Zhaozhou’s Wash Your Bowl

[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. [00:00:16] Speaker B: Good morning. Is there anyone here? For the first time, I know everyone in this room. What about online? Okay, so everyone's been here before. It's good to see you. Here we are. It's very cold outside. Winter is back. So I appreciate how many people have made it here, or for that matter, have decided to roll out of bed and attend online. I want to tell you a story. It's a koan called Xiaojou's clean your bowls, which is case seven in the gateless barrier. It's case 38 in the book of Serenity, and it goes in both collections. It's the same story. A monk asked master Xiaozhou, I have just entered this monastery. I beg for your instructions, teacher. And Xiaozhou replied, have you eaten your rice porridge yet? And Joshua said, and monk said, yes. And Jia Zhe said, well, you can wash your bowl. And Master Wu Men in the gateless barrier adds one more line. He says, at that the monk had an insight. So Hongju did not include that last about coming to an awakening at the end of the story when he did it. And I understand the difference between these two versions is as little as the additional language seems to be, it changes the entire thrust. In the case of Master Wu Men, it makes this koan a story of an awakening experience, a moment of realization. But for Hongzhi in his version, I think the fairest reading is that this is a practice instruction where Hongzhi is teaching us how to see, to experience awakening as an activity. We express awakened mind in our moment to moment activity in the world. So people, commentators who focused on Wu Min, a gateless barrier, almost always see this story as dharma combat, which is something especially common in when in Rin's eye understandings of these koans. It's always there's an. A monk comes to a teacher and he's kind of like, well, there's a new sheriff in town, and I'm going to. We're going to see who really has the greatest understanding of the Dharma. And that's what. That's how the commentators have seen this story. If they've focused on the gateless period. You say this monk, an experienced monk who's just entered the monastery because he's. He's experienced, he's had some degree of realization, and he's traveling from monastery to monastery to practice in different places, meet with different teachers and see what he can learn, or to establish himself as in his own reputation. So you know the monk, it's after they've just finished breakfast. This monk comes up to Master Xiao Zhou and says, master, give me some instruction. Tell me what I don't know. Show me what you got. And Zhaozhou uses a metaphor in these readings. He says, have you eaten breakfast? And that's sort of saying, well, have you tasted the truth of the Tagatha's words? And the monk says, yeah, I'm full. I understand the Dharma. I'm going to own you, old man. So he's presenting himself as someone who's had some sort of experience, some potential experience of realization in the past. He's studied the dharma. He has a profound understanding of the scriptures, and maybe he's prepared to have an intellectual discussion of the Buddha way too. But as this reading would say, see it. The monk's problem is that he. He is carrying around past experience. He's carrying around an understanding which is really dead words. And he doesn't realize. He's also carrying around this sense of accomplishment, this sort of egotistical understanding of himself. And he wants to win. He wants to win this dharma combat and show up Jojo. But the question then is, where is his understanding of Buddha nature right now, in this moment? He's got nothing but these stale memories and stale conceptual understanding of what Buddha nature is. So the Xiaozhou makes a direct presentation of Buddha nature to it. He says, wash your bowl. And in these readings, the bowl is a metaphor at least as much as a real bowl, but it's a metaphor for the monk's mind. And he's saying, you've got the dregs of your kanji in your bowl. You've got the dregs of this thinking in your head, the dregs of this old Kincho experience you've suffered. And you're walking around with your mind stained with this arrogant pride in yourself. So wash it. Get rid of it. You need to understand that you, the bowl, your thoughts and feelings, your ideas, and the washing of the bowl, all of that is empty. When you understand that your bowl is clean and your mind is clean, and. And the monk has his realization. He understands, yes, okay, all of this. I am I. He wakens up to this totality of the world as this undivided world that includes him. Everything, including himself, his bowl, his thoughts, his feelings, his understanding, even. Even his egotistical, arrogant ideas. And these thoughts about his understanding what the dharma is, are all encompassed within the reality of this. This undivided reality of pura nature. And I think it's important to understand that he does this before he washes his bowl. He hasn't started doing that. So this is this placing that there, that's that the insight there in the story Wu Men is talking about, this is, Is an understanding. This is a realization of Buddha nature in a moment. It's an event that happens in time. You know, this is like a whole bunch of other koans that you may be familiar with. You know, another one that Xiao Zhou Kuan is. A monk comes to Xiao Zhong and says, hey, what is the fundamental meaning of Zen? What is the meaning of Bodhidharmas bringing Zen from the West? And Xiaozhou says, well, that oak tree in the garden, just emphasizing that everything that appears to us, every experience we have, is part of this experience of the undivided world of Buddha nature. So I read the Hongju's version of the story in the Book of Serenity differently. The monk comes up to Xiaozhou says, master, please give me your instructions. Joshua says, you had your. Did you eat your breakfast? Monk says, yes. He says, well, wash your bowl. And that's it. Fade the black. The emphasis is on. Is on wash your bowl. He is saying that you need to be washing the bowl. You need. This is really zazen in action. Like he's saying, let go of your small mind, your ordinary mind of doubt and confusion and desire and all your thinking about the Dharma, worrying about, well, what's Joshua gonna tell me? Whatever, Step away from that. Open your mind. Open your mind to your experience in this moment. And you can do that by attentively washing this bowl in the same way as we're just waking up over and over again to our posture and our breathing, just sitting here, stepping back from our thoughts, opening up our mind to the reality of this moment. We become this moment right here, right now. And this attention to our breath and our attention to our posture that we return to over and over again provides an anchor so that we don't fall immediately back into this self absorbed thinking, feeling, judgments, all the rest of it. We remain here, right here in this moment, awake to everything. And that's what's going on. That's what Joshua is suggesting. Here to the month. Pay attention. Wash the bowl. Wash the bowl. Carefully. Take care of the bowl. Just that, just the activity of paying attention to the bowl opens up your awareness of everything, all of your senses, as well as your thoughts and feelings. You're not shutting anything out. You're opening your mind up to everything, and that itself is you awaken life. So what I want to be clear about is that, you know, these aren't mutually exclusive understandings. I think that Rinzai teachers would agree with that second reading of the koan. But Rinzai is very much seeking that moment of realization that, oh, yes, right here, right now, this, this is a whole. It contains me, contains everything. This is Buddha nature. I am Buddha nature. And certainly, you know, Soto teachers will acknowledge that we have awakening experiences, that we practice this moment to moment careful activity, paying attention to whatever our task is. And at some point we also go. We're aware of the moment, we're aware of everything going on. This is big mind. As Suzuki Roshi would say, at some point we'll go, hey, this is big mind. It's not like a lightning bolt from the heavens, which is the way this is talked about frequently in koans and in some of the Zen literature. But it is. There can be. There's awakening in the activity of life and a moment of realization at the same time. This second understanding has been part of Sotozen from Dogen. You know, in Dogen's Tenso Kyokun, the directions to the cook, Dogen tells the cook to take the backward step, step that shines a light within, and then work taking the backward step that shines the light. Stepping back from your thoughts, open up your awareness is one of the instructions in Fukan Zazen Gi Gogen's universal recommendation for zazen. It gives his. His instructions and Dugan then says, okay, pay attention to what you're doing. Act carefully. Treat the rice as if it were your own eyeballs. Treat the pots and pans as if you were. It's your head. Just don't go banging it around. That's been the hallmark of the Soto school. It still is. In the. In monasteries, it's kind of. It's harder for us to do it where we don't have fixed routines. We don't. Our work is different. Our work isn't focused across the day, isn't working, focused on weeding the garden and cleaning the monastery, where it's a little bit easier if we're. It's a little different. If we're sitting at a desk looking at a screen, the same thing can happen. We can still take the backward step. We can still pay attention to being here with the screen, being here with others, having this conversation, looking at the people and their tiles, listening to a dharma talk. But that's. That's been the focus in Soto Zen, waking up moment by moment. Stepping out of this self enclosed, self absorbed, closed off mind that's really preoccupied with the search for security and affirmation. It's full of hope and dread. It doesn't go away. This isn't suggesting that you cut it off, but you open up and recognize it as part of what's going on, part of what I am, something that we can do moment by moment all day long. So I'm going to leave it there and let's see if anybody has any thoughts or questions. I give no sense. Okay. [00:14:20] Speaker C: Oh, yes, yes, sorry. I really appreciated that. I very, very often find that the, the koans, as, as I've encountered them tend to, you know, the various reads of them tend to be from very much the Rinzai perspective, you know, the sort of like, and then there was a great, enlightened, you know, know, great moment of awakening or whatever. And frankly, those things kind of often leave me very cold. So I really appreciate getting a Soto spin on this story and I'm sure I've been exposed to it before, you know, by Tigan and others, and it's just not lodged or whatever. But I, in this moment, I really appreciate it and I, I, I would like to run a further thought by you. There's, and I don't think it's in any way think is probably completely congruent with what you're presenting. But you know, there are people like Chi n, the Korean teacher, you can say, very important in that tradition. And he has, he has this notion of sudden awakening, gradual cultivation, which to me seems like it would map very well onto the story as you're presenting it. You know, you, you come from a moment of getting in touch with something and then you like, put it out there, you manifest it. You, you tend the garden, you wash the bowls, and those two things don't ever occlude each other. But anyways, does that, I think you probably know, Chino, does that seem congruent? And he's more kind of on the Rinzide side of the spectrum. But does that seem congruent with what you're presenting here? [00:16:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, the fundamental idea is that we are. Our most basic, fundamental awareness of consciousness is this open, is this awareness of the world is this spacious, open, undivided reality. And we turn away from it and we get caught up in, in thoughts and feelings and desires and our judgments. That's when we start getting caught up in the duality. We start focus, the Object of our attention, the object of our thinking or feeling or desire. And that's when we start creating this. Me, you, me, the world, this, that, right, wrong, good, bad, should, shouldn't, better, worse. And I think a Soto approach says, look, it's there, it's, it's breaking through. And here's a way that you can not cause it to happen, but you can. By paying attention in this moment and stepping away from being wrapped up in yourself to something that's in the world, you can create the conditions to open for that basic awareness to emerge again. And I think to tell the truth, that, you know, Rinzai people are always talking about that there's further cultivation after, after a kensho, they don't leave it there either. And I think, but they really want that, that realization, that experience of kensho in the moment, you know, and, but after that, it's the whole thing that the monk in this story, you know, he's, he's an experienced monk. He's, he's saying, I've had some experience here and I'm going to come try it out. He's going to have further cultivation. He's either going to beat, he's going to win in this exchange with Zhaozhou, or he's going to come to a. Or he's going to come to a greater experience, more profound experience in Buddha nature. [00:18:11] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:18:12] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:18:13] Speaker E: Thank you, Douglas. Comment and then a question that may be more sort of personal practice for you. Question. I know I come from Rin's Eye, like, I come from a Rinzai oriented tradition before this. And I relate to these sort of like anxiety about like, oi, I need a kensho experience that's kind of like not pushed but kind of, that's sort of like the encouragement. [00:18:41] Speaker C: Right. [00:18:42] Speaker E: And I, I remember years ago when I first came across this one, because this is, this one is sort of like in the sort of early repertoire. I feel like in like your, you know, koan exposure is that I was like, I experienced this koan reading even as sort of like, yeah, I need this like, kind of moment, right? There's a lot of slapping in the quantum tradition. And I found that my own approach to koans has changed a lot just in how I like respond and feel them out. And I've, over time I've experienced this koan as like, there's a lot of care in this actually. I, I've, I experienced a lot of love in this. And like, are you full? Did you eat? Like, maybe it's because my own background Is like someone who's Chinese. So, like, did you eat yet? [00:19:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And that would be a normal greeting. Yeah. In Chinese. [00:19:32] Speaker E: Have you eaten? Are you. [00:19:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:33] Speaker E: How are you? [00:19:34] Speaker B: It's not necessarily some sort of metaphorical secret poke back at the monk. Yeah. How you doing? Yeah, welcome to the monastery. [00:19:45] Speaker E: Are you taken care of? And then the. I mean, for me, I almost read it as sort of the next clinger bowl. Is that okay? Well, take care of the next thing. You got a place here to take care of the next thing too. So that's shifted around for me over the years. And I'm curious how your own sort of practice relationship to this koan has changed over the years. [00:20:08] Speaker B: I would say that before having exposure to Soto Zen practice at Ancient Dragon, I would have had a very Rinzai type of understanding. This is what awakening is. This is how you read koans. Here's what the point of koan practice is. But I have become very Sotoized, you know, and I will just say a couple of things. One is, you know, it's a great statement in Dug End, and I think sort of helps make sense of the Soto approach to awakening. And this careful action, attentive action, daily life, where he says, you know, you may not even be aware of your own enlightenment. That's not something that anyone would say in Rin's eye, as far as I know. But Dogen would say that as you. You take that backward step, you open your mind so. So that it includes all of this, thoughts and feelings and desires and so on. But it opens up to your body and what's going on and this, this entire room and the people within it and so on. Well, if you can live from that, this understanding that if you wake up to this and you can live this intimate, intimately connected circumstance. Well, I don't know that you need to go, oh, it's Buddha nature. You know, the ancestors didn't lie. You know, I think that. That it works that way. So I've certainly. And. And there's a great statement by Suzuki Roshi. He's talking about big mind and koans. He likes to, you know, he. You talk about small mind, the mind that's all caught up in stuff that's related to you, which he's talking about is something you're desiring or you're thinking about or you have feelings about. As long as you're caught up in that. That small mind, big mind is open. It contains everything. If there's big mind, awakened mind, you recognize that you are a part of your Surroundings. And then he says, you know, if you can be the master of yourself, if you can find yourself in your surroundings all the time, koans aren't so hard. So it's just a very different approach. And I find it very congenial. And I think it then becomes an emphasis of live experience. It's very tempting for someone to have an awakening experience. And then it just. Then it becomes, oh, and then I realized that. And they take that with them. You know, it's not. I mean, rental teachers will talk about it all the time. You just go, oh, yeah, I know that this is. This is Buddha nature. I know that that's Buddha nature. You have a lot of. Then you have knowledge about this world, this experience, but you're not experiencing it. The point is not. Not an understanding of, not knowledge about it is the experience. That seems like enough preaching. [00:23:41] Speaker F: I have some comments. Maybe some questions will arise in that exploration. Well, just mundane comment perhaps, but actually we do this practice right here at Ancient Dragon with each other. Next week. We'll have sasheen, we'll wash our bowls. How we take care of the zendo, how we take care of our space, how we take care of each other, how we interact with each other is all. It still has that family style flavor of Soto Zen and caring for things, how we move, what we wear, you know, this all becomes heightened in the simplified environment of just sitting. I was very interested in your presentation of this story in the sense that. About entry, you know, this is a monk entering a community and being welcomed in a community. And also kind of, you know, I wasn't sure if the question was a question of respect, like, you know, please share your teaching with me, great teacher Dao Joe, you know, or if it was a little bit of this sort of like, okay, I've eaten, now give me the real thing. You know. But this kind of thinking about how we enter spaces and communities like this is, you know, 13th century or before. But, you know, well, certainly before the story occurred. But, you know, if you say Dogen's interpretation. But I think about right now how we enter spaces, no matter what they are, and how we relate to in some ways, everyone as our teacher, but even how we relate to teachers, you know, I've certainly reflected in my life that somebody asked me recently what I would tell my younger self about practice. And I said, appreciation for my teachers. But I don't think I've appreciated my teachers enough. And from this perspective, and I think about JoJo being so generous. Cause I do think of it as Love, Howard. I thought of this as like, you know, how are you? Have you eaten? You know, and somebody could have said, you know, that was a delicious meal. I've traveled far. Thank you. Would you be up for talking about the dharma? You know, and that's maybe not how, you know, these Chinese masters talk. That wasn't their vocabulary. But I think just about the encouragement about entry and engagement in this. This teaching and how every time you, you know, I love to go to new temple spaces I haven't been before or ones I've been before. And I'm always asking, what are the local conditions here? How do people do things? What do I wear? When? And what's the decorum? You know, so to this. This practice of blending in, and it just felt like the story has so much embedded. So I wanted to thank you for offering it. [00:26:42] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:26:42] Speaker B: I think one of the fun parts about reading koans or thinking about them and spending time with them is that they can have so many different readings and layers. You know, the first thought you might have is, monk says, hey, can you give me some instruction? He says, go wash your bowls. It's sort of, you know, I'm busy. I'm the teacher, right. Why are you bothering me? Or it could be, breakfast is over. It's time to wash your bowls. Go wash your bowls. Follow the schedule. That's what you're supposed to do. And there is a certain amount of that do the next thing. But it's more than that. It's do the next thing attentively and carefully taking care of whatever is in front of you. And then, you know, the different readings about enlightenment experience or careful, attentive action stuff, you know, those are there. Undoubtedly there are other readings, if people have them. I'd love to hear it. [00:27:47] Speaker F: And Tigan has a question. I didn't know if David Ray. [00:27:52] Speaker G: I wasn't sure David Ray had something too first. [00:27:56] Speaker H: Hey, David, thank you very much for this talk. [00:27:59] Speaker E: So. [00:28:01] Speaker H: And thank you, Tigyin. So I had never heard the Gateless Gate version of the story. I had only heard the Soto version from the Book of Serenity. And probably many have heard me say this before that all my life I've said I could never be a Zen Buddhist. And it was because of the sort of Rinzai orientation. And I love this story. And I connected to our practice at Ancient Dragon. And I guess I hear the answer something like, because I've always thought of it as a beginner, as a beginner student. And the answer that I hear in wash your bowl Is, hey, let the process that you're entering, let it enter you, and let the process just sit with it. This wouldn't be the moment to hear something that you're ready to hear in five years or in 10 years. And also, also that thing of care and gratitude for the bowl and gratitude for just, you know, cleaning the temple and all of those things. And so for me, it does open up to tender energies and queer energies and not so dharma combaty, testosterone energies and all of those things. Great, great talk. Thank you. [00:29:18] Speaker B: Thank you again. [00:29:22] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:29:22] Speaker G: There's a kind of metaphoric level of this. Yes. To everything that's been said. [00:29:29] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. [00:29:31] Speaker G: And also there's a kind of metaphoric reading of this. The teacher saying, have you had your breakfast? Have you eaten to the full? [00:29:40] Speaker D: Have you. [00:29:41] Speaker G: Have you, you know, even though he's a newcomer, have you realized fully what the Dharma, you know? And the monk says, yes, I have. And the teacher says, then, well, then wash your bowls. Which means, to me, metaphorically, okay, take responsibility. Take care of the world. Take care of, you know, how you relate to everything. So it's practice beyond Buddha. [00:30:10] Speaker D: It's. [00:30:11] Speaker G: You've realized kensho or whatever. And then, okay, now take it on. So that's a kind of metaphoric way of reading us. [00:30:21] Speaker E: Thank you. [00:30:22] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:30:27] Speaker F: Oh, Asian, too Asian. Jake, we're a Little rude by Jonathan. [00:30:33] Speaker A: So I've been eclipsed. Douglas, I really appreciated your reading of this koan because it's different from my reading, and other people have illuminated that. You know, everybody seems to have a little bit different of a. Of a reading. And I. And I like that because it's, you know, it's so such a spare story that we can bring something of, you know, ourselves or what's going on inside us to the story. But this is not, you know, the only koan I've read that ends with the line, and the monk was greatly enlightened or, you know, greatly awakened. I mean, I read when I first was practicing and reading koans, I, like, every koan ends with that. And I would just be there, like, what am I not getting? Like. Like from a. From a pebble hitting bamboo, you know, from a ball. [00:31:29] Speaker F: Like, and it. But what it. [00:31:30] Speaker A: What it did for me, was it. It all. Hearing all. All those stories end with and the monk was greatly enlightened. It helped me kind of unpack what I was bringing to the idea of awakening or enlightenment and how I kind of thought that it was like a one and done. You know, you're gonna get Some kind of state, and that's just gonna, you know, cover everything and it will solve all my problems. No one will ever irritate me again. [00:32:02] Speaker F: But. [00:32:04] Speaker A: But, you know, I, I think it helped me recognize that awakening is something that, you know, okay, so you're awake now, and now go, you know, maybe you go wash your bowl and suddenly you're not awake anymore, and then you have to wake up again and all the different ways there are of being awake. And, and, you know, it made me realize over sitting, you know, over. Over the experience of sitting for many years that, you know, you go through thousands of different aspects of your mind in the course of a day. And, and at times we are awake, and at times we are, you know, eclipsed. And, and that's, you know, we. We continue to, you know, try to clean our bowl and clean our. Just come back to what the basics are. So I don't see the. I don't see the clean your bowl as being as much of a metaphor. I mean, it can be a. It can be a metaphor. It can be a practice instruction. It can be, you know, taking care of. Taking care of your Buddha nature. What am I trying to say? [00:33:14] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:33:15] Speaker A: I, I just. That awakening is. [00:33:21] Speaker F: It's. [00:33:21] Speaker A: It's worth thinking about what we think it is, you know, and, and maybe noticing that. That it is something. Because it is something that is experienced by humans, but it's not a, you know, one and done. And you changed your life and gone off to heaven. [00:33:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I've had a similar reaction. And I'm sorry, I don't read Chinese or Japanese because there are other translations which don't always say, and he became greatly enlightened, which will be at the end of. Some of others will say, well, the monk had an insight, or the monk opened, or the monk became intimate, or there was some realization. All of those other alternatives are something different from the lightning bolt from the heavens. It shattered your sense of identity forever. And now you will never be frustrated with people again. You can speak French and play the piano, whatever. And so I think that's, you know, we will work with what we have as far as translations go. But I do think that, you know, it just makes you wonder if, if the translations could be a little better than just throw in, oh, and he was greatly enlightened. Is that what it's. What did that mean? Especially if the idea is that there's a real. Could be a sudden realization and then continuing deepening and polishing and so on. Well, if there's been a lightning bolt from the heavens. Why. Why do you need to do anything anymore? It's. You're done. [00:34:56] Speaker A: Anyway, I read an article once, just apropos of that, that early translators into English did use the word enlightenment, and with all the cultural baggage that we bring to that, and that later translators felt that that was not the correct word. And so we've been, you know, clamoring. We made up in our own minds as to what it is, but it wasn't exactly what was intended even originally in the. In the translation. [00:35:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Enlightenment has such an intellectual, conceptual understanding. Oh, yeah. Now, I understand that this is what Nagarjuna is talking about with dependent codependent origination or something. And that's not close to an experience of right here, right now, with everything, which I think that they're all talking about. So. And our other David W. Had his hand up. [00:35:57] Speaker E: Well, I just wanted to say thank you for the talk, Douglas. And this made me think of another. [00:36:02] Speaker B: Talk you gave a while ago about. [00:36:06] Speaker E: Manjushri and the woman in samadhi and how there are a lot of parallels between these stories. And I was just wondering if you see those parallels as well, and if you would mind commenting on a few of those if you see them. [00:36:22] Speaker B: Oh, man. I tried to put that dharma talk behind me. [00:36:27] Speaker E: Well, that's. [00:36:28] Speaker B: That's fair enough. If we're supposed to let go. I was sort of going, okay, so you can make sense of this one. Yeah. I mean, and part of that understanding of that koan is that just to remind people what that koan is, it's a story of how the Buddha had summoned all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas in the cosmos, beyond the cosmos to all come for a meeting. So they were going to talk about Dharma, and they had all left in. And the bodhisattva Manjushri. Manjushri, the Bodhisattva Mahasattva, the embodiment of wisdom, comes to the meeting place. He couldn't come before because he wasn't the Buddha. It was just the Buddhas who were invited to come. So he comes, and it's empty except for the Buddha and this one woman who's sitting there in deep samadhi. And Mahjushri is very upset. Well, why is she here and I couldn't come here? I mean, she's a woman. She can't even become a Buddha in this lifetime, and so on. And the Buddhist tells him, well, why don't you ask her yourself and wake her up and Ask her a question. And so Madra Sri circles her three times and snaps his fingers, and nothing happens. Then he tries again and nothing happens. And the Buddha says, I'll tell you what, there's a really low level, entry level bodhisattva in this realm. His name is Vomyo. See what Vomyoki. And so this low level, entry level bodhisattva, he's not a great profound thinker, doesn't have tremendous understanding. He's got some understanding, but nothing. He walks up, circles her, snaps his fingers and she wakes up and leaves. And there is that sort of understanding that I think because Momyo is not this fully developed, he's not a great being. He's not a mahasattva. He hasn't had the thunderbolt from the skies. He hasn't completely purified his mind. And I think that's an interesting thing, that the suggestion that awakening does not require perf. Personal perfection is an important thing to understand that we practice with our imperfections and can awaken to the world, which includes our imperfections. Which doesn't mean that we don't need to work on them to express this woe. But I think that's a parallel between this koan and Naama. [00:39:07] Speaker F: I think we've come for just maybe David Lang. [00:39:10] Speaker B: Damon, where is David? There he is. [00:39:14] Speaker D: Okay. Maya, can you hear me? [00:39:16] Speaker B: Yes. [00:39:17] Speaker D: Okay, three things in quick session here. One I want to thank you for. It was almost like a throwaway line as you were responding to a question, and that is that you should taking care of what's in front of you right now. I think that's the whole point for me is, you know, where am I? Am I here now? What am I doing now? And how am I caring for people now? What's in front of me now instead of always being, you know, thinking about what the future or what's going to happen or something else, it's really about, what am I doing now. The second thing is, you know, the bolt of enlightenment years ago when I was climbing a mountain in Japan, all of a sudden the trees and the sky and everything just disappeared. I disappeared and we were all one. And it was just such an incredible moment. And it's like I've been trying to claw back to that moment ever since, not very successfully. Sometimes it feels like I have. But I guess that's just a comment, really, not a question, I guess is how can I achieve that again? You know, that's what I'm looking for. And I don't know if other people Are having the same thing that they're trying to achieve a certain state of being, and is that really being present? If I'm looking for a certain state of being I'm trying to achieve, am I really in the present? Which what you were saying is, you know, take care of what's in front of you now. So I have a question on that. It's kind of a question. But the third thing is that I want to say real quickly is when we talk about the word enlightenment, perhaps instead of enlightenment, we think of the word connection. Are we connected? Are we seeing ourselves, that we are all part of this larger world and not just, you know, a little, you know, me and my thoughts. But are we more connected? Is our connection broader than just our own thoughts? So thank you very much for your talk, Douglas, but your comment on this, trying to achieve that state again. You know what I said, wanting to achieve a certain state, whether it be again or for the first time. Your thoughts on that, please. [00:41:42] Speaker B: Well, I think you expressed the tension there pretty capably. I mean, if our practice and the awakening is an awakening to what's here right now and our being here right now, then think. Trying to recover something that happened in the past in some way you felt in the past isn't about. That's not about what's happening right now. You could certainly recognize that your desire to repeat that experience is part of what's here right now. In order to do that, you would have stepped back. You would no longer be immersed in that desire and that thinking. You'd step back and you'd see that that desired thinking is part of what's here right now. But that desire to repeat the experience is an impediment, gets in your way. [00:42:40] Speaker F: Thank you, Douglas, for helping us explore this great question that Buddhists have been exploring. Every street Buddha wok underneath the valley tree. What is awakening? What is enlightenment? How do I live? I think Douglas will signal them when he's ready and maybe we'll move the okay. [00:43:08] Speaker B: Beings are nevertheless, we vow to freely. Delusions are inexhaustible. The event to intervene with us.