Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. We have to run this poll. Our speaker today is Michuso, a student from his practice period. Carol Paul, she can't say yet, she needs a clear intention, serene mood. This is her first formal Saturday talk during her practice period. And I'm sure we're all eager and interested to hear what Carol has to say. Thank you. Well, good morning everyone. Good morning. Before I begin to talk, I wanted to just point out these incredible peonies. I've been watching them unfold, and they're getting close to the height of their life. So pretty. I also want to dedicate this to my late husband who died a year and a half ago,

[01:02]

and today is his birthday. So it's me remembering and honoring him for all that he's done for me. So I think most of you know that a shuso is given a koan, and that koan is what they work with and untangle and turn it inside out for the six weeks. And Hozon gave me my koan. And I've never really worked with koans before. I've made up koans, but not formal koans. So I did a little research about what is a koan? What kind of mind do we want to work with? So as I read the koan, keep this in mind, that it's really a metaphor. These things are probably pretty impossible. So you don't want to take it literally, but rather it's an experience. And it's really just getting comfortable with the unknown.

[02:05]

And there's no right answer, so you don't want to try to solve it. You're bringing it into your heart, and that's the key right there, the heart and the body. So it's not a mind process. And you're just asking your heart deeply, what is this? And keep turning it over. So it's your don't know mind. And in Zazen, we experience that as well. So questions like, you might bring questions like, well, what is this? What is the one true thing here? Who am I here? So basically, I'm, and I invite you to keeping company with the koan. And so the idea is to transform, transform my heart, this heart, and hopefully manifest that in the world. So I'm going to read the koan now. And this is from, there's many translations,

[03:09]

but this was translated by Zenkei Shibuyama on the Mumenkan. So the koan is, Kyogen's man up a tree. So Master Kyogen said, it is like a man up a tree who hangs from a branch by his mouth. You might think of it as his teeth. By his mouth, his hands cannot grasp a bow. His feet cannot touch the tree. Another man comes under the tree and asks him the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West. If he does not answer, he does not meet the questioner's needs. If he answers, he will lose his life. And at such a time, how should he answer? So now the next part of the koan is a commentary, Mumen's commentary, and this is what he has to say.

[04:10]

Even though your eloquence flows like a river, it is all to no avail. Even if you can expound the great Tripitaka, which is like the early Buddhist teachings and the precepts and the moral code that the monks followed, and part of it is the metaphysics of it. I don't know about that. If you cannot expound the great Tripitaka, it is also of no use. If you can readily answer it, you will revive the dead and kill the living. If, however, you are unable to answer, wait for Maitreya to come and ask him. And Maitreya is going to come back in about 5 billion years. So then there's a poem that follows, and this is Mumen's poem. Kyogen is just gibbering how vicious his poison is.

[05:12]

Stopping up the monks' mouths, he makes their devil's eyes glare. So today, as I say, I've got 5 more weeks to work with it. I'm going to really work on the koan. We're not going to so much get into the commentary and the poem. We can do that at my next talk. So I want to talk about Kyogen. Who is this? He's the character in the koan. So Kyogen was a disciple of Ison, and they belonged to the Igyu school, which was one of the five traditional houses of Zen. They lived in the mid-ninth century. So we don't know the dates of Kyogen's birth, but there was a record that he died around 898. So this was a very high point in China's civilization.

[06:17]

It was considered known as the Golden Era. It was kind of towards the end of that. It was also that was the same case for Zen. It was a high point for Zen. So Kyogen was a big man in many ways. He was 7 feet tall, big stature, and he was also very bright, very smart, and he learned all the sutras. He was a person that could give 10 answers to a single question, and I think he probably really enjoyed being able to do that, knowing so much. Now his Ison, his teacher, he recognized that he was very bright, and he also recognized that there was some potential in him, but he wasn't sure about his practice. The strong part for Kyogen was his intellect and knowledge, knowing.

[07:18]

So he wanted to test him and see if he could go deeper with the question that he asked him. And so he asked him, what is your essential face before your father and mother were born? So Kyogen was just completely baffled, and no answer came to him. He went back to his room, he went through all his notes, he went through all the sutras, and could find nothing there that would give him this answer. So he returned to Ison and just begged him to tell him the answer. But of course there isn't. And so Ison said, no, that wouldn't do you any good. You need to find out for yourself. So he was really in despair. Never had this happened before. He just relied on his intellect to get him through life. And so he decided he needed to leave his teacher,

[08:22]

very sadly, in the temple. He burned all his sutras and notes. He could see those were not going to help him any. And he decided to become what they call a rice gruel monk. So in other words, living a very simple life. He was taking care of the grave of the national teacher named Chu. So he was feeling pretty dejected, I would imagine, and disappointed in himself. You can imagine how that feels. But somehow he found this new task, this simplicity in his life, the quiet, breaking the leaves, very satisfying to him. He just felt content, just right for him then. And then one day, and during this time he was just taking this koan in him, not trying to figure it out from the head,

[09:23]

but just taking it in his heart. So one day while he was sweeping the ground, a stone struck a bamboo. And something in that sound, and here now he's been living this quiet life and all his senses must have been open. And that mind must have been so uncluttered. And that clear sound, that clear hearing, just popped for him. And he woke up, so to speak. And what we would call, he became enlightened, just pure sound, no thinking. And he was just out of his mind with joy. He went back and offered incense to his teacher. And at any rate, he ended up then returning to the temple. So this koan is very much his life. He was in a tree. And he was holding on to dear life.

[10:24]

So I want to just reread just the koan again, so then I'll talk about that. So Master Kyogen said, it is like a man up a tree who hangs from a branch by his mouth. His hands cannot grasp a bough. His feet cannot touch the tree. Another man comes under the tree and asks him the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West. If he does not answer, he does not meet the questioner's need. If he answers, he will lose his life. At such a time, how should he answer? I'm adding this, what would you do? So this phrase, we hear this phrase, right? Oh, I am up a tree. In fact, I was told so this morning. I am up a tree with this koan. And this, you know, refers to someone who's really in a dilemma. You know, it could be a really serious crisis

[11:27]

or just a dilemma between two options. And my question for this man, how did he get there? You know what? You know, he got up there. So he must have had some trust and faith that he could manage this situation. But once up there, he had no ground, no ground to stand on. You know, and sometimes we feel that, we feel that in Zen, we say that we're nowhere standing because we don't have a lot to hold on to. Things are changing so rapidly. And he didn't have his hands. Hands, you know, just think of our hands, how much they do for us. And they're the doingness for so many of us in our work and our play and living. And so, of course, in his mouth, he can't speak. If he speaks, he's going to die,

[12:29]

just drop to the ground. So his tree, that's his life, and he is holding on for dear life. And at the same time, you know, he wants to have help. We'll assume that he is a bodhisattva, a man coming along and asking him that question. So he wants to help, but he's really caught. So what's in his way of letting go and answering the question? Well, I could just imagine so many things arising for him. First of all, he's going to die, his fear of death. And he would have to give up everything he knows, all his beliefs and his knowledge and his self-centeredness. He would disappear. And if he continues to hang on, that's a lot of suffering.

[13:31]

I mean, just remember, this is a metaphor, but just imagine a situation in your own life where you're hanging on to something, you just can't quite move. And it's a lot of suffering that we create for ourselves. So what's he got to give up to let go? Well, I think we know it's this self-importance, our being, we call it our ego. And then what's going to be left of him if he lets go of that? So I want to just give you an example in my own life. So kind of the things that I had to go through. And that was my path to priesthood. It was a dilemma for me. So I'd been practicing about nine years.

[14:35]

And I just got that inmost request. Suzuki Roshi talks about that. It's just this deep desire. We talk about that as that deep desire that probably brings us to practice. There's just something in it. For me, it comes down here. And not the head, for sure, not the head. And it was just a big stirring. But of course, immediately, all my fears came up. And delusions and all the ideas I thought of a priest. I didn't think you could watch movies anymore. You know, it's just so deluded, a deluded mind, like I'd have to always be on the cushion or something. You know, I just didn't trust myself about this. And of course, I felt unworthy. And I did not want to give up my comfortable life, what I considered my comfortable life. That was another, this deluded thoughts I had about it. I made up stories.

[15:37]

They were all my stories about it. And just clinging to my ideas. And as I say, this happened, you know, only about nine years when I was into practice. So it went on for eight years. I was holding on. And I had to, you know, it wasn't so heavy at first. But then as the years went on, the voice got stronger. And so the suffering got greater. And it wasn't working so easily for me to stuff down those feelings. You can get by for a while. I could get by for a while. I could, you know, create distractions, that sort of thing. Just keep holding on to some of my old beliefs. But it was just becoming so painful. And, you know, it's like feeling that stuck.

[16:38]

You know, you can't go forward. And I couldn't go backwards. Just stuck. You know, it's just like hanging in that tree. Holding on. So I started looking at that. What am I holding on to? What is this that's so self-important that I cannot let go of? So I saw, well, I have some choices here. I can live with this ever-growing suffering. Maybe it really would go away one day. But I wasn't looking too good about that. Or I could just let go. Just see what if I just did let go of this self-centeredness and all these ideas I have and just kind of surrender into something I don't know. I don't know the unknown, what it would look like. And it was during a rohatsu.

[17:44]

I don't remember if I was... I might have been sitting. You know, in rohatsu you do a lot of sitting. So the mind is getting uncluttered. They're just... Everything's getting emptied out so there's some clear space. And it was somewhere in there that I opened up. I had a little light without thought and I said yes. And immediately, of course, my ego came back and said, no, I can't do it. But that was okay because I stuck to the yes and recognized, okay, it's still going to be... I'm going to still have all these considerations. But respond to that inmost request, as I did. So getting back to the man in the tree, he really faces death when you think about it either way. If he continues to cling to that branch,

[18:49]

you know, all of his ideas and why he can't let go, well, a part of him is already dead. Because he can't... He can't fulfill his desire to help others, to help this man who's really so, you know, earnestly asking this question. So he's cutting off a piece of his own self, which is a dead piece, really, a dead part of his life. And, of course, if he gives up, and remember, this is a metaphor, everything that he's dependent upon, if he gives up who he thinks he is, just lets go, he surrenders, renunciates, and we talk a lot about renunciation in our Zen practice. We just have to continuously give up, give up, let go, let go. And because immediately you let go,

[19:58]

and then there you are, the self-centeredness again, let go, self-centeredness. One of my teachers, Darlene Cohen, might have said this before, I asked her about that ego. Well, do you ever really... Does it ever go away? And she said, well, before practice it's like this, me, [...] me. After practice it's me, me, you, me, me, you. So we just have to keep working at these things. So as I say, I'm going to be working over this five years. I'm just inviting you, too, to kind of look in your own life if you are feeling some stuckness where you might be up at that tree and faced with a couple choices. And what can help you? What can help you? What in your practice can you rely on to help you?

[21:01]

That's where I go is my practice to help me get unstuck. So I think that's all I want to say now, but we have... Oh, my. We have some time, a lot of time for questions or comments if you want to share something about your own life. Laurie? I was really moved by the idea that he gets up in the tree, that Dave gets him up in the tree. I never heard anything like that. Is there anything more you can say about... This is me imagining what it was like. I didn't read anything like that, but he did get up in that tree, so he had something. He had some confidence, what I think is trust and faith in himself. We would say it's really Buddha nature. So even when we're acting out of faith,

[22:04]

we can still get ourselves into a situation that we sort of... That faith maybe isn't there right at that moment. Once you're hanging, you know what I mean? It's like, it's gone. Right. I'm not quite sure how to do this right now. I don't know what to do. Well, I think probably survival comes up first, and then you've got to see, what can I rely on here? What's really important? This is just so happening all the time in our lives. It's not just... All the time, big or small. Dan? Isn't the question that he's being asked, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? Isn't that a Quran? It is. Right. Right. My understanding is he's asking, what is the essence of Zen? So that's my understanding.

[23:07]

Yes? I have a question. If he answers the question, he falls to his death, or does he fall to his ego death? Right, because remember, this is a metaphor. Nobody really could be in a tree hanging by their teeth. Mouth. You know what I mean? So we just have to... It's the death of his ego. Right. That self-centeredness. Yes. What I think we all fear. We kind of cling to who we are, our self-identity, and who we think we are, and all of our ideas. And in Kyogen's case, he was relying heavily upon his knowledge, and thought that that could carry him through his life, just having all that knowledge. But ultimately, I think our practice is really more a heart-based practice. I think that's when the answers come,

[24:17]

when we're open, our heart is open. Renunciation. Renunciation. Letting go, which is called letting go. Jake? Carol, I'd like you to talk more about the texture of your inmost desire, deciding to become a priest. What did that look like? Well, it's kind of hard to explain. I've had a couple of inmost desires, but as I say, it's probably an intuitive feeling. For me, it's down here. For some people, it might be in a different location. It's like having that moment, the door opens and it's clear, and there's no thought. All of my ideas or whatever, knowledge is gone. It might only be an instant, but there it is. And I'm learning,

[25:18]

those are the things to trust, because I think that's Buddha nature, and that's the voice to listen to. It's difficult, of course, because everything else comes up. So that's maybe as close as I can get to it. Just briefly, we see in your mind talk, you talked about needing to, I think this comes down to disability. And that was kind of an inmost desire at the time. That was an inmost request. Similar, very similar. Yeah, it was, exactly. What does Suzuki Roshi say? No matter what, rely on your inner voice. Always return to your inner voice. Something like that, which is, I would say, the inmost request. Or I like to call,

[26:23]

I guess I call it intuition. But in any case, it's not from the mind. John. Oh, John. Thank you for your talk and an interesting lead-in to this, to my thinking about this koan. It's got totally different ideas than I've ever had. But anyway, the thing with yoga, answering, and this is kind of getting literal, but having the capacity to answer and thinking, I can answer. Really, it suggests the best thing is to just die instead. And let it go. That certainty. And so, again, I kind of answered it, but I was really just free to die. Whatever it is that you just said. Don't answer it and let it go.

[27:25]

Right. But when someone's really got that attachment, it's not so easy. You know, I think we spend a lifetime once we recognize our attachments. First, we got to recognize them, right? Sometimes we're in our own blind spot. So, once we recognize them, then we got to, they can really cling. They can really cling to you. I think someone described it as these deep, you know, cart tracks, those grooves that a cart makes. It's been going over the same trail for years and years, and those grooves are pretty big. And so, we're trying to lighten those tracks up. That's how strong some habit energy can be. So, Mary Beth? This is probably not the answer, but what I come to in my mind is that often I associate my thoughts

[28:28]

with my words, you know, so there's a strong connection there, and he could use words, but he had the whole rest of his body to answer with. He could have kicked him, which I think a lot of us people do. He can come here like this, and then he can't get up there. And then he can hold on to the guy who's underneath him and get down from the tree. That's right. Good speculation. Thank you. Judy? I'm just really moved by, you know, what I hear is your emphasis on faith. And, yeah, I've often wondered that each of us sees the scene very differently, and for whatever reason, I see that scene as the person down below is right under.

[29:29]

So, what comes up for me is that in letting go, I have a fear that I'm going to crush, kill, harm, the one who has this deep, beautiful question of connectedness. And you spoke about in your Way of Seeking Mind talk about alcoholism and the family, and also dealing with alcoholism and the family and thinking about how that bridges to addictive delusion, harmful in the culture, in the world, what's my responsibility, our responsibility. How do you practice that sort of faithful letting go, aware of this reality? That's a really big question,

[30:37]

because, of course, every situation is different. But one of the things I'm working with in this practice period is speech. So how, what to say, what is kind speech when you don't know what to say, and someone's hurting, you're hurting. Yeah, how do you not turn away is the basic thing. And yet, not fall in, but not turn away. It's challenging. Ross? Thank you very much for that lovely unpacking of that talk. I'm really impressed by your studious work.

[31:43]

You have clarity in very accessible terms. And I also really enjoyed Darlene's teaching of me, [...] you. Who is you? You. It's you. It's you, [...] you. It's me stepping aside and letting go of me. Peter? Thank you very much for your comments about how to encounter and go on. I'm sort of getting back to that the second part of this, don't go on. This question, you know, by the way, I've always found that challenging.

[32:47]

Kind of, in the same spirit as you were explaining, what do you need to let go of in order to meet this question? I don't know. It's that thinking mind. It's the kind of question, like all these koans, I think you... Just sitting with it and turning it around and looking at it because I can't answer it. I... That's not one I've studied. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[33:48]

Yeah. Thank you. Linda? Yeah, I really also enjoyed the way you simply and clearly opened that up so it's opened up some things in me. So, I was thinking that I came to start a practice a long time ago on some kind of inmost request, you could say. And, actually I I climbed up a tree and it was so cool because, you know, I mean, that's what practice did. Oh, I got out of that garbage pit that I was in or whatever. And I climbed up a tree. It was really beautiful up there. Really. Yeah. What I found out was it was very dangerous up there and then I ended up holding on with my teeth. And...

[34:52]

Yeah, it's a woman. The teacher there, she's like, if you can reflect on why Buddha and Dharma came, you will be free. Thank you. I'm going to ponder that for the next talk. But it's really nice to have... see you around more in the practice period. So... Maybe you're not clinging as much as you think. Hosan. So, I'm taken with the graphic elements that have been shared by you and by other people. What comes to me is picturing the person below,

[36:13]

the person on the tree, opening his mouth and saying, look out down there! Here I come! That's as good an answer as any. Sojin, did you want to say something? Well, I have several thoughts on this. On the one side, the man below and the man in the tree are the same person. What? The man below and the man in the tree are the same person. This is Kyogen's story. It's the story of... which you related, the story of his despair and letting go of everything, actually, until finally he can move. That's a very famous story. So he gets to that door and opens his mind. So he's using this experience,

[37:18]

this story. He's asking you, what would you do? Right. That's the goal. Go on, what would you do? It's not about him, it's about you. Right. It's about you. What would you do? Because we're all in that situation. It's the situation that everybody's in. How do you let go? And what will happen to you? It doesn't matter if you hit somebody in the bottom. That's my question. Well, I hadn't thought about it, that I hadn't thought about them being the same person. So, I'm gonna... You didn't have to. Rondi. Carol, thank you for your talk. I wondered, how do you think this koan

[38:21]

is like the one about jumping off that, what is it, the thousand foot wall? Yeah. Well, I thought about that when I was reading about this koan. Because it seems similar to me. Either way, you're just... Faith, is it? You just jump off. Let go and... And that's... That's one of the choices the man in the tree has. And it's... It's not logical, it's just sensory, but you take it in. It's information for you. A new route. Hmm. Yeah. Thank you. Oh.

[39:21]

Okay. Oh. Koan. Another possibility is a piece seven foot tall. Well, Kyogen's not... Yeah, well... Like you. I know, I couldn't just... Yeah, that's right. Okay. Okay. Are we... Any more questions? Oh, go ahead. Help us understand, like,

[40:37]

the seamlessness of just... You're just a priest, you're watching a movie, or is there some different quality to the way you take in entertainment now versus before? Is there a difference in you before and after? No, I don't think so. I still love movies. I don't watch as many, but I still really love them. But no different quality. Linda? Was anybody else? Yeah, I just thought of a commentary by Shakespeare on this koan, perhaps. In King Lear, in the bleak later part of the play, I forget who it is who has become blind, and he's just in despair out of this Keith on a field... It's Lear. No, it's somebody else. And he wants to kill himself,

[41:38]

and his son is trying to help him, and he thinks that there's a huge cliff that he's at the edge of, and he says, I'm just going to go, and then he goes, but it's actually, his son knows, it's only like two feet, and he ends up still alive. It's kind of what we are. Well, that kind of makes me think, when we let go of our ego, we are still alive, and then we're faced with the next thing, where the ego comes up. He was in trouble, too. Yeah, that's it, yeah. Dean? I thought it was quite entertaining, you know, you started off the talk, and I appreciated you talking about Cohen, and what it is, and you said it's not something, something that we just hold in us, not something that has an answer. And we spent at least half an hour

[42:38]

coming up with the answer for it, which made me think about, you know, how delusions are inexhaustible. So it was kind of interesting and enjoyable to sort of head off and just circle right back to where we are, to just being people, and whatever we think, but what we do is what we do. And I appreciated you talking about Cohen, and what you're supposed to do with it, or not. Sure. Well, I think we still try to figure it out, because that's the job of the mind. I think, but... I said more as I was getting ready. Oh, Tom? Yeah, my free association to your talk was being hit by a car when I was riding my bike, and sailing, like, up in the air, and I've never been more awake in my life.

[43:39]

Because I didn't know, I thought maybe that was it. And I landed, and that wasn't it. It was, I'd say I became enlightened, but I was awake during that for maybe a second or two before I landed. Yeah, yeah, all your senses were there. And this man appeared out of nowhere, out in the rain, and led me into this restaurant. And then he disappeared. It's like he was never there. It was an incredible experience. Really, it is. Thanks for sharing it. Jake? With your love of movies, Carol, have you seen three solo movies? I have not. But I heard it's really, really good. No, I heard it's good. Free Solo. You were saying what movie? Free Solo. Free Solo. It's a documentary about a guy who climbs a mountain. Oh, yes, I saw it. Without ropes. He's asked, how can you do this only with one thumbnail?

[44:39]

And he says, because you're going to die in the process. I know. My fault I died. He let go. God. I like the koan. That's a koan. So I think... More time for tea. Thank you.

[45:03]

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