Dogen Class: Miracles

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penetrate the think about what dog the challenges to get through
it's great practical who actually if you if you take it into you
heart
it really reflect deeply on what you say if if you you you you live it is faulty
if all time is right here in the present
he means that
the letter what the past has been
and the matter what the future looks like it will be
there's always the possibility read your though
but we've evolving and redeeming the past and shaping the future in ways that one can imagine projecting linearly into the future
means that every moment those possibilities all its possibilities regardless of what has happened before
there are always possibilities and that's a tremendous thing to recognize that is how it is
and the question is you know will we
live as if you know every moment was a possibility or will we say oh no it's impossible the past comes me in the future it is
too hard
so that's one thing that's really important than the other thing is that
especially nowadays i don't think here and those of us living in the temple too much have this problem but
we want all always be living in a temple and will be going out into the world at large and then will be will say along with everybody else in the world
i'm too busy too much going on not enough time i'm always harriet and always harassed
well such ideas and feelings and expressions make no sense whatsoever in terms of duggan's teachings
dog and is telling us that there is always exactly enough time
that every moment is complete and full there is no such thing as tire pressure and if you will actually pay close attention to the time pressure that you feel in your life you'll see that it has nothing to do with time it's not time that makes you feel harassed and harried and and overworked and to be
izzy that that there's not enough time it's that you have worries you have fears
you have attachments you desire you might want to please someone else you might want not want to look bad you might not want to embarrass yourself walking in late you know these kind of things those are the things that body it's that time that bother you
there's just enough time
you know people say well but what about multitasking multitasking makes you nervous
there is no such thing as multitasking there's only doing one thing at a time if you really look very very closely
you're not
you know reading a book and talking on the phone at the same time your alternating between these two things at a rapid rate
and when you know what you're doing and you settled into your activity you see that there's always just doing one thing and meeting it completely when you realize that you will live differently
then another thing
is
for those of us who
or let's say of the age at which someone might say of us
you have past your prime
and we might think that we're aging i'm getting old
dogan is telling us that this is not the whole story
that all of time is in every moment so if we've attained the age of fifty or sixty we have are fifty or sixty also for forty and thirty and twenty and ten and if you're twenty are also ten and five and one and subway
aging
is a convention
it's a designation of course the body changes the song but mostly what bothers one about aging does not the changes because after all what is always having an experience of the body right
which has pleasant and unpleasant happy and unhappy sensations in a mixture regardless of a whole hold your
so what's bothersome about aging is the construct
the conventional construct
and then we think time is running out
but suppose we viewed the end of our lives not as time just ran out but
approaching death i can't find times fulfillment
i can find a fullness in the deaths of time instead of and on have any more time because we looked at it that way
which is how dog and i think it's telling us to look at it
so i just wanted to bring these things up lest we think logan is just spinning
concepts in the air that have no relevance to our actual moving in fact
if we really take in and teachings about time
we will look at things differently and interaction living
in the beautiful thing about this these words of dog and is the study of time that dogan
the journey and the study of time that dogan takes us on
is that it's not just reading words and a text
because of the practice of zazen
we actually experience time differently when we're sitting in zazen we are really and truly experiencing time at veolia understand him
and the virtue of studying though gains essay is that
we sit in zazen but we view are sitting in zazen according to our conventional habituated notions of time and space and identity
which we then
apply to this immense experience that we're having in zazen that is really doesn't really figure into our usual way of looking at our lives
reading dog essay maybe we can
tread lightly when we explain zaza to ourselves and realized that when we sit in zazen we are sitting
in the present moment that includes all of the past and all the future and all space in a place where we are
it's sitting in zazen i'm doing nothing but breathing and being present
actually there's complete satisfaction we don't need to do something else
we don't need to be something that we're not at that moment
we don't need to accomplish something that we have not already accomplished
to sit in zazen is to enter the completion of time
so and we actually experienced that
when we sit in zazen and especially sitting in the contact the temple life where the whole life has pervaded by zazen and gives us
a strong
ah
you know a stronger feeling for
so there's a way of practice away to evoke
these truths in our own in the cells of our body and just as conceptual thought but real
life changing experiences
curiously enough the writer
annie dillard
a has written a book a few years back called for the time being you know and if you know this book
but it's actually a wonderful book and
i admired it so much that i i wrote a proposal to my publisher that i would write don't have a book that would be just like that and they certainly it's a great idea but you can't write a book like them
banana different it anyway i would read a little bit from her book which is not the same by any means as though against essay but actually it's very similar in that the reason why publishers stuff that you can write a book like this is because it isn't about anything and it does
can go from point a to point b it to sort of like all over the place and
she just brings a different things about the nature of time and the nature of life and the vastness of the cosmos and what what are we doing here running around this little planet so i just thought is for the fun of it because i like to book so much would would redo a few of just a few pages
she
it just goes along with littles headings that seem to reappear like one heading is called china and she writes about her scenes of china and
also
tired the garden who was a catholic priests in a an archaeologist who did some digs and china
ala is always different little headings that keep read sand is another one she writes about
the physiology of sand
geology of sand
anyway this is a section that reappears from time to time called clouds
we are fortunate to possess a kind of domesday book for the cloud population in the summer of eighteen sixty nine in the california sierra on june twelfth of that year john muir noted from the north fork of them are said river
mrs from john pure to rely rising to the eastward
bosses how well they harmonize with the up swelling rocks beneath them mountains of the sky solid looking finally sculptured
on june twenty first he recorded a well defined cloud quoting again from your a solitary white mountain enriched with sunshine and shade
chris rock you're looking clouds appeared on july second and quotes keenest in outline i ever saw
on july twenty third what can poor mortals say about clouds
while people describe them they vanished
nevertheless these fleeting sky mountains are as substantial and significant as the more lasting upheavals of granite beneath them
both alike are built up and die and in god's calendar difference of duration is nothing
the end of the quote from your we who missed witnessing them are yet certain that an august twenty sixth eighteen sixty nine and twelve met of clouds occupied by fifteen percent of the sky at noon
an evening quote large picturesque clouds craggy like rocks and of quote piled on mount dana clouds quote reddish in color like the mountain itself and quote
september eighth a few clouds drifted around the peaks quote as if looking for work them back little next
seventy four years later on august eleven nineteen forty three a young woman wrote from westerberg a transition camp in the netherlands
quote it really doesn't matter if it is i who die or another
what matters is that we are all marked men
you know who that would be and friends
one of the themes of the book is the
extraordinary brutality of human beings towards one another and she quotes many quite astonishing statistics of them
the surfing
have you the political section the heading of numbers
ten years ago i read that there were two galaxies for everyone alive
lately since we loosed the hubble space telescope we have revised our figures
there are maybe nine galaxies where each of us eighty billion galaxies
each galaxy harbors at least one hundred billion stars in our galaxy the milky way there are four hundred billion suns give or take fifty percent
or sixty nine sons for each person alive
the hubble shows said an early report that the stars are quote not twelve but thirteen billion years old and put two galaxies nine galaxies one hundred billion suns four hundred billion suns twelve billion years
anything a million years
these astronomers are nickel diming us to damage the
they say there is a buddha in each grain of sand
it is this sort of path wisdom that makes the greatness of buddhism seen aggravating
that's a pump to part with them
in fact among major religions only buddhism and taoism can unblinkingly encompass the universe the universe quote granulated astronomers say into galaxies
does anyone believe the gallus the galaxy's exist to add splendor to the night sky over bethlehem
tired dish or dance and a dispatch from a dig
in this is a quote in the middle of the tamarisk bush you find a red brick town partially exposed with its houses drains streets more than three thousand years before our era people were living there who played with dice
like our own fished with books like ours and wrote in characters we can't read
who are these individuals and who were the mongol one shock family the man and five sons who helped dig who in fact where the manic chinese emperor the manic roman emperor and the mary monkish paleontology
adjust who dug
who were the peasants who worked the far tomb fields the painter who painted clubs
rabbi akiva who prayed and rufus who flayed him
the trojans likely thought well of themselves as we do
if they are as gone as we will be
their last settlement died out and eleven thousand b c
who was that doctor whose hand propped the bird headed dwarves one of the themes of the book is
deformed children she discussed some hospital visits
children who are very strange looking that nobody ever hears about in enough but it's apparently it happens a lot that children are born in all sorts of sir known categories of deformity in one of them is children who are bird had a dwarf children who are the who were the who are the israeli man who split
wood across the water the nurse pat iceberg who washed babies like plates the statistician who reckon that we have people alive today displacing as our bodies together do only one point one billion cubic feet would fit into lake windermere
accent
if it's a great book i recommended for the time being
so we go on some ask us miracles known as fast of nervous

did we get people copies and review on it
yeah
yeah i'm just gonna read it anyway so even if you're on copies of man

miracles the miracles i am speaking of
or the daily activities of buddhist
which they do not neglect to practice
there are six miracles one miracle
going beyond miracles
an unsurpassable miracles and the six miracles means
the six senses the miracle of seeing hearing smelling tasting touching and thinking feeling
this were dog it means by miracles
miracles or practice three thousand times in the morning
and eight hundred times in the evening
miracles arise simultaneously with buddha's but they are not known by buddhists
miracles arise simultaneously with as but they are not known by ruth
buddhists activity is miracles wherever there are buddhists there's always miracles but the buddha's don't know the miracles as miracles
miracles disappeared with buddha's but do not overwhelm buddhists
this is a little think we encounter this expression overwhelming overwhelm and day and
it's a little bit it doesn't mean i don't think it doesn't mean here but exactly what we usually mean by the word overwhelm
another way of translating that since would be to make it a little more i think what i think it means would be something like this
miracles disappear buddhists
miracles disappear buddhas
but do not cancel out buddhists
so in other words
when the miracle disappears the buddha this fears
and yet
destroy the filed by tainted by ruined by the disappearance of the miracle and of the buddhist own self
just like us our activity moment by moment is miraculous actually
a moment by moment we pass away
and yet our passing away on a momentary basis doesn't obviate the meaning of our existence
otherwise we would all go mad and immediately ready to think that we're all living in time
and losing our lives on a moment by moment basis we could make us all really crazy if we thought about it
but actually we would be wrong if we went crazy because
the fact that are miraculous activity is passing away moment after moment doesn't cancel out the meaning of are living even after we're gone the fact that our life ends doesn't cancel out the meaning of our lives
that's kind of what he's saying her miracles disappear buddhists but don't cancel out buddhist
miracles occur throughout practice and enlightenment whenever buddha's seek and teach and wherever they search in the himalayas or become a tree or iraq
so in other words all the activity of a buddha
trying to understand dharma trying to teach dharma
searching
in the himalayas meditating looking for teachers and teachings
or just appearing as a tree or iraq
from the beginning of the buddhist practice to the moment of fulfillment and beyond it's all miracles
and the buddha's before a shocking when the buddha appeared as his disciples
bringing the robe and stupid to and a stupid to him he said this is a miracle caused by the inconceivable will power of all buddhists
thus we know that this miracle can also happen to boot now and to buddhas in the future
so
you know it and then
one of the especially in our school of them
what are the most important
insights is the fact that
there is no way to understand or appreciate the teaching on your own
even if you're absolutely brilliant
and completely right on about everything if it's on your own it's not really understanding the teaching it's only understood and appreciated person to person so there's always a a relationship with the teacher this is one of the insights of our tradition and it's a deep thought
in in a way because it's not like the teacher know something that you know no one tells you
you may be brilliant and understand everything but unless there's that relationship your understanding will not be
empower it will not be brought to life
it's one dog and give somewhere i think in his journal is chump journal of study in china he gives the metaphor of a kid
coming into a country and you have to to to project yourself into twelfth century japanese political theory to appreciate this metaphor for the anyway
the ideas king comes into the country
and before the king came into the country everything that was necessary for the for the running of the country was all their the roads were there the bureaucracy was there the everything yeah it was all there everything was nothing was missing
but when the king came in sovereignty was conferred and the country could sort of come alive as a nation once the king appeared even know the king didn't bring in and that wasn't already there to understand like i say to us the system of weird because we
think about kings but
but in all actually in all in all nations that had the idea of royalty this was that this was the idea that the king or queen or whoever it was conferred sovereignty and brought this sort of machinery of the nation to life into it into a more enhanced sort of
state of reality so as the same thing in and our practice that even though you might have everything you need to be brilliant in every way and understand everything it doesn't really come to life until there's this relationship so this of course creates a big problem because know what about buddha
did a buddha who did the the boons teacher but an inevitable religious he had various teachers but it wasn't really historically and according to the poly materials that you can read the buddha was the first one that's started buddhism before food there was
well this of course is impossible according to the zen school
so the zen school said now there are seven buddha's before good
which means there is infinite number of buddha's before buddha
it goes back into on foreseeable distant past because no one including buddha
brings the teaching fourth alone it's always comes out of relationships tend to him
so that's why
but the seven buddha's before boot at appear now as the buddha's disciples you say
which we will think a strange but a few weeks ago he might have thought so but since we read the times in a problem with this we understand that that the seven buddhists who were the buddhist teachers before him appearing his his his disciples seems like pretty know
to us now if it's just an ordinary everyday kind of miracle
cause by the inconceivable power of all buddhas
africa in and this kind of a miracle can happen all the time are you waiting or in the air peruse the africa to but this doesn't mean that teachers are necessarily limited to those who have the title of teacher the title of priest or monk
right so in that sense anyone and anything can
yes that's right
but be careful yeah dummy
if now leaving protect your photos right and there's supposedly their and ourself realized and on the army
no teachers yeah but in zen tradition
let's say the the view of project a buddhist is
thereafter the side
yeah when they're not
during the practice that we appreciate and aspire to that and something different
and this is definitely
a zen

twist you know as them as an improvement so to speak on the teaching since this unique to in this idea is unique to them
the idea that there's almost like a sense of magical quality to this relationship
which doesn't exist in buddhism that earlier buddhism there's more of a and what we would consider an ordinary and you know that kind of an ordinary sense of we need to understand something we need others who are more experience to guide us that kind of way of thinking whereas this is something much more metaphysical and and
hard to grasp
particularly here where you see the buddhist teacher is now appearing in his disciples you know in the sense that that this relationship is multi-dimensional it's the teachers are disciples disciples either teachers you know the relationship is is very
seen from many angles but the important factor here is that there's a connection it's the connection itself regardless of what information is passed on what teachings are passed on that's what that that's what brings everything alive
so
why is the thirty seventh and ancestor a direct descendant i shocking to the buddha he was a dharma heir of by bhaijaan
today good ancestors in the ten directions even those who do who do not call themselves the sediments equation are all in fact is read his remote descendants
so interesting saying that organise little throwaway line here he's just introducing question because going to tell a story evacuation but in a little bit a of and aside he says well because you know there's lineages right and when they just followed person to person and so they branch off right so there were there
be a zen people who were are actually integration on lineage and than other than lineages that do not stem from question
voicing actually that's not really true everybody extensive question that asked i think what he's saying is that despite the let's not get to literalists about lineages he said that in fact all the great teachers are in all of our lineages and we honor them all as our ancestors not
just limiting ourselves to what seems to be the familiar to them because we could say and some
quick cause i historical level as army that live in sectarian from that saying is that being sectarian is visiting primary what everyone thinks they may be no different from an inch from us is in fact well i suppose you'd think that we identify that's where yeah i took it the other way they don't think that he's saying that that ha
the opposite that with all the money it does actually source back to the great painters
so here's the story not about glacier famous story
one day when question was lying down and the on shannon came to see him
washington was a yeah lie down the ocean game question and turn around and face the wall
which i guess as a little bit hard to tell but i guess this is a gesture of modesty somehow you know
you know you can imagine somebody comes into your room and you're weighing out in a bed and says you hear the door open you kind of pull the covers over your head and to turn away like you know this is an intimate moment here i'm sleeping i don't want to be seen so that's what glacier does in young shown says
as
i am your suit
don't be so pleased on before it's okay in i so you don't need to to turn away you don't need to feel private in front of me were close please don't feel that you have to be no
protect yourself were
the be more formal
so
to go asia i've started to get up
as you might be somebody walked in on you when you were sleeping you know you'd get up but your robot or something present yourself so i wish i'd started to do this and at this moment young shin young shine rose to lead
integration it's a region which was as other name
and young show came back
gration said let me tell you about my dream
and young shot lean forward to listen
wish on said simply
would you interpret my dream for me i want to see how you do it
in response yeah shaun brought a basin of water in a towel
gration washed his face and set up
then shania came in
gration said weegee and i have been having a have been communicating intimately
this is no small matter he says to the other guy also disciple
shandong
and zhang yun said i was next door and i heard the whole thing
where she said to him why don't you try now
and jamia jamyang made a bowl of tea
and brought it to him worship and praise them both saying you to students surpass even shari putra and mob galiana with your miraculous activity
sherry putra and magog iona being close disciples of shakyamuni buddha you to or even better disciples than than those disciples and your activity is absolutely miraculous
so that's that's the story
it's kind of a great story i think and i've heard it many times and it's a story that illustrates the
wordless intimacy between these people
it also illustrates in the use of the idea of a dream
that you know what can be more intimate than a great a dream is something that you might be able to tell somebody your dream
but it's not just quite the same when you tell the jury and it's just doesn't have that sort of sense of vividness or power that the dream has and so in a way the dream is the most intimate thing that there is because it's it no one can understand it but you know how i'm feeling of the dream but you
well the idea here it is that these three are in a dream together
see that's how intimate they are there in a dream together and taking care of each other in the midst of the dream without needing to speak to one another explain anything to one another because they just just like a dream you know things to sort of flow along right you don't need to explain anything in a dream all the sort of orden
arie conventions of that kind of clunky physical world disappear and everything has a flow and us in a sense of meaning
so
they're living in the same dream were living
right with this world that we're lillian of the time being
this world in which time and space are not what we think they are is a miracle
we're living in a miraculous situation in the state of radical intimacy only we don't know it
and were creating all these only stupid boundaries in and conventions and ways of hurting one another and existed from one another not it the fact that we are best friends and have been for a long time and we have no idea but the
guys gotta get that and so and it's all about it's not about some kind of miraculous
you know zen inside it's about when you wake up in the morning you wash your face and you dry it off and after that you have a cup of tea and that's the miracle and that's the dream and as the profound intimacy is just that
just regular life is it
so that's a great story i always appreciated that and story and sometimes you experience life that way zen life can be that way the the sense of silence that can pervade in the in temple life or entity in everyday life anywhere
if you allow yourself to inner silence can create that aura around very ordinary things
dog in now so that's what i say no a doggett says is this if you want to understand food as miracles you should study equations words
as this is no small matter
to practice miracles is to study the buddha when not practicing miracles is not study the boot away
so we have the practice miracles we have miraculous activity all the time this miraculous activity is transmitted air to air
h i r air to air do not study miracles from those outside the way from the to lesser vehicles are from interpreters of suitors
this is a unique sense of things he saying r zen way is a unique sense of of of life
it's true of course that that
although the deep
truth of our existence is probably singular
there is no possible expression of that truth outside of
particularities
and so each way of practice is is expresses his professors and differently and this kind of teaching is very much a unique to our where our way of practice that's what you say this is this is something really precious and unique in of course every tradition is the best right
it's good to think of that you know every tradition is the best
what you think you know that
the way that we we practice is certainly the best even no way someone else practices may also be the best for them but it's the best
for me otherwise we might then have a pen relativistic census tract as well there are many ways and always are good and so on that's true but our way is the best
yeah it's making a little jerk by sang to lets your vehicles in the sense that lesser being with vehicle one beginning and less equal to with the my yeah yeah it's a little joke right right
the what i say that greater vehicle is also less vehicle for
i think that's true that's true
oh
so when we study equations miracles we see that they were unsurpassable
gray miracles where every act was extraordinary
beginning with question lying down there are now he's enumerating the miracles of the story
turning around to face the wall miracle number one getting up miracle number two
calling weegee miracle number three talking about the dream which he never explains other than this
washing his face and sitting up young schon lean forward to listen then brought a basin of water and a towel then wait on described this as quick-dry and i have been communicating intimately
you should stay these miracles
these ancestors who correctly transmitted buddha dharma talked in this way
do not merely interpreted as croatia and expressing his dream by washing his face you should regard their interaction their interaction soon as a series of miracles

gration said this is no small matter
his understanding of miracles is different from that of practitioners who follow the small vehicles have limited understanding or whole less reviews it is not the same as that a body soft as of the ten stages from the three classes evil of limited use study small miracles and a trains limited understanding
they did not experience the great miracles of the good ancestors
these are miracles of buddhists and miracles of going beyond buddhists
those who study such miracles are beyond the reach of demons or those outside the way
teachers and interpreters of such as have never even heard of this teaching nor would they have accepted it even if they had her
rather and studying great miracles teachers and interpreters of sutras those outside the way and practitioners of the to less lesser vehicles study lesser your case
pretty soon he's been tell us some unless a miracles
what is abidin and transmit great miracles buddha miracles had it not been for buddha miracles young shown would not have brought water in a towel integration i would not have turned to the wall while lying down or sat up after washing space these are these are buddha they're not just
everyday garden variety myth lesser vehicles these are big miracles
now he's going to tell us about some lesser miracles okay here's example of few less americans encompassed by the power of great miracles lesser miracles occur
the less of area of great miracles
premade and given the existence of great miracles sometimes lesser vehicle lesser miracles also occur
great miracles include lesser miracles but less miracles do not know great miracles
less americans are
for example a tuft of hair breathing in the vast ocean
i think i should i should say a tuft of hair breathing in the vast ocean
a little sucking in a whole ocean that's that's the miracle a little hair blue hair flowed into the ocean drinks takes a succeeded in one gulp and have the whole ocean this isn't a minor miracle compare the equation washing his face
a mustard seed store and matsumura hold it all a months and rocha getting sucked into this little mustard seed
the top of the head spout
these miracles never dream of buddha miracles
the reason i call them lesser miracles
is that they are limited by circumstances and depend upon special practices and realizations
is a true right i mean we think we're looking for these when we think we're oppressed by these miracles but actually
what's more impressive is buddha miracles which don't depend on particular circumstances and just a constantly arising in all circumstances all the time
much more impressive right them something that requires special people at special conditions only happens once in awhile and and what's that big deal
big deal that's what he said
so there they depend on special practices and meals and i might occur in this lifetime but not in another lifetime they may be available to some people were not the others they may appear in this lab and not the motherland than they appear at at and the past and future but not now so what kind of a miracle
as that it's not a big miracle that it's limited like that
the exactly the obvious what we've with it because it now because it's so limited and hardly ever happens it's really miraculous you know very unusual the saying no that's nothing the unusual is nothing what's what's really miraculous is i mean what he's really saying here is what's miraculous is that were
here at all
that there's that that we can do that we can move our fingers you know that we can stand up and walk that we can and we can know one another
that we can that the sky exists that the earth exists i mean this is a major miracle of course it is course it is and the fact that somebody could fly around or whatever you like this of new cares what's the big deal about them the thing that's a big deal is that anything is and that we can know it
i mean it's very obvious when you think about it but it's this has the hubby and so i think that we're always running around looking for miracles all the time failing to appreciate this gigantic miracle that's constantly unfolding before our eyes
the great miracles are not like that the teaching practice and enlightenment of buddhas are all actualized through miracles they are actualized not only in the realm of buddha's but also in the room of going beyond buddhists
the there's another festival building called going beyond buddhists
where he says we have to if we have a concept of buddhahood and were an aim of buddhahood and we don't go beyond buddhahood again where this is a very limited thing very limited thing we have to realize building where to go beyond with it into just embracing life
the transformative power of miracle goodness is indeed beyond thinking this power appears before the buddha bodies appear and is not concerned with past present or future the aspiration
practice enlightenment and nevada of all the buddhas would not have appeared without buddha miracles and what we call buddha buddha is and honest with the stuff is just a reflex just the kind of a natural occurrence given the fact that there are miracles to begin with at all
he comes out of the miracle of being itself basically being itself
in the inexhaustible ocean of the phenomenal world the power of great miracles is unchanging
a tuft of hair not only breathes in the great ocean
but it maintains realizes breathes out and utilizes the great ocean
so
ah
when the words the miracle is not going to grow the tufts of hair breathes in sucks up the ocean the miracle is that the ocean is then breathe out and exists and flows
and functions
when this activity arises in encompasses the entire phenomenal meal
however do not assume that other activities do not also encompass the entire phenomenal world
it's the same with a mustard seed containing matsuura
a mustard seed breeds out cymru and actualized as the inexhaustible phenomenal world when a tuft of hair or must receive breeds out a great ocean reading out happens in one moment and happens in myriad aeons
reading a myriad airlines and breathing out one moment happened simultaneously
how are a tuft of hair and a mustard seed brought forth
they're brought forth by great miracles the for words
the must receive contain all mountain
before it can take them out mountain just what it was a mustard seed was brought forth by video
as as everything when enables a tuft of hair and a must see to what enables a tuft of hair and a mustard seed to do such things miracles enabled him to true miracles bring forth miracles do not think that miracle sometimes do and sometimes do not happen boot is always a five in miracles
how you doing anything do anything to
wonder about her come in owner asked about her

several days ago
linda russo told the story about am category roshi was
like to help helping his teacher for the bath and like he he he could tell that his teacher wanted to have his back a scrub soup so he asked his teacher do want the your back scrubbed and like you say no and so that that's that's are asking for two days at then
on the third day category roshi chests the script is back and cycads was the right thing to do and and edges the their point of of the story of
be and his disciples the the the same that the disciples just are like reading those situation and then like spontaneously doing the right thing is that the way to see exactly yeah and category most
his teacher study the story about
that
but i think that the main thing is not so much
doing the right thing but having full confidence in the relationship and run into the song so that you so that you don't have to in other words if you if you have to ask it's already too much right right yeah you that there's such there's a sense of of closeness that the and confidence in
in in our in our knowing each other as one's own self that there's no need to treat me as if i were somebody other than yourself right and this is the the true fruition of the teacher student relationship is that that one knows the teacher as oneself and the student as
oneself not as someone else in stack it's so as know there's really no and then and then even if the teacher is entirely absent or the students entirely absent dies or goes to another country it makes no difference right
because the intimacy is in everywhere and so that's the fruition and completion of that relationship and and these stories are meant to indicate that level of of closeness and and it's interesting because it's not exactly personal and we would go right away to the parts of personal thing it's not exactly a
personal thing in that sense you know it's it's beyond them it's behind it means the personal means i have a relationship with another person we're very close right but that's still another person this is this goes beyond them and these stories so there there's the same story and okay
so shall i want a it
the right
it's warm here and we're all getting sleepy ethics maybe i should sing a lullaby instead of a fantastic cinnamon vanilla opener

political kind of it's okay if that the florida
okay well let's do one more little sexually
klayman upon but an outstanding person in the ancestral seat
he not only trained with muslim and sure though when met and study with many enlightened features
one day said
miracles or nothing other than fetching water and carrying firewood
which is everybody knows really famous
zen saying in fact that saying when you think about it is basically shorthand version of the entire festival here right
and so there's going to show you everybody knows about this whole thing that we're reading about her most common thing in the world everybody knows about them being manifest in this contagion
you should thoroughly investigate the meaning of these words fetching water means fetching water it's been a minute
does it stand for something else it just means fetching water sometimes you go on fetch water yourself and sometimes you as somebody else to fetch of for you
those who practice this fetching water are all
miracle buddhists
although miracles are not our noticed once in awhile
whether they're noticed or not is the miracles
is not that things are eliminated our parish when the on are unnoticed
things are just as they are even with nobody notices them
even when people do not know that fetching water is a miracle the fact that fetching water is a miracle is undeniable
so
we're always trying to not notice things or be noticed or make things in something special
but things are miracles whether we make them into something special or not
anna
you know our lives are miracles
regardless of what we do with them
you know we're always trying to make something out of our lives but er lige already are something and they're already miraculous and and we don't need to you know do anything special with him other than really live it and recognize the miraculous quality of life itself yeah and there's some kind of
sticks out in that ourselves it
our this when listening or the way appearance that there's
there's something
okay that's it has all these miracles that we either realized me down and well as thing exists regardless of our audience a pool that patreon or yeah except it's not exactly out there
it's everywhere in here up there everywhere
yeah whether we notice that or not that's right
is there it sounds like there's something to further the reason it seems like you know i know many his stubbornness
is it is not from the with the scenes in a way and in jupiter's and you
twenty the mundane things are how can my own concepts and ignorant not paying attention to the miraculous this of everyday situations
and then on the other side of there's the miraculous
the world and is there and i'm here and if i can get myself into
never win awareness i can see that the how i said well that's exactly the point that he's speaking to hear you saying
regardless of whether you can notice it regardless of whether you think you can express eight the miraculous world you're in it anyway that's what he said you're you're in and anyone there is no thing that your you fell out of the miraculous world and you're over here somewhere else estranged from you may feel that but regardless of what you feel there
don't feel and regardless of what you notice or don't know if you are a miracle that's it you are there so in other words will find it doesn't make any difference is you don't need to do
you're not estranged and therefore needing to do something you may feel that way but it's not really so he's never saw that's exactly the point is making that's why it says whether you know it or not that's what he means whether you know it and you still living this world of miracles you're still manifest in these miracles whether you know you know whether you'd make any effort about it or not this manner
yeah
carrying firewood means doing the labor of hauling as in the time of flight on with sixth ancestor who as you normally use it going to the story would sell firewood under of street corner
he supported
like
even if you do not know that miracles happen three thousand times in the morning and eight hundred times in the evening miracles do happen
and these numbers just mean all the time you know i've i've been crippled the divine
but i think more than one but the wild west and hackett's well i don't think that it i think it doesn't really make a difference in the words i think somehow it's a convention of
that the probably well my guess would be in i don't really know but my guess is that
these were elegantly if you say three thousand times in the morning and eight hundred times of the that the because it sound of the sentence they think there's a convention in this kind of writing to use
various numbers to suggest an endless amount and it's also encourage encouragement to get up early
at it etc it it is it is it wasn't universally the case that all
the elastic religious practice has an early were very early morning schedule and there is something inherently sort of inspiring about doing spiritual practice before the dawn and being awake
in awareness as done arises there is something to that it's a kind of a wonderful feeling when you think so
did
don't those who know this
have you noticed when it gets really offended by
you know evening is also gave no warning like the best time for eyes and his early morning before dawn right after dawn mid morning early afternoon
after launch early evening and just before bit pedestrian and that matter
those who see and hear so those who see and hear the inconceivable function of miracles by a of targeters do not fail to obtain the way
attaining the way of all buddhas is always completed by the power of miracle
causing water to spout out of the head
is a practice of the lesser vehicles
that's what less vehicle pupil are doing there
this is merely a minor vehicle on the other hand fetching water you see is that this is a mere this is a big deal anybody can make the especially among and gush out of the top of that this is no check
but to
fill a bucket full of water in the kitchen sink and mopped the floor this is something
at the custom of fetching water and carrying firewood has not declined as people have not ignored it it has come down from ancient times to today and it has been transmitted from there to here thus miracles have not ceased even for a moment such are great and
miracles which are no small matter
donncha on the nj great master rubin was once attended on union who said the ha what are miracles
and no shannon said goodbye and walked away
and mr don't function politely brought his hands together at his chest and stood near him
young yet again asked what are miracles in this time long shot bid farewell and walked away
in this story words are heard and the meaning of miracles is understood
there is merging like box and covered join
in this box and covered joining as a kind of expression for this kind of story of a kind of gear rocio the same story with least we saw earlier box and cover joining fitting perfectly exactly accord
well that just made for each other
you should know that it is a miracle to have a disciple like functional as who does not veer off for to have a high ancestor like union who does not come forward do not think that the miracles they are speaking of are the same as those taught outside the way
the to lesser vehicles
on the road of buddha's there are also great miracles that happened at the top or bottom of the body
entire world of ten directions is the true body of a single monk
entire world the ten directions true body of a single bunk thus nine mountains and the eight oceans around mod subaru as well as the ocean of vastness and the ocean of wisdom or no other than water spouting from the top bottom and center of the button
it is also water body from the top bottom center of the formless body spouting out fire is also like this
not only is there the spouting out of water fire and air but also there is a spouting out of buddhists from the top and bottom of the body there's a spouting of ancestors then people
and the top and bottom of the body
there is this founding of a measurable aeons from the top and bottom of the body
there's also the spouting out of the ocean of the phenomenal world and the swallowing of the ocean as the phenomenal world from the top of the body
so this is all kind of dog in
playing of the possibilities inherent in the sentence earlier that the entire world of ten directions is the true body in a single mug
in the experience of the body not as
how can be or a set of possession or a coat hanger for identity
but
true experience of being alive in this body
in everything is included in there so elsewhere in talks about the true human body by what she means
our capacity
to be living consciousness and in are being living consciousness to include in penetrate everything
so that's what he says it all these things fly out of our body and right left
so this is a good example of them but always uses me about dogan get me when i tried to deal with really get this and i pick it apart and it's just sort of like what is this guy talking about and the and strike but i'm getting preview is age you're just seen it as
like cures like sort of him showing under the pod possibilities but you're not sort of like seriously trying to say oh but does it mean for like fire to spout out a lot of the body or this or that yeah so it's just sort of nights where the were worry about
the manouchehr of up of the aviary yeah because you know go gets writing is inherently
poetic you know it's not it's not going to be of
it's not that it's illogical or means that saying various things of course he is but his literary style and his motive expressions his poetic
and so yeah to kind of apply philosophical categories to win at all points office doesn't feel too many results
so here you really is to say think about you start to say that on the road of the of buddha's there are also great miracles that happens at the top or bottom of the body the entire world of ten directions is the true body of a single mark and that's the important point is making here and you know
maybe you have a sense of this again in sitting in zazen
one way did i like to think of zazen is to sit in zazen them
as a practice over time in our life
is to actually make another body
we make another body in our body we we actually inhabit another body
it's this way that he's talking about the body of a single monk which encompasses the entire world ten directions and sitting in zazen i think what feels this you feel like
it's not that the body that sitting in thousand is not the conventional
body
that doctors examined
it's not that it's not that body but it's something more than that based on the basis of that by the experience of being the body and breathing the body
something different happens you know you you and it's it takes time
i think to
gain your seat in zazen and i think that when you get your seat in zazen and there's a sense of
abandonment and utter fearlessness
you know in that sitting experience
so it's not a rational linear thing it's all inclusive
and now using all the materials that he's already developed in the usa is now kind of poetically play out the implications of that statement by talking about
earlier we saw the miracle of lotus sutra where water spots i've had fired spots out of the feet
so he's taking that into now he's applying the idea of
a whole world being a miracle and sitting now the whole world is here in us in the body so never mind water spotting out of the top of our heads we could spout water all of time all a space and all the things you say your buddhas
immeasurable aeons the ocean of the phenomenal world lands and the world of seven or and self-worth everything not just a that the gushing water so what if everything is right here in our life in our experience in our body
so to spit out the lands of the world seven or eight times the swallow them two or three times the for five or six great elements all elements of measurable elements are also great miracles and appear and disappear or spit out and swallow all the time great earth and empty space are miracles that are swallowed and spit out
it's all right hearing the best miss world which is the basis of all these everyday miracles is right here in our mary body
which we can experience and appreciate in are sitting practice miracles have the power of being activated by a mustard seed in responding to a tuft of hair miracles arise abide and return to the source beyond the reach of consciousness beyond the reach of competitive so it's not a matter of ah
our sitting there and having this imagination that things were spying on while out of her head it's not a matter of are having conscious thought about this or an image about this it's a matter of our embodying it being it and coming forth and are living as this
even though we got it's not reduced to a cartoon image the realm of good miracles is beyond long or short how can this be measured by discriminatory thinking so that's not hurt
well we can think about is very small compared to what we are
of course is true you know we might sit around and think oh woe is me you know what a schlub meal and why
you know what vibrant than just hanging around times totally a loss i should be something like him look at him he's too great but but actually so we think that you know but in the meantime
it is a miracle
that we can think that
yeah it's a miracle mets
now we appear in this world
with the light of consciousness carrying it forward to new we are already
irreplaceable
expressions of reality and so
i thinking
is so pale and so limited compared to are being compared to what we are
if somebody said to you i'm going to give you an unlimited budget
and you can have as much help as you need we can get anybody in the world to help you and they will come
you can have five years to do this where i want you to do is make a human being out of parts
he couldn't do it nobody to do it
because
it's a miracle that there's a he'll being so you are you a big
so what's the problem but in we have somebody problems you know because our mind is so limited in our thought is so limited and we and we it's as if the nature of our thought is such that we
i thought is this big and it has the capacity to playing up against
the boundaries of itself with terrain around like a drunken mosquito in bang bang bomb bomb and we're doing this all the time and making ourselves really miserable when the truth of the matter is that we are miracles and we're living in the middle of a miraculous dream world
and what we need to do is appreciate
no limitations of our thought which will we do that we'll see our thought is really unlimited it's just that we're trying to make it do something that it's not supposed to do
we let it do what supposed to do and we see that it's just as unlimited in a miraculous or thought is as our bodies
in our games
so dog is is trying to coax us into kind of realizing how great we are
yeah i'm trying to understand
does this and reading it an exciting
oh explode to work there makes it off this big and then seven meaning instead of that explosion making it less vague it gives it more mean that huh
know i don't like i can't follow that my reading of the like that i i can
i don't know it's just a know well how we just there yeah well i don't know that i understand either but i think that
well
when you read dog enough for a long time i think you kind of get into you get used to his in part partly what what is so difficult about reading doggie and and what's so strange about it is how how different is his way of writing from of anything that were used the next parliament once you've gotta get inside dog and mode of expression
and duggan's world after a while you can to get the feeling for and it doesn't seem quite a stranger as bizarre and that's not to say that you haven't figured out a you can you can explain the way he rides exactly but it does it does after a while get less
seem less kind of baffling know he has a way he has there's a method to his madness and you can pick up on the actual
so
and it is
i don't think
doug is really saying anything to differ from essential zen teachings that it just bringing about a different way of emphasizing something more than others that one might not notice
so well maybe that's all for tonight and beg a home before it starts losing right here
first cushy couch in are seeking
one more meeting next week and then the priesthood after that you have seen that give them
okay so i'll see you next weekend more finish reading is best
thank you for for you went almost everybody stay awake the whole
the earrings
the guys