Good morning, Heather. Sometimes the mountain is hidden from me in the veils of cloud. Sometimes I am hidden from the mountain in the veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue, when I forget or refuse to go down to the water for a few yards up the road on a clear day to reconfirm that witnessing presence.

[01:07]

Sometimes the mountain is hidden from me in veils of cloud. Sometimes I am hidden from a mountain in veils of intention, activity, fatigue. When I forget or refuse to go down to the water or a few yards up the road on a clear day to reconfirm that witnessing presence. Here we are, already at day two of our five days machine. It's going to die pretty quickly, huh? So we're gathered here to peacefully die together and make a concerted effort to step out of the veils and clouds of our habitual patterns of intention, apathy, fatigue, whatever else.

[02:10]

may be the nature of the particular clouds you find yourself in the world obscured by, and to instead connect the wider experience of life, to rest in the stillness, silence, and clear in the same presence of our mountain being. Personally, the weather outside today is And outside our minds and outside the Zendo is clear and cloudless. And so we can clean and see the mountains and draw some inspiration from the upright city. I just tend to see every time I go down the steps. I look up. I look up. What is there? What's sitting there? What's awaiting? It just draws me forward out of my enclosed being. reminds me of something much larger and vaster than what's been kind of circulating in my head and body.

[03:19]

So this morning, I'd like to continue to unpack the first sentence of Dogan's Mountains and Water Sutra, since giving us a sense of the primary point he's making will help us to better navigate the rest of the fascicle. However, before I do so, I want to briefly say something about staying present with our experience. And some of the things that might draw us away are obscured, including sleekness. And how sleekness and other obstacles might cloud the view and attentiveness of our witnessing mountain presence. And what it is that we might do, steps we might take to actually clear that fog. So I've noticed... The first day I was sore with Sushin, there's a lot of sweetness going on, a lot of bobbing heads, bobbing heads and this kind of slow torso and kind of the general lack of inattention throughout the whole body. So it's kind of, you know, I had this opportunity to look up and kind of see this kind of going on, right?

[04:30]

And I was just like, oh, okay, I'll make this effort to stay awake. So, and I myself, from to a few moments of sickness here in there. And that's what I've noticed is usually around, generally around the third day of Sashim, suddenly the energy seems to rise, right? This kind of ghost of energy that kind of helps to dissolve the sickness and kind of dissipate the clouds and fog. Although this doesn't necessarily happen for everyone. And For some of us, this kind of fog or sleep state or dream state might continue. If that's the case for you, you might want to study that. What's that about? I thought I would just very briefly offer a few tips of just working with sleepiness, since it's a very practical reality that all will be aged within some pounds. So it's something that I can have been helpful. Number one tip is to sleep when you're supposed to sleep.

[05:37]

So we have to go to sleep. So take the opportunity to sleep, right? Don't stay up. I'm not close talking about Sushin because I know you're not reading during Sushin, but sometimes I just tend to want to stay up late and read at night. It's 10.30 at night. Gosh, I had to get up in five hours. You know what's going to happen? So really take the opportunity when the lights go off to be in bed and go to sleep. Stay in bed. Even if you wake up in the middle of the night, don't try to get up and walk around and do other things. Just stay there, allowing whatever it is to hold you during that time. Use sleep time to sleep. I also find naps are very helpful. As my Anja knows, he diligently every day basically puts out some cushions for me so that I can take a nap at lunchtime. So I would encourage you to avail yourself of napping. It's a very skillful means for us monks to be able to eat in 10, 20, 30 minutes, kind of recharge our batteries, so our energy in our mind is kind of clearer for the rest of the day.

[06:46]

There's also some things I find very helpful, at least with my body's small thing, to just sit up, looking like an effort, to breathe that energy, to kind of be free, Find an upright quality, the tension in my spine and back, opening the chest, taking in more air. Energize the body in that way, this tensionness, quality of uprightness. Also, it's very helpful to exercise regularly. during exercise time, really take the opportunity to partake in the exercise, some kind of exercise, whether or not this video, whether the chiseaux is offering, or walk up the road, your own personal stretching routine, anything to kind of help the blood and muscles, you know, the blood circulate, air circulate more completely. And when you're able to exercise and use the body in that way, the body actually is, I think, I find better at rest.

[07:49]

more conjecture at night. There's something more satisfying about the quality of sleep when I exercise regularly. Another thing I got helpful is opening the eyes wider. Now in Zen, we're supposed to keep our eyes down, focused, half lipid. And sometimes that just puts me to sleep. My eyes just look fine. So what I end up doing is I look out. I kind of stare at the ceiling. You know, I stare at the light. Anything can kind of do the reverse of having a half-closed, you know, eyeless, which can stimulate the sense of stickiness, but really tick in more. So it's the same quality. It's a soft gaze focused upward, but you're taking a wider feel, and especially with the lights here, it really helps to kind of stimulate the senses a little bit more. Try that and see how that works. Also, typically we suggest creating your focus in your heart, your attention in the breath, on the breath and the heart.

[08:52]

However, because for some of us, this can have kind of a vague quality, too, that's not as precise as drawing attention to the nostrils. So you might want to explore what it is. If you find yourself with the narrow aperture of awareness to just the air entering and exiting from the nostrils or the mouth, right? So it's a more detailed, you know, field of focus that helps to concentrate, energize the mind. And just more likely, if you find yourself kind of getting rocky here, don't wear as many layers. Well, you know, a lot of people are afraid about being cold. And yes, that could be something that happens, but I actually find that I feel cooler. I tend to not get sleepy, which is one of the reasons I like to have the doors open and the windows open. As long as there's not too much of an irritating breeze, it really helps the fresh air, the sense of coolness, to kind of invigorate the body a little bit more.

[10:02]

So that's why it's so hard in the summer. If you've ever been in the summer and it's like 85 years, right? You're just like, I'm going to go on. so being with the fan sometimes it doesn't help so it's kind of nice that we can practice it until a cooler period of time of course sometimes when it's too cold then all you want to do is go inward and that doesn't help either so you have to kind of find that little way and finally if these efforts don't help maybe there are other things going on maybe it's not necessarily just physical expression that's happening. Sometimes, particularly I find later in one's practice, as one's practice matures, you might find that seriginous or kind of fogginess or a sense of checking out or being unconscious is something that might come up for you that you recognize isn't really about the body and the body's needs.

[11:06]

It's something deeper. And Oftentimes it might be, in fact, there's a play that are contributing to, there's something in your life that you don't want to look at or address. What is it that you want to stay unconscious to, or want to stay asleep to in your life? And it's kind of just, you know, you've not been dealing with it for many, many years, and suddenly you kind of notice that it's kind of a periphery of consciousness. I come back when you first start waking up, you know, it's like, oh, there's something, you know, there's somebody else in the dream state, and a part of you doesn't want to wake up out of the dream state, because they're kind of nice, right? Not have to deal with the reality of waking up, right? But sometimes that gets to be kind of, there's a tension in there that keeps dragging you back from waking up. So notice. you know, is there something in that quality of sleepiness that's about for you?

[12:11]

Avoid it. Just simply ask yourself, it's not like judging or probing, but just curiosity. Is there something more going on here that I'm trying to avoid? And also, you might discuss where the first, I don't know, discussion you might want to notice, where the first see or feel the experience of sleepiness arising. Is it behind your eyes? Is it in your face? Is it somewhere else in your body? Bringing more attention to what part of your brain falls asleep first. You can do this at night as well, before you go to sleep. Now, how does sleep happen? What point? How does the body begin to know and manifest sleep? What is that point? So you can study that, and also at the same time study, what point does the mind go to sleep to something that wants to be seen?

[13:13]

Where does that happen in the body? There may be different locations where that's manifesting. A natural sleepiness might be appearing in one place, while avoidance might be appearing in a different place. So something to study. Basically, Try to get to the root of sickness and find out what works for you. And this is something that you can discuss with a practice leader. If you find yourself really struggling, you'll be staying awake, particularly in Zaza. Yeah, it's a good thing to look at an exam. So I hope you find these two points helpful in some way, depending on the particular clouds and fog So again, it's not likely descending around your particular mountain being. Of course, throughout Sushin and other times, we're constantly encountering a whole range of experiences that come visiting this mountain called me.

[14:28]

Some are pleasant. unpleasant and severe kind of leader. And when some of the common challenges to stay open and attentive to the present moment, experience arise, such as inattention, apathy, fatigue, also fear. It's easy to get thrown off or lost in a haze. There may already be some things that we notice coming out for you, but it's not in sickness. Including pain. Anyone having pain here? Really? Only a few of you? Great. We've got to continue. Mental restlessness. Anyone mental restlessness here? Not a few. Your hands are mental restlessness in pain. Interesting. Emotional adaptation. Anyone? Okay. Well, the same as restlessness, right? Any doubt or uncertainty? Why am I doing here? Why am I doing this?

[15:29]

Okay, good. So all that is coming up in the field that you're experiencing right now. Typical common challenges, if you will, that you're going to experience not only during Sushi, but probably other kinds of practice as well. So any of these can make it really hard for us to stay awake and stay present, engage with the moments with some measure of clarity and intention, right? Now, whenever someone asks me the question, what is Zen? My initial response is often, Zen is what is. What is Zen? Zen is what is. So what is Zen becomes simultaneously a question or a koan and a statement. What is Zen? What is, is Zen? Zen is what is. Zen is the practice of being with the total manifestation of reality as it is.

[16:37]

As it is happening now. As such, Zen is the only true liberative activity in this moment. And the aim of Zen practice is to always be awake to and in alignment with what is. To be awake and alignment with reality. And anytime we're out of alignment, anytime we want reality or any other multiplicity of ways it manifests to be different, then what happens? Suffering. Dukkha. Suffering arises in the gap between what is and our desire for it to be any other way. Even if the calf is a hairless donation, that's where somebody gets his little claws, little claws into it, and he starts going, making a nest, making a hole in there.

[17:45]

Shakyamuni Buddha, in the first teaching after his awakening, offers a succinct expression of this dynamic. There is what is happening, And then there is our relationship to it. The first noble truth, there is suffering, or there is dis-ease, discontent, or dissatisfaction with what it is. There's some separation from what it is. And then the second noble truth, the cause of our dis-ease, which is craving, right? The wish for things to be different, particularly our experience. don't want it to be like this. And the third normal truth, an end to suffering and dis-ease, is possible. It's possible to not fall into that gap between what is and our not wanting what is.

[18:50]

And finally, the fourth normal truth, an end to suffering is possible through the Eightfold Path. which is essentially a path from being with what is in a way that is fully present, clear-seeing, wholehearted, and wholesome or upright in our actions of body, speech, and mind. So the question, the koan, what's happening now, can serve as an ever-useful question on our path of practice. To continually ask ourselves, whether it's all in our daily activities, what's happening now? But sometimes we face the question of, what is this? What is the leading what? What is the what? What is the what of experience? The particular event, the condition arising as manifesting, whether it's in the form of a perception, such as the sight, the sound, the smell, the taste, the sensation,

[19:54]

or a feeling, an emotion, or a thought. And what is it then that immediately follows us in regard to this perception? So you might hear that tap-tap-tap sound of Stella Jay hopping around on the roof, right? And you notice immediately after that tap-tap-tap, you have actually, you know, there's a sound, and then oftentimes there's an image that follows it. I'm looking for it going, right? Do you know that? And then somewhere in the middle there, or in the mix of that, comes sometimes an irritation. Don't you know I'm meditating in here? Could you stop that? Of course, they don't listen. They keep doing what they're doing. And then there's other experiences, such as, for many years now, I've said we haven't used Zen sets. For me, it's been kind of a delight to be back here and be smelling the incense and drink with so fondness about it.

[20:58]

Oh, yeah, incense does hard. It evokes this quality of joy. And then, you know, also for many people, incense actually strikes a quality of terror. It's like, oh, no, I'm not going to be able to breathe. I'm allergic to a program of asthma. This is not good for me. So the same manifestation of experience can have two different kind of Mike, if I have to do the reactions to it. And then there's something like the color of roasted kale. And if they're gold, I love roasted kale. So I'm always like, yeah, roasted kale. And then there's zucchini. I'm like, really? I can? What's the kitchen serving zucchini every day this week? What's going on? And then there's watching the circus come in. Okay, right? And occasionally one of them just doesn't know what they're doing. They can only go in the wrong direction or something like that. You might notice that kind of like, yeah, I wouldn't do that.

[22:03]

You're supposed to go over there. The impulse to reach out and direct them in some way. It's really difficult when you have some power, right? Yeah, you actually have permission to correct and you have to reframe, right? I don't know how useful that would be in this moment, right? Just noticing the plague attack. And of course, there's the pain and dropping in your knees, right? And sometimes it's just, it's a slight irritation. And other times it's a total hour, right? You're like, get me out of here now. I need to, you know, my legs, they don't fall off. I need to, you know. I'm going to have to have surgery after this. It may be true. Some people have to sit in the closet for many years. Do you have surgery on your knees? It's ideology. So it's just we know this. What comes up for us? There's the experience. And then there's this whole train of thoughts and the activity that follow. So what do we do with that train?

[23:06]

What do we do when we have the experience of what's happening now? We can look to the mountains, and it gives us a good example. And I mentioned this, again, we're probably hearing, say it again. You know, the very expression in the body of a sitting wholeheartedly, like what is, what is happening now, without turning away and not moving. So the storms and rain and animals and humans and virus, all kinds of things move over the body of the mountain. But the mountain doesn't move on its own cord unless something moves its body. For example, a earthquake or water flowing over it, where ice expanding in and breaking up rocks or squirrels and humans digging into it, causing it to come every road in some way. Regardless of the activity, mountains continue sitting upright, unmoving but not unmoving.

[24:06]

I've been thinking about this recently. I'm practicing the flies. We don't have flies in the city, so I'm in the realm of flies, and they're all over my face, doing nails in my ear, and I'm just like, how can I sit here with these extremes? Just feel the sensation and know the activity that comes up in all the thoughts. How many diseases do these flies have? What am I going to come down with? Then I go into, and I have this kind of thought, I go up there and say, remember the movie The Fly? So it's just like, it's just a fly. It's just a sensation of something crawling over me, but my mind has taken it all over the place. I'm not staying unmoving. Maybe that my body's not moving, but the mind keeps moving. And that's even more important to notice. It's less an issue that the body moves. It's a bigger issue to see how is it the mind moves. reaction or reactivity to what's happening now.

[25:09]

So the nonsense, I have to imagine, just like Siddhartha Kautama under the Dovitri, who vowed not to move until he achieved realization and found a path to lasting peace and realization of human suffering. Even when Nara tried to control directed him off his seat. Gautama remained steadfast and in doing so became Buddha, the one who is awake to the nature of timeless reality. Then he rose from his seat and compassionately shared his understanding and path with others. He stayed unmoving in the midst of timeless reality. How does one do that? It's going to allow transcendental reality to unfold, and unfold within one, and not somehow react.

[26:16]

Actually, to allow it to open the mind and liberate us. So the traditional instructions for reading any experience, regardless of how difficult or unpleasant it is, is first to notice or recognize what's happening. Notice what's happening in the present moment, and a particular experience, and the challenge that's arising. So, you know, this isn't necessarily the same thing, but in the Torah, in the past tradition, to kind of notice how the labeling going on. Oh, this is wickedness. Okay, or restlessness, or the strong feeling of anger or sadness that's arising now. So noticing and recognizing it. And realize it's not a problem. Just because it's arising now, it's not a problem. Don't make your experience a problem.

[27:22]

It's not a problem. It's how you relate to it, how you engage with it, that can be problematic. because then you might act out from that mistaken relationship. So the event itself isn't necessarily a problem. So what we can do is bring a sense of curiosity to it. And cultivating curiosity means to not hold into a fixed idea about how it should be, what should be happening, not to have our agenda apply to the circumstances, right? So not thinking, I shouldn't be doing this, this flag shouldn't be crawling over my face, right? But instead, kind of, or if I was a better practitioner, I wouldn't be moving or scrunching around when this flag falls over my face, right? Pacific green curiosity, which I think everyone knows, another word, phrase for this is beginners mind.

[28:24]

What's happening? the open, spacious mind with no agenda that's just curious to discover what is the direct experience. And notice the feeling, right? Notice it in the body, notice what it feels like, noticing the texture, the color, the tone, the quality of it, and the heaviness, all the different things that you can feel that feeling, feel that experience arising with you. What is its complexity? How you studied it so deeply that you can really be able to kind of experience it in its fullness of the other, right? The study of the mountain of experience, as if you never saw it before. And after the initial question of what's happening now, Another question might be a follower I rise almost simultaneously.

[29:26]

Can I bear this? Can I allow it and accept it? Can I open to and acknowledge what was happening without turning away? So to not resist what's happening now, whether it's pain in my knee, a fly in my ear, or sorrow welling up in my chest. Can I allow my normal, convictive reactivity to pause for a moment So I can get a better glimpse of the nature of what is. What's really happening? What is the nature of this? So the second step of inquiry is how am I going to enter it? Am I allowing the experience to be what it is? Simply noticing a bit of presence? Or am I rejecting the experience or getting lost in it in some way? Pushing it away or feeding on it? Can I get inconsumed and lost in some way? So ask ourselves, what would it be to meet this experience with kindness and curiosity?

[30:32]

And the kindness is both of those very potent qualities to bring to our practice. Can we be gentle with ourselves, with whatever we're experiencing? Be a good friend to our experience. Tell me, what's going on, dear? What's happening now? how we relate to it. And just sit there and listen to the one who is expressing, this is my experience now. And then, when we practice with kindness, more options become available for us, two particular options. One is we can let go of the experience and bring attention back once more. That attention could be back to what our initial focus of awareness might be, the object of awareness, perhaps being our breath, the sensation of the breath, or maybe breath counting, or the awareness of the body or something else.

[31:34]

So allowing it to redirect the mind's attention back to where we want it to be. Or we can engage it, going much more into the experience, whether it might be kind of attacking it, seeing through it, seeing what's through it consistently. And particularly what we want to see is how is it we can bring wisdom to it. And not bringing wisdom to it is to see with this experience, is there a story or a belief that somehow encapsulates it in here, that's feeling the way that I'm relating to this experience. Go to my mind. What's the story? What's your story of reality?

[32:37]

Can you have let reality simply be what it is without the narrative? We have a tendency to compute narrative all over our experience. All the time. This means this and this means this and it means this because of this whole range of experience I've had throughout my whole life. And so when we appear with the narrative on it, we're actually missing what's right here before us. The narrative-free experience. The direct experience of what is. We don't chase the truth of reality until we can drop the narrative of what reality is. And it's not that reality, the only reality is without narrative. Narrative is part of reality. But the problem is that when we see reality, we age without it. to reality, only through our narrative. We're only experiencing or seeing half of what it is. So what is to see the force experienced by dropping the narrative?

[33:44]

Another thing, what is the particular flavor or tone of your narrative? All of us have a different quality to my narrative. The way that I've been conditioned is one of luck. Something's always missing. So the filter of the screen in which I see the world and engage the world is what's missing. I can walk into the room and tell you what's out of place. And I know I'm sure it drives you crazy. I'm constantly fidgeting, you know, the altar and the mount or something in the room, moving things around, right? Because I have this sense that something's missing, something's not right, something's a street here. And I won't be safe or okay until I fix it. I get in place. It comes with it. Underneath that is the sense of if things are in harmony, I will be okay. And I know this is rooted in old childhood stuff. If I could just get my family fixed in place, things would be okay. Of course, things were never in place.

[34:46]

Everything was this pure. And that's what I kept working with. Something was missing. In this case, my parents were missing, right? My family was missing. So this whole story that something is missing continues to kind of work its way through my system and my mind and my practice. And I keep kind of allowing it to be let go of and seeing how a fullness instead takes its place when I allow it to. And I don't apply this fixed view of something missing. So instead I can feel a sense of satisfaction, contentment. There's a sense of integrity that comes with this, right? Wholeness. So, letting the story go, letting the narrative go means that we are less likely to identify with the experience that's happening, less likely to make yourself out of it, but to use it to read by all chronically conditioned leaders.

[35:53]

So really stopping to notice what it is that we are feeling, thinking, experiencing, as a way to witness our life and what is happening, rather than turning away, denying. This can be transformative. We can also cultivate a constancy, when that's rooted in kind of resolve, intention to return to presence, to awareness, to quality of stability and uprightness. And it's the persistence of effort to do our best to stay with the experience that creates resilience for us. It could build the capacity for continual presencing, capacity to turn toward what is and remain as aware presence at all times, regardless of what's happening, regardless of what's passing through the field of awareness. And doing so builds trust. Trust in something larger and deeper than in our small, separate self.

[37:10]

Okay, so that was that. Now, because I know you all have been hearing me close in Dogen, I'm going to turn into the mountains and watch Sutra for a little bit. and see what it is that Dogen says about what's happening now. So if you need to adjust your position a little bit, get yourself ready for a ride with Dogen down the rapids of time being. Here again is the first line of the classical, as translated by Kauraviyo Bell. These mountains and waters in the presence are the expression of the old buddhas. So I'd like to speak now about the entirety of this sentence, unpacking the other words and phrases in it as Dogon has counseled a lot into it. Other translations of this sentence include one by Nishajinacross, the mountains and waters of the present are the realization of the words of the eternal buddhas.

[38:19]

So there's the expression, and another translation is the realization of the words. And in mountains, Koh Samhachi says, mountains and waters right now are the actualization of the ancient put away. So we have expression, we have realization, and we have actualization. All these are different words used to translate this. Right now and present. in this moment. So, Okamura himself has his own version of this sentence, which is, these mountains and waters at this present are the manifestation of the great way of ancient Buddhism. So, yesterday we reflected on the first two words of this sentence, these mountains, and considered, however, that these mountains represent both interdependent origination, that all the reality and all darkness, or all phenomena, arise in dependence upon other darkness, or phenomena, but also the specific and particular manifestation of us, our very own fundamental acts, which the kitchen is now eating, to prepare some food so we can nourish our very prominent bodies.

[39:43]

So they're going to nourish all the reality at the same time that they're nourishing these particular bodies. What a great skill it does, huh? Everything, the whole world, the entire universe, and our very own bodies arise independent upon other javana or phenomena, like the kitchen, making food for us, and people serving us. And therefore, internally part of a limitless way of interconnections that undergo a continual process of transformation, in other words, It permits everything is changing, constant permits. The mountains that he is referring to are the world we live in, and at the same time, the mountains of our very body. So God will manifest simultaneously as the same thing, and at the same time as particularity. Ultimate relative. The following words, these mountains and waters,

[40:46]

Terrifying words, these nouns and waters, dogen as the qualifier of the present moment. Now, the word present here is very important and not something to be glossed over quickly. The Japanese word that dogen uses is naika, which means present or immediate present. So what exactly is this present that dogen is talking about? What is this now? I'm constantly reminded that the activity of salvation is one in which we practice being fully with our present moment experience, whatever it might be. But just exactly how long is present? Anyone? When I'm sitting in Sushi and my knees and legs and back and heart or mind are in pain, I want to know how much longer Is the present going to be? How much longer do I have to sit with this?

[41:50]

I want the present to be over with. Thank you very much. And yes, it seems to persist. I'm much less concerned about the present and more interested in the future when there is no pain or discomfort. And I don't want to find anything about it. What we should know is that Dover's concept of the present moment but of time, are interrelated. Apparently, those Sanskrit-kyo and Dugan classical Uji, being in time, were written within a few weeks of each other, and therefore, are deeply connected. I have to move myself. Okamura writes that, while Sanskrit-kyo contrasts mountains and waters that is phenomenon, seen by the true Dharma eye, or Buddha's eye, And by our karmic eyes, unji compares time as perceived by these different eyes.

[42:54]

So in Japanese and Chinese, the characters for unji commonly appear as one time or once upon time. And they consist of two characters, yu, u, meaning to be or being, and ji, meaning time. So together they make being time, or being here meaning existence. So sometimes being time is translated, which is translated as existence time. Dogen said that being or existing, and time were one thing, they're not too few things. So we cannot separate time and existence, according to Dogen. There's an excerpt from Dogen's classical energy. As the time right now is all there ever is, each being time is without exception the entire time.

[43:56]

A grass being and a farm being are both times. Entire being, the entire world exists in a time of each and every now. Just reflect. Right now, is there an entire being or an entire world missing? from your present time or now? Is anything missing from now? From this time now? So being time, umji, is any being, including you, enemy, and also the whole world in all time. Everything is time. It's you and your neighbor and yourself and the incense and the sounds of the Tusselaer Creek, and the smell of soft water, and the discomfort in your lower back. And I thought about what's for lunch, and the alarm call, and the score out there on the hillside above the work circle.

[44:57]

All of it is time right now. See, this is I, Matt, with your hands. They're also expressing the Dharma, by the way. So I'm not taking any of this Dharma talks. That might actually be more interesting than this one. So this body and mind called David includes everything in this entire world and entire time. I admit it. Yeah. Right? So not just from the time of my individual birth at 5 p.m. on August 27, 1963 in the Pennsylvania and the U.S.A., but also the big bang some 13.8 billion years ago by giving birth to the planet universe. So my Earth and the birth of the universe is beyond time and space, but also includes everything. Given this time, we might wonder, at this time and being, what is lacking?

[46:00]

According to Donovan again, nothing is lacking. Can you feel that in your body? You should. Can you feel nothing is lacking in your body? What does that feel like? If you give yourself over to this, what is the thought sense of nothing is lacking? That is the fullness of being God-experience. Dovin and other Zen teachers are continually reminding us that reality is beyond our grasp of our thinking, conceptual minds. Reality is beyond our limited and conditioned karmic views and the tendency to receive our experience in terms of change, and progress. The force of what is happening now is beyond our grasp and understanding. This then is why we need to sit down and practice non-activity and non-thinking. Sometimes what we call meditation, no zazen.

[47:05]

What Doganip is writing about here is our zazen. How all beings in states of time look from the viewpoint of zazen. So we can get easily confused when trying to understand those view of time in relationship to our practice in zazen, because we tend to mistakenly think that practice is a linear process. Like going from one place, samsara, dukkha, to another, nirvana, peace, right? And over a period of time. But this is not the way it is for dukkha. Life is not a journey for the destination. Thinking in this way creates a separation between the way for us, the practitioner, the distance to be traveled, and time or the same period passage. So instead, urging or being in time causes a fundamental intimacy.

[48:06]

The time has to be in me. Time is in me. Time is not a matter of the coming and going external to me, but being the immediate present now, within me and as me. You could say you are timing. Your being is timing. Timing-ness is happening. Booker Mora calls that nika, the immediate present, means simply this moment that completely permeates all time. So in other words, there is no such thing as present moment that exists as a point in a linear flow. You could say that the present is just zero, nothing. The present doesn't really exist as an event you can point to. Only past and future can be pointed to in this way. And yet this nothing, this zero,

[49:10]

But the immediate present is the only reality there is. And it includes all time. Book of Mormon, therefore, says that the real reality of our life is nothing. It's completely empty. It's a strange thing to think about, but that's reality. It can be kind of depressing to think about it. Huh? My life is nothing? What does that mean? What am I doing if it's completely empty? In other words, there's no separate thing called reality that we can grasp or get to. Reality is just all interdependent origination, flowing timelessly with nothing ultimately coming and going, even though there is the appearance of coming and going. So we can get fooled by appearances. That's one of the things we study. How is that we're fooled by appearances? Dorian states that each being time, mountains, trees, fish, dewdrops, amivas, smoke, sunlight, this is so, and her little dog too.

[50:23]

Things without exception, entire time. Time alone does not exist. Time is not separate. It cannot be separated into three parts of past, present, future, because it is being. It is continuous in being, verb, and as such is interconnected. Hence, it includes all time and space in the universe. I think a reasonable analogy for time might be a cosmic ocean that is expressing itself in an endless flow of waves and currents, all connected, all one expression, and yet all unique. Each wave is unique. Each wave is a particular expression of the same water nature of the ocean. So the present, or the now, or the mountains and waters, and you don't want to put sentence here, is the same life of all living beings and often all now.

[51:31]

This present is matter. And this present is water. The mountains and water are not us like ourselves. Mountains are melting, manifesting themselves by a bridge of all reality. And waters are watering or manifesting themselves by a bridge of all reality. It's the same for you and me. I'm afraid I haven't done justice to do this. concept of being time and probably just created more confusion for you and maybe brought on this experience of sleepiness and fogginess around the mountain. The safety and all that's going on. So my sincere apologies if that's been the case. I would highly recommend that you rely on those with sharper minds that are able to explain this, such as Shincha Roberts. She has this wonderful book called The Practitioner's Guide.

[52:36]

And just to get a taste of the kind of richness that's in this exploration of Uji, if you decide to go into it, here's something on the back cover of Shinjo's book. Dōgen teaches that time itself, being itself, is luminous awakening. It is occlusive, all illicit, ultimately human and eternal. In other words, all existence is luminous Awakening. Or what I like to call awareing. This is all luminosity. Luminosity. How is that? It's pretty trippy stuff, huh? Don't you think? One more phrase to this up here. And this is the expressions of old blueless. I'm always at the end. I promise. These mountains of waters in the present moment are the expressions of old dudas.

[53:39]

Beerville translates the Japanese kubutsu as old dudas, while Hukumara prefers ancient dudas as a translation because he feels that kubutsu suggests something beyond time and space. So another way to translate kubutsu is as eternal dudas. Dohman offers some examples of ancient or internal Buddha, such as his chan-tinger, Tang-Tiang-Ru-jin. An internal Buddha, in Dohman's perspective, is a person who has awakened to timeless reality and expressed the reality through their practice and teaching. In other words, kubutsu means a person who has the true Dharma I, which is another word, you know, shopo genzo, right? the treasury of the true drama I. Mind builders awaken to time's reality. Not only do they awaken to time's reality, but they express it, they enact it, they're living from that place.

[54:43]

Everything they do is informed by that awakening. Furthermore, the very mind of all goodness, which is eternal, beyond all times, is nothing other than the manifestation of ordinary, phenomenal things. So the eternal way of doing this is realizing and living the truth that everything, Alphanana, in this moment, is an expression or manifestation of timeless and interdependently originated beyond it. So this table, this glass of water, my notes, this light in your mouth, the flies in the green room outside waiting to get into the room, right? the dust on the windshields, I'm sorry, I don't know, maybe I already dusted over there in case there isn't any dust. The screech of the blue trees outside, the squirrels running up and down the hillside, all of it is a manifestation of the timeless, unfathomably intimate river of reality.

[55:45]

In other words, the full manifestation of now, of what is happening now. And the word manifestation, or genjo, is a key word for domain. When that occurs throughout his writings, Okomora translates genjo as manifestation of timeless reality. Timeless reality shows itself within momentary phenomena. Again, this is timeless reality. This is timeless reality, even though it's shameful. You'll be filled by the members on the trees, right? Because it's timeless reality, right? Timeless reality shows us off with a momentary phenomenon. This is our life. That is our activity. Within mountains and waters, at this very moment, is the manifestation of the great way of ancient goodness. What Guru Maharaj says that, moment by moment, such as mountains and rivers,

[56:50]

are being spiritually timeless reality, the way of old goodness. And this is the main point and essence of Satsukya. And the rest of the classical is doing it, unpacking this main point using a very variety of facets, or views, of this timeless reality. Okay, that's what happened. Okobar writes, the present is time. This moment, the next moment, and yet another moment are time. The mountains walk through time. In other words, mountains and waters of the present are actual phenomenal things which move and change. The way all the Buddhas means the eternal truth beyond time and space. These are true poles, things right here and now, and time is eternal truth. Durban says that these two are really one and the same. In other words, by entering fully into what's happening now, we enter fully into the timeless, eternal truth of the Buddhas.

[57:59]

In this truth, mountains are free to walk, and we are free to join them in an upright sitting. Okay. That was probably a lot for you to digest today. You're welcome to simply forget it all, and you just go back to following your breath. In fact, let's take the next period. I'm going to go outside. It's called walking for a little bit to experience the teachings of Uji, of being time, and Genjo, the manifestation of time's reality, by walking the mountains, by walking together with the mountains, within, and as time's the true truth. So there's no need to explain all the walking together. It's just enough to do it. So the email will give us some instructions afterwards about how we go about doing this. And put on some shoes that would be reasonable for walking up the road.

[59:02]

I would suggest not wearing sandals or things that, so your ankles might twist or something like that. That's not so good, but wear something a little bit more severe, if you would. Okay, so thank you everyone for your kind and patient attention. And now I think I'm showing up in the 80s. I don't know. [...] They are always safe.

[60:22]

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