I think while we're at it, I'll hand out the rest of these. Does anybody need one of the first ones we did? Yep. And let's hand these out while we're at it. And in the beginning of this week, maybe we can use the books. We won't get to this tonight, of course, but don't forget to bring it next week. Eva has been very kind in doing labor on this for me, so thank her.

[01:23]

Thank you. Was that it? Anybody else need one? I have more here for next week. Who doesn't have one? This is not tonight's. This is next week's. Keep this for next week. I think Andrews told me it's okay. Can you see it going on? By the way, I would suggest if you get a chance to either buy this book or go in the library and look at it.

[02:34]

It's one of the best expositions on Dogen, Zenji's... Cook's interpretation of Dogen, Zenji's interpretation of enlightenment. Which, after all... Yeah, it's translations from the Shobo Genzo, all having to do with the question of what is enlightenment, at least in Dogen Zenji's view, which we've already discussed is quite different than the earlier doctrinal views. Since this book, you know, what we're doing with the transmission of light is studying the central question about awakening. And I think it's essential that we come at this with a critical mind. By that I mean not to kind of just accept because we see ourselves as, quote, Buddhists, that what is set forth in the book we take as gospel.

[03:39]

Otherwise I think we're in danger of selling ourselves a bill of goods and buying into some ideology that in the long run is self-defeating. And we kind of con ourselves. We are our own greatest con artists when it comes to religious practices in the world. If it wasn't so, Buddhism would still be enlightening the world. Cambodia would not have committed... It's genocide the Christian tradition would not have resulted in or helped to support the genocide in the West and so forth. There's a story, you know, and I like it a lot. It's not... Before we come to tonight's Ananda story, and just vis-a-vis what I'm saying about ... You know, there's two ways of looking at it. One way of saying, well, you know, we have a tradition of enlightenment, like a light that has been passed down from mind to mind.

[04:50]

I believe that, you know, as a Buddhist. And the other kind of statement, the objective statement, that says Buddhist believers, Zen Buddhists, study or have a feeling that there is this thing called mind-to-mind transmission. as two different points of view. And I don't think it hurts for you to have, or any of us to have, the second point of view as well as the first, that we examine with critical attention. That's, after all, what the Buddha Dharma, or at least the early Buddha Dharma, exhorted us to do. If we take things on faith and become doctrinal and dogmatic, then I think we're just lost. And that reminds me of a story, not from Buddhism, but from Carlos Castaneda. I thought about this today. Have you read those books? Well, you might remember an episode that Castaneda, who's always playing straight man to Don Juan's mystical yaki sorcery, is reciting to Don Juan a favorite story of his.

[05:58]

And the story goes something like, I had this friend that had two cats. A woman. And she had to move away, and the cats were old, and she had no way to take them with her, and no one to leave them with, and therefore she had decided to take them to the vet. Or maybe it was the animal shelter, I'm not sure. But anyway, the fate of the two cats was pretty much settled about what would happen to them. And of course it was heartbreaking, but nevertheless she was taking the two cats. And... He was helping her, and when they went to carry the cats inside, the one that he was carrying leaped out of his arms, he said, and ran down into the sewer that was nearby, in one of those drains, and disappeared into the sewer. Well, the other cat was being carried in, purring and mewing to its

[07:01]

if not almost immediate destruction. So Don Juan, he said, loved that story because the cat that got away was the cat that made an existential choice about no matter what happened to it, it would, whether it got eaten by rats or starved to death, or at least it had made the choice to be free. And he said, now this is the point, he said, Don Juan always liked that story. And then Don Juan looked at me with that smile that sent a chill... through my blood, and he said, of course, you've always identified yourself with the one that got away. And he looked at me in such a way that I realized that I was the cat that was being carried in. So the point of the story was that we're both cats, of course, but we're not always, at those moments when we're mewing and in the arms of the Buddha Dharma, thinking that we're getting liberated, it's very likely that we're about to be rubbed out. And not in a positive way, but in the way in which we reify or get caught in some kind of idea about what we think this is, and try to exemplify those ideas other than what we already are.

[08:18]

I always liked that story. Sent a chill down my back, too. All right, Ananda. I don't think there's anybody here who needs to know the history of Ananda. Anyway, on the internet, by the way, there is a... You can look up in the various... disciples and lineage, and they have quite a bit of information. I think it was you who brought it to me last weekend on Mahakasyapa's life. That was legendary, of course, and I don't know where it all comes from, but it was kind of interesting about the stories we make and have been told about these personages. Okay, let's start reading it. Let's start from this side tonight with Catherine. if you would please read a couple of paragraphs, and let's follow along, and maybe just read it through, and then go back and discuss it, aspects of it. Ananda asked Kaushyapa, what did the Buddha hand on to you besides the golden seed of love?

[09:27]

Kaushyapa said, Ananda. Ananda said, yes. Kaushyapa said, take down a banner pole in front of your gate. Ananda was greatly enlightened. Ananda was from the warrior caste, a cousin of Shakyamuni Buddha. Ananda means happiness or joy. He was born the night of the Buddhist enlightenment and he was so extraordinarily handsome that everyone was happy to see him. Ānanda was foremost in learning, intellectual resilience, and broad in understanding. He was the Buddha's attendant for 20 years, propagated all of the Buddha's teachings, and studied all of the Buddha's manners. When the Buddha entrusted the treasury of the Eye of Truth to Kāśyapa, he also instructed Ānanda to help communicate the teaching. So Ānanda accompanied Kāśyapa for 20 more years and became thoroughly familiar with the entire treasury of the Eye of Truth. Yes, now in the Cook rendition, I think the next paragraph, right, begins the teisho, am I right?

[10:28]

In other words, in this particular rendering, unlike the others, there's not much history and so on, particularly at the beginning. Most of it's a teisho of Keizan himself. This should document the fact that the way of Zen is not in the same class as other schools. Ananda was already foremost in learning, having studied widely and gained a broad understanding, with the Buddha himself giving him approval many times. Yet he did not hold the transmission of truth or attain illumination of the ground of minds. When Kashyapa was going to compile the teachings left by the Buddha, Ananda was not permitted to attend because he had not yet attained realization. Then Ananda meditated carefully and soon attained sainthood. When he went to go into the room where the teachings were being compiled, Kashyapa told him that if he had attained realization he should enter by a show of supernormal powers. So Ananda appeared in a tiny body and went in through the keyhole.

[11:32]

Thus he was finally able to enter. The disciples all said, Ananda was the Buddha's attendant, so he had heard a lot and studied widely. It was like a cup of water poured into another cup without spilling anything. Let us ask Ananda to recite the teachings for us. So Kasyapa said to Ananda, Everyone is looking to you to recite the sayings of the Buddha. Then Ananda, who had kept the request of the Buddha within him, and had now also received this request of Kasyapa, began to recite all the teachings of the Buddha's Laita. Kasyava said to the disciples, Is this any different from what the Buddha taught? The disciples said, It is no different. The disciples in attendance were all great saints with the six super-knowledges, including the knowledge of past lives, clairvoyance, and knowledge of the end of contamination. They did not forget anything they had heard.

[12:36]

With one voice they said, Is this the Buddha's second coming, or is this Ananda talking? They said in praise, the waters of the ocean of the Buddhist teaching have flowed into Ananda. The teaching of the Buddha that have come down through the present or those spoken by Ānanda, so we know for certain this way does not depend on great learning or on the attainment of realization. This should be proof. Ānanda still follows Kāśyapa for 20... still followed Kāśyapa for 20 years, and he was first greatly enlightened at the time of the event cited in the beginning. Since he was born the light of the good of enlightenment, Ananda was not used to talk about the flower ornament scripture, but he opposed the concentration of the wellness of Buddha and could recite what he had not heard. But he nevertheless had not entered the way of Zen.

[13:38]

It's just the same as our feeling to enter. In an existing past, Ananda had awakened the aspiration for perfect enlightenment in the presence of the Buddha called the King of Emptiness. At the same time, it is the present Buddha Shakyamuni. Ananda was fond of intellectual learning. That is why he had not yet truly realized enlightenment. Dr. Yun, who on the other hand cultivated energy whereby he attained true enlightenment. Surely much academic learning is hindrance on the way. Here's proof of that. This is why the flower ornament scripture says, much learning without practical application is like a poor man counting another's treasures without half a cent of his own. If you want to find out what this way really is, do not default on academic learning. Just be energetic and progressive practice. Yet I dare say that there must be something besides the handing of the robe.

[14:41]

Thus Ananda went soon to Kasyapa. Would Buddha be bequeathed this golden-sleeved robe to you? What else did he transmit? Kasyapa realized the time was ripe, called Ananda. When Ānanda responded, Śrīla Prabhupāda took down the balaclava in front of the gate. Ānanda was greatly enlightened. As he said at purpose, the Buddha's robe spontaneously entered the top of Ānanda's head. That gobu-sleeve robe was divestly transmitted and kept by the seven Buddhas of antiquity. There are three explanations of that robe. One is that the Buddha brought it with him The 40 Dharma. Sorry.

[15:44]

To the first six Zen founders in China was made of a blue-black muslin. When it came to China, a blue-green lining was added, was put in. It is now kept in the shrine of the sixth founder and is considered a national treasure. This is one, this is The one mentioned in the treatise on transcendent wisdom, where it says, the Buddha put on a coarse monk's garment. To go against the spiritual woman's thought, a scripture says that the Buddhist aunt made a vestment of the holy thought by herself and gave it to the Buddha. These are only one or two of the many vestments. As for the miracles associated with them, they are found in many scriptural passages containing situational teachings. In ancient times, when the Buddhist master Vasushita

[16:49]

The treasury of the eye of the truth was not transmitted to two people, only one person, Kaksyapa, but received the Buddha's klippas. Moreover, Ānanda attended Pāśapa for twenty years and held the transmission of the teaching. Thus the Zen school should be known to be a special transmission outside doctrine, but recently it has thoughtlessly come to be considered the same as doctrinal school. If they were one and the same, since Ānanda was a saint with the six superknowledges, he would have received the Buddha's dhikṣā and would have been the Buddha's successor. Was there anyone who understood the teachings of the scriptures better than Ānanda?

[17:53]

If there was, if there were anyone surpassing Ānanda in this regard, then it could be admitted that the idea of the scriptures is more than the same as the meaning of Zen. If you say they are just one, why would Ānanda take the trouble to attend Kaśapa for twenty years and become illumined at the command to take down the bannacle? Know that the idea of the scriptures is not to be considered the way of Zen. It is not that Buddha was not a Buddha, but even if Ananda was his attendant, how could he transmit to him the mind seal, as long as he had not penetrated the enlightened mind? You should realize that this does not depend on having a lot of academic learning. Even if you can memorize the sacred teachings in books perfectly by means of your intelligence, If you do not penetrate the heart, it is like uselessly counting on those treasures. It is not that the heart is not in the scriptural teachings, but that Ananda had not yet penetrated. The literalist interpreters in the Far East fail to penetrate the heart of the scriptures.

[18:55]

You should also realize that the Way of Enlightenment is no use. Lord Ananda, who was first in the sacred teachings of the Buddha full lifetime, propagated them as the disciple of the Buddha, who would not go along. Nevertheless, you should know that he attended Kashyapa and again propagated the teachings after his grave light. It was like fire joining fire. If you want to reach the true path clearly, you should give out your idea of self, your old feelings of conceit and self-importance, and return to the pristine and inspired mind to comprehend and lighten knowledge. As for the incident in Ananda's enlightenment story, Ananda thought that Kasyapa had received the Golden Street Vestment and was a disciple of Buddha, and that there was nothing special other than that. Nevertheless, after following Kasyapa and attending him closely, he thought Kasyapa had realized something more.

[20:00]

Kasyapa then knew that the time was right, and he called to Ananda. Like a ventilated spirit echoing in response to a call, Ananda responded immediately, like a spark issuing from a flame. Although Kasyapa called Ananda, he was not calling Ananda. and Ananda did not echo in reply. As for taking down the banner pole in front of the gate, it refers to a custom of India. When the Buddhists and followers of other religions and philosophies were set to debate, both sides would put up a banner. When one side was defeated, their banner would be torn down. The present incident seems to suggest that Kasyapa and Ananda had set up their banners next to each other. Since now Ananda was appearing in the world, Kasyapa should fold up his banner, one appearing, one disappearing. But this is not what the story means.

[21:04]

If Kasyapa and Ananda are both banner poles, the principle is not evident. Once a banner pole is taken down, another banner pole should appear. When Kasyapa instructed Ananda to take down the banner pole in front of the gate, Ananda was greatly enlightened because he realized the communion of the paths of teacher and apprentice. After his enlightenment, Ananda took down even Kashyapa, and mountains and rivers all crumbled away. Hence the Buddha's row naturally entered the crown of Ananda's head. But do not use this story to remain in a state of standing on the mile-high wall in the mass of naked flesh. Do not linger in purity. You should go on to realize that there is a valid spirit. Buddhas appeared in the world one after another. The Zen Master pointed it out generation after generation. It was only this matter that mind-to-mind communication was ultimately unknown to others. Even if the obvious masses of naked flesh, Kashyapa and Ananda, are one or two faces of the appearance in the world of That One, do not consider Kashyapa and Ananda as That One.

[22:17]

Now each of you stands like a wall a mile high. You are a myriad transformations of that one. If you know that one, you will be buried at once. If so, one should not look for taking down the banner pole outside of oneself. Again, I want to add some words. The vines withered. The trees fallen. The mountains crumble away. The valley stream swells in a torrent. Sparks fly from stone. Well, what's it about? What? In all these stories, there's a warning. Every story has a warning in it. It's the warning. Too much into it? Well, it sounds like they're kind of anti...

[23:22]

Intellectual. Don't get what? Caught up in the intellect. Don't get caught up in the intellect. Don't allow something outside of yourself. Exactly. It also says, do not linger in purity. This is a very important point. This last point, do not linger in purity. This is Dogen's energy. Thesis. What is Dogen Zenji's thesis? What is Dogen Zenji's what? Thesis. Thesis. Well, how would you present Dogen Zenji's view of what enlightenment is or his experience of enlightenment? All things, just as they are exactly, are already perfectly enlightened. That's his thesis. All things without exception.

[24:26]

So whatever, what about whatever point of view you take, including what I just enunciated, which is setting up a banner, is what? Enlightenment. Well, it's another, well, yes, it's another point of view. But does that mean then that underneath our points of view there's something called enlightenment? Well, if you say no, then our points of view would have to be enlightened. But that's another banner. Wait, why is that? Well, whatever position you take as a position or as a view... No, I'm just saying that that wasn't... You know, there isn't something outside, but not that all things that are inside are money.

[25:28]

Well, is there an outside and an inside that we were referring to? It seemed like you were. Well, then I'm taking a view. You see? So is he tearing down the banner because there can only be one banner? That's not what he said. Well, I noticed that he said something that wasn't it, but he didn't quite say what it was. Let's go back over the story. Let's go back, beginning with Kashyapa. Oh, no. Oh, no. We know about Ananda being, you know, okay, Ananda, maybe we could approach it this way. What might Ananda, I was thinking that this way, what might Ananda represent? Since we're dealing with representation.

[26:30]

I mean, he wasn't enlightened, right? That was the problem. I mean, the pre-enlightened Ananda. The word here is conception. Conception. Conception. Verification. Learning. But it's also according to this attained realization. This is before he attains it. We're talking about before he goes to the keyhole. Before? Before he goes to the keyhole. Before he goes to the keyhole. Okay. Because the keyhole happens 20 years before the banner. Okay. Also devotion, I would say. Devotion. Because he was offended. intelligence or relying on intelligence it seems that what these it feels a little bit to me like these doctrines have a kind of axe to grind which may be an historical question

[27:41]

And that acts to grind might be the fact that the doctrinal schools at that time was the Tendai school. This put great emphasis on learning and memorization, being versed in the sutras, having a clear understanding of The Lotus Sutra, for example. Practicing from a particular point of view. But maybe there's something that could be looked at as prior or already always the case. Because at some point, Dogen Zenji talks about all things All animated and unanimated or sentient and insentient things do not have Buddha nature.

[28:50]

They're already the very perfect expression of Buddha nature. This is that one, this is that one doctrine, that one principle doctrine that is coming to the forefront in the 13th century. Now, whether we believe that or not, because the Indian Buddhists often dispute this point of view, that we are not enlightened beings, we have the potential for enlightenment. There is a self that has a potential for enlightenment, but there is a self that has potential, and that self, we think, is it like this book or something that is going to get a new cover on it in a certain amount of time when it purifies, when it's gone through a purification process. Then it would seem to me that we are falling into a kind of duality. And Dogen Zenji's whole approach is to overcome all dualities in terms of Buddha Dharma.

[29:50]

That one does not have to One does not have to do anything but realize that what one is already in the act of being one, self, which is also the realization of the interdependence of all things existing concurrently with that aspect of the one, is enlightenment, or is realization. As I understand Dogen Zenji to mean. Therefore, our practice, or whatever we are applying ourselves to at the moment, in terms of wholehearted, like what we're doing now, wholehearted engagement, is authenticating the interdependence of everything realized as yourself. Does that make sense?

[30:53]

The thing is, there's a difference between this as an intellectual understanding and the feeling. Dogen Zenji and Keizan had a great deal of emotional content under their words. It's not dry. It's feeling attention. How are you reading that, don't linger in purity? It's like, don't linger in emptiness. Don't linger in form, don't linger in emptiness. Jumping clear of the mini and the one is what... So you're not... By not lingering means at last... In other words, suppose you all at once are doing something. Cutting carrots, reading a book, fulfilling some activity, and you're swept with this feeling of the... kind of inexplicable oneness of who you are, of what everything is. It feels like a kind of shattering of your normal perceptive. As soon as that experience happens, you feel the emptiness, you feel the sense that you cannot get to the bottom of anything, and yet exactly what is happening is emptiness, as form.

[32:10]

Suppose you really had that sudden realization. Because it can't be gradual. It has to come on all at once. But then what happens immediately after that, the next second? The next second, you take that, you put it out in front of you, and you make it into something. In other words, it's so delicious, you know, that you don't want to let go of it. As soon as that happens, it is no longer... Well, even killing it. In Dogen Zenji, there's not a one-time enlightenment. The enlightenment is now when I practice this, wholeheartedly, everydayness, just entirely this. Self and other are one thing. How could there be anything else but one? How could this moment be anything else but everything that has ever existed being realized as now? How could it be any different from that? I mean, it so permeates his work. that we don't see this moment as the divine event.

[33:13]

We think this moment is preparation for something we're going to get if we just purify ourselves or not tomorrow. But imagine when that whole thing became bullshit to you, you know? You just saw that you'd set yourself up for a lot of deception. And you're always going to be dissatisfied, and not only that, now you've got, you know, you've gone without chocolate, sex, rock, roll, whatever the things are that have made your life worthwhile in order to get something. And all at once, you feel you've been taken down the garden path. You've been conned. Religion is a great con. It's the biggest con around. As soon as this becomes religion, we're khand. As soon as the Buddha, according to Dogen Zenji, becomes something else but that very activity that you already are, you're khand. You're khand yourself. You're a Buddhist. And an enlightened Buddhist at that. The thing about...

[34:15]

religion, which is really, which is why I brought this story up tonight, and it's something that all of us should come up against again and again. We cannot import ideas, or we cannot import Zen Buddhism into America like a Toyota, and drive away on the road to enlightenment, you know? If we do, we're just making a church, another church. Aren't we? Yes. So why do we do it the way we do it? Well, why do you do it the way you do it? You have to do it some way. You have to do it some way. That's a good answer. You have to have a content. You have to have a container. And there is a tradition that has passed it along. But the tradition that passed it along from Buddha from the very beginning is be a light unto yourselves. You need, since we are interdependently arisen, there is a past, there is causation. But since enlightenment, if all things are already enlightened, then they cannot be the cause for something else.

[35:22]

Enlightenment is already the result. It cannot be the cause for something else. Because there is nothing else outside of what can be enlightened. In other words... The light and the lamp are the same. The light that you see by is the light that you are. The light that you are is the light that you see by. It's interesting about enlightenment not causing anything else, because it does not teach basically independent coercion that everything is causing everything else. But that everything is causing everything else is enlightenment. Birth and death is enlightenment in Buddha's, in Dogen's Buddhism. Whereas earlier, birth and death were something you're trying to get out of. You're trying to overcome. You're trying to overcome the world yet. By the time you get to building, you're no longer trying to overcome it. But you don't have to buy this. I'm just saying that this is what I think they're trying to sell us. Or have us look at it. I don't sell it. Don't buy it, necessarily. Think about it.

[36:29]

You should ponder it. You should study it as well, is what he's saying. From all angles. From the angle that there's emptiness, that you can see that all things are interdependently arisen. That I reach out to support all things, and all things come forward to support me. You can all see that. It's not that it takes a lot of understanding. You can see that. There's a tendency for such, when one realizes that, there's an independence. At least for me, it's more of a, although I in a sense feel it at times, you know, there's a rush that goes through me, I find that there's no connecting effect to my next action. Right. Good. How can you connect it to your next action? Who would be there to connect it? You see? Our delusion is our enlightenment in this case.

[37:31]

The delusion that there is somebody there to connect it to the next thing. That there is such a thing as enlightenment. Dogen says enlightened people are those who understand delusion. Deluded people are those who think they understand what enlightenment is. We can't separate the two. As soon as we understand enlightenment, that's a delusion. Because we understand. There's an I that understands something. But that I that understands something was always already the case anyway before you understood it. But by practicing, you suddenly keep trying to grab onto some aspect of the teaching. And you're always, always, always disappointed eventually. Well, not all people. Actually, some people make a whole career of that. But most of us at some point become very dissatisfied or very disappointed with our practice. That particular delusion happens to be a very fruitful place to be. because that's a warning that we're already setting up me getting something.

[38:33]

But you're already set up to get something. We're already at something that's set up. This is not a matter of putting on new clothes, this is a matter of just seeing through the old ones. The emperor, it's not only seeing that the emperor has no clothes on, it's seeing that you can't see the emperor, period. But the emperor is there in the process. And the process is realized and authenticated through practice. And practice is not just sitting zazen. That's just the old meditation way of making a ceremony about sitting still and watching all the phenomena of our mind, body and so on arise and fall away from moment to moment. Then you take that out into the world and practice that. Which also is realizing and authenticating enlightenment to ultimate truth. Wherever you are. Everything is authenticating ultimate truth exactly as it is.

[39:37]

But as soon as you say exactly what it is, you cannot find out ultimately what it is other than it's just this. In other words, what Buddhism calls just suchness. The suchness of things. See, the thing is about this that's so startling is we all know this. We really do. Everybody knows this. I've never met anybody who didn't know this already. But knowing it doesn't mean that you say, I know this now and now I'm going to go and start living my life differently. Just like that. You may, you may not. Most of the practice discussions that I've had, both as a practice, so-called practice leader, you want a reification, that's a big one, and going to teachers, is that there's always a feeling that I'm not quite adequate.

[40:45]

I'm not quite getting it. Right? And if you go and say, I've got it. Right. If you actually go and say, I understand, I'm already Buddha. Well, show me. And then you think there's something you have to do to show it on top of what you just did. This is the game of Zen. This is where Zen uses concepts and so on to show us the emptiness of our concepts, but that they're dependently co-arisen and must be so. There's not an I that exists separate from this process that is arising called you and me, or it and us, or consciousness. And suddenly when we're permeated with a sense, like somebody called it like being flooded with What was it? Melting honey flowing down over you. It's a sense of joyousness because everything, just as it is, is already pure, is already happy.

[41:50]

Just as it is, including all the horror of the world. Oh, I can't buy that. If I bought that, I would just smile at children being destroyed and so on. No, you wouldn't. Can you see why you wouldn't? It doesn't mean that suddenly that things are perfect is going to put you in a position where you're going to stand out of the way things are because then you've reified yourself and pulled yourself out of the world again. Which is another way we try to understand Buddhism is by abstracting ourselves from our experience. This is my delusion. I'm telling you. This is my deluded way of speaking about these things. Wow. So let's see. What are the parts of this? What about, you know, they're very interesting things.

[42:54]

He's born on the night of the Buddha's enlightenment. What does that suggest? I mean, why would they, I mean, the people that wrote that story long before Keizan, thousands of years before Keizan or something, didn't believe that. They used it as a metaphor for what? Yeah, omens. Omens play a big part in classical Eastern thought and Western thought for that matter, too. In other words, religion and the miraculous are intimately, you know, we have these scientific materialist minds since the age of enlightenment, but not so long ago people in the West thought the same thing very clearly about the miraculousness of things that we have. We see the miraculousness of the atom maybe and so on, but it's a little different from the making the kind of anthropomorphic miraculousness.

[44:04]

How about going through the keyhole? I like that one. That's pretty good. Yeah, I thought about that too. No, but what was the keyhole? I mean, the interesting image, the keyhole. It's the keyhole into... But there's an actual rock. where people who have gotten to this level go and take the rock and squeeze it and leave their fingerprints. So when I read that he went through the keyhole, I just bought it, you know. I mean, I've seen pictures of that rock. People actually go there. It's a practice. And they also have, what is that, Shroud of Jesus? Huh? Shroud of Turin. Turin, yeah. Well, there are more worlds than I've dreamt of in your philosophy of racial rights. It is our world. I mean, you know, we're getting to that point where we know this is our world with the walk-through walls. I'm looking forward to that.

[45:08]

Will I leave any of my favorite people? Oh, I don't want to get into this discussion. This would already be a pretty fantastic... I mean, this already, just as it is, is about as far out as you can get, as far as I can see. But there are infinite number of dimensions. No question about that. You know, in a certain state of samadhi, I don't know if it's... What John has stated is, I had a Korean monk once tell me that at some stage, you know, they sit for seven days without going to sleep. You know, they just sit and sit. And he'd been sitting more than seven, like 14 days. Of course, he'd fall asleep, but he just kept sitting. At one point, he could go through the wall. The wall opened away, he could see everything through it. There's no question about it. He was in a supernormal state, you know, paranormal state. In a supernatural state. He could understand the miraculousness of things. A bug flying around his ear was the universe.

[46:11]

There was no difference. There was no difference in all of that. He went to his teacher, and his teacher said, it's bullshit. Don't get stuck with that stuff. That's just, you know, that's just, you know, how do you call it? Huh? Machio, but not only machio. What's machio? Well, make your ghosts, or, you know, it's illusion, but actually, he said there is a state of going into states of absorption when you can leave your body. And the yogis in India could traditionally do that, and some of them still do that, like Karoli Baba, what was his name? Harim Karoli Baba. He was one who people swore that Nareem Karoli Baba could be at two places at once because people would see it at two places at the same time. And they say, how could that possibly be? So, you know, I'm not coming from any experience about that.

[47:16]

I'm just telling stories. When his teacher said, that's bullshit, he didn't mean... Did he just mean that's not... He meant that's a distraction. He used the word bullshit. He didn't mean it wasn't actually happening. He didn't mean it wasn't actually... Don't get stuck there. It's very appealing to suddenly have this sense of enormous radiant power that you can move around at will. It's like flying in your dream or something like that. But that is, that would be getting caught in one of, that would really be putting a banner out. The whole thing about emptiness is to come back into the form aspect of it. It's one thing to finally understand what emptiness is and actually experience that in the interdependence of things and on graspability of phenomena ultimately. But it's another thing then to have to come down off the mountain. off the misty mountain peak. And that's what this practice is about for us. If we claim that we're already enlightened, as Dogen Zenji claims, already Buddha, then it's practice that we do to manifest that in this dimension that we live in called the world, which is pretty much our invention, our acculturated invention.

[48:34]

In this story of Rolanda, he seems to have still three parts to his, but he's the the attendant to Buddha and he knows all the stories, but he doesn't get to go to the counseling because he's not realized and so he becomes realized and he can attend the counseling and then he's certified as the holder of the story. But there's still another enlightenment that hasn't happened yet. So what does that mean in light of Dogen's view of enlightenment? In Dogen's view of enlightenment that that enlightenment is infinite, practice is infinite, because enlightenment is manifested in practice, practice is infinite. And because practice is infinite, enlightenment is manifested right there. That this moment is into infinity. So, maybe at some point, at least according, he had to make that step. Not only does he need someone like Ananda who can authenticate the teachings, that there's somebody who really remembered what Buddha said,

[49:42]

but that maybe that's a symbol that there is, I don't know, what we might call a collective unconscious memory or something that we pass on. I don't know. I just know that if we played telephone call in this room, I could tell him a very simple story, and by the time it got to you, it would be quite different. So even if you remembered the story and passed it along, it was very likely to change very quickly. So maybe it means something beyond just a political, historical need to pass on a tradition, that you need an ananda, ananda, ananda, Ananda, not ananda. Ananda. In your structure of religion. Particularly in those days, remember we talked about the need for having an authentic tradition to pass along. Thus have I heard. But I'm talking. I want to hear what your view is on it. Do you have a few minutes yet? I really like that you brought up the inhumanity.

[50:46]

I think that when you read from that, that there's always another. You know, that sense of infinity. What about the frame story that they needed Ananda to compile Buddha's teachings and she wasn't allowed to talk? Is that a metaphor for somebody? Well, you need a certified accountant to bring the stories down. If he was not certified by having the same understanding, then he couldn't be authorized. as it were, to carry on the tradition or to pass on the tradition. You need somebody who is the secretary there to remember it all. And of course, this is legend. How many sutras are there of the Buddha? Four thousand. Four thousand or something?

[51:47]

Four thousand. Well, that's one of them. That's one. That's, I mean, in other words, they're endless numbers of sutras, and who is it that can account for it? 24,000 Anandas. If practice authenticates enlightenment, enlightenment is all activity, what does it mean to say that somebody doesn't practice, or that I didn't practice? Does it mean anything? Well, I think Dogen Zenji would say it does, but I think he would also say that if you realized that there was a difference, that you had a subtlety of understanding, then your life would be practiced. But as somebody who first came, when I first came to Buddhism, I thought that I was separate from practice and so on. Then, before I heard these teachings, I mean, I haven't yet, there hasn't been an Ananda yet who's passed on the teachings and I could hear it.

[52:52]

Until you can understand what the distinctions are, the subtle distinctions are, then you might think that practice, as he says, practice and realization are two things. But once you hear that practice and realization are the same, that you're already practicing in your life, that everybody, stones, walls, pebbles, everything is already practicing in their life just as it is. Then you might say to yourself, oh, that's fine, then I don't have to do anything more. You could say that. But I don't think Dogen Jinji would be satisfied with that, because I think he would say, well, now that you realize that, now you have to really practice it. And the way you really practice it is to take it out into infinity, into the conventional world, just as it is. In other words, you push the limits of the conventional world further and further. And they have no limits, finally, because it's infinite. These things really inauthenticate, meaning activity. I think that's a big word for Dogen Zenji, that we authenticate practice to our activity, yes, through the form aspect of emptiness, yes, as emptiness, yes, or as form.

[54:06]

Can I go back to something from... last one, I think. But when we were talking about metaphor, I thought about it later, and I thought, you know, there's a lot of senses in which I understand that I'll speak in this metaphor and so on, but I started to understand that sometimes when people are talking, they're not actually, I mean, they're using words, and they're using language and stuff, right? What they're doing is practicing. Practicing. So life's just as we express it as practice. Well, I think I've been able to hear that, instead of Actually, I was listening to you today, and I started thinking, I was listening to you talk about this for a while, since we're talking about representation, I started getting this thing, like, well, you know, I don't buy it, actually. I don't buy your particular presentation of it, right? And then I started to listen a little further, and then, you know, this is a representation, right? What you're saying is semantic, but it's practicing. It can't, I mean, I can't say it's practicing.

[55:08]

Well, yes, you can. That's how I heard it, you know. You can say it's practicing. But we don't use language self-consciously that way. When I pick up... You say, hand me the cup. I don't sit to think. Hand me the cup. That's already in place. But the word... The sentence, hand me the cup, is a representation of an activity, and the cup. But that representation of the activity and the thing itself, the cup as a noun, verbs and nouns, were learned at the time that, slowly at that time when we were acculturated ourselves, perception and language came up together. Hand daddy the cup. A year and a half I began to understand what that means. If we use the cup as a thing, we get in trouble. If we use language as a thing, we get in trouble. If it becomes that I'm using the cup, I get tired. Why would you get in trouble? Because I'm attributing some reality to it.

[56:11]

Yes, I understand what you're saying, but... You have to first understand that you must attribute the reality, the concept, to the thing. Then, through the concept that that's what you're doing, you understand the concept deconstructs itself. I'm just trying to draw an analogy. You might use language in the same way. You might use language like using language to talk about something. You're using language to talk about language. But then it's like, you know, it's... Finally, in some sense, because the way I speak most of the time, I guess what I'm saying is it's not practice. Well, I think... I might pick up a cup heedlessly in some sense. I would just be talking. Just talking, I think is exactly the Buddha. Just the way you did it, right there. That's just it. Just what we're doing now. No difference, no gap. That's Zen right now. This is Buddha talking to Buddha. But there's a gap here because we don't believe that.

[57:14]

And the reason we don't believe it is because we think that's just an idea about something. We think there's going to be some other thing beyond the idea. There's something besides our concepts around what this might be. And that might be true, except it won't come to the fore. It cannot be articulated until it becomes conceptual. You see, that realization is itself suchness. So it's not what we're thinking about. It's the thinking itself. It's the doing itself. It's this moment arising and passing away itself. As I see it. As I understand Dogen Zenji sees it. As I like to think I'm practicing my life. But if I grab that and then use that as a model And then, of course, I'm always bringing that up in front of me and watching myself.

[58:19]

Then I've divided myself again. You know how it is. When you work on your computer today down there, you were just, you were absorbed into that work. You weren't thinking, you weren't standing out of yourself and watching over there. You were just doing that. Really into it. Problems of it and so on. Total engagement of what you call yourself and the objects of your perception. No? No? Well, I think it's possible to imagine that, okay, some days I'm really engaged, and some days I'm not. And it's the same trick about, here's my idea about practice, right? And it's actually really helpful to say that there's the idea, and you expect there to be something behind the idea. Yes. But that's your study, to see if there is anything behind the idea. Well, it seems to me, I don't know, but listening to what I'm hearing or what I'm thinking for myself from it, is that my attention, the quality of my attention is different. And that there are times when I am wholeheartedly giving my attention to something, and then there's a lot of time when I'm really not.

[59:26]

That's how I feel about it. Okay, but the times that you're really not, you're not Buddha? Well, it's not whether or not I'm Buddha, but it's... It's like you said, you still have to practice. So it's like, you know, it's like, if I'm not really paying attention, then I'm not really practicing. So you're always paying attention. All right, well, let's put it this way. I'm always practicing, but it's lousy practice. No, no, I disagree. At least from this point of view, that's lousy practice. That's exactly what Dogen's practice is, just that. Just what you're doing that way. Everything is arising perfectly to support just what you think is lousy practice. That is our delusion. In Dogen Zenji, you must go back to your delusions. And one of the delusions is, this is lousy practice.

[60:27]

That's how we live, with this kind of dichotomy. There's no separation in the dichotomy, however. So what does greatly understanding delusion mean? Just this, like this, exactly like this, that there is no separation from greatly understanding delusion enlightenment than just exactly whatever you think delusion enlightenment is at that moment. And it will change, doesn't it, from moment to moment, what you think delusion, what you practice and think of as delusion and enlightenment. And that moment depends on everything else in your life. I probably, like, got a little bit of what you said, because this further question was arising, which was, there's one way of understanding delusion, which is, well, there's looking at it psychologically, and there's looking at it this and that, and there are a lot of ways to look at our delusions.

[61:28]

And then I was just thinking that maybe I heard you say there's a way of understanding our delusion, which is to see right through it to the enlightenment. So... Enlightenment and delusion are the same thing. Well, right. Enlightenment is the ultimate nature of delusion. No? I just switched languages, so... How about going back to the way Neil brought up this thing about language? We learn language, but the complete sense of it is just transparency. Like, Daddy, get Daddy the cup. You know, the word... and the action and the thing are all just completely unquestioned. They're just there. And so, as little children, we use words that way. They're just there, and, you know, they connect, and they have power, and you can play with them, and they're just there. And then we get kind of subtle and smart and self-questioning and conceptual, and we have greater understanding, and we get into all kinds of trouble with language, as well as we get very good at it, and we perhaps become masters of it,

[62:30]

And only then does it become transparent again. Well, yeah, I think you're right. One of the things is we usually see language as instrumental, as a kind of veil, as I said before, as a kind of way that it is used like a suit of clothes. On top of reality is that we're separate from that reality. But it's not separate from that reality. And we use language to see But no, that's such a thing in naivete as reality and not separate from reality. That's a linguistic convention that I'm using. Did you have your hand up? No, I'm talking to... So I was thinking today, I saw this younger girl and she seemed quite annoying to me. That's it, she was just quite annoying, right? I mean, that's it, right? There's nothing else. She was just quite annoying. Exactly. You missed the whole thing, right? Buddha Dharma, as I see it, is not to make us good little boys and girls. There are grumpy Buddhas and there are ethereal Buddhas and there are, you know, depressed Buddhas and...

[63:36]

You know, there are long branches in Zen and there are short branches and this tree buds and that one doesn't. What about the guy who got turned into a fox? Dogen Zinzi said it was wonderful. 500 lives of being a fox is the 500 lives of Buddha. That's what Dogen Zinzi said about it. Dogen Zinzi said you can't eat the rice cake in the picture. You do eat the rice cake in the picture. You made the picture. You're painting that picture with your mind. You're eating it all the time. The whole world is nothing but a painted rice cake. In Gabyo, in one of his... Yeah, in Gabyo. This is a group, because it's really the quintessential point of view that Dogen Zenji is holding forth here. And it's a radical point of view, because it really leaves you out in what we call kind of chaos in space. There's nothing to get hold of in this. And that is what Shinkantaza is... When Shohak Okamura once said in one of our practices, there's no way you can possibly judge your zazen.

[64:43]

Who would judge it? It all once hit me. Of course it's true. I've been judging it all this time. How am I doing? always going back to central headquarters checking in David you had it yesterday but today you're not doing so well your mind is all over the place you must really be you know really bad today so when he said that it was like I understood what Goldman was trying to get at and then I began to get just a taste of the profundity of that thought that is release into your life just as it is imagine enjoying your life just as it is folks without having to improve it Because as soon as you do, you'll improve. So what's the point of doing something like practicing the precepts if your life is already... Well, that's why people say, if I understand this, then I won't practice the precepts anymore. But if you really understand what I'm saying here, you'll already be naturally practicing precepts. You won't see the world as something separate from yourself to exploit. And it also wouldn't be, I'm over here practicing these precepts over there.

[65:50]

It's like it would just come out of here. I'm understanding as you asked me that question, and without you asking me that question, I couldn't respond to it. So immediately I appreciate that this question arises as you and me together, that question between us. So that we're constantly raising these questions among ourselves and looking at them. But notice I said among ourselves, among us, we're telling these stories. And as we tell them, we refine them. We add on to them. We change them. It's dependently co-arisen. It's a living thing. It's a practice. It's a process. It's a dynamic process. What we call life. Anyway, I'm tired. Also, in terms of responding to that, or, you know, what Andrew said, in terms of, you know, looking, I find that often, you know, along my lines, I don't even know what's going on in my mind, and I don't even accept it. So, you know, this principle you're saying about that everything is coming up as enlightenment, I find that if I accept it, I'm a lot more intimate, and something happens kind of contradictory, where if I feel

[66:56]

something that, you know, like annoyed or anything or angry or greedy or anything that I supposedly shouldn't, if I just accept that and almost like this parental mind, then actually the way I act, I mean, I may still act. I'm skillfully, I don't know, but I can kind of feel that I'm not as aggressive because I don't lie. I'm okay with acting that way. And if I don't know what's going on, then probably I will project it more outside myself. And also when I see other people with those afflictions, I'm more, you know, I mean, the practice makes me more accepting of it. So it's kind of a paradox, you know, like why, you know, if something comes up and I'm annoyed or this or that, isn't there, you know, then there's thought, oh God, I'm really losing it. In fact, it stinks. And, you know, I agree that what Doga was teaching is really something else. It's amazing. It's an amazing teaching. to imagine this life just as it is, is the divine event. Well, I think we should stop. It's a quarter of, and I do want to kind of clear up the question of books.

[68:00]

How many people are getting books tonight? Okay, and you've signed your names. Is there somebody from, I'm wondering, maybe you should leave this with the officer. I can take it to the office. And then if they sell, we can just give the money to Charlie. Yeah, they're not, they're not good, are they? That's what I mean, but we should put them somewhere. Pay Charlie, yeah, it's like personal order. That might be hard. We should do it out of the office. Keep them in an envelope, keep a separate envelope for them for a couple days. Yeah. Not forever. Yeah, we need to, well then I think Zen Center needs to pay, maybe we should do it this way. Zen Center, I'll talk to the treasurer. They paid Charlie for that. Because we can use these in the bookstore, right? Yeah. And then we can... We should compare it against the list because most of the people, you know, they're just not here.

[69:08]

Well, a lot of people are not here or not coming according to... Here's the list. This is who... That was the list. I had another list here. Here it is. Mick, Kate, Wren, Burke, Jackie, Emmanuel, Cedar, Kathy, Andrew, Bob. I mean, that was Cook. That was Cook. Those were the Cook books. The Cook books. And then I don't know if the next transmission, maybe the other one is Cedar, Astrid, Jackie, and Carolyn wanted the other one. Is that right? How many people can I put their name up for? Well, I've got, for this one, I've got one, two, three, four.

[69:54]

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