The ones who surpassed just a tree that I'm in Berkeley in Baltimore. It is a story that I believe, even if a hundred thousand million will help us. I have a need to see and listen to you. I'm doing a hundred and a six. Thank you. Thank you. ... [...]

[03:01]

Even your nine hundred thousand million kappas, having it to see and listen to you, and to remember that you accept. And if I want to taste the truth of God to target us, Funny thing happened to me on the way to the Dharma talk this morning. I was walking from my place over here and the Wheelwright Center is that building by the road where you come in with these big glass windows and on the path I could see reflected in the window there

[04:14]

this person in the distance wearing these funny clothes and walking along. It looked kind of familiar, but not really. And I looked around. There was nobody else around. It was just me. And then I remembered that that wonderful Dharma teaching that the auto industry so kindly offers to people. It's kind of a secret instruction, so people often overlook it, but you can find on your rear view mirror this pith instruction from the Buddhas and ancestors.

[05:16]

something like caution, like be alert because reflections in the mirror are closer than they appear. If you have a car, now you have that teaching, so keep it well. This week, some of us have been sitting and sitting and sitting for five days of seshin in the jewel mirror awareness. We've all been in it the entire time.

[06:19]

And some of us, once in a while, appreciate that. And some of us, once in a while, could care less because we're into the reflections in the mirror. It's so easy to overlook the mirror because it's extremely boring, whereas reflections Any kind of reflections, painful or pleasant, are at least interesting. They capture our attention. In one of the old sutras of the Buddha called the Sharangama Sutra, the great heroic march scripture,

[07:21]

The Buddha said, have you heard about Yajñadatta who lived in Shravasti? I guess it was a story about this person in the Buddha's time. Have you heard about her, Yajñadatta, who one morning held up a mirror to her face, and she fell in love with the face in the mirror. A little bit like the Western myth of Narcissus. And she gazed at the eyes and eyebrows in the mirror, but she got angry because she couldn't see her own face. So she decided she must be some kind of crazy spirit and she lost control and ran about madly.

[08:34]

It's easy to fall in love with these reflections on the mirror and forget our own original face. Even now, when we look for our face, we can't quite see it. Can we? Where is our face? It's like this big, empty window that's filled with all of you. And where your face used to be, it's filled with me. Jizo Bodhisattva and others. So then the Buddha goes on in the sutra to say, the supreme, pure, bright mind originally pervades the universe.

[09:50]

It's not something obtained from anyone else. It's yours already. Why then toil at cultivation, making yourself bone tired trying to gain verification when you already have it? We look elsewhere, the Buddha said. Yadnya Datta's head was naturally there. It was naturally her, herself. There was never a time when it wasn't there. Her head was never lost, but her madness and fear arose from her.

[10:56]

False thinking. There's something we all share. Always. That can never be lost. And it's very ordinary and simple. Very free. and peaceful, always okay. But it doesn't look like anything. When we look for it, all we see is the reflections. This pure, bright, original mind, moment to moment, is appearing as, is coloring itself as this array of colorful appearances, reflections, experiences that often seem to hide the mirror.

[12:18]

But of course, reflections on a mirror don't really hide the mirror. They just seem to. They are the mirror, actually. That's why the rear view mirror on the car says images in the mirror are actually much, much closer than they appear. They appear out there separate. but they're much closer to us. In fact, these images in the mirror have no distance at all from who we are. So the Jewel Mirror Awareness is a song taught by our...

[13:22]

9th century Chinese Zen ancestor, Dungshan. In Japanese, we call him Tozan Lyokai Dayousho. And he's our founder of our lineage. That's why we call it Soto Zen, named after Dungshan. So this teacher is especially dear to us. He's expressing the unique wind of our house, our particular style of Zen. And when I look at his teachings, I feel like, yeah, there is something, a kind of flavor in his teachings that really has come down to us today.

[14:26]

So we've gotten to this line in the song, in this poem, about form and reflection behold each other. You are not it. In truth, it is you. So these central lines of this poem are based on Dongshan's own awakening of his great awakening. And in order to tell you that story, I think it would be nice to hear some background stories, like a little bit of Dongshan's life, some other stories to get a sense of what kind of guy he was. And there's very wonderful stories, I feel, in the record of Dongshan. Here's just a few. So when he was a child, very young, but it seems like growing up in a Buddhist family, he had a tutor who was maybe teaching him to read, but teaching him to read the Heart Sutra.

[15:47]

And so he was hearing what we call the Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra. that we actually recite here every morning. And many of you have probably heard the Heart Sutra, but it has these lines in the sutra that says, in emptiness, there are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. And that list of nos goes on for quite a while. But little Dungshan, before he was named Dungshan, he questioned his tutor and said, wait, wait, wait a second. The sutra says there's no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. But he kind of like felt his face and said, I have eyes, I have ears, I have nose, I have tongue, body, mind.

[16:55]

What is that all about in the sutra? And his tutor said, I'm sorry, I can't teach you this. It's too profound. This is the kind of thing that the Zen people are into. Your question is kind of a Zen question. So maybe later you can practice that. And he did shortly thereafter. I want to understand this. I have eyes and ears, nose. But the Buddha, the great awakened one, says there's no eyes, no ears, no nose. And if we're trying to understand this now, we might think about this metaphor of the mirror. the empty, unchanging, clear mirror appearing as this multiplicity of images and reflections, including noses and things like that.

[18:24]

So later, Dengshan left home and became a monk so he could contemplate these things all the time. And I was impressed in his record that he practiced with almost all the great teachers of his day. This was the golden age of Zen in China. So he went out traveling from mountain to mountain and meeting with these teachers, and we have the records of his conversations with them. So he met with Nanquan and Guishan. He practiced with them. They're very important early Zen teachers. And then also in his record, after his awakening, he then went out and met with all these other teachers, and we have those conversations too. So I appreciate that about him.

[19:30]

He didn't just feel like, I got it. Let's see, even if I feel like I got it, let's converse. Let's meet with these other teachers and turn the Dharma together. So his main teacher, he did practice with several for a while, but he ended up staying with Yun Yan, for a while and inheriting Yunyan's Dharma. That's in our lineage. And one time in his early training, he came to his teacher, Dungshan, our hero today, came to his teacher Yunyan and said, I still have some habits that I haven't let go of.

[20:35]

Nice to confess such things to our teachers. I still have some habits that I have a hard time letting go of. And Yunyan said, well, tell me how you're practicing. It's nice when teachers ask, tell me how you're practicing. And Dung Shan said, well, I haven't even been concerned with the Four Noble Truths. Like, you know, what is suffering and the end of suffering? It's like the most basic issue. And I haven't really even been so concerned with that. Maybe another kind of confession. And Yunnan said, well, are you joyful yet? However your practice is going, you've been practicing a while.

[21:40]

Are you joyful yet? And Young Gingshan said, it's not that I'm not joyful. It's like finding a bright jewel in a pile of shit. wonderful teaching. Maybe too much to say, I'm joyful, but it's not that I'm not joyful. It's like finding this clear little shining spot of mirror in the midst of these stinky reflections. Dungshan continued to practice with his teacher, Yunnan, and one time said to his teacher, I want the teacher's eyes.

[22:54]

I think I recall being inspired by that many years ago, going to my teacher and requesting the same. I don't remember how the conversation went. But in this case, Dongshan said, I want the teacher's eyes. And Yuen said, where have yours gone? And Dongshan said, I never had them. And Yunyan said, if you did have them, where would you put them? Dungshan was silent. Didn't know how to respond. And Yunyan, the teacher, said, isn't it the eyes that want the eyes? Suzuki Roshi says somewhere, It's wisdom which is seeking wisdom.

[24:03]

And the teacher says, isn't it the eyes that want the eyes? And Dung Shan said, that's not my eye. And he said, forget it. Get out of here. He's trying to, I think, His teacher was trying to gently open his student to his own eyes, but he stubbornly wouldn't have any of it. So maybe occasionally his dear teacher would say, get out, end of conversation. Of course, there were many more conversations. Teachers sometimes can be hard on us, and sometimes that's hard, but sometimes later we appreciate it.

[25:10]

So at some point, Dongshan was getting ready to leave his teacher after many years, which happens. And I think just to practice elsewhere. Maybe it was to visit other teachers. That's, in fact, what he did do. But I think, I feel that with his teacher's great blessing and support, the teacher said to Dung Sanan, after you leave, it will be hard to meet again. And the student Dung Shan said, actually, it will be hard not to meet. Teacher sometimes takes the form of some particular person, but that's a kind of limited version of the teacher.

[26:28]

Important, but not complete understanding of the teacher. Later, I think this was after His teacher, Yunyan, had died, and it was at a monthly memorial service for his teacher, which is a tradition. Like here, we still do a monthly memorial service for the founder, Suzuki Roshi, make offerings to the founding teacher. So at that time, they were at this memorial for Dongshan's teacher, Yunyan, and a monk asked Dongshan why he honored his teacher, Yunyan, so highly, especially because he also practiced with all these other great teachers.

[27:52]

And Dongshan said, I don't esteem my late teacher's virtue. his virtuous conduct, or esteem his dharma teaching, even. I only value the fact that he didn't explain everything for me. Maybe surprising, right? We might be frustrated with our teachers who don't explain everything for us. Why don't they give it to us straightforwardly? We might feel. But the main reason Dongshan honored his teacher is that he didn't explain everything. And the monk went on to ask Dongshan, well, do you agree with your teacher or not?

[28:56]

Do you agree with everything he says and does? And Dongshan said, I half agree and half don't agree. And the monk said, why don't you completely agree with him if you honor him so much? And Dongshan said, if I completely agreed with him, I would be unfaithful to my teacher. So these are some wonderful stories about Dongshan and his teacher. They had many intimate conversations like this. Other Zen teachers of that time did a lot of shouting and hitting people with sticks. Linji was kind of known for that. But I don't think anywhere in the long record of Dongshan, he never seems to shout or hit anyone.

[30:03]

Something about his gentle, subtle style that formed, I think, a kind of gentle, subtle lineage that we practice within here today. So that was all background for the story, Dungshan's awakening. There were several other kind of, like, and insights that are in the record before this time. But this was the story of his great awakening. So it was after Dengshan left his teacher, well actually the story just before he left. The story... goes like, just before Dongshan's leaving, he asks his teacher, Yunyan, later on, if I'm asked how to describe your reality teacher, or your true Dharma teacher, if I'm asked about that,

[31:38]

How should I respond? And after pausing for a while, Yunyan said, just this is it. And Dungshan was silently contemplating that. The record said, He was lost in thought, trying to understand. Why did he say, just this is it? And as he was lost in thought, teacher Yunyan said, Dengshan, now, he wasn't named Dengshan yet, Liangzhe, now you are in charge of this great matter. You must be most thoroughgoing. And with that, Dongshan left his teacher without further comment.

[32:44]

With his straw sandals, walked down the path over mountains and rivers. Where he was going, we don't know. Maybe going to visit other teachers, but he was out in rural China. He was wading across a stream, probably a stream that wasn't running very fast. And he looked down and saw his reflection in the stream. And he had a great awakening to the meaning of his last exchange with his teacher. He had great satori. which means understanding realization upon seeing his reflection in the stream. And so he wrote an awakening verse, which is a Zen tradition, before forgetting all about it, record it for posterity.

[34:01]

Now we have it. We can keep it well. Dungshan's awakening verse upon seeing his reflection. Just don't seek from others or you will be far estranged from yourself. I now go on alone yet everywhere I meet it It now is me. I now am not it. One must understand like this to merge with suchness, thusness. And part of the play in this poem, too, is it.

[35:08]

Everywhere I meet it could also be translated as him or her. So it could be referring to his teacher because he had this awakening to the meaning of this final exchange with the teacher, in which case we could translate it. Don't seek from others or you'll be far estranged from yourself. I now go on alone, yet everywhere I meet him, Everywhere I meet my teacher. He now is me, but I'm not him. One must understand like this to merge with thusness the way it is. And for those of you who know the Jewel Mirror Awareness Song, The lines that we've gotten to in the poem seem to be based on this awakening poem of Dungshan.

[36:18]

The line in the poem is, form and reflection behold each other. You are not it. In reality, it is you. almost the same. It's a variation on his awakening poem. And his awakening was seeing a reflection of himself in the stream. I once visited Dungshan's temple in central China and it's still a very rural area. It was It was a pilgrimage that some of us from Zen Center here did to all our great Chinese ancestors' temples around China with my teacher and others.

[37:26]

And mostly we would just take our tour bus to the temple and go visit. But Dungshan was like, we almost didn't make it. It was a very rough dirt road. long, very ungraded, rough dirt road, a little bit like Tassajara for people who've been there. It was out in the mountains, and our bus that we were using was like, I'm not going to drive on that road. We can't go there. But some of us were determined. I think it was an optional trip. This is going to be rough, but those who want can do this This went to Dungshan's temple, but you're going to have to stand in the back of this little pickup truck for an hour or two, crowded together while we try to navigate these rough dirt roads.

[38:28]

And so we did make it to Dungshan's temple where there were just a few monks there. It's quite much smaller than Green Gulch. This is the founder of the... lineage in China, but the temple's kind of run down. And we got there, and the few monks who were there heard, I think the story, as I recall, we were the first Westerners to ever visit Dongshan, this group, because it's pretty remote. And so they came out with firecrackers as they sometimes do in China to kind of celebrate so they're like as we drove up it's like whoa like welcome but then there's like a path from where the truck parked up to the temple and it was across this stream and there's a bridge across the stream which is supposedly the place where this incident happened

[39:41]

the incident called Great Satori of Dungshan. And the bridge is called Encountering It Bridge, or Meeting Him Bridge, Meeting It Bridge, from the poem. Everywhere I go, I now go on alone, yet everywhere I meet it, Everywhere I encounter it. I go on alone, yet everywhere I meet it. So there's still the meeting it bridge across this little creek, really. It's a small creek. And then there's Dongshan's temple on Mount Dong. So it was already called that, and Dongshan took the name of his mountain. But I think those of us there thought that was interesting because we have this story, this 9th century record, that he had this awakening kind of off in the mountains.

[40:58]

There aren't any other temples around. So then it's kind of like he just walked like another 100 yards and built a temple. That part's not really recorded there, right? But it's kind of, you go there, if that's truly the place, it's kind of like, well, where is there to go now? I might as well just stay here, because everywhere I go, I need it. I need walk no further. So that's a little personalized addendum, footnote to the story. So, In the song of the junior samadhi awareness, Dengshan writes, it. There's a lot of the word it in this song, but that's just to make English sentences out of Chinese.

[42:05]

But if we say, what is this it? It's suchness. Thusness, it's the way it is. How is it? How is it today? Well, it's like facing a dual mirror. We can't really say what it is, but when we're talking about ultimate truth in Buddha Dharma, We can't really say it directly, but we can say what it's like. We can use metaphors and similes. I think very helpful. The Buddha used them a lot too. And this is a really good metaphor, I feel. It's, what is it? At least what's it like? Well, it's like facing a jewel mirror.

[43:08]

Form and reflection behold each other. So for those of you who've been hearing about this dual mirror for a while, you might notice that we're adding in something extra now in this central verse of the poem. Did you notice? There's three things going on now. There's three parts of the situation. Did anyone notice the difference? We've been mostly talking about the relationship of the reflections and the mirror. All these reflections that we see and hear and smell and taste and feel and think, every possible experience in the realm of sentient experience is, I would understand, reflections in this metaphor.

[44:13]

And these reflections in their true nature are actually just the mirror awareness itself. The unchanging mirror is expressing itself as constantly changing appearances. Our ordinary awareness right now is unchanging, spacious, colorless, sizeless, timeless, ungraspable, yet ever-present awake awareness. But we don't quite see it or feel it like that. Because when we look at this mirror, all we see is all this stuff and all these sounds. These are the play of awareness.

[45:15]

But the unchanging aspect seems to be hidden by the changing stuff, the content. So that's what we've been exploring. There's these images and this mirror. That's like two things, the relationship of two things. called reflections and mirror, that are neither the same, neither exactly the same, because one's called reflections and one's called mirror, nor are they really different, because you can't separate the reflections from the mirror. I've been droning on about this kind of thing all week, and so maybe getting used to exploring that. But now we're adding in a third aspect here. Form and image behold each other. The poem says, it's like facing a jewel mirror.

[46:20]

Form and image behold each other. It's a little different. I mean, it's a new dimension to explore now, right? Because we have some form looking at a reflection in the mirror and the mirror. So I think it gets a little more dynamic, you might say. And I think these lines of the, and I would say that the central lines of this Jewel Mirror Samadhi song is almost like a koan, I feel like. you can really sit with this one verse for the rest of a lifetime. And I've been sitting with it for a while and turning it over and over. It's challenging. It's dynamic. It's alive. And it seemed like this was Dungshan's experience, his great satori in the river there, too.

[47:31]

How can we unpack this metaphor? It's a metaphor. It's like facing a jewel mirror. Form, and form here in Chinese is not like rupascanda. It actually, the word is more like shape or appearance or figure. A little bit more... A little bit less solid than form, actually. But form's OK. That's another translation. We might say appearing form. Something. It doesn't even say person, but that could be a sense. Form and image or reflection. Those are two translations of that word. I think reflection, since we're talking about a mirror, works nicely. Form and reflection, the image on the mirror, Behold each other. So we have a viewer, a viewed reflection, and a mirror.

[48:37]

So those three things. How can we unpack the metaphor? So as I was just describing, the reflection on the mirror is the world of experience that's appearing. multi-sensory human life, coming packaged as colors, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, tactile sensations, which means any bodily feeling, emotions and thoughts. These are called experiences that are made of mirror. And then what is this form that's beholding the images? That's the, I would say, the new we could add in here, and it's an important piece of our life, we could say, is the sense of subjectivity.

[49:38]

Me, who I feel is me. We say there's not really some self here on this side, but there is definitely a sense of perceiving. like the sense of subjectivity, we might call like the sense of being a viewer, a hearer, an experiencer. Over here, that's relating to these images on the mirror that seem to be over there, but actually something about this mirror is really who we are. The mirror is really who we are, but we feel as if I'm something in addition to that. There's some perceiver in addition to just the sphere of awareness.

[50:43]

We feel as if there's an experiencer in addition to the sphere of experiencing. And so I think that's one way we could understand. the sense of the experiencer. When I look for my face, I can't find it, but I still feel like there's something over here, experiencing the images over there. So we've been talking more about the objective sphere of experiences. colors and sounds and thoughts and feelings are just awareness. But this is really important to now turn around and look at. Also, the sense of the experiencer is nothing more than the same dual mirror awareness.

[51:47]

In the metaphor, we might get into like. talking about it like there's one mirror over here called the sense of subjectivity, and there's another mirror over there called the sense of objectivity. And they're images of, or a sense of both, a subject over here and an object over there with two mirrors reflecting each other. That's how some people talk. Or we could just say, it's one dual mirror. but form and reflection behold each other. The sense of subjectivity, the hearer and the sound behold each other. And it's not one directional. You usually think it is, because like, I over here am hearing the sound over there and beholding the sound, but here it's more like

[52:54]

also the case that the sound is beholding the hearer. It's inconceivable intimacy. And then these lines, you are not it, in truth it is you. So we could hear it as you in this case could be the sense of subjectivity, the sense of there being some kind of separate experiencer which is really just the one in the visible mirror appearing, feeling as if it's me, it's limited. Was it Maslow or some psychologist a while back had this term, skin-encapsulated ego? Have you ever heard that term? It's not, I don't think, a Buddhist term, but I think it's an American psychological term, maybe from the 60s.

[53:58]

It's a nice way to think it. I feel like I'm a skin-encapsulated ego. In other words, I reside in this bag of skin. But this is not, if we examine our experience, it's not really who we are, right? felt sense that there's something over here, maybe even in this body, that's me. We could say that's you. So you, Kokyo, are not the mirror. That's like egotistical. You see how that's a little bit off? In one sense, it's true that, yes, Kokyo is the mirror. But for me to think of it as like, wow, I, Kokyo, am like Buddha. It's like a little bit the wrong way. It's not completely untrue, but it's more like it's too much self. It's carrying a self forward and being Buddha.

[55:04]

Whereas instead of saying you are not it, we say in reality it is you. Buddha is Kokyo. That's a little bit more appropriate. And the same for all of you, of course. You are not it to carry your sense of subjectivity forward and verify the mirror as your Buddha is called delusion. But the mirror-like Buddha coming forth and verifying the sense of subjectivity as... It's more Buddha. Awareness is called awakening. You are not it, we might say. Is that it mean the mirror or does it mean the reflection in the mirror? I think both could be true.

[56:07]

You, the sense of subjectivity, is not the reflected object. colors and sounds, or the mirror on which they're happening. But the mirror and the sounds that are being reflected actually are you. So this is maybe a little bit much for those arriving, and a little bit much maybe for people who've been sitting here for five days. But I invite you to take up the central verses of this song as a kind of koan. I have naturally done that for decades, to be honest. These lines have really, are hard to turn completely. But the more I sit with them, the more they open and reveal some ease.

[57:13]

So maybe just share with you this... That's my kind of like fumbling around for coarse words to express this kind of thing. So here's the great teacher from another lineage, Hakuin Zenji, the kind of... 17th, 18th century founder, or reviver, really, of Rinzai Zen in Japan, who was really into Dungshan. So, he was very non-sectarian in this way. So here's his description. I think a really beautiful description of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. Hakuenzenji. Bodhisattvas of... superior capacity, I may be saying.

[58:20]

This is kind of challenging to do. These bodhisattvas dwell within the dusty realm of differentiation, or within the six sensory experiences. Bodhisattvas dwell there, constantly practicing amidst an infinite variety of distinctions, reflections on the mirror. They regard all phenomena before their eyes, old and young, high and low, halls and pavilions, verandas and corridors, grasses and trees, mountains and rivers, as the true, pure face of their original self. It is just like seeing one's own face in a bright mirror. As they continue to experience things in this way over months and years, at all times and in all places, all their appearances, sights and sounds and smells, feelings and thoughts, become the jewel mirror of their own house.

[59:40]

And these bodhisattvas become the jewel mirror for those others. So he's making kind of multiple mirrors reflecting each other. Hakuin then says, Dogen, Zenji says, to carry yourself forward to practice and verify the myriad things is delusion. That the myriad things come forth to practice and verify yourself is awakening. Satori. This is exactly what I'm saying. Hakuin says, two mirrors reflecting one another without even the shadow of an image between them. Mind and objects of mind are one and the same. Things and oneself are non-dual. A white horse enters the white reed flowers, filling a silver bowl with snow.

[60:48]

This is called the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. And it's what the Parinirvana Sutra means by Buddha seeing Buddha nature with their own eyes. Do you have any questions? In the back. Wait, wait. Wait for the microphone so all can hear. It's coming. Oh, yeah. So it's about time that we usually stop. So because it's a scene and some people are leaving and I want to ask more questions... I don't mind continuing, but let's have a brief pause before you start. And anybody who would like to go?

[61:53]

Sure. Sure. Let's do that. Let's do that. Sashin people, you're not allowed to leave. Unless you have to run to the toilet. And others, after we do the chant, if you'd like to stay, you're welcome to. I mean, we have to stop at some point. But you're welcome to go. And we won't have tea today because we're still in the bright window, dual mirror sashim. Thanks for your attention. And now you have it. So please keep it well. And if you ever forget how to practice, just look in the passenger side mirror of your car. May our intention equally extend to every being and place. Out with the true benefit of love with us.

[63:00]

It is our purpose. I will give love to save love. That's... Leave it at one for today. But carry these vows infinitely. So if anyone would like to... Hello, hello, hello. Welcome. Hi. Okay, hey everyone. It's been a few times this week that you've said things that I...

[64:09]

have thought or am experiencing and I too had a sweet experience coming to the Dharma talk I was going to the car to get to put things in the car and yesterday there was a little bird on my right side mirror just hanging out and I was like oh that's cool hey Buddha and then I left and then today when I went to that side mirror it was there that And it was flying into the mirror over and over and over and over again. And it pooped. It shit everywhere. And so I was like, wow, you can't obscure this mirror. Look, form an image, behold each other. And then there was just beholding. So I was just really grateful that you also had that experience. Yes, that bird reminds me of...

[65:10]

Yadmiyadatta and Sharangama Sutra who went insane because she couldn't find her true face. She just got freaked out by the reflections. I got so close to it and it just kept going. And then it stopped and I bowed at it and then it kind of sang a song and then it kept back at it. And I was like, I got it. And then... When you were talking about the gentle and the subtle way that we practice Zen here, I had the thought, and I don't know why, but I thoroughly enjoy when there's a random shout in Zen situations. Yes. Thank you. Anyone? Anything you'd like to bring up? Yes, over here. Good, Chris.

[66:58]

So yesterday we were talking about different and just three years in Russia. was just started doing zen and before i was doing uh karmakagi which is tibetian school uh of buddhism and there's like dozens of different meditations and i was puzzled all the time whenever i heard phrase in zen like there is only like one meditation it it made me restless so today when i was thinking about like how to be a jewel mirror and i recall the the phrase in a beginner's mind that Zazen is enlightenment.

[68:03]

When you see Zazen, there's nothing to add. There's nothing to need to be taken. And I realized to be a dual mirror is just Zazen. Like, it's enlightenment. But what is Zazen? I think today with Zazen, the song that like you see it with the crossed legs in full auto so maybe like your one leg hits your uh right high and you follow your breath and i realized that probably session is the great experience of being jewel mirror because we are practicing southern in the morning when you're sleepy like during the day during the evenings we have different thoughts, different times, and different reflections. Yes, it's different reflections all day long. Same zazen, but different reflections in each of our minds of zazen.

[69:08]

And also you could say we're just one zazen. Sashin is like we're all just sharing one zazen, but each of us has many different reflections from each other too. but that doesn't hinder the unity of our one zazen. So yes, because I think what you say is right, because we already are the jewel mirror. We can't avoid it. We can't escape it. But the zazen that's more and more accepting that that's what we are, is the jewel mirror, is... is really being the jewel mirror. We always are, but the more deeply we accept it and appreciate it, the more joyful it is, I would say. Or another teacher of mine says, yes, we already are this peaceful, present awareness, but we have to be it knowingly.

[70:18]

which is kind of an interesting way to put it, right? We are it, but be it knowingly. That doesn't mean know it as something because it can't be known as something. But as Suzuki Roshi said yesterday, we maybe talked about like you, we must have this confidence in our Buddha nature and our enlightenment is this confidence in big mind. I think you said it right. So what is that? It's a zazen, but maybe there's some feeling of like, yeah, I can sit here. I've been sitting here and I can keep sitting here and my thoughts sometimes don't like it and body doesn't like it, but I can sit here. Zazen is is indeed the bright jewel mirror.

[71:25]

Yes. Yeah, and I discovered it like, but it's probably like, Zazen is one method, but it's not just one. It's always different, right? It's always different reflections. And whereas like in the Zazen, we are like a mirror. We still, still hearing different thoughts, hearing different sounds, different smells, but still we are still the same. but we are different. There's no one way to be the dual mirror knowingly either, right? But some meditations seem to be directed towards different purposes than being the dual mirror knowingly. But even then, like for example, just become so one-pointedly concentrated on the breath at the nose tip that the mind never wavers. You could say there's no talk about dual mirror there, but even then, one might actually feel as if they're being the dual mirror more knowingly at such a time, even if they never heard that, and it wasn't even what they set out to practice.

[72:39]

So Dharma Gates... to the dual mirror are boundless. And we can even vow to enter all of them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Kokia. You're welcome. Yesterday, or maybe two days ago, I asked about the jewel mirror and the jewel mirror samadhi relieving all. Its use removes all pain. Use removes all pain. It's like a tiger bomb. In the morning, is this mic cutting in and out?

[73:40]

Okay. I think it's okay now. Okay. Okay. This morning we were chanting the homage to Prajna Paramita, and there's a line in there, brings light, fear, and distress. I'm just going to talk loud, if that's okay. Maybe a battery? Yes. Yes. So could you please speak on that relationship? You know, I thought about it too when chapter 9. Interesting, we sometimes start to actually notice what we're saying. And I thought, wow, this sounds like

[74:45]

The Jewel Mirror, because so this homage to the perfection of wisdom, the lovely, the holy, the perfection of wisdom gives light. Like this mirror is a radiant mirror. And then some lines really, I think, stand out as great pointers to the Jewel Mirror. Unstained, the entire world cannot stain her. I think that's the one that really left out to me. It's like, wow, just like that mirror is unstained and the entire world of reflections never stain the mirror. Even the bird poop on that car mirror actually doesn't really stain the mirror. But actually in a metaphor, it's like there isn't anything other than the mirror. that could stain the mirror. If the reflections were something other than the mirror, then they could stain it.

[75:50]

But anything that seems like staining is actually made of the mirror. So there's that line in particular. Unstain the entire world cannot stain her. She is a source of light. And from everyone in the triple world, she removes darkness. So she's a radiant mirror and illuminates the 10,000 things as herself. And then she herself is an organ of vision. She's an organ of vision. She is the eye. She is... The mirror, we could say, that's another way of talking about the mirror, could be called knowing. I think that's what we mean by vision here.

[76:56]

The seeing of reality, the knowing, the cognition of truth. And that's what she is, Prajnaparamita. And she's an organ of vision. She has a clear knowledge, a clear knowing of the own being. We could say the true nature of all things. The own being of all dharmas, things, experiences. It's a clear knowledge of the own being, the true nature of all experiences. What's the next line? For she does not stray away from it. The mirror cannot stray away from reality. The perfection of wisdom of the Buddhas sets in motion the wheel of dharma.

[78:01]

So yes, one way to understand the perfection of wisdom would be one of the myriad synonyms of the dual mirror. One could point out differences, but one could say those are just differences or like different facets of dual on this mirror. Is that how it is? Is there anybody online still? Wow, people are still there. Is there a more or less linear relationship between time spent in Zazen and, quote, progress made?

[79:09]

If, quote, progress is even a term that applies here, in other words, sit more often, will you progress faster? We want to know after what's happened. Especially those of us invested in this machine, this painful machine. Yeah, so I think ultimately... It doesn't, the jewel mirror, and even being the jewel mirror knowingly doesn't depend on any particular conditions. And yet, practically speaking, it seems like these Zen ancestors kind of like were on to something with a lot of sitting zazen. Sometimes I also think quality is more, when it comes to zazen, Quality is more important than quantity. But quantity seems to affect quality.

[80:14]

Hello. The sequel to finishing this song, we have another session in like two more weeks. It's around the corner. And it's not full yet, I don't think. They're never full. So we'll finish the poem in the next session. And those of you coming on Sunday, what, two weeks from now? Or maybe three weeks from now. We'll finish the poem then, actually. You can skip the middle and just get the punchline at the end if you'd like. Thanks for staying around for some more Dharma. The thing that I'm hung up on is, are we doing it or is it being done?

[81:49]

You are not living truth, it is you. Well, why does it seem like I am doing it? That's the way that reflections work. They seem. That's the way they're designed to seem that way. It's mutual, right? The form and the ego needs to behold each other. So you're doing it, and it's doing you at the same time. So you can't kind of passively just, OK, I'm just going to lie here forever. reality happened to me. It would be so boring, for one thing. So you're part of it, and it's part of you. So-called you.

[82:50]

So we are re-chanted. So any extra merit that we've generated since the last destination of merit, if little more has been gathered, we offer this one, this part two, to all beings everywhere. that they turn the light around and recognize the truth. Thanks.

[83:18]

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