Good evening. Before we start, I want to talk about the time and so forth. Usually class classes used to start at 730. Now they started 715. So I suppose that's OK. And then we had a good life. Is it so by a factor for everybody when you go with the ball scrambling for the dinner? Well, this subject that I want us to study is a subject of light and dark, light and darkness.

[01:14]

But there are two ways of thinking about light in the Dharma. One is that light is the opposite of dark. The other is, within the darkness there is light, and within the light there is darkness. So, you should keep both of these ways of understanding in mind. They don't contradict each other, although they may seem to be contradictory. I think in the history of humans, and especially in the history of religion, Light has always been a very main subject, and Buddhism is no exception. But in Zen practice, you don't hear that so much.

[02:15]

Light is often associated with a theistic religion, and Zen seems somewhat iconoclastic but actually Zen is all about light, especially Soto Zen. There's a wonderful history of how the ancestors have approached the subject of light and have seen light as synonymous with Buddha nature, with essence of mind, or any of those appellations that are used to express the ultimate.

[03:21]

When we talk about Buddha nature, Buddha nature is a kind of abstract term. It's a little abstract. If you say Dharmakaya, that's also a little abstract. There's nothing to relate it to. But when you say light, we have something that our mind can relate to. Something that we're familiar with. If you say Buddha to Westerners, it doesn't mean too much. When you say God, it means something even if you don't believe in God. It has that impact. So, I've always been very much fascinated, not fascinated isn't the right word, but

[04:25]

concerned and felt that this is a subject that is very pertinent for all of us and it has always been for me. And it's always been, in all of my way-seeking, life has always been with followers and feel that it is an expression, a way of expressing our spirituality. So I don't know how I'm going to do this, exactly, this class. I kind of know how I'm going to do it. But I'm just open to seeing where it leads me, where it leads us. You know, as I said before, in our meal chant, we say, we pay homage, homage to the Dhammakaya Bhairavajjana Buddha, homage to the Nirmanakaya Lojjana Buddha, homage to the... What did we say about Shakyamuni?

[05:51]

Nirmanakaya Shakyamuni Buddha. So in the history of Mahayana Buddhism, well before I say that, a lot of the, especially the esoteric Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and Shingon Buddhism in Japan, which is somewhat equivalent to Tibetan Buddhism in fundamentals, There's quite an influence from Indian deities. And in Buddhism, there's also influence in Indian deities, but not to the same extent. I think Buddhism, gradually, they called Indian deities, but they're still there.

[06:53]

And they're still there in our... They're filtered down in Now, Buddhism has a way of acquiring local deities and assimilating them. There's actually a practice, wherever Buddhism goes, it assimilates and gives them a job. Gives them something to do when they leave the pantheon. So, you know, Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, Samantabhadra, Mahayogana, Loksana, and so forth. Basically, historically

[07:56]

were some Indian deities of one sort or another. And then Buddhism assimilated them and gave them, actually infused them with the dharma and with enlightenment and used them as models. So we have all these models. So Vajracana, Dharmakaya, Buddha, was assimilated by the Mahayana, and was given the role of being at the center of the universe. So, Vairagchana, in esoteric Buddhism, is at the center of the universe. And Vairagchana is the Dharmakaya Vairocana Buddha. Vairocana is radiant light.

[08:59]

The Buddha of radiant light. So, Vairocana sits in the center of the universe. It radiates light. That's all she does. Vairocana is neither male nor female, but usually depicted as a male. But, Vairocana is the the Buddhist aspect of radiant light, which completely fills the universe and is the motivating or the enlivening factor of life. And of course, Bhagavad Gita is associated with the dharmakaya or the dharma realm. The Dharma realm which has infinite potentiality and is one with all beings, with all creation, but has no special form or shape.

[10:11]

So we call it emptiness or the void. indescribable, but is the essence of all, of all Korean things. So, Lochana Buddha, you can say, who is Lochana Buddha? And that's kind of the Sambhogakaya Lochana Buddha. Lochana is Amitabha, Amida Buddha. It's strange to find Amida Buddha in the Zen meal chant. Because Amida Buddha is the Buddha that the Pure Land Buddhists worship, you might say. So Amida Buddha is the Buddha of infinite light.

[11:17]

So light is this focal point There are all these reports of people when they're dying. And someone died and came back. They're right on the bridge. And they almost always say, I was going through this long tunnel and there was a light at the end. And so he uses terms, a light at the end of the tunnel. That's an interesting aspect of life. There's so many different aspects of life. So it's interesting to explore that. What we will be.

[12:21]

tell you what we will be studying, some of the things that we will be studying. One is the koan, Master Zenbun's koan that I, that we handed out. And then, Master Hongjue, Many of you know this book, Cultivating the Empty Field, which is called, this is one aspect, one fascicle of Master Hongju's work. He wrote a lot of poetry and practice instructions and so on and so forth. But Cultivating the Empty Field is the sixth book of his. In the usual way, it's the essence of how we practice, not the particulars.

[13:38]

And Mr. Holmes, you know, was preceded by maybe a hundred years or so. And they studied in the same temple in China. And Hung Chö was the one who introduced what we call silent illumination practice. So, silent illumination is an aspect of life, of course. So, Master Hung Chö talks a lot about light as the essence of practice. And then, Copeland Ajo, who was, you know, we say Copeland Ajo in our lineage, in the Czech lineage, but it's not Colin Ajo.

[14:50]

angels, who wrote one treatise, which is called something like Abiding in the Treasury of Light, and he talks about light. In fact, there's one I just checked, and this is Dogen's commentary. So, Master Uman, a gentleman, presented this koan to this monk, which we're going to study. And then Dogen wrote a fascicle. which is a kind of commentary on Yunemun's koan. And then Heizhou wrote a koan, wrote this Treasury of Light, which includes a kind of commentary, a dogmas commentary, on Yunemun's koan.

[16:14]

So each one keeps expanding. enriching this wonderful koan, actually. But, you know, before that, there is Master Tozan Sandokai. Before Tozan was the Sandokan Sekigau, which talks about light and dark. And in the darkness there is light, and in the light there is darkness. Don't see light just as light, but you should also see it as darkness. And don't see darkness just as darkness, but you should also see it as light. And then Tozan wrote the Jewel Mirror Savadi, where he also talks about dark and light.

[17:16]

So this is the theme which permeates Soto Zen, understanding through the ancestors. It's kind of touched on, but I don't get taught so much or brought out in this way so much. So this is kind of what I'm interested in doing. So this is case number six. So I think we were short on handouts.

[18:19]

So if you could share your way to share. If you don't have a copy or. feel bad if you don't know what happened. You're telling me I can't drink. And so if you have a copy of the book on the booklet record, you can just bring with you.

[19:26]

So Mr. Uman, Mr. Uman was one of the most well-known teachers in the Congress. He has the most recorded. sayings or callings in the book, if I could, and Suzuki Roshi liked this very much. Everybody feels that Mr. Gilman really had the essence and communicated the essence. But he always communicated it in very harsh language. So, Master Umalan. Umalan is the Japanese pronunciation.

[20:28]

Yanzman is Chinese. So I might as well say Yanzman, rather than being Umal. So, Umalan, this title has various, people give various titles to this. I like this title. Everyone has their own life. So Master Engel made commentary on the booklet record, which was... and where he has an introduction. And he says, he's talking about Umar. So he says, controlling the world He allows not the least speck of dust to escape. He cuts off the deluded stream of thought, leaving not a drop behind. If you open your mouth, you are mistaken.

[21:32]

If you doubt for a moment, you have missed the way. Tell me, what is the eye that has pierced barriers?" And then he says, see the following, which is, of course, an example. So, the main subject. Oman spoke to his assembly and said, everybody has their own light. If they try to see it, everything is darkness. What is everyone's light? Later, in place of his disciples, he said, the hall from the gate. And again, he said, It may be better to not say anything at all, even if it's a good word. I'm mixing up translations here.

[22:35]

The storehouse, the temple gate, and That's a storehouse in a temple gate, pretty much. So, then in his verse, Stetcher says, it illuminates itself, absolutely bright. He gives a clue to the secret. Flowers have fallen, trees leave no shade. He does not see if he looks. Seeing is not seeing. Non-seeing is seeing. Facing backward on the ox, he rides into the Buddha hall. So, Master of Mind is talking to his students.

[23:38]

And he says, everybody has their own light. But if they try to see it, it's dim, dark. What is everyone like? And then he says, the storeroom and the temple gate. So in his introduction, he talks about controlling the world. And he shows not the least spec. He doesn't let any speck of dust escape. What is controlling the world mean? Does anybody know what controlling the world means? Mr. Insight went and said, um, I control the world.

[24:50]

And somebody said, well, how do you do that? He said, everything is exactly the way I want it to be. Ross? I was going to say, um, just allowing things to be as they are without, um, trying to change things. So accepting things as they are. It doesn't necessarily mean that we sit back and not do anything. So we start interacting to create dust. But what about interacting? I mean, supposing something needs to be changed. Well, it's very easy. They do. So there we have that line of tokens that we allow that 10,000 dollars to advance that we can interact with them without this sort of sense and then there's a smoother relationship.

[25:53]

It means managing one's own mind. It means managing one's own mind. Managing one's own mind. How does one manage one's own mind? Without thinking. Just like this. All day. You need that. It's true. But what about thinking? Where does that come into it? Just thinking. Oh, just thinking. Well, let's look at what Engels says.

[26:57]

Controlling the world, he allows not the least speck of dust to escape. He cuts off the diluted stream of thought, leaving the other drop behind. Well, that sounds like what you're saying. If you open your mouth, you are mistaken. If you doubt for a moment, you will miss the way. Tell me, what is the eye that is traced to variance? So, the main subject. Everybody has their own light. If they try to see it, everything is darkness. Well, how come? Because you're setting it apart from yourself.

[28:00]

You're trying to see something out there. In order to see it, it's out there. That's good. What else can you say? Why didn't we deal with the eye that pierced the barrier? Why didn't we deal with the eye that pierced the barrier? What is the eye that pierced the barrier? The third eye. Yes. When is the third I like? I don't know. Well, that's good. That's exactly right. I don't know. But how do you get to? I don't know.

[29:01]

By opening my mouth. Um, but there's also something else here. You know, this can go another way. It has the feeling of. Everyone has their own way to try and look for and try to find this. It's not something that you can. It's not tangible or it's not definable. It's not a thing that you can grasp. It's not something that... But then, Doge talks about this. It's not blue, red, yellow, white, or some particular shape, or glow, or what people often imagine as light.

[30:05]

So, is light and dark? And light and dark are opposites. But is this the light that light that is not the opposite of dark. Because if you look at the light, and you see the light, it's dim, it's dark. That can mean you can't read. The more you look for it, the dimmer and darker it gets. If light is within darkness, and darkness is within light, when you look for light, can't you see it as darkness?

[31:08]

Yes, if you're blinded by the light, it becomes dark. So say something more about blindness. Blindness? Without reading. Without what? Reading. Without reading. Oh, right. I was just looking at the paper. I wasn't reading. Say something about blindness. Well, blindness, can be caused by not opening your eyes or staring at the light and having not enough light or too much light in your eyes. I'll say that. There are several kinds of blindness.

[32:34]

There's the blindness of delusion. There's the blindness of ignorance. There's also the blindness of total seeing. Total seeing is called true blindness. talking about true blindness. Because if you look at the verse, he says, it illuminates itself absolutely bright.

[33:44]

So it doesn't depend on anything. And then he gives a clue to the secret. He gives a clue to the secret. Flowers have fallen and trees give no shade. Who does not see if he looks? Seeing is not seeing. Not seeing is seeing. Seeing is non-seeing. Non-seeing is seeing. So non-seeing is blindness. Actually, they're both blindness. But they're two different aspects of blindness. Sounds... Well... I...

[34:47]

There's something about it. I guess I've been educating too much in questions of disability. There's something about the way we're using blindness and the way it's used in this text setup. What I found myself, as before, when you were reading, I was thinking, how does a blind person And I don't know. I haven't studied this. How does a blind person, quote, see? What, for me, because I have functioning eyes and I've been programmed like this for 60 years, I see light and I see images. And I think in terms of words and images. But if I didn't, if I was sightless, then I would, quote, see other things. And I'm thinking of Avalokiteshvara, who the cries of the world.

[35:50]

There's a kind of synesthesia there. But, so that's, I think that's what you're talking about with Jung there. That his blindness is not medical or physiological. It's hard to put a phrase to, but it's not not seen. And it's not seen. That image of justice is being blind. And that makes justice possible, not being not being distracted or affected or aware of some things that are not. Right. Beyond duality.

[36:51]

I think. One of the instructions I received I came to practice with, you know, keep eyes lowered. And at first, I was hard to adjust to that. I was saying, we're conditioned to look around and see a different world. And I realized after a while that by keeping my eyes lowered and not looking around, that the other sconces, the other parts of my body were taking in the world, that I was actually sitting in a very different way.

[38:04]

And it wasn't so important to actually seeing the face of the person who was serving me or seeing the incense smoke coming up, but actually there's like an intuitiveness and a certain kind of broadening of my awareness that was quite helpful. And it's not to say that you look both ways before crossing the street, but the container of our practice place is set up to actually further illuminate or kind of open up this light that's in us through a practice that looks like We're not allowed to see in a kind of this kind of a war on or counterintuitive or whatever that term is. So there's more illumination by not looking around. There's a quality of illumination that is nourished by cultivating a different kind of seeing.

[39:07]

You know, if you go into the closet and light a match, the whole closet is lit up. But if you light a match outside in the daytime, not much happens as far as changing the atmosphere. So when. in the confinement, when things are narrowed down and there's not so much just activity in the light state contained. And this is, of course, one of the aspects of practice. How do we contain ourselves without thinking? If you look at the introduction, she's controlling the world. He allows not the least bit of dust to escape.

[40:21]

And it cuts off the deluded strings of thought that sounds somewhat like what you're talking about. You know, when we go past the scene, we actually build up this kind of intensity. And I'm like, it's very strong. very intense. But then we start laughing and talking and joking and it kind of leaks out, even though it's still there. But the intensity leaks out. So how do we actually allow ourselves to have enough discipline so that we contain Yeah. Luminosity. So this actually has intensity.

[41:23]

So seeing it, I'm saying that I think Catherine and Alan both were kind of bouncing off each other. But then Mr. Newman says it may be better not to say anything, even if it's a good word. So, you know, make this mistake on purpose. Yeah. Talk about it.

[42:26]

I like your translation, which says a good thing isn't as good as nothing. Yeah. This is as good as nothing. Yeah. Well, yeah. It's it's it's iffy. Yeah. Well, you know, if you write the translations, it may be better. I'm to say not to say anything, even if it's a good word. And I think that's a good point. I think the quote is better encouraged as it reveals that he's quoting Jojo. He's quoting Jojo. Where's the recording? I don't know if it's handy, but I found it. It's something I said. Oh, it may be better to say.

[43:28]

Yeah. And I think there is. I think they're all using that quote, but they're going to translate it in a different way. But. This blindness, I think, is very important. To be truly blind is to truly see. It has nothing to do with our eyes. It's not what he's talking about. He's talking about the eyes. He's talking about how to think, actually see. Because what we see with our eyes is interpretation. We interpret what we see with our eyes. So, we're always interpreting.

[44:29]

But blindness means not interpreting. Just clearly seeing. Just seeing as it is. Without creating anything. without having a story or without creating a division. You know, Jokinso was talking about clarifying. How would you describe clarifying in the way that you're talking about? Well, if you feel a little bit more like I said, you should clarify this. You know, you might think it's this way, but it could be that way. You should clarify. Right. Yeah. What does that mean? We're clarifying to make clear. And to me, the clarifying would be to see. Whatever it is that I want to study, I want to get involved with, as it is.

[45:45]

The clarifier is like to see it as it is, so there's no doubt. You might say, excuse me, the clarifier is also means you can see through it. When you clarify something, then it becomes transparent. You can see right through it. Yeah, like butter. I used to live with a woman who was, she was a nun. And she had studied with Harada Roshi for many years. And she went blind while she was in Japan. And we lived in this house together. And the fuse box was outside. And once in the nighttime, some fuse went out. But it was dark. And I said, well, I can't fix it.

[46:49]

I don't have a flashlight. I can't see. She said, no problem. I'll fix it. And she went down and fixed it. So, in her blindness, there was no light and no dark for her. It's not that she was living in the dark, it was that she was beyond light and dark. I needed the light to do things and I couldn't do them in the dark and she didn't have any problem like that. This is light that's beyond dark and light. Right, and blindness is a blindness that is about me. You're blind to the duality of light and dark. Even though you are aware of the duality, light and dark, that's also important. Well, she had a lot of problems when it was raining, because there was so much sound, she couldn't... The rain blinded her, because she needed to rely on her ears to hear cars coming and things like that, so the rain would... Paul, when is our break?

[47:55]

Whenever you like. Well, no, it's supposed to be a certain time. I don't know. Forty five minutes after quarter. Twenty five minutes after forty five. Forty five minutes after. Now you want to take a break. So the one is a copy. It's called Kokyo. Call me. Not Tokyo. Tokyo is America. Call me. I was like, OK, well, the one that I got. No, again, it was Tokyo. Well, I did. And they call me. How is that secret? Let's see. So that's a nice spectacle too.

[48:57]

So she's the right one. I probably made a mistake. I made a mistake. It's Kokuyo. So read this Kokuyo. Because it's really a good festival. You know, we'll put it out on the book and people won't be here when they don't come during the week. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I can't handle it. Hi, Laurie. Could you just say a little more about this, which seems like kind of a separate topic, this thing about containing your light?

[50:00]

Yes. Well, yes. Could you say a little more? Because that's sort of different from this thing about seeing and not seeing. Well, yes, this is called seeing and not seeing, right? And then the development is containing. As a matter of fact, I'm going to explain the word Komyo as a prelude to your question. Komyo means radiant light, or divine light, or brightness, or illumination, any of those. But specifically, there are three ways that the translators have translated it.

[51:01]

And I talked about this last Saturday a little bit. Ko is like brightness. And Byō, Ko is one character There's a brightness, a luminosity. And Myo is two characters. One is the moon and the other one is the sun. So the sun and the moon together, which is very powerful as far as light goes. So radiance. And also glorious. has a kind of divine quality when it comes to light. And so I like divine light, even though divine presupposes a deity.

[52:08]

But if you think about Bhagavad Gita, the non-deity deity of Buddhism, the non-deified deity of Buddhism, To me, that's divine light, although it's called radiant light. So really light is a light that radiates. And so this is the title of Dokian's classical, which Kogyo, which didn't get printed. So what we're concerned with in practice is how light is radiated. How it is expressed. Because light is our nature.

[53:14]

Light is... If you accept that light is our nature, then how is that expressed? When someone is liberated from their darkness, then light is freed, freed up, and illuminates. one's character is covered, then one is dim and dark and doesn't illuminate, doesn't come out. So practice is oriented toward freeing up, letting go of the barriers, so that the light is allowed to freely be expressed.

[54:32]

And Zazen, for us, for our practice, Zazen is the most concentrated way of expressing, allowing light to be expressed. So when we sit in zazen, zazen is sitting at the source of light. And then light, then we have illumination. But if you try to see it as some tangible thing, then you can't see it, because you're looking for something that has a special shape or form called light. But if you just allow it to be expressed, you know that it's there.

[55:37]

You know what it is. And this is called enlightenment. Yes. Our nation or all of the organs of the illumination at the core of all our organs of perception. Yeah. Well, yes. And so it in itself does not have a characteristic of scientific materialism. I can't say it doesn't have characteristics of sight or hearing characteristics. It doesn't have it doesn't have special characteristics. It doesn't have special characteristics, but all characteristics are an expression of it.

[56:41]

So that is expressed through your finger. Whatever. But if you try to see it as that, you can't see it. You know, under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn't know what you're talking about, but I do know what you're talking about, because my sister, Rushie, was sitting right where Andrea is now. one day, I came into the Zendo and it was just as if, you know, he was a red ball of glowing iron. I mean, it was just absolutely amazing. And I had a Doshan with you, and I went over there and I said, what is that?

[57:47]

And you said, well, just very powerful Zazen. But he was emanating something. You know, you know, he used to say that he would walk around the center and look at everybody in the back and then he could he could see everybody, the extent of everybody's aura. It was kind of a competition. I think I feel sort of confused about this as, you know, sort of an image or as something real. You know, I'm unclear when you use the word light or even enlightenment, you know, the light part of it, or darkness, you know, or working through your darkness, you know, is it... I mean, are you talking about the way that we

[58:56]

He was talking about an image or something else. No, that's something else. Your experience. Yeah. Talking about experience. But it's somewhat of a metaphor. Excuse me. You use it somewhat as a metaphor. It's somewhat of a metaphor. Yes. It's somewhat of a metaphor for. Another metaphor. So it's a concept for another concept. It's a concept for another concept. It's like there are these concepts and we use each one depending on what we want to express about this thing that you can't define. Yeah, so there's this thing, there's this non-thing, which you can't define, but, you know, you can say something about it and point to it in various ways.

[60:05]

And one of the ways to point to it is using the metaphor of light. Another way is the metaphor of Buddha nature, the metaphor of essence of mind, or being mind, or Dharmakaya, you know. When Bhuman asks everybody, he says, what is everybody's light? And they can't answer. And he says, the ball from the gate. So what does that mean? Yeah, what does that mean? What do you think it means? I'm asking you. OK. Well, there's a saying that inanimate objects are continuously preaching the Dharma. How is it that I've just continuously preached the Dharma? The halls in the gate, you know, you could say, well, it's everywhere.

[61:21]

It's not some special place. It's just everywhere. And it's in the most mundane places, you know. So that's one. That's one way to understand it. It's wherever you are. aspect of what we call life. The point is that that's what it is. It's not some special thing. And why it's hard to see, for one reason, for one thing, is because it's so all-pervasive. And so blindness, one kind of blindness is alien, which means that because it's so all-pervasive, you don't see it.

[62:28]

It's like the person standing in the middle of the stream and saying, where's the stream? Standing in the middle of the water and saying, where's the water? So, by opening their eyes, which is called true blindness, you see it, but you can't describe it. So, that's why it's difficult. You know, just to say, it better be enough to say anything. But even though it's better not to say anything, we have to say something. I think it's a little more logistically.

[63:30]

I'm curious that it's kitchen pantry and the main gate, which are very specific. It's like you don't have a temple without both of those temples. So the temple doesn't exist without a main gate. So is that a kitchen pantry? One's in the front. One's in the back. Your body doesn't exist without some mouse or moth within which to take in food. And without a jelly, you would just do a pesticide, a pesticide. It's total dynamic working. So when you try to point to one of these, there's a life. It's in the entirety of the dynamic working.

[64:32]

You can't point to any one place, which is why I think he follows it up. you know, and then he follows it up with, you know, well that may be a good painting, but it's not as good as those paintings. You know, it's like looking at a painting that has no subject. I often thought of taking a photograph or making a painting where you're just in the corner of something and the part of a foot or a door or a bed or There's no real subject. It's just that everything is somewhat equal in the painting. And that equality is the subject, not the equality of parts, where no one part is any more prominent than any other part is the real subject.

[65:37]

But we would look at that and we'd say, well, that's a funny painting because there's no subject. But did you try to think like that? Yeah. And you were thinking? Yeah. It was not objective, right? Yeah. No, no objects. A little different. But I thought about that. Fred? I'm a very young man. He stands a little bit and says, the monks call the Buddha hall. kitchen pantries at the main gate. It seems to me that he's talking about the activities that take place in terms of the Thrust of Khan himself. It's the life that happens in those places. Well, it's interesting. The life that happens in those places.

[66:39]

But what about the life of those places? There's that point, too. And, you know, we say inanimate objects. But actually, according to the Dharma, my own Dharma, animate in the larger sense are the same. I'm focusing more in the realm of how to express the light. OK. So the activity within those corridors is expressing. So you're saying that light is expressed through human activity? Yes. What about animal activity?

[67:43]

or bugs. All those things too, but I only started with the human activity. Well, it's true that Buddhism is mostly concerned with the human, but nevertheless, in a broad sense, it encompasses everything. there's a certain quality that's expressed in human beings. So, Govind, you know, he had this wonderful talk, it was very short, but he says, the purpose of a human being is to express, be a vehicle for light. And that's what Zazen is. So, The hallway and the gate and the kitchen and so forth, those are creations, human creations.

[68:52]

Right? And so it's true that when we use them, they come alive. It's interesting, when a house is deserted, the house somehow collapses when it's deserted. It just kind of collapses. It just gets cold and collapses, and it's the human activity that brings it to life. And Katie? I was struck when I was reading your notes, when it says about the halls and the gate that the truth is not remote, but is right under your nose. Yeah, that's right there, under your nose. And that the halls and the gate would be speaking to those monks as us, our experience right here, right now, but also referring to that in a very holistic way, the structure and patterns of their lives.

[69:55]

I have a quote. The main subject is how to become a transmitter of actual light, life light. Practice takes place to shape your whole ability to reflect light coming through you and to generate, to regenerate your system so that light increases its power. The more you sense the rareness and value of your own life, the more you realize that how you use it, how you manifest it, is all your responsibility. We face such a big task, so naturally such a person sits down for a while. I like the translation, the storehouse and the gate, because it has a flavor to me of storehouse consciousness and the gate senses. which each of which is a kind of consciousness.

[71:12]

But in Dogen's commentary on the Abhidharma of the consciousnesses, he points out that none of these consciousnesses is really it. It's not a big mind. And I think we have problems seeing the light when we restrict it to conscious to our kind of limited consciousness. Well, that's right. When it's limited... You know, Suzuki Hiroshi talked about big mind and small mind. Small mind is the eight consciousnesses The big mind is dharmakaya, which is the inclined small mind.

[72:14]

Small mind is an expression. And so dharmakaya, or vairagyana, or the light, is expressed through small mind and through those consciousnesses. But those consciousnesses themselves are not it. Just like your limbs are not you. I mean, they are you, but they're not you. So this body doesn't belong to you. It's a vehicle for Dharmakaya, actually. I mean, it's just so logical. Because you don't have anything to do with it, really. You were born, so to speak. And all this stuff is moving. You're getting older and older. And you can't do anything about it. I'm wondering if there is another translation for the title of this. Yes, there is. Everyone has his own life. There is a vehicle for life.

[73:15]

That's what I'm hoping for. Oh, yeah. Well, no, that is not a translation. The translation is temple gate and kitchen pantry. Kitchen pantry. And I don't really like the title. I mean, at first I liked it and then more things about it. It's like it's not my life. It's not your life. I like. Oh, it's not your life. Do you think you have your own life? I didn't get access to life. Not that I know. Well, yeah, this is probably something that we wanted. So he's a little after eight forty five. OK. So. We're going to have to get outside as soon as possible.

[74:19]

But I couldn't really ask that by email. So they can just let it go. No, it's great. Excellent. I mean, to go by email. I could get an email to everyone. I don't think you ever did this. She's willing to send me an email every year so they can have it by the way. Oh, that's okay. Yeah. We may have to print them. Which translation are you using? You know, it sounds like this.

[75:41]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The reason I'm using Nishiyama, Nishiyama, Nishijima is more annotation and maybe, you know, a little more literal. Nishiyama sometimes is more kind of interprets, you know, but it's a little simpler. And he uses the term divine light instead of brightness. Brightness seems like a quality. It's okay. Radiance, it seems like something going out. Divine light feels more like something, the essence. That would satisfy me. So that's what that term means to me.

[76:44]

It's like this. So when we keep repeating it over and over again, I like that repetition rather than brightness, the brightness. I see a little glow at some point. Anyway, I don't want to keep you any longer. And if you have any comments on that, you think I can just go there.

[77:15]

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