Now, before I start my talk this morning, I'm going to talk. I just want to present a few little anecdotes from. So you go to a machine who was considered. Well, one of the leading teachers in the generation. He was called Homeless Kodo because he didn't have his own temple and he was about one month old. many books on Zen, which you're familiar with.

[01:18]

So Uchiyama Roshi likes to talk about Sawaki Roshi's, some things that he says. But here are some things that he says that just to warm us up. He says, we don't practice for the sake of keeping enlightenment experience. Rather, we practice being pulled around by Satori. I want to explain that. He says, being glared at by Zazen, being scolded by Zazen, being obstructed by Zazen, Being pulled around by Zazen, weeping our whole life away, this has got to be the happiest way of life. You can only go home now. He says, what is the use of doing zazen?

[02:31]

Zazen is good for nothing. Unless you get more than enough of that and just do what is good for nothing wholeheartedly, your practice is really good for nothing. I'll read that again. So continue. What is the use of doing zazen? Zazen is good for nothing. Unless you hear more than enough of that, and you just do what is good for nothing wholeheartedly, your practice is easy for nothing. He says, uh, sky and earth make offerings. Air, water, plants, animals, human beings, all make offerings. Every being makes offerings to each other. We only live within this relationship of making offerings.

[03:35]

It has nothing to do with whether or not you're grateful. And then he says, authority is not going to a lot of trouble to reach some special place. It's just being natural. Satori is like a thief entering an empty house. There's nothing to steal. There's no need to escape. No one's coming running to catch you. So there's no inducement. This is a nice saying that kind of characterized his teaching. So we've been studying or unfolding the teaching of what's called Light in Soto Zen, the history of Soto Zen teaching.

[04:42]

And I've been talking about various meaning and studying various teachers, how they express that. But we have to be very careful when we speak about sitting in the center of light and expressing light and so forth, and talking about blissful state, that we don't try to create something like a blissful state of mind. that when Master Hongjue was teaching in China, he promoted what he called the Silent Illumination Zen. Sitting in Zazen is Silent Illumination. And his friend, Rinzai Master Dao Hui, criticized Sanrao Rinzai Zen.

[05:55]

He promoted Koan Zen. And I think his criticisms are somewhat valid. You know, pay attention to his criticisms because, you know, he said, you know, sort of then solid elimination, just like rice bags, you know, or dead trees sitting in a certain position. So we should be very careful not to. seek something that some ecstatic practice, actually. The sound of illumination can seem like a kind of ecstatic practice.

[07:04]

Suzuki Roshi always warned us about seeking ecstatic practice. or trying to create some kind of ecstasy through a practice, through nonsense. So this is kind of like where we have to be careful that we're really not seeing something. If ecstasy arises, that's just ecstasy. If a painful state of mind arises, that's just painful state of mind. But they're equal. We just relate to them equally, instead of preferring one over the other. This is called, if we prefer one over the other, this is called falling into preference. The beginning of the Shinshin-mein, the Third Ancestry, says, everything's fine until you fall into preference.

[08:08]

Don't pull on the preference. Zazen is true. Zazen is not falling into preference or trying to achieve something or some special state of mind. All the ancestors. So we should be careful because it looks like when we're talking about illumination and so forth, that we're talking about some special state of mind, which is not so. Um, when I was in my twenties and I was inspired by the history of tales and so forth, and I was, I would fall into ecstatic states of mind because ecstasy was one of their practices. I would fall into ecstatic states, but they were not sustainable, because I didn't have a practice.

[09:19]

And even if I did have, there was no way to sustain that in a practical way. When I discovered our Zen practice, our Suzuki Roshi's practice, where he said, if you sit down Zen, Don't expect anything. Don't try to create something. Don't make a preference. And this is exactly what I needed. It's not that I put out my light. It's that the light was sublimated into activity. This is our actual practice. When you sit back then, it's like lighting a match in a closet, where the whole closet is illuminated just by lighting a match.

[10:29]

But when you go out into the world and light a match, if I were to light a match now, what's that? You wouldn't see it. This is called secret practice. You hide your light within your activity. You don't go around saying, I'm enlightened, or I have something wonderful. Suzuki Rinpoche always emphasized practice. You know, we say, Dogen says, practice is enlightenment, and enlightenment is practice. Within practice is enlightenment, and within enlightenment is practice. They don't exist separately. Most people want enlightenment, but they have no idea of practice. And so Dogon is always warning us about this.

[11:33]

If we don't practice, then life doesn't manifest, even though it's our nature. In the Sambhogakaya, at the end of the sangha, the Sambhogakaya Siddhicitta says, just practice like a fool or an idiot. Just practice like a fool or an idiot. So, when we come to the zen-do, we like a match which illuminates the whole. When we go out into the world, the light is sublimated through our activity, so it doesn't look like that.

[12:42]

It simply looks like activity. So I want to explain a little bit about the mechanics of that. The other day I was talking about equality and differentiation. Someone said, you're always talking about equality. You know, you say that you treat everyone equally. And so if I treat everyone equally, what about my wife, or what about my friends? Some people I treat this way, and some people I treat that way. What is this equality? I don't quite understand how we should treat everything equally. So I want to kind of explain that. and explain something about how that filters into our activity.

[13:48]

The way our mind works, the way our memory works, is that whatever we do plants a seed. And so when we have good And our activities are on the good side. The good seeds are planted. And then when the conditions are right, they sprout. So when we do good things, good things follow. When we do bad things, bad things follow. This is very simplistic. And then we have what we call a self or an ego. consciousness, which is kind of false, because it's not what we think it is. And then we have a consciousness which simply discriminates between the senses.

[14:58]

And then we have the consciousnesses which are seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting. So through these consciousnesses we perceive the world. This is how we perceive the world. It's very limited. When we say a centipede, we say, well, that centipede lives in a very small world, a limited world. But actually, we're just like that centipede. We live in a very limited world, too, even though we think that we have a capacity to live in an unlimited world. But we mostly live in a very limited world, according to what we see, think, people, and so forth. So, when we receive the information through our senses, it's distributed and made sense of through our consciousness.

[16:16]

And then this information is delivered to our mind, which is called a light, which is where all the seeds of our activities are planted. And then our habits, our habitual activity is processed and acted out according to our good and bad deeds. So, this is called living in the world of samsara, the world of simply birth and death, acting out within its limited sphere. I don't know if you get me, but... So, When what is enlightened is called turning those consciousnesses around so that they are not just consciousness, they're wisdom.

[17:26]

So the wisdom of the consciousness which has the seeds is called the mirror wisdom. The mirror wisdom sees everything just as it is without interfering. There's no simply seeing as is which is so uncommon because we always did see things filtered through our imagination. So this is simply seeing clearly without creating a picture of imagination. It's called seeing as it is. And then the ego consciousness, which always sees things in relation to itself, always measures everything in relation to itself, as good and bad, right and wrong and so forth, want and dislike and dislike, it's the dualistic consciousness.

[18:36]

The dualistic consciousness sees the qualities That's the wisdom of equality. And then the consciousness which differentiates between the various sense consciousnesses, when it becomes the wisdom which sees all the differences, the wisdom of differentiation, it understands and sees each thing as if it exists separately. So the wisdom of equality is horizontal. We're all the same. The wisdom of differentiation sees everything vertically. We're all different. So difference and sameness. Sato Kai means the difference of, the oneness of difference and sameness.

[19:48]

The unity of difference and sameness, so where equality and differentiation meet in each moment is where we live. That cross-pair That crossing is where the brown mirror lives. And our actions, which are involved with our sensory apparatus, Instead of simply being expressed through our ego, it's expressed through our wisdom. So our actions have the foundation of wisdom instead of the foundation of ego.

[20:59]

Because ego has been transformed. It makes sense. Ego has been transformed into wisdom, so it's no longer called ego, or consciousness. It's called wisdom. When our extended state, which is, or our bliss, blissful state of mind, is there in Godhead, we don't stay there. we allow that to be expressed through our activity.

[22:10]

And so it becomes diffused. You don't see it. You only can be it. And so, this is the process by which the bliss of practice becomes diffused into ordinary activity. And this is how we meet life and spread the dharma. Without trying to spread the dharma, we simply act in an enlightened way. Sri Nityananda used to say, don't try to express the dharma when you need it to end up. Sit down there and go out and live your life.

[23:11]

Just by being present with people, the Dharma will be spread. You don't have to do something special. Andrea was talking, in her talk yesterday, she said, talked about this, where she worked, in the hospital, and the person asked her, said something to her about it. You're different. There's something about you that's different. And it was like, in response to her way of responding in a way that was unusual, but natural and normal to her. So the important thing, and this is called Jijujo Zamae, the samadhi of self, joyous samadhi, self-fulfilling samadhi, which is offered to others.

[24:18]

By transforming our ordinary consciousness into ordinary wisdom consciousness. The Dharma is transmitted without doing anything special through our ordinary activity. But Satsang is also an ordinary activity. There are just two sides of ordinary activity. But there are two sides. One is our own self-understanding or self-fulfillment. And then the other is offering that through our ordinary activities, daily activities. Because we go, instead of offering ego, we're offering wisdom. I am a little wondering about imagination.

[25:45]

So I just want to check this from this by you. I understand the piece about if imagination is through kind of ego's perceptual story making, but that too could be expressed in natural activity as wisdom, right? Yes. It's spontaneous like problem solving or using imagination without ego. Yes. Yeah, as long as imagination is in the service of wisdom instead of just being in service of ego. So, you know, the quality of wisdom is that there's always serving as Buddha, and not just serving as ego. Although, if ego is serving Buddha, that's actually a good thing, because we can get rid of ego. We can get rid of ego in the usual way. Ego, we offer ego up.

[26:50]

What the process is, is offering ego up to Buddha. And that's the transformation, that ego becomes absorbed into Buddha. And so we have ego, and our personality is ego-Buddha. And ego wants to lead. And then from this consciousness of Buddha, Then, well, I don't know the name of it. And the steward said, oh, I'll give you this. And I gave it to him. Wait a minute. [...] Wait a i have a question um i feel that for a long time i've taken the idea of not you know positive you know ecstasy appears it's just ecstasy you know a bad state appears it's just a bad state i think that it's turned out what i've discovered fairly recently is it's actually helpful to give the positive state some attention and nourishment instead of treating them

[28:14]

as, oh, here it comes, it goes, that that creates a more wholesome balance in me. And to actually discover, I'm not talking about, like, thrills, like the thrill of, you know, being on a... I'm talking more about, you know, the feeling of, you know, connection to people, the feelings of gratitude, the feelings of appreciation, but when I make a conscious effort to encourage those feelings, that that's good for me. Yes, that's good. There are two levels. One is the relative level, and the other is the absolute level. So you have to know what we're talking about. When we say the equal, that's on the absolute level. There's no good and bad, no right and wrong. That's on the absolute level, which is the level of truth, of absolute truth. the level of relative truth is that there's good and bad, right and wrong. So yes, but when we're sitting in zazen, we're sitting in the absolute truth.

[29:15]

When we're acting out in the world, we're putting emphasis on the relative truth, so that you don't kill people, you don't steal, you know, you take care of yourself, and you put emphasis on cultivating good states of mind. I guess what my experience has been is that the absolute is kind of appearing in these relative states like gratitude is an expression it's the activity you know like when we're on Sishin for many many days towards the end we just want to keep thanking everybody you know uh so i guess that's what i'm but then it also seems that you can start at the relative level so and you know nourish gratitude and that gives you a This is what I'm talking about. The ultimate level is informing the relative level. And that's coming through your fingertips. That's shooting out through your fingertips as gratitude.

[30:23]

This is natural precept. not imposed precepts from the outside, but natural precepts from the inside. Because you believe in accordance with Tao. I was wondering about nature and about ego, so related. You were talking about preference and going beyond preference. It seems like preference is also part of nature in some way, right? Like trees want light, et cetera. And this is related to that, so I was just wondering about ego. It seems like ego is also natural, as you said. And the problem that I have in Dāsana is that I realize I don't actually accept my ego enough. So I don't like my ego. So I do Dāsana with my ego.

[31:24]

So when I'm sitting in Dāsana and I think, that's my ego, I go off and I don't actually sit Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam or whatever. You go, you go, you go. And as you know, Zazen, Zazen comes in and I have to talk to it twice. And it's really, really unpleasant. This one's the one that got us a big pull around by Zazen. If I really sit sadhana, then it's because it's more pleasant, so then that's my preference. That's right. Pleasant is always preferable. For most people. So I should let my ego win, because it's more unpleasant. People win no matter what you do. So what do we do about this? Don't think about it. So how does it teach us about this?

[32:25]

So you have to listen to Dāzan, because it will teach you all about it. If you simply sit without moving, how can I do that? That's the big question. Not what is this, or why, or why, why, you know. You don't think about all these things. You know, they just pass. That's just the scenery. Just how can I sit with all this pain without having it dominating me? But what's it dominating? It's your ego. Your ego. You don't have to think about your ego, because it's always there. Until suddenly it drops away. So that's when you go, somehow, geez, I'm doing this. And then the ego stops up again. Just let it be, you know.

[33:25]

But Zazen will, if you continue to sit Zazen will teach you everything you need to know. Just by sitting there and letting everything come and go. And if you let everything come and go, all that stuff that passes through your mind will enlighten you. I'm not sure I know how to word this, but who's seeing all this, what you're saying? What is it that's seeing absolute versus ego? Why? What and who? That question.

[34:33]

wants to identify a seer, which looks like you. You have one of me? The idea is so limited. It's totally limited to relating our imagination to what to the limited understanding of what we have, of who we are. It's the what's seeing, it's the who's seeing, it's the what's feeling. As soon as you name it, it's not what it is. Is that why the form and sitting is so important? Because it's not really... There's nobody there, right?

[35:36]

So we're sitting to, because there's nobody there. We're sitting to let go of whoever's there. And then, whoever's there, will be there. So, you know, ego is a perceived sense of self. which doesn't really exist. It's just a confection, like a cake. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of form, a little bit of perception, a little bit of consciousness, a little bit of, you know, and then you mix it all up and say, I have me. So that's a confection. Something concocted, but we take it as real. And the real says, ah, this is real. Yeah, that's true too.

[36:38]

That's also true. But it's only real for now. But your real self, your true self, has no special shape or form or identification. You can see it. I mean, you can be it, but you can't see it. As soon as you try to see it, meaning give it a shape or a form or a who, or a who am I it, you try to limit it. So you're trying to give, to limit something that's unlimited. And that's what we're doing all the time. We're trying to limit something that's unlimited. Because we feel this sense of self. If this sense of self is unlimited, then we lose it. And we're always afraid of losing it. And we live our whole life afraid of losing it. So this is to gain it, unfortunately. This is where form is emptiness of emptiness is form?

[37:42]

Yes. This form is empty of its own being. Own being means inherent existence. So you can cross me off, don't you? This time, right? Yeah.

[38:05]

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