This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. The question has been raised something like on one side if we are if we sentient beings are circumscribed only cognition if the world we see surrounding us is only mind how can we verify whether we understand that or anything and how can we communicate with each other communicate with others who are similarly

[01:01]

encircled by cognition. And not only are we encircled by cognition, but the type of cognition we're encircled by is a cognition which appears as a world which we're separated from. We live in a cognition that appears as a world full of beings who are not intimate with us. Meditating on this teaching in a state of concentration is proposed as a path to realizing the truth of this teaching and not being caught by what the teaching is. is pointing to, namely, the misleading nature of our cognitions.

[02:03]

By studying the teaching that our cognitions mislead us, that our cognitions present a non-intimate world, we stop believing the non-intimate appearance and realize the reality of intimacy. the freedom of intimacy. But how can we verify it? We could just be dreaming that we understood intimacy. And how can we communicate with others who are similarly enclosed? So one is how can we communicate and the other is how can we verify? First, how can we verify? We verify by living together.

[03:18]

We verify by sitting together and walking together. having breakfast together. One of our ancestors, whose name we chant, Fuyo Dokai, he studied with Tosu Gise, in Chinese he's Chinese and I'm touched to understand that he was born almost exactly 900 years before me so I have connection to him in a way and his Chinese name is Furong Daokai

[04:34]

And his teacher, in Chinese, his teacher's name is Touzi Yijing. So he was his attendant. And he said to his teacher, the ideas and words of the Buddha ancestors... are everyday rice and tea. Usually people insert, although in the original it just says the ideas and words of the Buddha ancestors are everyday rice and tea, they usually add in every day drinking tea and eating rice.

[05:39]

But I like that the original just says rice, tea and rice. Is there anything else that the Buddha ancestors have? Any other words besides eating rice? and drinking tea, do they have any other words to help people, to teach people? And the teacher towards this says, you tell me, does the emperor in his own house, does his activity of ruling Do his decrees depend on the authority of the ancient emperors? And when Daokai was about to speak, Tozza covered his mouth with the whisk.

[06:54]

said, you already received 30 blows. As soon as you started to think of being here, you already received 30 blows. Daokai realized intimacy. and did frustrations. The teacher Yijing said, the teacher Toza said, what did you understand?

[08:22]

And Daokai started to leave. The teacher said, Acharya, wait a minute. That guy covered his ears and left. In the house of the Buddha ancestors, tea and rice are everyday activity. Like here. In this house, tea and rice are everyday activities. This tea and rice has been transmitted over many years and is...

[09:37]

present right now. Thus, Buddha ancestors' vital activity of tea and rice comes to us. I guess the word I should use is concrete. the situation is concrete. We have tea and rice in this place. And the tea and rice we have has been transmitted to us. And this is the activity of Buddha ancestors. This is how they, on a daily basis, verify the understanding by having tea together and eating rice together.

[10:40]

Having tea together is, for them, verification. When they speak, when they give talks, for them, this is verification. And for them, it's just like having tea and rice. Formal ceremonies for us here are like tea and rice. For me, having tea and rice is like a formal ceremony. Cleaning the meditation hall for me is a formal ceremony of verification that has been transmitted to us Buddha ancestors have cleaning the meditation hall.

[11:56]

Their everyday activity is like cleaning the meditation hall. They speak in the meditation hall, they sit in the meditation hall so that the meditation hall can be cleaned up after them. The meditation hall is cleaned up so the Buddha ancestors can practice in the meditation hall. The ground is swept. This is the vital activity of Buddha ancestors. And all this is mere concept. If I accept this, I can have lunch.

[13:25]

And this lunch has been transmitted to us as Buddha's vital activity. and its mere concept. It's like a painting of Buddha. The Buddha's activity is to do a painting of Buddha, to pretend to be Buddha by eating rice and drinking tea. I told a story about Guishan and his two main disciples, Yangshan and Xiangyan.

[14:45]

Xiangyan said, a painted rice cake does not satisfy hunger. Dogen says, only painted rice cakes can satisfy hunger. And hunger is a painting of hunger. This is mind-only teaching. a painted Buddha can satisfy our yearning for Buddha. Our yearning for Buddha is yearning for a painted Buddha. How can there be verification?

[15:53]

Let's have lunch. Not now. Later. according to the schedule. Having a schedule is actually, some historians might say, they didn't have schedules back in the old days. This is a recent invention. How can we communicate? One theory that's proposed is that we can communicate because we think in quite similar ways. Our karma is similar. Not only because we... Primarily because we speak language.

[17:02]

And then we have these different kinds of language. But basically... Because we can speak languages, we do. And when we do, the mental activity that is involved and the verbal activity and physical activity that's involved is quite similar. And therefore, the consequence is we live in similar enclosed worlds. The world we live in is due to our thinking. Not completely just in our thinking, but most importantly due to our thinking. Fish think like fish. Birds think like birds. So birds live in a world that birds understand, and fish live in a world that fish understand.

[18:04]

And we live in a world that we understand because we think alike. So when I describe my world, I'm thinking about the world which is the result of my thinking, and I'm thinking about the world which is the result of my thinking. So when I think out into speech from my world which is the result of speech, You, who are living in a world which is a result of speech, have a chance to understand me a little bit. And I can say, your understanding is good. And you can say, don't be so easy on me. And so on. Or this rice is delicious. And you can say, I agree.

[19:06]

But if I say this rice is delicious, even to some animals that think quite similarly to us, like dogs, they don't really know what I mean. But there are certain places where dogs think like us, and in those places where they think like us, they live in a similar world, and there we can communicate. Like I live with a dog who likes to go for walks. So when her mistress starts putting on certain clothes, walking clothes, her mistress thinks, I'm going for a walk with a dog. And the dog thinks something like, this is interesting. I like this, whatever it is. I'm very excited about this. she's thinking like me now. And they're really in rapport.

[20:10]

And then they do this thing where they both think they're doing this something together. What the dog sees and what she thinks they're doing and what she thinks they're doing is somewhat different because the dog's thinking about the walk as a stroll through a Rome of paradise. But still... The mistress thinks she's putting on clothes, and the dog thinks good at putting on clothes. The dog doesn't think she's putting on clothes. The dog thinks that she's about to do something that the dog wants to do. And she thinks, I'm about to do something I want to do, and I'm putting on clothes to do it. The clothes, for her, are being put on. For the dog, they're a signal of this activity. So there's an overlap. They communicate. because their thinking is getting pretty close. And so that's really quite enjoyable for mistress and dog.

[21:16]

So we can communicate and the way we communicate is by talking, eating, walking and sitting together. Doing things together is how we communicate and how we verify our understanding. There's ways we communicate by physical posture that leads other people who are communicating with their physical posture and think about their physical posture. They understand something by looking at our body that they understand by looking at their own body. And so we can work out the verification together. Mr. Zakirashi liked to move rocks. My dharma brother Paul Disco likes to build temples.

[22:49]

Ed Brown likes to cook. I do kind of like studying ancient texts. I do kind of love studying sutras. And I do feel forced to talk about them. I don't really want to, but once I start doing it, I get very happy. So it makes it not difficult for me to comply with the pressure. And then people want to make books out of things I say, so then I feel obliged to help them with the books. So then I spend even more time looking at the scriptures. And then you have to hear about it. If I was writing, if somebody's making a book out of my talks on garage mechanics, it would be the same.

[24:03]

then you would be hearing about that kind of thing. Because I was asked to be in this position. So I'm telling you about my life. It may look like I'm talking about an ancient text, but really I'm talking about my mind, where I'm living. I would like it if this teaching helped us realize intimacy with each other in our daily life. So again, we could be up for intimacy or not, but let's say we were and let's say we wanted some assistance in

[25:07]

becoming intimate, well, one assistance I offered was at the beginning a story where one of our ancestors recommended intimacy and offered the recommendation of intimacy in the context of a story of intimacy, of a story of working closely And living closely with a student, somebody who takes care of his clothes, carries his clothes for him, offers him his clothes, receives his clothes, asks him about his clothes. Teacher asks the students about the clothes. They talk about the clothes they wear. And people do that too. They talk about the clothes they wear. They have trouble with the clothes they wear.

[26:07]

The kind of clothes we wear are not the kind of clothes they advertise in the catalogs where they say, you know, really comfortable clothing, comfortable, convenient, easy to clean, easy to put on and take off. Our clothes are difficult to put on, difficult to keep on, difficult to keep on, difficult to get off. This is the robe of patience. This is the robe of practice. So we practice with this cloth and share the intimacy of thinking about cloth the same way and having struggles with cloth. In this way, we verify our understanding. But sometimes we verify that we don't understand. Sometimes we think we don't understand and our lack of understanding is verified. Sometimes we think we do understand and our understanding is not verified.

[27:17]

Sometimes we don't think we understand and our understanding is verified. Sometimes we don't think we understand and our understanding is not verified. In other words, we're told that we do understand. And then we understand and then we're told we don't understand. In this way, we learn how to eat rice and drink tea together. And we transmit this eating rice and drinking tea. And we transmit temple cleaning and temple cooking together. and temple building, and clothes wearing, and bowing, and chanting, and sitting. We transmit all these things, which are the daily activity of Buddhas. And they're all paintings of rice cakes, which are the only thing that will satisfy our hunger.

[28:23]

The actual rice cake one might wonder about. The actual rice cake is not something to satisfy you, but it comes along with satisfaction. The actual rice cake is not actually painted or cooked. It's not even fabricated. It doesn't come or go, arise or cease. That's the actual rice cake, which is the fruit. It's a fruit that doesn't, that has no birth. So we do paintings of this, and the paintings of this satisfy our hunger. And when our hunger is satisfied,

[29:27]

we realized the rice cake. And then that realization of the rice cake gets communicated into eating painted rice cakes, which satisfy a hunger, which is really just a painting of a hunger. But nonetheless, it's satisfied. We're at peace. We're flexible and free. And we can continue eating and painting rice cakes together and enjoying the great happiness of the daily activity of Buddha ancestors. So we're already practicing the way that's been transmitted, but we can be fooled by our mind. So it's good to be aware that we have a tricky mind that appears as objects.

[30:35]

It appears as something out there. It appears as something out there which is separate from us. That's the way it looks. We should not deny that. We should take care of that until we're no longer fooled. We're no longer fooled. We're at peace. All unwholesome states are pacified and we enter the middle way. We enter the big rice cake. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[31:27]

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