This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. How essential mind is. But it's mind that needs attention, that it's mind that needs looking into. And in the end it's about waking up to the truth that there is only mind, a radiant, non-dual awareness in which there are no distinctions at all between self and others, self and things, between buddhas and beings. And I spoke as well about Dogan's brilliant insight into this as an intimacy. Of course, this is only a manner of speaking, this sort of language. It can be misunderstood when you talk about mind. If you looked into it, you'd never find this mind. It's empty, pure, still, unfathomably deep, a mystery. We also saw that to reach this, to this state, to wake up to this, that it's not just about going around with some intellectual idea of non-duality. To reach this, you need deep and continuous practice. You need to be dropping into the river, the ocean of the store consciousness, into the alia, the seeds of skillful, creative energies. These skillful and creative energies need to perfume the alia. We need to perfume the alia with the sweet sense of spiritual practice. This is what spiritual life is about. Day to day, moment by moment practice, whether on or off the cushion, maintaining skillful states. It's the only way, it's the only way to be, it's the only way to practice. It's the only way to reach what's called the revolution in the basis. The utter turning around of consciousness, in which when all the impure seeds are utterly purified, turfed out of consciousness, and there's that realization of non-dual awareness. So keep that in mind, keep that as the sort of backdrop, as I tell you a story, a very famous story from the Zen tradition. And the story goes back to some time in the 9th century, and centers around the great Chan master, Chao Chu, Joshi in Japanese. And Chao Chu's own life was one of almost constant travel. He was visited over 80 of the great disciples of the great master, Matsu, the most prominent fit. Chao Chu being Nan Chuen, you probably remember the story of Nan Chuen and the cat, when some monks were arguing over a cat, Nan Chuen turned up and cut the cat in half, which is another one of those co-ons. Was he being unskilled for? Don't need to get bogged down in that. Anyway, even after Chao Chu's awakened, he kept traveling, studying, and practicing, and moving about. He was a real foot-traveling, patch-road monk, as they called it, a real Chan traveler. And he finally settled down, if you can call it that, at the age of 80, in the Kwanian temple of Chao Chu, and it's his name, Chao Chu, very often these masters take the name from the place in which they're associated. So he settled down in Chao Chu in northern China, and it said that he taught for another 40 years, only passing away at the age of 120. And he was famous for his asceticism. He really thought austerity was the way. He wanted to emulate the ancients, the ancient Buddhist monks in his monastery. There was no personal storage space. I know sometimes people, when they come to Pavmalo, couldn't think, "Hmm, not much storage space to put my stuff." Well, in this place, there was no storage space at all. You just had your robes, and you had your basic possession, possessions. The food was strictly vegetarian. One day, Master Chao Chu's chair broke, the rope chair that he'd used for many, many years. It was very, very old, and he just found a bit of firewood, and just lashed a bit of firewood to the broken stump. So he just sat on this rickety old chair when people would come to see him. And of course, his disciples wanted to get him a nice new one, make him a new one, and he said, "No, no, no." This is fine. This is my chair. And everybody worked each day in Chao Chu's monastery in the fields or doing some construction, or cleaning, cooking, that kind of thing. This is the old Chan tradition. The Chan monasteries were independent. It's one of the reasons why they avoided persecution, the various persecutions that went through Chinese history of Buddhism. The Chan monasteries tended to avoid that because they were isolated because they were self-supporting, which I think is a real message. So they did intensive practice and work, workers' practice. Anyway, one day, old Chao Chu found the monk sort of skiving off. He sort of found him around the back of the shrine hall. And he asked him, he said, you know, can you imagine the response of the monk and the old boy coming round, and Chao Chu said, where have all the virtuous ones gone, meaning the other monks in the community? And the monk said they're working in the fields. Chao Chu took his knife, which he used for work from his sleeve, and he gave it to the monk and said, my tasks as Abbot are many. I ask you to cut off my head. I'm weary, and the monk ran off terrified. He was a great teacher, apparently had many disciples, and his manner of teaching is described as lip-chan, lip-chan. Not mouth-chan, not just talking about it, but it was lip-chan because a light issued from his lips. His words would just light you up. And the text says that he didn't hit and beat like some masters, thankfully. He would only just use a few words to bring people to awakening. It said, in fact, this lovely expression. He used flavorless words, flavorless words, plain, plain words, words that you can't sort of get a hold on, get a handle on, flavorless words. And the great Ewan Wu says of Chao Chu, a very capable teacher of our clan. He does not discuss the abstruse or mysterious. He always deals with people in terms of the fundamental matter. Anyway, one day, a monk came to him, and there was something on this monk's mind. This monk had been seriously practicing for a long time. He was practicing the precepts. He would have been meditating for a long time, studied the scriptures, the diamond sutra, the Langkavatara sutra, the sutra of weenang, the Avatangsaka sutra. He was thoroughly imbued with the dharma, thoroughly imbued with notions like the mutual interpenetration of all phenomena, notions like emptiness, notions like Buddha nature, the Buddha nature in all things, in all beings. Very important. He had great faith in that, great faith in himself, great faith that there was this Buddha nature and that you could awaken to that nature. Anyway, wonder he was looking at the dogs that you would, you know, hang around the monastery, the strays that would scavenge around. And they weren't pretty, of course, flea-ridden, diseased-looking creatures, scratching around, always hungry, always fighting, some of them cowering and pathetic. You see, if you go to India, go to our retreat centers, there's always a pack of dogs around the retreat center wanting scraps and they really are sorry-looking creatures, some of them. And the monk began to wonder looking at these creatures, you know, fighting and mating and cowering, "Did they have Buddha nature? Does that dog have Buddha nature?" He told everything does, but, "Well, did they? How do these dogs have Buddha nature?" So there's a kind of doubt. So he went to Chauchoo, went to his abbot, went to his teacher. He'll surely resolve this doubt. He'll sort it out for me because he had great faith in Chauchoo, enormous faith, as much faith, not more faith in Chauchoo than all the scriptures and, you know, all that was his teacher. So he went to see the old man, this plain and simple old man, with his lined old face and his simple robe sitting on his rickety chair, sitting with so much dignity. And the monk felt, of course, great reverence and awe in relation to Chauchoo. So he asked, "Does a dog have Buddha nature?" And Chauchoo just said, "No." Just like that. Flavorless word. Flavorless word. A flat, plain, flavorless, no. The monk was totally shot, no. Just that. And looking at Chauchoo, he knew that the interview was over, finished, ended. He'd shut up shot. Flavorless. It ended with no, woo, in Chinese, moo, in Japanese, no. Now it must have really thrown that monk into utter confusion. He now had a big, a massive problems. The teaching said, "Everything has Buddha nature." He had great faith in that. He lived to bring that forth. And now his teacher, who he had great faith in, Chauchoo, has said, plainly, "But a dog did not have Buddha nature." So he must have been thrown into a great abyss, thrown into a great doubt, the great doubt. Living now with this contradiction, the scriptures say, "Everything has Buddha nature." Chauchoo says, "A dog does not have Buddha nature." If a dog doesn't have Buddha nature, what else doesn't have Buddha nature? Maybe I don't have Buddha nature. So he was really thrown back on himself. And in times, you can imagine within a community like that, the word got around about this exchange. The monk talked about it. He was in crisis. Maybe he reported in about it. Maybe they had reporting in in those days. So maybe a number of people were kind of stirred up. So another monk, a bold monk, he went to Chauchoo, I'll sort this out. So again, we're in the abbot's room, the old, venerable, and his rickety chair. And the monk says, "Does everything have Buddha nature?" And Chauchoo said, "Yes." Again, flat, plain, flavorless. Yes. Great. It's resolved. And he could see that Chauchoo, there was more to say, the interview wasn't ended. There was an opening. Maybe he could go further. So he said, "Master, do you have Buddha nature?" Maybe he'd hear about what this Buddha nature was. And Chauchoo said, "No." A flavorless, "No." End of interview. It's finished. He shut up shop again. So you can imagine the community must have been thrown into great confusion. And this is a very interesting story. And I was reflecting on it. It does happen. I can think back to periods in the order's history with Sangarachta. Sangarachta would say something on a seminar that we all need to enter the greater mandler of uselessness and not worry too much about working for the movement and doing things and all that sort of thing. And people were coming back from this seminar saying, "Bandy said we should just all relax." And of course, the really dynamic people said, "What?" They've been told to really go for it. And for somebody who would go to Bante and say, "Did you say?" And he'd say something else, which would be another take in Tardian. Things would be stirred up like that. It was a bit like in some ways like a Chan Master throwing you back on yourself all the time. It's a very interesting, fascinating teaching method. I'm sure educational lists would be interested in all this. But what interests me right now, what I want to talk about now, is the fact that Chow Chiu gave his disciples problems. Irresolvable paradoxes. Apparently, Irresolvable paradoxes. Irresolvable on their own level. He gave them that to meditate on. And they were real for those practitioners. It doesn't sound as though they're kind of real problems for us. But for them, they were real issues. If you were a serious devoted monk in 9th century China, to be told by someone you venerate that a dog didn't have Buddha nature was a massive shock, a massive problem, a problem that demanded that you dig deeper into your spiritual practice, to resolve it, to see into it. And Chow Chiu, of course, knew this. Knew this would happen. He'd trained himself like that. His teachers had taught him like that. His teaching, his community, his practice was designed to bring up these deep existential problems, to actually create doubt, to create doubt. That's what he wanted to do. Now, by doubt, let's be very clear. By doubt, we don't mean that psychological state of chronic confusion where you can't make up your mind. You don't know whether to get up or lie in bed. We're not talking about that. We're not talking about that. These guys in the monastery knew they got up every day and meditated. They engaged. They were committed to spiritual life. So we're not talking about that state of chronic confusion where I don't know whether to get up. I don't know whether to stay in bed. I don't know whether to do this job or that job. I don't know whether to have this relationship. Shall I have her? Shall I have him? I don't know whether to live a spiritual life or become a computer programmer. I don't know whether to be an artist or a bank manager. I don't - maybe I could write a novel or go on holiday. That state of utter confusion that's generated by not seeing and not wanting to see what life is actually for. Not actually living life as it should be led. Just keeping your options open, drifting along in a confused sort of way. In a way, never growing up. That's what this sort of doubt is. It's a state of protracted adolescence and it's very unhealthy after a certain age. Reasonable up to about - I don't know, let's not put it. But up to a certain age, I think it's very unhealthy. Just that protracted adolescence and I remember once Sangarachita, my teacher, telling me when I reached a certain point and I think I was in my late 20s and I was very active and I was very committed to the spiritual life. But there was in me a certain passivity in relation to certain people and situations and I was sort of going along in a situation without really doing it for myself. I was asking him about what I should do and he said well what do you think of doing? He'd never tell you and I said oh I thought I'd just stay here and he said I don't think that would be a good idea. He said single men need to make sure that they grow up. If you're married and have children you have to grow up, you have to mature, you have to put the food on the table. Those people dependent upon you, you have a purpose in life. But single men have to be very careful that they grow up and he really urged me to take responsibility for myself. He said it doesn't matter what you do, you could become a hermit, you could write a book, you could start a centre but make sure you're doing it from yourself, that you really commit yourself to something and you see things through in relation to other people you take responsibility. So really really watch for this, really really watch for this if you're a young single man make sure you don't have a kind of protracted adolescence. It's very sad, I know people, friends of mine in their 50s and 60s and they haven't sussed this out, they're still adolescent and that is really tragic, really really tragic. Sorry to be heavy but I really think this is true and we have to watch it, we really have to watch it. This I think is the great thing about Buddhist discipline, Buddhist practice, Buddhist application that you do it even though you don't feel like doing it. You get up and you practice even though at that moment there seems to be nothing in it, there's no pleasure in it, you don't seem to be getting anywhere but it's good to do it, it builds character, it builds character and this morning just so you don't feel alone some of you. My meditation was appalling, I didn't sleep very well last night and I don't want your sympathy. My back was hurting, I kept falling asleep, I was spending most of the time just staring at Sivanagaba's blue t-shirt just trying to stay awake and this part of me thinking why are you doing it? Well I've got to do it because I've got to ring the bells, I can hardly leave the shrine room but there's a great sense of building character, it's not about being a bliss bunny you know and just having a groovy time, it's about digging in and developing something deeper, anyway I think I've made my point. Anyway so we're not talking about that state of chronic confusion, that sort of shilly shalleon, it doesn't matter about whether you become a Buddhist or not but really make sure you do something with your life. What we're talking about, the doubt that Chaochu and his disciples create because they all create it, it's a community, it's a communication, that doubt arises out of a deep commitment to spiritual life, to Buddhist life, born of a genuine faith and commitment and this faith of course is not belief, it's not dramatic adherence, this faith is an intuition, a sense, even a kind of insight and a vision of what is possible, a vision of Buddha nature even, you sense that there is something profound and mysterious to discover to unfold, to become, to be and so you commit yourself to the path of practice and you keep going even when you're not in contact with that initial vision, you keep going, you keep faith with it but this very faith, this very practice generates doubt in the sense of a deep questioning of your life and of your experience, in fact this kind of deep questioning, this kind of this great doubt is implicit in your faith, maybe sometimes it will even come before faith in some people, true doubt can sort of give rise to faith as well as being an expression of your faith, so it can engender it, engender your faith and express it as well, be an expression of it, so discussing faith and doubt like this, we're not just having an interesting look into ancient Chinese Buddhism, we're talking about the actual dynamics of spiritual life, so let's try to relate it to our experience, maybe we don't have the extraordinarily intense and ascetic life of Ciao Chu and his followers, maybe we don't, we don't, but what about us, what about our faith and our doubt, and I'm sorry, think about this, I remember the time in my early teens, 13 or 14, maybe 15, that terribly painful confusing time, you know, when it's all happening, it's all kicking off at that time, isn't it, all those chemicals swirling around, all that kind of post puberty stuff, and you don't know who or what you are, and I remember a time during this where I had the first stirrings of a real doubt, not a doubt in the sense of a lack of commitment, but a questioning of life, a deep questioning, not that deep of course, because I was so confused, but something was going on, I was brought up a Christian, good old C of E, I church, so it was church every Sunday, sometimes twice, I was in the choir, I served at Holy Communion, I must have looked very sweet, not, and there was, but I did have a big question, God Christ, I never really kind of went along with them really, they just weren't apparent, I mean, this creator of the universe and this savior, they just weren't apparent to me, it's not that I had kind of anything against them, but they just didn't seem to be around, they weren't there, I didn't feel they were there, so surely then life is just physical, materialistic, that's all there is, there's nothing spiritual, it's just stuff, there's nothing deeper, nothing higher, no purpose, but I wasn't convinced by that either, that kind of materialistic outlook, because I did have some sense, maybe some romantic sense of something deeper, I didn't, I knew I didn't want to follow a convention from an early age, I knew I didn't want a regular job, I knew I didn't want to get married and all that, but that age, spiritual religion, was identified with God, the creator, so I was in a real conflict between a materialistic worldview, if you like, and a religious worldview, and I remember we had a very good religious knowledge teacher at the school I went to, and he used to organise his class debates, you know, on things like the existence of God and things like that, I could argue for both, with equal gusto, you know, even in, in, you know, I could take both sides, and one day I'd be definitely religious, and another totally anti-religion, there's just physical existence, it was a real issue, amidst the maelstrom of post puberty, but the thing is that questioning, that doubt got me searching, got me looking, got me longing, I experienced openings usually to do with listening to music, usually listening to John Coltrane and people like that, and that got me into reading and exploring in those ways, a kind of faith, an intuition was developing, eventually it got me to Buddhism, to the Dharma, reading Lama Gavinda's books, and I was just amazed because he was religion, he was spiritual life, without God, a rich, deep, thorough, spiritual life that you could live, that you could internalise without a God capping it all, putting the mockers on everything, and there was an immediate connection when I got, when I started to read about Buddhism, eventually, of course, I devoted my life to Buddhism, because nothing else seemed to be worth a candle worth doing, and, you know, I lived happily ever after, and everything went smoothly, I sailed down the white path to Nirvana, I wish, and I'm sure my story, my early story, has resonances with yours, you know, discovering Buddhism, yes, yes, certainty, that's a laugh, but of course, this doubt doesn't go away, that deep questioning doesn't leave, it can't leave, the dialectic between faith and doubt, in fact, is what spiritual practice is all about, in fact, it's important to generate the dialectic, the tension between faith and doubt, in fact, in Zen tradition, they say there are three elements that are needed, great faith, great determination arising from the great faith, great doubt, great faith, great determination, great doubt, these interact and they lead to great death, which leads to great awakening, so let's look into this, and in particular, I want to look at this in the life of the great 18th century Japanese Zen master, Hakuin, who's named by the name, by the way, means whiteness, the earthy, the refined, the humorous, the severe, the wonderful Hakuin, so Hakuin was born into a pious Buddhist family, and at a very early age, he had doubt, he had doubt about life itself, at a young age, he was overwhelmed by impermanence and change, the impermanence and change that went on, at the beach one day, seeing the clouds scud across the sky, seeing the waves coming in, feeling the wind blowing, he just fainted at all this change, all this restlessness, all this impermanence, just swooned, it was too much, and one occasion he said, "Mother, is there nothing that doesn't change?" And Mother replied, "The Buddha's teaching, that always remains constant." So he went to the Buddhist temple with his mother to listen to lectures on the Lotus Sutra, which were rather simplistic and pious, and one preacher gave a vivid description of the fires of hell, that the hell fires that you burn in if you harmed creatures, and poor old Hakuin being a healthy little boy, had harmed creatures, so he got very worried, he got terrified, an enormous doubt and uncertainty was generated in him, "What will happen to me?" He prayed to his family god, he'd prayed to Kuan Yin, Avalokotashra, he wouldn't take a bath, because in his home the bathwater was heated up by a fire, and it just reminded him of these terrible hells. He wanted certainty, so eventually at 15 he left home, he became a monk, entered a monastery, which he found really dull, he found the lectures on the white Lotus Sutra, really boring. So he left the monastery, and he became an unsweet, a wandering monk, flowing with the rivers and breezes, following the way, visiting monasteries, visiting teachers, and he found his way to a monastery, and here he heard a story that plunged him into even more doubt. So out of doubt of the uncertainty of life, he's following the Buddhist path, he's found something in the Buddha's teaching. He's a wanderer, he goes to find the teachings, Buddhism is the way, if you like, but now he comes across a story that really plunged him into doubt, not just doubt, but spiritual despair. He wanted some sort of refuge, some sort of permanent, some safe place, don't we all? And he heard at this monastery a story that deeply, deeply shocked him. It was the story of the great Yintu, Yintu, a great Chinese chan master again of the ninth century, a man of great attainment and strength, it said he had a backbone of iron, a great teacher with many disciples, and at that time in China, China was going through one of its upheavals, its periodic periods of anarchy, groups of bandits were running amok, smashing up monasteries and killing monks, unless they paid tribute, paid a bribe, protection money, and they just smashed blazes up, kill monks if they didn't get the money, it really was very rough. And one day a band of these brigands attacked Yintu's monastery, and all of Yintu's disciples just ran for it. And it's interesting story in itself, they just ran for it, wouldn't we? But the old teacher Yintu was not going to move, some of these old chan masters are likened to blind donkeys because they're so stubborn, spiritually stubborn, so Yintu wasn't going to move this old blind donkey. He just sat in meditation in the shrine hall, while the monastery was being destroyed around him, and eventually the rough warriors, verminous warriors came in, and they surrounded old Yintu, and they said, "Come on priest, give us the money, show us where the gold is." And Yintu didn't say a word, he wasn't going to parley with them. He just sat, looking straight ahead, and so eventually the blows started to rain down, and then the sword started to slash. Yintu was this being cut down where he sat, until eventually he just gave a great cry, "CUT!" And then died, and the shout was heard for miles around. Now for Harquin, this was appalling, there was no romance in this story, it sounds very romantic, it wasn't for Harquin, this is just an old monk, cut down in a smashed up temple, his screams being heard for miles around. And Harquin thought, "Well, if that happens to somebody like Yintu, what about me?" You know, I know we're near that kind of quality, and he just gets killed, there's nothing more worthless than the life of a Buddhist monk. So Harquin just decided to pack it in, and he went off to study calligraphy and poetry with Master Bao. And of course this can happen to us, this sort of thing, there's parallels for us in our own way, we discover Buddhism, we take up the path, there's a lot of hope, a lot of expectation, everything's going to be okay, we're going to do good, we're going to do good with ourselves, we're going to do good in the world. But sooner or later we discover some things, you know, that make us feel kind of let down, maybe we discover things about the Buddha that we don't like, you know, the way he kind of left his family and, you know, some of his teachings, they're a bit kind of hard-line, a bit hardcore, or we hear things about our spiritual friends, see things in our spiritual friends, people we put a lot of faith in, we feel let down, whatever, we begin to think that Buddhism doesn't really offer anything, it won't protect us, won't make things all right, so let's go and take up playing the cello or being a novelist or whatever it may be. Anyway, Harkwyn took up calligraphy and he was with the very demanding master bow, very tough, he was a such a great teacher that everybody left, everybody left, except Harkwyn, I think that, I think, you know, people say a great teacher draws everybody out and everything, I think the great teacher, the really great teacher would be that everybody leaves, everybody goes because he doesn't care whether you like him or not, doesn't care, all he's concerned is that you really train and you really learn, but Harkwyn was tough and he stayed with master bow and tended him and looked after him when he was sick, but then Harkwyn had another crisis, he realized, well, I'll never be as great as Li Poen to Fu, I'll never be a great poet, I'll never be a great calligrapher, actually he is regarded as a great calligrapher now, but he thought I'll never be any good at that, never, never be a master, so what to do is another big crisis, what am I going to do with my life? So he closed his eyes and kind of went over the books that master bow in his library and just pulled out a book at random, flicked it open and it was a story of an old Chinese Zen master and about this Zen master's training and how when he was meditating long into the night he started to doze off and how he grabbed hold of the gimlet and just jabbed his thigh with it to wake him up and Harkwyn thought yes, that's real determination, that's real determination, don't give up, don't give up. Awakening doesn't come easily so he plunged back into his practice, particularly into meditation and in particular he took up the story of "Chao Chu's No", he took up "Moo". And I've already said that by Harkwyn's time, happened of course long before in China, there was this long tradition of meditating on contemplating the stories and sayings of the old masters, the sayings, the exchanges, the stories were brought together in various collections and these stories were commented on by other Zen masters and the commentaries are often as bewildering as the exchange itself designed to help you probe into, dig into the question, the problem, to generate that deep profound questioning. So he took up the "Chaoan", that's the Japanese foot for "Chaoan", the legal precedent, the "Chaoan". He took up the exemplary exchange, the "Chaoan" and started to dig into it to see, in order to awaken, to see things that they are. By Harkwyn's time, what actually, what you meditated on was what's known as the "Chao Chu", the, as it were, punchline of the story. You know the story, you know the background, you're imbued with that, but you take up the one phrase or the one word that sums up the whole thing and in this case it's "Moo", no. And one of the great "Chaoan" collections is called "The Gateless Gate", collected by and commented on by somebody called "Boomen", who means "gateless", and the first "Chaoan" of that collection is "Chao Chu's No". So I'm going to read you what "Boomen" says about this, how you should meditate on "No", on "Chao Chu's No". To practice meditation, you must pass through the barrier of the masters. To attain this subtle realization, you must cast off all dualistic thinking. What is this barrier? It is the single word "No". This is the front gate to Zen. If you go through it, you see "Chao Chu", you tangle eyebrows with Zen masters, you see with their eyes, here with their ears, isn't that a delightful prospect? Wouldn't you like to pass through this barrier? And then he tells you how you pass through this back barrier. Arouse your entire body with its 360 boi bones and joints and 84,000 pours of the skin. Summon up a spirit of great doubt, the doubt I've been talking about, and concentrate on this "No". Carry it continuously day and night. Do not form a nihilistic conception of vacancy, don't think of "No" as "Yes" or "No" or "Has" or "Has Not". It must become like a red hot iron ball you have swallowed, which you vomit and vomit but cannot bring forth. Cast aside all your old misconceptions, slowly, naturally, purely, the inner and outer become of a single piece. Then suddenly you arise to startle the heavens and shake the earth. How do you concentrate on "No" with every bit of your strength? If you do not falter, you will light a lamp to benefit the world and then he gives a verse. The dog, the Buddha Nature, Chow Choo's pronouncement, perfect and final. A moment of "Yes" and "No" lost our body and mind. This is extraordinary. Chow Choo's "No" to "Does a dog have Buddha Nature?" is "No" ordinary "No". It's a "No" that says "No" not only to "Yes" but to "No" as well. It's a "No" that says "No" not only to "Yes" but to "No" as well. It's the "No" beyond "Yes" and "No". A moment of "Yes" and "No". This really is the great doubt. The deep doubt. We go along thinking everything is it is, is it is. People are the way they are solid and substantial. I'm here. You're there. But look into it. It's not like that. People change. Things change. Things pass on. They're insubstantial. You could think in the end. They are not the vacancy, the nihilism. But that's just a notion. That's just an idea. You are here right before me and I'm here too. But if I look for you and you look for me, we won't finally find one another. Yet we stand facing one another. So the great doubt embodied in child's shoes know is the doubt that sweeps away any and every idea, any and every conception, any and every notion we have about life, even the idea of nothing. This is what you have to do eventually in Buddhist practice. At first you steadily build up out of faith and confidence, out of concentration and meditation. You build up your precepts, your spiritual friendships. You study. You build as it were yourself up. But then you need to examine. You need to look into yourself and everything else. You need to see what's actually there, what's going on inside and outside. This is actually reflected in our system of practice in the order. The first two stages of the practice are to do with integration and developing, creative emotion, mindfulness of breathing, metabarthana. Then you do the practices which are concerned with contemplating shunya tah and in substantiality. There those practice are concerned to bring about the great death beyond that other practices to do with the great spiritual rebirth. Anyway, Hockwyn really took it up. Out of great faith and great determination, he dug into mood, endlessly silently repeating it, feeling it deep inside all the time, whether he was sitting meditating, whether he was walking, whether he was sitting down, whether he was lying down, he just developed the great doubt, no, no, no, no, no, the no that is not no, the no that is not the opposite of yes, the no that is no to no, the great question. And he describes what opened up for him in one of his autobiographical writings, a remarkable passage. In the spring of my 24th year, I was staying at Eigen G Monastery, pursuing my strenuous studies, he means practices. Night and day I did not sleep. I forgot both to eat and rest. Suddenly the great doubt manifested itself before me. It was though I was frozen solid. In the midst of an ice sheet extending tens of thousands of miles, a purity filled my heart and I could neither go forward nor retreat. To all intents and purposes, I was out of my mind and the mood for no alone remained sounding. At times I felt as I was floating in air. This state lasted for several days. Then one night, at midnight, I heard the temple pat bell sounding in the distance and I was suddenly transformed. It was as if the sheet of ice had been smashed or a jade tower had fallen with a crash. Body and mind dropped away. I understood Yen too, how he could never be touched. I cried out. Yen too is right here, alive and well. In the monks in the monastery thought that someone was being beaten up and given the same fate as Yen too. And they rushed into the shrine room only to see Harkwyn beaming with joy. Not only does he resolve Moo, he resolves Yen too's fate as well. So here you get some insight, some feeling into what the great doubt really is. It's the most profound questioning, the deepest possible doubt. You're looking into your deeply embedded categories, questioning them deeply and that setting up attention. You're looking into existence and non-existence, form and emptiness, being a non-being. You enter the ice field and then there is a shattering, a breaking, a dissolving. There's a great death and then a joyous awakening. For Harkwyn, it still hasn't finished. In a way he'd had a great death, in a way he hadn't. You don't have one final great death because he started to get very proud. He started to fancy himself. He started to think, "I am the greatest Zen master of all time." Fortunately he met a wild teacher named Shojie, very wild who he was attracted to and thought he'd impress. And Shojie says, "We know what you've learned but what do you know?" And Shojie just thrust him back into practice. Very intensive practice and Harkwyn would come with his realisation and Shojie just said, "You're just a devil." Went on like this. They were breakthroughs and ecstasies. There's the story of how when he was begging, he was so absorbed in his co-arm practice, so absorbed in the great doubt. But he didn't hear the woman saying, "Look, we don't give food to you lazy monks." But Harkwyn wouldn't move because he so absorbed in his practice so she just came out and gave him a damn good thrashing with her broom. And he fell down in a puddle, then jumped up with ecstasy. He had a realisation as he was down in this puddle. People thought he was mad. Only he was in a way. He had another crisis. He didn't get any easier the spiritual life. I think it's tough now. It's just going to get worse. But you're just going to be big enough to handle it. He had zen sickness, a terrible fevers and couldn't sleep, kind of nervous disorder, and he had to trap back. He had to do calming meditation. He took up sort of Taoist meditation practices, which have been kind of integrated in Buddhism. Much more calming practice in, particularly developed this idea of sitting down in the tanden, sitting down in the area just below the navel, there's a solar plexus area down there. And you do all your practice down there. He learned from that into his own disciples. He says, "Well, you do your great doubting down there down below the navel in that area. That's where you do your practice. The Pure Land is down there." I think this is very significant. This is as if out of, he has these great visions, these great breakthroughs, these great insights. But then the visions have to sort of descend and permeate through the whole being. But I think you can get a sense from Harkwyn's life of this constant, you have breakthroughs, but in a way it presents more challenges. You're never saved in that sense. It really is gate, gate, paragate, of going beyond all the time. Now all this can seem, I know, and you know, I'm the same as you in relation to this, it all seemed very distant, very steep, a sheer cliff face. How can we relate to this? This seems so far out. Is there anything to learn here at all? I mean, I think it's just great stuff and I get turned out on by it. It makes me want to go and meditate, go and practice, but there are things. For Harkwyn, 'moo', 'no' is a real problem. Everything has Buddha nature, 'no'. He had great faith, great determination, he wanted to awaken, so the 'no', the problem was real. For us, it probably isn't a real problem, it might be for some of you, but I must say, I've rarely in my life come across people for whom Buddhist teachings pose a real problem, a deep questioning. I've very rarely met people like that. Very rarely do you come across people like Sangarachta in his young days when he was asked, having a conversation about Shunutah with a Tibetan monk, and the monk says, 'What is the cause of Shunutah? What is the cause of emptiness?' He said, 'That became a real issue for him to resolve, to go away and question.' Well, it's very rare that I come across people in study groups who come to me with a real dharma question. It's not just an idea, but it's a burning emotional issue. But there are other types of co-arms, deep burning questions. Dogen speaks of two kinds of co-arms. There's the co-arm of ancient paradigm, like Chow Chiu's know, and then there's the co-arm realized in life. And as usual, his discussions of the co-arms realized in life are very profound. But I've quite taken with this phrase, the co-arm realized in life. And I'd like to suggest that there are life co-arms, co-arms in life, deep questions, problems, paradoxes generated by our faith, generated by our practice and commitment to follow the path that arise through it. Deep dilemmas that make us question deeply, that set up even great polarities in our lives, which will only resolve if we shift to a deeper level of spiritual practice, if we move to becoming a deeper person. I'm just going to throw out a few of these, just a few random co-arms for you to think about. I'm sure there are many more you can think about in your own experience, the co-arm of work. We live a spiritual life, drawn to a spiritual life. We want intensity in that spiritual life. We want to do more of it. But our work takes us away from it. It takes us away from spiritual friendships. It makes us tired, but we like the money and we need the money to live and to eat. So what to do? And we kind of like our work. It gives us a freedom. But what to do? We want to go deeper into our spiritual life. But our work seems to take us away from it. So what to do about that? What's the answer to that question? Then there's the co-arm of relationships. We're deeply committed to spiritual practice. We want to put more into it. But our girlfriend or boyfriend or wife or family are just not interested. They're even rather hostile about it. We love them. We care for them. But we don't want to give up the spiritual life, which they kind of like us to do. We don't want to give up those we love. We don't want to give up spiritual life. So what to do? The co-arm of sex. We're deeply committed to spiritual life. We want to go deeper into spiritual life. We also like sex a lot. Trouble is we often end up in difficult problematic relationships. And even if the relationship's good, it takes up so much time. What do we like sex? There's a lot of intimacy in that. But somehow we feel it compromises our spiritual intensity. But we don't want to give up the sex to what to do about the red thread of passion as some of the Japanese masters call it. In fact, Iq in his life, he actually contemplates sex co-arms. There are sex co-arms in the Zen tradition. It was an issue. What to do? What to do about the red thread of passion? There's no easy answer. There's no easy answer sometimes. Well, often. Frequently, the co-arm of Sangha, you're deeply into spiritual life. You want to go even further into your spiritual life. We're also with a good group of spiritual friends, a study group at a center, are going for refuge group. Or you're in a really good community. But there's one person who's a complete pain. They're all good while you think so. You get into bad states around them. You get upset by it, you feel guilty or shameful about your bad states. And anyway, it's their fault. What to do? Are you going to ask him to go? Well, how will that be for him? And what will he have? Are you going to go? No, I can't go. I like it here. And you like the others. So what are you to do? You can't leave. They can't leave. What are you to do? What's the answer? There can be the co-arm of spiritual life versus artistic life. That can be a real problem for some people. There's the co-arm of calm versus activity. You want more time for meditation. You also want more time for more activity. There's the co-arm of is spiritual life a kind of natural process of just waking up. It's all just there. You don't apparently do anything. Or is spiritual life about developing something, generating something? There's the co-arm of the active versus the receptive and so on and so forth. They go on. You'll find them. They're there. The spiritual community, how old is filled with them? People discuss them endlessly. Be better if they just internalize them and worked on them in themselves. Most of the time we shy away from these doubts, these deep questions. We shy away from them. We don't go right into them. We want the answer. We want Sanger Atster or our spiritual friends to tell us. Tell us what to do. Tell us the answer. Much better to go right into them ourselves. Bring them up and sit with them. Go into them. Get underneath them because probably underneath these issues are much deeper existential issues to do with the very nature of existence, to do with the very nature of birth and death and life and death. So dig in to your co-arms. Once someone went to Great Master, you and men, and said, "I've been practicing for a long time, but I can't seem to find an entry a way into a real direct experience of the Dharma." Basically saying you didn't have any insight. "How do I get in?" And you and men replied, "Your present concern is your way in." "Your present concern is your way in." If you have a problem, a concern, a question, use it in your practice. Use it to fuel your practice. Get interested in that question. For example, metabathana. Fourth stage, there's somebody you dislike. You maybe even hate them. We'll look forward to that stage. Don't kind of shy off it. Don't back off. Don't go into hate them or anything like that. Don't look forward to a hate session. But look forward. Get interested in turning that around, turning that over, looking into what's going on. Get interesting. It's a problem. Amazing. Let's crack that. Maybe I'll break through into a new reality. At the beginning of this talk, I said that I wanted to show how you practice in the depths of the mind how to bring about Paravriti, the revolution in the basis. Harquin's shattering of the ice field is a description of that revolution in the basis, that dissolving of a dualistic consciousness. Of course, there were further stages to go for him. But I think it's clear that the revolution in the basis comes about through intensive and constant spiritual practice. But it's not just a question of intensive and constant. What we, in fact, need to do is to take our practice, our faith, our commitment, our determination, our great doubt right into the alia itself, into the deepest part of our being. We need to start practicing in the alia. Of first, this simply means constant repeated practice. In the co-arm tradition of Zen, you just keep up the questioning in all aspects of the day, whatever you're doing, whether you're working, whether you're meditating, whatever, you just keep it going. But I think we could also say it's about keeping up constant mindfulness, constant awareness, or constant matter through all times of the day, or constant recitation of mantra throughout the day, or constant reflection on impermanence throughout the day. Whatever, you keep it going. And the aim is to keep it going in dream, in deep sleep, even in death, a stream of meditation, a stream of contemplation going on all the time. This is dwelling in the depths, dwelling in the alia. And in the Zen tradition, the teacher's job is to keep you there, keep you in it. And that's not easy because we want to be superficial. We want to be on the surface. And there's a beautiful story here of Tar Hui, great 11th century Chinese master and the disciple of the great Yuan Wu himself, the compiler of the blue cliff record. And Tar Hui had been practicing on under Yuan Wu for some time in his monastery, and Tar Hui had done a lot of this questioning meditation, co-arm meditation. And he'd had some great experiences. In fact, he thought he was enlightened, he'd awaken. And he told Yuan Wu, the old boy, he was getting on now, Yuan Wu. He told him clearly, "Well, I'm enlightened now. Will you acknowledge my enlightenment?" And Yuan Wu said, "No, no, you're not enlightened." And Tar Hui thought the old fool. Well, he's not enlightened because he doesn't recognize my supreme enlightenment. So, Tar Hui decided that he was just going to leave Yuan Wu, and go off and become a teacher himself. But Yuan Wu warned him. He said, "If you go, you'll get sick, and it won't work out well." And Tar Hui thought, "You know, the poor old fool, he's really lost it. He's getting very stupid. He must be a bit senile, a bit attached to me." So, he just left. Traveled about, proclaiming his enlightenment and gathering quite a following of disciples. Some people really love it, if you say you're enlightened, makes them feel so secure. It's much easier when you've got an enlightened master, very safe. And one day, of course, Tar Hui fell seriously ill, fell sick, and fell into a coma, a deep, unconscious state, fell into the earlier. And when he came to, he realized that whilst he was unconscious, he'd lost his co-arm. He'd lost awareness. His awareness wasn't continuous. He'd lost it. He suddenly realized, "Gosh, I'm not what I thought I was." And he managed to get well after worshipping the Buddhas. He really was very ill, and he returned to Yuan Wu with real humility. And he just got on with meditating and practicing and just doing the daily chores around the monastery, just like everybody else, meditating and working in the kitchen, in the gardens, in the fields. And what a new and Wu, the old boy, kept an eye on him. And he said one day to Tar Hui, "Let's go for a walk." So, there's the old boy and the young disciple, and they go for a walk, and they come to a great waterfall, wonderful waterfall. At the bottom of the waterfall, there's a deep whirlpool, and they're looking at it, and the old boy, "Oh, nice waterfall." And then suddenly, with an incredible strength, Yuan Wu just grabbed Tar Hui and just thrust him into the whirlpool, just held him in there until he nearly drowned, and then pulled him out and pushed him down again. Superhuman strength of demented old man, dunking his disciple repeatedly. And at some point, Yuan Wu asked Tar Hui a co-on question, something strange, and Tar Hui just answered clearly. He said, "It was if the two of us were sitting in a room together. Everything was still and calm and clear, and I was utterly awake." Even though there's this old man just dunking him up and down, even onto the edge of death, Tar Hui really had awakened. He passed through the gateless gate. He was always awake. This is what the master does. He keeps you in the depths. He inspires you to continue us deep practices, deep practice, and just pushes you into the alley all the time. So, I take the whirlpool. Yeah, I'm sure it happened. I'm sure it happened, but I think it's also a metaphor. The master just keeps you dunked all the time. So that's where we should aim our practice. Continuous deep practice in meditation, in daily life, in sleep, in dream, in illness. You really know if your practice is something if you keep going during illness. In death, in emergency, your practice is just one stream of practice. Then there can be the revolution in the basis. The turning around in the deepest seat of consciousness. When we just break the prison of all our ideas and notions of space, time, self, and love, they just shatter. Dogen's burst. The whole universe shatters into a hundred pieces. In the great death, there is no heaven, no earth. Once body and mind have turned over, there is only this to say, past mind cannot be grasped, present mind cannot be grasped, future mind cannot be grasped. On Saturday, we'll see how a man who has turned over walks in the world. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [end] . [BLANK_AUDIO]
