when I come down here to see if I'm completely out of my mind by your response to what I have to say. So I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. Today, I'd like to talk about case number 14 in the Blue Cross, which is the case with Yun-Man, or Un-Mang, as he's known in Japanese. And the case is, An anonymous monk asks Yunmin, what is the meaning of the Buddha's entire lifetime of teaching? And Yunmin answers, an appropriate response. Actually, Yunmin is quoted more times than any other teacher in the Blue Cliff Record and in the collection of koans that has been made from China and Japan.

[01:01]

And the reason is that he has very penetrating, eloquent style. But he also covers a lot of ground. So in examining an appropriate response, I'd like to talk about what, in fact, might be an appropriate response. Why is it we have some interest, maybe, in having one? And where we might get such a thing. So in examining what an appropriate response is, first of all, the response itself can be taken in so many ways. The question, what is the meaning of the Buddha's entire lifetime of teaching? It's a very wonderful question because it isn't, what's the most important thing? Or what do we have to do? But how is the Buddha's life and action consistent with everything that he had to say and teach?

[02:05]

How did his words match who he was and what he stood for? How did his life match his ideas? So, an appropriate response is the Buddha had an appropriate response to life, his teaching. The questioner, the monk, had an appropriate response as a question to Luangta. This is a very deep question, an appropriate response could mean. Or, the meaning I'd really like to talk about today is, how do we meet each moment with the fresh, genuine, authentic response that it calls for? And where does it come from? And what gets in the way? In Yunmen's teaching, he's also known for another koan, which you may have heard before, but it's very often repeated, and that is the question, what happens when the tree has dropped all of its leaves?

[03:17]

And his answer, a golden wind. And in understanding, or trying to get a grip on these very large answers that he comes up with, or that we experience in Zen life, Yunmin had proposed a system, or maybe the people who studied Yunmin had proposed a system, which was three conditions that each answer must meet. First of all, the answer, the response, must meet the question or the circumstances, like a lid covers a box. The second condition is that the answer rocks with the waves like a boat on the ocean. And the third condition is that it removes all delusions from the questioner. So, in looking at this Zen view of an appropriate response in an unman's or yunmen's golden wind, you see that the questioner, according to some studies of the Koan, I've read about it in Edo Shimano's book, A Golden Wind, on his Zen talks.

[04:41]

And he says the question about what happens when the tree has dropped all its leaves is really a question about what becomes of us when we have let go of all of our attachments to our worldly views. What's left? And there's some questioning here of, is there anything left? But the monk uses the metaphor of the tree and the leaves and suggests something very barren. So Yun Men stays with this metaphor of the tree and the leaves and brings up another aspect of nature, the golden wind. And this is the cover fitting the box. But in answering there's humor and playfulness because rather than say, why don't you just say what you mean?

[05:46]

You mean to say dropping delusions. Why don't you just say that way? Why do you have this fancy way of speaking? He rocks with it. And he goes along with the joke and says, I get it. And answers with another term from nature, wind. But he does something with the wind. that's very broad and humorous, which is, he gives it a color that makes it very sensuous, and cuts across our ideas, this visualization of barrenness, a golden wind. He still stays in keeping with this metaphor about nature. And finally, he takes away the delusions of the questioner with the answer. Is there anything left of us when we've studied Zen and let go of all our worldly habits and attachments? A golden wind.

[06:48]

Who ever thought of such a thing? Who could ever think it was possible? It's so rich. So it's beyond our comprehension and removes any notion that we have an understanding of what we're doing or any reason to fear. So, an appropriate response is a very rich response. And I guess it is of interest to me in particular because I don't fit so well into my ideas about what Zen students should be. You know, these really quiet people who are so modest. Don't take up any space and just get along with everything. And so there's a tendency that I think not only I have, but other people have, to try to aim for something that imitates the idea of what we have about what we're supposed to be.

[07:56]

So how do we keep finding who we are in fact? As we keep letting go, but we don't try to grab onto some idea of what we're supposed to be. So, there's this idea that I have, and I don't think I'm alone, that thinks our achievement in Zen is to reach this kind of blissed-out state on emptiness where we're very quiet and settled, and so I'm very interested in the spontaneity aspect. So, what are some of the reasons why we don't have an appropriate response? I had a lot of experience with this when I was at Tassajar, actually. The anxiety level, being in a new place, and being the tree that was attempting to let go of all these leaves,

[09:00]

creates a lot of anxiety. I was there from January through April this year. And one of my jobs was ringing the bells. And I was just talking to a woman who had been in charge of the Zendo manager, the Ino position, in Tassajara a few years before I was there. And she said, I don't know what it is, but when people come to Tassajara, even when they've had their own business, And the perfectly competent lines, they stand in front of the drums and fall apart. And so it was for these competent adults facing the drums or the bells. And in particular, in the morning, after getting up at quarter to four, sitting a couple periods of Zazen, there was a job coming out and ringing the bell. in the dark, in the cold, and it was an opportunity to have an appropriate response, and it was interesting to see all the things that interfered.

[10:05]

Well, the directions that I got were printed on a card right there under a lantern to read to ring the bell. And I was supposed to ring it in alignment and harmoniously with the robe chant at a certain point, the robe chant. And first they chanted twice the robe chant in Japanese and then once in English. But my anxiety level was so high that when they chanted the first time in Japanese, you can't hear anything once you ring the bell because it's a huge bell, that I thought I heard them chanting in English. So I started ringing the bell along with what I thought was the English chant, which was a different pattern. and doing a roll down and when I finished they were still chanting. So, Dino said, what happened? And I told him. And I said, well, you know, I was supposed to be training people to do this position.

[11:07]

So I said, I think I better do it until I know it. So we agreed that I would get up the next seven mornings and ring the bell. And, you know, for the next five mornings, I did it right. And I was starting to feel fairly confident. And the last morning I got out there and I did the same thing I'd done the first time. And this time, you know, who thought I was, you know, his loose cannon was finally getting under control, I was like, there's no progress. I mean, truly in our practice there is no progress, but sometimes we hope there is. He said, what was it this morning? And I was so enthusiastic, because for me, the opportunity to see these inappropriate responses and experience my anxiety and to understand it was bigger than other people's confusion about the bells and what I was doing. And, you know, my apologies to everybody I led astray, but this was fascinating material for me. So I said, I was so excited, I said, that was the best mistake I've ever made because I had come to relax.

[12:16]

I had come to, so it was the opposite of the high anxiety. The anxiety level was too low. And because I was relaxed, I wasn't really paying attention. And once I rang the bell, of course I couldn't hear. And my habitual mind, because here in Berkeley we chant the rope chant, you know, in English, Japanese, and then English. So we do it one, one, and one. I heard, I actually heard it in English. And I was following along. Now we open Buddha's robe when they were saying, dai, zai, gei, da, pu, ku. That was what I was hearing. And I said, now why this was so wonderful for me was to experience how the mind deludes one and separates you from reality. then this was a case of habit. And so much of our habit mind interferes with our ability to have an appropriate response. So, and of course the charged moments that we experience also interfere.

[13:24]

And one of the other reasons I'm interested in appropriate response is that I'm a psychologist and most of my patients come to see me because they're having an inappropriate response. They're having it over and over again. Now, I really, I know that there are circumstances and traumas that cause extensive damage to people and that that It's kind of like getting hit by a truck when you've been sexually abused as a child. Your equipment is damaged. You may get back on the road, but you've got some substantial damage to deal with. But for most of us, our problems are not from the traumas that have occurred, but from the habitualist response that has developed to avoid the pain of the trauma. And it becomes really vivid to me and became really vivid last week as I was singing about this talk when I had a patient come in who was on number four or five husband who she had just left, who was beating her.

[14:37]

And this was number four or five that had beaten her. So you try to make sense of this situation, and on one side was her current behavior, and on the other side was her experience of sexual abuse and betrayal of her mother. Mother knew this was going on, really didn't do too much about it. The betrayal in her childhood. So we try to make sense of what is the response of the child to this betrayal and abandonment And how does it connect with this pattern that has become so entrenched in the life today? And what we finally came up with was her experience of abandonment and how, as a child of course, this experience of abandonment is overwhelming and isn't to be tolerated. The child doesn't have the resources to tolerate it.

[15:38]

So she learned how to avoid feeling abandoned. She avoided feeling abandoned by running away from the problem and not feeling anything by becoming competent and busy, very busy. And as she went on in her life, she also found that excitement and thrill could cover up this sense of abandon. So she had a life that was extremely exciting and frightening because she did not want to experience abandon. And so the work is finding the appropriate response to this feeling of abandonment which is habitually and automatically covered up with some activity. And this really accounts for most of our difficulties. So my advice to her on that day was to pull up a chair for her good friend abandonment

[16:40]

and to begin to welcome abandonment as her teacher, and that she needed to be extremely aware when she experienced this feeling of abandonment. And, of course, now that she was a grown woman, she could tolerate this sense of abandonment, and she needed to feel it. She needed to feel it when it clenched her jaws, and when she felt it nodding her stomach and fluttering in her chest, and aching in her hands. She needed to just feel it. And then maybe an appropriate response to life would emerge. We had a wonderful line in that ceremony we just did, we had many wonderful lines, but it struck me because I was thinking about this talk and preparing for it, and that is that virtue returns to the unfathomable ocean of reality. And I thought, I guess that must be where the appropriate response comes from as well, the unfathomable ocean of reality.

[17:53]

And then the response goes back there too. I mean, we'd like it to get a Nobel Prize on the way, but it just slips right in. So, I've talked a little bit about what an appropriate response is and why we don't have them so easily. So, of course, I need to tell you how we might have one. I mean, we could go fishing in the unfathomable ocean of reality, but we need some bait. So, our practice is what helps us to bring forth this appropriate response. And recently I've been reading Stephen Batchelor's book, Buddhism Without Beliefs. And the interesting thing about Buddhism and about our practice of Zen is that we don't offer anything. You know, most religions offer a thing. A now. Salvation.

[18:57]

Eternal life. Happiness. Success. Good family life. Buddhism, and Zen, doesn't offer anything. And so Stephen Batchelor talks about Buddhism without beliefs as a verb, not as a noun, not as a thing that you can get, but as a practice that you can do. And in particular, I was struck with his interpretation of the Four Noble Truths. how they are an action, not things that we get. So, in talking about suffering, which he refers to as anguish, he says the statement of the truth, as the Buddha intended it, is understand anguish. So, understand your suffering, experience it, know it, and understand it as your suffering, your anguish is yours.

[20:05]

Other people may change positions in offering some help with you experiencing your anguish, but it's yours. You need to understand it as yours and experience it completely. And the second Noble Truth is about craving as the origin of our suffering. And he says, let go of craving. So each time the experience to get a grip, to collect, to control comes up, or the fear, let go, let go. And the third noble truth, which is that there is an end to our suffering. And that is this cessation of craving. He says, realize the cessation. And in fact, that's what we practice in zazen, moment after moment.

[21:12]

Every time a thought comes up and we let go. And we just experience that letting go. We're realizing the cessation. Just that much. And then of course we're back on thinking and grabbing and craving. But there is a moment when we realize cessation. And the last truth, which is about there is a path that we can follow to let go of this anguish. the Eightfold Path, he says, cultivate the path. Cultivate the path. So, if we find a way, and of course we do here in the Zen Do, find a way to practice this active, dynamic way of opening ourselves up for an appropriate response to this moment, but it's a lot harder

[22:15]

in our lives. And it's always a question that, it's a question I hear often in the zendo. It's like, it's very clear what we do in here. You know, we remember to bow and we remember to say the things we're supposed to say and follow the rules of etiquette in the zendo and breathe. But what do we do when we get out? And so I was thinking about my own struggle with appropriate response, and a particularly dramatic story of it came to mind with a patient that I'd had. And this was a young girl, about 16, and her family brought her in because everyone else in the family was acting really crazy. And they had been through a lot of violence, and there was some question about whether she'd been sexually abused. But she just was more and more appropriate. Her room was tidier and tidier.

[23:17]

She participated in student government, she got good grades, and there was something wrong. Well, I had been away on vacation, and I came back, and my co-therapist was kind of beside himself with worry. He said, while you were gone, she disclosed that she was prostituting in San Francisco on the weekends. So we found out where the behavior was. And he said, I don't know whether I should tell the parents. There's all these rules that we learn as therapists about confidentiality. And so I said, my response was, of course we tell them, but how? So I thought about it, and I called the young woman in for an individual appointment. and talked about the whole situation, what she was doing, and said, well, I feel that you need to tell your mother. And of course, she disagreed.

[24:20]

But by the end of the session, I said, well, here's the deal. You tell your mother, or I'll tell your mother. Which do you prefer? So she told her mother. And of course, her mother called me and said, what do we do? Well, I don't care how many years you go to school to learn about how to handle situations, whether it's with your children or somebody else's, you don't have a book that gives you the appropriate response. And you don't have an 800 number that gives it to you either. So I said, well, what's most important, we agreed as we talked it through, was maintaining contact with this young woman. so that we had an opportunity to hear what she was going through and to influence her decisions and to maybe uncover where this behavior was coming from and how it was linked to her past. So I said to the mother, let's just see in the next week or two if she continues to be at home and come to therapy, we'll add to the group therapy she's been having, individual sessions,

[25:30]

But if she says that she's going to move out and live with a pimp, I think that we should do an involuntary hospitalization, known as a 5150, because we'll never see her again, or there's a possibility we'll never see her again. If she leaves, she runs away. So the mother agreed to this, and within a couple weeks she called me and said she told me she was moving out today. And again, I had a lot of concern about maintaining my therapeutic relationship with her and hopes of sort of bringing her in for a landing. And so we talked about how we were going to do the hospitalization and the mother said, well, now in this county, hospitalization, involuntary hospitalization, the 5150 has to be done through the police. I can't do it. So mother said, but you can't tell the police that she's been prostituting because I'm afraid they'll arrest her. So with my hands tied behind my back, I called the police to ask for help. And I couldn't give them a good enough reason why we should do 5150.

[26:35]

So we got a compromise, which was they were going to escort the car that once the mother had gotten the kid in the car and driven her to the hospital, they were going to escort. And so they did. And of course the car pulled up to the hospital and I told the mother, look, I want you to do this because she'll forgive you, you're her mother, she'll forgive you for doing this, but she won't forgive me, I'm a therapist, she never has to see me again. And so I don't want to have to be the one to do this, I'll lose my relationship with her, so I want you to do this. So we got to the hospital, but I'll stand by and I'll help with the hospital if I can. So we got there, I was in a separate car and I was kind of hiding in the parking lot, unlike the Zendo situation where things are so clear. And the mother pulled up in the parking lot, and the daughter immediately went to run away. And the police stepped up and said, no, no, you need to talk to your mother about this. All the time, giving the mother in me dirty looks like, I'm doing this just to get the business, you know. And the mother, why is she overreacting to this very nice girl?

[27:38]

And so she, refused to go in the hospital. So I went inside the hospital and said, can you send someone down to help bring her up? She's in the parking lot, and I had arranged for her to stay there, and I was able to tell the hospital why, and they had agreed. And they said, no, we can't. Legally. She's not admissible to the hospital until she walks in the door, gets in the elevator, walks into the lock unit, lets the door close behind her, and then we will admit her to the psych ward. Which I guess you have to be crazy to do that, so maybe that's your game. So I went back down to the parking lot while I watched the power of this intervention dribble away. The mother is now pleading. The police are standing there in bureaucratic mode. And I'm there with all my fears about my failure in this therapeutic relationship, my failure to help this girl and her family, the possibility of lawsuits looming ever bigger, whatever else there was that I was afraid of.

[28:47]

And so I had to find my practice there in the parking lot, hiding behind the bushes. As I realized all the fears of all the mistakes that I could make in this moment, and also understood that this girl's life was in danger, I said, well, I'm just going to have to go for it and do what I know how to do. So, I got up all my bluster, which I'm very good at, and I walked over to the car, and I said, put my head in the car, and I said, in five minutes, two orderlies will come down from the psych ward with a straitjacket. They will tie you up, put you on the straitjacket, and tie you down and carry you into the psych ward, unless you choose to walk in now. And she did. And I don't think to this day either she or her mother knows that I made that up.

[29:50]

But what they did tell me was that they really believed that I had saved her life through the hospitalization. That she spent two or more weeks on that psych ward in group therapy with her peers while she tried to explain to them how what she was doing was okay. And they talked her out of it. which is something that adults can't do. And so that was a very powerful experience for me, of letting go. And I couldn't figure it out, I just had to act. And sometimes it's that way, in finding an appropriate response. Certainly understanding what we're afraid of, and being willing to die in a given moment, or to fail. in any given moment gives us a chance for an appropriate response. So this virtue has returned to the unfathomable ocean of reality.

[30:56]

And let's see what waves come up with your questions now. Yeah, I don't understand what you were letting go of in that situation because to me it seems like you were lying to me. I was. I was letting go of the precepts too. That was another thing I had to let go of. So what were you letting go of? Everything. Everything I knew. Everything I knew. I saw somebody going down for the third time and I let go of my fear of the water and I let go of my ideas about what I was supposed to do or not supposed to do. Precepts, practice, everything. That's what I let go of. Yes, Charlie? Well, Grace, I just read your anniversary of the windmill. This was in 1986. They were giving them away free community room porch. I don't know whether you saw that or not.

[31:57]

But I want to tell that story. I'll tell another one from the same issue. And Suzuki Roshi and a student, whose name I don't remember, leave Tassajara after the student has been there two years and has been a strict vegan. And they're driving in Monterey Peninsula somewhere, and the student is driving, has a cigarette, and says, I'm hungry, stop here. And it's a burger and fries. regime is a grilled cheese sandwich. So he orders a grilled cheese sandwich and Suzuki Roshi orders a double cheese sandwich. The food comes.

[33:01]

Roshi takes one bite and says, I don't like this. And they do. And the moral of the story is that although this marvelous man who brought the dormant to us still was subject to picking and choosing, the student realized that his food had rigid beyond description, and moved on in his choice of eating from there on in. Yes. And I wonder... So who knows? He might have just... Maybe the Roshi knew that this picking and choosing would help his student, and I'm sure you knew that lying would help your client.

[34:07]

Well, in a certain way, I was speaking of a different world, a world that would offer more protection. I just left that off. There's a good lie. In other words, in a wonderful world, I would have had two orderlies come down and bring you into the hospital, but I don't have that here. But I didn't say that. It's just within all of us. reading religious materials, meditating, you know, that's the right direction, but you can't do that.

[35:51]

Well, I can, if we continue to develop a relationship, but let's see first of all if she can welcome abandonment and hang out with her feelings, which is meditating anyway. So you do that. Well, I mean, it is a form, and if she really gets the knack of it, she'll be able to practice that with other feelings. As Jon Kabat-Zinn teaches Buddhism without ever mentioning Buddhism in the therapeutic work he does, it absolutely can be done in that you give people the skill and you teach them breath work and you teach them how to hang out with their feelings and just sit with their feelings without doing something about it. In a sense, it's a transmission without the belief system. Ellen. I think you said that this young woman told you that she was propagating, right? Actually, she told the co-therapist. She told the co-therapist. Well, in any case, she told somebody who could help her.

[36:53]

And that's the way that I would She was asking someone desperately to help her. And once someone has done that, then sometimes the means that you have to use, because you've heard the cry for help, and know that it's an extreme situation, sometimes requires an extreme solution, which is what you did. Yeah, it was extreme. And it was understanding what's available. Because I mean, what would have been best, yes? No, excuse me. What would have been best would be to have a safe place for her to go and talk about these things. You know, as we all know, many teens get hospitalized because we don't have any other way to make them sit still and listen to some sans for a while and get out of what they're doing. But the point that you bring up reminds me of the alternative translations to an appropriate response are one facing one,

[38:06]

So that hearing that cry for help is, you know, this one facing one. Another one is preaching facing oneness. And the other is singing in tune with any particular occasion. But the difficulty of the professional and personal In this profession, it's very hard because I was wanting to save this child as my own child. And my profession had dictated certain behaviors that were acceptable and certain others that were not. And yet, that cry for help elicited, you know, a full response. Well, maybe it comes with the original license, because where I work, I sleep every day. The choice, the choice method.

[39:17]

Shannon? When you stuck your head in the car window, you just took a shot in the dark, and you didn't know how it was going to turn out. Maybe you had a hunch, but you didn't really know. And so often, I think, we are faced with these choices and these dilemmas, and we take a stab at it. And sometimes we don't know for a while how it's going to turn out. So I just wondered, do you have some way inside yourself that Well, I think I make a lot of mistakes, but I trust the mistakes or I trust the action when I can find a place where I feel like I've let go and I've given up on succeeding.

[40:20]

When I've accepted my failure and been humbled by it, then I trust the response that comes out of that. And actually, that stand in the dark as I thought about it when I was getting ready to give this talk was, I'd already given her a choice once, which was a choice of control. You tell your mother or I tell your mother. And she chose, I'll control it, rather than procrastinate. But I didn't think that consciously. When it happened, I just let myself be moved to do it, when I had accepted my failure. Yes? What was the answer to the meaning of Buddha's lifetime teaching? An appropriate response. An appropriate response. Wouldn't it have been better, this appropriate response? Wasn't he answering that particular question rather than making a generality? You know, the translation is really hard. So you would say, what is the teaching of the Buddha's entire lifetime?

[41:24]

What is the entire lifetime of the Buddha's teaching? This appropriate response? Maybe. But, you know, the translations are so varied. You know, preaching facing oneness is another translation, so... I know, Peter, you were saying to me it's not one appropriate response, it's an appropriate response, because there are many in any given situation. So it could be a number. And so to say it's only one is limiting. Yeah, and if his response to that same question would be different... Each time. Each time. Yes? I'm going to share with you a thought that is in progress. I don't know if it will evolve completely. That's why we presented the book again. And it has to do with both the balance of honoring our own humans, as you described, and working from the place of intuition. And it also has to do with honoring the survivability of the human spirit.

[42:27]

in understanding her patients as you described, that for me in honoring people who I know who have chosen, for whatever complex reasons, to work as prostitutes, that she could have gone out into the world. And she could have survived. And she may have come back. She may not have. But I think it is important to honor resilience, and to understand the creativity and coping, and to understand that one is not necessarily damaged in an irreparable fashion, but rather functioning. We talk about appropriate response, as I'm still understanding the concept, but appropriately responding to one's individual experience. And in honor of those that I've worked with, you'll need to say that. that sometimes I feel at risk when I place myself in less than, quote, good with those that I'm working with, and that I really, I have to follow my intuition, but to think that I am individually, save me more.

[43:50]

Right. The fact, yeah, the fact is, I don't think every prostitute needs a hospitalization But sometimes it might be appropriate and sometimes it might not be. Absolutely. And it certainly was a question too, but not for very long in this particular case. In this particular case, there was so much danger in what she was doing, and the way she was doing it was just jumping off the cliff, not even standing by the edge. So it was clearly self-destructive. But it might not be. What? Oh, well, there was that, too. I mean, there was getting beat up, and there was, you know, unprotected, and the whole bit. People do survive, and in some situations they need your help, and in other situations they don't. Or your help might be different. Thanks. and those very institutions are from the place where I see people who have been in institutions where it was thought that they were being helped or saved, and in fact, much of the trauma occurred in that very institution.

[45:05]

Well, you know, that was a lot of my concern that I had to work with, because I've seen that too. This time it worked. But it might not. Yes. I think that in this question of whether this was an appropriate response, the dilemma, I think, is what one is doing is a habitual mind rather than an appropriate response. Usually, thinking that you can control another person's life, that you know better than another person, that you know all the outcomes, that you've weighed them, That's what you're struggling against in practice. So I'm a little torn. I don't necessarily respond like, that wasn't appropriate response, or that wasn't therapist's habitual mind operating with other things.

[46:09]

And it's the same, it's a dilemma that you confront in your life all the time. That's right. For me, I feel like I have to check that response all the time, because I feel like that response is important. Because I also work in an area in which I have an accessibility and control, and I happen to make a lot of calls all the time. And I worry about those judgments of mine, and which part of those judgments is coming from that which I'm not. So I think it's very important to weigh this on the side, because our ordinary lives are Yeah, right. So there isn't a... the court is still out on this action. And whether it was an appropriate response, the method of finding the response is what I was describing the letting go.

[47:26]

And for me, finding the letting go in the parking lot was not so easy. Alan? And that trains us in certain ways. And then you have another training as a therapist about what are the sanctioned responses, what's in the book. And then we have this other kind of training, which actually is here in Sishin, in the local practice, which is training in and the crisis emerges. Yeah, that's what I was working for.

[48:59]

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