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. This morning I wanted to continue with the Mountains and Waters Sutra and also just say a few remarks about our Sashin practice. which I think I'll start with that. Yesterday I talked about taking care of your posture, bringing your awareness, having your mind pervade the body and unify your body, breath, and mind into one suchness. Collect body and mind into one suchness as Sashin practice. And each one of us... has to find out what that is for ourselves.

[01:05]

No one can practice for you in place of you. One thing I wanted to mention as a healthy kind of yogic note is the importance with any yogic posture, which our sitting posture, cross-legged, or seiza, or in a chair, is a yogic posture that we're taking. And so, even though in the Fukansa Zangi it says to have your left foot on your right, on top, right foot on your left and left on top, he doesn't go into, in that universal admonitions. He doesn't go into all the different things to be aware of and about healthy sitting posture.

[02:12]

So I would like to suggest that you change your legs just the way you would if you were doing yoga and you do bring your legs on a... to one side and then you'd bring your legs to the other side. Or doing triangle pose to the right and then triangle pose to the left, clasping your hands one way and then moving the thumb to clasp. So this is balancing both sides of the body and not overstretching or overworking one side. And that can cause lots of different problems. And usually one side, as we might know, is not as flexible. It's not as easy. It's maybe impossible. So then we tend to just, well, I'll just put left on top because I can do that.

[03:14]

But then left on top becomes, you know, can cause various kinds of difficulties. So I'm right now, I'm saying this out of my own situation because for years and years and years I just did left on top. And until my left side had a lot of difficulties and I couldn't put left on top so I had to do right on top. And did that feel weird, you know? And I couldn't, you know, when I rocked the body right, left, I couldn't rock to the, with the right on top, I couldn't rock to the left. And now, after some years of putting the right on top in a regular way, it almost feels even.

[04:16]

So the body will respond, you know. And it might take a while, but slowly, slowly, very patiently, with care, we can work with both sides of our body. So I wanted to mention that. And if one side needs more props than the other, under your knee, or just find a way. And it's also very enlivening because, ooh, this doesn't feel like my regular settling in posture. So it has a fresh quality as well when you put the other leg on top or in front if you're doing Burmese, you know, switch it that way. And in a chair, I think, or Sesa, you're actually more even, you know, you don't have one leg over and you don't have that slight twist.

[05:24]

It's not that important. You could change your hands, though, if you wanted to. So I wanted to mention that. And another thing I wanted to mention is I want to ask us all to forget everything. Forget what day it is. Forget everything. Someday we'll hear three rounds of the Han, and that will mean Sashin is over. But we don't have to worry about it. We don't have to think about it. Somebody is taking care of this. And we'll just wake up in the morning, and the Han will be going, you know, 15-minute round. And, oh, I guess Sashin is over. That's the state of mind that I would like us to all be in. And just follow the sounds, follow the schedule. come to the Zendo, do your serving job, do your Soji, take a bath, and come sit, and forget about everything.

[06:29]

There's no need to think about anything. The Eno and the Dohas will take care of everything. So someone mentioned to me that they don't really like when I say, today is the fourth day of Sashin, or the fifth day of the last. And I thought, that's right, you know. It doesn't matter what day of session it is. Who cares? Who knows? So I'm not going to tell you. Someone will have to tell me when it's over, too, because I'm not counting. Yeah, so forget everything. And there's no clocks, you know, except for the Dohans. The Dohans wear watches, and they have the burden. of having to look at their watch. And we are relieved of this. We can just, we don't have to think about anything. And thank you very much, Eno and Dohans, for handling all this. Yes. So there's no clock in the Zen Doh.

[07:34]

Just like there's no clock in the tea room or in the ballroom, actually, either. There's no clock in the ballroom. You go to the dance, and whenever it ends, you know, whenever the music stops, it's over, but you're not watching. Although Cinderella at 12, she had to watch somehow. Cinderella, the do-on, the head do-on. So in the tea room, you just join with others and have your bowl of tea and chat and look at the scroll and enjoy the flowers. And don't worry about ever coming home again. Until the host says, thank you for coming.

[08:35]

So that spirit I'd like us to have during this time. I just wanted to mention something about this lectern, which is kind of heavy, isn't it, Maria, when you carry it? Yeah, it's a heavy lectern, but it is the perfect little lectern. It's the right height for me. Sometimes the lecterns, it's like I can't see over them. And it's got this nice little shelf in here to put your stick or your glasses, anything you need. And then this size is just perfect. And I just wanted to say, every time Maria brings it, how much I appreciate this lectern. And when I was the Eno, I think it was in 1974, I found it at Tassajara in like a storage, this beautiful little thing. I don't know where it came from, but it's been used ever since, and it's the perfect thing.

[09:36]

I just have to tell you. Anyway. So the other thing I wanted to say about Sesshin practice and the wind of the family house, this kind of family tradition and feeling of, I mentioned yesterday about stepping backwards and stepping forwards as part of this tradition which has been passed down to us through our teachers. And also another quality of this family style is not saying too much, not giving too much instructions, not saying, okay, first you do this, then this, then after that, then you add this, and there's the ten these that you do. There's a quality of...

[10:39]

There's some things that are said and then you're put right in the middle of the practice to find your way. And I think this is difficult sometimes because we don't know our way. We can't find our way. And we want someone to tell us exactly what we're supposed to do next. And things are being showed and conveyed all the time. and yet we have to be open to it and aware and watching, listening, and jumping into the middle ourselves. So I was telling somebody about this quality of this style, which Sojun Mel Weitzman was in a panel discussion with, I think of a Pasana person and a Tibetan person, teacher and I'm not sure, another teacher of some lineage.

[11:41]

And they were each telling about their kind of training styles, you know, training. And they had the for this and then you do this and then you do this. And it got to Mel and he said something like, well, we get up in the morning and we go to the Zendo and we eat together and we wash our bowls and then we go to work. And it's like he couldn't kind of delineate what the training actually was. There is training going on. The ox is definitely being pulled by the rope. And as Dogen says, what does he say? He makes a hole through his nose and puts the rope in and pulls himself. You know, kind of we train. We pull our own rope, you know. So this sense of not, there's not too much said, and yet there is plenty to practice with.

[12:48]

There is no dearth of practice opportunities here, just following the schedule. So our ancestor Tozan Ryokai says, you know, did this memorial service for his teacher, Yunnan. And a monk, Yunnan was not a very famous teacher. And Tozan studied with other more famous teachers. And the monk said, why are you doing this big memorial service for Yunnan? Why don't you do it for Nanchuan or some of these other teachers you study with? And Tozan said to the monk, said to the monk, well, where can I, I can't find it here. Yeah.

[13:58]

So he was hosting this big memorial and the monk says, when you were at Yunnan's place, what teaching did he give you? And Dungshan said, although I was there, I didn't receive any teachings. But you're holding a commemorative feast for the late teacher. Doesn't that show you approve his teaching? Half approve, half not approve. Why don't you completely approve of it, the monk said. If I completely approve, then I would be disloyal to my late teacher. So that's one place, but that wasn't the place The other was, why are you doing this commemorative service for him? And he said, because he didn't tell me anything. He didn't teach me anything explicit, which left Dung Shan able to discover on his own, fully. So this is a kind of quality of...

[15:02]

The Wind of the Family House, which goes back generations. And the other kind of part of this tradition is very careful attention to our life and the objects and the details of our life. There was a student who came to Green Gulch. They were... from another tradition, of which I will not name the other tradition. They sat next to me and they had their oquesa and they kind of threw it, kind of like a frisbee a little bit, like boom, you know, to put it at their place before they sat down. And it was very jarring, you know, so I think I was the tanto at Greengalch and I said something about, I don't know what I said, handling the oquesa and they said, Well, in our tradition, we're not fussy like that.

[16:04]

We just put it down like this. And basically he was saying you're too fussy about setting down the ocasa. So there are different styles, definitely different styles. I don't think he necessarily was being disrespectful. It was the style. It was the style of... It was the wind of the family house of that style, and it was like that. So there are different styles, and this particular style, or wind, is this careful attention, you know, walking into the zendo, raising in respect your robe or your bowls or your okesa, carrying it, placing it. setting it down, lifting carefully, all these things. This is a kind of, I say that this is the wind of the family house because one might think that is the only way to practice.

[17:07]

But you meet somebody from another tradition and they throw their oquesa or frisbee it. And that's that. But to accord with the atmosphere here and what the teachers in this lineage pass down, there's this kind of care. So those are some things that you may have noticed about this family house. Okay. So I wanted to continue with the mountains and waters, and some of you have your sutra books with you, and you're welcome to look at it or not. I don't think you have to, but the paragraph I'm going to I'm going to try to do today is even when we have the eyes to see the mountains as the appearance of grass and trees, it's, you know, still in, it's either section one or section two.

[18:15]

And I want to go through where it talks about the female stones and the male stones, that paragraph, ending with... parent becomes the child. So that's what I'm going to try and talk about today. And I don't want it to be a class kind of feeling. We're in the middle of a Sashin, and at the same time, it'll just be what it is. So this starts out this section about the mountains, takes up four different views of about mountains, four views that appear in Buddhist texts about mountains. So the first view is this sentence, even when we have the eyes to see mountains, the appearance of grass and trees, earth and stone, the appearance of grass and trees,

[19:19]

And as trees, earth and stone, fences and walls, this is nothing to doubt, nothing to be moved by. It is not the complete appearance of the mountains. So this first view, this is the first of the four views, is a kind of, you know, there's different commentaries. One says that this is, one commentary says this is dependent core rising, earth rising. trees, fences, walls, pebbles, it doesn't say pebbles, stone fences, balls. Okamura Roshi says this is kind of a common sense, ordinary view of the mountains. They're grass and trees and earth and stone and if there's shrines on there, buildings, it's all that together, that's when we look at a mountain, that's a view of the mountain. And it's nothing special. But this isn't the complete appearance.

[20:21]

This is not the complete appearance of the mountain or the complete, this word appearance is genjo, the complete manifestation or actualization, manifesting and appearing. That's not the complete genjo or actualization of the mountains. This first view of earth and trees and all these things doesn't penetrate completely, and so we're encouraged to understand more completely what the mountains are. So that's the first view. And this is the second view. Even when there appears an occasion in which the mountains are seen as the splendor of the seven treasures, this is still not the real refuge. So some beings look upon mountains as the splendor of the seven treasures.

[21:22]

The seven treasures are from the Lotus Sutra, gold, silver, lapis lazuli, moonstone, agate, cornelian, and pearl. So those are these seven precious things. And some beings look at the mountains and see... Like dwarves, for example, they look at the mountains and they know there's gold and silver in the mountains, right? And they go, they're miners, right? They go in looking for the gold and silver. And other people look at the splendor of the mountains if you happen to be, you know, you see mountains as splendor, you see it if you're a skier or something. or a ski instructor or an entrepreneur who wants to make a ski resort, you look at the mountains, you see a ski resort or the possibility of one. Or if you're a woodcutter, let's say, right?

[22:27]

Or a logger, you see the mountain. You see it very differently than the skier, right? Or a poet, you see the mountain. Or a painter sees the mountain. even when there appears an occasion in which the mountains are seen as the splendor of the seven treasures, or natural gas, right? You see natural gas in the mountain, or coal. You know, we talked about this a little bit. Depending on our karmic consciousness, we see the mountain the way we see the mountain. And we see it as splendor, or it's in the way, and we're going to put a tunnel through it to make a highway or whatever. This is, even if you see it that way, this is not the real refuge, even if you see it as the splendor. So the real refuge, this is a translation of jiki or jitsu-ki. And jitsu is true, real, or genuine, and ki is return.

[23:34]

So it's the true return. This isn't the true return or the true refuge. And this ki, this return, is the ki when you put it with a, kiei, that's the refuge when we say namu kiei butsu. That kiei is return or refuge. So seeing it in these various ways based on our karmic consciousness is not... the true refuge or the true return. So, kiei, the true things that we can return to and take refuge, the three treasures are the true, true things. And there's a, from Dogen's Shobogen, so kiei sambo, taking refuge in the three treasures, someone asks him, why do we take refuge in the three treasures?

[24:39]

And he says, because these three treasures are ultimate places to return. And they enable all living beings to depart from life and death, or samsara, and to verify the great awakening. Therefore, we take refuge in them. So these... three refuges are what we, those are the true refuge, not our karmic, what seems like splendiferous that we go to or want to return to. That's not the true refuge or the real refuge. This Sekito is, there's Sekito who wrote the Sandokai, Sekito Kisen Dayo, so wrote Harmony of Difference and Equality, and he also wrote this poem called Song of the Grass Hut, and I quoted it earlier.

[25:54]

At the end it says, you know, relax, you know, walk innocent, let go of a hundred years and relax and walk innocent. Anyway, he talks about building this hut that that worldly people don't love. They don't want to return to this kind of a hut. They don't love. Worldly people don't love this. And so in this next view, the third view going on in this paragraph, This is the third view. Even when they appear to us, the mountains, as the realm of the practice of the way of the Buddhas, this is not necessarily something to be desired. This to be desired is that worldly people don't desire it or don't love it. It's Aisho, place to love or cling to, something special.

[26:58]

Realms worldly people love. They don't love this grass hut. So this third view, people may look at the mountains and they appear to us as the realm of the practice of the way of the Buddhas, but this is not necessarily something to cling to or to be desired. So this realm of the practice of the way of the Buddhas, so some look upon mountains as kind of sacred mountains and kind of cling to that. You know, there's many mountains that are considered sacred and, you know, special spiritual places, right? There's a place on Mount Tam that I used to go with Lama Paldin, Caroline Aliotto, Lama Paldin, who had a, I think it was a monthly... Tara meditation at this particular place on Mount Tam where there's this green rock.

[28:05]

Have any of you done this practice with her? There's a green rock called Serpentine maybe? Anyway, it's bright green and it comes kind of, it's right on Mount Tam, this place, and there's quite a little outcropping of this rock. And when the Tibetan teachers came, that spot is directly connected with Mount Tam. Mount Diablo and Mount Shasta, there's this, and it's Tara, it's an emanation of Tara Buddha. And it's this, I have a little piece of it on my altar at Gringalter, it's this rock that's thought to be a kind of rock emanation of Tara, and it's green, and there's these Tara meditations. So anyway, it's wonderful practice and wonderful meditation and visualization practice of Tara, even when they appear, when the mountains appear to us as the realm of the practice of the way of the Buddhas, this is not necessarily something to be desired.

[29:10]

So this worshiping certain mountains and being a hermit and going as this special place and then special rules being set up like on Mount Hiei women were not allowed on Mount Hiei, which Dogen talks about in Rai Hai Tokutsui, that bowing to the marrow. This is another diatribe that he has about the ridiculousness of these practices of barring women from going to this practice place on Mount Hiei. Anyway, these kinds of relationships to these mountains, Dogen is saying, this is not something to be desired. these realms of practice, seeing mountains that way. So that's the third view of the mountain. And this is the fourth view. Even when we attain the crowning appearances of the vision of the mountains as the inconceivable virtues of the Buddhas, their reality is more than this.

[30:23]

So we've been talking about the mountains as accumulation of all the virtues of the Buddha. And this crowning crown of the head, this supreme appearance, this highest vision as the inconceivable virtues of the Buddha. This, Dogen says, you know, this is, it's more than that. So all of these views, even his view of the mountains, the reality of the mountains as the accumulation of virtues and characteristics of Buddhas, all these are karmic consciousness. All these come from our own... ground, education, karmic consciousness, our own way of seeing things.

[31:28]

And depending on if we're a woodcutter or a dwarf, we see things in a particular way. And this is called narrow view. This is narrow-minded view. And the narrow-minded view... I was talking about the frog in a well. Narrow-minded view... Other ways of saying that, this narrow one-sided views, this is the next part. Each of these appearances, or genjo, is the particular objective and subjective result of past karma. They're not the karma of the way of the Buddhists and ancestors, but narrow one-sided views. So our narrow one-sided views are One-sided views is a translation of looking at the world through a straw or through a bamboo tube. And I remember Suzuki Roshi used to say, a board-carrying fellow, which was, this is idiomatic for if you're carrying a piece of wood and you're walking around, you can't see what's going on.

[32:37]

You've got this one-sided view. What do we say in English? We say... wearing blinders, you know, or... You have other idioms for narrow-minded view. What? Tunnel vision. Tunnel vision, right. Tunnel vision, blinders, narrow, board-carrying fellow. So all these appearances of these four views are due to our subjective result, objective and subjective result, which I'll get to in a minute, but I just wanted to say that in the commentary, these four views of the mountains that we might have are taken. There's another whole list that are very similar to this from Chinese texts where it says, among the countless numbers in the assembly today, each has a different view.

[33:39]

Some may see it as the solid grove. and everything as earth and sand, grass, trees, rocks, and walls. Others may see this place as gold and silver, and the immaculate splendor of the seven treasures. So Dogen, as we know, was very well read, very literate, and so he pulled into this Mountains and Waters Sutra this other list that was talking about many beings in the assembly who viewed... things in these different four ways. So he just incorporated that into Mountains and Waters Sutra. Other beings saw this as a place of practice. Still others see this place as the marvelous realm of the Buddhas, the true Dharma body. So these four views, he's hearkening back to these other texts and things and folding that into Mountains and Waters.

[34:41]

And there's other commentary about what these four views are. The first as dependent co-rising, the second as emptiness, and so forth. So whatever our view is, if we have a view, each of these appearances is the particular objective and subjective result of past karma. They're not the karma of the way of the Buddhas and ancestors, but narrow, one-sided views. So this objective and subjective that he brings up, the word is... Objective is a-ho, subjective is show-ho, and that ho is... Remember when we talked about the ten suchnesses some weeks ago? The ho is the ninth of those ten suchnesses, which is called recompense or kind of...

[35:48]

fruit or reward. So these are karmic, the way we view things are our e-ho and our sho-ho, our objective and subjective karmic results. And the sho-ho is our particular body. Shoho is the subjective. This body, and it corresponds to those first five suchnesses, the energy and the appearance and all those very particular, our own body-mind, that's the shoho, the subjective. And the eho is the kind of circumstances or the causes and conditions. So our views are the particular a-ho and show-ho, objective and subjective karmic life.

[36:59]

And the show-ho, each of us has very particular uniqueness. And the a-ho, we share. We share the a-ho. So right now, the fact that we're all here together, sitting sishikhin, living at tasahara, living very closely, we are each other's eiho, each other's kind of objective retribution or fruit, reward, however you want to think of it. And, you know, when we open the practice period, we read that quote, you know, Suzuki Roshi says, Students should be like milk and water because we are all good friends from past lives, sharing Buddhist life as our own, something like that. And somehow when I was reading this about the a-ho and the sho-ho, that we're all here together is not some fluke or some mistake.

[38:09]

Due to our... karmic life and our shared karmic life and circumstances and the way we think about things, we are all here together, in this room together. We are in each other's lives, we are each other's lives, each other's aho, each other's objective karmic life. So... The sho-ho and the e-ho are working together, you know, our own particularities and then how we work together with this shared, kind of the collective karmic circumstances that each of us are for one another. It's kind of amazing, isn't it? How that works together. whatever we have, whatever our view is, this view has come together through this cooperation of many, many, many factors, our own personal way-seeking mind story factors and history and family, et cetera, et cetera, and how we interact with each other in the a-who realm and the myriad, 10,000 things that we come in contact with every day, how we

[39:52]

relate to that, all that cooperating all together is how we view things, is our limited view. So that's that paragraph all about the four views of the mountain. And the next paragraph, or continuing on with this paragraph. So the next part is turning the object and turning the mind is criticized by the great sage Buddha.

[40:55]

And explaining the mind and explaining the nature is not affirmed by the Buddhas and ancestors. Seeing the mind and seeing the nature is the business of non-Buddhists. So I found this a little baffling at first, because aren't we supposed to... you know, see the mind and see nature and how come he's saying that it's being criticized and it's the way of non-Buddhists, these different things explaining mind and explaining nature and so forth. So... So the turning the object and turning the mind is criticized, and the translation is criticized, but Okama Roshi says that it's actually scolded, might be a better word there, and it's scolded because it makes a separation between mind and objects.

[42:25]

It's too dualistic. Basically the criticism, I think, is that all these are too dualistic. turning the object and turning the mind, trying to change the mind and changing the object. Some people feel this is kind of the goal of the practice. Let's make our mind into something else. Let's have some psychological development here and turn, change things, and then we'll be okay, or something like that. That might be... Some we can check to see is this something, some do we have vestiges of this that we cling to or have in mind. I'm going to improve myself because I'm not okay and make and turn, treating myself as an object and turn it and become, you know, go and move into some special state or special stage.

[43:30]

This is pretty common, actually. I think maybe lots of us began to practice in this way, not happy, not satisfied, and I'm going to, you know, manipulate and turn things and change these, improve things. So this idea, and I think there's a kind of yes and no about that. Yes, you know, Suzuki Roshi's, you're perfect just the way you are, and you could use a little improvement. But we sometimes forget you're perfect just the way just the way our side, which is the non-dual, completely one with the mountains, and we have more of a gaining, getting better, this isn't okay, wanting to turn. So this is where the criticism comes in. And some... There's some sutras that use these kinds of terminology and Dogen specifically cites them and says he dislikes these.

[44:42]

Shurin Gama Sutra is one of them. He says he dislikes them and feels that they weren't really, and talks with Ru Jing, his teacher, about this way that they're talking about dharma and asks Ru Jing if this is the authentic way and Ru Jing questions it too. So this is kind of, he's bringing in these different points that are making it very dualistic. The other is explaining the mind and explaining nature is not affirmed by the Buddhist ancestors. Seeing the mind and seeing nature, that seeing the mind can show. Ken is seeing. In the morning we do the Ken Tan, looking at the Tan, seeing nature, Kensho. And the Surin Gama Sutra talks about this.

[45:45]

And also, you know, we know that term Kensho from other traditions, that this is highly valued, this seeing the mind. And Dogen doesn't like the word Kensho. either. This seeing the mind and seeing nature is as if we are separate and then we're going to see the nature over there, see our nature. Instead of we are nature, he turned, instead of all beings have Buddha nature, he changed that to all beings are Buddha nature, rather than beings have, as if We have this thing called Buddha nature that's somewhere inside of the body, hidden. We can get to it and see it, making it a substantialized thing that we can just get to it somehow, somewhere. So Dogen doesn't go with that understanding and therefore feels it's, I think, misleading in some way.

[46:49]

It sets up, I am going to see the nature and the nature is separate than me. rather than I completely am the nature, Buddha nature. So it's a separate body-mind, body-nature thing that gets set up. So he doesn't like this, can show. And this is a long conversation between Soto and Rinzai, just we may be aware of, the understanding of those practices. Kensho, what that is, or Satori. Kensho and Satori are synonymous. So is that the goal? And how come it's not the goal? And there's this dialogue, ongoing dialogue.

[47:51]

But Okamura actually was saying he feels like you know, with Rinzai Zen, that the real understanding of it is closer to this non-dual understanding anyway, and the misunderstanding of it is often what becomes misleading. So our true nature, we are the true nature, we are the expression of true nature, and how can we see it? How can we see it? as an objective thing out there. Like how can, one example always is used is how can the eye see the eye, which I found very useful. Or the sword cut the sword. You just fully functioning, fully functioning nature are full functioning. So our nature can't be seen outside of ourselves.

[48:56]

So that's why there's this criticism of seeing the mind and seeing nature. So I feel like maybe our energy is flagging a little bit, but I do feel so... Maybe I'll just finish this paragraph and then open it up, and we won't get to the stone woman. We'll do that tomorrow. Unless you'd like to get to the stone woman today, I can feel a little bit something's happening in the energy of the room. So I'll just finish this. Sticking to words and sticking to phrases are not the words of liberation. And this sticking to words and sticking to phrases is a pretty common idiom for getting caught in dualistic, intellectual, conceptual way of approaching our practice.

[50:13]

Words and phrases, very common. And then, there are words, Dogen says that, there are words that are free from such realms. such realms of conceptualization. They are the Blue Mountains constantly walking and the East Mountain moving over the water. We should give them detailed investigation. So the next paragraph, which I thought I would get to, but I don't think I will, is about the stone woman giving birth And it's complicated. I find it very, and there's many, many comments. Carol Bielfeld mentions all these different commentators, and they all say something different, and Okamura says something different, so I've kind of gone over it and over it, and I think I'll be fresh tomorrow with the stone woman and the babies.

[51:15]

So we'll do that tomorrow. Start with that tomorrow. So these four views and these ways of what he's not supporting, dualistic words and phrases, intellectualizing, may this help us in our coming back to our sitting during this session, understanding our unique karmic consciousness and living it out fully, living out our life on our cushion as the mountains walking and the Buddha practicing.

[52:18]

without trying to see something, trying to get a hold of some nature or special thing or splendor. Okay. So are there any comments or questions or anything anyone would like to bring up? Is your key this key? Do you know? No. So I'm wondering how much dualism is open for our practice. Because there could be a non-dualism that kind of just hides the practice or makes it seem like we're

[53:24]

We should have just enough, just enough dualism to respond and fully function. How much of a goal should we have in our practice? this is first thought, best thought, just enough of a goal. You know, like if the goal is follow the schedule completely, that's just enough. It's not too little. And it's not, you know, if you're stuck in non-dualism, stuck in emptiness, you might say, doesn't matter if I follow the schedule or not. It's all one man. You know that. And that, I would say, is a problem. That's stuck.

[54:27]

If it's all okay, then follow the schedule. So we've got just enough to function and respond. If it gets too much, we get kind of greedy and off balance, actually. People are in our way. Get out of my way. I'm non-dually practicing. It's kind of... And you're ruining for me. So not too greedy, but not too laid back. That doesn't work either. It's like our gassho, you know. We have a way, we have a family way of gassho, which is, you know, palms pressed together, a fist's width from your nose, arms parallel, not too much, you know, but not kind of.

[55:43]

And the thumb's like this, palms pressed so you can feel warm palm to warm palm. And then there's this space in here, so it's not crunched down and protecting your heart. There's a lot of space in here. And then when you bow, you keep that fist's width from your nose as you bow. So one can practice that way and have a kind of energy there. Actually, the energy, you can feel the energy kind of zooming out under your arms through your elbows. Like that. But you can overdo it, too. I don't know. I don't know how you can tell, but you can see, like, that gashot is really gashot, you know, to kingdom come or something. It's like, it's really, really... But you can underdo it, right?

[56:48]

you know, kind of... Although Suzuki Roshi, you know, at the end he said, you know, he was, he had a broken finger, right, so his gashou was kind of like that. Like the windows going into the kitchen at City Center has Garagi Roshi on one side and Suzuki Roshi's broken finger gashou on the other. And I think he said, you know, I'm an old man now, older. I don't even know how old he was. He's probably my age. Anyway, I'm an old man now. So his gassho became, you know, different. But as a young man, you know, boom, or a young person with lots of energy. But I think as long as we have energy to make that effort to find the gassho and feel what it's like. But too much is too much, and too little is too little. So just enough. to repeat his question or start a conflict.

[57:54]

But I feel a lot of push and pull, too, about actually sitting. There is, it is possible to waste time sitting right here. And I also hear there's a word, somebody. But then I hear a lot that No, don't do anything, you know. Then I hear there is presence, you know, stay present. Then I hear nothing special. So I still feel a lot of conflict about that. This inability to say it. As soon as you say it, somebody might feel pushed.

[58:55]

And as soon as you say the other one, then somebody else feels pulled. If you don't say anything, then somebody sits for seven days and plans their entire wedding with the reception and the outfits and the... the food and the whole thing, and they weren't even in a relationship. This is true. Not mine, but a friend of mine. At the end of the seven days, the bridesmaids outfits and all. So if you don't say anything, that can happen. And if you say too much, you know, gaining mind, you know, where's my samadhi? let me at it. It happened yesterday, it better happen today." Or whatever it is. So how do we say something and how do you find, if you feel pushed and pulled, how do you find your backward step and your unified body and mind and

[60:12]

and the non-dual quality of all the 10,000 things. And is that a goal or is that the way reality is and we're looking somewhere else? So this is a wonderful question because You know, at Antaiji, where Okamura or Roshi practice for so long, they don't have lectures. They have sashins. They don't have service either. They just sit, and they have no lectures, right? So nobody's giving anything that you might take as an instruction or whatever. You just sit and resume... your fully functioning body and mind. And you find out for yourself.

[61:14]

So I understand the feeling pushed and pulled. And maybe that will become less and less and less and less. It might feel like this at first, big flops. and then less and less until it doesn't feel pushed or pulled. It's just one seamless, clearly aware. But they're the same words.

[62:32]

Why aren't those words different? I think maybe it's about pointing at the way that we conceptualize the word? But I don't... Yeah. Well, Dogen says that these are words that are free from such realms of intellectualization and conceptualization and you should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following after speech. So these words are coming from, these are, why they're so difficult, I think, and why we feel like not, like we might feel like this is nonsense, this is, which you get so mad about later. But these words come from, you know, the, you might say, the logic of an awakened mind, you know, makes

[63:42]

effort to say something in words to I would say to point at the moon. It's like just the word east and mountain and moving and over and those are just those are karmic too. That's English words with and yet we can't put it together in our usual way, and so we're being freed in it. Dogen does that with language. He couldn't find words to fit what he was trying to express, so he made up his own in a very creative way. So to receive these packages of the Dharmakaya taking form in these words from these teachers who have compassion for us and try to help us and if we can receive them with openness and

[65:06]

not knowing, but not pushing them away, just receive and allow them in and allow yourself to sit with it, practice with it. Maybe they've done their work. Yeah, well, it makes it pretty hard, right? The Blue Mountains constantly, if you start to pursue it, even all this commentary, like, I'm finding, okay, Blue Mountain, mountain equals realm of existence, all the beings, da-da-da. Walking equals, what does it equal again? Oh yeah, practicing, da-da-da. And then pretty soon I'm just doing the same thing. So I'm watching how that's happening and being aware of that tendency. really strong, to get it all in line. This equals this. And I should have a little glossary.

[66:10]

Okay, look at my glossary. Mountain. What did he say it was again? Oh, yeah. And in some ways, you know, I am doing that somehow, but I'm trying to not stop there and open to it, open to it. Well, let's thank you all very much. Let's see. You don't have a watch to look at. The Ina will tell us things. Thank you very much. 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.

[67:08]

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