As human beings, we tend to suffer from two kinds of anxiety. One is the day-to-day dilemma of our life, or the problems that come up moment to moment in the relative realm, which are dilemmas or which causes difficulty. And this kind of anxiety is caused by circumstances. And the other kind of anxiety is a little bit deeper, much deeper. And this is basic, kind of basic anxiety which underlies our life. and comes about through not knowing what life is about.

[01:12]

We may feel that we know what life is about, but when you face extinction, then the problem comes up to you very closely. And then you say, well, do I really know what life is about? So this kind of underlying anxiety, the anxiety of the problem of birth and death, is very basic. And even though we may be having a wonderful life in the relative realm, underneath there's some basic anxiety. So, it's important to clear this up.

[02:27]

find some to know ourself through and through and come to terms with this deep koan of our life so birth and death is basic basic koan of our life and then the events of our life are little koans but they're based on this big koan. So, all together, we call this Genjo Koan, a koan that arises in our life moment to moment, given the absolute and relative circumstances of our life.

[03:31]

Because all of these, both relative and absolute, are not two different things. Our relative existence is the realm of birth and death and cannot be separated from the basic problem So I'm going to read you a koan. This is case number five from Mumon Khan. I'm sure that most of you are familiar with this koan.

[04:37]

It's called Kyogen's Man Up a Tree. Kyogen was a disciple first of Hyakujo, and then when Hyakujo died, he became a disciple of Isan. Isan was one of the founders of the five schools of Zen. Isan and Kyosan. Kyosan was his disciple, main disciple. So it's called the Ikkyu school. And Kyogen was one of Isan's main disciples. There are many good stories about Isan and Kyosan and Kyogen. but this is Kyogen and Kyogen was quite a scholarly monk very erudite and very brilliant and also a kind of genius spiritually but he was a little

[06:01]

depended too much on his learning and it was a problem for him because he couldn't get to the fundamental because of his intellectual blocks. So here's the way the case goes. Kyogen Osho said, It is like a man up in a tree hanging from a branch with his mouth. His hands grasp no bow. His feet rest on no limb. Someone appears under the tree and asks him, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West? If he doesn't answer, he fails to respond to the question. And if he does answer, he will lose his life. What would you do in such a situation? The whole conversation is not really stated in the Koan.

[07:10]

Actually, a monk comes and asks Kyogen. He says something like, without falling into a relative way or an absolute way of explaining, please tell me, but what's the essence of Zen? And Kyogen says to him, it's like a man up in a tree, okay, hanging from a branch with his mouth. His hands grasp no bow, his feet rest on no limb. Someone appears under the tree and asks him, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West? If he does not answer, he fails to respond to the question. And if he does answer, he will lose his life. What would you do in such a situation? And Mumon has a comment. He says, even if your eloquence flows like a river, it is of no avail. Though you can expound the whole of Buddhist literature, it's of no use.

[08:16]

If you solve this problem, you will give life to the way that has been dead until this moment and destroy the way that has been alive up to now. Otherwise, you must wait for Maitreya Buddha and ask him. And then, Mu Man has a verse which says, and he says, Kyogen is truly thoughtless. His vice and poison are endless. He stops up the mouths of the monks and devil's eyes sprout from their bodies. So Kyogen was Ison's disciple. And as I said, he was very erudite, but Ison recognized his talent and his ability. And one day, his teacher Ison came to Kyogen and he said, without any pat answers, without telling me something that you learned, give me a word about your original face.

[09:33]

And Kyogen couldn't say anything. And later, when they parted, he went back and looked through all of his texts to see if he could find an answer. But nothing worked. He couldn't come up with anything. Hisan was asking him something very direct and intimate. And Kyogen, to that point, didn't know himself intimately. He only had some idea. And he really went around in his mind about it a lot, and for a long time. And actually, he became very discouraged.

[10:40]

And he became so discouraged that he said to himself, I just can't stick around here. This is beyond me. It's really more than I can deal with. I just cannot. I don't think that I have it in me to do this. sometimes we become discouraged like that. So Kyogen left and he went to a little temple that was a memorial to the national teacher, Echu. And he just spent his time cleaning up around the temple, just doing menial work. He kind of felt that he didn't have it in him to study anymore or to practice austerities or anything.

[11:48]

He just spent his time cleaning the temple. He figured, this is really all I'm good for. Kind of abdicated his position. And so one day when he was sweeping the temple, a little stone hit a piece of bamboo, went quack, and completely opened his mind. Just that little incident, quack, his mind completely opened up. And he was jumping for joy. But maybe he was crying wonderful tears. I don't know what the difference is. Sometimes, if you have a big experience, you may jump for joy. But mostly, you cry wonderful tears of joy and sorrow.

[12:55]

he went back to his hut and lit incense and bowed in the direction of his teacher and then later he went back to Isan and Isan recognized his understanding, his opening and Kyogen said, the thing I appreciate most is that You didn't reveal it to me. You didn't tell me anything. You didn't explain it to me. This is really an important point. Each one of us has to find our way by ourself, even though we do it together. Even though We all practice together, and we hear about the Dharma, we read about the Dharma, and we make a big effort.

[14:13]

Our effort is really our own, and our understanding has to be our own. There's no way that Issan could give anything to Kyozan. One thing I neglected to tell you was that Kyogen asked Isan, he said, please tell me, just give me a word about the essence. I forgot to tell you that. And Isan wouldn't tell him. He said, even if I told you, it wouldn't be yours. what I tell you is mine. So, there's another story, another famous story very much like this, actually.

[15:28]

where a man is running, he's being chased by a tiger. You probably know this story too. And the tiger chases him to the end of the cliff. And so he climbs down the cliff and he's hanging by a branch. That's all there is left. And there's, down below, there's a lion with his mouth open. And then, So the tiger's looking down, and the lion's looking up, and then two little mice come, a black mouse and a white mouse, and they start gnawing on the roots of the branch. And he's just stuck there, you know, hanging by this branch. And he looks over, and over on the side is a little strawberry plant, a wild strawberry plant, this beautiful red strawberry. So he reaches over and goes, how wonderful.

[16:33]

So if this question, Bodhidharma, why did Bodhidharma come to China? It means, what is the essence of Zen? That was a very popular question in the Tang Dynasty. And it was always used as a big koan. So, here this man is hanging by his teeth. And if he opens his mouth, he falls. And if he doesn't open his mouth, he fails. What's he going to do? This is the problem that we have. This is the colon of our life. If we open our mouth, we fall. And if we don't say something, we fail.

[17:47]

How are you going to say it? Because you don't have anything to say it with. When everything is taken away, how will you say it? Say it means, you know, if you... how will you be it? You have to say something, not an idea, but with your whole being. How do you express the truth of your whole being at this point? If this man at the tree, who is Kyogen, of course, but who is you and me, if we're asked this question, what would we do?

[19:15]

But we're asked this question all the time. We're asked this question right now. means how do we express ourself? And who is our self? Which self will we express? Will we express the self that has many roles? or which role, you know, is me. It's said that a Zen student should be the same all the way around, like kind of like a

[20:28]

a cylinder and that cylinder has the same face all the way around. Whichever side you see, it's the same face. And of course that same face can take many roles, can transform and change and do many things and become many faces, but those many faces are the many faces of one face. If you look in the mirror, you can change your expression and become many characters, but those many characters are the many characters of one character. Who is the one character? Which is the main one? If the man up the tree doesn't know who he is, then he'll panic.

[21:48]

But if the man up the tree knows who he is, all he has to do is do what he's doing. Whatever he's doing expresses the question. Whatever he's doing is the answer to the question. If you have to think of an answer to this question, you don't know yourself. So falling and failing, falling is okay and failing is okay too.

[22:56]

Even if you open your mouth and fall, it's okay as long as you know who you are. And keeping your mouth shut and failing is also okay as long as you know who you are. It's important to know how to fall. And it's important to know how to fail. Because in our life we're always falling and we're always failing. One of the big problems we have is that when we fail, Failure seems wrong. And falling seems wrong. If you're a person of right and wrong, then falling and failing will cause you a lot of suffering.

[24:04]

Of course, we don't like to fall, and we don't like to fail. But it's important to know how to be a big failure. And it's really important to know how to fall. If we don't know how to fall, then we get humpty-dumpty, didn't know how to fall. Although eggs roll well, but they're very fragile. But in the other story, this strawberry is really wonderful, you know? This strawberry is like our life at this moment. This ripe strawberry is life, our life, at this very moment.

[25:08]

How wonderful. Whether falling, or failing, or hanging, I don't want to explain it. What do you think? Give me some feedback. Yes? The strawberry taste as if the tiger wasn't there. If what wasn't there? As if there was no tiger underneath. Oh, the tiger is underneath, yes. It's by looking down at the paper that the strawberry looks so special. There was no paper, but the strawberry did. Well, that's a good question, now. That's another corn. I would like the harmony of everyone eating. Everyone eating? I said quiet.

[26:16]

That's right. The mice are eating and the lion and the tiger will have to divvy up the rest, right? And for the person who is eating the strawberry, when the bowel breaks, the cradle will fall, and perhaps the man will say, this is my offering. That's a good point. What are we offering to life? Or what are we offering to life and death? As we always say, each moment is a moment of birth and death.

[27:35]

And the precept says, don't be stingy. Don't withhold. How do we go into the next moment? Of course, the next moment is not something we go into. It just appears. How do we appear on the next moment with everything? How do we allow ourself to appear? How do we give ourself to this next moment? The next moment, which is really this moment. Next moment and last moment are just ideas. Just this moment. we tend to, you know, get ahead of ourself or behind ourself easily but even though we're ahead of ourself or behind ourself it's still just this moment so we're always confronted with this koan of birth and death in this moment if we really know how to

[28:56]

give ourself to this moment and leave this moment, how to appear in this moment and how to leave this moment, then we're dealing with this problem, this koan of birth and death. So there's the small, or the birth and death which is happening moment by moment, continuously. And then there's the other birth and death, which I was born in such a year and I'm a baby and a youth and a middle-aged and old and die. There's that birth and death. So both of these are going on at the same time. And the way we learn about one is from the other. It's really too bad if we have this open book in front of us that we can't read.

[30:10]

Our life is telling us something about our birth and death, about our continuous life. It's interesting that last night I was reading a riddle book with Daniel. And one of the riddles was, why doesn't the world end? Why doesn't the world have an ending? And the answer was, because it's round. But that's a kind of indication of something. How does our life end? How does it begin? Is it straight or is it round?

[31:18]

Actually, is anything straight? The only straight thing is something round. So, what is the truth of our life at this very moment? That's this koan. What is the reality of our life at this very moment? How will you say something about it? What can you say? If I think about it, if I say what I think, I'll fall.

[32:27]

I'll lose my eyebrows. And if I don't, if I retreat, I'll fail. So how do we keep from failing moment by moment? You have a few minutes. Do you have any other? Yes? How did the man find himself hanging from the branch? How did he get there? What happened before that? That's also... Now, it's like someone shot a man with an arrow and people ran over

[33:46]

to do something, now would he say, just a minute, how did this happen? Who did this? Why did this happen? I think he would say, please get it out. This is a very famous Buddhist story. Please get the arrow out. Stop asking so many questions. We can ask the question, how did this happen? How did I get here? How come we're all sitting here? Isn't that a funny question? It is, you know. Why are we all sitting here? But here we are. What will we do? Well, usually when I hear that story, I think we're all in that situation.

[34:55]

Well, that's what I said. It's okay for him to let go, right? It's okay to fail. It's okay to fall. But the lion and tiger, to me, rejects the potential of death in the future and takes the pleasure of stroke right now. But I don't know how the mice do that. Well, time. Q They have slow, annoying branches. A Could be. It could be slow, it could be fast.

[36:35]

Yes? Q The tiger, the mother, defines the branches. A Right. To each his own. Well, how did he get up there? How did he actually get into position without using his hands and his feet? And, by the way, that's the way my mind works. And what occurs to me is that sometimes somebody comes up with a ladder. Can you please climb up this ladder and aim on that branch on your feet? Okay. It goes up there and they take away the ladder. There's something there that I haven't worked out. Right.

[37:39]

Well, we get ourselves up there on our own ladder. Getting up there on the ladder is losing our innocence. And then we take it away. And then we take it away. But the latter is a kind of illusion. I don't want to get too much into that, but... It's before learning. Before you know anything, your feet are on the ground. And then after we lose our innocence, the ground falls away, or there's a gap between, you know, or the tree grows, or something like that. And we're dangling.

[38:43]

Yeah. That's right. And as long as there's no separation between the tree and the... Because these are two stories, I don't want to mix them up. Between all these elements. Right? And there's no place to go. Falling is fine. Standing is okay. Hanging is alright. Every day is a good day. I don't know if it's like a piece of picture Well, a lot of people like to live dangerously.

[40:02]

That's right, because it makes that moment very vital. You don't have to do that. We should be able to do that in an ordinary way. Thank you.

[40:25]

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