Shuso Talk 3: The Koan of Don't Know

[00:00:00] Speaker A: For more information on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, please visit our website at www.ancientdragon.org. our teachings are offered to the community through the generosity of our supporters. To make a donation online, please visit our website. [00:00:20] Speaker B: Head student for the practice commitment period, the 12th practice commitment period, Ancient Dragon. And I think I would like to welcome Michaela. I don't think you've been here before, have you? Yeah, well, welcome. And Brian Taylor is visiting from Corrales, New Mexico and will offer practice conversation tomorrow night in the zendo. So let me see Online Decker with the walrus family. Looks like a walrus or porpoise family is that's the photo is relatively new to the situation. Yeah. Everyone else I think has been around, I don't know who can't quite see zoom user but they're there. And Jake is upright and mobile after surgery. I think it's been almost two weeks now. Right Jake? So great to see everyone. So I just wanted to mention we are now beginning the seventh week of our eight week practice commitment period. So lots is going to start happening and one of the things is that next Saturday we have preparation day already for Sasheen. So it comes up pretty quickly and that will include Oroki training. If anyone's in Sasheen, there's something in the chat. Alan, is there something you need to know? [00:02:09] Speaker C: Oh, you know what, your camera's not on. [00:02:12] Speaker B: My camera's not on. Thank you very much. Whoever said chatted with us. There we go. Camera's on. So on next Saturday we'll have a work period, we'll have oraoke training and then there's a rehearsal for anyone who is participating in the ceremonial role in the Shuso Dharma Inquiry ceremony which will be Sunday night, May 17th in the afternoon. I think it begins at 2, so keep your eyes open for those events. Then of course our Sasheen begins a week from this coming Thursday evening and it's a three day Sashin Thursday evening, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and and sort of ends with this closing of the practice commitment period after the Shu sew ceremony. So sign up for any part of that if you're up for it and if you come to Sashin or if you're in the practice commitment period, you'll get to ask are she so means. Great question. A great question. So thank you all very much and I'm going to hand things off to our Shuso to talk to us, generate some questions. [00:03:57] Speaker C: First, I want to thank Hougetsu, our guiding teacher here at Ancient Dragon Zenge, and Aisha, my teacher for supporting me in giving this talk. And I want to thank all of you for coming to listen to what I might say. I'd like first to talk about what a koan is. Koans are teaching stories. Originally, teachers and students in monasteries would work closely with each other, side by side. Questions about zazen and life would come up in everyday encounters with the teacher, in questions posed by the teacher in dharma talks, and in questions brought up by students in dokasan. In very large monasteries, with hundreds of monks, working next to the teacher daily or having dokusan regularly became more difficult to arrange. As the ratio between teachers and students increased, it became more difficult for teachers to find time for dokasan and to work alongside every student on a daily basis. So abbots and teachers put together stories with questions and exchanges they already experienced with their students. Highlighting important aspects of the Dharma for students to study on their own and chew on it was another way to learn about dharma outside of reading scriptures and sutras. Koans are public cases. They express the shared Dharma and understanding that comes from sitting in zazen. We all have a taste of that shared experience. We use the same words to express it. We say things like, more space opened up in my head. I'm responding from a more stable place and not always reacting. I'm more patient, I'm kinder. And when we have dharma conversations, it's easy to identify with others zazen experiences. Because we have the same or very similar experiences in zazen, we find ways to express the dharma. And koans are public examples of that expression. Often when you read a koan story, you may find that story, those same events in your own everyday life. Over the years, these stories were collected into books with anywhere from 50 to 100 koans. Three well known collections are the Blue Cliff Record, the Gateless Gate, and the Book of Serenity. But there are others. The Transmission of the Light, the Hidden Lamp, for example. The format of a koan is an introduction, the case itself, and then a verse or commentary. We'll look at the case and the verse now, and then we can have a discussion. This is from the book 2 Zen, the gateless gate and the Blue Cliff Records, translated by Kosuke Sekita. And this is how the case goes. Emperor Wu of Lang asked Bodhidharma, what is the first principle of the holy teaching? Bodhidharma said, emptiness. No holiness. Who is standing before me? No knowing. The Emperor did not grasp his meaning. Thereupon, Buddhidharma crossed the river and went to the land of We. The Emperor later spoke the Emperor later spoke of the Sushiko who said, do you in fact know who this person is? The Emperor said, no, no. Chiko said, this is the Bodhisattva Kanone, the bearer of the Buddha's Heart Sutra heart seal. The Emperor was full of regret and wanted to send for Bodhidharma. But Shiko said it's no good sending a message to fetch him back. Even if all the people went, he would not turn back. So who are the main characters and what is this poem about? Emperor Wu lived, His dates are 464 to 459 in southern China. He promoted Confucian ideals and embraced Buddhism. He was known as the Bodhisattva Emperor and Buddhist priestess Bodhidharma traveled from India or Central Asia to China bringing Buddhism to China and is considered the first patriarch of Chinese Buddhism. So we have two diligent Buddhist practitioners steeped in Buddhist teachings. Emperor Wu asks Bodhidharma, what's the most important thing to know? What's the secret here? Bodhidharma replies, there's nothing holy, nothing special, just this. The Emperor doesn't understand the answer. He says to Bodhidharma, who are you? Bodhidharma says, I don't know. Then Bodhidharma turns around, leaves, goes back to the north of China and practices Zazen for nine years. Actually this story or something close to this story happened to me when I was working as a publisher, as a production manager. I worked for a publishing company that published 27 state specific elementary math books. This math is different in every state with each state having some common and some unique sections. The books were assembled based on a numbers off of a Google spreadsheet. You couldn't buy the sections, you could only buy the state specific finished book. My boss, the vice president of supply chain called me up one day to say the auditors didn't like the way we treated and accounted for the components of these books and wanted us to account for each section of the book as if it was a saleable product. We went back and forth about this. He has head of the supply chain trying to satisfy the stakeholders of auditors and me as production manager trying to build the most efficient process for creating the product and getting it into customers hands. We were both defending our point of view and who we were. And at some point in the conversation he stopped and he said to me, do you know who you're talking to? And I was taken aback and I blurted out no, who am I talking to? And we both stopped and he said Rather quietly, I don't know who you're talking to. We were both talking from our own separate identities, as if we knew who we were and what we were talking about. We were stuck in who we were or who we thought we were. We couldn't see each other and we couldn't see the issue in front of us. And once we got past that and were just trying to resolve an issue, once we realized we didn't know the answer here, it was much easier to solve the problem. Fun of us. I think about that conversation now with regret and a lot of embarrassment. I think, wow, that was really rude. You're a cheeky so and so, aren't you? And I think, what a humble and kind balsa. This is similar to what's happening in the koan. The emperor and Bodhidharma aren't seeing what's in front of them. They aren't seeing each other. They're both talking from their positions in society. The emperor spread Buddhism in the Kingdom of Lang. Bodhidharma spread Buddhism in China. Later in the koan, Shiko says to Emperor Wu, do you know who that was? The emperor says, I don't know. Shiko says, that was the Bodhisattvat Khanom, bearer of a Buddha's heart seal. The emperor was regretful and wanted to bring back Bodhidharma. But Bodhidharma left and continued to sit zazen for nine years. When we sit zazen, we uncover who we really are. We realize, as the chant Song of Zazen says, our own self is no self. And we're able to meet other people, other situations, other events as they really are expressions of the Dharma. When you study a koan, aside from what the koan actually says, you bring your current practice to the reading. So I'm Shuso, sharing the Dharmasita Hougetsu. So I see things through the lens of a student teacher relationship. I'm practicing with what that means and how that plays out. So I'm thinking about this koan in the framework of students and teachings. The koan says the emperor did not understand. I wonder, did he not understand or did he just not like the answer? Maybe not liking the answer and not understanding is the same thing. Sometimes the teacher says something to you that stings and you walk away insulted. Maybe you just didn't understand what the teacher was trying to tell you. And then again, maybe you would just insult. Takes some time and discernment to figure that out. That's why sometimes we remember something a teacher told us a few years back. And we think, oh, that's what they meant. I get it. Now, as students and teachers like Emperor Wu and Bodhidharma, we don't always see what's in front of us. But as we practice, we uncover who we are and we learn to meet each other right here. Cohen's like this, bring that out again. Chiko says, do you know who that was? That was the Bodhisattva Kanom, the bearer of the Buddha's heart seal. The emperor is regretful. Sometimes we feel that way about teachers. We think, oh, Reb Anderson, what a great teacher. Maybe we're intimidated by him. Or we think, I need to get to Green Cult, meet this Reverend. We put our expectations and hopes with us. When we meet a teacher, we want to be on good behavior. The more we sit zazen, the more we uncover who we really are, the better able we are to meet as students and teachers from where we are true Bodhisattvas. Later in the koan, Bodhidharma leaves and doesn't come back. All the king's horses, all the king's men. Seems a little abrupt. Couldn't Bodhidharma have been a little more patient? I'm in this reading group, and one person in the group brings up controversial or unique viewpoints, and we all sort of riff off that in the conversation. And one time he looked at us and he said, you know, I feel like you're all trying to bring me up to speed here, like I'm someone who doesn't quite get it and you're all going to educate me. So Bodhidharma says, emptiness, nothing, hungry, don't know, walks away. Yeah, it's a little abrupt, but there's something very kind about his response. Trusting the emperor is diligent enough to figure it out all by himself. We don't need to explain the universe to each other. We can all understand that for ourselves. But we do need guides, and we do need each other. Because like any spiritual practice in Zen, it's easy to lose our way and fall off the path. We need each other to stay on the path. Bodhidharma goes back to northern China and sits facing the wall for nine years. Bodhi Jarma, the first patriarch of Chan Buddhism, continues to practice positive. I'm going to close with the verse and then we can have some discussion. Here's the verse. Holy teaching emptiness. What is the secret Here again who stands before me? No, no. Inevitable the thorns and briers springing up secretly by night he crossed the river all the people could not bring him back now. So many years gone by. Still Bodhidharma fills your mind in vain. Stop thinking of him. A gentle breeze pervades the universe. The masters. Look around. Is the patriarch there? Yes. Bring him to me and he can wash my feet. Thank you for listening to me. We have some time to discussion, so bring forth questions, discussions, comments, [00:17:17] Speaker B: Online. [00:17:22] Speaker C: Wade, [00:17:25] Speaker D: as you were. You know, I was being a bad Zen student and as you were telling the koan, my. My mind was thinking other thoughts and I'm like, man, I. I wonder, I wonder if we could get like a koan from her, from her own life. Because your stories are always so good when that you tell in your. You always have these great stories from your personal life and they just illuminate practice in the way that it's so alive for you in, in every part of your life. And I really, I admire that about your practice. I guess I'm just saying thank you for bringing forth a koan from your personal life. It was wonderful. Inspiring to hear. [00:18:04] Speaker C: I have another one. [00:18:08] Speaker D: Okay, then I will ask that question. [00:18:10] Speaker C: Yeah, please. Shu. [00:18:12] Speaker D: So Talos a koan. [00:18:13] Speaker C: It's about a blue bucket. And it happened when I was. I was the cook for a one day Shasheen. And my mind was really scattered. And I think because my mind was scattered, people would come in, get tea at the Keening breaks, and the noise was awful. And I bought this instead of buying pre washed spinach. I bought that because that's what I buy at home. Spinach that has all the mud on it. It took me forever to clean it and I was behind. And after lunch, the sink got clogged up and somebody had to come and fix the sink and there were people around and I don't know, this blue bucket ended up in the middle of the floor. And I saw that bucket and I thought, the heck. Why is everything my job? I was like so dumb and I took that bucket and I threw it into the bathroom to get it off the floor. And as soon as I did that and hit the wall, I thought, what are you doing? That's not the bucket's fault. It's just being a bucket, you know, just because you're having a bad day, take a chill pill. Let the bucket be a bucket. If it wants to sit on the floor, it can sit on the damn floor. That's going about the blue bucket. Oh, [00:19:44] Speaker E: Thank you, Jerry. Thank you so much. I love hearing you talking. I love this story. So you said a really interesting thing about Bodhidharma. The way you tell the Story. It wasn't just that Emperor Wu didn't. Didn't get it. It's like they both, they both didn't get it. So I'd love to hear more about the way that Bodhidharma too was greatly deluded in this story, because I like that reading the. [00:20:09] Speaker C: It's like, it's what? The. It's the last verse of the, of the, of the verse. Last stanza of the verse. The master looks around. Is the patriarch there? Yes. Bring him to me and he can wash my feet. You know, at some point, we're all teachers and students. We teach each other, we listen to each other. But also this Bodhidharma going off. Yeah, he goes off. He doesn't go off, you know, here he is teaching Emperor Wu and he doesn't go off to teach. He doesn't go off to open up a monastery and say, okay, like Dogen does. Okay, here I am. I know Zazen, come on in. He sits at a wall. There is something about that, though, I think, okay, who is this person who, who thinks that sitting at a wall, doing Zazen is a perfectly acceptable way to spend your life? And he does it for nine years. He doesn't get up after two years and say, you know, my dad wanted me to go into his business, I'll go do that now. He doesn't get up and say, oh, my mom wants grandkids, let me go do that now. No, he stays there. He doesn't doubt. He doesn't doubt that what he's doing is worth. Reminds me, I don't know if you've been to the Art Institute, but they have this really wonderful picture by an artist named Saeed Rakid. And it's like, it's huge. It's like the length of this room at 8ft tall. It took 20 years to paint that. And he did it with a quill pen. It's gorgeous. It's absolutely gorgeous. But I think he spent 20 years of this life. He's like 54 now. He spent 20 years of his life painting this. And he never, like, stopped. He didn't think, well, this is a waste of time. You know, all my friends are out there, hedge fund managers making billions of dollars. And here I am, like, willpen, I think, who are these people? I don't know if I have that kind of faith or that trust in myself or what I know or don't know to actually do that. Like, what does that take? It's awe inspiring. And it's also pretty frightening to me. It's like, what are you doing with your wife? I don't know. Just to think. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'm sitting here, experience what life is like. I'm sitting here being alive. It's like, that's just amazing. It's just, wow. Yeah. And to do it for night, not to give up or. Yeah. I would get halfway through and say, okay, you know, this is crazy, girl. You're in some rabbit hole. Move on. But he doesn't do that. He sits there learning about life. You know, the other thing is, I know some people I used to practice with, and they did. They went through koan books. They went through the Blue Cliff record. They went through Gateless Gate, and then they were done. They said, okay, we know. And I thought, wow, really? Because, you know, when I read a Cohen, if I go back to a COHEN I read 20 years ago, it's going to look different because I'm different. I got different stuff to talk about. I got different stuff going on in my practice. I see different things. Bodhidharma. And Bodhidharma has that attitude. He has that attitude of, yeah, there's still something here for me to learn. There's still something here for me to figure out. Maybe that encounter with Emperor wu didn't go 100% the way I could do better. Let me go think about this or let me go sit with this. [00:23:57] Speaker F: Yeah. [00:24:01] Speaker C: Serena had something she wanted to say. Oh, [00:24:08] Speaker G: thanks, Jerry. This is interesting. It. I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly, but I think that Emperor Wu was really into building monasteries. Right. He was a real estate guy. And so if you can compare him to, like, our president, he's probably a better guy than him. Right? But he was into building monasteries. And then Bodhidharma being like, yeah, that's not the most important thing. Like, you maybe just sit zazen. And maybe there was like, a little bit of, like, a judgment there. Like, yeah, he can wash my feet. There's, like, ego on both sides. Perhaps that, like, this guy is like, no, we need a physical expression of zazen that is like buildings and monasteries that looks like we have an institution here. And Bodhidharma's like, no, that's. You're missing the point. And then. Then it. That weird thing of him going back, like, oh, yeah, like, this real estate guy can just kiss my ass at the end. You know, he. He missed the point. Like, but it's still a little. There's, like this hierarchical ego thing going on between them. So it's Kind of interesting. And I. I have a beef with somebody in my family who we've been having this problem around politics. And they said something like, well, let me know when you want to know who I am, when you're ready to know who I am. And I was like, okay, who are you? No response. And I'm kind of like, I wonder if I'll ever get a response. Like, I. I don't know. Like, the no response is the response. And I'm. I just have to sit with that, like, oh, do I have a last word? Another last word? I don't know. [00:26:05] Speaker C: So [00:26:07] Speaker F: that. [00:26:08] Speaker G: That came up in your talk with your discussion about your boss, who. I was like, oh, I wish I would have gotten the. I don't know. [00:26:21] Speaker C: Thank you. You know, in some ways, they both missed the mark. It was like they went like this because, you know, we were talking about this in my discussion group about Dogan. You know, Dogen comes back from China, and he's like, okay, I'm building a Zen center here, and I know what zazen is, and I'm going to teach zazen. You know, we need builders. We need people who say, yeah, going to build a zendo here. Come in. You know, we also need people who just sit in zazen. So, you know, they come from two different positions, and eventually they'll figure it out, you know, but not right at that moment. And there's something, too, I think about. I know it happens to all of us. We get in a group and somebody's not getting it, and we think, okay, I'm going to tell you what this is all about. And it's like, just back up here. People know stuff. We don't have to explain everything to everybody all the time, so. Hi, Dennis, [00:27:30] Speaker H: Good morning. Thank you for your talk. I really got something from it. Could you talk a little bit about how you approach a koan? They baffle me totally. I mean, I felt. I read a koan, and I'm lost at the very start. So going from that point to getting something from it, or. Could you talk a little bit about that? [00:27:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I just read the koan, and then I memorize it, and then I just walk around with it in the back of my head. My life, or if, you know, if I'm waiting for the train or waiting in the grocery store line, it might come up and I'll think about the koan, but I never. Some people, like, investigate who all the characters are, which is a good thing to do because you can figure out the lineage in some ways. And figure out all these great teachers. I never do any of that. I just treat it like it's a short story. And then pretty soon I feel like I'm one of the characters. So I'm walking around pretending I'm that person. I do that with other people in my life, people who have traits I like. I pretend I'm them for a while and say, oh, maybe I could get that trait if I pretend I'm them. But. And eventually, you know, they say there's an answer to every koan. And, you know, maybe there is. And maybe I don't get the answer, but I get something out of it. It fits in my life somehow. I learn a little lesson. I think about, oh, what are they talking about here? And when does that happen? Sometimes I just trip over how it happened. Like this thing with my boss, I just tripped right over that. Like, okay. And sometimes it's more subtle, but it's just patience and practice and thinking about your life. There's no real secret to them, I don't think. And actually I have a bias against this. Ooh, koan. Some secret code I'm going to decode and then I'm going to know something. You know that koan about Nansen kills the cat. That one drives me to distraction. I think we should take out the killing of the cat because everybody gets all fixated on, oh my God, he killed a cat. And they miss, I think, the story. You know, he comes across an argument, he has a response, he gets excited, he goes and sees his friends and says, hey, wait till I tell you what happened to me today. And his friend is like, okay, not my drama, honey, wasn't there. Good to know you. I'm out of here. And sometimes that happens to me. You know, my friends will call me up and say, guess what happened to me today? And I have a different response. But when you look at the response in the koan and this response you have and you say, well, which was a better approach here? How does this work? But it just brings up things in your life to think about, to see how they fit, how they don't fit. And you learn something about yourself in a little one act play. Kind of fun. Yeah. So I would say think of them as fun. Think of them as little one act plays and maybe you can just relax about. Oh, I'm missing the point. You can't really miss the point, [00:30:54] Speaker B: Brian. [00:30:57] Speaker G: Yeah. [00:30:58] Speaker I: Thank you. While you were talking about the, the, the part of it where Bodhidharma is asked by the emperor, who are you and he says, I don't know. I, I, I thought of it in, in reverse that in my own life, when I don't know someone well, it's so easy to think I know them. And especially if I don't know them at all. A stranger, somebody on the street, in a cafe or something. I look at them and they're like, oh, that, that kind of person. [00:31:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:28] Speaker I: And it's so humbling to start to hear something from them or to, for them to mention something of their history, where they've come from, what they suffer with. You know, it's like, oh, I didn't have any idea. And so it's like, for me, it's who, who are you? I don't know. It's sort of the opposite. [00:31:55] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So often. And you know, what do they say? You decide about a person in, like, the first two seconds of meeting them. That's why first impressions are so important to people. But, yeah, we don't even know ourselves, much less the person sitting next to us. Yeah, yeah. And we're surprised when people, yeah. And sometimes it's people you've known for a long time. I think it's especially hard for people we know a long time because people change. And if you know them and you see them every day because the change is subtle, you don't always see that change happen. And then one day you wake up and they're saying something to you and you're like, who are you? What happened to a friend I knew and loved? Who's this person now? Because, yeah, it's just not that we don't know who they are, but people are never constantly one thing. They move along just like we do. But, yeah, [00:32:56] Speaker I: Howard, [00:33:00] Speaker J: want to apologize to the cloud for, like, sliding the mic around. I don't know if they're hearing that I was building on what Brian said. And I had a real moment of this this morning because I saw Brian walk in and I didn't know Brian was going to be here. And me and Brian spent some time with, with the Hyde park, you know, co leading the Hyde Park Zen group some years ago with other folks like Neil Zahn. And I literally looked at Brian in the eye a few times, and I was like, I don't know who the hell this guy is. I've seen him before, I think. I don't know who this guy is, though. It's the beard. I was like, oh, it's Brian. Everything just kind of like, locked into place. But then I was like, I haven't seen this guy in years. I don't know who this guy is. He looks like someone I used to know, but it's good to see you, Micah. But it's funny, right? Like, I, I, I, I. I mean, every time you revisit a cohon, something else always pops up. And, like, this time, what's popping up? Now we're. There's two things. One is this. Like, no, it's nothing special. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Like, I go to therapy, and I'm like, I have an idea going into therapy, what I'm gonna say. And then I get in there, I'm [00:34:06] Speaker B: like, [00:34:08] Speaker J: I don't know. Same thing happens when I go to Dokusan with anybody, any teacher. I'm like, oh, yeah, sure. I thought about xyz. I've written things down on a journal or whatever. And then I get in there, I'm, like, staring at them. I'm, like, I'm about to cry. All the preconceptions, all the things I think I want to know or ask just go out the window. And then I'm actually just, like, having to sit there with somebody, I don't know what I want. And I know that feels like more honest. It feels like I'm actually able to connect with somebody more deeply. Right. It's not so much like a conscious or, like, all right, you drop this stuff, and sometimes it helps to do it consciously. But, like, just, like, coming back every time, like, I don't know what's going on. And that's okay. That's okay. You'll figure it out. [00:34:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:55] Speaker J: The corollary to that being, I never really noticed and thought much about the part where, like, you know, Buddhi, Dharma, like, Fs off and then somebody else later is like, that was. That was Conan. You gotta bring him back. That is, like, every experience ever. Like, oh, I did not appreciate that thing when it happened. Oh, I didn't realize that this thing held this nugget of wisdom or teaching or something until so much later. And I don't know if, like, my practice has been so much of, like, all right, now you have to be so present. You're gonna catch it when it happens. But, like, back to, like, I don't know what's happening. Be open to what's happening. You're gonna be uncomfortable. You're gonna be okay. If you're not gonna be okay, you got people. You've spent a lot of time, like, trying to build a network of people that you can rely on. Sanga. [00:35:44] Speaker B: Right? [00:35:44] Speaker J: Sanga here. Sangha in general. But, like, you don't know who Kanan's gonna be, you don't know who Bodhidharma is gonna be, you don't know who Manjushri is gonna be, et cetera, et cetera. And so I really appreciate you bringing that part of the koan out for me today. Thank you. [00:36:01] Speaker C: Thank you very much. Your comments on Christine. [00:36:10] Speaker B: Thank you so sure. [00:36:13] Speaker C: Jerry, thank you. A lot is percolating for me with all of this conversation, especially talking about someone you thought you knew very well, and suddenly you don't know them. I'm going through a separation. With my wife. [00:36:49] Speaker B: 14 years, and I don't know her anymore. [00:36:53] Speaker C: And I keep trying to reach this person I knew. And [00:37:02] Speaker G: I'm in the very uncomfortable stage of not knowing. [00:37:11] Speaker C: So gathering with you all and talking about not knowing is very helpful. Thank you. I'm so sorry you're going through this. It's so hard to have a broken. And Howard is right. We have peeps. My niece is saying, we have people and we have Zanga. We have support as needed. [00:38:36] Speaker B: So, you know, this. This knowing and not knowing someone is so deep and tender. And I think about. I wondered often if Bodhidharma was facing the wall because he realized he thought he knew the emperor and was holding on to something, like this real estate guy or whatever, and needed to really face himself to really see who Bodhidharma. I mean, who the Emperor Wu was or is at this moment. About that. [00:39:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I think. I think it's hard to know who's the student and who the teacher is. And I think it's hard, you know, when. When Emperor Wu says, who are you? Is he asking because he didn't. He didn't understand the answer, or is he just saying, who are you? And maybe Bodhidharma thought that. Thought. Yeah, who am I? Let me go. Let me go sit with that. Figure out who that is, what that's about. Yeah, it's a lovely little cola about how we meet people and how we respond and how sitting zazen and uncovering who we are, when we are who we are, we let other people be who they are. [00:40:09] Speaker B: You know, it reminds me a little of being with my nieces. I always am, like, who are you? When they're babies, who are you? When they're teenagers, who are you? And I want to know you. But, you know, there's. There's a way of, like, instead of, oh, you've got to be this or that, right? [00:40:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:31] Speaker F: Sometimes I Say that when. When I'm. Someone surprises me in a good way, like, who are you? [00:40:40] Speaker C: Yeah, And I like this stanza from the verse. All the people could not bring him back. Now so many years gone by. Still Bodhidharma fills your mind in vain. Stop thinking of him. A gentle breeze pervades the universe. You know, just sit and feel the breeze. Sometimes we don't have to worry about, are we learning something? Do we know something? Am I sitting all Z right? Am I making progress? We just need to sit and feel the breeze. We don't have to overthink it or even overbe it. We can just sit. A gentle breeze pervades the universe. [00:41:50] Speaker A: Jerry, thank you so much. Let me figure out what I'm doing here with the phone. Thank you so much for this talk. I know that we have talked about this, you know, fairly extensively, and what I really was appreciating with this talk is that you gave it your own way and you said your own things. And at first I was like, well, that's not what we talked about at all. [00:42:17] Speaker B: But. [00:42:20] Speaker A: But, you know, one of the. [00:42:21] Speaker B: But. [00:42:21] Speaker A: But, Jerry, one of the. One of the greatest coons for me has been and continues to be and probably always will be accepting that there is more than one way to understand something and more than one way to talk about something and more than one way to feel about something. [00:42:41] Speaker G: And [00:42:46] Speaker A: I really appreciated hearing your unique voice today. And I just. I wanted to say that. And there's more, you know, there's no one right way to understand a koan, because each of us is so different, and we come with our own, you know, causes and conditions. And I just really, really appreciated hearing your causes and conditions and how you put this together. [00:43:16] Speaker C: It's actually funny you should say that, because in all our discussions, I would bring something up and you would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what they think. What do you think? Yeah. And I wrote this so many times and kept saying, okay, that's not what I think. That's what I mean. I heard that when you said, okay, so Teigen gave a talk, and he said this about it. Okay. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. I tore up more of these than you can imagine. [00:43:42] Speaker A: Oh, well, I'm glad that that's what you got from our conversation, because what I'm getting. What I was getting from our conversations was like, whoa. I really missed Jerry in those conversations because all I did was, like, bring myself to them. So thank you for bringing yourself. And in a way that I really had to sit down and Listen, because I couldn't interrupt you. [00:44:10] Speaker C: That's pretty funny. [00:44:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so funny, I'm crying. [00:44:27] Speaker C: Yes. [00:44:28] Speaker F: You know, when we. You and I, were at the Chicago Zen center years ago, it's a Cohen study place. And they approach coons sort of like the answer is some question for sort of revelatory demonstration of the essence of what the koan is. And so there's that. And I never got there, for instance, you know, I never, you know, passed moo. But I've thought about it for decades. [00:45:01] Speaker H: Right. [00:45:04] Speaker F: Versus the. The way that Soto people study them and, like, look at the characters, look at the story. Personally identify your own history with, you know, the character's history. Like, you know what I'm saying? So could you talk a little bit about these different styles of approaching, Collins? [00:45:25] Speaker C: Yeah, I do. And it. It's kind of a mixed bag, because in some way, like any little story, anybody who writes a story, they have a point to make. So there is a point to the story. There's something the author wanted to say. But I think some people, this idea, you know, when I first started koans, that's how we were taught There is a right answer here. And you were told not to talk about your koan with somebody else because you didn't want to give away the answer. And I thought, well, it's the weirdest thing I ever heard in my entire life give away an answer. It's not like math. You know, it was just like, yeah, but one of the things I really like about it is it's an everyday thing, and it came out of everyday life. You know, it came out of little stories with, you know, a teacher and a student working together, and then they got just too busy and too big. So they wrote these stories down and said, here, go work. Go think about this. Go sit with this little story. And, you know, it's just. That's how I'm just an everyday kind of galaxy. It's just every day you get up, we do something, and there's stories about everyday life, what happens every day. And here's the other thing that amazes me, is these stories are, what, 2,000 years old, and still, I don't know who these people were who picked these stories, but they picked winners. Let me tell you, talk about timeless literature here. I mean, it's like, whoa, this still fits my life 2400 years later. It's like, that is amazing. And they're short. You know, they're not just my cup of tea. They're short. I'll Read it. Yeah. So, yeah. And they're just. They're just fun. And I. Yeah. There is something to be said also, though, for the discipline of just sitting with a koan. [00:47:26] Speaker F: Yeah. You never. If you spend a lot of time, seven days thinking about that and going every dosen is about like, what is it? What is it? [00:47:33] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:47:34] Speaker F: Like, it just. It haunts. It haunted me anyway. [00:47:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:37] Speaker F: Then I would have all these experiences, like, over the years of like, oh, that's what it is. Oh, that's what it is. And all these different situations, you know, like, oh, I get it now. So, yeah, it was a beautiful training, but it was very painful to go [00:47:53] Speaker C: through at the time. I agree. Yeah. There's also something about sitting with a koan time after time after time after time, and eventually you just get melted down by the koan. Eventually you just say, the hell cares what this koan is about? And you just get to ground zero. And somehow that opens you up to, okay, I don't know. I may never going to know. It's fine. It's perfectly fine. But it just. It's kind of like when my boss said, I don't know who I am, that just opened up something, you know, and sometimes you just get to the point where. Yeah, sometimes you have to get to the point of it just doesn't matter anymore to figure out what really does matter. [00:48:42] Speaker B: Serena T should end pretty soon, though. So one more comment that [00:48:49] Speaker G: I. I just had a mund. Kind of a mundane thought, kind of like, of. I have a lot of mundane thoughts, but that, like, this exchange between two important people. There's like so much potential for them to talk about important things and they kind of like have an awkward fail. Like, happens to all, like, all the time. Like, you go to a party and there's like, people who are like, special or whatever, and you have like an awkward conversation and be like, oh, that was weird. Or you're like in the. In the kitchen and everyone's like, sat zendo and kind of like, okay, now we've got like 10 minutes for tea and everyone has the most awkward conversation and leaves, you know, and it kind of reminds me of them and how that's just like, oh, we do that all the time. So that was my comment. [00:49:45] Speaker A: Yep. [00:49:46] Speaker C: The sun still comes up. The earth still turns around. Yeah.