Good morning. This morning we have what we call kids in dough. This is the first part is for our bright children. I wonder, I would like I know you, I've seen you before. Okay, thank you. story. One day, that's often how these stories start out.

[01:05]

One day, a little hare. No, you know what a hare is, don't you? A rabbit. A rabbit, yeah. A little hare sat under a fruit tree and thought, and thought, Of course you don't know yet. Here's what he thought. He thought, what will happen to me when the earth comes to an end? Whoa! He thought that at the very moment a fruit fell from the tree. Bam! Off ran a little hare as fast as his legs could carry him. So sure he was that the noise of the fruit falling to the ground was that of the earth breaking to pieces.

[02:07]

He thought the earth was exploding. And he ran and ran and ran, not daring to look behind him. That was a big mistake. Brother called another little hare who saw him running. Tell me, what happened? But the little hare just ran on and on and did not even turn around to answer. But the other hare ran after him, calling louder and louder. What happened? What happened, little brother? What happened? At last, the little hare stopped, just for a moment, and said, At this, the other hare started running still faster, and the third hare joined them, and the fourth and the fifth, till a hundred thousand hares were racing in the fields. Oh my God! Then they raced through the forest and the deep jungles, and the deer and the boar, boars are like huge pigs, and the elks and the buffaloes and the oxen and the rhinoceroses,

[03:16]

And the tigers and the lions and the elephants hearing that the earth was coming to an end all ran wildly with them. But among those living in the jungle was a lion. A wise lion who knew everything that took place in the world. And when he came to know, it became known to him that so many hundreds of thousands of animals were running away because they believed that the earth was breaking to pieces. He thought, this earth of ours is far from coming to an end, but my poor creatures will die if I don't save them, for in their fright they will run into the sea. You know that happens sometimes. Buffalo or man must run off a cliff because they're so scared. And he ran in the past before they came to it. And as they passed by the mountain, he roared three times with a mighty roar that they stopped in their mad flight and stood still close to each other, trembling.

[04:28]

The great lion descended from the mountain and approached them. Why are you running at such a pace, he asked. The earth is breaking to pieces, they replied. Who saw it breaking to pieces? He asked. The elephants. They replied. Did you see it breaking? He asked the elephants. No, we didn't see it. The lions saw it. Did you see it? He asked the lions. No, the tigers saw it. They replied. Did you see it? Asked the tigers. The rhinoceros saw it. They replied. But the rhinoceros said the ox saw it. The oxen said, the buffalo saw it. The buffalo said, the elk saw it. The elk said, the boar saw it. The boar said, the deer saw it. The deer said, the hare saw it. And the hare said, that little one told us the earth was breaking. Did you see the earth breaking, he asked the little hare.

[05:32]

Yes, Lord, replied the hare. I saw it breaking. Where were you when you saw it breaking, he asked. with a trembling voice, the little hare replied, I was sitting beneath a fruit tree, and I thought, what will happen to me when the earth comes to an end? And at that very moment, I heard the noise of the earth breaking, and I ran. The great lion thought he was sitting beneath a fruit tree. Certainly, the noise he heard was that of the fruit falling to the ground. Maybe a big, um... a big melon or something, right on my back. And he said, then show me where you saw the earth shaking. The little hare jumped on his back, and the great lion flew to the place. But as they approached the fruit tree, the little hare jumped off, so frightened he was to return to the spot.

[06:33]

And he pointed out the tree to the lion, saying, Lord, there's the tree. The great one went to the tree and saw the spot where little Hare had been sitting and the fruit which had fallen from the tree. Come here, little one, he called. Now where do you see the earth broken? Little Hare, after looking around and seeing the fruit on the ground, knew that there had been no occasion for his fright. He jumped once again on the lion's back and away they went to the hundreds of thousands of creatures who were waiting their return. The lion then told the great multitude that the The noise the little hare had heard was that of a fruit falling to the ground. And so all turned back, the elephants to the jungle, the lions to the caves, the deer to the village banks, and the little hare to the fruit tree, and they all lived happily and unhappily. What do you think is the moral of this story?

[07:44]

I think the moral of this story is to pay attention more. Yeah, pay attention more. Yeah. Yes? I think the moral is to keep sent in times of danger because if they had noticed that the earth was breaking up, they wouldn't have been warning. Say that a little slower. The moral is to keep sent in times of danger because if they had noticed that the earth was breaking up, They probably wouldn't have been born. Yeah, that's right. So, if the little hair had... Yes? If they were small, if the horse was breaking up and they were small, they would have known that they couldn't have escaped it. Because eventually it would have come this way and hit the other. So, if it's breaking up, it will come while they track them. That's pretty complex. Is there any theorists bringing up, if you can't just one reason, which one? Why would there be a big crack as big as an elephant? What would they think about those things?

[09:05]

Well, I think these are all really good answers. Be careful, you'll break your head off. You wouldn't want to see that happen. Well, thank you very much, kids. I really enjoyed reading the story, and I appreciate all of your answers. And have a good day. He's a monster.

[10:06]

He's a monster. Well, you know, this story, this is a adaptation from a Jataka tale, which is the old tales from India about Shakyamuni's rebirth as an animal, usually.

[11:13]

And, of course, Shaka, the lion, is Shakamuni Buddha in one of his incarnations as a lion. And so, he brings the little hair back to reality whereas the little hare is living in his imagination. This is a very fundamental story in Buddhism, which every Buddhist knows, that when you see a snake in the dim light, when you see a rope laying in the in the distance, in the dim light, you think it's a snake. This is one of the most fundamental stories in Buddhism.

[12:17]

When you see a rope at a distance, in the dim light, you think, oh, that's a snake. And then somebody shines a light on it, and you see, well, it's just a rope. So this is indicative of our three natures. The nature of seeing things as it is, seeing things as representations, and seeing just as pure imagination. Rarely do we see things as it is. Suzuki Roshi used to talk about this a lot. He said, to see things as it is, not to see things as they are. Although that's okay, but As it is means thusness or suchness or its truth, to see something, to see reality as it really is.

[13:24]

Because mostly we see through our representations. Representations are our ideas about what something is. As soon as we name something, this is a representation. If I say, That's a representation, because although it's a bell, as a representation, it's not a bell. I don't know what it is. It's what it is. So to understand what it really is, you have to play the bell. The bell has to be played in order to sing, and when it sings, we know what it is. So when we play the bell, we play the bell in order to allow it to sing, or coax it to sing.

[14:34]

So we become one with the bell. When we become one with the bell, then we allow the bell to sing, a bell. When we don't think this is a bell and we simply are one with the reality of what this is, then it will sing. So no matter how much we hit it or whatever we do to it, as long as we hold it as a representation of our mind. So, how we make contact with something is our practice. Practice of seeing things as it is and relating to things not as objects.

[15:38]

Although every entity has an objective quality, It also has a subjective quality. And we make it what it is. So everything in this room is the fabrication of our imagination. We imagine something and then we put our imagination into action in the realm of representations. And then we practice zazen, which is to sentient suchness in the realm of things as it is. Things as it is is... we experience things as it is when we're not discriminating.

[16:47]

We're not thinking about it, but simply intuitively relating. Because intuitively relating is not discriminating. When I say discriminating, it means not discriminating on the basis of self-centeredness. We have to separate everything, all these objects, in order to relate. not on the basis of self-centeredness. This is how we experience our Buddha nature in its pure essence. This is how we practice with an essence of mind. Of course, representation and imagination are important,

[17:50]

They're very important parts of our mind. But the problem we have that causes so much suffering and ignorance and inability to see straight is because we act out of representation and imagination without touching the ground of reality. So our society fundamentally was designed, we think, hope, to be based on the ground of reality. But because we act out of selfishness and representation and imagination without touching the ground of reality, we're living above the ground of reality.

[19:01]

And so we live in the realm of circularity. Circularity means, in the Buddhist term, which means things go round and round and never become resolved. there's never any resolution to the ups and downs of society. The water just washes back and forth, and when it washes this way we get drowned, and when it washes that way someone else gets drowned. So the water is really what we call peaceful. We want peacefulness, you know, but it's not possible because of our own circularity. So every time we build up something, every time we build up an aspect of society, it's beneficial.

[20:09]

The opposite comes along and washes it away. So it's very hard because we don't base our society, although theoretically we base our society on reality, the bedrock of reality. We lose our way because we lose that, we're out of touch with it. So imagination, you know, we try very hard in our practice to live in the ground of reality. But we get fooled. We fool ourselves by getting caught by living in the realm of representation.

[21:11]

Representation is like habit energy. habit energy, as you know, all of our actions and thoughts plant seeds in the seedbed of our mind, and we keep perfuming and watering those seeds, and they keep sprouting over and over again, and so we get caught in this circular The circular cage, or the treadmill, in this cage that we call our life, and it's very hard to get unstuck. We just keep doing the same habitual, repeating the same habits over and over again until we stop. and reflect. So the little hare was caught by his imagination.

[22:19]

He didn't reflect on what was happening in his imagination. He didn't even look back. He just thought, the world's breaking apart when I heard that crash. That's the realm of pure imagination. He didn't even... Maybe he got caught by his field of representation, but there was no reality to anything that he was responding to. So the lion, his buddha nature, brought him back. He was very lucky. He started this stampede in his mind, and he went crazy trying to flee, and there was no place to go. So, he was rescued by Shakyamuni. And he took him back and said, look, this is what happened.

[23:21]

This is the reality. The reality was that a fruit truck, bam, on the ground. And your imagination just led you astray. So, this happens all the time. for us to continually come back to the field of things as it is in our practice. But we get caught by our representation and by our imagination. Representation means that we live in a field of thinking that things are what they are, but they're not. And it's very hard because of our habit energy to stop that process, which is called creating karma.

[24:23]

We keep creating karma because we keep... we're stuck in the realm of representation. It's like trying to scratch the itch on your foot through your shoe. There's this separation between how you really want to get rid of the itch, but you can't touch it because there's a barrier there. So to see things as it is, is to see beyond the field of representation of our mind. And we just create a whole world of representations. And it narrows our world down. So, through our senses, we collect information. And consciousness records that information and separates it out.

[25:27]

And we understand things through... We can actually see things as it is. because we have not yet processed the thoughts. When we process the thought, then we distort what we see, hear, and feel. It's not that processing the thought is wrong, it's that this is where the realm of representation takes place. and get beyond the thought process to our intuition to experience things as it is. Intuition simply means to experience things as it is, without the distortion of the thought process. Which doesn't mean the thought process is wrong, as long as we don't lose the reality

[26:36]

then the thought process is very helpful. But the thought process and the imagination, without the foundation of things as it is, leads us astray. Because the mind invents its own reasons for things. And imagination is a totally free form. So when we sit in zazen, we let go of the thought processes, even though they're still there. And the realm of imagination just keeps rolling along. I never thought of that before. I have all these thoughts that I never thought before, and they're just like flickers of the mind passing through, because the mind of imagination has to continue. and our deliberative thinking, we let go of that as well.

[27:46]

But it keeps coming up. But we understand how it works. If you really understand how, if you really pay attention to the way the thought process is working, you can see how we keep coming back, we keep letting go of thought processes, we keep coming back to Just this. So sitting in pure mind. Sitting in the center of pure mind. Pure mind means, purity means non-discrimination. Not discriminating. That's pure thinking. If there's pain, it's just this sensation. Pain is just something that we call a certain sensation.

[28:50]

But because we're so used to discriminating, we can't help saying that. But if you let go of that concept, it's just a sensation. And so we're not turned by our fears. We can see clearly what it is. And when we have pleasure, it's just another idea that we're attached to. So all sensations are just what they are, just to experience. All sensations are just what they are. There's an old koan, Nansen, walking with the governor, and they came upon a flower bed, and they had a little conversation, and in the end, well, the conversation was, the governor said to Nansen, there was a great sage, quoted a great sage, who said, I and the universe are one piece.

[30:17]

Isn't that wonderful? And Nansen pointed to the flower and he said, people today do not understand, cannot see this flower as it is. They do not see this flower as it is. And do we see this flower as it is? That's a great koan for each one of us. Do we see this flower as it is? Or do we see this flower as we imagine it? Or as we saw it yesterday, it's not the same flower today as it was yesterday. As a matter of fact, nothing is the same as we saw it yesterday. Even those things, even diamonds, which are the hardest seem to be at one time where the hardest elements, the hardest rock, are not the same as they were yesterday.

[31:35]

As soon as something appears, it disappears. As soon as something appears, it disappears. Even though everything looks like it's continuing, There is something that's continuing, and something that's not continuing, and something that's continuing, and something that's not continuing, but it's just the way things seem to be. Things seem to be. In fact, it's not. So, looking into impermanence, as Master Dogen says, is to see things as it is. We really need to look into the nature of impermanence, and then we can enjoy our life.

[32:39]

We may think that being born and growing up is to enjoy our life, And to decline and die is not a joke. But actually, it's all the same. I think it's a great adventure to enjoy your life as it's declining, and because you let because it's all in our mind. It's not really any faster. But we think it's faster. It seems to be faster. Because we live in our mind. So, how to maintain and enjoy your life? Because this cycle is the most natural thing.

[33:45]

How could it not be all the same? Everyone got, even though there's no such thing as birth and death, in a true sense, the appearance of birth and death, we live within the appearance of birth and death. And so, it has one complete cycle. It's one complete cycle. And we should be able to live out the natural course, realizing that that's the way it is. Often when I attend people that are dying, I don't think, oh, this is awful.

[34:46]

I really don't think that. I may be, you know, maybe I'm overlooking something. There's grief and there's sorrow and so forth. the way I actually see it is that I just helped this person to fade out. Because that's what's happening. And it's not bad and it's not good. It's just the way it is. So there is a good side And it's wonderful. So, when I fade out, please don't cry. Do you know Master Tozan, when he, you probably know this story, when he was about to go, he sat up, you know, and he said,

[35:50]

And then everybody started crying. And he said, uh-oh. Actually, he died. He died, yeah. Everybody started crying. And then he woke up. And he said, you know, what are you doing? You don't understand. He said, I'm going to give you one more week. And we were going to have a stupidity-curifying meal. And so in that one week, we made this big feast, you know. And he said, OK, OK, OK, boom.

[37:05]

I really like that story a lot. It's not that I try to like it, I do like it. We get easily caught. We're easily caught by our feelings and our emotions. And we should be. It's good to be caught by our feelings and our emotions. But it's also important to realize, I am being caught by my feelings and emotions, but actually, that's not what's really happening. So everyone that's been born has died. Isn't that amazing? Everyone in the whole history of the world. Every single person, animal, tree, rock, that's been born in the world has died, so to speak.

[38:14]

So what's the problem? We have to understand that. We have to understand the reality of that and that it's inevitable. It's beyond avoidable. So we have in our imagination, in our field of representation, we have all kinds of ideas about it. And we have ideas of rebirths and so forth, which are all really wonderful. But there is a reality to imagination, because it's real imagination. It's not that the imagination itself has any reality, but the imagination itself is reality.

[39:20]

It's a real imagination. And the representations are real representations. So there are levels of reality, actually. But basic reality is when we simply experience something intuitively, which means directly, without the distortions of thought and imagination and representation. So that's the practice. We can do that from time to time. But it's hard to do it all the time. And that's where we should stop then. So there's time for one or two questions.

[40:23]

If anybody... Yes. Yvonne Rand told me that she has a beautiful bell in Hercendo, not that big, Almost. And she found it in someone's house, and they didn't know it was a bell, and they were using it by the fireplace to keep firewood in. Yeah. Caplo went down to Mexico with some of his students, and they went to a Mexican restaurant someplace, kind of fancy Mexicans, in a hotel I think. And lo and behold, there was this wonderful, enormous, I think it was Japanese, Buddha statue, Buddha figure. I don't know which one it was exactly, but it was really one of the best, one of the really good ones.

[41:24]

And people were using it to, you know, put their cigarettes out and collect, throw pennies at, you know, how they do. It brought it back to New York. Linda? Yeah, I was with you in everything that you said. Until? Except. The one thing that I want to raise a question about feels like kind of heresy, and that is the phrase, things as it is, which you've been very You like that phrase a lot. And I would like to say something about why I don't like it. I don't think it's just grammar. But it seems to make a point of erasing difference. You covered that.

[42:28]

You said things really are distinct. But then I think that the story you told about nonsense and the governor expresses what I'm trying to say about not liking the insistence on this, what seems like a sort of cute phrase, things as it is, which erases form, you know, the form side of form and emptiness. Don't we have to keep form and emptiness all the time? Yeah, that's why I said things, which is form, as it is, that's why that phrase contains both. I take it as a you telling me to not see the difference of things, but to see only the hit, the sameness. But Nag Sen, he said, look, you know what he said. There's different ways of expressing something. So I think they're both correct. In order to express reality, it's very hard to do it without discriminating.

[43:49]

So when you say things, that's multiplicity, as it is, is oneness. So it expresses both sides as a column. A koan is using ordinary language in a way that expresses non-duality, which is impossible in language, ordinarily. That's why the koans seem so... they boggle your mind. And the reason they boggle our mind is because we live in the world of representations instead of the world of So, I understand what you're saying. And I understand the problem. But I like it. Okay, there's one more.

[44:53]

Barbara? Roberta. I'm in the middle. Thank you for your story. Thank you. I think the point, going back to your spoken story, which is a universal story that has clarity in terms of when we don't see things as they are, see things as it is, we are caught up in suffering. And that when we give meaning where there is no meaning, there is a delusion or an illusion that follows that takes us into a journey that is, again, that repetition that you spoke to. And we're caught up in the will. And so the way I'll To be out, you know, to step out of that is to really take that moment to be with what is. Well, that's right, because we habitually conditioned our conditioning, habitually direct our mind into the channels.

[46:05]

don't step out of the box, we just keep perpetuating our conditioned responses.

[46:23]

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