and how to taste the truth and learn to talk to this world. This morning I'm going to present this case from the Blue Cliff Record, case number five, which is called, in this book, Seppo's grain of rice, or grain of rice, pretty small, mustard seed, or millet,

[01:01]

Seppo is his Japanese, is what they call him in Japan, but Xue Feng is his name. He was one of the most well-known Zen teachers in China in the Tang Dynasty, the end of the Tang Dynasty, between some 800s and 900. Actually, he was born in 822 and died in 908. But we call him Seppo. His Dharma brother was Ganto, Seppo and Ganto. And the stories between Seppo and Ganto are very famous in China. in Zen circles. Suzuki Roshi really liked both of them a lot. He liked Seppo's spirit.

[02:06]

Seppo was, well, Ganto was one of these brilliant, well-educated, articulate, enlightened people. And Seppo was a very dedicated, sincere person who had a strong faith in practice and a deep, intuitive understanding of things. So you could say Ganto was a little more intellectual and Seppo was a little more intuitive. but they were great companions and Ganto helped Seppo out a lot and actually enlightened him. Also, Seppo was a great rice cook and he would go around from one place to another with his rice paddle.

[03:18]

When he'd go to a monastery, people would recognize him and have him cook the rice. Cooking rice to us is not a big deal, but cooking rice in China is a lot different feeling. It's like baking bread, you know, here. And Seppo and Ganto both traveled a lot. And if you've ever been to China, You know, the traveling on foot in the 10th century or the 9th century was probably not very easy. A lot of China's full of mountains and dangerous places. And it was like walking from here to Seattle to see your teacher or walking from here to Salt Lake City to visit your teacher or, you know,

[04:23]

without all of the jack-in-the-boxes on the way. So the Seppu and Gato are known for their hard practice, you know, and they're really making big effort. So anyway, Master Ngo introduces the subject and he says, to guard and maintain the essential teachings of Buddhadharma, must be the vocation of the noble soul. This is the translation, meaning the teacher. That person does not blink when killing a person and then the person may be instantly enlightened. I'll talk about this later. Therefore, that person observes and acts simultaneously and holds fast and lets go without restraint. that person sees that essence and phenomena are not two, and expedience and reality run parallel.

[05:36]

He often rejects the first principle and adopts the second. This is because to cut through the complications too abruptly causes the beginner to lose her footing. A day like yesterday, that could not be avoided. Again, a day like today, his transgressions fill the heavens. If you are clear-sighted, however, you cannot blame that person. If otherwise, you put yourself in the tiger's mouth. You will lose your life instantly. Now see the following. So this is the introduction to the case. And here's the main subject. Seppo addressed the assembly and he said, All the great world, if I pick it up with my fingertips, is found to be like a grain of rice. Even though it is in front of your face, you do not see it. Beat the drum and tell the monks to come out and work to search for it.

[06:43]

So then Setso has a verse, and he says, the ox head disappearing, the horse head appears. No dust on the mirror of the ancestor Soke. You can beat the drum and search for it in vain. For whom do the spring flowers bloom? So I'll have to go back over this. So in the introduction, Engo says, to guard and maintain the essential teaching of the Dharma must be the vocation of the noble. So he's talking about Seppo here. He's introducing Seppo. He's saying this person has the ability to do this. And whatever he does is straightforward. And even if it comes to killing the monk, he just does it without hesitation.

[07:49]

Now in Buddhadharma sometimes we talk about killing and bringing to life. Monjushri has a sword and the sword of Monjushri is the sword that takes life and gives life. killing the person, exactly. It's like transforming the ego. So when the teacher gives a turning word and the student's body and mind drop away, that's called killing. But it's also called bringing to life, true life. There's a saying, if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha.

[08:52]

People say, oh my goodness, kill the Buddha. It simply means kill your idea of Buddha. Let go of your idea of Buddha. In Zen, people like to use dramatic phrases. So to say kill is a kind of dramatic way of saying something. But it's not exactly untrue. Dogen says, in his talk about Buddha nature, he says, if you cut the earthworm in two, which side has the Buddha nature? That could go on. So I was thinking about this and I was thinking about in terms of the death penalty, killing people who kill other people or killing people in order to punish them.

[10:08]

So if we kill people in order to punish them, This is an act of, is it an act of revenge? Is it an act of deprivation for that person? And who will kill the person? So when we ask someone to kill someone else, is that still killing? Is that still murder? It's very interesting, this whole business of who kills who and who goes to jail. and who gets the tail pinned on the donkey. We can go into another country, kill thousands of people, and call it patriotism, and honor those people. And one person can kill another, and we call it murder, and we throw them in jail, and we kill them. and the people who kill the most people never get thrown in jail.

[11:19]

So justice is like, whoa, you know? But beyond that, to ask someone to kill someone else, whether that person has been condemned or is guilty or whatever, is still killing someone. So whoever kills someone, regardless of the laws of people, still has created a karmic act, the fruit of which returns to that person. So we have executioners, maybe not in our country, but we do in our country, actually, in various countries, whose job is just to kill people one after another who are guilty, or deemed guilty. And they just do it, you know, it's just kind of like slaughtering pigs. Just think of the karma of that person and the ignorance that goes along with it.

[12:27]

So my idea is that instead of killing people, we should kill their ego. If someone is guilty of a crime and they have to be, something has to be done with this person. We either kill them or we put them in jail for life or whatever. But as a human being, our task is really to help transform people. Because all of us make transgressions on one level or another. We're all constantly making transgressions on one level or another. And some transgressions are very grave. and they have to be dealt with in a certain, some way, extreme way. So I think that Buddhists who go into prisons and teach Zazen and Buddhist principles are actually helping to transform people.

[13:40]

prisons. We say, well what about education in prisons, you know, and that idea has been going on for a long time and there's so much resistance, you know, so much resistance, but nevertheless there's still some headway and the people who receive this gift actually drink it like and the process of transformation takes the place of murder, killing people. It's possible for anyone to be transformed and to transform ignorance into understanding or enlightenment. This is called in Buddhism, in Zen it's called killing. killing in order to wake up or to have realization.

[14:52]

So this is what it means. He does not blink when killing a person and then the person may be instantly enlightened. And killing and enlightenment is one act. That's the point here. It's just like when the teacher does that act, does that turning word or turning act, then the turning of the student or the recipient is instantaneous as well. So the whole thing is one, instantaneous act. So hence they act simultaneously and the teacher holds fast and lets go without restraint.

[16:03]

Letting go and holding fast so-called methods, if you want to call them methods. And that's kind of like leads into what this koan is about. It's the first principle and the second principle. The first principle is like intuition or directly knowing. The second principle is education or learning. So he observes, the teacher observes and acts simultaneously and holds fast and lets go without restraint. He sees that essence and phenomena are not two and expedience and reality run parallel.

[17:07]

So essence and phenomena, meaning the basic oneness of things, is not different than the differentiation of things. In other words, my fist, which is one thing, and my fingers, which are five things, are not two things. The multiplicity of things and the oneness of things are the same. not different. Samsara is not different than nirvana. This is a basic Mahayana understanding. I don't like to use the word Mahayana, the terms Mahayana and Hinayana. That's very divisive. Then people think, oh, Hinayana, Bhilanga, and Mahayana are these people. It's simply some Buddhists don't get the non-duality of things and mostly speak in terms of duality, whereas other Buddhists speak in terms of non-duality mostly, but duality contains non-duality and

[18:37]

But here he's saying he sees the essence and phenomena are not two. Buddha nature and things are not two. Very simple. But it's one thing to say this, it's another thing to realize it. So that's also what this koan is about. the expedient and reality run parallel. So expedient here means teaching through sutras and words, and reality means things as they really are. He often rejects the first principle and adopts the second. In other words, sometimes, or quite often, the teacher will explain things. That's adopting the second principle.

[19:46]

The first principle is just to keep your mouth shut and go about your business. So this is why in a community where there's a good teacher, the students just watch the teacher. And sometimes, for example, Noiri Hiroshi in Japan had a few students, but very few of those students could stay with him because they'd get pissed off and leave. But he wouldn't teach them anything. But they were always with him and serving him and doing things, and he would always surprise them in some way. and try to catch them off guard and make sure that they were really paying attention.

[20:52]

And it just drove them crazy. So he had very few students. That's a kind of extreme way, but they would have to watch him all the time. That's how they learned from him. So that's standing on the first principle. But he's saying here, but the teacher can't always stand on the first principle. He has to use the second principle. He has to adapt to people. So he says, he often rejects the first principle and adopts the second. This is because to cut through the complications too abruptly causes the beginner to lose their footing. So, you know, beginners have to learn something.

[21:57]

You learn something about Buddhism. You learn something about the Dharma. You know, you read the sutras, you read the commentaries, hopefully, and you're able to discuss things. And also, this thing about losing their footing is important because if you advanced quickly in your understanding, because each one of us has been developed in such a way that we have our dependencies, our intellectual dependencies, our physical dependencies, and our relational dependencies. And to just take all that away, right away, leaves you without any footing. Eventually, you have to let go of everything. Suzuki Roshi, I remember now, used to say all the time, little by little, little by little,

[23:02]

You should practice, get into practice little by little. Don't try too much at one time. Don't try to let go of things too much at one time. Just practice very steadily and wholeheartedly and stretch yourself as far as you can go, but little by little. Don't expect too much of advancement. That was very much his, way of speaking. Just little by little, don't try to get ahead too fast. Don't try to let go of your problems. Matter of fact, addressing your problems is practice. If you don't have that, you don't have a foothold to actually face your problems, whatever your problems might be, and to use your problem as a foothold for practice. is actually the way.

[24:03]

But what we want to do is not have any problems and just get enlightened. But your problem is your rock, so to speak, which gives you a foothold to practice. Otherwise you don't have anything. So to try and get rid of your problems, to try and get rid of everything, And, you know, there were people would come and a guy would have a wife and two kids, you know, and he'd want to leave them and start practicing. And so the Christian would push him way back and say, well, take care of your family, take care of your job, come sit with us sometimes. You know, don't make this big overturn of your life in order to do something which you have no footing for. So we stay, you know, sometimes we look around and we see how everybody's practicing.

[25:10]

And we said, geez, you know, that person's a Zen student. You know, they have all these problems and they're always doing the same stuff over and over again, you know, and no matter how much, you know, you point it out to them, they still do it. And they say, oh yes, I'll stop, but they keep going. You know, we're all like that. that's because you need to have those things until you finally can let go of them. That's called the practice of patience. So I can remember when we were practicing in the city center in the 60s, the late 60s, And then everybody was smoking in those days. You know, everybody, almost. And during the breaks, Bill Kwong and I and another one of the priests, Japanese priest, and somebody else, we'd go into the, what's now the little side room, and smoke.

[26:26]

And laugh. Terrible. And every once in a while Shizuki would come in and shake his head. And then one time he came in and he said, I think you should quit smoking. But nobody did. But he also said, when you're ready to quit smoking, you'll quit smoking. I'm not going to tell you to quit smoking. He did that one time, but because he was kind of disgusted. What he really meant was stop laughing. But when you're ready, you can't stop until you're ready. You just can't do it. You can't stop eating until you're ready. You can't stop smoking until you're ready. You can't let go of habits until you're ready to let go of them. Sometimes people come to practice and they'll think, well, I'm not good enough to practice because I have all these bad things about me.

[27:40]

When I'm good, I'll come. But you'll never get there. You have to come with all your stuff. And then we beat it out of you. It gets squeezed out of you. Little by little, you get squeezed. If you really take on the practice, you'll feel the squeeze. So that's why I say your practice should feel like there's some pressure. If you don't feel some pressure, then you don't have a foothold. You have to feel your foot on the ground pressing in order to climb the stairs. If you climb the stairs without feeling that, maybe you're not really climbing the stairs. So there has to be some pressure, something that's over against you so that it brings out that effort, that spirit.

[28:52]

So he says, this is because to cut through, so he often rejects the first principle and doubts the second. This is because to cut through the complications too abruptly causes the beginner to lose their footing. Now, a day like yesterday, that could not be avoided. Again, a day like today, his transgressions fill the heavens. So what he's talking about here is yesterday he explained the Dharma. And that was a big transgression. Suzuki Roshi used to say, we make a mistake on purpose. I think he was referring to this. Make a mistake on purpose means to explain the Dharma. It's a mistake. But we do it on purpose, like I'm doing this on purpose right now, making this big mistake, excuse me. But since you're here, I'll continue. So this is called using the second principle, explaining the Dharma.

[30:08]

I'm trying not to explain it, but I can't help it. I have to explain it to myself. And how I can explain it to myself without, you know, to explain it to myself and when you leave you'll say, what did he say? That's good. I remember, we'd go to Suzuki Roshi's lectures, and after the lecture, everybody looked at each other and said, what did he say? And we'd think, well, maybe that's not so good, but actually it was. It was very good, because he gave us something, but he didn't give us anything to hang on to. There's nothing that we could hang on to. He just had that great skill. explained a lot of things, but it's all gone.

[31:16]

So his transgressions fill the heavens and if you are clear-sighted, If you do not understand, then you, let me, I want to go back. I just want to, you know, he says, oh yeah, if you do not understand, however, you put yourself in the tiger's mouth. In other words, if, you know, Not understanding means not understanding that the words are not the thing itself. If you, the teacher will explain, and if you put yourself in the tiger's mouth of explanation, then the jaws close on you.

[32:20]

So you have to find your own understanding. That's how you get out of the tiger's mouth. In other words, if you simply depend on the explanation, then you get caught. Then here's the main subject. We finally get to the main subject. Seppo addressed the assembly and he said, all the great world if I pick it up with my fingertips, it's found to be like a grain of rice. Even though it is right in front of your face, actually says, even though I throw it in front of your face, throw it down on the ground in front of your face, but you don't see it, it's like a lacquer bucket. Lacquer bucket means, a black lacquer bucket is like

[33:26]

If you look into it, it's just, you can't see anything, it's totally dense, right? And there's a saying about somebody that's enlightened, the bottom of the black lacquer bucket dropped out. As soon as this person achieved, in an instant, this person had realization and the bottom dropped out of the black lacquer bucket. So we all are walking around with black lacquer buckets over our head. So even though I throw this down in front of your face, it's like a black lacquer bucket. You can't see through it. So if you want to see it, if you want to get this understanding, beat the drum, hit the han, call the monks, and look around for it.

[34:30]

Get with it, get into it. The whole universe, the whole world is just like a, you can pick it up with your fingers. You can pick up the whole universe with your fingers when you pick up a grain of rice. you don't really need to look any further. Everything is right there. We have monumental educational systems. And we're developing our information capacity to an enormous degree. And when we learn everything, will know something, huh? I'm not so sure about that. Learning is wonderful.

[35:37]

But if you can directly understand and relate to a grain of rice, you don't need so much information. You have the kernel of information As a matter of fact, science tries to get to the smallest particle in order to learn the information. If we can unlock the smallest particle, we'll have all the information we need. But when you unlock the smallest particle, there's another smallest particle. And when you unlock that smallest particle, there's another smallest particle. It's like one of these Russian dolls, you know, inside the dolls and other dolls and inside another doll. But at the same time, it's right in front of our face.

[36:43]

That's what he's saying. It's right here in front of our face. We just can't see it. So we keep looking for it. I throw it right down in front of your face or there it is right in front of your face. Hit the Han, get everybody out here looking for it. But it's right there in that piece of rice, in the sesame seed. In everything you see. Master Dungshan, when he was crossing the stream, he saw his reflection in the water. And then he made his poem and he said, everywhere I look, I see myself. Wherever I look, whatever my gaze falls on, I see that's myself.

[37:45]

He sees his face reflected in the post, in the pillar. Well, that's me. It's not me. It's me. Everything that is not me is me. So then, Setjo, one of the commentators says, the ox head disappearing, the horse head appears. Ox head and horse head, I mean, I like the fragments of thought that are continually rising in our mind. We call it junk mind, junk mail mind. It's the flotsam and jetsam

[38:59]

that are continually going around in the orbit of our mind. So an ox head appears and disappears, and then a horse head appears. So horse head and ox head just merely mean various detached thoughts, or fragments of thought, ghosts or whatever, junk, head junk, which when you sit Zazen, you really see it. Then he says, no dust on the mirror of the patriarch Soke. Soke is the sixth ancestor. Soke is the place where he, in Japanese, where he lived in China, his temple. So, you know, there's this famous poem of the Sixth Ancestor, no dust alights on the mirror.

[40:09]

So, which means when there's no dust, you see everything as it is. So, you know, wiping the mirror clean is to be able to see the mirror, is to be able to see things clearly. But Sokhi says, there's no mirror from the beginning. Things are just what they are. And then someone said, what if a clear mirror appears? What do you do with a clear mirror? Clear mirror means the first principle, actually. Mirror mind. The mirror of mind is like seeing, when you see everything clearly as it is, that's the first principle. So what do you do with a mirror when it appears? You smash it into a thousand pieces.

[41:13]

If you stick with the mirror, you think you're enlightened. So you have to smash the mirror into a thousand pieces, which means you have to take up whatever is in front of you, all the phenomena in the world that you meet, you have to meet. So smashing the mirror into a thousand pieces is, each piece reflects the mirror, each one of those pieces. So this is parallel, the essence and phenomena running parallel. doesn't matter whether it's a clear mirror of one piece or a mirror smashed into a thousand pieces. You smash the mirror into a thousand pieces and each piece still has the essence. So whatever you do when you pick up a grain of rice, it manifests the essence.

[42:26]

It reflects the essence. The essence is right there. But how do you see that essence? How do you relate to that essence? So he says, you beat the drum and search for it in vain. For whom do the spring flowers bloom? Spring flowers represent nature or reality. The flowers just bloom, they just do what they're supposed to do, but there's no self in a flower, so the flowers just do what they have to do, they bloom. But do we really see a flower? when we see a flower.

[43:27]

Nansen, Master Nansen, was talking to the governor, and the governor was talking about Master Seng Chao, who was Kumara Jiva's assistant in China. And Seng Chau was very famous. I said, the whole universe is one whole body. And the governor said, isn't that fantastic? And Nan Sen said, see this flower? People who look at this flower, don't see what it really is. So, the governor was talking about, he was only expressing one side.

[44:40]

Nansen expressed the other side. You have to see that essence through the flower. You have to look all the way through the flower to the essence. In other words, people say, how do I see emptiness? The only way to see emptiness is through form. All forms are the forms of emptiness. That's what forms are. They're the various forms of emptiness. If we want to see emptiness with our naked eye, just look at the forms and see all the way through the form. How do we see the form of a flower? How do we see emptiness through a flower? How do we relate to a flower? It's a good go on.

[45:44]

How do we relate to a killer? If all beings are Buddha nature, how do we relate to a killer? So, big con. So whether we use the first principle or the second principle doesn't matter. The second principle should help us to settle on the first principle. But if we use only the second principle and don't make an effort to find the first principle, then the second principle would be like putting your head in the tiger's mouth and getting caught.

[46:53]

Do you have any questions? Yes. Well, I'm caught between two questions, but I have to say just one. All right, I'll say this one. While you were talking about being in the tiger's mouth, I thought tigers have bad breath. They do? I mean, they eat a lot of dead things. So probably that's why my life stinks. I'm saying that, you know, it's not really saying I'm bad, it's saying something else. So this question arose, should I try to get out of the tiger's mouth?

[47:59]

Okay, you want me to answer that question? Do you want to answer it? No, but I'll talk about it a little bit. You know those, if you've ever been to Chinatown, I don't know if they still have these, but the Chinese had little basket things that are round, And you put your fingers in them. And then when you try to bring your fingers out, they stretch so that they catch your fingers. And the more you stretch to get out, the more you're caught. So that's just a comment. And I can give you another comment. One time I was fishing. And I had the fishing line with a bait on it and a hook in the back of me. And the cat came out and grabbed the bait with the hook. And when I turned around, there was the line going into the cat's mouth.

[49:02]

The cat was sitting there with the line going into his mouth. So I took the cat like this, without thinking really, just boom. And the cat just went, And then I went and pulled it out. Those are just comments to think about. What's the other question? Can you give me another chance? The other question is, horse head and ox head are not just junk thoughts. Horse head and ox head are Mel and Ann. So why say first and second, as if something was first and something was second? One thing comes up after another. You said first ... you always say first as if it's emptiness and second as if it's phenomena.

[50:05]

No, I'm talking about ... I'm not equating those two. Horsehead and the other head are simply our thoughts as they rise and fall. Had nothing to do with the phenomena. Okay, forget horse head and ox head. Phenomena and essence? Yeah, or what? I call one first and the other one second, as if one were primary and the other were secondary to be used. Well, because that's a good question. I agree with you, it's a good question. It's the nature of language. Primary is the essence. Secondary is the phenomena. Because the essence, the phenomena, because phenomena in essence are the same thing, right? They're not two different things. But in order to talk about it, you have to talk about two different things.

[51:06]

So that's why we make a mistake on purpose. In order to explain something, you have to create parts. So, when you create parts in this way, phenomena are secondary because they're always changing. Whereas essence, although essence changes as phenomena, it's the stable part of the process. It's like the roots and the leaves. The roots are, although both are essential, the leaves are changing every year and the roots are roots, rooted.

[52:15]

That's misleading. That's misleading? But I've had enough. Well, that is the way it's usually explained, the branches and the roots. When you, in the Sandokai, branch and root are, they actually are one thing, but in order to speak about essence and phenomena, we talk about two things, but actually they're not. So you have to understand that this is a way of talking about something. If you understand this is a way of talking about something, then you don't get fooled. We cannot talk about it. Matter of fact, whenever we open our mouth, We make a mistake. But we know that, so we talk.

[53:19]

I say one is not first and the other is not second, and then I stop talking. Well, it's not first and second. We just call it first and second. Okay. What would you call it? Well, what would you say? I'd say, you know, I don't know. Well, anyway, first and second really applies. The first principle is directly, and the second principle is yak, yak, yak. That's what it is. I know, but we started late.

[54:27]

In Linda's question, something about your reference to Buddhist leanings toward all-inclusive and then the divisive or discerning. Well, the dualistic. Right, and we talked here at Zen Center about non-dualism. I don't practice in other temples, but maybe they don't emphasize non-dualism so much. They don't? Perhaps not, and they talk about dualism and purity and all those sorts of practices, but I don't know. it does seem to be a feeling of essence and inclusiveness in all one and all in that. And I think what I heard Linda saying was that we don't bring up enough of the other side. And you said a long time ago that your position here is a reminder of the essence of things and remind us of the essence and the all-inclusiveness of things.

[55:38]

Because our natural tendency, I think, is to to divide things, to discern things. I don't know how we can actually hold both of those expressions of reality with the same sort of weight. Because in the world of intellectualism and academia, what we learned growing up is that we value that. We learn things. And then we come to practice and realize, well, learning has an importance, but we have to let go in order to actually learn more. And I don't know how we can sort of hold both of those as really important, because it does seem to be a leaning toward, I feel it too, that this is kind of where we're trying to strive and experience that. When you study anything in Buddhism, any sutra or commentary or whatever, you have to realize that it's something that is written down and can't change.

[56:55]

When you read the Bible, it's all written down and it can't change. That's the dead words. They're alive only when you discern, the aliveness comes from you. It doesn't come from the words. Dogen says this, Dogen says that. Everything that Dogen says over here, he contradicts over there. And so what Dogen said, don't read these things, just do Zazen, blah, blah, blah. And then over here he says, of course you should read the sutras and you should bow to the sutras You know? What does that mean? That means let go, you know? Use everything, but don't hang on to anything. Even if Buddha said so. Even if Dogen said so. Then you can honor Buddha, you can honor Dogen, you can use all that information, but you have to be discerning, you know?

[58:05]

You have to really be discerning. Buddha said, well, nobody knows what Buddha said. Buddha said something 2,500 years, Shakyamuni Buddha said something 2,500 years ago. And Buddha said, well, we take that information, and what seems right is right. But a lot of the information is very conflicting. When the sutras started coming into China, They started coming in, and more and more sutras, and pretty soon, the Chinese say, hey, this sutra doesn't jive with that sutra, and this sutra doesn't, you know? And then we realized, of course, you know, it's not Shakyamuni Buddha who said all this, it's Buddhists, you know, who are saying these things. But this is good, it's not bad. If we think Shakyamuni Buddha said this, and these guys are saying, you know these other sutras which are spurious well all sutras are spurious every one of them they're there for to help us they're not there to you know what to help you they're all fingers pointing to the moon and the moon is here that's why sometimes

[59:27]

We say, don't study, just do Zazen. And sometimes they say, you should study, then do Zazen. So some people, when a new person comes, they say, don't study so much, just practice. And then after you have some practice, you say, well, now you should study. And you see how your practice jives with what you study. Oh, now that I've been practicing, I can understand what the sutras are saying. So everything's valuable, but you have to know how to use it. If you don't know how to use it, then you have a problem. So we should know how to use information, and we should be inspired by other people's understanding. The sutras are very inspiring, but everything in the sutras is not necessarily something that you should literally follow. Just like if you read the Bible and understand it literally, it's heresy.

[60:33]

And that's what Suzuki Roshi said, if you follow the precepts literally without understanding them, it's heresy. So the main thing is your understanding, not the sutras, but the sutras help. they focus you. Sometimes I'll ask people to read something and study something and the reason why is so they can focus. Instead of getting caught by the drifting phenomena that come by, the horse's heads and the donkey heads, they can focus on the Dharma. And when you focus on the Dharma, it helps you to practice. But we shouldn't. add all these various things to our basket and think that's something that we have, because all we really have is what we have. You know, Togesan, Dashan in China, had studied all of the Diamond Sutra.

[61:42]

He was the leading Diamond Sutra commentator. But after he met Lungtan, he threw all that away. He burned it. which is a little extreme. I do not suggest doing that. But that's just an example. If you believe that it was a good thing that he burned them, that's also kind of getting caught. I mean, it was an extreme example. I don't think it's a good thing to burn sutras. You shouldn't do that. And then there's the guy that burned the wooden statue in order to keep himself warm. Well, we shouldn't go around burning Buddha statues to keep warm. But, you know, that's an exception, and exceptions are important to break through our ideas about how things should be. So we should have some freedom in our practice, not get caught by anything, really, by anything.

[62:49]

should read the Buddha's words and honor them and let them guide you and so forth, but actually you're here in this particular place at this particular time with these particular people and the Dharma has to be alive through our own discernment and understanding. So we use the second principle to help us. And when we do that, then the second principle becomes the first principle. So yeah, there's no first and second. In actuality, when everything is working correctly, there's no first and second, but we call this the second, we call it the first. If you want to change them around, it's fine. You can call, this is the front of my hand, and that's the back of my hand. But you can just say, this is the back of my hand, and that's the front of my hand.

[63:56]

It's OK. I don't care. If we say a person standing on their head is upside down, that's one way of thinking about it. But you can say a person standing on their head is right side up. That's fine. I don't care. It's perfectly legitimate, because from one point of view, it looks like they're upside down, but from another point of view, they're right side up. Matter of fact, I think it's good to think in those terms. If you read Dogen, people get, say, oh God, Dogen's driving me crazy, you know, because he says somebody standing on their head is standing on their feet, standing right side up, on their back, however you want to see it. And you should see it from all points of view. It doesn't land on a point of view, say, this is the right point of view.

[64:58]

We just have our points of view. All right, let's keep going. I don't know.

[65:04]

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