I just want to say again this isn't an exercise in getting answers it's an exercise in inquiry and to kind of put forth the mind of what is this and then to turn over the teachings to turn over the thoughts and the ideas that we share here our expressions our understandings to keep turning them over and seeing the multiple facets that they might provide. And maybe in time with many facets, each of us providing a different facet, each of our facets changing over a period of time, we'll begin to get a sense of what is it that Dogen is trying to convey. And it's not necessarily... what Dogen's trying to say that we need to fully understand, but how is it coming through us in some way? Is it working? That's good.

[01:12]

It's on mute. That might be a good thing. So, again, this... The space of inquiry which we are cultivating, which is, now it's almost too loud. Can we turn it down a tap? It's the space of zazen. Open inquiry. What is this? Something comes up, we study it, we look at it, we see through it as best we can. We don't fix onto it, we don't grasp on it. This whole fascicle is about not grasping, basically. Get closer. Most of Dogen's teachings, I think Peter Levitt said this once, that Dogen The main thing he's saying is, get closer. Get closer. And don't fix on anything. So again, how is it that our conceptual desire to grasp, to understand, fixes something into place so that we feel more comfortable, so that we have a way of grounding into something that we think we can rely on.

[02:14]

And Dogen's saying, well, get closer and see that there's nothing there to rely on. And so what are you going to do when there's nothing to rely on? How are you going to live your life when there's nothing to rely on? So keeping this open space, this is not a space about answers. It's a space of inquiry. How do we keep the inquiry alive, keep turning it over again and again, not trying to fix anything? And it's okay to hold something for a period of time and turn it and examine it and kind of get a sense of its shape. But be willing to let it go. Be willing to put it down so that you can be available for the next thing that arises. This is how the whole universe moves. It doesn't fix anything. It keeps arising and letting it fall away. So in our study of Sansuikyo, Okamura divides the fascicle into five

[03:19]

chapters, you could say. And these chapters don't, they don't exist in the original fascicle that Dogen wrote, and they don't, they also exist in the translation Carl Bierfeld provided. It's what Okamura himself decided to come up with as a way to kind of relate to and walk through the fascicle. And so, so far we have walked through chapter which is really just the first paragraph. And he titled, The Mountains and Waters are the Expression of Old Buddhas. And then in Sushin, we started entering into Chapter 2, which is divided into, which is focused on mountains, and it's divided into two sub-chapters by Okamura, titled, Blue Mountains are Constantly Walking, and Eastern Mountains are Walking in the Water. So this concept of walking, mountains walking, is key to this first part of the fascicle.

[04:23]

And if we have a better kind of sense of what is it that Dogen's trying to convey here, then the rest of the fascicle will begin to mirror or he'll begin to echo that expression in the rest of the fascicle. So we're going to explore this today and then continue on with the mountain sections during Sashin with maybe, I don't know, getting to the water section at the end of Sashin or maybe shortly after Sashin. And I think the water section will be a little bit more of a quicker exploration because we will have a lot of the foundation points that Dogen has tried to lay out kind of already down and then we can understand how he's mirroring in some ways what he's saying in the mountain sections by using waters as a similar approach. For your homework in the last class, as a way to kind of grok with our own, how are we understanding what it is that Dogen is saying here, I ask you to write your own version of the first paragraph and to reflect your understanding and to kind of, you know, what is Dogen trying to say and how would you say what Dogen is trying to say in your own words?

[05:40]

How would you enunciate that? How would you teach it or convey it? Again, the first paragraph. These mountains and waters of the present are the expression of the old Buddhas. Each abiding in its own dharma state, or dharma position, fulfills exhaustive virtues, meaning its virtues are complete. It's completely itself. Because they are circumstances prior to the capital of emptiness, prior to the beginning of time or beginningless beginning time, they are this life of the present. Because they are the self before the germination of every sign, they are liberated in their actual occurrence. So they are free, liberated in their beingness. Since the virtues of the mountain are high and broad, the spiritual power to ride the clouds is always mastered from the mountains. And the Marva's ability to follow the wind is inevitably liberated from the mountains. As I said before, Dogen is setting basically his main argument or proposition in this first paragraph.

[06:44]

So what I would like you to do now is to get together in threes. And let's just probably stay in this room. It's not going to be very long. I'd like you to take about... three, four minutes each to share what you came up with in terms of your expression of your understanding of this first paragraph or how you would say what Dogen's trying to say. If by some chance you didn't get around to this exercise, then you get to do it right here and now in this present moment. What is your understanding of what is being said here? So this is not to come up with the right answer. There is no right answer, right? It's your turning of these words and this teaching and trying to discover how is it coming alive for you? What does it mean to you? And I guarantee you that were you to read this fascicle from a year from now or even a month from now, your understanding would be perhaps quite different. Okay, so please quickly and quietly

[07:45]

I just want to note, sometimes during transitions, we lose our attentiveness, we lose our mindfulness. It kind of scatters. So if you could very quietly and attentively find two other people and get into groups of three, and then I will ring the bell, if I can find the bell, to start us off. And I'll also ring the bell to suggest when it's time to switch. So first, find your triads. I want to make sure everyone's set up. And if you need more space, you're welcome to sit in the back room here, too. Oops, I can't go very far with this. Anyone need a partner? Joe, do you have? Are those two people over there? Do they? Yes. And Ko, do you have someone? It may be one group or two. That's fine. That's fine. Okay, please identify who's going to go first.

[08:47]

Is there a bell over there? Is there a bell over there? Thank you very much. Okay, have you identified the first person? Person number one. And the other people, please listen. to the other person. Let them fully express themselves. Don't start questioning what they have to say or dissecting what they have to say. Just listen to what they have themselves expressed. Okay? Here we go. So, take a look at that.

[10:31]

Thank you. Yes. If the first person has finished you can simply be silent.

[11:45]

If the first person has finished you can simply be silent. Okay, person number one wrapping up if you haven't done so already and moving on to person number two. All right.

[13:37]

Yes. It's okay. [...] Part of the position should say this. We are going to get some possible solution. We are going to use the results.

[14:38]

We are going to use the results. [...] Person number two, wrapping up your sharing. And then moving on to the final person. .

[15:56]

I have the same. This is why. [...] I'll be free. I'll be free. I'll be free. Yeah. [...]

[17:05]

Yeah. Yeah. Just, you see, he says, [...] Person number three wrapping up.

[18:19]

And then just take a few minutes to maybe crosstalk with each other and If you had any further things that came up for you, as you heard your partners share, maybe you can also turn that over with them. So just a few moments of open sharing. It's like six feet.

[19:25]

That's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. You're also excited about the origin of the human with something on the response. And that will just try to keep around.

[20:29]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What is it? [...] . . . .

[21:32]

So wrapping up. Wrapping up and coming back together. So I'm kind of curious if any of you have something particular you'd like to share about your discovery or in your group that came up about what is it that Dogen is saying in this first paragraph? What's your understanding? Anyone want to share anything? You guys were all like, and now your understanding has evaporated. What's that? Oh, Ellen, hi.

[22:33]

So, mine was very short. So I had a couple of very short images. One is we're just an inflection point where everything is happening, but we're immediately onto the next point in the curve. And the other is black holes are boycott. So right at the edge of the black hole, there's all this action. And then the third is, because I can never just stop it, is Action is like the way that we're described, but that's actually our essence. Wonderful, thank you. You know, I'll add to this, because we each had three different ways of viewing, you know, different lenses that you were talking about, like Alan said she had those images, and I got kind of poetic about it. And then Dustin was more... took a scientific sort of a revolutionary sense of mind. So it was fascinating to see how we all just, I'll read this.

[23:38]

You feel it? All right. These mountains take on the cloak of mountains, rock, trees, dust, warm paths, high and low. So we call them mountains. Listen to these mountains right here. They are the teachings before India, before China, before Japan, before the great earth. They walked all teachings, all bodhisattvas, covering heaven and earth and this cushion right here. You can listen, but you cannot speak of this, not accurately. You just watch the single butterfly by the creek. setting herself on the rock for the last time before the cold sets in. So why go off to dusty lands? Or go ahead, go off to dusty lands and return, return, and return again, following the winds and alighting nowhere. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much. Anyone else hoping to share? riding the clouds the power to ride the clouds and follow the wind from the mountains the way that night was that the sense of spaciousness and transcendence that I often feel drawn to is possible through sensory perception through the objects of our direct experience not in spite of them

[25:14]

but not by getting away from them. That these mountains that are walking, these things that are changing, these are the conduit to that sort of experience. I feel like there's big gravity toward saying, oh, this is just me making coffee. It's not real practice. This is just me chopping as carrot or sweeping the floor. Or like this meditation is not the real one. I don't know, I'm so good today. I'll do a real one later. But it's like, those are the mountains. So I kind of like that. It's a good koan. What's real? What's real in this moment? And the other one is, what is just me? Great, thank you. Maybe one more? Yes, Shuso. I'm going to raise a little flag around the phrase what Dogen's trying to say. because I don't think we have or need to have access to our story about a person named Dogen.

[26:19]

Certainly language is not going to allow us to get there. What we're doing is engaging with this text in this time, in this place, and I really appreciate what I just said because it's also about whether or not we are worried about whether or not it's the real Dogen, and nobody has the real Dogen, and if anyone says they do, it's a power play. So what I really appreciate about this exercise is that this is a real practice to engage with this text and not really be able to get it. And I'm saying to my colleagues, I think it's great training for engaging with each other because it's no easier to engage with each other across language than it is to engage with Dogen across language. So for me that was, you know, the liberation of making my best effort to be generous with the text without trying to get to some master authoritative figure standing behind it. Because if there is no ground, if there is nothing to settle into, there is sure as heck not somebody called Dogen who has the answer on the other side of this page on 700 years in a couple of languages.

[27:33]

And that ties into this idea there's no fixed thing that we can... So what arises is relationship. Depending on how we perceive phenomena, that perception will affect how we relate to what comes up and vice versa. After small and large apologies, came these beautiful, beautiful readings, just beautiful, from my partners. And I thought, we should just stop apologizing and wholeheartedly... engage with each other. And this will, Dogen will come back to this, you know, this is important to him, you know, this idea of, well, if language doesn't reach it, why are we saying anything? And yet Dogen's written 95 fascicles or more trying to express something. So we can't throw the words out. The words themselves are the Dharma, our teaching, our reality expressing, you know. And so how do we

[28:35]

be that expression of reality using the mask of words, right, in some way. Or what was the word you used? The cloak of words, you know. So, thank you. If you want. Which came first, mountains or the idea of mountains? Waterfalls are their pure potentiality. At this point, it no longer matters, really. Actually, it never did. If you think the Dharmakaya precedes the nirmanakaya, you're nothing but a wild kitten. In the beginning was the pranava, the original vibration, the great om, also known as the word. The cosmic roar came forth from Buddha's long, broad tongue simultaneously with the crashing of a waterfall, the crack of pigeon wings over flag rock, rush hour traffic on the 101.

[29:36]

Mountain people are cloud walkers, but mountains are people too. If you glance up at just the right moment, you can catch them surfing the primordial sound waves, laughing as they ride cloud dragons on the blustery autumn moon. Thank you. She got her dragons in there. Did you notice? Thank you. Thank you so much. So just Continue in this way. Every time you read a new section, and this is what I'd like to do, is for us to kind of just take a moment and, like, what is Dogen saying in this section? How am I perceiving it? How am I relating it to it? What am I gleaning? And how does that keep turning for me as I continue to read Dogen? And talk amongst yourselves in that process, too. Have conversations about, oh, this is what I... today. You know, a line I read, this is how I'm turning it, and this is what it's illuminating for me in this moment about practice.

[30:41]

So that could be, I think, an engaging way to continue this conversation. So thank you very much for engaging that. So we're going to move on now to the next section, section two, and last class I invited three people to do recitations of a few lines from anywhere between sections 2 to 11. And those volunteers were Burke, Simrit, and Ellen. Would one of you like to share your recitation? Number six? Stepping forward does not oppose stepping back, nor does stepping back oppose stepping forward. This virtue is called the mountain flowing, the flowing mountain.

[31:47]

Thank you very much. Burke? Section two. Three? Okay. The mountains lack none of their proper virtues. Hence, They are constantly at ease and constantly walking. We must devote ourselves to a detailed study of this walking. Since the mountains, the walking of the mountains, should be like that of people, one should not doubt that mountains walk simply because they may appear to strive like humans. May not appear. Good. Thank you. Thank you. And the summit here? Hi, there you are. Thank you, all of you.

[33:11]

And I'm wondering, for next time, anyone want to memorize a section and or part of a section? Some of these sections are longer, so you don't necessarily need to do the whole, but maybe anywhere from four to six lines of some of the longer sections, the ones that captivate you. Any volunteers for next time? I'd say through number 16. Okay. Okay, Connie. Anyone else? And Rakasho. And Ellen. Emile, sorry. Thank you very much. And I just want to point out again the sutra wall. I announced it briefly after the last class. And this idea is to to use it as an expression of anything that's alive for you during this study, a particular verse, an image that comes up for you, a poem, you know, you can tack a leaf up there, something that for you is an expression of what it is that you're unfolding during this time.

[34:32]

So please avail yourselves and have creative fun with it. And... Thank you. So, by the way, as you noticed yesterday, we're going to start chanting the San Sui Kyo at noon service. And we're going to do it in sections. I believe we've split it into five different sections. So as we're studying a particular section, we're going to be chanting that section as we get ready to move on to the next session. Then we'll switch the chant cards to... chant the next series of sections. So thank you to Tezita for pulling that together and helping to make copies. Currently they're on more flimsy paper, but we'll have cardstock shortly and they'll be a little bit easier to hold as we're chanting. So here again is paragraph two. It's simply one line.

[35:34]

I started this in Sashin and the line is this. Preceptor Kai of Mount Dayang addressed the assembly saying, the blue mountains are constantly walking. The stone woman gives birth to her child in the night. Okay, so what is Dogen saying here? How do you understand that statement? Or how do you not understand that statement? What sticks out for you? Yes? Oftentimes when I think of static mountains, I visualize the background of my life, the way that I move the world with these really subtle, fixed ideas of the way things play on each other and kind of like the rules of nature.

[36:35]

And this line to me tells me that Even those things that I think are the most fundamental basic use of virus aren't really reliable in the end. And they are in the future. Great. Thank you. Anyone else, Mark? getting colder. Insects are disappearing. Leaves are falling. The creek is rising and beginning to go over. The mountain is walking. Thank you. Would you add that to the sutra well? Thank you. Anyone else? What does this say to you? Gladys.

[37:41]

Say Mark. Thank you. So we have these two impossible things happening here. Mountains walking, this idea of mountains walking, Ryo was saying, we have this fixed idea that mountains are static, they don't move. And then we also have this kind of idea that stone women, you know, a woman made of stone, a stone statue, for example, you know, or even sometimes it's referred as a barren woman, can't have a child, you know.

[38:56]

So suddenly these impossible things are happening in this particular verse. And again, pointing to this idea that we have deeply rooted conventional views ways of seeing reality that um and when seeing our uh and understanding our way of life and we take these for granted oftentimes we actually don't question them until suddenly something undermines them then we're suddenly like oh wait a second i thought the world was like this and now it's not now what right And those moments when your conventional views get undermined are very fruitful practice places. How do you enter into practice in those moments? They're wonderful dharmagates. And to be on the lookout for them, and actually you can even create them for yourselves by simply putting a question for it. What is this? Why do I believe what I believe? Any belief you have, why do you believe it?

[40:00]

Why haven't you invested some authority in it or truth in it? Why do you believe that's a table? Why do you put things and relate to it in a way that it's a table? You put your food on it, you put your notes on it, you sit around in a particular way. Why? Why do you do that? So everything, every belief you have is made up. It doesn't exist in reality. So how will you relate to it when that's taken out from under you in some way? Okamura, in his commentary on this particular statement by Fuyo Dokkai, who I mentioned in the Dharma talk, is the fourth ancestor, and he came six ancestors before Dogen, so Dogen was the 46th ancestor in our lineage. He says this statement... Dogen uses this statement by Fu Yodokai to express the reality of Nikan, reality of this present moment, which is the intersection of impermanence and eternity, discontinuation and continuation, phenomenal or relative beings and ultimate truth.

[41:16]

The interpenetration of these opposite pairs is the expression of the way of ancient Buddhas. It is also the reality of our life. So in other words, this statement, which has these two impossible things happening, mountains walking and a stone woman giving birth, points to the equally inconceivable, it cannot be conceived, the thought or the belief cannot be manifested, the meeting place, the nexus of transience or impermanence, that which is fleeting, and continuity, that which is internal, eternal. So in the context of the Dharma, the inconceivably here points to the inherent emptiness or the interdependent co-origination of all phenomenon. And this idea of the night, stone woman gives birth in the night. Why is the night important? Anyone? What does night mean here?

[42:18]

Unconditioned mind. Unconditioned mind. Anyone else? Emptiness. Anyone else? Hard to see. Non-discrimination. Things can't be discriminated. They can't be made dual. They can't be told apart. You know, told apart or recognized in any particular way and so on. So this inconceivability. So you have both these two impossible... things happening and inconceivable events. And again, a lot of this fascicle is pointing to this intersection, this meeting place of the interpenetration, or you could say the interpenetration is often the word, of these opposites, the conceivable and the inconceivable. And I understand how our views are dualistic and how they limit the way things actually are.

[43:24]

They are limited because they do not see the way things are. So Dogen is going to say more about this particular phrase in the next verse, verse 3, and unpack it a little bit more. And so if you look at verse 3, paragraph 3, he expounds on Preceptor Kai's statement, "...the mountains lack none of their proper virtues. Hence, they are constantly at rest and constantly walking." We must devote ourselves to a detailed study of this virtue of walking. Since the walking of the mountains should be like that of people, one ought not doubt that the mountains walk simply because they may not appear to stride like humans. Again, a new section. What is it you think Dogen is trying to express here? Or, who cares about Dogen? What do you think is being expressed here? How do you interpret these particular words? What images, ideas stand out for you as you read this?

[44:25]

Jody? Yeah, for me, it just really throws into question what is meant by walking here? Because it doesn't look anything like humans walking. It's a very basic thing, right? It's one of the first things we do as humans. It's one of the things that we consider separates us from the other creatures on this planet, right? We walk on two legs. So that word is being really troubled that it's rude, so that I come away going, well, then let's walk. I've clearly misunderstood what walking is, if mountains are walking just as humans are walking. Okay, great, good. Yanisa. I was appreciating Dovan actually writing with his CBA as mountain's walking. He often and harshly describes the difference between sentient and sentient games.

[45:29]

And our conventional thought would hold mountains as in sentient. But the mountains walking as underlining activities is sort of going beyond the categories of sentient and in sentient. And that our expression, our actualized expression in the world is fulfilled in holding the unconditioned within the relative, as we said to him, and being able to find our agency beyond that duality, and that that's our expression, the energy force. I see it. I forget which fascicle he actually says, pebbles, tiles, rocks, and so on are sentient.

[46:30]

I'm in a Dogen study group, and one of the participants was so upset by that that she left the group. She was just like, this is bullshit. I don't know what Dogen's saying here, but rocks, pebbles, and tiles are not sentient. So I can't... Maybe that wasn't the only reason she left, but really the kind of very strong ritual reaction to, what? No way, right? How do we understand that? So we'll come back to this later, because he talks about Santana Incense in this fascicle. So any other thoughts about this? Yes, Sasha. I mean, there's usually a measure of the mountain as we discussed it too.

[47:32]

It's like being that thing, not being disturbed by anything. So like that metaphor for stability and yeah, those things. And when we look closely, there's so much movement, right? So there are waters on the mountain. There's wildlife. There is like, all kinds of scrolls, and they kind of keep loose these little avalanches of dirt and stones, and there are insects, and there's wind moving. So when we look closely, or feel closely into ourselves, there's so much movement. So in a way, I'm thinking, you know, he might be saying that there's both. this little mountain, and then there is so much movement in that sense of stability happening.

[48:36]

And it's interesting, you don't... In zazen, for example, we don't know our moving until we are still. Until we make the effort to be not moving, do we begin to see the ways in which we're constantly moving. You know, how the breath is moving us, how the blood is moving through us, But we have to take up this activity of non-moving to really understand more deeply what is moving. And the same thing, if you study moving, what is the non-moving within moving? Where is the stillness within moving? I find that very, particularly when you're doing work practice, this idea of where is the stillness in this activity now? And, you know, a lot of people first, you know, engage in Zen, this idea of I need to move really slowly and I just want to stop doing, I don't want to be doing anything, and yet you have me in the kitchen just cutting vegetables and sweeping and making beds and all this other stuff and I'm just go, go, go. And the invitation is within that activity, what is it that isn't moving?

[49:39]

Or is, you know, the koan, who is the one that's not busy? Right? So to know both of them are there simultaneously and that you need to embrace one in order to better relate to or understand your relationship to the other in some way. So, thank you. There was a few other translations of these two sentences. Nishajima says, Mountains lack none of the virtues with which mountains should be equipped. For this reason, they are constantly walking. Kazanahashi says, Mountains do not lack the characteristics of mountains. Therefore, they always abide in ease and always walk. You should examine in detail this quality of mountains walking. And Kozen Nishiyama says, The mountain possesses complete virtue with nothing lacking. Therefore, it is always safely rooted, yet constantly moving. I think that's an interesting image.

[50:40]

Safely rooted, yet constantly moving. So the word virtue here has been translated in a couple different ways. Thank you, Kitchen. As virtue, as characteristics, and as qualities. And the virtue characteristic of mountains are not lacking. And what are their qualities or their virtues that are not lacking? Anyone? What are the two virtues that mountains don't lack, according to Dogen? Going and coming. Going and coming? How's it phrased here? Abiding. Abiding? What's that? Constantly walking. Constantly walking and? Resting. And resting, right. So the first virtue, constantly at rest, the characters for constantly at rest are Joe, An, Gu. J-O-A-N-G-U.

[51:42]

Joe Angu. So Joe, the character, means constantly or permanently. And Joe here is the opposite of Mu Joe, which means impermanent. For example, the Mu in that sentence is the same character for nothing or neither yes nor no. Does a dog have Buddha in nature? Mu. And then the character An means peace. And this particular character, is the same an as in ongo, peaceful abiding, right? And for, which is ongo's term for, well, Japanese term for a practice period. And the character for peace is formed, is it's a roof over a character of a person or a woman. And so underneath this roof sits a person at home in their place of refuge. They are safe, free from war and strife. They are abiding, they are dwelling, they are staying there, and it's a peaceful staying.

[52:42]

And so these mountains are Zhou Anzhu. They're always abiding or always being there. Peacefully abiding, staying or not moving. And this kind of peacefully abiding, there's a difference between resting, and peacefully abiding. So what is that difference? You kind of feel those, the choice of words. Time? So abiding, resting. So the use, again, of translations here, how people choose certain words to point to something in particular. In some ways, resting almost seems like an activity, you know, versus peaceful abiding. The other characteristic of mountains is constantly walking. And this is jo unpo. And so if you remember, the character for walking is jo ko. And jo, that character again means ongoing.

[53:46]

So like the sense of a practice, ongoingness, the ongoing, something we do ongoingly. And then ko means steps. So ongoing steps. It's always changing, always a sense of coming and going. So constantly walking, ongoing steps. And Dogen, I think it was Dogen, to see the impermanence of everything is to see and understand walking. This walking is essential to practicing the Buddha way. So your homework for today is going to be What is walking? I'd like you to study what is walking and come up with your own expression of what is walking. We'll come back to that a little later. And so the mountains have two virtues or dual virtues, always being there and always changing.

[54:50]

And these two sides exist at the same time. They're existing simultaneously. So it's not one and then the other. back to back, they're simultaneously occurring. And so the quality of stillness and rest and also this ever-changing quality is happening at the same time. So Dogen, in this case, is using mountains as synecdoche. I believe that's a correct word. This kind of, or maybe it's a metonymy, this idea of a part representing the whole. So the mountains representing the whole of reality, one way of reflecting the way that all of reality, all of existence, has these dual virtues that are constantly being peacefully at rest and constantly walking or changing or moving at the same time. you could say in some ways that this constantly walking, this constantly change, the only permanent thing is change.

[55:53]

So if we're looking for something that doesn't change, impermanence doesn't change. So ever-changing then becomes the new constant, the new permanent thing. And if we look at Nikan again, the present moments, we see that it also has the same quality, the same kind of virtues of being unmoving and still, and the next moment changing. If you visualize, for example, anyone ever play with sparklers? Or you can visualize a candle or a torch or a flame, like at Buddhist reunions we often use a flame. So you have this one point that is lit, single-pointedness. And then if you move the flame in a circle, you see a circle. You no longer see the one-pointedness. All you see is this image of a circle. So both are true simultaneously.

[56:57]

This is one-pointedness, this abiding, this stillness is just this. And at the same time, we're receiving this ongoingness of just this. So it looks like passage, kind of a passage-less passage. And so this is the truth of our life, the circle of our life. There's no circle there, and yet there's a circle. And we see a circle, but where is the circle in life? So this ongoing kind of way that we perceive reality. And Dogen talks about uji, being time in a similar way, having these same qualities of always abiding, that is being eternal, right? and always walking, always changing. And this becomes a koan for us. How do we understand this always abiding, always at rest, always right here, and always changing, happening simultaneously?

[57:59]

And... Dogen expresses this in the line, the blue mountains constantly walking like none of their virtues are constantly changing and constantly moving. So one thing that I sometimes, I'm a visual person, so I try to kind of use visual images to help me to kind of unfold what's being said. So you could consider this vertical line as abiding, right? always at rest. And this, this is ongoingness, right? This walking. And here's this meeting point, this nexus point, that we're always, everything simultaneously is manifesting this, right? The thing is that this abiding time is just doing this.

[59:02]

Here, here, here, here, here. But we as human beings perceive this. It's kind of like a film, a movie. Each image is a slide. Each moment of time is exactly just one slice. And yet, you know, this other expression of ongoingness, we perceive movement. Something's happening. Where we can focus attention is right here. Everything is this nexus. Every single point in this room. Everything is that nexus right here. So you can unfold the whole universe from this nexus. From this dot, from this dot, from this dot, from this dot. Everything is this nexus right here. This meeting of stillness and activity simultaneously. It's unfolding. And so I, when I kind of... have that, what I see is this field of movement.

[60:08]

You know, it's like everything is just this kind of wave happening. What is that in science? The wave and particle, right? I'm looking at the scientists in the room, right? The particle and wave. The particle, one-pointedness, is just this. At the same time, there's this movement going on. It's actually nothing but a... expression of change in the moment. So forgive me, scientists, if I have not correctly expressed that. I will do my research to better express it next time. But you get the point? Yeah? So this is Blue Mountains constantly walking. They're complete in their Dharma position, which is the vertical. And at the same time, they're constantly changing, constantly moving. And they can move because they are complete. And their completeness is also the expression of emptiness. So you might recall in Okamura's commentary, he recounts how his teacher, Uchiyama Roshi, once told him that it's fine to talk about impermanence, but impermanence is only half of the Dharma.

[61:25]

So the question is, you know, according to Okamura, Uchayama often said that the reality of our life is before separation, before any dichotomy, before the distinction between permanence and impermanence. So impermanence is only one side of reality, and the other side, only one side of the Dharma and truth of the way things are. And this left Okamura with a question for 25 years, well, what's the other side? And do you remember what he said? What's the other side of impermanence? Eternity, right? And he had to come to that himself. So he had this koan, what is the other side of impermanence and eternity? And so he poses for us a question, how can I manifest the constant peacefully abiding reality of life within the reality of impermanence, which is always changing? How can we live awakening to both sides of reality?

[62:27]

How would you answer that? How can I manifest the constant, peacefully abiding reality of this life within the reality of impermanence, which is always changing? So how do you live at the nexus point? How do you live that? Yes. Yes. How do you live that? There goes Antoine living that reality. But even sitting here, you're still living that reality. So that koan is a very important koan.

[63:33]

How do you do that? And Dogen says, if you don't understand mountains walking, you don't understand mountains, which are impermanent, which are constantly walking. And when you really study and see mountains, they are not these solid things, but are walking. And according to Dogen, Bodhi mind, the awake mind, is the mind that sees impermanence. So it has a fathoming of impermanence. It fully sees impermanence in all things, in all moments, the awake mind as such. And the Buddha said, if you see impermanence, you see dharma. If you see dharma, you see me. What does that mean? If you see impermanence, you see dharma. If you see dharma, you see me. How do you see the Buddha if you see dharma, which is impermanence? The mind itself is Buddha.

[64:41]

Oh, please. This wasn't a plant. It wasn't a plant. I didn't ask you to do this in advance. We are not only humans learning to be buddhas, but we are also buddhas learning to be how to be fully human in this suffering world. So we're approaching everything in our lives with that. with the understanding and knowing that we are already Buddhas and resting and we still continue taking action to make a change, bring about change and to be fully human in this world, to understand the self and still learning, continuing to be the self and helping others to alleviate the suffering. So it's not an escape from the reality, it is understanding the the absolute level and through that understanding of sharing that compassion, that kindness with other beings.

[65:48]

So it's not a withdrawal from the world itself, but it is opening our hands to all beings. I think it's my understanding on that Buddha mind, that knowing, deep knowing that that goes beyond any dark kindness. So knowing that expresses itself. So this is the wisdom, the knowing of how things are, automatically gives rise to compassion, automatically gives rise to activity that expresses non-duality. And for us as humans, this is constant, usually back and forth. What's my understanding? What is it that I know? What's my insight into the nature of reality? And then how am I manifesting that? Although you can say sometimes if you just do compassionate actions, they will open up to wisdom itself.

[66:49]

So it doesn't mean that you have to get wise before you can act. When you do compassionate activities, which is oftentimes, and many, not many, some Buddhist lineages and practice say, start with compassion practices first. In time, then, you will be better able to understand and relate to and express the wisdom activity. So they're not separate. And there's a way to go from either. And when you talk about emptiness, or the absolute level, it sometimes seems eloquent to me. I feel like the warmth is lacking. I think it's important to understand how... compassion informs that as well. So I think they inform each other. Yeah. Very important. It's surprising that the awakened mind is the mind that sees impermanence rather than eternity.

[67:51]

The awakened mind is the mind that sees both. Well, the awakened mind is the mind that doesn't move, that is eternal. Yeah, a lot of I mean, a lot of things, a lot of students talk about the Awaken mind or limiting eternity, wanting to know eternity. And so it's sort of flipping that on its head and saying, well, really, knowing your permanence deeply is the Awaken mind. Yeah. Thank you, Gladys. To me, a working mind is a mind that has no condition. It has no condition. All the aggregates are empty. So how are all these things happening? It's just like you take a point out of it. Like just manifesting something because it's no condition. It's empty.

[68:53]

Just to engage that energy that it is manifesting. So how does the soul moment get birthed in the dark? But your thought, in and of itself, is still reality expressing itself. It's not separate from reality, although it is not Reality is a separate thing. And it's tricky. We have to be careful not to make the absolutes, you know, or the dark or whatever you want to call it, a thing. Emptiness is not a thing, you know. You know, the ultimate is not a thing and the relative, you know, if we make them two separate things, we're missing the point, right?

[69:55]

They're not separate, you know. So it's... Be aware of that tendency. We do that in order to be able to kind of grok it up here, but it has a risk to it. So one of the things that I think Dogen is pointing to often in his teaching is that we're not practicing to change anything. We're practicing only to appreciate ourselves as we are. So we're not practicing to get better or to get enlightened or to get something or get anywhere, but just to accept and value this life as it is, right? So I don't know about you, you know, I may have been one of those persons who came to Zen Sunday wanting to change, right? Or change myself or change, occasionally I want to change others. But, you know, this idea that something will change if I practice hard enough. Anyone have that? Okay, I'm not the only one.

[70:57]

And so this not changing and just appreciating our life as it is, is zazen. This is what we're doing in zazen, right? We're all benefiting from hearing again and again that we're not here to get enlightened. We're here only to practice appreciating our life. I see a hand back there. Yes. because our view is the narrow. And so what I keep thinking I want to say, and I've been wondering how to say it, when we talk about the blue mountains are constantly walking and the stone woman gives birth at night and said that those things are impossible, every time I hear that word impossible, I stop because we live in an earthquake area, and to me, both of those things are completely possible, and they happen all the time.

[71:59]

And maybe that's the word virtue, but I keep coming up with the word potential. And so we know that the mountains could crumble at any minute. We know that this whole place could fall apart if there was a big earthquake. And so that potential is, I want to say it's an inherent quality. And it's birth death. It's that way that our... view doesn't want to see things as it is. That in this moment I'm sitting here alive, but in the next moment I could be dead. And I think Okamura, or it's Dogen that calls it Setsuna Shoji, this moment by moment experience of the present. And so the potential that this whole earth can crumble, there's an inconceivability to that, that is the joy of understanding that that is life as it is. And that helps that hand. Right? Yeah, beautifully said. Thank you. Anyone else?

[73:01]

So, I should give a pause so you could say something else. Anyone else? Jody. I wanted to ask about this word appreciate because I think I've asked this question a million times over 20 years. How warm is the appreciation? How warm is, did you say, how warm is the appreciation? And Bert did use the word when you said how do you live under these circumstances, I'm like love and warmth and what I immediately thought was an appreciating, appreciating life, appreciating that there is life, appreciating that all of this wonderful play, Leela, exists. But I wonder in our tradition, what is the temperature of appreciation? How warm can our appreciation be? Sometimes our tradition feels pretty tepid to me. It's like 67 degrees. It's like an inch that never quite gets... Two inches, two degrees higher than the Zendo.

[74:05]

Yeah, exactly. Let's say 65 degrees. Neither warm nor cool. And then sometimes, you know, I feel this immense, there's some flower right behind your right ear that's, the sun has just hit and... It's illuminated in the most extraordinary way. And I just wonder what you would say about this issue of temperature. Well, the first thing that came to mind is what's your idea of warmth? What's your definition of warmth? What's your perception? What's your lens of warmth that you're putting on saying warmth looks like this? And I don't see that here, right? Because I'm looking for a particular thing that I've defined as warmth, right? So already there's the distancing, which creates lack of warmth, right? So how do you get more intimate? How do you get closer to, you know, where's the warmth here? How can I see warmth here?

[75:07]

How can I see warmth in how people serve me in the zendo? How can I see warmth in the way that we take care of each other here in the valley? And we're not hugging each other or, you know, the kind of conventional ways of what is... warmth or friendliness look like or intimacy look like? So just that positing that question, you know, I think helps us to loosen that and actually look for where is the warmth here, rather than saying why isn't there warmth here, you know? Just to be clear, I find warmth everywhere. I think that's something we could do as we what's the word express

[76:22]

our expression of Zen here, now, how will it change to express something that we feel needs to be brought forward more, right? So you see this more often now, and actually it's interesting to observe this. Zen is introducing more compassion practices. We're actually turning to a lot of the Vipassana, Theravanan teachings, to be more explicit. There's a lot of compassion in Zen, but it's not explicit. So we're finding, as many of us who are teaching, we have to make it more explicit. It just isn't explicit enough. So actively bringing more compassionate practice in. And then it's interesting, I hear from teachers at Spirit Rock, they're actually teaching emptiness more. You know, they're like, there's something we're not touching here that people aren't getting. It gets kind of mushy, you know? And so how can we bring in more of the emptiness teachings, you know, that Zen offers? So already we're seeing this synthesis or integration of these two beautiful strands of trying to express, you know, the Dharma in some way that for this culture, you know, or...

[77:38]

combination of cultures to be able to relate to and bring alive. That's the most thing. Bring alive. Thank you. I wanted to say, too, that somehow our needing to know, our needing to fix things, our needing to understand is a way of stopping the walking of the mountains. idea to kind of fix things so they don't change and we do this oftentimes with people right we fix them in a certain way you are like this and i'm going to relate to you in this fixed way from now on you know and any of you who you grew up with your family right you have a certain way of relating to your family and then you go off to college And for even a practice period, I was going to say a semester or a year, and you come back to your family, you're a different person. You've changed in a way because you've been exposed to all these new ideas and experiences and people and ways of being in the world.

[78:42]

And you come back and your family relates to you, treats you the same way that they had before you had gone off to college. And a lot of the arguments at the dinner table often relate to, you're still seeing me in a certain way. You don't see me how I am now. And we kind of do this to each other, I think, a lot. Even here, we have a certain idea of how people are. And we relate to them that way from day to day or even moment by moment. And I still find myself... people that I met 10 years ago here, right? The way that there's still this kind of somewhat, what's the word, congealed kind of idea that I have about them that I have to really actively work at letting it be loose so they can change and transform and really come fully forward. Because if I don't allow them the space to come forward, they're going to relate to my fixed view and they can't be free.

[79:46]

So how can I liberate them in my not fixing my view onto them in some way? So that's my practice. And it's very interesting. When we do way-seeking mind talks, something I notice very often is we have this idea of someone just by how they look, how they walk, how they talk, just a general sense. And then you hear their way-seeking mind, and suddenly this whole depth of context suddenly opens up. And you're like, oh. They're not who I thought they were. And that's only one aspect. They only shared select expressions of their experience in life that shaped them. What if I knew the whole world, the whole sphere of experience? How would I relate to them then? So to allow ourselves to be these porous, to allow our ideas of others to be very porous, and to constantly question them and test them, and let them go. particularly when we have conflict with someone.

[80:48]

Those are usually the places where we have the most fixed idea about ourselves or the other person. So I'm hoping to get through this verse a little bit more, so I'd like to continue. So the next line in here is, we must devote ourselves to a detailed study of this virtue of walking. So as I mentioned during Sashin, Dogen often says things like this. We should make a detailed study. We should devote ourselves to study. Or we should examine carefully. Thoroughly investigate. This ongoing kind of repetition of this idea. What is it that Dogen wants us to thoroughly investigate here? To study and investigate. I would suggest he wants us to study and investigate. so that we can go beyond our conventional knowledge, our conventional views and beliefs, in order to see the true reality of our lives.

[81:49]

And not to assume that things appear as they appear, and to question our assumptions, and to see that everything changes, even though our views have incentive to be wanting to fix things. And even Buddhism needs to change. The Dalai Lama is famous for having said, you know, if science proves a particular set of ideas that Buddhism has as wrong, then Buddhism needs to change. How refreshing. Could you hear the Pope saying that? I'm sorry, that was not probably very skillful of me. Forgive me. So this idea that some spiritual practices have this idea that this is the only belief, and anything that question is is somehow sacrilege. But what I personally appreciate about Buddhism, it says, find out for yourself. Even the Buddha said, just because I say it doesn't make it true. You have to find out what's your truth, and you can try it on and test it out.

[82:56]

And if you discover that it's not true for you, then toss it out. You know, you don't need to cling on to it. So I really greatly appreciate that. I was going to go into talking about how science talks about the Earth was once flat, and then, you know, now we see that it's not flat, and how the continents are constantly moving, you know, the plates, the geological plates, you know, constantly shifting and moving. So we have, you know... Islands along the coast of California, walking up the coast of California. This idea that the whole environment around us is constantly walking, constantly moving, despite what we once thought. Going on to the next line. Since the walking of the mountains should be like that of people, one ought not doubt that the mountains walk simply because they may not appear to stride like humans. And another translation says, since the mountains walking stride like humans, one should not doubt that the mountains walk.

[84:04]

And in some cases, some of the translations, rather than use the word doubt, use the word question. So questioning here. Do not question. So mountains walking is just like humans walking. Just as humans walk, this is what mountains do. Just as humans move and change, because it is of our dual nature, of impermanence and peaceful abiding, So do mountains. And all phenomenon moves in this way. So do not doubt a question that mountains are walking. It may not look like they don't move, but they are. The real question, so what's being said here is not that that's not the real question. The real question is, are we thoroughly investigating this? Right? Are we thoroughly investigating our own walking so we understand the walking of the mountains? So don't whether or not mountains are walking. That's a pointless question. That's not the real question. He's saying our question should be, are we investigating this phenomenon of mountains walking?

[85:12]

So that we understand our own walking. And then, again, what's the real question? And then it becomes a How does it become a lived question? How do you live that question? It's not an intellectual exercise. It's a lived question that you only get to see what unfolds from it by living it. Not through an intellectual exercise, but through the ongoingness of being. So, next paragraph. Paragraph four. This saying of the Buddha and ancestor, Dokkai, has pointed out walking. Actually, would someone else read this? Number four, can anyone read that, please? It is constant because it is walking.

[86:16]

Although the walking of the blue mountains is faster than swift as the wind, those in the mountains do not sense this, do not know it. Be in the mountains, is a flower opening within the world. Those outside the mountains do not sense this, do not know it. Those without eyes to see the mountains do not sense, do not know, do not see, do not hear the reason for this. To doubt the walking of the mountains means that one does not yet know one's own walking. It is not that one does not walk, but that one does not yet know, does not make clear this walking. Those who would know their own walking must also know the walking of the blue mountain. So again, initially being through this, what stands out for you? I hear it as quickly creating separation.

[87:17]

Anyone else? The last sentence in paragraph three. It says, since they're walking in the mountains, it should be like that of people. I don't doubt that the mountains are walking because they may not appear. There is this apparent difference. And let's not stop there. There is difference and there's unity. There's harmony. Great. Thank you. Anyone else? What are you taking away from this initially? So in this class and in general, I feel like walking is a metaphor for impermanence. And impermanence to me often has a fatalistic flavor. It's just like I can't control it. I can't make it stop. It's just going to erode. And I think the walking is a very different flavor than impermanence because for me to walk, I have to be relatively healthy.

[88:23]

There's a purposeful almost quality to my walking. There's an enjoyable quality to it. It feels very primitive to me walking. I mean, in the best way. And so you could use any number of, well, like erosion is a fine metaphor for impermanence, but it has a very different flavor than walking. And so to me, the mountains are walking and you are also walking in a much greater sense than just your one foot in front of the other. It's that there's a It's just interesting for me to play with the notion that there's a purposeful or harmonious quality to the change instead of just chaos. There's nothing you can fix. There's nothing you can control, which is how it often hits me. This is much more harmonious and much more violent in a sense. I'm kind of grateful for that. Impermanence is something negative. So the other side is, well, how is impermanence positive? You'd be dead if there wasn't impermanence. Participants.

[89:27]

Right. So, again, that kind of idea to question, if I have a tendency to see impermanence as something not good, where can I see impermanence as something positive? How can I try on that lens and actively engage that lens and begin to look for where change is a positive thing? Which is what walking is. This falling out of balance, as I said in Sashim, is the only way we can walk, you know, that destabilization. But that actually has its benefit. So, thank you. Yes? I keep feeling like he's pointing to this, like, you are the mountain, you practitioner are the mountain, but then he pulls the rug out, you know, in these little ways. Oh, yeah. Dogen, that's all of Zen. There's nowhere to land. It's fine to be there for a moment, but don't take refuge in that concept or the idea or that still point of conceptuality.

[90:37]

Yank it out. You can yank it out for yourself, or you can have a teacher yank it out for you, or your life is going to yank it out underneath you. So are you willing to have the rug pulled out from under you? Can you live that way? Yes, Catherine? I'm just looking at the difference that he's pointing out and seeing it as a difference between someone who thinks that they are walking to the mountains and someone who is walking as the mountains and appreciating the difference rather than seeing it separating people, but there's a kind of grieving. What's the grieving? There's a phrase in something that we chant from another translation where the ancient sages pity us, but another word for it is the ancient sages grieve for us.

[91:40]

For not hearing the Dharma as a knowing for themselves the truth of their own body. So pitying us, they take grieving for us, they have compassion. Yes. And bestowed upon us the Dharma. They just pity us and bestowed upon us. But grieve for us and bestow the Dharma is different. Thank you. Gladys. It's like the mountains, I've told it, but really, inside of the mountains, it is just a nonstop activity of energy coming from the core. Electromagnetic forces were surrounded. And that is all information, molecular particles information, which I define in each moment in time by character.

[92:48]

with my intentionality here right now. And my intention is the way I handle that, the skill of handling that, it is the quality of each moment. And it just keeps moving. So really nothing is steady. I crystallize it in the slopes again in particles and forms of the slope, forms of the slope. So it's really a bit of a phenomenon of energy that is And it is coming from where I am surrounded from a huge electromagnetic force is coming from the core of the mountain. So it is information. So I am the mountain. It's part of me. It's part of my system. So it is just I'm walking with that energy. And that energy is part of the mountain. And to be now without even that concept, without that framework that you just enunciated.

[94:07]

The mountains are not energy moving. What happens then? If we take that concept away, what are the mountains? I'm breathing. I'm just breathing. Because it is a set of code of information in an energy base inside of my system that is allowing me to breathe, my heart to beat, and all that. So it's the same thing. I don't really have to think about it, but I just have to engage in each moment. Thank you. So let's briefly look. A person in the mountains, you know, So he says here, those in the mountains, right? Those in the mountains do not sense and do not know they are in the mountains, for example. So the character for the phrase those in the mountains consists of the character for mountain with a person inside the mountain.

[95:16]

So literally a person inside the mountain. And it's been translated different ways. Okamura, this harkens back to the poem that speaks on the Buddha's tongue, Su Dong Po, which was on page 7 and 8 of Okamura's book. The original poem was, The murmuring brook is the Buddha's long, broad tongue, and is not the shapely mountain, the body of purity. Through the night I listen to 80,000 gatas. When dawn breaks, how will I explain it to others? And so that poet wrote another poem in regard to this particular point, and that page is on 51 of Okamura's text. So Sudong Po wrote, regarded from one side entire range, from another a single peak, far, near, high, low, all its parts different from the others.

[96:21]

If the true face in Mount Lu cannot be known, it is because the one looking at it is standing in the midst. So what does that say to you? It's impossible to see the whole kind of energy while you're in it. Right. You're inside, so you obviously can't see from within a check the point of view because you're immersed in it. And then Ipong... points out two other poems, one by Hong Xiu. And this poem at the bottom of page 51, with coming and going, a person in the mountains understands that blue mountains are his body or their body. The blue mountains are the body and the body is the self. So where can one place the senses and the objects? What's that? So here Hongshir is saying that we are the persons coming and going in the mountains.

[97:26]

We are the people in the mountains. The mountains are in us. And that the mountain, in this case, is saying the mountain is Hongshir's body and his body is his self. So this is a main thing. That's why we don't see the mountains. We're inside of it. The eye cannot see the eye. And this is a positive thing, is not being able to see. Dogen responds with his own mind. poem from the Ehe Kuroku. And this one, this is a well-known one. A person in the mountains should love the mountains. With going and coming, the mountains are one's body. The mountains are the body, but the body is not the self. So where can one find any senses or their objects? What do you think of this poem? A person in the mountains should love the mountains. With going and coming, the mountains are one's body. And where does he land?

[98:35]

What's that? Basically, I think he is... differing from Hongshir. Hongshir is saying the mountain, the body, is the self. And in this case, Dogen's saying, no, it's not. Who is it? The sixth patriarch? There's nowhere for the rest to alike. That's the sixth patriarch. Dogen says elsewhere that while the mountains are the body... I'm sorry, he doesn't say elsewhere. He says elsewhere... Let me see, say this. The whole universe is the human body. There it is. It says the human body is the whole universe. So our true self is not limited to our body. And then there is no separation. So how do we understand this particular point of codependency? And how do we love our codependency?

[99:39]

How do we love the fact that we are not separate from the mountains, that we are not separate from each other? a person in the mountains, a person in the realm of dependent core rising, how do we love this truth? How do we live this truth? Otherwise, there's the arrogance of assuming I'm continuous with all things, which doesn't leave space for love. It doesn't leave lack, which is the precondition for love to arise. Well, it depends how you define love. Different people have different definitions of love. Well, one definition of love that I've been turning over is love is the knowing of our shared being.

[100:47]

So there is a perception of difference, uniqueness, particularity, the single pointedness, and at the same time, the shared beingness, our non-separation. So love is the active knowing awareness of that simultaneity of particularity and mutuality arising. So that's one definition of love that I toy with. It may differ from others. Yes? See? It's right there. Let's see where we're at here. Yes? Oh, which one's that?

[101:53]

So how do you understand that? Well, given the fact that it is walking, this sentence suggests that we can implicitly arrive at the fact that that walking is constant. And so it's saying, oh, I mean, it's one thing to say mountains are constantly walking, but to say given the fact that they're walking, we should know that they're constant is a totally different thing to me. Like, how do we know that the mountains don't walk only when they're awake and they take naps or rest? What exactly implies constancy here?

[102:58]

What do you think? Honestly, I think that this is a... that this is Dogen seeing constant walking and attributing constancy to walking because it exists constantly. He says that it has to be that way, but not that it actually logically follows. So I think there's like an error in translation here. Which is why I'm curious about other people's opinions. I was going to say, anyone else I saw? Justin? Could it be like a sort of the impermanence, or the permanence of impermanence thing. Walking is impermanent, and so . Yeah. So I guess that's exactly what I find so interesting.

[104:08]

It's like, I feel like this sentence is saying impermanence is permanent. And that's what I'm questioning. It's like, how is he getting that? How is he proving that Satan here? Oh, how does he see it in the mountains walking? Yeah, right. He seems to be seeing that truth and declaring it as fact. And like, impermanence is permanent. And to me, that's not exactly evident. That's a good thing to turn over. What's Stogen mean here, number one, and I don't agree with his proposition that impermanence is permanent. How does he deduct that? From his own experience, how is he coming up with that as a truth, as a reality? Which is kind of what the Buddha was saying. Just because I say it doesn't mean it's true.

[105:10]

Find out for yourself. What's your own understanding of your experience, your direct experience of reality? So, great. Thank you for pointing out that line. You know, I'm feeling we're all waning, so I'd actually like to stop there, and we'll continue. We got pretty far, but we'll continue unless we... What time is it now? Our class? 11 o'clock. So... And we were usually, Ino-san, how much of a break do we usually take between a class and 12 to 15 minutes? Okay, well, I'm having two thoughts here. One thought is to go for another five minutes, then take a 15-minute break, and then go to service. How would that be? Let's do that. And then we can come almost to the end of this section. Okay. So the next line, although the walking of the blue mountains is faster than swift as the wind, those in the mountains do not sense this, do not know it.

[106:21]

The phrase swift as the wind comes from the Lotus Sutra, and it just means basically fast here. Those in the mountains do not sense the true speed of change or impermanence, do not know it. Those in the mountains do not sense the wind or how fast everything is changing, Because those in the mountains are its. We are its. So just like we're on the planet, Earth, and it's spinning, do we actually feel it's spinning? Do we know how fast the Earth is spinning? No? You're like, the Earth is spinning? Where'd you get that idea from? And yet it is. But we don't perceive it because we're not separate from the Earth. We're of its, in its. And we really want to know... I'm not sure where I got this one. We really want to know the true face of the mountains, or more so we want to know where we are in relationship to the mountains, that we're in the middle of it.

[107:25]

So another way of saying this is we want to know where we are in relationship to nature, to the mountains, where we are on the planets. The bigger question here, I think, is where are we in our practice? That's, I think, what we often come here wanting to know. How am I doing in my practice? Where am I in practice? How am I doing on my unfolding of practice here? Am I halfway there yet? Am I almost enlightened? How much further do I have to go? How much further am I than that person over there? Am I ahead of them? I'll go talk to a teacher. Maybe they'll tell me how far ahead I am. Am I almost there yet? Am I doing better than Hakusho? So we always kind of want to know where we're at in some way to our practice. I think many of us do. Am I the only one who has had that question in the past? A few people have had that question. Good. But the thing is, we can't tell where we are in our practice because we're in the middle of it.

[108:27]

We don't know it because we're in the middle of it. There's no objective way to evaluate our practice. So we just have to fully engage our activity of practice with a wholeheartedness. And then the whole question of where are we, which is a question of comparison, falls away. Were you going to say something, Jody? Yeah, I was going to say, I understand what you're saying. And also, I feel like we're being warned again and again and again here not to think that we can just return to this one and then have any idea what's going on. I mean, part of what's so alive about this is, you know, we can't know that the planet is spinning because we're used to it or we can't know if we're at the still point, we don't feel the motion. But that doesn't mean that there's no point in engaging with what's outside us. When we're in the mountains, if we want to know where we are, we need to take a topographical map and look at the other realms in order to figure out where we are.

[109:31]

And so it is a warning against comparison. But it's also a warning against solipsism and the idea that we can progress or grow in practice at all without some kind of an engagement with each other and with the world. That's why I think the last line of this paragraph is so moving to me. But I put my glasses away so I can't read it. Those who would know. Exactly. Great. We must know the mountains from where we are, but also we must know where we are from the mountains around us. And I think that flip side is... So we're doing this, we're presenting one side, we're undoing it, and we're actually seeing what's the other side here, this constant going. But the question is, what are you using to measure and gauge? To understand the lens that you're using to figure out where you are.

[110:33]

What is that lens? What is that map, for example? What is that framework that you're using? And why are you using that particular map and framework? What's the tool of evaluation that you're using? And how does that affect the outcome that you're going to get? This is from a scientific point of view. How you do the experiment will affect the outcome of your results. for that mountain to be over there and this mountain to be over here and my mountain not to be better for that from that mountain but we're not good at that because duality is also hierarchical in our way in our Saha world so it's not necessarily distinction that's the problem it's distinction in hierarchical position evaluative yeah which is better which is more real which is more true

[111:47]

so thank you for that the next line to be in the mountains is a flower opening within the world the Okamura says that this is this line reflects the same sense as a line from the Prajnatara's transmission to Bodhidharma that says when a flower blooms the world arises meaning one tiny phenomenal thing is connected with the entirety of Indra's net it can change the entire world into spring And Uchiyama says, we are born, live, and die with the entire world. So again, this points to the profound intimacy of Dependent Co-Arising. You've heard this kind of analogy before. A butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the planet is going to affect the weather on the other side of the planet. So even that smallest change is going to have its ripples, and it's going to co-create

[112:48]

the weather or some reality beyond what we can perceive here and now. So how do we understand the flower blossoming and suddenly the whole world manifests with just one single flower blossoming? And this points back to the Buddha's awakening. When the Buddha awoke, he said, I and all beings awake simultaneously. Huh? How did that happen? So it's pointing back to the same point. And then the next line, those outside the mountains do not sense this, do not know it. Those without eyes to see the mountains do not sense, do not know, do not see, and do not hear the reason for this. So this here... those outside the mountains and those inside the mountains. So those outside the mountains, in this case, there are two ways you might understand this. One is that they are not aware of the mountains walking.

[113:50]

They're not aware of the flow of interdependent co-arising because they are the mountains. And the other way of seeing this is that they are just blind and ignorant. And there's five kinds of blindness or ignorance in Buddhism. There's blindness due to ignorance or a view of separateness. So that's another expression of ignorance, to have a perception of separateness. Blindness of one who denies the teachings of Buddhism. They say the teachings aren't true. And blindness, the third one, to emptiness or to the absolute basis of reality, things as they are. Blindness from attaching to emptiness. This is another way of saying Zen sickness. You know, everything's empty, therefore it doesn't matter what I do or what happens in the world, it's all empty anyhow. So that's kind of a stuckness, being stuck in emptiness. And then a blindness, it's called transcendental blindness, which makes no distinction between seeing and not seeing.

[114:56]

And so this is the ways that we perceive ourselves as separate from the mountains and the rest of the world. Because we see ourselves as separate, we then abdicate our responsibility for the world and our actions that impact on the world. So when we see ourselves as separate or that we are empty and therefore it doesn't matter what we do, we don't actually take responsibility for the impact that we do have. And this is evident in the environment. You know, what has happened? We kind of, I've seen ourselves separate from or above a lot of particularly coming from my understanding, you know, the last 200 years of European philosophy is we're above nature, you know, and therefore we can control nature in some way and nature's at our, it's ours to use however we want, right? And in the process, we've done great harm and devastation to the environment and to the climate as an effect.

[116:01]

forgetting that we are nature. We are ourselves the expression of nature manifesting, just as the tree, the flower, insects, and so on. So most of the, you know, you could say, the disasters that we face today are coming out of that ignorance, that blindness. And you could also say there's no Zen without nature. We wouldn't be here without nature. I'm going to stop there. I want us to take a break before we have service. So thank you very much. We can maybe forego the chance. Just say it in your head. So the Eno is saying it in her head and also Volta e Solce. And... Great. Thank you very much, everyone.

[117:02]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_78.74