This is the fourth day of our five-day Sashin, which is very close to the end of our spring practice period. It's been very hot Sashin. Yeah, I think it's a little low. So, that's a little better. Yeah. So, welcome to all of you on this nice hot day who haven't been here yet. So in my talks, I've been talking about several koans, and actually I've only given one talk.

[01:24]

But for the sake of everyone, I'm going to go over again the one talk that I gave. I have another koan that fits nicely with this one, but I may not get to it, we'll see. This koan is called Joshu's, it's called various things, but here it's called Joshu's Newborn Baby. Joshu had a baby, no. Joshua talked about a baby. A monk asked Joshua, Master Joshua, does a newborn baby have the sixth sense? I think it's sixth sense.

[02:27]

It could be construed as either sixth sense or six senses, but the sixth sense is one of the six senses. So it really, when you talk about the sixth sense, you're talking about the six senses, because the sixth sense is intimately connected with the other five senses. So the monk asked Master Joshu, does a newborn baby possess the sixth sense or not? And Joshu said, it's like throwing a ball, it's like throwing a ball onto swiftly flowing water. Then the monk later went to Master Tosu with the same question, or not with the same question, but with Joshu's answer. What is the meaning of throwing a ball into the rapids, into a swiftly flowing stream?

[03:33]

And Tosu said, moment after moment, non-stop flow. So in this little drama there's the monk and then there's Joshu and then there's Tosu, and Joshu and Tosu were like old men who had very seasoned Zen masters Although they were totally in different places, both of their responses were right on with each other. So the monk very likely was familiar in a intellectual sense or a scholarly sense with the teaching of the Eight Levels of Consciousness of both the Yogacara school of Buddhism and the Lankavatara Sutra and various other Mahayana texts.

[04:49]

The Eight Levels of Consciousness is, I want to go through a little bit, I stopped short last I've talked about this many times, but I know that even though I've talked about it many times, there will be someone who says, I never heard that before. And in order to refresh our understanding, it's good to talk about something over and over again. So Setjo has a verse on this koan, and he says, the question, the six senses, purposeless, well acquainted with it, the masters, a ball thrown into the rapids. Do you know where it goes? Where does it go?

[05:50]

You know, the first of the six sense doors of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting, and consciousness of those six. So we receive something through Something is received, which is an object, through the sense door, which is cognized by consciousness. When I look at Walter sitting there, if I don't see Walter, then consciousness doesn't arise of seeing. But since there's an eye and Walter's an object, consciousness arises, and my conditioned response is, there's Walter, even though that's up to question.

[07:06]

So, the sixth level of awareness or consciousness, called mano vijnana, vijnana meaning consciousness, is a consciousness that recognizes and distinguishes between the various sense phenomena. So this consciousness thinks and discriminates, but it discriminates simply on the basis of what is. It doesn't interpret. It doesn't say, oh, this is a good thing, or Walter is a good guy or something, or bad guy. It simply says, this is this. and this is this, and this is heard, this is seen, this is smelled, this is tasted, and this is thought about.

[08:22]

So it's clean discrimination, simply clean discrimination. So we say, discriminating mind, what are we talking about? The seventh level of consciousness is discriminating mind, which is sometimes called false consciousness, which creates the I, the sense of individuality and the sense of separateness and the sense of delusion. So this is what we call ego in Buddhism. Ego has many different meanings. has a meaning in psychology, has a meaning in Buddhism, which sometimes match and sometimes don't. But fundamentally, there is no ego. On an absolute level, there is no ego. But on a day-to-day level, there's you and me, and I, me, and mine.

[09:25]

So this is a subject for confusion. When we read the texts, the texts are all about get rid of the ego, no ego, no self, no self. And so then we pinch our nose, we say, well, what's this? Well, I'm hungry. Who's that? So there are two levels upon which we operate as a human being. Most of us only operate on the level of discrimination. of the discrimination of the seventh consciousness, the level of me, I, me, and mine, and you over there, and wanting and so forth. And the other level is the level of absolute freedom from self, which is called Buddha nature, dharmakaya, there are many names.

[10:31]

So these are called the two truths. The fundamental truth is nothing exists. The ordinary truth is everything does exist momentarily. So If you deny the existence of phenomena, you fall into the hell of emptiness. And if you deny the absolute emptiness of everything, you fall into the hell of existence. So this is where non-duality and duality meet in enlightenment. And that's why we have such a hard time, because it's hard to not fall into one side or the other.

[11:38]

This is why it's sometimes called walking the blade of a knife. If you slip, it's not pretty. So, in Buddhadharma, it's very important in our life to not fall into one-sided discrimination, because we often think that non-discrimination means not to discriminate. But everything in Buddhism has two sides. Not to discriminate means to know how to discriminate. We're always discriminating. We have to decide something moment by moment. What do I do now? What's this? How do I handle that? So who is it that's discriminating? This is another point. Who's doing the discriminating?

[12:39]

Is the discriminating coming from my ego, so to speak, my seventh consciousness of I, me, and mine? Or is my discriminating coming from Buddha nature, big mind? Who does this? So when we say, Non-discrimination, in the big sense, it's big mind making decisions. When we talk about discrimination in a small sense, it's ego making the decisions. But decisions must be made. So, how to discriminate on the basis of non-discrimination. That's big koan.

[13:42]

That's a koan, continuous koan, genjo koan. How to discriminate moment by moment on the basis of non-discrimination. It's called the discrimination of non-discrimination. If you try to figure it out, intellectually, you can go pretty far, but it doesn't hit the mark. How do you actually manifest this? So seventh level of consciousness is this discriminating consciousness on the basis of self, self-consciousness. Then the eighth level of consciousness, of course, is the alaya. Vijnana, alaya consciousness, which is the seed storehouse of all the seeds of our actions. And all those seeds are deposited when we do an action. Every action, every thought, every thought and action plants a seed in the alaya garden of the mind.

[14:51]

Alaya is this big field. And we cultivate this big field without knowing it. Every time we do something, an action, a thought, a seed is planted that says, this is a possible manifestation of that same action, root of that action. So we water the seeds in various ways. through our discriminating mind. This is called how karma is created. Karma is the action. The seed is planted and then when the seed is watered and sunshine and so forth, the seed sprouts and an action follows. The fruit of the action follows the action.

[15:53]

We're continually creating karma by our actions, our volitional actions, and then the seeds are planted, and then we cultivate this seedbed, and the plants spring up, and that's who we are. Or at least we identify ourselves in that way. So in Buddhism we say that we are self-creating creatures. we create our own destiny, our own life, through our actions. And habit energy is definitely obvious, because every time we do something, if we do something once, then that's experience. If we do the same thing again, we have a choice. Well, should I do this again, or should I not do it again? If we do it again, that's the third time.

[16:56]

After the third time, you're hooked, and then we say, that's a tradition. I used to think about how tradition is formed in Japan when I first started to practice, because I think, well, when I observe how the practice goes, Once you establish something three times, it's a tradition, and you can't change the tradition unless you go against the grain in some way. So this is the way traditions become established, and then they have karmic force. And unless you consciously make an effort to stop or take a different direction, it just goes on and on. And then the tradition kind of controls people, controls us.

[18:00]

But that's kind of an interesting spot because, well, we talk about free will, do we have free will? Well, of course we have free will, yes and no. If you say yes, the other side is no. If you say no, the other side is yes. So I'm going to say, yes, we have free will. And we can stop doing what we're doing and stop the effect of karma, of conditioned activity. But sometimes it's good to have that, it's good to have good habits are well cultivated. So there's good karma and bad karma, right? We do harmful activity and it just keeps going on, we can't stop until we stop. So we want to cultivate good karma, or no karma.

[19:05]

But there is always some karma. But no karma is considered good karma. It is, yeah. No karma is on the side of good karma. That's called good, bad, and neutral. So, strictly speaking, neutral karma is freedom. But who wants to be free? I think you're right to say that, yes, we have free will, and no, we don't have free will. So, without sticking to either side, the practice of Buddhism, which is a practice of liberation, we tend to maybe err on the side of, we do have free will, but it's an opportunity to make a choice so we don't repeat.

[20:08]

But we don't have to err. Sometimes we're carried along and sometimes this is like driving the wave and riding the wave, right? Riding the wave is allowing ourselves to be moved. Driving the wave is our will. So when driving the wave and riding the wave are in total sync, then there's no problem. The ball freely flowing down the stream is like riding the wave and driving the wave at the same time. This is how we live our life in perfect sync with it. So if we try to stop all conditions, then we get stuck in total free will. So total free will is how you become pushy, and just being carried along is how you become limp.

[21:16]

So, yeah, yeah, oh, that's better, thank you. So the balance, yeah, good. So the balance is something that we have to maintain moment by moment. Can you say something about character? It seems like the seeds we're planting the habit energy has something to do with character. Well yes, character comes out of the way we handle our karma. Like the story of the tunnel that Oshuso talked about yesterday. This man was a retainer for the emperor, and he had an affair with the emperor's wife, and the emperor got angry and he killed the emperor.

[22:26]

And then he ran away with the emperor's wife. This is not totally accurate, but it's a good story. He ran away with the emperor's wife, and then they both became thieves. And then he thought, well, God, she's getting so greedy. He was probably greedy too. He said, we're both getting too greedy, so I don't want to hang around with her anymore. So he left, and he wanted to find some way to repent. and he felt really bad, so there was this tunnel. I mean, there was this ridge mountain with a very narrow trail, and people were falling off the trail, and so he felt that there should be a tunnel through the mountain, so he started digging the tunnel. It took him, after 20 years, he, you know, 20 feet high and big, this big tunnel. So... The... the woman's son had heard about him killing the emperor, or whoever he was, the shogun maybe, and he went looking after him to kill him.

[23:46]

So he found him and he said, well, told him the story and said, well, I'm here to kill you. And the man said, well, Okay, that's fine with me, but I just want time to finish the tunnel. You know, if you give me time to finish the tunnel, then I'm all yours. So the guy said, okay, the son said, okay, and so he sat down for a couple of months waiting. He finally said, This is taking too long. So he put on his work clothes and said, I'll help you. So they started digging. And they both dug for a couple more months, you know, hard work. And I don't know if you've ever worked with anybody in that way. You really become bonded. And so at the end, the guy said, well, here I am.

[24:49]

You can cut off my head. And the son said, well, how could I cut off the head of my teacher? So, this is a... I don't know what the story illustrated from your question, but... Oh, character, yeah. Character. Yeah. Go. What is there to karma besides our habit energy? Is changing karma identical to changing our habits? We call it habit energy. I call it that. It means that when you do something three times, it becomes a habit.

[25:55]

And then it's a channel, but every time you do it, you deposit the seed, but you also water the seed. So this action prepares the next action, prepares the next. This cause, This is a cause for the next arising, effect, so to speak, cause for the effect, which is a cause for the effect, which is a cause for the effect. So, habit can control us or we can control habit. You can put the hose over there. That's right, you're in control of the hose, but often the hose is in control of us. So this is what we call the wheel, what Buddha called the wheel of transmigration, moment to moment.

[27:06]

Transmigration is moment to moment. We think of it also, this next life and the next life, that's speculation. But strictly speaking, it's moment to moment transmigration. transmigrating, moving from one moment to the next, driven by habit energy. But we have free will. And habits can be good or not good. If the habits are not good, you may want to change the habits. If the habits are good, you may want to continue them. Or you may want to stop habits altogether. So good and bad, are really, that's a duality. So what is the place of no good and no bad? No right and no wrong. When Matsu was sick, the attendant came and said,

[28:12]

I asked him, what was the matter? I mean, are you okay? How are you? He said, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. Sun-faced Buddha lived for a thousand years. Moon-faced Buddha lived for a day and a night. So this is like whatever. He accepts this moment's position. It's not that you can't do something to get well, or that you like it or don't like it. In other words, it's free of discrimination. But at the same time, discrimination is still able to work, but not ego discrimination. I'll follow the track, and I'll enjoy one day thoroughly, or I'll enjoy a thousand years thoroughly.

[29:30]

If you had to live a thousand years, you may not enjoy it thoroughly. So yeah, this one, whatever it is, I'm totally one with it. So, isn't this Zazen? I mean, yeah, it's all about Zazen. I mean, Zazen is all about this. I've been watching this particular piece of karma, and I'm not sure if I can explain it in the words you're using right now, but I get told a story, or I get a body, an ego comes in and says, oh, you're so sleepy, you can't listen to the lecture. So it works perfectly to make me unavailable to hear the Dharma. And so I just raised my hand because I knew now I will not fall asleep. And so how does my being able to watch this, it does it all the time and I suffer a lot over sleepiness when I'm not actually tired of sleepiness.

[30:40]

Yeah, well, it can be a way of abstracting yourself, you know, from having to deal with something. But it's good to realize that. That's the beginning. The beginning of how you deal with something is to, this is the problem I have. But you know, when Suzuki Roshi was lecturing, my teacher, And then at the end, what did he talk about? I don't know. It's okay to fall asleep during the lecture. I do. It was not me talking. Yeah, well, they had a meditation chin rest.

[31:50]

I keep meaning to bring it out for you. Yes, Alan? The Eight Levels of Consciousness is a model, it's not a fact. in the sense of that it has some kind of fixed structure.

[33:14]

It's a model of consciousness. And if you read the Cheng Weishui Lun, which will take you forever, there are, five or six different commentaries on each line, so I'm talking about it in a very simple way to give us some idea about this model. But yes, our ego and our ego consciousness and mind consciousness are mixed because they cooperate. Are you calling mind consciousness behavior? I'm calling mind consciousness discriminating minds, the sixth level of discriminating mind. Right, but I was talking about, I'm not sure what there is.

[34:18]

You were talking about operating from being mind. Well, I'm answering your question. Your question, according to my understanding, was, does the self-consciousness, ego-consciousness, and non-ego-consciousness, do they mix? Are they mixed? That's what I thought you were talking about. Yes, okay.

[35:19]

When we trust big mind, it's easier to let go of ego mind. When we trust our deep, true nature, we don't have to depend so much on our fear nature. you know, ego consciousness is driven by fear. When we're not driven by fear we can depend on our big mind. If you look at what drives the world, mostly it's fear, and we play on fear, you know, to control. depending on Buddha mind, big mind, is to let go of our defenses and be open and trust that. So that's hard. It's very hard to do that.

[36:24]

But that's what's necessary. Greg? I have an idea that big mind isn't anywhere in those eight levels of consciousness. It's like the other side of the page. Okay, so you say that they're not, the big mind is the other side of the page. It is the other side of the page, but it's one page. Well actually, the seventh consciousness thinks that the storehouse consciousness is it. That's its mistake. So that's what keeps us going round and round and enclosed in this round of self. So this is what I wanted to say last time, which I didn't get to. When these eight levels of consciousness are turned, called paravrtti, turned on a basis,

[37:32]

they're transformed into wisdoms, four wisdoms. And it's no longer called consciousness, it's called wisdom. So one operates out of wisdom instead of operating out of false consciousness. So when the alaya, the storehouse consciousness, when the four are turned, the storehouse consciousness turns into the great round mirror wisdom. which means that it reflects everything totally without any discrimination. This is what Suzuki Goshi meant when he said, things as it is. To see things as it is. Our practice is simply to see things as it is. That little mixture of plural and singular there, which is itself a kind of koan. Things as it is. This is called pure observation. Then manas, which is the seventh level of self-consciousness, becomes the wisdom of equality, to see everything equal, to see the equality of everything, each dharma.

[38:52]

Manu Visnana, to distinguish it from Manas, is when it's turned, it becomes the wisdom of perfect observation, to see the differences between everything, to see clearly what is the difference between each thing. And then the sense consciousnesses become the wisdom of action, activity. So, through the realization of the three wisdoms, the fourth wisdom becomes our enlightened activity. So, it's called a change in name, but not a change in essence. So consciousness becomes wisdom instead of delusion, but delusion and wisdom are still two sides of enlightenment.

[40:06]

So we don't lose consciousness, but consciousness becomes wisdom instead of simply consciousness. we're always trying to slice it in half. We're always trying to slice it so that we have the wisdom and the emptiness and the no-self on this side and the delusion and the self and all that on the other side, but they're one thing. This hand is, this is, This is Buddha, Bodhisattva, Arhats, Pratyekabuddhas, and Devas, maybe. And this is fighting demons, hell, heaven, animal, and Asuras, right?

[41:08]

So when we do this, we bring it all together. just taking it into kind of real experience. Taking it into some real experience, because I think I felt in a way what Alan felt. Sometimes it feels like there's a committee you know, and the old memories are coming, and the old habits are there, and what you really know to be true is there, and what you really think is there, you know, all that stuff is going on. Yes. At the same time, maybe, you might have an understanding beyond that. Yes. That's called real life. So, this is, you know, people think, well, you were all Zen students, how come you're not acting like blah blah blah? Well, how come you're not all perfectly enlightened if you're Zen students?

[42:12]

Yeah, I mean, give us a break. Well, that guy that ran away with his boss's wife and then got disgusted with her and turned into a bodhisattva, He didn't say whatever, you know, like that sun-faced Buddha, he didn't say whatever. I don't know what he said. He could have said, he could have decided, for example, to, instead of leaving that woman and building a tunnel, he could have decided to start abusing her. Yes. And you said, my question is floating around How does anything change? You said at some point today, we have free will. Like free will is some kind of thing? No, it's we can make decisions.

[43:14]

That to me, what free will means, that we can make a decision based on our, we're free to make a decision. To me, that's what it means. We are free to make a decision. That's pretty mysterious. I said that too. I got it all covered. Well, I don't have time. I'll do it tomorrow. But if I make a statement, I always cover myself. Can't play it too safe.

[44:19]

Yes, you can. But then, that's the other side. As my old teacher used to say, not always so. It ain't necessarily so.

[44:41]

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