which is titled here, Joshu and the Great Death. And Engo introduces the subject. And in his introduction, he says, when right and wrong are intermingled, even the holy ones cannot distinguish between them. When positive and negative are interwoven, even the Buddha fails to discern one from the other. The most distinguished person of transcendent experience cannot avoid showing ability as a great master, walking the ridge of an iceberg, treading the edge of a sword. That one is like the Kiran's horn, like the lotus flower in the fire. Meeting a person of transcendent experience, one identifies that one identifies with that one, who is this? See the following.

[01:15]

And here's the main subject. Joshu asked Tosu, how is it when a person who has died the great death comes back to life again? Tosu said, you should not go by night, wait for the light of day, and then come. That's the case. What was the last one? And then what? Come. Come. And then Setso has a verse on the case, and he says, open eyed, He was all the more as if dead. What used to test the master was something taboo. Even the Buddha said he had not reached there. Who knows when to throw ashes into another's eyes?

[02:20]

As we know, right and wrong, good and bad, are all relative values. And in the realm of relative values, this person says right, and this person over here says wrong. And at one time we will say right, and another time we will say wrong. And at one time we will say good, and at another time will say bad. Good and bad, right and wrong are relative, even though there are perennial goods and perennial bads, perennial rights and perennial wrongs. Nevertheless, they're all twisted and mixed up. So in his introduction, He says, when right and wrong are intermingled, even the holy ones cannot distinguish between them. When positive and negative are interwoven, even the Buddhas fail to discern one from the other.

[03:42]

The most distinguished person of transcendent experience cannot avoid showing ability as a great master. In other words, someone who has this ability can see and knows how to deal with this octopus or this ball of string. That person walks the ridge of an iceberg, treads the edge of a sword, can walk that line and not fall into duality. That person is like a Kirin's horn, like a lotus flower in the fire. Kirin is a mythical beast and very rare. And the horn was even rarer.

[04:44]

Kind of like a unicorn. And the lotus is a legend of the lotus blooming in the fire. Even though the fire becomes as intense as the fire becomes, the lotus glows even more. It's kind of like a Zen student in Zazen. As the difficulty becomes greater, the Zen student glows even more, like a lotus in the fire. Meeting a person of transcendent experience, one identifies with that person. And who is this anyway? Well, Joshu and Tosu were old... on equal terms.

[05:52]

even though we think of... Joshua was one of the most famous Zen masters, and at this time he was reported to be 103. And history says he lived to be 120. Which is not impossible. But he was very revered for his manner and his way, which was not, he didn't resort to blows and shouting. He just had a golden tongue. And he was very matter of fact and said things in such a matter of fact way that if you weren't alert enough, you would miss it. And Tosu was a... belonged to the northern school of Zen, Shen Xu's school.

[07:09]

If you are familiar with the Platform Sutra, you know there's a split between the southern and the northern schools of Zen. And Huineng became the advocate of the Southern school and Shinshu became the advocate of the Northern school. And the disciples of the masters were finding out whose dharma was really the true dharma. And the Sandokai, Sekito Kisen in the Sandokai, which we chant, makes this point of saying there's no teacher of the North or South, but they're both equal. So there was this big controversy in those days. But Tosu and Joshu were a couple of generations removed, and they didn't have this problem.

[08:15]

And they were apparently good friends. and considered equal. But we don't hear so much about Tosu, although we hear a lot about Joshu. This is in the 9th century. So the main subject, Joshu asked Tosu. He gave him this question. How is it when a person who has died the great death comes back to life again? And Tosu said, you should not go by night, wait for the light of day and then come. This is translated in different ways. What about the person of great death? There's an old saying in Zen that in order to understand, in order to have correct understanding, one must die the great death.

[09:35]

The great death is a little different than the usual death. The usual death is when the elements of the body come apart and consciousness and elements of consciousness disintegrate and we say, oh, he's dead. The great death is when everything goes completely and one finds oneself still alive. So actually, the great death is the great life, is the great resurrection. I think most religious practices have this.

[10:39]

We grow up defending ourself and creating a self in order to relate to the world in a certain way. And along with that relation is the desire for self-preservation. With some people drives our lives. And so we build a persona, a defensive persona, and a persona in which to relate to the world. It's not all defense. People generally feel insecure.

[11:56]

And out of insecurity comes the need, neediness, need for possessions, need to take things from others. need to, out of fear, we need to create war and alienate certain people in order to establish our own way of life. So, we build this persona which we call egocentricity, self-centeredness. And it strays from the reality of our true self, our true personality. Sometimes, you know, you say, get rid of ego, but you can't get rid of ego.

[13:14]

Ego has a rightful place in our lives. But ego becomes inflated and takes over our life. And at some point, because of so much suffering caused by this, we look for a way to deal with it. So we come to practice. We find a way to practice. even though we don't know how that's going to happen. And actually, ego leads us to its own demise. It's very interesting. I've talked about this before. We come to some sort of practice or religious life in some way.

[14:18]

And it's the ego, well it's Buddha nature which leads us to practice. But it's Buddha nature directing ego. But it's also ego thinking that it's leading us to practice. Because it wants something. We wouldn't come if we didn't want something. But actually it's the ego leading itself to its own demise, unwittingly. Because in the end, what practice is, is letting go of the ego. Letting go of not getting rid of it, but just letting it go. Okay, go away. It won't go away. But at some point, through our suffering, if we have enough suffering and put ourselves in the right position, body and mind will drop.

[15:46]

Great death is what Dogen calls dropping body and mind. There was an interesting story about a Japanese, in Japan, a Japanese teacher and a professor who came to visit him to inquire about Zen. And so the teacher invited the professor to sit down and have tea. So the teacher was pouring the tea into the cup, into the professor's cup, and he kept pouring the tea, and the cup kept getting more and more full. And at some point, he could see that it was going to overflow, and he said, the cup, it's getting overfull, it won't hold anymore. And the teacher said, yes, just like this,

[16:52]

that it won't hold anything. It won't take anymore. It won't accept reality or truth because it's so full of itself. In order to study Zen, in order to study the self, Dogen says, to study the Buddha Dharma is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. When we come to practice, we're generally full of something. Full of our self. And to let go of the self is a very difficult practice, very hard.

[18:01]

We always honor everyone's abilities and accomplishments. You know, we honor all of your accomplishments. But in the practice, they don't mean much. In monastic practice, we always look at what people's abilities are, and then give them something to do which has nothing to do with that. A wonderful cook will work making beds. although you know that it would be great to put them in the kitchen. In the old days, we used to have a carpentry crew because we were just building, you know, Zen center, Tassajara.

[19:11]

And so we valued the carpentry crew and we put carpenters there. But it was not good for them. We knew we were kind of sacrificing their practice for our own benefit. Not so good, actually. This practice is to help you to let go of everything, to not hang on to anything, to not be buoyed up or supported by your accomplishments and by your knowledge and by your understanding. And it's difficult. You know, I once ordained someone who was a very accomplished person.

[20:20]

but could not shake the accomplishments and thought that I was ordaining this person in order to promote their accomplishments, which I wasn't. If someone becomes a priest, they have to first let go of everything. That's ideal. and just want to do the practice in an ordinary way, devote themselves to practice in an ordinary way. I'll wait for the airplane. You can't create a flower by sticking on the petals.

[21:41]

Flower has to grow from the root and the stem and the petals come out of that and it's all one piece and it all comes from the same root. in order to have a practice, a Buddhist practice, what we call Zen practice, you have to let go of everything and find the root. Just reduce yourself down to the root with nothing. You know, roses grow beautifully when you chop them off. Maybe Zen students like a rose bush, thorny, but beautiful. Every year you have to cut them down and you say, should I cut it that much? Did you ever prune a rose? Should I cut it that much? You always have this question in your mind, even though you know that you have to cut it much deeper than you want to.

[22:52]

And then it grows very beautifully from the root and it's all in one piece. plant grows and produces blossoms, all the blossoms are true blossoms for the plant. And that can also include all your accomplishments. Then your accomplishments have validity within the practice.

[23:53]

But one has to come to practice through the front door. Sometimes people come through the back door. The back door means you don't have to go through all the steps. And when that happens, it's always disastrous. Coming in through the front door means you have to get way down and crawl in. And only what's true will be allowed through the door. The rest all has to be left outside the door. So letting go is what practice is about. The monks used to do this. And they still do.

[25:04]

To just let go of the world. Dying a great death is actually to let go of the world. And then he says, what if a person of the great death comes back to life again? After one comes back to life, then what? Then you should not go by night, wait for light and then wait for the light of day. There are various interpretations about what this means. Everybody has a different idea about what that means, but I have my own opinion about what that means. Don't go by night. We say, Night is darkness, utter darkness, which means death or the great death, which means all things are one.

[26:12]

There's no distinctions in the great death. You see everything as one. There's no hierarchy, no movement. And to go by the light. Light means everything is illuminated as its individuality. When we turn out the lights, there's nobody here. But when we turn the lights on again, here we are, all sitting here. This is the phenomenal world. You return to the phenomenal world and you work in the phenomenal world. But you work in the phenomenal world as a dead person. You work in the realm of life as one who is already dead. And when you're already dead, then life and death are mixed.

[27:17]

Like he says, who can sort it out? The one who has died a great death can sort it out. Because in life is death and in death is life. So you should go take the light side and do your work in the world. Use your accomplishments. Use your talents and abilities. but they're no longer used just for your own purposes. They're used in the service for the benefit of the world.

[28:22]

Because you no longer have anything to do that's self-centered. You no longer have the desire to do something just for yourself. So then, In his verse, he says, open-eyed, he was all the more as if dead. In other words, a live person is actually a dead person. A dead person is actually a live person. And when one sees, one sees as if one is dead, unless our eyes are really open.

[29:31]

And our eyes are really open when we die the great death, when we drop body and mind. And so the eye of the dead person actually sees life. You know, in the Hokyo Zamai, it says, when the stone, when the... When the wooden man, when the stone woman, when the wooden man gets up to dance, the stone woman sings. The wooden man sings. The stone woman dances. When the stone woman gets up to dance, the wooden man sings. It's like the wooden man is like a puppet. And the puppet is one who is used.

[30:40]

Something's pulling the strings. And pulling the strings is like being moved by the universe. no longer having an ego. A wooden man means no longer having an ego. They talk about the Vice President What's his name? Gore. Al Gore. Al Gore is this wooden man, you know. When he's speaking, he's like so wooden. And I'm thinking, he is so wonderful when he speaks. He's so genuine. And people call that wooden. It's interesting. Anyway.

[31:44]

What use to test the master with something taboo? Taboo means, in this case, it means when you're sick, there's certain things you shouldn't eat. That's where the meaning of this comes from. this kind of thing you shouldn't eat when you're sick. And it refers to this question, you know, why does he have to, you know, what use is it to test the master with this kind of question? A dead question. It's a kind of pun, actually. It doesn't come across I think in the Chinese it's a pun, but here it doesn't come across. Even the Buddha said he had not reached there, you know.

[32:57]

This question is like, the Buddha doesn't, you know, the Buddha said he had not reached, the Buddha said, I have not even reached to the ultimate. And it's a good statement because there is no place to reach to. Where is the place to reach to? Where is the destination? There's a kind of delusion of a destination. And then he says, who knows when to throw ashes in another's eyes? throwing ashes in someone's eyes to make them blind, right? And the teacher should be always throwing ashes, should know when to throw ashes in the student's eyes to make them blind.

[33:58]

But blind doesn't mean the same thing here as it usually means. Blind means to stop seeing in the usual way. We call someone who is enlightened a blind person. enlightened person is a blind person, someone who doesn't use the usual eyes to see, but who sees through the inner eye. And as long as we're seeing through the usual eye, the eye of partiality, the eye of self-centeredness, the eye of delusion, we can't see truly. Suzuki Roshi always used to use the term, the goal of understanding is to see things as it is.

[35:04]

He used a kind of pluralistic singular, to see things as it is, is what we should be trying to do. to see clearly the reality with our own eyes. But our own eyes are deceptive. It's the inner eye with which we have to see. So sometimes a teacher has to throw the ashes in some of these eyes so that they're blinded and then they can see. This is true, actually, legends, many legends, the Norse legends. I can't remember the name of the characters in the Norse legends, but there's this one I remember reading a long time ago who dropped his eye in the well and he only had one eye.

[36:14]

He sacrificed the eye that he dropped in the well, but the other eye became the one eye with which he saw everything in oneness, very much like God. difficult to let go of our dependencies. Things that we clutch at and crutches that we use and lead things that we lean on and little by little to feel safe enough to let go of all that and just stand up.

[37:21]

See what it is that actually stands us up. Or what is it actually that sits us up? When you were practicing Zazen, what is it that holds you up? What are we dependent on and what do we not need to be dependent on? What is dependable and what is not dependable? What is real and what is not real? And the more we realize what is real, what we don't need, the more we can help you.

[38:26]

Without patching, without just putting on band-aids and patches, how can we help each other in a real way? to find the root and let our, as Kadagiri Roshi used to say, let our life force bloom without hindrance in a true way. so and throwing away the crushes which we use to hold ourselves up.

[39:49]

And it seems to me that the thing that I use to hold myself up is this practice itself. Is what? Is this practice itself. That's the crush that I sort of lean on. How can... How can I get rid of that? Okay. He was... quoted me as saying we should get rid of our crutches. Stop leaning on them. Stop leaning on them. Because you can't stop leaning on them until you feel secure. You can't just throw them away, you know, because you'll fall down. But I couldn't quite get what it was that you said was your crutch. Coming here and sitting. Oh, coming here and sitting. It's practice. I see. It's practice. Well, you should practice.

[40:56]

Practice is not a crutch. Practice is the process which allows you to let go of your crutches. Because what practice is, is sitting up and letting go of everything. So even if you try to get rid of it, it will stay in front of you. Like the white ox, Even if you try to chase them away, you won't go. So practice is not that sort of thing. If practice is a crutch, then you should see it as a crutch. And what is the crutch about? What's the crutch of this? What's the crux of this? Crutch.

[41:58]

What makes it a crutch? What is it that you're leaning on? Are you leaning on practice? Well, sit up straight. Then it's practice. This is not practice. Leaning on practice is not practice. But sitting up straight is practice. Not leaning on anything is practice. But not leaning on anything doesn't mean that you don't depend on things. You depend on everything. We're totally independent. Totally independent. That means we depend on everything. You know, if you take an atom out of the world, something happens. So, you know, we depend on what we need to depend on, not what we don't need to depend on.

[43:11]

That's the problem. We do depend on many things. We depend on oxygen. We depend on food. We depend on sleep. We depend on clothes. We depend on... Gravity. Gravity. Gravity. And we depend on spirit. then we have more and more dependencies. And then, you know, pretty soon we can't move because there's so many things that we depend on. So what do we just need? You know, what's the bare thing? To get down to the bare thing. That's what practice is. Practice is expressed as sitting in zendo. But it's not the only way to express it. to, when you say practice a crutch, practice is not a crutch.

[44:35]

You may think equate practice with coming to the zendo as a crutch. If you can do all this in your life without coming to the zendo, fine. You should be. You should be able to do all this without coming to the zendo. And then you come to the Zendo for fun. You fix the machine for fun. And recreation. And recreation. Yeah. expanding our careers and developing our careers and developing our personal lives.

[45:49]

And we don't have the option, I think, to withdraw for 15, 20 years, get all the way down to the root, throw it all away, and then come back as this fully blooming rosebush. We have to do it simultaneously. I think this is... You have to do it simultaneously, yes. Every morning or whenever it is that you practice Zazen, you're letting go of the world. As soon as you come to the Zendo and sit down, you're letting go of everything. You're nobody. And then you get up and you go out and you resume your character. And then you play your role. on that stage. And what role will you play on that stage? And then, once a month, you sit all day and you let go of everything.

[46:50]

Just let it all go. Die. That's a great tip. And then, next day, you resume your character in the world. And then, you sit five days... Letting go. Then you sit seven days of letting go. Plenty of opportunity. You don't have to go in the monastery for 20 years. And how do you carry out your role in the world? So that's the plan of practice. That's basic practice. Whether you're a layperson or a priest or whatever. A priest has a different role. That's a priest's role. Your role is gardener. A priest's role is a priest, right? So, it's a visible guide for practice, or visible. It has some visibility as a practitioner, and that is a role.

[47:59]

But the practice is the same for everybody. your skin is tingling for three days. And he said, well that's very interesting. The point of that is, actually after three days the skin stops tingling. And you are moving, you are coming back to life. Both sides replenish each other.

[49:20]

Right. And when there's not a lot of distinction between the two, then you know that you have a solid practice. You said that when you come to the Zen Do or do your Zazen daily, Bodhicissions, you let go of everything. And some people might be thinking, but when I do Zazen, I don't let go of everything. That's okay. I don't do the great death. What did I do? I've felt that way for some of us up to a long time.

[50:25]

The way I look at it is that I am investigating every time I come to the center or sit on my cushion or even pause to be mindful for five seconds, I'm investigating. I don't expect the great death. You cannot expect anything. If you expect the great death, nothing will happen. And if you don't expect Whether something happens or not, doesn't matter. Because you may not recognize it. You may think, nothing's happening. I'm just blah, blah, blah. You mentioned early on about to let go of the body and mind, you take a certain position.

[51:45]

I have to put my glasses on to hear that? To let go of the body and mind, you take a certain position. I didn't hear the last part about position. Position. So let go of body and mind. You take a certain position. Position. Oh. Well. It doesn't matter what position. Body and mind is something that doesn't belong to us anyway. Period. And you just realize it through the position. It's already dropped. It's already gone. You just realize it by sitting. Sitting is a matter of realization. It's not something that causes something to happen. We don't sit to get enlightened. We sit to express our original nature.

[52:50]

That's called the Great Depth. It means, here I am, with nothing. And with everything. Just here I am. That's all. This is where I am. This is all there is. This is all there is. What more death do you want? This is all there is. It's not good, it's not bad, and it's wonderful. As long as we want something else, as long as we want something else, we can't have it.

[54:01]

As long as we want something else, we cannot have the beauty of what we have. It's just the second noble truth. Suffering is caused by desire for something that we don't have or something we think we don't have. It's not mysterious. It's very simple. Is that what you're trying to define?

[55:12]

Well, I'm not sure if I define it like that. is a basic dissatisfaction in our life. And we keep trying to fill the hole with something. And we create dependencies that fill the hole. Whereas we could just stop doing that. and enjoy the whole.

[56:13]

Enjoy the nothing. But, you know, if you look into a tide pool, it's just a hole with nothing in it. But when you let it, when you stay there for a while, because they're interesting, you know, in this moment of nothing happening, Everything's happening. But we can't see that. So with that eye of partiality, we can't see that. So that's why he says we have to look through the dead person's eye. We have to be like a dead person looking through, not using this eye of partiality, but seeing through the I of singularity as well. Realize that we already have what we're looking for.

[57:21]

That's why we say in this practice there's nothing to gain. There's nothing to get, nothing to gain. It's just discovering what we already have. Uncovering what we already have. That's all there is. That's all it is. And then we, you know, have a lot of interesting words with which we talk about it.

[58:03]

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