I am about to taste the truth of the Tathātā's words. How are you doing? All right. Good. Good to see you. You too. You didn't change a bit. I forgot to bring my tablet to take attendance, so I won't take attendance. We're all here. Everybody's here. Awesome. That's the best part of the class, right? Yeah. All right. So, here we are. Is everybody okay? Everybody's fine? Yeah. Who are you? His name is Matt. Hi. I know. How are you? Okay, so, well, Tassajara is great, and I had a good time there.

[01:09]

They get up very early there at Tassajara. And so I bring regards to all of you from everyone there. It really is a good practice period. Everybody's very stable, taking their practice very deep. The head student at Tassajara sends special greetings to Sukhi. Says hello. And, yeah, I had a good time. Busy, busy, you know, always something going on. But I had a great time. So, I would like to, I have hope that maybe because of traveling and all this that we could end the class slightly early tonight so we could all get a good night's sleep, myself included. So, I think that, let's see how far we can get talking about, this is the fourth class, and we have two more, right? The next two Tuesdays.

[02:10]

So, I think we're doing very well, you know. We might even go so far as to finish going through the text once by next week, and then the last week maybe kind of hit the highlights or review or discuss or something. And right now I thought we could start with, right in darkness there is light, but don't see it as light. Which we talked about last time, but I thought we could review that and go further. Right in darkness there is light, but don't see it as light. Right in light there is darkness, but don't confront it as darkness. Light and dark are relative to one another like forward and backward steps. All things have their function, it is a matter of use in the appropriate situation. Phenomena exist like box and cover joining, principle of course like arrow points meeting. This would be ambitious to discuss all of that tonight, but we'll see how far we can get.

[03:11]

Those are the lines that I've prepared for tonight. And I'll talk about, you know, go start there and see, I'll talk for a while and then we'll have a discussion. So, Kastanahasi translates, right in darkness there is brightness, don't regard it as mere brightness. Right in brightness there is darkness, don't treat it as mere darkness. Right in darkness there is brightness, don't regard it as mere brightness. So the word mere makes it a little different feeling. And Master Sheng Yen translates, in the midst of brightness there is darkness, do not take darkness as darkness. In the midst of darkness there is brightness, do not take brightness as brightness. So, as we were saying last time, the metaphors darkness and brightness in the poem stand for these two poles that the poem is talking about.

[04:32]

Darkness, the world of emptiness, the world of unity, equality, non-distinction, non-difference, all things being really the same. Or the sameness that runs through all things. Darkness stands for that side or that approach to phenomena or life, the life that we lead. And then light conversely stands for the world of difference, differentiation, individuality, multiplicity and so forth. Form versus emptiness or all the skandhas versus emptiness. So the translation that I made is, in the middle of light there is darkness, but do not meet it with the characteristics of darkness.

[05:33]

In the middle of darkness there is light, but do not see it with the characteristics of light. So, in this case I would like to talk about it in terms of difference and sameness or difference and oneness. And it's hard to talk about this coherently, but I will try to. I had a thought about it, I will try to say what I was thinking, see if it comes out with some clarity. Everything, especially the more that you notice your own mind, you really see how it is that you are pretty different from somebody else. And everybody is really different from everybody else. We know that people from different cultures are different from one another.

[06:41]

But even within what looks like one culture there are many sub-cultures. And within those sub-cultures there are sub-cultures. Somebody, for instance, who is from a small town is different from somebody from a big city. And their consciousness, their approach to life is quite different. Somebody who lost a parent at an early age is different from somebody who didn't and so on. We all have different experiences and the way that we view the world is different. Each human being is different. Each creature that appears in this world is really different from each other one. And the more that we sit with our own mind and the more we become aware of our own stuff, the more clear it becomes to us how little we understand others and how little we understand ourselves really. And how different we are from ourselves. How many parts of us that arise in us are different and we didn't know it were there. We kind of have, generally speaking, a fairly superficial view even of ourselves. And then more and more as we practice we even become in touch with the mystery and difference even within ourselves.

[07:50]

More so when we confront another person. So things really are different. I mean they're really different. And difference is difference. But where does difference come from? Difference comes from the fact that things share the commonality of being in existence, of being embodied, of being present. And they say about the Dharma, it's like the ocean. If you stick your finger in the ocean there's one taste. Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, the middle of the ocean, by the shore. When you stick your finger in there, it's the taste of salt. One taste. And the Dharma is like that. The Dharma is one taste. And existence is one taste. That things appear at all. Everything is exactly the same in the fact that it exists at all. In the fact that it's in being and embodied in a physical universe.

[08:52]

And that fact is dependent on that fact, these things that are so radically different appear. So difference and unity are completely dependent on each other. You don't have one without the other. But if difference appears, some person appears, and they're really different. You know that their difference is dependent on the sameness that we share together. But if you see it as sameness, oh, you're not any different from me. So you identify it as sameness. Then you're failing to see the person's difference and honor their difference. So even though we understand that difference depends on sameness, it's very important, these lines are saying, as I understand them, that we need to appreciate difference as difference.

[09:56]

And not fuzz it over with some ideology of sameness. As soon as we say, oh, it's all the same, or you aren't really different, as we want to say, because we take difference as separation. And painfulness. And I see this in our sangha. We have great pain over the fact that people are different, and understand differently, and practice differently. And people have tremendous pain around this. Tremendous pain, because they feel, if I'm different, I must be separate. I must be outside. So then they either emphasize their difference and don't see the sameness, or they try to smooth over and say, oh, we're all the same. Actually, different is different. And we need to appreciate difference. So that's what this line is saying. Right in the middle of light, there is darkness, but don't see it as darkness. Don't fall back on darkness. Be in the light. When it's light, be in the light. And conversely, in the middle of darkness, there is light,

[10:58]

but do not see it with the characteristics of light. There is no oneness separate from the individual appearance of things. Oneness is not in some other place, like over there. Here's all of us in difference, but then over there, if we all left the room and walked over there, we would open the door and there would be this giant pile of oneness. It's different from this difference. Actually, there's no oneness without difference. It's not in the other room. See, the oneness is in the room, here, and totally depends on the difference. In the poem, on a number of occasions, it says, it uses the Chinese philosophical terms phenomenon and principle. You know when it says, merging with principle is still not enlightenment? What does it say before that? To grasping things. It's basically delusion. So grasping phenomena is basically delusion,

[12:00]

but merging with principle is still not enlightenment. And these two terms, phenomena and principle, are Chinese philosophical concepts of Taoism and Confucianism. And one of the features of the Sandokai and Hokyo Zama is that they're some of the earliest, earliest works, Zen works, that use Taoist and Confucianist terms to express Buddhism. So these are Chinese philosophical terms, phenomena and principle, that are used to translate difference and unity, phenomena being difference, principle being unity, and so on. So, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because the word in Chinese for principle comes from a pattern that you see in jade, a kind of a smoky pattern that you see, that's shot through jade.

[13:01]

So the idea is that there are things, like a piece of jade, that you can hold in your hand, and then there's a pattern throughout things, that's not a thing in itself, but the pattern, like a thread that connects things, that's the pattern, that's the principle. So that's the difference between phenomena, which is individual things, and principle, which is the pattern of similarity between things, or you could say the thread that runs through things. So, without things, there's no thread that runs through things. So there is no unity, apart from the actual difference of things. There is no emptiness, apart from the appearance of phenomena in the world. So, but, when it's time for oneness, when it's time to emphasize oneness, when it's time to experience oneness, see it as darkness. In the middle of that darkness there is light, because there is no oneness apart from multiplicity. But when it's time for oneness, when the expression,

[14:02]

when the experience of oneness appears, take it as oneness. Don't fall back into differentiation. How would you fall back into differentiation? By naming the experience of oneness as an experience among all of our other experiences. So as soon as we say, oh, that was the experience of oneness, that was a great thing, I'm very happy about that, then immediately we have placed the experience of oneness in the light, and we have included it as an object among many other different objects. So don't do that. When it's oneness, let it be oneness. Even though we know that oneness is not separate from difference, let oneness be oneness, and let difference be difference. So that's how I understand those lines. I think that to kind of bring this home, or make it more concrete, because this is a very philosophical statement here,

[15:03]

to make it more concrete, we all sit in zazen, and we all do the same thing. We all sit up straight, and we all have a body, and all of our spines are in the same place in our body, and our brains are in the same place, and our bellies are in the same place, and then we sit and we breathe. And when we breathe, we breathe the same air. And we breathe with everything, with each other, and everything breathes. The whole earth is breathing in and out. I was in the aquarium the other day. I had a day off on Friday, and I went to the aquarium in Monterey and saw these jellyfish. And the jellyfish seem to have the same kind of action, a very simple life the jellyfish have, but it's the same kind of breathing in and breathing out. That's the whole life of the jellyfish. And everything is like that. The trees, the planet, everything is breathing in and breathing out.

[16:05]

So, in a very real way, we are truly connected in these simple facts of being embodied and breathing. Everything is doing that. And so when we sit, when we practice mindfulness of the body and we practice mindfulness of the breath, really and truly we are in touch with, in a very concrete way, the equality and the unity of everything. Then, something comes up in our mind. Well, who knows what comes up in your mind? Who knows what comes up in the mind of the guy sitting next to you? It's completely different, depending on that person's karma and experience. I mean, one person is sitting there, and they're in hell. They're wandering around in hell, and the fighting demons are slashing at them. The other person is in bliss, you know what I mean? And they don't even know the difference. They can't tell. So, everybody is different and the same at the same time. So, I want to read you a poem of Rilke,

[17:05]

which I think is a nice poem and makes some suggestion of what I'm talking about. Let's see. Any German speakers nearby? Will you read the title? Because they don't translate the titles. Wenn Atmosphäre vom Fenster fällt. If something is falling out of my window. Yeah. If something is falling out of my window. Yeah. That's the title. It's odd that they don't translate the titles. The titles are left in German in all the poems. So, the poem goes, How surely gravity's law, strong as an ocean current, takes hold of even the smallest thing and pulls it toward the heart of the world. Each thing, each stone, blossom, child, is held in place.

[18:08]

Only we, in our arrogance, push out beyond what we each belong to for some empty freedom. If we surrendered to earth's intelligence, we could rise up rooted like trees. Instead, we entangle ourselves in knots of our own making and struggle, lonely and confused. So, like children, we begin again to learn from the things because they are in God's heart. They have never left Him. This is what the things can teach us. To fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly. How surely gravity's law, strong as an ocean current, takes hold of even the smallest thing and pulls it toward the heart of the world. Each thing, each stone, blossom, child, is held in place. Only we, in our arrogance,

[19:10]

in our separation, in our arrogance of separation, only we, in our arrogance, push out beyond what we each belong to for some empty freedom. If we surrendered to earth's intelligence, we could rise up rooted like trees. Instead, we entangle ourselves in knots of our own making and struggle, lonely and confused. So, like children, we begin again to learn from the things because they are in God's heart. They have never left Him. And this is so much of our practice, learning from the things, learning from the orioke bowls, learning from standing and walking and the things that we handle. These things don't have the kind of confusion that we have, pushing outward for some empty freedom. This is what the things can teach us, to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly.

[20:13]

So, you see, when we can be in touch with the side of the darkness, the side of oneness, then we can celebrate our difference and it doesn't have to exile us from this world. So, so much of our practice, I think, emphasizes this coming back to this point of just being embodied, just being present, just breathing, just literally feeling gravity operating on us, just like on everything else. And also, Suzuki Roshi has a comment here that I think is relevant. He says, but because things are different, because of the difference,

[21:17]

everything has its own meaning. Everything has its own value. That value is absolute value. The mountain is not valuable because it is high, and the river less valuable because it is low. On the other hand, you can say, because mountain is high, mountain is mountain, and it has absolute value. Because water runs in the lower valley, it is valuable. The quality of the mountain and the quality of the river are completely different. Because they are different, they have equal value. Equal means absolute value. So if we evaluate things from the absolute viewpoint, they have equal value. So equality is differentiation, according to Buddha. Differentiation is equality. In the usual sense, differentiation is opposite to equal, but we understand equality and differentiation are the same thing. And one and many are the same. So each thing, in being absolutely what it is,

[22:23]

in its difference, has absolute value. It contains everything. Nothing is left out. And that is true of any one of our lives. We are looking for, either to get something or get rid of something. That is what we think we are trying to do in the course of our practice. If only I could get rid of this terrible personal quality that I have, then everything would be better. If only I could add here, where I have a lack, this would be wonderful. But the qualities that we have, just as they are, when appreciated and seen as coming from the oneness that is fundamental to our lives, these exact qualities that make us different don't make us separate. And they are just fine the way they are. There is a kind of healing in that. And

[23:29]

I think you know that I think one of the features, it seems to me, of this particular period is the uncovering of tremendous difference among peoples, different kinds of people. And lots of fighting is going on because of difference within countries, different groups of people killing one another, you know, over their differences. And, you know, it's a shocking and disappointing it's shocking and disappointing to realize how much religion fosters this violence, you know. How you see people killing one another over religious differences

[24:34]

and ethnic differences everywhere. And I think that this fact is a reaction to the previous period in which people tried to say we're all the same, which was a kind of tyranny, right, of the majority over let's wipe out these differences. Anybody who's different, we're going to get rid of them. Or deny that it's so. Once that was removed and now everybody's different but then everybody feels separate in their difference. So, this teaching of Sandakai is telling us that in the real world we can be different and we can notice difference and honor difference and see that right in the light there is darkness. Not to deny that light is light but to see that there can be peace. There can be difference and there can be peace. There can be real diversity and differentiation and there can be peace. And I feel that this is a particular gift that we have to

[25:40]

understand and offer. This is really the source of Thich Nhat Hanh's whole teaching about reconciliation and peacefulness comes from this teaching that's deeply embedded in Buddhadharma. So, I think that we should all work on this the best we can in our own lives and wherever we go try to be a person of peace and to appreciate difference without seeing it as separation. So, it's a great challenge to us. Starting right here in our own Sangha in our own practice period. Can we honor that people are very different? And we allow them to be different and yet we feel a kinship and a love and a sense of connection with people who are different. Any one of us can be different. So, then the next lines say Brightness and darkness

[26:52]

anticipate each other just as one foot follows the other. That's Kaza's translation. And Master Sheng Yen says Brightness and darkness correspond like one step following another. I think that in my opinion neither one of these translations is quite satisfactory because there's a nice point being made here that it's harder to see with those translations. I translated it Light and dark position each other like forward and backward feet and walking. So, you get the picture when you're walking you say, so here's your right foot

[27:54]

and your left foot, you're walking like this. And you say, there's my forward foot and that's my backward foot. Then you take another step and you say whoops, I thought this was the forward foot but no, that's the forward foot. And you take another step and you say whoops that's the forward foot and that's the backward foot. So, which one is the forward foot now? I'm confused. Is it this one or that one? First it was this one, now it's that one and then it changed again. In Tibetan Buddhist philosophy they have a nice way of explaining this, they say phenomena the nature of phenomena is like this mountain and that mountain. So, there's two mountains and now I'm climbing up this mountain and I'm on top. I'm on this mountain, right? And over there is that mountain. So, it's clear, right? This mountain and that mountain. Now I climb down this mountain and I walk across the valley and I climb that other mountain and now I'm on this mountain. Wait a minute, it was that mountain and now it's this mountain

[28:54]

and over there is that mountain but before it was this mountain. So, this mountain and that mountain are not entities they're just positions depending on where we are depending on how the situation presents itself. There is no, they say now if we said this was a green mountain and that was a blue mountain even if we climbed off the green mountain and climbed up the blue mountain this would still be a green mountain and that would still be a blue mountain but it's not the case with this mountain and that mountain and it's not the case when we walk with the forward and the backward foot which foot is forward and which foot is backward is simply a matter of position a matter of situation. In the same way darkness and light are simply positions they're simply situations there is no substantial entity of darkness and there is no substantial entity of light and so everything changes position everything

[29:56]

is fluid but we can't identify darkness with the characteristics of darkness or light with the characteristics of light I'm reminded of the old story about Suzuki Roshi when he was a young disciple and he was pouring his master tea and you know the Japanese tea cups don't have handles so it's polite to pour the tea only part way up the cup so that you can hold the cup from the top without burning your hands so he poured half a cup of tea for the teacher and he was scolded in a strong way pour the whole thing I want a cup of tea, a real cup of tea I like to drink a lot of tea, pour the whole thing so he said oh, I'm supposed to pour the whole thing so he poured the whole thing, the teacher the next day a guest came over and they sat down to tea and he poured the whole thing

[30:58]

for both of them and he got terribly scolded, why did you pour the whole thing? pour it half way and he was confused, you know, how am I supposed to, I thought, you know, first I thought pour it half way, then he says pour the whole thing then he says pour it half way, it's very confusing but of course it was a different situation, for the guest you should pour it half way because it's polite you know, the guest you take niceties you don't want to hurt the guest hot tea, but for the master it's more familiar so you pour it all the way, he knows it's going to be poured all the way, he wants to drink more tea so that's the way to do it in that situation Jack Cornfield also tells a story like this that I like very much he says it's a story about Mullah Nasruddin who's a Sufi master he's a famous one and one student goes to

[31:59]

Mullah Nasruddin and he receives instructions and the next student is coming for instructions and he overheard what Mullah Nasruddin said to the other one and he had the same question and Mullah Nasruddin says to him the opposite you know and he says wait a minute I asked the same question and you told him this and you told me that I don't understand and the Mullah said well it's like I'm sitting here watching people walking down the road and the road is kind of narrow and on the right hand side there's a big ditch very dangerous on the left hand side there's a big ditch, very dangerous so I'm sitting here, you know, watching everybody walk down the road first person walks down the road and they're really dangerously close to the right hand side and they don't know the ditch is there so I say oh no, go left, go left go left and then they go left and they're ok then the next person goes down

[32:59]

the road and they heard me say go left, go left so they go left, go left, go left and they're almost falling in the ditch on the left hand side of the road and I'm going oh no, go right, go right and then they go right and they're ok so which way do you go and which is darkness and which is light it depends it depends depends on circumstances and Suzuki Roshi in his commentary takes this one step further he says when you are actually walking there is no foot before or behind only when you stop to think about it is it so that's true right, when you're walking who knows whether there is a foot before or behind actually once I had the experience of noticing and I remember I put it in a poem how strange it is that when you're walking, if you watch your feet you only see one and you sort of like trust

[34:04]

that the other one is still there but in reality it's one foot and one foot and one foot and I remember thinking how strange this is also it would always strike me as strange whenever I would do zazen instruction that I would say well now you entered the zendo with the foot closest to the what do you call it or jams so that's simple enough but then when you go in it's one foot and when you go out it's the other foot so you can't say always enter and leave with your right foot no no you don't it's the right foot or the left foot depending to me that seems very strange it would be that way I still can't get over it so things are

[35:05]

not definable in the way we think and difference and unity are just concepts whose locales and senses completely shift depending on the circumstances and depending on what's appropriate and this is how it is with all creatures we are positions too we are now in a position of being living beings but soon we won't be in that position anymore that position, that wave that has risen up and appeared in this way will take another position and then this appearance that is me and that is you will no longer be here and will take a different position and moment after moment positions change you and I are just positions like forward and backward steps maybe one more

[36:12]

and then we'll chat for a while things in themselves have virtue this is the one that goes all things have their function it is a matter of use in the appropriate situation things in themselves have virtue name them according to how and where they work that's how cause puts it and Master Sheng Yen says all things have their own function depending on their use and location and I tried to translate it looking at the characters and I don't think I'm stretching the point at all

[37:15]

but I tried to because you know Chinese is a very elliptical language so you have to add connectors and sort of make some surmises in the translation so I translated it to emphasize not the philosophical statement that's being made here but the practice that is being implied in what's being said here so I translated each of the 10,000 things because that's what everything in Chinese is written, 10,000 things each of the 10,000 things has its particular virtue our job is to distinguish the appropriate use and situation each of the 10,000 things has its particular virtue meaning virtue the old meaning of the word virtue means power by virtue of the power invested in me by the state of California I now pronounce you man-wise meaning power an actual inherent power

[38:17]

so each of the 10,000 things has its particular power its particular virtue our job is to distinguish the appropriate use and situation so I was talking to the people in Tassajara about this line this morning and I was reflecting on the fact that in our practice we have a unique situation in that we repeatedly participate in an activity in which theoretically anyway absolutely nothing is going on in other words, I mean literally there is no karma going on when we sit in zazen we're not doing any actions with body we're not speaking and we're not mind, we don't activate mind either, if a thought arises in the mind and we let it go, then there's no karma there's just things coming and going, there's no activity

[39:19]

zazen is really non-doing, non-activity sometimes we pick up a thought or two and shake it around and there's some karma there but certainly a whole lot less and you notice maybe when you get up from zazen it's a different world then you have to decide am I going to really leave the zendo now am I going to bow and then when you walk out of the zendo it even gets more complicated what am I going to say to him how am I going to wash the dishes even though practice period is purposely designed to make everything extremely simple so that you can see these facts what you see is that there's a lot of volition involved in just being a person when you're sitting on the cushion you're not a person really it's just stuff then you get up and you've got to be somebody and this is very hard, it's hard to be somebody it's painful, it's difficult how do you know how to do it a lot of times I think it happens that we get deranged I mean in our

[40:21]

actually we're deranged to begin with but we figure out a comfortable way of being deranged that seems to work at least somewhat and we go along that way for some time and so we have a world full of deranged people doing deranged things, I mean really that's the case when you start practicing you could go through a time when you notice how flimsy this all is and you don't even know what to do, like wow should I say anything now should I not say anything, what should I say should I say yes to this should I say no to that, I don't know what to do sometimes that happens when you open yourself up to this strange experience which hardly we ever have except in a situation like this of not doing anything for a little while because usually in our ordinary life people get up in the morning and then they're being a person all day long and then they go to bed at night and they're a person in their dreams

[41:23]

they never have a break but we get to have these breaks from being anybody and then we see the contrast between being nobody and the difficulty of being somebody so then it really brings up the question how do we know what to do and what are we supposed to do here it's really complicated what does it mean to be somebody and pick up our life in a way that we start to notice how mixed up it is the way we have been somebody and how much we've hurt ourselves and other people in the way that we've been somebody so how do we do that what are we going to do so these lines I think for me are about that situation each of the ten thousand things has its particular virtue this is an amazing statement this means that any thing that we do any thought that we have any karma that arises in us

[42:25]

has its particular virtue and each person that we meet has his or her particular virtue each moment has its particular virtue it's not a question of we shouldn't have that one or we shouldn't do this or this is wrong or bad or something like that there's a virtue in every even our defilements even our confusions even the things about ourselves that we dislike intensely if we could only see them clearly enough we would see the virtue in them so there's not everything is ok in other words if we can profoundly appreciate that everything has its place everything has its power everything has its use then it's a question once we see that, once we can accept that we don't have to judge and condemn and attach so much but then how do we know what to do and this is where we have to train ourselves and I think that the precepts really are a guide for us here

[43:25]

the precepts which urge us to be harmless and not harmful to be caring and not careless to consider everyone and everything and not only ourselves and to speak out of that commitment and to act out of that commitment and to work with our mind out of that commitment this is what the precepts are telling us and so using the precepts as our guide and also just experimenting the experiment of seeing what happens when we talk in certain ways and act in certain ways we get feedback in a case like a practice period where there's an intense quiet and focus in small and subtle ways we get feedback about how it is we're behaving and then we learn from that so I see that talking in that way or acting in that way leads to this kind of trouble and this is painful

[44:27]

and I don't really want to do that so I'll do it a different way let's try this and in that way you train yourself in our job it's to distinguish the appropriate use and situation so in that way we train ourselves and after a while with the trial and error and experimenting with teachings and the various practices there's many practices in Zen we have our fundamental and basic practice out of which all the other practices come but there are many many practices some of which are traditional some of which we hear from our teachers and Dharma friends some of which we make up based on what we hear and using those practices and trial and error and reflection on the teachings and our experience every day we train ourselves little by little and then we have a sense of what is the use in the appropriate situation and we have more confidence that everything has it's particular virtue

[45:28]

even though we might not be able to see it right now it does and with that kind of confidence we can in a very natural and easy going way live our life with some sense of smoothness when there's challenges there's challenges we can work with those challenges and then we always get to go back to the cushion and study peacefulness again and unity again so when we get used to this experiment that we call our life and we have made many experiments then I think our life can flow in a natural way without feeling like and I know that people go through this kind of stage of really not knowing what to do feeling perplexed in a way when you see how complicated life is but after a while like I say this perplexity falls away and there's a kind of a natural flow to our life

[46:30]

and I would recommend that you think about the fact that all of our seemingly unworkable habits are really embedded in that person so it takes patience so in the six paramitas, one of the six paramitas is the paramita of patience, to have patience to continue to work with yourself and continue to experiment and continue to be present and not get discouraged over the fact that these habits persist so much but also to have energy because you constantly come back with the energy to work with this and if you keep applying patience and energy, pretty soon you see that those very habits that you have wanted to get rid of or add things you don't have you wanted to add you see that what's there has it's particular virtue

[47:32]

and it's alright whatever it is that you are and you find a smooth way of living as the person that you are not as somebody else but as the person that you are so that's enough I'm tired of talking those are my thoughts and comments on those lines I didn't get as far as I wanted to but we have lots of time so what would you like to bring up talking about difference do I hear you right when you say it's not difference, not unity despite difference but it's unity because of difference yes, exactly like I say difference we always see as separation when we see that we are different we feel alienated and separate but difference is not separation difference is

[48:34]

the basis of oneness there couldn't be oneness without difference and difference is absolute every moment is absolutely different from another moment every person is absolutely different but it's different because of sameness and sameness because of difference yes so you see it's very important for us to appreciate that because I think what we often do with ourselves is we suppress our own difference we don't allow and permit our own and this is one of the problems with religion itself is that it tends to be very conformist and that's an advantage because the conformity of religion forces all this stuff shakes it all loose in us because we're given a situation that's very kind of cut and dry and then it brings up all of our resistances but then if we want to be good students we deny those resistances and we say we shouldn't have those we should get rid of those

[49:36]

we should be a good Zen student do it right and so forth but then if we suppress and fail to recognize our own differences and this is falling into the cave of emptiness falling into the pitfall of oneness and this is unworkable this is kind of a big swamp you know of losing energy and failing to meet the world with compassion so we have to recognize it starts with recognizing our own difference and our own uniqueness and all those parts of ourselves as I was saying earlier in the practice period bring forth and permit all these beings into your life it's very important that we do that bring up the fullness of our life which is our difference this is why we learn to fully express ourself I know that we all didn't see it

[50:44]

but everything that you described was demonstrated in the film The Color of Fear to me and that was the film about racism yeah I've seen that film a couple times where there's a white gentleman who in a sense is caught in that place of oneness and he's just saying but I know what your guys problem is you know we're all the same and I believe that we're all the same yes yet he was not able to appreciate the differences and that's what seemed to be that gap that was created exactly and not until he was able to like fit into their shoes like change the situation where he was standing on that mountain or this mountain yes exactly did he wake up to honoring the differences yeah I've seen that film several times I showed it to my high school class one year

[51:45]

exactly I think that's exactly right that's sort of falling into it's all the same and then you do violence to someone else when you don't recognize their difference and it's interesting because I think it was very much the case if you read between the lines of that film I think you could say and I know that you all didn't see it but you could say that this was a man who also didn't recognize the difference within himself he was not aware of all that was in him and when he could see the other person and appreciate the difference that was the other person he also came into a much deeper appreciation of who he himself was and it always goes hand in hand like this so that's why the work that we're doing on our cushions to understand ourselves has a tremendous application to being in the world I mean I feel that I think it's a well known Zen disease to fall into oneness

[52:46]

many of the texts refer to this over and over again because we're so much working on oneness because naturally we don't work on oneness naturally everybody is born and runs around trying to support themselves and their group so we don't appreciate oneness so that's why in Zen practice we're so much working on oneness but the caution is always don't fall into oneness and I think that I've often gotten on my soapbox on this point because sometimes I think that Zen students have the disease of it's all one so therefore I don't take any particular position about this or I can't decide how can I decide it's all one or how can I disagree because it's all one but of course we do disagree we just don't acknowledge it and we do have animosities and differences we just don't notice them or acknowledge them so then we become entangled in them

[53:47]

so I think that the practice of politics and take that in any way you want all the way up to electoral politics but at a very simple level when there's two people there's politics because we have to negotiate and we have to work with each other so I think that that means being able to know here's where the differences are between us and here's what those differences are here's how I see them from where I stand the forward foot or the backward foot right now and I know that it's just from where I stand but actually I'm standing here I'm actually standing here now and this is how I see it let's work it out knowing that where I'm standing it just is where I'm standing and where you're standing is where you're standing and there's oneness between us but we have these differences, let's work it out I think we need to learn how to do that

[54:49]

and in practice period we're working on oneness, mostly but my idea is that in a temple like this in practice period we're working on oneness in sasheen we're working on oneness then if we're on staff or if we're doing one of those senior staff positions and negotiating things and running things then we run into these difficulties or if we're in the world at large living our lives we have to deal with these things and it's so important for us to learn that and be skillful in that very important because this is what the world needs so it's our job to learn how to do this it's difficult this is the advanced course to just be a regular person and deal with the things that come up in our world so we have to watch out for that but I really feel that way color of fear was like that I was kind of having this exact conversation

[55:51]

with Gaye when she said to me it's amazing how different we all are and I said, you know, God I look around and I just tend to see how much the same things are all the time I'm trying to do that and she said there's a lot of schools in Buddhism that emphasize the discrimination and I said all we hear about in the West is wholeness and unifying and then I started thinking about how much my attempt to see unity and wholeness is a projection of trying to see how much it's like me and that's sort of to take it a step farther not only are we trying to see wholeness but too often we're trying to see how it's like us and that's a way of denying everyone else their individuality yeah and like I'm saying the more that we see who we really are the more we see how different others are and the more we can allow that I think it goes like that because every one of us

[56:52]

is a universe, right? It's such a surprise what happens yeah Other comments? Things to bring up? Well I was kind of struck by what you were saying about taking a position on things and I've always, I mean I've kind of come to the conclusion that it's better to not really care about anything I mean maybe that's very vague to say it that way but to literally just kind of watch your concerns and not be concerned by them not feel compelled to take a side or anything like that so I don't know, I saw some you were kind of saying that we should step out and say where we stand and stuff but I've always thought it was a virtue to be able to just not take a stand on things Well

[57:52]

certainly now in practice period it's not necessary this is about looking within and doing the schedule and sitting now is not the time for that particularly plus any teaching or practice is only good for you when you see it for yourself you know what I mean so it would be very stupid for you to say oh I should take a position, I don't really feel like it or that doesn't seem compelling or useful in any way to me but I should do that forget it I think it's probably very appropriate for you right now to be practicing in that way just don't and this is true for all of us at any point in our practice, just don't think that the practice you're doing now is the absolute truth this is what we always do what I'm doing, everybody should be doing that

[58:54]

how come you're not all doing it? what's the matter with you? you should be doing what I'm doing because it's the right way to do it this is how we think so have you noticed that the way you feel now you didn't feel a couple years ago have you noticed that? same with me too yes you know we have to practice what's authentic for you now that's authentic but don't forget that this is the way that you're practicing now some other time it may not be appropriate and I can imagine circumstances and conditions in which it wouldn't be appropriate to practice that way when those conditions arise it will be obvious to you because if you get stuck on inappropriately not having opinions and positions then you'll notice suffering building up and you'll eventually notice wow, suffering is building up because I'm not bringing up

[59:56]

the karma of my life so suffering is happening and it's weighing me down so I better see what I can do about that but there is a virtue in practicing the way that you're saying for sure, there's a virtue I like the practice of just say yes to everything whatever it is, yes no preference that's good, good way to practice not the only way that's a good way in other classes too there are these lines from Emily Dickinson that keep coming up so I kind of feel compelled to say them there's a certain slant of light in winter afternoons that oppresses like the heft of cathedral tombs heavenly hurt it gives us we can find no scar but internal difference where the meanings are and as I think of that

[60:59]

it's not just the merging of difference and unity it's the merging of suffering and the cessation of suffering because in a conversation it can start off there's this sense of difference and then in the course of the conversation there's a kind of a unity found within that difference and there's a reconciliation so this keeps happening over and over can you say the poem again? it was really wonderful I know that poem but I forgot it there's a certain slant of light winter afternoons that oppresses like the heft of cathedral tombs heavenly hurt it gives us we can find no scar but internal difference where the meanings are oh there's more none can teach it any tis the seal despair

[62:00]

an imperial affliction sent us of the air when it comes the landscape listens shadows hold their breath when it goes tis like the distance on the look of death thank you yeah that's beautiful great Emily Dickinson poems it reminds me of something that I forgot to say I emphasized embodiment and breath as being something concrete that shows us sameness but another point that I wanted to make which that poem makes so beautifully is that the other really important connection between us

[63:01]

is our suffering in that when we suffer if you can suffer purely as this poem expresses if you can suffer purely which is to say just to suffer just to feel your sadness feel your loss without regret resistance fighting blaming but just this is my sorrow this is my despair there's a great quietness there just like she says with the heft of cathedral tunes a beautiful quiet in which one knows that everyone and everything suffers in just this way because this is the nature of life this is impermanence is how we all receive our life and so in this we are all the same

[64:01]

so we can really appreciate another person's suffering and when we feel our own suffering we feel our connection so that in a certain oddball way it's really the truth that when when our practice becomes our life our very suffering has almost a joyful quality to it because it connects us we belong in our suffering we really feel like we belong to the universe and there's nothing and no one who we don't share our heart with and the suffering is a tremendous connection in that way it's very true and I actually meant to say that but that poem says it so beautifully so Emily Dickinson had a lot of anguish in her life and this is a poem about her own despair and yet it's not a terrible poem it's not a poem about how awful her despair is there's something quite lovely about it about the feeling of her suffering

[65:03]

it's real suffering it's not light-hearted in any way or trivial but yet it's wonderful so thank you, it's a great poem I was just thinking about how one of our main activities is doing what we're doing now, talking to one another and we assume a kind of unity that the way we use language is the same I use language the same as you use language and yet that's not true, there is a difference that we don't acknowledge and gets us into trouble a lot I'll say something you'll assume you know what I mean yes yeah of course I think about language all the time and I am very much aware of the fact that we are always misunderstanding each other

[66:03]

on a gross level, if I say pass the salt, you'll pass it probably you will have understood me assuming we're speaking the same language but in defense of the way you say it yeah, but actually if we go a little bit deeper in that, you really mostly we don't understand each other in the things that count it's a mystery that we get along as well as we do considering how little how imprecise and confused our communication is and then you're right, when you add to the when you add to the fact that language is so you really find that out when you try to write some sort of a document like you know, I was at the board meeting over the weekend, trying to write for four years, five years, trying to write an ethics policy for Zen Center the more precise like the law, you know you get so precise that you have no idea

[67:05]

what the hell you're talking about that's what happens the more precise you get, the more you know what is this about you don't understand the first sentence because you're getting more and more precise and it never gets there, it's quite odd so in poetry though this is why poetry is such a joy poetry makes no attempt to communicate laughter laughter no it doesn't, I mean poetry is just being in language, authentically being in language without any attempt to communicate that's how I understand poetry laughter yeah you're going to say something? I was thinking about understanding each other you know it implies that there's something to understand or that the person speaking knows what they're talking laughter I often know exactly what you're talking about

[68:07]

laughter it has some specific actual thing they're actually trying to actually say and they know what it is it seems like it's more like you're kind of fumbling around all the time with each other you know the idea, you can say do you understand, and they might say yeah, I understand there is this feeling of understanding you can have but it seems like it's a relative feeling it's at some level there's a satisfaction things stop, sort of emptiness happens yeah there's a moment of openness and there's a feeling of connection and two people can say they truly understand they have a feeling of understanding but the idea that you understand something you know, I wonder whether it's I agree, I think we're just we're always just reaching out to each other somehow and sometimes touching each other and sometimes not it's interesting, you know, King Ahsoka

[69:14]

he had pillars built with one prime law on them and it was, be kind to each other and it's like that in one way it's enough but yet it's not enough but it's the touching of compassion of understanding, of feeling the suffering because when you understand the suffering that other people have it's the same as yourself there's a bonding yeah, I know there's all these like different communications skills, they say nowadays I mean, imagine if somebody would have said to you in 1959 how are your communication skills? but now we have communication skills and various things and not that they're not helpful but when you don't have that kind of thing, you know, when you don't have kindness and heart connection I've seen people, you know use good communication skills unwittingly to commit great violence

[70:15]

and manipulation and so on and so on and so on but all in the name of good communication skills and they really mean it, they're really trying to use good communication skills, but it's got to come from the heart, you know, there's got to be a real connection it's got to come from inside yeah, yes again, makes me think of the color of fear where they spent a whole weekend with this defensive opinion and trying to communicate and understand it took a whole weekend and language, it's like being on one mountain to the other mountain and they had to walk through that whole valley through language and they gave it time and commitment to do that to finally get to be able to stand on the other mountain and be able to see it from another perspective yeah, and it was almost like it wasn't the words that communicated it's finally just almost like being in each other's presence with each other's emotions you know, almost it wasn't the words that did it, it was just that fact of being present together and feeling each other's feelings well

[71:20]

maybe we should chant the text and then those of you who would like to join if there's anybody here other than practice period folks come join for the bow out at the end over the zendo zendo zendo kai ee ee the great sage of India transmits his realization directly to his disciples all their experiences and personality, the way it goes beyond southern or northern ancestors the wonderous story shines brightly, its dimensions spread in darkness, its attachment to things its delusion on the essence is not yet enlightened all objects in each sense feel a verge, they don't merge with one another, when they merge they embrace all things, otherwise they maintain their own place forms vary in shape, sounds vary in tone, darkness blends

[72:23]

higher and lower, writing to separate, it's clear and murky the four-way balance of their own nature is just as childish another fire needs air moves, water wets earth is solid, eyes perceive forms, ears perceive sound the noise responds to orders the tongue dictates, the root of each function generates branches, leaves a river ends, a tributary is returned to ocean, both true and false are expressed through words writing brightness, there is darkness don't treat us mere darkness writing darkness, there is brightness don't regard us mere brightness brightness and darkness anticipate each other, just as one foot follows the other, things themselves are bridging in a broken tower where things are as they are, the lid hits the box realizing essence is like arrowheads meeting mid-air when it comes to words, you must understand their true meaning, don't set up arbitrary standards if you don't see the path that meets your

[73:25]

eye, how will you know the way moving forwards is as much as it moves forward when you're lost, mountains and rivers block your way, please let it remind you, steady the inconceivable, your time is running fast, don't ignore it we offer the merit of our practice, study and chanting of the Sandokai for the enlightenment of all being in all worlds and directions to be defined all beings will be submerged mass submerged wisdom

[74:27]

beyond wisdom Narakasya Narakasya Paramita

[74:45]

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