Yesterday I was able to talk about, I talked about many things, seppou, stories about seppou and legyu and hayakujo and eryo. Chimon, Omon, all your ancestors if you are practicing Zen. And because we have been considering pretty carefully this story about what is before it comes out of the water, and what is it after it comes out of the water. Anyway, I concluded talking about that story yesterday, after quite a few lectures about it. And it brings us into the whole

[01:32]

consideration of cause and effect, before and after, how we think about ourselves, etc. This is a very profound problem in any society and for every person. But it's very, very difficult to talk about with any We got to it yesterday, so we could talk about multiple causes, simultaneous multiple causes. Or Buddha, as Suzuki Roshi said, Buddha as a social reformer, because by giving birth to primary consciousness You become open not to just on the causal chain of your personal history or your society. You become open to many causes. And such a person or society has much more profound evolution.

[02:55]

not stuck on the same track. But this kind of story, even though it's wonderful to have an intuition about something we can't grasp intellectually, but we sense and feel its truth, this kind of story may be like a Turtle-nosed Snake. Next Blue Cliff Record story is about Turtle-nosed Snake and Setpo. Setpo was one of Tsukiroshi's favorite teachers, and he's a known for his hard practice. He practiced as a monk for 30 years and visited Tozan, as we talked a year or two ago about that. He visited Tozan nine times and other teachers. This story

[04:32]

begins with the statement, how the world, how does it go, there is nothing outside this great vastness, nothing outside this great vastness and everything is as fine as atomic dust it says. Now when you start to practice, usually you start because you need some personal remedy. And Zazen maybe is like an oriental doctor who doesn't give you a cure for your remedy, but takes some pressure off some other organ. So in Zen practice we just concentrate on our posture and our meditation. and by that we cure our various mental and physical problems. Anyway, that's how most people start, for some personal remedy. Second stage is you actually recognize other people, which most of us don't, we just project

[06:02]

It's a tremendous experience when you recognize others. Complete, separate appearance. Your whole identity is shattered. And the third stage is vastness. I don't know how to express it better than that. The third stage is just vastness. I had a good friend named Ganto.

[07:08]

And Ganto, later, this was a time of tremendous persecution in China, and Ganto was later killed. And Seppo and many people like Seppo and Ganto went to live in the mountains, where civilization doesn't reach so easily. Seppo and Ganto were traveling over this mountain called, I don't know, some people translate it as Tortoise Mountain, some people translate it as Elephant Bone Mountain, and some people translate it as Milk Mountain. I don't know which it is. Elephant Milk Turtle Mountain. So anyway, it snowed a great deal on Elephant Bone Milk Turtle Mountain. And they got snowed in and they couldn't go back or forward. So they stayed there many days. And Ganto was always happy and sleeping and enjoying himself in general.

[08:39]

And Setpo was always sitting satsang. All night long he would sit satsang. And Kanto finally woke up in the middle of the night and said, ìWhy arenít you sleeping? Youíre like a clay Buddha sitting over there. Whatís wrong with you?î And Setpo said, ìYou are better than me. My mind is still not at ease. still am not at rest, so I must not give up." So he continued. So Ganto said to Seppo, or situation, and let me review it with you." So, Seppo said, I imagine Ganto with his head out of the sleeping bag, and Seppo sitting, you know. So, Ganto says, Seppo said, well, I understood form and emptiness with so-and-so.

[10:10]

And Sapo Kanto said, forget about it for 30 years. And then he said, when I was with Tozan, Tozan came in and said, why are you separating rice from the stones? Why are you separating out the rice and the stones? And I couldn't answer, so I turned over the bucket And Tosan said, you go away from here and practice somewhere else, with someone else. So I left, and I went to a Toksan, and Toksan hit me, and the bottom fell out of the lacquer barrel, or bucket. It means he had some satori experience. And Ganto says, you'll never understand anything that way.

[11:13]

So he said, later I understood Tozan's verse of seeing his reflection in the street. And again Ganto said, don't you know, he said, that the family jewels don't come in through the gate. What he meant, don't be attached to Buddhism or your teacher or what Toksan said or Tozan said, it must be your own experience. He said, from your own breast, he said to Setpo, some beam should come out which covers heaven and earth. He meant by your walking or by how you lift things from your eyes or hair follicles comes our understanding or practice. Sugyoshi, I remember, told a story once. He said,

[12:52]

when he would go out on expeditions with the school kids, you know, when he was a school kid. If the small boy goes first, the bigger boys feel dark and slow and sleepy. If the big boys go first, the little boys can't keep up and feel terrible. this kind of problem, situation-less meaning, can't be solved by reason. Your experience, in minute particulars, of what happens is necessary to

[13:55]

other and vastness. your own experience. Ganto means, of course, forget it for thirty years, he means actually no review of your experience, nothing you call an experience. Yakujo's fox story, where he's reborn as a fox for five hundred years. Sometimes some person comes to me, and like this person, like the fox,

[15:03]

man who had to live as a fox for 500 years because he answered the question incorrectly. Someone comes with the same feeling, with some big experience they've had, everything is okay, no up or down, no reason or no non-reason, and yet they can't forget it, they're completely involved in it. We call this Fox Zen. To benefit by minute experience and yet not accumulate some idea of experience, it takes long familiarity with yourself and your practice and people,

[16:04]

So since this lecture is the first one of this week's session for me, I want to emphasize at the beginning in a very simple way not to review your experience, not to think about. If you generalize, you know, our society gets more and more developed. And as it gets more and more developed, it permits wider difference between rich and poor, and intelligent and foolish. Sugyoshi once pointed this out and said, it causes great mental tragedy, this development, which permits this great separation between people.

[17:10]

amongst people. So religion or practice can't be some special remedy for sickness or death or your particular problem. it must reach this realm of vastness. But there's no way, you know, of course, any thought or generalization is already separate from the minute particulates, the fine as atomic dust. So practice for us in Zen Buddhism is always main effort is to penetrate the minute particulars enlarged like microscope vision penetrate your hands and you'll find by your practice

[18:35]

I've often joked with you about how your foot, you say, my foot is far away, way down there at my foot. This is a rather strange idea. Way down there from where? It's just your foot. But actually, we can experience, strangely enough, we experience our body more intimately when it's close to this column of consciousness. As someone pointed out, if your finger hurts, you tend to pull it here. It's more able to be absorbed close to your body than away from your body. So one reason we sit like this is to imbue our entire body, penetrate our entire body with this consciousness, which Seppo, not only in his practice, but in the minute particulars of his daily life as a monk for thirty years. Then Seppo became teacher of Oman and

[19:58]

the great grandteacher of Chimon, who is Setsho's teacher, who did the Blue Cliff Records, who compiled this story about turtle-nosed snake and lotus before and after, etc. And these stories are not stories thought up by some religious genius. They are, again, they come from long experience. So some hasty idea of practice with an end in sight is not going to work. Just to continue, without some generalization or idea of beginning or end, or trying to accumulate it or even understand it or sum it up, just minute particulars. So we bring our feet in, close to our body, to practice. And although I tell you over and over again, and particularly Tathārā, when you're standing your feet should be this distance between your ankles. It could be anything, this distance, this distance, this distance. But actually this is quite stable,

[21:27]

This is kind of vulgar, you know, and boorish. And this is something funny, but this is quite a good posture. So we choose this one. And then this distance. And when we walk in carrying the stick that way. But even though I point it out a lot, almost nobody does it. Everyone's walking. in strange ways. It just means, can you bring everything into this consciousness? As I said yesterday, whether it's spontaneous or self-conscious is in the realm of secondary

[22:28]

not in the realm of primary consciousness. But first you have to bring, you know, have your consciousness penetrate your entire body. So we also, when you're walking in a Shashu posture, we don't go like this, and you don't go like this. Straight, but turn it a little. It turns your arm all the way through here. There's more consciousness in your arm that way. And when we do zazen, you can sit with this posture against your stomach like this, or like this. But this way, you sit. This is okay, but I prefer this way. But this way, again, requires that same motion. This one, in between, is not so good at all. But it requires you to turn your arms out a little, to sit this way and have this flat. So this has more awakeness just in your physical posture.

[23:50]

I mean, which is awake when you're asleep or walking or standing or sitting, not just awake in some playing tennis or something. And this awakeness in your body is the primary way we awaken other people. has two dogs sniffing each other. Our bodies are always sniffing each other, how he moves, how she moves, how he or she stands. And if you're not thinking, your body is going through many tiny communications with other people. If you're thinking, it's something stiff. Primary consciousness, I mean not thinking. not generalizing. So then you're breathing and I suggest on your breathing, you know, first you, Rev may have given you some instruction about sitting and breathing yesterday,

[25:31]

but it won't harm to say a little more. When you first sit down, you rather gather yourself onto your cushion, various layers of you, arms, legs, clothing, and once you're fairly well gathered, then you breathe deep breath, stretching up, lifting up through your backbone, and then exhale, pushing down here, by stages, and then let the air come back in. This will straighten your spine up and your posture your body is held, live weight is in your air and then settle yourself further and inhale by stages and push down

[27:02]

And then give up. Turn yourself over to your breathing. No thinking, if possible. And as secondary consciousness begins some fabrication about yourself or about what's happening or what you should do, begins, start to count your breathing. Add counting into secondary consciousness. One. Count your exhale. And if your secondary consciousness just carries off your counting, try harder to count, until you snap out of secondary consciousness into some completely alive posture. Breathing and even counting is

[29:07]

automatic, not separate from you, and yet on a distant horizon. If you give any definition to this, you immediately enter secondary consciousness. So it requires a tremendous effort to get into primary consciousness and remain without secondary consciousness always coming in. I understand, as I was saying yesterday, what Yakujo meant when he said,

[30:12]

A enlightened person does not ignore causation. But its supposed incorrect answer has been, an enlightened person is not subject to causation. And Obaku said, what about giving an incorrect answer every time? In this kind of practice, in this stage of primary consciousness, you will understand immediately what falling into causation or ignoring causation is. How can such a thing exist? So there's not just secondary consciousness, there's also whole replication of the world in terms of secondary consciousness. And in this stage two of practice, we move in and out of secondary consciousness of the world and of yourself, with and in and out.

[31:56]

of primary consciousness, until we're very familiar with it. This is functioning of prajna, functioning of wisdom. So I'd like you to consider this session 100 years long or 30 years long. Can you, without any other considerations, just do zazen and just do the session, moment after moment? If you can't, here in this special circumstance,

[32:59]

How can you in any circumstance just do what you're doing? Only by just doing what you're doing can you enter the minute particulars. There is much space between the minute particulars. many chances to move or dance in these wide, vast spaces. So again, without any other consideration, adjust, adieu, zazen, eat, follow the schedule, completely relax. It's a vacation, seven-day vacation. Forget, listen to my lectures, please, but forget about them.

[34:43]

And listen, too. Listen, I don't mean just with your ears, how we eat, how we do things, what is happening, but don't think about it. Don't think about Buddhism or practice. But like Ganta was trying to tell Seppo, Unite it with your minute particulars. Doesn't matter whether you like or dislike them, that's not important. You'll be amazed at how much your thinking all these years has excluded. You'll find yourself

[37:16]

a being with many, many opportunities, many, many evolvements, many, many causes. And you don't have to worry about any of that. So please, during this session, try to give up any idea you have of permanent or impermanent, or attaining something, or going anywhere.

[38:17]

or if going anywhere comes up, view it as a movie. Until you can just be suffused with what begins as this acceptance, Don't meet things with your mind already made up. If you do, you'll meet

[39:30]

this primary consciousness of seppu and ganto and all dogen, umon, yakucho, suzuki roshi, which breathes in and out of you like a fire. you have a chance to realize what they meant and your fundamental nature or situation. Not putting it off into the future, but right—there is no future—but right today, during this lecture, next period of Zazen, each moment

[41:08]

No idea of putting it off in your mind. No idea of putting anything in your life off. To start each period of Zazen with, I want to put anything off. Everything is on. Try to sit still. We're talking too about some yogic power or strength, which will help you with your energy and deluded thinking. But that power does not come from your mental idea of practice, it comes from your actual

[42:40]

practice within the minute particulars. So please consider very deeply what you are doing don't put anything off during these seven days.

[43:27]

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