Good morning, everyone. This weekend, I'm talking about case eight of the Book of Serenity, Bai Zhang's Fox. Several of you were here yesterday. And I'm going to try and cover some of the same material, but add some. So just to start with the story and jump into that, Case eight goes, when Baizhang lectured in the hall, there was always an old man who listened to the teaching and then dispersed with the crowd. One day he didn't leave. Baizhang then asked him, who is it standing there? The old man said, in antiquity, in the time of the ancient Buddha Kashapa, I lived on this mountain. A student asked, does a greatly cultivated man still fall into cause and effect or not?

[01:03]

I answered him, he does not fall into cause and effect. And then I fell into a wild fox body for 500 lifetimes. Now I ask the teacher to turn a word in my behalf. Baizhang said, he is not blind to cause and effect, or does not ignore cause and effect. The old man was greatly enlightened at these words. So Baizhang is an important figure in Zen lore, also a historical figure, but he is said to have written the first monastic code for Zen monasteries, so he represents that authority. He was an important disciple of Mazu and his student Wangbo was the teacher of Linji or Rinzai. Baizhang is Hyakujo in Japanese for those of you who know that better.

[02:06]

So this is a story about karma. This old man who showed up at Baizhang's talks said he had lived on this mountain, Mount Baizhang, in the past age, in the time of Buddha Kashapa, who was the Buddha before Buddha, the Buddha before Shakyamuni Buddha, before our Buddha. When he says, I lived on this mountain, that means he was the teacher there. So in effect, he's the former or older Baizhang. And in the story, he said that a greatly cultivated person does not fall into cause and effect. And the story goes that because of this, he became a fox, a wild fox, for 500 lifetimes.

[03:14]

And as I said yesterday, in our culture and in Western indigenous culture, foxes are sometimes tricksters, but they're sort of cute, and of course, foxes are beautiful animals. In traditional East Asian culture, foxes were fairly malevolent and possessed beings. So this is, in some sense, a case of an exorcism. Bai Zhang is exorcising this malevolence. this old man, there's pictures of him in the assembly with a foxtail hanging out from under his robes, this person listening to Baizhang. So there's a lot to say about this not falling into cause and effect, being beyond cause and effect, beyond conditions, is a reference to some experience of the ultimate, some significant experience of not being subject to cause and effect.

[04:26]

So, Wansong, the commentator to, Hongzhou wrote the cases and verses for the Book of Serenity. Wansong did these wonderful commentaries to make the Book of Serenity. And he says in his commentary, not falling into cause and effect is forced denial, a nihilistic view. So feeling that, thinking that a greatly cultivated person is not subject to cause and effect is kind of an attachment to emptiness. And in the Mumon-Khan collection, where this appears as the second case, it follows the first case, which is the Mu case. So this is a significant problem. potential problem in Zen and Buddhist teaching. Wansong goes on to say, after saying that not falling into cause and effect is forced denial and nihilistic view, he says, not being blind to cause and effect, or not ignoring cause and effect, is finding the wondrous along with the flow.

[05:36]

So in Mahayana Buddhism, in the Bodhisattva way, Nirvana is not cessation. In early Buddhism, nirvana meant getting out of birth and death and the flow of birth and death. And in the Mahayana or Bodhisattva way, finding the wondrous along with the flow, seeing the nirvana, seeing wholeness, seeing the ultimate, right in the middle of the phenomenal world is the point. So in the Soto school, we chant the Sandokai, the harmony of difference and sameness, where Shuto or Sekito says, who was actually contemporary of Baizhang, says, a little earlier, he says, merging with suchness is still not enlightenment.

[06:40]

So this is an important point, and I want to emphasize this today, that this idea of not falling into cause and effect, of being above cause and effect, traditionally a significant problem in practice and is very much a problem in American Zen and American Buddhism, I would say. So there's more to the story. But Hongshuo just, in writing the case for the Book of Serenity, what became the Book of Serenity just ends with he's not blind to cause and effect and the old man was greatly awakened. Well, there are different versions of this in the lamp transmission texts. It's not in the earliest of those, but a longer version of the story that is in the Mumonkan or Gateless Barrier is repeated by Wansong in In his commentary, he says, in the evening, Baizhang went, so after this event, after this dialogue, Baizhang went into the hall and recounted the preceding events to his students.

[07:57]

And there's actually a longer version of it that's not in the commentary that is in the Gateless Barrier that after, that he told the assembly that after the midday meal, they were going to hold a monk's funeral. And they were all surprised because nobody was missing and there wasn't anyone in the infirmary. But Baizhang went around the back of the temple and with his staff, pulled out a dead fox body. And then he held a monk's funeral for it, which is pretty, radical for the guy who's supposed to be the representative of the tradition to hold a monk's funeral, one of the highest ceremonies, for a fox. And again, remember what foxes represent, represented in that culture. In that evening, Baizhang went to the hall and told the story of his dialogue with this old man.

[09:07]

One of his students, Huangbo, immediately asked, an ancient answered a turning word mistakenly and fell into a wild fox body for 500 lives. What if one is not mistaken in event after event? Baizhang said, come here, I'll tell you. And Wang Po approached, and before Bai Zhang could do anything, Wang Po gave his teacher, Bai Zhang, a slap. Bai Zhang clapped his hands and laughed and said, I knew foxes were red. Here's another red-bearded fox. So that's a different translation from in the Mu Man Khan, where He talks about a red bearded barbarian referring to Bodhidharma, but of course we know foxes also have red beards, some of them. So, Huangbo is approved. So that's just, I'm just adding that as a footnote. Really, I'm most concerned with the first part of the story, although we can say a little more about the second part.

[10:12]

But there's this issue here. And, well, I'll add that most of the Chinese and a lot of the Japanese interpretations of the story, they say that, they kind of imply, at least, that in some ways, both sides are the same, not falling into cause and effect and not being blind to cause and effect. Hongzhe even, in his verse comments, says, not falling, not blind, they haggle as before entering a nest of complications. So I want to talk about the implications of this for Dogen and some of Dogen's comments on this, because it's a key issue for Dogen and therefore for all of us in Dogen's Zeto lineage. But first I want to say something about translation. So I mentioned this yesterday, but I want to say more. I'm not certain of this, but I believe that in the Japanese Rinzai tradition of working with the Mumenkan, it says, a student asked me earlier by Zhang, does an enlightened person still fall into cause and effect?

[11:29]

Is that the version of the story you've studied? Yeah. I think this is, So that's the translation of the Mumon-Khan version of the story, but from Aitken Roshi, from Shibuyama Roshi, who is, his commentary is considered one of the best in some schools. Imana-Khan Roshi, Sekida's version. So they all say, does an enlightened person still fall into cause and effect or not? Stephen Hine and Thomas Cleary translating the Mu Man Con say, does a greatly cultivated person, so they're going by the actual Chinese characters. That's what it says in Chinese, does a greatly cultivated person. Cos translates it in one of his translations of Dogen as does a completely cultivated person, but really it's just a greatly cultivated person. Do they still fall under cause and effect or not?

[12:31]

And apparently there's this tradition, in Japanese tradition, in Japanese Rinzai tradition, of saying an enlightened person. So there's a story that Aitken Roshi tells sort of a joke of going to a talk by Kalu Rinpoche, who was a wonderful Tibetan Buddhist teacher. I saw him a couple times in San Francisco. Little guy, kind of Yoda-like, and a really fine teacher, somewhat soft-spoken. And in the question period, Aitken Roshi said, hey, does an enlightened person, is an enlightened person still subject to cause and effect? And Kala Rinpoche said no. And of course, this is a story that's not part of Tibetan Buddhism. This is a later Chinese story.

[13:32]

So Aitken Roshi said to all of his students who were there, kind of snickered. There's a problem here. It's a problem of translation. There are people who think they are enlightened people. as if there are actually people, and as if there is actually enlightenment that is some real thing. So I've talked about Dogen and Soto approach to these koan stories. These are teaching stories that Dogen was incredibly well-versed in. He imported them from China to Japan. and they're part of our teaching tradition, and we talk about them as teaching stories. And as I'm doing this weekend in the series of talks I'm doing on the Book of Serenity, and I also sometimes work with individual students privately on some of these stories, in some traditions,

[14:37]

coming from Rinzai Zen and also coming from this mixture of Rinzai and Soto, last century Sambo Kyodan, some teachers, well, the tradition is passing through a curriculum of koans, but some teachers emphasize very much Kensho, that having some great dramatic breakthrough experience while working with these stories, as if the point of the story is to solve some riddle and have some great aha, and that that's the goal of Koan practice, and that's the goal of Zen practice. And I've spoken of this at times for a long time, but in this context of this story, I'll just say, You know, Kensho experiences happen. They can happen to people sitting in Sashin, in the Sendo, or walking down the street, outside, or whatever, and they can be wonderful, but it's not the point of practice.

[15:52]

This is not a practice of getting high. This is not a practice of self-help. If that's what you want, go somewhere else. Again, these kensho, kensho means literally seeing the nature, seeing Buddha nature. These dramatic experiences can happen, and in the kind of pressure cooker kind of way of working with these koans, where you have to go see the teacher and say something about it, and they're going to pass you or not, or tell you to get out. Anyway, that's not our way of working with these stories. Again, those experiences can be helpful. They can also be really destructive. If you think that because you've had such an experience, that that means that you're some great enlightened person and you're beyond cause and effect. This is a real problem in American Buddhism.

[16:53]

And I haven't talked about it much because that's not the way we practice here. Some people here have been in places where they do practice that way. Now, I don't mean to critique all the particular teachers in those lineages. And in fact, in Japanese Rinzai Zen, kensho is, that's not the meaning of kensho. So I'll refer you to Victor Sogenhori's books and articles. There's a wonderful article at the end of Stephen Hein's anthology about koans where he talks about, and he's, Victor Sogenhori teaches, I don't know if he's retired now, but he taught at McGill, a very fine, academic teacher and practitioner. He practiced in Rinzai Zen in Japan for a long time. And at least when I was living in Kyoto in the early 90s, he was known as the person who had gone furthest in the Rinzai Koan curriculum of any Westerner.

[17:57]

He really knows what he's talking about. And he talks about Kensho, it's not a thing, it's a verb. to Kensho, to see through some experience, to see through some story, to Kensho eating lunch, to Kensho serving lunch, to Kensho being the Tenzo, to Kensho getting up and starting walking meditation, or to Kensho some issue in our life. So I'm not criticizing Rinzai Zen. I'm criticizing some... misunderstandings of that that are a problem in our country. Maybe it's a problem sometimes in Japan, I don't know. And I'm not criticizing Eikin Roshi either, because he was a great, great guy. I really liked him. I had a chance to have dinner with him a couple times anyway. And I know people who studied with him.

[18:59]

But there's this tradition that emphasizes Kensho. And in some ways, it pivots on this translation. So as a translator, I'm pointing this out. Literally, it says, does a greatly cultivated person still fall into cause and effect or not? And in the story, this guy who had been the previous Baizhang apparently said, they do not fall into cause and effect. But because of that in the story, they fell into a wild fox body for 500 lifetimes. And then he came to Baizhang, our Baizhang, in our period, and Baizhang said, such a person is not blind to cause and effect, does not ignore cause and effect. But again, some translations say, does an enlightened person still fall into cause and effect? So, There's a lot more I want to say about this case itself, but this issue is not insignificant.

[20:02]

We've had Zen teachers and other traditions of Buddhist teachers in the West who think that they are not subject to cause and effect because they're so-called enlightened beings. Not that there's not enlightenment, not that there's not enlightened activity, and enlightened awareness, and enlightened kindness, and practice realization, as Dogen calls it. But to think that you are some special person. So we've had amongst, in the Kensho style lineages of Zen, we've had cases of, for example, serious sexual predators. Ito Shimano in New York, Sasaki Roshi in Arizona and California, and other prominent teachers who've done great harm because they thought they were above cause and effect.

[21:08]

Maezumi Roshi, who has had many wonderful students and many of whom I'm good friends with, also, transgressed in serious ways. And so, I don't know if he thought he was enlightened, but maybe so. I think the case in our lineage with Baker Roshi was a little different, but he also maybe thought he was enlightened. above others in some ways. So this is the original case as a greatly cultivated person. So I just feel like I need to make this clear, because it is a problem, and not just in Zen. So Kalu Rinpoche, who A. Kinroshi challenged about this, was this wonderful teacher, and after he died, It was revealed that he had had women students who, even though he claimed to be celibate, women students who he'd had affairs with, and he and some of his subordinates had told them if they revealed anything about it, they'd go to Vajra hell.

[22:21]

Horrible. And then recently we've had this problem with the Shambhala and the Trumpa. Trumpa was open about his womanizing and his drinking and, you know, so, It's a little different, but maybe. But there's this scandal now in Shambhala groups. And it's this issue that's the heart of this koan. Does a greatly cultivated person, and it makes it worse if you think there's an enlightened person, still fall into cause and effect or not? Ba Zhang said, they are not blind to cause and effect. So there's a lot. We talked about this yesterday.

[23:24]

There's a whole lot of stuff that's in this story. There's a whole lot of things to talk about this story. There's the whole question of possession and exorcism that was part of the Japanese Zen tradition and part of Buddhist tradition, that there are malevolent spirits or whatever. This is part of Asian lore. Now, this may not be part of what we believe in modern Western scientific understanding. But at any rate, just to know that this whole story about this fox has lots of implications. We can talk more about that. This basic issue is, and then this interpretation which seems to be if not explicit, kind of clear within Chinese Buddhism, Chan and Japanese Zen about this story that in some ways, not being, not falling into cause and effect and not being blind to cause and effect are not so different.

[24:47]

I think if you take not falling into cause and effect first, that's a big problem. And just to say also about Baizhang that in addition to being the person who supposedly wrote the first monastic guidelines, there's a famous story where he ends up saying, a day without work is a day without food, that we can't be above the ordinary world. Not falling into cause and effect is about this experience of the unconditioned. And that's a lot of what many Kensho experiences are about. Seeing through our usual ideas and illusions about the conditioned world. In our tradition, I would say that Kensho or that experience of the ultimate is the beginning of practice, not the goal or end of practice.

[25:59]

It's not like you have that experience and then you're enlightened and then you can go off and do whatever. There is a way, I think, in which If one is not blind to cause and effect, one doesn't need to be caught by cause and effect. And yet we, so we say in all our services, all our ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion born through body, speech, and mind, we now fully avow. We have to recognize cause and effect. So I want to talk about this in terms of its Well, in terms of how we think about past and future, but first I'll just say something about the importance of this story for Dogen. So as a Dogen scholar, I would say that Dogen doesn't really change his viewpoint or teaching except in terms of this story and this issue.

[27:14]

Many people have analyzed Dogen in terms of early and late Dogen. It's complicated. He did say some different things, but I think it's more a matter of the audience he was speaking to. He spoke more strongly about monastic practice after he moved away from Kyoto up to the remote mountains of Echizen and built what became Eheiji. And I think he was trying to encourage his monks. But on this story, I want to read the excerpts from his extensive record I read yesterday and also say that He wrote two essays in Shobo Genzo that deal with this. The first one, Dai Shugyo, Great Cultivation in 1244, kind of takes the traditional viewpoint of the story. And maybe I'll say more about it tomorrow. But the second one, Jin Shininga, Deep Faith in Cause and Effect.

[28:17]

was towards the very end of his life amongst a group of Shobo Genzo essays he wrote at the end. Most of Shobo Genzo was written in just a few years period, just before and for a while after he moved up north. This one is part of a group of talks that he wrote very late and he comes down very strongly on the side of not falling into cause and effect, and on the precepts. I'll just read the ending of that later essay. It's actually dated 1255. He died in 1253, but one of his assistants compiled it later. After all, causation is self-evident. There is no exception. Those who act in an unwholesome way decline, and those who act in a wholesome way thrive.

[29:18]

There is not a hair's breadth of discrepancy. If cause and effect had been ignored or denied, Buddhas would not have appeared, and Bodhidharma would not have come from India. So he's taking a very strong position, not ignoring cause and effect. Sentient beings would not have seen Buddha or heard the Dharma if they were not following this cause and effect. The principle of cause and effect, Dogen says, is not clarified by Confucius or Laozi. Buddhas and ancestors alone have transmitted it. Students in these decadent times So it's interesting how often great Buddhist teachers speak about their decadent times. And we certainly can speak to that too. But anyway, he says, students in these decadent times seldom meet a genuine teacher or hear the true Dharma.

[30:19]

That is why they do not clarify cause and effect. If you deny causation, endless harm results. We've seen this. Even if you do nothing more than deny cause and effect, this is a disastrous, poisonous view. Immediately clarify all causes and all effects if you want to make the aspiration for enlightenment your priority and respond to the boundless gift of Buddha ancestors. So again, he talks about the aspiration for enlightenment, bodhicitta, the mind of the way, the thought of awakening, that which brought us to practice, which in some ways contains all of awakening. But it's not that some people have some experience and then, you know, they're finished. So Buddha continued sitting and awakening his whole life. And the practice has continued because we continue this practice of studying and awakening and not thinking we're finished with it.

[31:29]

This is a lifetime work in one way or another. Whether you come formally to some Zen center or not, our investigating cause and effect is a lifetime work. So I want to say more about that, but first I want to go and do a little more with Dogen. He had a number of his little short Dharma talks in his extensive record, Ehe Koroku, that deal with the fox koan. And I believe he just talked about the shorter version of it that's in the Book of Serenity. So one of them, an earlier one, says, after relating the story of Baizhang and the fox, Dogen said, mountains, rivers, and the great earth are the cave of the wild fox. So, We live in the wondrous flow of the phenomenal world. And this is also the cave of the wild fox.

[32:31]

So there's a woman commentary to the Moomin Khan where he talks about 500 lifetimes of elegance. So one might interpret the story as that the earlier Baizhang deliberately transgressed and became a wild fox for 500 lifetimes just so he could talk to Baizhang later and we could have the story. Anyway, one might think that. Dogen says, receive and discard one piece of skin, flesh, and bone. Cause and effect are very clear and not a personal matter. So I want to come back to that, but Dogen says that cause and effect are not a personal matter. It's not just about our own personal karma. We are subject to, in this time, very clearly subject to collective karma in many ways. He goes on to say, partridges sing incessantly in late spring and a hundred flowers vanish.

[33:35]

Or maybe they blossom and fade. So this poetic reference to the beauty of this phenomenal world, this world of cause and effect, where partridges sing and flowers fade, this is the place this place of not ignoring cause and effect. This is the place of awakening. That was an earlier, that was a talk in 1242 when he was still in Kyoto. In 1246, he told the story again and then said, because of the previous Baizhang saying that he did not fall into cause and effect, why did he descend into a wild fox body? as to the later Bai Zhang saying, he was not blind to cause and effect. How did this cause the release from the wild fox body? So that's a significant issue in this koan. If there's really cause and effect, just Bai Zhang saying, don't be blind to cause and effect, how does that save the fox?

[34:37]

So what is cause and effect is mysterious. We don't understand cause and effect. It's vast. But then after that, Dogen said in this talk, I can't stand this wild fox monster shaking his head and wagging his tail. Stop, stop. So this story was a real key and difficulty for Dogen. In 1252, his last year of teaching, before he died in the following year, he comes down very strongly on the side of precepts and following cause and effect. He says, students of the way cannot dismiss cause and effect. If you discard cause and effect, you will ultimately deviate from practice realization. So Kala Rinpoche and maybe Edo Shimano and others thought they were not subject to cause and effect.

[35:40]

After relating the story of Baizhang's wild fox, Dogen said, someone doubted this, saying, a wild fox is an animal. How could it remember 500 lifetimes? So this is an interesting kind of other aspect of this. This doubt, Dogen says, is most foolish. You should know that various living beings, either animal or human, are inherently endowed with the power to know past lives. So this whole question of past lives we talked about yesterday afternoon in discussion a bit. And I can say more on. about this, but Dogen goes on, someone said not falling into cause and effect and not ignoring are one in the same, and yet either falling or being released simply happens spontaneously. Such views are completely outside the way, Dogen says. Today I, Heihei Dogen, will add a comment. If you say people of great cultivation do not fall into cause and effect, you are certainly dismissing cause and effect. If you say they do not ignore cause and effect, you have not yet avoided counting the neighbor's treasure.

[36:41]

What does it mean to not ignore cause and effect, to really take on cause and effect? After a pause, Tolkien said, after many years of residing on this mountain, A black staff becomes a dragon and this morning arouses wind and thunder. So this was a major issue for Dogen. What does it mean to not be blind to cause and effect, to not ignore cause and effect? So there are numbers of things to say. On a personal level, we can think about our lives up to now, and certainly there may be some things we regret. There also may be some things that we enjoy and appreciate and feel good about that we've done.

[37:44]

But when we face, when we avow our ancient twisted karma, we need to look at that. And there's lots of ways of looking at that. This is a practice. How do we look at all of the junctures in our life? What is it that allowed all of us to be here this morning? What is it that turned you towards spiritual practice, Zen practice or Buddhist practice or whatever? What brought you to care about the quality of your life and the quality of the world? This has to do with bodhicitta, the arousing and the thought of the way. But then in the course of our life, at various junctures, it's not that things are predestined, but we might have made other choices. taken different jobs, we might have had other relationships or not left relationships or whatever.

[38:48]

Lots of things, you know, that we can look back on and wonder about and, you know, if I had done that, or if I had not done that, where would, you know, and it's not that we have to track that. It's not that we should, you know, kind of wallow in regret, but just to acknowledge, oh yeah, here I am in this life, in this place, in this time, doing this, and there were many other possibilities. And, you know, some physicists say that there are parallel universes, or maybe science fiction writers, you know, all the things we might have done, we did in some other place and they're, you know, somewhere nearby. And so there's all these other lives we have, but here we are. So, but cause and effect is that everything we do has an effect. So we can look at the past and see how we got here. We can also look at, okay, what is today?

[39:51]

What is our situation now? How do we move forward? What do we look forward to? How do we, you know, it's not that we don't make mistakes. In fact, it's necessary, it's important to make mistakes. But how do we look at them and look and see, acknowledging cause and effect. Everything we do will have some effect. Everything that happens has some cause. It's not some random, you know, boogeyman in the sky or under the earth who did this to us. So how do we move forward in the world of cause and effect where we take care? So it's not about realizing, again, it's not about realizing some great, it's not about getting high or realizing some higher state of being or some dramatic experience. It's, okay, how do we integrate that into our everyday activity? How do we take care of our lives and the world in a way that expresses kindness or whatever it is we care about?

[40:59]

So how do we move forward? So this is the study of cause and effect, not just as something that happened on some mountain in China, you know, in the 800s, but how do we take care of and really not ignore cause and effect as we move forward in our lives? And then I'll just mention briefly, and I talked about this more yesterday, this line from Dogen where he says, cause and effect are very clear and not a personal matter. So I've talked about this before, but karma's not just personal karma. If we actually take seriously interconnectedness and that we are connected with, in all kinds of ways, with all beings, as Dogen says, it's not just human beings, cause and effect is not a personal matter.

[42:02]

And there's also collective karma. So, My friends in North Carolina who are having lots of water poured on them, it's not necessarily their personal karma, this is the collective karma of fossil fuel companies that knowingly cause climate damage and the people who keep denying and ignoring it. The state of North Carolina has outlawed mentioning of climate change for many officials, as if ignoring, denying reality in front of you can work. So there's lots more to say about that, but we have this collective situation in our society and maybe for our species of radically ignoring cause and effect. And there are things we can do to move forward to, you know, we've reached various tipping points with climate damage.

[43:09]

bad things will continue to happen, fires on the west coast and floods on the east coast and so forth, but what do we do now? How do we respond to that? So this is a collective societal karmic reality as well. So... Not being blind to cause and effect. recognizing that what we do makes a difference, recognizing that all the different turnings of the way and paths we took or didn't take are part of how we are here now. So there's so much more that can be said about the story and all the implications. And we will have some discussion for the people here all day this afternoon over tea.

[44:15]

But I wanted to also invite, if anyone has any comments or responses or questions now, we have a little bit of time of responding. So does anyone have anything to say? Yes, Nicholas. I think if I think about what you were just saying, I think I know what you meant. Yeah. Good. Yeah, we that happens, we do think, oh yeah, I'm so great.

[45:44]

Whatever, whatever we've done, you know, or however much money we've made or, you know, books I've written, whatever, it's just, so my job as a teacher is if I see you doing that to slap you. But you're pretty good, Nicholas. But yeah, there is this possibility that we could think that, oh, yeah. And it's good when we do wholesome things and when we accomplish things and when we're helpful. But the point of that isn't that, oh, I'm great because I'm helping somebody else. The point is that the person we're helping is helping us to give something to the world. And one more thing. Please. The teaching about the two truths really fits into this. Sure. So we can talk more about that later. Well, yeah, I mean, but that's the issue there, that there's this ultimate reality, this universal reality, and Kensho is about getting some experience of that.

[46:48]

And one doesn't have to have a dramatic experience like that to have some sense through regular sitting of, connectedness and this deeper communion with the ultimate. But then the conventional truth, the second truth, or they're both equally true, is that we do exist in this phenomenal world with greed, hate, and delusion, with corruption, with our own desires, and anger, and frustration, and confusion. And so we have to face that, and work with that, and be open to that. And this is avowing our ancient twisted karma. So yeah, thank you. Other comments? Yes. Yeah, and that's the point of suttas and practice.

[47:59]

This harmony of difference and sameness is one way to say it. This integration of the universal reality and the particular phenomenal reality in the Dongshan's five degrees is all about that. So, yeah, thank you. Yes, Belinda. Sure. Okay, that's interesting. Or not to ignore it, yeah. Yeah, and part of the teaching is that reality is beyond our ideas about it.

[49:18]

So yeah, we do get deluded by cause and effect. We do have delusions about cause and effect. We cannot track all the causes and conditions that allowed each of us to be here this morning. And whatever we think will happen, you know, at lunchtime or whenever, nothing ever happens according to our expectations. It's impossible. Whatever we expect, whatever we imagine will happen in the future, even if we're very powerful, if we're a powerful tycoon and, you know, can manipulate lots of things and have lots of power and can become president even, we still can't control reality. So yeah, not to be deluded by cause and effect. Thank you. I just want to say I especially like that translation because it speaks to all the times when we think we're doing something good. Yeah. And, you know, we learn later that we were misguided. All the unintended consequences, the collateral damage of, you know, even of well-intentioned actions.

[50:27]

So to be careful about cause and effect is part of this too. It strikes me that the example of the Tibetan monk you mentioned in San Francisco, and in some of the contemporary cases of powerful people. the effect of what they're doing. In his case, he intuited or knew that he had caused this damage, otherwise he wouldn't have threatened those women with that punishment And so, I don't know, there's like nuance there. Some of these people definitely see the horrible effects of what they're doing and they're trying very desperately to obscure the effects and causing even more sort of disaster, you wish.

[51:32]

You almost wish, like, they've done this horrible stuff and that they'd be so courageous as to, like, come out and own it a little bit more just to begin earlier the process of, you know, rehabilitation or whatever. That does happen. So yeah, a couple things to say about what you just said, that the song Amazing Grace, do you know that? That was written by a ship captain who was a slave trader. And he regretted it. So when he said, saved a wretch like me. He wasn't just making that up. This was somebody who had done terrible things and brought people into slavery, and then he repented. So that does happen. And yet, you're right. There are people who do terrible things just for

[52:35]

not thinking they're doing good, just for personal profit. It's such ignorance. So the fossil fuel companies who knew in the 70s what climate damage would be and went ahead and pursued it, or the more recent example, in the face of this floods in the Carolinas, $10 million was transferred by our government from FEMA, who responds to floods and so forth, to ICE, to the immigrant Gestapo, excuse the hyperbole, but maybe it's not, who are keeping 12,800 children in indefinite detention, in detention camps in our country. You know, this is, so they're building more camps so they, and expanding the camps so they needed money so they took it from the FEMA. You know, this is not well-intentioned.

[53:42]

Somebody's making a profit off of this. So anyway, so there's that too in the world. People can repent of bad actions. So yeah, how do we look at our collective karma? There's so much more to say about all of this, and there's so much more in this story of the fox, and the issue of human beings and animals also, and the token refers to. But we'll talk more about this tomorrow, and for those of you who are staying in this afternoon. So let's close now with our theme song.

[54:20]

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