Generally, after we've finished a sesshin, as we just did, a Green Gulch week sesshin, generally I try to discuss some of the things that came up during sesshin with you, most of you who didn't go to the sesshin. Can you hear me okay? Because, of course, we're trying to find out a way to talk about Buddhism and so now what we've discussed in the Sashin we'll include. But out of the context of seven days, it's pretty difficult to make… to try again to make some of these things clear. I guess it… you know, maybe we can do it over several weeks.

[01:35]

One of the stories we discussed was a famous story about the roar of the dragon in a withered tree. And a monk asked Sozin, what is the roar of a dragon in a withered tree? And Sozan said, the stream of blood doesn't dry up or continues. And the monk said, what about the eyes of glowing eyes of a skull. And these are two famous stories. There have been many references to it, withered tree and glowing eyes of a skull. Anyway, Sozan said, in answering about the skull, he said, a withered tree never dries

[03:13]

So the monk said, I don't understand. Does anyone understand? And Sozan said, everyone understands. And in the world, everyone in the world understands. And the monk said, well, I don't understand yet. are there any words to express, describe the roar of the dragon?" And Sozan said, "'I myself don't understand the words.'" This is a fairly typical Zen story, which, if you've heard it only for the first time, It doesn't make sense, you know, you can't figure out what is withered tree or roar of the dragon. And maybe the direction is you come at this kind of language from the point of view of not trying...

[04:45]

trying to describe something over and over again which you can't describe, trying every way to describe it and finally finding there is no way to describe it. So because there's no way to describe it we say such and such. It's like one of the things I talked about was, we talk about form and emptiness, and last Saturday I spoke here about emptiness as friendliness or compassion, and why that's so. And so, during the sasheen we continued that, you know, discussion. Then form, I said, we could say is equivalent to bearing, bearing in the sense of what is such and such a person's bearing, or dignity, or presence, presence and bearing. Maybe presence is like emptiness and bearing is like form.

[06:09]

Bearing also means to get... to have your direction or something. What Zen teachers are trying to get at here is to get you to exist in or accept a world in which there aren't fixed definitions. You can't define something exactly. If you say form and emptiness, it's very philosophical, but if we say bearing, you're bearing, it's rather... you don't know quite what that means, but it's more actual. As Seppo said, don't follow in my tracks, say something for me to see. The sense here is that the world is always changing, everything is changing. I call it parallel development. Some new... at each moment everything is changing. So you can't say something old. Always you need something new. Everything has its own bearing. Form isn't just form. Form is something changing. Oh, I'm saying bearing.

[07:42]

So, withered tree never dries up. Maybe a way to suggest the meaning of this is, there's another statement which says, even if the ocean dries up, you can't see the bottom, you can't find the bottom of the ocean. And a sense of this is, first, the ocean is always drying, always drying, and, you know, still the ocean is so vast you can't see the bottom. But even if you dried up the ocean, there's no bottom under the ocean. You can't find the ocean by... the bottom of the ocean by drying it up. So it's the same kind of meaning. A withered tree can't dry up, stream of blood continues, lineage continues, primary consciousness continues. So bottom, the sense is here, that bottom of the ocean is near.

[09:10]

Our idea of things being far and near, something close that we possess and something far away that we don't possess is a mixed-up idea. So, Dogen says, the roar of this monk that didn't understand that Sozon's very words were the roar of the dragon. So when he... Sozan tried to point this out when he said, I myself can't understand the words. So this becomes... This can, if you understand this, can help you understand the steepness of what ummah and other teachers mean by everyday mindedness.

[10:21]

Uman's teacher, Setpo, you know, always said when someone came to see him, he would ask, have you been here before? And whether the person said yes or no, he always said, have a cup of tea. So one day a work leader or some person, some head monk said, You always say, what do you mean? What does have a cup of tea mean? And Seppo said, a work leader? He said, yes. Well, go have a cup of tea. This everyday mindedness is very difficult to understand, difficult to talk about. But if bottom of the ocean can't be seen, you know. And even if you dry up the ocean, you can't find the bottom of the ocean. It means everything is near at hand. Withered tree never dries up. In springtime it comes out with some flower. It only looked withered.

[11:47]

You can't create a world which has being and non-being. You can't dry up the world into some dualistic, you know, that is object and this is subject, this is alive and this is dead. This is far and this is near. what is near and far. So everyday mindedness is based on the confidence that what you have right now reaches everywhere. So Seppo always said, sometimes his lecture was simply to get up and say, cover heaven and earth. and then he would go away. So the turtle-nose-snake story I've been talking about last week,

[13:17]

Seppo saying he discovered a turtle-nosed snake on South Mountain. And Choke Eriyo saying, someone in this congregation is losing their life today. And Uman took a stick and threw it down like it was a snake. This story is, too, about this everyday mindedness. Something special like a turtleneck, a turtleneck is a snake, you know, simple, creates. So, I last week again talked about primary consciousness, being able to get out of the waves of secondary consciousness into primary consciousness, which you don't have subject and object anymore, one continuous consciousness.

[14:44]

counting your breath or being undivided from your presence are easy, effortlessness at that time. But everyday mindedness means that continued in your activity of the day. all day long, no effort, just your mind and objects are one. Or Absolute identifies you. Or Dogen Zenji says, when you try to understand manifold dharmas by using your self, that is delusion. But when you understand your self through manifold dharmas, this is enlightenment. The same kind of story is Tozan's poem on the second rank. An old woman looks in a mirror and sees her own face but doesn't recognize it and searches, you know, muddled mind for who it is.

[16:23]

As I said, this story is easier to realize, understand, if you know that in the time that story was told, people didn't have mirrors. Probably only rich people had mirrors, some polished metal. So you might go, some old lady might go forty years without seeing her face. So you can well imagine that if she saw herself in a mirror, she'd be quite surprised. Who is it? It looks like my grandmother. So the meaning here is, what you see, though it looks different in front of you, is you, is near, as near as your blood vessels. So, first rank is you find the Absolute, and relative world seems inconsequential. And if you get stuck at this stage, we call it fox-zen, this stage of victorious. Second stage is you find the relative

[18:00]

the absolute on the relative. As I said, you totally give yourself to the relative. The third stage is absolute looks at you. This is everyday-mindedness, when manifold dharmas reveal you, when primary consciousness and your activity are one. You don't have what Sukhiyoshi called a hasty mind, where you lose touch with things. You know, in the morning you do morning things, in afternoon, afternoon, evening, evening. At Tassajara you can have this feeling quite clearly.

[19:22]

You don't get separated from what you do. Your consciousness and your activity are one unit. Not by some effort or putting aside other things or asceticism, but because you have come to realize And how each thing includes everything. You know, another story of this is, Uman was invited to a temple by some prince or a lord or something, and he came and asked Uman for instructions. And Uman said, just simply. Just know there is no other path but what's in front of you. You should reach this stage where there is nothing to be attained. The stage where there's nothing to do, nothing to realize. This means

[21:00]

everyday mindedness or primary consciousness, not just in zazen, counting your breathing, but every moment, like the world is your counting. As you don't stray from your counting, you don't stray from your activity. So, withered tree never dries up is this kind of me. The world doesn't divide up into anything you can understand by your mind. Ultimately, the world has some intention or personality or, you know, there's no, as Einstein, I think, said, you can't say there's space and then there's objects in space.

[22:36]

Objects and space are one continuum. If there's space, there's objects. If there's objects, there's space. Silence and talking. Talking as silence, silence as talking, refraining from talking. The idea that there's some absolute silence or absolute space is purely a mental construct. We think it must be so, but it's because we can't get out of the context of our own thinking that we think so. We're always only able to think in terms of simple alternatives. There is and there is not. But the idea that there neither is nor there is not

[23:39]

is not something our mind can get at. So it's completely bamboozling to think, you know, all right, so there's only space where there's objects, but what about outside that? Endless space? Some end to the universe and then what? Rice pudding? You know, we just can't get it, you know. But you are it, you know. So these stories are pointing out, you know, if you understand a withered tree never dries up or you can't find the bottom of the ocean by drying up the ocean, you will

[24:44]

understand end of universe, space and form. So suggestion is, since it's not verbal, not mental, but intrinsic, neither subject nor You know, the Mahaparinirvana Sutra says, we call our path the middle way because it's neither in nor out. Buddha nature, it says, is an in and out, says the Parinirvana Sutra. The middle way is called the middle way because it's neither in nor out. This is really what Seppo and Uman and others mean by everyday mindedness. Have a cup of tea. Raising the whisk. When it first comes upon you it's some mystic experience.

[26:03]

Everything happens inside you. And inside of you covers heaven and earth. If you have unfriendly relationships with people, there is no boundless space. If you don't know the bearing of form, you don't know form and emptiness. You don't know how the world changes. So to just say form and emptiness has almost no meaning. The clue, some hint these Zen masters are trying to give you

[27:08]

is in something like a withered tree which never dries up. A withered tree which never dries up? I've seen many pieces of driftwood. What can he mean? A withered tree never dries up. Glowing eyes of the skull. Intention that never dies. Intention that's quite close to us. Voice, sound, voice like eyes. Seeing with our body. I think it's possible for you to reach this.

[28:19]

understanding if you can give up your secondary thinking, secondary consciousness. Find out by zazen, first of all, how to escape from it. Then you will begin to find a glow of everything. I looked up a life, livelihood, the other day, and it says, meaning of life is rather funny, something to anoint with oil, according to the etymological dictionary, or something sticky. And hood part is two derivations, it seems. One is from

[29:27]

course or way, literally, to go out to die, to go on the way to death. I suppose you could say to cross over. The path, basic path, life path, livelihood. And the other hood is what you... This is actually, this hood, or the same hood as sainthood, is secondary derivation. But it means the load you carry, but literally, root is something like aura. So maybe that's why Nimbus is shaped like a hood. In Sanskrit it means many-colored or variegated, something you carry with you, some field. So in this sense, right livelihood is another way to express everyday mindedness. What each moment are you carrying?

[30:53]

what is your real possession. Thomas Aquinas defined possession as that which separates you from others by thinking, I have my own time, or by status or envy. So you shouldn't have any possessions, Thomas Aquinas says, that separate you from others. So right livelihood has same kind of meaning. What is your essential possession that doesn't separate you from others? Anyway, this is thrust of story of turtle-nosed snake and have a cup of tea and withered tree that never dries up ocean that even if you dry up the ocean you can't find the bottom, this right livelihood or everyday mindedness.

[32:16]

One with your breathing. One with your hearing. One with what you see in front of you. One with some person. Some person, this ocean, great ocean. is many, many people, a great ocean in which we find our bearing. If you understand Buddhism long enough, study Buddhism long enough, so you begin to have some intuitive understanding of Buddhism. You wonder, how could anybody have created Buddhism? How could anyone have thought this up? How did they get to this point? My goodness, you know, it's just been by luck, quirks, some kind of misdirected effort that I finally understood what Tozan's third rank is all about. How did Tozan discover it? You have to figure it out.

[33:59]

vast ocean Buddhism is, which by logic you can't figure out, no one could figure out. But what's very interesting is you may spend ten years studying Buddhism, practicing zazen, and a peculiar, particular to you, path of various chances and, as I said, even quirks. And you arrive suddenly at understanding what the tozan must have come to from some other point of view, some other quirk. And we find ourselves Usually, unable, you can't figure out what to do. You know, Dogen says, searching, repeats the story, searching for, about Dogo and Munga, searching for your pillow in the dark. And as Dogen says here, dark, the activity of night, is the same as eyes.

[35:20]

He's not just me, your hand, but the activity of night. So we practice in this way, not knowing what to do, but what... you can't figure it out. The only thing which can guide you is sincerity. The only thing which saves you is sincerity, utter sincerity. You don't know what to do, you can't figure it out, But you continue. And by this sincerity, sincerity means same or one, single, a growth like cereal. Same growth, same growth. It has same meaning as the old woman who sees her face in the mirror but doesn't recognize it. Different but same, same growth.

[36:23]

And if you practice in this way, with this kind of returning to your no, nothing added, simply as possible, just try, next thing, without any special idea, any idea of ego or attainment, as much as possible you just try it, You find you hit all the salient points that Seppo hit, Tozan hit, and you'll understand the koans quite easily. Why Withered Tree never dries up. Why anyone would say you can't find the bottom of the ocean even if you dry it up. What the roar of the dragon in the withered tree is. You know it can't be any of these things, so it must be such and such, that kind of feeling. But there's no guide, no intellectual guide, no Zazen guide, really, except your sincerity and effort in coming back to primary consciousness.

[37:49]

everyday mindedness, we can say, is another example of a way of saying utter sincerity. As I said, Sukhyoji's inmost request for conscience, what the original meaning of There is no other path but what's in front of you. But what's in front of you means what's in front of you met by primary consciousness. Like two arrows meeting. This way, dying is not so much a problem. You can let everything go, with it the tree never dries up. Nothing goes, everything is near at hand.

[39:31]

Just be easy with people and let them find their way with you, giving them permission. But some vow, some decision to stay with it, is necessary. And Seppo says, have you been here before? Where is this here? Go have a cup of tea. Where is this here? Where is this here?

[41:04]

not secondary consciousness. So it includes secondary consciousness. Nanaku was asked, ìHow can we approach everyday mindedness?î And he said, ìIf you approach it intentionally you will miss it completely.î He means non-intentional mind. Ears. Sees. Smells. Tastes.

[43:10]

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