For those of you who are here for the usual Sunday talk, maybe I'll say the usual Sunday things, but I never know quite actually what I'm going to say. I'm continuing a discussion we began yesterday with ourselves in the first day of the session. Today is the second day of the session. Did you discover anything about your state of mind? Did you find out inequalities, aspects of your history, of your state of mind. This brings us, you know, to the most common theme in all of

[01:39]

Zen literature, which is the Absolute and the Relative. I think for most of us the idea of the Absolute and the Relative doesn't have much meaning, actually. I find most of you, most of us, fall into two categories. One, those who don't have much sense of the Absolute, they think they don't have any sense of the Absolute, of Buddha,

[02:45]

or something like that, or some unchanging ultimate thing. But actually all the time you're taking yourself as absolute, even though you are quite familiar with all of the contemporary jive about non-self and being free of self, etc. Actually, you take yourself as absolute, because you're unable to get at the operative level of yourself. But when it comes down to distinguishing between what is real and false, you do it on the basis of yourself.

[03:46]

a basis of an idea or absolute belief in self. The other category, maybe less of you but less of us, You think that the relative is absolute, but actually everything is relative. You know, mountains, mountains, mountains are not mountains, and mountains are mountains again. Mountains are not mountains, you take. So you think it really doesn't make so much difference what you do. And somehow your belief in the relative, you think the relative, you ascribe to the relative some inner direction of its own, or maybe some version of the idea of natural.

[05:24]

And you think if you don't do anything or make any special effort, just do your work here at Green Gulch or in the city, wherever, and let your hair grow and your eyes look. Everything will be. Some natural ascendancy will occur. Everything will be as it should be. But this everything-it-will-be-as-it-should-be also is a belief in the Absolute. So you don't have a sophisticated belief, understanding of the absolute. So you, the whole idea of relative and absolute is rather perplexing to you, you know. You don't quite see why when you get into past the Zen stories, you know. You find really what they're talking about over and over again, all the time, is relative and absolute.

[06:52]

Bodhidharma answers the emperor and says, I don't know. It means the absolute. The emperor says, well, who are you anyway? It means the relative is also the absolute. So it means Bodhidharma and the emperor, from Bodhidharma's point of view, are both right. So this confirms your feeling that there is no absolute. Jogin tries to express it, you know. He says there are mountains hidden in marshes. There are mountains hidden in forests. There are mountains hidden in mountains. And there are mountains, even a study of mountains hidden in hiddenness. And he says that, Dogen says, that in ancient times men say that mountains are

[08:23]

mountains, mountains are not mountains, and mountains are mountains again, etc. And Dogen says, they do not mean mountains are mountains. They mean mountains are mountains. This is something more than philosophy. You can't just say by the word mountain he means the absolute. And Tozan also tries to make some version of this transference, rotation of absolute and relative in his five ranks, which are a kind of version of Dogen's mountains, They do not mean mountains are mountains, they mean mountains are mountains. So the first principle of Buddhism is maybe zazen, or emptiness. I don't know. When you begin to see that your state of mind is suffering, your comparing state of mind is suffering, always very fragile.

[10:23]

always blown here and there, always seeking something better and avoiding something worse. This state of mind is suffering. If you do Zazen, you'll realize that it's suffering. Then, you know, if you examine yourself, notice yourself carefully, or if you study Buddhism, you'll find out that suffering is a result, and so you'll want to reach the source. And as soon as you have this kind of motivation, this kind of insight, you'll see you have already the problem of the relative and the absolute. Now, the only antidote for your subject-object distinction making, me and you, us and adverse or beneficial circumstances, common or lofty, etc., the only antidote is the first principle.

[11:46]

When you see what's behind, when you understand the Diamond Sutra, you know, which says, to view all conditioned things as a mock show, a lightning flash, a dew drop, a bubble, a fault of vision, It doesn't mean exactly that. A bubble is something unreal, it means reality is a bubble, a dew drop. So how to, when you see how everything is changing, when you shift from your usual giving the conditioned, seeing the conditioned as absolute, seeing yourself and the objects of yourself as absolute, as soon as you see that, what are you going to do if everything is relative or a mock show? You need some sense

[13:11]

of a guide or some absolute. And if you practice Zazen carefully, you'll find out that everything is not relative. You can't do Zazen on your head so well. You have to sit a certain way. And inside yourself, shall I say for now, inside yourself you'll have some experience of something maybe ephemeral, but very imminent, which has a up and down, a straight or crooked, and asks of you to sit straight and not this way. and you'll have some experience of it. Sometimes being very cockeyed and you'll find your body is only slightly cockeyed. As Dogen says, you know, some things belong on the high shelf, some things belong on the low shelf.

[14:31]

So you will find by your zazen that everything is not relative and things belong a certain way. That there is some rule, some absolute. If you don't do it such and such a way, such and such a consequences follow. There's no question about it. So, On every level you find this. So then you say, what is this rule? What is this absolute? So your zazen in this seshin is to find out what is this rule, what is this absolute? And if such a thing is, and if it is, what kind of is, is it? Or how does it act in you or with you, of you?

[15:55]

And does it make everything else just some insignificant, pale activity? Last night I said you should try to know the real and the seeming. This is one of the, this is the second position of Tozan's five positions. How to practice? If everything is changing and just seems to be so, what is the real that you find in the midst of this changing, in the midst of this seeming, if everything is just a dewdrop? So we sit sadhana, you know, until everything sings to us, even our painful legs. If, you know, you have to have some sense of

[17:37]

the Absolute, if you're going to sit through your painful legs? What keeps you sitting through your painful legs? What keeps you from moving here and there? Why do you do Zazen? What makes you sit for seven days with a straight back? Some wish? What is the nature of this wish? What is it a wish for? or what is the substance or nature of the wish itself? What allows you to sit here through the comings and goings of your mental phenomena and your physical suffering and discomfort? Someone asked me, my mind my state of mind is not doing anything it's no state of mind when it's not looking or smelling or thinking it's no state of mind does that mean you're dead? is there ever a time when nothing is happening? or is there some readiness

[19:12]

And what is a state of mind that is free from attitudes? If you have a state of mind that as soon as something comes, it's met by a lot of attitudes, your state of mind is not the state of mind Bodhidharma is talking about. The state of mind of the third position of of Tozan, the resurgence of the real. When you no longer have to make the distinction of good or bad. You will, the more that's true, the more you will thoroughly experience things. And I can't give you any even tentative description except maybe to experience everything like a musical note. What is a sound? A sound covers the sky.

[20:45]

Each experience is like maybe a pebble in a stream. Even looking. Sound is easy to understand, whether it's an airplane or that bird. Sound is everywhere. Sound is you. So you are ready for the sound, for the seeing. And that readiness doesn't even need sound. So to understand Dogen's mountains are not mountains. You can't just believe all mountains are not mountains. Everything is relative. There is no relative or absolute. That's true, there's no relative or absolute. But you have to know the absolute first.

[22:36]

you have to know that state of mind which has no two-by-fours, which is ready for anything. So, Tozan set up his five positions, which You can't quite grasp mentally or philosophically. Each one, they're not each about the same thing. They don't refer to the same thing. There's no mental construct you can apply to them except inadequately. But they describe our actual experience of trying to See that this state of mind is suffering. And what is Dharma then? And how to realize the first principle of Bodhidharma? How to have an imperturbable, unshakable state of mind?

[24:06]

how to have complete confidence because you are one with what you're doing. Not because you have some belief in self or skill or success or security, not the confidence of success or talent or ability, but the confidence of being one with what you're doing. Some of us may be pretty good through Zazen or through some staple life we've had. But as soon as things get a little difficult, our mind becomes quite contaminated and creeps all over us and we feel pretty lousy. And we can't function. And we do foolish, unconscious, destructive things.

[25:44]

and we find we do things that don't quite work out. So, Tozan's five ranks, again, point out how to have that kind of mind beyond absolute and relative. seeming as real, which no longer can become contaminated. This kind of mind results from your effort to realize the ultimate, to realize what is permanent in the midst of changing circumstances. And it first requires you to perceive that you already are taking changing circumstances as permanent in various subtle ways.

[27:26]

Either you try to say, I have no self, but these changing circumstances are real. Or you say, these changing circumstances are not real, but I know what is what. First you have to dispel that binder through your and shakable practice, trying not to move in a session. And you can see it coming up, trying to interfere with your practice, trying to interfere with your effort to do that, trying to convince you of something else. And you have to meet this creature head-on. And Tozan again, five positions describe this head-on encounter. And what happens?

[28:56]

what we might call some kind of satori. But they are really not five positions. First I'm A, then I'm B, then we are C or something. But rather they're simultaneous modes of being or mind. which the last expresses all of them, but sometimes we are taking one or another. So in a session there is an opportunity to become familiar with what is there between, around, among circumstances, through and through.

[30:32]

This mind I'm speaking of is not caught by any form. Not caught by this present time. It continues endlessly in all directions. Caught by this present time. It continues endlessly in all directions. You will hear it and see it on everything. You will do everything that is.

[31:47]

But at first you'll know it most intimately when you have nothing to do and no place to go. And really you feel no longer the pressures to do or go. And some great sense of well-being will take you over So the first stage, the first position of Dozan is the recognition of the Absolute. And the second then is seeing form in a completely different way. Then what is the Absolute in this new form which is only seeming, having given up our old false Absolute? And the third is to become one with this Absolute, to actually

[33:15]

physically your own achievement. In your body and mind. In everything you do. Becoming intimate with this in this way. Then we find in our encounters, it's not so, our realization is not complete. And we realize finally some perfect meeting in which absolute and relative are one. This is the fourth. And the fifth is utter darkness beyond all of these.

[34:43]

The fourth is usually just a circle. The fifth is just utter darkness. If you have even recognized that your state of mind is suffering, and the first is maybe the first positions, maybe initial, what usually is called Kensho in Japanese, in Japan. Your overwhelming insight that everything you've been doing doesn't have much meaning. It's some relative or just some seeming. And you feel in yourself some ground of it all. If you have understood this much and deepened your practice, seeing form in this new way, becoming familiar with form in this new way, Rupa, Datta,

[36:10]

no longer the world of sense desire, tama-dhatu, which we take for the real. But we see form clearly. We see our subject-object relationship and can sustain our vision. If so, you've come a long way. But Engo, in his introduction to the Sun-Faced Buddha, Moon-Faced Buddha story of Baso, says, such a state is like digging holes in good meat. So to understand this Sun-Faced Buddha, Moon-Faced Buddha, which I'm trying to talk about, actually. We have to have some grasp of the point of Tozan's five positions. How deep is... are the positions of Tozan?

[37:41]

If you're even at the first, you understand the first. At the second and third and fourth and fifth. Maybe in your lifetime you can realize this. If you are extremely fortunate and intent enough. But it's extremely rare. The first door to play around with the insight, thinking that you understand. It's quite easy and misleading. False. Absolute. So it depends on how deep your

[38:45]

Desire is to realize this unity of being, of existence, with all things. If your desire, if your resolve is weak, your achievement will be weak. If your resolve is deep enough and you can give up being primarily interested in yourself and or being lazy, you may find the actual fruit of our existence.

[39:47]

I don't know why you should do so, actually. Why I should create this problem for you. Maybe you should create this problem for me. But some of you should understand what Suzuki Roshi meant. We are grateful for Suzuki Roshi's existence, but we don't really want to take the trouble to find out what he actually meant. But some of you must find out. He came for that purpose. And he gave us that responsibility. And some of you who play around with the idea but actually take only yourself seriously makes me rather angry. And others of you who are just lazy, I don't mind so much. And those of you who are willing to try,

[42:04]

Whether your talent is big or small, it doesn't make any difference. I am so grateful for your willingness. Is there some bond or seal between us? among us to find out what Suzuki Roshi meant, to realize his state of mind, which we can't call mind. at this opportunity.

[43:03]

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