I vow to chase the truth and let the darkness work. Morning. Well, Sashin will be over soon. But as I always say, we practice Sashin fully with full function all the way to the very end, just like your life. Don't ever give up. But after Sashin, we'll have the shuso ceremony. The shuso question and answer. or question and response ceremony. So I think we have to be careful about the word, the term answer.

[01:01]

Answer is like an explanation. But response, I think, is more accurate. So in the shuso ceremony, Each one asks a question, which elicits a response. But it's not like you're trying to gain information. You're not asking a question in order to gain information. You're asking a question in order to test the shuso. To test the Shuso's understanding.

[02:08]

So sometimes it's called Dharma combat. But it's not exactly combat. It's not like you're fighting, but the shusa may be fighting for his life. So the questions are good if they're very dig deep, you know. And the shuso has to be careful not to explain something to you. It's okay to explain something sometimes.

[03:22]

I mean, there's, you know. But the general feeling is that the shuso is coming from intuition. And intuition informs knowledge. But he's not just answering something from his head, but from his hara. So the response should come from the hara, it can bypass the head, or it can inform the head. But it should not just be a head answer, not just an intellectual answer, or something off the top of the head, as we say. But a gut response, intuitive response, And it's good if the questions come from here.

[04:25]

So then there's a vitality that comes through. If the vitality is not there, then things are not working. You know, this whole thing about testing the shuso has always been kind of tricky for me. because it seems to me like a real question is a real question, and that's the only way to have it half-deaf. And also, I don't kind of get... I don't get what's behind testing the shoestow as opposed to asking the shoestow a real question that you're really struggling with. You can ask a real question. All the questions should be real questions. So what is this piece that's different about testing them as opposed to... Looking for his response or wanting... Yeah. If you want to know something, you can ask him. And he'll tell you. But basically, you're testing his understanding of the Dharma.

[05:31]

And why would I want to do that? No, I mean it seriously, you know, kind of like... Because it always seemed a little mean to me, you know? And I know that it's a spirit of sad peace that I just don't get. That's what we do in Zen practice. We test someone's understanding in order to... Maybe the word probe is better. Maybe not. We know what side you're on. So, yeah. I was just going to say, when I first came to sit at BCC, I think it was pretty much the start of the spring practice period, and Ross was the issue so, and in that ceremony, it was like everybody pushed him really hard, and they didn't give him an inch, and they wanted him to do ribbon bow, and I loved that, that there could be this desire, you know, it was like,

[06:54]

It was a test, but there was this complete desire to be met. It was like, can you do this? So there was great effort on both sides and enormous love. And it was a powerful experience for me. And that was really why I decided to stay and practice Zen, was that ceremony. So thank you very much. Maybe the problem is our association of the word testing with school. That's because you're a school teacher. Everybody is a school person here. So the thing is when we get tested in normal life, it's really usually not with the kind of love Linda is talking about. So if you want to use the word testing, maybe it's okay if we need it differently from our usual experience of testing in school. We do it out of complete mutual Yeah.

[07:58]

Anyway, however you do it, do it. So, sometimes people say, well, you know, I have a hard time finding a question, you know. But I'll give you a suggestion. We've been studying Genjo Koan for six weeks. there are 10,000 questions that can come out of Genjo-Koan. So it should not be hard to find a question from Genjo-Koan. That's actually a good source for asking questions. What is your understanding of da, da, da? and then he has to give a succinct response. So it puts the shuso in a place where to give a succinct response that's not explanatory or wordy or I think blah blah, but hmm.

[09:20]

And his hara meets your hara. Hopefully. That's the feeling. So, Juso doesn't have anything prepared, right? Simply open mind. Open and receptive with nothing there. So, you present the question, and then, boom, something has to come up from emptiness. If there are prepared answers, it doesn't work. Japanese style has come down to prepared answers to prepared questions. I have experienced that a little bit,

[10:24]

They're kind of matching their questions and matching responses, so that's all kind of learned beforehand, and then you match the response to the question. That's very formal, but the way we have always done it is the way we do it. I remember in some of our beginning shuso ceremonies, there were questions that were just really off the wall. But over time, we developed more depth, and the questions become more and more sincere as the students become more mature. Can you give us an example of one of those awful ones? I'm trying to think of one. It doesn't have to be one of yours. What? It doesn't have to be one of yours.

[11:30]

I'm trying to think. Unthinkable. We're so glad. Yeah. I've been trying not to remember them. I've been thinking, you've mentioned this thing about the Japanese formality several times, and I think it is too bad that they've gotten like that. But when I try to imagine being in that place, then it must be that somehow the way answer is what you see that person doing. So there's still something to see and we can be aware of that too in what our shuso is giving us is more than just the words.

[12:35]

That's right. So what happens in that ceremony is there's actually a lot of vitality. because there's a kind of stylistic way that the questioner comes up and presents the question and kind of tries to intimidate the shuso. And the shuso answers back. So it's not so much the question and answer, it's the vitality. and the meeting of two people. That's the main thing. A lot of vitality in the question and a lot of vitality in the response. Not just, da, [...]

[13:37]

So... So the... when... you ask the question and the shuso gives a response, then you can respond again to his response if you feel that it's not enough or you want a little more clarification or something. But unless Sometimes a good, vital back and forth can go on for a little bit, but if you just kind of want to drag things out, I would say don't do that.

[14:46]

A couple of responses back and forth, because there's a lot of people asking questions, and I have seen shuso ceremonies that have lasted two, three hours. People didn't quite understand, but somebody in the back said, what are we doing here? Phil Whelan, the famous poet, when he had his shuso ceremony at Tassajara, I can say that, excuse me, Philip, the deceased, that it went on so long because he was a poet and he just kept getting these, you know, this long

[15:49]

long, thoughtful answers to every question. And in the middle, Richard Baker said, we'll take an intermission. So we want to avoid that. So, given the Japanese style, we used to think, oh, you know, all their answers and questions are stylized, but there is something about the way they do that that has vitality. And each person who asks a question comes up in front, and it's kind of, you know, like the Tibetan, the way the Tibetans do their dialogues had that feeling. When I practice in a more stylized combat tradition, a teacher gave me a really nice explanation.

[17:01]

He said, you know, when you're studying a traditional martial art, you spend a lot of time practicing the stylized thing with no opponent, so that when somebody jumps on you from an alley, you're already ready with the right response. So that's why we use those forms, because then, you know, you're ready with them when you know where you're going. And I found it to be true, actually. Well, that's what we hope. The shuso is ready with the right response from having done the right... But we do have our free form way. And so that's America. So... We have to deal with it that way.

[18:03]

But I really feel that vitality is the important thing. It's not so much, I've seen really good shuso ceremonies where the shuso didn't really say anything that was informative. It was simply responsive. And the power of the response carried the understanding. You know, what is a Zen shout? It doesn't mean anything, but it carries the meaning, deep, vital meaning. on them and it occurs to me that over the years in various shosan and shuso ceremonies there have been some questions and answers which you know were particularly helpful for me and I bet that's true of a lot of people here and I was thinking maybe it would be nice to make a collection of some of those for

[19:31]

and kind of compile them. The problem is that we've never recorded a shushus anyway. But people have their memories. Oh yeah. And that's how the koans originated, in this kind of style. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's right. That's people's memories. So it's good to write things down before they get distorted too far. That's good, yeah, I agree. I just wanted to comment that at Sanshin today, Bloomington, Indiana, my teacher, there's a shuso ceremony.

[20:38]

Oh, yeah, it's the same day, huh? Shuso ceremony day. So, do you have any other questions? Do you have anything to say about sashin? I know I was gonna talk a little bit about orioke, but our eating is almost over, so. The discussion brought up a thought that I'd like to share about fanning.

[21:43]

Fanning. And I don't know how true this is, but I was once told that when you fan yourself... You get hotter. Heat up. And it occurred to me, what a wonderful image for the end of the Genjo Koan, because you do warm yourself up with the fanning, but the breeze feels so good, you do it anyway. And that seems like that's what Sesshin is, and a lot of what our practice is. I just love that image. But you know, as Sishin goes along, moves along, it gets harder and easier at the same time.

[22:55]

If you can really go along with Sishin, of course it gets harder because you're sitting on the same bones day after day. But at the same time, it gets easier and easier as you open up. So it's very interesting. Very interesting. A few more days, you know, and we'd all be very comfortable. Yes? Could you say a little about the benefits to Sesi of sleep deprivation? No. No benefit. No merit. No. There are secondary benefits. There are secondary perks, but not primary. Primarily, the benefit is letting go. That's the benefit of Sushin. The benefit of Sushin is that you have the opportunity to let go of everything and not collect any benefits.

[24:01]

But, unfortunately, there are some benefits. Even though you don't work for them, it's like, oh, You know, I can see things more clearly, or something like that. Just in terms of sleep, the first time I ever did any kind of meditation, which was a two-week thing at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, and one of the things I found out through the whole period there is it went on and on. We used to have sushins that just went on all night.

[25:12]

And sometimes people sit all night as extra. But I always liked my sleep myself. But we used to do sushins where you sit up till maybe midnight and then start again at two o'clock or something like that. I seem to ask the question every time there's an opportunity, and I don't know if that's about compulsive wanting attention. But I wonder, and I apologize, because that really bothers me, why I do that. My question, though, is when, could you have anything to say about We who go home, is it us who go home at night? I got into a real tangle this weekend with my family, my drama queen sister from Southern California and my 101-year-old mother, carrying all that around, you know.

[26:22]

Oh, when you go home and then all that happens, then you come back? Yeah. Don't go home. You have to feed the cats. You have to feed the cats. Seedlings and a bunch of things. Seedlings. And vandalism. But also, maybe not having to pick up my messages, you know. She's very demanding, if I may say so. My sister. Lock your relatives in the closet. Anyway, I don't know. I don't know what to do with it. But I would say it's a test of the calmness of your mind. It's just like the pain in your legs. It's just like testing the calmness of your mind. So that's a kind of pain.

[27:25]

It's painful. Yeah, but tell him to leave you, ask him to leave you alone. Ask him to leave you alone. Please leave me alone. I'm just here for a brief moment. Or stay here. And then go home and feed your seedlings in the morning. I mean, some other time, but stay here overnight. Don't come home. And let the vandals, you know, give your mom a six-shooter. I don't know, figure it out, you know.

[28:34]

Hey Ross, I'll get Ross first. I was wondering if you might say something about being in the world and then coming to the Sheen and the sort of prescribed So what's your question? The question is, we never know what the response was appropriate, and so I can imagine the deceased Philip Whelan going on and on and how that might have taken away the energy or vitality of the ceremony, yet maybe

[30:05]

I did. But it was not so appropriate. Not so appropriate. Yeah. So everything has an interesting side. But then there's what's appropriate and what's not. I mean, it was great. It was Philip. And everybody felt, OK, that's great. But that's not what we want to do. Yeah. We did that, huh? Yeah. I didn't know it was going to be 24 hours. It was a gift we were giving each other so that we can maintain a more present state of mind.

[31:32]

That really impressed me. People would come around. There were people there in the dorm where I was staying would say, goodbye, I'll see you after the Sashin. These are people I'm going to be seeing in the bathroom and all the rest of it for a week through the Sashin. But they were kind of making a commitment to sort of shut everything off. Yeah, well that's very good, yeah. Sometimes when there's a shuso at Tassajara, and they're a couple, the shuso will live in a different cabin than the spouse for that period of time. Somebody had their hand up. Elizabeth. Thanks. I'm a surgeon. Appropriate response.

[32:35]

The theme that kept coming up to me in Sashin was warm-hearted practice And really, the theme for me was cold-hearted practice, and trying to warm up that cold heart. Sometimes I got a little toasty, but I got frigid sometimes. You know what, Tatsugami, when I was in Shuso, Tatsugami Roshi was my teacher. He called Sashin, the battleground of the mind and the heart, But, you know, we say, have a warm heart and cold feet, cool head and warm feet, and the heart is somewhere in between. So, sashin is sometimes the battleground of the mind and the heart, but sometimes it's simply floating down the stream

[33:51]

or made a decision that we no longer have shosan ceremonies at the end of sashimi? No, we don't have a shosan ceremony when we have a shuso ceremony. So that's why we had shosan twice during the practice period. But during conflicting ceremonies if you do them together. But often we have shuso ceremony after sesshin, the day after. Then shosan is okay. But if you have shuso ceremony at the end of sesshin, day, then shosan, which is when we usually have shosan, Yeah.

[35:06]

You talked about the fact that we never recorded a Shuso ceremony. We're out of CDs. I wasn't thinking about CDs. I'm sending my understudies. that there is a video of a shuso ceremony that took place in Japan. And I believe the person who was a shuso was Suzuki Roshi's son. That's right. That's right. I think Grace has that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Huitsu or Huitsu's son? Huitsu's son. Shungo. Shungo, yeah. And Heiji. Yeah.

[36:08]

I don't think we've ever seen that. We'll do that. But the vitality is universal.

[36:21]

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