Good evening, everyone. So we began our practice period yesterday with an all-day sitting. This evening we've entered our Shuso Khezan, who's come all the way from Albuquerque to be with us for these two months. This ceremony we did tonight is very auspicious. It's the third time we've done it and it's kind of recognized as being auspicious, so much so that the Chicago Cubs, like last year, and given what happened last year, decided to schedule their home opener on the same night as our Shuso entry ceremony, again, like last year. So we know it's an auspicious ceremony. So thank you for coming from Albuquerque, kids. Yeah, whether or not you're formally doing this practice period, we're going to be talking about these teachings from Cultivating the Empty Field, from our great ancestor Hongzhe Zhongshui from the 1100s, who talked about serene illumination and

[01:22]

We need that now. So these are teachings, poetic teachings about settling and opening and allowing ourselves to be fully present and to deepen our practice, but also to find ways to be more fully responsive to the world around us. So Hongxue was a Chinese teacher who also lived in turbulent times in the Song period where there was civil war. He spent much of his life living up in the mountains in his monastery. But people came from, lay people also came up to the monastery to listen to him.

[02:25]

And he a number of times emptied the monastery stores to help support the people who were struggling with famine and so forth due to civil wars down below. Anyway, I want to talk again about, for the people in the practice period, there are six, in these practice instructions in cultivating the empty field, there are 56 different paragraphs or little practice instructions, all of which kind of give different viewpoints of this illuminated serenity that Hongxue talks about. But we've picked out six of them for people in the practice period to focus on. And again, for those of you not formally in the practice period, you're welcome to enjoy this also. I talked about the first of these yesterday in the practice period, in the all-day sitting, and I want to talk about it.

[03:28]

Again today, and maybe I'll just read the whole thing, they're not very long, and I'll talk about parts of it. It starts with the practice of true reality, which I want to come back to, but he says, the practice of true reality is simply to sit serenely in silent introspection. When you have fathomed this, you cannot be turned around by external causes and conditions. This empty, wide-open mind is subtly and correctly illuminating, spacious and content, without confusion from inner thoughts of grasping. Effectively overcome habitual behavior and realize the self that's not possessed by emotions. You must be broad-minded, whole, without relying on others. Such upright, independent spirit can begin not to pursue degrading situations. Here you can rest and become clean, pure, and lucid. Bright and penetrating, you can immediately return, accord, and respond to deal with events.

[04:31]

Everything is unhindered, clouds gracefully floating up to the peaks, the moonlight glitteringly flowing down mountain streams. The entire place is brightly illumined and spiritually transformed, totally unobstructed and clearly manifesting responsive interaction, like box and lid or arrow points meeting. Continuing, cultivate and nourish yourself to enact maturity and achieve stability. If you accord everywhere with thorough clarity and cut off sharp corners without dependence on doctrines like the white bull or wildcat, helping to arouse wonder, which is a reference from the Jewel Mara Samadhi, then you can be called a complete person. So we hear that this is how one on the way of non-mind acts, but before realizing non-mind, we still have great hardship. So I want to come back and just touch on a few parts of this and then have some discussion and comments and responses.

[05:39]

But I want to start with this practice of true reality. He says the practice of true reality is simply to sit serenely in silent introspection. And we talked about this a little bit in the discussion yesterday afternoon. You know, I wonder if Hongzhi, when he's talking about the practice of true reality, maybe he was anticipating alternative facts as opposed to true reality. The characters literally mean genuine reality, practicing genuine reality. So, what is this genuine reality and how do we practice it? and you know to put the adjective there genuine reality maybe it's just a way of emphasizing yes this [...] but uh... maybe it's also acknowledging the complexity of reality the multiplicity of reality that reality is not

[06:52]

one thing or it's not whatever one thing we think it is. And it's not about figuring it out. So this isn't, you know, even though there are embedded in these practice instructions, the dialectical philosophy of ultimate, in particular, and the five degrees of the Sao Tung Kusoto school, which are expressed in the harmony of difference and sameness and the Jomo Mara Samadhi. We can talk about that philosophy. But really, he's talking about the practice. And he's talking about how it's expressed in the world. So all of these nature metaphors, clouds gracefully floating up to the peaks, the moonlight glitteringly floating down mountain streams. He's talking about what is this genuine reality? What is this intricate, complex, not alternative reality, but this full, whole, genuine reality, and how do we practice it?

[08:07]

What is this? He says this is simply to sit serenely in silent introspection. So this is the practice we do here. We sit and turn and face the wall, face ourselves, turn the light to shine within. We can't practice genuine reality by searching through all of the libraries or all of the news articles or all of, you know, it's not that, you know, we shouldn't be informed and not that we don't, can't benefit sometimes from studying, in fact, here we are studying the words of the great ancient masters and so forth and we can look at philosophers from all kinds of cultures and traditions but

[09:09]

How do we turn and look at our own practice of reality? What does it mean to be the being on your seat right now? Silent introspection. Of course, when we stop and turn and face the wall and face ourselves, you know, often there's lots of chatter. We know that. But still, still, still, serenely within that, when we look within. So there's this introspection implies this attention, paying attention. It doesn't have to be a military intention, attention. It's just, what's going on? What's happening here? What is this genuine reality? to actually look at this, to question this.

[10:13]

Introspection maybe implies a question, but it's not a question that's about finding some doctrine or philosophy that will explain it all. But he says then when you have fathomed this, to fathom it, to get to the bottom of this, when you have dug into this, It doesn't mean we have some final solution either, but just, he says, then you cannot be turned around by external causes and conditions. He doesn't say ignore external causes and conditions. This empty, wide-open mind is subtly and correctly illuminating. Dvaipayana das remembers you know, form as specific.

[11:37]

You know, not just material, the forms of thoughts and feelings and sensations too, but then the quality of their being open, empty. We could say empty, but then, you know, you have to translate this word empty. It doesn't mean vacant, it means open, boundless. I think it's a good translation maybe, or a provocative translation. Anyway, here Hong just says, this empty, wide-open mind is subtly and correctly illuminating, spacious and content without confusion from inner thoughts of grasping, you know, and then he talks about overcoming our habitual behavior, not being possessed by emotions. So yeah, we've all got that. We've all got that stuff, that, those karmic patterns, personal and, can we? and communal of greed, hate, delusion, so forth. We all have those human emotional stuff. But a little further along he says, we can immediately return accord and respond to deal with events.

[12:53]

So the point of this, the point of this communing with genuine reality, practicing genuine reality, is actually how can we accord, how can we find accord, how can we find communion, how can we find meeting to respond to deal, meet and respond to events, to the situation of our life and our world. How do we meet our life? So again, the practice Not the theory, not the abstraction, not the philosophy, but the actual practice, the engagement with genuine reality, starts at least from simply sitting serenely in silent introspection. Doing this practice of upright sitting, we can find some creative energy, some

[14:00]

We may not be able to articulate the way Hongxue does. Hongxue has been this brilliant meditation teacher. So this is actually meditation teaching in some way. He's showing us how to settle on our seat. So we cannot be turned around by external causes and conditions. It doesn't mean we ignore them or deny them, but we don't need to get upset. We can actually face the world. We don't have to get depressed. We don't have to get angry, or when we feel the anger, we don't have to be turned around by that either. When we feel the sadness, we don't have to be turned around by that either. A little further on, he says, continuing, cultivate and nourish yourself to enact maturity and achieve stability.

[15:08]

Well, that little sentence is our life work. Continuing. How do we continue this practice of genuine reality? How do we sustain the engagement with genuine reality? Cultivate and nourish yourself. So that word nourish is important. How do we take care of ourselves? How do we be kind to ourselves? How do we cultivate ourselves to, what do they say, be all that you can be? How do we do that? How do we continue to enact maturity and achieve stability? So stability doesn't mean being frozen, okay? It means a kind of steadiness where we can continue to respond to the events which are always changing, right? And ourselves that's always changing. We're part of the changing events.

[16:11]

our cells in our body are dying and new ones are growing and so forth. So this practice of genuine reality, how do we find our way of doing that? I look forward to these two months of our looking together at, how do we do this? And to our Shusho, we'll be speaking about this too. And we'll be having, for the people in the practice commitment period, there'll be discussion groups of various kinds. So anyway, it's a pleasure to be launching into this practice of genuine reality with all of you and the others in the practice period, and with everybody else who shows up here.

[17:15]

So I'll stop and ask for comments or questions or responses from anyone. Please feel free. David. I have an extra book. I thought I had lost mine. But I only have two. So if somebody needs one, just let me know. I'll be more happy to share it with you. Thank you for that, that's generous. If nobody claims it tonight, I'll send the message out to everyone in the practice. So any reflections or messages from genuine reality?

[18:30]

You covered this in your talk, but I find that it comes up for people. We've been investigating these teachings in Albuquerque for a while, and there's a lot of emphasis on curing or grinding down these apparent habits. And yet we live in this culture, well, in sort of emphasizing serenity and peace, peaceableness. And these are wonderful teachings, but we live in a psychodramatical time and a psychological time. And I think many of us are prone to maybe can come up during practice. So I don't know, maybe you could just expand your thoughts a little bit on how those things meet, if that makes sense.

[19:41]

Yeah, well, it's interesting that I think Hongxiao, even back in the 12th century, addresses that. Part of how Buddhism has found its way in our culture is through Western psychology and through the insights of Western psychology and family dynamics and so forth, but in this passage, in this section, Hongxue talks about not being possessed by emotions, effectively overcoming habitual behavior, In the previous one, which is the first in the whole practice instructions, he talks about purify, cure, grind down, and brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. So of course, that's easier said than done.

[20:43]

But he's recognizing. He's not saying to ignore. He has four different modes of response to our patterns of behavior that can be obstructive. And so throughout these practice instructions, he talks about those kinds of patterns that are human obstructions. and talks about them in various ways. Yeah, so I think we have to face, you know, that is actually, I think, for many of us coming to practice, the most difficult part of developing a sustained practice that it's difficult to face. It's more difficult to face that stuff than to get your legs in some funny position or whatever.

[21:47]

It's how do we recognize our own patterns of depression or anger or fear or, you know, whatever. And I think the practice is to face that. And the precepts are about not repressing that, but seeing that and not, I talk about not reacting based on them. I don't know, are there other comments about this? A lot of you have worked with these issues. Yes, Chris. In terms of using the phrase true reality, I feel like I was almost like victim to what I conceived reality to be.

[23:03]

To me it seems that my thoughts informed who I was. And then you can have any kind of number of thoughts. Nice ones, bad ones, violent ones, perverse ones. state of mind, so to speak. But just recently it was sort of interesting, I had this experience where I could see how a feeling would arise and then immediately my mind would try and reify that feeling by blaming it on some kind of external condition. a world that isn't solid or material or all this material, but not seemingly in the way that we perceive it to be.

[24:18]

So, you know, it was sort of interesting because for a while I would have these thoughts and I would try and follow them to the end to see if there was some kind of insight. The dots are just secretions of the brain. Yeah. Yeah, and what you described is our usual way of dealing with anger or sadness or whatever. We tend to blame something out there rather than acknowledging, oh, it's my anger, it's my sadness. But we want to find something out there that we can manipulate to fix it. And that's what we usually do, rather than just owning, oh, yeah, I'm feeling this. So, yeah. Other comments?

[25:21]

Yes, Ben. So I'm struck. I mean, maybe picking up a little bit on this idea of reunification. When he talks about that unhindered response, the metaphors that he's using are all metaphors that are about relationships between things. So mountains flowing, clouds flowing over a mountain, moonlight flowing over a landscape. parts of a box fitting together. So he's seeing that not as a thing that you have or a state that you acquire, but as processes between things that are doing different things, but they aren't harming each other. They're according while their clouds are going up, the mountains are there, the moonlight is coming down. So relationships. Yeah, relationships and processes and not states or things. Right.

[26:21]

Yeah, processes, relationships, rather than something that you have to fix or destroy or whatever. Yes, Dave. I'm kind of intrigued by the word serenity right now. Cool. I feel like, is it possible that it's more of a determination rather than a location? Like, not a place to get to. I always want to call everything practice, but I guess like, you know. Determination? Yeah, that's interesting.

[27:40]

So serenity is not some place somewhere else to get to. Serenity, determination is an interesting word. Serenity is a way of being, but it's, when you use the word determination, I think of intention, or it's a kind of posture or something. That's interesting. That's something to work with in the practice period. How do we express serenity or I'm not sure that's that's but that's that's an interesting. Steadfastness, yeah. Serenity involves a kind of we will be chanting on many Monday nights the guideposts for serene illumination or silent illumination which talks about serenity too but what's how do we What does it mean to engage or express serenity?

[28:43]

I think that's an interesting question. Is it something that we decide on? I agree with you, it's not some other place, somewhere else, but how do we... Yeah, what is it? Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. Brian? where you're alluded to fake news to turn to the news. And I thought about how all news is constructed narrative. And some of the stories are more fake than others, perhaps. And Rev Anderson's phrase, that's the story to tell myself, pervades me. And I thought, well, what is genuine reality? And I was thinking, Chris, the reality that we tend to live by and believe in.

[29:46]

And maybe the practice is letting those disappear. When they disappear, or as they disappear, the general reality may be what's left, when the constructed reality is left. Just this. Okay. That, yeah, that recalls the There's a reference to it in one of the practice instructions to the Flower Ornament Sutra's wisdom. There's a case in the Book of Serenity referring to the Avatamsaka Sutra the way Hongxia says it is.

[30:49]

Amid living beings is the original place of Nirvana. How amazing it is that all people have this but cannot polish it into bright clarity. In darkness, unawakened, they make foolishness cover their wisdom and overflow. One remembrance of illumination can break through and leap out of the dust of Kalpas. So that, you know, the idea is that actually, Hung just starts the practice instructions, the field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning, but we have these obstructions of foolishness and illusions that block our seeing that. So that's sort of what you were saying, and so our practice is about cutting through that somehow. Or sitting long enough to let them dissipate is another way of saying it.

[31:55]

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