Well, we've been studying the five ranks, Tozan's five ranks, which is the heart of the Hokyo Zamai, the so-called Jewel Mirror Samadhi. So I thought it would be nice to go through the Hokyo Zamai and look at what it's saying to us. First of all, it's translated by Akhliri as the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. There are several translations, two or three, there are more, but translations with commentary, three anyway, and sometimes they say the same thing and sometimes they don't.

[01:17]

So when we have a translation, Sometimes we feel parts of it are accurate and parts are not so accurate. So it's good to look at other commentaries and see what they have to offer. So as we go through this, I'll give you some alternatives to what's being translated here. In the title, the word jewel in Chinese, although I'm not a scholar of Chinese and I don't know any, but in Chinese, my understanding is that jewel is a kind of metaphor for precious. So to say jewel is okay, but it's more accurate to say precious. The precious mirror, samadhi, if you think of jewel mirror,

[02:18]

You know, what's a jewel mirror? Does that ever puzzle you a little bit? What is a jewel mirror? Maybe, you know, it could be a mirror that's... a jewel that's polished like a mirror. But it also has the meaning of infinite or unlimited. Mirror without limits. This is its preciousness. And when we want to describe that quality, we say, like a jewel. Dogen has a fascicle in Shogun Genzo which is called One Bright Pearl. You may know that fascicle. Pearl is the same. The pearl is used as a kind of focus, but the meaning is one bright precious thing. So it's a kind of metaphor.

[03:28]

In that classical Dogon, it's about a master Gensha, who was a disciple of Theppo, I believe. And he hung around with Seppo and Ganto, and the three of them had good times practicing the Dharma together. And Gensho was very fond of saying, the whole universe is one bright pearl, or one precious thing. And he became kind of well-known for that statement. And one day a monk came up to him and said, you keep saying the whole universe is one bright pearl.

[04:32]

What does that mean? Or how do we understand that? You keep saying the whole universe is one bright pearl. How do you understand that? And Gensho said, the whole universe is one bright pearl. There's no need to understand it. This is actually very illustrative of Hokyo Zamai. This is actually what Hokyo Zamai is saying. The whole universe is one bright pearl. There's no need to understand it. The wonderful thing about our practice is that we can actually practice. There's no need to understand it.

[05:35]

Before we understand it, we can do it. I think this is one of the problems that we have in our hesitation. We want to understand what we're doing. And even if you've been practicing for 10 or 15 years, you still have a doubt because you say, I've been practicing for 15 years and I still don't understand it. I have a woman that comes to the Zendo in Berkeley and she practices very nicely. She says, I know I'm doing this, but I don't understand it at all. Great student. But we really want to feel that we understand it. But it's beyond our understanding.

[06:39]

I'm sorry. But we can do it. There's this door that is open that says, you can do this. And all we have to do is step in and do it. So you can't see it, but you can be it. Those are the rules. You can't see it, but you can be it. And in order to do it, you have to be it. And this is what's called blindness. Another word for it is enlightenment. Another word is trust, which is translated as faith, which is the most important aspect. Although faith is only one aspect, when we say the most important, whenever we bring up a term, we put it in front of us and we say, this is the most important thing.

[07:54]

So when I say faith is the most important thing, I take this word and put it up there. I can also say, and mindfulness is the most important thing, and put it up there. Faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. These are the five most important things. Any one of which, standing by itself, doesn't work. So, these are called in Abhidhamma, the five spiritual faculties. Faith, Energy, Mindfulness, Concentration, and Wisdom. And they work together as pairs, except that Mindfulness doesn't have a pair. It doesn't have anything... it pairs up with everything else.

[08:56]

It is present in all the others. Actually, all of them are present. when one is present, when our practice is well balanced. So faith is like confidence. It's like stepping out into space with confidence, which is very important when you sit zazen for the first time. It's pure faith. You don't know what you're doing. You just step out there into an empty space. And some people find it okay, and some people don't. But even though you've been practicing for ten years, you step out into an empty space and you may feel some doubt. But doubt is okay.

[10:00]

Because doubt is an aspect of wisdom. And wisdom and faith are a pair. Faith is our ability, supports our ability to go ahead and do something. And wisdom gives us guidance. Faith, without wisdom, just wanders around being attached to whatever comes along, because it doesn't have any discernment. Our innocent mind, actually, is faith, which has just opened everything. And wisdom says, well, wait a minute, don't go that way, go this way. And doubt is its foreman.

[11:11]

Doubt is an aspect that says, wait a minute, is that right? So doubt is necessary because it kind of puts a tail onto the airplane of faith, which wants to just go kind of an anchor. But skepticism is an aspect of faith which cuts off the activity of faith. So skepticism, that'll never work. It's not. That's not doubt, that's skepticism. Skeptical doubt. But doubt, used in the right way, is the balancing factor for faith.

[12:14]

And both are necessary. So faith is the most important thing, but it needs to be balanced by wisdom, which is the most important thing. Energy is the most important thing because it brings us to life. But if it's not balanced by concentration, then it just becomes restlessness. people who, when we're not concentrated, then our energy just is looking for something, it goes back and forth and can never settle. So it's always in a state of restlessness, because there isn't that focus to pin it down, to settle it.

[13:20]

So Satsang is the great concentration which gives peace to restlessness. puts energy, no matter how much energy you have, you can put it into zazen. It'll contain everything you've got. But energy that doesn't have concentration as its balance is restlessness and agitation. Concentration, which isn't balanced by energy, just becomes slothfulness, spaced outness. When you get spaced, you have concentration, but there's no energy.

[14:26]

Concentration is there, but it's very weak without energy. So these factors balance each other. And mindfulness is the one that's always aware of our states of being. It's our awareness. Last Sashin in Berkeley, last week when I was doing Sashin in Berkeley, I was sitting in my hut which, if you haven't been to Berkeley, I have this little hut. It's a little bit like my hut over here, but it's smaller. And I do doksan there. And it has a kerosene lamp, electricity. And so I was sitting there after doksan, and I thought, you know, I'm sitting here for seven days, and then I'm going to Sahara for seven days or more.

[15:31]

And My son, Daniel, is 10 years old and I'm not around so much. It would be great if he could come to Doksan, come into my space, because I get kind of isolated. What does Daddy do? He goes to the Zendo and disappears. He knows what Zazen is. And he kind of knows what I do, but he doesn't really know what I do. And so I thought, why don't I invite him in for doksan? So I invited him in for doksan. We made an appointment for 5 o'clock in the evening, which was before dinner. But the night before that I decided that I would go home and have dinner with my family.

[16:34]

So I went home and it was the week of Hanukkah. And my wife decided a couple of years ago that it would be a nice thing for Daniel if she lit the candles for Hanukkah, which is something she never did in her life. And so she's been doing that for the last couple of years and you know we have this teeny little celebration. He likes the lights and he likes the presents. Every night you get a little present. You know, you light another candle and you get another little present. He likes that. But he says, I don't believe in God and I hate religion. But, you know, I've always talked to him about Buddhism, and he likes it when we discuss Buddhism.

[17:40]

He really likes to discuss Buddhism with me. And he kind of grew up with this. His first five years were at the Zen Dojo, and my wife was... going to nursing school just before he was born, Nadine was born, and she continued to go to nursing school. And then when he was about two, she used to always leave him off at the Zendo before she went to school in the morning. She'd leave him off for service. So he kind of grew up, you know. His first words were, Abolo Pita Baru. But he forgot them. So then after he was five, we moved away from Zendo. And he'd been growing up in a different environment.

[18:41]

And so it's kind of strange to him. He used to come in and sit Zazen. He came in one time and sat a 40-minute period of Zazen. I was really amazed, but that's the only time he ever did that. But he used to sit a little bit. And he used to do other things, like during afternoon Zazen, he and his little girlfriend painted pictures, and they came in stark naked, when everybody was standing there ready to do the service. They came in stark naked and had their pictures above it, and he went all the way around his window and ran out. Which I thought was really cute. Some people thought it was offensive. I don't know where people are at. So anyway, when I went, I went home that night to eat dinner. So, and everything was in a big mess, you know. My wife had forgotten to light the candles.

[19:42]

She'd forgotten and she forgot to get him any presents. That was the worst thing. And so he was insisting that he wanted the presents for the number of nights that she hadn't lit the candles, besides the present for this night. So not just one present, but three presents that he wanted. And he was just in a fit. And what comes up is, you shouldn't expect so much. you shouldn't demand gifts and all this sort of thing, you know. And so, we had this big argument, and it was just a, the whole thing, the evening was a complete mess, you know. Going to bed, you know, get into bed, blah, blah, blah. So, and then I finally left, went back to Jindo. I couldn't take it anymore. But anyway, the next, but he always forgets, you know. The next day is always a different, this is a thing with kids, you know.

[20:45]

The next day, everything is brand new. Nothing's held over to the next day. It's wonderful. Anyway, the next night he came for his dōksan. So I went and I got some cheese and crackers and cookies and a little candy and stuff. He was very excited about coming and being in the space. And so we had a little Arvel snack. And he sat in my seat. And so I says, what do you think is the most important thing for people to be thinking about? What's the most important thing that we should be focused on in our life? Quite a question. He says, Buddhism. And don't say something just to please me.

[21:46]

What do you really think? He said, I don't really think so. I said, OK. And then, so I, um, what else did I say? I said, well, that's good. But, you know, I think, I said, now I'll tell you what I think. I think that the most important thing to be focused on is truth. Because if you're focused on truth, then Buddhism, religion, science, art, music, can all be the servants of truth. And he thought that was a pretty good idea. He kind of took the focus away from some particular discipline as being the right thing, because his grandfather is a well-known scientist and a well-known atheist.

[22:56]

Anytime the word religion comes up, he cringes. As a matter of fact, he fights fundamentalists, because fundamentalists are the creationists. But actually, the creationists and he are really in the same place. On a certain level, they really are in the same place because they only see each other's faults. They only see the imperfection in each other. And neither one of them can rise above it. So he said, one time he said, science is truth. That's the only truth. What? Truth is truth. Science is the handmaiden of truth. Religion is the handmaiden of truth. Art, music, whatever.

[24:01]

If you relegate your religion to being the truth, then you're actually putting a cover on truth. You're covering it with religion. or you're covering it with science. So I just wanted to give him some perspective. He doesn't have to hate religion, because religion, if it's truthful, then why hate it? And if it's not truthful, let it go. If Buddhism is not truth, let it go. So, we should always be questioning our religion.

[25:05]

Does it really match with truth? But if you try to measure truth, in scientific terms, You come up with your limitations of science. And you come up with your limitations of religion. So he has this little problem. God can't be proved. So, therefore, there's no God. Which is a kind of naive logic. It doesn't mean that there is or isn't. Just because something can't be proved in certain terms doesn't mean that there is no such thing. And in Buddhism, we don't use that kind of model. Some people use that kind of model, called the God model.

[26:10]

But in Buddhism, we don't use the God model. to deny someone's truth or someone's model, saying that it doesn't bear the truth, is prejudice or it's delusion. So, for people who use the God model, the word, which is a very old term, has a lot of connotation and people have a lot of investment in that word. And they feel it's the deepest part of their being. So to deny that is to deny what they feel is the deepest part of their being. So I told him to be careful how he bandies it around.

[27:14]

that it's important to be respectful of other models besides the one that you may feel most suits your disposition. So I just happened to think of that when we were talking about, somewhere here, But I had another session with him too, later on, where I presented him with the five spiritual faculties. And he said, oh yeah, he said, when I lie in bed in the morning, instead of getting up, he said, that's like

[28:21]

having concentration without energy. That's right. So anyway, learning Buddhism can be fun. So, the song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. The precious mirror of samadhi. The whole universe is one bright pearl. Why? Why do we have to understand it? All we have to do is do it. That's what Tozan is saying here too, actually. Just, you can't explain it. You explain it, but the explanation is not the thing. The understanding is not the thing. And it's like the eye can't see the eye, can't see itself. Your eye will never see itself, except in a mirror.

[29:26]

This is Tozan's, that's actually, Tozan wrote this, nobody knows who wrote it, but my story is, my version of the story is, Tozan wrote this coming from his experience of looking at his reflection in the stream. And Tozan was crossing the stream after leaving Ungarn. He looked down the stream and he saw his reflection. He had an enlightenment experience looking at his reflection. He realized that, he said, well, which is the real me? This or the reflection? It's Toussaint's koan, actually, but he realized it. Everywhere I look, I see myself. The mirror is also himself, which is the real me.

[30:32]

They're both me. The subject and the object are both me. When I see myself in the mirror, it's not the reflection in the mirror. It's the mirror itself. It's like a piece of glass that's drained. The reflection is always there, actually, but we don't see it until it comes up against something. We're always being reflected. And what we think of as a mirror is a smooth piece of glass or a smooth pool of water. But actually, as I look out here, I'm being reflected by your eyes, by your bodies, and you're being reflected by my eyes and my body's body.

[31:34]

When we chop vegetables in the kitchen, we're being reflected by carrots and peas, knives and forks, pots and pans. So Tozan, but that comes later in this. He expresses that actually here in the Hojozo Mai. He says, it is me, but I am not it. It is what I am, but I am not what it is. That's Tozan's poem, his enlightenment poem. But apparently, Tozan wrote this poem According to one Chinese source, he wrote it for his student, Sozon, who developed Tozon's Five Ranks, actually.

[32:47]

A lot of the literature of the Five Ranks comes more from Sozon than from Tozon. Sozon was Tozon's disciple, but his Dharma heir, who carried on his teaching with Ungo, who didn't care about the five ranks at all. But Sozan was a very famous, famous student of Tozan. So that's why he says, in the beginning, he says, the teaching of thusness, or the teaching of this dharma, has been intimately communicated by Buddhas and ancestors.

[34:02]

Now you have it, Sozon. So keep it well. So this could be this kind of transmission poem to his student Sozon. And it's also a transmission poem to us. Transmission is not something that is given from somebody or somebody else. But there is a kind of acknowledgement of someone's understanding by a teacher to a student, which is a formal acknowledgment of someone's understanding, and it's called dharma transmission. But the teacher doesn't actually give the student anything, because the student has something.

[35:06]

If you have a staff, I'll give you a staff. If you have no staff, I'll take it away. The thing's gone. Because you have it, I will give it to you. So the teaching of thusness has been intimately communicated by Buddhas and ancestors. Now you have it, so keep it well. Filling a silver bowl with snow, hiding a heron in the moonlight, When you array them, they're not the same. And when you mix them, you know where they are. There's also a wonderful koan about this. This whole Tokyo Zamai has so many allusions and it's so rich. Filling a silver bowl with snow.

[36:12]

Silver bowl And moonlight are like the host. And snow and a heron are like a guest. So if you fill a silver bowl with snow, the bowl is a container, and the snow is the contained. Filling a silver bowl is like The host and the guest, they look alike. And silver bowl and snow look alike. And a heron in the moonlight, a white bird flying across the moon. You can hardly see it, but you know it's there. It's very subtle. So this is like the absolute and the relative

[37:16]

stand out differently, but they really blend together. So, this is a kind of allusion to, this opens up the Hokyo Zamai, the Absolute and the Relative. When you put them together, They're hardly distinguishable, and yet, when they're not, when you array them, you can see that they're different. So even though we talk about absolute and relative, they're really not two different things. They're just two sides of one thing. Suzuki Roshi used to call it two sides of a coin. One side has nothing on it, and the other side

[38:18]

It's full of that given, but it's just one coin. So absolute is just a word, meaning covers everything. But what's behind the absolute? Like snow in a silver bowl. in like a heron in the moonlight. When you array them, they're not the same. But when you mix them, you know where they are. It's a little strange, you know where they are. So Zazen is like And working in the kitchen is like arraying them.

[39:29]

They're not two different things. They're just... The proportion is different, is all. The forms and the proportion are different. But you never leave one or the other. when one is present. The other is also present. But the meaning is not in the words. Yet it responds to the inquiring impulse. The meaning is beyond the words. Yet it responds to the inquiring impulse.

[40:39]

No matter how much we try to teach, it's really beyond all the words. Yet it responds when we inquire. There's a response. If we don't inquire, there's no response. This is very important. I know it's getting a little heavy right now. So maybe... I don't want to go on because it's... I'll talk about that tomorrow. Maybe a little more fresh. Maybe another good idea to belabor a talk, just to fill up time.

[41:37]

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