So, today, this afternoon, is going to be Zenki, which is a kind of continuation of Suji. There are some difficulties in understanding this. I gave you a copy of Dr. Abe's translation, Abe Waddell, Norman Waddell, as well as this one by Cos. But I'm going to read from the Cos one first. So, Zenki is the various ways of understanding the title.

[01:21]

is one. Zen means totality, and ki means like activity. So, totality and activity is what thinking is about. The total dynamic activity of each Dharma, basically. which has to do with interdependence and how everything is actually interdependent with everything else so that whatever appears is in some way identical with everything else and affects everything else.

[02:38]

So this is kind of radical interdependence, but it's also the dynamic quality of every single dharma. So this is, you can epitomize this in a fascicle called Jintsu, which means miracles. Miracles, like everything is a miracle. And it's where he talks about hauling water, chopping firewood, is the miraculous activity. So this is how the whole universe becomes miraculous, and how our life becomes miraculous.

[03:53]

We don't have to get lost in depression, because depression is miraculous. Everything is a miracle. Of course, the word miracle has to do with something that appears without a cause, or an apparent cause, an unusual cause, out of line with our idea of causes and conditions. In Buddhism, everything comes into being through causes and conditions, so there's no such thing as a miracle. So since there's no such thing as a miracle, everything is a miracle, because it's not exceptional. So undivided activity, or great activity,

[04:56]

great dynamic activity. I like great dynamic activity because it also points out the activity of zazen. Zazen epitomizes zenki. That's why I like to study zenki because it's the epitome of zazen. It's the great activity, tuning in to the great activity of the universe. Dynamic activity So zazen, if you're sitting zazen properly, it should be dynamic activity. So when bell rings, you leap off the cushion, full of energy. It's also like tuning into the universal rhythm, tuning into the cosmic rhythm.

[06:05]

So, when we look at our world and the planets and the stars and whatever, we see that there's a planetary rhythm, a cosmic rhythm. And we are not isolated from the cosmic rhythm because we are cosmic beings. We're just little bits of dust that circle around other bits of dust. And our self is dust. Dust. Ashes to ashes. Firewood to firewood. Dust to dust. That's what it is. So it's like tuning into the universal rhythm. in the eternal present. That's Zenki. So, as I said this morning, I quoted Suzuki Roshi.

[07:20]

He probably quoted somebody else. But the quote is, in the evanescence of life, we find eternal life. In other words, within all of the momentary aspects of life, we find eternal life. It's not like there's eternal life and momentary life, which are separate, even though momentary is momentary, and eternal is eternal. Eternal may not be the right word because, you know, it's a borrowed word. There's a list. You get the idea. So, it can be total dynamic working, it can be, as Cleary calls it, the whole works, which is kind of cute. So, the total dynamic working are undivided activity.

[08:21]

Really, undivided activity is good because it's the undivided activity of birth and death. That's just the screen. Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain. So there are three terms. three Japanese terms, kikan, nikan, and shikan. So kikan means eternal, present. Nikan means momentary. I'm sorry, nikan means the harmony of momentary and eternal. And shikan means like shikan taza, just this. So shikhan actually implies no coming and no going.

[09:28]

We think of everything as coming and going. That's our usual way of thinking. That's our momentary way of thinking, that things come and go. him, he comes just now. And he can, as I will try to explain later, about no coming and no going. Things manifest and they don't manifest. They manifest and then they So, everything exists as a manifestation of causes and conditions. And, life is a process.

[10:36]

So, Dogen starts out, in this particular translation, he says, I think Abe's translation is a little more dramatic. But here, the translation is, the great way of all Buddhas, thoroughly practiced, is emancipation and realization. And then he talks about what that means. So emancipation means freedom. Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, I guess all Buddhism, is a religion of salvation. We vow to save all beings, right? That's the vow of the Bodhisattva.

[11:41]

And Maitreya sits in the Tushita Heaven. So Maitreya will bring what Jesus tried to bring. He will transform humanity into loving, bring this kind of conception. So then Dogen says, emancipation means that in birth you are emancipated from birth. In death, you are emancipated from death. So, emancipated here means freed from, right? Or free within, actually. Free within. If you say freed from, then I think that implies birth and you are different things.

[12:49]

But I think it's within birth you're free from birth. Within death you're free from death. Within suffering, you know, we say emancipation from suffering, right? So in Buddhism it's always talked about free from suffering. But actually the only way to be free from suffering is to be free within suffering, because this is the world of suffering. You cannot escape it. No way to escape from suffering. But you don't need to be causing it. Basically, don't cause it. Don't create conditions which create suffering. But basically, suffering just comes to us. This is the stereotype, right?

[13:59]

To be in conditions that we don't like, to be in conditions that don't afford us being where we do like, being with people we don't like, not being with people we do like, and so forth. So, this happens to us all the time. So how to be free from that? is not to run away, but to find the freedom within the problem. And that's what Zazen is. Suzuki Roshi talked about that all the time. If you don't have a problem, you can't practice. You have to find your freedom or your release within the problem. Then it's no longer a problem. So running away does not help. That just creates more of a problem. how to face every problem and find your freedom within the problem. The way you find your freedom within the problem is to be one with the problem.

[15:03]

If there's a quarter of an inch gap, you have a problem. That's the only thing you can do. So that when you're one with the problem, then there's no opposite. What creates problems is discrimination. Discrimination is opposite. Creates opposites. Like and dislike. Want and don't want. Those are discriminating opposites, which cause suffering. Sorry, but that's the way it is. So to be one with the problem means there's no opposite. And when there's no opposite, you may have some problem, but it's not the same. So he says, emancipation means that in birth, you are emancipated from birth.

[16:10]

In death, you are emancipated from death. Thus, there is detachment from birth and death, and penetrating birth and death, or I would say immersion. Such is the complete practice of the great way. There is letting go of birth and death, birth and death. Such is the thorough practice of the Great Way. Realization is birth, and birth is realization. At the time of realization, there is nothing but birth, totally actualized. Nothing but death, totally actualized. So this is what Dogen talks about. When birth comes, just be totally birth. When death comes, just be totally death. When heat comes, just be totally hot. When cold comes, just be totally cold. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't take off your shirt when it's hot, or not put on a coat when it's cold, but to be one with the problem, to be one with whatever's happening.

[17:20]

So, of course, birth and death, the way they're usually thought of is samsara, right? To be free from birth and death is to be free from samsara, basically. But to be free from samsara is to be one with samsara. So this is radical non-duality that he's talking about. Letting go of birth and death and vitalizing birth and death is like crossing birth and death means to go to the other side, the other shore, like gāte gāte So there's no place to go.

[18:34]

So, he says, such activity makes birth holy birth. Completely birth. Death, completely death. Actualized just so at this moment. This activity is neither large nor small, neither immeasurable nor measurable, neither remote nor urgent. Birth in its right nowness is undivided activity. Undivided activity is birth in its immediacy. So this is like shikan, just as it is. birth and death are both alternating and continuous. In Soto Zen, Soto Zen says, whoever Soto Zen is, Soto Zen understanding is birth and death is the same thing.

[19:58]

Continuous means birth and death is the same thing. Alternating means birth is birth and death is death. So it's two things and one thing. So it's hard to grasp that it's one thing or the same thing. Continuous transformation? Continuous transformation. So nothing is really born or dies because it's only continuous transformation. It also reminds me of when Akamora wrote, she was talking about the hand and five fingers at the same time. Yes. One hand, five fingers. So the functioning. Well, this is the essence and this is the functioning. Yes. So the fist is the essence. That's one. And this is many. So, yes. Wonderful. So, then he says, birth neither comes nor goes.

[21:09]

Birth neither appears nor is already existing. Thus, birth is totally manifested and death is totally manifested. Manifestation is an important word because it means something that appears right now, manifests right now. The Yogacara school is sometimes called the mind-only school, but actually the correct nomenclature is the manifestation-only school. So, And when the conditions are right, we manifest.

[22:18]

So, Thich Nhat Hanh presents it very nicely in his commentary on the Vijnapti Matrata school, which is related to the Yogacara, but it's about consciousness. So these are 50 verses. I don't know if you've read this or not, but there are four lines here. Beings manifest when conditions are sufficient. When conditions lack, they no longer appear. This is basic Buddhism, actually. Still, there is no coming or going, no being and no non-being. Conditions here refers to causes and conditions. Everything arises through causes and conditions.

[23:21]

We first learned about causes and conditions in Chapter 18. You don't need to know that. The Manifestation Only School of Buddhism lists four kinds of conditions. I'm not going to read that either. In truth, things do not begin to exist. The birth of a baby is not the beginning of his existence. He has been there all the time. Only now does he manifest in that form. A piece of paper, before it manifests, already existed in the clouds, in the trees. If we were to burn it, it would not cease to exist. It would simply return to latency. The smoke would go into the clouds, and the warmth would go into the atmosphere. Things do not arrive and depart. Things manifest dependent on causes and conditions. And things fail to manifest when causes and conditions are not sufficient.

[24:27]

So even if there's one little thing that contributes to that, if it's not there, it won't manifest. Sometimes things aren't manifest, and we fail to be in touch with them. Sometimes things are latent, and yet we are able to be in touch with them. 2,600 years ago, when the Buddha was in Kapilavastu in Srivasti, thousands of people who were there at the same time were not in touch with the Buddha. Yet, if we want to, we can be in touch with the Buddha right now. When conditions are sufficient, a phenomenon called the Dharma manifests. When causes and conditions are lacking, it does not manifest, but is maintained as a seed in our store consciousness. When we begin to be angry, it does not mean that the anger is just at that moment coming into being. The anger was already there as a seed in our store consciousness.

[25:30]

Then, when someone does something that annoys us, and the seed of anger ripens, our face turns red, our voice rises, or becomes unsteady, and other outward signs of anger arise, as you know. But it would not be correct to say that our anger only arose at that moment, at the moment that began, at that moment began to exist. Anger was already present as a potentiality in our consciousness. So potentiality is a very important aspect. The same is true of our body and mind. The body manifests when conditions are sufficient. sufficient, the body ceases to manifest. It has not come from anywhere and it will not go anywhere. This is the teaching of no coming and no going. Where have I come from? Where will I go after I die? These are misleading questions. When conditions are sufficient, the body manifests.

[26:33]

When conditions are no longer sufficient, the body returns to latency. If we look deeply, we can remove the notions of coming and going. We need to go beyond ideas of being and non-being, coming and going, same and different, birth and death. Coming into existence and going out of existence are only a pair of opposites. In reality, there is no coming and no going. The Buddha is described as someone who has come from suchness and goes to suchness. which means reality as it is. Suchness is not something that can be described as here or there, coming or going. Coming from suchness means coming from nowhere. Going to suchness means going nowhere. There is truly no coming, no going, no being, and no non-being. Being and non-being are merely mental categories we use to grasp reality. Reality is free from these notions.

[27:36]

The true nature of reality is nirvana. That's Buddha's mind. Freedom from notions. Everything goes beyond these dualities. The Buddha, you, the leaf, the mango. As far as reality is concerned, these ideas do not apply. Through the teaching of interdependent co-arising, we can go beyond ideas of existence and non-existence. If only one cause or condition is lacking, that which is to manifest will remain latent. When you come to Plum Village in July, there are many fields of sunflowers, and you say that the sunflowers exist. But if you were to come in April, you would not see any sunflowers, and you would say that they don't exist. But the farmers around Plum Village know very well that the sunflowers are already there. The seeds have been planted. The soil has been fertilized and watered. And all the other conditions necessary for the sunflowers to manifest are present, except one, the warmth of June and July.

[28:46]

When that last condition is present, the sunflowers will manifest. When causes and conditions are sufficient, we manifest. When they are lacking, we are latent. This is true of everyone, our father, mother, sister, brother, ourselves, the person we love, the person we hate. When someone we love very much dies, we can do to ease our suffering is to look deeply and see that nothing is and nothing is not. The person we loved yesterday does not appear to be there anymore, but to say that she no longer exists is just an imaginary construction of our discriminative mind. If we know how Before you manifest yourself, we cannot describe you as not existing. After you have manifested, we cannot describe you as existing either. There is only manifestation and non-manifestation.

[29:49]

The notions of being and non-being cannot be applied to you or to any other reality. To be or not to be, that is not the question. The moment of dying is not really a moment of cessation, but a moment of continuation. If a dying person has this kind of insight, she will have no fear. I remember when I was at Sokoji with Suzuki Roshi, we had a bunch of, a number of Japanese priests, one Yoshimura, and he said to me one day, he said, you know, to think, to say, I am alive is an arrogant statement. I am alive, but there's truth in that, deep truth. Sojin? Yes. I understand the side of that it's not true, that something which is not manifest, you can't say that it does not exist.

[30:58]

The other side I don't understand. It seems like everything exists. It's not manifest. Yes, everything manifests. But how come it's wrong to say that things exist? Because if you only assert one side, you get lost. Yeah, I'm not able to see that other side. I know. Okay. That's okay. Thank you so much. I know. It's hard to see. It's not easy to see. So, I don't blame you. Sometimes I don't see it myself. You don't see it when you're involved in one side. When you're involved in one side, you can't see it. It's like the Tim Tombaugh, the guy, the board carrying fellow, he's walking along, he's got a board, you know,

[31:59]

And he sees everything from this side, but he can't see anything from this side. Is that also when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark? Well, yes and no. Because when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. I mean, yes. But no, it's more like you know that. You know that the dark side is part of the light side. You know they're not two different things. The dark and the light. You see the moon, the dark side, you see the, as the moon, as the phases of the moon keep changing, you see the light side of the full moon. But you know that the other side is dark. You know that it's not two pieces of moon. You know that the dark and the light side are one piece of moon.

[33:04]

Yeah. It was just brought to my attention that the Lotus Sutra, or the Diamond Sutra, says there isn't a being or a thing. But I don't think that's the same thing. That has to do with concepts. I have this idea of sojan. That's not true. That's not saying there isn't something there. No, of course not. That's not the answer to my misunderstanding. No, it's not. It's not the answer. It's a different point that's being made. Because if you say there is a self, well, you say, well, there is a self, right? If you say there is not a self, well, there is not a self. How can you say there's no self if there's a self? But how can you say there's a self if you realize there's no self?

[34:06]

Well, sojan is made of all non-sojan elements. That's how sojan has no self. That's right. But at the same time, there is a self of sojan. Yeah. But the side that says there is no sojan because there is no independent sojan. There is something that exists. Yes, there is a dependence. There is a dependent sojourn and an independent sojourn. Whenever you posit one side, you have to posit the other side. Because things do not exist by themselves. Everything has two sides. But the two sides have one side. It's like a coin. Heads and tails. You talk about heads. If you're talking about heads, you have to realize that tails is the other side that makes the heads, the head. The tails make the head the head and the head makes the tails the tails.

[35:07]

You wouldn't call it heads if there wasn't a tail. So in the meaning of this text, which says things do not exist, is it just pointing at the fact that all dharmas are made of things which are not that dharma? Basically, yes. Yes, basically. It's all talking about the same thing, but talking about it in ways from different points of view. So you can see different points of view. I don't know if this is a different point, but the confusion I have in the language, I like the word potentiality, and I like the word happening and going to nothing. I have a little problem with latency, because to my mind that implies if the conditions are not right, something is latent.

[36:12]

It implies to me that something exists somewhere, but not... and I have a hard time understanding that. Like, where is my seat of anger if I'm not angry? It's in your storehouse consciousness. The seed is in the sore house consciousness, which is the alaya vijnana. But is that not a mental construct? It's an idea that... Yeah, it's a mental construct. It's a model. Right. It's a mental construct. It's a model. So, you know, consciousness, whatever we talk about is a model. the real thing. But the model stands for the real thing. And if you create the right model, you can see how things work. So the eight levels of consciousness, the alaya vijnana, is the seedbed of all actions, thoughts, and that's ever happened to you in your life and before.

[37:18]

And that latency, part of the You weren't born with nothing in the alaya. You were born with the latent... You could get angry as a baby because anger is latent in your alaya vijnana. It's what you call the historic or the Collective unconscious? Kind of like collective unconscious, in a sense like collective unconscious, that is developed through all these centuries of mental development, of human development. So we're born with certain aspects that allow us to deal with, like the kids are now, There's a latency of abilities that has been building up in society.

[38:41]

I'm noticing that in one way they're talking about it, it's almost like things have a birth and death like a wave or a star or the kitchen or a book. Which is different from the, when we talk about the alive, isn't that more like living beings? So I mean it seems like, in Sankhya it's almost like it doesn't matter whether it's a living being or not, it just manifests, you're either manifest as a Zafu or you manifest in this moment as a person? No, no. You don't manifest as a Zafu. Oh, no, I know that, but I mean, there's not that much difference in the way he's talking about it between people manifesting and other things manifesting. I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, if your ancestors were making cushions for centuries, you might manifest as a cushion. But, no, I don't think so. I'm not saying I manifest as one.

[39:47]

I don't get that picture. He's talking about our consciousness. In terms of latency or potentiality, I'm thinking about it in neurological terms and how I've heard that when we, say, get angry over and over, it lays down a pathway in our brain that is more easily activated. Right. Oh, absolutely. Every time you get angry, you deposit a seed. Every time you get angry, you deposit a seed. Every time something happens, you deposit. And then, pretty soon, you open wide pathways. And so your reactions become predictable, and they're hard to stop. So this is why practice is supposed to help you to narrow those pathways.

[40:52]

so that you're not relying on reactions. When we revert to reactions, we should be relying on responses, because responses are considered, whereas reactions are not. They just fly off the pathway, because it's easiest access. You know, I invented the steam machine, which is the big boiler. And the boiler has pipes coming off of it. And the boiler is our emotional baggage. And when something irritates us, we open this valve, and our anger shoots out that way. or our jealousy shoots out this way, or whatever.

[41:56]

And so we have all these pipes, and some of them are always open. And so this is the pathway that we take. And some of them are rusty and closed, you know. But we have to open different pathways so that we're not just victims of our conditioning. So, to continue, Dogen says, birth neither comes nor goes. Birth neither appears nor is already existing. Thus birth is totally manifested, and death is totally manifested. Then he says, know that there are innumerable beings in yourself.

[43:04]

Also, there is birth and death. Quickly think over whether birth and all things that arise together in birth are inseparable or not. There is neither a moment nor a thing that is apart from birth. there is neither an object nor a mind that is apart from birth. Death. Oh, it says birth, but I think it means death. So, there are innumerable beings in ourselves. We say, I vow to save all beings, right? Can I do that? Today, you know, older students come and say, I don't know how I can study Buddhism, you know, because we're supposed to save all sentient beings. There's a guy at Tassajara that was just bugging me like this, you know. He had a messianic complex, but he didn't know what to do with it.

[44:11]

I wanted to save all beings, you know. He says, here's what he said to me. Working at Starbucks, working in the kitchen at Tassajara is just like working at Starbucks. And I said, but I know a guy that worked at Pete's who made it into a practice. And for years he was doing this practice called Pete's Practice. Helping people and kind of unconsciously spreading the Dharma and all that. Which is true, right? I'm making dinner right now. But the Sixth Ancestor says, if you've read the Platform Sutra and you know this, he says, saving all beings does not mean I, Daigone, you know,

[45:14]

sentient beings of my own mind. The angry mind, the resentful mind, the jealous mind, the pixie-ish mind, whatever. So these are sentient beings of my own mind. So when you can save the sentient beings of your own mind, that helps other people to save the sentient beings of their own mind. You set a good example. So know that there are innumerable beings in yourself. Did you talk him into it? Well, I didn't have a chance. He kind of avoids me. He knows that, you know. But we also carry innumerable beings. We carry all of our ancestors in our body, in our cells. the cutting edge of all that history of our ancestors.

[46:29]

And so we carry their influences and their, I don't know, we carry their genes. I think their genes are their genes, but our genes are conditioned by their genes. Somebody said, you know, It's not like you took such good care of yourself. It's that you have good genes. Which is probably true. So anyway, yes, we know that there are innumerable beings in yourself. And there's also a person there. It's death. Interesting. I don't know what, you know, you might be following a different translation. And if you see something different that looks, because there is the other translation. which somebody should be looking up. Have we gotten to the boat yet? No, no, we haven't. We're getting there. What do you think of whether birth and all things that arise together with birth are inseparable or not?

[47:34]

Well, what do you think? Yes. They're inseparable? Yes. There is neither a moment nor a thing that is apart from birth. Okay? So, you are... It's not just that these innumerable beings... You can say that innumerable beings can be the whole universe of beings. Basically. That's right. Because the whole universe is your true body and your true mind. When we let go of ego, our ego self, then we expand. and allow what we call Big Mind to take over. It doesn't take over. It's just that we don't hinder it. It's always there. It's saying, give me a chance. How does that connect to Laurie's question about on the one hand we're talking about sentient beings or living beings and consciousness and so forth and this truth.

[48:45]

Being the universe? Yes. And the universe is... Yes. Well, that's like the setup for... I'm not going to go there. I'm just leaving the dot, dot, dot. But I mean, it just... Well, I'm thinking of, you know, like the Gaia theories and the whole thing about that the universe is one. Yeah. Barbara McClintock, the geneticist, wrote a book called A Feeling for the Organism, and she said that her radical shift as a geneticist at the time, and she was made fun of for that, is because she talked about, like the Gaia Theory, that there is a feeling for the organism, that there is a consciousness. We're so embedded in our own individual consciousness that it's hard to believe there's anything bigger than that.

[49:50]

That's actually not just that we're a part of, but that we are it. Not just a part of things. We're a part of things as much as we are individualized. But the less we are individualized, the more we are the thing. rather than a part of the thing. And the more we are the thing, the more we can see reality. So I asked I said, you know, how do you talk to people who are dying in Japan? You know, how do you? He goes to visit the bedside of the people in the hospital a lot.

[50:53]

And how do you, what do you say to them? And he said, what I say is, don't worry. Everything is going along with you. You're not alone. The whole universe is just going along right with you. So, you don't have to feel... That's what's scary, isn't it? The idea that you're going off by yourself. And everything else is staying behind. Yeah, yeah. Because everything is arising new on this moment. Every single moment, everything is arising together with you. But we don't see that. Because there's so much diversity. So it's going away together with you too, then? When you go away, it goes away. Well, whatever away is. Wherever you're going, everything else is going away. Yeah.

[51:54]

So, you know, you belong to this moment, and everything else in this moment belongs to this moment. So, I often think of that. I think about who lived long in the past, and we, all of the people here right now, are living in the same moment, and in the same moment. And then, I think all the people on the block, or in the Berkeley, who are living totally different lives than us, and we never see them, but we're all living in the same moment. It's interesting. Everyone wants me to talk. Thank you. Agreeing with that completely, when I first heard that story, I think you told it, but when I first heard that story, it was near the bedside of someone who was dying.

[53:06]

And there was a second part to it, which was, Don't worry, you're taking everything with you, but also you're leaving everything behind. And I really found that useful in terms of people often worry about the people that they're leaving behind, and they also worry about that they're not going to be there. Their legacy and everything isn't going to be there. So in the relative sense, they are leaving everything behind. They may not be aware of it. They're all still there. That's one of the things that worries people that are dying, is that, you know, they're leaving people who can't take... How are they going to take care of themselves? Who's going to treat the dog? And all that. Yes. Unfinished business. Yes, unfinished business is a big one. But they are left completely behind too. That's part of what you're saying. That's the other side of what you're saying. It's like how to let people figure out their own fate or destiny.

[54:12]

To lead people to their own destiny. That's hard, but that's important. It's like bringing up your child. And you want your child to do this and that, but your child has to make their own mistakes. They have to make their own mistakes and fall into this and that. But that's part of the process. It's all just a process. It doesn't stop. Because no matter where you are, you have unfinished business. No matter when you leave, it's unfinished business. I have this wonderful book that somebody gave me. It's in Spanish, but it's about death. And it's got these wonderful illustrations, you know, through the ages of various artists, you know. And there's the guy who's, you know, carrying all his goods, and then this picture, you know, is tapping him on the shoulder, and he's looking around saying, what?

[55:17]

What? What do you want? Anyway, birth is like riding in a boat. You raise the sails and row with the oar. I don't know if you do both, but it's okay. Although you row... I don't know what's although, because it means... You raise the sails and row with the boat. Riding in the boat, you row, and the boat gives you a ride. And without the boat, you couldn't ride. No one could ride. But you ride in the boat, and your riding makes the boat what it is. Investigate a moment such as this. I usually use the analogy of a car. And I talked about that, I think, yesterday.

[56:20]

Maybe it was last night. The car, the boat is just a piece, you know, it's just something. This is potentiality. Potentiality is the boat. But the boat is not a boat until all the pieces are in place. And one of the main pieces is the person. The person steps on the boat, but still the boat's not going. And then you have to undo the rope, throw it on the dock, raise the sail, and do all those things, then the boat becomes a boat. And you are the boat. The boat is you. And the whole environment is the environment of the boat. So the whole world is the environment of the boat. But there's the small environment and the big environment. I think probably Life is like a man riding a boat?

[57:32]

Yeah. On the second page. Life is like a man riding a boat or like a person riding a boat? Reservation is man. Okay. Life is like a man riding a boat. Aboard the boat he uses a sail. He takes the tiller and pulls the boat along. Yet the boat carries him, and without the boat, he's not there. By riding in the boat, he makes it a boat. You must concentrate yourself by studying and penetrating this very time. At this time, all is the world of the boat. The heavens, the water, the shore, all become the boat's time, and they are not the same as the time which is not the boat. It is for this reason that life is what I make to exist, and I is what life makes me. In boarding the boat, One's body and mind and the entire surrounding environment are all the boat's dynamic working, zinki. Both the entire earth and all space are the boat's dynamic working.

[58:36]

The eye that is living, the life that is eye is just like this. So, we create, we're self-creating beings, basically. Your death poem was, for 78 years, sailing in all kinds of weather, my boat dissolves into the ocean itself. That's nice. So Zen Master Yuanwu, who is Ingo, Ingo was the person who makes the comments in the booklet record to set to us a compilation. Zen Master Yuanru Kochen said, life is the manifestation of the total dynamism.

[59:43]

Death is the manifestation of the total dynamism. You should clarify and penetrate this evidence in practice. Although the principle of, quote, life is the manifestation of the total dynamism covers all the world and all space without concern for beginnings or endings, not only does it not hinder any life, quote, as the manifestation of the total dynamism, it does not even hinder, quote, death as the manifestation of the total dynamism. Although when, quote, death is the manifestation of the total dynamism, it covers all the world and all space, not only does it not impede, quote, death as the manifestation of the total dynamism, it does not even impede, quote, life as the manifestation of the total dynamism.

[60:47]

You get that? Good. Therefore, life does not impede death. Death does not impede life. within life and within death. This does not mean, however, that one single world or one single space is totally dynamically working within life and within death. In other words, it's not one thing that goes through both. It's everything. Yeah, it's everything. Though this is not oneness, it is not difference. Though it is not difference, it is not sameness. Though it is not sameness, this is not multifariousness.

[61:47]

Therefore, within life, there are multitudinous dharmas manifesting their total dynamic working. And within death, there are multitudinous dharmas manifesting their total dynamic working. And the manifestation of the total dynamic working exists with what is neither life or death. In the manifestation of the total dynamic working, there is life and there is death. So, there's no life and no death, and yet there is life and death. So, look at it as a mandala. Within death there is life. Within life there is death. That's two circles. Life is just life. Death is just death. And then in the middle, shika, everything is just as it is.

[62:50]

Everything is just what it is. This is shika. So our practice is shika, taza. We think just doing, but it means you realize that in birth there is death, in death there is birth, which means no special death, no special birth, and at the same time there is death and there is birth, and things are just as they are. So just as they are means moment by moment, practice, We're fond of using the wave and the ocean metaphor, but it does feel like that. Well, yes, it is. There's always waves being born and waves dying. That's right. The birth of a wave, within the birth of the wave is the dying of the wave.

[63:52]

Right. But yet the wave is the wave, and it manifests as a wave. for the whole, for zenki. For dynamic. Yeah. Because the wave is not separate from the ocean. It's simply the activity of the ocean. So zen is the ocean, and ki is the wave. Ki is the activity of the ocean. Ki is the activity of the wave. Ki, you know, means breath. It means, actually, the Sea of Keynes. So, therefore,

[64:53]

The total dynamic working of birth and death could be likened to the bending and extending of a young man's arm or to a person reaching back for his pillow in the night. It is manifested by means of the great many all-pervading powers and radiant brightnesses within it." So it's interesting. The dynamic working of birth and death can be likened to the bending and extending of a young, it could be a young woman's arm, or someone's arm, but this is birth, and this is death, but it's all one arm. And then reaching for the pillow, that's also in another, that's Koan, from the Bodhisattva This is like extending yourself in blindness.

[66:20]

This is like blind faith. There are various kinds of faith. People today don't like to use the term blind faith because it means and you're just blindly being led, right? But in its most significant manifestation, what you end up with is blind faith, because you can't figure it out. It's beyond your ability to figure it out. And so you just do it. It's like feeling your way in the dark. We think that we're feeling our way in the light, We're in the dark. But in the dark is light, and the light is dark. So in a sense, faith is like the light in the dark.

[67:25]

It's not facing something. It's just simply... Without faith, we don't know which way to go. We don't know where to go. Does that make faith an activity? Like it's the functioning of... I was just thinking, it's like, in that expression, it seems to me that faith is the activity of, I don't know what to call it, enlightenment. Yeah, you can't practice it if you don't have it. But you can't conjure it up. It's confidence. In other words, faith is confidence. Or maybe its attribute is confidence. So we have faith in various things, you know.

[68:30]

But most of them are not substantial. Of course, nothing is substantial, but none of them are substantial in the sense that they will actually guide you. So we need guidance. And when you have faith, then you have guidance. So we say we have faith in the ancestor's way. Basically that's faith in Zen is faith in the ancestor's way and path. But at the same time, It's flying blind. True blindness means really knowing what you're doing. There are five kinds of blindness. There's the blindness of no eyes, and the blindness of delusion, and so forth.

[69:30]

There are various kinds of blindness, but the fifth blindness, which is the ultimate blindness, is the blindness of pure faith, without reason. in the age of reason, just a blind faith, you know, looked out upon. What about, uh, is don't know? Well, don't know is, yes. Yeah. Yeah, same thing. Don't know mind. Yeah. Just go straight. Yeah. Yeah, don't know is actually, you know, when you We want to know, but when we come to a place where we don't know... Well, that is what leads us to the pillow. That's the pillow. Yes, that's right. It's like searching for the pillow.

[70:32]

You know that it's there, but you don't know where. But you extend yourself. And the extending of yourself is called practice. And the extending of yourself is called enlightened practice. You don't know where you are or who you are, but you just stand up, not knowing where you are or who you are. That's the essence of practice. So, therefore, the total dynamic working of birth and death could be like an to the bending and extending of a young man's arm or to a person reaching back for his pillow in the night. It is manifested by means of the great many all-pervading powers and radiant brightnesses within it." Radiant brightnesses refers to komyo. Komyo means radiant light.

[71:35]

When it is thus manifested, since the total dynamic working is being activated by the manifestation, it is thought that it has not been manifest prior to the present manifestation. However, prior to its present manifestation was the previous manifestation of the total dynamic working. Although there was a previous manifestation of the total dynamic working, it does not impede the present manifestation of the total dynamic working. That is the reason for competing manifestations of such thoughts, which is totally incomprehensible to me. But it's not totally incomprehensible. No, it's not. It's kind of a weird ending. You don't believe any of it? No, it just seems like a weird ending. It's a weird ending, yes. I agree with you. Well, let's see what it says. He says, this being so, the undivided activity of birth and death

[72:40]

is like a young person bending and stretching, or it is like someone asleep at night searching for the pillow. This is the realization of S1-R's life. At just such a moment, you may suppose that because realization is manifested in undivided activity, there was no realization prior to this. You may think that. However, prior to this realization, undivided activity was manifested. The undivided activity manifested previously does not hinder the present realization. of undivided activity. Thus your understanding can be manifested moment to moment. That's better. That's better. That's better. Yeah, I agree. What's the competing manifestation? Much better. Much simpler. It reminds me of how every time I realize something, I think that my past self is so stupid for not realizing it. But then I look back or I talk to people who've known me for a long time, they say, you haven't changed.

[73:46]

Yes. I'm not sure what that means. In other words, what happened in the past doesn't hinder what can go on in the present. Therefore, you're not stuck in fate. And so your karma is not... There's a difference between fate and destiny. Fate is something that's, strictly speaking, preordained. And you're just living out the life of fate. But destiny is what you're creating all the time, because what you do now determines what you do next, which determines what you do next, and that's your destiny, because that creates a destination. And a person who's called a seer can see that and predict what will happen.

[74:49]

That's why the history of seers, or prophets, you know, prophets can see how things are going to work out because you see the sequence of the patterns. So it's what, 5.20? What does that mean in terms of what we're doing here? Well, we can go a little longer if you want, or we can stop and do Kinhin. Kinhin was supposed to be at 5.30. Well, that's only 10 minutes from now. That's pretty good. So what we could do is take a break and go to the Zen Dojo and do Kinhin and stuff like that. Can we go to the bathroom? Don't wander off, you know, to the bathroom floor. But it'll take us a few minutes to get out of here. Take me a few minutes to get out of here.

[75:50]

I highly recommend this book, because this book explains transformation at the base. Transformation at the base. It's been republished with a new sound. It's in a name. It's in a name. Nature of Consciousness? Something about consciousness. What is it called? The Thirty Consciousnesses? It's like the Nature of Consciousness. Nature of Consciousness. This is not the Thirty Verses or Vasa Vasa. Transformation. You know, he wrote his original Tigers. Yeah. You know, because of us. Bond is 30 versus you think that's what it is until you start reading it. Then you realize it's different.

[76:48]

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