"Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life" The Void

1 00:00:02,711 --> 00:00:06,089 That is a way of demonstrating the basic experience which 2 00:00:06,215 --> 00:00:09,718 underlies some of the major forms of Oriental philosophy. 3 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:17,074 Watch Online Movies and Series for FREE www.osdb.link/lm 4 00:00:25,067 --> 00:00:28,278 And actually this way of demonstrating it is taken 5 00:00:28,403 --> 00:00:32,282 from a kind of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism called Zen 6 00:00:32,407 --> 00:00:35,869 which I'm going to be talking about quite a bit today, because Zen is one of the best 7 00:00:35,994 --> 00:00:39,414 examples of a philosophy, shall we call it, in which this experience is dominant. 8 00:00:45,003 --> 00:00:52,010 Zen, of course, is a Japanese word, and it's spelled Z-E-N. 9 00:00:57,933 --> 00:01:02,145 And that is the Japanese way of pronouncing the Chinese word 10 00:01:02,271 --> 00:01:06,024 Chan and this in turn is the Chinese way of pronouncing an Indian Sanskrit word dhyana and dhyana 11 00:01:06,149 --> 00:01:10,279 refers to the kind of experience which has been represented in this circle another word for it would be 12 00:01:30,632 --> 00:01:34,219 a third, a second Sanskrit term shunya and the nearest we can translate shunya in English is 13 00:01:34,344 --> 00:01:38,223 emptiness or void and so we might say this is an experience of the void before trying to explain 14 00:01:58,035 --> 00:02:01,955 what this is and you know the funny thing is it really can't be explained because it has to be felt because it's a transformation of one's basic feeling one's basic consciousness of life but I should mention first that 15 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:06,043 it is characteristic of Eastern philosophy to be based on experience rather than ideas you see philosophy in the Western world especially as it's taught in our universities and academies is mainly a matter of thinking 16 00:02:28,607 --> 00:02:32,027 It's a matter of trying to arrive at certain clear, positive ideas about 17 00:02:32,152 --> 00:02:35,614 the nature of man, the nature of the universe, and so on and so forth. 18 00:02:39,951 --> 00:02:43,288 And also religion in the West is somewhat similar, because 19 00:02:43,413 --> 00:02:46,958 religion is largely concerned with belief in certain ideas. 20 00:02:48,502 --> 00:02:51,838 In these basic forms of Eastern philosophy, on the other hand, such as Zen, 21 00:02:51,963 --> 00:02:55,509 which is a kind of Buddhism, or Daoism, the basic native philosophy of China, 22 00:02:58,470 --> 00:03:03,308 or in Vedanta, which is the central form of Indian philosophy. 23 00:03:03,433 --> 00:03:10,440 What is basic to them is not ideas, but a way of experiencing, a way of feeling. 24 00:03:12,234 --> 00:03:19,366 And this might be called, as it is here, the void, demonstrated by this circle. 25 00:03:19,491 --> 00:03:24,162 Because it is not a void which is just emptiness. 26 00:03:24,287 --> 00:03:25,914 This isn't the idea 27 00:03:26,039 --> 00:03:29,918 that there are people in the backward world of Asia who think that the universe is ultimately nothing at all it is rather that the void represents 28 00:03:30,043 --> 00:03:34,047 complete spiritual freedom or you might say if you don't like the word spiritual complete psychological freedom and therefore I want to try if I can 29 00:03:55,235 --> 00:03:59,072 to communicate to you, to give you some idea of what this experience is In Japanese, in Zen, it is called Satori I'll write 30 00:03:59,197 --> 00:04:03,243 that down, it's an unfamiliar word S-A-T-O-R-I And I like the way that that's pronounced in Southern Chinese They pronounce it 31 00:04:29,352 --> 00:04:33,231 because it's something that happens to you suddenly now let me try if I can possibly to put into some sort of words what this experience is this 32 00:04:33,356 --> 00:04:37,360 experience which so far as they are concerned is the objective of human life to get this is to understand the meaning of human nature and destiny 33 00:04:59,299 --> 00:05:03,178 only because it's a transformation of consciousness because it's something you feel rather than something you think it is for this reason difficult to put into words but it is as if you saw quite suddenly and indeed 34 00:05:03,303 --> 00:05:07,307 this experience could have happened to you it can come without warning to anybody and so what I'm going to be saying may strike a familiar ring in some ears but it is as if quite suddenly you became totally convinced 35 00:05:30,372 --> 00:05:37,379 that the way everything is in this universe and at this moment is absolutely right. 36 00:05:39,506 --> 00:05:42,384 And that's almost putting it too weakly. 37 00:05:42,509 --> 00:05:46,471 I'm not trying to talk about a sort of Pollyanna feeling where we say, well, this is the best of all possible worlds and everything, 38 00:05:46,596 --> 00:05:50,517 however evil and however wrong, is going to work out all right in the end because it's a means to an end in some master design. 39 00:05:57,232 --> 00:05:59,609 I'm not saying that. 40 00:05:59,734 --> 00:06:03,071 I'm saying it is suddenly feeling that everything is right the way it is now, 41 00:06:03,196 --> 00:06:06,741 however appalling, however terrible, and you know it beyond a shadow of doubt. 42 00:06:21,923 --> 00:06:25,927 There are two other aspects to this experience as well. 43 00:06:26,052 --> 00:06:30,557 And although you feel them all together, we have to talk about them separately. 44 00:06:30,682 --> 00:06:33,935 While the first aspect is feeling that everything just as it 45 00:06:34,060 --> 00:06:37,689 is, is so right that you could say of it, this is why I'm alive. 46 00:06:39,399 --> 00:06:41,443 This is what life's all about. 47 00:06:41,568 --> 00:06:44,487 The second is that everything you see and feel 48 00:06:44,613 --> 00:06:47,574 seems to come to life in an extraordinary way. 49 00:06:47,699 --> 00:06:51,828 You feel the world as you've seen it before, but seen almost in a dream. 50 00:06:51,953 --> 00:06:55,290 But it is as if just the ordinary things that were 51 00:06:55,415 --> 00:06:59,294 confronting you suddenly went, yah, and came alive. 52 00:06:59,419 --> 00:07:02,714 And the third aspect of it is that you no longer feel 53 00:07:02,839 --> 00:07:06,426 yourself and what you are experiencing to be separated. 54 00:07:09,888 --> 00:07:13,391 Although you don't lose the feeling of the outline of your skin, you don't forget 55 00:07:13,516 --> 00:07:16,853 that I or Joe Doakes is a possible name by which you can refer to yourself. 56 00:07:20,398 --> 00:07:21,608 Nevertheless, 57 00:07:21,733 --> 00:07:25,654 it suddenly seems to you that your skin is no longer what divides you from the world, it's what joins you to it what you see outside you is also you now we ordinarily restrict the idea 58 00:07:25,779 --> 00:07:29,741 of ego, of I-ness or of you-ness to some sort of psychological entity or process inside us which is in control of things and we identify ourselves with a sort of controlling center 59 00:07:54,557 --> 00:07:58,103 But in this experience, it is as if that center were 60 00:07:58,228 --> 00:08:01,564 suddenly enlarged to include the whole universe. 61 00:08:02,607 --> 00:08:05,819 You almost feel as if you were God, except that in Eastern 62 00:08:05,944 --> 00:08:09,614 thought, one doesn't think of God as a kind of omnipotent person. 63 00:08:12,075 --> 00:08:15,912 I mean, there are lots of people in our asylums who say, well, I'm God. 64 00:08:16,037 --> 00:08:17,706 I was like the story of the woman 65 00:08:17,831 --> 00:08:21,167 who insisted that she was God, and to humor her, someone said, well, if you're 66 00:08:21,292 --> 00:08:24,838 God, will you please explain how you managed to create the universe in six days? 67 00:08:26,464 --> 00:08:29,843 She said, I never talk sharply. 68 00:08:29,968 --> 00:08:33,304 It isn't feeling God in that sense, as if you could do anything, 69 00:08:33,430 --> 00:08:36,975 but it is feeling that you and this whole world are one, and that 70 00:08:43,606 --> 00:08:47,485 In this experience of oneness and the sudden coming alive of everything, and the profound rightness, that's the only word I can 71 00:08:47,610 --> 00:08:51,614 use, the profound rightness of each moment, of this moment, however far it may seem to be short of one's ideals of perfection. 72 00:09:01,332 --> 00:09:02,584 This is it. 73 00:09:04,919 --> 00:09:10,550 And you say, having seen this, I can die content. 74 00:09:10,675 --> 00:09:14,929 This is what it was all about. 75 00:09:15,054 --> 00:09:18,475 Now, you might think at the same time that an 76 00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:22,937 experience of this kind is rather dangerous. 77 00:09:23,062 --> 00:09:26,065 I mean, supposing one did become convinced that 78 00:09:26,191 --> 00:09:29,360 everything just as it is, is the ideal, is right. 79 00:09:29,486 --> 00:09:32,489 Would this mean that you could go out and murder 80 00:09:32,614 --> 00:09:36,034 some rich relative in order to inherit their fortune? 81 00:09:36,159 --> 00:09:37,452 Does it mean you can do anything you like? 82 00:09:37,577 --> 00:09:40,997 You can kick your father and mother, you can be cruel to 83 00:09:41,122 --> 00:09:44,918 your children, that you can steal and rob and anything. 84 00:09:45,043 --> 00:09:49,088 In a way, it does mean that. 85 00:09:49,214 --> 00:09:53,843 But that is only to say, isn't it, that we are free. 86 00:09:53,968 --> 00:09:57,263 And freedom is dangerous. 87 00:09:57,388 --> 00:10:00,934 But yet, freedom is one of the things which we cherish 88 00:10:01,059 --> 00:10:04,395 as one of our greatest possessions and privileges. 89 00:10:06,606 --> 00:10:13,613 But if we deny ourselves freedom, then we don't really have the power to act morally. 90 00:10:14,906 --> 00:10:18,368 Because all true moral acts are not the acts we are 91 00:10:18,493 --> 00:10:22,163 bound to do, they are the acts we are free to do. 92 00:10:22,288 --> 00:10:23,498 But freedom is dangerous. 93 00:10:23,623 --> 00:10:27,210 The moment you teach a child to walk, you can teach it to kick its mother. 94 00:10:27,335 --> 00:10:30,797 The moment you teach a child to use a knife to cut up its 95 00:10:30,922 --> 00:10:35,093 steak, the child can go and kill someone with a knife. 96 00:10:35,218 --> 00:10:35,969 Life is risky. 97 00:10:36,094 --> 00:10:37,971 Life is not safe. 98 00:10:38,096 --> 00:10:41,432 And so in the same way, this experience is not safe. 99 00:10:41,558 --> 00:10:45,478 But on the other hand, its content is so joyous, 100 00:10:45,603 --> 00:10:49,524 that when people are profoundly happy they are not in the mood usually to go out and slug someone and so you might say this experience then which 101 00:10:49,649 --> 00:10:53,611 is the foundation of these great forms of oriental philosophy that sounds wonderful and I'd like to get it you know that reminds me of a story 102 00:11:17,677 --> 00:11:20,847 Once a fellow was traveling in England and he'd 103 00:11:20,972 --> 00:11:24,642 lost his way and wanted to get to a certain village. 104 00:11:24,767 --> 00:11:27,395 And he went to a country yokel and said, um, 105 00:11:27,520 --> 00:11:30,023 can you tell me the way to Little Tudman? 106 00:11:30,148 --> 00:11:33,610 And the yokel scratched his head and said, well, sir, I do know 107 00:11:33,735 --> 00:11:37,155 where that is, but if I were you, I wouldn't start from here. 108 00:11:41,367 --> 00:11:47,457 And so in the same way, when one asks, how do I get this exterior? 109 00:11:47,582 --> 00:11:51,294 That's not quite the right question and to go out to get it is from the first the wrong approach because this sort of 110 00:11:51,419 --> 00:11:55,548 transformation of consciousness happens to a person only in the moment when you might say they give up grasping they start to 111 00:12:17,403 --> 00:12:21,324 treat life not as something to be grabbed when the whole approach to things is no longer clutching you know it was a basic teaching in 112 00:12:21,449 --> 00:12:25,411 Buddhism that the root of all human suffering is clinging or grasping just in the same way as I was suggesting on a previous program 113 00:12:44,013 --> 00:12:47,892 you can't cling to your breath without losing it you have to let go of your breath and for that reason the word that is used in Buddhism for this 114 00:12:48,017 --> 00:12:52,021 experience it's another word familiar to you all nirvana literally means blow out don't hang on don't clutch life and so one of the great problems 115 00:13:12,834 --> 00:13:16,671 is how on earth to get ourselves to give up clutching to give up clinging but you see if that's something you eagerly want to do because you want to get something good out of it this 116 00:13:16,796 --> 00:13:20,800 is still a grasping attitude well you know in Zen they have a means of teaching people how to stop clinging Zen incidentally is supposed to have been brought from India to China around 117 00:13:42,613 --> 00:13:45,366 somewhere between four and five hundred A.D. 118 00:13:45,491 --> 00:13:49,287 by a fierce looking gentleman called Bodhidharma. 119 00:13:49,412 --> 00:13:54,333 You can see him in this picture by the Japanese painter Soga Yasoku. 120 00:13:54,459 --> 00:14:02,216 He's always drawn as a very fierce fellow with a twinkle in his eye at the same time. 121 00:14:02,341 --> 00:14:05,595 And when Bodhidharma came to China he didn't have very 122 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:09,348 many disciples but there was one fellow who sought him out 123 00:14:12,977 --> 00:14:16,981 and his name was Eka and Eka came to Bodhidharma and said Sir, I want you to accept me as your disciple and Bodhidharma replied, I have nothing to teach what I understand is an experience 124 00:14:17,106 --> 00:14:20,985 in other words and I can't put it into words and therefore go away, I can't teach it to you but Eka insisted on being taught and he waited outside Bodhidharma's cave in the snow 125 00:14:43,216 --> 00:14:47,053 and if you look in the picture by Seshu you can see Ekar standing out there and Ekar got so persistent and Bodhidharma so persistent in his refusal to teach him that at last 126 00:14:47,178 --> 00:14:51,224 Ekar cut off his arm and handed it to Bodhidharma saying look here is the testimony of my sincerity please take me as your disciple so Bodhidharma said all right what do you want 127 00:15:12,703 --> 00:15:16,624 and Eka replied, I have no peace of mind, please pacify my mind and by mind of course he meant his soul, his self so Bodhidharma said, bring out your mind here before 128 00:15:16,749 --> 00:15:20,711 me, I'll pacify it but Eka said, when I look for my mind I can't find it Bodhidharma said, there, I have pacified your mind and at that moment Eka had his satori 129 00:15:45,862 --> 00:15:50,032 In other words, he had the experience I've tried to describe to you. 130 00:15:50,158 --> 00:15:53,452 Because Bodhidharma made him really struggle to catch hold of himself, to find that 131 00:15:53,578 --> 00:15:57,165 separate ego, that controlling center which all of us tend to believe ourselves to be. 132 00:16:02,837 --> 00:16:05,506 But you know when you look for it, you can't find it. 133 00:16:05,631 --> 00:16:12,638 It's like, they say, lunatics sometimes sitting in an asylum are doing this. 134 00:16:14,765 --> 00:16:17,935 Yes, they sit for hours, perhaps, in a padded 135 00:16:18,060 --> 00:16:21,022 cell doing that, but you can't catch hold. 136 00:16:21,147 --> 00:16:24,609 You know, perhaps one of the good ways of showing you what this 137 00:16:24,734 --> 00:16:28,154 means is through the application of Zen to Japanese fencing. 138 00:16:32,116 --> 00:16:35,536 You know, Japanese fencing, or kendo, which means the way of the 139 00:16:35,661 --> 00:16:39,123 sword, is done with gruesome swords like this, and the samurai 140 00:16:43,753 --> 00:16:47,632 Japanese feudal soldier used to practice Zen to give them courage and they applied it to the art of fencing now if you go to study with a Japanese fencing master you will not at first be given the sword and 141 00:16:47,757 --> 00:16:51,719 be told how to use it you'll be made a kind of janitor around the house you have to do all the little chores like sweeping the floors putting away the bedding washing up the dishes and so on and so forth 142 00:17:14,909 --> 00:17:21,916 And while you are doing that, the master will get hold of a practice sword. 143 00:17:23,125 --> 00:17:25,253 This, you see, is made of bamboo. 144 00:17:25,378 --> 00:17:28,756 It's made of about six slips of bamboo, loosely tied together, so that if you get hit 145 00:17:28,881 --> 00:17:32,385 with it, although it may give you a pretty hard crack, at least you don't get killed. 146 00:17:35,513 --> 00:17:38,975 And while the poor boy, who's the apprentice, is doing the household duties, the teacher 147 00:17:39,100 --> 00:17:42,520 stalks around with one of these things and, unawares, gives him a bang on the head. 148 00:17:45,147 --> 00:17:49,443 And the boy is expected to defend himself by any means at his disposal. 149 00:17:49,568 --> 00:17:51,529 If he's got a saucepan in his hand, use the saucepan. 150 00:17:51,654 --> 00:17:54,824 If he's picking up a cushion, use the cushion. 151 00:17:54,949 --> 00:17:57,743 And everywhere, always at unknown moments, the 152 00:17:57,868 --> 00:18:00,997 teacher sneaks up on him and bangs him on the head. 153 00:18:01,122 --> 00:18:04,333 So after a while, the poor fellow is going around, looking this 154 00:18:04,458 --> 00:18:07,878 way, looking that, expecting at any moment the teacher to hit him. 155 00:18:08,004 --> 00:18:13,050 He begins in his mind to plan how he can be ready to meet the teacher's assault. 156 00:18:13,175 --> 00:18:16,429 And as he goes along a passage he's expecting the teacher to come right round the 157 00:18:16,554 --> 00:18:20,182 corner at the end and instead of that, just as he's all ready to defend himself DOING! 158 00:18:22,101 --> 00:18:25,896 He gets hit on the head from behind now when this has been going on for a little time there are only 159 00:18:26,022 --> 00:18:30,109 two possibilities the apprentice gets a nervous breakdown and quits or he learns and what does he learn? 160 00:18:40,119 --> 00:18:44,248 He learns that the teacher will always outwit him 161 00:18:44,373 --> 00:18:49,837 that he can never be prepared for an unexpected attack. 162 00:18:49,962 --> 00:18:53,549 And so he gives up trying to control the situation. 163 00:18:53,674 --> 00:18:56,010 He gives up trying to prepare. 164 00:18:56,135 --> 00:18:58,054 In other words, he just wanders around. 165 00:18:58,179 --> 00:18:58,929 Just like this. 166 00:18:59,055 --> 00:19:00,723 Oh, maybe it hits, maybe it doesn't. 167 00:19:00,848 --> 00:19:03,100 He gives up caring whether he's going to get hit or not. 168 00:19:03,225 --> 00:19:06,729 And at that moment, the teacher gives him the practice 169 00:19:06,854 --> 00:19:10,232 sword and says, now you can begin to learn fencing. 170 00:19:12,026 --> 00:19:13,027 Because 171 00:19:15,654 --> 00:19:19,533 the importance of this is simple that if say you are faced with a group of attackers and you don't know where the next attack is coming from if you are ready to go for this fellow and this one 172 00:19:19,658 --> 00:19:23,662 is going to come at you and you're all set to go for him you have to withdraw from here to go here but if you're in a middle position and you're not tensed in mind in any particular direction 173 00:19:45,726 --> 00:19:49,563 you're ready to go in all directions wherever the attack may come from and so in exactly the same way the Zen way of teaching teaches one 174 00:19:49,688 --> 00:19:53,734 to see that you cannot cannot be in complete control of your whole life situation you cannot in other words fundamentally possess yourself 175 00:20:15,673 --> 00:20:20,094 And so they set you the problem of trying to find out who you are. 176 00:20:20,219 --> 00:20:22,680 Who is the knower behind all your experience? 177 00:20:22,805 --> 00:20:24,265 Who is the experiencer? 178 00:20:24,390 --> 00:20:27,393 Who is the ego, the I? 179 00:20:27,518 --> 00:20:30,938 And they make you search for it, and search for it, and search for it. 180 00:20:31,063 --> 00:20:33,566 Or you could put this in another way. 181 00:20:33,691 --> 00:20:40,197 They ask you, and this really amounts to the same thing, act with total sincerity. 182 00:20:40,322 --> 00:20:42,867 Show me, in the Zen way of putting it, 183 00:20:42,992 --> 00:20:46,871 who you were before your father and mother conceived you in other words show me your real basic original self and this means perform an absolutely 100% genuine and sincere act well you 184 00:20:46,996 --> 00:20:50,958 know how it is when you try to be sincere when you try to be natural you know jolly well that you're trying and that everything you do is a fake and so in the same way as M. Student 185 00:21:13,439 --> 00:21:17,276 finds out that he cannot act 100% genuinely with his whole being and he gets frustrated again and again and again as the teacher rejects every attempt he makes to show him his 186 00:21:17,401 --> 00:21:21,405 real self until the moment comes when he suddenly realizes not just as an idea but something that he knows in his whole body he knows with his very bones that it can't be done 187 00:21:42,009 --> 00:21:44,720 You cannot intentionally be natural. 188 00:21:44,845 --> 00:21:46,639 And he gives up. 189 00:21:46,764 --> 00:21:50,309 And that moment of giving up is just the same as when the student 190 00:21:50,434 --> 00:21:53,729 of the sword gives up trying to prepare to defend himself. 191 00:21:54,813 --> 00:21:58,776 And in the moment when we let go of ourselves in that way, there comes upon us this experience of the 192 00:21:58,901 --> 00:22:02,821 void, of complete freedom, or as we might say in psychological language, being free from blocking. 193 00:22:11,497 --> 00:22:15,376 You know blocking is when you are stalled by something when somebody says something to you that fundamentally embarrasses you or when an event happens 194 00:22:15,501 --> 00:22:19,505 in life which as it were knocks the wind out of your sails you are blocked and to be free from blocking to be free from being stopped being phased is 195 00:22:40,901 --> 00:22:44,822 part of the satori experience to be able to go straight ahead as it were going with the stream of life and not trying to resist the stream just as for example if you were actually swimming and 196 00:22:44,947 --> 00:22:48,909 you got caught in a strong current if you try to swim against it you're perfectly sure to drown but you have to learn in that situation to turn around and go with the stream let it carry you 197 00:23:11,140 --> 00:23:15,019 and then in that moment you and the stream become one the whole force of the stream becomes one with your own body and you learn after that how to use the force of the stream to edge to the side and get 198 00:23:15,144 --> 00:23:19,148 out of it in that way this of course is the philosophy of Judo of the gentle way a philosophy of self-defense in which Zen Buddhism has had a great influence so then when the moment of letting go comes 199 00:23:41,754 --> 00:23:48,761 when we see that every moment of life is now it. 200 00:23:52,431 --> 00:23:54,892 In other words, the object of life is no longer 201 00:23:55,017 --> 00:23:57,519 seen as something to grasp after in the future. 202 00:23:57,645 --> 00:24:00,272 Every moment is it now. 203 00:24:01,649 --> 00:24:08,656 Every moment, even the most trivial, answers the question, what is life for? 204 00:24:10,115 --> 00:24:11,867 And so you see, 205 00:24:13,744 --> 00:24:17,039 the experience at the basis of Zen and at the basis of other types 206 00:24:17,164 --> 00:24:20,751 of oriental philosophy can be demonstrated by ordinary everyday life. 207 00:24:25,839 --> 00:24:29,093 That's why in Zen teaching, those old masters in China didn't 208 00:24:29,218 --> 00:24:32,846 like to answer questions about philosophy with wordy explanations. 209 00:24:36,225 --> 00:24:37,976 They had quite a different way of going about it. 210 00:24:38,102 --> 00:24:43,482 I remember one case where a Confucian scholar came to a teacher 211 00:24:43,607 --> 00:24:47,444 and said please explain to me your secret teaching and the teacher replied well there's a saying in your own master Confucius which very well puts it when Confucius said my disciples do you think I'm holding anything back 212 00:24:47,569 --> 00:24:51,615 from you indeed I'm holding nothing back and that was all he said and so the Confucian scholar was a bit perturbed and said well what do you mean and the Zen teacher said well forget it I don't want to talk about it anymore 213 00:25:13,178 --> 00:25:16,515 Well, a few days later, they were walking together in the 214 00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:20,185 mountains, and they happened to pass a bush of wild laurel. 215 00:25:22,771 --> 00:25:27,484 And the Zen teacher turned to the Confucian scholar and said, do you smell it? 216 00:25:27,609 --> 00:25:29,111 The scholar said, yes. 217 00:25:29,236 --> 00:25:33,615 You see, said the teacher, I'm keeping nothing back from you. 218 00:25:33,741 --> 00:25:39,329 And it said that at that moment, the scholar was awake. 219 00:25:39,455 --> 00:25:42,541 This is the characteristic approach of Zen. 220 00:25:42,666 --> 00:25:45,961 To answer questions about abstract, vast matters of 221 00:25:46,086 --> 00:25:49,673 philosophy with absolutely concrete momentary events. 222 00:25:53,510 --> 00:25:58,015 Because it is these concrete momentary events that are the answer. 223 00:25:58,140 --> 00:26:01,477 If they are experienced with a mind that is no longer clinging to life and clinging to 224 00:26:01,602 --> 00:26:05,147 itself, as I said, the trivial, the ordinary, the momentary suddenly comes zoop to life. 225 00:26:09,860 --> 00:26:16,200 And this, you see, this thing that we are living now is the answer. 226 00:26:16,325 --> 00:26:22,080 And so Zen teachers have said very strange things when asked philosophical questions. 227 00:26:22,206 --> 00:26:25,793 One of them said, the cypress tree in the yard. 228 00:26:25,918 --> 00:26:29,338 Another said, three pounds of flax. 229 00:26:29,463 --> 00:26:33,217 Another said, it's windy again this morning. 230 00:26:33,342 --> 00:26:35,511 Sometimes they don't say anything. 231 00:26:35,636 --> 00:26:39,515 There's a famous story of 232 00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,101 Chinese general, I think he was, who came to one of 233 00:26:43,227 --> 00:26:46,647 the old masters and said to him, what is the way? 234 00:26:48,148 --> 00:26:55,155 And in answer, the master, the teacher said, I don't understand. 235 00:26:59,785 --> 00:27:05,707 The master said, cloud in the sky, water in the jar. 236 00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:11,607 This is National Educational Television. 236 00:28:12,305 --> 00:29:12,424