time that I would hand out this talk by Suzuki Roshiba on tsa-zin's instruction. So I will do so. And anyone, any of them that are left over, please give them back or pass them up. Oh. I don't want to take all the time to read it, but I will.

[01:51]

Because it's very nice. He says, you should sit zazen with your whole body, your spine, mouth, toes, mudra. Check on your posture during zazen. Each part of your body should practice zazen independently or separately. should practice zazen independently. Your mudra should practice zazen independently. Your spine and your mouth should practice zazen independently. You should feel each part of your body doing zazen separately. Each part of your body should participate completely in zazen. Check to see that each part of your body is doing zazen. This is also known as shikantaza. To think, I am doing zazen, or my body is doing zazen, is the wrong understanding. It is a self-centered idea. The mudra is especially important. You shouldn't feel as if you are resting your mudra on the heel of your foot for your own convenience.

[02:53]

Your mudra should be placed in its own position. Don't move your legs for your own convenience. Your legs are practicing their own zazen independently and are completely involved in their own pain. They are doing zazen through pain. you should allow them to practice their own zazen. If you think you are practicing zazen, you are involved in some selfish, egotistical idea. If you think that you have some difficulty in some part of your body, then the rest of the body should help the part that is in difficulty. You are not having difficulty with some part of your body, but the part of the body is having difficulty. For example, your mudra is having difficulty. Your body should help your mudra do zazen. The entire universe is doing zazen in the same way that your body is doing zazen. When all parts of your body are practicing zazen, then that is how the whole universe practices zazen. Each mountain and each river is going and flowing independently.

[04:01]

All parts of the universe are participating in their practice. The mountain, for example, does not have any idea of practicing with a river. The mountain practices independently. The river practices independently. Thus, the whole universe practices independently. When you see something, you think that you are watching something else or outside of yourself. But actually, you are watching your mudra or your toe. That is why zazen practice symbolizes the whole universe. We should practice zazen with this idea of practice. We should not say, I practice zazen with my body. It is not so. Dogen Zenji says, water does not flow, but the bridge flows. This is the part that I was talking about as the reason why I wanted to read this to you. When we were studying Zazen Shin, and we were talking about the water and the bridge. Water does not flow, but the bridge flows. You say that your mind is practicing Zazen.

[05:04]

You ignore your body, the practice of your body. Sometimes when you think that you are doing zazen with an imperturbable mind, you ignore the body. But it is also necessary to have the opposite understanding at the same time. Your body is practicing zazen in imperturbability. Your mind is moving. Your legs are practicing zazen with pain. Water, now this is the point. Water is practicing zazen with movement. Yet, the water is still while flowing, because flowing is its stillness, or its nature. The bridge is doing zazen without moving. Let the water flow, as that is the water's practice. Let the bridge stay and sit there, because that is the actual practice of the bridge. The bridge is practicing zazen. Painful legs are practicing zazen. Imperturbable zazen is practicing zazen. That's our practice. But this sentence in parentheses, water is practicing zazen with movement, yet the water is still while flowing, because flowing is its stillness, or its nature.

[06:16]

The logical mind cannot understand it. And the part where Dogen says this is on page 194. It's not really Dogen saying. He's just using it. But on page 194, up at the top of the page, where Nanyue replies, when a man is driving a cart, if the cart doesn't go, should he beat the cart or the ox? Now, when we say the cart doesn't go, what do we mean by the cart's going or not going? For example, is the cart going analogous to water flowing, or is it analogous to water not flowing? There is a sense in which we can say that water is flowing, that flowing is water's not going, and that water's going is not its flowing. Therefore, when we investigate the words the cart doesn't go, we should approach them both in terms of

[07:27]

not going, and in terms of not not going, where it is a question of time. The words, if the cart doesn't go, do not mean simply the cart does not go. So... I think that Suzuki, he expresses it very well here. He had painful legs when he sat, since you bring that up a lot. He didn't have any legs. Anyway, this is very nice. That's an instruction for us to think about. So tonight, oh yeah, there's one other thing.

[08:43]

This is a, an article, this is a talk that Karl Bielfeld gave to the Soto Shu, Soto Shu let's see, the centennial celebration of the Sōrō-shū symposium, something, in Japan. And so they asked him to give a talk on Dōgen. And so this talk he gave was about his attitude toward Dōgen, and he uses this zazenshin as the example, expressing his attitude toward Dōgen. And so I Is there actually a copy of that for everybody? But we will not read that tonight.

[09:49]

And when you say taking precepts, do you mean how precepts take, how precepts relate to this, or how taking precepts relates to this? Or do you mean ordination? I'm not sure exactly what you mean. It's not your legs having pain. It's legs practicing. Can you also talk about a relationship to any of the precepts in a similar vein? Well, practicing Zazen correctly is keeping all the precepts. Zazen is precepts.

[11:09]

And it's not so clean. Not so what? Clean? Moving about. Uh-huh. You mean like breaking the piece up? Moving about, just moving about. Well, it sounds like what you're asking is some kind of... It sounds like what you're asking is, like, is this correct? Is this right conduct? Right? Or something like that. Not is it. How is it? Because there's something about this that, I mean, it resonates. It's sitting around. There's one precept. There's one one-mind precept.

[12:20]

That is, be Buddha. And all the rest are commentaries on it. So practicing zazen is being Buddha. even though we have 16 precepts, this is not... These 16 precepts are not what is known as the precept vein of the Buddhas and ancestors. Vein? Vein. The precept vein of the buddhas and ancestors is non-duality. It's not a matter of right and wrong.

[13:23]

So what your question sounds like to me is some question about right and wrong. Yeah, discerning right and wrong, responding to right and wrong. That's right. And so zazen, the precepts of zazen are the Non-dualistic precepts. The precept of non-duality is sazan. It's the precepts beyond the duality of right and wrong, or good and bad. in which right and wrong are good and bad are included. So non-duality includes duality.

[14:33]

Now, last time we ended on page 197. Incidentally, we have two more classes. And I think we can probably finish this in two classes. But you never know, you know. We might get hung up on one line. But we'll try. Or we may just get through now. So who knows? But anyway, things usually work out If we let him. So this part, after he talks about the cart and the ox, Dogen has this long kind of monologue on... where he talks, he kind of... It's kind of like a transition between the last section where he talks about Cheng Chui's Lancet of Seated Meditation.

[16:06]

So I'm just going to read that, and when I come to some place where I think it might be interesting to say something about it, I will. But otherwise, I'm just going to go through it. And there are parts in here where he's kind of criticizing the various zazen instructions that he found in China, which he feels didn't really, weren't complete or weren't deep enough. So I don't want to talk about that so much. So I'll just kind of go through this. He says, know this, that it is the seated Buddha that Buddha after Buddha and ancestor after ancestor have taken as their essential activity. This word patriarch is a word that seems to be used a lot in translations in Buddhism. But the actual word is ancestor. And we use the word ancestor more than we use patriarch because it's non-sexist.

[17:12]

It's actually more accurate. So I'll use it. Know this, that it is the seated Buddha that Buddha after Buddha and ancestor after ancestor have taken as their essential activity. Those who are Buddhism ancestors have employed this essential activity while those who are not have never even dreamt of it. To say that the Dharma of the Buddha has been transmitted from the western heavens to the eastern earth implies that the transmission of the seated Buddha, for it is the essential function of that Dharma, and where the Dharma of the Buddha is not transmitted, neither is seated meditation." So he's saying that Seated meditation always goes along with the real ancestors. What has been inherited by successor after successor in this transmission is just this message of seated meditation. One who does not participate in the unique transmission of this message is not a Buddha or an ancestor. When one is not clear about this one dharma, he is not clear about the 10,000 dharmas or about the 10,000 practices.

[18:15]

And without being clear about each of these dharmas, he cannot be said to have a clear eye. He has not attained the way. How could he represent the present or past in the lineage of the Buddhas and ancestors? By this, then, we should be firmly convinced that the Buddhas and ancestors always transmit seated meditation." So this looks like he's saying that no one but those who have transmitted seated meditation are really Buddhas and ancestors. And then people always say, well, what about all those other Buddhists who don't do that? I don't want to talk about that. Because there's no answer to it. It looks like he's being critical, and he's saying this is the only way. But what he actually means is not necessarily what we think he means. And so to argue about it is just to argue about it.

[19:18]

because Dogen knows what he means. Is that because when he says seated meditation you don't think he refers only to sitting in lotus posture? In the broad sense, that's true. But I think Dogen is actually talking about it in the sense of actually seated meditation, even though zazen means... or seated meditation is... expressed through all activity. So when you read the Lancet of Seated Meditation, that's expressed there, that the real essence is always right here now. It doesn't say anything about sitting cross-legged. The same explanation then would be for, in the Christian tradition, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

[20:22]

No man cometh to the Father except by me. And in the same way, it's very limited. That's right. But it's also the same explanation. That's the way I feel about it. He's narrowing it down to this very limited expression. But it's also very broad. And you have to understand that. Otherwise, you get hung up thinking, oh, God, he's so narrow-minded, you know. But actually, he's extremely broad-minded. But he's talking about the essence of the dharma through this activity. To be illumined by the radiance of the Buddhas and ancestors means to concentrate one's efforts in the investigation of this seated meditation. And as some fools, some foolish people, misunderstand the radiance of the Buddha and think it must be like the radiance of the sun or moon or the light from a pearl or a fire.

[21:26]

But the light of the sun and the moon is nothing but a mark of action within the realm of transmigration in the six destinies. It is not to be compared with the radiance of the Buddha Now, Dogen wrote a fascicle called Komyo, which means, I think I might have said this to you before, right? A radiant light or divine light. And where he criticizes people who say, divine light is blue or, you know, in the back of my cerebral cortex or, you know, people have these, you know, especially Nowadays, right? What do we call it? Anyway, well, yeah, people see various kinds of lights and they say, oh, that must be the it, you know, the real one. And Duggan says, oh, no, that's not it.

[22:28]

It has no special form or color. So he's saying, this thing which is very dull like this floor, this is divine light down here. When he says that, he's just talking about Buddha nature. No special shape or form or color. And he's saying the sun and the moon are just in the material realm. They have great, fantastic light, but that light is in the material realm. It's nothing compared to the light of Buddha nature, which can't even be imagined, but appears everywhere. The radiance of the Buddha means receiving and hearing a single phrase. That means enlightenment. Maintaining and protecting a single dharma.

[23:32]

Participating in a single transmission of seated meditation. So long as one is not illumined by the radiance of the Buddha, he is not maintaining nor has he accepted the Buddha dharma. This being the case, throughout history there have been few who understood seated meditation as seated meditation. And at present, in the Chan Mountains of the Great Sung, many of those who are heads of the principal monasteries do not understand and do not study seated meditation. There may be some who have clearly understood it, but not many. Of course, the monasteries have fixed periods for seated meditation. The monks from the abbot down take seated meditation as their basic task. And in leading their students, the teachers encourage this practice. Nevertheless, there are few abbots who understand it. For this reason, although from ancient times to the present, there have been one or two old worthies who have written texts known as Inscriptions on Seated Meditation, Principles of Seated Meditation, or Lancets of Seated Meditation, among them there is nothing worth taking from any of the Inscriptions on Seated Meditation.

[24:35]

and the principles of seated meditation are ignorant of its observance. They are written by men who do not understand it and do not participate in its unique transmission. Such are the lancet of seated meditation. In the Ching Te Chuan Teng Lu, an inscription of seated meditation in the Cha Tai Pu Teng Lu, what a pity that though the authors of such texts Spend their lives passing among the charn groves of ten directions. They do not have the concentrated effort of a single sitting. That sitting is not their own, and concentrated effort never encounters them." That's interesting to say, never encounters them. He's talking about that sitting doesn't encounter them, rather than to say they do not encounter sitting. So he comes in from behind. This is not because seated meditation rejects their bodies and minds, but because they do not aspire to the true concentrated effort and are precipitately given over to their delusion.

[25:44]

What they have collected in their texts is nothing but models for reverting to the source and returning to the origin, vain programs for suspending considerations and congealing in tranquility. Such views of meditation do not approach the stages of observation, exercise, infusion, and cultivation or the understanding of those on the path of the ten stages, and the equivalence of enlightenment. How then could they be the single transmission of the seated meditation of the Buddhas and ancestors? The Sung chronicles were mistaken to record these texts, and later students should cast them aside and not read them. Among the lancets of seated meditation, the only one that is an expression of the Buddhas and ancestors is that of the reverend Cheng Chui, the Chan master Hung Jue of the Qingdei Monastery of Tien Tsung, a renowned Mount Tai Po in the district of Qingyuan in the Great Tsung. He's talking about Wanshi Shogako, whose instructions I've been reading you in the evening.

[26:49]

This one is a true lancet of seated meditation. This one says it right. It alone radiates throughout the surface and interior of the realm of the Dharma. It is the statement of a Buddha and ancestor among the Buddhas and ancestors of the past and present. Prior Buddhas and later Buddhas have been lanced by this lancet. Present ancestors and past ancestors appear from this lancet. Here is that lancet of seated meditation." You may have some questions about some of this stuff, so if you do, I don't want to pass it up. And then the footnote says, The radiance of the Buddha, butsukomyo, refers to both the physical aureola said to emanate from his body and the inner effulgence of his perfect wisdom that illumines the world.

[27:59]

Illumined by the radiance of the Buddha, you know, it seems like being touched by the Buddha's illumination. Or, you know, it can have several shades of meaning. It can be touched by Buddha's aura, you know, and awakened by something that some inspiration of Buddha, right? That's being touched by Buddha's aura, I think, is being inspired by something. And here he says, in the footnote, Dogen identifies this radiance in his Shobogenzo commentary on Komyo with the spiritual tradition of Bodhidharma And it's here it criticizes those who think of it as visible light, which I just talked about.

[29:10]

Is it possible to see auras? Yeah. Don't you see them? The way I was looking at it was by the words, not maintaining nor accepting. And it seemed to me as if he was saying that the Buddhas and the Patriarchs, they are not maintaining nor are they just accepting. It's kind of a gimmick to me. Well, you know, Dogen has this fancicle called Yui Butsu Yo Butsu, which means only a Buddha and a Buddha.

[30:16]

It's translated a different way. But in there, he talks about in order for one to be a Buddha, one has to be touched by a Buddha, or follow a Buddha, or be inspired by a Buddha. And Suzuki Roshi used to talk about He used to say, like, there are no natural Buddhas. Buddhas are made, not born, so to speak. Or Buddhas are ... everyone has the Buddha nature, you know, but it's not manifest unless there's some inspiration of Buddha. That's kind of the sense of this, I think. One encounters a Buddha, or one encounters the Dharma, you know, one encounters, and then one is awakened to their nature on some level.

[31:24]

Yeah. I'm at the bottom of 188 and top of 199 where he's talking about how the ancestors, or how these other people, have not really been doing meditation. And he says that what they've been doing is reverting to the source, returning to the origin, doing programs for suspending considerations and congealing in tranquility. I'm looking at that and I'm thinking, well, it's definitely like congealing in tranquility. The other ones don't really sound so bad. No, that's right. It doesn't sound so bad. It sounds very close. Yeah. So that's why it doesn't sound so bad. Yeah, well, maybe you can say something about how it's all, and how things like approach the stages of activation, exercise, infusion, cultivation, and understanding of etc. etc. Right. He's using these terms, you know, as an insider, you know, and so he's talking about ways that they kind of miss It's not that they're not doing meditation.

[32:34]

They're just not doing zazen. And if you read Fukan Zazengi, Dogen said zazen is not sitting meditation. So, that's why zazen is is indescribable. It covers everything that you do. I mean, it's so wide, even though it's so narrow. And he's saying that zazen is not one of the forms of meditation in Buddhism, but includes all the forms of meditation in Buddhism. It's zamai o zamai. the king of kings meditation, Zazen. So this reverting to the source and returning to the origin, you know, if you read, if you look at the ox herding pictures, the ninth ox herding picture is returning to the source, you know, and returning to the origin.

[33:54]

And Dogen criticized that kind of step-by-step meditation. And he said, we are ready at the source. There's no going to the source. There's no place to go to get back to the source. There's no separation from the source to begin with. So to meditate, to get back to the source, he sees it as a kind of wrong-headed understanding. He talks about the ten stages later. Right, and he also criticizes the ten stages. And then he says, vain programs for suspending considerations and congealing in tranquility. So, you know, a lot of Zazen or Zen meditation manuals of the time

[35:01]

talked about suspending considerations means to just sit in zazen all day long. You don't have any other activities. And just sit in tranquility. This kind of meditation, or zazen, or whatever you call it, has always been criticized. I mean, it was criticized by Ta Hui, who was Cheng Chui's contemporary. Ta Hui and Cheng Chui were contemporaries, and Ta Hui was a Vinzai teacher, and Cheng Chui was a Soto teacher, and Cheng Chui used to always criticize this, you know, suspending considerations and congealing and tranquility.

[36:05]

And that was a kind of criticism of the silent illumination school of Cheng Chui. I mean, Ta Hing always used to criticize Cheng Chui. Yeah, right. And he didn't exactly criticize Cheng Chui, but he criticized silent illumination as being too the way it was practiced as being too reclusive and still, not really paying attention to activity. So although our zazen is based on silent illumination, and I think silent illumination is actually a way to talk about samsara. It also includes activity. It's not just giving up activities and being tranquilly seated all the time.

[37:12]

It's engaging in all kinds of activity. So his criticism here is against just giving up all kinds of activity and just sitting all the time with a blank mind in tranquility. And using tranquility as a measure. It's kind of like quietude. Quietism. That's right. Quietism. That's good. It's called quietism. You know, don't make waves. Just get yourself in a position where you're not making any waves. Would consideration also be, would for that be bracketing? I'm trying to find out what word you're talking about. Suspended consideration, like to go through the day and rather than yes or no, right and wrong, suspended consideration would be more like bracketing and just leaving it there. I don't know about that.

[38:15]

I never thought of it that way. Exactly. Bracketing. I mean, it just leaves you open to everything. You don't close down to anything then. You just have a suspended consideration about it. That's pretty good. Just remain open to everything. Just remain open to everything. Don't close down. It's very good. This is like, it's like, you know, more like a little bit like Hinayana practice. You know, being afraid to take on any responsibilities. Don't take on any responsibilities. I used to have this guy who used to sit, he was a wonderful guy, a young guy. He used to sit with me in Berkeley. And he used to sit all the time. And he'd sit very well in Berkeley. But that's all he ever did. He never did anything else.

[39:17]

And he never wanted to do anything else. He didn't want to go out and work. He didn't want to have any relationships with anybody. All he wanted to do was just sit, which in a way looks You know, he was an ideal student in a way, but there was something wrong. You know, it wasn't right. I don't understand how you got from suspended consideration to that comment, though. Well, he suspended all considerations. Oh, well, I didn't mean it in that way. No, but that's the way... Oh, you're just saying it could be taken in that way. That's the way it is. Suspend consideration. In other words, don't pay attention to anything else. Okay, I wasn't looking at it that way. Yeah, that's what he means. Don't pay any attention to anything else, just, you know. So, he's saying, vain programs for suspending considerations and congealing in tranquility, right? Such views of meditation do not approach the stages of observation, exercise, infusion and cultivation, or the understanding of those on the path of the ten stages.

[40:21]

Well, the path of the ten stages is ten stages of a bodhisattva. I don't know why he's criticizing that exactly. He's not. I think he's advocating it. Yeah. And the equivalence of enlightenment. I guess that's what he... I guess he's... I guess, do not approach the stages of observation. How then could they be the single transmission of the seated meditation of the Buddhas and Patriarchs? Some chroniclers were mistaken in recording these texts. This is why, if you look around, and you have a good understanding of what Dzogchen is, you can see how in 20 years, or 50 years, or one year, you see a lot of people teaching meditation, but it's not teaching all kinds of things, people crossing their legs,

[41:25]

but it's not Zazen. It's okay, I suppose, but it's not exactly Zazen. And I think that's the thing that we have to be careful of, that now so many people have been sitting Zazen, you know, do they really understand? So, some person has been sitting a little while, you know, will go off and to some place where nobody knows about Zen, and set themselves up as a teacher and start teaching some kind of stuff like Rama, Zen Master Rama. He had a band, he had some musicians and the musicians were called Zazen. He mixed the whole thing all up, you know, and just used all these terms and got all these people to believe him, you know. So, when you see that, and you see how that makes you feel, I don't know if you remember Zen Master Ramana.

[42:39]

He was advertising the papers, you know. Then you can see how Dogen's feeling, you know. He's feeling fear off, you know. Whether he's right or not. You can see how he's feeling. Was that sort of the way things were at that time? When he went to China, he went to look for a teacher, and he spent five years in China. And it was very hard. He did meet some good people, but he said mostly the Zen in China was very degenerate. And he had a hard time finding the teacher he wanted. He was a perfectionist. He had a hard time finding the right teacher. and he used to describe the monks, you know, and their habits. He was very critical of the monks and their habits.

[43:50]

Clearly, one time he gave a lecture here about things not written about Zen monks in China during this sort of time, and there was a certain practice some monasteries did, where not only did you eat and sleep in your seat, but you did other things too, without moving. And they would have sashins, and there was no, you either shat and sat, or you didn't shit and sit, or whatever, but you didn't get up for like weeks. You'd have to sit for weeks and weeks, and die, and you could die. When a person died, they just threw them under the bus. We should start doing that here, right? This is Chinese Buddhist Zen apocrypha. But the monks, I mean it's common practice in Chinese Zen to never go to sleep.

[45:10]

I mean to sit, to sleep sitting up. They have a meditation chin rest. I have one. I should use it. What's the koan? Oh, I can't remember exactly the number, or even the story exactly. Something about throwing pillows around, and naturally throwing the pillow at the student. And so they build, in the city of 10,000 Buddhas, they have these boxes. And they look like steam boxes or something.

[46:13]

And some students take on this practice. And they sit in the box, you know. What's like a box? And it fits us in. And then the box kind of closes, so that your head doesn't fall forward. It might be nice in the cold midnight. These ancestors didn't, were reported to have not laid down to sleep. That's one of their practices. I think it was Sekito. Or say again. Sekito. Didn't lay down to sleep. For how long? Ever. How can you survive? It's not possible, is it? Well, if you do a lot of zazen, you sleep sitting up. And maybe sometimes they don't sleep much. They just kind of nap, you know. Like Thomas Edison.

[47:23]

Thomas Edison never slept. He used to take little naps, you know, 10-minute naps, and it just kept going around the clock. When Lama Govinda stayed at Pringles, I was talking with him in the morning, and she said that his bed was never touched. You know, it was just always perfect. And no matter what time she'd come in, he'd be sitting on the floor, painting with a brush. And she said as long as she took care of that room, the bed had never been touched. It just seemed to serve the woman. Yeah, well, some people could do that. I'm afraid I'm not one of them. I once asked Kadagiri, I said, do you think that's a good idea to do?

[48:34]

He was kind of saying, you know, talking about it, you know, as if it was a very honorable kind of practice. I said, what, do you think that's a good idea to do? Do you think we should do that? He said, no. Actually, can you say, I mean, what are the advantages of it? What is the... Well, the merit is that you're practicing continuously. And sleep is supposed to be a hindrance to practice. Well, this is what happens in this kind of practice, you know, when you start going a certain way, you know, then you start getting very extreme. it gets to be a movement, you know, where it gets more and more extreme.

[49:35]

And in China, you know, the monks were burning a finger off, you know, or cutting a little finger off and stuff like that, you know. And that was supposed to be... And of course, you know, the Chinese monks, they'd burn little holes in their head with punk. When you get ordained as a monk in China, or in America, in the Chinese lineage, they burned these little holes in their head. That's like a kind of initiation. So most of the people in our lineage did stuff like this. There are a lot of people in the transmission of the Lama, and it talks about all these people never going down, never lying down to sleep. Is this what Dogen is criticizing? Oh, I didn't hear him criticize that. I mean, it sounds like we're talking about it.

[50:40]

I don't know how Dogen felt about that. I don't even know how we got on this subject. But it's an interesting little side show. What? I think in consideration and congealing and tranquility we get to that point. Well, we got in it somehow or some other way, but... You were talking about the guy who always sat, but didn't take other things into consideration. That's where it started. Yeah, well, you know, these kind of extremes can lead to that. So... But, you know, like the monks in Japan, you know, they start hitting each other with a stick, you know, pretty soon. You know, you get a whole bunch of young guys running the monastery at times, you know, 20-year-olds.

[51:50]

They're running a lot, and they're, you know, especially in the Rinzai school, they have these big sticks, you know. and they're hitting each other all the time and singing, who can break the most sticks? It becomes a kind of contest. And that's a kind of extreme. So we always have to be careful of extremes in this practice. Because it's real easy to get into a certain extreme way of doing things because the practice is so simple and it borders on a kind of asceticism. Not in eating, It has a tendency, you know, Buddha's Zen practice has a tendency toward asceticism, and it can easily go over the line and get very, very extreme. And in Buddha's time, they had the Twelve Dutangas, which were extreme practices of asceticism, which Buddha allowed some of his monks to do.

[52:56]

you know, like always sleeping outside under a tree, and never sleeping under the same tree twice, and never covering yourself with anything when it rains, and always getting your robes out of a rag heap, and these kinds of practices, which were kind of ascetic, because there were a lot of ascetics in Buddhist time, and he was an ascetic himself at one time. And a lot of his monks wanted to continue ascetic practices, but he didn't advocate ascetic practices for his monks. But he felt kind of sympathetic toward these guys. And he said, you can practice these 12 Duttangas. But then there were a lot of... sometimes you read in a text that the Duttangas were something that monks are supposed to practice, but that's not true.

[54:01]

It's just an alternative for people who have this ascetic kind of personality, you know. What time is it? 8.25. Well, do we have any more questions about this? Okay. So, he's saying that Cheng Chui, the master of Hung Jer, his lancet of seated meditation really expresses that. And lancet, you know, also means the point. So you can read this as the point of Zazen. What's the point of Zazen? You ask this question all the time. What's the point of Zazen?

[55:07]

He said, this is the best one. This comes from a real Buddha. So the way this is translated, there are other translations. Carl translates this. I respect the fact that he's being as literal as possible. He's trying to present Dogon to translate as literally as possible. When you translate, if you've ever done any translating, there's a lot of leeway as to which way to go. And here, Carl is being very literal. And so it sounds sometimes a little confusing. Or, you know, you kind of wonder why you use some words when you could use other words. Nishiyama, you know, there's one, there's several complete translations of Dogen's Shobogenzo.

[56:09]

And one, the first one came out was by Nishiyama. So it's four volumes that are white, covered with little blue flecks. And I had one, it had one volume. But the problem with Nishiyama and John Stevens and their translation is that they paraphrase so much. And you kind of lose Dogen's original essence. And nobody, you know, everybody thinks that their version, their translation of Dogen shows up against those stinks. because he skips a lot of stuff and kind of paraphrases so that you don't really get so much Dogen's essence as their kind of paraphrased understanding. But sometimes it turns out very well. And I like Nishyama's

[57:14]

translation of the following, because the way it's paraphrased, it just kind of clears things up, you know. So I'll read this first, and then I'll read their loose translation, paraphrased translation. Lancet of Seated Meditation. Page 199 at the bottom. It says, Lancet of Seated Meditation, by Cheng Chui, by imperial designation, the Chan Master Hung Jue. That's his posthumous name given him by the emperor. The essential function of all the Buddhas and the functioning essence of all the ancestors

[58:18]

It knows without touching things. It illumines without facing objects. Knowing without touching things, its knowledge is inherently subtle. Illumining without facing objects, its illumination is inherently mysterious. Its knowledge, inherently subtle, it is ever without discriminatory thought. Its illumination inherently mysterious, it is ever without a hair's breadth of sign. Ever without discriminatory thought, its knowledge is rare without peer. Ever without a hair's breadth of sign, its illumination comprehends without grasping. The water is clear right through to the bottom. A fish goes lazily along. The sky is vast without horizon. A bird flies far, far away. It's really beautiful.

[59:25]

This last part, the fish and the bird, the water and the sky, usually Most commentators feel that the water in the sky is the zafu, or your seat. And the bird and the fish are the one who sits. But it's not saying how to sit. It's not like, you know, it doesn't mention how, it just talks, talks about the essence. That's how this is very different from all the other, one way that is different than the other needles or points of sitting meditation.

[60:29]

And then he goes on, Dogen goes on to comment on each one of these lines. So that's what will be next. But I wanted to read Nishiyama's translation of the same thing I just read. The way he says it is, the essential function transmitted from Buddha to Buddha is the dynamic element passed from ancestor to ancestor. In other words, it's the same. It is knowledge attained free of sensation and illumination independent of causality. Since it is free of sensation, it is subtly self-known. Because it is independent of causality, it is marvelously self-illumined.

[61:35]

This subtle self-knowledge has no dualistic thought. This marvelous self-illumination has not the slightest trace of light or dark. No dualistic thought means that this knowledge is fulfilled. Not the slightest trace means this illumination is perfect. It is like fish swimming on the bottom of a pure stream and birds floating serenely across the vast sky." So it kind of puts it more like, because it's this way, it's this way. And because of that, it's this. gives it some flow, you know? What does he mean by that? How does he use the word, it is ever without a hair's breadth of sign? Well, I think that we should go through it from the beginning and get to that, rather than start in the middle. But do you remember we talked about a sign, meaning a mark, right?

[62:38]

What is the mark of something? Everything has a mark, right? And then, so it has no special mark, right? No special sign that distinguishes it. No special characteristic that you can say, oh, that's it. I see the Buddha nature there. It's red. So, getting back to it, I want to just use some alternatives, just for the way it's translated, for the translation, and just kind of go through it so we get familiar with it, okay? And since I don't have a watch, somebody has to tell me what time it is.

[63:42]

The essential function of all the Buddhas. These first two lines on 199, and the functioning essence of all the ancestors, these two lines are expressing essence and function. So it's the essence of all the Buddhas, or essential function of all the Buddhas, is like It's like describing the Buddha's essential function and the ancestors' functioning essence. So in both, you know, we're talking about function and essence. And he talks about the essential function of the Buddhas and the functioning essence of the ancestors.

[64:48]

And the feeling is that they're the same. In other words, the ancestors are following in the footsteps of the Buddhas. And the essence and function is the same. And the function and the essence is the same. But it kind of leaves us there. The essential function of all the Buddhas and the functioning essence of all the ancestors knows without touching things. It has the feeling of free of sensation. In other words, it's beyond our sensory perception. The functioning essence and the essential function is beyond our perception. But it knows without having to touch.

[66:05]

In other words, although touching is not wrong, it's independent of touching. It's independent of sensation. And it illuminates without facing objects. It illuminates free of causality. In other words, it's not caused. Even though everything has a cause, right? It's free of causality. Yes, that's right. Essence is like the essential.

[67:12]

It's like the upright. And function is like the inclined. For putting into motion. So it's like the dark and the light. Essence is the dark. Remember we talked about the five ranks? Essence is the dark circle, and function is the light circle, putting into motion. Knowing without touching things, its knowledge is inherently subtle. Illumining without facing objects, its illumination is inherently mysterious. Another way of saying it is, it is marvelously self-illuminating. Its knowledge inherently subtle, it is ever without discriminatory thought or dualistic thinking.

[68:18]

Its illumination inherently mysterious, it is ever without a hair's breadth of a sign. In other words, it can't be identified in any way. Ever without discriminatory thought, there is no dualistic thought, its knowledge is rare without peer. In other words, it has no opposite, or it has nothing that stands up to it. Ever without a hair's breadth of sign, or a trace, you can say trace, its illumination comprehends without grasping. The water is clear right through to the bottom. A fish goes lazily along. So the water is clear to the bottom, it's like emptiness, right? Clear to the bottom, it's like nothing. And in this nothing, the fish goes lazily along.

[69:22]

The fish creates the water, and the water creates the fish. What kind of association? I don't know. associate with each other. They associate with each other, but you can say that... But the point is that they're not two things. Even though they're two things, they're one thing. The cause and effect. Well, I mean, it's like we think they're separate of the air. You know, I think that they're separate, But air here, that's a good point, air here does not mean the air of the atmosphere.

[70:30]

Just like water here does not mean the pure rain from the clouds. And so, he also talks about the bird flying in the sky, right? So, the water is clear right through the bottom. The fish goes lazily along. The sky is vast without horizon. It doesn't mean this sky. He means totality. It's just a word for totality, or for vast, indescribable, something with no mark. But a bird flies far, far away. There's no end to this vastness of either the water or the air.

[71:35]

And he uses this in Genjokoa, same metaphor. So, in a sense, at the bottom, he's talking about sitting. And the rest of it is talking about what the point of sitting is. Of course, he's talking about that all the way through. What's the point of sitting? This is the point of sitting. I didn't get that sense in terms of... Maybe it's the same thing, but... point of getting, rather than he's describing the actual point of Zazen. In other words, he's at the point of Zazen.

[72:37]

That is what he's describing. Rather than, this is the point of Zazen. So it's both. Right. At the point of zazen, this is the point of zazen. So, this gives us a little bit of introduction. And then he says, the lancet, in this lancet of seated meditation, means the manifestation of the great function. The comportment, or sometimes called the dignity, beyond sight and sound. It is the juncture before your parents were born. It means, he says, you better not slander the Buddha.

[73:42]

That translation is not by anybody else. It means, when you do this, you do not slander the Buddhas and ancestors. He said, he had better not slander. There's no point in him saying that. He said, when you do this, you do not slander the Buddhas and ancestors. Nishiyama has never slandered the favorite things of the Buddhas and ancestors that will cause one's life to be lost. And Yokoi has it translated as, you will not be slandering the Buddhas and ancestors.

[74:44]

And then he says, you do not avoid destroying your body and losing your life. But that also can be translated as, this way you drop body and mind. It is a head of three feet and a neck of two inches." Dogon has these kinds of things. Nishyama translates that whole thing in a nice way. He says, he says, "'Its dignity cannot be expressed and its suitability is eternally valid. Never slander the favorite things of the Buddhas and ancestors that will cause one's life to be lost. A weak neck cannot support a swollen head. So then, the it of, it means you had better not, is not the same it as, it is ahead of three feet.

[76:07]

The it is ahead of three feet is slander. I don't know, frankly. So, but the important thing here is, the lancet, in this lancet it's saying, the word lancet in this lancet of seated meditation means the manifestation of the great function that's the important thing here the comportment beyond sight and sound it is the juncture before your parents were born and then he goes uh into that first um The essential function, the first line, the essential function of all the Buddhas. Then he has a commentary on it. He says, the Buddhas always take the Buddhas as their essential function.

[77:09]

This is the essential function that is realized here. And this is seated meditation. So another translation of that is, seated meditation is the essential function. It is what all the Buddhas do. So, to say the essential function of all the Buddhas, in that first line, means that the essential function is zazen. That's the essential function of the Buddhas, according to Dogon here, according to Wang the essential function of all the Buddhas is zazen. But he says the Buddhas always take the Buddhas as their essential function and this is the essential function that is realized here and this is seated meditation.

[78:15]

So he's advertising zazen. And then the second line, the functioning essence of all the ancestors He says, my master had no such saying, which means there's nobody in his time that's talked about this. This principle is what is meant here by the patriarch, by the ancestors. It is in this that the Dharma and the robe are transmitted. The faces that are reversed, when we turn the head and reverse the face, are the essential function of all the Buddhas. The heads that turn when we reverse the face and turn the head are the functioning essence of all the ancestors. So you can see face as Buddha and head as ancestors. And then, you know, he's saying the faces that are reversed when we turn the head and reverse the face, like this, are the essential function of all the Buddhas.

[79:26]

And the heads that turn when we reverse the face and turn the head are the functioning essence of all the ancestors. So in a sense you think that the face and the head really are not different, right? And turning the head is the Buddhas and turning the face is the ancestors. So it means you and the Buddha are not different when doing this function. Nishiyama says, All the Buddhas surely transmit this essential function from one to another, and this essential function is actualized in zazen. None of our predecessors ever surpassed these words. This principle is within the transmission of all the ancestors, the transmission of the law and the kesa, the kesa is the robe. which he mentioned here.

[80:29]

When the head is turned, the direction of the face changes. This is the essential function transmitted from Buddha to Buddha. When the face turns, the head changes direction. This is the dynamic element passed from ancestor to ancestor. Essence and function again, you know. You can say the face is the essence and the head is the function, or vice versa. When the function is there, the essence is there, and when the essence is there, the function is there. It's another way of saying practice and realization are not two things. Essence and function. Realization is the essence and practice is the function.

[81:35]

So the face is realization and the head is practice. When you turn the head, you also turn the face. And when you turn the face, you also turn the head. So he's talking about, subtly, about practice realization, using these kinds of terms. This is Chinese way of, Song Dynasty Chinese way of expression. But Dogen, of course, is interpreting Wanchi. So the face is the essence, and the head is the function. So the face is more like inside the head, right? It's like the inner part, and you turn the head, which is, in order to turn the face, you have to turn the head.

[82:45]

So, when you turn the head, you also, when you practice, the essence manifests through the practice. But the essence is always there, but it just needs to be, the head needs to be turned. The face is always there, but the head needs to be turned. So, Nishiyama says, it is knowledge... Where am I? Well, I already did that. Okay. So, what time is it? It's five to... Okay. So that's our introduction. Next time... I hope it's not too esoteric. We're all in the puddle.

[83:56]

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