This is a place I used to live for some years, and I don't make it up here so often, so it's a great treat. come back and see old friends and see new faces and see the temple beautifully taken care of, see teachers, my venerable elders here. I think it's wonderful that anyone would take their time on a sunny day like this to come and practice dharma and listen to dharma and explore teachings on how to be free and how to live in this world so much suffering in this world

[01:28]

so much discontent in our own personal lives, we might find, and in the world at large, so many problems. And from the perspective of Buddhadharma, I could say the root of all of these difficulties is an illusion. a false belief, a misperception that takes the form of a sense of duality between me and others, self and others, between mind and objects, between grasper and grasped.

[02:31]

These are different expressions of the duality that's at the root of not only our personal problems but world problems like speciesism, racism, sexism, classism, if we trace these back to their root, which is what I would propose that the Buddhist tradition is always trying to aim back at the root of the problem. And it can be expressed in various ways within the tradition, but one way is talking about this duality, this false imagination of separation. And we sometimes feel, well, aren't we separate in a way? And there's many teachings to work with around this sense of separation, like interdependence, dependent arising.

[03:43]

I'm sure many people have heard of and contemplate a beautiful expression of how everything arises dependent on that which is not itself. So self arises dependent on others, mind arises dependent on objects, and so on. And that teaching pervades the whole of Buddha Dharma. But today, I'd like to offer another teaching you might have also heard, but I feel like it's less proclaimed, the teaching of... of actual non-duality. I would propose that in interdependence we're still talking about different things that are dependent on each other. There's an interdependent relationship, so things don't exist independently, but we don't say they're actually like one unity.

[04:48]

It's a little bit different angle. Oh my God. on this sense of separation. And we might hear things like that and they sound so abstract. What do you mean like unity? Like we're really all one being, not separate at all? It sounds abstract. Maybe that's why interdependence is brought up more frequently because it's easier to relate to. Ecology is a realm we can see how nature all works interdependently with itself. Or pieces of nature work interdependently with other pieces of nature in this network. And in a more psychological sense we could say that the Buddhist tradition teaches like colors arise dependent on

[05:52]

I faculty and I consciousness. Sounds arise dependent on ear and ear consciousness and so on. That's the realm of dependent arising also. But it's not the realm of unity. So how can we relate to this Complete non-separation. Where not just that you are dependent on me and I'm dependent on you, but you are me and I am you. Yeah, that's a little bit different. Pretty radical. And maybe, again, sounds abstract and too strange, but I think it's not that abstract, really. And here's a way we can maybe relate to it experientially. a practice that I like to do over the past years in Zazen and throughout the day when I remember, which is often seems like not frequently enough because of all my habits.

[07:06]

But this practice, I think, for me anyway, really, really like, it really works. It has an effect. And so see what you think about this. The practice is, at least to start with, asking myself a question silently. Asking, is awareness present? And with any of these question practices, if we do them over and over, they become kind of rote. And so that's the danger of any method like this. Is awareness present? Yeah, yeah, it is. So we have to kind of like ask it. Each time we ask it, ask it like really sincerely, as if we don't know the answer. And in case you haven't realized the answer yet, it's yes.

[08:09]

Awareness is present for me and for you every moment. And so this awareness I'm speaking of is the awareness that's present, even if we're so-called completely distracted. I don't mean like mindfulness, attention focused on the present. We could be completely lost in a daydream of tomorrow or yesterday, but at the same time there's an awareness of that daydream that is present. So this kind of question has an effect. If we ask it sincerely and try to answer it, as if we don't know the answer, it seems to direct attention back onto itself. There's other many, many ways of asking this question in other forms. All those kind of who questions in Buddhism. Like, who is this? It's the same question, but sometimes who is this is... We can make it too complicated.

[09:17]

We can look for those. There's somebody I'm supposed to find. Whereas is awareness present already gives the answer. Yes, awareness is present. But if we try to answer the question, the mind turns back on itself, we could say. Awareness turns its attention back on itself. Awareness that is virtually always directed outwards towards objects. So awareness is always present, and yet we hardly ever notice that because we're kind of like wired to engage with external objects. So to ask, is awareness present? If I ask that sincerely, I can feel like there's almost like a backward movement of kind of falling back.

[10:19]

And I think that sense of falling back, or almost to answer the question, we don't look out there, we look back. Not exactly back in a direction, but not outward. So there's some great phrases in the Zen tradition like turning the light around and shining it back. Turning the light of awareness that's directed outwards back onto itself. propose that we can actually be aware of being aware. And I'd say, well, isn't that like, then there's two different things? It's just a way of talking. Being aware of being aware could also be called just being aware. There aren't two different, there isn't one awareness being aware of another awareness, but there is a sense of a reality. of being aware, being awareness.

[11:20]

Awareness can also be called knowing, I propose, or experiencing. We're into the known and the experienced, but we can attend to that which is experiencing. And it's not a thing. It's the only reality that's not an object of experience. Can you follow that? Awareness itself is the only realm that's not an object. Different meditation states, every possible realm of body, mind, and experience of the world, and perception and feeling, those are all objects of awareness. And awareness is not an object of awareness. And yet, we can... Sometimes I like to follow up the question, is awareness present right now?

[12:22]

We can look and confirm, yes, it is present. A follow-up question can be, how do I know that I'm aware? How do you know that you're aware? In order to answer that question, you might go to objects, well, because I see things or hear things. But without going to objects to confirm that we're aware, Do you know that you're aware? I propose yes, we know that we're aware. How do we know that we're aware? Or what is it that knows we're aware? Any guesses? What is it that knows that we're aware? You can throw out an answer if you think of one. Awareness. Exactly. What is it that knows? I'm aware. Awareness actually knows. Again, they're not two different things. But awareness is aware of objects and at the same time it's aware of itself.

[13:28]

There's some debate about this within the Buddhist tradition, but a lot of the Mahayana teachings express it like this. We're not talking about dualistic consciousness here, although it might seem like it right now. Just basic Knowing. Experiencing is experiencing itself. And I could say, well, are we sure that we know we're aware? And I would say, this is not like some sort of trick, subtle investigation. This is like the most obvious thing, I would say. It's almost like we're looking for something maybe more subtle or tricky. But in fact, of course we know we're aware. And I would even... go so far as to say the only thing, I feel like this anyway, the only thing that I'm 100% positive of is that there's awareness present. Whether or not we're actually in a zendo, whether you are out there separate from me, whether my feelings and thoughts are...

[14:44]

what they're actually made of or how they work. I'm not quite sure about all of that, for sure. Lots of stories I have about them. But what I'm sure about without any story about it is that awareness is present. Everything else is a little bit up for question. I think a nice sort of test or example of this is like, you know, when you're asleep dreaming and... Where in the dream, at least my experience is, I usually, unless it's a lucid dream, I don't know that I'm dreaming, right? I think it's, you know, waking life. And then I wake up and realize, that was a dream, but it was very real. It was 3D. I was in it, right? But then we see it was a creation, a projection of mind, right? So right now, I'm open to the possibility that I'm dreaming. In fact, I'm a little more open than usual because I usually don't sit in this room.

[15:47]

This is unusual. I live at Santa Cruz Zen Center. If I was there, I'd get so used to it, I might think, this is not a dream. Sitting at Green Gulch talking to people, it's a little bit dream-like already. But I'm pretty sure that it's not a dream. Maybe like 95% sure, but I'm not 100% sure. But I'm 100% sure that awareness is present. Because whether it's a dream or a waking life, it's exactly the same awareness. Follow that. So that's why we look for something reliable and something to take refuge in. We hear everything's impermanent, there's nothing reliable, there's nothing to take refuge in. That's right, I think, in the world of appearances and objects, there's nothing worthy of complete refuge.

[16:51]

Something worthy of complete refuge would have to be unchanging and ever-present, that can never, ever be lost, that can withstand birth and death. That's what I want to take refuge in. And I propose there's only one reality that's like that, and it's not an object. Sometimes we might say emptiness. This is another name, I think, really, for this ever-present knowing. But to call it aware emptiness is, I think, accords with my experience. Emptiness is so negative. And kind of abstract. It's empty in the sense that there's nothing graspable in this knowing. By its very nature, it's completely ungraspable. If it were to be grasped in any possible way, that would be an object of awareness.

[17:54]

That would be like objectifying, making the awareness, taking a little piece of awareness and making it into a graspable object. In a way, just to talk about it and name it. does that a little bit. So the awareness that we're exploring here is not really the one that has a name, and yet we need words. So this first step, is awareness present? Yes. And yes, of course. Is awareness ever not present? No, it's always present, even though I'm usually not paying attention to it. I'm usually into objects. How do I know awareness is present? A little bit. I think for me that turns the light even more, focuses the light of awareness even more radiantly onto itself to kind of really confirm. Awareness is present and it confirms itself, basically.

[18:58]

Being aware of being aware, but not as some object. Sometimes we say, well, how could you confirm awakening without any conceptual mediation? And maybe this very simple experience that we're all having right now is something akin to this. There can be 100% confirmation of awareness being present right now, but that's not a conceptual confirmation. There's knowing. that there is knowing here. Nobody can talk us out of this, I hope. You're not really aware now. Again, the content of awareness, people can talk us all over the place with. And so being aware, being aware is like settling into the present. We can then start to explore this awareness, look to see

[20:05]

if it has any limitations or boundaries or edges or even center. And I think for this kind of exploration it's good to put aside everything we heard before about Buddhism and the world and science. And in our own direct experience, can we find an edge or a boundary of awareness we might say, well, doesn't my awareness kind of... Also, I would add in here, awareness, the way I'm speaking of it, can come through the five senses. So there's like, seeing is a type of awareness, hearing is a type of awareness. And in the Mahayana teachings, it's sometimes taught that the five sense consciousnesses, consciousness I would use as

[21:09]

Divided knowing. In Sanskrit it's vijjnana, divided knowing. And awareness is jnana, which is often translated as awareness or knowing. Sometimes wisdom, but I think wisdom is a little bit abstract, personally, these days. Knowing is a valid translation. In Chinese, jir is the translation of jnana, and that character also means knowing or awareness, undivided knowing, not dualistic consciousness. So this knowing, awareness, if we find some edge or boundary, like, for example, if it's coming through seeing and it seems like my Seeing awareness goes out and ends at you, at, say, your face.

[22:11]

It seems like that's an edge or a boundary of my seeing awareness. It meets at you. But you could say that's actually just dualistic consciousness. It's not really an edge or a boundary of awareness. If we could find an edge or a boundary of awareness, It would be an object of awareness. I hope that this doesn't start sounding abstract, that this is in your experience right now, that you can check this out. You have to pay attention, right? You have to be really present. It's an inner investigation. If I feel like my awareness is kind of a bubble, or maybe it fills the zendo, but it doesn't go outside the zendo, It ends at the walls of the zendo. I would say that sense of the edge of my awareness at the walls of the zendo is an object of awareness.

[23:15]

It's not the awareness itself that has objects or that has boundaries or edges. And a center of awareness, I think, is a little bit a little bit maybe more subtle. We might feel like, I often feel like, if I look for the center of my awareness, it seems like it's centered around this head. Sometimes you might feel like a heart, but I think often it's the head feels like awareness is radiating out or all like, you know, emanating somehow from the center of awareness that's the head. And I think it's just because the sense organs are gathered in the head. Our eyes and ears and also taste and smell and touch through this body, these create a sense of a center of awareness here. But these so-called sense faculties, I would say, are also objects of awareness.

[24:20]

The eye, the seeing eye and the hearing ear, from the perspective of awareness, they're actually objects. Just like we know that from dualistic consciousness we say, Colors and sounds and smells and tactile sensations are objects of consciousness. But the subject is more like the eye and the ear and the nose. From the perspective of awareness, the eye, the ear and the nose are not subjects. They're actually objects. Because they're known by the awareness. They're experienced by the awareness. You have an experience of a... of a subjectivity of, like, an eye or an ear, as well as an objectivity of a nose and smell. So awareness, we could say, manifests itself as subjects and objects, and that illusion of duality that's created by them. So we can look for, if we find a center of awareness called, like, somewhere around the head or this body, we can see

[25:30]

start to explore how that sense, sense of a center, is actually an object of awareness or an object of knowing. And the knowing of the sense of a center around the head and body, the knowing actually has no center. It knows the center as an object. It itself has no edges, boundaries, or center. And yet, lest we fall into some abstract ideas now like well then it's totally just we can't it's outside the realm of our experience remember that we're just talking about this awareness always right here now this one so still we could at this point feel as if this awareness is kind of a witness of the world kind of separate from that which it's witnessing, it's still duality.

[26:32]

How can we actually come to see that you are me and I am you from the perspective of this awareness? I think it's helpful to start with the senses. For example, seeing. We see color and shape. This Buddhist tradition says it's basically what we see and we put it together as things. So we see the zendo. There's an awareness of the zendo as a visual form. And even Buddhism, early Buddhism, teaches that visual form arises dependent on the eye faculty and so on. But this is exploring a different... Early Buddhism teaches a great... story of how conventional appearances work. This realm of interdependent arising is the most beautiful and accurate expression of how conventional appearances of the world and experience function.

[27:44]

But this is more about the ultimate non-dual perspective. So we could say we see the room, the appearance of the zendo, And we usually think of it as like there's a knowing of this appearance. Now we can start to explore in our experience, is there a boundary or edge between this knowing and the appearance of the room? Can we find an edge or a boundary between the knowing and the zendo that we see? First, I've heard so many Buddhist teachings about, yeah, it's called contact, where the consciousness of the eye or mental consciousness meets the object. It's called contact. This is the realm. Contact means boundary, right? This is the realm where there's no contact.

[28:47]

Contact is the realm of duality. One of our Zen ancestors, Bai Jiang, said, if you can come to see that mind and objects never meet, never contact each other, you'll be set free on the spot. We're looking at the room. We're seeing a visual form. We find the boundary edge between the knowing of the zendo and the zendo. I would propose, if we look very carefully, we will not find an edge or boundary because what we're calling the zendo is actually just the knowing of the zendo. There's no other zendo that could ever be experienced other than the knowing of the zendo. So the colors are a kind of knowing. They're not objects anymore.

[29:48]

Maybe hearing is even easier sometimes. You can hear the Sound of this voice is maybe the dominant sound here. There's the hearing of the sound. Whatever this realm is, we call sound. There's the hearing of the sound. Can you find an edger boundary between the knowing of the sound and the sound? Can you find a place where the knowing or awareness contacts the sound? Even though some Buddhist teachings say there's... there's this contact. Again, I think that's a great expression of conventional reality. But if we look deeper in our direct experience, I would propose we can't find this contact point because really the sound that we're hearing is just the knowing of the sound. It's the knowing of the sound, the awareness of the sound, the experiencing of the sound.

[30:53]

The sound is the experience and The experience is nothing other than the experiencing of it. If we can see how that is so, and this is so for everybody, it's not some mystical state. It's not hidden except for the fact that we almost never explore our own experience so deeply. But this is opening to the realm of non-duality. Do you see how this is different from dependent arising? Dependent arising is like the color is arising dependent on this mind that knows it and the eyes that know it. This is more like the color is the knowing of it. We can take another sense like tactility, bodily sensation, the feeling of

[32:00]

of your butt on a cushion or a chair. We could call that contact from a conventional point of view, but there's a knowing of the sensation, right? Awareness of the sensation, an experiencing of sensation. And if we look for that point of contact, all we find is that the sensation is just the experiencing of it. And I think with the butt and the cushion, it's even more interesting to explore. We feel our butt, right? We feel what we call, we think of as our butt, the sensation in the body, the body that's me, we often think. And then we feel the cushion or the chair. We feel the solidity. And we usually think of those as two different things. But are those two different things? Is the sensation in your bottom and the sensation of the hardness or softness of a cushion, are those two different things experientially?

[33:12]

They're not, are they? There's one experience of body cushion. You could say, from direct experience, they're not even dependent on each other because they're one reality. And that we could apply the same investigation to emotions and feelings and thoughts and any kind of possible experience. And therefore, this is the realm of non-separation. You can look at another and say, not only are they dependent on me, from what kind of conventional point of view, but from this point of view of awareness, empty knowing, jnana, also called Buddha nature, they are not, you are not separate from me. You're not even dependent on me. I'm not dependent on you from this level. You are me.

[34:15]

I am you. Zen tradition may sometimes call it one mind, because even to say, like, you have a consciousness with all its content, and I have a consciousness with all my content, that's dualistic consciousness. Even we could have different storehouse consciousnesses that are overlap and are interdependent with each other. But from this point of view of Buddha nature, if we could find a division between my consciousness and your consciousness, that would be objectification. One mind. One Buddha nature. And we have many Zen teachings about this. One, I think, points to this very nicely is one of our ancestors, Yunmen, in old China, he asked the assembly, said to the assembly, everyone has a light.

[35:26]

Again, this light is a poetic way of talking about this ungraspable, ever-knowing, present awareness, free of subjects and objects. Everyone of us has a light, but when you look for that light, it's dark and obscure. Is awareness present? If we look for it as an object, it's dark and obscure. We cannot grasp it as an object. And yet, here it is, ever-present, undeniable, unhidden, always revealed. When you look for it, it's dark and obscure. So Yun Men says this. Every one of us has a light. When you look for it, it's dark and obscure. What is everyone's light? He asks. And nobody answers. So he says... He answers himself and says, the kitchen and the main gate and the zendo and the bell tower.

[36:35]

This is non-duality. We look for the light. We turn back and look for the light as some object. We can't find it. But when we start to explore what are the kitchen and the main gate and so on, we see that they are the knowing of them. They are the light. If we look for the light as some object, like some inner kind of object, well, we cannot find it. But if we are open to how it really is, when we look, we see everything is it, right? Everything is this light. We walk through the temple grounds and everything we see is the light and everyone is this light. could say, you are my light and I am your light, but that doesn't sound like one mind. This realm is like, there is one light. Even to say one is going a little bit far, right?

[37:41]

Because that's relative to two. So often in Zen, they'll say, not one, not two. But we're really into two. So to kind of like veer towards exploring one, I think is helpful for us. And experientially, we can get into so many ideas about this kind of thing. Yeah, it's all oneness. But if we're not in it, confirming it for ourself, it can be misused. But I think if we really can confirm this unity, then How we live in this world takes care of itself quite nicely. All the Bodhisattva precepts are naturally fulfilled in the sense of when we're in touch with this light, it's impossible to harm another.

[38:43]

I propose it's impossible to harm another because we see others are ourselves. I can sometimes harm others, and I confess when I do, I'm not in touch with this reality. And I can remember again. So first it's clarifying, clarifying over and over again from every different angle this reality of light, Buddha nature. And then it's a matter of training and remembering again and again and again. It's a shift of perspective. It really is a shift of perspective because we're so object-oriented. We can feel, when I ask the question, I feel a shift of perspective. And actually, I even notice there's, like my body actually relaxes. At that moment, it's kind of like opening to like, there's bodily tension when we're into duality.

[39:49]

Clarifying and remembering and training in more and more difficult situations. which the world will give us. We don't need to go look for them. And I just wanted to bring up before going this way of talking about this point that I've just found wonderful because I hadn't heard this expression before. This is in the realm of flower ornament Buddhism. We have the Avatama Saka Sutra. school of thought based on this, which is a lot about this non-duality. And then the Zen tradition, especially early Zen in China, was greatly influenced by this. And one of our old Zen teachers named Sung Mi had been studying his teachings. And he just, I think, beautifully expresses this. He was a little bit like, he was at the Tang Dynasty

[40:50]

birth and flowering of early Chan Zen in China, where all these people like Yun-men, this was a little before Yun-men, were expressing these things about this very mind is Buddha and so on. And he was, Sun-mi was kind of meticulous about nuancing these different schools of Zen. And he proposed that the northern school of Zen, which later died out, was was a Zen school, but it was emphasizing more this dependent arising and interdependence, which he thought was a little bit more of a conventional teaching and less emphasis on Buddha nature and awareness itself. And he said the Southern school of Zen, of which we are, our Green Gulch lineage is a branch of Southern Zen from the sixth ancestor, was He felt more authentic than a northern school, which is nice that the authentic southern school lasted.

[41:55]

And he said the southern school was based more on this Buddha nature. And he talked about the difference being called also these flower ornament teachers taught dependent arising versus nature arising. And this is how I was trying to put this into words recently myself. Dependent arising is an explanation for how experiences or appearances conventionally appear to arise dependent on each other, which includes dependence on the eye, the ear, the nose, tongue, body, and so on. And I would understand that this includes both middle way teachings, for those who studied some Buddhist philosophy and so on, people like Nagarjuna, and also... Mind only teachings is a lot about dependence of mind and object. So that's dependent arising.

[42:56]

Nature arising is based on Buddha nature teachings that Sun Mi and others propose actually go beyond even the middle way and mind only into this realm of non-dual awareness or knowing. Nature arising is an explanation of what appearances ultimately are. It's actually a misnomer since ultimately appearances don't arise. They're actually, in other words, the appearances are the knowing of them. And the knowing doesn't come and go. All appearances or experiences are manifestations or expressions or the display of this awareness or knowing or Buddha nature. And our ancestor Gogan is constantly using this word manifestation and expression to talk about how things are not arising so much dependent on other things.

[43:57]

We can talk that way too, but more ultimately things are arising as a manifestation of ultimate truth, which we could speak of as this ever-present, empty, ungraspability of knowing itself. They're manifestations of that. They are that. The world is the knowing of it. Dogen says several places throughout Dogen's writing, he says, one mind is all things. All things are one mind. Not that things are like a projection of mind or dependent on mind, but they are the knowing of them. So, dependent arising and nature arising. Nature is short for Buddha nature, or the nature of mind. Things are arising dependent on other things, or things are arising as expressions or manifestations of awareness, pervaded by awareness.

[45:13]

They actually are the awareness. So I would love to talk with you about this stuff. I know we usually don't talk so much in these talks, but we later have a chance to talk. So especially, I love engaging with all the doubts about this kind of thing, because it helps me clarify it too, right? So I say, wait a second, Kokyo, you can challenge me on all of this stuff, and let's explore it together from our actual experience. Meanwhile, we can have some tea, and as we're drinking the tea, know that the tea actually doesn't depend on us, and we don't depend on the tea. It's kind of true, but in another way, the tea is us, and we are the tea. It's total intimacy. Almost maybe intimacy is a little bit dualistic.

[46:16]

Because this is total unit. There is no other. And I hope that the Dharma, I guess, that we can open to our experience in this way and that it will affect how we live in the world. If it doesn't do that, then I propose it's actually useless. It's just some sort of mind game or something. I propose, if we remember this perspective and see how we live from this perspective, the world will be a different place. And so much unnecessary suffering can be relieved. So I'd like to gather all our intentions for listening and opening to this. are sleepy and haven't been paying any attention this morning, I think there's still merit in being here in the Dharma realm and letting the blessings of the Buddha's and ancestors rain down and pervade our experience even if we're asleep.

[47:35]

I think there's merit there, which is like there's some seeds of joy and well-being Merit is like just the result of wholesome activity. It's called merit. So we have to show up here. I think there's some wholesome activity and therefore there's some well-being that results from that. And we gather this all up and we intend, because intention creates the world, to offer it to all beings everywhere, especially those most suffering. May they all realized the great awakened way. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support.

[48:39]

For more information, visit sfbh.org. zc.org and click giving may we fully enjoy the dharma

[48:50]

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