Good morning. And I hear you all saying good morning back to me. I'm really happy to be here. And thank you, Ron, for that introduction. I'll amend a few things as I go. I'd like to start by doing something I don't usually do, but I think it's a good practice, especially here in Montana, and that is to pay homage to the Indigenous tribes on whose land I sit. The Blackfeet, the Chippewa Cree, the Salish Kootenai, the Crow, the many tribes of the Sioux Dakota. We have many, many tribes here. And I'm just so happy to be a part of this. I have enjoyed the silver lining of this pandemic,

[01:01]

getting to be with you all this past year, and getting to see Sojin's face full screen, you know, with his lovely beard and everything, all year. That was a real gift for me. And in a couple weeks, I am part of the team that will talk about remembrances of Sojin. So I'm not going to speak so much about him and me today. I'll leave that for them, for then. But I do want to talk about the wonderful possibility of working with a teacher and the teacher-student relationship. And I want to use it rather broadly, not just me and my teacher, or you and your teacher, or now we have, and I'd like to extend, it's not up to me to welcome him, but to say hello to Hozan, our new abbot, and

[02:04]

to name that and welcome him to the seat. And I was thinking of Sojin Roshi and how his teacher passed pretty soon after he worked with him. I think they were together only about seven years. And for the next 40 or so years, he drew on Suzuki Roshi's strength and wisdom, never flagging in referring to his teaching and using his wisdom to inform his own practice. I have a theme for this talk. It's partially the theme, and I forgot where I got it. But anyway, it is in the master-disciple relationship, the student is to trust and persevere in the teacher's path. So in the master-disciple relationship, student is to trust and persevere in the teacher's

[03:06]

path. Going forward, I'll use teacher rather than master, a fraught term, but we do master things. So to have a relationship with someone, anyone that is in a teaching role for us is a really special gift. It's quite a treasure. And for some, it can take a while to find, and sometimes it's a very direct and explicit search, and sometimes it's accidental. It's easy to get enamored of people with a great deal of charisma and intelligence and passion, or sometimes if they're really aloof, that makes you want to kind of want something from them. I feel like in Zen, as we face that teachers are human, they don't always make us feel good, that this path is a path of reckoning in a way. We really do have to face ourselves.

[04:13]

It's also a path of everydayness. So in a way, it's easeful. Zen to me is a great paradox. And as I age and keep practicing, I'm a little more comfortable with that paradox. As someone recently reminded me, we don't always understand the world, but we can love it. So, I'm going to skip that part. I was thinking of how I came to be with Sojin, and like I said, I'll talk more about this later, but the image came to me of an arranged marriage, sort of like you didn't really pick the person, they were sort of like circumstances brought them to you. But after 25 years, do you love me? It's like, yes, I love you. I have a great deal of love and respect for Mel. And I was thinking of Fiddler on the Roof and enjoying the fact that

[05:20]

I didn't exactly pick him. Maybe he picked me, I don't know. But the connection is unmistakable. And for those of us with a teacher, it's unmistakable. Some of you may not have a teacher right now. I know there's many new people that have been coming here or people who don't really even know Sojin. And that's okay. His teaching can still live and there's all manner of possibility to work with someone. So with Sojin gone, we're each going to find our way, those of us who worked with him and those of us who are just hearing about him, how we will go forward in our relationship with him. And I think his model of how he kept Suzuki Roshi so close is a good way to imagine our relationship going forward.

[06:23]

Is the sound okay? I don't have earphones I can use. Good. So I want to tell a story of one of our Chinese ancestors. I don't understand her so well, but she's really inspired me. Her name is Miao Dao. And she lived in Song Dynasty. She was born in 1090. And I've taught on a couple of, or, you know, talked about a couple of female ancestors, and I have related more to them. I worked with Pata Chara and her drama and her loss and her sort of craziness spoke to me. And then Ling Zhao, who was Layman Pong's daughter, who was very spunky and smart and devoted, I could relate to. Miao Dao is someone who has captured my imagination, but I don't get her yet. But I

[07:36]

wanted to talk about her because of her relationship with her teacher. So she was born in central China, 1090. Her family was very much in favor of education for everyone. So the brothers and she were educated. She had to first learn the 10,000 characters of the written language of Chinese. And after mastering that, she studied Confucianism and history, poetry, the classical literature, and then she was also involved in the homemaking arts, took care of the household, learned music, and she knew a lot about healing and healing herbs. And in Sally Tisdale's book, the sentence she wrote about her was, for her own pleasure, she sat in meditation every night, wrapped in silence. So this silence is very

[08:38]

interesting to me, her relationship to silence and how she moved through her life. This was at a time when foot binding was coming into fashion, thereabouts, and her family decided not to have that happen for her. And for a long time, I thought foot binding was just you wrap the foot so it sort of doesn't grow. It's not that. It's pretty violent. As many of you know, they break a little girl's foot and they hold it that way. And it's meant to make her more attractive. It also keeps her inside doing the work that's needed, whether it's housekeeping or turning out textiles or cooking, but they don't go far. She requested at the age of 15 to ordain and her dad said, let me think about it. She was a very quiet girl. She wasn't weak, but she was small and just very contained. I'm trying

[09:40]

to get an image of her because she's in a fairly big household. She goes to the palace to work. Her aunt worked in the palace. They live near the capital of the Song Dynasty. I think it was Kaifeng. And she worked in the palace and it's hard to imagine now because I'm in this house by myself most of the time or walking outside. And the grocery store is the most bustle I get these days, like many of you. She was in a palace and was filled with people and officials and courtesans and just like probably a city within a city. And she was there to light lamps in the evening and extinguish them in the morning, trim the wicks, take care of the oil or whatever, however the lamps were then. And she, because she was one of the sort of servant type girls, she could sort of disappear in the palace. And Sally says she lived in an oceanic

[10:47]

silence, a silence that was not the opposite of speaking, a silence in which speaking could not be imagined. So I think of her as having some depth of experience that maybe isn't described or named in the story about her, but I'm very drawn to her, this small, young, meditation-loving girl. So at age 20, after five years in the palace, she asked her father again. She said, I've done my duty. May I please ordain? He said, yes. I don't know who she ordained with or why she left, but like Shakyamuni, she hit the road. And she traveled and sat with various teachers and worked with them. I'm not sure who she found or what she learned, but she ended up in a town that

[11:51]

was kind of a gutted town. It had been used to manufacture charcoal for a long time. And then it was gutted and people were harvesting coal out of the hillside. It was dirty. She often had soot on her face. People looked worn and beaten down. It is not clear to me why she stayed there or what she did there. Probably wrapped herself in silence every night, but for a long time, she just started wondering, is there even something known as awakening? Am I just, what am I doing? And I wonder what she was doing. She was in like this hell realm of a town and maybe something about it brought forth the suffering that leads some of us to practice. Some of us come to practice because of suffering. Some, because we have an idea of awakening. Some, because we don't have

[12:55]

anything better to do. I don't know. It's up to us to figure out why we come to practice. And if we don't know why we come, it's okay. It's just good that we're here. So she meets up with a master called Jing Liao, who was on Mount Juefeng. Jing Liao was a Dharma heir of Hongzhe, the school of quiet illumination, which is related to our Soto way. She joined his monastery where there were hundreds of students. And she joined this practice period, which was a very strict practice period. She had to make a vow to be there. And you would think the school of quiet illumination would be right up there, her alley. And one day during the practice period, a guest teacher named Dahui Zonggao

[14:03]

was kind of a Rinzai prodigy. He already had the purple robe, even though he was only as old as she was. At this point in time, they're both about 44 years old. So this is 30 years of her life has gone by where she wanted to ordain. And she traveled for a long time without a teacher, without specific teaching. I don't know how long she was in that town. At some point when she was in that town, she heard that rebels from the North had taken over Kaifeng, the capital of the Song dynasty then. And that was the beginning of some collapse that was happening. She never heard about her family again after that. So time to find a new family. So Dahui comes into this practice period, into the silent illumination practice period. And he gives a lecture. Now Dahui was a student

[15:12]

and Dharma heir of Yuan Wu, who many of us know was the compiler of the Blue Cliff Record. So here is the Dharma heir of Yuan Wu, a Rinzai teacher, probably pretty, I don't know, pretty sexy. And um, Miao Dao leaves the practice period to go with him. She breaks her vow. She leaves the practice period. And she goes off to practice with Dahui. So after 30 years of, I don't know if it was really searching or just dwelling in quiet, she goes with this Rinzai master. She requests entry three times from him. She makes vows and offers incense. Finally, he says, please sit down.

[16:13]

She sits, and all of a sudden, the words pour out. I'll just read you this paragraph. It kind of, this is a girl who we feel like for 30 years, we haven't even heard her voice. And all of a sudden, she says, I am here. It seems the only reason to be anywhere to investigate the great matter. It seems to me that we get old and die with such astonishing speed, with such pain and birth and death. Cities appear and disappear just like that. Families vanish. This endless cycle seems urgent to me, but I still don't even know my own mind. Please help me. Please teach me. So this begins a sort of new era in her life where she's talking. And she and Dahui are talking

[17:20]

all the time. She meets with him. Sometimes they go deep into the night, and they're conversing about all manner of things. Sometimes he sits and lectures her. Sometimes they talk about demons and gods and maybe some of the sort of more cultural aspects of whatever religions are floating around in China at that time. They talk about the mind and the labyrinth and meditation. And she enjoys these talks, it seems, but she, it said she still did not know the base of her own mind. And I love this phrase. What does it mean for us to not know the base of our own mind? When Thich Nhat Hanh, he has a book called Transformation at the Base, where he talks about the eight consciousnesses. Transformation at the base. Where is our liberation? Where does it happen in us?

[18:21]

Does it happen just in us? Is it a singular thing? Can we do this by ourselves? So she's pleading with him for the key. Like, please help me. Please give me the key. I know you know. He laughs at her and sends her away. And some one time she comes in desperation and Dahui says, I don't know what to tell you. At some point, you reach a point where you can't use your mind. So he gives her this koan. Matsu said, it is not mind. It is not Buddha. It is not a thing. How do you understand this? It is not mind. It is not Buddha. It is not a thing. How do you understand this? What's so interesting about their relationship is that Dahui, I believe, seems to want to help

[19:25]

her so much that he gives her some principles for working with a koan. Now, maybe you guys have heard about this, some of you. I had not, but it's very helpful. And he sort of made it up on the fly. It was kind of an experiment. He was just sort of like responding to her request. So he gives her these things to do. Don't assume it's the truth. Don't assume it's not important to do anything about it. Don't take it as a lightning flash. Don't try to figure it out. And don't pay attention to the context. Just concentrate on the crucial lines. To me, this is remarkable because a lot of times in the koans, especially the Blue Cliff record, I'll read them and it'll be like, okay. And so then I'll start reading for context. This will help me understand it. And of course, in the Blue Cliff record in particular,

[20:28]

it just makes it worse for me. It's like, oh, great. Thanks for the commentary. It didn't help at all. So just concentrate on the crucial lines. This is he's learning. He is learning with her how to work with a koan. Take a crucial line, sit with it. Don't assume it's the truth. Don't assume it's not important to do something about it. Don't take it as a lightning flash and don't try to figure it out. Don't pay attention to the context. Just concentrate on the crucial lines. So again, she's working with Matsu. It is not mind. It is not Buddha. It is not a thing. So I love that he's developing his teaching along with her. This is one of the jewels of the teacher-student relationship. And for those of us who function in a teaching role,

[21:29]

for me, it's very helpful to feel like I'm going alongside a student as a Dharma sister. Just sort of like, oh, here, try this. I don't know. Try that. Because that's what I do with myself. And that's what Sojin did with me. One time I was in Dokusan with Meili. And I was in one of my desperate emotional moments, states. And we were talking and she just didn't know what to do with me. Nothing was helping. I have a way of being very stubborn in my suffering. And I wasn't going to let her help. And I think she knew that. So she made me stand up. We're in the Dokusan hut. And we just started bowing. I don't know how long we bowed. We just did full bows until we got too tired. She figured it out with me. And it was very helpful. So she goes to Dali three times to solve this koan or to express her understanding. And he's always

[22:40]

throwing her out or whatever. The third time she comes in, she really has something. And wait, I want to read this too. So it was a sultry August afternoon. Their robes are sticking to their skins. And she bowed at his seat and she said, I found the doorway in. Probably her first mistake, right? To walk in and say, well, I got it. I get it. He smiled kindly, suddenly like a mother to her and said, it is not mind. It is not Buddha. It is not a thing. How do you understand this? I only understand this way. That's extra. He broke in. He, she didn't get to say what she wanted to say. He shouted at her. That's extra.

[23:43]

And the words cracked open. She fell with a crash into a silence so deep. It seemed to echo upon itself. This was not the silence when no one is talking. She realized this wasn't the silence between the words when someone is talking. This was the silence inside the words, the silence of words. She was home. So this story of Miao Dao, she goes on, she becomes his first transmitted disciple. So she was lucky. She had two different teachers who let women in and she became Dao Gui's first disciple and she had students and she worked hard with them and she talked a lot. She had a lot to say. So that's the story of Miao Dao. There's more to her story, but what I got from it is what Sally Tisdale said in her book that with Dao Gui,

[24:47]

Miao Dao became a student of the way and with Miao Dao, Dao Gui became a teacher of the way. So one thing that Miao Dao said as a teacher later in working with a student, who she was really putting down and giving a hard time, when we discuss the meeting between two people, we don't need higher and lower ranks. Forms rise out of conditions. So I respond to these conditions. Sometimes I block the student's way and sometimes I'm against the student's way. I'm not a student of the way, but I'm a student of the gate. And many of us have had both experiences. Suzuki Roshi spoke about what transmission is, and I want to use the term of transmission,

[25:51]

not like me with this brown robe, although it includes that. This brown robe includes something between me and Sojin, and I'll talk about that more when I remember Sojin in a few weeks. But distance was never an issue for him with me. He helped me so much. I think he wanted me to have faith in myself, so he offered me lay entrustment soon after I got to Bozeman, and I think it's not that he didn't have faith in me, but he wanted to keep me close, especially because I was living on an ashram with a guru, and he wanted to make sure I stayed tethered to him, and I'm forever grateful to him for that. You know, sometimes the teacher opens the gate for you. Suzuki Roshi said that transmission is a cover, and so when I speak about transmission, it's not just this brown robe. It's when we meet.

[26:55]

It's when two people meet and transmission happens, but what is transmitted? But when something is transmitted, it's like a cover. It protects. It's like a cover for food, he says. You cover the food so it doesn't get stale and dusty. You kind of seal it, and the dharma is not just written scripture. It's warm hand to warm hand, and this transmission is not just a symbol, but the meeting of two hearts and minds, so I want to just underscore the value of conversation and the silence between two practitioners. Suzuki Roshi talked, yes, we're going to start getting confused now when we say Suzuki Roshi or Sojin Roshi. We're not going to know who we're talking about, but you know, now we get to say Sojin Roshi used to say, just like we heard for years and years that Suzuki Roshi used to say.

[27:59]

It's beautiful, and Suzuki Roshi talks about offering incense to the teachers, and how in Japan they did this formal thing where they would offer it to the country, offer incense to the country, offer incense to the Buddha, and offer incense to the teacher. And when they offered incense to the Buddha, they did not cry. And when they offered incense to the country, they never cried. But when they offered incense to their teacher, they cried. Very tender. Suzuki Roshi also said that we were to master our teacher's way completely and then be free of it. It's hard practice. It's not about having knowledge or special powers. I'm going to tell one more story before I give us time to talk together. You know that phrase that Sojin Roshi would say? I don't know who said it, probably Suzuki Roshi.

[29:02]

When you are you, Zen is Zen. It used to drive me crazy. I had no idea what that meant. Now I have an idea of what it meant, but that's what it is, an idea. But when I am me and I stop trying to be Sojin or someone else that I admire, when I am me, Zen has fulfilled itself in that moment. And when a disciple really becomes a disciple, and I want to talk about this word disciple, you know, it comes from the Latin disere, to follow or to learn. So discipline and disciple have the same root. To become a disciple, to really follow something, but not like you've given up your own authority or leadership. We all, I mean, Sojin followed something, Suzuki Roshi followed something. You know, I said in one of our groups that we've had since Mel passed, that I was surprised to hear other people's stories of Mel. Because I thought

[30:05]

I was the, I thought I was the only one who had a relationship with him. Because that's how he made me feel. When I was with him, I was the only person. He was completely in relationship to me. So when I hear you guys tell your stories, I'm like, wow, you guys were really close, or oh, you had a really hard time or like that. But what I found about discipline is that there's three kinds. And this is not a Zen thing, but I think it should be. There's preventive discipline, there's supportive discipline, and there's corrective discipline. So we follow, we sit and follow the Dharma as preventive discipline to get us on the right path, to keep us upright. We get supportive discipline when we work with our teacher and our Sangha mates. And we get corrective discipline when we hit the bell wrong and Sojin Roshi flips around and looks at us like, who taught you how to ring the bells? And other things like that. So I'm going to bring a familiar story to us very

[31:11]

quickly, not because I'm going to talk about the koan itself, but I want to talk about the relationship of the student and teacher. And the reason I bring this koan up is because it was given to me three times in my life. And no other koan was given to me really. So it's sort of like I had a sign on my back. You know, this girl needs koan 19 of the Mumonkan, which I found out was one of Sojin's favorites. Nanshuang's ordinary mind is the way. Another translation is, everyday life is the way. So keeping ordinary mind and everyday life together. Zhaozhou asked Nanshuang, what is the way? Nanshuang said, ordinary mind is the way. Zhaozhou asked, should I try to direct myself toward it? Nanshuang said, if you try to direct yourself toward it, you betray your own practice.

[32:13]

Zhaozhou asked, how can I know the way if I don't direct myself? Nanshuang said, the way is not subject to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion. Not knowing is blankness. If you truly reach the genuine way, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can this be discussed at the level of affirmation and negation? With these words, of course, Zhaozhou was enlightened. One part of what Ron left out in my travels is, when I left Berkeley, before I went to Montana, I went to LA. I was newly married, or a few years married, and we went to LA. So my then-husband could become a rock star. And I was teaching at UCLA, and he was teaching at UCLA, and I was

[33:16]

and I studied a little bit with a gyoku, Wendy Nakao. She also gave me this koan. And I had a great Rinzai experience with her. I would have to go in and recite the whole thing. And then she would say, how do you understand it? And of course, I never passed the koan, but I had this one great experience where I went in, and it was very like you had to run to you had to like elbow other people out of the way. You would do your bow, sit down, say the koan. And this one time, just like Miao Dao, I thought I had something to say. And I recite the whole koan. She asked, how do you understand it? And I took a breath, and she rang me out. She rang me out as I took my inhale to express my great knowledge. Sojin gave me the same koan around the same time through email. So we studied this koan together through email. And I studied it and studied it, and I wrote about it. And a lot came to me in

[34:20]

the writing. I don't say I passed it. I just say I enjoyed it. And later, maybe about four or five years ago, when I was visiting for a sashin or something, he gave it to me again. And I just thought, God, I am never going to get this. But it's clear. It's clear for me that to remember everyday life is the way. And so what I love about this koan is this relationship between Nanshuang and Zhaozhou, how kind Nanshuang is to give him so much language and images. You know, it says outer space, it's vast and boundless as outer space. Some translations say sky, and that the character for sky is what the translation of shunnata is from the Sanskrit. Emptiness, boundlessness, connectedness, possibility. When you have an open sky, anything can come through, anything can leave. It's our playground, this vast emptiness.

[35:27]

And Nanshuang is just, you know, Zhaozhou is only about 20 years old here, 18 or 20, and he goes on to become a great master, lives another more than 100 years. Oh, someone's calling me. Sorry about that. At least the dog isn't barking, but I'm knocking on wood now. How kind Nanshuang is being, how generous. And what is it that Zhaozhou gets after the paragraph of Nanshuang? Is it the words themselves? Is it the silence of the words? Is it their meeting? Is it just being together? I'm very interested in that. You know, um, both Akinroshi and Senzaki who commented on this, um, make it seem so simple. And in some ways it is so simple.

[36:28]

For me, Nanshuang didn't explain anything, but just kept meeting Zhaozhou where his difficulty was. Just meeting ourselves where our difficulty is. Just bringing forth the duality of life into this boundlessness from which it really comes, from which it really is. Um, Nanshuang seems to appreciate Zhaozhou's distress at how to direct his effort. And in this conversation, I think it points to that silence that Miaodao knew something about, so that she could use language and not lose her relationship to this silence. So we trust and persevere in our teacher's way. When we're ready, we have a teacher. When we don't have a teacher, we use each moment as the teacher. And we bow every day.

[37:33]

And we love them. I think that's it. And I think I've left some time. Yes? No? Someone's shaking their head. Mitch, you don't agree? Uh, we have, I'm just so moved. I'm, I'm just like shaking my head in gratitude. Okay. Thank you. Good job. Thank you. Thank you. Ah, girl, great job. That small town zen, huh? Please raise your hand and we will call on you. I will call on you. Be direct, please, with your questions. Once again, if you, um, Laura Sanaki, please, uh, unmute yourself and ask a question.

[38:43]

Hello, my dear. Thank you so much. Um, I guess what I'm left with is just wondering, so if someone doesn't know what to do about this, do you have anything specific to say? Like, do you need a teacher? Like, you know, you, if you don't have a teacher, you use every moment as your teacher, use every person as your teacher. And there's a lot of breadth. There's a lot of options and there's, there's not a, it's not a hard and fast rule, but yet, um, you know, how do you, how hard should you try? How do you know? Do you, is it only one or can you have a series? I mean, you know, um, just a little bit more about the specifics. Um, if you, if you have any thoughts about that. Well, thank you. I'm thinking your question reminds me of Jaojo's question. Like, please

[39:51]

tell me. And I think that, um, I think you have to first examine your own heart if you're willing to have a teacher to put someone in that role for you. Some people are not, or some people think they are, but then they end up fighting the whole time. But I think a Zen student should have a teacher. And I remember one friend of mine or an acquaintance of mine, when she got transmission, she felt like she no longer needed a teacher. And I questioned that. I think we always need a reference point. And sometimes it's teacher to teacher, like for Miao Tao, as she was traveling for 15, 25 years, I can do 25 years. Um, but I think it's important to get some counsel on it one by one. Like I don't have a blanket thing for everyone, but I think if you want this path, which is a path of reckoning is really difficult and is easeful. Once you settle,

[40:55]

it's good to have that person in your life. I don't know if that helps. Yeah, no, that's good. I agree. I agree. Thanks, Lori. Thank you. Susan Moon. Sue Moon, please ask a question. Hi, Karen. Hi, Sue. Thank you for that wonderful talk. Thank you for Miao Tao. Um, I wanted to ask you about the koan practice you did and working with this same koan over the years and feeling like you never really got it. And yet it helped you a lot. So I guess it's, I don't know quite how to put the question, but I guess in Rinzai Zen, which I don't really know, because I haven't ever practiced it. There's a different either you get it or you don't get it. But in our practice, there isn't that line drawn. And so

[42:02]

is there a way that you, I mean, do you have to say to yourself, well, I never really got it, but it helped me a lot. Could you instead frame it differently? Maybe you did really get it in your own way? Or I mean, what difference does it make whether you really get it or not? Or I don't know the kinds of insights that you've got with that koan and the way it has helped you. Do you feel as though if you worked really harder, even now, if you worked a little bit harder, you might get more out of it or something about that. I'm curious. Find the question in that. I appreciate the question. When I first heard about Zen, when I was practicing Vipassana and my friend was telling me about Rinzai Zen and he sat with Sasaki Roshi, I thought that, you know, you had this moment where you got it and there was mind to mind transmission and that was it, that it was a one time event. And over the years, of course,

[43:03]

I learned the long road of practice. I still don't, I still feel a kind of nervousness about the idea of passing koans. I don't know what that means. I know what it means to meet the teacher. I feel like I've done that with Sojin and other teachers, you know, had that exchange where you're of one mind. There's nothing transmitted. It's you're having the same moment. But I know people who have passed all the koans and I don't know what that means. But for me, I enjoy them now. I guess saying I didn't get it is speaking Rinzai language. And in my language, I would say, I enjoy these and they help me. And I read the commentaries and I talk with people about them. And for that, they are great food for my practice. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Sue. Hozon, please. Hozon. Hi, Garen. Hi. I have a question with two sides. Basically, one question,

[44:14]

it is what should, what is reasonable for a student to expect from a teacher? What does a student need to expect from a teacher? And of course, the other side is what does a teacher, what's reasonable for a teacher to expect from a student? I guess the yeah, what is reasonable? And what is useful? What is our path with that? Why have a teacher? I think that the student, I think first, the teacher might expect from the student to apply effort, even though Nanshuang says it's not about that. But still, we do it.

[45:17]

We make effort, we show up, we practice and we ask questions. I think I would expect from a teacher honesty and compassion. So both being a barrier and being a the barrier helps me find my small minded view of myself. And the gate helps me exist in the boundlessness of my true self. I think we can expect from our teachers, preventative, supportive and corrective teaching. And from the student, we can expect to maybe grow in our ability to make use of preventive discipline, you know, to do the practice that some of our difficulties will resolve themselves.

[46:18]

Sojin often left me to work it out for myself. Does honesty cut both ways? Yes. Once I told Sojin, you know, when you pay attention to other, other students, especially other female students, do you know some of our your other female students get jealous? And he was surprised. And I realized I had said something he hadn't thought of. And it was one of the things that I was trying to do. I was trying to get him to listen. It was one of the boldest things I ever said to him, but I'm glad I did. Thank you for saying that. Ron Nestor. Hi Karen. Hi Ron. Ordinary Mind is the Way is probably my favorite koan.

[47:20]

And I have a question I've wanted to ask many people who present it. I'd like you to relate the verse. Oh, wait a minute. Um. I'd like you to relate the verse that goes with the case that Buman wrote, because I feel like people never mention that verse or really relate it to the heart of that case. And I'll read the verse so people know what I'm talking about. This is Koan Yamada's or Yamada Koan's translation. Okay, and for those who don't know, Yamada put, I mean, Buman put a verse with every case. The spring flowers, the moon in autumn, the cool breezes of summer, the winter's snow. If idle concerns do not cloud the mind, this is our best season.

[48:25]

Please make the connection with that in the case. When I, well right now it's snowing in Montana and apparently I'm having my best season. So each season has its own quality. Each moment has its own reality. When idle concerns don't hang in the mind, meaning when we don't bring the past forward to this moment, but we're in the boundlessness of the moment, that's our best season. That's our best, that's bringing zen forth. That is what we are and sometimes the moment is so banal, we think, well, this can't be it. But when you really take a breath and just be with exactly what is. I'm in my dining room that needs to vacuum and take a breath.

[49:32]

It's just perfect. When I bring forth the notion I should vacuum this, I need to put fresh flowers in. When all of this hang in my mind and don't pass through like clouds in the sky, I just cause so much suffering for myself. My tape just keeps running and I keep bringing forth the same person. I'm attached to the same person. Even my self-clinging is a kind of idle concern because I think I'm so important. It's not that I'm not important. It's just that this moment is what's real, not so much my idea of myself. I love that verse, Ron, and I ran out of time a little bit. The verse is really, to me, the heart of it. And I love this idea of not bringing forth the past or projecting into the future.

[50:36]

Really easeful, easeful mind. I think that this koan is about that. Sojin helped me relax in my life, just relax, which was a good teaching for me. Okay, thank you. For our last question, I invite Dean. Hi, Karen. Hi, Dean. Let me get this. Thank you so much for this talk. I really like to hear you talk about Sojin because when I think about him, I get happy. And I feel like when I listen to you and you talk about him, it makes me happy. So thank you so much for just making this happy and giving me a lot of smiles this morning.

[51:37]

You said something in the beginning. I'm having a little bit of trouble reading my notes. You were talking about, I can't remember who you were talking about. But anyway, you said something about she was in the hell realm of a town. And then I sort of went off on that. You said something about whether that was a place where she suffered or something. And it made me realize that I've been a little bit of a hell realm the last couple of three weeks. And it's been full of suffering and confusion. And the whole time, though, I knew this is where I need to be. And this isn't going to kill me. I'm going to complain about it, maybe. But I just need to keep doing it. So it's like I've been in this car that's been in a rollover for a couple of weeks.

[52:42]

And there would be spots when I would see the flowers or I would see the sun. And then I would hear the crunching of the car. And that's sort of what it was like. And when you said that, this hell realm of a town, it was kind of like, oh, yeah, that's where we go. And that's where we walk out of. That's where we go. And that's where we walk out of. And the suffering and whatever else is there is what lets us walk out. So I just really liked hearing you say that. And I appreciate it. It was so simple. It was so Mel. And I just thank you so much. Thank you so very much. Thank you, Dean. I'll just make a brief comment on that. Soon after I came to Bozeman, I was like, what am I doing here? What am I doing with this crazy guru? What am I doing? All this stuff. And in a lot of ways, my fight against being here has been a kind of hell realm.

[53:46]

And the way I have walked out of it was not by leaving, but it was by being there. I mean, she literally finally left that town. But something, the transformation might have been being in the town. And the leaving was the fruit of that. And that's how I feel here. I don't know how long I'll stay. I feel very committed to the sangha here. And I feel committed to all of you. And this is, you know, so I get you. I get you. And I'm sorry it's been so wobbly for you. And may you have a lot more ease. And thank you to everyone. I appreciate your good listening.

[54:30]

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