Good morning. This morning I'm going to continue my comments on Suzuki Roshi's commentary on Shuedu, or Sekito's old poem, The Sound of Kai, The Harmony of Difference and Unity, which is one of the earliest Zen poems, actually.

[01:10]

from the 8th century in China. Sekito is one of our most prominent ancestors, and he wrote this poem in order to express the oneness of difference and equality. So this is from Branching Streams, Flow in the Dark, which is Santhaki Roshi's commentary on Sankhya Yoga's poem. I'll read you the poem and then talk about the place where we left off last time. The mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted from west to east. While human faculties are sharp or dull,

[02:12]

The way has no northern or southern ancestors. The spiritual source shines clear in the light. The branching streams flow on in the dark. Grasping at things is surely delusion. According with sameness is still not enlightenment. All the objects of the senses interact and yet do not. Interacting brings involvement. Otherwise, each keeps its place. Sights vary in quality and form. Sounds differ, as pleasing or harsh. Refined and common speech come together in the dark. Clear and murky phrases are distinguished in the light. The four elements return to their natures, just as a child turns to its mother. Fire heats, wind moves, water wets, earth is solid, eye and sight, ear and sound, nose and smell, tongue and taste. Thus for each and every thing, depending on these roots, the leaves spread forth. Trunk and branches share the essence, revered and common, each has its speech.

[03:18]

In the light there is darkness, but don't take it as darkness. In the dark there is light, but don't see it as light. Light and dark oppose one another, like front and back foot and walking. Each of the myriad things has its merit, expressed according to function and place. Phenomena exist, like box and lid joining. Principle accords, like arrow points meeting. Hearing the words, understand the meaning. Don't set up standards of your own. If you don't understand the way right before you, how will you know the path as you walk? Practice is not a matter of far or near, but if you are confused, mountains and rivers block your way. I respectfully urge you who study the mystery, don't pass your days and nights in vain." So we're at the place where Sakhito says, light and dark oppose one another, like front and back foot and walking.

[04:20]

Oppose, this is a fairly new translation. This is a difficult line for a translator, difficult phrase for a translator. like the foot, the backward step and the forward step. You can read these characters in slightly different ways and if you look at it in one way it's like the forward step and the step back. but Blythe read it as the foot before and the foot behind in walking, and this is the way Suzuki Roshi interpreted the meaning of this phrase. And so it's not like taking a step forward and a step back, it's like when you walk, one foot is behind and the other is in front, and then the next step, that foot is behind

[05:25]

So he's talking about how one thing alternates with another, how light and dark alternate with each other, and that light is dark, and within darkness is light, and within light is darkness. Nevertheless, light is light and dark is dark. So when you're walking, one foot is in front, and that's the front foot. except that the next step, that foot is behind and the other foot is the front foot. So this is an illustration of the equality as well as the difference. The fundamental equality of things and the fundamental difference of things. Very good illustration. So Suzuki Roshi says, we are still talking about reality from the viewpoint of independency.

[06:43]

This is a word that he made up, independency. Dependency and independency are actually two sides of one coin. So in this talk he uses these two words, dependency and independency. We usually say dependent and independent, and dependent means it is a kind of positive statement, and independent is a kind of positive statement. But dependency means the tendency to be dependent. But there's no word for the tendency to be independent. So he coined this word, independency, and then later a student asks him about it, about what do you mean by independency? And I think it was me that asked him that question.

[07:46]

And in the questions at the end of the lecture, the first student says, Roshi, in English we have independent and independence, but no word independency. And he says, oh, independence, excuse me, independence may be the noun, but to me it doesn't fit so well. And another student says, we have the noun dependency, so we can have independency. And Suzuki Roshi says, but do you have independency? And the other student says, now we have independency. And so Suzuki Roshi says, independent is too strong. If you're independent, That's all. You don't care about anything. That is not what we mean. When you're independent, you're in a very vulnerable or dangerous situation.

[08:50]

And then the next question, the student says, people think they're independent. Isn't this a delusion? He says, yes, when we think I am independent, it is not true. You're dependent on everything. So at one and the same time, We are independent, but at the same time, totally dependent. So, people say Zen students should be independent. But at the same time, the only way to be independent is to be totally dependent, to realize your total dependency. If you don't realize your total dependency, you don't understand who you are. So, you don't realize that what you are is all the things that are not you. As Thich Nhat Hanh likes to say, this table contains all the elements that are not what you see as a table.

[10:00]

in order for this table to exist, there has to be the tree, and the sunshine, and the rain, and all the elements, the planets, the universe, all are the essence of this table. Without any one of them, there's no table. So although we say the table is independent, is a table, its nature is total dependency on everything that is not the table. So Suzuki Roshi uses this word �independency�, which means, yes, independent, but not exactly so. So he says, dependency and independency are actually two sides of one coin.

[11:07]

People may say that the Japanese are very tough. He's Japanese, of course. But that is just one side of the Japanese personality. The other side is softness. Because of their Buddhist background, they have been trained that way for a long time. The Japanese people are very kind. If you've ever been to Japan, you realize that the Japanese people are very kind and very helpful. People are always amazed at how helpful and kind the Japanese people are when they go to Japan. There's so many stories about people leaving their wallets someplace and someone finding the wallet and making this tremendous effort to get it back to the person. Who left it? With the money still in the wallet. With the money still in the wallet, yes. Everything intact. So he's bringing out the fact here of the two sides.

[12:18]

One is the tough side. During the war, we experienced the tough side of the Japanese personality and the cruel side and so forth. And now we experience the soft, yielding, helpful, kind side, which has always been there. He says we have a children's song that describes a hero called Momotaro, the peach boy. There was an old couple who lived near the riverside. One day, the old woman picked up a peach from the stream and brought it back to her home. And from the peach, out came Momotaro. He popped out. The Japanese children sing a song about him. He was very strong, but very kind and gentle. He is the ideal Japanese character. What do you call it? You must have some expression for it. And the student says, folk hero.

[13:20]

He says, yeah, folk hero, without a soft mind you cannot really be strong. If you go to Japan you'll see Momotaro pictured as a little cartoon boy all over the place. I have a bag, you know, they sell these They're somewhere between paper and cloth, and they have zippers, and some of them have wheels. They're really good at packaging, at packages, and making packages. And mine has a picture of Momotaro on the front of it. So, the soft mind, Suzuki Roshi talked about soft mind a lot. which is the opposite of a rigid mind. So soft mind doesn't mean squishy or stupid, but it means a yielding mind, a mind that allows things to happen, like grass.

[14:37]

A tall tree that's very stiff and rigid will crack in a high wind, but the grass always goes with the wind. This is what he means by soft mind, to go with things. We have the phrase driving the wave and riding the wave. Driving the wave means to push, to be assertive. And riding the wave means to go along with things. So one side of our character is to be assertive and to push and make things move. The other side is to flow with things, to go along with and to ride the wave and drive the wave at the same time is to be in perfect harmony with things. not too assertive and not too lax.

[15:42]

Dogen says, to turn the practice and be turned by practice, or to turn the Dharma and be turned by the Dharma. To turn the Dharma is to be in the assertive position. you make things happen. And to be turned by the Dharma is to allow things to happen, allow yourself to be turned by things. So this is how one dances. This is how one plays. This is how one should work. And this is what makes everything work together easily. When one needs to be assertive, one is assertive. And when one needs to be passive, one's passive. Sometimes people think that zazen is passive. But actually, zazen is the epitome of both assertiveness and passivity.

[16:53]

One side is total dynamic functioning of your whole body and mind. And the other side is to let everything come and go, to have strong, assertive posture. and at the same time to be totally loose and flexible with both body and mind. This is the secret of zazen. If you're only passive, it's not good zazen, not true zazen. And if you're only assertive, it's not true zazen. If you're only assertive, you don't last very long. Zazen will always defeat you.

[17:55]

So what you have to be, have a soft mind and a yielding body. And at the same time, put all your effort into this one single act. So he says, if Momotaro did not have this side of his character, if he was not very sympathetic, he could not be really strong. A person who is strong just for himself is not so strong, but a person who is very kind will support people and can really be a folk hero. When we have both a soft side and a strong side, we can be strong in a real way. So knowing when to yield and knowing when to be assertive.

[19:00]

This is a Bodhisattva practice, actually, describes, without saying so, describes a Bodhisattva's practice. And then he talks about how to be strong by being weak and how to be weak by being strong. It may be easier to fight and win than to endure without crying when you are defeated. I think that his experience is with the Japanese people after the war, how to accept One must do this with great strength. It's easy to fight and win, but to endure without crying when you are defeated, that's difficult.

[20:13]

You should be able to allow your foe to beat you, okay? This is very difficult. But unless you can endure the bitterness of defeat, you cannot be really strong. Readiness to be weak can be a sign of strength. We say, the willow tree cannot be broken by the snow. The weight of the snow may break a tree's branches. But a willow, though the snow may bend or twist the branches, even a heavy snow like the one we had last year cannot break them. Bamboo also bends easily. It looks quite weak, but no snow can break it." He said, the snow we had last winter, this was talked for giving 1970 at Tassajara. And the winter before was 1969 when we were snowed in at Tassajara. We started Tassajara, started practicing there in 1967, and we didn't have a lot of experience about the place or what we were doing.

[21:21]

And then there was this tremendously heavy snow in 1969, winter of 69, and we were snowed in. And there was limited food and no way to get in and out. and so we had to forge around and it was a wonderful, best winter we ever had, but because we were forced to do all this, but we learned a lot in that winter. So then he refers back to the poem, he says like the front foot and the back foot and walking He's using the old translation, of course. The foot in front and the foot behind in walking. Darkness and brightness, absolute and relative, are a pair of opposites, like the front and the back feet, back foot actually it should be, a pair of opposites like the front and the back foot when we walk.

[22:22]

the foot in front or the foot in back. This is a very good way of explaining oneness or the actual function of a pair of opposites like strength and weakness or like it expresses how we apply pairs of opposites like delusion and enlightenment. Within enlightenment there is delusion and This is why we don't try so hard to attain enlightenment in our practice, but we do make an effort to realize the enlightenment within delusion and the delusion within enlightenment. If you only pay attention to enlightenment there's no enlightenment.

[23:26]

Enlightenment is only present within delusion. If you have only enlightenment, that enlightenment must include delusion. Master was asked if the dog has Buddha nature. He said, mu, which means no. But within that no, that no is absolute no, it's not relative no, that no must include yes, even though he's not talking about the dog or the Buddha nature, actually, still. That no must include yes. otherwise it's not enlightenment.

[24:28]

So it expresses how we apply pairs of opposites like delusion and enlightenment, reality and idea. good and bad, weak and strong, pleasure and pain. Within pleasure there is always pain and within pain is pleasure, even though we don't necessarily see it that way. And also the opposites of birth and death. Within birth there is death if we're only interested in one side or the other that's delusion. So actually we live mostly in the realm of delusion because we are only interested in the side of one side which is called birth or life, what we call life.

[25:47]

We're not so interested in the other side Although we may be interested in it, we're not so eager for it. Nevertheless, you know, sometimes people say, well, Buddhism is kind of pessimistic, you know, because we're not attached to life. or death, because we're not attached to life. Buddhism talks a lot about not being attached to life, which doesn't mean that we shouldn't live our life totally and fully, but we realize that within life is death and within death is life, and instead of being attached to one side

[26:49]

in the realm of life to be totally engaged as life within the realm of death, to be totally engaged in death. This is, what else could it be? So without clinging to one or the other or desiring too much one or the other, to have soft mind, to be assertive in life and to be assertive in death and to be yielding in life and to be yielding in death. How else could it be? So he said, it expresses how we apply pairs of opposites like delusion and enlightenment, reality and idea, good and bad, weak and strong in our everyday practice.

[28:12]

People who feel they are strong may find it difficult to be weak. People who feel they are weak may never try to be strong. That is quite usual. But sometimes we should be strong and sometimes we should be weak. If you remain weak always or if you always want to be strong then you cannot be strong in the true sense. Suzuki Roshi talked about his teacher who was, he said, when he was young he was like a tiger but when he got old he was like a pussycat. He said, but it was okay. He didn't mind being a pussycat when he was older, being kind of gentle and non-threatening kind of person. It's okay. So what is true strength? It's a good question. When you learn something, you should be able to teach it to people.

[29:21]

You should put the same effort into teaching as into learning. And if you want to teach, you should be humble enough to learn something. Then you can teach. If you try to teach just because you know something, you cannot teach anything. When you're ready to be taught by someone, then, if necessary, you can teach people in the true sense of the word. So to learn is to teach, and to teach is to learn. If you think you are always a student, you cannot learn anything. The reason you learn something is in order to teach others after you have learned it. Well, it's very true that the way we learn, first we learn something, and then there's some necessity to teach people. We need to communicate what we know and then when we start to teach we realize what we don't know and then we have to come back and study some more.

[30:31]

This is a wonderful way to learn is to teach. If you teach a class If you know everything, there's something wrong. If you think you know everything about what you're teaching, there's something wrong, or else it's not a very deep subject. But if you have a deep subject, like teaching Buddhism or Zen, when you teach a class you realize how little you know and then you have to come back and study some more and so it really keeps generating your curiosity and your need to study more. This is one of the reasons that I enjoy teaching classes sometimes, is it makes me really study much more than I ordinarily would.

[31:39]

There is no fixed moral standard. Now he's talking about things being fixed, you know, and things being relative. There is no fixed moral standard. Rather, you find your moral code when you try to teach others. Before Japan was defeated in the war and surrendered unconditionally, the Japanese people thought they had a moral teaching that was absolutely right. If they only observed that code, they believed, they could not make any mistakes. But that moral code, unfortunately, was set up at the beginning of the Meiji period, 1868 to 1912. After losing the war, they lost confidence in their morality and didn't know what kind of morals they should observe. They didn't know what to do. But actually, it shouldn't be so difficult to find one's moral code. I said to people at that time, you have children.

[32:46]

When you raise them, you will naturally know the moral code for yourself. If you really do that, yeah. Some people don't know the moral code and they don't know how to raise their children. nevertheless. What he's expressing here is even though there may be some fixed moral code for some particular time period, it doesn't necessarily hold because as you say, morality is always changing. What was acceptable in the past is not And your children will give you a lot of trouble because they're hip to the present moral code and you're not. And you think that they're all wrong, sometimes.

[33:47]

when you think the moral code is just for yourself that is a one-sided understanding. A moral code is rather to help others. The moral code you find when you want to help and be kind to others will naturally be good for you as well." So what he's expressing here is if you really make an effort to help then the moral code will naturally reveal itself So the moral code becomes, which is somewhat natural, appears when you let go of your fixed ideas and really try to make an effort to help people and let go of your self-centeredness. Anyway, that's his idea. It's open to controversy.

[34:51]

I realize. Then he said, it is said to go east 100 miles is to go west 100 miles. When the moon is high in the sky, the moon in the water will be deep. the moon reflected in the water will be deep. But actually, people will observe the moon above the water and not see the moon in the water. That the moon is deep means that the moon is high. The moon in the water is independent and the moon over the water is independent. But the moon over the water is also the moon in the water. should understand this. He's talking about Dogen's statement, the moon reflected in the height of the moon reflects the depth of the water, or the depth of the water reflects the height of the moon.

[35:55]

The depth of the moon in the water reflects the height of the moon in the sky. So he's talking about two moons. Are there two moons or one moon? The moon in the water is independent and the moon in the sky is independent, but the moon in the water is dependent on the moon in the sky. So, the moon in the water is dependent, and the moon over the water is independent, and the moon over the water is independent, but the moon over the water is also the moon in the water. We should understand this. When you are strong, you should be strong. You should be very tough, but that toughness comes from your gentle kindness. When you are kind, you should just be kind, but that does not mean you are not strong. The characteristic of a Zen teacher is to be both very strong and also very yielding.

[37:03]

Some teachers are just very strong and the characteristic, the stereotype that we have of a Zen teacher is that they're very tough. That's the usual stereotype of Zen teachers. They're very tough. That's true. But on the other hand, they're also very gentle and kind. If a Zen teacher is only tough and unyielding, there's something lacking. Sometimes toughness is called compassion. Sometimes yielding is not so good. So one must know what to do in any given situation. Sometimes tough, sometimes very gentle and yielding. Sometimes grasping or taking everything away, and sometimes granting, giving everything, giving freely.

[38:14]

Sometimes a Zen teacher, someone will say, oh, God, he's so tough. And then someone else say, oh, he's so soft. Which is it? I think I should stop there. Today we have a, we're sitting all day, so I have to be on time.

[39:01]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ