Good afternoon. Is the recorder on? Thank you for sticking it out. Stickying it out. Last I looked, it was 96 degrees. Yeah, well, it's very interesting to and see if we can figure out how to relax our form and maintain our form. I really appreciate us. You guys can turn around if you like. I appreciate everybody making that effort. We've kind of dressed down a little, you know, but we kept the shape of our tea in an appropriate manner. It's an appropriate response to me. And I have an appropriate Dungshan story to relate before we start.

[01:10]

It's this case 43 from the Blue Cliff Record. You've all heard this before. A monk asked Dungshan, when the cold and heat visit us, how do we avoid them? Dungsan replied, why not go where there is neither cold nor heat? The monk said, where is that place where there is neither cold nor heat? Dungsan said, when it is hot, let the heat kill you. And when it is cold, let the cold kill you. And I've been sitting here not dead yet. But just sitting here through lunch and now actually just dripping and enjoying it, you know, just like, okay, I'm hot. It's not a problem.

[02:14]

We get a problem after like two days of it, you know, but it's not a problem now. It's just the condition that we're in. It is one manifestation. It's the present manifestation of suchness. Or it is a present manifestation of suchness. There's also the suchness of this tea, which is delicious and cool. So I'm going to go through a bit of the Hokyo Zamai, the Precious Mirror Samadhi, and I'm also really open to questions and comments. And I will tell you one thing up front. I am not ready to explicate the double-split hexagram.

[03:16]

I'm studying it. I feel like I'm beginning to get a handle, but it's very complex. Some people consider this poem, Blythe considered this poem a bit of a hodgepodge. You know, and I can understand that. There's just, it's image piled on image piled on image that are not, you know, necessarily, they don't necessarily flow from one to another. There's not, I don't, I don't see an over, an overarching thematic structure to it. It's just, it just, coming after the, after the, The initial statement, the dharma of thusness is intimately transmitted.

[04:25]

Now you have it, so keep it well. It seems that Dungsan is then coming at what is the teaching of thusness, coming at it from multiple angles with a you know, a barrage of traditional images, images drawn from classical Chinese poetry, images drawn from the Book of Changes, which predates this by more than 2,000 years. You know, he's just coming at it, and this is actually somewhat the way we see Dogen approach his teachings that there'll be an assertion, a proposition at the beginning, and then he will approach it from multiple directions. And actually, that is the point.

[05:28]

The point is that suchness cannot be approached from any one direction. and that it can't be pinned down. We can catch glimpses of it from various aspects. Jed? Well, you know, I would say To me, neither of those is really how I would describe it.

[06:46]

I don't think it's really a hodgepodge. I mean, it is perhaps linguistically or imagistically, but there's a point to what he's doing. But I don't think you can say, even with Some of the images that he chooses and some of the metaphors that he uses, they cannot be pinned down. What is arising, you can imagine, this is what was arising for him in the moment as he was composing this poem. You know, and he gave it some form. It has a form, you know, it's four characters per line. You know, it has an end rhyme. It has, you know, it's not formless. You know, it's not free verse.

[07:47]

But it's a multiplicity of images, I think. Robin? Well, that's the story. I was wondering if that was possibly the case. We don't know anything, actually. Well, of course, that's always true, right? But no, we don't really know anything about the origins or the provenance of this particular work. It doesn't appear in the Chinese tradition until the middle of the 12th century. And supposedly, it was written several centuries before that. So that's its first appearance. And so we don't know where it came from. In some of the stories, it is what Deng Xian said, and these stories could be apocryphal.

[08:52]

He said that Guixiang transmitted this to him at his dormant transmission, and then he transmitted it to Kaohsiung, to Sozon, which is why it had the use for a number of centuries as itself a transmission document. Yeah, Heiko? You were saying about how Dogen puts together different bits of poetry and different bits of old wisdom. In the second page, toward the end, you've got Yi, who shoots the arrow at his students or his master's arrow. You've got the Li, which is... No, he doesn't shoot at the... No, I don't think that's what happens. The story goes that they were trying to kill each other at the end, and the arrow point met. Oh, maybe. Okay. All right. Yeah. And the wooden man, draped in the song, the stone maiden, leads to the dance.

[09:57]

This is all from all kinds of different... Right. It's all from Chinese classical tradition. Yeah. Yeah. So I would suggest that he's saying that I mean, I get it from this. They've been saying this a hundred different ways for a long time. I'm just putting it down here. It's kind of his... There's a lot of ways it's been said, including the Yi and the stone maiden. Well, he's putting it down here for a reason. You know, it's not that he's putting it down here because it's a good story. He's putting it down here because it illustrates... it illustrates the dharma of thusness. All of these things are illustrious of the dharma of thusness. So they're relevant stories, and he folds them into the work that he's making. Laurie? We're used to people plagiarizing in order to get glory for themselves, but our ancestors were more likely to give it in privilege

[10:58]

Yeah. Yeah, I think it is because he makes it so. And I would say, you know, that all art, all art is an act of borrowing or an act of stealing, if you will, all of it. You can't have art that is not referencing something that came before and think about Bob Dylan, who borrows lines endlessly from other from other songs and other traditions. And, you know, some people think that's plagiarism. And some people think that's art.

[12:05]

You know, and that's I don't really have a problem. I have a problem with that. Yeah. So, one thing I wonder, I was reading this afternoon, and we may not get very far in this, right? The mirror. So, evidently, one of the Chinese texts, there's a claim that mirrors were hung in the meditation hall as an aid to meditation. So it's not just an abstract, the dual mirror is also, it's the mirror of your mind, it's the quality of the mirror that simply reflects everything that is presented to it. That doesn't contain, a mirror is not a painting, it doesn't contain an image within itself. But evidently, there's a fair amount of documentation that there were mirrors hung in meditation halls as an aid to reflection, if you will.

[13:20]

And actually, at City of 10,000 Buddhas, have any of you been there? They have a precept hall, an ordination hall with an ordination platform. And that precept room is, it's kind of red enamel, but the room is hung with mirrors. It's all mirrored. So, you know, that's the manifestation of our enlightened mind. So when you're in that room, it's like you're inside the Buddha's mind. So that's another The mirrors also increase the amount of radiant light in that room. So, yeah, Judy. Yeah.

[14:25]

Right, and we will get to that when we get to the next couple of lines in the poem, actually. If you talk about a silver bowl filled with snow, a heron hidden in the moon. So the silver bowl, when the silver bowl is filled with snow, both of these represent, both of these have qualities of gleamingness and whiteness, right? And the same thing with a heron hidden in the moon. The heron is white as it flies across the moon, which is white. So when we look at them, they both have certain parallel qualities but they're not the same. The snow is not the bowl.

[15:39]

The heron will fly out from beyond the moon and will be distinct and we will see it. So we have to have the ability to see, in this case, what I think the point is that we are looking at What is really? Well, it's in the next line, taken as similar, they are not the same. Not distinguished, their places are known. So actually, in a lecture of surgeons, he says. These lines concern the phenomenal and the real or the form and emptiness, if you will, and their relationship. He says, this sets the tone for the whole piece. Although they are two, they are one.

[16:41]

And although they are one, they are two. So that's the interpenetration of these seeming dualities. They have qualities that are common. And they also have a distinctness that allows us right away to be able to determine which is which. And yet, you know, aesthetically, if you will, I'm taken with that. that image of the silver bowl filled with snow. You can see it. And of the heron, you know, just barely discernible against the disk of the moon. Yeah, Vince. Right. Right. Ultimately, it will melt, especially on a day like today.

[17:44]

One of the things I noticed as I was reading last night is that there's a whole sequence beginning with the next line. It's a whole sequence about language. So the next line is, the meaning does not reside in the words, but a pivotal moment brings it forth. You know, by the way, I'm going to get this. There's another, there's another translation, which I like. So this is, Translation that was done by Toshu Nitrahar and Master Sheng Yan and Kaz. The meaning cannot rest in the words.

[18:54]

It adapts itself to that which arises. It's really interesting to look at these. But what I was noticing is that throughout the poem, there are a number of statements about the nature of language. as he's seeing it, so you have, I had collected these someplace, one second. Oh, here it is. So you have, although it is just too portrayed in literary form, is to stain it with defilement.

[20:04]

A few lines later, although it is not constructed, it is not beyond words. A few lines later, it says, Baba wawa is anything said or not in the end. It says nothing for the words are not yet, right? So you have You have the reliance on words and which also is something that we see in Dogen again and again, that he's a master of language. And yet there's also the fact that words cannot get at it. So the meaning is not... The translation that we used to use, which I think was Thomas Cleary, says, the meaning is not in the words, it responds to the inquiring impulse.

[21:13]

Is that right? So it's actually the question. The question about. The nature of my experience, or as a certain Roshi often puts it. He likes the question, how? How does this work? say this reality that's unfolding, how does it work for us? And as soon as you, just to portray it in literary form, is to stain it with defilement. As soon as you try to put it into words, you're going to miss it, you're dumbing it down. And yet, to me there's something really wonderful about words. I love the words and I don't believe in them as a kind of absolute truth, but I can enjoy them for their own expression.

[22:28]

The words of a poem, the words of a song, the words of a story, they create, each set of words creates its own reality and its own suchness. But it's not the same as whatever it is it purports to be describing, right? Yeah. And also in that pivotal moment that brings it forward, it's like I take something from Dogen or someone and I have it, and it doesn't mean anything until I get to a moment Right, but it's not the meaning of the words, right? It's the meaning of the activity or it's the meaning of whatever is manifesting.

[23:36]

Does that make sense? Yeah. I hear him saying the meaning comes forth in words in a pivotal moment. So the words necessary, just what I'm hearing, and then you carry them like a suitcase and then maybe you unpack them at that moment. What does anyone else think? about what Eiko just said. Vince? Yeah, I don't think, you know. We have the same stuff in our school. But yes, it is.

[24:36]

That's how you would work. It's one way to work on a koan itself as you're actually working with a teacher because the koan itself is constructed out of words and yet it's pointing to something that is beyond the words themselves. Sue? Yes, that's my experience. The silver bowl with the snow in it, the ice. I have a silver bowl, or I have one, where there was ice in it that reminded me of this. And it was shocking to see it. There was something about it that just, maybe because of the words in here, but the experience of it was long words. You mean the experience of reading this? Of seeing the bowl. Oh. But your response to that bowl with ice, did that your mental formation refer to these lines?

[26:22]

So that's mental formation, right? That's what Buddhadasa was talking about, sankara, you know, it's like, and that's what I was saying about art, that you can't get these, you will see a silver bowl with ice or snow in it, and you will remember these lines, and they are co-constructing a reality. It's interesting. Yeah, um, something I was going to ask you about the silver bowl. Well, I've lost it at the moment, but I wanted to find the Baba Wawa, the Charlie Ficorni's extensive commentaries.

[27:38]

Why not? While I'm looking. Yeah, here we go. Oh yeah, here it is.

[28:54]

So that line. No, I don't think she did. Oh, here we go. Let's see. In one of the commentaries, he says that this line is indicating that the sutras are no more than the incoherent babbling of an infant.

[30:09]

Yeah. Right. But that whole. That section. After he says, just to portray it in literary form is to stain it with defilement. A couple of lines later, he says, although it is not constructed, it is not beyond words. You know, so words are the medium. Of our consciousness, that's why, you know, it's like for Sue. You know, when she sees a silver bowl filled with snow, her mind is making the connection with this line.

[31:28]

It's really I've told this story before. You know, you can there are different things you can do to really kind of short circuit your mind. You know, it's like we depend upon our association. So so. easily and instantly. But I remember once having a psychedelic experience where somebody gave me an ice cream cone and I didn't know what the hell it was. I really didn't know what it was. And if I didn't know what its name was or what it was for, It was just an abstract shape. Somebody sent me straight very quickly, but I remember really, you know, what is this? And that's really a moment of not knowing. That's a moment of a kind of, well, it's pre-language.

[32:32]

And from time to time, we touch on that, but mostly not. Mostly our thinking is configured by language. So even though it is not constructed, even though it's formless, this, it is suchness. Even though suchness includes everything and cannot be named or described, it's not beyond words in the sense we keep trying to get at it, which is the function of this whole poem, to get at it with words. Right? Yeah. I do agree with that. I'm glad. Because it's interesting, without drugs, I was at an art show with a limited amount of drugs, probably. But anyway, I saw this show, and I looked at it, and it just blew my mind. abstract and all this stuff, and I didn't know what was going on in my mind.

[33:38]

I was just looking at it intensely. And I came downstairs to the gift shop, and I see a book, and it's Alice Neel. Okay, she's a famous abstract artist, and it was her show. But then it was a different person. But anyway, I saw this book, and it said, I read it, it said, Alice Neel. What is Alice Neel? Right. And then in the interview I realized it was the artist Alice Neel. And my mind had been open such that I could read these words in a way that wasn't what was really there, so to speak, there. And I would propose that if you read this all the way through without making anything other than open-minded reading, at the end, your mind might well be blown, and the next thing you see will be a silver bowl full of snow and a heron, or whatever. Right. And you may notice some distinction But you may not notice distinction. You may notice it is one thing. It is a silver bowl filled with snow. One thing.

[34:38]

And you may not know the name of a silver bowl or the name of the snow. You will see the whole thing as one, like a lice. You know? In my mind, I never thought of the snow and the bowl as one thing. Right. So this is what this is what Suzuki Roshi talks about. He says naturalness. Means maybe more flexible mind without sticking to something rigidly. Said when when we have when our mind is perfect, this is in this is not been edited. This is the transcript. When our mind is perfect freedom from everything and when our mind is open and everything like a mirror. The mirror does not have any particular image on its face always. So it will naturally have various images according to the subject. That is naturalness. The mirror does not cognize or make distinctions.

[35:42]

It simply reflects everything that appears before it. This is one of the wisdoms. The mirror wisdom of equality is one of the five wisdoms that's described in the Yogacara school. It's the wisdom of equality. It's just sameness of everything that appears in front of us. Yeah. had some kind of mental issues where she basically had amnesia. Her amnesia was so severe that it included a complete loss of language. So she had no idea not only who she was, but she had no idea how to speak or communicate or what anything was. Yeah, she probably didn't stay there.

[37:22]

Right, right, right. I think that this other translation is interesting, where this says, although it is not constructed, it is not beyond words. Let's see. Can I touch it? Yeah, one second. No, no, wait a second Okay, I'm in the cause translation I'm about seven or eight lines down where it says either reject nor cling to words both are wrong like a ball of fire Which That's really, that's really, it's interesting.

[38:26]

It's a different order of the verses, isn't it? Though it doesn't act, it is not without words. Right, okay, right. Though it doesn't act. Okay. It is the principle that regulates all, relieving all suffering. This part about the words, Sojin wrote, we have to get beyond the words, reading the other side of the page.

[39:46]

We do need to use words, even though reality is beyond words, but not to stick to the words. Yes. So you talked about face-to-face transmission. So it's not just words written on the page. It's a lot of movement. And I'm wondering what your sense is of reading these words, changing the metastore or something like that. But what's the distinction between reading these words and actually getting to know them?

[40:51]

Well, it was at a protest and she felt a moment of oneness with the police. That's the story I remember. I don't know if anyone else remembers that. And that was a transformative experience for her. So I'm trying to get at what your question is. I think what I'm hearing is the question is how do we make these live words or how do we make these words live? I know I just wrote some last night which Well, I don't know.

[42:55]

You know, this is one of the things that I wrote in the piece that I wrote last night was that I don't know anyone who openly identifies as Antifa. And so I've not had an opportunity. And I confess, given all that else is going on, I haven't exactly sought them out to talk to. But this is what we need to do. We need to talk to everybody. You know, you ain't going to find out anything else by positing your position and, you know, then deciding whether somebody does or does not live up to it, right? You actually have to ask them what their experience is. Now, that may or may not be a possible option. You know, but we have to keep trying to make that be a possible option. And the same thing is like in terms of a work like this or a text, how do we make it alive for ourselves?

[44:00]

You know, how do we make, you know, Sue gave one you know, told one story about the silver bowl with ice, and Heiko was talking about something else, and in a moment, unexpected, and this is what, it's an unconstructed moment. That's what this poem is trying to do, is to say, pay attention, because In any moment, you can really touch the essential nature of oneness that's there all the time. But it's hard, you know, and our ideas are what get in the way. Yeah, Ed. Yeah. I'm back. Okay, that's fine. We don't have anywhere to get to, you know.

[45:02]

And we're going there fast. Yeah. has been as an experience. And it seems to me, words are inadequate once I talk about it or describe it or go through that process. That's a really good question.

[46:14]

And Heko has the answer, but wait a second. That's the fundamental question of this poem. There's a conundrum right in the first words. The teaching of thusness or the dharma of thusness. Let me just look at some other translations of that. So all these lines are pretty similar.

[47:17]

The Buddhists and patriarchs have directly handed down this basic truth, the dharma of just this. I like this, the Dharma of just this has been intimately entrusted from Buddhas and ancestors. The fact of the matter is, it's always being entrusted by reality every moment. You know, so as soon as you... Oh, I know what I wanted to say. So you were talking about experience. So there's a wonderful essay by Victor Sogan Horry, which is basically against experience. What he says is that Zen is not experience.

[48:20]

in the sense that as soon as you call it an experience, then you have conceptualized it. It is just the continuous unfolding of reality. Reality, there's a line in it. Right. That's right. or mastering approach, the genuine constant continues outflowing. Yeah, that's the other translation. It's just continuously flowing. Yeah, Karen. I was reading something, and I said, well, is this really Zen?

[49:28]

And he said, what isn't Zen? So. Yeah, well, that could be really helpful or not. You know, this is, the thing is that because he's a good teacher and because we've had good teachers as Tungshan did, he's not going to explain that. Right. Right. It's so, so what he's saying by using that word, as they're doing it here, he's saying, look at it this way. Don't look at is, is not. Just throw it in there. Yeah, Kurt. have that understanding, and when it says that it doesn't reside in words, but a physical moment that brings it to form, those moments happen in direct experience, and you're sort of there.

[51:05]

And then if you try to language it, you're moving away from it a little bit. And the one thing, one translation, Right. Right. Well, you could be a fool or an idiot or a jazz musician. What he's encouraging is spontaneity in that moment. But I wanted to read you something again.

[52:08]

Sochin wrote about that line, the teaching of lessness. He said, this is Tozan's gift to Sozan. In other words, Tosan gave this line and this poem to his disciple. It is his transmission gatha to Tosan, but actually, Tosan has not given anything to Tosan. Rather, he's confirming it. So, in this verse, what the transmission is, is, I see you. It's just, I see you. I see that you are a totally functioning human being as I am. I see that you are Buddha as I am, but I wouldn't even take it that far. And he goes on, he said, now you have it, is seeing your Buddha nature, and then to preserve it well, is seeing, so now you have it is,

[53:14]

I see Leslie's Buddha nature. And then he says, then to preserve it well is to see Buddha nature in everyone in this room. So there's a particularity. This is what keeps going wonderfully back and forth between the particularity and the really larger picture. I see you in your particularity. I see people nodding out because it's really hot. And I see and I see a lot of Buddhas awake or asleep in this room. Yeah, I remember talking about trying to keep it away. I was doing something and I said, I'm honored. And I walked away from that, I realized I am honored. moment of whatever you might call it. And that honor was taking me out of it, constructing a word palace and putting it all in concrete as it falls apart.

[54:24]

Yeah, you were putting it outside yourself. Preserving your well is the opposite of being honored by Sojin's addressing me. Right. And yet we can't help but feel these things. Yeah, Ross. Right, in the... Right, right. Yeah, you don't get drenched in it all at once.

[55:30]

And actually some places you do though. You know, there's some traditions where that's the deal. You practice a meditative technology that's going to split your mind open. And just from what I've seen of that, it's very hard not to make that an experience. And once you make it an experience, then you're going to be looking for it again. And you're going to be caught by experience, because it's a pleasant experience, usually, and I want it to happen again. But I think in relation to what you were just saying, if we see, if the preserve it well is to see, I love this actually, to see everyone as Buddha, then what we can begin to glimpse is that

[56:40]

all of the Buddhas around us are planting seeds. And, you know, when the causes and conditions are appropriate and right, a seed may germinate and flower, and we will wake up, we will remember something, something will come to mind that We weren't even thinking about, but it's there. It's a seed that's been planted in our mind. Our minds are so remarkable that way. When Linda asked her question to you this morning, I was thinking of Suzuki Roshi's, you're half good and you're half bad. And I never tied that into seeing others as Buddha, but if I use that technique, Yeah, so here's another duality, and this comes from Martin Luther King quoting Goethe.

[57:56]

There's enough stuff in me to make a gentleman and a rogue. That's the same idea, you know, right there within our tradition. Jerry? I'm kind of struggling with this because it's about, it's really all about what we see and what we don't see in each moment. How awake we are in each moment so that we can see the real and the feminine and the deluded world, the conventional, absolute world. How much we see it. And maybe it's about certain causes and conditions that predispose us to see it. uh... uh... right and don't start dialoguing about it.

[59:14]

And here it says, penetrate the source and travel the pathway, embrace the territory and treasure the roads. So basically we're putting ourselves at risk. Yes, and this is what Eken Roshi used to talk about. He would say, enlightenment is an accident and zazen makes you accident prone. Yeah, it's not just study. But the thing is, everything that we do mindfully and consciously has that potentiality, right? Right. Changes the internal climate, and therefore changes the nature of the way we relate to each other. Yes, Sue. So the multiplicity of roads, the Yiching, or the Hexagram, or the Heron, all of those roads, something might touch us.

[60:19]

Right. Right, right. Right, there's the heron hidden in the moon and there's the herring hidden in the moon. Especially if it's in cream sauce then it's white like you know. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Right. Well, this is one of the interesting things of a way that I've been thinking about mindfulness. You know, there's we live in this age of mindfulness now. Mindfulness really translates as recollection or remembering.

[61:22]

That's that's what Sati translates. And so By nature of the language, if there's remembering, then there's forgetting. Right? So if there's something that we are putting our mind on, there are other things that we are not putting our mind on. The idea here, and this is what I think Suzuki Roshi was talking about when he describes the mirror, is to be able to reflect whatever comes before you. And that's actually the process of Zazen. That's the process of our Zazen, the process of Zazen, of Shikantaza, is thought after thought, sensation after sensation, feeling after feeling, having some awareness of it, letting it flow, constantly flowing, as it says in the poem.

[62:30]

Yeah, Kurt. I thought that maybe that part about the road, related to that, it is an accidental thing when you have an awareness. And so if you're trying to embrace the destination, it's going to be problematic. I mean, we're there anyway. The thing about the two arrows getting together, each of their questions, could have that really been aimed, right? Really aimed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[63:42]

him as a Buddha, it's also, I'm afraid to say it, the same kind of thing. It's like, in the moment, they are a Buddha if they are a Buddha. And there's nothing, I would, I don't know, but I would say, there's nothing missed in the moment where you go, I'm completely lost. Right? That if you're really completely lost, then you've found yourself as completely lost. And you're not missing anything. Right. Now, I understand being lost. But you're not missing anything if you're awake in the moment. Right. But, you know, to go back to something that Kurt was saying, you were talking about what you encounter as accident. Is that right? But, you know, so in one cosmological vision, there are no accidents. And in another, like, the problem is we're going down the road and we see something,

[65:14]

And that is an accident in the sense that we haven't necessarily created it, we don't know where that comes from. But the non-accidental part, which is a problem for us, is we see it and we immediately have an idea about what's going on there. That is not great mirror wisdom. You understand? That's actually mental formation. And it's so hard to step aside from that, so hard. Everything, this is like... When I was at Upaya a couple of weeks ago, we had a Skype video with Bernie Glassman. Um, Bernie's, you know, his, his kind of bottom line over the last few years has been, well, that's my opinion, man.

[66:21]

You know, it's just all opinions. The Four Noble Opinions, you know, uh, no, he's, that's, that's his formulation, you know, and I'm not so sure about that. If Linda were here, she would go to town with that, I think. But yet, whether it's literally or absolutely true or not, it's sort of the Buddhayana perspective. But the fact of the matter is, it's very helpful to consider everything we perceive as our opinion. That's a good starting point. It may not be the totality of our existence in this world. But it's a really good starting point because it means that what you encounter really is, you're taking it as accidental and not reducing it to your conceptual framework of experience.

[67:26]

Would you say not this is what I, this is my thinking, but this is what I see? Well, Bernie's more colloquial than that, you know, it's just more colloquial. Yeah, that's what he's just he's just he's just quoting the Cohn brothers. No, that's true. You know, he's, he's quoting the dude. Well, that's just like your opinion, man. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, Ed. Yeah. Oh, let's see that. We're not talking?

[68:44]

I think we're talking. Yeah. Yes. such as Zen is a school, you know, Zen is a particular thing. I want to take those in the order that you presented them and also hear what other people have to say because our time is getting short. The thrust of this text to me

[69:45]

as is the thrust of many Zen and Buddhist texts, is only half the story. The thrust of this text is, really pay attention to yourself. So if you can persist in this way, practicing inwardly, functioning in secret, playing the fool, seemingly stupid, So that's, you know, I've said this many times, that's the title of Kedagiri Roshi's first book, Returning to Silence. That's half of it. We have to be able to do that. That's what we are training. We are learning to do that day by day, year by year here. The second book is You Have to Say Something. You know, once you have this inwardness, once you have the ability to contain yourself, once you have the ability to see the constant flow of your opinions and views, you still have to... The Bodhisattva vow demands that we say something.

[71:02]

So this is the training that we have that has to happen. if we're going to be effective in what we say. It's not about words. You know, so I remember, boy, 28 years ago at Tassajara, a lecture, this is a seed that was planted for me, a lecture by Reb, where he was talking about language. And, you know, he was saying a sunflower turning towards the sun is language. So, it's not just words, it's everything.

[72:09]

And this is also how insentient beings teach the Dharma. They turn towards the sun, they reach towards the water. They show us what is really basic and necessary for all of life. Yes, the five ranks. What are they? Well, OK, you want the five minute course in the five ranks. OK, I think this is pretty interesting, actually. So this comes by way of. A couple of people. My sojourn got this from my resume, Roshi, when he studied the five ranks, were laid out by Deng Xian, and they're a separate text, but they're sort of embedded in this text.

[73:14]

They were then developed as a, by Hakuin, I believe, as a formal part of the Rinzai Kon curriculum. And it's a little different, it's a little different system, but not, actually there's two systems. So here's a really interesting perspective on the five ranks. Let me tell you how they are traditionally seen. The apparent within the real, in other words, is the basis of reality and you begin to see yourself in the context, your form in the context of that reality. There's the real within the apparent, where you see that all that you think is your particular form or life is also the absolute.

[74:17]

It's actually not separate from oneness. There's coming from within the real, which is you have to say something. But what you're saying is rooted in your zazen practice. The fourth is the arrival at mutual integration. And so that's relatively high. It's also described as the absolute within the relative. And then the fifth is unity attained. It's the last ox-herding pictures where the monk is going forth into the marketplace with gift-bestowing hands. But here's an interesting way to think about it.

[75:19]

So in Genjo Koan, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. That's the first rank. To study the self is to forget the self. That's the second rank. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. That's the third rank. What's the next line? To be enlightened by... That myriad things come forth and enlighten themselves. That's the fifth rank. And that mind and body drop away and that continues forever. That's the fifth rank. Isn't that an interesting formulation? So I can, there's a, let me just read you, there's this guy, Dale Verkulien, and he says, the terms personal and universal use below were chosen to depict the worlds of relative and absolute, respectively.

[76:44]

Other studies use a variety of designations of the dualistic pairs. And he's also been, he's written about these in terms of Dogen. So the personal within the universal. At this level of the universal, one's true nature dawns within the personal. A new way of living in the world is unveiled, one grounded in experiential certainty, observation, and inquiry. So you forget the self. Universal within the personal. Here the universal is the dominant sphere, acting as a container for the thoughts, feelings, and aspirations of the personal. So that's what I was saying before. Study the Buddha way is to forget the self.

[77:48]

No, it's just study the self. Study the self, sorry. That's one. To study the self is to forget the self is two. So you're taking the big self and you're seeing this merger. coming from within the universal, the inconceivable mind comes compellingly to the forefront, introducing a new world of unity of the personal and universal. And the universal is reflected within the personal. This is a bit abstract for me. The next, yeah, these three are, I don't want to get into them too much because we will be talking about them and trying to make sense of them forever. And this is a whole topic in and of itself. But I think If you look at the verses of the five ranks, and you can find them easily, and you think of them, see what the correspondence or resonance is with that first proposition in Genjo Koan.

[78:49]

It's very interesting. It really helps to unpack it. Yeah, Ross. Yeah, it is, right. Right. So there's a lot more that we could talk about. We have to collect the cups and collect ourselves. But thank you for this. Yes. I remember years ago, we used to chant this, as you said. Yeah. We dropped it because it was thought to be too long. Because it was too long. Well, I'd like to hear it. I'll talk to Sojin about it. Yeah. Yeah. One second. The third or the second? Yeah.

[79:57]

Coming from within the universal. I don't like real. You know, this is where, I don't like the term apparent and real. You know, I just really, that just rubs me completely the wrong way. I really do like guest and host, and there's a whole terminology for guest and host that frames the five ranks. Yes, no, it's lord and vassal. Yeah, the lord as the, you know, the lord of the manor, the lord as the kind of big cheese host, right? Judy. I want to hear a little bit.

[81:16]

Yes, I do. I think this. Go ahead. If you remember. Yes. Yeah. Right, that's where we do it at Upaia also. Yeah. I don't know. It's nice. Is it Asian? Yeah, yeah, it's actually really, we do that, we do the Sandokai that way also, and at Ufaya, and it's, I really like it. It helps, it breathes life into, you know, into these texts. So, thank you very much. We're going to, let's close with,

[82:19]

with the four vows, and then we have Kinyan. Oh, let's do, you know what? Let's do the Pali refuges. Do you guys know the Pali refuges? People know it? Okay, we're going to sit Zazen though, aren't we, after this? Yes, I want to, I want to, Let's do this. Let's take a stretch for five minutes. Let's come back and sit 15 or 20 minutes of zazen. Let's close out. This is one of the things that everything returns to zazen.

[83:00]

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