Thank you all for coming today, tonight. And let's see, recording, very good. So first, my apologies for last week. I was on the fence about presenting all those stories, that each one is just so lovely, I couldn't help edit out any, or just picking a few. and allowing more time for discussion. So in retrospect, I think it would have been better if I would have offered less to have a little more space between them for people to process and ask questions, formulate comments and thoughts and such, or maybe have another day or evening of class to spread it out a little bit more. So thank you again for indulging me and allowing that presentation to go over the 8-15 scheduled time.

[01:02]

I think this evening, because it's a single theme that's going to be unpacked, will be easier to manage at the appropriate time. One thing about Zed is it's beyond words and letters and systems of thought and thinking and all those processes, uh, can help us understand the way our mind works. But, um, at the same time, uh, many teachers have told us just throw out those, uh, systems and don't think about them. Dogen especially is, was one not for like creating or using, uh, systems for, uh, for his teaching. Uh, just stressing, uh, Zazen, uh, for us to, uh, reveal our true self, and to go from there. I was studying, or I am studying the Diamond Sutra, and I came across a passage that encourages this, and I hope it lays the foundation for the rest of the evening.

[02:15]

It's section 17, No One Attains Transcendental Wisdom. I'll just read part of it. What do you think? When the Tathagata was with Dipankara Buddha, was there any formula for the attainment of the consummation of incomparable enlightenment? No, World Honored One. As I understand Buddha's teaching, there was no formula by which the Tathagata attained the consummation of incomparable enlightenment. Buddha said, You are right, Sabuddhi. Verily, there was no formula by which the Tathagata attained the consummation of incomparable enlightenment. Sabuddhi, had there been any such formula, Dipankara Buddha would not have predicted concerning me, in the ages of the future you will come to be a Buddha called Shakyamuni. But Dipankara Buddha made that prediction concerning me because there is actually no formula for the attainment

[03:24]

of the consummation of incomparable enlightenment. The reason herein is that Tathagata is a signification implying all formulas. In case anyone says that the Tathagata attained the consummation of incomparable enlightenment, I tell you truly, Sabuti, that there is no formula by which the Buddha attained it. The basis of Tathagata's attainment of the consummation of incomparable enlightenment is wholly beyond. It is neither real nor unreal. Hence, I say that the whole realm of formulations is not really such. Therefore, it is called realm of formulations. So when I read this, it felt like there was two sides being presented. One is don't get attached to forms. And the other side is there are forms and these are just, they're provisional, they're temporal.

[04:30]

They're in any given moment, things configure into a form and they dissipate into formlessness. So we can't really attach to a particular form. It's an ongoing process of staying awake and seeing the forms changing. Nātaka literally means thus come or thus gone. So if you imagine a being thus coming and thus going, it has a more kind of ethereal feel to it. It's coming and going without like stomping in, here I am and now I'm out of here. You know, when we're young, very young, uh, we, uh, had this open mind and we haven't really configured systems. So we had this wide open, um, mind that is taking in the world and that we, uh, love to be around children is they're so open and in a way naive.

[05:43]

Um, and as adults, we've kind of lost some of that naivete because we learned in school and from a family and cause and conditions of our life, various ways of grouping things and learning about how things go together. You know, putting light shapes together or light colors together in kindergarten, uh, learning in, uh, grade school, all the various systems about how to understand the world. So these are systems that are beneficial for us to understand the world, but sometimes, they get in the way of actually experiencing the world. So as adults, we actually become childlike in a way, not childish, but we return to that openness. And that's what, um, uh, the five positions, um, uh, are a guide to help us learn how to do that. So

[06:47]

So what we have here are the five positions and, uh, they're often called the five ranks, but I like to call them, um, or describe them as positions, which are temporal. We constantly move back and forth. We don't fix into one or another. Uh, when you, when you hear things about ranks or ranking, we immediately want to go to the top, right? What's the best rank to be in or the highest rank to be in? and that can be deceptive and distracting to our practice. So if we think of them as positions, there'll be a little bit more fluidity and less fixedness to them. So on the left are the trigrams of the I Ching, which I wrote on the posting to the Yahoo group, which is where Tozan utilized those, uh, the yin and yang, the active and passive sides of our life into a formulation that will, uh, help instruct us in our Buddhist practice.

[08:03]

And, um, on the right side are circles, which are a little bit easier for us to understand. It is certainly easier for me to describe, uh, this evening. So, um, I'm going to be using those circles to describe the, um, uh, the various dualities in our life, the primary thing being wisdom and vexation. So if you look at the, um, the five, uh, uh, trigrams there, you can see that, uh, they're in front of Sojan's office in the form of bricks. The long bricks are the yang or the active side and the split bricks or short bricks are the passive side, the yin side. So yang and yin, and there's five positions. And here's a temple cat straddling two at a time. And there she is sitting upright with those positions as well. And finally, one of my favorite pictures is the depiction of the five positions in circular form in the kitchen that Sojin and I share.

[09:16]

And while one could, say, well, it'd be less distractive if we just saw the circles. I'd like to have this on the screen for a while. So we actually see, uh, it's not just the circles, it's people in relationship to the circles or the, to, to the expressions that arise in our life. Uh, this is, uh, David and Nobusan in my apartment, uh, doorway and Sungjin of course, in his, his office. So the positions I'll be talking about are going from the top to the bottom. So it's looking at the dualities in our life. I can say there's what's in the foreground and what's in the background, stillness or activity, essence and function, nirvana and samsara.

[10:18]

and for our practice, wisdom and vexation or irritations. So it's important to know that nothing exists alone. It's only in relationship to its opposite, which is a defining piece of what emptiness means. Emptiness means that there's no abiding self, that something arise in relationship to another. So it's what's hidden and what's revealed. And one of my favorite expressions of Suzuki Roshi is, we're half good and we're half bad. We actually contain both. Or as Whitman said, we contain multitudes. So we try to present our good side or our beneficent side, but there's also that darker side that is in abeyance, that is still there. And when we start practicing, it becomes more clear about our vexations.

[11:26]

As we continue to practice, we actually become more transparent. We can see both sides of ourselves a little more easily. And other people come to know us a little more easily as we trust the understanding of Buddhism. And we actually can be honest with one another and be clear about both sides are here with me. uh, the so-called good and the so-called bad. So in the first position, uh, here, uh, there is the dark side here, which is vexation and the, uh, so-called, uh, clear side or white side, which is wisdom. Now in other renderings of the five positions, these, uh, the black and white would be reversed. So there's no, no, no attribution to, uh, the black side being vexation, the white wisdom, it could be the exact opposite. I just happened to copy this out of, um, out of a book and it's what we're going with, uh, this evening. So in the, so when we're practicing, uh, as Sojin said the other night in Shosan, enlightenment brings us to practice.

[12:39]

And what that is, is that we realize that there is something off in the way that we're living our life. Something is askew, something is amiss, and there's a desire to want to fix it or come to terms with it or understand it. So this first position is called form in emptiness. One way of describing is form and emptiness, which of course relates to the heart Sutra. So the world of form, which let's say it's our disappointment and the vexations of relationship, the situation with the political climate in our country, climate change, whatever it happens to be for you, that's the form that's causing us some discomfort. And as we sit, we get a glimpse into emptiness.

[13:41]

Now, until that happens, it's just vexation that's bothering us. But at a certain place in practice, we actually see that there is the emptiness of that form. And it's hard to describe, but one of the easier ways of, um, maybe accessing that is to say when you're in nature. So we often describe being in nature like being in awe of the vastness and the openness of that. So there is a description or there's a mindset of what is going on in front of me? This is awesome, it's beautiful, and I'm speechless. And then just being still in the presence of that awesome scene, is an experience of emptiness before beyond labeling it.

[14:42]

So it's a form and it's empty. So, um, it's a glimpse into the real and, um, we get a taste of, you know, what our self centered way of looking at things is shifted, that we become a little less self centered. Oh, there's something beyond my self-centered thinking here that I should investigate. And we experienced that in Zazen. And once we get a taste of this wisdom or the wisdom of emptiness and the awesomeness of that, there is a desire to want to cultivate more wisdom and get rid of the vexation. And that is what's happening in the second circle here.

[15:44]

So the white is a growing amount of wisdom, cultivating wisdom and getting settled in our sitting practice. And there's a little bit still of that vexation, that little residue of a problem that we have. And so, in a way, um, one way, uh, this is, you know, it's very, this is a very dualistic way of looking at, uh, our life, but it's important to see it, to see the dualistic side before we, we, um, uh, move to the non-dual side. Uh, so in this, uh, uh, circle or position, we've gone from form, uh, is, um, is emptiness to emptiness is form. because mostly we're experiencing the emptiness of things and there's like a little residual of form there that we're seeing.

[16:50]

And you know, one could maybe liken it to a piece of grit in an oyster. You know, there's this residual irritation that is getting polished into a pearl, but until it's completely formed into a pearl, it's still irritating. So it's like, I want to get rid of that vexation. And this is a great position to be in or that describes a place when we come to practice whereby we realize that, man, I really made a lot of mistakes in my life. I really screwed up a lot. I should have apologized. I should have done better. I mean, all that sort of self-deprecating thing is taking place in that second position because we become less self-centered entering practice from the first position and we see the so-called mistakes or errors of our way. This circle or position is also appropriate to describe the arhat ideal.

[17:59]

With the arhat, the old Theravada school of Buddhism, early school of Buddhism, is where the monks and nuns really focused on eliminating vexations. Labeling them very clearly and working very, very hard to cultivate purity, if you will. So those are clearly the dualistic side of our practice, which is very important in establishing the form of our practice. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. In the third position, form is form, emptiness is emptiness. And what this position represents for me is our mudra. This is the circle of wisdom is our hand mudra, our cosmic mudra, and we're holding,

[19:04]

if you will, the vexation, whatever the vexations happen to be. We're sitting upright. We're, we're giving ourselves Zazen instruction. And when it comes to the mudra, the hand, the thumb tips are lightly touching. They're not collapsed. They're open and holding the vexation. This, uh, this is a, of course a two dimensional, uh, uh, depiction, Form is form, emptiness is emptiness, but what would be more easy to understand or see would be if it was three-dimensional. So if you remember from science class years ago, in school they'd have a picture of the earth and then they would cut out a quarter of an eighth of it so you could see the core of the earth. So if you imagine yourself sitting, you're not two-dimensional, you're three-dimensional.

[20:07]

You know, your belly's hanging out, you have a curve in your lower back, and you're upright, just like the teaching stick that our teachers hold. But in the center of our mudra is that vexation, and we're holding it perfectly still. This is a little bit like a seesaw, these five positions, And the middle position, form is form, emptiness is emptiness. You can see clearly there's all that emptiness and the former vexation in the middle is the fulcrum. It's a balanced point of practice. And in many ways, this is a really sweet place to land in our Zazen practice because the vexations are no longer overwhelming us, but they're still there. And in Zazen, we're sitting in stillness and we have a hold on them, so to speak.

[21:10]

They're not controlling us in a way we might be thinking that we're controlling them, but there's a balance. There's a balance in our life now with that. This is the place also that I'm reminded of in the koan about how do you jump off a hundred foot pole. Because it's so comfortable, we're sitting there still. Our vexations are in control or at peace, so to speak. We have perspective on them. And so we don't want to go anywhere else. This is fine. I'm okay with a little bit of dirt or irritant, but I'm cool here. I'm sitting upright and it's okay. Nobody's perfect. Ross just said I'm half good, half bad. So I got a handle on the bad and I'm sitting up good. Perhaps.

[22:13]

So now we're on the other side of the fulcrum at the fourth position where emptiness is no different than form. and form is no different than emptiness. And all these expressions are contained in the heart suture. So next time you chant the heart suture, you'll hear this again. And I hope that the five positions helps to illuminate that teaching. So it looks like that vexations have disappeared because it's just a circle with nothing in the center. but actually it's more like in the ox herding pictures where there's no, there's nothing depicted. We're actually, we've, we've actually disappeared that, um, that emptiness is no different than form. Form is no different than emptiness. So because there's nothing to compare the other thing to is we've disappeared.

[23:20]

And this is the place where we're sitting thoughts in and, um, there's in a sense, no consciousness, no awareness of it. We're just sitting. And then when there's a little beep and we become aware of our sitting, that's okay. But we haven't disappeared. We've kind of reappeared in a way. Maybe in a sense it'll feel a little bit like the third position, but because we've disappeared, there's a deeper feeling or a subtleness in our practice. Um, this is a little bit like, um, as a story about the Buddha, when he had his awakening experience, he, he, one story is that he, he stayed by himself for three weeks in a sort of self joyous Samadhi and just sitting there realizing that he couldn't share this with anybody because it was just so, so profound in a sense, he kind of disappeared and was no longer, um, uh, vexed by things.

[24:29]

Mara had been destroyed and, He was there. But as we know, he returned to the marketplace and he ran into the five ascetics that he had been practicing with earlier. So he left his sort of joyful space of peace under the Bodhi tree and came back out into the world to be with people. So this is, once again, form is form, and emptiness is emptiness, like in the third position, but there's no longer worrying about or being concerned with enlightenment or delusion, wisdom or vexation, because we've already walked through that position in the third, and now we actually see that in that black there, which is so-called vexation, that we're living in, the world of delusion. We're not living in enlightenment.

[25:31]

We actually are being, we're deluded within delusion. We're consciously making a choice to be in the world and to help other people. Like a lotus in muddy water. There's a mud and then there's a lotus above the waterline, you know, blooming. So it's one piece. The black and white, they're all mixed together. So before I go on to the next, another rendering of the five positions, is there anybody that has a question that they'd like to ask?

[26:37]

You can unmute yourself. I have a question. And maybe you're going to, should I go ahead? Okay. And maybe you're going to get into this, but I'm curious, what are the bars called? I have the sheet on the left. Hexagons? The trigrams. If you look at the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, or the Hokyo Zemmai, that was the poem that Dongshan wrote and gave to his disciple Sozon. And that's what the Soto school is named after. And within the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, there's a reference to these trigrams. yeah and I sent that out to the on the Yahoo group the oh yeah right I have it in front of me but I have another question about it yeah so well for example the first two there's less lines uh-huh and you know is that because there's not as much emptiness well no that's not true because

[27:51]

were growing in wisdom. You know, they go from three lines to three lines to six lines. Is that the growth growing indicator? I can't say, actually. I haven't studied the trigrams and the I Ching there. I just wanted to include that so we know the source of Tozan's teaching. And when you're on the temple grounds, if you're wondering, why are these bricks like this? wanted to have toes on five positions there when he stepped out of his office and for others walking by and can him excuse me okay yeah I've done the each thing a bunch so so If you can put up the thing, because I thought they were just the cats, and I didn't realize that you had put the trigrams and such on it.

[28:53]

The trigrams and the hexagrams are different. I have Like, I don't, I don't want, thank you, Joel. I don't want to get into a discussion about the trigrams because I'm not versed in that. Okay. Um, but, um, here, here are the, the, um, the lines. So that one is inner truths, the pure white one. And this one is, um, like sort of, I forget the name of it. It's sort of like things are unstable because the apps is, um, there's so much Yang. I mean, there's so much whatever. Um, so they, these have meanings now. I'm sure they do. Anyway, no problem. I mean, thank you, Joel. Um, okay. Um, let's see. Kitty cat, kitty cat.

[29:55]

Okay. Here we are. Okay. So, um, so don't get, you know, it said he didn't want, he didn't want people to, uh, use systems to, uh, understand the Dharma that all you need to do is Shikantaza. But actually, um, uh, what's that from eight, 870 to 1,235 is, about 400 years or so, 400 years after Dongshan, Dogen Zenji wrote Genjo Koan. And the famous lines that are, to study the Buddha way is to study oneself. To study oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas. To be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas is to be freed from one's body and mind

[30:59]

and those of others. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment is continued forever." So it makes a fair amount of sense just studying it, just the lines as poetry. But when I was looking around and researching this, there's actually been commentaries on how this is a rewording of Deng Xian's five positions. And that's what I'd like to share with you now. So to study the Buddha way is to study the self is called the shift in practice. So this is a place where, as I said earlier this evening, where we're going along in our life and there's some dissatisfaction with how things are going or not going.

[32:09]

And then somehow or another, mysteriously, we wind up having this experience or this shift that it could be otherwise. And everyone here found Berkeley Zen Center at one time or another, and are here this evening, so we're continuing the shift or this orientation and shifting towards a way-seeking mind and shifting away from a life of creating more karma to one of creating or following vow or intention. So Mayuzumi Roshi, translates the Japanese word in the English letters are N-A-R-A-U, so Narao or Naru, something like that, as study. But according to his translation, it means to learn, you know, the study is to learn in a repetitious way, like Zazen, sitting Zazen over and over again, doing calligraphy over and over again.

[33:20]

washing the dishes over and over again. It's a repetitious activity that is actually studying. We're studying the self by repeating ourself over and over again. Sojin Roshi said that he never liked to repeat himself. He always wanted to do different things. And when he came to Sokoji, he saw Suzuki Roshi every day bowing and offering incense every day, bowing and offering incense in a repetitive thing. And it was totally, it was a shift. It was a shift for Sojin from like, I don't want to repeat myself to I'm following this teacher and I'm going to investigate further what this repetition is about. And I recommend the repetition chapter in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind for a short lecture that uh, examines this process.

[34:22]

So we've got, so we've shifted from a life of karma and kind of being a little bit unconscious or very unconscious to a light of more conscious living and shifting towards way seeking mind. And from, uh, that, uh, position of form is emptiness. and a shift to study the Buddha way is to study the self. We go to a willing submission to study the self is to forget the self. You're submitting yourself to practice. So, um, when we submit ourselves to practice, we submit ourselves to weight loss. We want, we focus on what's, what's, what brought us here? Well, my overweightness, I want to get rid of my weight, this extra weight. So that becomes a vexation and we're submitting ourselves to practice to the intention of letting go of our resistances, letting go of our opinions and our fears.

[35:31]

So when we come to practice, as we all know, we have a lot of opinions and a lot of thinking about how things should be. And if we can last, if we can persevere in practice, in community, we learn to let go a little bit of our point of view. It doesn't mean forget our point of view, but we let go of it. And we let go of our resistance and start letting in the other factors of awakening, the other Sangha members' ideas. And we process that. It's not just about me. It's about us in community. To study the self is to forget the self, to forget the old self, the old fixed self. Who is this person? We've gotten a glimpse into an awakening place where this person is not serving this person so well. So what am I going to do about that? So with the third position, the third position is called the position of achievement.

[36:42]

For me, when I hear achievement, it means like a rank. I've achieved something or I've got something. I like to think of it as affirmation. We're on the path and we're kind of in the dark and we continue practicing. We keep bumping into things, but at a certain point we get some affirmation. We get some okay-ness that we're on the right track. We're on a trajectory toward a greater awakening and lessening our suffering. So how are we affirmed? I like to think of it as when we're upright sitting, sitting upright with our mudra and reflecting on our vexations. Our vexations are no longer controlling us. They're actually in a place of ease. They're in our lap. They're in our most, in our open place of our heart where we're breathing.

[37:46]

we become more Buddha-centric and less self-centric. So in this affirmation, to forget the self is to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas. We're actually waking up to all of the things around us that are affirming us. that we actually are no longer, we're looking at them and it's about me and those things. We're actually being affirmed by our world or the dharmas that we are in with the world. And this takes a lot of trust because if you forget yourself, if you forget the self, Our habit energy is, wait a minute, am I going to be taken advantage of?

[38:52]

Am I going the right way? So it takes a while to get to this place where we actually trust our practice and trust our Dharma brothers and sisters and our teachers to help us with our vexations. And when we have this sense of joy or uprightness, this is called a GGU Zami. which is actually one way of saying what the Buddha experienced under the Bodhi tree. You don't know really what he experienced. This is the story that I'm sharing with you. Take it for what it's worth. But it's a self joyous or self receiving samadhi or concentration of awareness in our practice. In the Zendo, after we bow out to Sojin Roshi, before stepping out, if you look up, there is a calligraphy of Suzuki Roshi above the doorframe, and that's the calligraphy for GGU Zamai, king of samadhis, self-joyous samadhi, or concentration.

[39:59]

So in the fourth position, to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas is to be freed from one's body and mind and those of others. That's a collective achievement. So it's no longer an affirmation of just this person, just me, but there's a collective feeling for all of us practicing. We're not a hermetic practice, although on Zoom we might feel that we're we're doing a hermetic practice, but it's a collective practice, a practice with Sangha. And in, in, in contrast to GGU Zamai or self-fulfilling or self-joyous Samadhi, in Tajiu Zamai, it's others fulfilling. We're actually helping others. We actually are, we are with others. And this is, um, My experience has been like in Sashim, when we cultivate enough time on the cushion and we're not talking and dividing things, but we're actually using our other senses to receive the world and relate to each one of us, there is a dropping away of this self-centered person and we are doing things together.

[41:29]

And you can see it, especially during serving in meals, You know, it's basically a silent expression and we're just moving through the Zendo serving, taking, receiving, eating, cleaning, and all that seamlessly. So there's this sense of others fulfillment, uh, concentration. So because we're, we're losing that self selfish feeling, or I'm going to, I need to get better. I need to be awake and all that. We actually are starting to turn our energy toward others. and helping others because there's less, we realize two things. One is, at the Bodhisattva Ideal, we bring others across with us. We don't go first. And when we do that, we also are being brought over. It's not me first, it's we together. And in the final position, no trace of enlightenment remains.

[42:42]

And this traceless enlightenment is continued forever. This is an integration of affirmation or integration of achievement. So we're no longer worrying about enlightenment or delusion. We're just, we're just in the mud together, practicing. body and mind have dropped away is Dogen's phrase about his great awakening. Sojin described this position, the fifth position, is kind of like an old man in the corner of a room with people or in a quiet corner of a a town square that people don't recognize. He's just there or she's just there and not making any noise and pretty invisible, but with a watchful eye is actually seeing and intuiting what needs to happen here.

[43:57]

Am I awake and aware to help other people? because I've gone through the bamboo tube and I'm so-called on the other side of that. And, um, uh, what's next. So that is, uh, all of my prepared notes that I wanted to share with you all today. And, uh, If people have questions or comments, now's the time. Thank you very much. You can just unmute yourself and speak up. Actually, you muted yourself again.

[45:04]

Sorry. I said I was listening earlier and I took some notes and I just wanted to say... Oh, I found it really illuminating when you said, you know, how we're holding vexation in our mudra. I never necessarily thought of that exact thing and the way you described it. I think I've had my hand up because I wanted you to describe how do you hold vexation in your mudra, but that's exactly what you did. You did describe that with a softness and a kindness and you know, the vexation doesn't leave us, but we hold it lightly. And that was just so beautiful. I wanted to thank you. I don't know if there's a question in there, but it just struck me. It was so lovely. Right. Well, um, When we offer Zazen instruction, we talk about being aware of those thumb tips lightly touching. And if our thumb tips are pushing harder and harder, it's usually that we're vexed about something.

[46:04]

And if they've drifted apart, maybe it's just too much to deal with and we're just kind of disconnecting and checking out. So one could also, because nothing exists by itself, Another way of saying it is we're holding enlightenment. It's not just vexation. We're holding our awakening. But I think from a practice place, it's easier and maybe more useful in a way to say that we're holding our vexations. They're not holding us. Yeah, it's lovely. Thank you. You're welcome. Let's see. Joel has a raised hand. Oh, great. Yeah, Joel, what's up? What's up is to thank you. This has been terrific. What you said about the five ranks and that wonderful Dogen thing was fabulous. And I had never thought of it that way, but it's so helpful to illuminate the five ranks for me, because I had been very involved in the Dogen and the five ranks have been

[47:18]

pretty opaque to me. This one thing I just want to put out there, which is from what you said about the actual word, um, for study thing that keeps happening. And it occurred to me that that, that practice simply practice is a good thing. that realizes that to practice the Buddha way is to practice the self. To practice the self is to let go of all things. And I just found that helpful, so I wanted to offer it to folks. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we typically hear to study the Buddha way is to study the self. A revelation I read this afternoon was one self, so it actually feels like more ownership than studying One self, this self here. Let's see. Nobu-san, I didn't check in with you about the Japanese for study.

[48:22]

Do you recall that word? And Alan has his hand up, maybe he has a sense of it. What word? To study the Buddha way. To become. To become. To become. If you understand it. I see. Or accomplish. Accomplish. I think, yeah. Yeah. Oh, very good. Naru. Yeah. Naru, Buddha, right? Uh-huh. Kind of the Sabutsu. Become the Buddha. Sabutsu, yeah. Mm-hmm. And shining, shining in the roof tile. Yeah. And shining to the mirror. Uh-huh. Shikantaza. That's it, Shikantaza, yeah. And you, Naru. Uh-huh. Thank you. You become to king. Yeah, yeah. You become to princess.

[49:25]

You become to Buddha. Naru. Thank you. I was speaking with Riana this afternoon, and she brought out Katagiri Roshi's maybe his latest collection of lectures. There it is. A light that shines through infinity. And there's a teaching in there that was pretty much a reworking also of the five positions. Uh, if people want to explore that, I don't want to get into it now, but, um, uh, it's just that, uh, what's it saying that, you know, that, There's nothing new under the sun. These things are created, but we don't know who maybe preceded them that inspired them. We have Chris and also Alan had his hand up. Thank you. Chris. Thank you. In the last class, we were discussing about what's on our side, which grass sprouts, right?

[50:31]

And we formulated that digging through the roots, struggling through the roots is practice, and that nourishes us to sprout. But what's on the other side? And somebody wisecracked, you know, what is it like on the other side? And somebody wisecracked astroturf. I was wondering if like Judy or anybody else had a workable analogy to what's on the other side. Follow me? What's on the other side? Yeah. On this side of the shore, you know, we have grass and it's sprouting because we get to dig, struggle through the roots and the dirt and get dirty. The other side is enlightenment, right? When you cross over on the other side, what would, and you asked, what was the, you or someone asked, what was the imagery on what's on the other side? And, you know, somebody joked it's astroturf because there's no roots there. But Judy was wondering about that, if I recall.

[51:32]

Did anyone else have an analogy or visualization of what's on the other side? I know we're speaking proverbially. Well, what Jozon said was, you know, a grass that doesn't sprout, right? So what's that mean? Yeah, what does that look like? Yeah, what does that look like? That's a good question. Why wouldn't it also just be grass and sprouts as it is on this side? Well, we say enlightenment is on the other shore. There is no other shore. It's this shore. So when we realize that grass and sprouts on this shore are no different than grass and sprouts on the other shore, we're seeing it with Buddha's eye and not Ross's self-centered eye, we see there's no difference. And we're in the third position. Yeah. Or maybe all the positions mixed together.

[52:34]

So I did think about that a little bit during Zazen when I shouldn't have been thinking, Huadou as you speak. So then I think the other side is more like the, perhaps more like the Pure Land where its direction is more important than the other side place. You know, it's an aspirational goal though, where you move, you practice towards that, you paddle or roll. or swim or whatever your struggle, like Sisyphus, whatever is a struggle, that's what's important. What's really there is not, the place is not so important as the direction. Well, we often want to be someplace else. We don't want to be here. We want to be elsewhere. And the grass is always greener on the other side, right? Yes and no. We want to be here, but we are in a moment of timefulness, a directional, right? And we do want to figure out how to till the tiller and the rudder. So the other side gives us an idea about a direction. For example, there's an Ishinoro karate imagery where the tiger, she's got all three paws on the ground, but her one paw is reaching towards something and that's to a dragon that's in the air.

[53:48]

And that is the ideal, the Genzo koan that we're reaching for. That's what's on the other side. I like that. Yeah. Um, uh, I didn't, I came to a sitting practice when I was 28 and I was pretty, uh, dull and not so aware of, uh, my, um, suffering. and be able to do anything about it prior to that. But I did have an awakening when I was hitchhiking in Germany when I was about 20. And I wanted to share this story with you because for me, it's part of my secular life that invokes the so-called spiritual life, if you will. When I was hitchhiking, I met a couple vegetarians and they were not proselytizing, they just didn't eat animals.

[54:58]

And rather than go into the details of what I experienced talking with them and observing them, it was pretty clear that their lifestyle was different than what I grew up with and what I even was aware of that could be a lifestyle of abstaining from eating animals. So I woke up to something profound. And when I came back to America to finish up my college education, I became a vegetarian. And like most vegetarians, when they first get on board with that, they get really on board and they get on their soapbox and they start arguing the pros and cons and all the rest of that. And so that was, for me, being in the first position that there was something about the suffering of animals that I didn't want to participate in. And I was working to understand that better and better.

[56:01]

But there was so much vexation in my life that it became, it fueled the argument or fueled my conviction around it. And as you might imagine, and you've probably experienced yourself, It's kind of alienating to hear someone tell you about what you should be doing. So, um, a few years after that, uh, I stumbled into Bernie Glasson's place and started sitting Sansa and my mind started slowing down. And I, uh, for, uh, this discussion, I found myself in a, in a place of, uh, being in the third position. where there was a balance between the lifestyle that I had adopted and this thing that was going on in the world that I felt was problematic, not a beneficial thing that harmed the animals with their suffering, as well as, as we've come to know now, the planet with global warming.

[57:17]

and what, you know, clear-cutting the Amazon forest for pasture land and all the rest of that. So I sat in practice with my father, who was a veterinarian who worked on animals that were destined for slaughterhouse. So I was supported by those animals that were being slaughtered. And I loved the taste of all that food that I ate growing up. There was nothing particularly wrong with it. and all of my best friends are animal eaters. So how do I reconcile that go on of something that's very dear to my heart about animal rights and not harming animals, not eating animals, and yet at the same time, the world is what it is. And so when I came across a passage in the Platform Sutra, where the sixth ancestor, who was, according to the story, didn't eat animals.

[58:22]

He lived with hunters for a while, and he had vegetables, his roots and vegetables and things, cooking in the broth pot or the cauldron, along with the animals that the hunters had gathered. Hunters had, not gathered, hunters had, yeah, killed and brought back. So when I read that, my first impulse was, oh, that's horrible. The vegetables are tainted. This isn't a good thing. But actually, it's the fifth position. It's the black position in the five positions which, for this particular argument or discussion point, is the highest position. It's a position that I can let go of my preferences the duality of not eating animals is good, eating animals is bad, and that the Sixth Ancestor is this model of, I'm eating animals, I mean, I'm eating plants, but I'm not separating myself from the animal eaters, and we're cooking together, and in a way, as Sojin likes to say, we're in a soup pot, we're all stirred up together.

[59:37]

And that's been a model of practice for me. Even though I still have residue, I'm still holding that vexation about the plight of animals and slaughterhouses and the climate change and all the rest of that. But it helps me to be with you all. And hopefully it helps you be with me that I'm not on my soapbox telling you to stop eating animals. So if anyone has any thoughts on that or their own stories about how they came to practice or how they're working with these these positions of understanding and kind of closing the gap of dualistic thinking. Now would be a time. We have a hand up, Asa. Asa, hi. Hi, good evening. Good evening. Thank you for being here. It's wonderful. Thank you for being here. Yeah, I remember the last conversation you and I had. It's been maybe about a year ago or so at the Zen Dome.

[60:40]

One of the things that, living in the United States of America, we're shackled with one fundamental problem that we can see very well today, and it's the black and white divide. You know, African Americans were enslaved, and we still have issues around Black Lives Matter, and Harvard University has a study, it's called the Implicit It's an implicit research study. And it shows, I don't know if you've ever seen the experiment where the young children are there with the dolls. There's a black doll and there's a white doll. Many of you are probably familiar with that experience. And so we don't know how it is that children by the age of two and three and five come to know and understand that white is better than black. Right? And there's an awareness that we come to, whether it's vegetarianism or an awareness that, you know, we can't destroy the environment the way we're destroying it.

[61:50]

And an awareness that, hmm, I was born and raised Roman Catholic and sin is black. There's a black cat. Black gets inextricably linked with evil. Right? And you were talking earlier about how we learn systems. And it's just one of the things that you and I talked about before is how do we bring about this awareness of diversity, right? Symbols. But I think it has to be deep within our thinking right? We want to, I may be going too long, but we want to embrace the reality if this group here was all black, we might think twice about the black being vexatious because it's just really hard in this country to deal with this black white thing. So it's really a wonderful opportunity, as you said originally, it doesn't have to be black and it doesn't have to be white. So I would really say in terms of It would really be great to flip the script on this because it would enlighten us to say, wow, the black cat, all these negative things about black, we need to change, even if symbolically.

[63:02]

I agree with you, Asa. Thank you for bringing that up. And thank you for highlighting the points that I made at the beginning, which is that we are born fresh, so to speak, open, and then the systems that we learn for better, or for worse, that kind of, that, that, uh, flavor our life. And as we come into practice, we get, and as Dogen said, you, you have to let go of these systems. We have to see that the systems are provisional and if they've been, if they've been created, uh, to keep a culture down, to keep an animal down, whatever it happens to be, we have to see through it all. And the image of being in the marketplace and mixing it up with all the colors, all the forms that we have in this life, that's where the real work is.

[64:08]

And what's incumbent upon us is to keep the dialogue going and not closed down. So I appreciate people's ears open when I start talking about not eating animals, because most of my friends here are animal eaters. They went, uh-oh, is Ross going to go off on one of his vegetarian things again? Oh my God, I signed up for a five position class. So again, Asa, thank you for bringing it up, and we're working together to make this happen. So are you willing to change this lecture if you were to give it again and switch it around? Would you have that level of flexibility and, um, spontaneity to be able to, to not just black as that? So I'm just, just asking the question. Well, the thing is, um, uh, I would like to do this class again.

[65:11]

I'd like to do last week's class again. Um, so, um, When we look at, my understanding is, when we look at wisdom and vexation, we can call it anything. We just need two things. It could be one and two. It could be red and green. It could be a circle and a square. whatever it happens to be. But the beauty of it is, and this is what gives me peace of mind when we talk about integration, that my understanding of my suffering is when things are not integrated and they're separate.

[66:14]

And when they're separate, I talk about, black and white, Jew and Gentile, you know, all the various dualities that are in this world. But if I can realize integration and that there's just one piece, that's where I find my awakening and help. Carol and then Alan. Okay. I don't know if this is on a different subject, but I was surprised when I saw it too, because I was thinking, oh, dark, that's going to be enlightenment. Because I was thinking of the Sandokai, which I was trying to learn. Thank you for bringing that up. Which, in the dark, that's in, you know, the branch is doing a slow on in the dark, which is, I think, my understanding is the enlightenment part. and the light is the delusional part. So I was, you know, it was surprising that it kind of reversed in this one. So that's an interesting thing that Asa brings up.

[67:18]

It is interesting and very valuable. Things come together in the dark. In the light, they're distinguished. In the dark, they come together. So how do we hold both of those and not just attach to one side or the other? Alan and then Julianne. I think that Ace's point is very well taken, and also I think that Carol was saying, in essence, what I was going to say, that the fifth rank, to my understanding, is the rank of the undifferentiated, that the dark makes all forms one, and that archetypically in Zen, the light stands for differentiation and difference, and dark stands for oneness. So if you look at, in response to what Asa was saying, if you look at things from that perspective, then in a certain way the system works.

[68:31]

And of course the system is itself Dealing with dualities at the system. And it's worth noting as well that Dogen was very critical of the way the five ranks were used in in Zen. He didn't explicitly use them anywhere, and he did explicitly criticize them in other places, but implicitly, as you were saying, say, in the opening to Genjo Koan, it was always, it was in him, that system was in him in the same way, or perhaps in a parallel way to the way that white supremacy is embedded in the system of our society.

[69:34]

And so there's no escaping it. There's only the way of, to me, of acknowledging and not embracing, but acknowledging and trying to be free. Yes. Um, so anyway, that's, that's what I wanted to say. Just that there's a, there's a tremendous ambiguity about the, the implications of dark and light and you can play it either way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when, when we sit in sadhana and we, we cast our eyes downward, uh, they're still open, but we're not, we're, we're focusing inward. And if we shine a light on something, it's a very different mind, mind place. So there's this, this light and dark things that are constantly in play and, um, ranching stream flow in the dark, you know, this, uh, Suzuki Oshi's commentary on the Sandokai again, thank you Carol for bringing that up.

[70:45]

It's a great study and I'm sure there's stuff online for that, uh, lectures around that. Um, Julianne, I think you had the last question or comment tonight. I actually was, I think Hozon actually said what I was going to say essentially. So, and I, I just, because I have read very little about Daoism in the past and it seems that those, opposites can be associated with a wide variety of values. So dark isn't always bad in the Taoist cosmology. So that's all I wanted to say. But I think Hozon probably said it better. Well, things are at one when we're born or at the umbilical cord cut.

[71:50]

And then it becomes two. And we're constantly working on getting back to one. But we can't do that unless we recognize the multiplicity or the duality of things. And it's endless. And thank you all for being here. It's helping me understand these teachings and your questions and comments are all helpful and I'll be thinking about them for a long time. And this is a recording of this, so if you want to refer back to anything that I went over, YouTube, Berkley Jen video, it's there for us to enjoy and for others to as well. Any last comments or questions or thoughts? Okay. Judy. Thank you for your offering.

[72:51]

Thank you for your offering. You're welcome. Thank you. Judy's waving her hand. I see. Hi, Judy. You're muted, Judy. Yeah, I wanted to thank you. And I also, I want to say, you know, we study these things, but we study them within cultures. And right now, it's a really important high stakes time. And I really appreciate Asa bringing forward this really significant koan, I think. of how the imagery and the language that we use existed at that time in a context of culture and place and class and race and gender and all these things and religion. And the same is happening now. And we can't quite know while we're in the midst of it, but we can call attention to the symbols and the language and all this. So I appreciate how, I appreciate your

[73:52]

Ross, your way of inviting dialogue, and I appreciate Asa's courage and clarity to bring forward, I think, an important conversation. Thank you for that, Judy. In preparation for tonight's class, I thought about this, and I thought about the charge on black and what that might mean for people. And so I made a point of, saying without going into it any further as far as a social political discussion, but keeping it on track for our practice and what the symbols represent as an overall teaching, that it could be any range of colors or things that we can look at visually as two separate things. But with care and concern in this day and age that black misrepresents and we need to work to straighten that out.

[74:59]

And studying the Sandokai, it all comes together in the dark. Actually, the Hymn to the Perfection of Wisdom, I actually wrote a different version of it after sitting during a Sashin and realizing that its images of light and darkness might bear re-examination. So I think throughout our... Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're not ranks, it's positions. So we're constantly evolving. And who would have thought we'd be having this conversation back in Tong, China or Japan. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Well, good night you all. Thanks again for your participation and showing up and I will see you on the path, virtual or real.

[75:54]

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