I am about to taste the truth of what I've tired of sort. In the Blue Cliff Record, there's a case where a monk asked Tozan Ryokai, how can we avoid heat and cold? And Tozan said, well, why don't you go to that place where there is no heat or no cold? And the monk said, where is that? And Dozan said, when it's cold, just be thoroughly killed by the cold.

[01:02]

And when it's hot, just be thoroughly killed by the heat. Another way of saying that is, when it's cold, just be completely one with cold. And when it's hot, just be completely hot through and through. Yesterday I saw the movie Gandhi. Did you see that movie yet? Gandhi, I've always been a great fan of Gandhi's. He was always a heroic figure to me. And I remember when I was growing up, when I was a kid, we used to see him on the newsreels. And what we called the newsreel.

[02:05]

And see this little Indian in a loincloth waving at the camera or doing something, talking to people, fasting. the very powerful presentation in the movie. I think Gandhi, as Dekaroshi said, Gandhi is a, he called him a Buddhist. Although Gandhi was a Hindu, and actually called himself a Christian and a Muslim and a Jew. And I don't remember him saying Buddhist in the movie, but I'm sure that he, I remember he was very fond of Buddha. And he was a kind of universal man.

[03:17]

and probably the strong man of the 20th century, and probably the archetypal renaissance man of the 20th century, the anchor of the 20th century, who went completely in the opposite direction of everybody else. complete revolution going the other way and yet was so strong that he could slow everything down in a certain way or put a perspective on the way things go in the 20th century. And he kind of laid a foundation for bringing people back to or forward to the fundamentals of what our life is about.

[04:39]

I think that had been kind of lost, definitely lost. The Indian people had completely succumbed to the British And the world was in pretty much of a chaos leading up to World War I. And Gandhi was, little by little, he refined his practice to where the only thing he had left was truth. He completely, little by little, in every confrontation that he had, because he maintained his integrity in every confrontation, it was like a refining process.

[05:46]

And you can see it, if you've ever read his autobiography, or read anything about him or in the movie, you can see how he'd never let anything go by without it having some meaning for him. This is a very good example of mindfulness. He pretty much won every confrontation or came out on top in every confrontation because he was so dedicated to truth more than to life itself. And his answer, of course, to the violence in the world was to answer it with nonviolence, which was very courageous.

[07:04]

And because he could do that, because he could seat himself in the stillness of that truth, he could do anything he wanted in the world. And it would come out right. Not that he didn't make some mistakes or that a lot of people didn't get hurt because of what was happening or because of what he provoked. That's inevitable. He got hurt and other people got hurt. And they had to get hurt. But they accepted... People who worked with Gandhi accepted that as part of their... or their willingness to, in order to express their integrity and that truth, they accepted anything that would happen as a consequence.

[08:29]

And so that acceptance became a very strong practice for them. And it's very parallel to Zen practice to be able to accept the difficulties that are involved in expressing and maintaining truth within yourself. At one point in Gandhi's career, he trained people to be nonviolent confrontation people, people who would confront the soldiers or the establishment in a nonviolent way.

[09:38]

and risked their lives. And those people, he wanted them to be unmarried and celibate, or at least celibate people, so that they wouldn't have the concerns of the family that married people have. It was very much like a monk's attitude. Because it's a very scary thing to stand and let people hit you without any resistance. Not passive resistance. I remember in the movie, Gandhi said, this is not passive resistance. It's nonviolence. but it's not passive resistance. He says, I've never talked about passive resistance.

[10:43]

But I always talk about nonviolence. He made a distinction because what he was doing was very provocative. What he wanted people to do was very provocative. Not passive, provocative, but nonviolent. So it put people in a very delicate position, but a very strong position if they knew, if they had enough integrity to see their way through. So Gandhi put himself in that position of no matter what, to adhere to the truth. Or as he practiced over and over again, his integrity became deeper and deeper.

[12:02]

And his, I would say, the stillness His ability to maintain stillness and calm mind in all circumstances allowed him to do the things that he did. Even when he was fasting to death, he could still have a calm mind. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he did what he did very deliberately. That's why I talked about this case. Tozon, a monk asked Tozon, where can you go where there's no heat or cold?

[13:09]

Or how can you avoid heat and cold? And Dozan said, why don't you go where there is no heat or cold? Well, you know there's no place where there's no heat or cold in our world. Wherever you go, there's cold and there's heat. No way you can get out of it. But cold and heat, appear in many different ways. And they're always appearing in many different ways. And all of the circumstances in our life are cold and heat appearing in many ways, many forms. So Tozan the monk says, well, how do you get to that place where there's no cold and no heat?

[14:16]

Tozan says, when it's cold, just let the cold kill you. And when it's hot, just be completely hot. Just let the heat burn you up. Just be, keep your integrity in all situations. Stay in the absolute in all situations. Stay with the truth in all situations. And don't let anything move you from that position. Then you always know what to do. When we get moved off of our position, off of our seat, then we don't know what to do. We have to try and figure out what to do. But when we keep our seat, our absolute position, that is our stick to the truth, then there's no way we can get knocked off our seat.

[15:32]

We may suffer from it, but we don't get confused. So Gandhi had a lot of suffering, no doubt. But within his suffering, he always knew where he was. If he got lost, it was only for a while. He always would come back. I think this is Gandhi's important message. If we have that kind of integrity, there's no problem.

[16:42]

Even though we have many problems, there's no problem. Let the problems kill us. We should let our problems kill us. What do you think about it? You should let your problems kill you, but you also... I was just reading the book about the conversations between Berrigan and Thich Nhat Hanh, and several times a point was made that when you suffer, you also enjoy. There's some way in which you take the suffering lightly and enjoy it.

[17:46]

I have trouble putting the two things together. Well, you enjoy... It's true that we enjoy something about our suffering. Because if we're dead, you know, if we're still kicking, then we don't like it. That's, you know, not different. So, you know, when we're really... If you sit in zazen, in sashini, and you have a lot of pain in your legs, but you still have your integrity, and so you enjoy your activity, even though it's... But if you didn't, if you weren't completely merged with what you were doing in the truth of the fact, then you call it suffering.

[18:51]

So, you know, not different. That's how you enjoy it, I think. I don't think you can enjoy it unless you have that integrity, unless you know that what you're doing is really within the truth. I mean, that's a kind of broad statement, you know, what is truth, but that's another question. You think that's different? Well, I suppose in that, in some sense of, I don't know, enjoyment is a strong word in this discussion, but there is a difference between just feeling really at sea and lost and suffering. Mm-hmm. and yet having, on the other hand, having a sense that the suffering is that you're going somewhere.

[20:03]

Yeah. Well, you know, we can suffer through righteousness. That's a very common way of doing it. I mean, enjoy our suffering through righteousness. Masochism. I mean, there are a lot of... Yeah, there are a lot of different ways. You're suffering through ignorance without really being aware why you're suffering. That could be very painful, too. Yeah, that's very painful and not so enjoyable. It's more enjoyable when it's not through ignorance, you know, but through knowledge. Carlos? Yeah, sometimes you get quite pained with suffering when you're not the same. climbing mountains and when I get near the top I'm nauseous and I'm very sore and ready to throw up and there's no air to breathe and you're really sort of in great pain but you're flying higher than anything near the bottom of the mountain when you started up.

[21:08]

So there are many situations in which one may be in physical pain or even mental pain and yet not in any sense be suffering. There's nothing particularly religious or holy or truthful about that. It can happen even for runners or people who do certain kinds of physical activity. So I think there's a distinction there. Pain does not have to be suffering. It can be, though. We were talking a little bit about suffering in the class last week. And Christ's suffering was mentioned. And it's the kind of suffering or process of pain that we go through to reach an end, whether it be Gandhi's liberation of India or whether it's reaching the top of the mountain.

[22:19]

And there's kind of a materialism involved in that, or even suffering to get to heaven. But the kind of pain or suffering that I think we face day to day and in our practice, I think it's different. It's like Emily and I are trying to run out the spot in the floor yesterday. And I said, this is just like Sashen. It wouldn't go away. In that painting, or dying with the heat or the cold, I think many of us come to that koan thinking it has to be a pure, this is really hard to express, it has to be kind of a pure dying, kind of an idealistic Christ-like suffering or whatever, or a euphoric kind of thing.

[23:33]

Well, it isn't. You hate it. And you bitch at it. But that's okay. And to just accept that and look at it, it's... I don't like this. But except that you don't like it. And that's giving over to the misery of the heat, or whatever. And then it becomes, misery becomes non-misery. Or it's misery, non-misery. We were also talking about this in the women's meeting last week. We've been discussing our feelings in terms of violence and feeling very vulnerable and so forth and the anger involved in that. was really a really great meeting because I think one of the things that we evolved out of that was that the anger is not something that we should try and suppress.

[24:44]

It's there. You see it as anger and not discriminate against it. So it's kind of in a big circle. I think long-wheeling ties, that's what it really means to die in heat, die in cold. Not to avoid the heat. Not to avoid the cold. Not to deny that you have anger. Not to... there's a difference in ordinary anger or ordinary heat and cold or our ordinary response.

[25:45]

And our response when we become heat or cold And after we become heat or cold completely, then we look at heat and cold, and we can say, oh, I don't like it, and so forth, and have judgments about it. But it's different. Like you said, it's not the same. We have to, on that path though, we really have to accept that part of our path of everything we're going to go through to reach that absolute where then we just make full circle and we come back again. Gandhi had, through his whole life, he suffered with the fact that he had a lot of trouble with celibacy. Yeah. And he felt very guilty about that, but yet that never comes across in the film. It's mentioned here and there, but it's just like kind of a wink to it, a curl on the side or something like that.

[26:52]

But even all that inner turmoil that he must have been going through with that, he still reached that absolute center. Right. And the fact that he was celibate was because he had so much trouble with it. But that's why he became so eloquent, because I had a lot of trouble. Yes? Diane, you said something about suffering in a materialistic way. I think that's really possible to do when we have a lot of ego involved and we decide to make something happen through our suffering. But I don't think that that's what Gandhi did or Christ did. I think it was more accepting a course of action and all that came with it.

[27:53]

The suffering wasn't... what they chose to bring about change. It was the course of action. And the suffering that happened was just part of setting that course, which they completely accepted. But I don't see anything materialistic in that. I'm talking about kind of a, to use someone else's phrase, spiritual materialism. I know. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that, but we just have to understand that in our day-to-day suffering, we may suffer without any necessity, without seeing any end to it, or seeing any result of our suffering. You may just have to sit in the heat, just because you're sitting in the heat, and it's not because you're working towards something. That's the kind of distinction I was trying to make. But there's both those things. I just don't see them as so different.

[28:56]

I see the distinction you're making, but I don't. I think it's the same process of just accepting and not struggling against what's happening, whether you've done it to accomplish something or it's just part of what's going on. I don't see that. I don't make a distinction. But I think it is possible to use our suffering or whatever we're going through in a very materialistic way. And most of us do. But I don't... Taking a course to accomplish something that involves suffering, if you can do it in a way that... I think you can do it in a way that's not materialistic. That's the point I'm trying to make. But it must be really tricky. Gandhi's movement was aimless.

[30:02]

It was non-materialistic because it was totally concerned with suffering others. And with that entailed well-willingness to suffer, to endure self-suffering because of others. because of the violence of others or because of what others suffered in themselves due to ignorance or any other occurrence. And I think that's the other side of the coin in Gandhi's movement was the suffering of others. What do you do about that? The semen sticks in my mind most strongly. All the Sikhs are talking at Amritsar, and they're talking about nonviolence, and all of the troops come in, and they stand there with their machine guns, and the Sikh on the podium says, you know, you must be strong enough to face their anger.

[31:06]

How you be cold or how you be hot is not to have any expectation of something else. How you can stay on your spot is not to have some other expectation. When it's like this, then everything is just this. And when it's like this, everything is just this. Therefore, you're just living in that place. Then there's no place to escape to. Nowhere to go. Your situation will change. But on that moment, everything is Just there. And from that standpoint, you can do something.

[32:30]

To get to that place, there has to be a realization and an acceptance of the fact that other people's suffering affects us, too. There's that connection there, whether it's emotional pain or emotional or physical pain. That's right. So, you know, it puts us in a sense of responsibility. When something happens to us, you know, we say, well, how did that happen? You know, say somebody comes up and you're walking down the street and they hit you over the head. You say, how did that happen? I was just walking down the street. Somebody came up and hit me over the head. And it was an unexpected thing. It was unexpected. And why? Why did that happen to me? But if you realize that you're responsible for everything that happens, have some responsibility, not completely responsible, but you have some responsibility for what happens, then you can see a little bit more what's happening.

[33:35]

For instance, the crime and violence... is our responsibility. Why it happens is because of our self. Not directly, you know, but everything, we're all interconnected. And if we say that they they have control of society, you know, then you don't see yourself as interconnected. If you say, I and everyone else control society or makes it what it is, then you're putting yourself in the place of responsibility. And then you can see that what happens, happens because of either your responsibility or lack of responsibility.

[34:39]

Lack of responsibility is a position as well as responsibility, definite position. How far does that responsibility extend to another being? If you come in contact with someone who is suffering from lack of food or lack of any kind of physical lack, what is your responsibility to that other person? Someone's in that state of need, extreme need. Depends on your ability to do something. And each situation is different. But, you know, some things we're very responsible for and some things we're a little responsible for. But there's a sense of it. You know, we may not be directly responsible. There are things that you feel that are out of your hands. But still, indirectly or in some way, you're responsible because the whole thing is you or you are an inseparable part of the whole thing.

[35:55]

So you may not be able to do something about something, you know, and that gives you a feeling of frustration. But it should also give you a deeper sense of trying to decide or... come to some understanding of what your responsibility is. And if a hungry person walks by and you don't know how to take care of them, just that thought of, why can't I, is a kind of taking responsibility. If you just ignore it, which is easy to do, then you're not taking responsibility. But just to recognize it, even if you can't do something, is a way of taking responsibility. Go ahead, Hanson. Just relating to what we were talking about right now, that responsibility comes from ability to respond.

[37:07]

And you said that before, but I think in our society we very often equate it with blame. So that you say, this person was responsible for violence against him, or this person is sick and you're responsible for their illness. Then you think, it's my fault. Yes. It's different. Unfortunate confusion. Yeah. And the other thing was that you're talking about being one with your suffering, if you're suffering, or being with pain in such a way that maybe you don't identify the sensation as pain and you don't need to. No, you don't necessarily... I don't qualify that by saying you don't associate necessarily pain with suffering. Right, but you've also talked before about just experiencing what's happening in your legs and the sheen as sensation, not calling it pain. Yeah, that's right. Well, you know, it's always really interesting to me to talk about it abstractly, and I always...

[38:15]

And then, I'm not even talking about being in 15, although that's one big thing, but you can work with it with yourself, you know, in that moment. And then when you're working with someone, for example, who's dying, which right now I am with my grandmother, who has been in a lot of pain and a lot of misery for a number of months, and she's very receptive, like she counts her breaths, and she does those things. And yet, it's so difficult to be with someone like that and to... I mean, what she's identifying as pain takes her over, you know, when it comes. And it's so frustrating to, you know, I want to be able to experience just the sensation and not be taken over by it. And I want to be able to share that approach with someone else. And it's very difficult. And there is no escape. I mean, she is just, her body is just breaking down. Yeah. But all she can do is do her best to take care of it.

[39:24]

And we're all in that position. We're really all in that position. It takes an extreme form when you see somebody dying. They're not coming back the other way, they're just going that way. It's very painful and their body's breaking down. there's a koan about that too. About what will you do? It's like putting a crab in hot water. You know, how they kill crabs. They just take the crab and put it in the vat of boiling water. When that time comes, will you flail your legs and so forth? If you don't, if you, don't if you can't sit still then you should look at this column look at this I can't remember what case it is right now but that's the introduction you know so you know you part of taking care of somebody that has doesn't have the training in how to be still or how to appreciate the fact that they're that they're dying how to let go and how to let go

[40:44]

how to be dying, you know, how to just, it's not easy. You know, nobody knows, no matter, you know, I'm talking about it, but when my time comes, you know, I don't know how it's gonna be. Maybe I'll flail around, you know. Ganto, there's also a famous story of, Ganto was very famous Zen master. And when a bandit stabbed him or shot him or something, stabbed him, he let out this tremendous scream, which baffled Hakuin for a long, long time. He didn't understand that. There was also the Zen master who said, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I think when we talk about suffering, at least when we're saying about suffering of others, the thing is there's no distinction.

[41:49]

The suffering of others is our own. And so watching someone die and suffer, we suffer. And other people's anger is not other people's. It's our own. So we want people to die in a certain way. Maybe Hakuin wanted Ganto not to yell. Right. Because it made it hard for Hakuin to think that this man who was supposed to be composed hollered at the last minute. But I think when we help someone who's at that point, it really helps us too. And I think that our kindness helps someone else.

[42:54]

That our attitude is very helpful to someone else. Yes? The project of Paramita suggests that if we do not see that scoundrels are all emptying the suffering, in other words, that suffering is the strain that comes from maintaining fiction. Yeah. Pain will continue. Drop that fiction. But suffering will go on. Yeah. Because you accept the fact of what is happening, it's not a cause of suffering, even though it may be very painful. And they may be suffering, too. But there's freedom from the suffering, if you have that understanding, as well as freedom from the pain.

[44:02]

But I think we always have to be very careful, no matter how we rationalize or philosophize, when the fact of things appears, when something happens, you know, you do what you do. And that's always, our daily life is always the test of our understanding and practice. And we should always use it, see it in that way. But with that kind of spirit, we're always training ourself. And by training ourself, we also help other people. And it's just forever. It just goes on and on. I want to, at this point, I want to introduce Terry Dobson.

[45:23]

We've been sitting patiently. I can't see you very well. You can't lift me all the way up. This is probably the last lecture in this building. Our Ms. Endo is just about finished and will probably move in over the weekend. So if you come on Monday morning to Zazen, we should be, go over to the building and see if it's open before you come here. And Apteri is going to give us a seminar, one afternoon demonstration or wonderful talk or whatever, how to take care of yourself and other people on the street. Something like that. I was sitting there thinking, you're doing the work for me. It goes back and forth.

[46:26]

Terry gave us a demonstration on Aikido a few years ago. And it was quite wonderful. And I'm really happy to have him back here. And I hope that we can all attend. And I can assure you that it will be a continuation of what we've been talking about in a more practical sense. Thank you. Seasonings of...

[47:19]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_85.65