One of the questions that we have in our life is how do we make our life satisfying, spontaneous and sweet and open without being caught by the 10,000 things and expressing ourselves And at the same time, not avoiding egotism and stepping on toes, and generally being of some use to the world. This is my introduction to this case.

[01:12]

Case number 93, if it doesn't have an introduction. So I'll read you the case. The main subject The name of the case is called various things, but in this translation it's called, Taiko's You Fox Devil. So that's the main subject. The monk asked Taiko. Taiko is the teacher. He says, what is the meaning of Chokei's words, which go, He seems to observe reflection and thanksgiving before the midday meal. At that, Taiko performed a dance. The monk made bows.

[02:16]

Taiko said, what moves you to make bows? The monk performed a dance. Taiko said, you fox devil. And then Setso has a verse. And in Setso's verse he says, one arrow glanced off, the second struck deep. Don't tell me yellow leaves are gold. If the waves of Soke were all the same, many would drown on dry land. This case actually refers to another case. So I have to read you the other case. The case sort of stands by itself, but it doesn't make so much sense unless you know the other case. And I've talked about the other case once before. The other case is case 74, which is called, entitled here, King Yu Uesho and the Rice Pail.

[03:24]

You may remember it. And this has an introduction. Master Engo introduces the subject, The Bakuryu sword in hand, he cuts through all complications. The clear mirror hung high. He himself utters the words of Vairochana and self-mastery. He quietly puts on his clothes and takes his meal. In mysterious and playful samadhi, what will he do? See the following. Here's the main subject. At every midday meal, Kihiyo Osho would himself bring the pail of boiled rice. and in front of the refractory, dance and laugh loudly, saying, Dear Bodhisattvas, come and take your meal. Kinyu was the tense of a cook and was also a teacher. So every day he would bring this pail of rice and say, Come on, Bodhisattvas, you have to do a little dance.

[04:28]

He'd say, Come on, get your to get your rest. And then a monk said to Chökyi, the ancient worthy said, referring to Chökyi, dear Bodhisattvas, come and take your meal. What does it mean? And Chökyi said, he seems to observe reflection and thanksgiving before the midday meal. So this is where we enter into the first one. The monk asked, what did he mean, that he seems to observe reflection on Thanksgiving? What did Chokei mean when he said, he seems to observe reflection on Thanksgiving before the midday meal? That's the question for the poem.

[05:30]

So I'll read that again. The monk asked Taiko, what is the meaning of Chokei's words? He seems to observe reflection and thanksgiving before the midday meal. And Taiko made a little dance. Just like... Kimi no Sho. And then Taiko said, what are you doing that for? And the monk made his own little dance. So he had three little dances. Are they the same or different? Taiko said.

[06:31]

to challenge him. What's the meaning of your dance? We know Kinyu Osho's dance was from the depths of his being. Kinyu Osho seems to have been spontaneously and completely expressing his freedom within the boundary of his life. Here he is cooked in the monastery, head cooked in the monastery. Every day he makes the rice for the monks. But he doesn't complain about how hard the work is, or he doesn't get that maybe he's having trouble with his back. He just joyfully is living out his life with great enthusiasm and simplicity and total freedom.

[07:57]

In his enthusiasm, he addresses But in this case, it's not a dramatic show. It's just spontaneous expression. And every day, same thing. Every day, he brings life to life. And each day, happy that every day he wakes up and feels himself, for instance. And when the monk asked Taiko, what's the meaning of Choke's expression?

[09:22]

Taiko did a little dance. Now, what's the meaning of Taiko's dance? Does Taiko have the same spontaneous freedom as Kinyu Osho? felt completely liberated by his dance. So then we made some vows and gratitude. Gratitude is a kind of expression because he bows in gratitude. Gratitude expresses our enlightened mind.

[10:28]

So King Yosho seems to be in a constant state of gratitude, a continual state of joyful gratitude. No matter what happens to King Yosho, he still feels gratitude because he's not held down by either good things or bad things. He's not bound by the way things go. But the spontaneity comes from a deeper spring. And his joyful mind comes from a deeper spring, kind of like water continually bubbling up. lid on, it still moves the lid, still comes out. So, this is called genuineness.

[11:31]

The teacher, Taiko, is challenging the monk by saying, We don't know if the monk's dance was sincere. By sincere, I mean from that place. So what is creativity? And what is spontaneity? And what is freedom? This case revolves around when he says to the monk, Taiko says to the monk, you fox devil, what's the monk's response? Does he hold his own or does he get thrown out?

[12:36]

If his activity is genuine, But if it's not genuine, then he has to question himself. And in the questioning, he loses it. So Taiko, the teacher, is testing him out put on for show? Does it come really from the depths of his being or from some other place? You know, our emotions and feelings and thoughts are all displayed on this stage of activity.

[13:50]

And sometimes our thinking goes all the way to the bottom. Sometimes our feelings go all the way down to the bottom. Sometimes our emotions go all the way, reach all the way to the bottom. But not always. To come from where Kiyo-Osho is, Kiyo-Osho must be his understanding It goes deeper than thought, feelings, or emotions. It goes beneath the level of thoughts, feelings, or emotions and reaches a much deeper place. This is why his activity is so wonderful. Like a deep, deep well. Or like a lacquer bucket with the bottom broken up. Lack of bucket is a kind of metaphor for thoughts, feelings, and emotions stuck in a black pit, going round and round, never really... with no way out.

[15:19]

The person is no longer stuck or limited by thoughts, feelings, and emotions. So, Taiko, the teacher, is testing out his student to see where his dance came from, where his action came from. Each one of us has a kind of dance, a kind of a song and dance that we perform on various occasions. And it has variations. But this is not a song and dance that is just activity, freely given, without any expectation.

[17:07]

So, in Setso, his verse, he says, in his commentary, commentarial verse, he says, one arrow glanced off, and the second struck deep. The first arrow was the dance. It kind of glanced off, But the second one was, your fart still opened, and that arrow went a little deeper. And the mug had to come up with something. And then he says, don't tell me yellow leaves are gold. Yellow leaves are gold is an old saying that means, when you want to stop a baby from crying, you give the baby yellow leaves and say, this is gold. And that stops the demon from crying. It doesn't stop him from crying permanently, but for the moment, it eases the situation. If the waves of Soke were all the same, many would drown in dry land.

[18:19]

Soke is an allusion to the sixth patriarch, Daikon Ino. who is called Soke. The waves of Soke means Soke's descendants, six pictures of his descendants. In the world of Zen, all of the teachers are descended from So all of Soke's waves means all of his descendants. If the waves of Soke were all the same, many would drown on dry land. So this reference, if they were all the same, is a kind of clue, meaning everybody has to find their own

[19:23]

When you reach final maturity, you can't imitate anymore. Even if you do the same activity, like the three dances. So the first teacher, this was his activity, his own activity. The second teacher's activity was also a dance. Was that copying, or was that his own? dance too. Was he copying the second one or was that his own? This is the question here. Is it genuine or is it just copying? Is it just students, descendants, all had the same understanding, but their way of expressing was completely different.

[20:48]

A teacher may have several descendants, but the descendants are not like the teacher. They have their own way. And if they're like the teacher, too much, they never really find themselves. So it's incumbent upon students to do two things. One is to be like their teacher, and the other is to be completely different from their teacher. The way you learn to do something That's the way you learn something, you copy. Dizzy Gillespie said, I listened to all the records of my teacher, I think Roy Eldridge. how to do something, how do we absorb.

[22:19]

Apprenticeship is like this. In apprenticeship, we have a teacher and we become like the teacher. But at some point, we have to be like ourself. And sometimes this causes a lot of problems. and they get stuck with the teacher's attitudes and idiosyncrasies. But if they step out too soon, they maybe make too many mistakes. But sometimes, to allow the student to find their own way. The teacher also has to be able to let the students find their own way.

[23:23]

So finding your own way is absolutely necessary. Each one of us has to find our own true way. That's what this practice is about. But at the same time, we all practice together. Sometimes it seems like we do things too uniformly, but we have to be able to express our individuality within the uniformity. It's easy to just express yourself any way you want, but that's not what we call true expression. That's just egotism. We confuse individuality with egotism, actually.

[24:25]

You know, when you dress everybody the same, then each person's true personality will be apparent. If you put everyone everyone's face against a white background or a black background. Each face will come out, stand out in its individuality. But if you allow everybody to have all their colorful stuff, it looks different. But the level is very superficial. It doesn't go all the way down to the bottom. So one should be able to express their spontaneity and individuality within very tight circumstance. Then you can find your way.

[25:32]

So freedom, true freedom, is found within very tight narrow parameters. If we have all the freedom we want, we can never find any freedom. We may feel spontaneous, doing whatever we want, but that kind of spontaneity is actually not very deep. So the Zazen posture is the most confining But within that confined posture, we find our deep, true Self and total freedom. Within the greatest restriction is where we find the greatest freedom. Because in order to maintain ourselves in that restriction, we have to give up everything.

[26:47]

As long as you still have something, your spontaneity is not deep enough. Spontaneous meaning being connected with the source without any interference. So we have a lot of contrivance in the art world. But Chinese way was everybody doing the same thing.

[28:18]

And if you had the eye, you could tell what was genuine and what was not. But that way got a little too tight, too restrictive for spontaneity and art. to too much false freedom, then it comes back the other way, and people get conservative again. So there's this pendulum that swings back and forth. But without some discipline finding our, connecting with our true nature, hard to be truly spontaneous.

[29:24]

So each one of us has our And we see a really good dancer. That dancer, R.H. Blythe. I don't know if you've read his works. He wrote quite a number of things. He was in Japan during the Second World War as a prisoner with Robert Aiken. and studied some Zen and had a lot to say about Zen, too much actually, but he did compare a lot of the American, the European composers and he compared the famous European composers on the level of their Zen and picked out Bach

[30:46]

Handel was a little too superficial, and Delman was too masculine, and Chopin was too feminine. And he said most of the composers were too embedded in thoughts, feelings, and emotions. And although Bach used thoughts, feelings, and emotions, his music was, the actual vitality of his music It's actually just pure Source. Which if you listen to Bach enough, you'll realize it's true. Bach's song and dance So he says if the waves are soaking, we're all the same.

[32:11]

And at the same time, without being showy, or contrived, or feeling that we have to be different, or feeling that we have to be individual, our individuality and difference will just spring up naturally. And if we're not different, And that's who we are. Suzuki Roshi always used to say, when you are you, Zen is Zen. Do you have any questions? Yes. What has to do with cards in general? If you didn't explain that, I would never understand. So can you say it a little louder? It's an airplane.

[33:44]

Yes. I'm talking about cards in general. If you did not explain that, or if somebody did not explain that, I wouldn't understand that. Yeah. Why did the people who wrote them, or why are they always riddles? Why can't they make them? Why can't they say what they have to say in plain fashion? Because. If that was so, then it wouldn't open your mind. I don't agree. I bet you don't. You know, if you explain it, I didn't explain it. I just gave you a way to think about it. I hope I didn't explain it. I would be doing you a great disservice by explaining it. What I'm doing, is commenting on it to give you a way to get into it. I could talk about it in various ways, you know, but the koan is really about you.

[34:51]

It's not about these guys. So, if the koan grabs you and you can investigate using a koan as a way, you know, this is called, a koan is called a public case. It's like if you were a lawyer, you would go to the law books and see what all the precedents were. If you had some case, you know, you'd say, well, let's see now, what did they do in the past? And then you look it up and see what the precedents are. So, and then that case would become your own, because it's very related to your case. So, that's kind of the meaning of the koan actually.

[35:53]

So I'm not explaining the case. I'm just talking around it so that we have a way of looking at it that focuses us. Yes? I'll be reminded of an experience that I had in Japan, actually. Sometimes I'm a dancer. And I was in Lara, giving a performance of my dance. And I was very, very concerned because it was difficult for the person who was producing writing up the program, but she couldn't translate adequately the name of my dance. And I thought, oh my, how are people going to understand this? They don't have the name of the dance, right?

[37:10]

And so anyway, I did the dance, and every, well, not every, but several people approached me, and they had their own words to explain what I did, which was, in essence, exactly what I was doing. And it was a great lesson for me. And I don't know, somehow it seems to fit in with the notion of dancing deeply, number one. I really feel that. And it's nice to feel that this moment. And then the other part of it is the progression of you speaking the Kama Well, if it's, whatever it is, people will recognize what it is.

[38:16]

If our dance is genuine, people will say, feel, that's genuine. If it's not genuine, they will feel it's not genuine. And they will know kind of what it's about. So the name, it's kind of formal, kind of subordinate. So it's kind of why I help people to focus and pierce their mind. But not always necessary. For a long time, as you were talking about this case, I was troubled by the ending, in that it was speech. And so many of the cases that you help us understand, the ending is an action.

[39:24]

And I thought, well, you fuck still, that doesn't sound you know, speech and action are an expression of the same thing. That's right. Speech is an action, in this case. And what looks like kind speech, or what is kind speech, may not look like kind speech. Always. Compassion may not look like compassion always. But the teacher is always making an effort to help the student. And sometimes it comes out in various ways. Sometimes it looks like wrong speech, or lack of compassion, or hitting.

[40:26]

Now, can you say something about So this koan is all about finding our true self, finding our way. And can you say that in relationship to, say something about our hope is to eventually drop the self. So, can you talk about that a little bit? To drop the self? Well, and how it relates to finding our true self. To drop the self means to reveal the self. To drop the self means to reveal the self. Because drop the self means drop that which is not your real self. So that your real self can come out. Yeah, more sense than what? We always have to remember that there are two ways to talk about self.

[41:48]

One is what we call ourself, our idea about ourself, and the other is ourself beyond our idea about ourself. beyond our feeling about ourself, beyond our emotion about ourself, beyond our thinking about what that is. So drop the self means to let the bottom of the bucket go, so that your true self will be revealed. Because we look at it from various partial points of view. This comment's been very interesting for me, this discussion about, because I've been thinking about, as you spoke, restrictions and freedom and spontaneity. And a couple of things came to mind.

[42:54]

It struck me how I looked at driving down here with my husband this morning, who dropped me off, and when he's driving, And he gets to play with the radio and the heat setting, you know, that's it. He's in charge. And I felt it. And the heat was in my face, you know, I was just, I feel so restricted. I feel so controlled. I was so upset. I was feeling all these thoughts of this man is controlling me. I felt out of control. I felt absolutely without freedom. And when you were talking about today, I realized that there's another way to look at it. There are many ways to access that way. One is, do you ever ask? Yeah, I did. But my first reaction was that I felt without freedom. And I noticed my first reaction was that I felt without freedom. And how angered I was by that.

[43:58]

And then when you were speaking about the teacher, the student copying the teacher and having to go with his or her own version of that, and I was thinking about all my years in school, and my Montessori training, and how I had to be the woman I trained with. I had to do it my own way. I had to. I had to find my own path, my own spontaneity. And again, in that training, as though I was copying and there was some freedom in that, there was a point where it wasn't freedom. Yeah. So, it was interesting. Yeah. In the beginning, you said something about trying to get something accomplished and ego. If you step on somebody's toes, you can feel turmoil.

[45:09]

If your toes get stepped on, you can feel turmoil. I'm not sure what you're supposed to do about that. And if you're avoiding stepping on somebody's toes, you can also feel very restricted. So it's important to always be careful. Because when we feel unrestricted, the freedom that we have has to be within a context. And obnoxious boors are people who feel no restrictions. They just do what they want. They bump their elbow on the china and knock it off the table. You don't even notice. This is like egotistical, bullish freedom, which may be satisfying to the person, but doesn't take into consideration the surroundings or the context of your life.

[46:21]

So, freedom also has to take into account the context of our life and move within that context in a harmonious way. I think what a lot of people are looking for these days, is freedom, complete freedom from restriction, which becomes a kind of boorish style, boorish egotistical style, which is not true freedom, because it's too easy. It's like it's a cop-out. It doesn't take into account that you are connected with everything around you, and your existence depends on everything around you. So it's not real freedom until you understand that and operate within that understanding. Chemicals do various funny things according to the context in which they're put.

[47:26]

So chemists have to be very careful about how they put things together. Chemists should have a lot of freedom You have explosions, and people are very unhappy. So freedom and restriction go together. I'm here because I have difficulty, I seem to, I'm frustrated, I have a great deal of frustration with relationships. quality and draws certain kind of quality out of people.

[48:33]

And part of it, I think, is my own projection. And it's a very rigid bond. And I've been going through a lot of turmoil like this. And I had a dream, night before last, of lying on a table. And I had someone healing me. Part of the healing was that I was supposed to lay on my stomach with my arms and hands outstretched. And I was going to have a stone being laid on my back. And the weight of the stone was supposed to free me. And I'm really nervous about talking about it. I don't even know how to put that in the form of a question. I mean, you need to help me with that. Well, sounds like it. I don't know. I'm not a game interpreter. You need to put yourself under some restriction in order to find your freedom, in order to do what you need to do.

[49:50]

And stone can both hold you down, but also can feel very good. One form of massage is to walk on somebody's back. to have that weight, you know, you put the weight in just the right place and it's very freeing. So, my comment on the, if you sit zazen, you can reach down to your fundamental nature. And when you do that, then you have a better way to deal with the problems and activity in your life. Because remember, you keep your basis.

[50:54]

you

[51:02]

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