Good evening. Good evening. Can you hear me even talking like this? Not bad. Are you okay? Okay. Can you hear me? Okay. Well, over the weekend we had our study session and I presented three stories or cases from Keizan's, Master Keizan's Denko Roku, Transmission of Light. And this evening we'll study one more. Some of you were there and some of you weren't, but I'm going to have to explain a little bit about what Denko Roku is and who Keizan is. And you may or may not know, but Keizan, of course, is the fourth ancestor from Dogen, in the transmission from Dogen.

[01:12]

And Dogen Zenji, Kekoonejo Tetsugikai, and Keizan Jokin, So Keizan studied with Eijo and he also studied with Tetsunikai. And Keizan actually developed what we think of as the Soto school. Dogen simply came and presented, Dogen actually carried the Soto's Chaodong transmission to Japan and set up his school. But he didn't really promote the school as a school. He just taught his disciples. And it was Keizan who actually developed the Soto school in Japan and spread it around Japan, gave it that impetus.

[02:25]

And Keizan made the teaching available to the common people, the farmers, and so forth. So Sato Zen is called Farmer's Zen. Like a farmer raising his crops. And Rinzai Zen is like a He's characterized as a general moving his troops. So sometimes he's very careful and considerate and a little more gentle. One of the characteristics of Kehan was his relationship to women.

[03:30]

He was very attached to his mother. And he gave transmission to women, some women that were close to him. And there were several women disciples that were very close to him. But Khe Sanh was very interested in his dreams. And he would have these dreams where he felt prophecies about himself. And they always seemed to come out right. I don't want to talk about that, because that would be a whole other subject, but that's just a characteristic of Keizan.

[04:34]

And the Denko Roku, the transmission of light, seems to have been talks that he gave, rather than something that he wrote down, because we can never find anything like it that was in his hand. But there is evidence of his students writing down these talks. And there are 52. And they start from Shakyamuni through all the ancestors. Each one of the ancestors is characterized. And each story is about one of the ancestors up to So it goes to the Indian ancestors, Chinese ancestors, and the Japanese ancestors up to Tetsugikai.

[05:37]

And these in India, in China, You know, China is like mythological. There are some ancestors that we have a pretty good idea existed. I mean, we have traces of them, you know, like Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu. You mean India? Yeah, India. Vasubandhu and Nagarjuna and Bodhidharma, maybe. But, you know, the evidence is there, but it's very sketchy. So the Indian ancestors are much more mythical. And Chinese people get very good records. So you can investigate a lot about China and find out that the records are there for people. So there's a different flavor for the Indian ancestors than for the Chinese ancestors.

[06:45]

Because as you know, in India, Indians tend to exaggerate a lot. These are floored in their descriptions. And when they say, you know, 100,000 million, it just means a great number. They're not trying to be accurate as far as numbers go. And they do have enormous numbers. But the Chinese also tend to be fantastical from time to time. The old world, the further back you go, the more fantastical it becomes. We should see these stories as Zen mythology.

[07:54]

And of course the mythology itself is what we're interested in. We're not so interested in the facts. Facts don't mean so much. Everything is based on some fact. Maybe. But it's the mythology that's important because the mythology carries the meaning. So what Keizan did was take each one of these stories, which were pretty much made up in China, and made each one into a koan. So when you look... Did you hand out the material? Everybody hand out the material? Okay. So when you look... There are two translations. One is by Neman from Shasta Abbey, and the other is by Frank Cook from Riverside College, University.

[08:57]

And Cook makes very clear the koans, the case of the koans, the circumstances under which it came about, and Kaizen's taisho. or in the commentary of the case. And then the case of his poem, which is a kind of summation. So we studied them as koans, in a sense. Nima's translation is, I think, more subtle. I think both translations are okay, but I think Naimon is more subtle. I've been using Frank Cook's when I teach, and then to look at Naimon's, but we can look at both of them at the same time.

[10:05]

I knew Frank Cook. When we first opened our Zen Dojo on Dwight Way, it was around 64, 65, 67, 68, and he was teaching and he was interested in Zen, and his wife studied Tibetan Buddhism, and he came over to give us a talk one time, and there was just a little circle of people in our living room at Dwight Way, and we were talking about killing. You know, is killing ever justified? And in walks the cat with a mouse. So today, we're going to study case number 19, Kumarata Taisho.

[11:22]

I'm going to start out reading Niemann's translation. So you can follow either one or both. Do we have both of them? Yeah. OK. So if you remember the lineage, kumarata, dayo-sho, kāyā-śata, [...] kumarata, kāyā-śata, kumarata was the teacher or the transmitter for kāyā-śata. He comes just before kāyā-śata.

[12:51]

I think it's the other way. What's that? No, it's the other way around. Kāyāśata was the teacher of Kumārata. Kāyāśata pointed... So here's the case. This first paragraph is the koan. So Kāyāśata pointed out the following to Kumārata. This doesn't tell you much. This just tells you what happened. And then, the next paragraph tells you the circumstances. The story comes after the presentation. Do you understand what I mean? Okay. So, Kaya Shanta pointed out the following to Kumaratha. Long ago, the world-honored one, that's Shakyamuni Buddha, prophesied that a thousand years after his entry into nirvana, a great scholar would appear in Tolkara, that's in India, who would pass on a marvelous transmission.

[14:10]

Your meeting me at this present time fulfills this most propitiously. As a result of hearing this, Kumaratha awakened his ability to see his former lives. So here are the circumstances. Kumaratha, the youthful one, was from a Brahman family in Tokar. In the far past, he had been a deva in the sixth heaven in the realm of desire. Whilst there, he saw a Bodhisattva's necklace of precious stones and suddenly felt a craving for it. Having thus lapsed, he was reborn in Trayastritya, the second heaven in the realm of desire.

[15:11]

There, he heard Indra of the Krishika of its truth. As a result of this, he ascended to Brahman's heaven in the realm of form. Because of his great intelligence, he skillfully expounded the essentials of Buddhism, and all in that heaven so respected him that they made him their teacher. When the time came for the ancestral rank to be passed on, he descended to Avatokara." So, this is very interesting. hells due to his karma. So in Buddhism, there is a whole cosmology of heavens and hells. In the wheel of life, the wheel of transmigration, there is the heavenly realm at the top and the hell realm at the bottom.

[16:20]

and then there's the fighting demons realm and the human realm and then there is the animal realm and the hungry ghost realm. So these are kind of worlds or levels that characterize our disposition so to speak, at any one time. So if you take all this literally as transmigrating in some other world, you can do that if you like, but these are our psychological realms, our psychological worlds. Sometimes we're According to our karma, we can be in the various levels of heavens.

[17:26]

There are 32 heavens, heavenly realms, each one of which is a little bit higher than the other. And then there are, I don't know how many hell realms, but They're lower, lower, lower. And these are all, you know, depicted. They're very much like Christian... Dante? Dante, yeah. A lot like Dante. A lot like Baroigo. When he's talking about these various realms, he's really talking about our psychological states. Where is heaven and where is hell, depending on our attitudes.

[18:35]

You remember, I used to talk about this a lot, The difference between heaven and hell. Heaven and hell look exactly the same. You know, right here is where we are, but this can either be heaven or it can be hell, as you know if you've sat on Sashim. There's this huge, in heaven and hell, there's this long table, and everybody's sitting around this long table. And the problem is, they all have chopsticks, and it's a big banquet. They all have chopsticks. And the problem is, in hell, the chopsticks

[19:40]

But they can't get it in their mouth because the chopsticks are too long. And heaven is exactly the same thing. Sitting around the table, always feast on the table. But they pick up a morsel of food and then they feed it to the person across on the other side of the table. So that's the difference between heaven and hell. So it simply depends on our attitude. This little story. There's a man, a Japanese man, Saichi Asahara, who died in 1932.

[20:50]

He was discovered by D.P. Suzuki, and he was a Japanese geta maker. But geta, you know, are wooden clogs, wooden shoes. Uneducated and nearly illiterate, who had spent a long time listening to the popular teachings of the Jodo Shinshu sect, In his later years, he began to avidly write down his impressions and feelings in a series of elementary school notebooks. In total, he filled 31 notebooks as well as writing on assorted scraps of paper and even on the back of the geta he sold. The following represents his understanding of Mahayana philosophy. I cannot fall into hell. Hell is right here. This place is Hell. And Hell is where we dwell. True. But then he has a longer poem.

[21:55]

He's a Pure Land Buddhist. This is based on faith in Amida Buddha. So he says, where is Saicho? Saichi, that's his name. Where is Sai Chi's pure land? Sai Chi's pure land is right here. Where is the borderline of the pure land in this world? The eyes are the borderline of the pure land in this world. Where is Sai Chi's pure land? Sai Chi's pure land is in my heart. It is Namo Amida Butsu. This floating world is wretched, but this floating world becomes the pure land. I'm joyful. Namo Amida Butsu. In this world, I enjoy the pure land. This world transforms into the pure land. I'm joyful. Namo Amida Butsu. So, this is his understanding of, it's up to you, what world you want to live in.

[22:56]

And of course we're always feeling oppressed by the world outside. But our heaven and hell, the various heavens and hells in the various worlds are right here. And we are, you know, creating them all the time. So it's a matter of like, well, what world do we want to live in? But we feel victimized because the world we want to live in is not the world that we see. So this is a great koan. This is called, Dogen calls it the Genjo Koan, the koan of our daily life, moment by moment. So, Kumaratha, you know, was bounced around in the various heavens, you know, and due to his karma, you know, he was transmigrating from one to another, which is like what we do pretty much every day.

[24:24]

So, Kayasatha, while on a preaching tour, arrived at Tokara, where he noticed that one of the Brahman's lodgings had a distinctive air about it. It's kind of an atmosphere, you know, over this house. Kayasatha was about to enter the house when Kumaratha asked him whose follower he was. Kāyāśata replied, I am a disciple of the Buddha. When Kumārata heard the Buddha's name, he grew extremely frightened and immediately slammed the door shut. Kāyāśata knocked at the door for some time before Kumārata answered, no one home. You should never say that. Kāyāśata asked, who then is it that replies, no one? When Kumaratha heard these words, he knew that Kayaśata was no ordinary person.

[25:28]

So he quickly opened the door and let him in. As related above, in other words, in the koan, all this happened at that time. Kayaśata told him of the Buddha's ancient prophecy and he realized his ability to know his previous lives. So here we come to the brink of what this koan is about. previous lives. What is the meaning of previous lives? And also, what is the meaning of prediction of Buddhahood? If you read the Lodga Sutra, there's a chapter called Prediction of Buddhahood, where Shakti Muni or whoever the Buddha is, is predicting the Buddhahood in various Bodhisattvas and so forth. and a thousand years from now you will be the Buddha such and such and so forth. So what does that mean?

[26:30]

What does it mean that a prediction of Buddha like that? It's a good question. I think it means encouragement. I think that the Buddha is saying something like, I can see that you are sincerely practicing And your karma leads you in this direction. And so this flower, it's like because the flower is planted in a good place and it's watered and taken care of the stem, their plant grows up and flowers.

[27:42]

I think that it's like saying this plant that you are will flower. So it's like knowing the destiny of something. Prophecy. What is prophecy? I think prophecy is being able to see the progression of something in a way that you know that if whatever it is is continuing to progress in a certain direction that its destiny is to flower. So any plant is destined to flower unless something comes to destroy it. But we could say that about everybody. Someone could say that about you all will flower if you continue to practice sincerely in your life.

[28:50]

I think in the priesthood, this flowering is like... I think when someone is ordained, that's a prediction of flowering. I think it's like that. If someone really wants to give their life to the Dharma, And they're ordained, that's a prediction of flowering. So that's my feeling about that prediction. I could be wrong. So here is the taisho. Taisho means a teacher expressing their understanding.

[30:03]

And it's Keizan's taisho on this case. So he says, what is happening here needs to be handled carefully. Even though you may have a clear grasp of what the words teach, or may comprehend that birth and death, coming and going, comprise the true human body, if you do not understand that your true original nature is void of substance, luminous, unimaginable, and unbeclouded, you do not know what it is that the Buddhas have realized. Therefore, were you to see the light that streams startled, were you to see the countenance of some Buddha, you would be attracted to it. Why is this? Because you would still not have rid yourself of the three poisons of greed, anger, and delusion.

[31:08]

So he's saying, because you're still subject to these three poisons, this would be a surprise for you. Now, when we look at the account of Kumaratha's previous lives, we see that he regressed and descended to the triest streams of heaven because of a covetous attraction. Moreover, according to the story of his former life, Having been stirred by the preaching of the Dharma by Lord Indra, he ascended to Brahman's heaven and later was reborn in Tochara. His accumulation of merit and his piling up of virtues was not without merit, without fruit. Having been aroused by Kayashata, he had awakened to his ability to see his former lives.

[32:09]

the past and the future. That's what we usually think. Past lives means something that happened before and something that will happen next. And then what happens next, if we're in the next one, this will be our past life. But is there such a thing as a past life or a future life? This is the question. Is there such a thing as a past life and a future life? If you become aware that your original and unchanging true nature is neither enlightened, unenlightened, or a delusion... I'm sorry, I skipped something. The ability to see one's former lives is conventionally understood as meaning to know the past and the future. But of what use would that be? If you become aware that your original and unchanging true nature is neither enlightened, unenlightened, or delusion, then the hundreds of thousands of gateways to the teachings, along with their immeasurably profound meanings, are all seen to be wellings up in the mind.

[33:40]

Both the stumblings of sentient beings and the realization of enlightenment by the Buddhas lie within your own breast. In no way are they the elements of sense objects, nor are they mental phenomena. When they arrive at this state, what is to be taken as past, and what is present? What pertains to the Buddhas? What to sentient beings? Not a single object blocks the eye. Not a single speck of dust comes in touch with the hand. They are just the qualities of being, void of substance and luminous, simply being unclouded, free of everything and boundless. The Tathagata who realized enlightenment in the distant past is in fact the sentient being who, by nature, does not swerve. Even when someone awakens to the truth in this way, nothing is added.

[34:44]

Likewise, whilst someone has not yet realized the truth, he lacks nothing. It would be nice to be that way. I can't hear you. It would be nice to be that way. What way? I have that freedom that you cracked it out in what you said. Just now, it gave me a sense of freedom for a minute. Yeah, okay, freedom from what? Baggage. Yeah, what kind of baggage? past and future worry. Yeah.

[35:47]

So he seems to be going beyond, you know, he's not leaving anything out. He's not separating essence from function. Essence of mind would be it, but it also includes the function. What I understand from this is that things are as it is. Things are impermanent, things are dependently co-arising. Whether you realize it or you don't realize it, it's still the same. It's just as how it is. That's it. So that's it whether you know it or not. If you know it, that doesn't mean it changes.

[36:55]

It's just the same way. And if you don't know it, it's still the same way. Yeah, he is saying that. Sometimes, when someone asks, You know, Shakyamuni said, according to the legend, when someone asked him about future lives or past lives, he would say, it's not important. What is the use of that, he would say. And then at other times, the words that they put in his mouth are He recognized all his past lives. And that's what it's saying here. What does that mean? What's the meaning of past lives? Well, I'm struggling with this. Because on the face of it, it seems to me that what's clearly meant is past lives before I was born into this body.

[38:00]

And I'm not in the happy position of having realized all of them. But I do think that we change so much in the body we're in. I've certainly made any number of changes and as I go clear of an old way of being, it becomes much easier to see that because I'm no longer that. You know, I have enough distance from it that I see that as a past way of being and you could call it a past life because it's not the way I am now. Well, okay. Let's look at past, present and future. Past can't really be grasped because it's just a picture. Future hasn't happened and present is ungraspable because

[39:04]

past and future meet. And where past and future meet, that's the present. But neither one can, none of them can be grasped. So, if there's no self, we have to understand, you know, this is based on the fact or the realization that there is no separate self, no inherent self. So what is it that has a past? And what is it that will have a future? And what is it that has a present? If there's no inherent self in anything. this idea that in Buddhadharma, the understanding is that karma continues.

[40:12]

And when we have this idea, in a small picture, we see this bubble that we call ourself in the present, which is on the huge ocean of nature. And we see that bubble as, that's my life. And the bubble began and then it burst. And we say, well, that's my life. But actually our life is much bigger than that. But then we say, that's my life. And then there was a life before that, but there's no way that we can actually grasp a life before that. But every moment, every moment's experience is a lifetime. So what do we mean by past lives?

[41:17]

And whose past life? It's interesting. Go on. I can see that Ken wants to give us a few minutes to stretch without talking. Two minutes, actually. If anybody wants the Shasta Abbey book itself, that's where these copies come from, Judy, back in the field, has an email address. And you can email them. One of the priests coming down from Shasta to Berkeley in a week or so, they're going to bring copies. And if you wanted one, you could email them. They just take a donation. I guess they'll get in touch with you if you'd like that. You know that the email address is not going to be able to be sitting at the way out.

[42:27]

It's a paperback. So I'm going to go over this again with Cook's translation and see if that doesn't help. The section that we've just been talking about. When knowledge of former lives is mentioned, it is thought that this refers to knowing the past or future, as we ordinarily use the terms. What in the world would be the value of that, if we can simply see that one's original, unchanging self-nature is neither saintly nor ordinary, neither deluded nor enlightened, then hundreds of thousands of teachings and incalculable numbers of subtle principles all abide in the mind-source."

[43:27]

Now you notice the word mind-source is capitalized. So he talks about mind. He's not talking about our individual mind. He's talking about the mind-source. the source of which all individuals are expressions of. But this is the unchanging mind source which is continually changing. Therefore, both the delusions of ordinary beings and the enlightenment of all the Buddhas abide within one square inch of mind. It is not at all the senses and their objects, nor the mind in its realm.

[44:30]

At this point, what can you consider ancient? What can you consider present? Who are all the Buddhas? What are sentient beings? Not a single thing obstructs hands. Being simply a bit of empty brightness, it is vast and boundless. That is, the eternal, truly perfected Tathagata is sentient beings who are enlightened from the beginning. Thus, when there is understanding, there is no increase. When there is no understanding, there is no decrease. Being enlightened to the fact that it has been thus for long aeons is what is meant by acquiring knowledge of former lives. If you do not reach this realm, you will be agitated by feelings about delusion and awakening. You will be moved about by signs of past and future. In the end, you will not understand that there is a true self, nor will you clarify the fact that the fundamental mind is not mistaken.

[45:38]

Therefore, you make the Buddhas take all the trouble of appearing in the world, and you make the patriarchal teacher Bodhidharma come from the West long ago. And I went, because of you, they had to come do something. The original meaning of the Buddha's appearing in the world and the original intention of coming from the West was for this and nothing else. You should take care and realize that the original mind is very intelligent, not deluded, very bright and not hidden. Understanding that it is the original bright light is the meaning of acquiring knowledge of former lives. Today I have a few humble words and would like to try to penetrate this principle a little. Would you like to hear them? Yes.

[46:41]

In past lives he cast off one body after another. Right now he encounters the old fellow. So this is very interesting, because there are two levels here. One level is, who's the old fellow? Or who's the old dame? And what are these past lives? How do you meet the old fellow? Where do you meet the old fellow? Or the old name? Inside. Hmm? One meets the old fellow, one finds one's true nature. Yeah, one finds one's true nature.

[47:43]

Inside. Yeah. So, you know, we talk about past and future, but... You know, the past was always now. No matter what we did, the past was always now. And what will happen next, maybe, will be now. We say then. Past and now and then. But there is only now. It only is now, but even the now is elusive. So where is the stable place that includes now and then?

[48:45]

Because we can't include the future, because it's just an idea. There's no such thing as the future. Even if you realize that, Is there a function to having then? We can talk about then. Does it have a function though? Yeah, the function of then is that we can learn from the past, so to speak. It has the function of being informative. Also, we are a product of everything that we've done, right? So, we are a product of the karma or volitional action in the past.

[49:49]

Life is, you know, we talk about lifetimes are like bubbles, right? Lifetimes, using the bubble analogy, one bubble after another. But that is one way of looking at it, is this bubble lives in this bubble, So there is conditioning, but because we see this particular bubble as a lifetime, we tend to think in terms of possibly other bubbles before this one, right? But another way of thinking about it is just one moment after another. This lifetime is just a series of events that happened in a certain period of time.

[51:04]

But a bigger picture is that there's just moment-by-moment activity. And there's no particular entrance or exit. We think in terms of because of our experience, which is our mental functioning. So we call this birth and this is death. But this is one aspect and one way of looking at birth and death. And then there's the birth and death of the last period, and the birth and the death. But putting it all together, It's just one thing after another, if you want to see it that way. Depends on how we see it.

[52:07]

Could it also be seen as, at those moments, this moment, the terms that came to my mind were expansive and spacious, that is more inclusive. Yeah, more inclusive. Right. Expansive and spacious so that the experience of this entrance and that exit is simply one. It's not linear. It's circular. That's right, yeah. And more amorphous in terms of its form. Well, the understanding of circular is that it just keeps going round and round. And it's not a real ending, it's a continuation. A rippling. Yeah. But if it's going around and around, it's a continuation. But a continuation of what? Okay, well, in the Dharma, the continuation is called action influence.

[53:14]

And action-influence, there are five different ways that we talk about how all this happens. But one fundamental way is the action-influence. It's not like I continue because there is no self that continues. There is no self that is present. So what can continue? So if we understand consciousness, what we experience as our self is the body, form, feelings, the five skandhas, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness.

[54:20]

So, consciousness is what we're concerned with when we think of ourself. You say, well, point to yourself. Well, we point to the body, but we also have to point to consciousness. Consciousness is what is our understanding, which constitutes the body as an aspect of consciousness. Buddhist understanding, the body is created by consciousness. And the seeds in the alaya-vijnana are also seeds of rupa, and allow the body to keep recreating itself. So the seedbed of our experiences are all collected in the seedbed of nirlaya vijnana.

[55:25]

And then the seventh consciousness is the karmic consciousness. So that which continues is the energy of the karma. And the alive is jnana, which work together to produce consciousness, which is discrimination. And that energy is what continues to create more form, to inform forms. the body, you know, we toss it into the ground or we toss it into the fire, but the consciousness, the energy of that consciousness continues in some way.

[56:26]

We don't know how, but it could be, you know, energy doesn't dissipate, it just continues, it's continuous. So for the Buddhist understanding, it continues around and comes back up. What goes around comes around. That's karma. What goes around comes around. It's not that I continue. That consciousness, it just keeps re-embodying somehow. Why should we assume that consciousness, when it changes, should stay consciousness? Why would it change into something else, like firewood?

[57:30]

Why would consciousness keep only changing into more consciousness? I don't know. What would make us think that it would? Well, because apples produce apples. Lemons produce lemons. A lemon tree produces lemons. An apple tree produces apples. So, apples have apple consciousness. Sometimes apples just fall off the tree and turn into dirt. Yes, that's right. That's correct. But we're not apples, it's just an analogy. But that seed from the apple, that turns into dirt, turns into another apple. Yes, the seed is what turns into dirt. That's why Elijah Uzziah has the seed. That's why the energy from the Elijah, which is the seedbed, produces seeds of like kind, produces plants of like kind.

[58:38]

The energy and the flame go when the flame blows out. That's very interesting. The way it's described is like one candle lighting another. But if I'm holding a match, and it's burning, and it blows out, where does that energy go? I'm worried about that. Where does fire go anyway? Where does any fire go? That's what I'm asking. But where does it come from? Right. It's like, you know, if you have a glass of water and you drink a glass of water, what happens to it? It falls back on your head. Right? It takes a while. It takes a while. But it falls back on your head. But we sort of know a bit about the cycle of water. But the energy of the flames is less apparent.

[59:47]

You can make fire. If you have enough friction you can make fire. Fire is not isolated in your match. Your match is just an attraction for fire. Fire is all around all the time. So then the next question is what happens to your consciousness when you die? That's a good question. That's what I've been talking about. That's what I've been talking about, what happens to the consciousness when it dies. Well, I don't know. I'm just talking about what is expressed as Buddhist understanding. certain aspects of consciousness. The energy can be reconstructed or add to or influence the birth of a bird.

[60:54]

So you can say, well, I was reborn as a bird, or something like that. I mean, I wouldn't say that, In these kinds of terms, you could, you know, say that. It doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, just gets all into funny stuff. So I don't want to get into all that. But it's interesting. Yes. Yeah, thank you. I'm back with the lives of the Buddhas, and the heavens, and being reborn, his past lives and his future lives, it becomes not egotistical or not personal in the description, the discussion by Kaesong.

[61:58]

It becomes I don't know. It's not something you can grasp. I can grasp. It becomes all-inclusive somehow. The gripping onto my past life or the worry about what's going to happen somehow expands with this koan, this discussion. And I can only say that that's my experience. Well, there's another aspect, and that is, there's a point at which one can be reborn, and then the past is not a factor. The past is not a factor.

[63:01]

in the way that I often think of Luther. Even though, you know, past and future are an aspect of the present. That's pretty much what he's saying, is that past and future are really present. And all, everything that was past is there The reality of everything that was past is there in the present, right now. So what's the use of looking way back? Because in order to... It's really inexplicable, but explaining it is like putting my foot in my mouth. Buddha says, dharmas just roll on and there is no self in the dharmas that roll on.

[64:13]

Right? So, whose past life is it? Well, it seems to allow one, could allow one to let go of trying to figure it all out and be right about it. It's just one of my big waste of time activities. If you look at karma, which is volitional action, karma takes... there has to be, in order for something to happen, various conditions for an action to arise. So, to figure out all the conditions, and the meaning of all the conditions, and how many there are, is just impossible. Absolutely impossible. So what we remember as a path, it's little things, you know, that are, we call memorable. But we can never remember. Whatever we remember is a story.

[65:15]

It's not only trying to remember, but like figuring out whose fault it is. If you have this limited understanding of what happened, And there's no fault. You get that. There's no fault. Like this is what happened. Right. Judgment. Suspending judgment. You just see what happened. But on the other hand, when you say past life, you only remember something. If you think about your past, do you remember everything that happened? No. So we put little things together. I think he's talking about something bigger than just what I did before and then what I did before. I'm talking about just the continuation of birth and death.

[66:18]

Because actually there is no birth and death. birth and death are ideas that we have about the beginning and the end of something. But if there's simply continuation, there's no actual birth and death in a larger sense. In a small sense, there's birth and death every moment. So, he's kind of wiping out the signposts and just talking about one continuous thing, which is the continuous present. It's very nice. Thank you. It doesn't even seem like he's talking about continuous. No. He's just saying empty brightness. Yeah, empty brightness. He said it was vast. It's vast, empty brightness. I mean, it sounded to me like he was speaking of eternity and that the

[67:22]

the body, the ego exist in time. The body and the ego, the ego is inherent in the physical form, they exist in time. And the true self or true nature is eternal, big mind, and it's vast. So what's the sense of trying to look back at your past lives? Also, when I read it, I had the thought that he's talking about these original nature that in a way is past in the sense that we've forgotten. We've gotten away from something. We've gotten away from recognizing, realizing this original quality.

[68:24]

In that sense, we say that it's a past. We've come back to our past life, which is our original life. Yeah, that's right. Right, coming back to our past life is like our original life, which isn't exactly past, but it's pastified. We've forgotten about it. You know, something we forgot about. Yeah. I think you're pointing at that. Well, I'm going to read Neiman's ending. I read it quickly and I'm going to see if that helps you. To touch upon the awareness that it has been like this since time began is what is meant by awakening to one's ability to see former lives. that it has been like this since time began, is what is meant by awakening to one's ability to see former lives.

[69:28]

If you have not reached this state, you will be needlessly disturbed by a nature that is a mixture of delusion and enlightenment. So caught up you will be in past and future, that you will not know what your true nature is, and will not see clearly that your true original nature does not err. If you are thus, you will be woked to play at being a Buddha in an attempt to attain a super-worldly, or playing at being a Bodhisattva in an attempt to take unjust possession of his coming far off from the West. The original impulse to renounce the world and the original intention to come from the West, that's like Bodhidharma, and coming from the West, the original impulse is simply for the sake of these deluded actions and not for any other purpose.

[70:29]

By all means, take heed of the above account and know that the actions of Kayasatha and Kumaratha were spiritually alive and bright-minded and frank. To know that which has radiance from the first is called the ability to see one's past lives. Do you want to hear my humble words today? I trust that they will carry the undying principle. Clinging to a body from a past life, made ever so remote by the passage of time, we suddenly meet face to face with the One from ancient days. Past has the, well, what we, there's a beginning, if there's a past, there has to be a beginning to the past.

[71:30]

And as we, we, it's like when we're born in this particular life, and I remember Lou Hartman, used to talk all the time about, when I was five years old, I had this realization, you know, and I've been trying to get back to that realization all my life. But it's like that, when we're that young, or younger, we don't have any experience of life that we recognize. But as we get older, we get further and further away of that innocence, from that innocence. From that recognition. Yeah, that recognition. That's what's such a pain about it. Yeah. All of this stuff gets in the way.

[72:34]

Gets in the way. And so at some point, you know, then we realize, God, all this stuff has gotten in the way. Where am I, you know? And then we do something, maybe like Practice is not there. To realign ourselves with our original nature. But all this past life, from the time that we're a baby until the time that we have realization, that's our past life. Moment to moment, we get what we forget about our Just now coming to my mind is when the Buddha sat back when he left the party and sat down quietly and remembered when he was under the rose apple tree.

[73:38]

That's a little bit like, to me it reminds me of Lou's story of when he was five. That's right. It could be any time in his life. Yeah. But there was something that opened that he remembered and could use or be used by it. Yeah. I think so. I'm also thinking, I don't know if this is a myth, but I keep I'm hearing in here that from the koan, say and her soul are separated. In the poem there it says if you don't understand that it's just like putting up in houses or hotels or whatever. It's like staying in one inn after another. Is there like, seems like there's a little connection here to this root, one has to another.

[74:50]

One has to another, yeah. Yeah. What, yeah, what, what, all right. Traveling from one lifetime to another. Yeah, yeah. Uh-oh, what are you, uh, There's got to be a difference between memory, just memory, and understanding of your original mind. Because we regard Alzheimer's as a tragedy. And that's the loss of your memory. But it doesn't bring you enlightenment. No, it doesn't. So you can have lots of memory without having enlightenment. Except that enlightenment is your intrinsic nature.

[75:52]

We need to have memory. We need memory. Memory is necessary. But that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about something else. And so, you know, we have to get beyond our usual way of thinking and our usual connections to kind of get to what he's talking about. And there are disconnections in this long paragraph. You know, where's the connection? You know, that's what's hard to kind of like discern. The meaning of past lives

[77:00]

the ability to see his former lives. So he says, the ability to see one's former lives is conventionally understood as meaning to know the past and the future. But that's not. But what use is that? If you become aware of your original and unchanging true nature, that it is neither enlightened nor unenlightened, or a delusion, then the hundreds of thousands of gateways to the teaching, along with their immeasurably profound meanings, all seem to be the wellings up in the mind. Both the stumbling, substantial beings and the realization of enlightenment by the Buddhas lie within your own breast. In no way are they the elements of sense objects, nor are they mental phenomena. So when you arrive at this state, what is to be taken is past and what is present.

[78:10]

What pertains to the Buddhas and what to sentient beings? Not a single object blocks the eye and not a single speck of dust comes in touch with the hand. They are just the qualities of being, void of substance and luminous, simply being unclouded, free from everything and boundless. The Tathagata who realized enlightenment in the distant past is in fact the sentient one who by nature does not swerve. Does not swerve. It's interesting. Even when someone awakens to the truth in this way, nothing is added. Likewise, when someone has not yet realized the truth, then nothing is lacking. So to touch upon the awareness that it has been like this since time began is what is meant by awakening to one's ability to see form with light. It seems like he's talking about the timelessness of the dharmas and how they've always been going and they always will be going and we just use the term

[79:19]

if you really want to see. I think that's what he's saying. In just a conventional way. But because we're so conventionally oriented, we can't let go of that. Yeah. Even just, if I try to see what's this moment, and I watch your hand move, for instance, I still see the flow of movement. I don't see a hand in this position now and then your hand is in this position now. There's something in my eye, in that perception, that I still seem to see a coming from and a going to all now. Yeah. That's a great phrase. The coming from, the going to, the going to, the coming from. When he talks about Toson's five ranks, he says, they're coming from, they're going to, they're going to, they're coming from.

[80:37]

It's like a kind of reciprocal movement. But this, you know, looks like one movement, but it's actually thousands of incremental movements. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The thing about time, Since time began, right? Yes. As far as I can see, it's something that we lay over each instant. It's a way of measuring a sequence of events. Exactly. And in fact, given this sequence, it's not real. It's all of those little incremental... That's right. Well, these are the two aspects of time. One is continuous time and the other is discontinuous time. So continuous time means it's just now. Everything past, present and future is just now.

[81:40]

Discontinuous time means there is past and there may be a future. But discontinuous means chopping it up into little pieces. One o'clock and two o'clock. That's how we, you know, sometimes we say, I did something and it just felt like time stopped. But what stopped was our incremental thinking. And we just experienced time. Pure time. Without discrimination. Non-discriminated time is just now. which is always just now. This is stillness. This is the brilliant piece of light that he talks about just now.

[82:43]

And discriminated time is the function of pure time. Discriminated, that's the function. Pure time is essence. Discriminated time is function. So we're always doing stuff in time. Within time, we're doing time and space. These are the two aspects. Time is space, and space is time, as a function. But as essence, it's totally still. Time stands still. And his function is discrimination. One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, hop. Or whatever it is. The other word that came to my mind in these pieces of... just that they come together there and in a moment it's... another like the old music.

[83:55]

The word rock. Yeah. Well, rock has to be rock. G.R.O.C.K. G.R.O.K. [...] It's kind of like a stranger in a strange land. Yeah. Okay, well, let's leave the stuff to think about. We can either continue with Dengaroku, or continue with the koans from show you a Roku book of serenity that we did before.

[84:59]

So which would you prefer, or not either? Which would you prefer? This was good. This is good. We can continue. We'll go through the deck of Roku for a while.

[85:15]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ