Good morning. So this morning, I want to continue from where we left off. Jerry was the last, had the last word. And that was page—Nymon. That was page—what? It was 109, yes. So I want to continue from there. Yeah, I think it was 110. You got it?

[01:00]

Anybody confused? Anybody not confused? So, I want to actually use the Naiman today as a principal text. That's the Shasta Abbey. So I just want to point out it's where it says the ordinary everyday people.

[02:07]

So I wanted to make a comment on the first sentence. Everybody translates, Dogen talks about ordinary people, right, a lot, and people translate that as ordinary people think, or ordinary people do, as if there are ordinary people and extraordinary people. So I always translate that as people ordinarily think. You don't need to say ordinary people, there's a class of people. But sometimes, People ordinarily think this, or they ordinarily think that, but we think this. So, when we come to that, I would say, when people, you don't even have to say ordinary or not ordinary, because we understand this.

[03:11]

When we say, when people who do not take the Buddhist teaching as their model, hear the phrase, just for the time being, Nyagasan's poem, they customarily hold a view like the following. So when you just say people, that indicates people ordinarily, or you can say ordinarily, you can think of it as you want, but you don't need to. People who do not, it's just people, right? Ordinarily do this. And then when they don't, they're not ordinary people. Anyway, so I would like somebody who has, like we said, reading deliberately and slowly so that you understand exactly what you're saying to read it.

[04:17]

Yes? Say that again. I will give it a try. There was once a time when Yakusan had become what he described as someone with three heads and eight arms, and some other time when he had become someone eight or sixteen feet tall. Go ahead. It is as though he were saying, I have crossed the rivers and climbed over the mountains. Even though those mountains and rivers may have existed in the past, I have completely gone beyond them and have now made a place for myself atop a Vermilion pedestal in the Jeweled Palace. I fancy that the mountains and rivers on the one hand and I on the other are now as far apart as heaven and earth. Okay, now I would like you to to read the footnotes, because the footnotes are important here.

[05:25]

So, I have crossed the rivers and climbed the mountains. That's a footnote too, right? So please… Yeah. He's not talking about mountains and rivers, he's talking about difficult practice, the hurdles of practice, the engagement in difficult practices. So I've crossed the rivers and climbed over the mountains. Number three, the vermilion pedestal in the Jeweled Palace.

[06:32]

That's a metaphor. It's a metaphor for being in the state of experiencing what being in life is. The reference is to a lotus pedestal upon which an awakened being sits when residing in the Western Pure Land. You know, after doing the Bodhisattva ceremony today, this almost seems like a call and response, the lines and then the footnotes. I'm just, that's not a question, I'm just saying. Well, say what? It's kind of beautiful in that, you know, if you read the footnoted line two and then The foot now, it's almost like a call and response. Right, I see what you're saying. It's very beautiful. It's nice. We have a saying in the transmission ceremony that I am now Vairojana Buddha seated on the lotus throne of a thousand petals.

[07:43]

So all this stuff figures in, it's all part of Dogen's Vermilion pedestal and the Jeweled Palace is like nirvana, right? So then there's footnote four, which we haven't come to. So this is what, an ordinary person, a person ordinarily might think, right? But I also want to say that the reason Dogen is saying this is because ordinarily we might think that time and I are separate, basically is what. ordinary than you might think, because something I did in the past is separate from what's happening now, right?

[08:54]

Ordinarily, we think that way. That happened, but although that's not untrue, it's not the whole picture. So, you want to read a little more? You read very well. But such a view is not all there is to the principle of the case. At the time when, proverbially, a mountain was being climbed and a river was being crossed, an eye existed. Let's put emphasis on the eye. An eye existed. And it was the time for that particular eye. Yes. Show me the footnote now. Yeah. Darwin's point in using the word I as a noun in this and the following paragraph is to indicate that there is no permanent unchanging self that is being referred to, but rather a cluster of physical and mental characteristics that is flexible and fluid, undergoing change as the conditions and circumstances of what is existing change.

[10:06]

Hence, this I refers to a series of manifestations over time, which are perceived as related to a sentient being called Yakusan, but which have no unchanging, atemporal, permanent self-passing. Yes, so this is referring to what we talked about last night, the Shrenika heresy, that there is some permanent ghost in the machine. as they say, that is always operating eternally. Would it be okay if I read the note from Dr. Ivey? Sure, yeah. Time not only passes, and even then it is not separate from the self, but is at the same time abiding right here in me at each and every present.

[11:11]

And in each of those points of my being time, the other times are included. While my instant present is always one point or stage in time's passage, that one point always includes all other points past and future. Yeah, well that's a good footnote. And that's what Toga is talking about. Does it include all other points past and future? Not future. All other points past in our memory? Future is not a thing. That's not happened. There's no such thing. It's just an idea. Right. But the past is also, in this moment, it's a memory. Yes. Our idea of the past is a memory. Yes, our idea of the past is a memory which is not always accurate, probably never accurate, totally.

[12:26]

Is that saying that that moment as well also exists simultaneously or is included in this moment? It's not acting simultaneously. What is acting simultaneously is now. So now points to all time. But it also points to the present moment. So we think of the present moment as now. The present moment of now is always now. Right? So we always say now, [...] now. And so there's moments of now, now, now, which are discontinuous. And there's now, which is continuous time. So this is where we have to think about continuous time and discontinuous time.

[13:27]

Continuous time is always now. It's always the same time. Discontinuous time is always the breakup of time. which is discrete moments of time, one, two, three, four, five. But discontinuous time can only happen on the face of continuous time because we just call it now and then. Now and then is discontinuous time because there's a now and there was a then. But continuous time doesn't depend on the discontinuity and is the background of time. If you take a clock and take off the hands and the numbers, it's still a clock, and then the time doesn't change. So if you take off the hands, the time doesn't change, right? When you put the hot tans back on, then the time changes and it becomes discontinuous.

[14:34]

We call it breaking up time into segments. Does that make sense? Yes. I guess what confuses me is the idea that in our present moment is included things that are Right, the past has conditioned this moment, but this moment still arises, well, does it arise conditionally or unconditionally or both? This moment? This conditioned, yeah, so I guess you'd say there's conditioned time and unconditioned time.

[15:37]

I experienced a moment of regret when I said, um, completely. Well, I'm glad you... How does the conditioned part relate to karma? Is it karma? Karma is our religional actions. Karma simply means our conditional actions. What was your question? Well, yeah, but I'm not sure what your point is about karma. Well, I guess it may be, I'm an ordinary person, I ordinarily think this way, that karma has to do with, well, we just chanted it, all my ancient twisted karma.

[16:44]

Well, it has to, but karma is, yeah, I know about my karma, right? But karma is volitional action which creates problems for us, either good or bad karma. It keeps the wheel going. It keeps the wheel of conditioned existence going. But all those karmic acts are time. Yeah, they're all time. Nothing appears without being time. This is a question about memory and time. Uh-huh. Yes. So you've been alive almost 20 years more than I have. Uh-huh. And you've had 20 years more memories.

[17:47]

That's what you think. Yes. What about it? How do you think of it in terms of what Dogen is talking about? Because he never lived... He lived to be 54 or something. Yeah, he died before I was even born, right? So, you know, I've been thinking about, Jerry and I both have this idea about the brain, and that there's all this stuff that's happening in the brain, and it gets coated in there, and depending on how you look at it, you can say that all that stuff is in there somewhere.

[18:50]

Yes. I guess the question is, how would you read it now, at your age, about time and pastime and memories? Well, you know, I don't think much about the past, but the past is always a picture. We talked about that. We're talking about the various natures, but past is always a picture. Yesterday or last year or whatever, some people remember a lot about what happened a year ago at a certain date.

[19:51]

at a certain time, right, and it's pretty accurate usually. For some people it's pretty accurate, for some people it's not accurate at all, but it's always a picture and a picture can't be perfect, maybe good enough, you know, often it's good enough, but it's always a picture, it's not the thing in itself. So I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, you know, our mind is so full of stuff, you know, so full of memory and full of ideas and full of thoughts. And it's not necessary, you know, you have to kind of select what it is you're gonna think about. Otherwise, your mind just gets so full that it's full of garbage. And so how you actually, maintain a discriminated, how you discriminate between what is useful to think about and what is not useful to think about.

[21:03]

Because there's a guy, I remember, a famous man, who could not forget anything. And so it was really terrible for him because, you know, like his mind was always so full of everything that he could remember. Which was, huh? Louis Bourguet's story, Funes the Memorious. All he could do was remember. Yeah. Yeah. But the past lives in us. The past lives in us. In our bodies, in our, we remember smells, tastes, touch. It's alive. And when we ping it, it's just as, in some cases, it may not be the details, but somebody recalls a memory. It comes alive in that moment. Right. And it could be a horrible memory or a good memory. Post-traumatic stress disorder, you get, you know, you're back there.

[22:03]

Or, you know, the birth of your child, you know, that never, these are these things that are alive. Well, this is what Dogen means when he says time goes from present to past. We're actually living in the past when we're, We're living in the past and the present. It's the past-present. And even in our subconscious, our storehouse consciousness, those things are alive and they pop out at any moment. Right, so the seeds, you know, when we think about past, it awakens the seeds or waters the seeds of the past. And then that becomes a picture in our mind. And we live through pictures, actually. Sometimes, just bare attention is living in the present present.

[23:05]

But I'm recalling the past, we're living in the past present. Could you not also say that to the extent that of the future, we also live in the future? We live in the future fantasy, the fantastic future, the fantastic present, or the future present. I was just reading John Dido Lurie's book, The Heart of Being, and when he talks about He says karma contains its effects. There's no separation. Contains its what? Contains the effects of that action. In other words, the action and the effects of that action are occurring simultaneously. Well, yes.

[24:09]

The potential or that, you know, it starts, the effects start, right? At the same time. except that there's some effects that are in the present simultaneously with the act, but then there are future effects of the present activity called karma. Karma is characterized in three stages, the immediate effect, the distant effect, and the far distant effect. But the immediate effect, some immediate effect is always present in the present effect, because that's what keeps the continuity going. So our karma actually is what keeps the continuity going. Yes.

[25:21]

Why do we ordinarily feel that it's continuous? It is continuous. It's continuous and discontinuous at the same time. But there is no, even though we feel that We are I, which is being expressed here. That's a convenience we use because we feel that way. But actually, there's no actual center or what you would call no actual person, it's simply the effect, the karmic actually effects along with nature that creates the illusion of a being.

[26:34]

So we say, and the dharmas are simply rolling on and creating a, which we call feelings of the five skandhas, a dynamic of the form that you have, the feelings that you have, the perceptions that you have, the mental formations, which are karmic, and consciousness. So it's a combination of those five categories which coalesce and gives us the impression of a separate being. So there is a separate being, but it's not a true separate being. Everything has its own existence, like this altar, right? There's the altar, and it's made out of walnut, which came from a certain place, and actually it came from a tree, which came from the ground, which depended on

[27:47]

the atmosphere, the air, the rain, the sun, the ground, the nutrients, and all that. So, I can burn this up and say, well, what happened to that? Everything is integrating and disintegrating, disintegrating. That's the nature of the cell. It is integrating and disintegrating. Actually, moment by moment. Each moment, we're integrating and disintegrating. that otherwise there'd be no movement. Everything would just be here forever in this seat, looking at each other. No movement. So everything is in flux. So who am I? I am flux. I am movement. Where do we come from? So a being is born, and Dogen likes to say, the seed of the man and the woman, and they come together and create, they don't create something, they are in the process of creating something out of elements that are ready to be created.

[29:08]

In other words, potentiality is the name of the game. Everything exists in potentiality. And when the right circumstances come, we spring into existence. So, as Suzuki Roshi says, and others, Thich Nhat Hanh loves to use this, we're always here. It's not like we just arrived. We are always here, and we'll always be here, because how can we be here independently of not being here. How could we suddenly not be here when we're here? So everything arises according, all the elements arise according to, that are already here, arise through causes and conditions, and then we appear in the womb as what we call a baby, and then we get out of the womb and exist in this particular atmosphere, and then we stop doing that because the conditions are no longer holding us together.

[30:11]

we resume our, the energy is used by the universe for some particular existence, which we don't know what that is. So everything is becoming everything else, and we're part of that becoming everything else, or whatever it is. We don't know where we're going. So, you know, we have to live in a certain way when we realize we don't know where we're going, And we can't really, it's hard to figure out what our purpose is, but our purpose is to live our life fully, because this is where we are, right? What else is there to do? Yes? Conditions give rise to the moment, and there we are. Yes. And then there's the flux, and my question is about the flux. How radically can we change in the moment Let's say we recognize the conditions that got us here or what encourages a major change in that moment or what encourages or prevents change in that moment, that moment being now, conditions present, flux waiting to happen, how do we make the most of flux is really my question.

[31:33]

Yeah, that's it. That's your question. That's what we call your koan. How? Go on, how? How can we make the most of what we have right here now? Yeah, that's the dharma. So let's say I encounter something and it says, it's time for you to change. I get that feeling and then I become different to my own sense of being different. I start manifesting as a gentler person. You have to figure that out. I think, though, that we need to go on. Otherwise, these little questions will take up all our time. How? How will we do this?

[32:34]

I'll show you. I want you to continue reading. Will you continue reading? At the time... Oh, yeah. At the time when, proverbially, a mountain was being climbed and a river was being crossed, an I existed. And it was the time for that particular I. Yeah, so we just read that, right? Since such an I existed, time could not abandon it. If time did not have the characteristic of coming and going, being continually in flux, that the time when this I was climbing the top of the mountain would have remained forever, eternally comprised of that particular time when. But since time retains the characteristic of coming and going, being continually in flux, there is a flow of ever-present nows, each comprised of a time when an I exists.

[33:42]

And this is what is meant by the phrase, just for the time being. Let's stop there. The I arises with time and conditions on each moment. So that's why we can say we're being born on each moment. We are being born anew on each moment. Even though we seem to exist as what I thought I was the last moment, Subtly, we're being reborn every single moment. Otherwise, we would still be the same person of the last moment. And when was the last moment? When I was a baby. Mama! So, we have to continue to arise anew on each moment. That's our practice. To know that we are arising anew on each moment and not get caught in the past. not get caught or stuck someplace.

[34:46]

And it's called going with the flow. Oh, that's a phrase from the 60s. It was a good one. We should forget it. 60s is a great time, I have to tell you. Yeah, just this moment, just this moment, every moment contains its own past and its own future. This is what Dogen is always talking about, and he's also talking about that here. Each moment contains its own past and its own future, and they don't interfere with each other. I'm sorry, go ahead, Helen. Yeah, actually, I had to figure out the syntax of this sentence. Surely you don't think that the earlier time when the word I referred to climbing the mountain or crossing the river gulped up the later time when the word I referred to being on a vermilion pedestal within the jeweled palace, or think that the former has vomited out the later, do you?

[36:00]

Yeah, that's quite a sentence. Most likely, this sentence refers to common but erroneous views as to where the flowing moments of the ever-present now go to when they are no longer present, and where such moments come from. Dogen is asserting that the past does not exist as an entity that swallows up the instances of present time once they are over, nor is the present something thrown out from such a past So fatalism looks like destiny, but it's not. They're not the same. Destiny is when you see the patterns of your karma, you kind of get a picture of what your destiny is, right? Like if you're a lush and you drink whiskey all the time,

[37:06]

and you can't stop, you kind of know what your destiny is, right? Because you can see the patterns. So you can change your karma. That's possible. And that's what we all, that's what Buddhism is about. You don't have to continue on the path that you're walking now. You can change and follow the Dharma. But And fate means that your life is already predetermined, and you're just filling it out. You're just walking in the steps of what fate has decreed for you. And there are some people who actually practice that way, particularly in India. You cannot change your way if you're a Dalit. But you can't. That's their idea. Yeah, that's their idea. Yes. So that is based on fate, actually.

[38:08]

And the Buddha said you can change your life not being based on fate to being based on destiny. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Exactly a question. What's the relationship between fatalism and hope? Well, fatalism means that you can only hope for the best. I think hope, it's interesting. In a radical way, Zen would say, don't depend on hope. I remember in the 60s, when we started studying the Dharma, we learned that not to depend on hope, and then we thought, the old prisons used to say, all ye who enter, give up hope.

[39:21]

But fate. would indicate that hope is not possible. But the reason why we didn't depend on hope was because we depended on, hope presupposes that there's some other, something will come out of the sky and save you. Something will come forward and save you. rather than working for your own salvation. I'm thinking that each one is a vision of the future. Yes, that's a vision of the future, like the messiah, but although I think our Zen practice would not say depend on that, to not depend on something that's going to save you, but to work for your own salvation.

[40:37]

And so sometimes people think that that's a little too something. Not fatalistic, no, it's the opposite of fatalistic. Lonely, lonely. Yeah, it's the opposite of fatalistic because it means that you can save yourself and you should make that effort instead of waiting for yourself to be saved. That's why people, oh, Zen, if you go to Japan and you say you practice Zen, they say, oh, very difficult. But in America, we don't always understand that. It's hard. So that's what we talk about, hard practice, diligent practice, save your head from fire.

[41:45]

That's Buddhism. And then in the course of Buddha Dharma, over 2,500 years or something, it's been modified in many ways. And then you have the Pure Land School, which says don't do anything, right? Just chant the name of Buddha because it's so hard to save yourself. That was Shinran's message, Honen's message. Give up hope doesn't mean that you should give up hope. It means just don't depend on something else to save you. Sometimes we use extreme language. There's no self. There is a self, but the self is not a permanent thing. Momentarily, there's a self.

[42:47]

but the self is always changing. Then we realize that the flux is our true nature and that we should, what we think of as our enemy is actually our savior. Because we see the flux as, well gosh, you know, like pretty soon I'll die if this keeps up. But then that's why we have to go with it. And as soon as we go with it, then we realize that's where the life is. The life is in the flow, it's in the flux. It's not in the permanent, statues don't come to life. It's only in the changes, you know? So that's why we have to know what our direction is.

[43:53]

We know how to steer the car so that it goes in the direction of pure life, true life. So the past, you know, past and present, We are, the present condition that we find ourselves in as people is determined somewhat by the past, right? But we also have the responsibility to aim our vehicle in the right direction. So that includes the past. But it always includes the past. And it also includes the future, because the future, even though it's just an idea. I remember a friend of mine who had dokasan with Suzuki Roshi, and he told Suzuki Roshi how lazy he was.

[45:07]

He was really lazy. He was lazy. Actually, he liked it, but I told him how lazy he was. And Suzuki said, well, here's what I'd like you to do. I don't remember what it was. And he said, well, I'll start doing that tomorrow. Suzuki said, you think there's a tomorrow? So, Ellen, please continue. Okay. Yakusan. Yakusan, being a triple-headed and eight-armed one, refers to a time that he would have called yesterday. His, being someone eight or sixteen feet tall, refers to a time that he would have called today. Be that as it may, this principle of a past and a present had headed straight into the mountains, and when an eye was now looking out from a Brazilian pedestal over the thousands of peaks and the thousands beyond them.

[46:25]

Nor have such periods passed away. The time of an eye being triple-headed and eight-armed for the time being had passed, but even though it seemed to be of another time and place, it was indeed a part of the ever-present now. The time of an eye being 8 or 16 feet tall for the human being has also passed, but even though it now seems to be something distant from us, it's indeed part of the ever-present now. Thus, we speak of the pine as an analogy for time, as we also do of the bamboo. Okay. You want to read the footnote? Yeah. The bamboo, all up and down its length, has joints which mark the passage of the seasons. The pine, being evergreen, has no colors to differentiate past from present. Yeah, so I want to explain that a little bit.

[47:28]

The pine stitch on the back of your raksu, on the neck, of your raksu, that little green stitch. It should be green, actually. Some people use different thread, but it should be green because it's a pine stitch. It's a pine needle with a little bit, you know how pine needles are, they come together in this little bud and then they, the branch, little branches. So that's, one of them is broken. That's the design on the back of the raksu. You can see it, but if you look at it, And that means evergreen, the pine tree is evergreen. In other words, it stands for eternity or no change. And the bamboo every year seems like, I don't know if that's true, but it has these sections. One each, I think each year it has a different section, but I'm not sure if that's really so.

[48:30]

But that's what, so. The pine is like eternal time, and the bamboo stands for segregated time, discontinuous time, now, now, various moments of time. So he's using that as an analogy for not Not having such periods pass away, the time of an eye being triple-headed and eight-armed for the time being has passed, but even though it seemed to be of another time and place, it was indeed part of the ever-present now. So the ever-present now is exemplified by the pine stitch, by the pine needle. That's eternal time. The ever-present now, right, ever-present.

[49:32]

And the time of an eye being 8 or 16 feet tall for the time being has also passed. But even though it now seems to be something distant from us, it is indeed part of the ever-present now. Thus we speak of the pine as an analogy for time. We also do of the bamboo. Let's see, yeah, continuous time, when we say eternal time, it means continuous time which is not segregated, it's not segmented, it's just always now. Continuous time and discontinuous time, the clock is there provided for us so we can, experience or use time in a way that suits our comings and goings.

[50:33]

It's the only reason to have a clock. So we invented the clock. But before the clock, it was just people dividing time in various different ways. And some people don't divide time at all. Like probably the aborigines in In Australia, they would just wander all the time and pick up lizards and eat them, you know, foraging. They didn't think of time very much in segmented ways. Everybody does, of course. I think even animals do, but they're simple segments, and they're just living in time, trying to protect themselves and eat. But we've created divisions of time which are so intricate that we're really caught by time.

[51:36]

That's why it's so nice to sit down, even though we have 40-minute segments, which is really nice, you know, we shouldn't just be sitting all the time. Zen practice is so focused on time segments. But that's important. It's important to have time segments. Yes? The context for that, I believe, is that the emphasis on being in the present moment, because our trouble comes from reminiscences of the past or imagining aspirations for the future. Well, it's 11.15. Do you want to continue or do you want to not? What is? Yeah, okay. Oh, we're just good. Just the right time for it to get in.

[53:02]

Okay.

[53:03]

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