Be The Master of Every Situation ~ SHINZEN YOUNG

So we've been talking about this happiness independent of conditions.

And we've talked about it from a lot of Points of view.

Um.

The.

When?

I first went into the Zen Temple after I've been on Koya for awhile I decided that.

I wanted to.

Experience training in the Zen tradition.

Uhm I think I've been amount choir for 2 years.

And I completed the what's called K go, which is the basic training in Xinggan That's 100 days in isolation.

Um.

So uhm.

I went to the Abbot of the temple and I.

I said.

You know can I go away for the summer for 4 months to kill to to do the summer training at one of the Zen temples in kill to and he was not very happy about that actually but he said is.

Well, first of all he scared me, he said he himself at once considered going to do this end training.

But when he looked into it, the same People said because because you belong to another school.

You're going to probably get beat up even more than us, he told me this story. Right so it's like. Oh, OK well. I still think I'd like to try it and then he said, OK, but.

Uh just

All I ask is don't come back here with a half baked knowledge of Zen and criticize xinggan don't come back with a half baked knowledge of sun and criticized your school wishing on school so I said, OK, I won't do that and he gave me permission so.

I was like.

Really scared 'cause it's like you're going to get beat up more than even those guys OK and they get beat up now beat up physical but it could also be emotional so the way I got into the temple. It was show Coco G. It actually Gary Snyder had practiced at Shoko Koji. Add earlier period. He even writes about it, you can.

Find his writings about Rohatsu session at Shokoku Ji Temple. Shokoku Ji is one of the 7:00 Rinzai. Zen training centers in the city of kill Tal, which is the old capital of Japan, so anyway. Everything in Japan is done through show title. That means letter of recommend letter of introduction, so I got up at my Sal who helped a lot of foreigners get involved in practice in the early days.

Was a friend of mine and so I asked him to sort of find a Zen Temple. You know that would take me and sort of do the set it up for me and he did so the.

There's different things you have to do and I've told you some of the stories about little tests that they put you through it before they let you in but then once they lay in. They really like in. It was pretty cool. So one of the things that you need to be a Zen Monk is you need a copy of the Rinzai Roku so the Rinzai Rocco is the Japanese pronunciation of Chinese book.

Lin Chi Lou.

And Lou means a record.

Alan G was a famous monk is the monk that started the Rinzai School Lynn G is the Mandarin pronunciation of Renzy.

So these these are the sayings of Master Linji, who lived in the Tang Dynasty. So what happens is each morning. The Master of the Zen Temple, the row. She gets up and gives it a show based on this text and he reads it in sino Japanese what's called combo.

He reads it in sino Japanese but it's absolutely impossible to understand by just listening.

I I mean, simply impossible even if you were Buddhist scholar. You can't understand just by listening because there's so many words that sound the same in sino Japanese.

So no Japanese has to be seen to be comprehend did so every Zen Monk has.

A copy in Chinese of the rings. I broke this. The Sayings of master renzy so that when the Roshi is reading. In this weird pronunciation. You can see with the kanji you can see the character an characters and you can follow what he's saying so I needed a copy of the Rinzai Roku so obvious sensei gave me gave me a copy in it.

It's really cool because it's not a modern printed book. It's the old style of woodblock printing in on the old style bindings the way they used to make books. Hundreds of years ago. That part of the world. So it's like it's like really, really old fashioned right so he gave me a copy of the Rinzai Roku and so I remember.

I'm there an it's like the first night and I'm going to you know the next day. I'm going to start this little series of tests and I knew that if I pass all those tests and got in.

You know.

I was just going to be bossed around for 6 months. I was going to be like someone's slave.

Um.

So it was like.

Really really scary and so I was sort of going through my stuff and organizing my stuff and I saw the.

The Rin Sirok with them and she look book.

That obvious and sent.

Provided for me, so I could follow that a shows and so I opened it up.

Just to look at it and he had calla graft.

On the

The.

On the cover of the first page of it, you know before you get into the text like just the title page, he had calla graft in his own writing with a brush.

For Kanji,

And those are the kanji.

And it just jumped I jumped off the page and into my heart. It's a phrase from one of the Zen Masters and what it means is.

B.

The Master.

Of every situation.

Now that's the literal meaning of these 4 characters be the Master of every situation.

Zooey Shoney shoot or not.

Um Switchel torch.

In Mandarin Chinese.

And I knew.

Because I done enough study and practice.

I knew what he was trying to convey.

You might think.

That UM.

He was saying.

You can tough it out.

Uh.

You know, don't let them get you down.

Um one might think that that's

What that meant but I knew for sure.

That that's not at all.

What he was reminding me of because I'd seen the phrase before in my studies?

And I knew in this N tradition? What what it referred to and it referred to something very specific.

Um when the Zen People talk about.

Being the master.

So the Master is the person that owns the house.

They talk about host and guest so this also means host.

OK so when you contrast host and guest I said master but it also means hosts person that owns the house.

So.

When they say.

Be the host in every situation.

Or be the master in every situation. This is an idiom that refers to a very specific.

Experience.

Yesterday I talked about.

Um.

A sense of compassion.

Arising from wisdom.

Because wisdom allows you to experience each person each thing really.

Um as being molded.

Moment by moment before your very eyes before your sight sound touch.

Um.

Expansion and contraction.

Are.

Loving.

Your world into existence and you this is not a theory. It's not a belief. It's not even a feel good emotion. Its in your touch sight sound circuits. So you can't escape. It even if you would want to and who would want it.

So you experience your world your inner see or feel is this sort of bubble. That's percolating up from the still point of the turning world and simultaneously. This other bubble is percolating up that is the flower or the person or the tree what have and it's like 2.

The two bubbles A site.

Gods thought balloons or something that I sort of like expanding and then collapse down and then expand out again now experiencing yourself.

And the so called other simultaneously born from the same source.

Is leads to a sense of connection?

Um that leads to.

Uh and effortless compassion, the quality of Mercy is not strained it fall off like the gentle rain from Heaven at Shakespeare, but he's talking about.

A spontaneity.

Adjust happening uless in ones caring so that's what happens when.

You experience the outer world and the inner world.

Both arising simultaneously and your experience them with the wisdom mind so there's.

There's a on it.

And there's a me.

But they are coming and they're both arising I'm reacting uh. There's a self over here. That's experiencing and it over there, but

I'm experiencing both of the mass sharing the same source.

So that leads to a compassion on I thou relationship as opposed to an eye it relationship.

Uh.

However.

There is another thing that can happen.

It's similar.

But even more challenging.

What happens if instead of these 2?

Bubbles simultaneously arising from the same source.

What happens if there's only the out?

No inner reactivity at all.

What happens then?

Well.

The identity moves out.

And literally lives inside.

What was formerly other?

For however long there's contact in touch light sound.

That's what they mean by being the master.

Your.

The host inside each.

Of these houses that you that normally you think of as other.

It's like you're now inside that person looking out from their eyes or if it's a flower. They don't have eyes but you're inside the activity called flower because you're doing the activity called flower and you're not for a brief moment 30 seconds or.

Shorter or longer, you're the activity called shins and has completely flatlined.

And the only activity that there is, is the activity called flower or the activity called.

You know, Peter Paul, Mary, whoever you're interacting with there's just that.

So it seems like you're.

Um.

In each place each place.

Each place.

Your.

The Lord of that house near the Master of that place.

Um.

So what he was really telling me is in just for kanji.

He was saying.

Locations and I know you're scared ******** and they're going to be you know.

You're gonna encounter some harsh **** here.

But.

No matter.

How seemingly mean?

Or scary.

Or.

In your face.

Um.

The so called other maybe.

You know what your job is.

And you're going, and if you remember that job.

You're going to be just fine.