When I first proposed doing this class, I thought that there would be adequate texts available to back it up. That is to say, the transmission of light. Thomas Cleary's translation and the transmitting of the light by the same thing by Donald Cook We do have a copy or two in the library. I put one up on the top shelf, reserve shelf for your perusal. But unfortunately, it turned out that the Cleary translation has run out of stock and is going to be printed this summer, but alas, not until after the class is over. I am trying to get some copies of the Cook translation, which I like very much, and In the meantime, what I propose to do, and I think I'll continue to do as we go on, is to make xeroxes of the first few sections that we are going to look at.

[01:14]

I don't know how far we'll get. There are, you know, some 53 cases here. Even if we did two a night, there would only be 12. We'd get done in six lessons. But the point is not that we go very far with it because each case is similar to the case before. But I thought it would be... Interesting for us to get as far, beginning with Shakyamuni Buddha, as we could get. We have in this class, how many are new to the class? Who've never been here before? To this class? No, to any classes. You're part-time, right? You're just here for a short time. How about you two folks? Are you just guests? Well, that makes it easier for me. since we have old-time Zen students.

[02:17]

Every morning, we chant some 61 names, daishos, of the Buddhas and ancestors. We chant this lineage, this genealogy of Zen, as it's come down to us through Keizan Joki's text. And that 61 includes, of course, the six Buddhas, we chant the six Buddhas before Buddha, as well as four Japanese ancestors. This particular text takes place or takes care of, both texts take care of the 29 Indian ancestors. the 22 Chinese and just two of the Japanese, Dogen and Koen Eijo.

[03:21]

Tetsu Gikai, who was the abbot at the time that Keizan Jokin wrote this, was not included. He was still living. And, of course, Keizan did not include himself. So what I'd like to do before I hand out the first two books chapters is make a few, if I can, a few preparatory remarks about the text itself, the message of the text, and even maybe how to read a text like this or how to come at it, if I may, as much for my own clarification as maybe for yours. So the first thing, considering the text itself, why and how did it come that we have to have a genealogy or a lineage?

[04:28]

Because, you know, in India this was not the case, and in the first 700 years in Japan, or China rather, it was not so much the case. It really became more... Thank you. It became important after the Zen schools began to become the dominant competitive schools of Buddhism in China in the 7th, 8th, 9th centuries. Competing for patronage, competing for imperial favor. And of course, that meant for the future of the particular sect that was struggling for its survival and existence as a sect of Buddhism, the Zen sect, the Chan sect. And it was, of course, on Chinese soil

[05:32]

And in China, there was already, as you know, because of the Confucian history background, the whole sense of family or familial lineage, the tradition was already in place in which the authority in society was the authority that is passed along from, in the case of families, from father to son. and so on down the line of families, but in truth also in any kind of formal practice, whether that was a practice of artisanship, the master and the student and disciple, or whether it was in government, or whether it was in religion, it was important to establish credibility by having a lineage. And of course, the lineage that was to be promulgated by the Zen traditions needed to go for its authenticity and its, you might say,

[06:51]

to go all the way back to Shakyamuni Buddha in India. Now, of course, this was something that took place in the Soong Dynasty, which was already almost 2,000 years after the event of... some 1,800 years after the event of Shakyamuni. And so the texts that were... or the lineage that would be established through the various stories, the various lamp traditions, and there already were lamp or... lineages being established by the other schools, the Pure Land School for one. Each would have to establish their own particular methodology of how they would come to credibility. If you look in Cloud Hall, you see on the wall a genealogical chart of all the Zen schools, with many, many successors in each of the schools, some of them dying out, some of them supplanting other schools, and so forth.

[08:19]

But the particular single genealogy or lineage of a school was usually with just one teacher and one disciple. rather than several, passed down, rather than naming all of them, they'd just name one, like the father would give his recognition to the son, the main son. And there was this idea already of what was called the seal, or sealing it with authority. They also had a stamp, which they still use, which we even use to this day, in the lineage that has come down to us as practitioners. Those of you who are sitting with Rakasu as a part of this lineage, and the Ketchumayaku, the bloodline and the precept line, which is established all the way down through Shakyamuni through... Dogen's and then of course all the way after Keizan Jokin to the particular temple in Japan or monastery and all the abbots so that at Tassahara we have another 35 or so names since that is the monastery the home monastery that is added to the original monastery

[09:45]

lineage. This is the tradition that the Japanese established later. I don't know if they do it in China or did it in China. So we actually chant down there some, what, 96 Buddhas and ancestors in Tassajara. See the thing was, as I understand it, It makes this interesting. It wasn't a doctrine that the Zen school wanted to pass on as such. It wasn't something out of the written sutras or the shastras or the commentaries that was so important to be passed on. It was something much more intangible called, of course, the passing on of what? The most important thing of mind, the enlightenment of our mind or the enlightenment or the light itself, to pass on the light from person to person.

[10:49]

that the student would have the mind of his teacher or her teacher. And this idea took hold in China because, you see, everything was already always sealed, officially with a seal. And so this idea of the mind seal being passed on, mind to mind, that the teacher would impress his or her mind upon. I think I'll use the term his because this didn't include many women at that time, pretty much of a male-dominated society. Lineage. So the idea, of course, of the master's mind being impressed upon the student's mind and the student then finding somewhere another student in which that understanding or that light could be passed on. The idea of the lamp the substance and the function of the lamp, the light being the image of the teaching originally from Shakyamuni, you might say, as a kind of repetition of a timeless identity, is one way they put it, which is something we'll look at, that particular idea, as we get into it.

[12:02]

Now, the text itself, that Keizan wrote, came to write that the kind of form he used was already in circulation. It was the koan form. And this, by the way, the Transmissional Light called the Dinko Roku is one of the texts that is used by the Rinzai tradition as well as the Soto tradition, the koan tradition, together with the Blue Cliff Record and the Gateless Gate, Mumonkan. as one of the books that the students are expected to pass, the koans that are listed in the Dinko Roku. In the first part of the Dinko Roku, the way it is established is that the koan of the case is first presented. It's kind of a short story. And then after the case, the history or the circumstances around which the student meets the master, who the two of them are wandering about looking for one another,

[13:08]

And then the next part, the third part, is usually what Cook calls the teisho, or the actual Zen teaching, based on the particular koan. It's not broken down that way in the Cleary translation, but it is in the Cook. And finally, with a gatha at the end, a summarizing verse for it. So each case is written in the same way. Now, this tradition is actually, you know, one could call it a hagiography. A hagiography is a study of or a biography of saints, a biography of exalted, almost supernaturally exalted personages. And particularly as you study the biographies that are... of the Indian, the 29 Indian Ancestors, there's a lot of very, what we just say, supernatural phenomena that is brought into play, as we know, in the part of the Indian mind.

[14:20]

Kezan Jokin actually took all of those particular cases and many of the Chinese cases from two Chinese classics about transmission of the lamp, which I won't bother to go into. It's a rather interesting history in and of itself. And who was Keizan Jokin, actually? We should say maybe something about him, for those of you who are not too familiar with the history. So Dogen Zenji, you know, after he came back from China, he had his own particular... I want to talk a little bit about the 13th century teaching of... idea of enlightenment in Japan, but anyway, Dogen, you know... When he first came back, he had a hard time with the traditional establishment, official establishment on Mount Hiei.

[15:24]

I can't think of the words tonight. Tendai. The Tendai school was the oldest school, along with the Shingon school in Japan, had been there for years, was very much the establishment area, and the school was supported by the imperial court and so on. When Dogen came back in the part of the 13th century, Japan was in a very chaotic state of civil war and many natural disasters were happening. And there had been all of these monks. Dogen was one. Shinran was another. Nichiren was another. They had all been monks at Mount He, the Tendai monks. The basic teaching of the Tendai is both esoteric teachings and, of course, based on the Lotus Sutra, much of their fundamental teaching. But it's a very eclectic kind of teaching that they had.

[16:32]

And... Because it was establishment and because it was very power-oriented, there was a great deal of disaffection or dissociation from it by people breaking away and trying to find the heart of Buddhist practice at that time. And, you know, there's the three periods in three cycles, you might say, in Buddhist teaching. The first cycle is the first 500 years, they call it, of the growth of Buddhist teaching. Then there's the kind of settling out or mediocre cycle. kind of a watering down of the teaching, a kind of establishment of the teaching through the churches and so on. And finally, the third period is called, of course, we know it's called Mapo, or the degeneration of the teaching. And during the 13th century, the Japanese, because of all that was going on in their country, being invaded by the Mongols, you know, twice being, almost being overrun and invaded, and...

[17:38]

a number of famines, a number of natural disasters, and so on, the people were looking for new ways to understand life. And usually at such times as we know, you know, at such crucial turning points in history, people look for new answers. The old orthodoxy doesn't really satisfy, so people like Dogen and Shinran... Shinran was the one who set up Shin Buddhism, that is, a Buddhism that is... was no longer monk-oriented, but oriented to the population at large. You didn't have to be part of the clergy. You didn't have to be a monk in order to have salvation. The same with Nichiren, which both of these schools are still flourishing today. The Nichiren school was a school based on a man who believed that the Lotus Sutra was the basis of understanding and of Buddhism, and all that was necessary was to simply repeat over and over again a single practice, which was

[18:48]

just say that with great faith and so on and the possibilities through your faith of salvation was possible was available so Dogen you know each one of these schools was already aware of a practice called a single a single practice each school had a single practice by which one could reach salvation in this lifetime. Dogen's single practice, of course, was Zazen. Shinran was to the Daimoku was Namu Amida Butsu. [...] Over and over. Just a repetition. Something that the common people anywhere could do. They didn't need a lot of elaborate... In fact, they needed almost no... particular schooling of the history of Buddhism and so forth.

[19:56]

They just needed faith in this one particular practice. And behind that particular practice had developed in China already the idea of what came to be known as Hongaku in Japan, which was the doctrine of original enlightenment. The doctrine of original enlightenment stated that one did not have to, as in the case of India, practice long paths, many lifetimes of purification in order to reach Buddhahood. But one could already become enlightened in this lifetime based on the idea or the doctrine that found its authority in the Lotus Sutra that one was already enlightened already had Buddha nature. Of course, Dogen changed that already have Buddha nature to one already is Buddha. These various men went off, Dogen went to China and Shinran and Nichiren, they were all contemporaries, found a way to try to reach people that were not any longer satisfied.

[21:11]

There was a new need and they filled it in the society at that time for belief in the practice of the Buddha Dharma. And of course this caused enormous, I'm getting back to the fact that Dogen had a hard time when he came back from China because the monks on Mount Heye, the Tendai monks were very much incensed by his particular emphasis on Zazen alone and did everything they could to block him. And as you know, after establishing himself at various places in Kyoto, he finally found a patron warrior who in northeastern Japan set up what was later to become a heiji, his own monastery. And at that place, Dovino was a purist.

[22:14]

He was very severe and very much limited to just monastic practice. He wasn't so interested himself in finding a way to spread the word to the common people. He was interested in a pure practice, however, of enlightenment, of what he considered to be enlightenment. And it was up to his disciples, actually, and particularly as it would turn out to be case on Joachim, to be the one to spread the word of what Soto Zen was really about. Keizan Jokin was Tetsugikai's disciple. After Dogen, there was Koan Eijo, who, as you know, he passed the lamp to him, his understanding of what what his, you know, the dropping off of body and mind, just sitting and so on, all that doctrine was passed on to Koan Ejo.

[23:17]

Koan Ejo in turn passed it on to Tetsugikai. This was all done in Eheji at that time. But Tetsu, at some point, apparently, and I'm not sure of the year, but it was sometime in the 13th century, that there seemed to be a schism, a break in the succession in Eheji. And Tetsugitai was forced, and we still don't know quite why, as far as I can see, was forced to leave Eheji, set up his own monastery. And Keizan Jokin, who was his disciple, went to study with him, left Eheji actually, and eventually came back to Eheji. And when he took on the abbotship, he didn't take it on actually at Eheji, he took it on at what was another temple that had been established by Tetsugikai. Keizan Jokin was born in 1268, some say 1264, died in 1325.

[24:25]

Dogen had already, he was 11 years old when Dogen died, you see. So he, you know, Dogen has been called, some of the textbooks say that Dogen is called the father of Soto Zen and Keizan Jokin is the mother, the one who propagated, the one who went out and established the church there was a huge need in the countryside to gather the people under a new umbrella. The Rinzai tradition was pretty much established of the aristocracy and the new rising military class of the Kamakura area took to Rinzai. It was a much more militant way of practicing, a very highly authoritative and somewhat militant way of kind of muscular Zen, as they call it. So that left a lot of the common people, the peasants and the farmers. Actually, they were going to become peasants. This was the beginning of the feudal era in Japan.

[25:28]

So Keizan Joki then established... He had a kind of genius for establishing the church, the Soto Zen church. And eventually the Soto Zen kind of cornered the market on practices like performing funerals and doing commonplace practices for the people. It became much more ornate, much more ritualized. It incorporated an earlier... a very early Zen practice called the Daruma shu or the Bodhidharma shu. And these were originally ascetic monks, mountain ascetics, who didn't really belong to any particular school, but practiced a kind of mountain asceticism. gathered together under a teacher and had their own school. They didn't particularly practice the precepts, just were interested in ascetic practice, sitting, personal asceticism, and enlightenment, whatever that meant to them. And this later became incorporated into Dogen's tradition through Keizan Jokin.

[26:40]

The dharmasu? The dharmasu? This is a long story, but I don't want to get into it too much. But what happened is that the government always was very concerned, both in China and Japan, about how many people were wandering around in the hills practicing. and not contributing to the economy, as it were. And so they kind of had limits and kind of enforced people to take on a more formal discipline. Now, that's a little bit of the idea of the tradition, having some sort of authority in the tradition. It wasn't until Keizan Jokin actually wrote this transmission of light, the Dinko Roku, that Soto Zen had its own particular tradition. lineage that it could point to. And of course when we read it and we read the Kohan version of the Indian teachers and so on, it's very interesting because it's really something that was developed almost 2,000 years later in the Sun dynasty.

[27:58]

This was not what happened in India. As I said, enlightenment in India was considered to be something that one had to work toward, a path of several lifetimes. But when it came to China, there was already a tradition in China that virtue of one's own hard work through their examinations of the social service civil service examinations and so on, anybody could achieve a place in the world, could be somebody if one could pass certain examinations. So it wasn't based on class distinctions as it was in India, that is the four classes in India. There wasn't the idea that you were born into a karmic situation and could not climb out of it. In other words, that idea that enlightenment didn't have to be gradual, it could be sudden. was a Chinese idea. It was not an Indian idea. So sudden and gradual would eventually become two kinds of schools in Buddhist practice.

[28:59]

But that through gradual study one could have a sudden enlightenment even in this lifetime. That was already in place by the time Dogen Zenji began to practice. Dogen was in gradual enlightenment, right? True practice, realization? No, I don't think so. Dogen's practice is that... Well, I want to get to that. I'll get to that in a minute. Dogen's practice actually is that everything in the whole universe is nothing but Buddha already. And that practice, as soon as one practiced... soon as one sat in zazen one is already practicing the buddha dharma so the uh... it wasn't that one was that one could claim to be Buddha without practice, neither Shinran nor Nichiren nor Dogen said that practice was not necessary. Practice was necessary to understand what was basic to our nature.

[30:05]

And what was basic to our nature, interestingly enough, is an idea that was not clear to all the traditions because, it's not clear because... The early teachings said it was one thing based on the dharmas. The later teaching of the Yogacara said it was one mind. The Madhyamaka said you cannot find any ontological basis for anything. All things are empty of self. The Tathagatagarbha tradition said there is Buddha nature that is inherent and eternal and is the basis of everything. All realization. All of these were confabulated into one teaching at the time of Dogen. So, sudden and gradual realization of what? Well, that's what these stories are about. What is it that we're studying? What is enlightenment? You see, it's an interesting problem because if there is an eternal identity...

[31:07]

then, in a sense, it's not much different from what was earlier considered to be the substrata of all phenomena in India, which was the Brahman and Atman doctrine, that there is something underneath all of this that is eternal, radiant, inexplicable, that there is some kind of awakening beyond our conceptual knowledge. this would become a question of some dispute and different schools. And we'll get into that as we study these teachings together. One of the things that I find in studying these books is that if we come at the book, if we come at the study with the idea, let's say it's a modern idea of simply, you see, If you're inside of a tradition, you kind of take it for granted.

[32:16]

You have a belief already that whatever is written is probably... We have some sense that there's something in this that we can believe impartially, that what Dogen experienced, what Tetsugi Kai experienced, what Buddha experienced, what Bodhidharma experienced as enlightenment was always the same thing. Well, how can that be, you see? I mean, as society changes and new ideas arise, new information is incorporated into the acculturation of the people who are studying, that is a dependent co-arisen event. How can it be that what is... that there can be the same kind of realization 2,500 years ago that we are experiencing today. So one could look at this in a kind of postmodern way and say, well, these are just stories, you know, about, have a kind of detached view, and that one is not really, one is simply basing their belief totally on faith.

[33:19]

And it's true that even Dogen based his, all of these, all of these traditions based partly on the faith that there is such a thing called enlightenment and that we can all experience it. But the nature of that is not a settled question. The deconstructionists can say today that that's a linguistically designated way of approaching our experience. But if we read the texts and we find, as we read them very closely, and we find that we are challenged in our ideas and our feelings about who we are as we read them, we begin to see our own prejudices of mind. We begin to react to the form of the text itself. Then it becomes a dialogue between ourselves and the text. So as we read these stories... rather than just simply looking at them as stories, kind of far-out stories at that. And as something in which is actually challenging our own who we are.

[34:22]

Because stories are not really about Buddha or enlightenment, they're about who we are, each one of us at this moment. So we should look at them as studies of ourselves, I think, and read them in that light. It's a kind of critical encounter. Okay, maybe that's enough of my talking. We'll pass the stories out and begin to read them together. Yeah, let's do that. Yeah, break them up. If you're not going to be here, read them tonight, but then give them back to me if you're not going to be here after the other night to keep them for... Any questions about any of this?

[35:23]

I was just wondering chronologically where Kukai Kukai, that's Shingon. Kobo Daishi, he was in the 8th century in Japan. He was one of the first to go to China and bring back the esoteric, the tantra tradition of what became Shingon. And this was before the tendency to crack down or to make... because most of his followers were wandering around the countryside, weren't they? I don't know a lot about the Shingon, but the Shingon was pretty well established. At first, maybe, he incorporated some of the wandering ascetics, but I think the Shingon became a church. It had a hard time also with the establishment at first. So the Zen church brought back by Esai. in China, the Rinzai tradition of koan study.

[36:29]

Anybody else have a question? When you were talking about the mountain monks, you said they weren't interested in practicing the precepts, and I wonder what that meant. You see, in China... Were they violating them? Yeah, in China, no, but in China, you could be, for example, a Taoist You know what the way is, but you could still drink wine, eat meat, have sex and so on. It did not depend on that. The Chinese were not concerned with the kind of purification of the flesh. That was very much of an Indian tradition. And that was true of the Japanese mountains? And the Japanese, what did they call them? I can't remember, but anyway, they were called Yamabushi. They were kind of like the hippies of their time. They were dropouts, essentially. People who dropped out, but they dropped out for reasons of finding some kind of transcendent practice, or maybe immanent practice, actually, within themselves. But it did not depend on any formality.

[37:31]

That is to say, they didn't have to have a precept line. So, in fact, actually, they were the people that would come, like in the summertime, they'd come and help build the temples and so on. They did a lot of the work, but they were more free-spirited. But they could be very troublesome because they kind of went their own way. They didn't have a formalized or an orthodoxy. They were a heterodox tradition, part of the heterodox tradition. And in Japan, as the country became very, it was already very highly organized in its administration, heterodoxical traditions were not, and still aren't, particularly welcome. So they were gradually absorbed into other traditions, other formalized traditions. like Dogen's. Actually, Dogen took a lot of the esoteric practices, I'm told, and there's interesting things about that in this particular introduction that you might want to read.

[38:33]

I'll give you a bibliography at some point. Okay, so let's read this together. Any other questions? Yes. I just want to remind you what Charlie Caporni said, that he, tomorrow, will order used copies of the Transmission of the Life and copies of Cook's translation. But he has to know about tomorrow. Yeah, how many people would be interested if we could get... Actually, this, I think, may still be in print. Which one is it? This is the Cook one, and I've asked John in the library, in the office, if he will see if he could order some copies. How many people would be interested in having? Which would you recommend that those two? Well, let's just take a number. I don't want to spend all the time right now. I'd rather... Just give me a count right now.

[39:37]

Which one do you prefer, actually? I think they're both good. I like his introduction better than I like the introduction that Cleary has. Is it a good comparison? Pardon me? Like when we took the Lotus Suture class. Yeah, I think it's interesting to compare the two. I like to have both of them, actually. Can I have one more count? One, two, three, four. Either. Either one. You just want one? Okay. It doesn't tell him how to order. Okay, cook first. Okay. Yes. So Cook's not in print anymore? Clearly will be in print again in July. We'll get a lot of them. That's what happens when your wife is conducting. She's the boss. Anyway, I'd like to do this a little later if we could.

[40:47]

Arlene, you've been told that he wants to do this later. Can't we do this after? Can we go on with the text? I mean, we really can do this after, yeah. I'm actually reading right now from the cleric tradition. Shakyamuni Buddha, because that's the one that I duplicated, but we can go back and forth. This is the first one. Here's the case. Shakyamuni Buddha realized enlightenment on seeing the morning star. He said, I and all beings on earth together attain enlightenment at the same time. Cook says virtually the same thing simultaneously. He might just use different words. That's part one. Shakyamuni, now we go to some of the traditions. Shakyamuni left his palace one night when he was 19 years old, shaved off his hair.

[41:47]

After that, he spent six years practicing ascetic exercises. Subsequently, he sat on the indestructible seat so immobile there were cobwebs in his brows, bird's nests on his head, reeds growing up through his mat. Thus, he sat for six years. In his thirtieth year, on the eighth day of the twelfth night, when the morning star appeared, then he spoke the foregoing words, the first lion's roar. In nine years, helping others by teaching, staying in seclusion. With just one robe and one bowl, he lacked nothing. He taught at over 360 assemblies and then finally entrusted the treasury of the eye of the truth. That's the Shobo Genzo, by the way. That is what Sobo Genzo means in Dogen's The Treasury Eye of the Truth of Kashyapa. To Kashyapa and its transmission has continued to the present. Indeed, this is the root of the transmission and practice of the true teaching in India, China, and Japan.

[42:53]

Now, all of these lamp stories talk about the one true tradition, don't they? And as I think it was Mark Twain who said, there is only one true tradition. Religion. Ten thousand interpretations. The behavior of Shakyamuni Buddha during his lifetime is a model for the disciples he left behind. Even though he may have lived the 32, maybe even though he had the 32 special marks, Here is in India the idea of the cakravartin. The cakravartin is the one who is born with special marks. of being a great either secular or religious ruler. And, of course, we know that Atissa said when Shakyamuni was born, according to the legend, that he already had these 32 marks.

[43:56]

I brought along a book because usually somebody asks, what are the 32 marks? But I won't spend our time reading them tonight. You want to know what they are? Yes. Haven't you ever read what the 32 marks are? How many have? Yeah, yeah. How many want to hear them? Quickly, quickly. Thank you, thank you. 32 marks. His head has a turban-shaped protrusion on the crown. His hair curls to the right. His forehead is broad and even. He has white hair between his eyebrows. His eyes are very dark with lashes like a cow. He has forty teeth. His teeth are even without gaps and very white. He has a keen sense of taste. He has a light on his jaw. His tongue is long and slender. He has an excellent voice. His shoulders are rounded even. The back of his body has seven round curves, buttocks, thighs, shoulders, and back. His trunk is thick. His skin is smooth and golden-hued. His arms reach his knees when he stands straight up.

[44:59]

His torso is like a lion's. His body has the proportions of a banyan tree, height equal to arm span. His bodily hair is curled to the right. They stand straight up. His penis is concealed in a sheath. His thighs are well rounded. His ankle bones do not protrude. The palms of his hands and feet are soft and delicate. He has webbed fingers and toes. He has long fingers. He has wheel signs on the palms. You've seen that. Hands and feet. His feet are well set upon the ground. His arches are broad and high and his calves are like an antelope's. Very nice. So anytime you see somebody walking around like that, you know. But this was, of course, an Indian... This is very much a part of the Indian tradition to have special marks and look for special. In fact, all the ancient traditions in all countries had something like this. How about the 80 kinds of... Yeah, I'm not... Anyway, by the way, if you're interested in all the numerical, the threes, the fives, the tens, I think that the Holy Teachings of Ramala Kirti by Robert Thurman at the back is one of the books I always refer to when I'm looking for numerical enumerations of which Buddha, which the Buddha Dharma seems to thrive on.

[46:22]

Therefore, ever since he was in the world through the three periods of his teaching, this is what I talked about before, the genuine imitation and the derelict teaching. Incidentally, that mapo, that derelict teaching, although Shinran didn't subscribe much to it, Nichiren really did, really said that the reason Japan was in such terrible shape is because these priests had really created a task of self-understanding, self-understanding foremost. have been transmitted from Buddha to Buddha, from adept to adept. The true teachings have never, never been cut off. This clearly points to this. They take it on authority that this story is there. Even though what the Buddha pointed out and explained in more than 360 meetings over 49 years was not the same, the various stories, parables, metaphors, and explanations do not go beyond the principle illustrated in the story of his enlightenment. That is to say, I, now, this is the Teisho.

[47:27]

This is Keizan Jokin's Dharma talk point at this from now on. That is to say, quote, I is not Shakyamuni Buddha. Even Shakyamuni Buddha comes from this I. And it does not give birth to Shakyamuni Buddha. All beings on earth also come from here. Just as when you lift up the net and the holes are raised in the same way when Shakyamuni was enlightened, so too were all beings on earth enlightened. And it was not only all beings on earth that were enlightened. All the Buddhas of past, present and future also attained enlightenment. While this is so, do not think of Shakyamuni Buddha as having become enlightened. Do not see Shakyamuni Buddha outside of all beings on earth. However immensely diverse the mountains, rivers, land and all forms and appearances may be, all of them are in the eye of Buddha. And you too are standing in the eye of the Buddha. And it is not simply that you are standing there. The eye has become you.

[48:28]

Buddha's eye has become everyone's whole body, each standing still. Well, we can hear Dogen. This is, of course, Dogen as interpreted by Keizan. Therefore, this clear, bright eye that spans all time should not be thought of as people evidently hear. You are Buddha's eye. Buddha is your whole body. This being so, what do you call the principle of enlightenment? I ask you. Now, remember, he's given this tesho. His first tesho was given around 1300. This is actually exactly 100 years after Buddha's birth, after Dogi's birth. What do you call the principle of enlightenment? I ask you, is the Buddha enlightened with you? Are you enlightened with the Buddha? If you say you become enlightened with Buddha, or you say the Buddha becomes enlightened with you, this is not the Buddha's enlightenment at all. Therefore, it should not be called the principle of enlightenment.

[49:29]

Even so, I and together are neither one nor two. Your skin, flesh, bones, and marrow are all together, and the host inside the house is I. It does not have skin, flesh, bones, or marrow. It does not have gross physical or mental elements. Ultimately speaking, if you want to know the undying person in the hut, notice that word undying, how could it be apart from this skin bag? Who's the skin bag? Who's skin bag? Yeah. Any of us. Yeah. Whoever is present. So you should not understand the beings on earth as distinct from yourself. While the seasons come and go, and the mountains, rivers, and land change with the times, you should know that this Buddha, raising his eyebrows and blinking his eyes... So it is, the unique body revealed in myriad forms. It is effacing in myriad forms and not effacing in myriad forms.

[50:34]

The ancient master Fa Yan said, what effacing or not effacing can you talk about? And Daizang said, what do you call myriad forms? So, studying from all angles, penetrating in all ways, you should clarify Buddha's enlightenment and understand your own enlightenment. I want you all to see this story closely and be able to explain it, letting the explanation flow from your own heart, not borrowing the words of another. I also want to add a humble saying to this story. One branch stands out on the old apricot tree. Thorns come forth at the same time. It's interesting that his translation of that same poem Know that in a remote place, know that in a remote place, in a cloud, no, sorry. A splendid, here he says, a splendid branch issues from the old plum tree.

[51:36]

Rather than one branch stands out from the old apricot tree, a splendid branch issues from the old plum tree. In time, obstructing thorns flourish everywhere. In time, he says. Thorns come forth at the same time. So what do we think about this? He says, what you call the principle of enlightenment. Is the Buddha enlightened with you? Are you enlightened with the Buddha? If you say you become enlightened with the Buddha, or you say Buddha becomes enlightened with you, this is not Buddha's enlightenment at all. Therefore, it should not be called the principle of enlightenment. So what is this principle, do you think? What school are we talking about here? What is the principle of enlightenment that he's looking for?

[52:43]

Nandarādhi? Nonduality is one of them. Emptiness. Yeah, but where, if all things are empty, it doesn't sound like all things are empty of inherent self. That's true. Things are selfless, but it sounds to me like he's talking about something that's, when you wake up, you wake up to the same thing that Buddha woke up to. Is that like that to you? What is that? The I has become you. Whose I has become you? Buddha's I. Who's Buddha? What is it? All beings on earth. Is there If we stripped away all beings on earth, is there just being?

[53:47]

Oh, it doesn't matter. Does it matter? If there's being, that is to say, is there just naked awareness? Prior, already prior to the arising of any phenomena. No. No. Of course, what are we, in Yogacara? Depends what school you're in. Depends what school you're at. This is a Yogacara Tathagatagarbha doctrine. As far as I can see. The Yogacara is the mind only. All things are projections of our mind. All phenomena is a projection of mind. But mind is the touchstone by which ontologically speaking or being itself is the touchstone by which we understand all things are mind. The Tathagata Garba doctrine is that there is eternally present the Buddha mind, the

[54:53]

radiant, ungraspable, unnameable consciousness, awareness, which is called Buddha. Does garbha mean seed? Garbha means womb, the womb of the Buddha. I think that the, myself, that the daimoku, the idea of the original enlightenment was born in China with the doctrine after Madhyamaka, and we can ask Rev about this, but that human beings want, we human beings have some kind of idealism that we want We want something beyond what is tangibly or explicitly or, what would you say, empirically available to us. We want to feel, I think, we want to feel that underneath phenomena, that if we just practice long enough, hard enough,

[55:56]

all our conceptualizations, all our ideas, all our histories, all our feelings are going to drop away and we're going to go eureka. I finally understand. That's what these stories seem to tell us. But how can that be so? If all things are dependently co-arisen, that means that all things are also dependent on the linguistic formations or designations that are culturally contrived. It is an axiom of Buddha Dharma, whatever school it is, that all perceptions is mediated by concepts and therefore is not pure. All perceptions are not such a thing as a pure perception. Although there is a pure perception, it only occurs in the first one-sixtieth of a second, according to Dharmakirti. And that raw perception in itself cannot articulate the Buddha Dharma. It has to next have what?

[56:59]

Conceptualization. And what is conceptualization? Verbal designation. Huh? Verbal designation. Exactly. Verbal and conceptual. Aren't there some yogis, though, that do see direct perception? Yeah. They say they do. There are all of the jhana states, the jhana states, and one of them is perception and non-perception in which the perceiver and the perceived become one. And it is said that in that particular state... conceptualization drops away. Or, but in that state, you're no longer maybe available for functioning. You know, Ramakrishna could go into a state of trance and sit there for seven days like this. But as soon as he came down, he was back in the world. He was back into the conceptual realm.

[58:01]

So, I asked a question once, I think I asked Rick actually this question, but the question was, anything not experienced as something is not experienced. Or anything not experienced as something cannot be said to be experienced fully. In other words, not until we form the concept that there is an experience happening There's nothing but that first raw perception. This is the sense. Not until it finds conceptual designation. And generally speaking, in the Buddha Dharma, concepts are the bad guy. Until you clean... Since in the Buddha Dharma, we project onto phenomena, our ideas about phenomena, and phenomena are empty of our ideas in and of themselves, according to what we've been learning about samadhi states.

[59:15]

then all we are seeing in the world is a response to our own projections. That is, what we're actually responding to is our own projections of what reality is, our conceptual designations. However, if we could understand through conceptual designations that that is what we are doing. And it is through, it's very interesting that it is through words, it is through language, it is through text, the study of text in Buddhism that we come to understand through language itself that language is inherently empty itself of any... language is itself empty of any inherent existence. So that whatever we hear conventionally designated, it dependently co-arises in our culture and so on, is just a story. But it's not just a story.

[60:17]

It is a story that functions in the conventional world. And therefore we have what's called the two truths, as we've been studying that. The truth of the conventional world, which is conceptually and linguistically designated, and the story of the ultimate truth, which is understanding, in some sense, the emptiness of all dependently co-arisen events. That is the Madhyamaka point of view. It has nothing to do, per se, with some kind of underneath stratum of awareness called the Tathagata Garbha, except later. What was the Yogacara's position? Yogacara's position is that the... Well, the Ogachara position is that one must first find, in conventional designations, a valid conceptual object of observation. A valid conceptual object of observation is all things are impermanent.

[61:23]

I'm impermanent, you're impermanent. And then from that point, you begin to analyze from the point of impermanence what is a valid or invalid conceptual designation or valid conceptual designation. First you find those points and then you use that to analyze your responses, your reifying responses to phenomena. and language itself. I find this very interesting, this text very interesting, because it challenges me about who I am in terms of my resistance to any doctrine that purports to suggest that there is something eternal. and everlasting. I had always assumed, or from my reading and my study, that all things are impermanent.

[62:29]

Although, as we study this deeper, it is said that, for example, what we call permanent is part of the conventional world. But that itself, because it is dependently co-arisen idea, that is to say, it's a linguistic idea that we agree on among ourselves, that it is a relational phenomena, because it is dependently co-arisen, has no substance to it whatsoever. So the Madhyamaka point of view, the Nargajuna's point of view, is we can talk about mind as being the place from which we, that mind is the one place that though it cannot finally be designated, is as mind itself. The Buddha Dharma is this luminous mirror image of the world. And the Madhyamaka says, how can you say that?

[63:36]

Madhyamaka, from Raghujuna's point of view, is how can you, on what do you base that? So, although the middle way, the Madhyamaka point of view, does not assert anything in its place, we have a hunger that there's some ongoing eternal Buddha Dharma. And I always had the feeling that when I read the Transmission of the Light, that in some sense, Dogen Zinji takes that position. I'm sorry, I lost you. I have a feeling that Dogen has... confabulated into his teachings, the Tathagata Garbha of the womb of the Tathagata, that there is, that the Buddha Dharma is, arises, cannot arise from deception, cannot arise from delusion, but has to arise from something that is already

[64:40]

Uncontaminated and pure. You could call it basic awareness. So Tathagata Garbha, in Yogacara, you see, what Yogacara said is empty is duality. Just as the Yogacara school said, what is empty is that all dharmas in the Abhidharma are empty of any inherent existence themselves. But the Amitabha point is that all things are empty, period, of any self. And what the Tathagata Garbha says is that the original pure Buddha nature is empty of defilement. So that there's a pure, undefiled, unconceptualized substratum to existence. But that sounds very much like we're back into Vedanta of Brahman and Atman. What? Is that called the Nirmanakaya? Well, no, that's called the Dharmakaya. The Dharmakaya, the pure, unadulterated... Substance.

[65:50]

Yeah, but it's... You can't call it substance, but the thing, it sounds like an essentialist doctrine. Yes. Once you say that the past, present, and future have no inherent existence, so that says time has no inherent existence, so then eternal is meaningless. Yeah. Yet. Isn't one of the facts of reading these teachings is the fact that Buddhism is the only, quote, faith, religion, or practice that deconstructs itself constantly, and it is constantly invited to deconstruct the self? Yes, that's true. But one of the interesting features, that's particularly true of the Madhyamaka, but one of the interesting features of reading the transmission of the light is that it seems to be saying that there is a timeless identity that is passed on in the transmission of the light, that is, of enlightenment.

[67:03]

But at the same time, there's all the doctrines in Zen Buddhism about going beyond your teacher. So if it's a timeless, dimensionless form, then how can you go beyond it? Yet you're asked to go beyond it, and the only way you can go beyond it is as an acculturated individual in a society. that is constantly adding new information, constantly having a new take on what the old school is about. Dogen brought to Japan his own particular, the dropping off of body and mind was Dogen's version of what he thinks enlightenment is. Nagarjuna had his own version of what he considered enlightenment to be. Vasubandhu had his mind-only version of what enlightenment is. Today, in our post-modern deconstructionist time, we try to study this and say, this is not history, this is ahistorical.

[68:05]

Let's stand apart from it and have a kind of critical and analytical approach to this. But that is not the Buddha way of doing it because our own subjectivity must become involved in these texts for us as we read these texts to change. Do you get it? In other words, we're independently co-arising this stuff all the time and re-describing, re-defining what enlightenment is. So I think if you think that Shakyamuni Buddha was enlightened and therefore you're not, or if you're enlightened and Dogen wasn't, It all depends, you know, the truth kind of depends on the position from which it is viewed. It is dependently co-arisen, the truth. It is not, how can it be something that is unrelated to anything else?

[69:10]

But this moment. But this moment. Yes, they're all interested in learning about ourselves and the relations of who we are here and now, in this moment. But who we are here and now in this moment is defined by everything that we understand about the past. That is all conventional designation. That is all linguistically defined. We all have a history. I think the biggest thing we're trying to learn in these teachings is not to cling to any aspect of that. But we learn that clinging through words, through language. The biggest thing that is happening today in linguistic studies is that perception and conception come up together. They do not, conception does not follow perception. What about that 16th of a second? Well, maybe so. I don't know. I mean, maybe it's... Well, it depends on what part of the Yogyakarta is true.

[70:15]

Dharmakirti says not. Yeah, but... Anyway, what is interesting in this is in order to validate what they thought they were in China and in Japan, you needed a tradition to go back and say that my understanding is the same as my teacher's. My teacher's was the same as his father's and so on. This does not hold true in the United States particularly. We go to the other extreme of thinking. What I individually experience and think is the truth over and against what everybody else might think. But in Asia, that was never the way. In Asia, you finally understood the truth when it fit in with what's commonly considered, at least in a particular circle, to be the truth. In Japan, you're considered free of your neuroses when you finally understand that mommy and daddy were correct. In this country... It's just the opposite.

[71:16]

In Asia, in Japan... It's not just the opposite in this country. No? No. Well, let me put it this way. In this country... Good people who are actually doing something and moving the society forward believe the same thing. That's true. But in Japan you would say, you know, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. In this country we say the squeaky hinge gets the oil hammered down. So could we go back to the Dharmakaya and the three other kayas? So in my conception of what you were talking about, the Dharmakaya was like all of this. The Sambhogakaya was the creative sound. The bliss body. Yeah, but it's through sound that everything is created and thought. And the nirmanakaya was the space that you were describing as infinity.

[72:19]

No. The nirmanakaya is the taking on the flesh, the actual flesh of the two abstracts. Yes. But the flesh of the two abstracts are like not here and now in the way that I couldn't pinch that like I can pinch myself, which I could pinch the dharmakaya. Or I could build a beautiful monastery and have lots of people come and have reference. Well, this is an interesting point, but I don't know if I could argue it with you right now. No, I meant, were you touching on that? I don't know that I was touching. As I see the Dharmakaya, the Dharmakaya is the ineffable, indescribable. The first flash. Right. The first, it's like, the dharmakaya is like being in deep sleep, dreamless sleep. Then as you come out of that dreamless sleep, you go, oh, you begin to stress, you haven't quite come into your day-to-day reality.

[73:25]

You go, oh, it's kind of blissful to come out of that dimension into some sort of form, begin to take form. Then all at once you're back into the conventional form of yourself. Yeah. designation. That's kind of like the normality as I see it, as I understand. That's just my kind of feeling about it. Anyways, almost ten minutes to nine, folks. I'm dealing with Horace going around in circles here soon. We extend the class until ten o'clock. So now, everybody who wants to get a book of either this or this, see Arlene. And we'll see what we can do about getting text. I have the name for the cook. The cook is about $15 and... Both of them are. They're both $14.95. Okay, so for cook, I've got Nick, Kate, Carolyn, Wren, Bert, Jackie, Emanuel, Cedar, Kathy, Early, Andrew, Bob.

[74:30]

And nobody for transmission of the light. Yes, Jackie. Jackie. It's a used version. Yeah. Oh, that's good. If we can get them now, we don't know for sure. Yeah. I have a feeling, though, that maybe the cook will come through from some supply house. book people or something. Maybe Transmission of Light will also be available on these bookstores or something like that. Thank you very much.

[75:02]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_86.64