Although I said we shouldn't look around, we can look at each other. This is the wonderful third day of Sissi. You know, we all try to find a point in our lives. that can carry some point in our lives, some point of view that can carry us through our lives. And we're some mixture of who we are, whatever that is, and what people tell us we are, what we're told by our personal history, and what we're good at. Sometimes what we're good at leads us into doing something, gravitates toward what people tell us we're good at.

[01:01]

Yeah, and then we end up with a life that we're not sure we believe in. Even if you achieve success, you think, you know, what was that? Kept me going, but now it doesn't mean much to me. So what point in our, what point, what view can carry us through our life with the satisfaction, the solidity, as I said, of feeling yourself stabilized in the truth? This is the challenge of practice, why you're here. I assume It feels like that's why you're here. And I'm always trying, it's a struggle for me, I'm always trying to find the edge of your practice and the edge of our practice, the edge of my practice, and see if we can feel our way a little over the edge.

[02:14]

In the Shoyu Roku, the In the 19th case, I think Chang Ching is said to have said, the soul body revealed in myriad forms. Maybe it'd be better to say singular body. I think soul is probably not a good translation. Like we could say Peter's the soul person in the room. That doesn't make sense. There's a lot of us here. But we could say he's singular body. In other words, unique. So each of you is singular, and the singular body, the unique body revealed in myriad forms, Shang Ching says. And then he says, only when people know it for themselves, feel it for themselves, is it near. Only when you feel it for yourself, even when you know it for yourself, is it near.

[03:22]

So I'm trying to make it nearer. I'm trying to give us a feeling for this practice, this dharma threshold that's based on enlightenment, and understanding and practice. And so why do I bring it up again and again? Because I think that if we can enact it, even if you don't feel it, but you enact it, that brings forth, as I've been saying, the many ways we're already enlightened. or the many prior enlightenment experiences, those little bubbles that haven't opened up, that cluster around us in practice, waiting to be opened up, when we start enacting a life of enlightenment.

[04:29]

So somehow, whether you're Asian or Western, we still have to shake ourselves, that's what these teachings are, to see how we actually exist, at least as Buddhism understands it and in my experience is the case. Tsung Mi says something like, if the guest if the guest doesn't know the host, there's nowhere, no way to appear in myriad forms. And if the host doesn't know the guest, did I say that right? There's no, you're stuck in

[05:37]

If the guest doesn't know the host, you're stuck in the material world. Again, this is a way of speaking about this relative and absolute, these two truths of Buddhism which I have been trying to open up for us. And I gave you that little statement kind of poem that actually came from Randy, showed it to me. Meeting, we laugh and laugh, the forest grove, the many fallen leaves. How we understand that from our point of view, how it's understood from the person who wrote it, the culture from which it comes.

[06:38]

Someone told me, who's a friend of the attendant of one of the well-traveled lamas teaching in the West, is that whenever this lama, this Rinpoche, wants to recover, he takes a bath in the dark. Now, you might take a bath in the dark. Turn out all the lights, I'm going to take a bath. But I think it's a different, when we know that it's a Tibetan Rinpoche doing it, probably he's in that culture from which he knows how to recover in the unsighted world. To know himself in darkness. to recover in darkness. And that's also what zazen is. It's to know yourself in darkness, to recover in darkness, to recover in the unsighted world.

[07:43]

So the unsighted world, I mean, if you're washing your feet, your hands are your feet, your feet are your hands. And your feet reach up, as I say, using these medical images, reaches up into the acupuncture points, into the parts of the body related to the feet, so you can feel the interdependence, no longer just your feet, it's your feet, your whole body. So let's think of the present as feet. I like the statement, you know, The bottomless shoe of the present. The bottomless shoe of the present. Whoa! Where'd that come from? That's reaching into the acupuncture points of the Dharmakaya. So instead of thinking in the sighted world, we think of, you know, it looks like a room, it looks like a box, it looks like some kind of space we live in.

[09:08]

But from the unsighted world, non-sighted world, it's just a foot you're washing. So I'd like to see if we can feel more, and again I'm just trying to give us a shift into what I understand to be this haptic, as I called it, haptic yogic worldview, world experience. Not just a view, world experience. Instead of imagining the world as a box we live in, let's imagine it as a little present, a little box. And each moment is a little box that's presented to us. And you can open. When you open it, you find out that the wrapping covers everything. The wrapping is the Dharmakaya. The wrapping is the acupuncture, homeopathic, you know, connectedness.

[10:15]

Oh, so the orioke is conceived that way in this air table. Instead of eating off the floor, the table is the floor. We eat off this air table. I shouldn't have talked about orioke. See, everybody's dropping orioke, spilling things. It was a bad magic. It was great kindness of our Godo to demonstrate that even he could drop his bowls so that all of us can feel we're free to drop our bowls without feeling miserable. But let's not go overboard. Anyway, I've had more spills and stuff yesterday than what will happen tomorrow. So if you're going to bring your concentration, and it's much easier to practice mindfulness when this moment is a convergence.

[11:23]

You're not in a box, a big box. It's a convergence. This, whatever your present is, it's a little box right where your attention is. Your feet under your feet. in your hands, in your feeling. Whatever the present is, from this way I'm trying to give you a feeling for, it's right there in this haptic reality, this tactile reality, or reality, actuality. And you know, whatever it is, it opens into, the wrapping opens into everything, but it's not out there, it's this. Like you're washing your feet again. Where the subject-object distinction is so small when you're washing your feet. Is it hands or is it feet? So you can shift. Part of the wisdom of this teaching is not to try to break through the subject-object distinction in your conceptual reality.

[12:29]

I mean, so many of you are just totally stuck in comparative thinking. You swing back and forth between this, that, either, or like, dislike. And that's a hard thing to break through. So you shift out of the sighted world which supports conceptual thinking, which is inherently locked into this subject-object distinction, locked into dualism, If you shift out of a sighted world as the way in which your thinking is defined and located, the point that carries you through life, and find a point in another sense realm, let's say sound, or let's say touch, there's already automatically less subject-object distinctions. So you can shift out of the subject-object, out of dualism, by shifting your primary sense field, sense realm.

[13:39]

Or practicing, experimenting with it. So when you bring it in to this present immediacy, and there's a lessening of this subject-object distinction. It's a crude word. I wish I had some other word other than subject-object distinction, but it's the best I... I don't know what else to say. And you get the point. So again, let's think of the beginning of Vasubandha's Abhidhammakosha. There's a myriad, an infinity of causes converging at this moment.

[14:48]

There's new knowledge. And one of Plato's early theories, I'm taking Plato's archetypal Western, one of Plato's early theories, theories, is that everything is recollection. All knowing is remembering a previous knowing. Well, then you're in an infinite regression. There's no first knowledge. It's like, who created God? You're in an infinite regression. There's no first knowledge. But in Buddhism, everything is first knowledge, unless you're blind or deluded. There's an infinite causes of world systems coming together and you bring it together. You, each moment, each of us converges the present. Do you experience it? Do you experience the singular body in myriad forms only when you know it yourselves is it near? Let's bring it near.

[15:56]

This practice is to bring it near. And we have so many ways of pointing at it, not knowing his nearest immeasurable states of mind. Yangshan, standing at his home. So here's this convergence, this little box that you unwrap each moment. And when you really feel that, it's so much easier to practice mindfulness. I mean, if you do the orgy, it's easier to practice mindfulness, or things happen like yesterday, which I've done myself. Sometimes. I mean, when you practice with a Oryoki, it's like holding a baby.

[16:59]

I mean, if you've got a baby in your arms, you don't want to drop it. And if you've got your Buddha bowl in your hands, you don't want to drop it. And the soup and everything, nothing fits. You should try the amongst bowls. They give you a little tiny paper table that everything rolls around on, and it's too small for the bowls. But it's intentionally too small for the bowls. It is so. Then you have your robes on, but you can't get spilled, you can't wash your robes, and you've got this darn soup full of funny-shaped mushrooms. It's a good way to practice mindfulness. To bring us into this convergence of this little box, this little present, this little present of the present, of the presence of the present, that each moment we open or don't open, that we, sometimes we simply karmically wrap it back up and reopen it over and over again.

[18:06]

We keep reopening it. Or sometimes we karmically open it and it flies away, disappears, resolves itself in completeness. This is your choice. karma or dharma. That's this, karma or dharma. And the choice is always just in this convergence of the singular body appearing in myriad forms. Sungmi also says, merge the mind with space and act through myriad forms. Again, same kinds of teaching. Now, I watch us.

[19:09]

This is, I mean, what we're talking about is here. It's not somewhere else. It's now. And, you know, I, in the mealtime, we offer the incense tree. And What I see you do sometimes is you take the incense tray up and you're holding it and you go up and then you make a circle in the incense, three times. And it feels like you're making a circle, but it feels like you're not making the circle over the altar. You're making a circle in your mind some kind of geometry. I was told to make a circle, so you make a circle. And you count it one, two, make sure it isn't four, and then you put it down. This circle, you could make this circle anywhere. That's not over the altar.

[20:10]

It's just a circle you've made. It's in your mind. You can apply it here, you can apply it here. This is play to run amok. Laughter Plato says everything is an ideal form. And this is an inadequate replica of an ideal form. Buddhism says the opposite. This is perfect. Our perception is the inadequate replica. That's a whole shift in the way the world is. So you have, I mean, Euclid, It's geometry, you know, the circle. But there's no such thing as a triangle in the real world. The curve of space doesn't allow there to be three 30-degree angles. There's no such thing as a perfect triangle in this actual Einsteinian, as we understand it, world. I mean, it's good for making bridges that don't fall down too often.

[21:13]

To make a triangle. For trusses. But actually, there's no circle or triangle. So when you make a circle, oh, circle, you're actually in a kind of, this is a cultural thing you're doing. Now, you've heard me over and over again, I'm sorry, to say space connects. but space also projects. If you really feel, if space connecting is a real experience or you want to enact it, just enact it, pretend it connects, then it projects. So when you circle the tray, you're circling it over the rectangular incense burner and it bumps as it goes over the corners of the incense burner. I'm not kidding.

[22:19]

That's a circle on the altar, not a circle in your head. I'm getting a little frantic here, I'm sorry. I've watched too many Protestant and evangelical preachers. I should get a sutra. The book. And you feel it go through the smoke. And you feel yourself, you can almost imagine liquid, you're pushing it through the space and when you pull it back it comes back easier, the space pushes it back and even you pull space into you. This is the actual world we're talking about practice, is this kind of feeling. I think it's maybe scientifically, I don't know whether you want to like it or not scientifically, but it's probably better than thinking of this as empty space. Space is, this is space stuff, or stuff space.

[23:26]

Not just stuff is the boundaries of space, but stuff permeates space. This is also the teaching, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. So when I see somebody offering the tray, and I can feel them pushing it toward the Buddha, pushing it into space and pulling it back toward themselves. And they feel the shape of the altar in the circle. The Enso, the practice of drawing a circle, comes from, I think, 97 circles and teaching circles. But it was often done, two people would sit together and you would offer the circle to the other person and you'd make the circle right there, feeling, And you can't undo it and say, oh that wasn't such a good one, I'll try it again. At that moment you make a circle feeling the two people. And then you offer.

[24:29]

So there's an unbearable intimacy. There's also sayings. When When both hearts meet, you'll hear my command. Or when you come with acceptance, it's given with both hands. When you come with acceptance, it's given with both hands. There's a lot of teachings that just don't happen as long as you're involved in comparative thinking and comparing, it's not possible. You can kind of make little inroads, but only when there's not some sort of acceptance against democracy and everything, some kind of acceptance, some kind of hearts.

[25:38]

Mutually open is the teaching imparted with both hands, or can we really hear the authority of the teachings? This is also in Koan 19 of the Shoyuroku, if you want to look it up, about Mount Sumera. So the incense burning of incense smoke is an example of convergence. We use the incense smoke as this merging of myriad forms and the singular body that appears through myriad forms.

[26:43]

We use the incense as this kind of territory of relative and absolute. So you're making, you have this tray, and there's food on it, and we're all eating food. This morning, there's small servings, but this morning when I guess we ran out of the third bowl, we could have eaten the Buddha's seconds. Quite small, but it's food that could be eaten. So that is, in a sense, we could say the relative. But you're offering it to the Buddha up there, and I haven't seen him eat in a long time. But we are making an offering, and what's the offering? The offering is, if we want to understand what we're doing here, with all these little things we do, the altar represents, we could say, or gives us a feeling of the Absolute. This convergence of

[27:48]

an ideal form of being, our own form of being, and some dialogue that, as I always say, is in our posture itself, in your sitting, accepting your posture, being informed by an ideal posture. So you're offering this in this convergence of this form and emptiness or something like that, there's some kind of feeling like that in it. And it's very particular, very particular, the particular meal, the particular altar, your particular circle at that moment. And if you... So it's an example of Expressing yourself in myriad forms and merging the mind with space.

[28:54]

So when you're making the offering, you're merging your mind with space. That's the circle. Merging the mind with space in the very particular myriad forms of the altar. And this sense of the circle, of the circle of our ancestors, teachings that returns to us from past to future, from future to past, is right here among us. So the circle is used in many ways as this dialogue of relative and absolute. Do you catch this feeling?

[30:14]

This world, which is simultaneously relative and absolute, that this moment, which is the convergence of past, present, and future, but more fundamentally, the convergence of relative and absolute, mindfulness which paves the way or makes the way for us to be in this actual unfolding of myriad causes of this singular body, which is near when we feel it in ourself, enact it in ourselves.

[31:27]

This is enough.

[31:36]

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