All of me that there is makes a shadow. That's it. All of me that there is makes a shadow. A shadow is very important. You know what, since then and lately we've been spending a lot of time on the vision. But the vision has a shadow. Now, if you're only focusing on the shadow too much, which maybe the Zen school does, you need a little bit of vision thrown in there, because that's the opposite of the shadow. You know, the Heart Sutra is not a visionary sutra. In a certain way, it's not a visionary, because there are no eyes. But it's about the vision behind the eyes.

[01:06]

You know, religion in modern times is a mixed bag, really. I'm embarrassed to say. Too much of modern-day religion is some vision of what people believed that it used to be and never was. and they're fighting to make sure it comes through true. That's not good use of vision. Buddhist teachings are visionary. The precepts, the thought of enlightenment, the four vows, they're visionary in a certain way, but they set the target and then we take the backward step and see how we fall short. You need something to aim for. You need some vision to aim for. But you need to be grounded in what's happening right now. Right now.

[02:16]

When I was, again, I had some interesting experiences and I once wrote a poem which was The ending lines were, and in the shadow's reflection, I bow to you as you must to me. If you bow, your shadow does. So the backward step is not about accomplishing some kind of vision. It's about noticing how you step. how you breathe, how you walk, and how you envision. You know, there are many admonitions in Zen to not say something, because what you say is partial.

[03:23]

What you say, there's a foreground and a background. When you say the foreground, you ignore the background. Or as we say in the Jumeiru Samadhi, the meaning is not in the words, yet it responds to the inquiring impulse. The meaning is not exactly in the vision, though there is meaning in the vision, but it's in your engagement with it. Many people get disappointed in Zen practice. Now, Buddhist practice does have some technical or visionary moments.

[04:32]

The Lotus Sutra is such a visionary text. It shows the world where everyone is practicing over many generations and they progress. Interesting idea. Pretty good. The shadow. The shadow tells us what we, what we, there's the thought and then there's what what's behind the thought. For instance, many of you think that you want to practice Zen. But you find it hard to get up in the morning. I do too. But do you really want to practice Zen? Or do you like the idea of practicing Zen? And do you like the reality of sleeping in? That's pretty good.

[05:35]

But that's where vision is helpful to us. There's a story of Seiko and the dragon, which you probably all know. Seiko was, actually it's the Japanese name of a Chinese person. I don't know what the Chinese term is, who loved dragons. He was really a visionary dragon person. He had dragon PEZ containers, dragon motion pictures, dragon teacups. He loved dragons. He was so famous for loving dragons that the dragons heard about it. And he knocked on his door, and he opened his door and said, ah! The real dragon was different than what he thought. The backward step informs us not what our ideas are, but what is actually happening. Now, I don't want to get down on visions too much because ideas, visions, speech are useful.

[06:47]

They're useful tools. If we couldn't speak, we wouldn't be better off. Maybe if we could speak less, we might be better off. Because we begin to think that what we say is something real. And it is, it refers to something, and in itself it is real speech. That's why Dogen says, you can't eat a painted rice cake. But it's not the same thing to eat a painted rice cake. It's a different experience. And maybe less calories though. So in America, we really like to have vision because we're these visionable people, but we have some vision which can raise us from the depths of our depression.

[08:01]

But just here right now is a glorious vision. You don't need anything else. I know some of you are saying, I mean, this is it. Maybe so. Can you imagine it? That you don't have to do something else in order to be in the highest perception of now. You know, we're very familiar with dreams. Dreams are to waking life as shadow is the thought. Like, many of us say the words, but we mean something a little different.

[09:10]

We hide behind the words, or actually sometimes it's not at all conscious. We're saying something, or we really believe we're saying something, but there's something different that we're thinking. foreground and background. Many people say, oh, he said that, but he really means this. But that's also your foreground and background. Zen practice is really glorious because no matter what your vision is, No matter what your ideas are, you've got to face the moment. You've got to get up and straighten your crooked back and empty your crooked thoughts and

[10:27]

Breathe your glorious breath. The shadow. There's not enough light to make a shadow here, isn't there? It shouldn't burn a skylight. Oh yeah, there's a shadow. See this statue over there? There's a shadow on it inside of it. Now, sometimes we say, not knowing is nearest, or those who say don't know, and those who know don't say.

[11:43]

That's a kind of shadow kind of thinking, shadow kind of. Or there's, in the Wind Bell recently we've had, after many years of Rosalie doing a wonderful job of being a designer of the Wind Bell. Thank you, Rosalind. We decided we wanted to do it a little differently. So we hired somebody, and they had a wonderful idea about what the window should be. It should have negative space. That means not much vision. But it was really not much vision. It was like, the last few issues, we've actually jazzed it up. from what they had, but they really wanted it to be plain because they thought that was the vision of what things should be. That's taking shadow as a vision.

[12:54]

Shadow as a vision is the wrong use of shadow. So they felt so strongly about it, they took their name off, being the artistic designers, because we had too many pictures in it. So they felt very strongly about that. Of course, so did we. An empty space may allow you to see things what is present much more broadly. But you can be a minimalist to such an extent that you cut out the dynamics of real life. You know, there's always these stories about somebody who has one robe and one bowl and they're leading the ideal life.

[14:03]

But if they miss that one robe, they get as furious as anybody else does. Perhaps, if you're attached. It doesn't matter how many robes you have. And you can be attached to emptiness, is what I was actually trying to say. Somebody was asking me what emptiness was the other day. This is a serious older student, and she said, what is the meaning of emptiness? And I said, nothing. No thing. Zilch. But if emptiness has a shadow, you think it means something. Tom Cleary once said that emptiness is innocent of concept. Let me screech. But emptiness means there's nothing there.

[15:09]

But if you use a term like emptiness, you must be referring to something. That's why the diamond suture doesn't use the term emptiness. So what does this mean? Why should I talk to you about this tonight? Well, I had a vision that some of you may be being distracted by thought or vision or idea. And you're looking for the best vision, the best vision for Zen Center, the best vision for your life. If you don't have a vision, I suppose it should be the best. But it's in the living of it. It's not in the vision of it.

[16:10]

I know sometimes one can be discouraged living at center. But it's a wonderful life. You can tell all kinds of stories about it. Most of the stories are pretty dull. to being present moment after moment, meeting person after person. That's wonderful. Now we shouldn't speak and we should have visions and we should do things like that, but Suzuki Roshi said that the secret of all the schools of Buddhism, is to be in the present moment. Pretty good secret, huh?

[17:21]

You can tell anybody because they don't believe you. There are two ways of working with vision, of course. One is to set it up and try to get there, and one is to live your life and try to uncover it. And there are things to be said for both ways of visioning. But if you spend too much time on the vision, and not enough time taking the backward step, It's television. It's journalism. It's science fiction.

[18:36]

Religion which emphasizes too much the glorious towers and neglects greed, hate, and delusion is one in which religions spend their time trying to be victorious, to have the best, the shiniest temple, to have the most gold. But to study greed, hate, and delusion, that brings us to the light. To study enlightenment leads us to delusion. Sometimes I think we should call what we do here in darkenment.

[19:43]

You get really dark. You lose all the light. And then you have to create the light. You have to find the light. It's like that story about someone who loses a key. And he's looking over in the lighted area of the courtyard. And somebody asks, did you lose your key there? No, but I can see over here. I can't see where I lost it. So taking the backward step can keep us grounded. And not to be overly excited about some great ideas. But you must have to understand you should have good ideas and you should work toward them. That has its place and its time.

[20:50]

But don't lose Zazen. Don't lose Zazen. Now comes the echo chamber. branching streams flow in the darkness. In some ways, there's a difference between the sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, our ancestor, excuse me, and the Sando Kai.

[21:58]

They're both wonderful teachings. But the sixth ancestor has a winner and a loser. Sando Kai says, things flow on in the darkness. It's not a matter of north or south, sudden or gradual. The darkness is where there's no discrimination. The light is where you can distinguish things. of course it says the very way is not difficult for those who don't discriminate that's a joke do you know anybody who doesn't discriminate and if they did I don't discriminate discrimination but it's not to be caught by your preferences to notice what they are

[23:19]

to notice what your vision is and to see what happens. In darkness you have to be, every other sense has to be alert. You have to walk carefully because you might run into something or you listen to what's approaching. Everything is alert and awake. In the dark, you have to be more awake. I've mentioned this before, but when I lose something, I use my eyes to find it. I don't really, I mean, I don't use my eyes to find it.

[24:22]

I use my mind to find it. I don't think, I don't look. I'll go into a room and I'll look on a table where I think the keys may be, but the keys may be just a foot off to either side and I don't look. Ceremonies are a kind of enactment of a vision. We have all the ceremonies mostly have a script, and the script rarely gets followed exactly. So there's some vision which we're all trying to enact together. And we need to be alert to do it.

[25:25]

So all of me that there is makes a shadow. It's not that. It's not that. And then depending upon where the light is, there's some slant on it. in the dark or we can have real intimacy. The term mitsu in Japanese means hidden or secret, but the secondary meaning is intimate, close. just looking at the external outside of things, but are really tuned in to what we can't see.

[26:38]

Sometimes we find intimacy. And you know, people's relationships are like that. You may wonder why your mate is such and such, or your boyfriend is always such and such a way, or your girlfriend is always such and such a way. I think often what happens is our shadows meet. The person we're in a relationship could be someone we could have been, some reflection of. And they're usually not particularly conscious choices. There's how our unconsciouses meet. What are you doing right now?

[28:18]

Ask me a question. That's a good use of the mind. Answering a question isn't so useful. Because answering a question closes it down, or can, while asking a question and they open it up. that there is makes a shadow. Shadow, backward step. In the Vitamin Sutra it says, I can't even remember. Thank you so much for that.

[29:32]

Let me try one more cycle here. The dharmas that failed to be produced, the patient acceptance of dharmas that failed to be produced. Now what is that about? patient acceptance of darkness that failed to be produced. So, listen to your shadow, listen to your dreams. Clearly observe your visions. Have a good night.

[30:31]

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