I vow to teach the truth of the world to the righteous. Last week I talked about case number 12 in the Humong Kong, Zui Gong calls Master. I want to talk a little bit more about this case and to expand a little bit on it.

[01:03]

Every day, Master Zuigan Shigen used to call out to himself, O Master, and would answer himself, Yes? Are you awake? He would ask, and then he would answer himself, Yes, I am. Never be deceived by others, any day, any time. No, I won't," he said. In our practice, we're always expressing our Buddha nature.

[02:40]

When we sit tsao zen, we express our Buddha nature. And in our daily life, we express our Buddha nature. And we say form is emptiness and emptiness is form in the Heart Sutra. When we sit, when we get up early in the morning and sit zazen, we can say form is emptiness. And when we get up off our cushion, and resume our activity in the world, we can say emptiness is form. And it's important to know the difference. It's important to know when emptiness is form and when form is emptiness.

[03:49]

Old Zui Gan was a very well-developed student, Zen master, and his life was very open. His practice was very transparent. It's like you could see right into it. And so every day he would, he was always talking to himself, not like mumbling or like someone who doesn't see where they're going and is just having a conversation with themselves. That's kind of psychotic, you know, to just have a conversation, to walk down the street mumbling to yourself. But Zui Gon would say, Master, calling to his buddha nature.

[05:00]

And then he would answer, yes. So Zhegan knew himself very well. Zhegan was very much in touch with himself, as we say. We say we like to be in touch with ourself. Someone is in touch with himself or someone is not in touch with himself. with their self. Surya Gandhi was very much in touch with himself. He would say, Master, and then he would answer, Yes. And then he'd say, Don't be fooled by anybody. This is not a kind of moralistic or kind of rules of behavior. This is Zui Gan expressing beyond Zui Gan.

[06:09]

This is Zui Gan expressing himself as Buddha nature. If we try to copy Zui Gan, we just make some cheap imitation. But on the other hand, we must practice like Zui Gan. We must know how to practice like Zui Gan practices. We have to know how to call and answer. Who's calling and who's answering? And who's calling and who's responding? This is a poem.

[07:22]

How to make A correct response is a very important part of our practice. How to respond correctly? Who responds? Who calls and who responds? Form is emptiness and emptiness is form, we say. And when we sit in zazen, we leave the world behind, so to speak, and resume to our unconditioned nature. That's what we call emptiness. Unconditioned means not in the realm of causes and conditions.

[08:24]

or only slightly in the realm of causes and conditions. Which leads us to another koan of Hyakujo and the fox, is a Zen master, realized person, subject to causes and conditions. But I don't want to go into that koan. right now. So in zazen we can really let ourselves go. And the purpose of zazen is to be completely merged with self-nature or emptiness. our unconditioned self, to really know our unconditioned self, your zazen.

[09:32]

And it's perfectly correct for sitting. But at the same time, you know, there's this very strong form to contain our unconditioned self. So zazen, posture of zazen, is the most confined, strongest posture that we can possibly assume. Why we assume this form of zazen, cross-legged sitting, sitting up straight, and with a very defined posture, is so that our unconditioned nature can be contained. So it's the strongest posture that we can assume in order to contain everything in this very prescribed way.

[10:48]

If we didn't have this container, we would just melt into a puddle on the floor. So if you want to melt steel, you have to have a very strong vessel. And then you can pour all of the material into the bucket and heat it up, and it just all melts. has no particular form. It takes the form of the vessel. The molten metal takes the form of the vessel. And in the same way, our unconditioned nature takes the form of the condition of the vessel that we assume. So, we have to have a pretty strong vessel to contain

[11:53]

our zazen, to contain the strength and power of our unconditioned nature. Just raw energy, strong raw energy. And form is emptiness. And when we get out of zazen posture and start acting in the world, start to put ourselves into the realm of conditions, into the realm of causes and conditions, we have to conform to the realm of causes and conditions.

[12:56]

we have to assume the various forms that are presented to us. We may feel that we want to escape from the forms of this world and not engage with the forms of this world, but it's impossible to escape. So Emptiness takes on all the forms of this world. And without hesitating to meet each thing as it's presented to us, without hesitation, becomes our practice after zazen. And this is very, very important If we, you know, we say that our practice is extended from zazen into our daily life, but that doesn't mean that we should act like we're in zazen when we're practicing in the world.

[14:12]

When you're meeting forms and dealing with the forms of this world, you can't sit with your legs crossed and let yourself go. follow your breath. You have to pay attention to everything, to all of your surroundings as you move through the world and respond to everything. So the form of zazen and practice is constantly changing depending on what we meet. So we're constantly moving and changing our form and conforming or moving with the forms of the world and assuming forms, changing constantly.

[15:16]

And this is how we carry out bodhisattva practice in the world because we have experienced form as emptiness, we can experience emptiness as form. And we go back and forth between form as emptiness and emptiness as form. Always back and forth. But realizing that everything, all these forms, are the forms of emptiness. All the forms which we meet and all of the forms of our surrounding are our true nature, the forms of emptiness. Our buddha nature, you can call it many things. So when we come into the zendo, we should be very quiet, very careful, and take our posture and just merge with our posture and breathing.

[16:48]

Be one with our posture and breathing and we cover the whole universe in that way. And then when we move out of zazen, into our daily life, whatever meets us. We become one with that activity, each moment's activity becoming, covering the whole universe. So that our practice in zazen is not different from our practice in the world in that sense. But if you try to make both of them the same, then you cause yourself and everybody else a big problem. If you try to act in the world in the same way that you act in Zazen, you cause a big problem.

[17:51]

So if someone says something to you, you can't keep your mouth shut. That's no longer zazen. That's imitating zazen. Imitating your practice in the zendo. So, when you're practicing in the world, you may not even realize that you're practicing, or it may take a long time before you realize what is practice in the world. How to make all of the forms that you meet into practice. How to turn that into practice, how to transform your activities into practice without changing them. But that's very advanced kind of practice.

[19:07]

So Zuigan, our friend Zuigan, is always calling to himself, Master, and answering, Yes. Don't be fooled by anything. Okay. And we should have that attitude. That's a very good attitude. But it takes various forms. And the form of questioning and the form of answering is always different. When we enter a situation, we can say, what am I doing? That's a kind of koan.

[20:14]

What is this? What am I doing? And then you become aware of what is happening. What am I doing means how do I respond to this situation as a bodhisattva? That's what that question is. How do I respond to this situation as a bodhisattva? And moment by moment it's a koan. What would a bodhisattva do in this situation? Or what will I, as a bodhisattva, do in this moment, given these factors, given these conditions? How will I act? That's how we extend our practice into the world.

[21:15]

And it takes different forms. We don't know how it's going to be. We never know how it's going to be. If you have some preconceived idea about how it's going to be, it's just a fake counterfeit. So we have to be able to respond to conditions spontaneously. And this is precepts, following precepts. And of course it's advanced practice. Ron was talking to me the other day and he said, you know, our practice is kind of vague and practice that we do in the world is too advanced for us because it doesn't have any definition.

[22:20]

any real kind of rules and definition, and it's really too advanced for us, and I agree, it is. Suzuki Hiroshi's practice was very advanced, because the way he looked at precepts was from a very advanced point of view. rather than taking precepts one by one and trying to match your activity with the precept. He would say, when you act correctly, when in each situation, taking the factors of each situation and finding out what is correct in that situation based on your own sense of Buddha nature, then the precept naturally arises. The precept will be there for you.

[23:23]

You will know what to do. But it's a very advanced kind of practice. It means you already have to be a bodhisattva. So maybe in our practice we need to be more like baby bodhisattvas. and learn things like children learn. Learn and start from a very basic child's point of view. Learning things by rote and having some basis that way. So, keeping in mind, I think that if we keep in mind the fact that we want to practice bodhisattva practice,

[25:14]

and we question our activity. What do I do as a bodhisattva in this situation, in this moment? Even though we don't know so much, you know, even though we don't have so much understanding of Buddhism or precepts, we have this one precept which contains all precepts. Which is, what do I do as a bodhisattva in this situation, in this moment? What am I doing, is the koan. We keep that koan always in mind. We can it will bring us very deeply into the nature of precepts.

[26:24]

And precepts will arise spontaneously from our nature. Even though I realize that it's very advanced practice, I think we should still practice it, even if we're not so advanced. And even though we find ourselves in a place where we don't know what we are, who we are, or how to respond even, we're always finding ourselves in a situation where we don't know how to respond. then we must refer to our koan. What will I do now in this situation as a bodhisattva?

[27:35]

What does a bodhisattva do in this situation? Then we know what to do. If we say, I don't know what to do, something will come up. This is an important kind of point, you know. If we always feel that we know what to do, we may be making a mistake. And sometimes, if we get caught in a situation, say, I don't know. I don't know what to do. kind of response will help to clear our mind. And when our mind is clear, it's a very honest kind of response, you know, I don't know. Then it clears the way for something to come up. Because we always have a response deep in us, deep down.

[28:40]

We always know how to respond. And if we depend on our nature, to respond, our nature will respond. But we have to clear the way, keep our mind clear for that response. And it's not different than Zuigan calling, Master. When we say, I don't know, it's just like Zuigan calling, Master. Zuligan calling Master, he just cleans the slate and allows something to come up from his nature.

[29:47]

But because he depends on nature, When we talk about self-nature, or Buddha-nature, or Zuigan's master, that's no special nature that we call our nature. We can't put our finger on it and say, this is it, this is what it is. We can only let it respond, but we can't point to it. but it can respond. So, one of the problems that we have is if we say there's no special nature which is our nature, true nature,

[30:51]

we can do anything we want. It sounds like there's no form to anything, but even though there's no form, even though there's no special nature, as Suzuki Roshi says, there's still some rules. There may be no no concrete thing which you can point to and say, this is our nature. But at the same time, there are some rules. And the rules, if you follow rules correctly, then you can point to something and say, that's it. This is it. Whatever we do, this is it.

[32:03]

And when we follow, trust our self nature in that way, then we can trust ourself. And even though we don't always know what to do, if we trust our self-nature, we can call on our self-nature and something will appear. We can say, I don't know, or we can say, what should I do now? What should I do now? And something will come up, some way will open up. So Zuigan, Master Zuigan is always addressing self-nature, and self-nature is always answering.

[33:52]

Always addressing and always answering, and it's the self-nature that's doing the addressing and doing the answer. If we have too much stuff in between, too many ideas in between, we can't recognize that. It makes it hard to recognize. We can't see ourselves so well. And we get confused. You know, that's... Singsong, Sansonin, the Korean Zen master, is always saying, just have don't know mind and go straight ahead.

[35:20]

You know, he's always saying that. Don't know mind, just go straight ahead with don't know mind. It's not original with him, but he uses it I appreciate very much the way he uses it. Sometimes we wonder, we get confused and we wonder what to do. But we have to trust ourself and just go straight ahead with don't know mind. wanting to know too much is a kind of reinforces our hesitancy.

[36:25]

As Dogen says in Genjo Koan, A bird flies through the air and a fish swims in the ocean without knowing too much. They don't have to know about it before they do it. They just do it. And this is also called practice of practice enlightenment. Without worrying about whether or not you're going to be enlightened. You just go straight ahead. The fish swims in the ocean.

[37:37]

but doesn't necessarily think, this is the ocean. The bird flies in the sky but doesn't necessarily think, this is the sky. He's just at home in his work. So for a Zen student, We don't worry too much about enlightenment. We're just at home in our work. That's the main thing. Do you have a question? I don't understand why this fellow is pointing at others as the source of his being deceived.

[38:51]

Why is he pointing at others? I see. He's not pointing at others. It looks like by saying, don't be deceived by others, you know. Others is not something outside of yourself. In the Platform Sutra, the Sixth Patriarch talks about saving all sentient beings. And he says, to save all sentient beings does not mean that I, Huineng, am going to save all the people in the world. Saving all sentient beings means the avaricious mind the greedy mind, the hateful mind, the jealous mind, and so forth.

[39:54]

So he says, saving all sentient beings is to save all the sentient beings of my own mind. And Zuigan says, don't be deceived by all the phantoms of your own mind. by others, that's what he means by others. If you're not deceived by the phantoms and specters of your own mind, then no one else can fool you either. So we always turn to ourselves. Our practice is always to work on ourself. We always have one person that we can teach. And that one person is yourself.

[41:02]

Teacher is someone who is always teaching himself, and maybe it's kind of transparent, like Zuiga. And it's like looking at a transparent model of something. And you can look at it and say, oh, I see how that's working. Maybe it's working, maybe it's not. But you can see it. So if a teacher is not teaching himself, you should go to find some other teacher. Primarily, teacher is teaching himself. And other people can use that example.

[42:14]

That's why we don't use so many teaching devices, you know, in our practice. The only thing there is, is the example of the teacher. So there are lots of teachers, not just one. There should be lots of teachers. And if a teacher has good students, it's because the students are good teachers. And that's always a mark of a good teacher, is that a teacher has good students who know how to train themselves, how to teach themselves, how to keep their Bodhisattva mind. So Siligon says, don't be fooled by others. Okay. means that he's working on himself.

[43:18]

Always careful what he's doing. Can you say something about the difference between what is this and who is this? Not much difference. Who, you know, refers to subjective. And what refers to objective. Right? So you point, you say, who is this? You point to somebody. And when you say, what is this? You point to some object. But we should know the difference between subject and object.

[44:26]

But the koan is to bring you to the understanding of no difference between subject and object. Can you say that perhaps it's partly just different steps in a process that when you ask, what is this? you're locating yourself, and then who is it if you're locating what? The responses. No, that's too intellectual. Sorry. You know, what? Who? That's all. This. The answers in the question. When we are working on ourselves with some particular problem, as we all know, it's a hard thing.

[45:54]

Especially as we here take up some particular problem that we have. It's usually, and then there's the practice.

[46:07]

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