Ep266: Meeting of Masters - Guo Gu & Meido Roshi

In this episode, I host a dialogue between Guo Gu, Chan Buddhist teacher and scholar and author of ‘Silent Illumination: A Chan Buddhist Path to Natural Awakening’, and Meido Roshi, Rinzai Zen Abbot of Korinji Monastery and author of ‘Hidden Zen: Practices for Sudden Awakening and Embodied Realisation’.

Guo Gu and Meido Roshi reflect on their long friendship, recall their first meeting in 1989 at a meditation retreat led by Master Sheng Yen, and extol the virtues of dharma friendship.

They challenge common misconceptions about awakening, explain how to train the body in Chan and Zen practice, and reveal the suprising results of an integrated body-mind.

They also describe the enlightened field of a true master, the power of being close to one’s teacher, and how to master energy, time, and space.

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Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.

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Topics include:

00:00 - Intro
00:58 - Meido and Guo Gu reflect on their friendship since 1989
08:20 - What is a dharma friend?
11:36 - Sharing experiences in Chan vs Zen
14:28 - Half baked experiences and marking history
16:25 - Keeping a practice journal
20:16 - Dreaming about Master Sheng Yen
24:30 - Developing as a teacher
28:30 - Embodying the master
31:04 - Master Sheng Yen’s sharp humour and private sarcasm
34:01 - Face to face training and being an attendant
35:55 - Drawbacks of online training
39:22 - The teacher as friend
41:46 - Dharma projections
43:16 - The resonant field of a master
47:42 - Embodied practice and interdependence of being
51:47 - The power of the retreat container
52:39 - The silent influence of one’s practice
57:33 - Learned bodily aptitude
58:39 - How to train the body
01:01:44 - Content and clear
01:04:32 - Mastering energy, time, and space
01:06:57 - Everyone is different
01:09:33 - The body-supporting experience
01:10:46 - Working with injuries
01:13:47 - Zazen emerges organically
01:15:20 - How to use the teacher’s influence
01:17:09 - Learning to let go
01:20:39 - “Put it down”
01:25:40 - Delusion is baked into the body
01:31:24 - Mind and body conditioning
01:34:20 - Solving problems
01:36:40 - Integrating the body-mind
01:30:01 - The entire universe is the true human body
01:38:30 - Putting down awakening
01:39:11 - Effort vs allowing
01:40:47 - Concluding remarks

Previous episodes with Guo Gu:

Previous episode with Meido Roshi:

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To find out more about Guo Gu, visit:

To find our more about Meido Roshi, visit:

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For more interviews, videos, and more visit:

Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James

[Ironeth]

Guo Gu and Meido Roshi seem like two of the most "real", practical and incisive teachers out there today. What an exceptional interaction

[bhantetitidhammo]

A Great Talk! Thank to all! I`m in Theravada for quite awhile, but what is said here totally resonates with our tradition!

[stumptownrelichunter]

Thank you all for this inspiring talk. This lone practitioner is feels much more connected thanks to the sharing your friendship, history, practices, and good humor.

[tomhell]

Thanks - a good talk that that reminds me what is missing in my life.

[PetrusSolus]

Taking in the menu of discourse (the time stamps) it looks very promising and profoundly pragmatic. Then again, we can expect no less from your excellent choices and presentations. Many thanks, Steve.

[dante]

Brilliant the conversation, beautiful indeed . Thank you Meido and Guo Gu and the Viking facilitator. Bows

[bennieschrijvers]

Grand intervieuw, learned a lot. Thanks to three masters in senses, down by the river of Life.

[doydoy]

Well done. Interesting people. Down to earth dynamic given all the space by the host.
Also, in an age of market driven content, the effect of not contending with ads is a remarkable relief. Thank you.

[magnumopus]

The smiles of all 3 is more than enough to cut through

[simonbacaltos]

I also went infrequently at the Elmhurst Cha'n Meditation Center in Queens. I've met Guo Gu. I was in my twenties in early 1990s

[fineasfrog]

One teacher, who taught from the essence of the Sufi tradition, taught "Your body is the matrix of all divine possibility appearing to your outer senses as form in this world." When we use the word "world", we don't ordinarily notice or remember that this "world" is only presented to us by a mode of perception or, if we like, it is based on the level of distillation of our own consciousness (knowing substance). For example what we see as a baby is a form (appearance) of the invisible divine matrix. The "divine matrix" can be said to be a vast/infinite potential of intelligence and compassion and the infant is its appearance in manifestation. So what is going on here; what are we and why are we not only what we appear to be as a small form? It is necessary during the first two years of life that as the infant interacts with the environment and especially its primary caregiver that the infant comes to implicitly learn "I am 'in here' in this separate body and mother is "out there" in that separate body". Here we can say: The One divides into the two yet the original Oneness has not gone anywhere, the two appear as aspect of the One. Here we see the impressions via the outer senses are organized by the matrix or innate potential intelligence (aka the One Clear Light) into a kind of template or overlay that localizes the "I" as (in here) inside the body and everything else is "out there" because I don't find any of it 'in here' with me (in this body). Now going back to the first sentence in this post: When the outer senses "look at" aka "interact/interface" with the vast infinity of the One Clear Light of Intelligence, we learn to see forms via learning "I am in here in this separate form (body) and everything else is 'out there' in the separate forms that appear to me as 'other'". We identify with the form that we learn to see as a separate body. This identification is necessary otherwise 'we' would not be concerned with the body at all and would not take care of it to see that it survived in this world of forms. This makes possible that "one day" it might realize that it is not separate from anything and is not separate from the original oneness of the Unity. This whole process of learning and identifying with this mode of perception is what Ibn Arabi called the "Self-limitation of God for the Self-disclosure of God". The implication here is without the embodiment or manifestation (display we know as 'time and space' grid with the appearance of apparently completely separate forms) there can be no realization in and as manifestation. So what is this 'form' we see that appears as a human being? And can we see what a human being really is by only looking through the template of self and other? This template (aka the mode of subject-object knowing), implicitly learned in the first two years of life gives us the necessary knowing as subject knowing an object which it see as separate from the subject, this is to say, separate from itself. Can we know our own self by "subject-object knowing? Piaget and others have shown that we know through mental structures yet we do not know the structures themselves. These structures, such as the template of self and other aka "subject and object Knowing", ordinarily remain hidden below our scope of awareness aka level of our awareness. I will close with reference to well known story of the man looking under a street lamp for his lost key. His neighbor on his hands and knees helps him look for the lost key. After a while the helping friend ask: "Where did you lose your key? The man answers: "In the house". Friend: "Then why are you looking here?" Reply: "Because there is more light here." Since the minds structures patterns the light of knowing, Rumi says: "Darkness is your candle (reveals). Your boundaries are your quest." In other words, don't try to look beyond the boundaries (because that is an action of the boundaries themselves rather look at 'what is" whether it appears as or not. In this regard Rumi says "You can't wash away blood with blood". In other words the pattern of separation established very early on in the child can not free us from separation. It can only repeat the pattern of separation (subject -object knowing) in larger and larger context. There is the way of letting go of the contents of consciousness and allow the original oneness of light and intelligence to inform us. In Rumi's language he said: "Many things will happen. Silence (go dark, become the darkness). Let God inform you through the silence." The Christian version is "Be still and know that I am God." And remember it is true to say with Rumi that "Words are veils over the truth/reality." However one day we may be able to say "I am not the whole of Reality but I am not separate from the whole of Reality." What does it mean to say "We are made in the image of the Whole?" Thanks be and may we all travel by and in the way of the reality of love.

[barbaragordon]

I am wondering though, with all the scientific results studying consciousness and brain functioning, if there isn't a faster way to become awakened. Although the method of teacher/disciple is a very honored, wonderful tradition, does it really fit the world we live in now? Criticisms of U-tube as a major source of understanding are valid, however, without it, how would even this message be available. Perhaps, our brain needs a new download. However, it's wonderful to see how these two masters deeply loved their teachers.

[TwoBuddhasMeditation]

Teachers are very useful until they aren't. A "master" is absolutely a fetter.

[olaolga]

A whole a lot of blah-blah-blah about nothing useful.