So yesterday morning, while I was on an online class with Luminous Al, some of you know Luminous Al, Kokyo Henkel, we were listening to him talking about some fairly esoteric teaching. And while he was talking, the Densho Bell started to ring. Densho Bell is the big bell. Some of you have been to Green Lodge. There's a big Densho Bell on the lawn. We have one, a very nice one here. hanging from the Zendo here in Enso Village. And I knew that sound for many years of hearing it wrong during the day, meaning that someone had died. And so our first resident, you know, feeling kind of sad. And I didn't know her. I didn't know her well. She was someone I hadn't yet met. But I did know she was in hospice. And then yesterday morning, she passed. And so we went and sat. together in a circle, the Quaker style over in the Zendo.

[01:15]

And maybe, I don't know, maybe 20 of us were sitting together in silence. And I felt so grateful for our practice of coming together, supporting each other. And this teaching today that we're looking at, Suzuki Roshi's teaching, just like the one from last week, is about transiency. you know, which is kind of another word for, you know, we're going to die. This is, life is going to end. This is not something abstract. It's something very, very real. And when I went into the circle in the Zendo, and someone mentioned her taking her last breath, and when they said that, her last breath, I noticed my inhalation. And I thought, What an amazing connection we all have, you know, through our breath, our breath, the next breath, the next breath. And then sometime there's the last breath.

[02:19]

And so I felt such an intimacy with this woman and with all of the people here. And I feel that imagining all of you breathing wherever you are. And what an extraordinary... and profound connection we have by this simple noticing of our breath. Her name was Lynn. So tonight, we're going to be looking at a lecture that Suzuki Roshi Dave, the one that follows last week's Transiency, And both of these are in this final section of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which they've entitled Right Understanding, Right Understanding, or Right View. So some of you may know that term, Right View. It's part of the Eightfold Path.

[03:20]

So when the Buddha gave his first sermon, he gave these four profound teachings, the four what he called noble truths. There is suffering. There is suffering. You know, death is one of those. losing those we love, that's suffering. Pain is suffering, and so on. Being with things we don't like is suffering. So there's different kinds of suffering. And there's a cause of our suffering that has to do with wishing those things weren't happening, you know, wanting things to be different than they are. And then there's the cessation of suffering is noble truth number three, and the cause for the cessation of suffering is is noble truth number four, which is called the path, the eightfold path. That's pretty classic traditional teaching that I hope all of you are familiar with. I imagine you are. So the first link or first fold of the eight folds is called right view or right understanding.

[04:21]

And it's pretty essential that we have a right understanding of what the Buddha saw when he woke up. What happened to him? What did he say was happening? How does he understand our human life from the vantage point of what we understand to be awakening? What does that mean to be awake and to see human life from the point of view of an awakened being? So the Buddha's teaching was from that point of view, right understanding. So this chapter, right understanding, is pretty critical to how Suzuki Roshi tried his best to help his American students. understand the Buddha's profound teaching, right understanding, right view. So when we look at this next talk, which is called The Quality of Being, I was really struck by a phrase that Suzuki Roshi uses in the first paragraph of his lecture. The phrase is, flashing into the vast phenomenal world, flashing into the vast phenomenal world, which strikes me as another way

[05:29]

or another expression, for helping us to understand, to have a right view about the wisdom teaching of impermanence or transiency, that nothing lasts. Not great pain, not great sorrow, not great pleasure. Whatever it is, it's going to pass. It's already passed, and the new thing is on its way, like right now. So Roshi says in the first sentence of his talk that the purpose of Zazen is to attain the freedom of our being physically and mentally. The purpose of Zazen is to attain the freedom of our being physically and mentally. And according to Dogen Zenji, the founder of Soto Zen, Japanese founder, every existence is a flashing into the vast phenomenal world. Each existence is another expression of the quality of being itself. So the quality of being as a flashing into the vast phenomenal world, you know, in the blink of an eye.

[06:37]

So in keeping with the insights that Dogen shares, that I talked about last week with Mike, Carlo Rovelli, who I've now stopped reading Carlo Rovelli. Some of you may be happy to know that I've ended my fascination with physics for the moment. But anyway, Dogen and Carlo Rovelli share some understanding about the cosmos. And so Roshi begins by talking about the stars, the stars that he sees in the early morning, stars that, from our point of view, are just these tiny little pinpoints of light, light that is coming, as we now know, Thank you, Carlo. You know, at great speed from a very, very great distance that's being emitted by these fiery heavenly bodies that are millions and even billions of light years away. You know, I can say all that and it's like, and it's true, but it's hard to understand. And right understanding includes some kind of willingness to believe that those little pinpoints of light are giant galaxies spinning and, you know, the vastness of...

[07:43]

of space flashing in the phenomenal reality of what we call the universe. So for us, Suzuki Roshi, and as he's saying, these little pinpoints of light, even though we know intellectually, we know and we've seen the photographs from the Hubble telescopes and so on, that these are galaxies out there. They're not just little pinpoints of light. But still, what we see are pinpoints of light that appear very calm, and very steady and very peaceful. So he compares this apparent calmness of the stars to the virtue of the calmness within each of our own activities. So I think a lot of us often have said of our lives that we're very busy or I'm too busy. I wish I weren't so busy and that kind of thing. We have some sense of what it means for us to be busy or to be worried or to be occupied by thought, be flooded by concerns and so on. But he's saying within the midst of that, there's this calmness that's there within our own activities, with our own fiery being.

[08:53]

And he says that in calmness, there should be activity. And in activity, there should be calmness. So these are, again, these two sides of a coin, the side of activity and the side of stillness, both of which are basically simply two different ways of interpreting the very same apparent fact. It's just me. It's me that's both calm and active. And that's at the same time, depending on how I'm interpreting. my experience of myself or of any of you for that matter. So this is a teaching that I find while sitting each morning. You know, there's something big is apparently happening that brings this person to life. You know, something big happened that brought this person to life. Something big that happened in the vastness of the stars. that traveled at great speed over great distances in order for me to find a seat and to settle this body and its thoughts into the form of a calm and peaceful being.

[10:02]

So this kind of harmony that we experience or that we know, Roshi says, is the quality of being. It's the quality of our being. But the quality of being is also nothing but this speedy activity that brought us, here, to this place, in this time, in this form, that we each, miraculous appearance that each of us is. There's some song that says, you know, we're just stardust, just stardust. And there's a literal truth to that, which I'm not going to go into. But we are made of the substances that were produced inside of great stars. long, long ago. So then he talks about how the quality of being is always present within our activity, so we don't need to be bothered by it. We don't need to worry about it. We don't need to be concerned, you know, if we're not aware of the quality in the midst of our busy lives, of this harmonious presence. By fixing our minds or by paying attention to our activity, to our busyness, to the things that are occupying our time, and then he adds, with some confidence,

[11:14]

So by fixing our minds with some confidence on what we're doing, then the quality of our state of mind, its primal calmness, will be in the activity itself. So there's some funny connection between our engagement, our sincere engagement with what we're doing, and this quality of calmness or presence that is always there but not necessarily manifest if we're not paying attention, if we're not... Buddha means awake, if we're not awake to what we're doing, if we're not clearly aware of our actions and of where we are and what we're doing and what we're saying and all of that sort of thing. So this is all part of right understanding. So then Roshi says that when we do zazen, the quality of our calm, steady, serene sitting is the quality of the immense activity of being itself. just as the calming light from those distant stars is the quality of the immense activity of the universe itself.

[12:18]

So this is kind of this big mind, small mind, this kind of accordion thinking that runs throughout Buddhist teaching. There's the particularities, the... what we call the relative truths, the particular things. I've got lots of them all around me. And then there's the all-inclusiveness. All of these particular things are all included in what we call the universe, the universe, the oneness of the vastness and so on. So it's both that and it's also that. It kind of depends on which way you're looking, how you're thinking. So reflecting back to last week's talk in which Roshi uses the truth of transiency to help us reflect on the concept of time, time passing, this talk he's using the phrase flashing into the vast phenomenal world, flashing into the vast phenomenal world to help us reflect on the freedom of our being that comes from conjoining our awareness with our activity.

[13:26]

Our conscious awareness, when conjoined with our activity, is what he's calling this flashing into the phenomenal world. The two, the subject and the object, have come together as one whole being. So this brings again to mind Dogen's talk that I mentioned last week called Time Being, a talk that can be found in this collection of lectures by Dogen. published under the title of Moon in a Dewdrop. So in that talk, Dogen says to us, from the great distance of 800 years ago, so now we're hearing from Dogen, it's another example of something traveling from a great distance, like 800 years ago. How is that possible? So Dogen's sitting there at his desk somewhere in Japan. Maybe in the dead of winter, we have no idea. But anyway, he's sitting there and he's thinking about his own experience of Dharma and the relief he's found and wanting very much to convey his understanding, to help his students to liberate themselves as he's been liberated from suffering and as Suzuki or she wishes to help us to be liberated from our suffering.

[14:43]

And as I wish to help myself and you be liberated from our suffering. You know, this is the mission. that the Buddha was on, and I think it's the mission of our Zen teaching and Zen practice. So, Dogen says, you know, 800 years ago, see each thing in this entire world as a moment of time. See each thing in this entire world as a moment of time. See how things don't hinder each other. They don't hinder each other, just as moments of time do not hinder each other. You know, there's... Seems to be enough space for things to be here together. This vastness has a lot of stuff in it. There seems to be enough room for all of these things to exist together within a moment of time, the same moment of time. So then he says the way-seeking mind, way-seeking means that you're seeking the way, the path to liberation, to freedom. you know, freedom from suffering.

[15:44]

The way-seeking mind, the mind of awakening arises in this moment. A way-seeking moment arises in this mind. Since there's nothing but just this moment, the time being is all the time there is. The time being is all the time there is. Each moment is all being, is the entire world. This is Dogen. Then Dogen invites us by saying, reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment. So time is not separate from you and you, as in the present, And time does not go away. It doesn't arrive. It doesn't go away. It's more like a flow.

[16:46]

Dogen says it's like a flow. The time being has this quality of flowing like a river to fully actualize the golden body of the Buddha, to arouse the way-seeking mind, to attain enlightenment, and to enter into nirvana, liberation, freedom from suffering, is nothing but Being is nothing but time. So for those of you who've read Dogen before, this will be a little familiar. He's a poet, basically. I read this wonderful little quote about poets. This had to do with Ravelli. So poetry, like science, is seen beyond the visible. So poetry is a Dogen like Ravelli. like the scientists, are seeing beyond what's visible to us. They're talking into our insides, into our right understanding. It's like, I'd like to understand this, and it's very challenging.

[17:50]

Very challenging. Both science and poetry are very challenging to us because they're beyond something that we can see or hear or smell or touch. There's some other quality that's being evoked in us. Something's being touched. Roshi then talks, Suzuki Roshi then talks about one of the more difficult teachings for many of us, the teaching that Dogen gives in his most famous of talks called the Genjo Koan, meaning actualizing the fundamental point. Actualizing the fundamental point. And in that talk, so Suzuki Roshi is referring to that talk. And in there, Dogen is saying that firewood becomes ash. Firewood becomes ash. and it does not become firewood again. That's pretty obvious. You burn the wood, and then you have ash. It doesn't go back to being firewood again. And yes, he says, Dogen, do not suppose that the ash is the future and the firewood is the past.

[18:54]

This normal way of thinking. Again, we're doing this uncommon thinking, kind of poetic thinking. So then Suzuki Roshi says about this teaching, strictly speaking, Strictly speaking, there is no connection between myself yesterday and myself in this moment. There is no connection whatsoever. It's like firewood and ash. And then he quotes Dogen's teaching. Again, firewood not becoming ash. And he says, you should understand that firewood exists or abides in this expression of firewood, which includes the past, like when it was a tree, and includes the future when it's going to be in a fire, and at the same time is independent of the past. There's no tree. You can't find the tree when you're holding a log in your hands. The tree's gone, and you're not holding the fire. The fire hasn't arrived. So it's independent. The log is independent of the past and of the future, just like each of us is independent of this morning and whatever we were doing and whatever we're going to be doing later on this evening.

[20:02]

We can't get there, and we can't go back there. So this is kind of what they're talking about, is trying to help us to orient to the present. It's very hard to do because our minds are almost always drifting back in time or drifting forward and planning something that's going to be next. So Dogen says, just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death. So this is where it becomes firewood. to matter to us. You know, fire it and ash, that's okay. I can handle that. But birth and death, you know, it starts to get very personal, start to have some feelings about that as I did yesterday morning when I heard the bell. You do not return to birth after death, Dogen says, and this being so, it is an established way in the Buddha Dharma to deny that birth turns into death. And therefore, birth is understood as no birth, and death is understood as no death.

[21:04]

In the present moment, no birth and no death. Just this. So that's kind of what they're calling on us to think about or to consider. So how is this so? You know, we who are destined, for whom the bell tolls, Dogen then answers, Because birth is an expression that is complete in this moment. What's born is complete in this moment, like this moment is complete. It's got everything that it ever needed to happen, and it's got everything it will ever need to pass away. So death is an expression, also complete this moment. Birth is an expression, complete this moment. Death is an expression, complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring. They each have their own independent experience or existence.

[22:08]

We think of it that way, we know it that way, but we forget so quickly. You know, we forget. So Suzuki Rishi is saying to us that because this is the moment-to-moment flashing into the phenomenal world, That each being, each moment has its own independent existence. Just like that log or that piece of wood. Just like us. We have our own independent existence. We're independent of the past and we are independent of the future. Yesterday's gone. Tomorrow's not here. Complete freedom resides in the completeness of the present moment. In the completeness of the flashing. Flashing into the phenomenal world. In the completeness of the charcoal and in the completeness of the red hot coals, an example of firewood and ash, but also charcoal is another way, another term to use, another metaphor. So charcoal complete in itself and red hot coals are complete in themselves.

[23:12]

They're not interchangeable. You're not going to pick up some red hot coals, you know. Charcoal, yeah, you can do that. So where there is charcoal, he says, there is no red hot coal. So each instance, each moment of flashing is independent of the past and free to make the future. And yet, as we know from the teaching of non-duality, independence only exists due to dependence. So if we say this is all independent, that's one way of looking at it. That's one side of the coin. But if we turn the coin the other way and look at dependence, then we can start to say something quite different. And we need to have that flexibility if we're going to ever understand what these guys are talking about. We need to be able to shift from one side of a dualistic proposition, independence, and on the other hand, the other side of a dualistic proposition, which is dependence.

[24:13]

So we are both independent and we are dependent. So that's what this chapter, Suzuki Roshi is talking about in this chapter. So each moment of flashing is dependent on the flashings that have passed away. So we have dependent core rising. That's another one of the great wisdom teachings, dependent core rising. Everything depends on everything that's passed away. If it hadn't passed away, there'd be no room for me to be here right now. If I was still here from this morning, there'd be no me being here now because I'd be in the way. You know, I would just be a solid block, you know, and that would be it forever. So each moment has to be, has to pass away to allow the next one to arrive. I mean, I think we can understand it, but it's really hard to remember. So we are completely connected and we are... at one with all of the flashing of the phenomenal world, and therefore we are both dependent and we are independent.

[25:23]

And then he says, this is Suzuki Roshi, so when I sit, you sit. Everything sits with me. That is zazen. Everything makes up the quality of our being. Everything goes into the quality. Everything's in the soup. You know, you don't get a good soup if you don't put everything in there and the kitchen sink. everything goes into making the quality of our being. The sound of that bell, the circle of friends sitting together, the feelings we were having, the memories we were sharing, all of that is the quality of our being. And we're naturals. We know how to do this. It's just hard to think about it. So I am a part of you. I am part of your quality of being. I go into the quality of your being as you go into the quality of mine. So even though we look quiet while we are sitting in the zendo there in the mornings, we do that here at Enso Village. It's a quite lovely time of day. We look very quiet sitting there, just like the stars in the night sky.

[26:26]

All of our activity of the past and the present is included. And the result of our sitting is also already there. We are not resting at all. All the activities of the universe are included in our... half hour of sitting. Roshi then talks about how Dogen's interest in Buddhism began when he was a young boy, and he saw the smoke from the incense stick burning next to his mother's funeral pyre. I think he was about seven years old when his much-loved mother. Dogen was very much a child of his mother and his grandmother. His grandmother taught him the classics, Chinese classics, taught him to read Chinese, and he was a very bright young man, as you can imagine. And his mother was very loving. She adored his son. We don't hear much about his father, but he really had a great love of his mother. And she actually is the one who asked him to ordain, you know, to live a holy life, which he did.

[27:26]

So he saw the smoke rising from her funeral pyre, and he felt this transiency of life. And for him at that time, it was only grief and only very lonely. He was very lonely. So he left his father's home, as the Buddha did, and he entered into monastic training. That lonely feeling grew stronger and stronger, until finally, at the age of 28, he had a great realization about transiency. He realized the freedom that comes with the flashing into the vast, phenomenal world. There's freedom in that, in that flashing light. So he went to his teacher, Ru Jing. He lit a stick of incense, and he declared, My body and mind have been shed. My body and mind have been shed. His teacher said, Now shed that too. And Dogen bowed deeply. Ru Jing, his teacher, then said to him, The shedding has been shed.

[28:33]

And that was Dogen's moment of awakening, his enlightenment. when all the phenomenal world was included in what was happening to him right then. It was all-inclusive. So Roshi says that when we realize that everything is just a flashing into the vast universe, we become very strong, and our existence becomes very meaningful. This was Dogen's enlightenment, and this is our practice too. So I'm going to not say anything more. I think that's quite a lot. So it's not a lot for me. So I've been thinking about this particular chapter. I think it's getting into kind of the deep end of the pool, these last talks that Suzuki Rishi gave, at least the way the editors organized the book. You know, the first chapters were about the body and the breath and, you know, sitting practice and all these sort of things which are very easy to talk about and to demonstrate and to participate. together you know we can go to the zendo and that's all of that and then the next chapter was about attitude you know how to understand zazen how to understand what it means to to be awake you know what does that mean what is that now this one is more like the the you know the gateway to the vastness you know some there's a finger pointing at this vastness that we are you know and but rather than pointing that way you know to the stars

[29:58]

to the outside of us, pointing to us, the vastness that's here. So that's what I take from this talk, and I'd love to hear whatever any of you would like to share. I hope you've had a chance to read this particular lecture. I think the rest of these talks in this section of the book are probably going to be equally exciting to try and put our minds to. So please, anything you'd like to bring up. Karina, could you... Yes, thank you very much. Thank you. Hello, everybody. Welcome. Let me first see if there's anyone joining us. New today, I see lots of, not old people, but familiar people, which is very nice. Yes. Michael's back. Marie. I don't see Marie, but I see her name. And... Michelle.

[30:59]

Hello, Michelle. Welcome. All right. Please, anyone who would like to say something transient about transiency would be very welcome. Hi, Griffin. Please. First of all, thank you for mentioning Lynn. She was one of our dog parents, which is one of the biggest bonding experiences, you know, for me in this community. I've been wondering all week how it would be even possible to approach this text. Quality of being is completely mystifying or mist-like to me. Did you say, what was that last thing you said, mist? Mist. Like. Like. Uh-huh. And yet it feels so right, so real, so relevant, more relevant than all this spiritual goal attainment practice, which I also do.

[32:19]

So I'm sitting in the... which is my best chance, you know, sitting upright on my cushion and appears pain, exhaustion, fear. And I have a little space to, you know, wonder if I could have any warmth or welcome towards this. I mean, it's very common. This is the most common, right, of our sufferings. And feeling thank you body and you know spirit for fighting for my life that just takes many many years and I need to have a body on earth as far as I know so this is my practice but there's also something else that I am another life

[33:27]

And it touches me his words so much about the loneliness of the evanescence of life. Mm-hmm. And I don't know if you want to call it, and perhaps it's an inner quality of being, which I don't know, but I know it's there. And how to... I support that. It's like resonating to the sound of the dent show. You know? It's not something you practice. It's not something so easily stolen by my ego, you know, effort. And I don't know. I'm just... the two that yes I stay in front of my difficult challenging experience because I can learn to see what's behind it and be grateful for it and that's my practice but how do I

[34:58]

There is no path, you know. What is this quality of being, you know, like the taste of the truth that also I live for? Yeah, thank you for that, Griffin, for sharing that. I think it's important for us to remember that, you know, awakening is a quality, like kindness is a quality and wisdom is a quality. You know, the figures that are in the Zendo, like at Green Gulch, we have a number of figures. We have a Jizo figure, a Kuan Yin figure, and Shakyamuni Buddha, and so on. And these represent qualities, human qualities. And I think that's what this is pointing to, is not some kind of structure or some kind of object that you can get a hold of. But actually, when Buddha was... was asked, you know, what are you? You know, they asked him, are you a god? He said, no. He said, are you a spirit?

[36:00]

He said, no. Are you a demon? He said, no. Are you human? He said, no. They said, what are you? He said, I'm awake. It's a quality. So, you know, I think these are the ways that these teachers tried to point, help us point toward what is it I'm seeking, way seeking? What way am I seeking? And, you know, they keep telling you, It's right there. It's right there. It's on the tip of your tongue. And it's on the tips of your fingers. Each time you engage, as he's saying, wholeheartedly in whatever it is you're doing, including the way you describe meeting your own difficulties. That wholehearted meeting of your difficulties is the path. And I really loved... I really... deeply grateful to hear someone quoting Lynn's last, what we heard were her last words, where she's the woman who passed, how grateful she was to have spent so many years of her life in practice.

[37:04]

This is just as she's about to take her last breath. How grateful I am. I spent 50 years practicing. Now I know why, you know? So I think all of us, maybe we're going to find out, you know, maybe it's the grand finale. Yes. Yes. So, you know, I don't, I don't want to hold out for that because, you know, I've got, I don't know what I've got coming, but I do feel like these are very encouraging. These teachings can be very encouraging to us in our difficulties. So thank you for sharing. And yeah. Drew. Hi. Hi. I went looking for the book on A Tale of Time Being, and it was all sold out, so we got to check some other place. They said it's really popular. So I'm going to try out a novel instead of a Rovelli.

[38:08]

Yeah, me too. I'm heading that way myself. You couldn't take it anymore. Yeah, right. I was thinking about... The Stardust, that was a Joni Mitchell song. Oh, yeah. We are Stardust. Anyway, I started thinking about the Big Bang and assuming that's how it happened, the Big Bang happened. There was nothing that wasn't Big Banging. And I was wondering, the flashing into the phenomenal world, it seems like there's nothing that's not flashing into the phenomenal world all the time. Right. There's nothing like over there that's taken a rest. There's not a pause in the flashing. Is that safe? Is that safe to say? That's good. Yeah, it's very safe. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, the Big Bang is such a great idea, isn't it?

[39:11]

I remember thinking at one point, well, we were all in there before it banged, before it went boom. We were all there, right? These people squeezed in together in this infinitesimal tiny space, just waiting to be born. And then all of a sudden, kaboom. And then here we are. A few moments later, here we are. Anyway. I think this is just, all this kind of stuff is sort of to, like they say, until untie the knots and knock out the pegs of our usual way of thinking. This is kind of the sort of stuff that I think we hope to get our children to do is to expand their thinking, get bigger and get more creative in their thinking. So I always feel that way when I read this stuff. It's like, oh, wow. It's just going to like, whoo. So thank you for the humor of all of that. Bye. Hi, Musho.

[40:12]

Hello. Hi, everyone. I was glad to see that Genjo Koan popped up here and how firewood is firewood and ash is ash. And I've been dealing with my father who's in a nursing home with Alzheimer's disease. And he's on this strange borderline that he's been on for quite a while where... Some of the things he says make sense, and the questions that he asks me seem to be real questions, but he's also living in a strange fantasy. So it really helps to know, it really helps for me to center myself in the fact that he's not the same person in the past, and I'm not the same person that he's imagining me to be. And when I do that, it makes it a little bit easier. But when I forget that, it's really troublesome.

[41:18]

I'm stuck in the past when I hear him and I see him as my father from 10 years ago or 20 years ago. And when I suddenly remember my practice and I realize that logs are logs and ashes are ashes, it's much easier. deal with what I'm dealing with now all the time when I go and see him. It's just a struggle. But the Genjo Koan little story is hard, really hard to grasp. But it's so helpful the way that Suzuki Roshi puts it and the way that you've clarified it a bit. It's a very helpful teaching. And it is a flashing that we're involved in. It's always a coming and going right now.

[42:21]

But boy, is it easy to get trapped in the past and dependent on the future. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all know that with you, you know. And the pain of our... Elders, now that I am an elder, watching the elders pass away. And knowing that this is a little conveyor belt here, they're all together. And little by little, we're all going to, the waterfall, we're all going to pass into this next, the next great adventure, whatever that might be. Dogen also said, leaping live into the Yellow River. One little, just take a little push off as you're, as you're saying goodbye, you know. Yeah. So thank you for sharing that. I hope your father is not in pain. No, he's not. He's very comfortable. It's a very strange disease because actually he doesn't know he has a disease.

[43:25]

Yes. We have friends here who are going through that, and they're quite wonderful, and they really do offer a lot to us by remembering. Oh, he doesn't remember me, even though he talked yesterday. Yeah. A person who I think of as a friend doesn't remember me from day to day. It's very disconcerting. I'm new again. You know, I get to be new again. Hi, my name's who? I'm your son. I'm your daughter. Yeah. And I love you. I'm sure they understand somehow. I love you. I hope so. I hope so, too. I hope so, too. Thank you, Mushu. You're welcome. Thank you. Marianne. Hello, Marianne. Hi, everyone. Good evening. Good morning. My son got here. I was thinking how some of these insights penetrate culture.

[44:29]

And I was particularly thinking about this teaching. I had the privilege of living 12 years in Bangladesh. And so I had to learn some Sanskrit. I had to learn Bengali. And whenever we would visit in the village, we would never say goodbye. The word, as we were leaving, we would say to each other, Ami Ashi, I'm coming. And it struck me, you know, in the Bengali culture, they're very Buddhist and Hindu. Yes, it's predominantly, right now, Bangladesh is predominantly Muslim followers, but their Buddhist and Hindu traditions are so rich. And I was thinking, wow, you know, when I first learned that, you don't say, I'm going. You say, I'm coming. And it's the realization that they know you now, they knew you before, and they will know you in the future.

[45:36]

And I always was struck by that, how these insights even penetrate culture. So I just wanted to share that. That's lovely. Thank you for that. You know, one of the names or epithets for the Buddha is Tathagata. Tathagata means no coming, no going. Just here. Just here. Just this moment. You know, I'm not coming and I'm not going. I'm right here with you. You know, we are one. We are totally one in this moment. And so that resonates for me with what you just said as well. All right. Thank you. I just wanted to share. Thank you. Thank you for that. And then I see Tim's hand. Good evening, Fu-sensei. Good evening, Sangha. I don't really have a question except perhaps, can you speak a little bit further about how you understand, Flu Sensei, how do you hold both the truth that each moment is complete in itself and also not independent?

[46:53]

And not independent? And not independent, right? Each moment has to die for the next one to be born. But each next moment is comprised of phenomena that occurred in the moment before and back millennia. So I have this almost this vision of like this infinite maybe library. Remember those library cards? car cataloging things, car trees, with like, oh, what's the term? The things that you put into the microscope, the slides. And each moment is one of these slides and they go on forever and ever, ever. But you could lift one out and that's a moment in a way. And that's the visual that I'm working with, but I'm also constrained by... my own conditioning. So how do you work with that?

[47:55]

Well, you know, I do like reading this stuff. I mean, one of the ways I work with it is by reading Dogen and reading Suzuki Roshi and watching my mind get kind of spun around from its usual way of understanding. And also, you know, of the present. Is it forward? Is it backward? Is it up? Is it down? I mean, all of the language that I've learned to help me orient, orientation, you know, is fine. I need it when I get on the freeway and I need it, you know, to find the dining room and all of that. So the conventional way of thinking is just fine. The library catalogs, they're useful and they work pretty well. But they are not accurate. And I think why I like going and delving into the astrophysics and the nuclear physics and all of that, and Dogen, who I don't see, and poetry, is because they kind of knock you off your track of knowability, that I can know, somehow I can know the sequence, or I can pull a slide out.

[49:15]

This is, to me, the term that comes... to my mind, it's coming to my mind right now, is, you know, it's magic. It's magic what's happening. I can't think about another thing that would explain it. It's this, you know, Dogen is called the mystical realist. And I was talking to one of you recently about mysticism. There's something about the mystery of all of this that doesn't want to fit into a card catalog. It doesn't want to be known in a certain way, and the physicists aren't getting any closer. The cosmologists aren't getting any closer. They're getting more and more in awe. They're more awestruck, which I think is the direction I appreciate for myself. I love being struck in awe by whatever is manifesting for me, whether it's reading something or the night sky certainly does it. The clouds in the morning here are extraordinary.

[50:17]

There's so much to be in awe of, except when I forget and I'm kind of cranky or I'm like, you know, into my thing, being me and objecting to somebody else's, saying something I didn't like or whatever. And then I'm lost in confusion, as Dogen says, lost in confusion. So we have to go there. We have to spend time lost in confusion because that's our work as human beings is to help each other get unconfused. to find conventional solutions to conventional problems. But as soon as you start digging in very deep, you go a couple inches into the soil, and you are in a vast network of unknowable inconceivability. I remember at Tassahara, I was pondering some of this stuff, and I was given a job to go up and do some digging around on this hill, and I dug a little hole, and I was like... oh my God, there's something everywhere. You know, wherever I dug, there was something.

[51:20]

I was just, I mean, that's kind of, where have I been? You know, I was 30 years old and I'd never realized there was something everywhere. So part of it is just staying in touch with your curiosity and your wish to not know, but to inquire, you know, what's happening here? What's going on here? You know, not knowing is nearest. I know you know that one, but that was another famous Zen saying, not knowing is nearest. When the emperor asked Bodhidharma, who are you facing me? What did he say? I don't know. I don't know. And he was telling the truth. I don't know. How would I know what I am? You know, how do we know what we are? We don't know. And can we be comfortable with that? with not knowing. Mostly we're not trained not to know. We're quite the opposite. You know, we have been trained to know and to get it right, get good grades.

[52:24]

And so I think we're looking forward to this kind of teaching like one continuous mistake. That's another Zen saying. One continuous mistake. Not knowing is nearest. That's kind of where I go. I appreciate that. As one quick thought on Alzheimer's, my grandmother suffered that before her passing and her beginner's mind got bigger, which I was really interesting to witness and now get some context around as I'm an older person. And I now forget that. most of the things that happen in a day. Oh, you're just a beginner at old. Right. But yeah, it was a blessing that she didn't have aggression so she could be open and curious.

[53:27]

Curious is the language that you brought forward that reminded me about that quality of my grandmother in that. Nice. Yeah, my mom too. She got pretty... pretty out there toward the end, and I remember I gave her a shower, and I was drying her off, and she said, you're a nice lady. Well, at least she thinks I'm a nice lady. That's pretty good. Thanks, Mom. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad they're not suffering. At least my experience with that is there's not a lot of suffering, which I hope that that's true. Bye, Tim. My mom was relatively young when she had strokes, and so she was kind of on that path to mental decline. But I remember back, she would say to me, very emphatically, she would say, she has something to say, and she would say, listen to me, Tim, listen to me.

[54:33]

I realized it's because I'm not really listening to her. I'm kind of discounting her. So I said, sure, Mom, I'll listen to you. What do you have to say? And she had something she wanted to, you know, communicate to me. So my, yeah, it's, so I, if you ever want to get my attention, just say, Tim, listen to me, Tim. Not that I don't. Tim? Listen to me, Tim. Are you listening? I'm trying. Well, she was a good mom. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Hi, Dean. Hi, everyone. I have so totally enjoyed every bit of this tonight. I feel like everything that is coming up and being said is It's like I can feel the link to every other thing, which was pretty cool.

[55:43]

And I'm going to come back to the mom thing. And I mean, before I was thinking about how things connect and with my mom, she had full-blown dementia and she lived with me. And it was the first time she didn't know who I was. Physically, it was a blow to me. And then she thought I was her sister, her identical twin sister. And someone said, gosh, Dean, she died when they were 23, and how lucky that she gets to have her sister back. It changed everything for me. And it made me think of everything we're thinking about It was that moment before it meant this. And then there was this other moment, this other thing. And that has happened with all of this.

[56:46]

And, you know, I know that my mom got into it when she was saying things. She'd say, well, what's that little girl doing over there? That little girl sitting out there, is she sleeping? And I'd gotten to a point where everything could be this new, exciting moment. I'd say, well, you know, I think so. You know, let's wait a few minutes and see if she wakes up. And it would just go off. It would just be so tangential. And, well, I think there's those people out in the car out there. Go ask them if they want to come in. You know what? I just talked to them. They're looking at their map. They're trying to figure out where they want to go next. And I would just, every moment, I would just, something new would come into that moment. And I'm seeing that also happening in someone I'm having a kind of little struggle with, and I think it probably will not get resolved. It's like, and everything we're talking about, it's reminding me, oh, this is the moment.

[57:49]

And in this moment, I feel like it's fine for it not to be resolved. And then I might slide this way, and it's changed. And I'm continuing to be reminded that every moment is a new moment. And I don't have to have that one again. I'm not going to have it again. And if it comes back and it feels like it's again, it's not. But it's going to change again. And I do think there's such an incredible, incredible connection between, well, there's quantum physics and there's classic physics. And even that, it's like the two truths. I see the two truths there. And it's just... It's just this incredible mapping of everything we're living and experience and learning in this practice. It's happening everywhere, even in the atoms and the star and the air.

[58:50]

And it's really, it gives me such a wonderful feeling of... I don't even know. I don't even know what the words are, but it's a really wonderful, wonderful feeling. And I, I remember when I started sitting, I, I sat down and I talked to Mel and I was talking to him and I said, you know, it's magic. I never really believed in magic, but this really is magic. You go in and you sit, you think you're going to die. And five minutes later. Yeah. You're not only alive, but you're not even thinking you're going to die. And anyway, so I have really, really enjoyed every little bit. And even the den show bell. I keep hearing the den show bell, and I think about that sensation. So I thank everybody for tonight. It's been quite invigorating for me. Thank you. Thank you.

[59:52]

Thank you, Dean. Yeah, when you were talking about your mom and the other conversations about moms and stuff, it's like it brings to mind, what's true? Is it true? I mean, you're just talking to her, telling stories together. It doesn't matter if it's true or not. It's like we're so caught up and it was that true. It was sort of like, well, they're looking at their map, mom. What is true? Who knows? What difference does it make? It's like you're being kind to your mom. So it's like the Dalai Lama said, my religion is kindness. So if we can keep coming back to that, my job is to be kind, not to be true. True is taking care of itself. And I don't have to mess with that. So it's already true or not true. I don't really know. But being kind seems like something I can invest my life in trying to manifest possibly. But thank you, Dean. Thank you for all of that. Hi, Senko.

[60:54]

Hi, Fu. Hi, everyone. Good morning. Yeah, good morning. Since you're talking about physics, you might not talk about it next time. I just read something that's very nerdy. Maybe I'm going to use like one minute to say it because we're talking about time. And this is another physicist, Sean Carroll. He was talking about our sense of space, like the direction we have on Earth, up and down, left and right. He said, there's no such direction. It's only because we're on Earth, because of gravity. So we feel that it's up and down. However, if you're floating in space, you don't have that, right? Then he said, it's not much different with respect to time. We think there's a past, present, and a future. It might just be an accident because we're in the universe. We're somehow in a relative location that's close to the Big Bang. Because if you're not close to it, because Big Ben started with a low thermodynamic. And, you know, like you said, what Revali was saying, that increase, right?

[61:58]

And there's entropy increase. He's saying, it's just because we happen to be here relatively close to Big Ben. We feel there's a past, present, and future. So I remember it was like last night, midnight, I couldn't sleep. I was like, wow. Okay, that's all I'm going to say today. Okay. It's keeping you up. Well, that's kind of good. What's the next chapter? I'm going to keep up. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. Fun. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Sanko. Okay. Lovely. Thank you all so much. And next week we have moment after moment. Everyone comes out from. Nothingness. This is the true joy of life. I think that's being demonstrated right now. The nothingness that we're coming out of is the true joy of life. So let's keep that up. Let's just keep coming out of nothingness.

[63:00]

I thank you all so much for being here and being who you are. It's such a joy, truly. So if you'd like to unmute and say whatever you say, adios. Adios. Adios. Amigos. Thank you. Great talk. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Good night. Good morning. Bye.

[63:26]

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