I was, just now actually, putting on a different kimono, which goes underneath my koromo and all that stuff. I put my hand in my pocket and I pulled out a note that somebody left me a long time ago because I haven't put this kimono on for a long, long time. So I read the note. And it says, would you say something about the meaning or purpose of the chant, the closing refuges that we do in the evening? Sometime before we chant. And I just forgot all about it. But it's very interesting because it's a good question. We say, we take refuge in Buddha, we take refuge in Dharma, we take refuge in Sangha. And so we just say that, but what do we mean by that?

[01:01]

And then I realized that this segues into my talk. So everything works according to the way it's supposed to. We take refuge in Buddha. So what is the Buddha that we take refuge in? Some Shakyamuni? No. We take refuge in our unborn Buddha mind. Banke used to talk about the unborn Buddha mind that is unborn and undying, actually. He just calls it unborn. He's not the only one, but he uses that as the basis of his teaching. We take refuge in our unborn Buddha mind, which is the ultimate. When we chant our refuges, that's what we mean.

[02:15]

we take refuge in our unborn Buddha mind, which is the Buddha mind of everyone, and is the sustaining quality of our life. And we take refuge in the Dharma, which is Buddha's wisdom, which is our practice. Buddha is our essential nature. Dharma is our wise practice, which is the expression of our unborn Buddha mind. And Sangha, we take refuge in Sangha. We take refuge in what we call our common humanity. which is how we actually realize the oneness of our diversity and the diversity of our oneness.

[03:27]

So those are basically basic meanings of how we take refuge. If you can find something better, you should do it. Seriously. So today, I really have a hard time getting past the first paragraph. Because it's all there. The rest, of course, is commentary, right? So I'm just adding my commentary to the first paragraph instead of the Sosan's commentary. but I also went against his commentary. So, you know, we have to clarify many things here. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

[04:31]

So, preferences also means discrimination, as we were saying, but And of course, we know that we're always making preferences. We're basing our decisions on preference all the time. So there's a saying, the non-discrimination of discrimination, which means something like, Of course, there's nothing wrong with discrimination. When we're freed from love and hate, as examples, then discrimination is actually freedom. Because we live in a dualistic world, everything has its opposite.

[05:37]

And when we proclaim a truth, which is dualistic, the other side always comes up. Inevitably, it has to. So half-truths, we talk about half-truths. Most of the truths we talk about are only half-truths because this truth supplants that truth. This side supplants that side. That's called a half-truth. The full truth is that both sides complement each other as one. One includes the other, which is hard to wrap your mind around. It's really hard to wrap our mind around. So instead of trying to wrap our mind around it, we should put our behind on the cushion. That's how we understand it. We understand it through Dazen. but it's hard to understand with our mind.

[06:39]

And as he says here, somewhere, if we use mind to try to understand mind, it doesn't work. Because mind trying to understand mind is what will also fall into partiality. That's why the teaching is always saying to go beyond mind, to go beyond thinking. It's not that there's something wrong with thinking. Thinking's great. I mean, without thinking is actually what leads us. So there are three things. There's what we call the mind king, Because mind, mental, mentality, because mentality understands duality, the mind leads us through the forest of duality in one way or another.

[07:58]

And then there's the heart part. And the heart is the feelings and the emotions. And then there's the spiritual aspect, which we call the hara in Japanese. I like to think of it as the solar plexus. I've talked about the solar plexus many times. the sunspot, the source of our life actually, which is the spiritual aspect, the basis. So these three are basically where we find our control. So, We depend a lot on the mind, and in Buddhism, we call it the mind king.

[09:08]

So there's the mind king and the emotional fire, and the spiritual depths, and how these three harmonize with each other is the practice. So we say Buddha is the mind, Dharma is the emotions and feelings. That's going a little too far. I don't want to discuss it that way. I'm getting into dualistic problems here. The first word is my king? King, yes. On top of the door is a calligraphy of Suzuki Roshi, but you can't see it because you're sitting over there. But you've seen it, probably. It says, Mind King. It says, King Samadhi.

[10:20]

Absolute Samadhi. Buddhist Samadhi. Buddha Samadhi is a big mind that we should never, that we should always be, never leave, never get distracted from our Buddha mind, big mind. So the Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. Because, why? Because they don't get caught in the entanglements. So when freed from love and hate, there's nothing wrong with love. Love falls into right and wrong. Hate falls into right and wrong.

[11:23]

We say we should be free from anger, but we're not. Anger arises. Emotions arise unasked for. We meet situations and an emotion arises. We don't say, I'm gonna feel bad now, I'm gonna feel angry now, or I'm gonna feel this way or that way. Feelings just come up. And emotions move the feelings. Feelings are moved by Emotion, emotion means feelings are moved. So feelings and emotions go together. When a feeling comes up, it's not necessarily an emotion. But when it's moved, when we take hold of it, then it's called an emotion. So we have, when we investigate our mind, or look at our mind, we can see that something's going on all the time.

[12:31]

Feelings are just rampant in our mind. And we either take hold of them or let them go. So we have a choice, or we don't have a choice, or we feel we don't have a choice. We've talked about this before. So to step back and evaluate whether or not we should give rise to attachment is a choice. So, when he says freed from love and hate, means freed from attachment, basically. Freed from our attachments. So, When freed from love and hate, and love and hate here are, I think they just mean, they do mean love and hate, but they stand for whatever it is that we're attached to, deeply.

[13:38]

So when the mind king, I want to get this all together, The mind king is the unborn Buddha mind, which is the unifying factor where what we think is who we are at that moment. And our, thoughts and feelings follow the mind wherever it goes, like a shadow. So, when strong feelings come up, they often, when we become attached to small feelings, strong feelings, then we take the mind king and put it aside and put our feelings up on the altar and worship them.

[14:54]

Yes. So the trick of practice is to not let anything substitute for the mind king. Not to let our thoughts, feelings, and emotions substitute for the mind king, but we Inevitably, we do. When we become angry and caught by feelings of attachment, we easily take the Buddha off the altar and put the feelings up there and worship them. We don't say, oh, I love you, I hate, but we do because we have various outlets for our feelings. And it's not that we necessarily worship them, but they are a relief.

[16:01]

So anger is a relief valve. I've talked about this pressure cooker before as a model. So our thoughts, feelings, and emotions are contained in a pressure cooker. And whenever we have a feeling or an emotion, there's pressure that builds up. And that pressure has to go someplace, right? So we have valves, relief valves on the top of the pressure cooker that relieve the steam that's built up. So when I get angry and it's too much, I open the angry valve because that's the one that gives me the most pleasure. Yeah, and so I get hooked on anger because it gives me pleasure when I release that valve.

[17:05]

Any kind of emotion that comes up like that builds pressure and we have to relieve it somewhere and then we get pleasure through the relief. And the stronger the emotion, the bigger the pleasure. It's like sex. So it's really hard to not get hooked by that, by these addictions. We become addicted to sex. We become addicted to anger. We become addicted to self-pity. We become addicted to all kinds of stuff that we just call being human. We become addicted to being human. It's true. We become addicted to being human. And I don't want to die. Yes, it's hard, and I'm not ready for questions yet.

[18:10]

And Bankai talks about the most precious thing is our unborn Buddha mind. and we easily throw it off the altar in favor of some trashy stuff that's not worth anything. We put up a worthless idol in the place of our unborn Buddha mind. I guess I'd like to challenge you about that. I think an unborn Buddha mind could be in your anger, it could be in your pain, it could be in your despair. Yes, I didn't say it wasn't. Okay, good. I want to give you a chance. Yes, yes, as you know. See, I'm not asking, I'm not open for questions yet. Okay, sorry.

[19:18]

So, So this is why the third ancestor is talking about instead of following our feelings, instead of being caught by our feelings and thoughts and emotions, we should be careful Because, you know, we all know how difficult it is to not be caught.

[20:32]

So that's why we're always talking about, instead of eliminating feelings, eliminating, as Tamar brings out, we don't try to eliminate, we try to, our effort is to balance, to bring everything into harmony, to bring our emotions and thoughts into harmony with our Buddha mind. instead of isolating our feelings and our emotions to lay them at the feet of Buddha. This is our offering. This is the compost of our detritus, so to speak, that we offer to the feet of Buddha and Buddha takes care of it. So, As I have always said, we don't try to cut off our ego. We don't try to cut off our feelings.

[21:56]

We don't try to cut off our emotions. But how do we bring them into harmony with our Buddha mind? Buddha mind is not separate from our emotions. It is our emotions. So how do we harmonize our feelings and emotions with our unborn Buddha mind? So how do I allow my left hand, that's my right hand, how do I, my left hand with my right hand so that they're both working together to do the same thing? So if we don't bring our left side and our right side into harmony, they are two aspects of one thing, right? So when we say two things, we don't mean they're two things, they're two aspects of one thing. This left hand and the right hand are two aspects.

[22:57]

This is Buddha, this is Dharma, this is Sangha, this is Bodhisattvas, and this is enlightened beings. This is anger, fear, Skepticism. Skepticism. Keep going. Laziness. Greed. So we do this, right? This is the most wonderful thing we can do to bring our mind together. That's why we bow all the time. We bow to the garmasyo. We bow to dogs and cats. My dog comes every morning, all the time. He goes like that, and I bow to him. He does it all the time. This is natural. So, if we follow this, then we're practicing.

[24:08]

Suzuki Roshi used to say, the most important thing in our practice is bowing. He didn't say why, he just said it is. He said his teacher had a callus on his forehead from bowing. And when we meet each other, when we do this, we don't have to say anything. And at the bottom of the bow is where we meet. And then everything is this total stillness and quietness. There's a common saying at the moment, the human being is meant to move. Human beings are meant to move, they're not meant to be still. That's true.

[25:10]

But it's not totally true because human beings are also meant to be still as well as moving and to find the movement in the stillness and the stillness in the movement. If we're just moving without the basis of stillness, then we're just running around chasing our tail. And that's where our problems come from, is that people don't know how to be still within their movement. And when we sit in Zazen, it's total dynamic activity within stillness. In the Korean tradition they say, leaping like a tiger while sitting. If you don't have that feeling, you're not quite into it yet.

[26:13]

You know, I watch people's posture all the time because I'm sitting here. And sometimes I have to watch somebody who I'm just, it's driving me crazy. And I say, lift up your sternum when you're sitting. If you don't do that, you can't sit up straight. But as much as I say it, some people do. Some people sit very well, but they still sit like this. If you don't lift up your sternum, you can't pull your back in, to lower your back. And then your head doesn't sit on top of your spine. So just that little lift. makes you sit up straight, and that's called comfort. The reason we don't feel comfortable is because we're not sitting up straight. Ask anybody who really sits up straight and lives up to their sternum if they're comfortable, they'll say yeah.

[27:19]

Because then you're well balanced. So that's like this. When you're sitting up straight, it's like this. Total balance. Everything's coming together. This is Buddha mind, dharma, and sangha. You are sangha. All the parts of your body are your sangha. Each one of us is a representative or works the same way as the universe. How can it be different? The animals are the same. The trees are the same. We're not outside the universe. We're universal beings. Because we can think there's a universe, there's a universe. Even though I may be wrong. So yes, we're universal cosmic beings.

[28:25]

And the whole cosmos, we're a representative. We have the limbs and the solar plexus is the sunspot. That's where the power comes from. and illuminates our body. This is where the light is. And the light also illuminates our mind, so we have a lucid mind. And it illuminates our heart, and we have a loving heart. And when all those aspects are lined up in harmony, then we feel comfortable. But until all the parts are lined up in harmony, we don't feel comfortable. There's always something wrong. And because the nature of human beings is to move, until we're sitting in total harmony, that movement is creating a problem for us.

[29:33]

So we can sit in harmony with all of the limbs which are the satellites of our solar system. We are a solar system. There's the sun, and here are all the planets and stars and stuff. These are planets. And we sit very comfortably. So when we do sit zazen, That's what we try to do, is harmonize all these parts, not complain about our discomfort. But what do we do about our discomfort? As soon as we start complaining, it's over. I knew you'd laugh, James. I was expecting that. I'm open to questions. Okay, James. You mentioned attachment.

[30:42]

Say that again to me. You mentioned attachment. What? Attachment. Attachment, oh yes. And that's a big part. It's a big... That's a big part of our... Yes. Big focus of our practice. Yes. And I'm convinced of what, the reason I didn't die was because of my attachment to my wife and to my children. I was ready to just sail on down river. But I didn't because for my wife and children. Yeah, that's good attachment. So there's good attachment and bad attachment.

[31:42]

Yeah. OK? Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Rajiv. You were talking about three things. Mind pain. Heart. Heart. And then... Hara. Hara. That's the... That's solar plexus. Sunspot. This is intuition, the seat of intuition. The umbilical cord to the universe. showing the mind king needs to be the king you don't want to displace the king with the commoner and what is the hara doing?

[32:51]

yes the hara is what brings the truth that informs the mind So the king has an advisor. And so, Dahara is the mind king's advisor and he pays attention. So if the mind king does not have an advisor who is the source, then the king starts killing off his people and starts taking all their money and power and exerts power over people instead of harmony, right? So that's the king being divorced from his true nature. And so the king, it's very tricky. The king, the king, Yeah, that's probably enough.

[33:56]

And true action comes out of the... And what? And true action comes out of the harmony of the... Yes, true action comes from the harmony of all three. Ellen? Well, Dogen speaks of the king and the people. Yeah. So when the king gets driven by greed or any of the three poisons, then the people suffer. Yes. Well, they may or may not. But what Tolkien says is, in delusion, people don't understand that they are actually supporting the king, and the king doesn't understand that he is dependent upon Yes. So that's where this all has to work together. Yes.

[34:58]

And you know, the Taoism and Buddhism, when the king is kind to the people and supports the people and his effort is to make them happy, then they support the king. Except sometimes it doesn't happen. I don't know if that's so. I think we rarely see that. In Bhutan, the king supported the people. Yeah, I'm talking actually as an individual. Oh, when you're talking about your mind king, your body, yes. Well, of course, yes. When the mind king, I see what you're saying, the mind king is taking care of the body, taking care of the rest, you live a long life.

[36:09]

In neurobiology, there's a neural network around the heart, a literal neural network, and also in the gut. And they're called the second brain. And so, on the biological level, the mind is dependent on the information that comes through your body, through those things where you register things that you don't necessarily register cognitively. If you can make use of that data, then you have a much richer experience about what's going on. Well, yes, because this is the seat. We call it the second brain, but it's actually the primary brain. And this is the secondary brain. But, you know, it depends on how you want to look at it. Also, the analogy, the metaphor rather, that I have used when I was working with, when I do work with people with anger and stuff, is of a fire alarm. Of a what? a fire alarm, a smoke alarm.

[37:16]

The smoke alarm detects that there's something wrong. And often our anger is a sign that something's gone awry in a relationship. And the problem with giving voice to it and venting right away is that, like a fire alarm, that doesn't actually solve the problem. And so there needs to be a space in there where ones, faculties can kick in and analyze what's the problem and what is needed because the noise doesn't put the fire out. That's right. Yes, one is called reacting, the other is called responding. Yeah, so when we respond, we can sit back and analyze, sort of. In the same way as the ahara, the anger is a source of information, it's data. Anger is important. Yes, so it's not that anger is bad. Anger is how we use it. And so, you know, anger is not bad and all these emotions are just what they are.

[38:21]

But how we, when we talk about attachment, we're talking about how we use them or how they use us. So attachment means basically that we're being used or being caught. Whereas non-attachment means that we're using rather than being caught by. That's how we actually practice, is using the emotions instead of being used by them. That's the difference. Ross. Thank you. About a month ago, during one of your classes, someone who is habitually late for class came in and you said, you stopped lecturing and you said, I had no problem with you saying that and expressing a correction.

[39:25]

I have a story about why this person is eventually late. My question to you is, can you speak of how Buddha mind remains on the altar and not your upset or your impatience after this pattern of behavior that's been going on for a while, is it supplanting The Buddha mind. Yeah, I think it was the Buddha mind that was speaking. Because this person's practice is to always be late. That's their practice. And I've said, don't be late. Yes. Or don't come if you're late. Before. So that was a very quick response. Yes. It was beyond my thinking. I just said that. And I didn't say go away, but I actually did. I said, stay out. Well, they chose to go, they turned around and chose to go away.

[40:28]

Yes. For reasons that are fairly obvious, I think. Yes. Just to reiterate, I had no problem with you saying that, but I was curious about, I think we try to be patient and accepting of ourselves, and then we get frustrated with ourselves and beat ourselves up. or beat up other people. I see, yeah. I'm curious about, we can't kind of plan, I'm going to yell at that person that came in late today, and then it happens, oh, now I can yell. I know you didn't do that, but we do have a pattern that we keep beating ourselves up, or others in a certain way, by just being impatient, being frustrated. How do we discern the difference between our frustration and expressing an emotion, emoting from frustration versus emoting from... There's no rule.

[41:29]

It's case by case. You want a formula for that. There's no formula. If there was, you would already have had it. It wouldn't be a problem if we had a formula. It's always a problem. And so we address the problem one by one, according to the circumstances. We want a rule. You can make up a rule, but you can't hold to the rule. But reflecting back when I've emoted... Well, you know, we can use emotion. I was using emotion. And not being used by emotion? I was using emotion as a stick. Boom! Enough of that. And then it was over. I didn't hang on to it. I love this person. Not a problem. Yes, I'm not, don't think this person's a bad person.

[42:35]

But I wanted to change the practice of always being perennially late to being on time. We all do it, and this person can do it. Bruce? Yes, I understand. It's not about love and hate, it's about attachment. Yes, attraction and aversion, that's correct. Just metaphors for attraction and aversion, yes. Uh-oh.

[43:41]

Judy? Short. No story. So the question is regarding vulnerability. So as I'm hearing you speaking about the mind king, immediately I feel a pain in my heart. Mind queen. Yes. It's really obvious, right? I mean, that stuff's on the surface of just inclusion and language, you know, five words. There's always going to be that. I meant to say that, actually, and I forgot. Actually, mind, king, queen. Yeah, it's that whole sensitivity around gender, you know, and even this pronoun they, that's being used more, like, you know, Daigon's using it as his pronoun on his Facebook profile, you know, so it's interesting to explore how to speak these live words, knowing that somehow, someone's gonna have the experience of exclusion.

[44:50]

So it kind of bridges to Ross's question and your response, which is, in the space where, let's say I'm not in the zone where it's total trust in mind, but what is the live response? How do you work with that? I'm not sure. Because I heard you say it's like case by case. No, yes, case by case. Case by case. Everything's case by case. You want a rule. I don't have a rule. I'm sorry. You might find a rule somewhere, but I don't have a rule. Peter? Getting back to the same question, I'm kind of wondering if How do you distinguish between when you're acting based on your own habits and when you're acting free from your habits?

[45:53]

Or maybe instead of looking for the right thing, we can just be more aware of when we're speaking from a habitual response. Yes, well I think that's right. awareness of where our response is coming from, or our reaction. When we can do that then, you know, the closest I can come to a rule is when you say, I don't know, and when you say, I don't know, then your mind is clear and the response comes out by itself. So the most valuable thing is not pretending, or I don't want to say pretending, but assuming that you know. We don't know. Yes, that's called clear mind.

[46:59]

So you want your response to come out from a clear mind and not from a habitual mind, right? So that's called stepping back even though the stepping back can only be that quick, right? You don't even notice it, but don't know mind. And then the response comes from a clear place. That's as close as I can get. Dean? So, Jim, thank you very much. The word kept coming to mind when you were talking, victim, and that we become me I become a victim of my emotions. Yes. One of the things that I can tell when I've responded and I'm clean and the way is is it's I'm not coming from a that that victim thing is just not there and I might say something there is no victim in it. And so if they get upset, I have so much compassion because there's no victim in it.

[48:06]

And I feel like that we all get caught in. And what do I want? If I'm going to say something, I really have to think about if there's a want there. Because if there is, then I'm being held victim to whether it's my upset emotion, Promotion or my whatever motion they stop being clean emotions when They they victimize me because and then they're no more they're no longer emotions and it's really unbelievably simple and it's so unbelievably impossible for me to do this I realized I came here today to take refuge in what I know is available to me and what I so often do not. Right. Well, you know, being a victim is also an addiction.

[49:10]

So it's really hard because we go to that place. An addict means that whenever something happens, we go to that place. That's a refuge. So we take refuge in being a victim. And then we take refuge in blaming. And a lot of our questions are about blaming. We don't realize that we're always blaming. But we get caught by that because it's always somebody else's fault. It's always somebody else's fault. And we don't look at what it is, it's how we create our own victimization. And then we hate ourself for doing it.

[50:12]

And this is called the wheel, you know. This is the dharma. We get caught on the wheel and just keep going around and around and we get into the Iron Maiden. You know what that is? You don't know? That's a torture. I thought it was a fan. Well, there's a singer, yeah. Ouch! Yeah, back in the medieval, you know, there's a kind of coffin, and they put the person in, had these spikes, and then they pull down the cover, you know. That's called the Iron Maiden. Beautiful, actually, it was in the shape of a woman. Whatever your name is.

[51:20]

Jerry. I just wanted to kind of invite Darlene Cohen into the room. Darlene was a woman who was intimately connected to her body. Yes. And the whole idea of body and mind. And she would, her teaching was to be aware when these negative emotions come. Start learning. Your body is telling you about these things. Feel if there's a tenseness. Feel if your throat is choked off. Actually, I've been trying to work really hard with that because every time I make a decision that to do or not to do or to say or not to say, if I do it against this, my body telling me there's a resistance to doing it, it's a mistake.

[52:20]

So for me it's a learning, I mean what she encouraged us to do was kind of check ourselves out when these negative or problematic emotions come and really, really attune to what's going on in the whole body and mind. I think that's very important, you know, because we feel it and we feel their emotions in our body, right? That's what you're saying. And when we say let go of, well, how do you do that? It's like you let go of the feeling in your body, which helps to alleviate the pressure in your mind. So the body actually can help to control the mind, as well as the mind controlling the body. And when we sit in Zazen, the body is helping to control the mind, because the body, working in harmony with the mind, equals out the feelings that we have and takes on all those feelings

[53:34]

physically and harmonizes them so that they're not centered in one place that causes an obsession. Okay. Tamar, I'm going to give you a second chance. Actually, I gave my question to both of you. Okay. With all respect, this is a very rich conversation, but I wonder, I can hardly believe we're going to have a shuso ceremony in San Francisco. Yes. Yeah, I thought I said it about it yesterday, but I won't say it about it now. What would you like me to say? Okay, I thought I did that yesterday.

[54:46]

But I will say that we're happy to have Walter answering your questions or responding to your questions. I would like your questions to not necessarily be personal. What I mean by that is sometimes when we ask a question, we ask it for a question that we feel would be helpful for the Sangha. And sometimes we ask a question which we've been thinking about from the Sushu's talks. I think that's a really good kind of question.

[55:50]

And sometimes we ask a question about what we've been studying or a Dharma question that we really feel to see what he thinks about that, right? And sometimes it's a challenge to what a question that you observe about his understanding of what he thinks he's doing. But something that has a, you know, high level of inquiry, rather than just a kind of low level of inquiry. What did you have for breakfast? Did you like your breakfast this morning? You can say, did you like your breakfast this morning, if you have a really good question in it.

[56:53]

But, well, I can't think of a question, so I'll ask him something. How are you feeling today? Well, that could be a real Dharma question. Any question is a good dharma question, but it should have something, some level of real inquiry about it. But if you want, I kind of, what do you think I should do about my dentist? So, you get the picture. And you've done this a lot of times. You know, it's not like you're all new or something. So, I feel funny explaining it because you've already done it so many times. But still, it's good to refresh our memory. And not to expect that the question needs some long explanation.

[58:02]

He may explain something, that's okay. But I think that the shusos response is to, this is called dharma inquiry, it's not dharma combat. Combat is a word that's translated as combat. There's confrontation because we're confronting, right? We're confronting together. We're face-to-face, so it's face-to-face with a serious question and a serious response, but the response is to bring you both together up to a high level of harmony. And sometimes the harmony is in the combat, if that happens.

[59:04]

It's good to have a question that's really challenging. That's the combat part. It's not like you're hitting each other. But this is a tough question. How can you answer it? How can you respond to it with your guts? It's a gut thing more than it is a head thing. But sometimes it's the head, sometimes it's the guts. It's great when they're both together. So a high level of inquiry and response. He says, let's bring forth the dharma. He doesn't say, fight me. He says, let's bring forth the dharma. Together. Together, yes. Well, let's is together. So together is redundant. Does somebody have a question over there? So the goal of the confrontation is to bring out the truth?

[60:14]

Yes, that's the goal. And to see what, you know, really test, it's a test. So it all depends, you can, yes, or what you think you know. Yes. It's a test both ways. Yeah, it's a test both ways. That's good. It is. Because you're putting yourself on the spot by asking the question. Yes. And you should be doing that, you know, because if you're You know, a lot of these questions that, like in Joshu's koan that Walter presented, the monk is asking, you know, well teacher, you said this, you know, but you're doing that, right?

[61:16]

So it's testing, it's a kind of, the reason why, one of the reasons why the teacher said, go and retire, go to your room and retire, is because the monk was asking a question from some really low level to see if he could catch the teacher rather than to get something from the teacher. But Joshua was slippery, so don't let him slip. You want to get him so he's not slipping out, you know. That's why you get the opportunity to have a follow-up question. So you ask the question, he'll say, well, da-da-da, you're not satisfied. And then you say, well, but what da-da? And he'll say, well, da-da-da. And then I go, boom, what is that? And next? So you may be left with nothing, which is pretty good. Left unsatisfied, that's OK.

[62:17]

Whatever it is, is what it's going to be. And it's about a response. It's about a response. I don't want to say what it's not, but it's a response, whatever that means. It's whatever the response is. But it should be very nice when it comes from the whole being and not just the head. For what? For the ceremony. Oh, the ceremony. Depends on how many people ask questions. We try to keep it down. Some ceremony goes on and on and on.

[63:21]

If the suso gets caught answering questions instead of responding. then the answer just keeps going on and on, not until you think that the person understands. But it's not that kind of inquiry. It's just question and intuitive response. So it can go quickly. You don't have to ask the question. No. I just wanted to comment or maybe whatever, say, Judy had the last question about a half an hour ago. Have we been caught? You can ask that. Or are you asking me? I'm asking you. What's your question? When Judy had the last question, I let my question go down the river. I had no idea what I was going to ask. And so, we've been talking for half an hour.

[64:24]

And when I heard the shuso might get stuck in that same situation where it goes on and on, I'm wondering if we've gone over the time, or if we're actually in the time, or if I'm just off the rail entirely. I'm not doing a shuso ceremony myself. I'm just answering people's questions. It's not a shuso ceremony. Yes, so it's different. But we should be. Yeah, but we are going over our time. Because we all have to get there and learn how to serve lunch. So thank you for that. OK. You're a server today. Yes, and I'm serving today. So that will stop me.

[65:22]

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