Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome. So a little change of conversation starting today. And I'll be talking about Keizan Jokin's book called The Transmission of Light. But let's just sit for a few minutes first, maybe, you know, a little less than 10 minutes, and then I will share some thoughts with you and you with me. Hello again.

[09:01]

So, you know, I noticed in my calendar that this is week 10, week 11 of these Sunday gatherings. So it's nice to be doing this and gives me a chance to think about the Dharma and share that with you. So the last 10 weeks, I brought up a number of teachings about the Great Wisdom Beyond Wisdom Heart Sutra and its place at the literal. part of Zen practice and Zen understanding. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, no suffering, no cause of suffering, no cessation of suffering, no path to the cessation of suffering, no knowledge and no attainment with nothing to attain. So the teachings I want to offer next have to do with the transformation that takes place within the human heart when one comes to a realization about the wisdom teachings and thereby recognizes within themselves what is called the bodhicitta or the thought of enlightenment, the thought of awakening from the primary delusion of a separate self, such as the Buddha had as he gazed at the morning star.

[10:23]

And yet, right there with in the thought of enlightenment is a big cautionary flag for all of us who are seeking and that is not to get too worked up about the distinction between delusion and enlightenment in fact a light hold on this distinction is one of the major hallmarks of soto zen not getting too worked up about enlightenment or about anything else for that matter Reality doesn't reveal itself very well to bouts of hysteria or anxiety. It reveals itself when we are calm and upright, when we're quiet and present. And once we're calm, we can begin to look at the mechanism by which we separate ourselves from what appears to be outside or over there. The Buddha called the formation of a separate self the fundamental affliction of ignorance. separating eyes from ears, from noses and tongues, from flowers and from trees, from the night sky at the moment filled with smoke.

[11:32]

But worst of all, separating ourselves from one another. And therein lies the importance of discovering within ourselves how it is that we go about creating separation. So if you don't mind, I would like to invite you to take a minute or so to consider just how it's being done. You know, just how we are creating the thought of ourselves as separate from the world around us. And I find it helpful to choose one particular object, something nearby, to use as an example of something that you believe is outside of yourself. And then ask yourself the question, what is it? What's the mechanism by which I am coming to believe or to see or to imagine that that object is outside of myself? How are we doing that trick? I'm going to ask you in a second if you have some ideas about that.

[12:36]

that was long enough to do a good study but i wonder if anyone came up with anything at all about how are you doing that how are you or how am i separating myself creating a self that's separate from objects around me you know anybody have some kind of notion about that or any suggestions about that that they'd like to share gi yeah so for me it seems like um it's in the sense of feeling if i can feel some sort of sensation through it or not so if i yeah i think i i think i would leave it at that whatever feels like is part of me i can come to a some sort of physical sensation if that makes sense regarding it and then Even if I, yeah, even if I visually see something, I guess it is visual as well.

[14:30]

Cause even if I, I guess there have been parts of me that I see, but can't feel, but because I visually see, so maybe it's a connection of if I can't see it, being able to physically feel it. If I can't physically feel it, being able to see it. I'm not, I'm not sure just in that time, what I came up with maybe. Yeah. Thank you. So you said seeing and feeling and some physical sensation. Finn, Bill? Yes. I saw my hand and I saw this glass of water and I know that this is me. So I reached out and I tapped this and I realized it was outside of me. I think while I'm here, I was thinking about what Guy was saying and how it's almost like we can feel what other people are experiencing as well in a way.

[15:40]

Like if you see someone get hurt, it's like you almost feel that pain. Yeah, that just is what came to mind. Yeah, that's a little bit in the direction of connecting. as opposed to separating, which is the other thing we want to recognize we do. And actually it's more true than separate. Thank you. Anyone else want to venture a comment or observation? Thomas? Can you unmute yourself, Thomas? I think you probably can. Or maybe Jenny has to do it, I'm not sure. Okay, yeah, there we go. I know, Jenny. What it feels like to me, you know, in order for me to go about my life, it's like I'm in here doing, and all this stuff is out here, and I have to act upon these objects or people or things in the world, and it seems as if, and it is,

[16:52]

on one level that I'm in here in this body looking out on the world and interacting with it. So in order for me to go up out my day, that's how I have to do things. That's this side of the board, right? That's kind of how it seems like to me, like a ghost in the machine kind of thing. I'm in here doing all this stuff and with all this stuff out here yeah yeah yeah that's our story that's what we that's how we see it it's essentially yeah that's our i think all of us have exactly that experience which is what the buddha was challenging like really you know so that's part of what we're trying to to find out for ourselves is experientially like what would it be not to be doing that what would another version of experience look like if i weren't fantasizing or creating an idea of externality or internality. So this is the cusp.

[17:53]

That's the line that we're playing with in this particular study of non-separation or non-dual quality of existence. Margaret, did you have your hand up? I see. Can you hear me? Yeah. I was noticing that I was looking at a book and having a hard time feeling one with it because I don't think of it as being something that has consciousness or feeling like maybe a living animal or even maybe a tree something that is I think of as a living being but the book I'm like well clear it's it's hard for me to feel like a spiritual oneness with the book because it feels just like a static object um so even though that's obviously like a duality of like living versus not living or conscious versus not conscious. So it's like trying to get into like, but it's carbon or something, maybe, you know, it has atoms in the universe, but yeah.

[18:57]

It's not any worse or better than me. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Thank you. So maybe I'll say a little bit more about this idea of separation because there's, this is right at the heart of the teaching that the Buddha once he had this experience. So it started for him with an experience of not being separate. You know, he's staring at this, or staring, I don't know, staring, but gazing at the morning star. And it's almost, I think of it as pre-verbal, maybe like young children before they learn language for things. There's just this sort of observed truth that that object on the horizon was not external, not internal. There wasn't anything separating his experience of it from what normally, as you were all saying, we would think of as, you know, I see the star. I'm looking at this object and so on. So what I heard, you know, what I think are important notions about how we do this is that we do this by thinking.

[20:01]

So that's a big one. I think thinking notions have a notion about that object. And I have a conviction that those objects all around me are outside. Pretty convinced of that. And my preference is basically one object over another. So I get to have preferencing around objects. I don't like all of them. I get to choose among them and call picking and choosing in Zen language. I associate these things with maybe stories about them, things that my grandparents had or my parents had and so on. So there's stories connecting the object to myself and so on. So this is all the way we do that. We do that. This is the mechanism of this trick that we do. So separation results not just from thinking, but also, if you can recall, those of you who have been in the Heart Sutra study group for the last few weeks, I brought up the five skandhas. So Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply, as you were just doing a little version of practicing deeply and considering meditating on this idea of separation, clearly saw, clearly knew that all five skandhas, all five elements of existence are empty, have no separate, inherently separate existence.

[21:22]

This empty means completely interdependent. Everything depends on everything else. So if you may recall from the discussion of these five skandhas, which are empty and thereby relieved all suffering. So this is why we keep saying we need to come back to this point about non-separation. It's so critical to the unending of our suffering as it was for the Buddha. And it's a deep spiritual challenge for us. This is way into our existential world. questions birth and death and so on and what am I here for and what does it mean to be alive and what's my purpose all of these questions are linked right down here at this very baseline of separation so in the five skandhas you know if you recall the the form is the boat there's a picture of a boat it's illustrating the five skandhas so the boat is riding on the ocean of awareness of consciousness so that's The fifth Skanda is consciousness. The first is form, so form. And these three passengers in the middle are just what you were talking about.

[22:24]

There's perception. I perceive the object. So that's a function of my mind. I perceive something, you know, using my eyes or my ears and my tongue, my senses. So I have a perception of something and I have a feeling about it. So form, feeling, perception, these two are very important. I see something. I have a feeling about it. And then the next one is the impulse to take action. I like that object or I don't like that object. I have preferences about that object. So these three passengers are what drive the boat. That's what drives our life. So our body is driven by I see something. I have a notion, sometimes a great notion. I have a feeling about that something. And I'm going to take action. The word action in Buddhism is a very important one. usually referring to intentional actions, which are called karma. That's our karma. Those actions that you intend based on your perception and based on your feeling about what you perceive.

[23:29]

So these are, you know, just in saying them, they're neutral concepts. We all have feelings, perceptions, impulses. But when we're enacting those in the world, that's where we, the boat kind of... It's a little bit wild and it's its steering mechanism and also runs aground. I mean, all kinds of things happen because, you know, we don't really have another set of tricks. This is what we've got. This is what we were all born with. You know, these five skandhas. This is basically the summary of what the Buddha said is a person. This is I. This is what we mean by the I. So karma is either our actions are either beneficial in helping others or they're harmful. or they're neutral so those are the three flavors of how we behave and what happens when we do so this is the very pattern of self-making that the buddha saw within his own consciousness as he was studying under the tree and it's what he woke up to he saw how separation which is the cause of suffering requires this perception of something as external this idea of outside not me this is the me and that's the not me so

[24:42]

First of all, a perception of objects as external. Second of all, some feeling about those objects. And third of all, some impulse to act on our perception of the objects. Okay. So in this recent Genzoe Sashin that some of you may have joined, offered by Okamura Roshi, was a week-long Sashin, and he taught twice a day for an hour and a half. It was quite wonderful. He emphasized again and again a Japanese Buddhist term called joshiki. Joshiki. J-O-N-S-H-I-K-I. Joe Shiki. Joe refers to feeling. Feelings. So that's one of the passengers. Or sentiment. He called it sentiment. So sentimentality. And Shiki refers to thinking. So these two together are called something like emotionalized conceptualizations. And that's kind of what is the main point of the Buddha's observation of what goes awry. It's our emotionalized conceptualizations.

[25:43]

You know, thinking when it's not so emotional, it can be fairly neutral, very harmless, just sort of like did anyone let the cat out? You know, we do that kind of thinking all the time. And then we also do a lot of emotionalized conceptualizations, too. I think most of us do throughout the day, little irritations or little or even, you know, outright anger, outright or jealousy or or, you know. I mean, I don't know if any of you are watching the political scene, but there's a lot of ways to get really upset about what's been going on if you watch the news. So this emotionalized conceptions are what drive the boat. That's what moves the boat of our life. So in Japanese, these two together are called shin. Shin is heart, mind. So Japanese, when they use shin... we often just talk about our thinking or my mind, what I was thinking, but they combine the word to mean both your heart, what you're feeling, and what you're thinking. So it's heart-mind, so xin, as one word. So thinking and feeling as one, as one very important element of our life.

[26:48]

So you may recall that thinking, when it's expressed through feelings, in the... 12-fold chain of dependent core rising, which is the way the Buddha taught his enlightened insight. He said, this is how the mind, so first of all, he realized that the problem was here in his thinking. It was not with the objects. I mean, we've all tried to manipulate objects to get what we want the world to be, you know, just get it just right, you know, set it all up. And it's kind of amazing watching these fires raging through neighborhoods, nearby towns and so on. It's like, well, you got it all set up and then there's just this shell you know of burned wood it's all that's left of it and i know i've met a few people who've gone through that in their lives you know and it's it's quite something it's both a real cleansing and it's a real grief you know both of these things like everything you had all set up it's gone yeah so this idea of of how we it is that we think that we can make permanent objects we can get a setup that we really like and we'll stay that way

[27:56]

is this circle of thinking and feeling and action the Buddha called the 12-fold chain of dependent core rising, or the wheel of birth and death. And it's also basically a summary of the first and second noble truth. You're ignorant of non-separation. Again, back to the primary theme, is imagining yourself as separate is the primary cause of suffering. First step in the 12-fold chain is ignorance. ignoring non-separation, leads to karmic formations. All your inheritance of how you behave in the world leads to consciousness. And the five skandhas, all of this is kind of building the little body of a person. And the fortress, you know, you get a full-on grown person. They're protected behind this notion of a separate self. That's our fortress. And we defend against other fortresses. And we create all kinds of... protections for ourselves, weaponry and fences and all kinds of things. And then those fortresses have a problem because sometimes we're attracted to another fortress.

[28:59]

We're not always just repulsed by other fortresses. So then we have to make some kind of deal about our feelings. How do we feel? Do we like that other fortress or we don't like it? So then we're moving through this kind of complex of relationship. So basically the Buddha's watching his mind create those impulses to take action. And he saw... that it was that feelings where the impulse to take a hold of something, that object. I want that object. I either want it to be mine, so bring it into my field, so now it's me. You belong to me, and all our love songs sound like that. You now belong to me as though you've absorbed them like an amoeba into your being, as my house and my family and my car. So we do this kind of absorption, possessiveness. And It's that feeling and absorption that begins the breakdown because nothing belongs to you. There's no permanent objects. There's no permanent, you know, like your mind forever, right? Isn't that right?

[30:00]

We've all had that story go through us at various times. That old car is due for a tune-up once again. So there's nothing that we acquire that we try to possess that lasts. So then it breaks down. And then the end of that cycle of... The 12-fold chain is old age, sickness, and death. So no matter what I do in trying to manipulate objects, that, so I, the subject, that, the object, and I'm doing something with it. So that's the verb. So I will do something about that is inevitably human suffering. That's our chain. That's the chain of... desirable i'm gonna have it i'm gonna get it and now i got it and now it's gone yeah so over and over and over again we fall for this same you know almost like an advertising pitch when we fall for it again and again and again first and second noble truth suffering is caused by wanting things to be different than they are right now that little wanting that grasping you know trying to get something for myself my separate self

[31:11]

Giving, that's why giving is the first of the paramitas or the antidotes to suffering or to the path of suffering, is that instead of getting, you basically turn the direction of your life the opposite way toward giving, wanting to give your effort and your concern and your wish for well-being to others. You start to express that in how you speak, how you act, how you live your life, just looking outside at those so-called objects as your actual body and mind. You know, the Buddha said, this is my body and mind, as we'll see in that first story in the transmission of light. He makes an extraordinary expression of his realization, which I'm going to read in a minute. So given that the core delusion that's blocking our awakening is basically a fantasy or a story about the separability of things, You know, we think, feel there's a distinction between enlightenment and delusion.

[32:16]

So that's another one of these distortions. We can imagine once we get enlightened, then all of these distortions are going to just evaporate and everything is just going to be absolutely the way I really like it to be. You know, all my troubles, Lord, will soon be over. So that's one of the fantasies. That's another very popular fantasy, particularly in the Buddhist tradition, is that enlightenment is over there, and I can get it somehow, and that's going to get rid of my delusional state. This sentient being will become a Buddha, and then all those troubles of the sentient life will be over. That's another one of these dualistic notions. So we have to keep our eye on that. This is a really important one as we look at the language of awakening. Because it sounds like that. A lot of the things that are said, it sounds like, you know, that enlightenment is a goal or a wish or an ambition. And that it's somewhere else. I mean, there's your first clue. That if it isn't here right now, if you don't already have exactly that that you're seeking, if that's not already who you are, you'll never get it.

[33:24]

It'll never come to you. You know, it's got to be here now. It has to be something that we're just overlooking. Very subtle. You know, just kind of missing. You can smell it. You can taste it. It's in your senses. It's in your perceptions. And that somehow we're so accustomed to being a certain way and thinking a certain way that we're kind of missing the big revelation that this just, this is it. You know, we're already there. This is the other shore. You know? So... It's very important to keep coming back to this. This is it. You're there. This is the place. Right here is where the practice unfolds in each and every moment. You know, this is constantly being said over and over again. And certainly Dogen speaks that way all the time. And the things that we chant and service are that. And we forget. I mean, I think that's probably our greatest talent is forgetting. I just, I forgot again. I forgot again. You know, so we come back.

[34:26]

We kind of repeat the lessons. daily like okay one more time let's do it again so we do we have this distinguishing equipment we have this capacity to discriminate you know to dissect die as means to cut into parts you know dissect discriminate to be judgmental in our thinking to be preferential in our thinking to elaborate on our thinking you know this is a great gift and talent we have human imagination and it's the way we create fantasy land fantasy world and the problem with that is you can't live in it you can't eat you can't eat those flowers in heaven they they don't actually turn into fruit they just sit there staring back you know flowers the fruit in the heavens don't ripen you know they don't fall from the tree So this is why the Heart Sutra keeps pounding on our consciousness, you know, with this great big no, you know, no, no, stop it.

[35:30]

No, no, no, stop cutting the world into parts. You know, we even use that term parting when we're leaving our homes or when we're leaving our loved ones. You know, parting is such sweet sorrow, as we say. And as the Buddha also said, He said parting reality into parts is delusion itself. Awakening from delusion is our mission in becoming whole, in becoming as one, which we truly are, the one universe, the one reality. And we are not separate from that. It's not possible. How could we be? So awakening from delusion is our mission in becoming whole. And how we go about that is the teaching. So I have a poem I want to share with you that evokes for me this very mind of awakening. It's someone I really enjoy reading. I have since many, many years, Wallace Stevens. Some of you may know Wallace Stevens. He was an insurance salesman.

[36:32]

He's such a regular-looking guy. He went to work every day in an office with a suit, went home after work 9 to 5, and wrote this amazing poetry. So this is called The Snowman. One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crusted with snow and have been cold a long time to behold the junipers shagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place for the listener who listens in the snow and nothing of himself beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crusted with snow.

[37:39]

and have been called a long time to behold the junipers shagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place for the listener who listens in the snow and nothing himself beholds, nothing that is not there and the nothing that is so in this in zen this poem could be summarized as the single body revealed in the midst of myriad forms the single body revealed in the midst of myriad forms and the single body is the not separate self and the myriad forms are all that appears including what some of you mentioned your hand you know the object that you were watching looking at the book the myriad forms and the single body, which is revealed.

[38:41]

That single body, you yourself, are revealed in the midst of myriad forms. You yourself are myriad forms. So the teachings I'm going to turn to now are from the transmission of light attributed to the 13th century Zen master Kei Zan Jou Kin. Kei Zan Jou Kin. So for those of you who have joined morning service at any time in a Soto Zen temple such as ours, Kezan Jokin is the last name that we chant in the list of the Buddhas and ancestors. And at Tassahara, we go on, we continue past Kezan's name and add another list of about 30 some odd names. It takes quite a bit longer, which is the reason we don't do it at Green Culture City Center. Tassahara, they have a lot of time. There's nothing else to do but be in the monastery. So in that list of names after Keizan goes on for a bit until you get to Shogaku Shunryu Daisho. So Suzuki Roshi's name is at the end of that list as Zen Center's founder, our founding teacher.

[39:45]

So this list of names is a key to understanding how the Buddhist Dharma is being transmitted from one generation to the next, from, as we say, warm hand to warm hand. And the list is a story in itself. and for the most part, apocryphal, our Zen ancestral story, much like the apocryphal stories that families and dynasties have told about themselves throughout the centuries. So if you haven't already, in the chat box, Jenny was kind enough to put the lists of names, these Buddhist ancestors in there for you. There's also a list of the women as teachers who we've collected and that the the the story the zen story is that this list of names i'm going to show you a diagram of in a sec are all connected that each one of them knew the name before it you know so there's a teacher student relationship that's a chain unbroken chain that goes back to shakimuni buddha so shakimuni buddha transmitted dharma to mahakashapa so we chant that name and then from there to ananda and we chant that name and so on so we chant the names of each of the

[40:58]

disciples that follows the name of the teacher until you get all the way down to the bottom. And at the very bottom of this chart that I have, I'm going to show you is my name. And then there's a blank for anyone who I give Buddhist precepts to, I write their name in. And then that's sort of now the new end of this list now has the name of this person. They have become a preceptor, a recipient of the precepts. So they have joined the Sangha. They are now members of the Buddhist Sangha. So I don't know how well you can see this. I'm going to hold it up. But this is, some of you may have received this if you've taken the precepts. This is called the Ketchimyaku, or the blood vein lineage chart of the Buddhist ancestors. And I've put a few markers on here to kind of point out some of the more, not important, but the ones that I think we're going to be touching on when we're looking at this book on transmission of light. So here at the very top is the circle representing emptiness, suchness or, you know, the very source, the source of realization is the realization of emptiness.

[42:09]

So we just represented by this empty circle at the top. And the first name under the circle is Shakyamuni Buddha. So he's our ancestor, starts there. He has a realization of emptiness. And then he passes it to Mahakashapa and to Ananda and so on. So these are names that we chant. This is kind of like, it looks a little bit like intestines, you know, but it's blood veins. It's literally called, it's red. These lines are red. And the blood that's passing through these veins are the Buddha's precepts. So that's what's being transmitted from teacher to student, teacher to student, all the way down. This first bunch of names are in India. So these are all Indian names. And then at one point over here, you have the name of Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma was Indian Zen master, and he traveled to China and passed his dharma on. So at this point, we're looking at Chinese names. And you've got six of them until you get to Huinong, the sixth ancestor.

[43:14]

That's this single name up here. So he has... He's the sixth from Bodhidharma, the sixth generation from Bodhidharma. And he had lots of disciples. So Huynong was sort of like an explosion of Zen. So many, many disciples, many enlightened disciples who he transmitted Dharma. And so then the line grows very large from Bodhidharma. So, I mean, from, excuse me, from Huynong, the sixth ancestor. So the interesting thing happens here. So from, so there's two lines that go off from Bodhidharma. Excuse me, I keep saying that. from the six ancestor. One side is the Rinzai, Rinzai Zen side. So we're in the Zen camp now, and you have all of these Chinese ancestors who are descendants of the six ancestors who are basically Rinzai Zen, all the way down. And at the very bottom, the line, if you can see that, goes up here and connects with this name just below the six ancestor there's this very special name that one is Dogen so on this other side the line from the six ancestors goes down this way all the way down Chinese [...] and passes through Tozan Ryokai who's the founder of the Soto Zen school so we've got Rinzai Zen over here we've got Soto Zen over here

[44:45]

And then the line goes down and down and down into Ru Jing, who is Dogen's teacher in China. So the line goes back up. Ru Jing transmits to Dogen. Dogen already had transmission in the Rinzai lineage from a Japanese teacher. So he's now got double transmission. He's got transmission from the Rinzai side of teacher-student, and he's got transmission from the Soto side. So that's our founder. Dogen Zenji. And then he begins passing his Dharma on. So here's Koan Ejo, his direct descendant. Tetsu Gikai, a Koan student. And Keizan Jokun, right there. He's the author of Transmission of Light. So he's third generation from Dogen Zenji. And then from there, we have more Japan. Now we're in Japan. From here, from Dogen, we're in Japan. These are all Japanese ancestors all the way down here to Shunryu Suzuki. And from Shinryu Suzuki, we have Zen Tatsu Myoyu, Richard Baker Roshi.

[45:55]

And Ten Shinzenki, my teacher, Geb Anderson. And then my name is down here. So this is an illustration of what the Zen story, of the Zen story, of the Zen Dharma transmission story. How do we pass the Dharma? How is it done? Well, this is a... This is the way we talk about it. This is our story. It's done through these names of the Buddhas and ancestors. And as I said, a lot of this has just been, what do you call it? A retroactive attribution. So you take a really great idea. So a lot of this was done in the Song Dynasty in China. So some of these intellectuals in the Song Dynasty did this retroactive attribution of some of these things to the Tang Dynasty. So they call the Tang as the golden age of Zen. Well, it was the golden age of Zen because of what the beautiful work that the people in the Song, which came later, did and then retroactively attributed to the Tang. So a lot, there's not much scholarly evidence for much of what the Song had to say about the Tang, but it makes great stories.

[47:02]

They're wonderful stories. And all of the Zen people who learned them have no idea that there wasn't, that any of this was real. you know, manufactured in some sense, was not just the totally accurate, that that person did know that person, it did pass that Dharma and so on. I certainly had no idea when I came to Zen Center that it wasn't, you know, true. And it's nice to think it's true. I enjoyed thinking it was true. And I've actually enjoyed the scholarship as well. It's like, of course, you know, of course, this is a narrative, and it's a beautiful narrative. And as one scholar said, you know, The less true it is, the more magnificent, the more extravagant, legendary, and the more, in some sense, more touching it is. We do like mythology. It's something that really moves us. So we all have to make our way with that. How do we hold it, the mythos and the logos? If it's not logical and perfectly scholastically proven, maybe that bothers me.

[48:04]

Or if it's just poetic, maybe that bothers me. This is all somewhere in between. It's kind of an amalgamation of poetry and science and scholarly study. I'm wanting to look at with you the transmission of light, which is called Zen and the Art of Enlightenment by Zen Master Kazon, translated by this one I've been using for years is by Thomas Cleary translation. So basically, the story of the Buddha's transmission begins with Shakyamuni Buddha. And there is an understanding that he had antecedents. There were masters before him or enlightened Buddhas before Shakyamuni Buddha. He wasn't the first in the universe. That there were others on other planets or who knows where, other cosmos. cosmology buddha's cosmology is quite extravagant as well so world systems within world systems and there were buddhas in these world systems and shakimuni buddha received transmission via these what's called the seven buddhas before buddha so if you have chanted the names at zen center they might be familiar to you familiar to you there's bibashi butsudaio means buddha great buddha ancestor there's shiki butsudaio

[49:32]

Butsu Dayosho, Kurosong Butsu Dayosho, Kunagon Muni, Butsu Dayosho, and Kasho Butsu Dayosho. So those are the Buddhas that came before Buddha. And then we have Shakyamuni Buddha. And as I showed you on the diagram, on the Ketsumiyaku, this line continues through Bodhidharma, who brings Zen to China, and once in China, from Bodhidharma to the sixth ancestor, Daikaneno, then to our Soto Zen founder, Tozan Ryokai, And from there to Chinese master Tendo Nyojo and his well-known Japanese disciple Ehei Dogen, who's the founder of our brand of Zen in Japan. And from there to this third generation Dharma heir of Dogen, Keizan Jogen, who's the author of our collection of stories. So Keizan's masterwork, The Transmission of Light, in Japanese it's called the Denko Roku, consists of 53 enlightenment stories that are covering over 1600 years based on these legendary accounts of dharma transmission in the sota lineage so successive masters and disciples that kezon covers in his book beginning with shakimuni that's the first case in the book begins in around between 360 and 440 bce in india about the time they imagine the buddha lived somewhere in that in that time

[50:58]

and ending with Zen Master Eijo in about 1230 or 1240 in Japan. So that's the span of these stories that we'll be looking at. The format for each of these teaching stories, what we could call koans, are in four parts. So the first part is the main koan case in the form of a story of the enlightening encounter between a teacher and a disciple. So that thing that happened that moment of some sort of a spark. You can't really see it when this moment happens, but there's some kind of intuitive knowing, or like the Buddha looking at the star, there's some knowing that happens there in this encounter between the teacher and the disciple that's being depicted in words in these stories. So we get to hear, we get to listen in on that encounter. So that's the main case. The second part of the... each of these stories is a bibliographic account of the life of this disciple, including a context for this encounter with her teacher.

[52:05]

The third part of the story is Kezan, the author's own commentary on the koan. And then at the very end, Kezan writes a verse, summarizing the point, following in the Zen tradition's understanding that the best way of presenting the mastery or understanding is through poetry. So originally Kezan gave this series of 53 talks to the monks of Dai Jojit monastery during a spring and then a following winter practice period. So he was lecturing, he was teaching these stories, kind of a lovely way of organizing your thoughts for a practice period. You do lots of lectures in a practice period. So he used these 53 stories to speak to the young monks. And Kezan himself was 36 years old at the time that he gave this teaching. And this work was for some reason, I don't know why, was hidden away from the public eye for over 600 years. A monk by the name of Sene was the first one to publish it, and he did that in 1857.

[53:09]

So this is 557 years after it was written. So even though Dogen is held to be the founder of our school of Zen, Kezon was in a very large part responsible for the flourishing of Soto Zen. Now, unlike Dogen, who preferred to teach and to write, he was really a monastic, you know, not just at heart, but in fact, Kezan took care to serve his congregation of laypeople and to found new monasteries and temples. And as a result, Soto Zen remains one of the largest Buddhist organizations in Japan to this very day. And now it's spilled over here. and to the west and there are various temples and organizations that have formed all over this country and all of actually all over the world that are whose founder are our sotos and transmitted teachers so and yet with all of that said the main purpose of this text is to give us some access to the language of awakening you know the term awakening

[54:15]

has a number of essential meanings in relation to the stories that are told in this book, but also in relation to Buddhist literature of all kinds. And this is probably because the Buddha never really gave a definitive teaching about the experience that he had under the Bodhi tree. He didn't say, well, this is what happened and this is what it felt like and this is what I thought. You know, he basically gave teachings about the nature of mind and about the nature of delusion. and the 12-fold chain and the Four Noble Truths and so on. He basically tried to lead us, the listeners, to an understanding or to a position of coming to that same experience ourselves. You kind of built the plank, you know, but we have to walk the plank and then, you know, fall into the water. It's really our, it's our job and our experience to know what that process is like, what happens when that moment of realization, you know, what is that like? And, you know, each,

[55:15]

narrative has a very different set of words, different story, different circumstances. So it's not that there's a one thing, you know, although the Buddha did say that, he told the monks, you know, just as the ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, my teaching has one taste, the taste of liberation. So I would say that through these stories, if you listen for this taste of liberation, that's what's in common. is that some kind of subtle, whatever we mean by realization or understanding, is something very internal. And yet at the same time, the disciple and the teacher share that taste of liberation. So there's this tremendous feeling of intimacy that's transmitted. But it's not something you can express in language, in words. So basically, the teachings the Buddha gave and all the teachings for that matter, including everything in this book, are nothing more than the fingers of language pointing to the potential for that realization, you know, within all beings, within each of us.

[56:24]

We have this potential to have this realization of the true nature of reality. As Dogen says, all beings, whole being, Buddha nature. So another such meaning about awakening or another finger pointing to awakening is the the realization of the non-dual nature of reality that there's no separate self so that's the one we were playing with a minute ago that realization of there's nothing outside nothing inside nothing separating me from any one of these what i think of as objects they're actually subjects they are the creators of my life so i am the i am the recipient of of this creation of what's being given to me And my life is given to me by what I think of mistakenly as objects coming, that I'm going after them. And actually, they've come after me. There's no place to hide. Those objects are arriving in every moment through my sense organs and through my conceptual processes.

[57:33]

No separate self. So there's another similar kind of meaning that's found in the Japanese term Satori. Satori can popularize these two words, Satori and Kensho, have become rather popular in the common language. So Satori refers to an understanding of the true nature of reality. Once again, the same code of idea that you understand the non-dual nature of reality. And then Kensho, which is often used as a synonym with Satori, refers to seeing one's true nature. So it's actually knowing one's own true nature, that being emptiness, that big open circle at the top of the Ketchmyaku, or seeing the true nature of the mind, which is basically this very open, spacious, lots of, Buddha often used space as a synonym for the mind. This is vast potential. Almost anything can happen here.

[58:34]

Anything can happen, and obviously it does, and it will keep being so, as long as we're conscious. So Kencho is often understood as an initiatory experience or insight. They actually talk about it, I understand, in Rinzai monasteries, if somebody Kencho-ed and they turn it into a thing that happened, he Kencho-ed that, he kind of got it as an initiatory insight. Whereas satori usually refers to a more deep and prolonged awareness of the true nature of reality, something that basically continues. It's kind of like maybe like a smooth landing, and it just keeps being that way, sliding on the watery ice just quietly. So the word light in transmission of light in the name of the text is this very light. This light of awakening as Kento or Satori or this moment of realization.

[59:36]

That's what the light is talking about. And in whatever way you, as the reader or as the experiencer, think of it being expressed as you hear these stories. So that light is the light that comes on in you. Like, oh, I get it. Oh, I see. I'm experiencing the taste of this story. which is very sweet. It's very sweet when we read the Dharma, when we have that taste, when we begin to have some connection through these words to that experience that's been transferred to us from the Buddhas and ancestors, you know, through stories, through poetic stories. Thomas Cleary, in his introduction to this text, says that the transmission of light is in reality a book of instruction. on Satori, in which the essential technique for realization will reveal to you, the reader, the transcendence of time, transcendence of history, culture, of race, of gender, of personality, and of social class. So that experience is outside of all of those ways, those conditioned ways we have of calibrating and thinking about ourselves and of others.

[60:44]

Like none of those will hold, they drop off. All of those categorizations just drop away. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no gender, no race, no social class. That moment of liberty, of space, just space. Realization is basically an awakening to the ultimate truth, that the self and the world and our suffering are of the nature of an illusion. And at the very same time, it's an awakening to the relative truth, including the power of those illusions and of the stories that we spin from them. so both the realization that it's just a story and the realization of the power of stories so and i think we can see that as we're looking here one story is that it's six o'clock so pay attention to that one um so within this dual realization of the ultimate and the relative truth is born the bodhisattva valley so we realize that we need to we have no choice we're going to remain as inhabitants of this illusory world

[61:54]

within which, as bodhisattvas, we will do our best to make amends. That's our job. We want to be here. We actually look forward to being here, to do what we can, to be of service to others. So I'm going to stop there and see if you have some questions. I'm sorry we didn't get to the story, but that's where we'll go next week, is to story number one, case one. Hopefully by then, if you haven't already, you will have read... Case one and the transmission of light. And think of some things that you'd like to have clarified or you'd like to bring up would be great. Anyone want to... Guy, is that your hand again? Margaret, did you put a hand up? Your picture is very big right now on the screen. Did you want to say something?

[62:59]

There we go. Yes. There we go. So thank you so much for that whole talk. It made it a lot easier to understand what I read. I was waiting for a story and then it was like, did the story already happen when I read through it? And now that you explained that it was in four parts and how... It made it a lot clearer. And also for what was bringing me, or is bringing me some confusion was the terms themselves, enlightenment, Satori, Kensho. And so you clarified some of that a lot. But my question is, from reading the introduction, it seemed like this was a big deal, if that makes sense. Like, oh, it's not, for example, it seems like when um i read suzuki roshi's words it seems as though sitting itself taking the posture itself is enlightenment as if enlightenment is always there and in sitting you awaken to it whereas um whereas the stories and the introduction seemed as though it was it's a moment of direct transmission from person to person recognizing that the both

[64:22]

are aware of Buddha nature, if that makes sense, but it's a moment. It's like, oh, you know when the enlightenment has happened. So I'm wondering that sort of contrast of like, oh, a remarkable moment and a continuous sort of, because I feel as though I gravitate a lot more towards Suzuki Roshi's explanation of it if that makes sense you know yeah it does and and that's why we all i mean i don't know about all of you but that's why i like soto zen because it's the no big deal zen school you know enlightenment is a no big deal and it doesn't mean it's not happening or that you won't have some kind of understanding or opening that's really obvious from the way you were thinking before right you know it's it's really more like someone one of the teachers said when i arrived at zen center is it You know, it's not what you're going to get, it's what you're going to lose. So, you know, it's all the confusion and the delusion and the mistakes that we're making in our thinking, when that drops away, you don't get something.

[65:24]

You lose all of that. It's like when the clouds go away, the moon just, you didn't make the moon, it was there. You just couldn't see it. So basically the clouds of delusion are what are keeping us from seeing what's really true about ourselves and each other. that we're not separate, that we belong to each other. And there's great compassion that grows from that understanding. But when we're blocked off from that, when we're walled in by self-clinging and self-belief and self-love, narcissism, some classic examples of narcissism, what happens to the human being when they're locked in to self-love? You know, it's an illness. It's clearly an illness. And so waking up from that illness, coming Becoming healthy from that illness is a big change. And so if we think of enlightenment or awakening as being like that, you just basically woke up from a very bad dream. And it's like, wow, that was tough.

[66:27]

And a lot of joy is freed up from that. A lot of relief. And stop it. Stop it. Stop it. So it is both is and isn't a big deal. But it really depends on the person and how far down you've gotten in your, you know, kind of self-protection. Right. You know, and for some folks, not so far down. So that it's sort of like they don't look so different before and after a number of years of practice. You don't seem that different, you know. Right. Kind of a nice guy when you got here and you're still a nice guy. And it's like, you know. And for some people, there's a really big change and they can feel it and other people can feel it. And it's like a miracle that that's possible. So I would say yes and no. There is something happens and what is it really? Well, nothing changed except this false notions fell away.

[67:34]

And almost... Perhaps in my sense, it's an awareness of when I'm back in the dream, which I'm almost constantly, but it's almost the glimpses of like, oh, the moon is still there. You know, there's there. Okay. So, you know what I mean? But it's almost in what I also felt and why I was asking this is that the moment, it's almost as though the moment that there was a goal or as if it hasn't been reached yet, that consumed the experience the practice itself so i i can definitely see why it's that sort of not not achieving is how it's sort of it's already been achieved it's just waking up to that notion if that makes sense so but thank you so much you're welcome you know because grasping is the cause of suffering trying to grasp enlightenment guess how bad that is you know efforts being cautioned against Don't try to grasp enlightenment.

[68:36]

I don't know what I really wanted. Yeah, I know you do. But the really wanting it is the very cause of your not being able to be free. So it's subtle. You know, we're tricky. We're little grabbers. So we have to retrain ourselves to not grab. No big deal. No big deals in. Kind of disappointing. You're not going to get some great things. No, not really. Get to go back to the kitchen, maybe. Right. But it's funny when you say that, it's almost as though it looks a lot or it might look a lot more immense retrospectively, you know, instead of in the moment. I don't know, more subtle in the moment. And when you look back and you're like, oh, man, that was how I was always living my life in the midst of the fantasy or the story, in a way. Yeah. Well, that's where the gratitude comes from. Yeah. I am so grateful. Something, I got saved. You know, there's a lot of people around here who feel like they got saved from a very bad direction they were going.

[69:40]

You know, I'm certainly one of them. I don't know where I would have ended up. I was going to be a lawyer. Oh my God. I'm not an offense of any of your lawyers, but you know, that was really the best I could think of because I like, I like to use words and I like to think and read and stuff. Well, I guess I'd be a lawyer, you know? So I don't know. Maybe I would have been a, civil rights lawyer or something, done something good with it, but I'm so grateful. I'm just so grateful I took a wrong turn into the Zen Center somehow. Well, thank you all. Oh, Bill, did you want to, do you still, is that an old hand or a new hand there? That's a new hand. In the introduction to transmission of light, which I did get, It says about how it might be that the book had been put aside for 500 years because the goal of Satori is, became a problem in a lot of the modesty, where they thought of it as the end instead of actually the beginning of the path.

[70:53]

My question is, when I sit on the cushion, there are times when I I would like to ask you to help me with the verb. I try to think I'm already enlightened or there's nothing. Yeah, just that. But I'm already enlightened isn't really accurate. Yeah, but that's kind of a fun thing to try on. often tell people that well just think you're already enlightened stop worrying about that part now how are you going to behave as an enlightened person what does an enlightened person act like you know if you're not worrying about you're not enlightened then just get on with the act the function of an enlightened being in the world yeah so in a way it's just like you can skip all that stuff just don't worry about it you're already buddha

[71:57]

And that's what the Buddha said. That's what Dogen said. We're already that. And so it's really a lot of it's deportment. The Buddha taught etiquette and he taught deportment. He taught right speech and right conduct and right livelihood. How are you living in the world? It's a way of life. It's not a satori. I mean, what does that get you? It's not even bus fare. I mean, you really have to then function in the world. And it's kind of, my grandma used to say, the proof is in the pudding. How's it taste? How's this taste? How's this person to be with? How is it to work for them or to live with them or to be their child? You know, how am I doing? And so really how others receive us is where the information we need is coming from. You know, that's, it's only a Buddha and a Buddha can confirm the truth. totality of enlightened existence so you need others to mirror you to include you in in in the universe as part of the universe to reflect you and then you're reflecting them like a like a mirror and then each of us includes all the others so it really is a group thing it's not an it's not a me and one of the nice things i like about soto zen is it's not a me it's a it's a us we practice together

[73:22]

and and and we we are a community we are sangha much more important than whoever the teacher happens to be it's just they're just kind of ornamentation and hopefully they have some inspiring things to say to us but really it's it's the sangha it's us all of us together that creates the enlightened reality so yeah Thank you all. Nice to see you. I hope you return and we'll get a chance to read the story. Case number one, the transmission of light. If you'd like to turn on your turn off your your mute and say goodbye, you're welcome to do that. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.

[74:23]

You're welcome. You all take care. I hope there's no fires coming. Y'all be safe. Thank you. Yeah. Is Mammoth on fire? Not yet. Not yet. But there's a red flag warning starting tonight. So we're on fire watch. Yeah, we are too. There aren't any fires in the Sierra yet. uh-huh it's all that those coastal ones yeah tasahara is getting close yes yes scary to watch yeah yeah he's safe yes everyone you too you too we'll just we'll meet up again and put up a tent we've done it before that's just fine yes take care thank you see you next week hopefully yeah hopefully yeah right Thank you for the recommendation for the Bohm documentary.

[75:29]

That was pretty awesome. Wasn't that fun? Yeah. I know. He's great. Yeah. He just turns everything upside down and inside out. And I've listened to some of his talks now with the, I forget who the, the Buddhist. person that he was interacting with, having a bunch of dialogues with, Krishnamurti. Yeah, Krishnamurti, yeah. Yeah. And that's really great. I'm just starting to get into that. But that was really cool. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm going to watch that one again. It was a lot there. Yeah. Very fun. Very sweet guy. You could tell. I thought it was really funny, too, that he'd gone. He became a communist because he wanted to find somebody to talk to about Hegel. Yeah. couldn't find anybody so he dropped out. I thought that was so sweet and then it got him in a lot of trouble. But crazy world. All right, Gahl, you take care.

[76:33]

Thank you.

[76:36]

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