He has already asked about this matter. Maitreya Bodhisattva has already asked about what’s going on here. And the Buddha is about to answer him. Shakyamuni Buddha is just about ready to reply to his question. For this reason, you may all hear about it. Don’t make noise. Be quiet. Listen. Since Maitreya Bodhisattva has already asked and Shakyamuni Buddha is going to answer his question, if you listen, you will all understand as well. Don’t be nervous, youngsters.

In the blink of an eye, the Summer Session has passed. Those of you who attended may feel it was very exhausting, and you may be tired. But you should know that although it may be invisible to you, your fatigue and weariness has actually created inconceivable merit and virtue for you within your self-natures. Therefore, in these last few weeks you should certainly be heroic and vigorous. Do not relax as you did during the break. Be careful to speak less and to refrain from false thinking. Everyone should work hard at cultivating, investigating the Sutras, and sitting in Dhyana. Do this seriously. I noticed you all slacked off in the middle of the Session. If a single person indulges in a lot of talk, he disturbs everyone, making it impossible to cultivate. We should protect the group and not do things to cause people to not cultivate. If the great assembly does not cultivate, it becomes your offense. Do you realize that?

I told one of my disciples not to look after money anymore. There was an important reason for doing this. It wasn’t that he is muddled, and so I did not want him to deal with money. Although he may be muddled all day long, and although he sleeps all the time, sometimes he’s awake. And so why did I not want him to deal with money? Because there is another more important responsibility than that of looking after money that I want him to take care of. Some people are thinking I want him to be the president. No, this time I want him to sit in Chan meditation. That’s because last year I thought that this disciple should become enlightened, but to date he has not done so and I have just let it go by. Basically I don’t pay attention to these kinds of things. But recently I looked into the question of why he hadn’t become enlightened. I found that it was because he had entered the money samadhi, and being in the money samadhi, he didn’t have any skill in meditation. Because he had entered the money samadhi, there was no Chan samadhi. That’s why he hadn’t become enlightened.

I’ve instructed him that from now on he should practice sitting in Chan meditation; he should meditate every day. Every day he should well develop his skill, and become familiar with how to start and end the sitting periods. We’ve already announced the upcoming meditation session: fourteen weeks of Chan Sessions this winter. I want him to stay in the Chan Hall all the time and accompany all of you while you are developing your skill in meditation. We are making several incense boards. If he doesn’t apply effort himself, you can tap him. If you don’t work, he can hit all of you, because he’s so tall. If he doesn’t work, you can hit him. This is called “striking up a Chan seven(doing a 7-day chan meditation session)” and so you can mutually hit each other.

And so his responsibility is to be the Proctor in the Chan Hall. He will not be allowed to leave the hall at any time. In a Chan session, we want to end birth and death. It’s not something to take lightly. It won’t be like the Summer Session has been, with lectures on the Sutras, Dharma talks, and investigation of the Sutras. At that time, there will be “speaking Dharma without words,” no one will talk. Perhaps there will be one or two instructional talks each day, but no more than that.

If I don’t relieve him of his responsibilities involving money now, and if I wait until close to the time for the session to start, he certainly will not be able to stop his false thinking. And so he has to start training now. From now on he should work especially hard. If he doesn’t become enlightened this year during that session, I will not allow him to eat. He may only drink water.

To be continued