleep but 00:07:02

dream innumerable dreams 00:07:02

so in a sense this sounds like the old western truism 00:07:09

whatever you your hand finds to do do it with all your might 00:07:16

but that's not the same thing as zen a lot of people like to see if they 00:07:23

could sum up zen in that way 00:07:27

in the latin motto of the school i used 00:07:30

to go to in england 00:07:31

again act when you act 00:07:36

or while you act 00:07:36

there's a famous story which beautifully illustrates the 00:07:42

current relationships between east and 00:07:46

west 00:07:47

paul reps who wrote or rather drew a 00:07:50

lovely book called zen telegrams 00:07:53

once asked a zen master to sum up 00:07:55

buddhism in one phrase 00:07:59

and he said don't act but act 00:08:03

so reps was simply delighted 00:08:06

because he thought the master had said 00:08:09

don't act 00:08:10

but act and that of course would be the 00:08:13

taoist principle of wu way 00:08:16

of action in the spirit 00:08:19

of not being separate from the world 00:08:22

realizing so fully that you are the 00:08:25

universe too 00:08:26

that your action on it is not an 00:08:28

interference 00:08:29

but a an expression of the totality 00:08:34

but the master's english was very bad 00:08:36

indeed and paul reps had misunderstood 00:08:38

him 00:08:40

he had said don't act 00:08:43

bad act 00:08:43

and you know that is the sort of attitude that all 00:08:51

clergy develop over the centuries 00:08:52

you know how it is when you go to church if you do 00:09:01

so often the sermon boils down to my 00:09:06

dear people 00:09:06

you ought to be good and everybody knows 00:09:10

that 00:09:11

but hardly anybody knows how 00:09:11

or even what good is 00:09:16

the fascination of zen to the west is that it promises a sudden insight 00:09:24

into something that is always supposed to take years and years and years 00:09:30

the psychoanalysts if you're mixed up they tell you 00:09:36

the troubles you've got yourself into 00:09:40

over all these years can't be undone in 00:09:42

a day 00:09:44

and therefore it will take many many 00:09:45

sessions maybe twice a week 00:09:47

for several years for you to get 00:09:48

straightened out 00:09:48

the christians say that if you embark on a path of spiritual discipline 00:09:54

you get yourself a spiritual director 00:10:00

and 00:10:00

submit yourself to the will of god but 00:10:03

you may not get into the high states of 00:10:05

contemplative prayer 00:10:07

for very many years the hindus 00:10:10

the vedanta society people the buddhists 00:10:13

also say 00:10:14

will require many long years of 00:10:16

meditation 00:10:18

very hard concentration very difficult 00:10:21

practice 00:10:23

and stern discipline and then maybe 00:10:26

you will make enough progress in this 00:10:28

life 00:10:29

to become a monk in your next life 00:10:33

and then you'll make enough progress to 00:10:35

enter some of the 00:10:36

preliminary stages leading to buddhahood 00:10:39

but it's all likely to take you many 00:10:40

many incarnations 00:10:40

but when this artist hasagawa was asked how does one see into zen he said 00:10:49

it may take you three seconds it may 00:10:55

take you 30 years 00:10:57

i mean that and so you see there is 00:11:01

always the possibility 00:11:02

that it may take only three seconds 00:11:02

zen literature abounds with stories you see 00:11:09

in which there's in dialogue or what is 00:11:12

called in japanese mondo 00:11:14

which means question answer 00:11:17

between a zen teacher and his student 00:11:21

and these dialogues are fascinatingly 00:11:23

incomprehensible 00:11:26

but it always seems to be that the end 00:11:28

of this swift interchange the student 00:11:30

gets the point 00:11:31

sometimes he doesn't i gave a book of 00:11:35

these dialogues once to a friend of mine 00:11:38

who was deeply interested in eastern 00:11:40

philosophy 00:11:42

he said i haven't understood a word of 00:11:44

it but it's cheered me up enormously 00:11:44

so this book called the muman khan which means 00:11:56

the barrier with no gate 00:11:57

or the gateless gate 00:12:02

contains such stories as the student i say student rather than monk because 00:12:08

zen students are not monks in our sense 00:12:14

of the word monk 00:12:16

our monks take life vows of poverty 00:12:19

chastity and obedience 00:12:21

and to make the grade you're expected to 00:12:23

spend your whole life in the monastic 00:12:25

state 00:12:26

but i call the zen monk a student 00:12:29

because he's more like a student in a 00:12:31

theological seminary 00:12:33

he may stay much longer than the usual 00:12:35

three years he may stay 30 years or so 00:12:37

but it's always possible for him to 00:12:40

leave with dignity 00:12:41

and to graduate and to go into lay life 00:12:45

or become a regular priest who keeps 00:12:48

charge of a temple 00:12:50

can get married and have a family and uh 00:12:53

only very few graduates of the zen 00:12:55

monastery 00:12:57

become roshi that roshi means simply old 00:13:00

teacher 00:13:01

that is the man in charge of the 00:13:04

spiritual development of the students 00:13:04

so one of these students in the book says to 00:13:13

the master joshua i have been here in 00:13:16

this monastery for some time 00:13:18

and i've had no instruction from you 00:13:21

master said have you had breakfast yes 00:13:24

then go wash your bowl 00:13:24

and the monk was awakened 00:13:28

now you may think that the moral of this story 00:13:35

is uh do the work that's nearest though 00:13:40

it's dalit wiles 00:13:42

helping when you meet them lame dogs 00:13:43

over styles 00:13:43

or that 00:13:50

the bowl might be a symbol 00:13:54

of the great void these all containing universe and uh probably 00:14:02

the monk had washed it already because 00:14:07

they immediately after eating 00:14:09

in japan and china in a monastery they 00:14:12

would take 00:14:13

tea and pour it into the bowl and swirl 00:14:15

it around wash it and wipe it out 00:14:17

so maybe he had already washed the bowl 00:14:21

and in that case you might think that 00:14:24

the master was saying don't 00:14:27

gild the lily don't 00:14:32

to use a real nice zen phrase don't put 00:14:34

legs on a snake 00:14:37

or a beard on a eunuch 00:14:37

no the point of that story 00:14:42

is so clear that that's what's difficult about it 00:14:50

and all these stories resemble jokes in this sense 00:14:57

a joke is told to make you laugh 00:15:02

when you get the point of a joke you 00:15:04

laugh spontaneously 00:15:06

but if the point has to be explained to 00:15:08

you 00:15:10

you don't laugh so well you force a 00:15:12

laugh 00:15:12

there is some kind of sudden impact between 00:15:17

the punchline and the laugh and so in 00:15:20

exactly the same way with these stories 00:15:20

there is expected to be something else than laughter which is 00:15:29

sudden insight 00:15:33

into the nature of being 00:15:33

nature of being that sounds again very abstract 00:15:40

but it was go wash your bow 00:15:42

so another story in this book concerns a master who said 00:15:53

when a cow walks out of the enclosure 00:15:59

the corral the horns and head 00:16:04

the four legs and the body all get 00:16:06

through but not the tail 00:16:08

how is it that the tail can't get 00:16:10

through and nobody could answer this 00:16:10

another story it tells of a certain master 00:16:17

called baijang who was so 00:16:22

good that he had hundreds of students 00:16:24

and they couldn't all be housed in one 00:16:27

monastery so he had to find one of the 00:16:30

students 00:16:31

who could also be a master and so he 00:16:34

arranged a test he put down a picture 00:16:37

in front of them all and said 00:16:40

without making an assertion or without 00:16:42

making a denial 00:16:43

tell me what is this 00:16:43

and the senior monk said it couldn't be called a piece of wood 00:16:51

and the teacher didn't accept this 00:16:55

answer but the monastery cook came 00:16:57

forward and kicked the pitcher over and 00:16:59

walked away 00:17:00

and he got the job 00:17:04

and the commentator remarks maybe he 00:17:07

wasn't so smart after all 00:17:09

for he gave up an easy job for a 00:17:10

difficult one 00:17:19

when an inquirer 00:17:22

about zen came to a master 00:17:22

often you know they approach a zen master with a kind of key question 00:17:31

what is the fundamental principle of 00:17:36

buddhism 00:17:37

or why did the bearded barbarian 00:17:42

come from the west because zen is 00:17:44

supposed to have been 00:17:46

brought into china by a hindu 00:17:49

named bodhidharma bodhidharma is always 00:17:53

represented 00:17:54

as having a huge bushy beard and very 00:17:57

fierce eyes 00:18:00

now bodhidharma always insisted that he 00:18:03

had nothing to teach 00:18:03

and so why did he come 00:18:07

that's one of the fundamental questions 00:18:11

you might say to me i've often said uh when i'm giving a lecture 00:18:18

i'm not trying to improve you 00:18:20

i'm not trying to persuade you to a certain point of view that is to 00:18:28

say like a preacher would convert 00:18:32

somebody 00:18:33

in fact i have nothing to tell you at 00:18:35

all 00:18:37

because were i to presume 00:18:40

that i had something to tell you i would 00:18:43

be like a person 00:18:44

who picked your pocket and sold you your 00:18:46

own watch 00:18:46

so you might say then why do i talk you might ask the sky why are you blue 00:18:54

the clouds why do you float around birds 00:18:59

why do you sing 00:19:01

and we've been busy trying to invent 00:19:03

explanations for all this 00:19:03

and so there's this great zen saying one of the old masters said when i was 00:19:11

a young man and knew nothing of buddhism 00:19:17

mountains were mountains and waters were 00:19:20

waters 00:19:21

but when i began to understand the 00:19:23

little buddhism mountains were no longer 00:19:25

mountains 00:19:26

waters no longer waters 00:19:26

in other words when one starts scientific and philosophical inquiries 00:19:33

everything gets explained away in terms 00:19:39

of its causes 00:19:40

or other things that go with it or one 00:19:43

sees that all 00:19:45

the things in the world 00:19:45

what we think are separate things are as things illusions there is nothing 00:19:52

separate 00:19:56

so but he said at the end but when i had 00:19:58

thoroughly understood 00:20:01

mountains were mountains and waters are 00:20:04

waters 00:20:04

so this is what's called direct pointing 00:20:08

a zen master was once talking with me and he said when water goes out of the 00:20:21

wash basin 00:20:25

down the drain does it go clockwise or 00:20:28

anti-clockwise 00:20:31

and this was all phrased in the middle 00:20:33

of a very ordinary conversation 00:20:35

and you know it just seemed like a 00:20:37

speculative question 00:20:38

and i said oh it might go either he said 00:20:40

no it's like this 00:20:43

now he said which came the first they go 00:20:44

ahead i said doctor 00:20:47

he said that's the point 00:20:49

[Laughter] 00:20:49

now it is saying too much i warn you to say that zen is trying to point to 00:20:59

the physical universe so that you could 00:21:06

look at it 00:21:07

without forming ideas about it 00:21:07

that is saying too much but it is the general idea 00:21:14

it's in the direction of being the right 00:21:17

idea 00:21:17

zen people speak of the virtue of what they call mushin 00:21:23

which means no mind 00:21:24

no thought that red lantern says on it no thought 00:21:32

this is not an anti-intellectual 00:21:36

attitude the ordinary simple person is just as 00:21:44

bamboozled by thinking 00:21:49

as a university professor 00:21:49

you can think intellectually in a no-think way 00:21:57

that's the art it doesn't mean not to 00:22:03

have 00:22:04

any thoughts at all it means not to be 00:22:07

fooled by thoughts 00:22:09

not to be hypnotized by the forms of 00:22:11

speech 00:22:11

and uh images that we have for the world not to be hypnotized by them into 00:22:18

thinking that that is the way the world 00:22:22

really is 00:22:22

so if i say this is a fan 00:22:25

it isn't to begin with fan is a noise and this doesn't make the noise fan but 00:22:34

just bush 00:22:40

but it can be many other things than a 00:22:42

fan 00:22:42

it could be a back scratcher very well all sorts of things don't let words 00:22:50

limit the possibilities of life actually 00:22:57

this fan 00:22:59

has an inscription on it written by a 00:23:01

zen master who is 100 years old 00:23:05

and it says i don't understand 00:23:09

i don't know anything about it 00:23:09

so that goes back to the story of bodhidharma 00:23:16

that when he first came to china 00:23:20

sometime 00:23:21

a little before 500 a.d 00:23:25

he was interviewed by the emperor wu 00:23:28

of liang the emperor was a great patron 00:23:32

of buddhism 00:23:34

and said we have caused many monasteries 00:23:37

to be built 00:23:39

monks and nuns to be ordained and the 00:23:41

scriptures to be translated into chinese 00:23:44

what is the merit of this and 00:23:47

bodhidharma said no merit whatever 00:23:50

well that really set the emperor back 00:23:52

because 00:23:53

the popular understanding of buddhism is 00:23:56

that you do good things 00:23:57

like that religious things and you 00:24:00

acquire merit 00:24:01

and this leads you to better better 00:24:03

lives in the future 00:24:05

so that you will eventually become 00:24:06

liberated 00:24:08

and so his he was completely set back so 00:24:11

he said well what is the first principle 00:24:13

of the holy doctrine 00:24:18

bodhidharma said vast emptiness and 00:24:21

nothing holy 00:24:23

or in vast emptiness there is nothing 00:24:25

holy 00:24:28

so the emperor said who is it then that 00:24:30

stands before us 00:24:32

the implication being aren't you 00:24:33

supposed to be a holy man 00:24:36

and bodhidharma said i don't know 00:24:36

so the poem says plucking flowers to which the butterflies come 00:24:44

bodhidharma says i don't know 00:24:46

and another poem like it if you want to know where the flowers come from 00:24:54

even the god of spring doesn't know 00:25:01

so anybody who says that he knows what 00:25:04

zen 00:25:04

is is a fraud 00:25:04

nobody knows 00:25:08

just like you don't know who you are 00:25:15

all this business about your name and 00:25:21

your accomplishments your certificates 00:25:23

what your friends say about you you know 00:25:26

very well that's not you 00:25:26

but the problem to know who you are is the problem of smelling your own nose 00:25:33

when great japanese master dogen came back from china in about the year 00:25:43

1200 00:25:47

to bring his school of zen into japan 00:25:50

they asked him what did you learn in 00:25:52

china 00:25:53

he said the eyes are horizontal the nose 00:25:56

is perpendicular 00:25:56

this man went on to write a tremendous book about zen 00:26:06

they're so contradictory of these people 00:26:11

don't expect consistency out of the zen 00:26:13

master 00:26:15

big big book called the shobo genzo 00:26:19

i talked with the zen master about this 00:26:21

book in japan 00:26:23

and he said oh you said that's a 00:26:25

terrible book 00:26:27

it explains everything so clearly 00:26:27

it gives the show away 00:26:32

he said you don't need any book for zen 00:26:36

so you see it is this kind of 00:26:44

way of going about things this method of zen that has so fascinated the west 00:26:53

and everybody who who reads about zen 00:27:00

wonders if somehow 00:27:01

you see this understanding is right 00:27:04

under your nose 00:27:06

you know how it is sometimes you get a 00:27:07

crowd of people to come into a room 00:27:09

and you put something in the room that's 00:27:10

absurd like suppose there was a balloon 00:27:13

floating on the ceiling 00:27:15

people could come in and not notice it 00:27:17

at all 00:27:21

or uh you know somebody puts on 00:27:23

something weird 00:27:24

some kind of a funny necktie or 00:27:26

something and you say to a person 00:27:28

well haven't you noticed 00:27:31

a woman in a new dress you know 00:27:35

haven't you noticed said well what is it 00:27:38

what about it i know it's right under 00:27:39

your nose they're staring 00:27:40

in the face but you don't see it 00:27:44

and zen is exactly like that 00:27:44

it is very obvious the master bokugou was asked 00:27:54

we have to dress and eat every day and 00:27:59

how do we escape from all that 00:28:01

in other words how do we get out of 00:28:02

routine and he said we dress we eat 00:28:02

he said i don't understand bokeh you said if you don't understand put on your 00:28:11

clothes and eat your food 00:28:12

another zen master in quite recent times was interviewing a student you see all 00:28:24

these stories i'm telling you were 00:28:27

connected 00:28:27

and what i want you to do is to grasp 00:28:29

intuitively the connection 00:28:32

i was interviewing a student 00:28:37

western student and he said 00:28:37

get up and walk across the room he got up and walked came back 00:28:45

said where are your footprints 00:28:46

another monk asked joshu what is the way dao chinese the dao 00:29:00

he said your everyday mind is the way 00:29:07

how do you get into accord with it he 00:29:10

said when you try to accord you deviate 00:29:10

so here is this extraordinary phenomenon now let me say having 00:29:21

presented you with all these fireworks 00:29:27

let me say a few sober things 00:29:28

about zen as a historical phenomenon 00:29:28

zen is a subdivision of mahayana buddhism 00:29:38

and as you know that is the school of 00:29:41

buddhism which is concerned 00:29:44

with realizing buddha nature in this 00:29:47

world 00:29:49

not necessarily by going after the 00:29:51

mountains or by 00:29:52

renouncing family life everyday life etc 00:29:56

etc as if that were 00:29:57

an entanglement but realizing in the 00:30:00

midst 00:30:00

of life the possibility of becoming a 00:30:03

buddha 00:30:03

and so the great ideal personality of mahayana buddhism is the bodhisattva 00:30:10

a word now applied to somebody who has 00:30:18

attained nirvana but instead of 00:30:21

disappearing 00:30:22

comes back in many many guises 00:30:26

there's a famous painting of one of the 00:30:28

bodhisattvas 00:30:29

in the form of a prostitute 00:30:30

and bodhisattvas in zen art are often represented as bums there's 00:30:36

the beautiful one over there 00:30:40

painted by sengai of the bum 00:30:43

hote or putai in chinese who's always 00:30:47

immensely fat 00:30:50

and he's saying buddha is dead 00:30:54

maitreya who is supposed to be the next 00:30:56

buddha hasn't come yet 00:30:58

i had a wonderful sleep and didn't even 00:31:00

dream about confucius 00:31:04

and he's just stretching and yawning as 00:31:05

we as he wakes up 00:31:06

so zen is 00:31:09

mahayana indian mahayana buddhism translated into chinese 00:31:19

and therefore deeply influenced by taoism 00:31:26

and confucianism zen monks brought 00:31:30

confucian 00:31:31

ideas to japan 00:31:31

and the origins of zen lie actually around the year 00:31:39

414. at which time a great hindu scholar by 00:31:46

the name of kumar rajiva 00:31:50

was translating with a group of 00:31:52

assistants the buddhist sutras into 00:31:54

chinese 00:31:54

one of his students taught that 00:32:00

all beings whatsoever have the capacity 00:32:06

to become buddha 00:32:07

to become enlightened even rocks 00:32:11

and stones 00:32:14

and that even heretics and evil 00:32:17

doers have the buddha nature or buddha 00:32:20

potentiality in them 00:32:20

and everybody said he was a dreadful heretic 00:32:25

but then a text called the nirvana sutra 00:32:29

came from india 00:32:31

which said precisely that so everybody 00:32:33

had to admit that this man 00:32:35

was right he also 00:32:38

began to teach that awakening must be 00:32:41

instantaneous 00:32:42

it's a kind of all or nothing state 00:32:42

i don't mean that there aren't degrees of its intensity 00:32:49

but once you see the principle you see 00:32:53

the whole thing 00:32:55

as they say when the bottom falls out of 00:32:57

the bucket all the water goes together 00:32:57

those men then promulgated the way of sudden awakening bodhi dharma 00:33:07

came later 00:33:10

and he is supposed in legend to have been followed 00:33:16

by a line of six patriarchs of which he 00:33:20

was the first 00:33:23

the second was named aka i'm using the 00:33:26

japanese pronunciation 00:33:29

who was formerly a general of the army 00:33:29

then the third was sosan who wrote the shinjin may which is the most 00:33:38

marvelous little summary of buddhism in 00:33:42

verse 00:33:45

and so until they came to aino the sixth 00:33:48

patriarch 00:33:50

you know perhaps more familiarly his 00:33:52

chinese name 00:33:54

he died in 715 a.d he's the real 00:33:58

founder of chinese zen the man who 00:34:01

synthesized the whole thing 00:34:02

and was the at least his collected 00:34:05

discourses are 00:34:05

contained in what is called the platform 00:34:07

sutra 00:34:09

and any student of zen should read the 00:34:12

platform sutra 00:34:12

but you know really fused zen with the chinese way 00:34:20

of doing things and he emphasized very 00:34:27

thoroughly 00:34:30

do not think you are going to attain 00:34:32

buddhahood 00:34:34

by sitting down all day and keeping your 00:34:37

mind blank 00:34:39

because a lot of those students who 00:34:41

practiced 00:34:42

dhyana which is the sanskrit for 00:34:45

chan which is the chinese for zen 00:34:49

which is in turn japanese means 00:34:51

meditation 00:34:52

or contemplation perhaps would be better 00:34:54

translation in english 00:34:57

and everybody thought that the proper 00:34:58

way to contemplate 00:35:00

was to be as still as possible 00:35:00

but according to zen that is to be a stone buddha 00:35:08

instead of a living buddha now i can 00:35:13

knock a stone buddha on the head clunk 00:35:15

and it has no feelings 00:35:15

and so it's a stone buddha there was a famous zed master called tankar 00:35:22

who went to a little lonely temple on a 00:35:27

freezing cold night 00:35:29

and he took the buddha image with one of 00:35:30

the buddha images off the altar split it 00:35:32

up and made a fire 00:35:34

and when the attendant of the temple 00:35:36

came in in the morning horrified 00:35:39

broke at the image and tongue cast took 00:35:41

his stick started raking in the ashes 00:35:44

and the temple priest said what are you 00:35:45

looking for he said i'm looking for the 00:35:49

sali that is to say the jewels that are 00:35:51

supposed to be found in the body of a 00:35:53

genuine buddha when he's cremated 00:35:56

so the priest said you couldn't expect 00:35:58

to find sally from a wooden buddha 00:36:01

in that case said tanko let me have that 00:36:03

other buddha for my fire 00:36:03

that's you see the difference between living buddha and stone buddha 00:36:10

but a person who thinks that in order to 00:36:15

be 00:36:16

awakened you have to be heartless 00:36:19

to have no emotions no feelings 00:36:23

that you couldn't possibly lose your 00:36:24

temper or get angry or feel annoyed 00:36:27

or depressed those people haven't got 00:36:29

the right idea at all 00:36:31

if that's your ideal said aino you might 00:36:33

just as well be a block of wood or a 00:36:35

piece of stone 00:36:40

what he wanted you to understand is that 00:36:44

your real mind 00:36:44

while all those emotions are going on is imperturbable 00:36:50

just like when you move your hand 00:36:54

through the sky you don't leave a track 00:36:57

the birds don't stain the blue when they 00:36:59

pass by 00:37:00

and when the water reflects the image of 00:37:02

the geese the 00:37:03

reflection doesn't stick there 00:37:03

so to be pure minded in the zen way or clear minded is a better way of 00:37:10

translating it 00:37:14

is not to have no thoughts 00:37:18

it's not a question of not thinking 00:37:20

about dirty things 00:37:23

one great master of the tang dynasty 00:37:25

when asked what is buddha 00:37:28

believe it or not answered a dried turd 00:37:28

so it's not that kind of purity it is purity clarity 00:37:37

in the sense that 00:37:42

your mind isn't sticky you don't harbor grievances 00:37:50

you don't be attached to the past 00:37:54

you go with it with life life is flowing all the time that is the dow the flow of 00:38:02

life 00:38:05

you are going along with it whether you want to or not 00:38:09

you're like people in a stream you can 00:38:14

swim against the stream 00:38:16

but you'll still be moved along by it 00:38:18

and all you'll do is wear yourself out 00:38:20

in futility 00:38:22

but if you swim with the stream the 00:38:24

whole strength of the stream 00:38:26

is yours of course 00:38:29

the difficulty that so many of us have 00:38:31

is finding out 00:38:32

which way the stream is going 00:38:32

but certainly as it goes all the past vanishes the future has not 00:38:40

yet arrived 00:38:47

and there is only one place to be 00:38:47

which is here and now and there is no way of being anywhere 00:38:55

else none whatever 00:38:59

if you understand that thoroughly your 00:39:02

task is finished 00:39:02

you then become instantaneous and also momentous 00:39:09

so this was ano's principle as i said he died in 715 00:39:17

and he left five very great disciples 00:39:21

who taught substantially the same sort of thing 00:39:29

but as things go then these disciples 00:39:33

had disciples and those disciples had 00:39:34

disciples and there's a genealogy 00:39:37

and zen broke into what are called five 00:39:40

houses 00:39:42

and these uh some of them didn't go on 00:39:46

zen went on in two main forms 00:39:46

one is called by the japanese rinzai zen after the great master rinzai who lived 00:39:55

towards the end of the 9th century 00:40:03

and the soto school comes from another 00:40:07

line 00:40:09

and they have a slightly different 00:40:10

emphasis 00:40:12

soto is more serene in its approach 00:40:14

rinzai more gutsy 00:40:17

uh rinzai people use the koan method in 00:40:21

zen study soto people don't 00:40:23

at least not in the same way 00:40:23

but this period between the death of the sixth patriarch 00:40:32

eno and about the year one thousand 00:40:38

is the golden age of zen this these were 00:40:41

the really formative years 00:40:44

and after that zen began to decline in 00:40:48

china 00:40:50

it became mixed up with other forms of 00:40:52

buddhism 00:40:54

and it suffered the fate 00:40:57

of many many forms of 00:41:01

meditation type or yoga type 00:41:04

discipline it got a little bit 00:41:07

sidetracked into 00:41:09

occult and psychic matters 00:41:09

what are called in buddhism city or the development of supernormal powers 00:41:15

for zen this is completely beside the 00:41:21

point 00:41:21

but it got involved with chinese alchemy with taoistic alchemy 00:41:27

and all sorts of foolishness 00:41:29

in that direction 00:41:33

but a very strong strain of zen went to japan 00:41:39

the first being in about 1130 00:41:46

the monk and then about 1200 00:41:50

the monk i told you about dogen who 00:41:53

founded the great 00:41:54

beautiful gorgeous galuptious monastery 00:41:57

at 00:41:57

a haiti which exists to this day 00:41:57

now in this golden age of chinese zen 00:42:05

the main method of study was walking then rather than sitting 00:42:15

there 00:42:20

all monks were great travelers 00:42:23

and they walked for miles and miles 00:42:25

through fields and mountains 00:42:27

visiting temples to see if they could 00:42:29

find 00:42:30

a master who would cause their spark to 00:42:34

flash 00:42:36

to get what is called in mandarin 00:42:39

or in japanese satori or in cantonese 00:42:39

this always rather fascinates me the way this character is written 00:42:50

the word i in chinese is sometimes represented by 00:42:58

this right hand side of the character 00:43:03

alone five mouths 00:43:05

five senses this one 00:43:09

means your mind or heart the heart mind 00:43:12

shin 00:43:13

now when we say was something very 00:43:15

surprising happened 00:43:16

my heart came into my mouth here it 00:43:19

comes into all five 00:43:21

[Music] 00:43:21

so this character means awakening it's the same in a way as the sanskrit bodhi 00:43:28

awakening from the illusion of being a 00:43:34

separate 00:43:35

ego locked up in a bag of skin 00:43:38

discovering that you are the whole 00:43:39

universe 00:43:40

and of course if you do discover that 00:43:41

and you do see into it all of a sudden 00:43:43

it's a shock 00:43:44

because your whole common sense is 00:43:46

turned directly inside out 00:43:46

everything is the same as you've always seen it but completely different 00:43:53

because you know who you are you know that what the devil were you worrying 00:43:58

about 00:44:02

what was all that fuss what was all that 00:44:04

to do well you see 00:44:06

it was part of the game 00:44:06

everything from one point of view is fuss 00:44:12

and to do to do to do what is there to 00:44:16

but when you wake up you see and discover that all this to do 00:44:24

wasn't you what you thought was you 00:44:31

but was the entire works which we can 00:44:35

just call it 00:44:36

the durian and it is it 00:44:40

everything is it and it does all things 00:44:42

that are done 00:44:43

then that is a great surprise 00:44:43

but it sounds tasteless it sounds empty it sounds void 00:44:50

because if i say well you're all it that 00:44:56

is a statement without the slightest 00:44:58

logical sense 00:45:00

because we don't know what is it unless 00:45:02

there's something that isn't it 00:45:04

but if it's both all is's and all isn't 00:45:07

then we can't think about it 00:45:07

nevertheless it is highly possible to see that that's so 00:45:13

in a way that's so vivid it brings your 00:45:17

heart into all your five mouths 00:45:17

[Music] out of your mind now continues with the 00:45:25

next 00:45:28

lecture from the world as just so 00:45:31

lecture series 00:45:32

[Music] 00:45:33

in this morning's talk i was going into some of the fundamental features of 00:45:47

zen and today i want to concentrate 00:45:53

on that aspect of zen 00:45:56

practice which is called in chinese 00:46:00

mojo chu or going straight ahead 00:46:00

a master who was once asked what is the dao 00:46:10

the way replied walk on 00:46:16

actually go as we say go man go 00:46:21

go go 00:46:21

and it is this aspect of zen which is what is truly understood by detachment 00:46:28

or having a mind that isn't sticky 00:46:36

and that isn't stopped at any point 00:46:39

in its whole working 00:46:43

to be stopped at a certain point is what 00:46:46

is called having a doubt 00:46:49

as when one fumbles or wobbles 00:46:52

or hesitates about something 00:46:56

trying to find the right solution 00:47:00

for the circumstances by thinking it out 00:47:03

in a situation where there really is no 00:47:05

time to think it out so that when 00:47:11

a zen teacher asks his disciple a 00:47:14

question 00:47:15

he expects an immediate answer 00:47:19

as it were without thought or 00:47:19

premeditation they speak in zen they use a phrase to 00:47:25

have a mind of no deliberation 00:47:30

and they also speak of a kind of person 00:47:33

a man who doesn't depend on anything 00:47:36

that is to say on a formula on a theory 00:47:40

on a belief to govern his action 00:47:40

and this person who doesn't stick anywhere 00:47:48

is like dante's image at the end of the 00:47:53

paradiso 00:47:55

where he says in the presence of the 00:47:57

vision of god 00:47:59

but my volition now and my desires were 00:48:02

moved as a wheel revolving evenly 00:48:05

by love that moves the sun and other 00:48:07

stars 00:48:07

and the image of the wheel which is not too tight on its axle 00:48:13

and not too loose 00:48:14

that is really with the axle is the zen principle of 00:48:21

not being attached 00:48:27

not being sticky 00:48:28

it's very difficult for us to function in that way 00:48:33

because we've been brought up to believe 00:48:39

that there are two 00:48:40

sides to ourselves one the animal side 00:48:45

and the other the human and civilized 00:48:47

side 00:48:48

and these are expressed in what freud 00:48:50

calls the pleasure principle 00:48:53

which he classifies with the animal side 00:48:56

with the id 00:48:57

and the other the reality principle 00:49:00

which he puts on the side of society and 00:49:02

the superego 00:49:05

and man is so split that he is in a 00:49:07

constant fight between these two 00:49:10

theosophists sometimes speak of our 00:49:13

having two selves 00:49:14

the higher self which is spiritual 00:49:18

and the lower self which is merely 00:49:20

psychic the ego 00:49:20

and therefore the problem of life is to make the oneself 00:49:27

the higher one take charge of the lower 00:49:32

as a rider takes charge of a horse 00:49:32

but the problem that constantly arises is 00:49:40

how do you know that what you think is 00:49:43

your higher self 00:49:44

isn't really your lower self in disguise 00:49:44

when a thief is robbing a house and the police enter on the ground floor 00:49:51

the thief goes up to the second floor 00:49:56

and when the police follow up the stairs 00:49:58

he goes higher and higher 00:50:00

until at last he gets out of the rooftop 00:50:03

and in the same way when one 00:50:07

really feels oneself to be the lower 00:50:09

self that is to say to be 00:50:10

a separate ego and then 00:50:14

the moralists come along they are of 00:50:15

course the police 00:50:17

and say you are not to be selfish 00:50:20

then the ego dissembles and tries to 00:50:23

pretend 00:50:24

that it's a he's a good person after all 00:50:27

and therefore one of the ways of doing 00:50:29

this is for the ego to say 00:50:31

i believe i have a higher self 00:50:31

and i would say why do you believe that do you know the higher self no if i knew 00:50:38

it i would behave differently 00:50:45

but i'm trying to get there 00:50:48

well why are you trying to get there 00:50:48

well then the police wouldn't come around 00:50:54

then the moralists wouldn't preach up then i could feel that i was doing my 00:51:00

duty 00:51:03

behaving as a proper member of society 00:51:05

but all this is a great phony front 00:51:06

if you don't know that there is a higher self 00:51:13

and you believe that there is one 00:51:17

on whose authority do you believe this 00:51:20

you say oh such and such a teacher 00:51:22

buddha jesus 00:51:23

shankara the upanishads said that we 00:51:26

have a higher self 00:51:28

and i believe it 00:51:28

catholics sometimes say they believe their religion because they're told to 00:51:34

and they have to be obedient the 00:51:39

catechism starts out i mean the 00:51:40

baltimore catechism 00:51:42

it starts out we are bound to believe 00:51:44

that there is but one god 00:51:46

the father almighty creator of heaven 00:51:48

and earth etc 00:51:50

and they make jokes about the 00:51:52

protestants and say 00:51:54

they don't have real authority in 00:51:56

protestant church 00:51:57

because everybody interprets the bible 00:51:59

according to his own opinion 00:52:01

but we have an authoritative 00:52:03

interpretation of the bible 00:52:06

but this always screens out the fact 00:52:09

that it is fundamentally a matter of 00:52:10

your own opinion 00:52:12

that you accept the authority of the 00:52:13

church to interpret the bible 00:52:16

you cannot escape in all matters of 00:52:19

belief 00:52:20

from opinion in other words 00:52:24

it must become clear to you that you 00:52:27

yourself 00:52:28

create all the authorities you accept 00:52:32

and if you create them 00:52:35

in order to dissimulate in order to 00:52:38

pretend 00:52:39

that your motivations and your character 00:52:42

are different that you would like them 00:52:44

to be different 00:52:47

this is the same old principle of the 00:52:50

separate self 00:52:50

trying to improve itself so that it will live longer or survive 00:52:57

in the spiritual world 00:53:01

or attain the riches and the progress of 00:53:03

enlightenment 00:53:04

and the whole thing is phony 00:53:04

so in zen a duality between higher self and lower self is not made 00:53:12

because if you believe in the higher 00:53:19

self 00:53:21

this is a simple trick of the lower self 00:53:25

if you believe that there is no really 00:53:29

lower self that there is only the higher 00:53:31

self but that somehow or other the 00:53:33

higher self has to shine through 00:53:35

the very fact that you think that it has 00:53:37

to try to shine through 00:53:39

still gives validity to the existence of 00:53:41

a lower self 00:53:41

if you think you have a lower self or an ego to get rid of 00:53:47

and then you fight against it nothing 00:53:50

strengthens the delusion that it exists 00:53:53

more than that 00:53:56

so this tremendous schizophrenia in 00:53:58

human beings 00:54:00

of thinking that they are rider and 00:54:03

horse 00:54:03

soul in command of body or will in command of passions wrestling with 00:54:09

them 00:54:14

all that kind of split thinking simply 00:54:18

aggravates the problem 00:54:21

and we get more and more split 00:54:25

and so we have all sorts of people 00:54:27

engaged in an interior conflict 00:54:30

which they will never never resolve 00:54:30

because the true self 00:54:38

either you know it or you don't 00:54:42

if you do know it then you know it's the only one 00:54:50

and the other so-called lower self just 00:54:53

ceases to be a problem 00:54:53

it becomes something like a mirage and you don't go around 00:54:59

hitting at mirages with a stick or 00:55:04

trying to put reins on them 00:55:07

you just know that their mirages and 00:55:08

walk straight through them 00:55:08

but if you were brought up to believe yourself split 00:55:16

i remember my mother used to say to me 00:55:19

when i did naughty things 00:55:21

she said alan that's not like you 00:55:25

[Laughter] 00:55:27

so i had you know some conception of 00:55:30

what was like me 00:55:32

in my better moments that is to say in 00:55:34

the moments when i remembered what my 00:55:36

mother would like me to do 00:55:36

and so that split is implanted in us all and because of our being split-minded we 00:55:43

are always dithering is the choice that 00:55:48

i am about to make of the higher self or 00:55:50

of the lower self is it of the spirit or 00:55:53

is it of the flesh 00:55:55

is the word that i have received of the 00:55:56

lord or is it of the devil 00:56:00

and nobody can decide because if you 00:56:03

knew how to choose 00:56:05

you wouldn't have to 00:56:05

in the so-called moral rearmament movement 00:56:11

which is a very significant title 00:56:15

you test your messages that you get from 00:56:18

god in your quiet time 00:56:20

by comparing them with standards of 00:56:22

absolute honesty absolute purity 00:56:25

absolute love and so on but of course if 00:56:28

you knew what those things were you 00:56:30

wouldn't have to test 00:56:30

you would know immediately and do you know what those things are 00:56:37

the more one thinks about the question 00:56:41

what would absolute love be 00:56:44

supposing i could set myself the ideal 00:56:47

of being absolutely loving to everybody 00:56:49

what would that imply in terms of 00:56:51

conduct 00:56:54

well you can think about that till all 00:56:56

is blue 00:56:58

because you could never get to the 00:56:59

answer 00:57:02

the problems of life are so subtle 00:57:05

that to try to solve them with vague 00:57:08

principles 00:57:10

as if those vague principles were 00:57:11

specific instructions 00:57:13

is completely impossible 00:57:14

so it is important to overcome split-mindedness but 00:57:22

what is the way where can you start from if you're already split 00:57:33

a taoist saying is that when the wrong man uses the right means 00:57:39

the right means work in the wrong way 00:57:41

so what are you to do how can you get off it 00:57:47

and get moving 00:57:48

fundamentally of course you have to be surprised into it 00:57:53

winthrop sergeant 00:57:57

not so long ago interviewed a great zen priest in kyoto 00:58:03

who posed to him the question who are 00:58:07

you and he said well i'm winthrop 00:58:10

sergeant and the priest laughed 00:58:12

no he said i don't mean that i mean who 00:58:14

are you really 00:58:16

well then he went into all sorts of 00:58:17

abstractions about his being a 00:58:19

particular human being and so on who was 00:58:22

a journalist and so on and the priest 00:58:24

just laughed and said no 00:58:26

then the he did the priest just tossed 00:58:28

off the conversation 00:58:29

and a little later made a joke and 00:58:32

sergeant laughed 00:58:34

and he said there you are 00:58:34

there was an army officer who once came to a zen master 00:58:42

and said i have heard a story about a 00:58:46

man who kept a goose in a bottle 00:58:49

and it was uh growing very rapidly 00:58:52

and he didn't want to break the bottle 00:58:54

and he didn't want to hurt the goose so 00:58:56

how would he get it out 00:58:56

zen master didn't answer the question at all but simply say change the subject 00:59:01

finally the officer got up to leave 00:59:07

and he went over to the door and 00:59:10

suddenly the zen master called out oh 00:59:12

officer 00:59:13

and he turned around said yes the master 00:59:15

said there it's out 00:59:17

[Music] 00:59:17

so in the same way if i say to you good morning 00:59:25

you say good morning nice day isn't it 00:59:30

yes 00:59:32

or if i hit you you know boom you say 00:59:35

ouch 00:59:37

and you don't stop to hesitate to give 00:59:39

these answers and these responses 00:59:42

you don't think about it when i say good 00:59:44

morning unless you're a psychiatrist 00:59:46

what would i be what could i be meaning 00:59:50

so you you respond 00:59:50

so in exactly the same way that kind of response 00:59:57

which doesn't have to be a deliberate 01:00:01

response 01:00:02

a response of a no deliberating mind 01:00:05

is a response of a buddha mind or an 01:00:08

unattached mind 01:00:10

but you must not imagine 01:00:15

that this is necessarily a quick 01:00:16

response 01:00:18

because if you get hung up on the idea 01:00:20

of responding quickly 01:00:22

the idea of quickness will be itself a 01:00:25

form of obstruction 01:00:27

very often when dr suzuki is asked a 01:00:29

question very complicated question by 01:00:31

some philosophy major colombia 01:00:33

when he's giving lectures there he's 01:00:36

silent for a full minute 01:00:38

and then says yes 01:00:38

and this is exactly a spontaneous response 01:00:46

as it would be if he had answered 01:00:50

immediately 01:00:51

because during the period of silence he 01:00:54

is not fishing around to think of 01:00:55

something to say 01:00:57

he is not at all embarrassed at being 01:00:59

silent or at not knowing the answer 01:00:59

so if you don't know the answer you can be silent if nobody asks a 01:01:08

question 01:01:12

you can be silent there's no need to be 01:01:14

embarrassed about it or to be stuck on 01:01:15

but you cannot overcome being stuck if you think that somehow 01:01:22

you would be guilty if you were stuck 01:01:26

when you are perfectly free to feel stuck 01:01:34

or not then you're un 01:01:35

because actually nothing can stick on the real mind and you will find this 01:01:47

out if you watch 01:01:51

the flow of your thoughts 01:01:51

there is an expression in chinese which means the flow of thoughts or what 01:02:00

we call in 01:02:04

literary criticism stream of 01:02:05

consciousness and they put the character 01:02:08

for thought 01:02:09

three times 01:02:09

and so you will notice that thought follows thought follows thought when you 01:02:17

are just ruminating 01:02:23

and those thoughts arise 01:02:26

and go like waves on the water 01:02:30

all the time they come and go 01:02:30

and when they go they are as if they had never been here 01:02:36

so actually this shows your mind doesn't stick 01:02:43

really you can get the illusion of it 01:02:47

sticking 01:02:48

by for example cycling the same 01:02:51

succession of thoughts over and over 01:02:53

again 01:02:54

and that gives a sense of permanence in 01:02:57

the same way as when you revolve a 01:02:58

cigarette butt in the dark 01:02:59

you get the illusion of there being a 01:03:01

solid circle although there is only the 01:03:03

single point of fire 01:03:03

and it is from this connecting of thoughts 01:03:10

that we get the sensation that behind 01:03:14

our thoughts 01:03:16

there is a thinker who controls them 01:03:19

and experiences them although 01:03:23

the notion that there is a thinker is 01:03:25

just one member 01:03:27

in the stream of thoughts for example if 01:03:30

you get a certain kind of rhythm 01:03:32

that goes 01:03:32

the book is part of the rhythm but it can be used 01:03:41

as a cue 01:03:44

so you get in relation to diggity boop you get thought thought thought thought 01:03:51

thinker thought thought thought thought 01:03:54

thought thinker 01:03:55

and if this happens regularly enough and 01:03:57

long enough you 01:03:58

get the illusion of there being someone 01:04:01

who thinks 01:04:02

apart from the stream of thoughts which 01:04:04

come and go the stream of experiences 01:04:07

and we use such absurd phrases not only 01:04:09

as thinking our thoughts 01:04:11

but feeling our feelings seeing sights 01:04:13

and hearing sounds 01:04:15

but you must understand it is perfectly 01:04:17

obvious that seeing a sight is seeing 01:04:19

hearing a sound is hearing feeling a 01:04:23

feeling is feeling 01:04:24

so in the same way thinking a thought is 01:04:27

thinking 01:04:29

but you get split-minded you see and so 01:04:31

you uh 01:04:33

get i and me and the i who ought to or 01:04:35

must control me 01:04:37

uh as sensation 01:04:40

of some real entity that stands aside 01:04:44

from thoughts 01:04:45

and uh chooses among them controls them 01:04:49

regulates them and so on 01:04:54

actually this is a way to have one's 01:04:57

thoughts not controlled 01:04:57

the more there is this duality of the separate thinker standing aside 01:05:04

from the thoughts 01:05:09

the separate feeler watching or feeling 01:05:12

the feelings 01:05:13

the more the stream of feelings is 01:05:16

coaxed into self-protective activity 01:05:21

into getting more and more like a stuck 01:05:23

record the purposes of which 01:05:25

are to protect and to 01:05:29

aggrandize and enlarge the status 01:05:32

of the supposed thinker 01:05:32

who was a tongue dynasty zen master 01:05:40

was asked he had made some reference to the enlightened mind 01:05:46

being like a mind of a child and he said 01:05:51

well what is the mind of a child 01:05:53

and he said a ball in a mountain stream 01:05:57

why thought follows thought 01:06:00

instantaneously without interruption 01:06:00

so the saying walk or sit as you will but whatever you do don't 01:06:11

wobble now we can see this very clearly from 01:06:18

confusions we can get into 01:06:22

inactivity 01:06:22

i have just said we can see this very clearly from confusions we get into 01:06:28

inactivity 01:06:31

what kind of a statement is that 01:06:34

when i raise the question what kind of a statement was it that i just made i'm 01:06:43

beginning to talk about talking 01:06:46

and one can do that provided you don't try to do it 01:06:53

while you're making the original 01:06:55

statement 01:06:55

if i want to say something about what i've just said then i must do it later 01:07:01

mustn't i 01:07:04

but not at the same time i cannot say 01:07:08

you are a fool 01:07:09

and at the same time say i'm giving you 01:07:11

an insult 01:07:12

in so many words 01:07:12

i cannot say or in mathematics i cannot write down a certain equation 01:07:21

and as i'm writing it down 01:07:25

simultaneously state what kind of an 01:07:28

equation this is 01:07:28

unless of course i invent an exceedingly complex language 01:07:33

which talks about itself as it goes 01:07:37

along 01:07:39

but in the ordinary way people get 01:07:41

completely mixed up by that 01:07:43

in the middle of being about to say to 01:07:46

somebody 01:07:47

anything you start to think about 01:07:49

whether this is the right thing to say 01:07:51

and you start wobbling you get in other 01:07:55

words too much feedback 01:07:55

and too much feedback makes any mechanism go crazy 01:08:01

so in the same way when you are very very aware 01:08:08

of a difference between the deeds and 01:08:12

the doer 01:08:14

and the doer while doing the deeds is 01:08:15

always sort of commenting on them 01:08:17

the doer never really gets with it 01:08:17

in other words you are about to strike a nail 01:08:24

and you wonder as you are about to hit 01:08:27

it 01:08:29

is this the right place to put 01:08:29

and so you probably hit your thumbnail instead of the nail 01:08:36

because you don't go right through with 01:08:40

hitting that nail 01:08:40

this is not saying let me mark this again it is not saying 01:08:46

that there should be no criticism of 01:08:51

thought 01:08:53

but if you criticize thought while 01:08:56

thinking 01:08:57

as if there were a critic thinker 01:09:00

standing aside from the stream of 01:09:01

thought 01:09:03

then you get all balled up and that is 01:09:05

exactly what happens 01:09:07

in the process of attachment 01:09:11

or what are called in buddhist cliche 01:09:15

which mean disturbing confusions of the 01:09:18

mind 01:09:20

and you see this kind of confusion is 01:09:22

something which 01:09:23

to which the human organism is 01:09:25

peculiarly liable 01:09:27

because the human organism has language 01:09:32

has you see thinking is silent language 01:09:35

and i mean language in the most 01:09:37

inclusive sense of the word 01:09:39

not only words but also images and 01:09:41

numbers 01:09:42

notation just because then we can 01:09:46

talk about anything we can talk about 01:09:49

talking 01:09:50

we can talk about thinking we can talk 01:09:52

about ourselves 01:09:54

as if we could stand aside and say said 01:09:56

i to myself said i 01:09:59

all we are actually doing is making 01:10:03

a second thought or thought stream 01:10:06

which comments on the one that went 01:10:08

before 01:10:10

and then pretending that the second 01:10:12

stream is a different stream than the 01:10:14

first 01:10:17

that's because there are built into our 01:10:19

minds all kinds of phony images about 01:10:22

memory 01:10:23

we think for example of memory by 01:10:26

analogy with engraving 01:10:29

in order to remember something we write 01:10:30

it down 01:10:32

and so we have a flat and stable piece 01:10:35

of paper 01:10:35

and we make marks on it with a pencil 01:10:38

and they stay there 01:10:40

so we begin to think is mental memory 01:10:42

something of the same kind 01:10:44

is there something stable upon which 01:10:47

the passage of thoughts 01:10:50

makes an impression 01:10:50

we say he impressed me very much this was a lasting impression on my mind 01:10:57

as if we were tablets indeed the 01:11:04

philosopher locke 01:11:06

used the expression tabula rasa or clean 01:11:09

slate 01:11:10

to describe the mind of a child this is 01:11:13

a mind which has not yet 01:11:15

collected any memories as if there were 01:11:18

some sort of surface 01:11:22

which accumulated these things 01:11:25

and preserve them and that's me 01:11:29

but you see this superstition is related 01:11:33

to a much more ancient superstition 01:11:37

that the world consists 01:11:40

of two elements one of which is stuff 01:11:43

and the other of which is form 01:11:43

this is a myth based on a model of the world 01:11:50

which is fundamentally ceramic 01:11:52

god formed adam out of the dust of the ground 01:11:59

and so there is a stuff and so there are 01:12:04

forms 01:12:05

engraved in it or imposed on it or 01:12:07

stamped on it 01:12:08

like a seal is stamped on wax 01:12:08

what is stuff like apart from form what is form like apart from stuff 01:12:16

all those problems which have bothered 01:12:20

people for centuries 01:12:21

are based on asking the question in the 01:12:23

wrong way 01:12:24

on having used the wrong image for the 01:12:27

process 01:12:27

actually since nobody ever saw a piece of shapeless stuff and nobody 01:12:34

ever saw 01:12:38

a piece of stuffless shape the whole 01:12:41

thing 01:12:41

really is saying that they are the same 01:12:46

and there isn't any necessity even to 01:12:48

think of a difference between them 01:12:50

even the contrasting words form and 01:12:53

substance 01:12:53

or form and matter are a nuisance 01:12:53

there is process there is the flow of thought 01:13:01

the flow of thought doesn't have to 01:13:03

happen to anyone 01:13:03

experience does not have to beat upon an experiencer 01:13:10

there is all the time simply the one 01:13:16

stream 01:13:16

going on and we are convinced that we 01:13:20

stand aside from it and observe it 01:13:23

because we've been brought up that way 01:13:23

but you know in your stream of thought and experience i am an object 01:13:33

and a very fleeting and passing one and 01:13:40

also in my stream of experience 01:13:42

you also are people who come and go 01:13:42

we are all you see living in the same world 01:13:51

we think there is me and there is an 01:13:54

external world around me 01:13:56

but i am in your external world and you 01:13:58

are in my external world 01:14:00

and if you think about that you see we 01:14:01

are all in one world 01:14:03

going along together there isn't really 01:14:06

the internal and the external 01:14:08

there is simply the process 01:14:08

it's very important to get rid of that illusion 01:14:15

of duality between 01:14:20

the thinker and the thought so 01:14:23

find out who is the thinker behind the 01:14:25

thoughts 01:14:26

who is the real genuine you 01:14:26

and so one of the methods that is used is shouting 01:14:34

the zen master would say to a student now 01:14:40

i want to hear you i want to hear you 01:14:44

say the word 01:14:45

mo and really mean it 01:14:49

because i want to hear not just the 01:14:50

sound but the person who says it 01:14:52

now produce for me that says moo and the 01:14:55

zen teacher says no no not yet 01:14:58

and it says it's only coming from your 01:14:59

throat 01:15:00

i want to hear your belly you know 01:15:02

and always you see it will never come while the person is trying 01:15:11

to make a differentiation between a true move and a false move 01:15:22

to act with confidence you just do it but since people are not used to that 01:15:36

it is necessary to set up protected 01:15:43

situations 01:15:44

in which it can be done 01:15:44

if we just in the ordinary way of social intercourse 01:15:52

acted without deliberation 01:15:54

we would get into amazing confusions as when people say always speak the 01:16:02

truth 01:16:05

never tell a white lie and they say 01:16:07

exactly what is true 01:16:09

and uh what they think about other 01:16:11

people 01:16:13

well they can raise a great deal of 01:16:15

trouble but the 01:16:17

experience of zen has been that there 01:16:19

should be 01:16:20

a kind of enclosure in which this kind 01:16:23

of behavior can be 01:16:25

done until 01:16:28

the people are expert in it and know how 01:16:30

to apply it in all situations 01:16:33

the function of a zen teacher 01:16:33

is to put his students in all kinds of situations 01:16:40

where in the normal course of social 01:16:43

relations they would get stuck 01:16:43

by asking nonsensical questions by making absurd remarks 01:16:49

by uh all ways of unhinging things 01:16:57

and above all 01:16:57

keeping them stirred up with impossible demands 01:17:04

to hear the sound of one hand 01:17:10

to without moving stop a ship 01:17:13

sailing out on the water or to stop the 01:17:17

sound of a train 01:17:18

whistle in the distance magic to touch 01:17:21

the ceiling without getting up from 01:17:23

one's chair 01:17:25

to take the four divisions of tokyo out 01:17:27

of your sleeve to take mount fuji out of 01:17:31

a pillbox 01:17:33

all these impossible questions are asked 01:17:37

and uh in the ordinary 01:17:40

way of interpreting these questions we 01:17:42

think well now 01:17:44

how could we do that see 01:17:47

that's very difficult question that's 01:17:49

been asked and you have to think 01:17:51

what would i do to do that because 01:17:55

we are caught up in a certain way of 01:17:57

discourse 01:17:57

which the language game that we play and the social games 01:18:03

the production games and the survival 01:18:06

games that we play 01:18:07

are good games but we take them so 01:18:11

seriously 01:18:13

that we think that that is the only 01:18:15

important thing 01:18:15

and this is to unstick us from that notion and realize 01:18:19

that it would be just as good a game to 01:18:25

drop dead now as to go on living 01:18:25

is a lightning flash bad because it lives for a second as 01:18:36

compared with the sun 01:18:39

that goes on for billions of years 01:18:39

you can't make that sort of comparison because a world of lightning goes also 01:18:50

with a world where there's a sun 01:18:54

and vice versa 01:18:54

so long-lived creatures and short-lived creatures 01:19:01

go together that's the meaning of that 01:19:04

saying 01:19:06

flowering branches grow naturally some 01:19:08

short some long 01:19:08

so this then is a scene in in a zen community where 01:19:15

spontaneous behavior is encouraged 01:19:26

within certain limits 01:19:28

and as the student becomes more and more 01:19:31

used to it those limits are expanded 01:19:34

until eventually he can be trusted to go 01:19:36

out on the street 01:19:37

and behave like a true zen character and 01:19:40

get by perfectly well 01:19:40

you know what occasionally happens on the street when two people 01:19:47

are walking down the sidewalk straight 01:19:50

at each other and they both decide to 01:19:53

move to the right together 01:19:55

and then to the left together and they 01:19:56

somehow get stuck they can't pass each 01:19:58

other 01:20:00

zen teachers will pull just exactly that 01:20:02

sort of stunt 01:20:03

when going down a path and meet one of 01:20:05

their students 01:20:06

to see if they can get him in a tangle 01:20:08

and can he escape from it 01:20:10

and you will find in everyday life that 01:20:13

there is a very clear distinction 01:20:14

between people 01:20:16

who always seem to be uh self-possessed 01:20:21

and people who are dithering and nervous 01:20:23

and don't quite know how to react in any 01:20:25

given situation 01:20:26

always getting embarrassed because they 01:20:29

have their life 01:20:30

too strongly programmed 01:20:30

you said i mean this is a common marriage argument 01:20:35

you said you would do such and such a 01:20:39

thing at such and such a time 01:20:41

and now you've changed your plans 01:20:41

not that they really the change of plans really caused any inconvenience 01:20:46

but just the feeling that when you say 01:20:51

you will do something at a certain time 01:20:53

you ought to do it at that time come 01:20:55

hell or high water 01:20:57

but that's being very unadaptable that's 01:21:00

being a stone 01:21:00

kind of sticky thing if it after all 01:21:04

doesn't matter when we do it 01:21:06

and somebody is offended because the 01:21:08

time has been changed 01:21:10

that's simply because they are attached 01:21:12

to punctuality as a fetish 01:21:12

and this is one of the great problems this is causes many 01:21:18

automobile accidents men rushing home to 01:21:23

be on time for dinner 01:21:25

when they stayed late either working or 01:21:27

they have to stop for a drink at some 01:21:28

bar 01:21:29

or when the 01:21:32

girl feels that she has to if she has a 01:21:35

fussy husband 01:21:36

and she feels she has to have the dinner 01:21:37

ready at exactly a certain moment 01:21:39

she ruins the cooking you'd rather have 01:21:41

a faithful wife and a bad cook 01:21:41

i hope i'm not ready on your toes [Laughter] 01:21:49

so you see we spend an awful lot of energy 01:21:57

trying to make our lives fit 01:22:02

images of what life is or should be 01:22:05

which they could never possibly fit 01:22:10

so zen practice 01:22:14

is in getting rid of these images 01:22:17

but it's it's so explosive socially 01:22:20

to do that and it so worries people 01:22:24

they get vertigo they get dizzy they 01:22:26

don't know which end is up 01:22:29

and this happens you know if you've ever 01:22:30

been in one of those blab lab sessions 01:22:32

where uh they call them t groups i think 01:22:35

or something like that 01:22:36

where people gather together without any 01:22:38

clear idea of what this gathering's 01:22:40

about 01:22:41

they know it's somehow self-exploration 01:22:44

but 01:22:44

but just how do you begin on that and so 01:22:47

somebody starts to 01:22:49

push his idea and then somebody else 01:22:52

says well why are you trying to push 01:22:53

your idea on 01:22:54

us and then they all get into an 01:22:57

argument about the argument 01:22:59

and the most amazing confusions come 01:23:02

about but sometimes they all see what 01:23:04

idiots there being and then they they 01:23:07

learn 01:23:07

to live together in a really open and 01:23:10

spontaneous way 01:23:10

there was a very uh interesting dinner party once 01:23:16

where the zen master was present and 01:23:20

there was a geisha girl 01:23:23

who uh served so beautifully 01:23:27

and had such style that he suspected she 01:23:30

must have some zen training 01:23:33

and after a while he when she paused to 01:23:36

fill his sake up 01:23:37

he bowed to her and said i'd like to 01:23:39

give you a present and she said i would 01:23:41

be most honored 01:23:43

and he took the iron chopsticks that are 01:23:46

used 01:23:46

for the hibachi the charcoal brazier 01:23:49

moving the charcoal around 01:23:50

he picked up a piece of red hot charcoal 01:23:52

and gave it to her 01:23:55

well she instantly she had very long 01:23:57

sleeves on her kimono 01:23:59

she weld the sleeves around her hands 01:24:01

and took the hot charcoal 01:24:04

withdrew to the kitchen dumped it and 01:24:07

changed her kimono because it was burnt 01:24:09

through 01:24:09

then she came back into the room and after a suitable interval she stopped 01:24:15

before the zen master and bowed to him 01:24:18

and said uh i would like to give you sir 01:24:21

president 01:24:22

he said 01:24:22

i would be very much honored of course he was wearing a cumin or something like 01:24:27

this 01:24:31

and so she picked up a piece of coal 01:24:34

and offered it to him he immediately 01:24:36

produced a cigarette 01:24:38

and said thank you that's just what i 01:24:38

needed 01:24:42

now you know in the same way that we have this in our culture 01:24:52

certain people who are comedians 01:24:58

who know how to make jokes and gags 01:25:01

in a completely unprepared situation 01:25:02

face them with anything and they somehow come through 01:25:09

so that is exactly the same thing in a special domain as zen 01:25:18

only the master of zen does this in 01:25:25

every 01:25:25

life situation 01:25:26

but the important thing is to be able to do this 01:25:33

this is the secret you must remember 01:25:38

you can't make a mistake 01:25:45

now that's a very difficult thing to do 01:25:51

because from childhood up we have had to conform 01:26:00

to a certain social game and if you're 01:26:04

going to conform to this game you can 01:26:06

make mistakes 01:26:07

or not make mistakes so 01:26:10

this thing has gone into us all the time 01:26:12

you must do the right thing 01:26:13

there's certain conduct appropriate here 01:26:15

the certain conduct appropriate there 01:26:17

and that sticks in us and gives us a 01:26:20

double self 01:26:21

all our lives long because we never grow 01:26:23

do you realize that the whole of life plays a game 01:26:29

which is a childhood game there are 01:26:33

three kinds of people 01:26:35

top people middle people and bottom 01:26:37

people 01:26:37

and there can't be any middle people unless there are bottom people and top 01:26:43

people there can't be any top people 01:26:46

unless they're middle and bottom people 01:26:48

and so it goes 01:26:50

and everybody's trying to be in a top 01:26:52

set 01:26:53

well if they're going to be there 01:26:54

there's got to be someone in the bottom 01:26:55

set 01:26:55

and the people who do the right thing the people who do the wrong thing 01:27:01

here in sausalito we have this very very 01:27:05

plainly 01:27:06

uh there are the right people the nice 01:27:09

people who live up on the hill 01:27:11

then there are the nasty people who live 01:27:13

down here on the waterfront and they 01:27:14

grow beards and they 01:27:16

wear blue jeans and they smoke marijuana 01:27:19

and whereas the other people on the top 01:27:21

of the hill uh drive cadillacs 01:27:24

and have wall-to-wall carpeting and 01:27:27

nicely mowed lawns 01:27:28

and uh their particular kind of poison 01:27:31

is alcohol 01:27:31

now the people who live on the top of the hill 01:27:38

know that they're nice people 01:27:39

but they wouldn't know they were nice people unless they had some nasty people 01:27:44

to compare themselves with 01:27:47

every in-group requires an out-group whereas the nasty people 01:27:53

think they are the real far out people 01:27:57

whereas those people those hillbillies 01:27:59

are squares 01:28:01

and they wouldn't be able to feel far 01:28:03

out unless there were squares 01:28:06

see these things simply go together but 01:28:09

when that is not seen 01:28:11

we play the games of getting on top of 01:28:14

things 01:28:15

all the time and so we're in a constant 01:28:19

state of competition 01:28:21

as to if it's not i'm stronger on you 01:28:24

it's i'm wiser than you i'm more loving 01:28:27

than you 01:28:28

i'm more tolerant than you i'm more 01:28:31

sophisticated than you 01:28:32

it doesn't matter what it is but this 01:28:34

constant competition is going on 01:28:36

in terms of that competition we can of 01:28:38

course lose place 01:28:41

and in that sense make mistakes 01:28:41

but what a zen student is 01:28:45

is a person who is not involved in the status game 01:28:53

that's the real meaning of a monk 01:28:56

he is not keeping up with the joneses and to be 01:29:04

a master he must get to the point where 01:29:08

he's not trying to be a master 01:29:11

the whole idea of your your being better 01:29:13

than anybody else 01:29:14

simply doesn't make any sense at all it 01:29:17

is totally meaningless 01:29:17

because you see everybody manifesting the marvel of the universe 01:29:24

in the same way as the stars do and the 01:29:30

water and the winds 01:29:32

and the animals 01:29:32

and you see them all as being in their right places and not being able really 01:29:39

to make mistakes 01:29:44

although they may think they're making 01:29:45

mistakes or not making mistakes 01:29:48

and playing all these competitive games 01:29:51

but 01:29:52

that's their game 01:29:52

now i only say if that game begins to bore you 01:29:57

and it begins to trouble you and give 01:30:01

you ulcers and 01:30:02

all kinds of things then you raise the 01:30:05

problem 01:30:06

of getting out of it and therefore you 01:30:10

start 01:30:11

to become interested in things like zen 01:30:13

that is simply a symptom 01:30:15

of your growing in a certain direction 01:30:15

where you are tired of playing a certain kind of game 01:30:25

you are as naturally flowing in another 01:30:29

direction 01:30:30

as if a tree were putting out a new 01:30:32

branch 01:30:35

so because you say oh well we people are 01:30:37

interested in higher things 01:30:39

you see that depends still on the 01:30:41

differentiation of rank 01:30:43

between the superior and the inferior 01:30:45

people 01:30:47

but when you begin to see through that 01:30:49

and grow out of that 01:30:51

you don't think any more of this 01:30:55

superior 01:30:55

and inferior classification you don't 01:30:58

think 01:30:59

we are spiritual people who tend to hire 01:31:02

things as distinct from these morons who 01:31:03

are only interested in 01:31:05

beer and television 01:31:05

this is simply our particular form of life like there are crabs and 01:31:14

there are spiders and there are sharks 01:31:19

and there are sparrows and so on 01:31:19

the trouble with the human being is i like the trouble with certain animals 01:31:27

like the dinosaur 01:31:31

who evolved to the point where he was so 01:31:33

big that he had to have two brains 01:31:36

a higher self in the head and a lower 01:31:38

self in the rump 01:31:40

and the difficulty was to get these two 01:31:42

brains coordinated 01:31:43

but we have exactly the same trouble and 01:31:46

we are suffering from 01:31:48

a kind of jitters that comes from being 01:31:51

too brained now you see i'm not saying 01:31:53

that that jitters is bad 01:31:55

it's a potential step in evolution and 01:31:57

an opportunity 01:31:57

of growth but remember in the process of growth 01:32:04

the oak is not better than the acorn 01:32:05

because what does it do it produces acorns 01:32:12

or you could say just i like i sometimes love to say 01:32:20

that a chicken is one egg's way of 01:32:22

becoming others 01:32:26

so an oak is an acorns way of becoming 01:32:28

other acorns 01:32:29

where is the point of superiority the 01:32:32

first verse of that poem i just quoted 01:32:34

the flowering branches grow naturally 01:32:37

some short some long the first verse is 01:32:39

in the landscape of spring there is 01:32:41

nothing superior 01:32:43

and nothing inferior the flowering 01:32:45

branches are naturally some short some 01:32:47

long 01:32:47

so that's the point of view of being an outcast 01:32:52

in the sense of being outside 01:32:54

the taking seriously 01:32:58

of being involved in the social game and therefore being threatened by making 01:33:06

mistakes 01:33:11

of doing the wrong thing that is to say 01:33:14

of carrying into adult life 01:33:17

one's childhood conditioning where 01:33:19

somebody is constantly yammering at you 01:33:22

to play the game so therefore the 01:33:25

preachers 01:33:26

and the teachers take the same attitude 01:33:29

towards 01:33:30

their adult congregations that parents 01:33:33

take to children 01:33:34

and lecture them and tell them what they 01:33:36

should do 01:33:38

and uh judges in courts feel also uh 01:33:41

entitled to give people lectures because 01:33:44

they say those criminal types haven't 01:33:46

grown up 01:33:47

but neither have the judges 01:33:51

it takes two to make a quarrel 01:33:51

so one can begin to think in a new way in the polarity thinking instead of 01:34:00

being 01:34:03

stuck with the competitive thinking of 01:34:07

the good guys and the bad guys the cops 01:34:09

of the robbers 01:34:10

the capitalists and the communists the 01:34:12

all these things 01:34:13

which are simply uh childishness 01:34:13

now of course you recognize that if i the moment i say that 01:34:24

it's like talking in english in order to 01:34:29

show that the english language has 01:34:30

limitations 01:34:32

and i am talking in a language that 01:34:33

seems competitive 01:34:35

to show that the competitive game has 01:34:36

limitations 01:34:38

as if i was saying to all you cats here 01:34:40

look 01:34:41

i have something to tell you that is and 01:34:43

if you get this you'll be in a better 01:34:44

position than you were before you heard 01:34:46

but i cannot speak 01:34:49

to this group or the society or this language speaking culture 01:34:57

without using the language the gestures 01:35:02

the customs etc that you have 01:35:02

the zen masters try to get around this by doing things suddenly that 01:35:11

people just don't get well what is this 01:35:15

therefore that is the reason why this is the real reason why 01:35:26

zen cannot be explained 01:35:28

you have to make as it were a jump from the valuation game of better people 01:35:38

and worse people 01:35:42

in groups and out groups 01:35:42

and you can only make it by seeing that they all 01:35:50

are mutually interdependent 01:35:50

so if we take this situation let's say i would be talking to you 01:35:57

and saying look uh i have some very 01:36:01

special thing that you've got to take 01:36:02

notice of 01:36:03

therefore i am the in-group and i'm the 01:36:05

teacher and you are the art group 01:36:07

i know perfectly well that i cannot be 01:36:09

the teacher unless you come here 01:36:10

and so that my status and my position is totally dependent on you 01:36:17

it isn't something you see therefore i 01:36:21

have first and then you get 01:36:24

these things arise mutually 01:36:24

so if you wouldn't come i wouldn't talk i wouldn't know 01:36:32

uh what to say 01:36:38

because i borrowed your language 01:36:38

so that that is the insight that things go together then 01:36:45

when you see that and aren't in 01:36:50

competition 01:36:52

then you don't make a mistake because 01:36:54

you don't do them 01:36:54

when i first learned the piano and uh play these wretched scales the 01:37:01

teacher beside me 01:37:04

had a pencil in my hand and she hit my 01:37:06

fingers every time i made a wrong note 01:37:09

consequent was i never learned to read 01:37:11

music 01:37:12

because i hesitated too long to play the 01:37:14

note on time 01:37:16

because i was always is this is this 01:37:18

pencil gonna land 01:37:20

see and that gets built into your psyche 01:37:22

and so people are always 01:37:24

although they're adults and nobody is 01:37:26

clubbing them around and screaming at 01:37:27

them any longer 01:37:28

they hear the echoes of that screaming 01:37:29

mama or that abombinating papa 01:37:32

in the back of their heads all their 01:37:33

life long 01:37:35

and so they adopt the same attitudes to 01:37:38

their own children 01:37:39

and the fast continues 01:37:39

because there is no i mean i don't say that you shouldn't 01:37:45

uh lay down the lord children 01:37:49

if you want them to play the social game 01:37:52

but you if you lay down the law to your 01:37:53

children you must 01:37:55

make provision later in life for them to 01:37:57

be liberated 01:37:59

to go through a process of curing them 01:38:03

from the bad effects of education 01:38:03

but you can't do that unless you too grow up you see 01:38:10

as we grow up says i including myself 01:38:12

so that is the thing now therefore in the zen scene 01:38:25

you would think that the master as we 01:38:32

know him and as we read about him 01:38:34

is an extremely authoritarian figure 01:38:37

that's the way he deliberately comes on 01:38:40

at the beginning 01:38:40

he puts up a terrific show of being an awful dragon 01:38:45

and this screens out all sorts of people 01:38:49

who don't have somehow the nerve to get 01:38:52

into the work 01:38:53

but once you are in a very strange 01:38:57

change takes place 01:38:59

the master becomes the brother 01:38:59

he becomes the affectionate helper of all those students 01:39:08

and they love him as they would a 01:39:12

brother 01:39:13

rather than respect him as they would a 01:39:15

father 01:39:16

and therefore the students and masters 01:39:19

they make jokes about each other they 01:39:21

have a very curious kind of social 01:39:23

relationship 01:39:25

which has all the outward trappings of 01:39:28

the authoritarian 01:39:30

but everybody knows on the inside that 01:39:31

that's a joke 01:39:31

liberated people have to be very cool otherwise in a society 01:39:41

which doesn't believe in equality and 01:39:46

cannot possibly practice it 01:39:48

they would be considered extremely 01:39:50

subversive 01:39:52

and therefore great zen masters wear 01:39:54

purple and gold and carry scepters and 01:39:56

city thrones 01:39:58

and uh all this is carried on to cool it 01:40:02

the outside world knows that they're all 01:40:04

right they have discipline they have 01:40:05

order they're 01:40:06

perfectly fine 01:40:06

having discussed basic principles of what zen is about 01:40:15

i'm passing on to the more practical 01:40:20

side of it 01:40:22

a zen monastery is not a monastery in 01:40:24

the christian sense 01:40:27

it's more like a theological seminary 01:40:30

except that it practices more than it 01:40:34

teaches 01:40:37

a typical institution consists 01:40:41

of a campus 01:40:41

and on the campus there are many buildings 01:40:48

first of all around the edges you will 01:40:53

invariably find independent temples 01:40:56

that were founded in times past by 01:40:59

noble families because 01:41:02

one of the things that the buddhists did 01:41:05

when they came to the far east 01:41:08

was they exploited ancestor worship 01:41:08

this was very clever of them this being the 01:41:16

great religion of china 01:41:21

the buddhist priests performed services 01:41:27

like require masses for the repose of 01:41:30

the souls or for good incarnation 01:41:32

reincarnations 01:41:33

for one's ancestors and they made quite 01:41:36

a thing out of that 01:41:38

and so uh they have memorial services 01:41:42

for the departed and that's one of the 01:41:44

principal functions 01:41:45

of temples in japan people don't go to 01:41:49

temple 01:41:50

in the same way as westerners go to 01:41:51

church 01:41:52

they make pilgrimages to temples and say at a great temple 01:42:00

like a heidi you will find on a sunday 01:42:05

morning or practically any morning 01:42:07

a swarm of about 500 people attending 01:42:11

the 4 a.m service of chanting 01:42:15

chanting the buddhist scriptures 01:42:15

but they are kind of in and out of their temples they have special services they 01:42:22

have memorial services weddings 01:42:27

funerals or everything like that but 01:42:29

they don't have a parish 01:42:31

kind of church community as we find it 01:42:33

in the west 01:42:35

although when buddhism uh through the 01:42:37

japanese immigrants 01:42:39

exports itself to the united states they 01:42:41

immediately copy 01:42:43

the protestant church institution and 01:42:45

sing 01:42:46

buddha loves me this i know for the suit 01:42:48

that tells me so 01:42:48

it's terrible and all the young men nisei who have 01:42:57

never been in japan 01:43:01

the one thing they can't stand is sutra 01:43:03

chanting because they don't know what it 01:43:05

means and the priests don't know 01:43:06

what it means a lot of the time 01:43:10

and uh so but it's beautiful to listen 01:43:12

to and they haven't got 01:43:14

an educated western ear yet to 01:43:15

appreciate that kind of oriental music 01:43:16

well now aside from these many temples each of which is in charge of a priest 01:43:24

with his family and some of them 01:43:28

are having a hard time making a go of it 01:43:30

these days so they've become restaurants 01:43:32

for very elegant food for museums 01:43:37

and all sorts of things 01:43:37

now the central the guts of the zen temple is what's called the sodo 01:43:44

so in japanese is the sangha 01:43:50

the order of followers of the buddha 01:43:55

though simply means hall 01:43:58

so the sangha hall or sodo is the center 01:44:02

and this consists of a number of rooms 01:44:05

but the main one the actual soda itself 01:44:09

is a large long spacious room 01:44:13

with platforms on either side and a wide 01:44:17

passage down the center the platforms 01:44:21

are six feet wide 01:44:24

and each contains a number of tatami 01:44:29

mats which are measure six by three 01:44:33

and every monk is assigned to a mat 01:44:37

and in a on a shelf behind the the mat 01:44:39

against the wall 01:44:40

he has all his possessions which are 01:44:43

very simple 01:44:45

and so the mat is his sleeping place 01:44:49

and his meditation place 01:44:49

there is an image of the bodhisattva manjusri 01:44:55

in the hall more or less in the center 01:44:58

of the passage between the 01:45:00

platforms manjusri 01:45:03

is a bodhisattva they call him manju in 01:45:06

japan 01:45:08

who holds in his hand a sword 01:45:12

and this sword is the sword of wisdom or 01:45:14

pragma which cuts us under all illusions 01:45:14

that is the dwelling place in the meditation place of the monks 01:45:23

and then they have of course kitchens 01:45:28

and library and they have special 01:45:31

temples that the monks use 01:45:33

for various services then aside from 01:45:37

that there are the quarters 01:45:39

of the khan show who is the abbot or 01:45:42

administrative head of the temple 01:45:44

and then the quarters of the roshi who 01:45:46

is the spiritual teacher 01:45:46

there isn't in the zen uh not in the rinzai zen school at any rate 01:45:52

exactly a hierarchy every temple is 01:45:57

independent 01:45:59

there's no pope no archbishop 01:46:03

but there is a fraternal relationship 01:46:05

between 01:46:06

all the temples of the rinzai sect the 01:46:08

soto sect have a little bit of a 01:46:09

hierarchy but still 01:46:11

on the whole the khan show or 01:46:13

administrative head 01:46:15

of the temple is the big boss the roshi 01:46:18

is the respected boss the man everybody 01:46:20

is terrified of 01:46:21

at least on the outside at any rate 01:46:26

now if you want to get into one of these 01:46:28

institutions 01:46:30

and study they make it difficult 01:46:35

it's so different from the welcome 01:46:37

attitude you get when you go into a 01:46:39

christian church 01:46:40

here they repel you 01:46:40

westerners of course are treated with a certain amount of courtesy 01:46:46

that is not ordinarily accorded to 01:46:49

japanese but even then it's made 01:46:52

difficult 01:46:53

because they realized that a westerner 01:46:55

who's taken the trouble to learn 01:46:56

japanese 01:46:58

and to get himself over the oceans and 01:47:01

to live under unfamiliar conditions is 01:47:03

certainly pretty serious about it 01:47:05

and there are a number of western zen 01:47:07

monks 01:47:09

so funny there's one at a haiti who 01:47:10

comes from san francisco 01:47:12

and he's tremendously tall and to see 01:47:14

him with all the others is quite amusing 01:47:17

anyway the formal approach 01:47:20

is that you arrive 01:47:24

in your traveling gear at the gate 01:47:27

and the zen monk's traveling gear is 01:47:29

most picturesque 01:47:31

he wears a great mushroom on his head 01:47:33

enormous straw hat 01:47:35

about so wide and then he has 01:47:38

a black robe rather shorter than a 01:47:42

kimono 01:47:43

and he has white long white tabby socks 01:47:46

underneath 01:47:47

and gator which are the wooden sandals 01:47:50

with the 01:47:52

bridges on them to keep you high up a 01:47:54

bit 01:47:55

or he may wear just plain waraji 01:47:58

which are straw sandals 01:47:58

then he carries on the front his uh little box in which are his 01:48:05

eating bowls 01:48:09

his razor his toothbrush and such 01:48:12

necessities of life well when he arrives 01:48:15

he's told that the 01:48:17

monastery is very poor and they can't 01:48:20

afford to take on any more 01:48:22

students and that the teacher is getting 01:48:24

old 01:48:25

and it might tax his strength and things 01:48:27

like that 01:48:30

so he has to sit on the steps 01:48:33

and he puts his traveling box in front 01:48:35

of him he takes off his big hat 01:48:37

and he lays his head on the box his 01:48:40

forehead 01:48:41

and waits there all day 01:48:44

but he is invited in for meals to a 01:48:46

special little guest house because no 01:48:48

traveling monk 01:48:49

can be refused hospitality and he is 01:48:52

admitted at night 01:48:53

into this special place but he is 01:48:55

expected not to sleep 01:48:57

but to spend all night in meditation 01:49:00

in olden times this went on for at least 01:49:02

a week or ten days 01:49:04

to test this fellow out 01:49:04

then finally the assistant to the roshi comes and tells 01:49:12

him that 01:49:15

uh the roshi maybe would have a talk 01:49:17

with him 01:49:17

so you must remember the aspect of oroshi to this young monk 01:49:24

he's a formidable fellow usually 01:49:30

an older man who 01:49:33

has about him something that is 01:49:35

difficult to put your finger on 01:49:38

there's a certain fierceness 01:49:42

coupled with a kind of tremendous 01:49:43

directness sense of somebody who sees 01:49:46

right through you 01:49:46

and so he really poses to this young fellow what do you want 01:49:53

why did you come here but he said i came 01:49:58

to be 01:49:59

instructed in zen the teacher says well 01:50:03

we don't 01:50:04

teach anything here there isn't anything 01:50:06

in zen to 01:50:08

study 01:50:11

well the student knows or thinks he 01:50:14

knows 01:50:15

that this not anything which is studied 01:50:18

in zen 01:50:20

is the real thing that's of course as a 01:50:21

buddhist he knows that what isn't 01:50:23

anything 01:50:24

is the is the universe the great void 01:50:27

the shunyata and so he 01:50:31

isn't fazed by that he says well 01:50:33

nevertheless you do have people 01:50:34

who are working here and meditating 01:50:37

under your 01:50:38

instruction and i'd like to join them 01:50:38

well maybe but strictly on probation and then of course all the details are 01:50:48

taken and 01:50:51

he pays a ridiculously small fee in 01:50:54

modern japan at any rate to be able to 01:50:57

stay 01:50:58

in the monastery it's very very 01:50:59

inexpensive 01:50:59

now the teacher comes back and says now you want to study zen 01:51:05

why well because 01:51:11

i'm oppressed by the rounds of birth and 01:51:13

death in other words by 01:51:15

the vicious circles of life in which i 01:51:17

find myself 01:51:18

by suffering by pain and so on and i 01:51:20

want to be emancipated 01:51:20

the teacher says who is it that wants to be emancipated 01:51:25

that's a stopper there was a good old story about one of these 01:51:34

preliminary interviews 01:51:37

the master asks 01:51:41

first of all very casual questions 01:51:43

where's your hometown 01:51:45

what's your name what did your father do 01:51:49

and uh where did you go to college why 01:51:52

is my hand so much like the buddha's 01:51:53

hand 01:51:53

and suddenly you know in mid-stream of an ordinary conversation clunk 01:51:58

the student is blocked and so there is 01:52:03

devise the koan 01:52:05

k-o-a-n in chinese kunman 01:52:08

and this means literally the word koan 01:52:11

means 01:52:11

a case in exactly the same sense 01:52:15

as we talk about a case in law 01:52:18

which functions as a precedent for 01:52:20

future cases 01:52:23

koan should be translated case 01:52:23

the koans are based on stories mondo of the conversations 01:52:32

between the old masters and their 01:52:37

students but you can make a koan 01:52:39

immediately 01:52:40

by such a question why is my hand so 01:52:43

much like the buddha's hand 01:52:44

or who are you 01:52:47

that ask this question if the student 01:52:51

tries to verbalize on that and say 01:52:53

well i am so-and-so he asks who knows 01:52:57

that you're so 01:52:57

and so how do you know that you know who 01:53:00

knows that you know 01:53:00

find out 01:53:03

in other words the basic koan 01:53:06

is always who are you who is it that wants to escape from birth and death 01:53:14

and i won't take words for an answer i want to see you and all you're showing 01:53:21

me at the moment is your mask 01:53:24

so then the student is sent back to the monks quarters the soto and the 01:53:32

chief of the the soto is called the 01:53:38

jikijitsu 01:53:40

is then put in charge of him 01:53:44

and he teaches him how to behave what 01:53:46

the rules are 01:53:48

how to eat and how to meditate 01:53:54

in the zen sect they sit on padded 01:53:57

cushion 01:53:57

about the thickness of the san francisco telephone directory which is an 01:54:01

admirable substitute 01:54:05

and then with crossed legs in the lotus 01:54:08

posture with the feet 01:54:10

resting on the thighs uh like you always 01:54:13

see a buddha 01:54:14

they sit for half hour periods 01:54:18

that's supposed to be the length of time 01:54:19

it takes for a stick of incense to burn 01:54:23

and then uh when wooden clappers are 01:54:26

knocked together they all get up 01:54:29

and they walk round and round the room 01:54:33

quite fast 01:54:33

pace and this keeps you awake then at a given signal they go back and 01:54:41

meditate again 01:54:45

and constantly there is a monk one on 01:54:47

each side 01:54:49

carries a long flat stick shaped 01:54:52

almost like this fan in the sense that 01:54:54

it's uh 01:54:55

thin at one end and rounded at the other 01:55:00

and if this guy sees a monk who's 01:55:02

slouching 01:55:03

or sleeping or goofing off in some way 01:55:06

he very respectfully bows before him 01:55:10

and the monk rests his head on his knees 01:55:14

and this fellow takes the stick and hits 01:55:16

him vigorously on the shoulders 01:55:17

here like this 01:55:17

now most apologists for zen say this is not punishment it's simply to 01:55:26

keep you awake 01:55:29

don't you believe it i've investigated 01:55:32

this 01:55:33

and it's it's it's the same as the as 01:55:36

the sort of um 01:55:37

british boys school uh only it isn't 01:55:41

it doesn't have the erotic qualities 01:55:43

that 01:55:45

the british floggings uh do 01:55:48

zen people are cool about it but it is 01:55:51

a kind of a fierce thing anyway 01:55:55

the uh point of the meditation 01:55:58

the zazen is that perhaps 01:56:01

at the beginning one does nothing more 01:56:04

than 01:56:05

count your breathing so many breaths 01:56:09

in counting in tens 01:56:13

just to allow your thoughts 01:56:16

to become still zen people do not close 01:56:19

their eyes 01:56:20

when they meditate nor do they close 01:56:22

their ears 01:56:22

they keep their eyes on the floor in front of them 01:56:27

and they don't try 01:56:33

to force away any sounds that are going 01:56:35

on or any smell or any sensation 01:56:37

whatever 01:56:37

only they don't think about it 01:56:40

and this can become an extraordinarily pleasant occupation 01:56:47

all the little sounds of distant traffic of birds 01:56:56

of somebody carpentering somewhere and a 01:57:02

hammer going 01:57:04

dog barking or especially 01:57:08

rain on the roof gorgeous 01:57:12

they don't block that out but as time 01:57:15

goes on instead of counting breathing 01:57:18

they devote themselves to the koan 01:57:20

problem 01:57:21

which the roshi has assigned 01:57:25

what is the sound of one hand 01:57:28

who were you before your father and 01:57:30

mother conceived you 01:57:30

when joshua was asked does a dog have buddha nature 01:57:35

he replied no 01:57:36

what is the meaning of no or move 01:57:40

all sorts of these problems 01:57:45

and so as time goes on every day the student goes to the teacher 01:57:53

for what is called sun zen sun zen means 01:58:01

studying zen 01:58:04

and he has to to present a satisfactory 01:58:07

answer to the quran 01:58:09

now sun zen is the moment in the 01:58:12

monastery 01:58:13

when no holes are barred although 01:58:16

there's a very formal approach to 01:58:19

the monk has to stop outside the uh 01:58:23

masters quarters and uh make this mochu 01:58:25

he does that three times 01:58:33

and at a signal from the master which is ringing a bell in reply 01:58:39

he goes in and sits down in front of the 01:58:44

master 01:58:45

and bows right down to the floor and 01:58:48

then sits up 01:58:50

and he repeats the koan that he's been 01:58:52

given 01:58:54

and he's supposed to answer it 01:58:57

now the master if he's not satisfied 01:58:59

with the answer 01:59:00

may simply ring his bell which means 01:59:03

interview over 01:59:05

nothing doing or if he's still not 01:59:08

satisfied 01:59:09

he may try to do something to 01:59:12

hint the student as to which way to go 01:59:16

or puzzle him further some sort of 01:59:19

comment 01:59:19

but what happens is this do you see what kind of a situation has been set up here 01:59:25

the student is really being asked to be 01:59:34

absolutely genuine 01:59:37

so if i said to you now don't be 01:59:37

self-conscious i want of you to be perfectly sincere and as a matter of 01:59:45

fact i'm a mind reader 01:59:49

and i know whether you're being sincere 01:59:51

or not 01:59:52

i could see right down to that last 01:59:55

little wiggly guzzle in the back of your 01:59:57

mind 01:59:59

and if you think i can you see 02:00:02

i'm putting you in a double bind 02:00:06

i'm commanding you 02:00:06

to be genuine how can you possibly do that 02:00:13

on command especially when the person 02:00:17

you're confronted with is a father 02:00:19

figure 02:00:20

an authority figure and in japan the 02:00:23

sensei the teacher 02:00:25

is even a more authoritative figure than 02:00:28

one's father 02:00:29

which is saying a lot but you are being 02:00:33

asked in the presence of this 02:00:34

tiger to be completely spontaneous 02:00:34

or it isn't it isn't put in that way you see though i mean i'm describing this 02:00:44

from the standpoint of a psychologist 02:00:48

observing what's going on here 02:00:51

no the thing you've got to do is you've 02:00:52

got to hear the sound of one hand 02:00:52

and as your answers become more and more rejected you get more and 02:01:01

more desperate 02:01:07

and there is built up the state that is 02:01:09

called 02:01:10

the great doubt 02:01:10

the students do everything you know they've read 02:01:17

all the old zen stories and they come in 02:01:21

with 02:01:21

pieces of rock and wood and they try and 02:01:24

hit the teacher 02:01:25

they uh they do everything they get and 02:01:29

nothing nothing will do i remember i had 02:01:30

a friend studying in kyoto 02:01:33

and on the way to the masters quarters 02:01:36

who passed through a lovely garden with 02:01:37

a pool 02:01:39

and he saw a bullfrog in the garden and 02:01:41

he grabbed this bull rock 02:01:43

they're very tame in japan nobody put it 02:01:46

in the sleeve of his kimono 02:01:48

and when he got in to give an answer to 02:01:50

his quran he produced the bullfrog 02:01:50

and the master shook his head and said too intellectual 02:01:57

of course he meant not so much what we 02:02:07

mean by intellectual but too contrived 02:02:11

too premeditated you know you're just 02:02:13

copying 02:02:14

other people's zen antics and that's 02:02:17

something you 02:02:17

just can't get away with 02:02:18

well 02:02:23

there does come a critical point of total desperation and when the 02:02:32

student reaches that point the teacher 02:02:37

really starts encouraging him he says 02:02:39

now 02:02:39

come on you're getting warm but you must 02:02:42

die be ready to die for this 02:02:45

you must students have even been put 02:02:47

under 02:02:48

uh the into the position that if they 02:02:50

don't get it in so many days they're 02:02:51

going to commit suicide 02:02:51

and they have to stimulate this intense period a thing 02:02:59

called obsession 02:03:04

don't confuse the word session with the 02:03:06

english session 02:03:08

session means studying or observation 02:03:12

of the shin the heart the mind the heart 02:03:15

mind 02:03:16

and at this time they only sleep four 02:03:19

hours a night 02:03:21

they meditate solidly all through the 02:03:23

day they go for the sons and interview 02:03:25

twice a day every one of them 02:03:28

and it's a tremendous workout and will 02:03:30

last about five days 02:03:33

five or six days and in that period the 02:03:37

pressure is really on 02:03:38

everybody is worked into a pitch of this 02:03:41

kind of 02:03:42

psychic fury that they have to get this 02:03:45

thing 02:03:45

answered 02:03:45

there's a man in japan today who has a five days in 02:03:52

uh system and he practically guarantees 02:03:57

that you'll have satori in his five days 02:04:00

i've just got a book about it written by 02:04:02

a british i haven't had a chance to read 02:04:03

it yet 02:04:03

well 02:04:08

i had a someone i knew of who was over studying zen on a fulbright ground 02:04:15

and the grant was winding up and he still hadn't got the sound of one hand 02:04:22

he said to the master look a grant's 02:04:27

running out and i can't stay here 02:04:29

and i've just got to get this thing 02:04:29

so just the day before he left he suddenly realized that there was 02:04:40

nothing to realize 02:04:42

and that was it you know here he had spent his whole 02:04:52

life 02:04:54

thinking that there's something deficient 02:04:59

in me see is something wrong 02:05:03

something i ought to find out to to get 02:05:06

this problem of life 02:05:08

cleaned up 02:05:08

well you know what you do rinzai the old chinese master said 02:05:13

then teaching is like using an empty 02:05:18

fist 02:05:18

to deceive a child 02:05:18

or likes trying to stop a child crying by giving it 02:05:25

yellow leaf see the child 02:05:29

wants gold and so you give it an autumn 02:05:32

leaf and say dear darling there's some 02:05:33

gold 02:05:34

be all right or with your closed fist 02:05:37

you say what have i got here 02:05:39

the child comes and tries to see and 02:05:41

pull your fingers open then you 02:05:42

hide it behind your back and under your 02:05:44

leg and behind the chair 02:05:46

child gets absolutely fascinated the 02:05:47

longer you keep this up the more the 02:05:49

child 02:05:50

is sure there's something real goody 02:05:52

inside the hand 02:05:53

then at the end nothing 02:05:58

and that's it 02:05:58

so there comes the time you see when the student 02:06:08

can go in front of the master and not give a damn 02:06:14

because he sees he seen the point 02:06:20

there wasn't a problem he made up the 02:06:23

problem himself 02:06:24

he came and projected it on this master 02:06:28

who knew how to handle that kind of 02:06:29

person 02:06:31

by making him much more stupid than he 02:06:34

was before 02:06:34

until he sees the essential stupidity of the human situation 02:06:41

where we are playing a game of 02:06:43

one-upmanship on other people and on the 02:06:46

universe 02:06:47

how to get the better of life 02:06:51

well what makes you think you're 02:06:52

separate from life so that you can get 02:06:53

the better of it 02:06:53

how can you beat the game what game 02:06:57

or who will beat it this illusion of beating the game of finding 02:07:06

the thing out of catching it by the tail 02:07:11

is therefore dissipated 02:07:15

by the technique of the koan 02:07:15

it's called working on a koan is like a mosquito biting an iron bull 02:07:23

it's the nature of the mosquito to bite 02:07:30

it's the nature of an iron bull to be 02:07:32

unbitten 02:07:33

or they say it's like swallowing a ball 02:07:36

of 02:07:37

molten lead you can't swallow it down 02:07:40

you can't cough it up 02:07:42

you can't get rid of this thing that's 02:07:45

the great doubt you see 02:07:48

but this is an exaggerated form of what 02:07:51

everybody is ordinarily trying to do 02:07:54

to beat the game 02:07:54

so at that moment 02:07:58

the student has heard the sound of one hand 02:08:04

or discovered who he was before father 02:08:09

and mother conceived him 02:08:10

or what no means 02:08:10

so the teacher says good now you have found 02:08:19

the frontier gate to zen 02:08:23

you put your foot in at the door and you're across the threshold 02:08:29

but there's a long way to go 02:08:35

and now you have found this priceless 02:08:37

thing out 02:08:38

you must redouble your efforts 02:08:41

so he gives him another koan 02:08:42

now the student may be able to answer that one instantly 02:08:48

because it's simply a test koan see 02:08:54

there are five classes of koans 02:08:57

the first class is what you call the 02:08:58

hinayana koans 02:09:00

and the other four are the mahayana 02:09:02

koans 02:09:03

hinayana is to reach nirvana 02:09:06

mahayana is to come back and bring 02:09:08

nirvana into the world as a bodhisattva 02:09:08

so once you get the great void that you see there's nothing to catch on to you 02:09:16

are the universe 02:09:19

it doesn't matter whether you live or 02:09:20

die 02:09:22

that's nirvana all clinging to life 02:09:26

everything like that you see then that 02:09:28

it's hopeless 02:09:29

and you give it up because not because 02:09:31

you you you know you think you ought to 02:09:33

give it up 02:09:34

because you know there is no way of 02:09:35

catching it there's nothing to catch 02:09:37

hold of 02:09:38

there's no safety in the cosmos so you just have to 02:09:44

to give up then 02:09:50

the next class of koans are such things 02:09:53

as 02:09:54

asking for miracles in that class comes 02:09:57

take the four divisions of tokyo out of 02:09:59

your sleeve 02:10:01

or stop the booming of a distant bell 02:10:04

blow out a candle 02:10:05

in timbuktu 02:10:05

but as they go on in various ways they are concerned with all kinds of 02:10:14

problems and how zen understanding deals 02:10:21

with those problems 02:10:23

until we get in the end to the study of 02:10:25

morality 02:10:27

and rules of social and monastic life 02:10:30

that's the last thing 02:10:30

and the zen way of understanding it [Music] 02:10:37

now this may this takes very very differing periods of time 02:10:44

some people get through in as little as 10 years the whole thing 02:10:51

there is a very brilliant westerner 02:10:54

by the name of walter novick who has just about completed the whole thing 02:11:02

and uh he's a musician and a pianist 02:11:08

and he'll come back to this country as 02:11:11

the first accredited zen master of the 02:11:13

west 02:11:15

and uh he'll set up his little sodo 02:11:19

on a farm and wait and see what happens 02:11:25

the day of graduation comes 02:11:28

and then everybody turns out and there's 02:11:30

a great hullabaloo and uh 02:11:32

they salute the departing monk and uh 02:11:36

he goes out he may just become a layman 02:11:40

as i said or become a temple priest or 02:11:43

he may 02:11:45

be himself a roshi 02:11:45

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you 02:24:50