Good morning. Good morning. I'm gonna leave, I just downloaded this off the web, but it's on the Buddhist churches of America. And the bishop of Goy, who's coming tomorrow, is the, well actually he's in charge of all of North America, but he's based here in San Francisco, and San Francisco's headquarters. And this includes some of the history of the Buddhist churches of America. which I thought was helpful to know, its origins, its development, the Japanese internment that happened during World War II, the post-war developments, and the seminary and education that's being developed. I think each one of those has its own reference and teaching. And also thinking of Bishop Agui coming here, 62, in discovering how to be here, how to bring this practice here, has its own interesting thing.

[01:16]

Is that far enough back, Chris? Oh, you have to leave. Excuse me. Chris has to leave after. So I'll leave this over there. You know, part of our exploration of sameness and difference is to hold an appreciation for the context in which different traditions arise. I think it's working out. OK. Tomorrow he'll come and he will descend between 10 and noon.

[02:24]

Between 10 and noon. bigger and bigger. Don't get frightened. Here's a literal translation of the first couple. Ancient land, great immortals, heart, mind, east, west, intimate secret, one another,

[03:28]

The mind of the great sage of India is intimately translated from west to east. So yesterday, I was talking about sands of khai. With many Buddhist teachings, it's all in the title. If you really get back, you're done. And then from the title, often the first sentence, the first couplet, the first expression, it takes the title and gives it its meaning. And then from there on, the rest of it offers illustrations, examples of what the title

[04:37]

Shakyamuni holds up a flower and Mahakashapa smiles. The mind of the great sage of India has been transmitted. written to illustrate it. All that is about how that comes into being, what it implies, and what are the consequences of it for practicing the figure in life. So yesterday I was saying the Sandokai is a poem. The Sandokai offers an aesthetic much as a teaching to be understood.

[05:41]

And I was pointing that towards the mind of appreciation for existence. Not so much in contrast to understanding, but more that the appreciation is primary and understanding can offer its enhancement. It's attribute to appreciation. And then the other attribute I was mentioning was incorrect, offering that example of all sitting and listening to the voice of the Dorma arising in its myriad forms. What is it to let each arising be the flower? Shaquemune pulls up. What is that kind of anchor?

[06:43]

In contrast to figuring something out, in contrast to this is the right understanding, so therefore other understandings are the wrong understanding. This is it, and that's not it. That diversity is an expression of abundance, not the grounds of exclusivity, not the grounds of creating higher and lower. So then what is the state of being that has this kind of appreciation? this sense of abundance rather than scarcity this sense of ease and inclusion rather than dis-ease and exclusion what is the state of being that engages existence as the unfurling of the banner of the Dharma that each experience is a teaching

[08:06]

rather than a reenactment of some small self, some self-centered injury. What does this state mean? What is the mind heart of the great sage of India? The translation is immortal. for the word sage. The more literal translation is the immortal. In Taoism, the great sages were called the immortals. And in some way, sometimes the way of the Tao was to become immortal. More literally understood, to create a sense of health and well-being that you would live forever. I was thinking of Bishop Agui and his close relationship with Suzuki Roshi.

[09:29]

And I called him up. And he heard that I was Suzuki Roshi's daughter grandson. So this was the grandson of a dear friend. I don't know, but I think it disposed him to hear my strange ideas and to entertain and to agree to come. In some ways, we could say, well, Suzuki Roshi is dead. But then in another way, he lives on. And so often, and in so many ways, he's referenced his teachings, his spirit. being in the world, that to be such a being that it resonates so like time and space with this sense of immortality, not so much that just the physical body lasts or doesn't.

[10:43]

this is a more Buddhist way. But still, I think it says something just about the nature of our human life and how it can flower. So what I'd like to talk about mostly this morning is the mind of the great sage in India and how that mind, that heart, The word is shin, which means heart-mind. So how the heart-mind of the great sage, of the Mahasatha, the great being, is realized. From a Buddhist perspective, everybody is a particular someone. We're all born somewhere. You all had some kind of cultural upbringing, some kind of familial upbringing.

[11:51]

You speak certain language or languages of a certain size and shape. This is the particularity of our being. But there's a way in which we're also all the same. We are all human beings. a commonality to us. And that commonality speaks of not being stuck in differences. And that speaks of this inclusive, appreciative mind in contrast to this exclusive mind. When we talk about the great sage, yes, in one way we are talking about a particular person.

[12:53]

We are talking about Shakti Muni. And then in another way we are talking about the human to awaken. We are talking about the simple fact that when each person, when any person, when every person releases the limitations self-centeredness, something, some great potential is activated. So the great sage is also a potential in all being. And the heart-mind of the great sage is both the heart-mind of Shakyamuni just like Suzuki Roshi is vibrant and alive right now.

[13:54]

And it's the potential in all of us. And Zazen, as I was saying yesterday, Zazen is to sit down and open directly and completely to this hard line. And the way to do that is shikantaza. The way to do that is to just sit. It's like, it's not that small mind, small center self ceases to exist. It's just that it isn't allowed to define reality. It just becomes part of the play of reality. It's held the big mind of appreciation.

[14:57]

And that the practice of Sai Sai is to keep returning to this appreciation and to allow this appreciation to create qi, to create ka, to create transformative to enable the alchemy that shifts the being from a small sub-centered person to a big great sage and immortal and this is cross-legged sitting and this is embracing the 10,000 things. Each moment of creation met completely and fully without separation is the flower of the Dharma, is the flower of all beings.

[16:05]

So nice work if you can get it. And so how does that come about? So to my show and tells. The first show and tell. I'm going to leave these books here so that it's starting all, if you wish. The first show and tell is the direct path to realization. Just in case you want to get straight. It's a book on the sake of the plan. It came out a couple of years ago.

[17:10]

We'll put it on the reserve. I think there's probably a copy in the library. The reason it occurred to me that that was relevant was because each of the schools of Buddhism has developed, it's its own methodology of realizing the mind of the great thing, of actualizing. And we can say that early Buddhism, we have the Four Noble Truths, is something about when we forget the potential and the actualization of this great mind of appreciative being, all-inclusive appreciative being, we fall in suffering. And that suffering causes us confusion and wrong view. And then we start to act on premises that simulate a lack of light.

[18:12]

There's us and there's them. There's us good people, by coincidence. We happen to be the good ones. And by very similar coincidence, they happened to be the bad ones. You know, I was thinking of Chinese history, which, like many histories, of new groups coming to America. But it's a tale of woe, up until very recently. The Chinese community was constantly attacked. for all sorts of reasons. For a long time. Many of the Chinese came together to escape starvation, as did many others, including the Irish. And then they were preyed upon for a long time.

[19:13]

They were held responsible. They were them. And us attacked them because they deserved it. to the source of our suffering. So the Four Noble Truths are saying, this really doesn't get us anywhere. And like how many times we read Chinatown, we're not going to be happy. That a different approach is needed. And that different approach is to realize that we're a mind of the Great Sage of India. To realize the mind of the great saint in India, we need to diminish the agitation, the fear that's going on inside us. And if you do that, we cut off attachments.

[20:16]

You say we need to see it, embrace it, what did you say? Diminish. Diminish. Diminish. Diminish, thank you. Okay, thanks. Yeah. So we practice seeing them, living in a way that doesn't accumulate attachments. And that sets the ground for practicing mindfulness, seeing clearly. And the fruits of seeing clearly is the realization, is the transmission of the mind of the great sage. And this book, rich in footnotes, which makes it a great read, it's also a wonderful, direct illustration of the methodology of mindfulness

[21:19]

incorporated into meditation. So you can work through it, you can study it, whatever you wish. But that's my thought about it. And of course, there are many other texts. All of the Nikayas offer the same teaching. But the Satipatthana Sutta is a classic. in the Theravadan tradition. And maybe next week, when we go to the Theravadan temple, we can talk to and ask him about this. How much has this been part of his cultivation of his teachings and his own practice? Then, the other book I brought along is Zen Commentary on the Bumat Con, which there are several.

[22:33]

I just brought this one along because I happen to have it on my shelf. But the only one I wanted to talk about was the first case. So that the cultivation of the Zen School, this is my own notion, that this wrong view that arises from Dukkha, that arises, that is brought into being by wrong view, this narrow mind rather than this all-inclusive mind, that one can start to work on it directly diligently letting go of all the self-centered thoughts of life. And touch this state of being that we might say comes before all the discriminative thoughts and agendas.

[23:49]

So the practice of move In contrast to the practice of shikan puzzle, has a certain cutting off, cut off all the streams of thought. And so to explore this, I would suggest not so much this commentary, because there are several. There's 18 Roshis. There's Kohanimada. Kohanimada. So this is one too. But to read and savor how they talk about this transformation from small mind to big mind. To just savor, hmm, here's a proposition. And to see the common ground, the way that

[24:55]

common with the school of Shrikanthasa, the Sokos school, and the way in which it's not. The way in which it's common with the school, the Theravadan school, the school of early Buddhism, of which Theravadan is actually one. It's the one that's in existence now. And the way in which it's not. You know, to savor the difference, to appreciate the different flowers. So here you have a sutta. And it's written in a particular kind of language. Thus have I heard. On one occasion, the Blessed One is living in Kuru-kanti, the Kuru's called on Dhamma.

[25:57]

There he addressed the monks thus, monks, venerable so they replied, the blessed one said this, monks, this is the correct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of dukkha and discontent, for acquiring the true method for the realization of nirvana, namely, the four satipatans. Just savor that, and then hear it in contrast to this. A monk asked Master Joshu, has it dog the Buddha nature or not? Joshu said, no.

[27:00]

So one part of my mind, it leaves me, say, well, I like that one better, or I like the other one better. This one's the true way, and this one's not. But you know, this inclusive mind of Sandhu kind, just experiences them as different flowers. They both offer something. They both express the mind of the great sage in India. How do they do it? And this is the inquiry of the Zen school. As I was saying yesterday, inquiry is not a narrowing dime. It's not a figure of life. It's not solving a crossword puzzle. It's opening up.

[28:04]

beyond thinking. It's engaging beyond separation, where something becomes so manifest that it's realized beyond understanding. This is the Ink Koya event scope. So the monk comes to Joshua and, you know, give me an answer. Is it or isn't it? Are we all the same or are we different? Is it us or is it them? Who's right and who's wrong? And Joshu says, none of the above. Not to exclude the above, but to go beyond them. I'm thoroughly confused yet.

[29:10]

I'm going to continue. Then how is it transmitted? The mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted and translates it as esoteric. Sometimes it's translated as mysterious. In Southern Thailand, they have

[30:14]

They harvest at a certain time. I can't remember now. I think it's called durian. When I was looking at it now, when I was looking at it, it was very, very popular. It's about the size of a melon. And if you know what a chestnut works like when it's still in the coating, It was a little bit like that. It has this very strong flavor, a very strong smell, almost plunging. And people are loved. It's hard to transmit the experience eating durian. Or the only experience of being around a bunch of people who love eating durian and what goes on for them, the way they get excited the hardest time.

[31:30]

It's hard to transmit that. It's a little bit like it's a secret. You can talk about it. You can say it. You can say it. It has this pungent smell. And you might think, oh, like lemonade, or whatever. And it has this intense taste, and you might think, oh, like chocolate ice cream, or whatever. So what we do, we hear something, and then we create a reference to it. Oh, yeah, it's like ice cream. I mean, I have tasty chocolate ice cream, so I'll use that as a reference. I have smell, but all sorts of things, I'll use one of those as a reference. So I reference it in the realm of knowing what else can I do?

[32:34]

I can't reference it from experiences, from concepts that I don't have. But in some ways, to truly get it, to truly get what durian tastes like, you've got to taste it. And then you go, oh, that's what you meant when you said punji. And to be in a market in southern Thailand, what's going on here when everybody's over there? Buying it like there was no tomorrow. Oh, that's what it's like to be enthusiastic about Durian. What is the name of this room? Durian? Durian? Yeah. Usually they spell D-U-R-I-A-N. That's the usual spelling in your question. Thank you. Are you invited on Calvin Street?

[33:42]

Why would you? Not so much. was an example and so to realize that this is the nature of knowing that it's referenced in our own data it's referenced in relationship to what we have already experienced and know in that way and even there you know is this interesting point because we have an experience and then we wrap it in a concept. The challenge is, can we stay informed by our own direct experience? How do you learn to do zazen?

[34:49]

You learn to do zazen by doing zazen. When you do zazen, you have direct experience. That direct experience teaches you how to do zazen. If you want to learn how to sit inside the body you have, if you want to learn how to be the body you have, pay attention to the direct experience. You know, sometimes people come to me and I say, how's your sitting going? And they say, good. Bad. That's the answer to the question is, what is your judgment on your sitting? My judgment on my sitting is that it's going good. What experience are you having that you came to that judgment? My knees didn't hurt all day. OK. Or my mind behaved in a way that I thought was appropriate for sitting on a sofa.

[36:10]

So we're always having the right experience. And our impulse is to do something to it. to have an understanding of it, to have a judgment of it and then we consider that our note I know the difference between good zazen and bad zazen well that's according to me but something beyond the world according to me something about direct experiencing something about letting move and exposing something elemental, fundamental. Something about letting Satipatthana craft a clarity, an attentiveness, a dispassion that just sees what arises, what exists, what falls away.

[37:12]

What's the craft of Satipatthana? See it arise, see it exist, and let that register so always the dharma is about it but our human tendency is to want to judge it control it change it understand it, to translate it into something else, and then use that as our primary reference. So when the moon comes along and presents the flower of the original intimate being, it's like a secret. I don't get it. What's the guy's point? Describe it in a way I want you to.

[38:20]

How can the Buddha do that? It just is what it is. So part of the challenge then, in exploring the Dharma, in exploring the suchness of all being, is to discover what transmission is like. Is to discover how to meet the moment directly. let that direct experiencing be informative. The mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted. It's not transmitted in the ideas and feelings and judgments I have about it. It's transmitted in something beyond that. And then those ideas and feelings can be used as a reference.

[39:41]

And then it's transmitted from... You're going to get your chance to comment on all this in a few minutes. It's transmitted from what it is. It's transmitted from person to person. It's always abundant in everything, but something sparks the realization that that's so. Only a Buddha can have it with the Buddha. Saying that. The person who really gets the transmission about how durian tastes is the person who's tasted durian.

[40:45]

And then what's transmitted if they've already tasted it? Exactly. Sometimes transmission is called being of one mind. Sometimes it's called that nothing is transmitted. It's about sparking the realization of the true nature of being. So how does that happen? Each school has its own answer to that, its own response. And that's what we will see when these wonderful teachers come when we go to their places. How do they adorn their temples as an expression of this?

[41:52]

What kind of clothes do they wear when they're practicing it? kind of things do they change and not change what kind of rules have they made up for themselves to enable it to create a structure that can hold it so we'll bring an appreciative mind to that not trying to figure out are they doing it better than me or not but it's all this abundance of possibility and example that this is a Buddha and in this Buddha field there are ten thousand flowers blossom and there's west and there's east

[42:59]

guess we're west again or maybe we're just further east and even though it's the one mind it's a different culture a different body a different mind a different heart and mind that holds it that speaks it, that lives it. I was thinking of a Japanese teacher that I practiced with, and he almost never mentions his teacher. And then one guy said to him, What prompted you to do this?

[44:03]

What prompted you to come to America? Which is very close to his end con, but neither of us were in attending that. He said, I'm living my teacher's wish. My teacher wished to do this, but he died too soon, so I'm living his wish. And I got this feeling like, They weren't even two separate people. One person was thirsty, so the other one drank water. But when he expressed the Dharma, he never mentioned his teacher. So it was very interesting to be around. deep and intimate the connection and then at the same time the way it's expressed it's totally distant just brought it forth through his own body, mind and heart so it's not that Dharam is transmitted from west to east and then east

[45:29]

And I wasn't here when Suzuki Hiroshi was alive, but several people have told me that for a while it was here at Zen Center to speak with a kind of Japanese English. And then, of course, that influence has faded. somehow the devotion and the appreciation reflected itself in a certain kind of mimic. And it is, you know, not such a bad thing. You said to me, the first thing your students will copy is your bad habits. So are we. Like I think about Tishimara Roshi in Europe.

[46:48]

Quite a character, you know? And I used to drink a lot. And guess what? Guess what do students do? That phrase came back, that saying would kind of dare you to come back to when I was like, oh, OK. It's right there. Not to say it's good or bad. It's just what is. I think it just expresses something like how we mimic. And I think it's important for us to realize that. To stay true to our heritage, we become the dharma. And then it just comes out of us by us being completely ourselves. by trusting our own being. It's not so much the product of what we think we ought to be, but the product of being a certain way.

[47:54]

It's just quite natural. It just pours out. A little bit trickier than yesterday. What if you were to let that sort of like sink in, to let it reverberate, to try to sensitize yourself about what it initiated. can we hold up a flower? It's not that Mahakashava said, oh, I get it. It's the suchness of everything.

[48:54]

It's something more thorough, something beyond just the idea. It's set in motion. Something is directly experienced and real. So you've just been listening to me ramble. Thank you for listening. For the last 55 minutes. What did you get? And what did it touch? Did you say, what is death? No, I didn't. I said, what did you get from what I've been saying? And what did that touch out of that reverberate in the being? We do the same as yesterday. You can just speak when you're ready, say a word, a phrase, a paragraph.

[49:58]

Correct experience. I feel that Buddha is all flowering. You can't really know the taste of during until you experience it yourself. There is a way to move and to be as one body.

[51:16]

A few days ago, the Zen calendar in the small kitchen said, the eye doesn't see itself, the finger doesn't touch itself, and the mind doesn't know itself. I really liked that, but it finally made sense now. There's what I experience and then what I think I'm That the forms that we follow here, which can feel like rules, that somebody made them up.

[53:01]

And it made me wonder, what rules have I made up for myself that I think are just the right way to do them? is an expression of abundance, not separateness. Look at that.

[54:19]

Everyone else is just this. different.

[55:27]

This inquiring line, it has its embracing, appreciative quality. And then there's something about letting that register. Maybe we could say, contact, acknowledge, register. And something about registering allowing, enabling, discovering, realizing, transmitting. The path of practice is that we transmit it to ourselves. So we sit down as that we are in form of enthusiasm.

[57:17]

Here's one suggestion. It causes the idea of happening with it. Not so much, okay, then have an idea about that. The finger is exactly undirected. So then he says, take the backwards step. Go backwards while I have to move to the experience that gets drafted.

[58:18]

How about I have to stop thinking? That's a more complicated one. Better to work with a body. We'll get to that. Don't worry. But for now, better work with a body. Then another one. This feeling arises. This is it. This way of being embodied has sadness, connectedness, whatever. A lot of the little or large physical phenomena that give rise to this is it. Is it a feeling of softness in the breath in your chest, in your abdomen, in your shoulders? in your nostrils in your gaze is a feeling of softness and aliveness in your fingertips is a feeling of lightness in your torso whatever it is and all of what it is can that

[59:39]

And your week of learning, can that physicality of being be invited? Can it be invited in a way that it can really enable? It's our moments of realization. and transmit realization. And that's a different sensation that's different from the idea we had about it. Many of us have experienced sitting in Zazen, you think, that was a great period of Zazen. And then the next period you think, I'm going to reproduce that great period of Zazen. As long as that's happening on a mental level, As long as that's the product of, this is what I want.

[60:49]

Because I know it's right. I know it's good. We're just muddying the water. We're stirring it up. When we can touch the direct experiment, that very touching exactly and directly requires something quieter more exact, more attentive, less about me, and more about what's happening. That offers us through transmission. That offers us yogic connection. This is the yoga. This is the joining of the body of Sasa. And then we get up off our cushion. And we carry that body of being, that transmitting of intimacy in ourselves, in our life.

[61:58]

And we carry it. And we pick up the broom. And we sweep the sidewalk. And the body and the broom and the sidewalk dance together, move together. One flow of being. Hold up the dharma flower. It's totally engaging. Okay. Any comments or questions before we go? is returning to the physical sensations of a moment of realization different in terms of being a gaining idea from returning tremendously.

[62:59]

Yes, exactly, Molly. That's why it's called walking the razor's edge, because Molly is saying, well, how can that not just be simply a refined or not so refined form of a given idea. Because in its exactness, it's an expression of giving over to. It's not, OK, this is my agenda. This is what I want. It's a giving over to experience. If I don't experience, experience happens. And I don't have that experiencing. An I arises. An idea arises. So it's like, can I take a backward step from the judgment, the idea, the arrive, the need that's created, and then take the backward step to direct experience. Sometimes called walking the razor's edge, because on this side, we separate, we get distracted.

[64:05]

On this side, we grasp, want to turn it into something that I'm going to have. So what is that middle count? Well, what is it that isn't just perpetuating either my aversions, my ways of spacing light, or my grasp, my ways of I'm trying to get what I want, following me, the mind and body that I think. Constituous. It's a great question. That's the question. It's an answer, just a question. Hmm? Not particularly an answer, just a question. Yeah. But in a way, it's not an instruction. You know?

[65:10]

Arise this mind of anger. Arise with sinking light. Arise the mind that says, what is doesn't. You never seem to win when you get an answer, though. There never seems to be a victory. Exactly. If I start looking for an actual answer, I think I got one. You're looking for a victory. Is that what it is, looking for a victory? No, that's my point. Yes, exactly. We all know what it feels like to lose, but sometimes it feels just as bad to win. You don't really get anything out of that either. It's like playing the game, I guess. How about this kid saying it feels just as bad to win? For me to win, I have to create a loser, is my point, if I get in that mindset.

[66:13]

And that doesn't really help anybody. Well, if we're caught in winning and losing, well, then we'll come. This is Joshua's move. Cut it all out. There is no winning form. Drop it all. Drop, drop it. Any last comments?

[66:39]

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