70 degrees, 5 degrees in the day time. I thought maybe I would go over the material. So there's the cushion over here.

[02:26]

There's one here too. So Sikhita starts out by, you know, he says, tosans, five ranks, five positions. He says, in searching for the ox, we were mainly dealing with the process of attaining enlightenment. So as I mentioned last time, there are many circular forms that were used as teaching devices in the Tang Dynasty.

[03:31]

And the 10 ox-herding pictures is one of them. I don't know if everyone is familiar with the 10 oxalate pictures, probably most of you are saying yes. has a different aspect. And the 10 Oxfordy pictures, Sakita comments on those just before this. expressing it in ten pictures.

[04:36]

So he says, Tozan's five ranks are concerned with matters after enlightenment. that is, with the cultivation of holy Buddhahood. But when I dug in, I wasn't concerned with the ten ox-herding pitchers, for various reasons. For one thing, a ten ox-herding pitcher And for Dogen, practice begins with enlightenment, even in the first stages of practice.

[05:41]

So he didn't like that layout so much. And of course, as I said, there were reasons why he didn't comment on the five ranks, except in his own way. He didn't talk about So, you know, some styles of Zen talk about gradual practice from delusion to finally attaining enlightenment. But Soto Zen and Dogen's practice talks about starting from enlightenment and gradual practice. So it's kind of the other way around.

[06:45]

We start by jumping in the ocean. And the wonderful thing about Zazen is that you can jump into the realm of enlightenment right away, whether or not you understand it. You don't have to understand it in order to practice it. So he said, So certain schools, certain Buddhist schools assert that there are 52 stages through which the enlightened person has to pass before she reaches the true maturity of the Buddha. However, Tozan's five positions are sufficient to enable us to grasp the essential points. So, before commenting on them in detail, however, we must introduce and explain In the Avatamsaka Sutra, the third book of the Avatamsaka Sutra portrays Sudhana, who is a Zen student, or the Buddhist student, on his journey visiting 52 teachers, and each one gives him something.

[08:06]

And these are called the 52 stages of practice. Then he says, so when one attains Kensho, which is awakening, and the habitual way of consciousness falls off, there appears what is called dai-in-kyochi. That may be translated as the perfect mirror of wisdom. The great round, dai means great, in is round, which means here round in maturity, and hence perfect, and kyo is mirror. And chi is wisdom. So this is called the great round mirror of wisdom. And I'll talk about this tonight. He says, everyone is innately equipped with this mirror of wisdom.

[09:12]

However, in most people, it has long been veiled because of the activity of our topsy-turvy delusive thought. And in absolute samadhi, the veil is cleared away and the perfect mirror is allowed to appear. This condition constitutes Tozan's first rank, which is this one. The mirror of wisdom, however, still remains in darkness in the absolute samadhi of the first rank. This rank corresponds to the eighth stage of searching for the ox, illustrated by the circle in which body and mind have fallen off. I think I talked about that a bit last time. I didn't say it in those terms exactly. So then he says, the great mirror of wisdom becomes brilliantly lit in the positive samadhi of one whose cultivation of holy Buddha has reached full maturity.

[10:24]

Samadhi is a term which means at one with. It has various definitions, but, you know, It means concentration. Superficially it means concentration. But as a term, in Zen it means at one with, or not separatron. So in Zazen, samadhi is not a special state of mind. but a state of mind of non-duality, state of non-duality, where each moment is not separate from ultimate reality.

[11:26]

And he, Sakhita, uses two terms. He says positive samadhi and absolute samadhi. So absolute samadhi equates with Sādhanā, where samādhi of stillness, and absolute positive samādhi is the samādhi of activity, which are the two sides of our practice. And this would be position would be the position of absolute samadhi, where the world of activity is left behind. Somebody always calls at this time, doesn't they? And the second rank would be the realm of positive samadhi, where you enter the world of activity.

[12:33]

without leaving behind the realm of stillness. I think we talked a little bit about this last time when we talked about the movie. You can have very good concentration in a movie, but it's still not samadhi. Samadhi is the realm where activity is, body, mind and the universe are engaged in one activity. And the subject and the object, although the subject is the subject and the object is the object, they're not separate. In concentration, when an artist is working on a painting, you feel the time has stopped.

[13:42]

And this is very good concentration. But it's not quite samadhi, because samadhi is also activity which is not self-centered. Self is not, our ego is not in the foreground. Could an artist draw? Yeah. in our daily life, actually, that we should practice samadhi. But when you start talking about samadhi, then it gets, you know, it's a little intangible. So we don't need to talk about it so much.

[14:50]

Because then people kind of equate it with voodoo or something. Strange powers. But it's really simply put, but radical selfless activity. So he uses these two terms a lot. I've never heard anybody else use these terms So he says, this rank corresponds to the eighth stage of searching for the ox, illustrated by the circle in which body and mind have fallen off. This is samadhi. The great mirror of wisdom becomes brilliantly lit in the positive samadhi of one whose cultivation of holy Buddhahood has reached full maturity.

[15:56]

The remaining four ranks, which is one, two, three, So I think that's a good point. We will use his terms, and the first position refers to Absolute Samadhi, which is Zazen. And the other four in the realm of worldly activity. And we should note here that the fact that, apart from the first, Tozan's rank, positions, all relate to positive samadhi, should not be taken as belittling the importance of absolute samadhi.

[16:59]

on places at first. The brilliance of the mirror in positive samadhi is comparable to that of broad daylight. The silence and oblivion of absolute samadhi to the darkness of midnight." So we talked about that last time. The great mirror of wisdom is also referred to by Zen terms, shou, authentic or genuine, and hom-bun. Han is original and bun is part. Original face, actually. So, hom-bun can be described as absolute, genuine, dark and empty. That's what we said up here. Thoughtless condition. Your development will come to an end. You must return to the world, though, to the state in which your consciousness operates normally and live in positive samadhi. Here, however, you are necessarily bound by the restrictions of time, space, and causation, and you live in the world of individuality, confrontation, and differentiation.

[18:15]

However, when you have once experienced the absolute equality of the great mirror of wisdom, you can go on to attain a freedom of mind that goes beyond such discrimination. This maturity in which, while yet living in the world of time and space and causation, you transcend the limits of that world is called the wisdom of equality. It is to this maturity that Tozan's ranks point the way. Now, he's talked about two of these wisdoms. He's talking about the mirror wisdom and the wisdom of equality. He says that the reason that the old ancestors gave us the five ranks was to help us to understand the four wisdoms. So I'll have to talk about the four wisdoms. And the sixth

[19:20]

the four wisdoms with the three bodies of Buddha and the eight consciousnesses. I'm giving a lot of numbers here. It's getting more complicated. But I think that we can understand a bit about these qualities. So we have three, four, five, and eight. You know, in the meal chant, we have the And these are the three bodies of Buddha.

[21:17]

At some point in the history of Mahayana Buddhism, the ancestors came up with the idea of the three bodies of Buddha, which is really one body, but with three aspects. So, dharmakaya is our nature. Dharmakaya is our nature, which is undifferentiated and is the basis of all existence and is the potential from which everything springs. It's called the Dharmakaya. Buddha, and it's represented by Vairochana. And Vairochana's Buddha just sits there, doesn't do anything.

[22:23]

But everything emanates from Vairochana Buddha. All existence emanates from... It's the closest that Buddhism gets to God, in that kind of way. And Sambhogakaya is called the reward body. But first I'll talk about nirmanakaya because samogakaya is in between. So nirmanakaya means manifested. Nirmanakaya Shakyamuni. Shakyamuni Buddha was a manifest Buddha. Someone who walked and talked and ate and saw and heard. So nirmanakaya means manifest. Sambhogakaya is called the reward body sometimes, but you can say that dharmakaya or vairagchana is our nature.

[23:42]

And Sambhogakaya is our wisdom. Because Sambhogakaya is like the active principle of Buddha. the creative side, which is in between stillness and activity. It's the creative matrix of Buddha. Is it a description? As far as being in between, is it a description of something that actually happens? Well, it's rather than be theoretical, You know, the Sixth Patriarch says that Sambhogakaya is your own wisdom. It's prajna. And Dharmakaya is your true nature.

[24:48]

And Nirmanakaya is your various activities. So another way of saying Dharmakaya is Vairocana, Sambhogakaya you can also say is Manjushri, because Manjushri is the Bodhisattva which personifies wisdom. And you can say that Nirmanakaya is Samantabhadra, a Bodhisattva who personifies practice. So these are the three natures, the three bodies of Buddha. which are all one body, but they're just three aspects of our nature. This was devised necessarily because people had these various ideas or

[25:53]

question about, well, what is Buddha? Of course, Buddha is the person, but Buddha is also a creative principle, and Buddha is also the nature of everything. So when you talk about Buddha, what are you talking about? So these three aspects were put forth in order to clarify the various aspects of who we are, or who Buddha is. but the three bodies are three aspects of one body, and you can see them in various ways. So, the four wisdoms are the Great, Round, which he mentioned.

[26:59]

The third one is called various things. Perfecting of action. A question? Yeah. On virochana? Virochana. It just says a little. So there are the four great wisdoms.

[28:24]

And you can't see it over there, can you? Then if I turn it over there, you can see it over here. So I'll say the first one is the round mirror wisdom. The second one is the equality wisdom. The third one is discerning wisdom. And the fourth is perfecting of action. So the mirror wisdom is the wisdom which sees everything just as it is. Mirror means, you know, when something passes in front of the mirror, if it's a good mirror, it reflects everything just as it is, but it doesn't hold anything. When the object is passed, the mirror is no longer reflecting it. It only reflects what comes, and it reflects it exactly as it is, and doesn't comment on it. When we see something, we usually comment on it.

[29:26]

You know, we name things, to think about things and mull it over. But the round mirror of wisdom just sees, which is very hard to do. So in Zazen, the point of Zazen is to just see everything as it is. That's the point of Zazen. without making any judgment or creating any partiality. The mirror sees without partiality. So this is why we call this kind of concentration samadhi, because there's no partiality and it doesn't divide and it doesn't judge. So when we sit in zazen, we have some feeling. But it's just a feeling. It may be a good feeling, or a bad feeling, or pain, or pleasure, or whatever it is.

[30:28]

But the mirror mind sees it just as what it is. The judgmental mind, or the discriminating mind, says, oh, this is pain. Oh, I don't like this. So the mirror mind, round wisdom mirror mind, just sees everything as it is, without discriminating. So this is called non-discriminating mind. Non-reading mind. But then you say, well of course we have to discriminate, which we do. We're always making some kind of decision or judgment or choice. We always have to decide things.

[31:31]

So we live in the realm of discrimination. But because we live in the realm of discrimination, we don't see things. We see everything partially. Partially means divided. But it also means partial to my favor. It means we favor something. That's those two meanings. We divide it into parts, and we also favor one of the parts. But the round mirror wisdom doesn't do that. It just sees everything as it is. So, everything as it is is like this. But then something comes in there, right? And disturbs this wholeness.

[32:39]

So, In Samadhi, we don't try to get away from the disturbance, because something's always flying in front of the moon, so to speak. There's always a cloud flying in front of the moon, or a tree, or a bird. And when you see a tree in front of the moon, it's rather beautiful. When you see a cloud coming across the moon, it's really beautiful, even though the moon is a little bit obscured. And zazen is also like this. We say, sit, zazen, and don't think. And your mind should be like a sheet of white paper. Sometimes you say like the empty sky, you know, but sometimes like a sheet of white paper.

[33:45]

But a sheet of white paper is blank, right? But when you have a sheet of white paper, something gets written on it. So when you, even though we have a clear mind, something's always being written on the mind. You know, people say, well, I sat the whole period and I only had one moment, one second of clear mind. you know, as if there's something wrong with that. This is the big criticism that we, you know, people say, I only had one minute of clear mind. Am I just wasting my time? But something is always being written on the sheet of paper. So, and if there's nothing written on it, it's not really a sheet of paper. You know, we say, that's a blank piece of paper, but then as soon as something's written on it, it really becomes a piece of paper. Just like your car sitting out there.

[34:48]

You say, that's my car, but it doesn't really become a car until you get in it and drive it. So, the mind, mirror mind, discerns everything that's, all the impressions that are traveling across it. But the mirror mind doesn't make judgments. Our judgmental mind, our discriminating mind, makes judgments all the time. But the mirror mind just sees everything as it is. So in zazen we have the opportunity to just leave it alone. Not to fiddle with it. Not to fiddle with feelings, emotions, thoughts. Just let it be. And whatever comes across, that's what's happening. It's wonderful. No adjustment of your set necessary. No adjustment of your set necessary.

[35:50]

So, this is... And this is samadhi. Just... The one is the duality. So discrimination is going on, you know, in some way, because we always have to make choice. But the difference between ordinary discrimination and discrimination in samadhi is that the discrimination is based on non-discriminating mind. I'm sneaking. I mean, I'm not staying in one place or another.

[36:51]

But it seems like the first rank. Oh, I see. There really isn't discrimination. Well, you know, there's always some discrimination. You can't say. That's right. That's right. That's right. Because the discriminating mind is concealed within the non-discriminating. Because just to be able to sit means that you're making a choice. Just to hold your back straight means that you're making some choice. But it's not self-centered thinking. So, The second, this is the first one, this is the second, is the wisdom of equality. Equality sees everything as the same.

[37:55]

That's why it's an aspect of the round mirror. The round mirror is the basis, but because the round mirror actually Well, I'll talk about this later, but the equality sees everything as the same. In other words, when we look around us, we see that everything is different, right? But we don't necessarily see that everything has the same quality. There's a quality of sameness that is peculiar to everything. So, ultimately everything has the same basis, even though the faces appear different.

[38:56]

So, when we talk about buddha nature, buddha nature is like the one being, or dharmakaya, vairocana. But vairocana is many aspects and all the phenomenal qualities of the world are the aspects of Vairochana. Ultimately everything is equal because we say a mouse But ultimately, an elephant is not big and a mouse is not small. But we just say that one is big and one is small because we're comparing.

[39:58]

But a mouse is quite huge if you're an ant. But everything has, you know, each individual thing is equal in Buddha nature to everything else. Even though one thing is big, another thing is small, the Buddha nature of each existence is the same. So, to be able to see that sameness in all existence is called the equality wisdom. Wisdom is great equality. And the third one, the discerning wisdom, sees, recognizes all the differences. So you can say that this is horizontal is equality, right? There's no hierarchy. Everything's the same. Everything has the same nature.

[41:03]

And in the discerning wisdom, everything is different. hierarchy. Everything relates to everything else in a certain hierarchy. I don't mean hierarchy in the sense of better or worse, right? But just because of the peculiarities of each existence, everything is on a different plane with everything else. Well, that's right. You're recognizing all the ways of separating and recognizing that separation. That's right. And so right here is where the equality and differentiation meet.

[42:15]

And right there is where each thing lives. Because we have both of those of sameness and difference. And this is how we can have discriminating mind based on non-discriminating mind. Because this is non-discrimination. And this is discrimination. And they have to balance each other. We talk about non-discriminating mind a lot, but also we have to recognize discriminating mind as well. You can't do away with discriminating mind because we live in the realm of discrimination, but our discriminating mind is in balance with our non-discriminating mind, so that you have... That's where the mirror wisdom is.

[43:20]

which sees everything just as it is. This is called big mind. It just seems like, when I think of discriminating, I think of it a little differently. Yeah, right. Well, yeah, discriminating is different than discerning, but discerning has this quality of discrimination, because discrimination means to separate. And when we look at each individual thing or person, then we're discriminating one thing from another. We're saying, you're Ross, and so forth. So that's discrimination. It's not bad, but unless it's coming from seeing clearly, then it's biased.

[44:33]

I guess my question has to do with that statement about it's biased. The discrimination here does not include although judgment of right and wrong is another level of discrimination. But yeah, that's true. This level of discrimination is not judgmental. It's merely seeing. And in the five positions, the dark circle is called the real, and this one is called the biased, or inclined. It just seems like the first three Wisdoms are completely intertwined.

[45:35]

Oh yeah, they're all intertwined. All five of them are intertwined. But the first two are kind of the two sides. Like this. But no, I was thinking of the first three wisdoms. Oh, the first three wisdoms, yeah, are what? The way you've been talking about them, they are the same. The drawing, I think, reflects that. Well, they're all aspects of the same thing. And the perfecting of action wisdom is taking the data through our senses, through the doors of perception, and transforming them into wisdom. Transforming... Well, I talked about this last time. I talked about desire and... Intention.

[46:40]

Intention. Right. So, you know, we have... or six senses, actually, if we count the thinking mind as one of the senses. And we do. And so, these are the doors of perception, and through the doors of perception, desire is stimulated. And when desire is turned into, or transformed into intention rather than karmic activity, then it's called the perfection of action. Our activity is called the perfection of action, and that's this fourth. The wisdom is actually being able to direct the sense data into, which is vijnana or consciousness into wisdom.

[47:59]

So the consciousness, so then we have to talk about the eight consciousnesses. It's a little bit labyrinthine but it's very interesting because it helps So, this is one, two, three, four, five.

[49:19]

We usually say five consciousnesses, but in Buddhism we say six, because thinking is a... You can think without having an object. So, the thinking mind is... is considered one of the doorways of perception. So we have these five, and the sixth one is called consciousness. Mano vijnana. So that's the sixth, which is mind consciousness.

[50:28]

Then we have what's called manas in Buddhism. Manas, which is another aspect of vijnana, or consciousness. And then we have, that's the seventh consciousness. And the eighth consciousness is called alaya. Alaya vijnana. aspect of consciousness, but I'll explain what it means. So alaya vijnana, or the eighth level of consciousness, is called the storehouse consciousness. Store. And when we perform any kind of karmic activity, Each activity creates a seed, just like plants. And the seed is deposited in the alive or repository consciousness.

[51:36]

And then when conditions are right, and the seed is sprouted, and it comes out as habit energy, or reflex, or

[51:50]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ