I'm not going to take attendance tonight, because this is sort of an optional night. And welcome to all the visitors. So, I think we'll just continue. From where we left off last time, see how far we get. By way of review, for those of you who weren't here last time, I'll show you this little chart that we hung up, which is taken from Master Shen Yen's commentary. This is the part about the six lines of the double-split hexagram. Piled up, they make three. The complete transformation makes five. So, the double-split hexagram refers to this one here, which is hexagram number 30. You can look it up in your copy of the I Ching.

[01:06]

And it's got two trigrams with a receptive line in the middle and two strong lines, yang and yin. And as you know, there are 64 hexagrams in the I Ching, and they're all made up of two. Either a solid line or a broken line. The solid line stands for yang, and the broken line stands for yin. Masculine and feminine principles are aggressive and receptive, or however they're described in different ways. But you can see why the Buddhist pundits picked up on this, because it's a little bit like relative and absolute, right? And since this whole poem is about the complex interplay between relative and absolute, it was pretty natural for them to impose the

[02:16]

idea of relative and absolute on the system of the I Ching. So, piled up, they make three. It seems to be, you know, two of the lines would be the smallest. I mean, somehow they figured out that two is the smallest combination, right? One is just one, so you add another one, you got two. There's three of those. You pile them up, there's two three. Three twos piled up. So, piled up, they make three. The complete transformation makes five. If you go, here's one. These two make one. These two make two. These two make three. These two make four, and these two make five, using each line twice.

[03:19]

That's how they get five out of it. And the reason why they want to get five out of it is because there's this teaching that's famous in Soto Zen called the Five Ranks. And this is another one of several systems of describing the path of practice, the stages of practice, in terms of dialectic between the relative and the absolute. The relative being the ordinary everyday world of cause and effect and morality. The absolute being, you know, the world in which right and wrong, good and bad, life and death, positive and negative, are all just collapsed together. Of course, these two things never exist in the abstract. There's no such thing as two different worlds. There's one world with two different stances within that world, or two different ways of looking at it, and they never exist,

[04:25]

those two different ways never exist singly, but always in some dynamic combination. So, the five ways of five stages or five stages of that dialectic are expressed in these diagrams, and Master Sheng Yen discusses them in terms of the career of a practitioner, which is easier to understand, if you look at it in that way, we can relate to it more easily than if you understand them as five positions or aspects of reality, then it gets a little more abstract. But you could, they're usually actually described that way, as five views of reality that make up the complete whole of reality.

[05:28]

But I'll just repeat what I did last week, just explaining, giving you Master Sheng Yen's explanation of how they could be understood in terms of a person's career as a practitioner. So, this first one is already, when you are already established in the Dharma, the one where you just begin and you have no clue, it's not even on the charts, this is where you already, the white part is the Absolute, and the black part is the Relative. So, in the first one, you already have touched the Absolute, you already have a taste of the Absolute, you see that there's something beyond your own confusion and the Relative world, some world of unification, some world of awakening, or some world in which our, that stands behind or beyond our human confusion. You get the idea that, you've had

[06:29]

some experience or some taste of that, but you see in the circle, mostly, you're occupied with your own delusions, or as Master Sheng Yen describes them, vexations, your own sufferings and attachments and all the things that make you miserable. That's mostly what your life is, but now you get the idea, you see, you have an experience, oh, there's some other world, some other way. That's the first one. Then the second one, it's time goes by, so to speak, and now it's reversed. You're more grounded in the Absolute. Your life is more about the Absolute, and you have, at this point, you're still running around in circles, confusing yourself and messing things up, and messing up others, and having no clue as to how you would behave, in line with this realization of the Absolute. So, you have a taste of it, but you haven't any idea of how it has to do with anything in your life. At this stage, the Absolute becomes bigger and the relatives become smaller, which means you have a better handle on how to manage your confusion and your attachment, based on

[07:33]

excuse me, and this is probably going to go on this way for the rest of the evening, I'm sorry. If I'm not sneezing, I'll probably be blowing my nose. So, that's the next part, the next stage. Then here, it's called coming from within the real. In this one, the confusion is right in the middle of the Absolute. So, in this one, you see that it's not a question. See, in these two, you're involved in this struggle to get rid of your attachments and your delusions and get more of the Absolute. It's like, I'm going to get rid of this and get a hold of that, and reduce this one more and make this one bigger. But here, you'll come to understand that the relative is totally within the Absolute, that your own attachments and vexations are not the stuff that has to be removed and replaced by something else, but the very nature of them is that they're surrounded by the Absolute.

[08:37]

It's like you see your own attachments all the way out to the end of them, and then you see, oh, it's not that this attachment is to be removed and replaced by something else, but the nature of this very attachment is awakening. You see that? Here, see, that's pretty good. Then here, in this stage, mutual integration. Here, there is no difference between the relative and the Absolute. You don't see relative and you don't see Absolute. Sheng Yen says that this shouldn't even be there. This diagram shouldn't even be there. It's nothing. It's just a convenience. Really, the diagram is nothing. So you really see then that the idea that the relative is the Absolute is already to think of the relative as the relative. Here, you see, there's no relative, there's no Absolute,

[09:44]

there's no nothing, total emptiness, total perfection. But of course, then what? Because nobody can live there, so then you're here. And here, you have a life of total delusion, which is, you understand and enact the fact that this total delusion is nothing other than the Absolute. So in other words, you totally give yourself to the relative world. You don't hold out for the Absolute. You no longer are trying to... On this side, you see, there's no question of getting more of the Absolute and less of the relative and reducing your suffering and all the stuff that we're concerned about. But on this side, it doesn't appear here at all. There's only like total exertion of your life on the relative plane, where they're simultaneously realizing that there is no difference between the two. So they sort of, you know, this, they get out of that. Because, you know, if you make the

[10:48]

split line, the yin line is the, as it says down here, the relative and the yang line is the Absolute. Then when you combine these five, you get, you know, like that. So somehow they contrive to... These are easy to understand. These are harder to understand. This maybe you can get. But anyway, somehow they got these five. They coordinated these five ranks with the five lines in the double split hexagram. So this is really very important. This is the basic sort of pivot point of the poem and of the whole idea of the relative and Absolute interacting, which is what the subject of the poem is, the interaction of the relative and Absolute. So I thought it would be useful to go over that again. Now, in a certain way, I mean, you could penetrate and

[11:52]

ponder the five ranks a lot. But it really comes down to just this whole idea of the different ways in which relative and Absolute are understood in our lives. And that's one sort of framework for understanding it. Many people are critical of the doctrine of the five ranks because it is a kind of a doctrine. And it has been sort of solidified as a doctrine. Dogen was critical of it as a doctrine. And I wouldn't advise anybody to get too worried about it particularly. But it's a kind of a nice little, neat little, cute little sort of package. I wonder if you could briefly go over how they work in terms of the more common way of...

[12:56]

Well, you just... Relative and Absolute. So this one is the apparent within the real, or the diluted within the enlightened, or the relative within the Absolute. And in this one, it's the same idea, only abstracted from a person into reality itself. A view of reality in which the Absolute is pervaded by the relative, or the real is overcome by the apparent. So what's real appears, but it's overcome by what's apparent. It's polluted, it's eclipsed by what's apparent. And this is the reverse. What's real, or let's say emptiness, eclipses form, or the real eclipses the apparent.

[13:59]

So this side, one side emphasizes the apparent and one side emphasizes the real, in balance. Coming from within the real is the same. You realize that the world of appearances is not separate from the world of reality. Within each appearance, if you could see it thoroughly enough, you would see emptiness. So you're no longer working with two different things in this stage. And then here, you go one step further and you see that even to talk about those two things combined, and call them the same, is going too far. It's already making them too different. So here there's nothing, there's no. Even though this looks like the Absolute, what this means is nothingness. No relative and no absolute. And then here, the relative totally appears again. And this is suchness, right? This is the dual mirror.

[15:02]

The last one? Yeah, the last one. In which the world of appearances is seen as nothing other than just doing it. There's no words for it. The ordinary everyday world is the world of suchness. The difference between that and the one that's not even at the start of the list? Well, in a way, no difference. It's like another way of talking about the whole same thing, is the old saying about mountains are mountains, right? So when you say mountains are mountains, first I thought mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers, then I saw mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers, and then I saw that mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers, and then somebody says, what's the difference between the first mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers, And the second, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. And one answer to that is, there's no difference at all. And another answer to that is, there's all the difference in the world.

[16:09]

You come back to the same place. What is it T.S. Eliot says in the Four Quartets, to come back, you know, our journey is only to return to where we began and see that same place as if for the first time. And I think that's a pretty good version of what this is all about, that we, you know, we practice and practice and practice and we think we're getting a new life, you know, but then we come back to the same life that we had before, except we arrive there moment after moment as if for the first time, which is, in a way, completely the same, even more the same, you know, than ever, but also completely different because, you know, it's as if for the first time. So that's the whole problem of talking about this, is that you can't, the dialectic is more rich and complex than it's the same or different, you know what I mean, it's both the same and different, okay? Okay, so then we go on a little bit.

[17:15]

It is like the taste of the five-flavored herb, like the diamond thunderbolt. And I'm going to go to my paraphrases and my notes here. I did a lot of work with the characters this time and found some interesting stuff. So, it's like the taste of the five-flavored herb, and that's just, yeah, there's some traditional herb, you know, that they say had five flavors. So the five flavors are like the five ranks that we just talked about. But the interesting thing to notice is that, what they say about the five-flavored herb is that when you eat the five-flavored herb, when you taste one of the flavors, you're tasting all the flavors. It's not like you taste the five-flavored herb and you see five different flavors. One flavor includes all the others, that's the idea.

[18:19]

And it's the same with these five ranks. Lest you think it's A, B, C, D, you're reminded here that A includes C, D and E, I mean B, C, and D, and D includes C, B, and A, and B includes A, C, and D, and so on. Because they're not actually consecutive. It's too simple-minded to think of them as consecutive. That's just sort of like neat progress. To explain it that way is very understandable and kind of nice, but it's not that simple. So, any stage of the path is all of the paths. The beginning stage, that's Sukhirosh's beginner's mind, right? Beginner's mind includes the whole path already. And the enlightened, fully developed practitioner also is a beginner. If not, then there's something wrong, right? That's the whole meaning of beginner's mind. So, each stage includes all the stages.

[19:20]

And then, it's like the diamond thunderbolt. The characters do say diamond thunderbolt, but the idea, again, is that it's five, because the diamond thunderbolt is the Vajra, which was a religious implement. I have a Vajra, but it doesn't have... There's different kinds of Vajras. There's a one-pointed Vajra. You know what a Vajra looks like? Yeah, kind of like that. And there's all kinds of different ones. And there's one that has five prongs on either end. So, that's what's meant here. Just like the five-flavored herb that has five, it's the diamond thunderbolt. The Vajra has five prongs on it. And although the text doesn't say five-pronged Vajra, that's what I think they mean, the five-pronged Vajra. And this was the same idea, that each prong in Vajra includes all the prongs. That's the same idea. But the thing that interested me about it is that it's sort of a little bit of interesting anthropology that, I mean, I thought about this a lot,

[20:24]

that Dongshan was so familiar with the Vajra as a religious implement that he would use it so colloquially in the poem. It's interesting to me because that tells me or makes me wonder whether or not... Because the Vajra is not used particularly in Zen. It's an implement used in the esoteric schools, in the tantric schools. In tantric rituals. And so, to me, I would speculate that Dongshan, as a Soto Zen person, and this is fairly early on in the Soto times, and, you know, I don't know, makes me think that somehow either there was so much mixing, enough mixing between the different schools of Buddhism that Zen people would have been familiar with esoteric Buddhism or that there was esoteric Buddhism in the Zen temple, as there was in early Japanese Zen, came from Tendai Buddhism,

[21:26]

which had a lot of esoteric elements in it. And then later on, we know for sure that Keizan, a couple of generations after Dogen, added a lot of esoteric Buddhist stuff to the Soto traditions. So Soto Zen is actually very tantric in a way. I mean, in a way, we don't practice it so much that way, but that's how, you know, our emphasis on ritual and ceremony is very much in the spirit of tantrism, because tantric Buddhism has a lot of ritual and ceremony. And so there's more of that in Zen throughout than we know or than we actually kind of deal with directly. But this, so this, I just have thought about that for a while. So that's the sense of that one, of the... I'll do it like I did last time. Yes? I had a question, which is not as appropriate to ask now. Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say I would do a couple of lines and then take questions. I had two questions, I guess. One is, what is the kind of metaphoric,

[22:30]

like, why a diamond thunderbolt? Like, what is that? Oh, good question. Yeah, that's the emptiness. Diamond thunderbolt of emptiness cuts through everything. Diamond, because diamond cuts through everything, and thunderbolt, because it's like, you know, this sort of, you know, like a flash of lightning, a thunderbolt that sort of suddenly illuminates everything and nothing can stop it, sort of, it's the ultimate power. So somehow the word, I think the word vajra, I think means both those things in Sanskrit. And so, yeah, it's a symbol of emptiness. It's a symbol of the cut, the wisdom of emptiness. So, and then the implement is, and the bell is the compassion. We use it with the bell. And these are the two aspects of the teaching, you know, the cut, the wisdom of emptiness, and they're very similar to relative and absolute, in a way, and, you know, the masculine and the feminine,

[23:32]

the split line, sort of the whole thing. And so in the rituals, there's an enactment of the relationship of these two, but in the coordination of the vajra with the bell and the chanting and the meaning of the text and all that. So then it says, yeah, let me just do a couple and then we'll discuss it. Subtly included within the true, inquiry and response come up together. I think this is one of the ones where, some of these were quite fascinating to look at. Let's see. Subtly included within the true, inquiry and response come up together. So I'm going to give you a couple of variant translations that I made of this line

[24:32]

from the characters and from the other translations, so listen carefully. Subtly included within the true, the exact center is wondrously inclusive. Or there's beauty right in the middle of what seems straightforward. Or there's beauty in the midst of truth. You used true, is that relevant in that sense? It's not really clear exactly, you know, which is which. I think that, well, let me explain how, well, let me read you some of the other translations and then I'll go explain to you where I was coming from when I came up with that translation. Here's another translation. This is Powell's. Secretly held within the real.

[25:37]

And Master Sheng Yen says, the exact center subtly harmonizing. And why, where you get this range is because in Chinese it has these two characters, shou, shou chou. One shou means like upright, correct, or true. And chou means the middle, or right in the middle of, or the center. Like they used to call China the middle kingdom, using the same character. And they meant the center of the world. China was, you know, like all ancient nations considered themselves to be at the center of the world. So that's why you can translate that as, you could translate that, those two, you know, so you just get the picture.

[26:42]

One is correct or exact or true, and the other one is middle. So you could translate that as right in the middle of the true, or you could translate that as the exact center. In Chinese, grammar is flexible enough that it would admit of both translations. Because Chinese doesn't have a grammar in the sense the same way that Chinese is a pictorial language, it's an uninflected language. That's why you can be so creative in translating it, because you can't tell. Either way would be just as likely to be accurate. The exact center, or right in the middle of the true. Can you see that? Do you see what I mean? Is that clear? So that's why Master Sheng Yen emphasizes the exact center. And clearly the one we're used to says subtly included within the true.

[27:42]

But either way, this word, the next word in the text, miyōkyō, the next word, miyō, means wondrous or beautiful or subtle. And the next word, kyō, means to put in between. So right in the middle of what is correct, or what is upright, is something wonderful or beautiful. Let's leave that hanging there for a minute and see if the next line somehow illuminates it. The next line clearly says emerging, no, inquiry and response come up together.

[28:51]

Or other ways of looking at it, other ways of translating it. You know, the word for question is to hit on. The word, the character means to hit on or bang on. It also means to question. And the word that clearly translates as answer also means to sing. So you kind of get the feeling of one is like pounding on and the other one is letting out with it. So Master Sheng Yen actually translates it as drumming and singing come up at the same time, come forth together. Or another way of looking at it is, and this would be the way that Dōgen would translate it. Effort and results come up simultaneously. Which is very true. One of Dōgen's chief points about

[29:57]

Soto Zen practice is that right in the effort that's like beginner's mind. Every moment of effort is a moment of enlightenment. It's not like we're making effort, making effort, accumulating more merits and then, boom, later on we get enlightened. It's like every moment of effort, every moment of our lives when we're practicing is fully present, is fully awakening. So that connects, maybe we can understand in the previous couple of lines. Right in the middle of what is now I'm sort of seeing correct or truth as being in a way like proper. The form of things, something like that. Right in the middle of the form of things is beauty or wonder. Effort and results come up together. Or question and answer come up together.

[31:02]

Because of the fact that right in the middle of what just seems to be out there in an ordinary way is something wondrous and beautiful. Therefore, there's something wondrous and beautiful in the question which is already the answer. There's something wondrous and beautiful in the effort which is already the reward. So it's interesting when you contemplate the characters you get a sense of the movement that's being suggested here. Almost beyond, you know, the words there's a kind of shape here, if you see what I mean. So although, you know, all of this is a lot... I'm not giving... It's as if, if you translate it, you already miss it. So I'm giving you about five or six or seven different translations and I'm saying a lot of words here to try to give you a sense of what I feel is included in these lines. OK, so that's OK. Let's go on one more and then we'll discuss it from there. So the next one is...

[32:06]

says, Communing with the Source and Communing with the Process. Communing also means transmitting. So we could say, Communing with the Essence or transmitting the Essence and transmitting the Process or transmitting the Teaching and transmitting the Practice. In other words, on the one hand there's the Essence of it and on the other hand there's the ongoing process by which that Essence is unfolded. And Master Shen Yen says something very different. Penetrate the goal and you will fathom the way. So, transmitting the Essence penetrating the goal, so instead of Essence he translates goal. And he makes these two statements they penetrate the Essence, fathom the way

[33:10]

as being one leading to the other. But it looks like from the text that they're not set up one leading to the other but rather just two separate and parallel thoughts transmitting the Essence, transmitting the Process. And Phil Powell says penetration to the source penetration of the byways. Because there's not really a goal. You never get there. Yeah, right. So we probably would prefer not to translate it that way, I would think. Shen Yen, I think, he's really pretty sound. He sort of creates little understandable seemingly dualistic ways of looking at it and then he brushes them away later on.

[34:12]

But anyway, transmitting the Essence, transmitting the Process it includes integration and it includes the road. I would translate it as it includes stopping and it includes going on. Integration to me, I don't know, just a thought, which is usually not what you say or interpret. But integration is coming together with all aspects, which he is doing the source rather than stopping. Let's see, I'm trying to look at the Essence. Integration is when integration is to me instead of disparate elements or movements or thoughts

[35:16]

then there's this coming together of clarity or coming together of organization. Yeah. It's just that when you say it includes integration it includes the road. There's a kind of a... In the text it's really obvious that this is a pair. Integration and the road is somehow a pair that relates to each other. When you hear it in English, integration and the road, you say, integration and the road? What does that have to do with anything? What does integration have to do with the road? So basically there's two... This is how Chinese poetry usually is set up with balanced phrases, like four-character line and an adjective and a noun that sort of balance each other and are parallel to each other then another one and another one. So that's what I'm trying to give you a feeling for. Integration and the road doesn't do it in English. On the one hand you have the Essence and then you have the process.

[36:20]

These lines talk about transmitting the Essence or understanding the Essence or penetrating the Essence or whatever it is. Somehow dealing with the Essence, carrying across the Essence and carrying across the process includes... The way I looked at it was it includes stopping and it includes going on. It includes non-action and it includes action. Something like that. So I'm trying to think of where Cleary got integration. So it says penetrating or transmitting Essence, transmitting path. It's almost like a repeat of Essence and process integration and road. It's almost like saying the same thing again. Yeah, it is. So Essence is like stopping or emptiness or non-doing

[37:26]

and process is like ongoing. That's it. It's two parallel phrases with verbs in front of each. It's not an elaboration, it's actually a repeating. That's right. You wouldn't get that from the way Cleary puts it. It's a little... It's a little baffling. I wonder why he would repeat just to say it in another way. Well, it's a literary. Literary Chinese goes like that. Let's see. Penetrating Essence, penetrating path includes includes Yeah, this is the one that

[38:28]

the word that Cleary translates as integration. The dictionary definitions of that word are belt, girdle, district, involve or connect. So you get it? You see the range of meanings there like belt or girdle, something which holds in. See? And in that sense it connects things because they're now being circled or enclosed. And then the other one, so that's one thing, so it includes that, whatever that word means and then it also includes, this next word means path or alleyway. So one is like an enclosure and the other one is a going up. You see that? So transmitting the essence, transmitting the process, it includes containment or stopping or collecting, gathering in,

[39:31]

occluding, and it includes opening up. Well it's also then you get the new metric, it's like circle and line. Yeah, right, like that. Yeah, I was thinking that, kind of like the analytical way of thinking or the linear way of thinking, like fabric and individual thread. And you could see them as, again, the essence, you could see as the absolute, the path or the process as the relative. And the enclosure as the absolute, even if you put them in parallel, the enclosure as the absolute and the road, the alley, the pathway as the going up. In the blue chip record they talk a lot about gathering in and letting go. Like that, rolling up and rolling out. It's probably the same idea. So there's that, and like in our own, just ordinary everyday politics of our own community,

[40:35]

we have some people who say, everybody should be in the zendo every minute, and that's the only important thing, that's gathering in. And other people say, no, we should be out there doing things and going, work on the farm and go in the streets and do this and do that, and that's rolling out. So what this is saying is, there's this dynamic interplay between those two sides, and we must have both sides of that. That's the interplay of relative and absolute. If you only have one side, it's out of balance. It's interesting that the Chinese character for center was a circle with a line through it. It's written as a square. Yeah, it's now a square. Yeah, the ancient character was a circle. Okay, so, anything there so far? How are we doing? Questions? Comments?

[41:40]

How often do these texts set up dualisms just to bust them? Whether it's good and bad, or relative and absolute, or stopping or starting, or coming or going, or the endless lists. You get the 17 whatevers, or the five ranks, and then they immediately say, but they're all the same. The taste of the flat flavored, or one taste is all. Do you think they do that just because there's no other way for the human mind and human language to digest those kind of realities, or are there other ways, visual or textual, to express non-dualism? I didn't mean that to sound pretentious. No, I think that

[42:50]

this is a kind of medicine, because our minds do that. Our minds do kind of operate on that sort of binary good-bad, I like it, I don't like it, I agree with it, I don't agree with it basis. It's very deeply ingrained on the most subtle level of our consciousness, and so this is a sort of teaching that is trying to help us to recognize that sort of move that we make all the time with our thinking and to untangle it. So I think that certainly there are other ways of expressing non-dualism in shape and form, in art and sound and the whole world, in a way you could say it's an expression of non-dualism, but we will make it into something dualistic. And one of the key ways that we do that is with language,

[43:53]

the way we talk to ourselves, the way we talk to others. So this is an exercise in language that's trying to point out that mistake that we make over and over and over again. I feel that Buddhist philosophy is not positing a truth so much as it is a counter-truth to the unfortunate truth that we bring to our world. It's an attempt, an effort to unravel what we bring to our world, which is not workable. That's why it's always so slippery, because you can't say, well, what are they really saying? Why not? If you study Tibetan Buddhism, they'll talk about all these different philosophical systems within Buddhism, and then they'll say, well, but the ultimate position

[44:54]

is the Madhyamaka, the prasangika-madhyamaka position, which doesn't assert any stable or substantial truth. It only shows, it only plays aikido with everything. It just turns everything inside out, wherever you go. And so this is a sort of Chinese or Zen way of expressing a similar kind of outlook. Because, you know, this relative and absolute, we could also just say form and emptiness, and then you're really talking in the language of the Madhyamaka. So, yes. When you say there is something wondrous, and that is the fact that inquiry and response come up together, the sub-included within the truth, there is this inquiry and response coming up together.

[45:56]

I heard you both making something kind of complete out of the first clause and something complete out of the second clause, but sometimes I read it as if the first clause was describing the wondrous nature of inquiry and response coming together. Yeah, well, the way that the poem works, again, in Chinese grammar, is wonderfully vague. So you're right. Those two things are just put next to each other, and they're clearly related to each other. They're not two different things. They're in a pair together. So on the one hand, yeah, within the true, and I want to see that. I don't know if it's really accurate or not, but my intuition about that word true means like straightforward, what's right in front of you, because the word true means upright, like a person who's upright, a person who stands by their word and is upright and so on. In other words, what's right in front of you, what's plain and obvious, in the middle of that, there's something wondrous included. And then, it says, right after that, like you say,

[46:56]

and question and response come up together, or effort and result come up together. So I think you could say, that's what's wondrous, or you could say it could be the other way. Because of the fact that right in the middle of what's apparent is something wondrous, therefore... It allows inquiry and response to come up together. Yeah. But I think the ambiguity is that it's both ways. Yeah. The grammar of the way the phrases are put together doesn't tell you it's one way or the other. But you kind of lean towards the fifth rank, is what true means? Is that what you're saying, the fifth rank, where the two are together? Yeah. True. Well, if we're going to go back to the ranks, I think I would say that's the third rank.

[48:01]

The black one. In the middle of what's just there is something wondrous. The delusion that is really awakening is right in the middle there. So therefore, my delusion, which is my question, automatically brings the answer right in the middle of that question. The third rank is the sort of pivot rank. It's in between, on the one hand, our beginning position where we're trying to get more enlightenment and get rid of more delusion. This one in the middle is the bridge between that one and over here, where we really understand that delusion and enlightenment are not different things. To me, this is the pivot one. Right in the middle of that, there is this wondrous thing that makes it so that every moment of our practice is the completion of our practice. And the reason I say that is not so much that...

[49:04]

I think in a sense you could easily see it as the fifth rank. The reason I say that is because I think the next lines... I'm ahead of the game. I think the next lines have to do with the fifth rank. So let's look at the next lines. I think you'll see what I mean when you look at these next lines. So the next lines, which clearly translates as merging is auspicious, do not violate it. Shengyin translates as to be wrong is auspicious, do not oppose it. To be wrong is auspicious, do not oppose it. Can you see how that's fifth rank? It's comforting. It is comforting. It really is. I mean, this whole thing is comforting, right? Because imagine how difficult it would be if the message was,

[50:04]

well, it's going to take a long time, but you've got to get rid of every delusion there and replace it by enlightenment. Start making a pile on this side of delusion and then see how you can make your enlightenment pile bigger than your delusion pile. Well, if we were in that department, that would be really discouraging, right? Because we would be noticing, wow, my delusion pile keeps getting bigger and my enlightenment pile doesn't even... I don't even see it at all. So that would be discouraging. But this way I say, hey, you know, wow. How did merging is auspicious turn into to be wrong is auspicious? Well, you'll see. I'll tell you the character. Because this one was an interesting one, I thought. And then I'll just give you Powell's translation. See, acting with circumspection is auspicious. There is no contradiction. So pretty different. So what I... I looked at this one for a while.

[51:06]

And the reason why it seems like fifth rank is because, remember, the fifth rank is delusion. Total delusion, right? Through and through as being our life and non-different from awakening. So the first character in the line does mean mistake or to miss the mark. Like to miss, throw something and miss. But it also means respect somehow. And I guess it also can mean to interact which is where Cleary gets merged. So this whole range of meanings it's hard to see the relationship between mistake and miss. You can see the relationship between those two. But it's hard to see the relationship between a mistake or a miss and respect and interaction. I just think they're totally different meanings.

[52:11]

So I came up with translations like to be off the mark but wholehearted is wonderful. Just don't be stubborn. Because it says here the first character means to miss or make a mistake and the next character is an intensifier meaning like really to miss. That's where I get wholehearted. And then if so then that's lucky or happy or auspicious. Then the next two characters mean to invade or commit a crime or clash, offend and violate. And the next character means obstinate, disobedient, intractable. So in other words it reminds us the first two are kind of two characters that basically mean the same thing and intensify each other. And then these are two more characters that mean the same thing and intensify each other. These two mean to make a mistake or to miss

[53:16]

the mark and then they're saying to miss the mark to really miss the mark, you know completely miss the mark, which is like fifth rank, right? To really miss the mark or really be deluded. That's great. And then it says to be really stubborn and it says not. Cannot. Must not. That's what it says. So that's how I get it. To be off the mark but really, but wholehearted maybe even better is to say to be off the mark but really off the mark. That's wonderful. Just don't be stubborn. That's the only crime. Don't be stubborn about it. So stubborn meaning you know inflexible. So that's even like a very good practical advice even on a totally relative level. No problem with making mistakes, just don't be stubborn and repeat them over and over again

[54:19]

and insist on them. Just make your mistake and then the hell with it. Go on and make another mistake. But a different one than the one you just made. And even if you make the same one again let it be a new mistake. Don't be holding on to your mistakes. So yeah, mistakes are definitely the way and particularly if you think of the five ranks. And Dogen's famous line Dogen, the great lofty Zen master of all time the most pure and perfect of all the Zen masters Dogen who never had a pimple Dogen who only pursued the good and the true all his life no blemishes on Dogen Even when Dogen was completely lacking in the way he was already enlightened on top of his enlightenment because the Dharma was transmitted to him completely when he was 23

[55:22]

and then he went to China to study Zen because he didn't understand, even after he was already enlightened and the Dharma was transmitted to him. This Dogen says, my practice is one continuous mistake. So that's like this one wholehearted and continuous error. My life has been one wholehearted and continuous error. I can relate to that. Well, failure is an integral part of success and that's the nature of evolution. It's fun. Didn't I give a Dharma talk about failure lately? Big Dharma talk about failure. It was such a downer. I got myself so depressed. But it was on this point. Our best paintings happen that way. Total flop. That's right. When you know, when you think you're doing it really well and you really have it together, then you really should be suspicious at that point.

[56:24]

Somebody's kidding somebody. Well, in some cone it talks as being human is being a criminal because we stand out and we have this thinking mind that we're immersed in dualism. The crime of dualism. In that sense, he could be talking about one continuous crime. Right, and this brings us back to the Tozan story that we told in the beginning and I repeated a couple times where he goes to the teacher and says, what should I say if I'm asked to produce your likeness? And the teacher says, just this person. So the footnote tells us that that's what a criminal says. I'm guilty. And then he says the teacher says now that you have come to this be careful, now that you have, I forget what the line is but anyway, it's another line that's said to a criminal having come to this place, be very, very careful

[57:28]

now that you are fully responsible for the world be very, very careful. So that's the same sense of it. We're responsible in the sense that we're always making mistakes. I just had a thought a minute ago when you said just don't be stubborn and keep repeating the mistakes and then I thought, well what about habitual criminals? What happens there? Why do they do that you mean? Well, where you don't learn from. Well, I mean, that's samsara, right? That's the whole definition of samsara. Well, on one level you could say that insofar as we're all involved in samsara we are repeating our mistakes over and over again but for somebody who's like really say, seriously murdering people or something like that don't you think that that person must have been terribly, terribly

[58:30]

damaged in some way and then never could go beyond that. They just keep going around in circles around that tremendous hurt of which they are completely unaware. They just keep going around. Any kind of spectacular human mistake is like that. That's the wheel of samsara. You kind of get stuck. You're compelled to do the same thing over and over again which is the opposite of that. In terms of these lines, it's not a real mistake. It's not a wholehearted mistake. It's a mistake that comes out of an occlusion in your spirit. This kind of a mistake is like an open, joyful mistake. Just do it and it's harmless in a way. Okay, let's go on to the next line. The next one is in Cleary's version

[59:33]

is naturally real yet inconceivable. It is not within the province of delusion or enlightenment. Naturally real yet inconceivable. It is not within the province of delusion or enlightenment. Notice now all the way from the time we talked about the double split hexagram all of this has been different combinations and different understandings of the relative and the absolute together. You know, different ways that they're organized, right? And now, this is shifting a little bit the gears of the poem. So now, like the poet is saying, in effect, I've told you, you know, the five flavored herbs all the ranks are included in one. I've told you that in the middle of delusion is enlightenment

[60:35]

and mistakes are awakening and all this this is all different ways in which they're combined. Then, now I want to tell you that it's inconceivable. It's beyond delusion and enlightenment. So, naturally real yet inconceivable I would translate as true nature is inconceivable. It has nothing to do with delusion or enlightenment. So, these first characters can be translated as true nature. They can also be translated they also have that sense of nature as nature like, you know, the natural world or what's natural. So, you could say that what's natural is the word inconceivable and inconceivable can also be translated as beauty.

[61:36]

You could say what's really natural is wondrously beautiful. And this wondrous, beautiful nature which is, you know, life itself or the way itself has nothing to do with delusion or enlightenment. Lest we were thinking of relative and absolute as delusion or enlightenment it's beyond that. It's way beyond delusion or enlightenment. So, in Zen in a way, you know, enlightenment is not an absolute thing like the best thing. This is beyond enlightenment. Enlightenment is a stage of this. In a way, you could say, you know, this is enlightenment and that's enlightenment. Over on this side there's enlightenment. On this side there's no enlightenment and no delusion. Enlightenment is only an appearance relative to delusion. When we feel like we experience enlightenment it's because we're so steeped in delusion

[62:39]

that the contrast is overwhelming. So, we say, wow, that was an experience of enlightenment. And they say in Zen, you know, that Satori is like the gateway to the beginning. Satori is over here. An experience of Satori and that should encourage us to finally reach the pivot and go over here. But enlightenment is not the end all and be all. Enlightenment is a very important part of the practice but in terms of the five ranks and this whole understanding of awakening it's inconceivable. It's beyond delusion or enlightenment. So, other translations of those lines are innately pure pure, moreover subtle no connection with delusion or enlightenment. And this one says natural and subtle it is neither ignorance nor enlightenment.

[63:41]

And this true nature is or natural and subtle is referring to the jewel mirror of this teaching about relative and absolute. It is natural, it is subtle and it is inconceivable. And this inconceivability is a big concept in Buddhist thought in relation to this teaching about relative and absolute. Because that which is conceivable is already has already been cut up and pushed around by our mind. If we can conceive of it we're already grabbing it. Conceptualization is already a difficulty. So, even though in my poem even though in my poem

[64:47]

I've given you a number of different conceptions about how to understand delusion or enlightenment the double split hexagram, the five flavored herb and all these different ins and outs of how you can understand all this really it's inconceivable. Don't take these conceptions as being what it's really about. It's really inconceivable. But, of course, inconceivability is a tricky thing because you can make inconceivability as a concept, right? So you can't use that as an excuse to say, therefore, we can't talk about it and we can't know it. Because that's already a conception. That's already to conceive of what it is. Because it's not outside of our conceptions either. Right? You understand what I mean? Can you talk about pure activity? Yeah, but I wouldn't limit it to just activity. It's pure being.

[65:48]

Pure being. But even that. Well, then what about impure being? Well, impure being is pure being too. See what I mean? So it's a tricky one because you have to say, oh, I see, it's inconceivable. So it's not over here where we are. It's not over here where we can talk and act and think because it's over there. It's inconceivable. Well, then already you made a concept of it because it's right here. So it's tricky. Does the use of the word interplay still fit if it were substituted for the word it in this particular sentence? Naturally real yet inconceivable. Interplay is not within the province of delusion or enlightenment. Is it the interplay between the absolute and relative that is

[66:50]

not within the province? Well, yeah, but there's nothing but that. Right? There's nothing but the interplay between absolute and relative. The world is that. Anything is that. And is that what is inconceivable? Yeah. I mean, the easiest way to think about it, I think, is the jewel mirror. The jewel mirror, which is the symbol in the poem for that interplay. The jewel mirror is natural, subtle, beautiful, inconceivable. It has nothing to do with delusion or enlightenment. It's beyond delusion or enlightenment. Okay, then the next line, with causal conditions, time and season, quiescently it shines bright.

[67:54]

Causal conditions, time and season, quiescently it shines bright. causes and conditions have their time and season, tranquil and illuminating. And the other one says, excuse me, according to time and circumstance it quietly illuminates. So it's saying a little more now about this jewel mirror, which is natural and subtle and inconceivable. My translation is each moment is the nexus of causes and conditions. Each moment shines in bright tranquility. And why I used each moment is because

[68:58]

if you look at the characters, the first two characters mean causes and conditions. But the next two characters mean time, moment, or when. So you could translate it as when causes and conditions manifest, it is tranquil. And then the next character says to illuminate. So when there are causes and conditions, when causes and conditions arise, then there is tranquil illumination. But that when, that character when is often translated as meaning when, like the moment, the eternal moment or the moment of each moment in the sense of the moment of the jewel mirror. Each moment of our lives has that quality of causes and conditions. Each moment is the ultimate moment of our lives. Each moment is the nexus of all the causes

[69:58]

and think about it, it's really true, the whole universe, right? For each one of us in our lives, all the history of the universe, all the Big Bang and everything else. It all comes down to this moment of our lives. Right now, right here and now, everything that has ever happened anywhere produces this moment of my life. I mean, you know, it's just the way it is, right? And that's true for each one of us. It's like the ultimate moment of the universe with everything that's ever happened comes right here and now. So each moment is the total nexus point of everything for us. And each moment shines in bright tranquility. That's the truth of what's happening to us in our lives moment after moment while we think we're stuck in traffic or whatever where our mind is occupied with all our little problems. In reality, that very moment although we missed it and although our conceivable mind our conceptualizing mind was conceptualizing

[71:00]

some baloney, still that moment is and was and every moment is over and over again the total nexus of causality and it's totally illuminated and totally tranquil and perfect and peaceful. That's the jewel mirror. That's how it is. Moment after moment. It's inconceivable. It's beyond delusion and enlightenment. Even though we're madly working to overcome delusion and get more enlightenment, it's beyond all that. It's always right here in this moment all of time and space bearing down right on us and it's always perfect and it's always shining brightly in its peacefulness. Non-stop flow. Moment by moment, non-stop flow. Yeah, moment by moment, non-stop flow very much. Hold on, yeah. Yeah. So then the next one, I think we can do a couple more quickly because we have two more meetings, right?

[72:03]

Is that so? I think there's some... We'll meet next Tuesday night, but I think there's some kind of miscalculation or something going on because... One big mistake? Yeah, one big mistake. I think we were supposed to have two more meetings but somehow I looked on my calendar I think the last meeting is during the practice meeting. So I don't know how we're going to work that out, but we'll figure it out next week. So we'll meet next Tuesday. I think we're supposed to have two more meetings. Look at all the work we have to do. We have to zip through this. It'd be like going to the movies and missing the final scene. Does the main character die or not? Do they escape from prison or not? Oh, we have to find out. Something about golden idiots, I think. So then the next one says... Okay, so... Now more about how wonderful and how ineffable is this dual mirror.

[73:04]

In its fineness it fits into spacelessness, in its greatness it is utterly beyond location. That's pretty good. Being off by the fraction of a hair's breadth, no, fine enough to penetrate where there is no space, large enough to transcend its boundaries. I guess it means the boundaries of space. And this one says... It is so small it enters the spaceless, so large it is beyond dimension. So those all say pretty much the same thing. I think this is a fairly straightforward one. So small it can enter spacelessness, so large it is beyond location, which are sort of non... I mean... In other words, it doesn't have any dimension, one way or the other.

[74:05]

It's not big, it's not small. It's smaller than small and bigger than big, which probably, in the end, pretty much about the same thing, right? Smaller than small and bigger than big. Well, probably what's smaller than small is bigger than big, right? Yeah. Anyway, lest we think that it's somewhere, somehow, something. This is telling us that it has nothing to do with time or space, right? And that says... The separation of... A hair's breadth deviation will fail to accord with the proper tune. Which is pretty much pretty straightforward also. Here it says... If you are off by a hair's breadth, then you will be out of harmony. And this one says... Being off by the fraction of a hair's breadth,

[75:08]

the attunement of major and minor keys is lost. And in fact, the characters do indicate a musical... They give, like, musical terms, musical terminology. It says, like, hair or atom, minute, fine, the difference, and then it gives musical terms, would not correspond. In other words, yeah, if there's any most minute difference, if you're out of kilter with the jewel mirror, with this inconceivable, spaceless and timeless moment at the nexus of all causality in your life, if you're out of tune with that, if you're off even by a teensy fraction of anything, because it's nothing, anything's there at all, you know, then you're out of tune.

[76:09]

You're out of harmony with yourself, with the universe. So... But it's also... The whole thing is so... I mean, it's impossible, right? In other words, it's one of those things where you say, well, I'll get this right, but you can't get this right. Because as soon as you try to get it right, there's a hair's breadth deviation. So it's not about right or wrong, it's not about doing something or not doing something, because all those things are kind of cumulative and logical and conceivable. This isn't like that. And yet if you're off from it, already you're out of tune. Yeah, it's kind of like that, yeah.

[77:11]

Well, I always quote Dogen's poem called The Needle Point of Zazen, where he says, effort without desire. A fish swims like a fish, a bird flies like a bird. So that's how I understand effortless effort. In other words, effort without goal, effort without needing something. Usually we make effort because we feel incomplete somehow. So I'm going to make effort to get this which I'm lacking, and then I'll be better off. Or somehow there's always a desire in effort, I'm going to get something or do something. But just effort, just to exert effort to be present in one's life, that's effortless effort. Effort without desire. And I think you bring up a good point,

[78:17]

because I think that's the territory. As soon as there's desire, as soon as there's effort in order to gain something, then there's a hair's breadth deviation, and we're out of harmony. But if we just make effort to make effort with just the pure fact of being alive, and making effort out of that, making effort toward clarity with that spirit, then we're not trying to do anything. We're not accumulating anything or improving anything, and so we can be in tune with the whole universe, which is doing the same thing, the whole universe. And that's why it's so inspiring, really, to notice the natural world, because the natural world is a great example of effortless effort. In the natural world, all effort is that kind of effort. And there's constant effort in the natural world. There's no goofing off. You don't see, like, the grass does not goof off,

[79:20]

the clouds do not goof off, and animals don't goof off. Animals are constantly making that kind of effort. But we goof off. We conceptualize, and we have we and they, and we make all sorts of human messes. We're not just purely there. And that's what we're... In practice, we're in a way trying to return, you could say, to this state of natural and subtle, nothing to do with delusion or enlightenment, just really being real with ourselves in this effortless effort along with the rest of the world. So maybe that's far enough for tonight. We'll meet next Tuesday and go on from there and try...

[80:22]

Maybe the first week of the practice period there won't be a class on Tuesday night, I guess. We'll have to finish this class. I think that's true, actually. So, we'll chant the text, OK? Song of the jewel mirror Samadhi The teaching of us has been intimately communicated by Buddhas and ancestors. Now you have it, so keep it well. Filling a silver bowl with snow, hiding a heron in the moonlight. When you array them, they're not the same. When you mix them, you know where they are. The meaning is not in the words, yet it responds to the environment. You're excited, it becomes a pitfall. If you miss it, you fall into retrospective hesitation. Turning away and touching are both wrong, for it is like a mass of fire. Just to depict it in literary form is to relegate it

[81:26]

to defilement. It is bright just at midnight. It doesn't appear at dawn. It acts as a guide for beings. It usually removes all pains. Although it is not fabricated, it is not without seeds. It is just like facing a jewel mirror, forming each people, each other. You are not in it, it actually is you. This book made in the world in five aspects complete. It does not go unauthorized. Baba wawa, is there anything said or not? Ultimately it does not apprehend anything because its speech is not yet correct. It is like the six lines of the double split hexagram. The relative and absolute integrate. Piled up they make three. The complete transformation makes five. It is like the taste of the five-flavored herb. Thunderbolts suddenly included within the true inquiry and response come up together, communing with the source and communing with the process. It includes integration.

[82:26]

It includes survival. Verging on speech is too unplated. The province of delusion or enlightenment with causal conditions, time and season quiescently it shines bright. In its fineness it fits into spacelessness. In its greatness it is utterly beyond location. In its breadth deviation will fail to accord with the proper attunement. Sudden and gradual connection with which are set our basic approaches. Once basic approaches are distinguished then there are guiding rules. Though the basis is reached and the approach comprehended true eternity still flows outwardly still while inwardly moving like a tethered coal trap. The ancient saints pitied them and bestowed upon them the teaching according to their delusions. They call black as white when erroneous imaginations cease. Their mind realizes itself

[83:27]

if you want to conform to the ancient way please observe the ancients of former times when about to fulfill the way of Buddhahood a tree for ten eons like a tiger leaving part of its prey. A horse with a white left hind leg because there is the base two pedestals fine clothing because there is a starkly different there a house cat and cow. Such a skill could hit a target at a hundred paces but when arrow points meet head on what is this to do with the power of skill? When the woman begins to sing the stone woman gets up to dance. It's not within reach of feeling or discrimination how could it be a consideration in thought? This minister is the lord, the son of Ace the father and I obey. He is not filial and must serve. He needs no help practice working within as though a fool like an idiot can shape continuity this is called the host within the host

[84:29]

We dedicate the merit of our study and chanting of the jewel mirror samadhi to the enlightenment of all sentient beings beings all Buddha send directions three times all beings bodhisattvas mahasattvas wisdom beyond beyond wisdom all prajna paramita By the way I wanted to tell you that

[85:32]

I did go to Gary's poetry reading on Tuesday night but the reason that I went was because maybe I told you because I had to take Phil Whalen but it turned out that I didn't have to take him because he called me up and said oh I forgot I already had a ride so I wouldn't have gone but it was too late I had already told everybody however it was really great that I went because the main reason I wanted to go was because he's going to come here in February and perform this poem and last time he performed here I was the impresario so he's expecting me to figure out how we're going to do this so at the reading I figured it out I got a good idea and then Peter Coyote was there introducing him and so Peter Coyote and I were kicking the idea around Peter Coyote got really excited about it he says he's going to come the reason the idea that I got was

[86:34]

in the reading Gary was saying he was talking about performance and saying that like in a lot of cultures they have this sort of tradition of the endless performance like a very long performance that just goes on and on and Malcolm Margolin has talked about this where they'll have a ceremony that'll last for a week or something goes on and on and Gary was saying we don't have this tradition of performance in the West so I was thinking of doing a performance like that read the whole poem it's a whole book to read it would take about 4 or 5 hours and I thought do it like that so the idea is that we would do that but there would be pauses marked by drums and gongs and then it would be like Zazen we'd stop and do Zazen and sit quietly and people would probably come and go in the middle because you wouldn't sit there like a regular performance

[87:36]

people would just get up and leave and then the poem begins with the image of it's actually written about a scroll called Mountains and Rivers Mountains and Rivers is a title that many different scrolls in Asian painting have that title and he saw a scroll the poem begins with a description of such a scroll and the idea of the brush touching the page at the beginning and then it ends with the brush lifting off the page so what I want to do is get some artists to get an endless scroll of rice paper and while this hours and hours performance is going on maybe there will be a few readers in a tag team kind of style reading it there will also be artists making endless Mountains and Rivers scroll for the whole time and at the last line when the reader says and the brush lifts from the scroll

[88:40]

the artist's brush will lift from the scroll and in the meantime they'll be tacking it all up on the walls as they do it so you'll be sitting there and there'll be nothing there and as the performance proceeds you'll see all these Mountains and Rivers being tacked up on the wall until the whole zendo is covered I couldn't believe it afterward he was signing books I never saw such a long line his arm must have fallen off there must have been like 200 people standing in line to sign books so we kind of made everybody mad at us because we went right to the front of the line and said hello and I explained and I said this is what we're going to do and he said great he's going to be here for just a few days the next day he's going to do Reminiscence a day of zen in America and Japan his early years that'll be nice that'll be on a Saturday Friday night he's going to do this

[89:42]

and we're going to figure out how to do it we're going to rehearse it on Friday and set it up on Friday and in the evening he'll do that and we're going to probably advertise and get a lot of people to come and then on Saturday he's going to do Reminiscence I think it's the first weekend in February I think it's Friday the 7th and Saturday the 8th and then he'll be around on Sunday which I think Sunday's Arbor Day he said he might come to Arbor Day anyway, you ready? yeah you ready? I thought we could get Mayumi and get Kaz do you ever do, it has to be the black and white yeah so I think we need several artists you could get Jeanette over here too it's like a big tag team and this is going on simultaneously and will they be doing whatever comes up for them or does it have to relate to the text being read well on the theme of mountains and rivers

[90:43]

because that's the title of the poem and that's the scroll what about readers well I don't know I don't know I'll have to talk to him that's where I want to talk to him I mean it could be that maybe

[91:02]

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