I vow to chase the truth of the Tathagata's words. Well, we've been sitting here for seven days, most of us, and Unless I do something about it, I feel like I just continue to keep doing this. But we have to put an end to seishin and do something else. I want to talk about another koan from Mumangkan, which illustrates this point.

[01:18]

This is case 42 from Mumman Khan and it's called, The Girl Comes Out of Samadhi. And it's taken from, Mumman took it from an old Chinese, another story about a girl taken from an old Chinese story and using it as a koan. in his own way. And it goes like this. Once in the old days, in the time of the World Honored One, that's Shakyamuni Buddha, Manjushri, who was the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, went to the assembly of the Buddhas and found that everyone had departed to his original dwelling place.

[02:30]

Everybody went home. After the assembly, everyone went home and Manjushri was... Actually, they wouldn't let Manjushri in. Because this is the kind of play, this drama, this kind of little drama that's cooked up. And Manjushri is an actor playing himself, but he's allowing himself to be pushed around and play the kind of bad guy in this little drama. He's letting himself be the bad guy, although we always think of Manjushri as the Bodhisattva of Great Wisdom. In this story, he's the bad guy. And the reason that they wouldn't let him into the assembly was because even though he was the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, he lacked compassion.

[03:45]

You remember in my earlier talk, about six or seven days ago, I was talking about faith and wisdom, and that faith and wisdom both belong to the controlling factors of mind. But wisdom without faith tends to become cunning. And faith is kind of like compassion. Compassion arises out of faith and is part of faith. And Manjushri represents wisdom, prajna wisdom, also prajna.

[05:01]

And if Manjushri doesn't have compassion, he's not complete. So he's playing himself in a kind of incomplete way. It wouldn't let him into the assembly. So Manjushri went to the assembly of the Buddhas and found that everyone had departed to his original dwelling place. Only a girl remained, sitting in samadhi, close to the Buddha's throne, very close to the Buddha's throne, sitting in samadhi. Manjushri asked Shakyamuni Buddha, Why can the girl get near the Buddha's throne while I cannot?" Shakyamuni Buddha said, bring her out of her samadhi and ask her yourself.

[06:05]

So Manjushri walked around the girl three times, snapped his fingers once, took her to the Brahma heaven, and exerted all his miraculous powers to bring her out of her meditation, but in vain. It's a very complicated story. The World Honored One said, even a hundred thousand manjushas cannot make her wake up. But down below, past twelve hundred million lands, as innumerable as the sins of the Ganges, there is the Bodhisattva Mo Myo. He will be able to arouse her from her samadhi. Instantly, the Bodhisattva Mo Myo emerged from the earth and made a bow to the World Honored One, who gave him is imperial order. The bodhisattva went over to the girl and snapped his fingers once. At this she came out of her samadhi." Mo-myo means seed of delusion.

[07:10]

Bodhisattva Mo-myo was on the lowest stage of bodhisattvahood. a kind of novice bodhisattva. Innocent bodhisattva, actually. Maybe with beginner's mind. Bodhisattva with beginner's mind. Kind of naive, baby-like, but a seed of delusion is his name. Beginner's mind is When someone begins to study, they have beginner's mind, usually. Not always, but usually, they have beginner's mind, which is just wide open eyes and not knowing anything, and like a baby bird waiting to be fed.

[08:19]

very innocent. And then when they begin to get some understanding, they become kind of defiled, kind of dirty, because of their understanding. And then when they reach the zenith of practice, they gain beginner's mind again. So this bodhisattva, mumyo, is on the lowest stage of bodhisattvahood. And what manjushri can't do, this bodhisattva can do, bodhisattva mumyo can do. So the question is, why can the bodhisattva mumyo wake up the girl in samadhi while a manjushri can't?

[09:26]

Manjushri, who is the great Bodhisattva of Wisdom, can't do it. The girl represents our mind. The girl is our mind. It is us. Each one of us is the girl who is sitting in samadhi, our mind in samadhi. And being next to the lion's throne is the center of our samadhi. In the center of our samadhi is Buddha's lion throne. So you see this koan is really about ourself.

[10:29]

So, and my feeling is that Mumyo is really Manjushri with two faces. Matter of fact, Mumon has a poem He has a commentary. He says, ìOld Shakyamuni put a petty drama on the stage and failed to enlighten the masses.î Thatís his way of talking. ìI want to ask you. Manjushri is the teacher of the seven Buddhas. Why shouldnít he arouse the girl from her samadhi? How was it that Maurya A bodhisattva at the beginner's stage could do it. If you understand this intimately, you will enjoy Nagya's grand samadhi in the busiest activity of consciousness. Nagya's. Buddha.

[11:41]

The old snake. If you understand this intimately, you will enjoy Nagya's grand samadhi in the busiest activity of consciousness. And in Mumon's verse, he says, one was successful, the other was not. Both secured freedom of mind. One in a God mask, the other in a devil mask. Even in defeat, a beautiful performance. a god mask and a devil mask. This is like Manjushri performing on the stage by himself, putting on one mask as the great Bodhisattva and the other mask as Momyo, the simple beginner Bodhisattva.

[12:50]

And even though Manjushri loses as Manjushri, he wins as Munmyo. The point of this koan is, why does the girl have to come out of samadhi? You can ask this question. She has to do something else. The girl actually is Manjushri. The girl is also Manjushri.

[14:04]

This deep samadhi is like what we've been doing for seven days. Deep samadhi. How do we get out of our deep samadhi? Why should we get out of our deep samadhi? What else is there to do? And who's going to take us out of our deep samadhi? At the end of the day, Mumyo will come up and snap his fingers and release us from our samadhi. Then we'll be in... but will we leave samadhi? Where will samadhi go? Do you enter and leave samadhi? Is samadhi something that you can enter and leave? Samadhi is our deep concentration.

[15:17]

Where does it go? Where do we go when we leave our deep samadhi? The point is that we have to do something. We have to... In order for Manjushri to be complete, he has to manifest compassion. So Manjushri and Mumyo are really one person. And when Mumyo joins Manjushri, when the Mumyo side joins the Manjushri side, Samadhi steps out into the world, takes an ordinary everyday activity, but it needs Mumyo to move, to snap his fingers.

[16:37]

We have to just plunge into activity, forgetting all about our deep samadhi. The scene changes. This is scene one. Next is scene two. Out in the world, walking the street, taking on bosses and children and wives and husbands money, bombs. Without losing our samadhi, how would you practice samadhi?

[17:43]

in your activity. The whole point is, what will you do when you are out in the world? we always feel kind of like a failure in the world. I sit Zazen, but then when I leave the zendo, I just get all tangled up in the problems of my life. That's what we encounter. But We should be able to sustain our practice in all those problems.

[18:52]

Within those problems, where is your calm mind? And if you practice good concentration, in your everyday activity, no matter what you're doing, it's not different than concentrating your body and mind when your legs are hurting and sashaying. An old saying is, The moon dances on the waves of the ocean. The moon dancing on the turbulent waves of the ocean.

[19:55]

The moon dances on the turbulent waves of the ocean, but remains itself. This kind of dance, you know, is if we can observe or realize our life as a kind of dance on the waves of the ocean, always moving with the waves, dancing on the waves like the moonlight. Moonlight means enlightenment. Enlightened mind and enlightened body dancing on the waves, the turbulent waves.

[20:58]

And when the ocean is calm, you just see the whole moon reflected. But when the waves are dashing around, They're all broken up. The moonlight is all broken up. But when the waves cease and you just have a placid ocean, the whole moon is there. But whether the water is calm or turbulent, the whole moon is still there. It's just harder to see it. Very hard to see. So whether we're sitting in Sishin or moving around in the world, the moon is still there.

[22:06]

Dogen mentions The moon reflects on the water, but the water is not broken. So, really the most important practice is the practice that we do outside of this window. Moving from one thing to the next. If you have a firm sense of practice, no matter what happens in your life, you can always enjoy your life.

[23:35]

And even if you're lost, even if you get confused, you're not lost. This is also called stepping off at the top of a hundred foot pole. Climbing up to the top of the pole is like sitting in Sashim and just being content.

[24:46]

Oh, this is wonderful. I can stay here forever. But we need to just walk off. and take on whatever comes next. But it's also part of compassion. We could just stay here, but we have to mingle with people and help people. without trying too hard, just by practicing completely, sincerely, we can help people. So to just walk out of our seclusion and help people,

[26:01]

This is coming down off a mountain. You may not feel that Sashin has been so successful. You may feel, well, I sat seven days, but I don't feel particularly successful. But no matter how you feel, You may even be confused. Why did I do that? Why did I sit Satsang? I don't know. Seven days of pain. What is he talking about? I don't want to stay here anymore. You may feel that way. I don't feel that way. I feel pretty content. But I understand the feeling. Because for many years I felt that way myself. two more periods of zazen.

[27:07]

But even so, you'll feel, should feel some very calm feeling when you step out into the world. And that feeling that you carry with you will help people. So, don't be afraid to get all tangled up in the vines of life. So, back and forth we practice. We retreat and then we engage.

[28:23]

We retreat and engage. And Samadhi goes with us wherever we go. Do you have a question? You said that faith without wisdom, no, wisdom without faith became cunning. Could you say something about faith without wisdom? Oh yeah, faith, I said wisdom without faith can lead to cunning. But faith without wisdom can't attach itself to any kind of thing, without discriminating, and become fanatically involved if wisdom is not controlling faith.

[29:56]

when faith gets out of hand and attaches itself to the wrong object and gets into lots of trouble. You said before that there's no point of reason why we're sitting. We're just sitting. But I still feel that I'm sitting to experience the body. Could you say that, too? When I think of what I'm getting at, it's the same as that. Did I say there was no point? Well, at times you say that. You just sit. Just sit. I didn't say there was no point.

[30:58]

No attainment. No attainment. I didn't say there was no point. But that samadhi... Yeah. But attainment... If I say, you sit to attain samadhi, then you become attached to samadhi. So... We sit to sit. If you say, I sit to attain samadhi, then you become attached to somebody. You say, oh, I can hardly wait for samadhi. You know, where is samadhi? You don't sit for that reason. You just sit, and whatever comes, comes. This is important. You just sit, and do the best you can. The other day, yesterday, was talking about no image of wisdom.

[32:01]

No image of it. If you have some idea about what it is, that's a hindrance. If you sit sadhana to attain samadhi, that's a hindrance. You'll never attain samadhi that way. So you just sit. And in other words, you have this empty box. And whatever comes into you, maybe it's like a bowl, you know. It's a kind of spiritual begging bowl. And you have the spiritual begging bowl and you empty it out. And whatever comes in, or whatever appears in the bowl, is what you get. So when we sit zazen, we empty our bowl. We don't say, I'm sitting to get samadhi. I'm sitting to empty my bowl. To experience emptiness. I'm sitting to empty my bowl.

[33:06]

If you experience emptiness, then that's what appears in your bowl. But if you sit to get anything, that's It's a little presumptuous. You just sit with your empty box, and maybe someone will come along and put something in it. So if you come out of CC feeling peaceful and calm, or if you come out feeling aggravated with anger, and that's what it's all the same? They're not the same. Aggravation is not the same as calmness, but why do you feel aggravated? But it's now in my experience of those two things. Today I feel calm, that's right. Oh great, this is what it's about.

[34:12]

I know I just wanted to go out and chill. But fortunately you were sitting down, right? So, yeah, you have the opportunity to kill yourself. There's no one else there, so you can kill yourself. And then you can feel calm and peaceful. So, it's a shame, you know, you don't want anything. You may want something, but you don't sit because you want something. If you want something, then you feel agitated and disappointed and worried. So the only way that you can really sit contentedly is to not want anything. You can sit through the whole session with not wanting anything, not expecting anything. Then you can sit pretty comfortably, even though, because the things that come into your bowl are things that you can take care of.

[35:18]

The less you have in your bowl, the easier it is. So what we do is constantly emptying, just constantly emptying the bowl. This stuff is coming in and we let it go. It comes in and we don't ask for anything. If you have a good feeling in your legs, in your body, in your mind, you say, oh boy, this is just wonderful. This is it. As soon as you say, this is it, then suddenly your legs start to hurt, you know, and you start to feel uncomfortable because you want something. It just proves the point of the Four Noble Truths. What we're doing when we're sitting is proving the point of the Four Noble Truths. Suffering comes from desire. And if you have some pain in your legs, and your body's not feeling so good, and you say, oh, I want something good.

[36:35]

I wish it was the other way. It just gets worse. So over and over, you know, Zazen, Sashi, teaches us about the nature of desire. And until you learn the lesson, you always have a lot of discomfort. But you can be pretty comfortable if you give up that desire. I know it's not what we want, but it's how we can be comfortable. We may have discomfort, but we don't have the suffering that accompanies it. And samadhi is just our natural state of mind before desire.

[37:44]

Naturally we have desires, otherwise we can't live. But when we say desire, it's a very complicated thing. And it means more than just our basic desires. And that's what we mean by natural state of mind, or your face, original face, before that design, where there's no separation between things. maintain samadhi in the midst of the realm of desire, that's hard.

[38:46]

That's why it looks like it's hard in sasheen, you know, it is. But it's much harder out there. Much harder. Because you're not aware of it, like you're aware of it, you're not aware of your pain out there in the same way that you're aware of it in here. Here there's just nothing else. Boom, you have to deal with it. But out there, you know, there's all kinds of curtains. You just don't see it. So we have to come in here in order to really focus. So we have a little bit more of Sushumna. Let's not get anxious, but just be completely here all the way to the end.

[39:50]

That's what I would like us to do, is just be completely here all the way to the last moment. Then we can find some ease.

[40:06]

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