SPEAKER_00: 0:14

Welcome back to another episode of the World Through Zen Eyes podcast. I'm Jungansunym here with and I'm Dr. Ruben Lambert. It's been, as the kids say, a hot minute. A hot minute, yeah. A little hiatus. Or is it a cold minute?

SPEAKER_02: 0:29

Well, some of you might be feeling a little cold because you haven't gotten the warmth of our wisdom and our compassion.

SPEAKER_00: 0:35

So here we are back again. I think I just sunk in this chair a little bit under the weight of your words.

SPEAKER_02: 0:41

Distance makes the heart grow fonder. So if you've been yearning for some nuggets of wisdom, here we are, ready to transmit. There you go.

SPEAKER_00: 0:52

We have been uh absent from our microphones, but we haven't been.

SPEAKER_02: 0:59

We've been still talking. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00

We've been still talking the word life and teaching others, but uh we've just been absent from this particular venue and this particular way of sharing. Um so we were uh trying to come up with a topic and what better than things that are pertinent to the here and now, as close to the here and now as one could get, I guess. And so for a title, if you will. Now this is um also rather unusual for us to have a title prior to usually usually we do the thing and then AI generates a title for us. Right, right, right, right. Um, but something akin to We're using natural intelligence now instead of artificial intelligence, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:55

No red dye 212 today.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56

Well, don't even start it on the differences of if what is inter what is uh artificial and what is uh natural intelligence. So we could that could be a topic in and of itself. Let's see. Something clever, right? Okay. There is no selfless caring. Now coming out of the mouth of the Zen monks or the mouth of the abbot of a temple to say that there's no such thing as selfless caring, it's clickbait. Because press we have to find out. Click the thing. Yeah, subscribe for the newsletter.

SPEAKER_02: 2:49

Sit out for the newsletter and uh put your information in, and we'll send you some emails.

SPEAKER_00: 2:55

What do I mean by that that there's no such thing as selfless caring? And uh those of you who are who are close to the Zen Center, you know that uh as the Sangha, we've been we've been uh praying and and uh thinking and doing the positive vibes and doing the prayer services and doing all sorts of uh tending and caring on every dimension of our daily lives that is physically tending to, emotionally um reaching out and and reaching out through the powerful vehicle of prayer, um, on the account of our Shindo Hejang, the the Shindo president of our of our Sangha, uh having spent several weeks now in a hospital post uh a rather significant surgery and and some complications afterwards. And so obviously the the between that, between the holidays, and between general philosophy of closeness, camaraderie, familieship, and caring. Uh we're always uh here and talk about caring and how it's such a selfless act. And uh I'd like to put a Zen wrench into those gears.

SPEAKER_02: 4:35

I can see the cogs and the wheels of the machine slowly screeching to a halt. Smoke starting to come, sparks flying everywhere.

SPEAKER_00: 4:48

You know, it's it's a bit of a uh contortion, but so okay, let's start with the usual kind of we could say uh perspective on caring for somebody else, right? Um and it's uh it's a uh perhaps done out of necessity and one is uh maybe forced into said position. And so the initial sort of stage one of caring is where one is to as best as one can attend to the other person with all of their might, and as such, the lofty golden becomes um forgetting yourself. Forget yourself in the tending to others, right? And that is that is viewed as as these this this uh high spiritual refinement of of the of the way of caring for somebody else. It's a selfless act. And we frequently then position it and and buttress it with the philosophy of what is your true self? What are you in fact? Uh sometimes the the bastardized concept of no-self, as we know it so well within the Buddhist tradition leaks his way into the always there somewhere, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 6:25

Finds his way to the makes his way to the party uninvited, but always gets in to the back door somehow, or bribes the bouncer with 50 bucks just to get in.

SPEAKER_00: 6:35

Yeah, and and so so this idea of um no-self or or or caring to uh for another in a selfless way is in fact stage one of some goal in our spiritual uh growth, right? Uh by nature, human beings are egocentric, self-centered, and I don't mean this, you know, in some extreme way, narcissistic kind of drown in the waters of your own reflection type of way. I mean by nature we are narcissistic. By nature, you know, not not the diagnosable levels of narcissism, but by the humanity of us as we are. And it's I think it's built into our biology, right?

SPEAKER_02: 7:26

There's a there was a uh specific, I think, design that had a driving force towards tending to the self, hence why you know things like the brain needs sugar as fuel. So when you eat something that's sweet, my goodness, your tongue just it's like rainbows and butterflies and stars, right? It dances there, and then you can look at the sex drive, right? There's a clearly a pleasure that's designed there to perpetuate more of me into the world. Maybe the world needs more of it. Maybe there would be no no self-cloning, right? There was no incentive behind that, right? And so, yeah, you can look at our pleasure and then there's pain, too, right? When you look at hunger, I think in uh Oriental medicine it's literally designed uh uh defined as pain. Right. And so me feels pain, must make the pain go away, right?

SPEAKER_00: 8:21

So yeah, it's a self-preservation mechanism. The the egoism uh in this context a natural, necessary, right. Um it of course becomes problematic when it goes out of control, when it overrides everything else, and morality and ethics and and um all these other principles being overridden by the gaping vacuous hull of self-want. Um but we're talking about just general self-preservation thing. So we strive to tend to the needs of others selflessly forget your own needs. Um you know I I have uh and this is they talk about the evolutionary element of our spiritual growth. I wonder if I have it in my phone. Um there was a uh there was a time where my focus sort of was um uh focusing on this this overriding self, right, as a as a perhaps sought after quality uh this this forcing upon oneself um selflessness and I had written this uh this thing as my own kind of a kiddo chukwan type of thing.

SPEAKER_02: 10:20

And uh I'm not seeing it here, and I don't want to keep everybody It served as like a reminder for you to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 10:29

Yeah, like a like a prayer Yeah, like a self-prayer. Um and it and it seems to fit so much the topic, and as everybody knows, we don't prepare for any of these topics. Um perhaps I'll go and it's probably hanging in my thing. Um well you fill in the time, I'll be right back.

SPEAKER_01: 10:53

All right, say something wise.

SPEAKER_02: 10:56

All right, this is this is a fortune cookie moment. Let's grab the fortune cookie, let's crack it, and let's see what the wise quote of the day is. Well, I think this topic of giving and compassion and and selfless giving versus selfish giving, I think, is a very pertinent topic and important topic because what I kept on thinking is what happens when one gets into the realm of extremes, where the holic component gets added to the giving, where you can be a workaholic, where you're giving so much and you're essentially giving to the point where you lose. What is the exchange there? The person who's the workaholic, sure, they're giving so much to their job, to whatever service their job brings into the world, but what is the cost? Oftentimes it costs them their health, number one, and number two, who are you neglecting? Are you neglecting certain relationships in your life that you also have a duty to tend to? So they're there sometimes with this tending to others, and and and we can talk about this maybe a little bit further down, is uh what is the stress that results from this? And oftentimes in psychology we talk about caregiver stress and things of that nature.

SPEAKER_00: 12:18

Yeah, so is is is caring and giving then absolutely synonymous with giving away. See, there's a there's a such a such a for the lack of a better word, capitalist uh thought here. Giving equates uh as you know, you go to a store and you give, let's say, money and you get something. In return. There's a loss of one thing uh and and uh and a hope to get something else. But essentially it's a it's a giving away of something, and and that idea of to give something, and then you are at a loss of that thing you had given is not only very tied to the tangible world we live in, but also to the principles and the sort of paradigm of um things which we are um trained and practiced in valuing. So it's a thing, and that thing has a value, and if I give that thing of said value, I'm expecting a return of either similar or in comes human greed, a higher value. Right.

SPEAKER_02: 13:44

Then you're satisfied if it's a high, it's of equal or higher. You made a deal, it's a good deal. But then exactly what you're describing, don't you think these are or I feel these are the components then that start to create the breakdown in the in the human psyche, in the person's well-being, because of all of those components that are involved in this exchange. Number one, the person's giving something that has value, and the second thing is they're expecting something in return. So if I'm giving, something is being depleted from me, something is being sucked out of me. Right. And number two, I'm gonna be looking for the return. There's an expectation that's created there. In my experience, when I see people really performing at an optimal level where they're uh performing some task or some duty, and they tend to not really feel burnout, is when they don't have this psychological heaviness on their mind. Yeah. Right? It so you could have two people performing the same action. And when a person is thinking, you know, oh my goodness, I have to give of my time to to this individual who all they do is return back to me is grumpiness and things like that, right? Already right there at that very moment. Calculating. That mindset is a very heavy, it's a heavy, heavy, heavy lift. Whereas another person can look at that same individual, they might be elderly, it could be a parent, a grandparent, and and they feel compassion and and they're not thinking about what they're sucking out of them. Right? Sort of like a mother when she's pregnant and she that the child eats of her blood. You know, she eats from the umbilical cord. They're not calculating all of those things. They're filled with joy when it's a burden carried lightly because of the mindset, right? And and and even when the person's grumpy, they they don't attach that, they don't look at that, right? Because you know, they understand maybe that person is not feeling well, they're feeling sick, and and and I'm not doing it for this thank you or I love you, or money, or whatever it is. It really leaves the person feeling free of the see. You want to then at that moment someone's grumpy, you want to direct to them some negativity. But in essence, even when you step away from that moment, I've seen in people they didn't detach, they didn't let go of that moment. They still carry, like, I can't believe they didn't pay me for this action. I can't believe after all the hard work that I put in, they just my goodness, you come here like that, you never spend enough time with me and and this or that, right? So they still carry this heavy, heavy load on their and emotional burden, calculating.

SPEAKER_00: 16:39

Yeah, the that's why I said the the kind of capitalist uh uh you know exchange calculation of exchange rates, and and uh there's a time when that's you know in in in daily matters when that's a thing. Um but from the Zen perspective, there's no fortune earned when the mind is calculating mind. There's no fortune, fortune uh earned because everything is brought to an equate equated state. There's a equal my action equals your response to it. You know, it's the sort of it's a closed transaction, it's finished. Pardon me, it's finished, and and and there's no karmic remainder. So when it comes to kungdok uh and pokdok, the kung dok being the fortune that we take into future lives, and pok being the one that we use up, whether you use it up or not in this life, it stays in this life and doesn't follow you. So there's that one element of it. Um and and so there's uh there's a natural greed for wanting a uh echo of your actions to come to you, and so we wait then this sort of like I said, this sort of phase one or stage one or level one of uh the Zen approach to caring for another is to try and think of it in a selfless fashion. Right now, I did take a picture of that thing. Um I don't remember how long ago I had written this, and it's sort of that kind um chabisim suheng. Chabisim is the the compassionate mind, su hang is training, so this is what I titled it to be and says remember your Tamna is never tired. Chamna is your true self, right? So remember your Tamna is never tired. Forget the body, a heap of four, the fleeting self, a heap of five. Put the needs of others before your transient life, put the tiredness of others before your own tiredness, put the sleepiness of others before your own sleepiness. Put the suffering of others before your own suffering. Put the pain of others before your own pain. Put the hunger of others before your own hunger. Put the sorrow of others before your own sorrow. Put the anger of others before your own anger. For in doing so the boundaries of the ego self dissolve into unbridled freedom.

SPEAKER_02: 19:42

That's very nice.

SPEAKER_00: 19:44

And and uh, you know, so this was this was uh my um implementation of this philosophy of, you know, sort of self uh sacrifice, if you will. You know. So this kind of Lofty goal of phase one of wanting to tend to somebody else or um in as selfless a way as possible. And and as as my spiritual training and and dare I say growth and development continued, uh something unsavory began to waft out of this principle of tending to somebody else in a selfless way. And so there's an evolution. You know, there's the tending to somebody because you're obligated to. And like you said, there's a heaviness about it. And this is absolutely where the burnout comes very quickly, right? Because there's a calculating mind at play all the time. Well, I've given you X amount of time, I've given you X amount of energy, I've given you X amount of hours, I've given you X amount of my time. And usually the calculation also goes, I've taken away this time to give you from something else. I've taken away my energy from something else to this. So it's this you know, transferring from one bank account to the other kind of transactionary mindset.

SPEAKER_02: 21:23

And with the words you describe give me a sense of feeling like there was a loss. Right. And the transaction is a loss, right?

SPEAKER_00: 21:32

And so the Buddha has a fantastic line, and and uh which sutra in particular it's from, I can't recall. But the line is a thousand you can light a thousand candles can be uh lighted from a single candle, and the the flame of the single candle will not be diminished. Right. Oof. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 21:59

I'm gonna be depleted by making others happy, right?

SPEAKER_00: 22:04

Yeah, and and a thousand candles can be lit from a single candle, and that candle itself is not depleted. What a beautiful image for one. Uh on so many val on so many levels, because then there's so much brightness in the world. There's so many other candles that then hopefully could do the same. So if a thousand candles are lit from one and then each one of those lights another thousand, that's a lot of light in the world. That's one thing. The other thing is it cancels out this uh calculating mathematical mind that leads to burnout. Because burn out right suggests that that the candle itself is being burnt out, and then eventually there will be no light in and of itself, and you have to buy another candle or some. The thing to focus on is the light, the flame itself. In our lives, I mean yolban nirvana, right, is the snuffing out of the candle, which means it could be relit. And so uh this idea of of this light, the flame being passed on, uh, if the mind then again kind of gets bugged down with oh, well, the candle will burn out, uh the candle of this physical form and this physical life might be burnt out, but the light of our true nature is never depleted. Right? Even if the the candle is gone, the light itself, the flame itself is never depleted. And so it's how you orient yourself. That's why I in that little thing I wrote, you know, your chamna is never tired, right? Your true nature is never tired. This idea of tiredness is belongs to another dimension of who we are.

SPEAKER_02: 24:04

That reminds me of the story of Binja. Binja when she gave a lack of hair. Right, the lack of hairs, right?

SPEAKER_00: 24:11

Yeah. And you know, so so there's that evolution of caring for somebody out of obligation, which then carries with it, you know, a very quick tendency to to burn out, and and that uh because it has the mindset of this mathematical calculating transactionary way of looking at it. And then there's this loftier self, uh, the loftier way of looking at it, which is you know the the the lofty, holy sacrifice of self for another, which at first glance sounds very religious, very pious, very spiritual, very lofty, very nice, very this. But when you introduce the word sacrifice, your loss uh your calculating thing comes right back in. The the calculating mind, a sacrifice means something is broken, something is uh given up, but then you're just giving it up and you're just being graceful about it, but nonetheless you're giving it up. So that's why I said something unsavory was wafting from this idea of um this seemingly more evolved spiritual approach to caring for somebody else selflessly.

SPEAKER_02: 25:40

Isn't there sometimes attached to that this notion that I love helping others because makes me feel good? Yeah, and it's fine. Listen, all of these things these are not this is a continuum, right?

SPEAKER_00: 25:55

Right. That's why I said like phase one, phase two, and you know, everything's evolving, everything is state in a state of flux and evolution, and hopefully evolution towards the better outcomes.

SPEAKER_02: 26:05

So one has to work through these stages, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 26:08

One doesn't go you know elementary school to college, you have to work through the and if you go from elementary school to college, you're a savant, and uh you miss out you miss out on your social, you know, interaction with your friends and and you know you guys, you know, that kind of thing. So uh it's a it's a normal thing. So we're not by any means saying like, oh well, if you're caring for somebody else and you come home and you're tired, you're a loser. That's not it. Um but so there's that you know, phase one, stage one, whatever you want to call it, um, of caring out of obligation. Then there's the loftier, fancier one of caring out of uh uh caring for others selflessly. And that's beautiful, and it seems like well, that's we've arrived, right? We've arrived. And if I if I could completely tend to the other one and uh and do it soul do so selflessly, then I've arrived uh at the bodhisattva hood expression of my of my spiritual evolution. No. Because if we think a little bit about the um the famous overquoted, frequently misunderstood and misused lines from the Kumgangyung Mu a sang muin sang mu chung sang sang mu su ja sang, no self, no other, no that whole thing. Um at first glance we could say, well that that is it, that is, that is it. I'm I'm tending to somebody else selflessly. Then who the hell is doing the tending if your self doesn't exist? Right? What are you just you you're an outline of yourself? You're a shadow of your what what what gutted existence do you have? You have no intestines now, you have no brain, you what are you? Just a shell? You you know it's a femoral, yeah. It's a fancy, you know, self-cajoling way of being look at me being selfless, nonsense. Selfless. Then who's helping? I don't want to be helped by a selfless somebody. They don't even have a self. How can they help me self if they don't have themselves?

SPEAKER_02: 28:49

It's again almost like someone trying to take philosophy and and and misunderstanding it and and then polarizing it once again. Right. People don't they have a very hard time merging these two things because in their minds they tend to feel as though they're in opposition to one another. Like, okay, tend to this, tend to this person. It's my duty. Wait, if I hold on too strong to my ego, here are the things that can happen, right? I can be angry, I can be resentful, I don't make good fortune. All right. Then they read the gum gangyung and they're like, beautiful, I found it, I got it. Then they swing the pendulum in the other direction, right? No, now I'm gonna help, and there's gonna be no self, right? And then they're just giving to them, giving to the other, giving to the other until they grind themselves into a pulp, only to realize that I just lost myself in this whole exchange. What do I do? Right? There's the panic that sets in. It's they're stuck in these extremes. Again, once again. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 29:54

So there's a there's a uh very mundane, let's call it that maybe very mundane duality and that that the mind's the the the mundane mind perpetuates the duality by thinking I am I am tending to another out of obligation, and there's the calculation of self and other, and I've given up too much of myself, so there's a mathematical thing, there's a minus of me, and therefore I'm spent. And then the second stage or the second kind of phase of of spiritual growth is all right, well, if I don't have a self, then there can't be a negation of myself because I've given selflessly to begin with. And then now, yet another level of evolution suggests how can the selfless you give to another if the truth is that selflessness is universally also a fundamental state of them. So a selfless me giving to somebody who's not selfless, who needs giving, it's a it's a fancier duality, but a duality nonetheless. So I I am selfless, but this person there isn't selfless. I have to give to them. They're demanding, you know, or or or or you know, and and even if it's not the need, right? Even if it's not the demand, but it's the need, right? And so it still splits into the duality of things. And so this is why I'm suggesting this idea that there is no such thing, truly, as selfless care. Because in the end, however you want to look at it, and and this is where we you know we come to the point where words are slippery because I want to say if every care that we do is selfish, but it's not selfish in that's in that same way, like we said, like you know, I feel good by helping selfish, it's selfish in a way that if my knee itches and I scratch it, right? I don't then go and throw a parade for my hand that has scratched the knee and given a plaque and a key to the city because the great hero had come to the service and served this the itchiness of the knee, and the knee hasn't any fingers, and so couldn't scratch itself. Praise the hero of the hand that scratched the knee. Right? We don't do that, right? You have an itch, you scratch the itch, you go out by your business. Half the time you don't even realize you've scratched the itch because there is no need for it. It's it's naturally so. The hand is cold too, scratches the thing, goes about its business, and and and nobody here pauses and goes, Well, knee doesn't go in. I want to send the you know, I want to send the thank you flower bouquet of flowers to the hand for tending to my thing. Why? Because it's one. The hand seemingly is a separate thing from the knee, but the hand's connected to the wrist, the wrist connected to the forearm, the forearm connected to the upper arm, connected to the shoulder, connected to the shrunk, connected to the hip, connected to the thigh, connected to the knee.

SPEAKER_02: 33:38

Really is there really is no separation, just in the terms that we use.

SPEAKER_00: 33:41

Hand is the knee. Knee is the hand. The itch in the knee is the itch in the hand. So is the hand scratching the knee or is the knee scratching the hand? All of those things disappear. And and the nonchalant way of scratching an itch, or when you have a pang of pain and your hand naturally goes over, oh something, oh, my rib, you know, oh, oh, my head. And the hand just goes over there. You're not thinking, oh, I should send a letter, you know, for the ambulance of the hand to come to the head, to the head and go, are you okay? Right? It's as natural as it gets. And this is where the Zen masters kind of throw their head back and laugh at the simplicity of enlightenment. And they say things like, it's as easy as touching your nose, right? Because it's not convoluted and complicated by all these thinking going on, all this calculating going on. I'm tending to the other of obligation, so there's a depletion of self, so I have to tend to myself. Oh, okay, I there is no me to tend to, so I will tend to the other. Well, if there's no me to tend to, then the other hasn't a me to tend to either. So what are you tending to? It's one nothing tending to another nothing. It makes sense. And also the the psychologically damaging implications of no self, as much as it is, you know, uh applauded in the Western uh Buddhist scene. Uh on the account of, and I think it's a it's a it's a sort of um counterculture, uh counter-establishment move away from uh the egocentrically driven societal tendencies, and so well, you know, but I don't believe in a self, so I'm a you know, I'm a I'm an outcast, I'm cool by thinking there's no self kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02: 35:55

So uh it it when I was listening to you, I was almost feeling as though you were describing on one hand the saba saga mind where the hand scratches the knee and the hand remembers and says, you know, why should I even do this? The last time I scratched you, you know, five minutes later, you never said, Hey, you're five minutes later, you just again you know, and and the mind of uh Yolban or enlightenment, where there's a true direct experience and understanding of the oneness, and that's very hard to then put into words, but it almost feels like the being, the essence acts in accordance with the Dharma, and there's a freedom there that's again beyond words, but it's so appealing and enticing to me. There's non-depleting, it's yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 36:55

I mean, this is hard sutra, yeah, right? Yeah, no hindrance, no hindrance, no clean, no dirty. Yeah, no expansion or growth or depletion. Right? No big and no small, no this, no that. It at first glance, Heart Sutra, you know, it's it's it's you know, yeah, 200 and something letters, you know, whatever, whatever. But we just seize on the one concept. What essentially what we're talking about is this uh no expanding, no depleting kind of thing, or no big and small, no, you know, which on the other hand, this could be confusing because then we have everything is in constant flux and everything is in a state of constant change. How come you're saying that there is essentially no change type of thing? There are two different realms, so we mustn't mix apples and oranges, uh, and and that's what's frequently done, right? It's it's it's the on the account of one, everything is then plunged into the same bucket, and and and and the thinking, the intellectualization causes the confusion. I recently um was talking about somewhere, I don't know, about the idea of uh I'm confused. Right let's say you give a teaching and somebody says, Well, I'm I'm confused. And uh you know, and we could say, Well, I I'm sorry, my expedient means, my means of explaining this are insufficient. I apologize for my inability to convey a thing sufficiently enough for you to understand. And it's true, language sucks. The translation of ephemeral into material, and then to pull out of the world examples that then convey the thing that the mind has yet to experience. It's an absurd concept. But on a more profound level, when a person says, Well, I'm confused, right? Or Sunim, you're confusing me by saying X, Y, and Z. There is no such thing as your confusing me. There's no such thing as that is confusing me. Confusion arises purely and solely from the mind of the person who's confusing themselves by trying to match the wrong koyum kwanyum, their their experience, their their experience, to something that doesn't match the experience that so they're trying to match two things that don't go together. That don't go together. And then they say, I'm confused. You're not confused, you're just not learning a new thing. You're matching it. It's a confirmation bias, it's a confusion. I'm just, it doesn't make sense. Well, it doesn't make sense because you're trying to make sense from whatever knowledge you possess, but nonetheless, whatever knowledge we possess at any point in time is limited knowledge.

SPEAKER_02: 40:15

Right. That that real quick, that point you made reminded me of our conversation where we're going for a walk and we're talking about doors. And because we know that doors are, you know, rectangles, and then Insanim, our teacher, was talking about doors, but they weren't doors that were rectangular made of wood with hinges on it. And I think one someone that was in that lecture didn't understand what he was referring to because of that. His past knowledge interfered with the ability to see things differently.

SPEAKER_01: 40:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 40:47

Because these are the doors that I know. These must be the doors that what ants use those kinds of doors too. Ants have rectangular doors with hinges, doorknobs, and a doorbell and ring doorbells. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's absolutely that. It's past habits, past experiences essentially are like a dam that prevent us from breaking through.

SPEAKER_00: 41:09

So you say go find the door, and in this room there's only one door, and someone says there's only one door. Well, from which perspective are you looking? If there was only one door, uh, or if there was no door, we would all die of uh oxygen depletion. But oxygen has a door. It comes in through cracks, it comes in through the things. Sound comes through the walls. Why? Because there's a door that the sound could make it through. You know, bugs come in.

SPEAKER_02: 41:37

It's a satellite door with a little round hole in it. It's not rectangular at all. Right. That's the door of sound that gets into my brain.

SPEAKER_00: 41:46

Yeah. And so, you know, when when when you're unsanim, where you when you're, you know, Kunsenim says a thing, and the person goes into the box of their pre-existing knowledge and rifles through it and says, Oh, okay, that makes sense, it's a it's in a sense belittering of that thing being said, because it's like essentially essentially what we're kind of saying is like I already knew that. Because I had the I had the I had the kit, I had the set of these particular tools, you know, but we have to utilize that because otherwise uh, you know, it's difficult to convey anything. So these are the intricacies and the difficulties and the trappings of like of language. When you mentioned the door, I don't remember where and when. I think it was you and I, and this is epochs ago. Um we were somewhere, and and and as you mentioned, though, there's an image and that came to my mind of I don't know if it was an art piece or just some random thing. There was just a door in a garden, just a standing door, no door frame, just a door. As if somebody just stood a door upright as it as it were, right? And I don't know if it was an art piece or or or something or other. But this conjures up another concept and perhaps a concept for another episode. Um there are no doors that come in or go out. Right. Right. The door itself doesn't hold that that identification. Oh, this door here, what is it? Well, what which side of the door are you on?

SPEAKER_02: 43:46

Creates the coming in and going out.

SPEAKER_00: 43:47

So this is I'm I'm inside now, and the door dictates I'm inside, and the outside of the door is the outside. But if you're outside, that's an inside to this outside, and this door though is just kind of an open field, right? So it's like, all right, is it an outside door or is it an inside door? Right. If I'm standing on one side of the door, am I on the inside of something or I'm on the outside of something? And and and the door didn't plunge the mind to the designation of here and there, and back to the heart sutra, right? That it's not is it the coming? Am I coming or am I going? Right. And there's a there's a there's a true nature sort of, you know, we have the sayings like the Buddha doesn't come, or doesn't go, doesn't stand, or you know, doesn't lie down, that kind of thing. And it's this kind of idea. Well, like, am I coming or am I going? I see this door, and if I enter through it, have I left or have I arrived?

SPEAKER_02: 44:40

And I think almost the Heart Sutra points to the absurdity of these concepts when you look at it, when you zoom out and you look at it from this perspective, because how absurd is this idea of a door in empty space?

SPEAKER_00: 44:55

Right, but it's it's more true. It's the truth.

SPEAKER_02: 45:01

When the Yuma Yuma Gyong why do you need a door when the empty space is well when you can freely go from A to B or Z or Y or X to whatever direction?

SPEAKER_00: 45:13

But that's the thing. See, it's we blame the door for its designation, but the mind casts the designation, and the selfness casts the designation.

SPEAKER_02: 45:20

You collapse the doority cast the designation from its original state. You box yourself in with these concepts of now there's an inside and an outside, and there's a door, which is essentially an idea of a hindrance, and there's an inside outside coming and going.

SPEAKER_00: 45:36

Right. And it's the organizing of the mind. Because if you're if if we're talking, if you're in a cafe and having a coffee and say, which which door do I exit through, right? And somebody says, or or you're standing there, and somebody says, Oh, you could leave through that door and you say, Ah, grasshopper, but there's no leaving or coming, there's no going or staying, you know, and they'll be like, All right, you never come back here again. You know, coffee for you.

SPEAKER_02: 46:01

This is what I call a split in New York City, sure.

SPEAKER_00: 46:05

We have to know as we navigate the world, we have to know which world which redimension of existence am I in or am I participating in? Because you could walk through a door to go outside, right? But you could also simultaneously have the understanding that this idea of the inside and outside is just that, it's an idea. When Yuma Ghosa is visited by the by the entourage of the of the bodhisattvas and the disciples of the Buddha, first thing he says to the visiting bodhisattva who finally musters the the, or the only one out of all of them who says, I will go and see this great man. And he says, You have come without leaving, you have arrived without having gone, or something to that effect. And it's that kind of thing, it's the direct pointing to, it's it's a question or a comment, it's a temperature check. How much of the truth are you in possession of? And so that statement, because if you make a statement like this to somebody, they're gonna be like, Oh, right, yeah, I'm gonna just make a quick phone call to the Bellevue Hospital, you know, because you're weird. Um, but in the context of the Sangha, and and you know, I've recently talked about how the temple and everything we do is an opportunity for suhen. When you come in through the doors, don't think if you're washing dishes here at the Zensin, don't think it's the same dishes and the same washing of dishes that you're doing at home. Because we don't see our Sangha members on a daily basis the way you do in a cloistered sort of life of monastery. So when you come in here, we you change your mind and you're washing the dishes, you're washing, you're not just washing the dishes. There's a dharma, there's a Zen master dish, there's a Zen Master sponge, there's a Zen Master soap, there's Zen Master water running out of thing. It everything is available to your realization right under your nose, which you can't necessarily afford outside because you have life to live. But at some place, at some point in time, we have to take the time to try on the shoes to see how this dharma thinking fits in today's lives and things. But um anyway, we don't want to meander too far away from the topic of the day.

SPEAKER_02: 48:44

Yeah, well, it's all permanent, right? Because I think when your mind collapses, and as we all know, and it becomes very small, there's no room in your heart for compassion and helping others, essentially, right? So a lot of these concepts are not to turn you into a spiritual weirdo, but to give you a tool to uh you know melt the glue. Melt the glue when your feet get stuck in a certain place.

SPEAKER_00: 49:12

Why do you so vulgarly curse at me with words like compassion and helping others?

SPEAKER_02: 49:22

Helping myself helping? Helping, period. You know, no helping. The one body continue helping thrive.

SPEAKER_00: 49:32

Helping is a duality. Right. Because where there's helping, there's a needing of the helping. And again, splits the thing. Right. Your hand doesn't think it's helping when it scratches the knee, right? It just does it. It doesn't have a thought, it's it's it's as natural as it gets and as thoughtless in a sense as it gets, and as pure, virgin, and true as it gets. And it's our in our interjection of our thinking which brings which brings in calculation, yeah, we brings in, you know, differentiation judgments, the dualities of that and this, and you and I, and all of that.

SPEAKER_02: 50:12

And people that perform at the best at the peak of their their performance is at the peak of their performance in whatever duty it is that they're in, and they can do that for an extended period of time. For example, maybe an athlete or or a therapist that deals with people's heartaches and suffering and traumas, or someone that's in the emergency room all night long. And someone who's outside of that and looks, I hear this question all the time. How can you do that?

SPEAKER_01: 50:41

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 50:42

And when you speak to the people that really are functioning in or get into, I have to use terms of some sort, right? Like it, they like athletes almost describe when things are working and perk perfectly flowing, like they're in the flow, they're in the zone or they're in the flow. Right. And that's in in in essence what we're talking about. When you're engaging in your duty, and and you're not thinking, they're not thinking they're helping at the time.

SPEAKER_00: 51:12

And and and and this is where we and we're come we're come to this point of do you call it the dissolution of self and other, dissolving of self and other, or do you call it the unification of self another? And either way, it's wrong.

SPEAKER_02: 51:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 51:27

Whether you call it the the the dissolving, I my myself dissolves into this action, right, and me and the other dissolve of their kind of being into some other amorphous thing, or is it that we are unified, and and as much as these are this is where the language we're we're at, we are at the tail end of language capacity, right? Because it's they're both true, right? It's the dissolving of one and the other, it's the unifying of both, and both of these statements are false and wrong too. So it's just the doing.

SPEAKER_02: 52:07

And um it's almost like a person walking on a typerope, you know, one foot in front of the other, they're just doing. And it's it's almost as if the second the mind notices that it's doing something, in a split second they're distracted and they lose their balance. It's just doing.

SPEAKER_00: 52:26

You know what I like the imagery of is that those those massive flacks of birds or fishes. And you see them and they they change direction as if it was one organism. They literally on the spot. Everybody 90 degrees. 5,000 remote control. 5,000 of them just made a 90 degree turn, right? None of them was going through the shopping list in their head because this is how you rear-end the beard the bird in front of you. Right? It's talk about the flow. Right. You know, what's interesting is there was a um a cleaning lady. Um Song Shim and I were at Sewall's uh at the hospital, and a cleaning lady comes in and she goes, Uh, is it okay? I'm gonna come back later. I'm like, no, no, no. I said, please come on in. And and as she's cleaning, and you know, uh, where's my own personal trumpet so I could trumpet it? My. So I saw the heart of the woman cleaning, and I asked her, I said, May I ask you a personal question? Which, you know, I wouldn't do otherwise because if if you if you don't recognize the heart of the person, you're gonna be like, okay, weirdo, I'm never cleaning this room again, right? So I said, May I ask you a personal question? She was like, Yeah. So she keeps cleaning. I said, when you're cleaning the floor, what are you thinking of? The floor or the patient? And she stops, she's like, Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You gotta run this by me again. Right. I said, when you're cleaning the floor, what is in your mind? You're cleaning the floor and thinking of the floor and the cleaning of the floor, or you're thinking of cleaning of the floor in the relationship to the patient or the patient. She's like, Looks at me like, what are you? Later she asks. I said, you know, I'm a Buddhist monk. She's like, oh.

SPEAKER_02: 54:19

That's why.

SPEAKER_00: 54:20

Right. But you know, but she says, I think about the comfort of the person, you know, a clean, a clean space, whatever, whatever. You know, and I look and it's like, if they need water, you know, I can't get them water, right? Because I'm not allowed. It's the you know, the policies, but I'll go and tell the nurse to get them water. If I see, you know, that they're trying to get water and they don't have water, I'm not just gonna be like, I'm here to clean the floors, and that's all I'm here for, right? And I saw the heart of this person as such, and that's why I asked, because I think largely and frequently, a person with a heart like this, this kind of stealth ninja bodhisattva undercover, doing their seemingly, you know, mundane task of mopping and cleaning the floors, but who also looks up from that task of theirs and sees a human being and and and takes stock of the whole situation and and if sees a thirsty person, goes and gets somebody to get them water. It is an incognito undercover bodhisattva, but they are frequently not given uh the thanks, and they're not looking for it actively, I think.

SPEAKER_02: 55:38

But my goodness, if I had a family member or a child and needed a place to stay, or if they had to go to the hospital, this is the kind of lady that I would want cleaning my child's room.

SPEAKER_00: 55:48

Right. And so, you know, I said that's you know, that's a beautiful way of thinking about it. And I said, I saw your heart, that's why I asked. And she's like, Oh my god, you're gonna make me cry, you know, because it's true, you know, they they they just do. They're not being paid for cleaning of the floors, right? So that calculating mind is not at work, you know, the calculate, the the cleaning the floors as my task, right? But the calculating minds, like I only get uh this beyond my pay grade thinking isn't there. And there's a practically, you know, within practical parameters, like she said, I can get water for the person because I'm not allowed. That's the you know, hospital policy, but I will get somebody who can get them water. Tell me what bodhisattvas do, if not fetch the appropriate bodhisattva to do the work, you know, or order or demand or or decree. You know, the Buddha say, you, the bodhisattva of such and such, go and do that. And and some bodhisattvas have a mop in their hand. I think this is a good place to finish today. Um yeah. Thank you all for all for your thoughts and your prayers for soul. Uh thank you for you reaching out, um, offering your support. I mean, we've had we've had uh uh offers of you know what what's her blood type. I am a positive. If you need a blood sineem, tell me, you know, to you know that she needs food, she need whatever, to financial offerings to what all these things to for support. Yeah, it is a living sangha. It my heart springs when this whole situation is unfolding in a sense, on the account of of um the living dharma. We are so blessed that our community, our our sangha, our our temple family is not so uh intellectually crippled that the hearts don't beat. You know, there's a there's a thinking that strangles the heart and the humanity uh kind of thinking that does that. And I am so uh honored to have a sangha that uh is a breeding human organism, as the sangha is the unified family, the way that you know inner organs of single body are, and inner inner you know, individual cells are of a single body. And so I just want to express my grief, my deep, uh deep gratitude, and and and sual does too, uh, of course, um for all of that, and thank you um for that beautiful expression of what the meaning of the word sangha truly is, and what the meaning of living tradition. We are um our tradition we call Senghalbulgyo. Senghalbulgyo means in daily life, the Buddhism of daily life, the zen of daily life. It's not we're not um inhaling the dusty collection of dust on great deep profound books and sutras pouring over them, bleeding from their eyes, you know, getting you know yeah, it it's it's a life.

SPEAKER_02: 59:32

Deep profound words don't clean the pus from an open wound. Right. And uh so thank you for all of that. Um it really is very beautiful to see this um living dharma, absolutely this one body, one sangha truly uh implement the teachings of the bodhisattvas.

SPEAKER_00: 59:56

Yep, yep, yep. And so you know this is this is Been to some degree, not totally, our uh absence from from the studio from these uh podcasts. Uh uh I hope we are forgiven. And uh until next time, take care of yourselves and each other. And now you know in which way to do so. Take care of yourselves and each other. I'm Jung Ansenim. I'm Dr. Ruben Lambert. Subscribe, click, support.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:28

If you like what you hear, all that be selfless and share it with others. Right. Yeah, pass it on.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:36

Until next time. And if you have a topic suggestion, as per usual, you know how to do that. Send it our way. Yes. Thank you.