This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. So this morning we're going to continue and the song of the jewel near Samadhi. How many of you read the handout?

[01:01]

Well, the meaning is not in the words, but the response to the acquiring impulse. So if you don't read, then it's hard to understand, but we'll do our best. So I'm going to just recapitulate onto where we ended a little bit. The teaching of thusness has been intimately communicated by Buddhas and ancestors. Now you have it, so keep it well. This is... Master Tozan's Dharma transmission vehicle to Master Sozan. He's saying, now you have it.

[02:11]

Keep it well. And then he says what it's like. It's like filling a silver bowl with snow, hiding a heron in the moonlight. Taken as similar, they're not the same. But when you mix them, you know where they are. The meaning is not in the words, yet it responds to the inquiring impulse. So if you really want to investigate, whatever it is that you're investigating will meet you halfway. Move when you are trapped. Miss and you fall into doubt and vacillation. Turning away and touching are both wrong, for it is like a massive fire. You can't grasp it and you can't go away. It's too compelling. Just to depict it in literary form is to stand it with defilement. It is bright just as midnight.

[03:14]

It doesn't appear at dawn. It acts as a guide for beings, and its use removes all pains. Although it is not fabricated, it's not without speech. It's like facing a jewel mirror. Form and image behold each other. You are not it. In truth, it is you. Remember that? Ah. So... Now we're going to talk about the baby practice. The baby's practice is called sotozem. No kidding. The ultimate in practice is to return to your innocent nature. That's what we're doing. Suzuki Roshi always said, resume your true nature.

[04:19]

When you say Zazen, you resume your true nature. Returning to our true nature is baby practice. Return to your... You can't become childish. You can't, I mean, but it's not to become childish, it's to become childlike. Practice is to help us to become childlike, which means our basic innocence. which means our pure nature, which means virtue. Virtue, the two words, virtue and value. Value usually is associated with comparative value. We say, this is more valuable than that. You are more valuable than this person. This is better, that's worse, and so forth. Virtue is incomparable. It's your incomparable self.

[05:21]

In other words, you cannot compare yourself with anything else. You have your own totally perfect presence, which is not comparable to anything else. That's your virtue. So there's no way that, as Uchiyama said, you can't exchange a fart with anybody else. So, virtue and value. In our practice, you know, we often compare ourselves to somebody else. Oh, this person is so righteous and wonderful and this person is so, you know, kind of funny and dull and stupid.

[06:25]

That's comparative value. But a stupid person is great because they're stupid. The brilliant person is great because they're brilliant. But we think that being brilliant is better than being stupid. That's comparative value. So, we value everyone for who they are. Dogen says, it doesn't matter whether you're intelligent or stupid or whatever. Everyone can practice and become themselves. So when you are you perfectly through and through, then there's no comparison. You are totally perfect the way you are. But you can use some improvement.

[07:28]

We can always use some improvement. But we have to be able to accept and appreciate everyone for who they are. So, you know, we're often bewildered by... When we're practicing together in a close situation, it's very different than when you're in a wide situation. You can appreciate people, you know, your friends or your acquaintances or the people you meet because you're not living with them. So you go away. But when you're living with them and you can't go away and you're saying stuff over and over again, every day, pretty soon little things become big things, right? Small irritations become a big itch, and then we get angry and so forth. But we have to remember to appreciate everybody for who they are, even though we get angry, even though we get upset or irritated.

[08:34]

We have to remember that we're speaking, we're relating to everybody as Buddha. We're relating to their Buddha nature, which is their virtue. We all have it. So when we're relating with someone, we're actually relating with ourself. And all this stuff around it, you know, it's important, but we have to get through that or see beyond that. It's like when you wave the stick at a dog, the dog will follow the stick. And so he can lead the dog anywhere. But when you wave the stick at the lion, the lion goes for the person. So we have to go for, to get into the Buddha nature and not get caught by the stick.

[09:42]

And we're always getting caught by the stick. We're getting caught by, oh, you son of a bitch, you know. That's the stick. We just keep following that around. So we had to be able to let go of that. Wait a minute, you know, I'm being led around by the notes. Manipulation is the name of the game, even though we don't know it. There's purposeful manipulation, and then there's subliminal manipulation. And we don't realize how we're being manipulated, not on purpose necessarily, but we allow ourselves to be turned around and pulled around and manipulated. And we fall into playing the part. So instead of blaming the other person, we should look at ourselves. I'm allowing myself to be manipulated. Stop it and appreciate the person rather than blame the person.

[10:48]

Blaming is what gets us into trouble. So just think about no blame and how you can live in a community without blaming and without blaming yourself. So we don't blame the other person, we have to blame ourselves because Blame somebody. Somebody's wrong. Right. Right. Wrong. So we say we're not a person of right and wrong. Oh, you're a person of right and wrong. No. There is right and there is wrong, but we don't get caught by them. By that duality. To step back and realize that I'm allowing myself to be manipulated even though the person is not trying to manipulate me. or they may be, but we do manipulate each other, knowingly or unknowingly. So, like a babe in the world, in five aspects complete, does not come or go, rise or stand.

[11:58]

These lines go together. Ba-ba-wa-wa, baby talk. Is there anything said or not? Ultimately, it, the baby, does not apprehend anything because the speech is not yet developed. Correct, or whatever you want to say. So we have to look at, you know, there are various translations. In this book we have tense translations of each line, you know, and some are the same and some are not, and so it's interesting. It is like a babe in the world, in five aspects complete. So five aspects are like our senses. That's one way of looking at the five aspects. There are various ideas about what this means. But there's a koan in the blue clip record

[13:13]

A monk asked Jiaojou, does the newborn baby have the sixth consciousness? Jiaojou said, it's like tossing a ball on swift flowing water. And the monk also asked Tutsu, what's the meaning of tossing a ball on swift flowing water? And Tutsu said, moment to moment, nonstop flow. So what I want to do is talk about the eight levels of consciousness because that's a bigger subject. But I think it would read, how many of you have ever studied the eight levels of consciousness? Yeah, a few people. But it's always great to go over that because we talk about ego.

[14:19]

Oh, you have a big ego, but where is that? It's a kind of big phrase, you know, ego, what does that mean? Well, it means self. Well, what is self? What does that mean, self? So how do you narrow this down to exactly where is the ego? So if you study the eight levels of consciousness, you realize that there is a place that we've discovered that's been discovered is called manas, which is the seventh level of consciousness, called self, self-consciousness, ego. So does the baby have the sixth level, sixth level of consciousness? So we have the eye, and we have the ear, and we have the tongue, and we have the nose, and we have the taste and the touch. I guess that's why. And each one of those levels, those are the doors of perception. The doors of perception. Hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, feeling.

[15:24]

And that's, we're like a bug, you know, with these tentacles, that receptors. And we're feeling our way through the world. We think that we really see everything, you know. We're feeling our way through the world, which looks clear, but it's actually mucky. But anyway, this is where we get our input with the world. If they're closed off, there's no input. And we're kind of, without any of those senses, we're dead. Unless we've had experience thinking. Each one of those levels of those receptors is differentiated by a level of consciousness, which is called the sixth consciousness, mano-vijjnana. Vijjnana means consciousness.

[16:26]

So mano-vijjnana, the sixth level of consciousness, differentiates between seeing, hearing. And so we say, oh, this is seen. That's heard. That's tasted. That's smelled. So we say that the first five consciousnesses are consciousness, but the sixth is what differentiates and describes them and thinks. But it's not self-consciousness. It's just the workings of consciousness. So when we sit in Zazen, And when you look at the wall, seeing sees the wall, but I has not arisen yet. Although, you know, it probably has. You say, I see the wall. But when you sit and look at the wall, don't say, I see the wall. Just say nothing.

[17:28]

Just let seeing see. So the sixth consciousness allows seeing to see, and you know that that's seeing. You know that when the airplane flies over, you don't have to say, that's the airplane. You just don't have to say anything. You don't have to name. It's just here. So this is bare perception. And when we sit in zazen, we allow ourselves to have bare perception of whatever stimulus enters through any of the doorways. So it's not yet thinking in terms of me and mine or naming The seventh level of consciousness says, oh, that's the wall. And then it says, the wall is white. And then it says, the bug is moving across the wall. What kind of a bug is it? And this is the thinking mind. And it's the mind that analyzes and the mind that dreams and the mind that thinks and so forth.

[18:38]

But the problem with this level of consciousness is that it's always partial. The sixth level of consciousness is not partial. There's no partiality, no discrimination. It discriminates, but it doesn't discriminate on the basis of a self. It simply says this is this and this is this. No discrimination. And that's in the sense of personal discrimination. So the seventh level of consciousness is personal. That's where personal and personality and all the machinations of thinking appear. And then the eighth level of consciousness is the storehouse consciousness and the seed consciousness of all our thinking, feeling, everything that's ever happened to us in our life. All the seeds of those occurrences are planted in our memory.

[19:48]

Even though you may not remember all that stuff, I think just before your car crashes, it all appears at once. But before then, you don't think about all that stuff. And if you did, your mind would be so full that you wouldn't be able to operate. So we compartmentalize and make proprieties so that we can actually operate. And we don't have to think of all that stuff. We just think of what's going on at the moment. So every time there's a thought or a movement or a feeling or whatever, it plants a seed in that seedbed. And then habit energy comes through doing the same thing over and over again. You smoke a cigarette and you cough the first time.

[20:49]

And then, okay, I smoke it again and it goes down there. But all your friends are smoking so you might as well too, right? That's the second time. You have a choice after the second cigarette and you have a choice. And then you smoke the third one and then you're hooked. three times, and you're out. Or in, or whatever. So, that's a habit for me. And each time you do that, there's a seed that's sown. And then, when you do it the next time, it sows another. It waters the seed, which makes the habit energy move. So, all of our conditioning is through the alaya vajnana and the seedbed. So the seventh consciousness has a task which all the information comes in through the senses and through the sixth consciousness.

[21:52]

And the seventh consciousness relays it up to the alaya. And then, and back, back and forth. It's a conveyor. It has actually a task. The problem is that it gets too big. And so I like to usually say, it's like the office boy. The boss is out and the office boy sits in the boss's chair, puts his feet up on the desk, opens the drawer, takes out a cigar, you know, lights it up and says, now I am the boss. Problem is he believes it. And that's your ego. Your ego says, I am the boss. And proceeds to order everything, everybody around, and do what it wants, probably gets in real trouble because it's not the boss. It's not the real boss. The real boss is Vairojana, the Dharmakaya Buddha.

[23:03]

Vairojana, Dharmakaya Buddha is the boss. allow ourselves to step aside from being self-centered to being buddhicentric, we just change our position. We change our center from ego center to buddhicenter and then let Buddha do the work. Tell us what to do. We take our orders from Buddha instead of from the office boy. So that's a kind of outline of eight consciousnesses. It's a model, right? So from that model, it helps us, it helps me anyway, I think it helps us to orient ourselves. Who's the boss? That's the question. That is a koan.

[24:05]

Who's the master? That's a koan. Great koan for everybody. Yes, that's a good question. What it means to follow the precepts? When we become ordained, we take the precepts and we say, okay, I'll follow the precepts. And that's being Buddha-centered. Because actually you are Buddha. It's not like you're stepping over and just being somebody else. It's simply that you're letting go of self-centeredness and letting the other side of you, it's not another side, but your true self to actually be the leader. So we have these two selves, Buddha self and ego self, two sides.

[25:10]

And Ego self just kind of ignores Buddhism, right? And does what it wants. And then, geez, you know, there's a big problem here. And then, okay, you take over. Well, oh, great, you know. I get it. Yeah. Please, Buddha, take over. And then your Buddha self starts to practice. That's letting Buddha be the leader. So you let Buddha be the leader, and you follow the Buddha. You're Buddha. You follow yourself, your Buddha self. And then you say, wow, that's too hard. And then you say, excuse me, Buddha, I just want to do these things. Can I do these things? And pretty soon Buddha's in the shadow again. Oh, my God. Buddha, please. So it's kind of like that. You're leading and Buddha's leading. And pretty soon it all comes together. It all comes together, and you and Buddha are one.

[26:13]

So that's what this is all about. Yes? I don't want to oversimplify it, but in recovery work, we talk about turning things over to your higher power. Well, yes, of course. Do you see a correlation there? Well, yeah. Your higher power is yourself. Your higher power. Not to somebody else, not some other higher power. Your higher power. Yet turn... Turn yourself over to your higher power. Release your higher power. It's all there. Vairachana lives in your hara. You are Vairachana. It's not like Vairachana in the sky or on a piece of paper. Vairachana is the light of your hara, which you release it. It's all there. It just needs to be opened up and released. That's submitting yourself to the higher power.

[27:17]

That's why we sit zazen. When we sit zazen, we release ourselves to the higher power. Zazen is not just a kind of feel-good thing. It's great if you feel good. There's no problem with that. But sometimes you feel good and sometimes you don't. But whatever it is, you can deal with it because you've turned it over to your higher power. Which means whatever comes is the thing that should be there. It's like It's the baby's practice. Baby, ba-ba-wa-wa. Is there anything said or not? Well, you can't describe it. That's ba-ba-wa-wa means, you know, your language is like, the language that tries to describe the ultimate is like ba-ba-wa-wa.

[28:30]

It doesn't mean anything, you know, in the end. You have to do something. So pointing to the moon is good. But if you take the finger for the moon, it's Baba Wawa. Nevertheless, the finger that's pointing to the moon is also it. Oh, there it is. My moon, my finger is the moon. It's true. But if you think that the moon that you're pointing to, it is separate from your finger, then it's a problem. Yeah. Going back to what you were saying about releasing your higher power. Yes. There's this contradiction of like you're not getting anything out of it, which is where you said in your lecture. So when somebody asks you, like when you're doing Zazen instruction in the summer, or like a family member that doesn't know Buddhism asks you, why do you do it? Then my tendency is, well, you don't get anything out of it, but you do get something out of it.

[29:34]

So how do you? Well, you have to use skillful means. Even a mother asks you. She says, you don't get anything out of it, Mom. You have to let her know that you get something out of it. Tell her how it makes you feel. You can't talk about your confusion so much. But just talk about how you're practicing with the community and everybody's doing this and it's like you're touching something vital.

[30:34]

When I do this, I'm really in touch with something vital, but I can't explain it. I think you can do that. You can tell that to people as an instruction. Yes. You can say it. It's not easy to explain what it is, but it's very vital. When you do it, you can feel the vitality of it. You don't have to go on and on. Yes. You experience the vitality. You may not, or it may take a while, but you experience this vitality of unity. That's what you do. Feel the vitality of the unity. So, the unity of diversity and oneness. So you can do that.

[31:38]

Say that. Tell them I told you. You can tell that to your mother. That's the hardest thing. I used to say to people, here's your koan. When you go home and your mother asks you, mothers understand it better than fathers. When your father asks you, how is it? What do you do? You can tell them that. And they may understand it and they may not, but you feel okay. You may not understand it, but this is what we do. And they can't help but be sympathetic with that, even if they're not. Believe me, I experienced all that. Yes? You say it's a higher power, so why does it need me to release it? Why does it need what? Why does it need me to release it because there's a higher power? Why does it need me to release it?

[32:38]

Well, who else will release it? Why it needs to be released if it's higher? Well, higher is just a way of speaking. Higher and lower is the same. But if I say that, that's what he said. Over here. So you have low power or high power, right? Are you a high-powered guy or a low-powered guy? A no-powered guy. That's pretty good. So... Uncovered power. How about that? Potential that you did not know you had.

[33:41]

We all have potential that we do not know that we have. You know, they say you're only using a minuscule part of your brain. Human beings only use a minuscule part of their brain. But actually, they only use a minuscule part of their hara. their higher power. Well, you got to read it higher than that. Okay. beyond it, or it covers something up, so what is, how can you, how can the ego be integrated? Yes.

[34:44]

Yes. Yes. Well that's what we're talking about. That's exactly it. You know, how can ego be useful? In other words, we need to use ego instead of ego using us. The problem with ego is that egos should not be a problem. The problem is that it doesn't have any manners. It just acts at will. Like the office boy, you know, he just thinks he needs to be taught. He needs to be taught. This is your... You know, you're the office boy, so please just take your role as the office boy, then everything will be okay. And the machine will run very well. But because you're taking over, it's a problem.

[35:48]

That's why we call it ego, because it takes over and thinks it's the false sense of self. So it needs to be put in its place. so that it performs a great function. Ego performs a great function. Without ego, without a sense of self, you can't do anything. I mean, you can be a saint in a sense where there's no ego, but that's not really so. There has to be some ego. If someone says, I have no ego, you should find another teacher. Because you can't operate without a sense of self. You say, I do this and I do that. You know, and I want this and I want that. Well, when you're off that center and onto letting Buddha lead, you don't give in so much to

[36:57]

your own desires, but desire is still there. Desire is a very important aspect because we all have it. If we didn't have desire, we couldn't do anything. But it's where you direct desire. When you simply let desire have its own play, that's called karmic activity. When desire is directed toward practice, it's called way-seeking mind. And what's called way-seeking mind is no longer called desire, even though it is desire, but it's desire which is beneficial. It's not desire which is egotistical. Even though it can become egotistical in the pursuit of practice, if practice has a goal other than to destroy it. In other words, we lay our ego on the altar of Buddha.

[37:59]

and say, please keep this for me until I return. And he goes, oh, okay. But you should never return. Yeah. The seventh consciousness. Manas. It's being self-centered. In other words, self-centered means that you create a self. out of the raw material around you. You say, well, I can do these things and I can do that. And it's when you're simply driven by desire. When you're simply driven by desire and you don't have a real direction and so you choose a direction, you say, well, I have a propensity for this or a propensity for that. And you choose a direction and then you relate everything to your ego.

[39:06]

The problem with relating everything to yourself as a center is that it's always partial. So you become partial to yourself. You become partial. You only see things through the eyes of partiality. So you don't see things completely. So when you become Buddha-centric, your eyes are more... open because you're not being blocked by yourself as the center. So the self puts itself in front of your true personality and blocks it. That's the problem. Our ego blocks our true personality. So when it's doing its function, it's helping rather than blocking. So when you live in this society, everybody's trying to improve themselves. Everybody's trying to get something.

[40:07]

And we prey on each other. In our society, we're all preying on each other. The 1% is preying on everybody. We're all becoming slaves to certain dynamics that we... buy into. And we can't change because we bought into those things and we have to keep making our payments. That's why we can't change society because we're all making our payments. And we're struggling to make our payments and the rich are getting richer. We're paying them, paying them with everything we've got. Our time, our energy, our money, So this is ego. The big ego. Greed, yes.

[41:10]

Well, greed is one of the aspects of ego. Greed, ill will, and delusion. Those are the building blocks of ego. Greed, ill will, and delusion. There are many people who put their religion as the center of their body. Yes. that becomes a block. Yes. How could we do that without being obstructed by our Buddhism? Why would we be obstructed by our Buddhism? Because if we only see things through the lens of our religion, our understanding. Right. I see what you mean. There are religions that only see partiality, right? Through their own partiality. Buddhism, hopefully, the object of Buddhism is not to do that.

[42:12]

The object of Buddhism is not to be stuck with Buddhism. He had a koan. Dropping ashes on the Buddha. Remember that? What would you do if you walked into places and somebody was dropping their cigarette ashes on the Buddha? What would you do? You'd kill them if you were Muslim. Throw them in the ocean if you were Christian. In Buddhism, a statue is just a piece of wood or something. venerate. When we bow to the Buddha, we don't venerate the statue. We're bowing to the nature. We're bowing to ourself, our big self. You take the Buddha away and then there's the wall, you still bow. It doesn't matter whether the Buddha is there or not. This is a symbol of a focal point.

[43:21]

I think that I have an understanding for the question, maybe, and I would like to phrase it a bit differently. For as long as I hear through my karmic consciousness the words, the teaching of a Buddha, I have no choice but to hear it through this karmic consciousness, because that's what's happening. And I have karmic consciousness understanding of it, and I'm starting to act upon it, and I become righteous and religious. Yes. And I guess it's like, the question is like, what are the ways to practice without, I mean, I would say first to recognize it, but before we do, I mean, so we hear instructions here, which is more like definitions, like we do this, we do that, versus continuous inquiry into the nature of reality. Yeah. It's like what's happening here. Yeah. That's right. That's what we do. Even though you don't think that's what we do. But what do we do? Just what you said. Even though you don't think that's what we're doing, that's what we're doing.

[44:25]

Continuous inquiry. Continuous inquiry, yes. Your life is a koan. Everything you do is the aspect of genjo koan. Dogen took all the koans, put them all together, and created genjo koan. How your life unfolds moment by moment is the koan. What is this? That's the inquiry. So the koan, what is it? What, what, what, what? Just stay with what? What? Who? How? How is really, how do I do this? That's the practice. How? That's your koan. How? How? What? How? Not why. Why is okay. problem with why is we think we need a reason. Well, I follow the precepts.

[45:40]

How does that help someone to develop this inquiry? Because precept, each precept is a koan. Precepts If you study, if you practice the precepts by rote, that's not the precepts. That's dead precepts. Don't kill, don't... Those are dead precepts. Live precepts is what do you actually do? So live precepts is improvisation. Every situation we meet is improvisation. You say something, I say something. So it's all improvisation. But the written precepts are underneath that as a kind of guide. But the live precepts is how you interact. So we're practicing precepts all the time, even though we may not think, oh, this is practicing the precepts.

[46:42]

But that's what we're doing. The live precepts. How you... actually engage in every moment's activity. You're working in the kitchen and you're practicing the precepts all the time. With the people you are involved with, with the sangha, with the food, with the table, with the knife. You know, it's all rich practice. Every single moment's practice is rich. That's why you sit, that's why During sushin, you know, you're working in the kitchen, everybody's sitting zazen. You think, well, they're sitting zazen while we're working here in the kitchen. You don't think that, but you could. You could think that. But, you know, that's active samadhi, and the other is silent samadhi. Still samadhi and active samadhi. Just two aspects of the same thing. So in all of our daily activity, that's samadhi.

[47:50]

If it's not, then you think, God, what am I doing here? Just repeating the same stuff over and over again. But we can't repeat anything. It's impossible. Nothing is ever repeated. Even though there are patterns. The patterns are repeated, but the activity is not. So we practice certain patterns. And the patterns that we have in... the monastic life is very limited. And that gives you a chance to really come up against. The limitation of the activity gives us a chance to really focus on practice. That's why practice is so limited in its activity. And we do the way ring, the ring of practice. And So instead of expanding our activities, we limit our activities and expand our concentration.

[48:53]

And expand our, deepen our, we go down to find the water. Yeah. What about the precepts? It seems to me that it is at least half of it. It applies only if you are around others. It only applies to? It applies only if you are around other people. Yes. Mostly, yes. So you were out in the desert yourself. What did you do with that? Yes. But even though it's not just other people, when you're out in the desert, What are your surroundings? You have cactus? How do you relate to cactus? How do you relate to sand? How do you relate to nothing? What are you going to do? Don't kill.

[49:57]

Well, you're talking about people. But it's not just people. Don't kill the earth. And what does killing mean anyway when you have to kill in order to survive? That's a koan. Don't kill is a big koan. Big koan. How do you survive without killing something? You say, well, I won't eat meat. But you're killing the vegetable. The cabbage says, ah, when you cut into it. There have been recordings. There have been recordings. Yes, cabbage, they hear the wheat. So, ba-ba-wa-wa, is the cabbage saying anything or not? So even though the baby's language is not coherent to our way of understanding, it's still language, and it's still saying something.

[51:03]

Why not? I can create any meaning to anything. It's always true. It's always the opposite. So you say that and I can say something else. It's the opposite, but it's not necessarily also true. That's why we don't talk so much. Yes, that's right. So in order to practice, you have to doubt. That's good. Doubt is good. Faith is also good. If you don't have faith, you can't practice. If you only have doubt, that's skepticism. And if you only have skepticism, you can't practice because you're always criticizing. So you don't get anything.

[52:07]

But if you have faith, you're going to have doubt because then you have your faith. Faith means that it's confidence. I'm doing this because I'm confident about what I'm doing. Even though I'm confident about what I'm doing, there's still doubt, which means there's yes, but. But without faith, you're only arguing. So that doesn't really get you anywhere. Because it's all negative. But there is a place for a negative personality. And that is to take on a koan. And you can just grapple with that forever without bothering anybody. I have my own little thing and I can argue with it. I can do anything I want with it. Well, I have a faith in my doubt. Yeah, you have faith in your doubt.

[53:08]

But you also have some... Faith is like the airplane, the engine, you know, and the wings. And it carries the airplane along. I'm going, you know. But doubt is like the rudder and the ailerons, you know. That keeps the plane from going headlong into the mountain. gives us some steering, you know, and says, okay, this is the balance, the balance between, ah, and wait a minute, hold back, you know, wait a minute, is that right? So, yeah, so the balance between those two, but if you don't have the engine carrying you forward, or if you have, if the engine's carrying you forward, but you're only doing it in order to eat, have three meals a day, you know, then it's kind of a waste of time. Why not do it some other, where it's not a waste of time. So, while you have the situation, go with the situation.

[54:12]

But, you know, doubt is what keeps us from going headlong and puts some control on things. So, that's good. Doubt is positive or negative, depending on how you use it. You know, you're referring to these things that I have control over, my own doubts and my own faiths, and I don't, actually. I know. That's why I'm talking to you like that. So, is that enough on the babies? I have another thing. You were talking about viral child living in Nahara. Yes. And I was wondering if you could... Tell us more about the Hara. What is so special about the Hara? Well, the Hara is, you know, like I was talking about the Hara and the solar plexus.

[55:16]

So I would say Vajruchana lives in the center of the solar plexus because Vajruchana is also sometimes equated with the Adi Buddha. Adi Buddha is the sun Buddha. And Vajruchana is the Buddha of infinite, of... Divine light, actually. And even Dogen's fascicle on komyo is translated as divine light, sometimes radiant light. People say, well, divine's a little too religious, you know, or something. So we used to say radiant light. I like divine light. But divine isn't exactly the right word either because it comes from dhyana, which means something, um, uh, Diana, the archer. But it's kind of like a deity.

[56:18]

But Vairacan is not exactly a deity even though Vairacan is deified by the Shingon people. So it's a kind of quasi-deity because in Buddhism we try to refrain from positing a deity, you know, but the activity of Vajrojana is usually the activity that we expect from a deity. So, but it's where the radiant light, it's source, the source Buddha, actually. So if there's this, even though in Buddhism we say there's no beginning, there's no one source or something like that, but you can't help it. You can't help it. And the Asian Buddhist teachers who come, they'll sometimes say, God or Buddha.

[57:29]

Even though they may not mean it exactly, there's that equation. And so that kind of creeps into Buddhism. and it's kind of on the edge, you know, which is not a problem for me. So, vairacana, and we talk about vairacana all the time, you know, every day we chant, vairacana, dharmakaya buddha, right? Mochana, sambhogakaya buddha, the various nirmanakaya, Shakyamuni Buddhas. So this is the three aspects of Buddha. And the Mahayana took, they say, well, you know, we can't really worship the guy called Shakyamuni because he was a person. So, but what is it that is behind the person?

[58:32]

What's behind the person? You know, we can't believe in a person that much. So what's behind the person that everybody can relate to? Well, what's behind the Buddha is Vajrojana, the Dharmakaya. Dharmakaya is the same as emptiness or the same as Buddha nature. So all these Buddha nature and Dharmakaya come from what's behind Shakyamuni. And Sambhogakaya is... Dharmakaya is our true nature. And that's where Vajrojana sits, is in the middle of our true nature, which is our solar plexus, the sun. That's where the light comes from. And then Sambhogakaya is our wisdom mind. Wisdom arises from Dharmakaya and it's actualized as our wisdom.

[59:37]

And then nirmanakaya is our actions. Shakyamuni is the nirmanakaya Buddha, the personification, one who walks and talks. These are the three bodies. Buddha, which are one body. We say, three bodies all lie down in one bed. That's the way it's expressed. Three bodies lie down in one bed. So the three are one. But they're different aspects. But they're really all, you know, you can say they're aspects of the cosmos. Why not? Because we are the cosmos. We're cosmic people. Oh, we're earthly people. But we're actually cosmic people. We're sitting on a cosmic ball, you know, whirling around in space. But it's the earthy ball.

[60:40]

So it's earthy. It's earthy and it's also cosmic. We're standing in the atmosphere, right? But it's, you know, we're standing in the cosmos. There's little ants on the ball that's blowing around. But we have cosmic nature. So the problem with when we don't really, you know, when we're short-sighted, we think we're just earthly. But we're cosmic as well as earthly. But Sambhogakaya is our... When we talk about Buddha, usually we're talking about Sambhogakaya. It's the manifestation of our wisdom and Buddha nature. So, Sambhogakaya... faces dharmakaya.

[61:41]

But it also has two faces and it faces nirmanakaya. So it's in between. It's the sandwich in between dharmakaya and nirmanakaya. And that's lochana. And lochana is like the Buddha that pure land Buddha Amitabha. And Chinese Buddhists chant the name of Amitabha. Amitabha. And they walk around chanting the name of Amitabha. We don't do that, but I've done that practice. It's really nice. But we do say Lo Chana Buddha, even though we don't pay attention to Lo Chana Buddha. It's kind of interesting. We don't really... pay much attention, say anything about that, but that's Loh Chana Buddha is Amitabha. I was wondering, so it sounds like the sort of practice, you call it O'Hara, is so important, right?

[62:49]

Yes. And it's the first time that I actually hear it mentioned in this school, and I know from other traditions that they practice this too, and force that center or that energy. Well, yes, we do, but we don't say that, but I say it. In the Rinzai school, there's unchinshu, which means pressing down with your diaphragm when you exhale. And Suzuki Roshi also talked about it. And he talks about this. He said, put effort into your hara when you breathe, when you exhale. But he didn't emphasize it so much. It's like when you have a problem breathing, then you can use that. to push down, mmm, a silent moan, like mmm, and that oxygenates your blood. And you feel lighter. And also, he emphasized pushing down, letting, the exhale is more important to the inhaling, because you can exhale easily.

[63:57]

Even though you, you know, you push down, this is dying. Exhale, you're dying. Inhaling is coming back to life. Die, and you come, this is the rotation, or the rhythm of birth and death. You die, let go of everything. You totally let go of everything. And then you come back to life. And then, but it's all here. So Hara, yeah, solar plexus, this is rice paddies. the sea of ki. Ki means breath, but it also means essence, right? Essential. Breath is the essential. In Hebrew it's ruach. So, the most essential.

[64:58]

It's the connection between outer and inner. And this is where you live. So this is the head. This is the heart. This is the solar plexus. But we're way up here most of the time. But this is the vital place. And this is the thinking place. And this is the, so to speak, the love place, the feeling place. So this is essential. This is thinking. And this is relating or love, and they're all important. But the breath is the most important. You can think, you know, whatever you want, but if you're not breathing, it doesn't make any difference. So, in a sense, we say, vairacana, In a transmission ceremony, the teacher says, I am now Vairacana, sitting on the lotus throne of a thousand petals.

[66:13]

Each petal contains a Shakyamuni Buddha. We're all Vairacana Buddha. But we should let Vyachana Buddha, you know, out. Let him out. You're keeping him in jail. He's there. Just let him, you know, pop out. And when we sit zazen, that's what we do, whether we know it or not. I'm bored. It's so boring here. But if you really sit up straight and breathe deeply, you're emitting something. Something's wonderful is coming out. It's not that we're getting something. We're simply transmitting our nature, transmitting good vibes. Jesus of Nazareth said, you are the light of the world.

[67:20]

You're hiding it. Same thing. Yeah. Would it be willing to say something about perception of time? Time. Time. Oh. That's to me that, like, for as long as there is getting there, we are in, like, the seventh consciousness, which is a me, the false self, that is trying to get somewhere. And there is a perception of, like, so there is only now, and everything is manifested now, including past and future. And then... There's a way to see also that there is no time. Well, there are two aspects. If you look at the clock, the clock is round and it has a center and it has two hands, at least two or three, but two at least, and then it has numbers all around it.

[68:22]

So that's a discontinuous time. It's discontinuous because each moment is gone to the next moment, right? So there's no moment that's continuous because all those moments are different. But if you take away the hands and the numbers, then it's just one piece of time, which is called now. So you can look at a clock without hands and numbers, and you can just be there. That's just now. It doesn't change. That's continuous time. But we put the numbers on because we're moving around and we need to make appointments and stuff like that. And so that's discontinuous time. So we live in both continuous time and discontinuous time at the same time. So one o'clock is, even though one o'clock gives way to two o'clock, it's still just now.

[69:28]

The absolute and the relative are one piece. And that's actually what we're talking about when we talk about the five ranks. Absolute and relative are one piece, yet two o'clock is two o'clock, and one o'clock is one o'clock. I would like to best my understanding of what you said, that even though our true nature is already our true nature, we practice to express it. Yes, to express it. Yes. Yeah. We practice to express our true nature. To give, not to get. And when we give, we get. But we don't get by trying to get. We only get by giving. That's the only way we can get, by giving. So actually what you're saying, once we create that time, we destroy it now. Well, we don't necessarily destroy now. We don't understand. We... We just discriminate it.

[70:30]

So non-discriminated time is just now. Discriminated time is dividing time into pieces. And they both exist at the same time, simultaneously. So each moment of discriminated time is the moment of eternal time. So we live in eternity on each moment. like night and day is only relative to earthlings. Night and day, yeah. They're relative. Black, dark, and light are just relative to each other. Yeah. You were talking about thinking, art, and hara. And I was wondering, would hara mean like intuitive wisdom? Yeah. That's the gate of intuition. Yeah. Because intuition means directly touching Without going through the process of thinking.

[71:34]

It's directly touching without going through the process of thinking. I've got a gut feeling. Huh? I've got a gut feeling about it. Yeah, gut feeling is one way of expressing it. But sometimes George Bush's gut feelings. I'm kind of... Not all gut feelings. I have a gut feeling we should invade Iraq. Yikes. But it's still a gut feeling. Yes. Yeah, it's like you know. And you stand by what you know. Okay. I'm going to go on for a little bit. Let's see. So the baby doesn't go or come, doesn't that come or go, rise or stand.

[72:40]

And this is the, it's like, this is likened to the Tathagata, who doesn't, Narghajuna's introductory verse to the Madhyama Kakarika says, I salute the fully enlightened, the best of speakers, who preach the non-ceasing and the non-arising, the non-annihilation and the non-permanence, the non-identity and the non-difference, the non-appearance and the non-disappearance, the dependent arising, the appeasement of obsessions and suspicious. This is a kind of description of the non-duality of the Tathagata. Doesn't come or go. In other words, he does come and go, but his coming and going is a non-coming and going. This is all koan. So it's the non-duality of duality.

[73:49]

He neither comes nor goes, arises nor stays. So he's likened to the baby. The baby doesn't walk around. The baby doesn't do all these things. And it's like the Tathagata doesn't either. And so it's a kind of simile. And this is kind of like the baby's practice. The non-duality of the baby's practice. Baby will put anything in his mouth. It has no discrimination. Just does. Just feeling out the world with nothing behind it. No experience. So this is innocent practice. And so it's likened to the Buddha's great enlightened practice, which is like the baby's practice, except that it's mature. So it's... The baby's practice is the baby's innocent practice and the Buddha's practice is the same quality as the baby's practice matured.

[74:59]

So we go through initial innocent practice and then we grow up and start protecting ourselves and creating a self and an ego in order to find our way through the world. And then at some point we realize that that's not working and we come back to our, find the practice of some sort. And because we abandoned the baby's practice, we abandoned our original practice. So we come back to our original practice, which is like the baby practice, but it's not a baby's practice. That would be childish. But it has... but we regain our original nature. That's the practice, to regain our original nature. It's not like it got tossed, but it's just lost.

[76:03]

It's obscured by our manas, by our clouded over. So we just restore, come back to ourselves, restore our original nature. That's what we said, that's an expression of our original nature. Can't get anything. There's nothing to get. So we just keep letting go of our conditioning, our harmful conditioning. We can't let go of all our conditioning, but we should let go of our harmful conditioning, which has created our ego. without, you know, we don't want to throw away the baby with the bathwater, right? So we take a bath. Susan's like taking a big bath, right? Brainwashing. And to restore our baby, you know, and the baby.

[77:11]

But the brain-like, we don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I'm going to just step over here. I'm just going to introduce this. It is like the six lines of the double-hit split hexagram. So now he's saying... It is also like this. He's given us one simile about the baby. Now he's saying, now it's also like this. The six lines, it is like the six lines of the double split hexagram. The relative, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and the absolute, the blank clock with no hands. integrate. So the relative and the absolute, the light and the dark integrate.

[78:26]

Everything comes together. The one, the two integrate. Diversity integrates with oneness, and oneness integrates with diversity. This is what the six lines of the double split hexagram are introducing to us. Now, this is the I Ching. How many of you are not familiar with the I Ching? Know nothing about the I Ching. The I Ching is the book of changes. There are five literary volumes that are famous in China. called the Five Books, and the I Ching is one of them. And it's the Book of Divination, called, where they use trigrams and hexagrams to illustrate our life. And sometimes it's used in fortune-towing, where you have the yarrow stalks and you throw them and then they indicate which

[79:35]

Anyway, I don't want to go into all that, and we're not going to study the I Ching at all. It's a Chinese classic, one of the five classics. But sometimes the Chinese masters use this kind of terminology to illustrate. And this is what Tozan has done. He's using this hexagram, which is comprised of two trigrams. to illustrate what he's going to talk about. So here it says, in the six, what does it say here? It is like the six lines of the illumination hexagram, relative and ultimate interact. And piled up they make three, the complete transformation makes five. Now I gave you,

[80:36]

the copy of Charles Luck, translation of the Hokyo Zammai with the illustration, the strange illustration of the circles, the light circles and the dark circles. That's what he talked about. And I'm not going to talk about that now. You're kind of inundated because I'm going to use the next class to go over this because it's too much to do right now. But I'm just going to talk about the hexagram. So this hexagram is composed of, do you see the diagram? That's it. That's it. Right there. The top of your page. Okay.

[81:40]

Do you see this? I'm going to get mine up. It says here, the master used trigrams. This is the top of the page. While transformations into five positions, they taste... You don't have that here because you need this. Okay, okay. Look on his. It says, the six lines of the Chung Li hexagram representing the intermutable real and seeming. He uses the terms real and seeming. That's not it. That's a different one. Yeah.

[82:40]

The six lines of the Chung Li hexagram I have a different one to hand out but I'm not going to hand out right now. The six lines of the Chung Li hexagram representing the intermutable real and seeming. He uses the terms real to mean the absolute and seeming to mean the relative. are interlaid to establish a triple base, which transforms into five positions. They taste like the five flavored herbs and look like a thunderbolt. Now, and you see the diagram at the bottom of the page. That's the thunderbolt. That's the vajra. Who doesn't know what a vajra is? Aha. Well, a vajra...

[83:40]

is this, called the thunderbolt. Dorje. Yeah, and Tibetans, they call it Dorje. I'll read you something there that kind of describes it. Yeah, we can do that. But first of all, I want to describe it. I have to find this. OK. Yeah. There was another one. Oh, yeah.

[85:16]

So it says, Vajra, the five-pronged Vajra, there is one central prong with the other... You can see the diagram. With the other... The vajra, or thunderbolt, is a ritual device often held while teaching. There are various numbers of prongs on the ends of a vajra. This one is five. There's one, three, or five being most common. The one referred to here is clearly a five-pronged vajra. That's the picture I have. So vajra has several meanings. It was originally an Indian weapon of war, but was taken up into Buddhism, the all-conquering power of Buddha. Vajra is an abstract noun, also refers to the ultimate strength of the brilliance of Buddhist awakening.

[86:18]

The five flavors were used in Atendai Buddhism for the five periods of Buddhist teaching, but I'll talk about that. But this is the Vajra with five prongs on each end, and the Tibetans use this, and they use a bell and a Vajra to enchant with them. in Japan they also use this vajra so it's called a thunderbolt and so it's a ritual implement and so if you look at the picture down below that's pictured as a vajra like and so what I would like you to do is read and study the diagram. And then we'll talk about it next time. So it may seem strange or whatever, but study it.

[87:23]

Don't come back until you've studied it. But even if you haven't studied it, you have to come back anyway. But I'll talk about the Hysop. plant. He says it's also, I'm going to read just a little bit, where the small number one up there after the, looks like a thunderbolt. The master used trigrams for the I Ching system to explain the real and the seeming. The symbol Li for the heart-mind is a trigram consisting of two single lines with a divided line in between. You can see that down at the bottom. Two Li trigrams placed one upon another facing each other are called a chung Li or double Li trigram, of which the six lines are interlaid to set up a triple basis, A, B and C.

[88:38]

and that's explained down below. Transformable into five positions, that's also explained in the diagram. One, two, three, four, and five as follows. So you work on this, trying to figure it out yourself, and then I'll explain it next time. But it's good to work on it because if you do, then when I explain it, you'll understand it better. And so the five circles are Dungshan's way of expressing various stages of practice, various aspects of practice. And it's like the phases of the moon. If you look at it, you can see it. Phases are kind of a nice way of expressing what you see, what's hidden, and what's revealed.

[89:46]

Because when you look at the moon, you say, oh, it's a full moon. And then after a while, oh, it's a quarter moon. It's a half moon, then a quarter moon. And so you see the relationship of the dark to the light. So that's why he's using circles. In Tozan's day, circles were a popular form of expression to explain the Dharma to people. And there's the ten ox-herding pictures which you may be familiar with. That's one form. It's simple. And then there are, Tuthmaster Ethan had 97 circles that he used. to explain various aspects of practice. And when I come back, I'm going to go to back up to the city.

[90:48]

But when I come back, I'll bring back, just for your curiosity, I have a book that explains some of Isan's circles, which you might find interesting. Hmm. So please study. I have a question. Yes? Is it helpful at this point to say something about the seeing and the real? That's what we've been talking about. It's absolute and relative. All these terms that mean the same thing. The dark and the light. So the light side is... is the phenomenal side. Seeming is phenomenal, yeah. It just seems real. But actually, it is real. The seeming is still real. Imagination is still imagination.

[91:52]

So it's complex. But we don't want it to be too complex. And that's one of the problems with studying something like this is it becomes too complex. And so we tried to keep it simple. And this was Dogen's complaint because it can easily become too complex. And people started making it into a kind of intellectual game. But we don't want to do that. Oh, we have the Hysop. So he says it's a five-flavored herb, right? So the hyssop plant, apparently, when you taste it, it has five different flavors. It's kind of like wine. People taste wine and say, oh, this is like, I can taste a little of this, a little of that. So the hyssop plant has that kind of quality, apparently. And so five, you know, he's using the vajra and the hyssop plant with

[93:03]

to kind of reinforce the five positions. So when you look at the vajra with five stems, it's like you're looking at it this way, and that's what the diagram is, you're looking at it head on sort of, and it has five different positions. Like the vajra with five different positions, right? So, and the baby with five senses and so forth. So he's emphasizing five, which was the kind of number they like to use. And I'll... I just want to say something about the Chun-Li hexagram, the two trigrams.

[94:08]

So you put three and three together in a six, right? So the trigram has two solid bars, and then it has a broken bar in the middle, right, on the outside. So it's a kind of sandwich. So the two solid bars are... are relative. And the two broken bars are the absolute. So the reason the two broken bars are on the outside, I'm going to read you something that expresses it very well. But just give me a second to find it.

[95:15]

So this is a quote from Rebs, which I think expresses it very well and expresses it the way I would express it. I'm from a talk entitled The Feminine Heart of Zazen. The double-E hexagram is an image of what meditation is like. Buddha's mind is like this hexagram. The central element in the trigram, I think, The basic building block is the trigram. Yang, yin, yang. So yang is masculine, yin is feminine. Yang is masculine, active, talking, warm, and yin is feminine, passive, silent, and cool. You may not agree with that. The center is feminine. The yin in the middle. The cool, passive, receptive yin is between two warm active talking giant men.

[96:43]

No, talking lots. Quiet heart surrounded by activity. That's zazen. The quiet heart surrounded by activity. The receptive surrounded by the active is the basic pattern. The Li trigram typifies our zazen. The center of our practice is to get in touch with a passive, quiet center realm beyond thinking. The problem is we think we should be doing something and that if we're passive, evil will take over. This is a Christian idea. Receive the self in silence and watch the activity of the self. and watch the activity of the self that is given. Tzu I Ching taught, in the silent and profound world of yin, words fall into a deep pit.

[97:48]

So I think that's a pretty good view of the trigram, of the hexagram. The trigram is... the stillness in the middle surrounded by the activity on the periphery. Yeah. It's the same. Yeah, well, doubling your tracking is a double. They move.

[99:03]

Yeah, so the trigram is static, but when the two are put together, it becomes active within the static and static within the active. So there's activity, total dynamic activity within the stillness, and then there's a total stillness within dynamic activity. That's the practice of fire. It becomes a fire hexagram. But it's fire and water. When we sit zazen, it's great dynamic activity in stillness. And when we step out and go to work, it's stillness within dynamic activity. So it's just the opposite. So in our daily activity, no matter what we're doing, no matter how dynamic our activity, stillness is the center, is always at the center.

[100:13]

So we don't get miffed by anything. We always know where we are. We don't get upset. Nothing can upset you. That's good practice. Nothing can upset you. There's plenty to do here, I'm telling you. But we have to keep reminding ourselves all the time. That's why I practice this over and over and over and over ad nauseum.

[101:18]

Dogen says, just eating rice on this mountain and shitting shit on this mountain is our practice. And when we're so full that we're just tired and tired of this rice, that's when our practice begins. When we're totally tired of it, that's when our practice begins. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit SSCC.org and click Giving.

[102:09]

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