good evening so it's almost the middle of the summer almost exactly the middle of the summer and sometimes for those of us that are here all summer or have been here for a while it can be a time when we might start to think I don't know what I'm doing here and if that's how you feel I would say congratulations. That's right. Very good insight on your part because, in fact, if we do think we know what we're doing here, I think we're probably wrong. If we have some idea of what we're doing here, it's fine. It's an idea, but it won't be complete. The text that I want to based my talk on tonight is from Dogen's.

[01:02]

Dogen is the founder of this school of Buddhism. And he has a text called Only a Buddha and a Buddha. And in it he says, no person can understand Buddha Dharma. A Buddha Dharma cannot be understood by a person. Only a Buddha and a Buddha can, what does he say, manifest the fullness of its reality. He says something different than that, but that's basically it. Only a Buddha and a Buddha can thoroughly master the true suchness of all things. And then he goes on a little bit later to say, realization is not like your conception of it. It does not depend on your thoughts. Realization is not like your conception of it.

[02:04]

It does not depend on your thoughts. It depends only on the manifestation of reality. So realization depends only on the manifestation of reality. It depends only on... I mean, the manifestation of reality is kind of redundant. It depends only on what's happening happening. It depends only on life living. That's all realization depends on. And our personal realization depends on our being able to be open to that manifestation of reality. And then he goes on to say, it's like, well, first he throws in this little Dogen-esque phrase, if you don't, to not... To not understand what this is like is foolish. And in a minute you'll see why. Because he says, it's like when you meet a person not caring what they look like.

[03:10]

It's also like looking at a flower or the moon and not wishing it was a different color or brighter. So I think that's pretty straightforward. I think most of us look at the moon and flowers, both of which we have wonderful examples of around us these days and nights, and we look at them and we don't think, gee, I wish that moon was a little brighter tonight. That flower, it's kind of a, you know, it could be better. This doesn't happen for us, you know. Why is it so easy with flowers and the moon? And it gets so complicated when it comes to other people and ourselves. I think it's partly that if you look at the moon, you don't think, I think the moon, it's a little dull tonight.

[04:12]

I'll bet it's mad at me. That flower, if it really loved me, it would be bread. It just doesn't occur. We have at least that much distance, that much perspective on life that we can see, oh, the flowers and the moon actually are doing their thing, not dependent on me, not dependent on my thoughts about it, not dependent on my conception, not dependent on my life, not dependent on whether I notice them or not. It's kind of a miracle, given how little perception we have about most things, that we can see the moon and the flowers in this way. So please enjoy that little space of liberation, which Jogen says is exactly like realization that depends only on the manifestation of reality. And the way, again, the way our personal realization is,

[05:19]

connects with this is by our being able to be open to reality as it manifests. And that's where it gets complicated. Because we do think this has to do with me. Everything, basically. I mean, we can take anything quite personally. I had a difficult interaction the other day. a friend of mine, an old friend, or, you know, a medium friend, not an old, old friend, but a medium friend, who is no longer here, called me, used to be here, and asked me to call her. So I called her, because, of course, she can't call me, so I called her, and was very surprised when she said, basically, you know, back there a few years ago, when we were living together at Tassahara, at some point, you started treating me very meanly, in a very mean way, and I have felt bad about it ever since, and I haven't been able to talk to you about it, and I was surprised, shocked, almost one might say, and said to her, could you give me some examples of what happened or what was said, and she could only remember one actual

[06:46]

I mean, there were several times that she remembered, but she couldn't remember the actual words. But this one time that she remembered, it's so interesting, having these things go on the Internet. You don't really know who you're talking to, but it's okay. She and I have talked about this. She could only give me one time, and the words she gave me, I could imagine myself saying, but in a kind of joking way. You know, a little jokey, a little... down a little put down in there probably and and she couldn't you know she remembered one other time when also her partner was there and also thought wow that was a bit much so I was trying to take this in and be open to it and actually you know I had to be I couldn't really find the

[07:47]

accuracy of her experience of it in my memory of the experience. But I couldn't really write it off either. I mean, there was her experience, and there was her partner's experience, and there was my experience of myself in the past, where, in fact, I did used to, I hope it's used to, make kind of jabbing statements at people, especially people who I felt were powerful. was a safer way to get at them, you know, than straight on. So, you know, I really hoped that I wasn't doing that with her, but I couldn't really say, I did not do that. That's not, I could say, this doesn't, you know, I can't find where this would have been coming from. But I'm really embarrassed. I'm really sorry. If you remember any more exactness to it. I'd like to hear about it. And then I thought about it, you know, for a while.

[08:52]

I mean, obviously I'm still thinking about it a little bit and still don't know what was really happening. If there is any even what was really happening. There were at least two experiences going on there, mine and hers. So this only a Buddha and a Buddha can manifest the true suchness of reality. This is one of the ways that that happens. Like someone told me today that they had been so proud of themselves they hadn't gotten angry in two years. And then they realized that actually they'd hardly spent any time with anybody in two years until they came here. And then they got angry again. My goodness. So, you know, it's possible that we could construct a life where our experience of ourself was not argued with by anything. You know, where the moon and the flowers all just shine at us, and they say, you're great, you must be great, because look how beautiful I am.

[09:59]

And there would be no contradictory information coming at us, maybe. Although usually, you know, there's pretty contradictory information just coming... from ourselves to ourselves, you know, all those other voices that are talking about us to us all the time. But when we actually are there in the room or over the telephone with other beings that are also sensitive and projecting and feeling like what we're doing is about them, sometimes accurately, sometimes not, there is a lot more... of the complexity of the manifestation of reality coming at us, coming into our senses, into our mind. Michael Wenger has talked about this phrase, only a Buddha and a Buddha can... whatever he says, those words I can't quite get...

[11:07]

And he describes it as, if you're looking at, like if I'm looking at Greg right now, I cannot see what's behind me. But he can. And he can't see what's behind him. But I can. He can't even, if he keeps looking at me, he can't even see the people next to him, like all of you. Don't look around. So just in that simple, you know, little physical way, we can't really... experience the fullness of reality. Of course now it will take more than just Greg and me to experience what's going on in this room, in this Buddha field, this Buddha Dharma field. It actually takes each one of us manifesting who we are. It doesn't actually take each one of us understanding what's going on with ourselves even. It just takes us manifesting it And then, little by little, we bump into parts of it, and we have the possibility of expanding our universe by hearing, oh, you thought I was being mean to you.

[12:25]

Wow, what was that? What happened there? Will I ever know? I sort of doubt it. I sort of doubt if in this case... I'll ever know more about it. And that's okay. That's enough. That's enough information. That's enough to say, please be careful for me to say to myself, please be careful. Try to notice if you're having negative feelings about someone so that you have some choice about how to express them or whether to express them. But will I be able to do that? I don't know. I don't know. So I should be ready to say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for who I am having the impact, the painful impact it has on you. Have I, this summer, told my little, my karma lady paradigm? Does anybody know? Those of you who have heard it a million times won't know whether it was this summer.

[13:31]

And those of you who are new this summer, okay, I'm going to tell it again then. Because it was very helpful to me, has been very helpful to me, in getting this little bit of space from this person who I care so much about. I care, how does this person manifest? Is this person mean? Is this person mean? I mean, if you're mean, a little mean, a little mean, I can handle it. I can even handle it if you're a little mean to me. say, oh, you're having a bad day or whatever. But if I'm mean, it's really hard. I don't want to be a mean person. I have spent years and years and years building up a self-identity that people would not call mean. So to open that up and make room for, oh, meanness happens over here is difficult. So here's this paradigm that helps me. I call it a paradigm because...

[14:33]

It's a made-up story and may have some truth to it. So here's the universe. There's the universe. It's full of universal karma. It's full of the karma of everything, everything that's happened up until now. It's full of our karma, our parents' karma, our grandparents' karma, our ancestors' karma. The karma of the whole universe is here making the universe. And in this universe are bundles of karmic energy. Places where the karmic energy kind of gets bundled together into objects like people. So here are people that have some amount of the universal karmic energy of the universe bundled up in them. And I'm one of those people. So my vow is to be with this bundle of universal karmic energy.

[15:40]

In this life, to be with this particular bundle of universal karmic energy. And it's not, I can call it me, but it's really this universal karmic energy that has the possibility of being disentangled a little bit. in this lifetime and I think the main way that it can get disentangled is to be manifested to become reality and then to be realized in that you know it's like as it becomes manifested it's possible to see its its roots really its where it comes from. Now, maybe not its deepest roots, maybe not its roots from back at the beginning of the universe, but it's possible to see some of its roots. And thereby, some of it will disentangle.

[16:44]

It won't have the same kind of potency as when it's just functioning, and especially when it's functioning and somebody like me is saying, I don't want this, so I have to do things to get rid of it. get away from the people that are making me feel that way or do away with the people who are making me feel that way. If you have enough power or enough of us get together, then we can get rid of some people who we don't like the way they make us feel or they threaten the way we think we should live. So instead of just going with that impulse to please don't let me feel this. Don't let me be this. What do I need to do to get rid of this? To turn that impulse around and say, okay, I vow to be open to this karmic energy and this karma in this lifetime and see what is it?

[17:52]

What is it? What makes it up? And I think what we usually see at the root of it is fear, some kind of fear. And that fear actually makes a fair amount of sense. It's not easy to be a human being. It's not easy to be a temporary human being, for that matter. Someone who is not invulnerable, who is going to die, who's going to do... suffer in many other ways before dying, probably. So that's not easy. And it makes sense that I would be afraid of that. At the end of this quote of Dogen's about the flowers and the moon, he says, if you look at spring and autumn and you wish they were different, reflect on the fact that they are what they are. If you look at spring and autumn and you wish they would not change, if it's a beautiful day like today and you wish, I wish it could stay like this, please don't get hotter.

[19:03]

Or as we were saying at dinner tonight, we're already moving toward the dark. We're past the solstice, it's darker now than it was nine days ago. And it's going to keep going this way until December 21st. It's going to be dark and cold. So if you think of that and you think, I don't want that to happen. Let's stay like today. Today was a great day. Stay like that. If you think that way or feel that way, reflect on the fact that spring and autumn don't have unchanging self. They don't exist like that. So that same kind of thoughts can be directed toward ourselves and toward situations. But I think ourselves are really the... the biggest source of our pain. So, if I think, please don't be like that. Reflect on, it is what it is. And what it is, is beyond describing.

[20:09]

I mean, I can say mean. Mean things might have happened over here. Mean things have happened over here. I can say that, but that's not a full description of it. But the experience of whatever the experience is, that is what it is. And to wish that it were different, it's just a wish. It's just a wish. If I can say, oh, I like the way I am. I like it that I was able to apologize to her and be sorry that it hurt her and that I was able to look at what was going on and that I didn't find what she thought was there. I like that. Please be like that. You know, reflect on nothing at all has unchanging self. I don't know who I'll be tomorrow, what ugly thought might come into my head, what ugly thought might come out of my mouth. Nothing at all has unchanging self.

[21:14]

Can I, because this universal karmic energy. It's not that that takes away my responsibility for it. If an ugly thought comes out of my mouth, it's really good if I can apologize, if I can notice, first of all, that it happened. And sometimes it takes a Buddha and a Buddha. Sometimes it takes somebody else coming back to you, whenever it is, years later, and saying, that really hurt. Then apologizing is... doesn't take away the hurt necessarily, although in this case I think it really helped, but it does help. It does help. There's a poem that doesn't... It's a poem that I've repeated many times, and it doesn't... It isn't in Dogen, but it seems to me to

[22:16]

express this same thought in a way. It's called The Unique Breeze of Reality. That's his first line. The Unique Breeze of Reality. Can you see it? Continuously creation runs her loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the forms of spring. As the woof goes through the warp, the weave is dense and fine, One continuous thread comes from the shuttle, making each design. How can this even be spoken of on the same day as false cause or no cause? The unique breeze of reality. Can you see it? Continuously, creation runs her loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the forms of spring. As the whoop Woof goes through the warp. The weave is dense and fine.

[23:19]

One continuous thread comes from the shuttle. How can this even be spoken of on the same day as false cause or no cause? This last line, I think, speaks to the fact that we sometimes tend to think that the wrong thing has happened. You know, there was either no ka, this came out of the blue. Like, I could have thought that about this woman, you know. What? That's not me. You know, that came from nowhere. Or false ka, you know, like something went wrong. Somehow we got in the wrong life. The wrong life started to happen around me and it was a mistake. You know, and this is saying, actually the weave is dense and fine, you know. Our This karmic universal karma is all around us. It's like close. It's close.

[24:21]

It's all inside us. It's very close. Things happen because there was room for them, because of how they fit with the other things. So it's possible for us to see some part of that. Again, not all of it, but enough of it so that... we can understand, again, not totally, we don't need to understand totally, but enough to see some part of our part in it and actually to have an impact on it. Because the weave is so dense and fine that anything we do changes it. Life is kind of like a kaleidoscope. You know a kaleidoscope? It's one of those things that's got pretty rocks in it and mirrors and when you look into it it makes a design and then you know you do anything you bump it a little bit and and then but a new design comes right so life is kind of like that if you move a little bit if you change your attitude a little bit the whole thing rearranges itself and makes a slightly different design so we have that power actually we can change

[25:37]

situations in our life on the other hand things are what they are if we think we're just going to change everything that's more power than we actually have but to to focus on what is within our ability to have an impact on I mean that's one of the the tricks of practice right is to find out where to focus we often go around very much focusing outward. Like, what's going on out there? Is it safe? Who's to blame? Including ourselves. But to actually find where are the crevices where there's, you know, where my attention can have an impact. I think that's really, in some way, that's one way of describing what zazen is about. It's like, sitting down and finding where does my attention actually have an impact.

[26:42]

And again, I don't think it's so much that we figure it out, you know, that it's our thoughts that get to the bottom of what is realization. Where does realization happen? No. Realization happens beyond our thoughts, happens with the manifestation of reality, but our thoughts are definitely part of it and our attitudes are part of it and our our attention is part of it. It's good to look at your watch, right side up. So here, at the middle of the summer, for those of us who are staying, and at the middle of our lives, for those of us who are living, this what many points here not to feel so much like I have to get this but together to rest in our life to proceed step by step in this ancient brocade with all the threads surrounding us

[28:07]

with the Buddhas the Buddha and Buddhas and Buddhas and Buddhas who are part of this realization with us and to be open to that that manifesting of reality just to be open to it is a miraculous thing to actually feel ourselves held in that ancient brocade and to be able to just to rest there as this body and mind, imperfect as it is, containing many tightnesses, many graspings, many fears, and to just walk around rubbing elbows with other Buddhas and having those fears manifest themselves and try to be gentle with them so that they have both our own and other people's so that there is the possibility of them disentangling a little bit.

[29:10]

So that's one way of saying what I think about what we're doing here, which, just like what you think about it, is partial. But I hope it encourages you to keep on keeping on. Does anyone have any thoughts or questions? I need another minute. Yes, go ahead. What was the Lady Dorma analogy? I told the story a little different than I sometimes do, which is why she didn't come out so much. Basically, it's kind of like taking yourself and setting her over there, her or him, and saying, I vow to be with you. This bundle of karmic energy, the friend who told me about it called her the karma lady.

[30:17]

She said, I call her the karma lady, and I say, I vow to be with you. Thank you for asking. Okay. Thank you all very much.

[30:27]

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