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Guru Viking Podcast

Ep266: Meeting of Masters - Guo Gu & Meido Roshi

In this episode, I host a dialogue between Guo Gu, Chan Buddhist teacher and scholar and author of ‘Silent Illumination: A Chan Buddhist Path to Natural Awakening’, and Meido Roshi, Rinzai Zen Abbot of Korinji Monastery and author of ‘Hidden Zen: Practices for Sudden Awakening and Embodied Realisation’.

Guo Gu and Meido Roshi reflect on their long friendship, recall their first meeting in 1989 at a meditation retreat led by Master Sheng Yen, and extol the virtues of dharma friendship.

They challenge common misconceptions about awakening, explain how to train the body in Chan and Zen practice, and reveal the suprising results of an integrated body-mind.

They also describe the enlightened field of a true master, the power of being close to one’s teacher, and how to master energy, time, and space.

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Video version: https://www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep266-meeting-of-masters-guo-gu-meido-roshi

Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.

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Topics include:

00:00 - Intro 00:58 - Meido and Guo Gu reflect on their friendship since 1989 08:20 - What is a dharma friend? 11:36 - Sharing experiences in Chan vs Zen 14:28 - Half baked experiences and marking history 16:25 - Keeping a practice journal 20:16 - Dreaming about Master Sheng Yen 24:30 - Developing as a teacher 28:30 - Embodying the master 31:04 - Master Sheng Yen’s sharp humour and private sarcasm 34:01 - Face to face training and being an attendant 35:55 - Drawbacks of online training 39:22 - The teacher as friend 41:46 - Dharma projections 43:16 - The resonant field of a master 47:42 - Embodied practice and interdependence of being 51:47 - The power of the retreat container 52:39 - The silent influence of one’s practice 57:33 - Learned bodily aptitude 58:39 - How to train the body 01:01:44 - Content and clear 01:04:32 - Mastering energy, time, and space 01:06:57 - Everyone is different 01:09:33 - The body-supporting experience 01:10:46 - Working with injuries 01:13:47 - Zazen emerges organically 01:15:20 - How to use the teacher’s influence 01:17:09 - Learning to let go 01:20:39 - “Put it down” 01:25:40 - Delusion is baked into the body 01:31:24 - Mind and body conditioning 01:34:20 - Solving problems
01:36:40 - Integrating the body-mind 01:30:01 - The entire universe is the true human body 01:38:30 - Putting down awakening 01:39:11 - Effort vs allowing 01:40:47 - Concluding remarks

Previous episodes with Guo Gu:

  • https://www.guruviking.com/search?q=guo

Previous episode with Meido Roshi:

  • https://www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep98-meido-roshi-hidden-zen

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To find out more about Guo Gu, visit:

  • https://guogulaoshi.com/

To find our more about Meido Roshi, visit:

  • https://www.korinji.org/

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For more interviews, videos, and more visit:

  • https://www.guruviking.com

Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James

Duration:
1h 45m
Broadcast on:
09 Aug 2024
Audio Format:
mp3
In this episode, I host a dialogue between Guo Gu, Chan Buddhist teacher and scholar, and author of Silent Illumination, a Chan Buddhist path to natural awakening. And Medo Roshi, Rinzai Zen Abbot of Korangi Monastery, and author of Hidden Zen, practices for sudden awakening and embodied realization. Guo Gu and Medo Roshi reflect on their long friendship, recall their first meeting in 1989 at a meditation retreat led by Master Sheng Yen and extol the virtues of Dharma friendship. They challenge common misconceptions about awakening, explain how to train the body in Chan and Zen practice, and reveal the surprising results of an integrated body mind. They also describe the enlightened field of a true master, the power of being close to one's teacher, and how to master energy, time, and space. So without further ado, Guo Gu and Medo Roshi. Guo Gu and Medo Roshi, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Thank you. See you. I'm so pleased to have you both here. I've been looking forward to this for weeks now. Thank you both for agreeing to come together for a dialogue on the podcast today. Pleasure. Pleasure. Pleasure to hang out with Medo and you. Now, in leading up to this interview, I, of course, reviewed the episodes that we've reached on individually. And I must say those are very striking and at times, I think, challenging episodes indeed. And I noticed several points of intersection and points for discussion, particularly to do with the body as it pertains to not only training, but also as it pertains to awakening. And that's no surprise because, in fact, the two of you know each other and you have a history together. So perhaps we can start there. How is it that you know each other and what is your history together? Medo, you want to go? I mean, it's an interesting connection and especially interesting because it was reestablished and has continued to this day. But when we first met, I believe we're the exact same age, you know, approximately we're the same year. It was, I guess, 22 years old, 1989 and 90. I started doing retreats at the Chan Center in Queens, the Dharma John Center in Queens, New York. And there was this young other guy there and I just remember having a few good conversations as much as one can do during those silent retreats before and after. And I guess got used to seeing him, those few times that I was there and felt some connection with him. Some point years later, I dug up an old group photo from one of those retreats and saw us standing next to each other. This was after we had reconnected. It was just really fortuitous meeting that has kind of blossomed for me into a very useful Dharma friendship as well as the fact that I just really liked the guy. So I was fortunate to have a chance to do some retreats with his master and while he did not, you know, that lineage did not become the one that ultimately I ended up getting deeply involved in. Those early experiences were quite seminal for me and very, very transformative for me. I see what was someone who was a part of that, so I'm grateful to this day for that. Yeah, that pretty much stopped some rises. I mean, we were both members, kids, right? Yeah, those early days, they weren't that many young folks during early days and through a mutual friend who, Chris, I think he taught at Rutgers, right? That's how I got connected with you and with Dharma drum because of that group he was leading. Yeah, so back then, there weren't too many young folks doing retreats, early 20s. And so Medo and a couple of other people really stood out among the Chinese community. I was like the only youngish retreat and some of those retreats, so, yeah. So it was, you know, how things turn out, that's really, really amazing, yeah. Yeah, I'm really happy that we reconnected. Oh, me too. Yeah, I remember us talking then about what we were thinking we might do with our lives and the choices that were before us. It's really interesting how it turned out. Yeah. And Medo always had this connection with martial arts, you know, so that kind of took them to the Zen tradition, and I met my teacher when I was very young, so I just stayed with him. Yeah. Very happy to have done that great for the opportunity. So the first time I met Medo was in the 20s and we did some retreats. And then our paths just kind of separated. He went off different, went to different places. And I became a teacher's attendant, so I just kind of stayed. And then the time after that was this online forum, you know, it's really amazing. He sent me this photo. I'm like, "What?" Yeah, the group photo that you, I was really happy to recap that with Medo. Yeah. So happy. So happy that Medo is, you know, teaching, saving sentient beings. I go on the blue-eyed Buddha. The old tradition that maybe Bodhidharma was a blue-eyed person, right? When I found out that Guaguru had gone on to ordain and train all over the place in the United States, but also, of course, in Taiwan, and become his master's attendant and inherit that lineage. And then became a professor and then opened a center in Florida. I was amazed, I was amazed at this guy that I knew from those retreats, had done such remarkable, remarkable things, and obviously, some kind of Dharma, roots, or affinity between us that led us to reconnect with each other, it's really a train. Yeah. We've probably been practicing together in the past, past lives. No. Apparently, we got a lot of work to do. Yeah, the opening of the center actually, Tana has a China center, I invited Medo here. It was so important to have him here. Amazing event. Other Dharma teachers as well, not just myself, but what a remarkable exchange that was, as well as Abbott from Taiwan, right? From Dharma drum. Yeah. Abbott at that time came, that was quite the event. Very, very amazed and proud to see the beautiful center that he's built there. Medo, I think you used the word Dharma friend. I'm wondering what that principle is and how it's played out in your own friendship. I mean, I think what we just alluded to, there's something karmic there, obviously. I mean, I think there was a connection there, which is mysterious, and we cannot really see the beginning of it. But we obviously have some shared values and some shared goals. I think in particular, we tend to see eye to eye when we've had exchange before, even with folks with other traditions, which has happened several times. I've always been struck by the fact that everything that he says, I can agree with completely. It completely fits the path that I learned from my teachers. So there's that sort of mutual connection or affinity in terms of, I think, the paths that we've undertaken and practice in. So I don't just think of him as Dharma friend, I think it was a friend. But the fact that we have that shared Dharma connection, and not only that, but two paths which seem to be very congruous with one another, that just makes things all the more enjoyable. This is something that made us say that there is something between us that like the things we say are endeavors, like our minds, and the way we see things, the way we engage, there's a real stink there, just naturally. And just one aspect. Another aspect is, Dharma friends are so important in our practice, basically they're future put-ups. The connections that we make, the support that we receive, and the exchanges are so important. Shapes, shapes are karmic connection. So for those of you who are reading, watching this, the support that we have now with our spiritual communities, wherever that may be, whether it's supportive, not so supportive, what appears to be not so supportive, it's actually supportive, it's all good, you know. So that we'll be able to learn from each other, and through the practice, observe, and share our experiences, there's something that's a little bit different between Chan and Zen, and this in our tradition, I think, is that in our tradition, we do a lot of sharing of our experiences and our struggles, our difficulties, so the practice is very transparent. I don't know, maybe Mado can speak to this, nothing to do with boosting about our spiritual communities, just like struggles and insights, things that really gravitate to, with regard to the teaching, some teaching that we receive, so I don't know how it is in Zen. My impression is that people don't really talk about their experiences, their understandings, or even the method, like method is like how they approach in the sharing co-op, how they find it, embodying, and then other people hear it, and they're inspired, and it's just very, very useful, so that connection is fortified with our Dharma friends, Sangha members, so it's like that in our tradition, of course, no one would share like spiritual or inside or whatever, but just how to use the method, it's pretty transparent, like who's working on which battle, going, like in our tradition, and those who are in the sharing, those who are, say, people are using the same battle, those people who are more further along the path when they share, that inspires the people that are just beginning, so it's not a secret, so that's how this Dharma connections form, you know, at the end of the retreat we're seeing in, people always share, I'm sure you remember experiences and so on, difficulties and struggles, and that process, and also informally, just people find out who's using what method, and how do you do it, and everyone help each other, that's very important, yeah. Remember, even after those retreats, we were invited to submit kind of a written, I think one of mine made it into the John magazine, you know, they do it anonymously, you know, just with your initials and so on, but I recently went back and read that, we read the one that was really neat, all right, I got to go back and look at check out those old magazines, see we're trying to get guests, it's yours, I've got a pile of them somewhere, you know, but yeah, those were those very interesting times, yeah, it's very important, you know, when it's published, anonymous, but it's very important for the practitioner and for others, why? Because most of our experiences are, well, all of our experiences are fleeting, and they're not baked, you know, I mean, a challenge tradition talked about not depending on words and language, yes, not to reify things, instead of the five things, make everything into, you know, a thing with words and language, but sometimes when our experiences are half-baked and in that process of practice, it's important to put a label on it, it's more than to describe it, and in articulating our own experiences, that's why Schengen asked us to write those retreat reports, you know, and back then, it's like, you have to write it, it's not like computer-type, they actually write it, that's a slow process of writing, reflecting or integrating, by reading the right word to describe, it's very important, and then that piece of marker, in one's own history, a dot, like a pin, that was, that was then, you know, and if we keep a journal, then we really see patterns that come up, and practice journal so important. Do you guys do that? I urge the students to do that, and, you know, we do have the same kind of sharing, I do think there is a little more seal of secrecy on what happens in Psalmsen or Dok-san, which is the center of where co-on practice happens, but the kind of exchange that happens especially between seniors and juniors, and the way that seniors are taken upon themselves to care for, and to be a sounding board for the juniors, and the way that the juniors are taught to not only support the seniors, but to avail themselves of their wisdom and their advice and their experience. There is a lot of that sharing that goes on, I wouldn't say it happens in a formal way, like at the end of a retreat, or in an informal way, you know, at the end of a retreat where there is a group discussion, but we usually have, after a retreat ends, we have a group of breakfasts where everyone gets to eat the things they didn't get to eat for the whole week before, and that's where a lot of that kind of stuff, that Dharma friendship and exchange and camaraderie stuff, but yeah, but the journal, I don't know how many of my students actually take this advice, but I'm always telling them that they should do that, because when I go back and read my own, I'm still getting something from mining those, and some insight that I thought I had, I can see now how shallow that was, or how it has changed, how it has evolved, and also it reminds me that even things I've forgotten. It shows me how, in some ways, my training now may have, in some areas, slipped, and was at a more profound level at another time earlier, so, you know, practice like this, and we hope the long-term stock chart is like that, but the journal shows you those waves, and even how the waves over time become less jagged and more even. I've been brought to tears reading my journals from the past, sometimes tears of frustration and disgust, but so useful, so useful, so I would affirm that advice any of you listening, keep a journal about your practice, and it'll be a treasure for you, maybe a treasure for other people in the future, who knows? Yeah, I still have my journal from back then, I actually made the journal from like, you know, the old printers we had, it's like, art matrix, so one side is off. Maybe 90s, right? Yeah, the one side is getting blank, so we just folded all the extra papers, and then named it, "Poison words." Oh, you're a Hakuian fan, huh? Yeah, Haku is like, "Poison words." And, yeah, I used to record, like, I used to be spoke about things that were forgotten, we forget so many things, so I used to keep two sections, "Things heard from my teacher, and I write it down," and then separate that from when I put it in practice, my psychophysiological responses, so I keep it separate. I don't want to be entangled and mixed together, you know, so I want to keep what he said pure, and I date it, so that's some tips for those of you who are watching this, things you can try to do. And I imagine you were recording things he said to you, it became very precious fodder for your writings later, is that the case? Not directly, but, you know, I haven't looked at those in the journal for a while, it's not explicit, you know, I got drew from it, but it's just kind of in me on practicing it. When I should, I think, I think I should just go back and take all the things I heard and publish it as a book. That would be pretty useful for people, I think. The words of my precious teacher. I also keep a dream journal. Oh, nice. This may be getting to the twilight, so anyway. So, you know, after my teacher passed away, in '09, his impact on me is really deep, as you know, you know, since I was a little boy. So, the things that he said to me, and our exchanges, whether it's in the journal or not, just over all those years, I would dream about my teacher up to this time, up to this year, every three months, four months, and it would be clear dreams in which there are some aspects of things that he would say, and some insights. So, I take those to be kind of instructions. And, of course, I don't think there's my teacher is still around kind of haunting me. I don't think I got it at all, but I just take it as take it with a grain of salt and as instructions, and I record them down. And because these are not really ordinary dreams. What I mean by that is, I don't have too many dreams that I remember probably are young. There's a lot of things going on, but these are kind of clear and they last after I wake up. So, I would just, when the advent of technology, I would record it. Someday, I would transcribe them, make some sense out of them, you know. So, I don't really do journaling anymore, but I do voice recordings. Not all things happening to me, but just those dreams. So, I have a whole load of materials. Those I listen to once in a while, because whether it's my teacher or no, it's probably not my teacher, but I don't think it's my teacher, but it's just things for my psyche that I that shed some light on my practice. Yeah, that sound weird. Well, no, I'll buy that book. Steve, we're doing all the talking, sorry. No, it's good. Both of you have had very deep relationships with your teachers. And, Mado, you talked, we discussed several of your teachers, in particular, Tenzan Teodorokoji, who you spoke of quite highly indeed in our interview, the way in which you burn through your cloudiness. This is a very fierce, compassionate style. And Gogo, also you described Master Shengyen's wrathful display, that actually it was a turning point in your own path, at one particular moment of public exposure, you could say, humiliation. Yes. I'm curious about that. I'm also curious, and perhaps this is a separate question, or maybe it's the same question. Now that both of you were the teachers, you were the students, and you had extremely impactful, deep masters. Now you're the teachers. Now you're the masters with your own students, and your teachers are dead, for the most part. I'm very curious about that, what your experiences have been navigating that situation? Well, I can say that I spent probably too many years after, I have three main teachers, one of them is dead, but he was my, you know, very much with my heart teacher in many ways. I spent too many years after he died, I think trying to act in the context of my teaching activity in the manner that I thought would fit his wishes. And as my own training deepened, I became much more, I think relaxed and confident to let my own character just be itself, and not, in other words, not to try to imitate him. I still feel like I'm channeling him sometimes, I catch myself saying things in his manner, or using his words. But the important part of him that I carry, you know, as far as we carry them in our bottoms, or we carry them in our own training, I feel more and more confident as time goes by, that that part is active and alive, and that that aspect of him has survived. Even if I'm not expressing it in the same way, are in completely different ways. I'm not the wrathful kind of person, I can do that, but it's not my sort of default setting the way it was for him. He was a fiery force of nature, and I'm not that way. But the cutting or penetrating quality of the teaching, I think, has to, you know, that's the very pure kernel which has to shine out, regardless of the so-called style. And more and more, I feel comfortable recognizing that my style is not his at all, and that's okay. It doesn't mean there was anything missed. In fact, if I were continuing to try and ape him, that would be very stinky. That would be a mess. It's not the way to do things. So that was a hard experience. I should say hard one wisdom to realize that I'm not my teacher, and that's as it should be. That makes sense. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. People are different. All bringing is very different than my teacher, and the generational differences that you can't really replicate that. But that said, you know, he spoke to you use the word embody. There's different kinds of embodiment. There's no way I see it of experience. On the one hand, you know, it's like the practice aspar, you know, embodying the method, you know, go on water, sun and illumination, whatever, the formal practices. But there's another kind of embodiment that comes from living with your teacher, you know, daying and day out. Absolutely. It's something that you can't really pinpoint. It's just like me to say, just kind of it's alive in us, especially when like me to my background, we are young like 20s, you know, and practicing for so many years. So much of that is just the formation of ourselves. So it's just become embedded, deep in there. And it manifests differently, but but like almost like the the spirit or the not mannerism, spirit, or the kind of embodied through decades and valid perspectives, world views, you know, that kind of dimensions of actors kind of imperceptibly become part of the student. You know, the student will have their own, I have my own chronic obstacles, my own upbringing. And so it manifests differently than my teacher. For example, my teacher was very humorous and very sharp at the same time. His humor, you know, in the great public, you know, just kind of lightheartedness, kind of connection with people, very approachable. But that same aspect, how it manifests among his close students, completely different, it comes out as sarcasm. It's not like the fierce type, but when I used to do something stupid, he would just look at me with pitiful eyes and then look at him and we both know my stupidity. And if I wasn't clear, he would just say something and smile. And it was just eminently clear. So it's humor, but it's got a knife behind it. Like the mirror. Here's a mirror, here's your stupidity, it's right here, you know. And so that sharpness, I think I have a little bit of that in me. I think my students can testify that. But yeah, about this, it's just over the decades, you know, our views on things, on Buddha Dharma, precepts, meditation, wisdom, the three higher learnings, on the approach of charm practice, what he takes. You know, that it's not from reading, it's not from studying with him. It's just, it's just here, it's present. Yeah, it may manifest differently, but it's definitely present. So that's another way to look at embodiment, you know. Yeah, we can explore this topic more, embodiment, if you want, Mado. Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, it's a reason that that kind of face-to-face training. And, you know, for people who can do it, residential practice, or where you are the attendant for your teacher, in their atmosphere, you know, Stevie used the word bomb. There's no substitute for that. And I'm not saying that it's suited to everyone or that everyone needs to do it, but certainly someone like me, I needed something like that. There was the only way to really transform was to be that close to the fire. Yeah, you know, yeah. Go ahead, please. I was going to say that. And the aspect of it that people may not understand is the way that it is embodied. You are, you're physically present with all of your senses completely heightened and alive, trying to anticipate what the teacher needs before the teacher needs it. I mean, you're so completely dialed into that person's physical form. And you can start to have the experience. I should say I did have this experience. Period about a week. I could not differentiate myself from the teacher. And I don't mean that I was in a particular Samadhi state or that, you know, there was some kind of dissociation or something like that. But there's such a unification of intent and energetic movement and your life of vitality is so tied up with this other person's activity that that line drops away. That's a, that's a really interesting experience. Really, I learned a lot about practice from that. Yeah, definitely resonate with that. Definitely resonate with that. There's something, there's something irreplaceable when you study with a teacher in person over a long stretch of time. And that's the problem that I see in our current time. The teachings, the Dharma, is made available so much on the internet that people just, I mean, it's my humble opinion. You know, people take a little bit from here, you take a little bit from here, and they take a little bit from here, maybe even now, but it's a vital Vedanta, you know, non-dual or whatever. And they, and they composite this, I'm going to call it a monster. They composite this thing that fits them. You know, that's the last thing you want that fit you. A practice that you resonate with, you're not challenged at all, at all. You're just taking a little bit from here and there. And then people create this thing. And it's, it's mostly here, right? Because the Dharma come to us and reading, you know, watching videos and hearing and how it translates to be integrated in the body, being physically present with a person, not doing teaching times, not doing formal interview, doing retreats, just walking around with the person, serving food, making food. Those moments, like caring, like for me, carrying his bag and forgetting it. And, you know, just all those things of living with the person, that's when once stupidity comes up and the selfing and how it's kind of disembodied practice, you know, here, all the things that we know here, completely not integrated with how one lives one's life. You know, only a teacher can only know the student truly by living in the same community. Then you know exactly how this person functions. Irrespective of how much they know, so working with the person, you know, so important, so important. It doesn't matter, you know, there's a lot of people that don't have access to teachers, or the teacher they want to study is far away. It's fine. Just find the center, find something, a community, even the community without teacher, just like other, other practitioners, like only practitioners together, and the teacher can come and visit once you're, well, that's better than, you know, just living in one's own construct or what, but the Dharma is supposed to be all supposed to practice. You know, just circle back to Dharma friends, you know, teachers, in a sense, is a friend, you know, it's a spiritual advisor, friend. When my teacher used to say that, he used to say 70% friendship, 30% teacher-student relationship. So he wasn't kind of here. We just worked together. When we go a mindful work period, when he was younger, able to be out there with us. When we were transforming the backyard, the child center into organic kind of vegetable plots, you know, different. We're all out there working. In the working, you know, the way we work, still transparent to him, or stupidity, you know, you can really see some, someone's practice, how they work, how concentrated they are, you know, you know, people that hold the, they're a little bit over here, a little bit over there, a chopping something over here, chopping something over there, as opposed to a person that's just like steady, you know. And a lot of people, it's not noble silence time. Some people are chatting away, some people are just like working with a body and mind of one, the field of one, with one, or a made-of teacher-student of one. You know, through some, you know, sustained practice with a person, then one reading knows that teachers didn't really know each other, and then the person on the phone, you know, a teacher can give you some advice that's like an acupuncture needle. You know, otherwise, it's very difficult, it's just very general, everything's just very general, just Dharma, ox, online, or books, or whatever, dead words, you know, what that kind of embodiment, like Mado's mentioning. One of my teachers was fond of saying or pointing out, exactly as you described, that we're all very good at projecting our own delusions onto the Dharma, and limiting it with your words, your phrase, which I'm very fond of, with a self-referential view. Rather than letting the Dharma shine the light on our delusions, we protect our delusions onto the Dharma. But the precise job of the teacher and the community is not to let that happen. That's the arena within which that process can be cut through. But if we don't have that, we don't have someone like that. Yeah, I'll make the Dharma, as you said, picking and choosing, I'll make it something comfortable, convenient for me. I'll make it something that revolves around my life instead of my life revolving around the practice. It's a fundamentally different approach, I guess, but it really only becomes clear. When you have that mirror, the teacher is the mirror, the teacher and the community. You can see why we get along. We can talk like this for a long time, but everything he says resonates with my experience, but is expressed in a slightly different way, which clarifies for me. So that's a darn prevention. What's the character of Ba? What's the congee? I'll pull it up. Maybe I can show it on the screen. Ba, feel like the second character in the word dojo. I think it's the same, isn't it? Let me see. We can deal with it later, maybe. Yeah, yeah. We'll keep talking. I'll pull it up. Chinese, it's the chong. Okay, Ba. Yeah, what's it going to say? In Chinese, we put another character that couples with it. It's the chong. It means magnetic. Academic field. Resonance, yeah, exactly. Then we start to pull out the word ki, from that standpoint, but then people start to get into energy talk, which is not always useful. Magnetic field, I like that. Yeah. All things, you know, all things have magnetic field. You know, when the person practices the Dharma and embodies it, the magnetic field is created from the practice. And it's actually in the space that the person weakens. I don't know if the Japanese entity can talk about, you know, like the interviewer, like the Chan Hall. It's in the land. They change because of the power. It's in the land. It's in the clothes. We're going to say even you can put on a robe from someone like that. You might change. That's right. Yeah. So it has a material. It takes all this material dimension, you know. So that's why when you're when you're present with another person, like my teachers, over the decades, his bah or tongue changed. And when he was younger, it's very sharp, very sharp. I spoke about him as very approachable. That's like later. When he was when he was younger, maybe 50, you know, unapproachable. His eyes were so sharp, like his sea right through you, you know. So the wisdom dimension is very, very strong. Over the years, you know, the wisdom dimension is it's all about the wisdom in Chan. But the compassionate part has to be cultivated. The inability for someone to interact with people, sentient beings, the skillful or lack of is very important for a teacher to have to do that. Otherwise, you know, just in in approachable. So I've seen him change. And towards the end of his life, his bah is so purified, ethereal, and it's like translucent, calm. And it was in his abbot's quarter. It's in his furniture. It's just very different from when he was younger. You know, talking about him, practice, all these things we're discussing. From our standpoint, there's no aspect of practice that is not embodied. It almost doesn't make sense to talk about it as a separate topic. I mean, I understand that it's important to do so, especially in an era when a lot of folks are approaching the Dharma, maybe primarily from a psychological or intellectual standpoint. But when you've done that kind of training, like you did, you can't conceive of practice as anything other than in one's bones. That that's the lived experience with the teacher and with the environment, the places, the items, everything. We're talking about embodied practice, even though we're not using the word embodied a lot. I think that's all we've been talking about today. It's really beautiful. Yeah, this, you know, I'm thinking, you know, the Western fascination with embodiment, you know, whatever, somatic experience, whatever, it dates back to this rooted in, you know, Western civilization, this separation of body and mind, matter and spirit, you know, how it's articulated. So this shift to the body now. But in Asia, not like that, or even in Buddhism, the conception of what a human being is, you know, we talked about 18 rounds, six cents, faculties, six cents, objects, that's already not in the shell here, giving rise to six corresponding cognitive moments. So it's so the conception of a being and their interdependence of being and non beings, just object, everything, right? That's what we're talking about. It's a big hole. Embodiment, but it's just, that's why it's in the land. It's in the chon hall, zendo. It's in the spaces, it's in the clothes, it's the bar, you know, because it's very natural to the practice. It's not separate from outside, definitely not separate from the body, you know, it's like, it's inconceivable to you, even like made of saying to think of it as a separate thing. It's just a whole cultural framework, the way they articulated, but even beyond that, it's just how it's lived, observed, you can feel, you can tap into it. And it's also in your being, in your space, how we live our lives, you know, and the world that we construct. And it's in the interaction with people. They may not consciously know it, but they definitely respond to it, you know, when a person is very vexed, very stressed, when a person is very calm, stable, that whole field, it's felt normal people, but they don't even have to practice, they can just, you don't even know why, but they just kind of feel it, so it's inseparable. And you definitely start to experience that when you go to retreats with other people. I mean, I think for many folks, that's the first time they really understand how that phenomena is sort of omnipresent. I mean, the container of the retreat, the one person who is having a particular kind of issue, it affects the space, the room, or when the teacher walks through the space changes, and all the people sitting find themselves in clarity, potentially. And then we start to understand how some of those forms are designed to support that. And to lift up people through that mutual influence. So again, one of the great values of practicing with people in meat space, so to speak, I don't think you can get that feeling anyway else. Sometimes I give the analogy of, you know, in the olden days when people transport lumber, they use basically river to do that. Can you imagine if people are trying to transport lumber like one by one, it would just get caught up, but the banks, by the boulders in the river, like all these sticks, long sticks that get caught up, but the way to do it is you bind it together. You know, all the lumber, it may be really, really heavy. All the obstacles, even if some of the lumber is a little bit thinner, weaker, then some of the lumber is very hardy. You bind it together, and you let it flow down the river, it won't get caught by any of the boulders and banks. It would just go right through all the different obstacles, and that's like practicing with our friends and with the teachers. That, like one me though, is saying, you know, some people will retreat, they're struggling, you know, but through the community, everyone practice together. They're called some treated space. When teachers present practicing with everyone, you know, it doesn't doesn't matter, there's, you know, everyone kind of go carry each other. That's, that's the way with life too, you know, with life, like the civilization, this culture, you know, divided, it's getting caught up, you know, individual lumber, but when we're together, the kind of same intent, as much as possible, then the whole country, the whole culture are lifted together. That's what we need now. Anyway, that's a miracle. By virtue of all the things. Yeah, but you know, it's, it's not separate. It's not separate. Our lives, the complexity of our, of our lives, and the people we associate with, and all the views and ideologies that's out there. I think a lot of, a lot of people feeling helpless in those kinds of situations, but as, as practitioners, I think one of the things that, well, that practitioners should start to have confidence in, and, and can rest some hope in, is that just the quality of their existence changing through the practice, not anything necessarily that they even do or say, but just the quality of their being as it transforms through the practice, that influence does transform the people around them. So they do become islands of something, of a kind of beneficial influence by, if you will. That, that's the sign of a good practitioner too. They may not be doing anything special from our perspective with their lives, but the people that they contact, even just walking into the coffee shop or whatever they do during the day, that may change those people. It may, may make them feel like they dropped a burden or may make them a little more clear. We see that again and again in our practice, right? I think a lot of people have an idea of, well, how am I going to take the practice and use it in society and change things and save the world? And of course, that's wonderful. But the, just the quality of your being already is transforming your family, your friends, the people around you. And again, not from anything particularly you're doing or saying just, just that mysterious influence, which is not so mysterious when we become sensitive to it. But yeah, that's an amazing thing. Yeah. One of my teachers was fond of saying, you know, in our world today, we have so many things stressing that we should learn to do, to get and to do what activities are there, that stress what we should become, not so many, the quality of being instead of the quality of accomplishment and getting. That's the strength, the strength of our so-called embodied path, I guess. Quo Gu you've said that there's a dimension of spiritual practice that's grounded in a learned, I'm quoting you now from our episode 144 interview, is grounded in a learned bodily aptitude. And you compared it to music. And, Mato, you've, you've also, in our interview, discussed martial arts and its relationship to this principle. I'm curious in your teaching, both of you, how do you encourage this learned bodily aptitude? Do you, are there ways that you stimulate it or encourage it, perhaps in those that aren't catching on or those that are catching on? Is there a particular emphasis or do you have ways to bring it out? Or does it naturally, is it a natural consequence of the practices themselves? Oh, I definitely encourage my students to do that. And there are particular methods because most people are just simply disembodied, they're like heads, then the body is somewhere, you know, doing something else. So, it's very important to be in tune with the body. So, then body experiencing. So, in the beginning of the sit, throughout the day, the first one has to begin learning it, in sitting because it's just simpler, you know, to learn to relax the body. So, to develop personal experience of the dynamic, the interrelationship between body, breath, and states of mind. And we do that by rhyming the body before we sit, relaxing the body, section by section, skin, muscles, tendons, and a sense of roundness, a sense of presence, weight. So, relaxing section by section, all the tension that's holding the energy or it. Once weight, usually for most people it's here. So, how to allow that to stink down into earth, relaxation. So, relax, not thinking about it, not commanding oneself to relax, but actually feeling the skin, feeling the muscles being in the body, section by section. And then, in the process of doing this, one will also sense kind of subtle experiences of the body, such as tension or a sense of body weight that one can actually sink down into space. Once a person has practiced this for some time, and they can begin to tap into the undercurrent feeling tone, which is usually concealed or shielded by all the tension that's kind of people are holding. So, that undercurrent feeling tone is intimately connected with the body. And then, so priming the body, relax, priming the feeling tone to be content. Contentment is just my way of saying, you know, the chon axiom, no grasp, no reject. The gray way is not difficult, you know, whatever, the third ancestral master is teaching, faith in mind. When you don't grasp, don't seek anything, you're not trying to get rid of anything, what is that? Content. It's all right, it's all good. You know, once our bodies relax, hearts content, then we avail ourselves with great, great interest. Oh, fascination, clarity with the method. So, a person begin to learn a new way of caring oneself. Usually, when a person is clear, what they're talking about is their thinking is clear, and the body is tense, right? Or, child practitioner, the body is completely relaxed and grounded, hearts content. We're not seeking anything. At the same time, very clear, very clear, very interesting. So, that kind of curiosity or wonderment, I call this a practice of wonderment. It doesn't matter if it was using silent rumination or wato, go on. That can be kind of unbound, untethered to a lot of tension and physiological issues. So, that kind of alignment with the nature of and possibility of one's mind, the potential of one's mind, then the practice become effective. So, it's definitely like things that people have to cultivate. And, of course, if you cultivate this, it becomes embodied, and it's a natural response, and it translates to other areas of life, not only on a vision. So, that's one way. There's a lot of ways that I instill that in my students. We can begin there, and then we'll just unpack this a little more. Now, I mean, everything you said speaks to our practice completely. And, as Azan is the place, that's the easiest to bring that to fruition or to really catch that principle. I think a lot of people come, you know, like Cordenji, for example, where I'm at, folks who come there have an idea of what Zen practice is, or an idea of what meditation fruition is. And then they're surprised to find out that just as important to us as what they're doing in Azan is the way that they move this rock, or the way that they're sweeping this hallway, or the way that they're reading, the way they're using their bodies and minds in the context of those activities, none of it is a part of our separate from practice for us. And we push them to be just as exacting in the sensitivity they bring to feeling where a rock wants to move, or if you have to move a heavy rock, there's a way that it will move, and you have to find that. It all becomes a study, we say it all becomes a study of Kiyikoku and Mai, so-called energy, time, and space. We can look at all activities from the standpoint of how we accord with and master those principles. But they can't do it here. They have to do it with the flesh and bone. And the simple change in the posture or the breath or, you know, letting the tension rise up again, that they have learned to drop down, changes the effect in a visible way with everything they do, whether it's gardening, or moving a rock, or practicing calligraphy. You can see in the line of the calligraphy the moment where the mind stopped or the body tensed up. So, yeah, so I guess what I'm speaking to is how we use some of the monastic forms along with Azan to accomplish the same thing. And I think all the stuff I imagine I'm saying now, what we would recognize immediately, because I think we have that same understanding of what practice is, which is to say there's nothing that isn't, and as embodied beings, the extent to which we throw the unified body mind into everything we're doing, that becomes the rich field where we can transform. There's something, you know, so Meidou and I are speaking something in general about this. But the thing is, everyone's different. All the students are very different. They may encounter an experience kind of common issues, for example. When one is doing Azan, when the mind is concentrated, it's very common, it's very common for the body to lean a little bit forward. You know, years being a time keeper, you know, with the stick walking around, you can just tell, you know, and in our own practice too, so sometimes it's important to help the student to loosen up that. So what I do, I don't really use a stick, but I just tell them, okay, you know, while there, while people are sitting, they're relaxing ground. Now, lean back a little, sink, and then that would just open up, open up once energy, once practice, and also when the energies opened up and not locked, because the body through concentration, which is a kind of rapid tendency, when we concentrate, the body becomes tense. This is what I was talking about, you can body completely relax, the mind, the method tight, that you can read whatever you want, you're just not going to be able to do it, you're going to practice it, you know. So how to do that is learn to be in the body, understand the dynamics, and learning how to work with it, sometimes by just leaning back a little bit, which really is like allowing the vertebrae to be stacked on top of one another effortlessly, a natural shape of the spine, once it's like that, the energy clears and opens up, and then something common actually happens in Chinese, is chishin fa, or the dharma of bodily supported experiencing, and I'm sure they don't know, and all the practitioners, when I say this, you know, know what I'm talking about, is that when the energy is cleared and the tension is cleared, yet the momentum concentration is still there, the energy actually, once you release that, the energy will straighten up the spine by itself, so it becomes effortlessly on the method, whereas before it's just a little bit tight, so the body's in the way, or the body, add the tendency of how we carry a body that's in the way, once that's loosened up, then the energy will just shoot, I'm not talking about Kundalini or whatever, you know, stuff like that, just naturally, the flow becomes smoother than one entering two deeper states, you know, so this is one common thing, but individually, students may have old injuries, that's a common thing, so you have to, so a teacher will have to recognize the aptitude of the student, and be able to open up, so they can go deeper, or free up, you know, the bones may heal, the tendons may heal from the old injury, but the energy is stuck there, see, so, and old injuries, what I mean by old injuries, it's not necessary, like some accident, it could be just accumulated stress from typing, you know, if you type along, and over here, back to the neck, shoulders, a lot of tension, can it build up coagulation of he or she, and that needs to be released, you know, so, and all, and so that means all of us have some kind of injury, you know, all these years of living, so working with students on the individual level, very important, and that kind of stuff, sorry, not in books, not in YouTube, not in Dharma talk, because all those things are just general, you see, but if you go on a personal retreat, it's not even on Zoom retreat, if you come in person, in this space, and the teacher sees you, and you feel the presence of concentration in everyone, and how everyone carries each other, but there are not that need to be opened, right? You got to do it, work with the teacher, so, grounded in bodily aptitude, there are so many things, there's so many things within individuals, like all of us have accumulated so many habits, so many psychic habits that affect energy, and injuries, and all the crazy stuff, and that, in order to work through that and work with that, and allow one's potential to flourish, you know, everyone will embody the spiritual insights in a particular way, you know, to allow people to be themselves, their full potential, and everyone's a little bit different, and there are some common things, but there are some individual things. We remind me in an early retreat that I think really inspired me and made me realize how important that training form is, when a good jiggy jitsu, or our timekeeper, those are not and makes the kind of adjustments you were talking about, or even when the teacher just comes into inspect and just passes by, if you could take a before and after photo of a line of people, it's like two different groups of human beings, it's like, it's as if it's not the same people, you know, before, and then the adjustments are made, or the teacher passes by, and then the way that their bodies have changed, their eyes have changed, their potential is showing that the beautiful zazen posture is emerging organically from their bodies, not as an outside form, it's coming out naturally, when someone who's skilled and can go around and help people to have that experience, it's so amazing, so amazing to see, I was so inspired the first time I noticed that, yeah, that's that's, you know, to have the eye with each individual person to make that adjustment, or just to give them the feeling they need as you pass by, and they respond, so, so remarkable, but yeah, again, as you said, cannot experience that except in the space with the living bodies, yeah, so yeah, that kind of things happen, you know, you speak about teacher walking by, it happens it's built on a kind of openness, acceptance, trust, you know, and unpretentiousness, a kind of innocence built to be on the method, practice, because for newbies, when teachers go by, they go, you know, which is worse, for people for like season practitioners, they're just working on their practice, you know, it doesn't matter who's going by, what's happening in the room, so that their heart is just open, it's just, there's an innocence, be of this, yeah, stuff, right, and then, then that can happen, what Amato's talking about, you know, and that doesn't happen if you don't work with the teacher, I don't want to, and I want to keep on talking about working with the teacher, working with the teacher, important, it's just resetting off, but the getting back to the embodiment, aptitude, rounded, what's also important is learning to put it down, because the real obstacles are, you know, holding onto one's comfort zone, one's habit, vexations, modern way of saying it, tension, stress, overthinking, rumination, which is a form of tension, mental tension, inhabit, learn to put it down, learn to put it down, that's, that's the key, I feel, or a key to the foundation, actually, so some time I talk about like in the beginning of the retreat, so they can learn it, and then practices, like in daily life, they can actually embody it too, wow, and that is all the ways in which we engaging self, self-referencing, selfing, you know, and that is now for our side of past or feature, environment, words and language are stories, narrative, the body, meaning our attachments and all of our hang-ups, learned ways in which we hold stress, hold tension, hold past things, not so pleasant things in the body, gonna put that down, and then put the mind down, the only thing once allowed is just the method, whatever method one's working on co-op, sorry, illumination, hwato, the breath, really learning to do that, so I call that vacationing mind, people hear that, sounds a little better than putting it down, vacations, and how many of you want to have vacation now, except you gotta come here on the retreat, vacation from the past, vacation from burdens, future, vacation of the environment, vacation from words and language, the manager mind, the narrative mind, you know, vacation from the body, vacation from everything else except, coupled with method, coupled with teachers working with students, all these things must come together, all these ingredients must be present, otherwise it's just stuck here, you know, just this shell and holding all this stuff, so putting it down, the ability to put it down, most important, foundation. Do I remember correctly that those words put down were part of your late master's entrance? Yeah, but you know, I discover, you know, through my translation work for him and others, they go back way back, way back, charm masters in the Song Dynasty, earlier even, put it down, and also they, they articulate it with different metaphors, you know, like, so put it down, simply coming like just not for or against, you're not trying to manage it, this is what we always want you, you're trying to manage things, you know, you're not trying to manage it, you're not even, you're not trying to suppress it, you're not oblivious to it, you're clear what's happening, it's just that, you know, unfazed, you know, poker face, never. So some of the ways the charm has to talk about put it down in ancient time, sometimes they just say put down. But sometimes they use metaphors, which is like, like matu, ordinary minds away, if you see the context and the way he uses it, the problem with us is that everything to us, we make it into a thing, everything is very special, making it into a thing, but the ordinary minds are like, yeah, it's fine, you do, you are doing it, ordinary, now make a fuss out of anything, we can read it like that, also something explicit, like Da Hui's teacher, Yu Yem Wu, the author of "Brucliffe Record", and you put aside his own collection, you look at his discourse record, this guy is always talking about when vexations come, be a zombie, be a tree stump, be an idiot, be an incense burner, and a dilapidated temple, it's not the soto masters who are talking like this, it's Ringsai, Ling G masters are talking like that, also master Ling G himself, Ringsai himself, just be a person with nothing to do, vexations come, what's that, put it down, it's basically the same, they just kind of poetically, you know, use different expressions, so that principle in practice, it's kind of indispensable in learning to work with the teacher, work on yourself, work with all the difficulties, struggles, even physiological energy stuck things, can't make a thing out of it, it can't reify things into a thing, like old injuries, I have this problem, I have my back things, put it down, put down the body, then things can open up, you know, if you always think I'm traumatized, I'm this, you know, I can't do this, I can't do that, I didn't get a good night's sleep last night, that's why I'm drowsy, today I'll retreat, no, we have infinite aptitude, possibilities, if we put it down, if we put it down, so the way to bring forth one's full potential, yeah, work with the teacher, blah, blah, blah, this and that, you know, an adjustment, but the main thrust behind that power, the potential is to put it down, then, you know, it's like holding on to something, you see, it's like hold on to this, if you keep on holding on to this, that's all you're gonna be able to get, just that, you gotta let it go, you put it down, then you see the full potential of the hand, I can grab all kinds of stuff, or I can not grab a single thing, so that obstacle must be, must be lifted, don't get, yeah, can I answer your question, Steve? yes, sometimes, this has been fascinating, by the way, thank you both, really remarkable, I have one, well I have many more questions actually, but I'll ask one more, I think, sometimes I think enlightenment is seen as a cognitive event, kind of epiphany or an insight, maybe even a perception shift, suddenly things look different, the analogy of waking up in the dream or from the dream has that sort of implication perhaps, how does this bodily training that we've been discussing today relate to awakening, how does it lead to it, is that even the right way of thinking about it? I mean, the question itself comes kind of from that reified, dualistic view, that's my specialty, well it's all about specialty, that's the problem, that's that we all share them, you know, I'm not talking about the Buddhist view of body and mind and so on, but just from a practitioner standpoint, we cannot, we do not differentiate them, and that is not only, that not only goes for practice and so-called realization, it goes for delusion, but delusion itself is baked into our bodies, you know, we are, I don't even like to use the word body mind, one of my teachers started hyphenating them and I really like that, we just talk about the body mind, the body mind itself is where we so-called experience, our delusion, it's the vehicle of our practice and it's the place where what we call realization or insight dawns, and when it dawns, as you've kind of alluded to in some of your questions earlier, you know, some of the talking topics that you mentioned, there's transformation in the body as well as the mind, we can see it in the body when there is that kind of fruition, so I don't think it needs to be analyzed or you know, sort of be labored more than that, other than to recognize that that's the kind of existence we have, therefore that's where our delusion also is, that's where our practice has to be, that's the field of our practice is this this meat bag, this flesh and bone, and when we experience the transformation that comes in our path, we will experience it not just as a psychological revolution, not certainly as the arrival at a new idea or way of looking at things, although those can arise from it or with it, but we will experience it in our bodies too, it's enough to understand that and it's an understanding that a practitioner naturally has, I don't think it's something that we really discuss much as practitioners, it's kind of just a given, it's the baked in assumption coming out from our experience of what we're doing. I never ask myself why it is that way, to be honest, but I ask myself constantly, is my practice doing justice to that? Am I falling subtly into my primarily intellectual practice or kind of a dualistic reification, such that my practice is being negatively impacted? I have to remind myself constantly and my teacher reminded me constantly to practice in the whole hearted way, which is harnessing and using this whole thing, but my whole existence, anything short of that is going to be a partial practice and the results will be partial too. That might be a cop-out of an answer because I didn't really answer question much, I think, but I can say that there are questions that maybe really occur much to practitioners, at least in our tradition. Right from the beginning, we experience what the nature of the practice is and that all of our assumptions come out from that and any fruition that comes out from the practice is experiencing that same way. I can't say it's a question that ever occurred to me, except again in as much as to recognize when I have fallen away from giving my whole being to the practice. It's easy to practice with just a part of me. It's easy to practice with my body and let my mind wander someplace else. It's easy to practice with the so-called mind, but have the body not in accord with that. All of the practice methods and forms that I have learned are all putting your face right back into the fact of needing to use the whole embodied existence. Again, as Gogu said, with a trust, with an openness, a dog and said through your body into the house of Buddha. That's not just a poetic image. It's a pretty good practice direction. I guess that's the most I could say about it. Gogu, maybe you have something more insightful than I can share. I agree with everything that Mato says, part of the difficulty, I would say, is from the perspective of the students, probably, is that they're coming up against something that's very different from how they have been reared and conditioned to practice, to live out their life, which is, you know, head is over here, body's over here. So through practice, they become integrated. And the whole, the thing is, the whole world is in common. The whole world is conditioning, people to dislodging the body and mind. And the way that people live and solve problems and experience life, the way they think through different issues is always being here. And the way we identify with our thoughts and our feelings so real, actually separate from the body, ordinary folks. So this is all that they've ever known. And now coming into some spiritual practice, not even taught, even like yoga people, like yoga, they learn to be more in tune with the body and so on. So it's very different from ordinary folks, you know, how they live their life. So through some kind of spiritual practice, they learn to value and integrate. This is a dynamic between body, breath, mind, feeling tone, undercurrent, and the way you carry ourselves becomes a little more integrated. So I think also our traditions nowadays really focus on this integration. But it's just very different from the habits that we have accumulated living in the world. We're just always here and learn to solve problems here. So we encounter meditation issues, problems. We think is here, you know, but meanwhile, it could be something completely different, completely different. Like we always think problems with us, like it's about us. Like maybe I didn't do this right, maybe I didn't do that. That's why I'm drowsy or maybe one feeling a little off today. And it could be something completely different. So we used to resolve our psychophysiological issues by thinking about it, rationalizing about it. You know, for example, microbiome, gut, you know, they're like trillions of these beneficial bacteria in the lining. And they're responsible for producing some very important chemicals that actually influences the mood, like serotonin, 95% of the serotonin is actually producing a gut. That means you're going to feed them the right food. So if you eat certain kind of food and you wonder why your meditation is, you can come up with some crazy, you know, I'm not sitting well because of this and that. Meanwhile, it feels like these little guys in there, they're just producing these deranged chemicals instead of serotonin. So your brain is signals. It's like you're, you're having all these things. It has nothing to do with you. You're not even there. It's like all these things, these undercurrent causes and condition that's actually happening, shaping your mood, shaping your feeling tone, shaping your perceptions. It could just be the microbiome, you know. So what I'm trying to say is we're here usually trying to rationalize. So we come to the Dharma or any spiritual practice divided, not integrated. So we come up with a lot, we have a lot of strange ideas about this and that. So part of the practice, what made us talk about is just, you're going to let go of that. You're going to learn to just wholeheartedly body mind, like one word, just like engaging with it and discover being in tune so much with with your being, the actions that we take, the thoughts that we create, the food that we eat, you know, the feelings that we have, the way we avail ourselves to practice, to how to use the method, not thinking about it, but experiencing the bones, in the flesh, in the pores, in the cells, you know, that integrated. And that integration is experiencing in a lived way interdependence and causes and conditions. Yeah. That's why we can say something like the entire universe is the true human body, you know, the words that one more, more so-and-row she used. We talk about in body training, what are we actually talking about when we talk about our body? That's the interesting way to look at it too. So that's kind of what we've been saying is, you know, what I've been saying is how people come to the practice, what they're struggling with, and what Mato's talking about is what needs to be done, you know. And then that question of awakening, right? Now we got to put it down. Yeah, let's put it down. Body, mind, world, vacation, mind, put everything down. Whatever we cannot put down, whatever it is, even, what was that? Including putting down. Including putting down, including like, you know, I was talking about like the hand holding, oh, I got to pay attention to the body. I got to pay attention to the feeling, oh, I got to eat some good food for the microbiome, whatever the hell the person's doing, whatever, everything, put it down. How practice? That's it. I've made those teaching call on practice, just to call. And the body naturally disappears, you know, which means it's fine. Like, everything is fine. Leave it alone. Everything will be fine. All the different things, everything will just flow the energy. Once you put it down, actually, everything flows smoothly. Can't put it down, make a thing out of it. That's where all kinds of stuff just ramifications just continue without end. So, as I said, the foundation that put it down, that, okay. There's no issue with body in mind, no issue with body in mind. There's no issue in body and body experiencing. You know, it's all good. Yeah. I don't know if that's helpful, but... Thank you both. This has been so remarkable. I don't think anything more needs to be said, but I will invite either of you, perhaps both, or neither, to, if you have any final reflections or anything you'd like to add before we bring this dialogue to a close. There didn't necessarily be, but if there is, please. I want to practice with Mato. Huh? What? I said, I want to practice with it. We should just have an opportunity in which we practice together, you know. Yeah, I don't get to see you and treat together or something. I would love to do that. I still would like to invite you to Coringy as well. One of my regrets these past few years is I haven't been able to see you more. Let's make that happen. Yeah. Yeah. Well, otherwise, to the viewers, what can we say to the viewers? Encourage the viewers. You know, I really like your expression of taking a vacation. I think there's a lot of rhetoric in practice about effort and perseverance and not giving up and practices sometimes difficult and burning through. We have that kind of language. It doesn't have to be effortful in that way. It really is a putting down. It really is a releasing into something that's very comfortable, even when it's not comfortable. It's very easy, even when it's difficult. More and more practice unfolds in a way which is not burdensome, even though it requires our full commitment and our full energy. It becomes very pleasant, like a fresh breeze. And I want to encourage especially beginners when they feel the challenges of practice. They start coming up against the mirror of practice and facing their own habits of body and mind. I think those kinds of words like put down could be very useful. So allow yourself to trust the practice. As you give yourself completely to the practice, do so, I guess, with the trust that you're going to arrive at yourself. You're not going to, you're not in an arc of ever-increasing burdensome effort and exhaustion. That's not what practice is. Practice isn't unfolding. It's very natural and ultimately very joyful, very pleasant. I hope beginners can have that trust. Again, I think your words will go put down or vacation. Go on a vacation. I'll throw better. Yeah, we spoke the most. So that's, I guess, I just want to reinforce that point. Yeah. I guess those people in the Midwest seek al-medo practice. If you have more commoner, you're welcome. And certainly, I'm always referring people to the Chan Center in Tallahassee because there's no other place in the country that I think they can get that quality of training. So we don't refer only our problem students to each other, I hope. No. Yeah, the viewers, I hope you savor some of the things that made us and that I mentioned and observed it within yourself, tested out, practiced it and watched this episode over and over again some of the things because our minds are some kind of very selective. You know, and more practice, you know, in a sense of what we're talking about, different aspects of it. The support on another, your Dharma friends. Woku and Madaroshi, thank you very much. Thank you for this occasion. Thank you. You're doing such a wonderful, wonderful job with this. Thank you, really. It's both. Thank you for listening to another Guru Viking podcast. For more interviews like these, as well as articles, videos and guided meditations, visit www.guruviking.com. [BLANK_AUDIO]