You start a new file? Yeah. I hope it's on conference though. Hmm? It's recording. It needs to be on conference. You didn't change it. It's on the back. Okay.

[01:02]

Okay. take care of that. So last week we talked about the first two sentences of the second paragraph. You know, one way to think about this is that the whole first paragraph lays forth or sets forth the principle of practice. And then the next paragraph is starting to refine, you know, the engagement of practice, you know, what practice is and what it isn't. In a way, we can read these sentences as saying, well, you know, Dogen contrasts, you know, the activity of a Buddha and the activity of a deluded person. In a way, you could just say, well, he's saying, Well, practice like this. Don't practice like this.

[02:02]

This is what you're doing. You're missing the point. This is the point. To carry the self forward and realize the 10,000 things is delusion. When the 10,000 dharmas advance and realize the self is enlightening. Buddhas who enlighten delusion and its sentient beings who are deluded in enlightenment. Further, there are those who attain enlightenment above enlightenment and then those who are deluded within delusion. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, no one need to be aware of being Buddha. However, one is the realized Buddha and further advances in realizing Buddha. So then we reflected for a few moments on what it would be to practice this, to actualize this, and I wondered if anyone had anything to comment on that or to report about that?

[03:15]

Any enlightening experiences you'd like to share with the group? but you'd like to say something like that. Oh, I'm just looking around. You see anything interesting? Can I ask you a question? Do you want to go before her question or action? No, no. Go ahead, Annie. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Sibel, go ahead. All right. So this part that when you realize the Buddha in the mix further possibilities of development, do you have a sense of that?

[04:23]

I mean, if you practice denial, having a feeling that much more thought than I have, and, you know, being more in your past, do you get a sense of that? Do I get a sense of? What that is? Or is that also, I mean, it's kind of abstract. We do abstract as well. It's kind of abstract? I thought we beat it up one side down the other. Getting it into the actual. You didn't think so? No. It still hangs you up? It still hangs you up?

[05:26]

Oh, I thought we were just talking about the first part. Oh, we're going to get to that. We're talking about you practicing with how these two first sentences modified, qualified, guided your practice, the engagement of your practice. He's saying, if you think practice is going to fix you or fix the world and have it fit into how you want it to be, well, that's just a continuance of delusion. If practice is engaged from a non-self-centered position or agenda, then something is transformed. So Buddhists see through the diluted agendas, sent in being the diluted agenda.

[06:42]

Is that straightforward enough? Yeah. But now remember what we were saying last week, what we were saying, if you just grasp an idea, Then you're just grasping an idea. Then you're setting yourself in the camp of the second sentence. So be careful. Do you need the first sentence? First sentence? No. Do you carry the self part? Oh yes, I do need the first sentence. Thank you. Well, maybe we should try that one on, too. What do you want to say, Nick? I mean, this is so vast. I guess I've been thinking that, for me, the advancement of 10,000 jobs is something I often experience as just a forceful correction from the world, whether it is I'm engaging with a situation or a person or an idea.

[07:51]

Something, and I think that, if anything, practice has help me accept that correction more, less defensively. Yeah. We conjure up a notion of ourselves, the world, how things are, and then sometimes events, circumstances show us, well, no, that's not it. Here you go, look at this. And then what is it to avail our being of that information, of that influence? What is it to let the tantalizing things come forward? And help illuminate reality, illuminate the nature of things, rather than to be preoccupied in asserting something.

[08:59]

Because it feels to me like the more I practice then the more I realize I find myself rubbing against the self all the time. Like I notice the self more. So, is that... What? Is that that I'm carrying myself forward or is it that I'm allowing... Allowing. Allowing what arises quickly. But what do you mean when you say rubbing against the self? Well, I just notice the self in everywhere. Like... Well I think it's important to realize that as we continue to practice you know and we shift from just operating from the world according to me and the agendas and the fears and attachments and aversions that that creates and we make a conscious effort to shift that how

[10:47]

reality of being engaged, when that conscious effort is made, it's going to show our habit energy. In fact, when you try to stop smoking, that's when you really see attachment to smoking. When you just go along with smoking, where's the problem? Have another cigarette. It's when you say, okay, I won't have a cigarette, then you really see So in one sense, practicing makes our life worse. This determination to practice is carrying the self forward. So that's what the first two sentences... I mean, if you think about it, we conjure up an agenda of our practice and then it motivates us and then we act it out.

[12:04]

And yet right here, Dogen's Envy is saying, don't act out your agenda, that's just furthering delusion. Let it come forth. That's the process of awakening. If we think about it a little, you know, we can see that we act out our agenda to discover how not to act out our agenda. And then we can think about Zazen. You know, Zazen is Shikantaza. Zazen is to be fully and completely present without any agenda. So it's the very engagement of going beyond agenda. And then that going beyond the gender, Dogen Zenji stresses that engaging from that very same disposition, when we engage not from a self-centered position, the activity of engaging activates non-selfishness, activates connectedness.

[13:20]

And so that complete activation is complete awakening. So Dogen Zenji says, you know, practice realization, same thing. That complete activation of non-selfishness, which is practiced, is the complete expression of non-separation. So it's the same thing. So what was that? Was that too theoretical or was that Can you put your hand on that idea? Don't you think that not having resented can also do his own? Well, no. I would say we have to get further down into the Genjiu Kahn to kick that off.

[14:26]

I mean... The way I read this first couple of sentences, there's a clear emphasis. It's almost like Dogen Dengi saying, please remember, this is the primary activity and this is the not. This is how you do it, this is not how you do it. I mean, I think our common sense, we say, how could we not agree with that statement? Why can we not see, you know, I think as we continue dying, you know, we see that we practice within delusion to realize going beyond delusion. It is the Buddhists who enlighten delusion.

[15:34]

So we could say, that this activity, this non-selfish activity, this non-self-centered activity. So last week we were talking about monastic practice. And I was saying in response to your comment last week that Dogen Zengi's notion was that monastic light, the nature of it, the interaction of it, the structure of it, was a non-selfish mandala. And that acting within the non-selfish mandala, when you're the cook, you cook rice for the community. You don't cook to be praised. You don't cook to advance your career to go. You don't cook for the big wages you're getting paid. You cook to feed Bodhisattvas and Buddhas. and through that very activity awakens all beings.

[16:38]

And then to carry that forth in all of our actions. So that non-selfish activity is awakening activity. Buddhists who enlightened illusion and then sentient beings who are devoted about enlightenment. As we were saying last week, you know, then, you know, what most of us do, we have an agenda, we have a way we're suffering, and we want to practice so it's practice will end our suffering, you know? So we draw it into the way we have defined reality and want it to be efficacious within our definition. Paul? When you say this unselfish activity, Are you talking about just meeting what he is?

[17:43]

Do you remember the way Izumi Roshi in those notes talks about compassion? Yes. So he defines it in three ways. He talks about You're quite separate from others. So even within that context, you can not be so selfish. You can think, I will help others. Right there, there is a lessening of self-centeredness. Then he talks about seeing that the notion of self and other is erroneous, that there is really no other that it's all non-separate that there is no independent being either of self or others but still we take on the delusion because the suffering is real the concept's not real but the suffering created by the delusion is real so we take it on to help so we can think of

[19:01]

we can think of that as a more refined kind of practice and then the third one is just being immersed in non-separation and acting within non-separation and practice takes care of itself so maybe in the first place we have a strong sense of self another we have a strong sense of me in the world and we're acting out our practice. The second one, we do have some sense of non-separation, but still we're suffering or a suffering human being. So we can, and that motivates our practice. So there's a less sub-centeredness in that one. And in the third one, we're just doing, you know, to go back to the monastic model, the bell goes and you just go do the next thing. You don't have any agenda as to why you're doing it.

[20:05]

Other than, you know, that's the agreement you've made by being part of the monastic mandala and carrying actinite with monastic form. Okay? Further. There are those... between enlightenment, above enlightenment. And there are those who are deluded within delusion. Further, there are those who continue realizing beyond realization, and those who are in delusion, who are deluded. Any comments on that? It's interesting, In the sun, this one with Mayim Srimi Roshi, it sounds almost like two groups of people.

[21:10]

There are those who are saying enlightenment above enlightenment, there are those who are in delusion within the one we chant. It sounds like it's one group of people, further those who continue realizing about realization, who are in delusion throughout delusion. So there are those who continue realization beyond relation. Realization. Oh, I see. Yeah. Sounds like the people who realize beyond realization are the same as those who are in delusion throughout the region. But in this other one, it sounds like they're two separate. Yes. So I think. Furthermore. There are those who attain realization beyond realization and those who are deluded within delusion. As far as I can remember, most of the translations separate them into distinct categories.

[22:16]

And I'm not sure if he's not yet, although I agree with you the way it does read as if this is the same group of people. Can you talk a little bit about enlightenment above and above? And enlightenment to me sort of implies that you go beyond, I mean, it's beyond. So what could be beyond what's beyond? Beyond. What if we come at it this way? Think of the three marks. non-separation impermanence or or non-self or interactive dynamic being and then the third mark being how it's related to but if you just take the first two and we think that

[23:30]

full engagement, that non-separate engagement in that dynamic being is the actualization of realization. And just toss away the word enlightenment and turn it into a verb, turn it into an activity. The problem is when we say enlightenment, then it's a mind and then it's a thing. And then if we turn it into an activity, then it's easier to understand that I can't be enlightened. I can't be enlightened because it's an activity that you can be fully part of. You can't own it. You can just participate in it. And that's Dogen's essential message. Full participation is the activity realization. And if that's already beyond, so what could be beyond that?

[24:37]

Well, I mean, the activity is going beyond. What's beyond going beyond? Well, let's not get hung up on the word beyond. Isn't it going to continue? Whenever I read that, I don't think it means like, you know, here's beyond, and then we're going to go beyond this place called beyond, but like, okay, you've had a sattori or whatever, and you continue after that sattori, hopefully to have further, you know, that it's an activity. It's not an, there's not a place to go beyond. And that's what I'm saying. If going beyond is this activity, then what's, How can you sort of, if you're moving... Continue it. Right, I see. Because everything is dynamic and part of cause and effect.

[25:43]

So self-centered activity stimulates further self-centered activity. Selfless activity stimulates further selfless activity. Right. And that's the action of dwelling beyond. Yes. So if you're involved in and participating in this action of going beyond, how can you also be involved in going beyond? Let's change the language a little bit. It's a sense of separate self. It's thoroughly dropped and there's full engagement in the activity of the moment. The law of cause and effect operates and that stimulates further activity of the same nature. If you caught up in the world according to me and acting out the world according to me, that stimulates further world according to me. That worked.

[26:46]

That worked? Oh, yes. No, I wish you a girl. I don't know. [...] The more we realize, the more compassionate we become. And the more compassionate we become, the more the truth we have to be. And it's different. Oh. Where does he say that? The pedometer. I know. Where? Can you, can you? Oh, page. Or even a head system where it is? Like, page right there. The second page of the Trinity. Yeah. Okay. So how do you understand that, Anna? How do you understand that? What that means to become eluded. What are the reasons we got to be?

[27:48]

And we talk about why we ought to be that anyway. Become compassionate. The more and the more compassionate we become, the more eluded we have to be. I think compassion is, I think it's the advanced form of wisdom of the absence of the living world. Why do people become eluded? Well, if you think about earlier when we were talking about compassion and And towards the end of the next page, you know, where he lays out three kinds of compassion. And then he says, so we have a sense that how we're constructing reality and that our constructs are just that. They're just constructs. Self and others should be construct.

[28:50]

Yet, you know, as Nagarjuna said, the constructs are illusion, but the pain is real. The suffering is real. So our compassionate act is towards the real zuckery. Even though the wisdom of the dharma and maybe our own dharma says that the constructs that give rise to it are illusion. So we anchor in to the deluded world, to relate to, to give comfort and support to the real suffering that arises within that world. But in a way that we don't relate to the other, right? Compassion is the oneness with the other, complete empathy, right?

[29:57]

So why is that deluded or more than Well, I mean, in a way we'd have to ask him his name is Roshi, but my own interpretation of this statement was there was that the word compassion means to suffer with, to be with the pain. So we don't stay separate and from some lofty superior position say, I'm having pity on you, you pure suffering person. We embrace them. We engage them. We suffer with them. There's actually no strength in either way. The empath means they're complete. So that's entering into. Think about it.

[31:00]

suffering arises from a misperception. To meet the suffering and to join the suffering is to enter into that world. Well, I think that there's a very strong separate, like a view to the other, when all beings are wallowing at the time, You have to jump into the mind, but the mind is the other thing. You know, for me, it comes on and that kind of brought my question. So, so, so, one of the things we learned in office was that compassion is the act of turning towards the supper. Turning and joining in the supper meeting that exactly where it is, which means I have to go. I have to go into whatever delusion... If I'm dealing with a patient who is... I mean, some of the patients are truly deluded and demented.

[32:15]

I meet them in their dimension. I don't try to bring them into... I'm joining them in that dimension, in that delusion. And for that time that I'm with them, I'm in that delusion. The compassion... compels me to share that space with them. For me, the act of compassion just simply means turning towards it and entering the suffering. And there's a more sophisticated point that we'll get to later. Let's hold a break then. Thank you, Vince. When Buddhists are truly Buddhists, One need not be aware of being Buddha. So this non-self action, this non-self activity of full engagement, to be fully and completely what it is, doesn't require an awareness of it.

[33:27]

Being fully in the moment It doesn't require that there's an awareness of being fully in the moment. There's full engagement in the moment. Well, because wouldn't that awareness mean that you weren't fully engaged in the moment? If you became aware of being engaged fully in the moment, you would no longer be fully, you know what I mean? I do know what you mean. It seems to me that the awareness itself would sort of end the engagement. Because then you're, again, switching me into something else. Okay. I'm actually, I'm asking. Well, I'm just going to make it a little bit more complicated, but I'm not sure it serves us at this point. You say, well, think of it. So then, the next rising thought could be an awareness of

[34:36]

This is what's happening. But if there's awareness, if there's complete awareness of that and isn't grasped as an objective experience, but just an arising thought... Right. Okay. Okay. However, one is the realized Buddha and further advances in realizing Buddha. So, again... And maybe we can draw this into a different kind of realm, which is that when we sit zazen, you know, we sit zazen and we start to engage the activity of non-self-centered being. We start to engage activity without saying, This is about me. This is about my agenda. This is about me getting what I want and avoiding what I don't want.

[35:38]

And we're giving over to being fully present with what is. And then in the midst of that activity, all our shit gets stirred up and all sorts of things and ideas and images and memories all get stirred up and come forward. And then we drop them. We see through them and we drop them. And then we're in the midst of all this. And in a way, we don't know what the heck's going on. Like someone might say, oh, by this being present in your body, you're doing a sort of somatic processing of how you embody the different deep emotions that your life has set up by sitting up straight and releasing this body. You know, we're letting all that go. I personally like that idea. But, you know, when you're sitting Zazen, you don't have to think about that.

[36:42]

You know? You just notice that persistent thought, become aware of it, release it, and let awareness return to attention to body and attention to breath. You know? And nor do you have to have some complex psychological notion of, well, here's the psychological process of Zazen, or the epistemological, or any other one you want to conjure up. Not to say that those aren't useful or relevant perspectives, but in the activity of Zazen, it's not significant. In fact, it's significant to let them all go and give over to the very activity and let it be what it is. And the Buddha doesn't know that they're being Buddha.

[37:50]

But the activity, the potency of the activity still continues. So you sit down and, you know, an interesting thing that I'm sure many of you have realized, you know, You read some Zen thing and you think, well, that is just weird gobbledygook. And then you go and you sit a whole bunch of Zazen and then you lift the same thing up and you think, huh, that kind of makes sense now. And it's not that while you were sitting Zazen, you were stewing on this, trying to figure it out with your mind. Some other working is going on. It's a Buddha's being truly Buddhas don't know that they're being Buddha. However, realizing Buddha and one realized Buddha further advances in realizing Buddha. The practice isn't necessarily a cognitive process.

[38:55]

In fact, You know, maybe we could more closely argue that it isn't a cognitive process. You know, you could almost argue there's a requirement to let it not be a cognitive process. Personally, I think that's going too far. But certainly, in Zazen, it is not a cognitive process. is most intimate. Okay. So that's the point on how to direct our effort in sunset. So we have the principle and then how to direct our effort in the practice. Again, doing the practice. But then how do you do the practice?

[39:59]

Seeing forms with whole body and mind. Hearing signs with whole body and mind. One understands an intimate look. When you see forms and hear signs fully engaging body and mind, you grasp things directly. Okay. What do you say about that? Yes, Max? Something cooking in that head. Maybe. Just doing something completely. Understands them intimately.

[41:15]

Grasts them directly. I don't know how to put it. In seeing color with body and mind and hearing signs with body and mind, although we perceive them intimately. Oh, he puts it as a qualifier, the second part of the paragraph. Although we perceive them intimately. I read it more in terms of, it's what I was saying earlier, the Dogen here is saying, totally engaged body or mind. Totally engaged seeing, totally engaged hearing, totally engaged tasting, totally engaged feeling.

[42:20]

And then, you know, I think the word understand sort of falls short. It's more that, When something is experienced directly out of itself, its suchness is fully manifest. And the experience of that full manifestation is realization. But that realization goes beyond just the notions that you think up about. Is that clear? Did you say body, mind become the forms, the seat, or becomes the sound? If you quite literally take what Dogen, he's talking about seeing and hearing.

[43:28]

And then if you go back to Abhidharma, and the seeing organ, the eye, and the seeing objects meet together and the activity of the meaning of the consciousness is fully engaged. The activity of seeing is what is. So just the activity and there's no subject or output? Yeah. You know, if you think that usually from self-centered thinking, We have an agenda, and we're struggling to make the agenda. The world is resisting our agenda because the world doesn't simply comply to what we are. And so it's a qualified experience. And then when there's full experience, there's no separation, there's no struggle, and it's completely itself.

[44:37]

suchness of the moment is fully expressed and that gives rise to an acknowledgement that isn't necessarily cognitive. That's my understanding of it. And that's what it means when he says one understands them infinitely. And I would reuse the same phrase, you know, not knowing is most intimate. There's a question. So would it also mean sort of like that great moment of directly perceiving something for all the concepts and the storylines given away? Yeah. Right. And here he's talking about, yeah. But here he's also talking about, you know, and this was a very significant point to go, and it's like giving, coming forth in that way.

[45:47]

Coming forth, like fully engaging body and body. Totally engagement of a single act. Yeah, that way of engaging. That way of coming forth, that way of not resisting. That way of not holding back. And then he does. So first of all, he's making a point. Okay, this is how you practice. Okay, now you've got the principle. Now you've got what to do and what not to do. How to direct your effort. Now do it. However, it's not like the moon. It's not like a mirror with reflections, nor like water under the moon. Let me try another translation.

[46:49]

The great thing about having different translations is when one of them doesn't suit your own attitude, you can go to another. When you see forms and hear signs fully engaging body and mind, you grasp things directly. Maybe if we... Let's tweak that sentence a little bit. Things are directly experienced. Things are directly and fully experienced. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water. So what have we got there? We've got subject and object. Well, in the sentence after, when one side is dark and the other side is dark, is that referring to the things and the reflections, or is that something else?

[48:00]

Did you notice that I stopped at the first part? We're going to get to that. Okay. Okay. Think of a mirror and think This is reflected there Think of Subjective and objective conjure up our own ideas of everything, right?

[49:04]

And then from that disposition, we conjure up objective. There is no purity in the objective because we're conjuring it up. Yes. I just wonder if this sentence also is an echoing of the earlier one. It said, one is a real life Buddha and further advances in real life in Buddha. Because when we say Buddha, it means the true nature of this thing itself, right? It can be our self or it can be an object. So when this sentence, that's how I read this sentence, it said, When one side is realized and the other side is dark, so we make the separation of emptiness is emptiness and form is full.

[50:16]

When do we do that? When one side is illuminated and the other side is dark? Yeah, so then there's a mirror. Let me answer the first part you need first. Okay. Before he's talking about Continuance, you know, cause and effect keep working. You know, there's two things that happen in full engagement that it lends itself to further full engagement. And then the second point is you don't have to figure it out. You don't have to know, oh, this is what's happening and here's how it's happening and why it's happening. Just give over to it. And then in this paragraph, he's talking about, firstly, he's emphasizing wholehearted action about non-separation. And then he's saying, first of all, he says, don't separate.

[51:18]

And then he goes to saying, separation is like this, because when you separate it like this, when you separate it into the thing, its reflection in the mirror and you separate it into the moon and its reflection in the water right that's not it it's not separate no so you need to know there's this separation and there's this not separation that's correct First of all, he thinks, it's not separate. And then he turns it around and then he says it another way. He says, this is what separate is. Subject and object is separate. And it's not like that. And then he makes one more point.

[52:26]

Any other comments on that? Masumi Roshi made another point where he referred to the moon as enlightenment and the water as, you know, when there's waves on the water, the light of enlightenment isn't clearly reflected from our being. I'm not so sure Dogen's getting to that point either. I thought his point was similar, but certainly that's another index that could be brought up. But then he goes on and he's saying, when one side is realized, the other side is God. Any comments on that?

[53:32]

Something like that. The sound of mind for us, the first thing that popped into my mind was the minute we say, ah, that's it. And all the other possibilities and viewpoints are, at least for that moment, impossible. They're dark. You're seeing. You believe in receiving this and why you believe it. So it's only the other possibilities are dark. Right. Could you hear what Keith said there? So when seeing is fully engaged, the suchness of that arising experience is fully eliminated and all the other possibilities are not. And to recognize that

[54:39]

Well, each moment of complete engagement is completely itself. There's all sorts of possibilities of engagement in the moment. And that one's illuminated and that is why. Or we can also think of it in terms of we can think of it as this being is a collection of all our individual beings or we can think of it as an interaction of one massive existence like the whole universe is an interactive body of being. So when you see it as non-differentiated reality, the particularity of the moment is not experienced.

[55:55]

And if you remember back in the first class, well, maybe it wasn't so, but what I was going to say, Sorry, this isn't such a good example. But as consciousness moves into the jhanas and lets go of more of its discriminating faculties, as it lets go of time and space, it experiences an undifferentiated being. So when undifferentiated being is illuminated, the particularity is darkened. When there is active engagement in the particularity, the other is low. So, when one side's eliminated, when one mode is eliminated, the other mode is gone. But even just to recognize in a conventional world.

[57:02]

You know, when you're at a baseball game and your team is playing, your rivals, you know, you're a Giants fan and they're playing the Dodgers, you know, and you're gripping the edge of your seat, you know, because you're totally anxious about your team winning, about the Giants winning, you know. And body and mind are fully engaged in being a Giants fan. And the fact that both teams are baseball players totally forgot, you know, because there's just Giants and Dodgers. Then after the game, you know, then you reflect on the fact that we're all just baseball players and fans. And that we will play endless games and win and lose endless times.

[58:07]

So all the time, you know, in our life, we're creating scenarios. We're creating distinctions and fully engaging them. Eliminating one and darkening another. So maybe this is a second analogy, but if you're watching a movie, you can either be, well, I feel like I can either be fully engaged in the plot. It's going to happen. or kind of noticing how it's all, you know, it's all, it's just a movie. I mean, it's just look around to everybody, you know, kind of this, see the light coming into the, and so what you're saying is when one, you're doing one, you can't do the other. When you're fully engaging one, the other one, you know, You can actually go back and forth, but then you're not fully engaged in one.

[59:17]

So that's my understanding of this part. That here Dogen is talking about. What is it that fully engaged practice? So principle, directing our effort, full engagement. Okay? And then... Pedro Park, who's even the most famous part, are still. Finally, it's about me. Why do you think I'm here anyway? It's about me. Can I ask one last question? Yes. I just thought you don't like it. And Dogen's very point is, it's exactly the same thing. So, as far as I know, he tweets the language, when he is writing it up, to sort of make them synonymous.

[60:31]

Later on, you can't even use it as one word, practice and lightness. It is a practice and lightness. Okay, any other comments or questions? No. Okay. To study the Buddha way is to study the Self. To study the Self is to forget the Self, to forget the Self. is to be enlightened by the ten thousand dharmas. To be enlightened by the ten thousand dharmas is to free one's body and mind and those of others. No trace of enlightenment remains and this traceless enlightenment is continued forever. Okay?

[61:37]

So if we go back to the phrase, you know, Buddhists are enlightened about delusion. Well, where does delusion happen? Delusion happens in the realm of self. You know, we conjure up our ideas, our thoughts, our feelings about what is. And then we act them out, and then we have the consequence of acting out the self. Or we could say, it's our very karmic constructs that brought us in the front door. It's our very karmic constructs that said, it would be a good idea to start practicing. It's our very karmic constructs that said, this is what practice is, this is what it's about, this is what it will create, this is what it will cease. So the Dozens already said,

[62:49]

Don't just act like your karmic constructs. Study them. Buddhas are enlightened about delusion. So study the self. Study the constructs of the self. And what will we study there? Dogen also talks about take the backward step. So first of all, we're acting like the world according to me. Then we pause and we see the consequences of acting like the world according to me. And then we pause and then we feel what it's like to be experiencing these consequences. And then we pause and then we notice

[63:50]

What underlies those feelings? What more fundamental feelings, what fundamental perspectives and attitudes give rise to those feelings? And then we pause and we look at those fundamental attitudes and perspectives and feelings, and we see that they're part of a dynamic process. they're not static and fixed, that they're moving all the time, that they're interactive, and that the notion that there's a fixed, separate self doesn't hold up because the opening is dynamic. So in the studying of the self, the self falls apart.

[64:58]

You start to notice this dynamic interaction. You become immersed in experience. One of the joys of sitting till your knees become so painful that you can't think. It's that you get immersed in being exactly what is. It just so happens it's not a pleasant what is. But hey, you can't have everything. See, you get so immersed you can't think. Yes. Thank you. I'm really worried about that.

[66:02]

What did you think he said? I was having that. A couple of times I was like, I'm losing my mind. He's getting immersed. I hope that. I hope that. Good. You can't think, so you forget yourself. And then your bell rings and you think, thank goodness, I can go back to being me. That was horrible. It was the worst experience of my life. And then she seems over and then you're happy. Why the hell are you happy? You just sat there and suffered. You should be miserable. You should say, I'm quitting. I'm never going to do this again. But instead you think, that was kind of great. This Zen stuff is really wonderful. Because something in it, when we drop the self, even under adverse conditions, something in it goes, whoa, that's a relief.

[67:06]

And then, of course, we resume it with great dedication. I'm wondering if you could go over this dynamic interaction between yourself and what? What is the dynamic interaction that you were referring to? I mean it. At which part? Ready for the self-help part. Before the self falls apart. When you were going, when you were taking a step back to look at what underlies and what under... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks. ...feeling and underlying that is a dynamic interaction.

[68:10]

Gotcha. What and what, something like this. Well, whatever it's in it, as we go back, we get the underlying feeling. Then we get the perspective, you know. that are associated with them. So we have like the worldview, and then that worldview includes a view of the self. So you have the feelings, the worldview, and the disposition conjured up by both of those. And then you study it, and you start to see it's pandemic. It's not a static thing, you know? I mean, that's one of the marvelous things about you know, paying attention. Something comes up and it stirs up passionate, emotional response and you just keep staying with it. At some point that dissolves into the next experience.

[69:11]

Did I answer your question? So when we study those, we see there's enormous passionate energy there. And that's why it confines us, you know, when we sit as in and think, well, everything is just going to do what it's told, you know? And then we realize it just isn't. Because all this life force just keeps bubbling up and bubbling up. and that the request of Zazen is to not hinder it. It is to not construe a self that has to be in charge and define it and direct it and make it what it isn't now. How do you stay with all that stuff as you're following up when you're not being in the process?

[70:22]

I think in principle, if we go back to principle, we remember that it's not a matter of staying with it. Because how can you not be yourself? How can you not be in the very center of this nexus of activity that I call me? How can I be anywhere else except right in the middle of me? I don't even have an option, but I try very hard to change it, to separate from it, to make it more one way than the other. So Dovin Venge says, don't put your energy into a new and improved way of separating. Direct your attention to noticing how separating is created.

[71:34]

Become enlightened about the process of separating. Rather than trying to create the perfect separation. What was the question? Well, in undifferentiated being, there's no self. In the process of organized experience, there's a center to it that's seen and felt and heard and touched and tasted in a particular way.

[72:44]

So both modalities express the nature of being, in some ways, we can say they are the two truths. They are the relative and the absolute. In the absolute, there's no self. In the relative, there is this particular carving construction that expresses itself a certain way. Well, let's talk about delusion. But Buddhas are enlightened about delusion. That's right. To study the Buddha way is to study itself. Dogen Zengi doesn't say, to study the Buddha way is to study absolute truth. Because human beings don't experience absolute truth. They experience relative truth. Start where you are.

[73:52]

What do you think of that? Well, I don't agree with that because just the idea of yourself, that separate self, that is you. Yes. So, two paragraphs back, Dogen's answer says exactly. He says, that is delusion. And that is what Buddhists study. So given that information, being forewarned, being duly warned and advised and guided, Natalie says, okay, let's get to it. Don't forget what I told you. I want wholehearted action. I want you to realize you're going to start by being in the context of your own delusions.

[74:56]

And that's what you're going to study. What else can you study? Except right here, in the midst of what you are. To forget the self. So it becomes a dynamic process. It isn't a fixed entity. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand dragons. Let's go back to what he said before. The 10,000 things come forth. So as we study, you know, maybe if we want to get fancy, we could say, that when we study the nirmanakaya, when we study the manifest realities, and we study it with careful attention, it becomes energy.

[76:15]

A simple and wonderful way to experience this is just sit up straight, You can do this in the safety of your own home. Let's see. It's a very interesting practice and quite simple. You sit up straight, throw away all notions you have of my body. It's like usually we have a sensation and we go see, That means I have a body. So you sit up straight, you close your eyes, and you throw away all notions of my body, my legs, my arms, my head, and just experience sensation.

[77:16]

And try not to glue the different sensations together into a body. And you discover It's almost like free-floating phenomena that then we glue into something. And then, if you pay more careful attention, you see that that phenomenal experience is like an energetic experience. If you attend to it closely, you see the the sense organ of touch was activated and it's like an energetic experience and at this some you know here I am what could be more irrefutable than my body but with a little careful attention we see

[78:24]

It's just one more construct. So this is what it is to forget the self. And then in that phenomenal expression, we see the demonic nature of existence. You say that Do you really focus on something and doing something? Would you say that is kind of an engagement of forgetting yourself or do you think that's almost like hiding from yourself? Like let's say you're riding your bike up the mountain really hard and you're not thinking about yourself. You're just like pumping those muscles, going up the hill. Is that forgetting the self, or is that kind of like, almost like pushing your body to experience that you can't forget the self?

[79:30]

You know, and I'm... You do make sense, because if we think about it in terms of applied attention or applied engagement, you know, home-hearted engagement, as an act of principle, you... You're riding your bike, it takes everything you've got, so much so that there's non-separation. I remember a couple of years ago in Vogue magazine, I read an article on the zen of skiing. And the point of the article was that when you fully engage skiing, there's no self. So there you are, Vogue magazine. I know. That's what, you know, I always feel like that becomes a kind of key scene, cultural way of understanding that.

[80:31]

Oh, just, I'm scared. You're insane. You've forgotten yourself. I don't know, sometimes I worry that that's some kind of superficial, goofy way. I know, it's hard to feel special when Vogue magazine just lays out. It used to have been the New Yorker. Or something with, you know, Louis Bradley Pass. I mean, at least it was Vogue. It wasn't one of these teen magazines designed for 12 to 14 years. But maybe they got it too. I've never read any of them. And not to discount your point, of course, anything can be trivialized. But, and you know, all that is about where we, we take, we turn it into an idea and say, okay, got it.

[81:35]

And we disconnect from the immensity of the request. Anybody who practices knows how persistently and spontaneously, we separate. As I say, you know, you sit there in Zazen, and you become one with the experience, and the moment you can get out of it, you do. But I was wondering, why aren't we all, you know, having that scheme, that moment, why aren't we all being talked about? I'm like going for it. I don't know how to break my leg. You know what I mean? Like, why are we all, you know, with it really being prudent to be kind of searching for these intense experiences where you kind of almost forget. So active engagement. And then in the next paragraph, go to the study, you know,

[82:47]

So in a way, he's saying active engagement goes beyond cognition. It goes beyond knowing. It just is what it is. Just do Zazen. Don't know what you're doing. Just be completely what it is. And maybe in your idle moments, you want to cook up some definition of the process of Zazen and how it does what it does. Not essential. And then he turns in the next paragraph and he turns to study. It's like, to go back to early Buddhism, Samatha Vipassana. Complete meaning, inquiry. Study. To study this is a completely different activity from

[83:51]

from studying algebra, from studying Latin. It's a whole body and mind and life engagement study. But it is study. And where do you start? You start with the sound. And if you follow this process, it brings you back to that same place of intimate engagement. You just come at it through a different tone of game. but it's the same basic engagement. How can it not be? So that's what you're saying here. So maybe we could say, another way we may define it, the first one is active, wholehearted engagement, and then the second one is receptive. Be totally present for what's going on in your body. Let the 10,000 things come forth.

[84:54]

And then he adds a couple of pieces that he didn't add before. And to be enlightened by the 10,000 things is to free one's body and mind and the body and mind of others. And no trace of enlightenment remains and this no trace continues forever. Okay, and there we are going to stop. Okay. Thank you very much. Is this stuff finally on the web or should I stop saying it? It will be tomorrow. No, I just got the... Fine. What is the comment on your events?

[85:51]

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