Not so good, I guess, for Doris, or Hussou. After the ceremony last night, she told me that she felt, whatever it is, a little mug that seems to be going on around here. I know no good people. A resting. So she decided to rest this morning. And I also want to mention that Gillian, who is not here today, is traveling to the East Coast to assist her family. Her mother had a fall from her ladder and just, she's okay, except she broke her foot in a number of places and can't get around and need some assistance. So her family requested that she come and help for a little while, so she's going to go at least. help for a week or so and so try to note the absence she was actually a settling into session actually enjoying the support of the song guy in a way that she wasn't sure she would some sauce our thoughts are also on a plane going to thank God

[01:30]

South Carolina, I think. So I wanted to talk today about various ways of living in the world. The world that includes the known world and the unknown world. the world that includes the world of things and the world of no things or non-duality and it can be challenging to live trying to find some way of being in accord with a more complex situation than you may have thought, say.

[02:34]

That it would be good to know, you know, or think anyway, it would be good to know. And so we go in the direction of knowing, right? And that in many ways is helpful. And then if we don't take into account The non-knowing that I was talking about in the past few days, we actually make some mistake. We have many experiences of what we call, we then call the law of unintended consequences. The things that happened, oh, this wasn't what we thought was going to happen, or this isn't what we were trying to do, and somehow it comes back at us. And this is true in our own, within our own body, mind, and it's true in our relations with others, and it's true in our relation with the environment.

[03:46]

We don't know. So, you know, when we started putting whatever it was that we put in those aerosol cans, you know, I forget that. photocarbons that we put in the air that they put in the aerosol cans we thought how neat you know have this inert material to put in a aerosol can and it was years before we discovered that they were creating a hole in the ozone layer who would have thought no one imagined that that was the result of one of maybe many side effects or other things that we may not even notice yet. So we have, in our known world, we have lots of good ideas. And sometimes it's good to balance them with the thought, at least, oh, maybe it's not what we think, you know.

[04:54]

So it's good to pay attention to that. Yunnan and Dao, I talked about a couple of days ago. Yunnan, they were always working with this question, you know, how to live in the known world and the unknown world. So when Yunnan was sweeping the ground and Dao comes up and says, too busy. And Yunnan says, you should know there's one who is not busy. And Dabu says, in that case, there's a second moon. And Yunnan says, holds up the broom, says, which moon is this? So, these fellows have wonderful conversations.

[06:06]

Wonderful conversations. Oh, that reminds me of the word mind-boggling, which I looked up. Thank you, Natalie. I have to look at my notes here now. But mind-boggling, it's kind of interesting. When I looked up mind-boggling, of course, right next to it, I'm using the new updated Oxford English Dictionary. which is what I have here. And of course, right next to mind-boggling was mind-bending, mind-blowing, mind-altering. And these are all references to hallucinogens, right? Various experiences that some of us may know about. The beneficial side of those are to indicate that the world that we think we know is constructed.

[07:23]

And we construct it in our own minds. But mind-boggling, of course, is just that it means astonishing. but that has a tendency to cause anxiety or hesitation if your mind boggled there's some hesitation but then so informally it says a person or a person's mind might be astonished or overwhelmed when trying to imagine something So then I looked up boggle and the source of boggle. It seems to come from bogie. Or also there's a Scottish term boggle that refers to goblins or phantoms.

[08:27]

And bogie has been appropriated into military slang for enemy aircraft. I don't know much about that, but I think there's some thought, okay, it's a bogey, so it's something evil, right? Something we can shoot down. So it's a way of distancing from that. And, of course, the bogeyman. So bogey, evidently, at some time, was a term that was used for the devil. Yeah, I know. It's also a golf term. And thank you. I was looking at the other, the meaning that seemed more related to mind boggling.

[09:32]

But maybe it's mind boggling when you think you're going to sink the putt. It's so obvious, right? It's just going to go right there and then it veers off, right? Maybe I can be mind-moggling. I'm not a golfer myself, but my brother, I have a brother who is an avid golfer, and that disease seems to be affecting other members of the family. He went to all the trouble to build a golf course in central Kansas. They really needed, he said, Newton, Kansas really needs to have an 18-hole world-class golf course. So, okay. It's giving him something relatively harmless, but I don't know. So anyway, Yunyan was sweeping, and when Dao came up and said, too busy, he really wasn't so...

[10:42]

Boggled by that. He knew. What was his older friend. That we were referring to. That this busyness. Could be completely. A case of him being identified with. One side. With the side of the constructed world. And his response was, you should know there's one who is not busy. The Tao pressed him on that. Oh, then do you think that you are not busy? Are you caught up on that side? By saying, you know, if so, then there's a second moon.

[11:43]

Moon is often used as a metaphor for enlightenment. So is there one kind of enlightenment? Is enlightenment the side of non-duality? In the Sandokai it says merging is still not enlightenment. So the The joined world, or the world of oneness, is still not enlightenment. The intro to this case, which is in the Book of Serenity, case 21, for this, hopefully you'll all study further, read the commentary sometime, not during seshin, but, it says, having shared illusion and enlightenment,

[12:44]

having cut off holy and ordinary. So cut off the distinction between what's holy and what's ordinary. Although there are not so many things, when you set up host and guest and distinguish noble and mean, this is a special house. Do we want to live in a special house or... This may refer also to the special house being lineage. And then it says, it's not that there is no giving jobs on assessment of ability. But how do you understand siblings with the same breath? Adjoining branches? How do you understand siblings with the same breath?

[13:45]

Yunnan, Dao, siblings, breathing the same air. And capable of having a conversation because they each have a point of view. And the way they assist each other is by checking. Checking each other. What do you think you're doing? So, in the Vimalat Kirti Sutra, there's a whole section which follows from the chapter on Manjushri's silence, which is the presentation of non-duality. Following after that, then, Of course, the whole assembly goes from Vimla Kirti's little place over to the garden where Shakyamuni Buddha is and pays their respects and then invites Shakyamuni to give a teaching.

[15:01]

And so at that time he teaches about the destructible and the indestructible. The point of it being not to be biased on one side, the destructible and the indestructible. The world of oneness would be the indestructible world, the world that's not created and is not destroyed. What is not born does not die. But here it just says, I'll just read a few lines, it says, destructible refers to compounded things this is the world of things indestructible refers to the uncompounded but the bodhisattva should neither destroy the compounded nor rest in the uncompounded then it has a whole long section well a whole page of what does it mean not to destroy compounded things

[16:14]

So here it emphasizes the practice of loving-kindness. Not losing the great love. It emphasizes the practice of the Brahma and Viharas, the four immeasurables. Loving-kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy, mudita, and upekka, equanimity. Seeing everything as it is completely equal having its own value but also says things like considering beggars to be spiritual teachers considering immoral beings to be saviors so this is what may be an obstruction into a benefit.

[17:25]

If you don't do that, it says you're actually destroying compounded things. Destroying them or diminishing them or not appreciating them. So, Dogen... And the Tenzokyo can, I think, helps elucidate that when he talks about, and I copy that little part of that. He says, don't distinguish between various kinds of qualities of ingredients when you're cooking. In other words, don't have a preferential feeling for one kind of food over another. He says, when you prepare food, do not see with ordinary eyes. And do not think with ordinary mind.

[18:28]

Do not arouse disdainful mind when you prepare a broth of wild grasses. Do not arouse joyful mind when you prepare a fine cream soup. Where there is no discrimination, how can there be distaste? Thus, do not be careless even when you work with poor materials. and sustain your efforts even when you have excellent materials. Never change your attitude according to the materials. If this is not yet clear to you, it's because your thoughts run around like a wild horse and your feelings jump about like a monkey in the forest. So some of you may have been experiencing wild horse mind and monkey mind. And then the next line he says, you know, practice for this actually is he says, when the monkey and horse step back and reflect upon themselves, freedom from all discrimination is realized naturally.

[19:41]

monkey and horse step back. Reflect upon themselves. This is the way, he continues, this is the way to turn things while being turned by things. The key phrase. This is exactly what Yunnan and Daolu are talking about. Turning things or being turned by things If you're too busy, too busy in being turned by things. One not busy, turning things. Dogen says, keep yourself harmonious and wholehearted in this way and do not lose one eye or two eyes. So, not one eye, do not lose one eye

[20:45]

not to lose the eye of non-duality not to lose the eye that sees things are completely interconnected that there are then fundamentally no things so don't lose that but also don't lose two eyes don't lose the eyes that can see the difference between the wild grasses And the succulent cabbage leaf, right? Or mushrooms. Taking up a green vegetable, turn it into a 16-foot golden body. Take a 16-foot golden body and turn it into a green vegetable leaf. This is miraculous transformation, a work of Buddhas that benefits sentient beings. So here he's suggesting the reason to do this.

[21:51]

Why would you take a green vegetable leaf and turn it into a 16 foot golden body? Why would you turn a miraculous 16 foot golden body into a simple vegetable leaf? You would do it to benefit sentient beings. I want to offer another perspective on this. This is a poem written by Jane Hirschfield called Against Certainty. Yesterday I was talking about the known and the unknown, the not known, and so I also thought of this poem.

[22:56]

Jane, some of you know, a wonderful poet spent some years at tasahara and uh i remember her at tasahara i never imagined how great a poet she would become at that time i just remember her on the general work crew uh carrying wood and uh You know, firewood to the cabins and things at Tassajara. But her practice informs her poetry so deeply. So this is against certainty. There is something out in the dark that wants to correct us. Each time I think this, it answers that. Answers hard in the heart grammar's strictness.

[24:01]

If I say that, it too is taken away. Between certainty and the real and ancient enmity. When the cat waits in the path edge, no cell of her body is not waiting. This is how she is able so completely to disappear. I would like to enter the silence portion as she does. To live amid the great vanishing as a cat must live. One shadow fully at ease inside another. Maybe I should read that again. So she uses, actually she uses certainty, between certainty and the real.

[25:10]

You could say here she even uses them as, with allusions to Buddhist technical words. Certainty being the known world. the constructed world, and the real being, the unknown, or the non-dual world. And yet in this poem it's from the non-dual world that she finds something that she bumps up against. Which indicates that these are not two separate worlds. Here it is again. Something out in the dark. Well, the bogeyman, right? The bogeyman in the dark, in this case, wants to correct. There is something out in the dark that wants to correct us.

[26:15]

Each time I think this, it answers that. Answers hard in the heart, grammars, strictness. If I say that, it too... is taken away between certainty and the real and ancient enmity. When the cat waits in the path hedge, no cell of her body is not waiting. This is how she is able so completely to disappear. I would like to enter the silence portion as she does. To live amid the great vanishing. As a cat must live. One shadow. Fully at ease. Inside another. So this is the cat waiting. Here is Zazen.

[27:18]

She says, so completely disappear. Just as you... disappear with your out-breath. So, to live amid the great vanishing, one shadow fully at ease inside another. So this is a kind of a quiet image. But if you go beyond the end of the poem, when you've watched cats, you know, this cat that's settled down so silently and disappears, suddenly pounces. When the cat pounces, is this also one shadow, fully at ease, inside another? When Yunyan vigorously sweeps in the broom, moves the broom,

[28:28]

With great, full, wholehearted energy. Is this one shadow fully at ease inside another? Someone else who was working with this is the poet, Rio Khan. And I wanted to include a little Rio Khan today. He most of the time was living in his little hut, tending a shrine. But then every day he would also go into town, just about every day, go into town begging. Ryokan lived in the early part of the 19th century, early 1800s. Japan and he was ordained Soto Zen priest and spent years in training and then went and lived as a poet hermit.

[29:48]

So I wanted to share a few of his poems and then some of his practice admonitions. I've forgotten my begging bowl, but no one would steal it. No one would steal my begging bowl. How sad. Another time he says, if these sleeves... of my black robe were only whiter I'd shelter all the people in this upside down world so his bodhisattva vow and and then uh...

[31:00]

after being visited by thieves in his little hut. My zazen platform, my cushion, they made off with both. Thieves break into my grass hut. Who dares stop them? All night, I sit alone by the dark window, soft rain pattering on the bamboo grove. There's another which is not in this collection where he's saying another time a thief comes and he gives the thief his robe basically all he had left and then he sits shivering in the moonlight and says I wish I could give him the moon So this is some sense of the quality of his mind.

[32:12]

And then here's a Dharma poem, which is more strict maybe. It says, Buddha is something made up in the mind. Tao, it doesn't exist either. I'm telling you, believe what I say. Don't go off in some wild direction. If you point your cart shafts north and try to get to the South Pole, when do you think you'll ever arrive? So he's saying, you know, believe him. Don't believe Buddha. Don't believe the Tao. Ryokan worked very hard on his own character. And he wrote out a list of admonitions for himself.

[33:16]

Knowing his own tendencies. You'll get a sense of, who knows, some of them might even apply to you. Maybe someone in this room. So beware of talking a great deal. Beware of talking too fast. Of volunteering information when not asked. Of giving gratuitous advice. Of talking up your own accomplishments. Of breaking in before others have finished speaking. Of trying to explain to others something you don't understand yourself. starting on a new subject before you finish with the last one. Of insisting on getting in the last word. Of talking with your hands.

[34:17]

Of speaking in an effectively offhand manner. Of reporting in great detail on affairs that have nothing to do with anything. Of reporting on every single thing you see or hear. Of making a point of using Chinese words and expressions. Of learning Kyoto speech and using it as though you'd known it all your life. Or of speaking Edo dialect like a country hick. Beware of talk that smacks of the peasant, of talk that smacks of the estate, of talk that smacks of satori, of talk that smacks of tea master. Ryokan declared there were three things that he disliked.

[35:22]

Poets' poetry, calligrapher's calligraphy, chef's cooking. So you can see how concerned he was with being pretentious. Talking with pretension, yeah. So, please forgive me for all this talk. I know Sashin's being, it has its strictness. And it is pretty difficult. And some of you are having a very, very hard time. And I really appreciate that you're sticking with it.

[36:27]

It's too easy to say that... Your difficulties are only in your mind. Your difficulties are just, oh, they're just in the world of the, they're just in the world of the compounded things. And then for those of you who have attained great states of bliss, there is the teaching also of not resting in the uncompounded. So the bodhisattva, this is from the Vinla Kirti Sutra, the bodhisattva practices voidness or emptiness, but does not realize emptiness. The bodhisattva knows selflessness, but does not waste the self. The bodhisattva considers peacefulness, but does not seek extreme peace.

[37:34]

bodhisattva cherishes solitude but does not avoid mental and physical efforts the bodhisattva considers stillness yet moves in order to develop all living beings the bodhisattva considers selflessness yet does not abandon the great compassion towards all living beings. The Bodhisattva neither rests in the uncompounded nor destroys the compounded. So I've just picked out a few of many, many phrases here. The Bodhisattva... being willing to be born, reborn, born into whatever realm.

[38:41]

So whatever realm you find yourself in, you may not have felt that you chose it as a bodhisattva. But given your deep vow, your vow to awaken with all beings, then you can consider that wherever you find yourself, is the place where you can benefit beings. So if you find yourself in a peaceful place, then you don't form attachments to that in any way that would prevent you from joining suffering beings. If you find yourself in a really difficult hell hellish place that's what you would regard as an opportunity to benefit whoever is there in that hell realm in that place of great suffering so during this sitting in Sashin

[40:06]

again and again be willing to come back to this moment and see what realm you're in. See what you are actually experiencing. And appreciate it just as it is. And notice any resistance to just seeing what it is and the resistance itself then or there may be some hesitation the hesitation itself then is also a realm of hesitation what is the realm of hesitation? What is the realm of constriction?

[41:11]

What is the texture of that realm? What is the precise feeling of it? So that you have this experience that you give it a particular name. But what is that experience before you give it the name? Before the thought forms that separate you from it. And be willing to be right there. Today is the sixth day of Sashim. Tonight, the last night of Buddha's sitting. Tomorrow morning we'll have Buddha's enlightenment ceremony. And then I'll look at certain things. We'll get too busy. Too busy, how could that be? So today, please make your most sincere effort.

[42:21]

And tonight, if you can, extend your practice into the night. Don't waste this rare opportunity. They are in tension and equally...

[42:45]

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