Good afternoon. It's a nice day where you are. The fog just cleared away for us. That's wonderful, very beautiful. So I'm going to ring the bell. We can sit for a few minutes and then start talking about the two truths and Zen Master Shito, the author of the Sandokai. know how it is for all of you but i find that even stopping you know just stopping walking or whatever i'm doing and and looking around through the day is incredibly helpful just relieves a lot of um kind of gives off the train a little bit train of thought it's kind of this incredibly beautiful world so i hope you get a chance to do that now and then remember to do that

[08:32]

That's one of the hardest things for practicing is remembering to practice. So, as I said, I'm gonna keep talking some more about Shito and he's the Zen ancestors, 18th century. We're all the way to the 18th century now, Chinese and ancestor who is a very important figure for Zen center. And mostly because he was Suzuki Roshi's favorite author. He wrote the San Do Kai. or the harmony of difference and equality. And as I've mentioned, Suzuki Roshi gave some lectures toward the end of his life at Tassahara about the Sandokai. And that's what I'll be referring to today and in a few weeks to go, a few weeks to come. So the Sandokai, harmony of difference and equality is this expression of Shito's enlightened insight, which followed on this dream that he'd had. mentioned a couple of times, he had a dream.

[09:35]

The dream is in the story, in the transmission of light about Shito. And he's riding on a turtle, a giant sea turtle, with Hui Nong, the sixth ancestor, and they are floating on the ocean of reality, the great ocean of reality. So following this dream, when Shito woke up, he wrote the poem. And so he... believed or he thought that the metaphor of the turtle was knowledge, the body of knowledge. So Shito was quite knowledgeable. He'd been studying for many, many years, and he had a lot of understanding about the Buddhist teaching. So this body of knowledge of all the Buddhist ancestors is called the relative truth. So I'm going to be talking a bit today about the two truths, which I think are incredibly important, as you'll hear from kind of a review of Nagarjuna's statement about the two truths, which for those of you who were here some months ago when we studied Nagarjuna, his whole focus is on understanding and teaching the two truths.

[10:42]

So the relative truth, the truth about our relationships to the world, to one another, what we think of things, you know, all the parts of reality. Relative truth is about parts, broken into parts. So that's the turtle. In Chito's poem, in his dream, the turtle is this body of knowledge, all the teachings, all of the study, and the ocean represents the vastness of reality itself. So these are the contrasts. The ultimate truth is the vastness of reality itself on which floats this body of knowledge, kind of a small little turtle in the sea, in the great ocean of reality. So these two truths, as I said, are part of Nagarjuna's famous analysis of the Buddha's teaching called the Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way. And in the most important of the chapters in his study, his commentary, it's chapter 24.

[11:46]

And he says this, Nagarjuna says this. The Buddha's teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths. A truth of worldly convention, the relative truth, the turtle. and an ultimate truth, the great ocean of reality. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the Buddha's profound truth. Without a foundation in the relative truth, the significance of the ultimate truth cannot be taught. And we need knowledge, we need words to understand the significance of the ultimate truth. And without understanding the significance of the ultimate truth, liberation is not achieved. So these two truths are, as you just heard, are quite significant, both of them, for our understanding of the Buddha's enlightened insight. In fact, the Buddhas are made from these two truths.

[12:49]

The cause of the arising of a Buddha is an insight or a wisdom into the truth of reality. into the truth of the great ocean of reality. So having an insight about this great non-dual reality that we all abide in and we all are, understanding that is also called an insight into emptiness. The ungraspable nature of that great body of reality can't be grasped. We can't just simply say some words and understand what this is all about. We have no idea how to describe what this is all about, but we talk a lot anyway. So the ultimate truth is ungraspable. And knowing that it's ungraspable, the wisdom that knows the ungraspability of the ultimate truth. And it's also said that realizes emptiness. So that's another of the big terms for those of you who've been studying Dharma for a while. I know you've run into emptiness. You've thought about emptiness or heard teachings about it. So this ultimate truth that realizes emptiness is called the truth body or the Dharma body of the Buddha.

[13:57]

So that's the Buddha's knowledge or the awakened knowledge knows this. So when that truth body comes into union with the relative truth, the truth of our relationships to one another comes into human form. So this is a form that practices understanding that gives rise to an understanding. When this human form gives rise to this truth body, that's the Buddha's form body. So you have the form of the Buddha and you have the knowledge of the Buddha. Those two things together are what Buddhas are made from. So our practice begins with endeavoring to understand the relative truth. We start there. And this is the truth that the Buddha gave to us in words. He talked. He said things. And two of the main things he said, which appear in his very first sermon, is that the universe, the nature of the universe is non-dual.

[15:01]

It's the ultimate truth. The non-dual nature of reality. And this knowing he experienced when he saw the star at dawn and knew, not in words, but he knew throughout his entire being that that star, along with everything else, was not separate from him. There was no separate something. He was separate from everything around him. He no longer saw things that way. He no longer saw an isolated self separate from the world, which I think is how most of us see it. Most of us think of ourselves as separate from the world. There's me, and then there's the objects or the things around me. So that... Assumption of separation is very common. It's called our common sense. Well, yeah, that's me, and then there's all of you, self and other. That's what we think of as normal or common sense. And the Buddha said, well, actually, that's not the ultimate truth.

[16:03]

The ultimate truth is that that's not true. And then he also taught the relative truth. He taught causality. So these are the two major teachings in his first sermon. non-dual nature of reality, the ultimate truth, and the relative truth, that it doesn't look like that. It looks like things happen and they are caused by other things. And that's how we think. So this is the world of words, of meaning, of explanation. So these are the two truths, ungraspable and understandable, graspable world of knowledge and the world beyond knowledge. So when he taught the causality, he did that in the form that you all, I'm sure, heard the Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths are two sets of causal relationships. The first two, there is suffering, First Noble Truth, and suffering is caused. It has a cause. It's caused by ignorance and desire.

[17:07]

Ignorance of non-separation, of non-duality. are ignorant of the non-dual nature of reality, and therefore we want things to be different than they are. The way they are is the way they are. Just this is it. We don't like it. We don't like it the way things are. We don't like it that things come and go, that there's impermanence, that there's no abiding self, that there's suffering. We don't like the facts of life. So we do all we can to try and break away from what is right here, what's actually happening. to us and in our world is, you know, we try to make a bargain with reality. Well, maybe if you just give me a little more time or, you know, make me a little taller, whatever. We try all kinds of tricks to deny what's actually so. So that's our suffering. Suffering is caused by ignorance, ignoring non-duality, ignoring the ultimate truth, and desire for things to be different than they are.

[18:10]

So that's the first and second noble truth. The cessation of suffering, the third and fourth noble truth, again, is a set of two causal relationships. There is a cessation of suffering, this kind of suffering that's optional. The one that goes, why me? How come I? Why aren't I this or that? The kind of complaining mind that is the one that really causes our pain. You know, hurting your hand is pain. I mean, we all have this... kind of pain we all know that kind of pain a broken leg is pain but the kind of suffering around why did i step in the street right then or why did that happen to me or why did you push me or if you hadn't been late that's the suffering the buddhist said is optional we don't have to have that kind of suffering we can actually learn how to stop thinking that way so the cessation of suffering is caused by how we live our life by how we understand our life, our view of life, our intention.

[19:13]

Are we intending to be kind? Are we intending to be helpful? Do we even know what our intentions are? By how we make our living, by how we speak, by how we behave, our deportment, by our effort, by our meditation practice, now that we're actually present to our life, we actually are aware of where we are, what we're doing, and by mindfulness. I read this wonderful essay about mindfulness by this scholar named Rupert Geffen. He's a wonderful writer. He writes a lot about particularly Theravadan Buddhism. And he wrote this essay that I just finished reading about mindfulness. And he said mindfulness is kind of not really understood in the West very well. I think some teachers do. But oftentimes we think it is just... being mindful of what you're doing but he said mindfulness is actually being when you're being mindful of your breathing then you're remembering that you're being mindful of your breathing and it has more to do with remembering and the reason you're being mindful of your breathing is remembering that you're practicing the dharma you know from in my case that I've taken vows that I'm a priest

[20:28]

So when I'm mindful of my breathing, I remember that I've taken vows. And when I remember I've taken vows, then I remember I want to speak kindly to others. And when I remember that, I remember I want to cause no harm. So mindfulness is really connecting us to our intention, to how we want to live our life, to the end of suffering. So that's the third and fourth noble truth. Suffering ceases when we basically live our lives in such a way that we're in harmony, like the title of this poem, The Harmony of Difference and Equality. So in Shito's own story, which is in Chapter 36 of The Transmission of Light, his first awakening, I don't know if you remember, but last week I was mentioning to you that he had two awakenings. The first one was a little bit on the shallow side. It was an intellectual awakening, kind of an aha moment. So his first awakening was based on his intellectual understanding of the Dharma, and that is on the relative truth.

[21:30]

He understood, he'd studied a lot, and he had some good understanding of the teaching. So this is called stage one, the stage of vision. And that's the stage that we heard about in this chapter in Transmission of Light, when he encounters his teacher, and he has this kind of back and forth encounter dialogue with his teacher. And I don't know, I think I mentioned some time ago that Zen is now characterized by this kind of dialogue. It's no longer the kind of Buddhism where you study texts and you memorize texts and you do that sort of thing. I mean, that's good too. That's part of the relative truth is studying the sutras and so on. But Zen is about, okay, you've done your studying. Now you go meet with a teacher and you have this conversation about the teaching. And the teacher's watching you. They're watching for how you're meeting. Are you present? Are you honest? Are you frightened?

[22:32]

I mean, it's not to criticize you, but it's in the hopes of supporting you to relax and to wake up. So Shito's meeting with his teacher. He's got his first insight, which he's proving to the teacher. The teacher's... Yeah, that's good, and that's good. He's giving him credit for his understanding, but at the same time, he's suspicious. Because this young guy is pretty smart, but he's a little too smart. He's sort of outsmarting himself in this stage of vision, stage one. So stage two of his awakening is called the stage of being, B-E-I-N-G. And that's when the teacher hits him in the face with the whisk. He said, that's enough talking. What about this? And Shito has nothing to say. He's silenced. And in that silence, he sees the truth about the ultimate truth, ungraspable.

[23:35]

He can't catch it with his net of knowing. He can't catch the truth. He is the truth. He becomes the truth. He understands that all of that was just this kind of wonderful stage set For this moment when he wakes up. Stage of being that leads to his final release. So the stage of being refers to being the Dharma. He is the Dharma. He is at one with his teacher. He's at one with his own body and mind. He's in harmony with the entire universe. As in the title of Shito's poem. The harmony of difference and equality. So this realization of the ultimate truth. as the great ocean of reality upon which the turtle is floating. You know, Shito now knows. This is his dream. So after this encounter with his teacher, he has this dream. And from this dream, he has this realization from which he writes his poem, Sandokai. So Shito and his teacher are also awakened at the same time, as is the sea turtle and the ocean and the sky and the stars.

[24:42]

You know, all of it, all of it, all of the parts. of the body, the great body of being. And so we too, we who are gathered here, you know, all of you, we start our practice in the relative world, you know, with all of our personalities, our preferences, and our fear of death, among a number of other things that we're afraid of. That's where we start, we start where we are. So at one point, one of the stories about the Buddha that is kind of interesting, and it's know it's always interesting they include all of these stories about us about humans and how we really struggle to wake up stage stage two is really hard for us you know it's like what so in the lotus sutra which i think those of you have been studying with rev this year know he's doing a very thorough study of the lotus sutra which is a quite a amazing text in many many ways so there's a chapter in the lotus sutra in the very beginning of lotus sutra where the buddha he's sitting on this throne and there's a huge assembly there and he sends this from this circle of white hair between his eyebrows he sends out this ray of light that shows the assembly one quarter of the universe eastern quarter of the universe so everyone is like whoa you know as we would be like whoa

[26:06]

not really different than looking out the window at the moment but in the storytelling it's like whoa you know here's the whole universe right here one quarter of it anyway but what's interesting is what the people do is they're kind of talking to each other you know the buddha then brings the light back into his forehead and the people say to each other what does it mean you know what does it mean this one quarter of the universe you know what does it mean that i just saw the one quarter of the universe And then the Buddha says, well, it means that I'm going to preach the truth of reality of all existence, the ultimate truth. That's what it means. And so he does. However, he begins with an explanation. He begins with the Four Noble Truths. And this is the entry point for us humans who can't quite get it. You know, we're already on the ocean of reality, all of us. That's where we are right now. We are on this great ocean of reality. That's where we've always been since the beginning of time. And we'll never leave the ocean of reality.

[27:07]

And yet at the same time, as did these people, you know, 2,500 years ago, it's like, well, what does it mean? What does it mean? So. I feel you got muted. better wake up you're snoring really loud okay okay is that better am i on yeah thank you thank you i saw the tim's thumb thank you tim so this is our entry into the stage of vision this is the turtle we're getting on the turtle we are studying how turtles swim and what turtles do and it's this wonderful stage of gathering ourselves on this body of knowledge so the buddha enters through the knowledge using words, and he teaches the Four Noble Truths. Suffering, the cause of suffering.

[28:09]

So he teaches about the relative world, the world of intellectual understanding and of a personal self. There is suffering. He's talking to us. Okay, now I'm listening. That thing about the universe is really amazing. But now that you're talking about my suffering, I'm really paying attention. This matters to me. There is personal suffering, and there are causes of suffering. There is right and wrong. There is late and on time. There is being energetic and being lazy. There is a self and another. There are teachers and disciples. So this is our world, the one we know best. So he starts there. And as we practice in this world of suffering, we begin to get a perspective on causality. If you watch closely how your behavior has consequences, if you act unkind, Well, unkind things happen. People don't smile at you. If you act kindly, more likely they're going to smile back at you. More likely they're going to treat you kindly. So this is the law of karma.

[29:11]

Good deeds lead to good results. Bad deeds lead to bad results. It's kind of simple math. And there are consequences for our bad deeds or our good deeds. You know, things go better when we're kind, when we're generous, when we're thoughtful, and not so well when we're not. So if any of you have access to the 12-fold chain of Dependent Core Rising, which is this illustration of these 12 links, in the center of those 12 links are the outcomes. What happens when we behave badly or we behave well is a karmic outcome. And there's six ways that we show up. These are psychological states. And those six states are very, I mean, they're ones we all know. We've all been in all of them many times. You know, at the top is the God realm, the best day you ever had. You were like a god, you know, or a goddess. Wasn't that a good day? Then maybe the things fall apart and there's a straight line to hell from the God realm because nothing lasts forever.

[30:15]

So when the God realm ends and the stock market crashes and all of that stuff that you accumulated is taken back by the bank, you go to hell. So that's another state. That's the second. That's another one of these six. There's also the fighting gods, the ones who want to get into heaven. They want to be gods. So they're doing whatever they can to accumulate wealth or to get the better job or to take your job or whatever it is. So those are the fighting gods. And then the other side of the gods are the humans. That's us. Kind of normal, everyday, going to work, taking care of stuff, doing what we do, making food. That's the human realm. And then down below, Next to hell are the animals that really don't care much about when they're hungry, they eat. When they want sex, they have sex. They're really not plagued by conscience. So animals get to just kind of be out there doing their thing. And on the other side of the hell realm are the hungry ghosts. And that's the state of mind where you just can't get enough. No matter what it is, you are always wanting more.

[31:18]

It's just never satisfied. And that's a very painful one. So all of these... All of these are states of mind, psychological states that we humans course through as a result of our behavior, about how we behave, how we understand the teaching, as a result of the level of our insight. So these are the things the Buddha taught. This wheel of birth and death, the 12-fold chain, is basically a summary of the first and second noble truth. There is suffering and there's a cause, and here's how it works, just like this. It's a wheel. Round and round it goes. The wheel's name is samsara. Samsara. So we want to get off the wheel. That's part of the job that we're up to here in studying teachings. So when we wholeheartedly engage in the world of suffering, in the wheel, the world of suffering beings, which includes ourselves, by wholehearted engagement, by going into those places in our own minds, our own psyches, you know, really looking inside.

[32:23]

Am I hurting? Am I sad? Am I angry? You know, really knowing your own states of consciousness and knowing how to release, how to breathe, how to relax, how to let go. It's a training, training yourself to let go, to take those breaths, the five minutes to just stop walking. or to wait, learn how to wait. So by engaging wholeheartedly in the world of suffering, we begin to realize the limitations of the relative truth. The relative truth is only going to get us so far. All those degrees that we all have, and all of that studying that we've all done, all of the toys that we've acquired, it just gets us so far. And we're still there. You know, we're still there with a kind of unrealized quality. There's something we can't grasp. And that's right. We haven't grasped that there's a great ungraspable truth that really wanting to know is going to be frustrating because there's an unknowing, an unknown that's much bigger than anything we can ever know.

[33:35]

And making peace with what can't be known is part of what's happening in this tradition. It's like... Coming to peace with the ungraspability of ourselves and of the world. It's like, oh, no wonder that's the problem. I didn't realize I couldn't. No, I couldn't have it. I couldn't get it. And letting go of that grasping, as Okamura Roshi talks about, opening the hand of thought. Opening the hand that tends to want to hold on to things. And by realizing limitations of the relative truth, we arouse compassion for ourselves and for everyone. It's like, oh, no, poor us. That's the problem. You know, we're just tied up in knots trying to get things that we can't actually get. And even if we get them, they don't last. We can't keep them. You know, not our youth, not our dear friends, you know, not my parents. You know, everything slowly is just slowly going the way it goes. This is the, you know, the facts of life.

[34:36]

And the more we settle into the facts of life, you know, the less arguing we're doing. Like, no, not me. Oh, yeah, yeah, you too. We're all in this together. We're all on the turtle, you know, paddling around. So in this wish to bring compassion, you know, the wish of this arousing of compassion in the face of limitations, we then are motivated. We're motivated to practice, we're motivated to study, we're motivated to take vows, like for example, a bodhisattva vow. I wish to awaken for the benefit of myself and others. That's the vow. It's the thought of enlightenment. I wish to be awakened to the true nature of reality for my benefit and for the benefit of others. Mel Weitzman, dear Mel, who I think you all know has passed away. He said that saving all beings means to save all the beings that you are. And I think that's a wonderful way to think about it. Save all the beings that you are.

[35:38]

And that includes all of us too. We are all you as well. So there's plenty to do. We'll never run out. So this is step one, entering through intellectual and relative truth, intellectual process, thinking about it, deepening your knowledge. Step two, the stage of being, the one that Shito experienced with the hit of the whisk, are noble truths three and four. So now we're moving away from the world of relative truth, the cycle of birth and death. We're going into the world of liberation, cessation of suffering. Noble truth number three is the cessation of suffering. Suffering, kind of suffering that the Buddha was teaching ends. It can end. It doesn't have to continue. We can break that cycle. And there is a cause. So this is, again, this is a set of causal relations. The cessation of suffering is caused by the path, by the way you live your life, as I said, by how you understand your life.

[36:44]

So the elements of the path are the wisdom that understands emptiness, also called the ultimate truth. When you understand and invest your time and attention to understanding the great ungraspable truth, the great ocean, That's wisdom of non-differentiation. It's called darkness, the dark. And it realizes emptiness and that leads to awakening. And that then arouses our compassion, which is the relative truth. Compassion is for others, is for the others. So there's a relationship there. So wisdom is non-dual. Compassion is dual. These two are partners. They work together. Wisdom and compassion. We become wise to be free, and we come back from that mountaintop where we've realized emptiness in order to help others who do not yet realize their own freedom. So that's the bodhisattva vow, how it's enacted. So we return to the world of relative truths in order to awaken others to wisdom, to help them go up to this place where they understand the ungraspability, the great ocean of reality.

[37:57]

They come back down to help others. So we're going to kind of endless supply of helpers to come back into the world and bring this teaching. So awakening to the ultimate truth is awakening to the truth. This one's always a little surprising. Is awakening to the truth that suffering, that the world of differences is an illusion. There really is no suffering. It's an illusion. It's a trick. that the mind is plain. Separation is a trick to the mind. The ultimate truth is there is no separation. There's no suffering outside. Things are not causing you to suffer. There's various ideas we have in our minds, and when we can't release from them, we suffer. But release, dropping body and mind, as Dogen said at the moment of his own realization, drop body and mind. Drop it. Drop it. You know, like raindrops. Drop it. So releasing ourselves from this illusion of suffering is awakening.

[39:05]

So you awaken to the origins of suffering, which is the illusion of separation, that there is dualistic belief and separation is an illusion, is not true. There is no separation. So you awaken from this illusion of separation, and then compassion brings you... to try to help others to awaken from the delusion of separation. So you awaken others to see that there are no others. So these teachings run through the entirety of the teachings any of you are going to hear coming from the teachers at Zen Center are going to be about this kind of two-step process. You awaken and then you help others to awaken to the fact that there aren't any others. You know, like it's an illusion. Still, it's a powerful illusion. It's a very, at times, very sad illusion. That's fine. We all cry. We all feel grief. And it's an appropriate response to the situation that we're in.

[40:11]

And then we move forward. And then we drop it. Not drop it because it's bad. We just drop it because it's time. That's been enough of that. That's enough to eat. That's enough crying. That's enough of loving. That's enough of whatever you're doing. And you basically keep moving through without trying to hold on to things. I really like this. I don't want to ever let it go. I never want to finish this burrito. It's so delicious. Pretty soon you have an empty plate. There's no way for us to hold on to these things that we love. So learning how to let them go gently down. Just let them drop. Not crash, but just let them down. Let things go. So the union of wisdom, of prajna and of practice, upaya, is this direct realization that becomes this bodhicitta, the aspiration to be Buddha in order to free all beings from suffering. So I wanted to also come at this same two truths from a slightly different angle, and that's the angle of Dogen Zenji's Genjo Koan,

[41:20]

which is, you know, his great poem, in which he basically talks about stage one, the stage of vision, this intellectual stage, and stage two, the stage of being, in a little different way. It's kind of wonderful as all of Dogen's writing is. So this is the first line of the Genjo Koan. As all things are the Buddha Dharma, the turtle, Buddha's teaching that are given in relative terms and words. So as all things are the Buddha Dharma, There is delusion and realization. There's practice. There's birth and death. And there are Buddhas and sentient beings. So he's talking about the relative truth. When all things are Buddha Dharma, when in the Buddha's teaching, there is delusion and realization. He talks about that. He teaches about that. There's practice. There's birth and death. There are Buddhas and sentient beings. So this is this first entry that the Buddha made when he taught the Four Noble Truths. me and you and of differences.

[42:21]

And then Dogen says, When that trick is seen through, the myriad things are without an abiding self, without a self that's just, you know, like this is me and this is mine and I'm never going to let go. When that stops, as the myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion. There's no realization. There's no Buddha. There's no sentient being. There's no birth and death. So now we're in the realm of the ultimate truth. There's no me and you. There's no separate thing. This is the wisdom beyond wisdom of the Heart Sutra.

[43:24]

No birth and death. No eyes. No ears. No nose. No. No. Nothing to be found that's separate. It's just this one ocean of reality. So second paragraph, Genjo Kuan, is the ultimate truth. He doesn't stop there. Dogen has his own take on this. So we could say, okay, that's good. He covered the relative truth, and then he covered the ultimate truth. But he goes on. The next paragraph, he says, the Buddha way. This is Dogen's teaching. The Buddha way is basically leaping clear of the many and the one. Leaping clear of the relative and the ultimate. Okay, so here's another thing. option here. And thus, there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and Buddha. You know, so Dogen's saying, well, me and you are back together again. But at this point, in this stage of our study, we have the knowledge, we've been on the turtle together, we've been studying, and we have an acceptance of the illusory nature of reality.

[44:31]

We've seen through it. We've seen the trick, the magician's trick. We're not falling for the trick. We're not falling for a separate self or separate you or, you know, why me? You know, we're done with that. We've actually had this realization. So we're no longer being driven by our egoistic ambition, such as, you know, I got to get free of samsara and get to nirvana. I'm just really, I got to get out of here. This is just the worst. I'm going to do everything I can to practice to get out of samsara. So that itself is attached. We're attached to some idea of a goal. that we could actually get out of here. You know, this is, you know, so he's saying basically that there is as though there are these two states. There's samsara and then there's nirvana and they're two different states. And I can leave this one and I can get to that one. So what Dogen's saying, what Buddha's saying is when we truly awaken, we see that nirvana and samsara are not two separate things. There aren't two separate states.

[45:32]

But this is it. This is it. Samsara and nirvana are right now. Where else could they be? So what he's doing, you know, Dogen himself had a great deal of striving in the stage of vision, of studying. You know, he studied a lot. He studied from when he was a little boy and he saw his mother's body being cremated. He vowed, she asked him to please... ordain and become free. And so he made a vow as a child that he would do that. And for years he studied, read the whole canon by the time he was six, I think, and went off to China, great danger to himself on a little wooden boat, you know, and he did all of that. He was striving with all of his heart to accomplish this wish of his mother. And he said that, he said, my mother wanted me to become free. And so he risked his life to do that. So after all of this striving in the stage of vision, using knowledge, he realized that nirvana and samsara were not separate forms of existence.

[46:42]

And then he taught, well, just practice. Just sit. Just this is it. Right there, right where you are is the culmination, is all of it. The relative truth and ultimate truth are not two separate things. They are completely... They're not even laminated. There's no separation. There's nothing that distinguishes one from the other. Nagarjuna says that as well. There's not one single thing that distinguishes nirvana from samsara. No difference can be found. Leaping clear of the many and the one. Leaping clear. Whatever's got you. Two sides of the walls are closing in. Jump. Get out of there. Don't get caught. Don't get trapped. And then you come back down. You know, gently come back down and watch for the next time you're about to get stuck, you know, and jump. Right here, right now. You're always free and you're always right where you are.

[47:45]

Really, they can't, I don't know, they can't get you. There's no they to get you. Just this is it. Just now. Just now you're free. So the Buddha way for Dogen is the living practice of our daily life. It's in each and everything we do. It's not some later time. It's not some special thing. It's not some special state of mind, which is why Soto Zen is so boring. You know, I mean, we basically someone told this great joke. One of our students from long ago, her name is Miriam Bobcoff. She's an amazing human being. I think she's passed away now. But she was talking about these different kinds of approaches to enlightenment. Many more, I think. There are many more efforts being made in all kinds of communes when I first came to Zen Center. We were a commune back then, too. I think we qualified. She said, well, at Muktananda's place, they shake. And at, what's his name?

[48:51]

One of the Roshis. Not category, but I'm forgetting his name. Anyway, at the Rinzai place. Rinzai place. No, not me. At the Renzai place, they get enlightened. And at Muktananda's place, they shake. The Vipassana people have insights. And he said, Soto Zen, she said, here at Zen Center, we have babies and bad backs. It's really true. We've got babies and bad backs. That's kind of what we have to show for it. And I think that's really in keeping with Dogen's teaching. Just this is it. This is how are you going to do today? What are you going to do today? How are you going to take care of feeding the community, of fixing the plumbing, of getting the vegetables to the market and so on and so forth, baking bread? This is all we do. Sitting zazen, that's another thing we do together. So everyday life, everyday life is the way.

[49:52]

And then at the same time, so that's not the end of Tolkien's introduction to the Genjo koan. He says, and yet, so we've got all of this nice stuff, and then he says, and yet, an attachment blossoms fall, and an aversion weeds spread. Oh, no, I thought we got finished. Our human minds have this automatic reaction to things that we like and things that we don't like. We can't stop that. I would love to stop that. Sometimes I think, why am I so caught up? Why did I get caught? I took the bait. whatever it was my mind is much quicker than my wish for it to not do what it does so in attachment you know this spring flowers i mean already they're gone off the trees it was so fast in attachment the blossoms fall they don't mind they're not they're not concerned about my wish that they don't fall and in aversion the weeds spread and boy do they you know so

[50:55]

we do have this unending preferences come through us. So it's only if we carefully study our human minds, this is Dogen's story, that we need to know how we tend to think. We tend to think certain ways. We tend to like what we like and not like what we don't like. And it's through these human tendencies toward gain and loss or like and dislike, if we can let ourselves relax and just relax, of notice it like maybe and maybe even smile slightly like maha kashapa did when the buddha held up a flower it's like oh my goodness you know there's that flower isn't that beautiful yeah two days later it's it's it's completely you know on its way to the compost pile So in those little transient moments, the sound of the rain on the temple roof and the sight of the flower and the child just rolling down a hill, whatever those moments are, that we can actually notice the tendency of our human minds and maybe slightly smile.

[52:02]

Oh, boy, there I am. There I am doing my thing. So all the way to the end. Something very sweet about that, right? We're just never going to give up. So let's see what time we got. So in turning to, here's another approach. So that's Dogen's approach to the two truths. He actually adds this third and fourth turning consideration. Look again, look again. There's relative, there's ultimate, there's the Buddha way, and then there's this tendency of mind. Each one of these is part of what we do, what we are, and what we do. and learn to understand. Suzuki Roshi, in his commentary on the Sandokai, there's a chapter called Buddha is Always Here. He also is talking about the two truths. I think it's a really, really good chapter. If you have a chance to read it, this is in Branching Streams. He uses these two terms, which I think are extremely helpful.

[53:05]

And he even says that. He said, I think it'll help you if instead of trying to remember the ultimate truth and the relative truth and all that, if these Japanese terms are very short and if you can remember them, you know, really it will be helpful to you. So he says the Japanese term for ultimate truth is ri, R-I, and for relative truth is ji, J-I. So the way I was remembering is like... Ji, that's a nice flower. So I'm using ji as a kind of way of acknowledging, oh, it's a thing. It's about things. So ji is the relative truth and ri is the ultimate truth. So in the first, in this poem, Sandokai, the spiritual source, ri, the great ocean of reality, shines clearly in the light. This is it. It's all around us. It is us. The spiritual source, ri, shines clearly in the light. The branching streams, g flow on in the dark all these differences flow in the dark how do they come where did they come from we don't know they come from the dark they come from the source but we don't know how they got made you know it's impossible for us to go back far enough to figure out how this all comes into being right grasping things is surely delusion trying to get something is surely delusion according with sameness is still not enlightenment

[54:29]

So becoming one with everything, that's still not, you still haven't gotten there. So the spiritual source, Suzuki Roshi says, is something wonderful, something beyond descriptions, beyond our words, beyond all of our ideas of right and wrong. Most importantly, whatever our mind can conceive of is not the source itself. Whatever your mind can conceive of, that's not it. True source is neither tasty nor tasteless. It's beyond our ability to think or to describe. It's pure and stainless. When we describe it, we put a stain on it or a limitation on it, which is why in the Heart Sutra it says no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no objects of mind. That's ri. That's ri. We can't conceive of it. We can conceive of colors and sounds and noses of eyes. We can't conceive of no color, no sound.

[55:31]

So that's a hint, that's a gateway into re, ultimate truth. And then he says, Suzuki Rishi says, while the true source can be recognized as a truth intellectually, that is not the true source itself. That's the stage one, the stage of vision. We can recognize the true source intellectually. That's the stage of vision, but that's not the stage of being. Ji, the relative truth, on the other hand, refers to what we can see, touch, smell, and think about. In other words, whatever comes into our consciousness is ji. Whatever we think about is a relative truth. Whatever is beyond our consciousness is ri. So that's one easy way to kind of know. Anything I'm thinking about, like somebody saying, well, Suzuki Rishi says, well, you know, You might point to the river and say the river is over there, but actually the river is already in your mind. You can't say the river is over there. It's already in your mind.

[56:33]

The idea that it's over there is in your mind. You can conceive of it. So it's G. It's not the ultimate truth. So he likens re to water that flows everywhere, even though we don't know it and we don't feel it. Water flows through our bodies. It flows through the air and through the plants. It's under the ground. It's at the bottom of the sea. It's everywhere. And it's not known. We don't know it. We can't know it because it's everywhere. So it's called dark. That which is we can't know. Right in dark, right in dark, branching streams flow in the dark. It's the two sources flowing everywhere. And yet what we are aware of and what we are not aware of aren't separate either. So it's not like we want to make two things. There's the my awareness and then there's what I'm not aware of and they're separate. So that's falling into dualistic thinking again. So they're not separate or different. Whatever we think of as separate or different, that's G. We're just making up that story that they're separate or they're different.

[57:38]

Reality doesn't care what we think. It isn't bothered by what we think. We're bothered by what we think. So this is really up to us to become clear. When our mind grasps at things, the poem says, that's surely delusion. Separation is delusion. Therefore, an enlightened person doesn't ignore things and they don't stick to things either. They don't even stick to the truth. There is no truth that is different. Then each being, each being itself is the truth. So this is stage number two, the stage of being. Each being itself is the truth. It has equal value. To stick to ideas or to beings or even to Buddhist teachings, saying the Buddhist teaching is something like this is sticking to G. Oh, I know the truth. I can tell you about it. I can give you a talk about the Buddhist teaching. If I stick to that, If I actually think I know what I'm really, I really know what I'm talking about, that's G. That's just my idea.

[58:41]

That's just something I'm carrying around, and it's connected to my ego or my sense of self. So keep an eye on that, that tendency, you know. So this understanding that don't stick to things is, Suzuki Rishi says, is the backbone of the Sandokai. Don't stick to anything. Let it turn. Let it move. Let it drop. Let it rise. Let it leap. Keep it moving. And he says, when I translate re, ultimate truth, into English, this is already G. When I say something, when I translate this word re into English, which he does, this is G. This is now a concept. I've just turned it into a phenomenal truth, a relative truth. Enlightenment is not something that you can actually experience. It is beyond our experience. So if someone says to you, I've attained enlightenment, that's delusion. So whatever you know through your experience is not always so. Not always so.

[59:41]

Maybe today is enlightenment. Maybe tomorrow, not so much. Not always so. Let the rain fall. Drop it. You know, drop it. To accept re is our practice. To accept the ultimate truth is our practice. That's how we practice as the ultimate truth. We practice as the water flowing in the dark. Not knowing. This is deep faith. Deep faith in cause and effect. We don't know who we are and what we are doing, so we think whatever we do is our own choice. We think like that. Suzuki Roshi says, it's not our choice. We are actually creating karma for ourselves and for others. And because we don't know what we are doing, we have to practice Azen. We have to pay our own debts. No one else can pay our debts. That one kind of got me. It was like, oh, yeah, you know, I have to take care of my own karmic actions.

[60:45]

I have to be responsible for whatever harm I cause. I have to keep an eye on the tendencies that this one has in this world. No one else can do that for me. So that's, oops, it's a little after six. I'm sorry, I went over a bit. But so please, whatever you would like to bring up or share. I would be happy to hear. Put on my gallery view here. Hello, everybody. Nice to see you all. Anyone have a comment or question? An attachment? Hey, Tim. Hi. You're... Okay, I can unmute.

[61:46]

It wouldn't let me unmute. I thought of a new bumper sticker this week. Oh, good. I got to write these down. Go ahead. There is no I in Dharma. That's good. That's my gift to you for the week. Thank you, Tim. That's good. There is one in Tim. It's not your fault. Somebody called you that. I don't think I have any eyes in my name. Not that one. Not that name. Yeah, there is no eye in Dharma. I like it. Do you have a feeling for the two truths? It's really important.

[62:49]

I don't want to lay anything on you, but it's really helpful to have a kind of moderately good working knowledge of the two truths. I think it really helps to untie a lot of questions around Dharma. It's like, well, why did the Buddha say that? Oh, that's ultimate expression. Oh, that's a relative expression. And... I think until I heard something about the two truths, I would get very confused. You know, things seem to be contradictory. Hi, Richard. Hey, Fu. How are you? Oh, that's always a loaded question. Is it? I won't ask it again. I'm sorry. Yeah. It's G, right? It's G. Loaded questions are G. G, totally G. Sometimes this is it is it.

[63:49]

And sometimes this is it is not it. And this is it is always it, except when I don't realize that this is it. Exactly. You got it. You got it. And that's it. And sometimes I like it, and sometimes I don't. Except neither liking it or not liking, both liking it and not liking it are G. They are G. Yeah. Yeah. They are G. Yeah. And you're complete, and everything that we all have is shared. We're in it. Here we are together, man. It's amazing. It's amazing. It is amazing. You know? Yes, I'm so thankful of Zoom and the silver lining of COVID.

[64:50]

It's such a blessing. Yes, yes. I think we're not going to turn it off. Certainly, I have a vote, and I'm saying, look, we have to keep open here. This is so important to us and to all of you. I know that. So we have to just keep it connected. Thank you so much for doing this. It's such an incredible, incredible, wonderful. I mean, this is what people get to experience when they get to be with you. And here we get to be with you, even though we can't be with you. Back to G. It's funny, isn't it? Well, I am grateful. I am deeply grateful. You know, I don't get to teach very often at Green Gulch. There's too many teachers here. Really? Wow. Everybody's talking to everybody all the time.

[65:52]

So, you know, I kind of hang out. So this is kind of my favorite time of the week is to be able to just share the teaching, which I think is so beautiful for all of us. I mean, I just couldn't be happier. So I'm so glad you're here, Richard. Yeah, totally wonderful. My G wishes that I could have had you as a kindergarten teacher and as a first grade teacher. Oh, I don't think so. I think I'm much better at 72 than I was at 20. Yeah, I think we all did it just right here. Yeah, right. So this is it. This is it. This is it. yeah yeah yeah yeah someone asked me what's next i said well another breath i would bet i would but i don't know i can't count on it but just those breathing those breaths seem to be miraculous wow it's just this is it is not it

[67:09]

It's coming. You can count on it. I love the word it. It's like this generic object. You know, this is it. Yeah, this is it. And certainly don't desire it because that'll push it away. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. You have to be real quiet. There's a wonderful children's book. I forget what it's called. Something like... It was beautiful. I used to read it in the children's program. Speaking of kindergarten teacher, the little girl sitting there in the pond and she wants to play. Oh, will you come play with me? I think that's the name of it. Will you come play with me? And she sees a rabbit. She goes, will you play with me? She runs after it and it runs away and she sees a frog and it runs away. And, you know, everything she tries to play with runs away. And finally she sits down very sad by the pond and she's really quiet and all the animals come around and they sit near her. And she's very happy they've come to play with her.

[68:14]

And the little fawn licks her face. Very sweet. Very sweet. Yeah. Can't try to get it. Just let it arrive. Yeah. Well, you got a good laugh, Richard. I like that. Keep that one going. Yeah. Yeah. The ungraspable grasping of it. It's hilarious. Well, actually it is, but you have to be careful. I think a slight smile is pretty good. Yes. Takes care of everybody. May I go to Drew now, Richard? Yes, of course. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Drew. Hey. Hey. I'm really looking forward to this every week.

[69:17]

I really appreciate the time you're putting in. I think it has something to do with today, but last week we talked a little bit about Papancha. Yeah. In terms of the different stages, different states, re and g, is there a point where papancha just doesn't happen anymore not so much a matter of i've learned ways to deal with it or even viewing the world is there a point where it's not what we're trying to do something it's just you know papancha all the suffering just doesn't come up to begin with Well, I wouldn't know. I'm a propancha person myself. I love that haiku.

[70:22]

You know that haiku? To me, that's the propancha story. Old pond. Reality. Ultimate truth. Old pond. The universe is out. Frog jumps in. Kerplop. So, you know, we're the frogs. We jump in and then... But then it's quiet again, right? So the old pond doesn't mind the little silly frog. It's okay. It's not disturbed. And, you know, we are the pond too. So there is kind of like a point of view. And silence and stillness is a point of view, which is deeply true. And I do think as meditators, for those of you who've done much of that, There are moments when it's just breath, just like a riding the breath, like on a little boat on the ocean. You know, when I've been in a Sashin, at some point there's like the blessing comes of just the boat on the water.

[71:26]

You know, and there's little seagulls fly by and stuff, but I'm not really paying much attention to the flybys. And that's very nice. It's very refreshing. But I don't really want to live there. Maybe I'm just greedy, you know. I want to get back to shore, go out to dinner with some friends. So part of it is like the relative and ultimate truth being friends, you know, and they're not wanting to leave samsara for nirvana. They're here. They're left hand, right hand. Which arm do you want to get rid of? So I don't think that the teaching is to abandon prapancha. It's a great word. But to not indulge it. I think throwing frogs into the pond is probably not such a good thing to do. You know, it's like, how about one at a time and watch the ripples and watch them dissipate?

[72:30]

In the... Shurangama Samadhi Sutra. I don't know if any of you have even heard of it. But anyway, it's one of these sutras. Mayana Sutras is quite thick. And they talk about watching for the end of a thought when you're meditating, which is very hard to do. But if you've been meditating for a number of days, it's kind of like you could almost do that. You can kind of watch for the thought to dissolve before the next one comes. there's no propancha there that's the that's the you know the quiet pond before the next event and that's good to know that you want to go there so you know that it's there you come back here to practice so it is recommended that you find that silent and stillness in your practice it's it's recommended if possible it's not so easy But if you do, then you have some confidence that, oh, yes, I know about that.

[73:37]

I know about that. That's what this is. That's what's happening is nothing. Nothing is happening except the illusion. Okay. Well, thank you so much, all of you. I don't see another hand, so I will just say farewell and take care. And I hope I'll see you all again. It would be nice to have that happen. So if you'd like to unmute and say goodbye, you're very welcome to do that. Goodbye. Thank you so very much. Good night, everyone. Good night, Pooh. Good night, everyone. Thank you. Good night, everyone.

[74:41]

Bye. Thank you so much, Fu. It's my favorite part of the week as well. Well, we're all in that together. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, everyone. Much love to you all. Bye. Bye. Good night. Be well. Good night, sweet princes and princesses. Bye. Hi, Kate and Paul. Good night. Thank you. Yes, the best evening of the week. Oh, you guys, I love you. I probably shouldn't say that out loud, but I do. We love you, too. That's why we're here every Sunday. We love you, too. Oh, man. I guess we didn't have a big ceremony. Yeah. We'll all plight our trough. That is who all is here. It's people who love you. I feel it. And it means so much to me.

[75:42]

I hope you know that. I was hearing that you said that today very clearly. It's true. It means a tremendous amount. So I will keep coming. That's what gets you back, right? I'll come back on again. Good night. Good night.

[76:03]

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