The text from this series of readings is called Hōshōshī. It's said to be something like this. It's in the journal. It shows that he composed how it is arising out of these meetings with these teachers in China, teaching with the Jewish teachers. It's a new game, which means that charity, religion, is a Chinese . Because they had a large temple . Actually, this work was put together posthumously by, if you know these engines, named Disciple of Asia.

[01:19]

So we only exactly know whether Dogen Zenji composed these notes while he was in China and brought them back, or perhaps these are recollections that occurred to him throughout his life. His teacher writes something down, or perhaps it's a combination of two. We get the feeling from what A. Gerald Zenji said that he sort of got various scraps of paper from here and there and put this together. He says at the end of this that it's a pity that these little pieces may have been lost, as though he found them in various places and there might be still a few more. So we don't know exactly at this point how this was put together. Joe edited it somehow, too, to make it more of a continuous feeling or something.

[02:28]

But it seems to me that for this class, since we don't have much time, only five meetings, five nights, that perhaps we'd have time to talk about what kind of a text this is in terms of its well, authenticity, or whatever. Let's try to see what we can get from this text to help our practice. So, sorry with you, I'd like to begin by discussing the second entry in the, in the, uh, Jokey 2. So again, since we don't have so much time, we certainly won't be able to discuss each of these 50 sections, but maybe we can discuss one night.

[04:01]

Maybe we can discuss five sections. It's easy actually to spend more than one night on each section. Hopefully you can, I don't even know, just to say we hopefully want to do more than one section, or else we could spend the whole time just on this section. I always found this to be quite a good section. Would someone like to read this? They could read it all together if no one wants to do it. Can we read it together? One, two, three, shoot that. We have this course, I ask, now there is everywhere speak about the social transmission outside the scriptures.

[05:09]

That is a real meaning in the first patriarchal economists coming from the West. What do they mean? How I think the great way of the Buddha is that may the arts have anything to do with inside or outside. It doesn't belong on special transmission in outside or apart from the Buddha's scriptures. May the great verses and translations may be put in the first day of the art. The West, and personally, turn this into the way of the English practice, which was an addition to that made by a priest, but it is a gospel of one way or another. We're all going to have to do it again. It won't be with the first day. There was yet no disaster, no natural weather for them. With the advent of the arrival, however, it was like a people-acquiring king.

[06:14]

The blackened corridors and the people of the country followed all how it was supposed to be. There are several things in this section. And the first is the expression, transmission outside the scriptures, a separate transmission outside the scriptures. This is a famous Zen phrase or term. This character originated in China. In Japanese, we say . In Chinese, we say .

[07:19]

But anyway, the four character kanban, the first character means teaching. The second character means outside. The third character means separate. and the fourth character means transmission. And the essential point that Lu Jing makes right away, why should the doing well of the Buddhas and ancestors be concerned with inside and outside descriptions? Or another way to say it is, the doing well of the Buddhas has nothing to do with inside and outside descriptions. Or another way to say it is, the way of the buddhas is free of inside and outside of the scriptures. In other words, free, move in and out of the scriptures. You can see the scriptures are, as much as possible, the scriptures are, you know,

[08:28]

a straight line. When we copy over scriptures, we try to make the scriptures look like they're being copied. We try to make a photographic copy, a direct copy. So when the Dharma is transmitted, there is a direct copying of the scriptures, of the teaching. And the scriptures are like this. However, the way of Buddha is not confined just to the scriptures. It's something like, you could see, we have the word rule in English, and when the word rule is used in monastic practice in the West, The Latin root of that word, regula, doesn't mean rule like rules.

[09:32]

But it means it comes from a Greek word which is related to the word can. Something like a lats, like truss. And as you know, if you have a truss, a truss should be constructed quite strongly. and often geometrically constructed so that it will stand up. It has a certain architecture. If the plant grows on the trellis, the plant can click onto the trellis at various points and grow up on it. But the plant, as you know, doesn't grow, isn't like the trunks. The plant doesn't grow like this and like this and like this. The plant grows in many ways. However, the plant must touch the trellis here and there. It must have some contact with the trellis. But the life of the plant is not like the trellis.

[10:35]

But without the trellis, the plant can't grow up. So the scriptures are like a trellis. We must cook into the scriptures that our life is never the same as the scriptures. The fact of living is not like the scriptures. But it is a growth. based on descriptions. So, if you're relying on a trellis, if you grab onto the trellis at a certain point, and you grab onto another point very strongly, very strong connection with the trellis, you can, your branch can go way out before you have to come . If you go too far, you'll fall down. You can go farther than the amount of support you have on the trellis you fall down. And you have to come back again, hook in again, and go up again. And again, then you can go up beyond the trellis because, you know, all kinds of shapes.

[11:41]

Sometimes you go out in that empty, that unknown space, that free space with no system, just that one point of support, and then go out in there. But that's what makes it, that's what life is. But you must connect. So it freely connects and goes away, but there's an organic relationship there too. So some people make a very strong connection with the Dharma, with the teaching, and because they make a very strong connection, they can do something quite... quite... ...original in the empty space between the bars. Some other people make a weak connection with the bars and the trellis. If it's a weak connection, then you have to follow the line very carefully. You understand? Is that clear? It's like if you don't have some strong hookers or suckers.

[12:44]

So they don't make such a strong connection. For some trellises, they're too thin. They can't get enough grip on you. So if you make a weak connection, like the trellis isn't big enough or whatever, you have to stay close to the trellis. But if the trellis is too thin, and you make a strong connection, then most of the plight can be between, between the bar, between your supports. Okay? Yeah, me too. So, We have these two sides in Buddhism.

[13:48]

One side seems to be inside the scriptures, inside the teaching. The other side seems to be or really parallel to the teaching, as it's usually seen. If you read the Lotus Sutra, Again and again, when the Lotus Sutra is describing a teacher, the Sutra says that the teacher receives and maintains. Receives and maintains. Receives means that you receive a teaching. exactly as it's given to you, exactly. You don't say, when it's given to you, you don't say, can I do it this other way? You should receive it exactly, and you don't argue. That's receiving. But maintaining, maintaining, what does maintaining mean?

[14:56]

What does that tell you when you need to maintain? What does maintaining mean? Why would you have to maintain something that you receive? Yes. If the Dharma didn't change, you could just receive it and be it. But it's changing all the time. Everything is impermanent. So when you receive your diary, you receive it exactly, with no deviation. But then it means that you have to do something which you didn't see before. So receiving is like cooking onto the lettuce. Maintaining needs to grow someplace new. But, again, you must really receive it.

[16:04]

You can't sort of receive it. You must really connect. So you must really learn a scripture, some scripture you must really learn. And when you really learn it, then you can say something or do something which has never been said, never been done before, but will be completely connected to what has been done before. In other words, what you're doing is maintaining teaching. You receive it and now you maintain it. So one side of the teaching is, we might say, is innocent. Okay? What's the innocent side? What's the innocent side? Receiving. He's hooking you into the lattice. That's innocent. But there's another side.

[17:08]

Innocent by the way means not to harm. It means no harm. So one side is not harming. The other side is not the opposite in the sense that it's harming. But one side is innocent and not harming. And the other side is actually help. It's not that you do, but you do something more. One side is rather legalistic. It's very legal and lawful and lawyer. One side is very lawful. So when you grow, when a plant is growing on a lattice, where it connects to the supports of the lattice, it's very loyal to the lattice.

[18:11]

And it's innocent. And it's in line with the tradition of the lattice. So you learn the Heart Sutra, or you learn Shaboganda by heart. Exactly. The best you can, and you understand what all the words mean. very well in accordance with the tradition. That's very local of you to do that. You must have this loyalty. You must drill and learn how the structure is built. That's loyal. And it's good. The other side is not this loyal. The other side is not confident. But the other side is maybe, say, rather than loyal, So the one side of receiving, of loyalty, of perfect in-line straightness and correctness.

[19:16]

The other side is the way of devotion. Devoted is related to the word, of course, vow. So it's the way beyond innocence, the way of vow, the way of going out into the empty space the two instructions by the way of vow. It shows devotion. Because of your devotion, you go beyond loyalty. You're not satisfied with just being loyal. You realize you must do more. Just receiving is not enough to make a teacher. You must receive and maintain. You must live loyally and devoted to it. This special transmission outside the teaching is to be seen and entertained, to be so free, to move easily forward.

[20:31]

If you just maintain he had just received, they are what Wang Bo called, they are drug slippers. Slippers of dregs. Do you know what dregs are? Anyway, in the Tang Dynasty in China, they used to have the expression of drug slippers, which It speaks to tradition only. It does not maintain the future. So in the the Book of Equality, one day, one boy, a lot of guys with a staff. He didn't move. He didn't run out of the hall. And he said, if you people continue like this, How will you have, how will you make the teaching today?

[21:35]

You're all drug seekers. And there's a wonderful story in here about a wheelwright whose name is William Bion. And one day, the lord, the Chinese lord, I can't remember his name. Is it Jin or Jin-in? Anyway, some Chinese lord reading one of the classics in his room. And the one beyond was claiming a wheel, caught in the hall, going to the courtyard. And he saw the Lord, the minister, Chinese minister, reading the book.

[22:45]

So he put down his chisel and mallet. He put down his chisel and mallet and went over to the Lord and said, excuse me, sir, what are you reading? And the minister said, I'm reading a book of sages. And the European said, are those sages still alive? And the minister said, no, they're already dead. And the European said, well, then you're slipping dregs. And the minister said, Well, when a lawyer is reading a book and makes comments, he better have an explanation, otherwise he will die.

[23:48]

Now, as you may know, in China, people were often executed or exiled certain lower-class people would be executed for a mistake in etiquette to a upper-class person. So for him to call this minister a drug slipper was a pretty dangerous thing to do. You may hear various stories of Zen masters slapping these ministers in the face. and the minister says, thank you, or is enlightened. But this is an amazing thing, because usually if you slap these ministers in the face, you would have your hand cut off. Or if you would say something insulting to them, you would have your tongue pulled out. So the fact that these people went beyond the usual rule, they didn't get punished, is a part of the point of the story. Not to mention that the person was enlightened on top of it. Of course, these things didn't happen very often.

[24:51]

We should remember that. But these are sort of special stories. And we often say that behind every jewel, there's a cow and sweating horses. These are unusual stories. But this is an unusual story, too, of this war-right colony's minister, this official, a drug smoker. So he says, let's have your explanation now. And Lung Thien said, I see it in the light of my work. Now this is important, that we should see it in the light of our work, not in our own light. So if somebody asks me a question, I see it in the light of my work, not in my own light, not my light that sees, but it's the light of my practice that sees. If somebody asks me a question about something, to make an explanation about something, then I look at my Zazen and there I can see the answer to the question.

[26:03]

It's not my life. This man was a ruler. He made wheels. Right. And so he looked at his work to see, to explain about, to this, and he said, what I find is that if it's easygoing, if it's easygoing, it's... If the work is easy going, then it's not firm. And if it's hard going, then it doesn't go on. Without going easy, without going hard,

[27:04]

He said, if I go slow, if I go slowly, it's easy going, but it's not firm. If I go slow, it's not firm. If I go fast, it's hard going, but doesn't go on. He said, without going fast, without going slowly, It comes into my hands. I said, there's an art to it. But I can't teach it to my son. And my son can't learn it from me. Therefore, I've been at it for 70 years. This is talking about special transmission, post cerebral teaching. This is how, this is to receive and maintain teaching, okay?

[28:11]

If I go slowly, it's easy going, it's not firm, it doesn't stay on. What's that like in terms of what I was talking about? Does that remind you of anything? Slowly, it's easy going, but it doesn't stay on. It doesn't stay on means that it doesn't live. It won't last, it won't reproduce. The word loyalty, it's easy, but it doesn't have vitality by itself. But the other way, the faster way, it's hard, and it won't go on.

[29:17]

In other words, if you just try to maintain the teaching, like some people try to maintain the teaching or do something new, something original, that's great. But it's hard, and it doesn't work. People won't accept it. You can't get the wheel on. People won't let you put the wheel on if you just start doing something new and original. That's not enough. It would be hard, that's enough. But you make an effort. The wheel won't go on. So just maintaining, just realizing that the diamond must always be changing, if you're not eager, We don't go fast, and we don't go slowly. Not doing either one of those, it comes into your hand. Your hand goes around here, and you reach up, and you grab here.

[30:19]

Your hand goes... There's an art to it. So they also say, When you sit, you sit down with your knee to the right or to the left. Sit down. Put your knee to the right or to the left. Another good story like this is the story of... There was one man in Taiwan.

[31:21]

His name was Dongshan Yangzhe. In Japanese, it's Tozan Ryokai. He also lived in the Tang Dynasty. And he was a He was a sincere and inquiring preacher. He listened carefully, but then also he didn't take it easy. He didn't... He listened carefully. Like when he was a little boy, when he was listening to the Heart Sutra, when they say, in emptiness, there's no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. At that part he said to the teacher, he said, I have eyes, and I have ears, and so on. When he was a little older, he went to visit a teacher once.

[32:38]

The teacher's name was Guishan. And so this young man, Dongshan, said to Guishan, he said, I recently heard a story about the national teacher, Jones, teaching insensate beings, non-sensate beings, expounding the Dharma. He said, could you teach me about this? And Guishan said, yeah. I have that teaching here, too. Can you recite that story about the national teacher?" And Guishan said, yes, I can recite it. So he recited it. And the story goes like this. This is the story within the story, OK? So Guishan, going to see Guishan, and Guishan asked him a question about the national teacher's teaching. So Guishan asked him to recite the story.

[33:39]

So the monk says to the national teacher, what is Buddha? And the national teacher said, Buddha is rocks, tiles, and pebbles. Now, before this happened, before this monk said, what is Buddha, to this then teacher, before this then teacher said, rocks, tiles, and pebbles. Maybe never before anyone ever said so. Maybe they did, but anyway. This is what's called maintaining the teaching. Something new and original. He was probably sitting in his temple and looking out the window. You know those Chinese walls? They had walls in the garden, garden walls, and they had Tiles up the top, set the wall apart.

[34:47]

He probably looked out the window and saw the wall and saw the walls and tile and feet of broken tile down the bottom. He sees that the wall's tiled. And the monk said, oh, well, did I expel the dharma? He said, Buddha's expel the dharma, that's so. Walls, tiles and pebbles are done by Buddhas and they should be able to teach. Then the monk says, What does the national teacher say? Walls, tiles and pebbles. Simply original. And then the monk says, Oh, then can they expand the Dharma? Can they expand the teaching? And the national teacher said, Yes. They can. In fact, they do so incandescently and constantly. And the moon said, Oh, they do.

[35:53]

But why can't I hear them? And the national teacher said, Although you may not be able to hear them, you can hear them. That which does hear them. And the moon said, Well, did you hear that, sir? And he said, No, I didn't. And, uh, If I did hear them, I would have thought they were saints. And one said, well, if you don't hear them, how do you know that they're expounding? And the teacher said, basically, if I were able to hear them, I wouldn't be able to help you.

[37:06]

And then a monk said, Well, what scripture did you get this from anyway? What kind of scripture can you cite to justify your position? And the man in that scripture said, Oh, haven't you heard in the Avatamsaka Sutra, in the Hawaii, where it says, that fields, houses, trees, rocks, stones, and pebbles are constantly expanding and turning perfectly, having shouldered their part, in the month of the night. We're not asked the traditional question, what's Buddha? The teacher says something that's never been said before. Then the teacher talks. And finally, after the monks get this dialogue, he says, okay, now let's see, bring this, and the teacher can show it. We study the way, and then we're asked about it.

[38:25]

If we receive it well, we can give something which is appropriate to the present circumstances. However, that present thing will probably never be said before. It will be new. And the person will take it, Thank you. That was very helpful. But by the way, is this the real thing? You've got to be able to probe this. This is not something maybe just made up. And you have to be able to show how it comes from the old. And in fact, I'm suggesting that if you study the way and you help someone, you will be able to show how you'll be able to find a place in your sutra where it is right there already. But we've never seen before. And you didn't see it until you told that person. And you don't have to know all the sutras, you see. You know all the huge sutras. The huge sutras. You don't have to know all the sutras to do that.

[39:27]

One sutra is enough. Just the heart sutra would be enough. But you'd have to really know it. In order that every time anyone asked you something, you could give them something for, and then they'd say, where do you find that? And you could say, well, it's right here in the heart chakra, right here. And they would be able to see that it's right there in the heart chakra, or whatever it is that you know well. So, because you're connected to the trunk of this, the main nerve, because you are, If someone asks for your help, and over here, you can just bring a tributary. You can send water over to them. And then they can drink. And if they're a monk, they'll say, By the way, I appreciate the water, but did this water come from the source, or did you just bring this, pour this over here from someplace else?

[40:31]

And you say, yeah, look. And you take them back through another city there, or back through where you came to take the source again. When someone asks you something, you don't think, oh, where in the sutras is the answer? Or maybe you do, but anyway. You don't necessarily think that. You just give. Then they ask you, where do you want to fall back? You must be able to fall back. You must be able to come forth and go back. You should be able to show us in your circles. So now you should be able to show us. He couldn't hear the expounding of the Dharma himself. But he did not hinder that which does hear it. And he did not know that they were expounding it because he himself heard it.

[41:43]

And if he himself heard it, he would get in the way of that which does hear it. So he himself did not hear. Everything in the world is perfectly explained in Dharma, but not everything is practicing. Okay? So, then that's the end of the story, what the National Teacher is teaching about the... In sentient objects, rocks and so on, expounding the teaching. So the Dronachand had just recited that to Guaysana. They said, okay, now I'm done reciting, so now tell me. I totally destroyed it, but I don't get it. So please, expound it to me. So Guaysana... You know the fly whistle? You know the fly whistle?

[42:46]

He raised his words. And guess what that is? He raised his voice. And Don John said, I don't get it. I still don't get it. Please explain. He said, the mark that was given by my parents will never explain it to you. However, since she's asking, there's a man who lives a few hundred miles away. in a stone grotto called Yunyuan. And if you go there, maybe you'll be able to appreciate him. And he found Yunyuan. And he said, he said, could you please tell me about this, this teaching about the insensate beings expiring the Dharma?

[43:50]

And then he raised his whisk. I don't know how that happened, but anyway, he raised his whisk. And then Dushan said, What sutra did you get back from? And he said, It's humorous, Steve. He said, haven't you heard in the Amida Sutra, the Buddha of infinite light, haven't you heard what it says? And he quoted about that too. Again, something like grasses, rocks, mounds, streams, clouds, and then Darshan had insight. But in both cases, when we, in all these cases, the first teacher said something new about these rocks being in Buddha.

[45:07]

The next teacher raises a whisk, but didn't say anything. The third teacher raises a whisk, and finally, that didn't work either. they can bring it back to the source, bring it back to... They can be loyal. When they raise their voice and say a strange thing, like somebody says, what is Buddha? And you say, a Sony Capricorn. Now, it may seem easy to say it's a Sony Capricorn, but if you're a very loyal person, if you're very loyal, every day you sit... You get up, you make a big effort, you try to sit straight, try to follow the way very carefully, very diligently. And then you know it's a release. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to do it. And somebody says to you, what's Buddha? It's not so easy for you to say it's a Sontipriko. You're not just fooling around when you say it.

[46:11]

You're taking a big chance. But still, you know, for them, you should say, it's a Sontipriko. to say something that's never been said. And you know that they can ask you, what subject did you get that from? But you don't have to answer them until they've been helped. If you say a sonic tape recorder that doesn't do them any good, you won't be able to cite it. In fact, if you say it's a Sony tape recorder and it doesn't help them, it's not in the sutra. And if you say it is a Sony tape recorder and it helps them, you will be able to find the sutra. You can live on the river, and a person in the dry land asks you for water, and you bring them water from the river. If the river water that you bring them helps them,

[47:11]

And then they ask you, did you get this from the river? You would be able to say, yes, I'll show you the way back. That water that gave them, that helps them, that quenches their thirst, you and that person will be able to get back to the main river. If it doesn't help them, you will not be able to get back. And then you went too far away from the river. the watery way out there or something, you got lost. You lost the connection of what you're giving, this new thing you're giving, into the river. You lost the connection, and therefore it wasn't satisfying. And because it isn't satisfying, you can't find your way back. If it is satisfying, if it does help them, you can find your way back. And so, Buddhists are willing to be corrupted.

[48:17]

They're willing to leave the main record and do something unusual and even maybe strange. It doesn't matter how bad it is, they're willing to do it if it helps. But it has to help, because if it doesn't help, then they've just gone out on a limb and they fall. then he had just made a mistake. This is also the meaning of the word refuge, to take refuge in the teaching, to take refuge in the Buddha, to take refuge in the community. Same here. Refuge, in English refuge means refugie.

[49:19]

Fugie means flight, fly away. And refugie means to fly back, return to flight. And refuge also means, let's say, two characters. One character means to depend. The other character means to return. You depend on the teacher. That's the lattice. You depend on the community. That's the loyal way you depend on. You depend on the teacher. You depend on the teacher. You depend on the community. You depend on them. You hook into them. You make a connection. And you return. Return means you go away. You have to go away to return. But you don't just go away. You come back. You connect.

[50:22]

You go away. You come back. And you can't go away until you connect. Otherwise, you'll just get lost. Any further, and your connection will long, and if you go too far, you'll forget the way back. So, the way you practice is you start, connect. You wait until you get a good, strong connection. And you start by making little, little ones. They're pretty cute. At first, when someone asks you for water, just give water to people who are nearby the street, just a little ways away. So at first, just literally. Then little by little, you make bigger circles. But it isn't that you make bigger divergences and just take them off, and you come back. If you can't come back, that's not real.

[51:24]

You must come back every day. So every morning you sit, just like all Buddhas have always said, and during the day you try something. And the only thing you do is you must bring it back. And your body too is the same. When you sit, this is Buddhist body sitting. You must sit body sitting. But that's not enough. You must now make this Buddha body become your body, and your body of all your problems. You must bring the Zazen body of all the Buddhas into your body. And then I see how your body comes back to the Buddhist body.

[52:26]

Your face, you know, your nose, your eyes, you bring... You sit down and your face and your eyes are the Buddhist. Then the Buddhists are brought out into your eyes, into your nose, and then bringing back to Buddha. If you just come and sit like a Buddha, you must make the Buddha sit like you. And that really later, oh, this Buddha looks funny now, looking like me. But it must satisfy you, and you must be able to bring it back again, so it doesn't get too strange. So this is... This is about the... this is the stash of transmission, outside of teaching. Okay? Does that make sense to you? It's going back to the country... the country position.

[53:48]

Well... It's not like you say, I'm going to go out now. Okay? Is it a conscious decision? And I just said whatever I said. All right? If I just started... All right? And I don't know, I have no experience of the teaching. And somebody asked me a question about it. Probably, well, I should not say anything. Because I haven't even found out what the rhythm is yet. I haven't even found out what the lattice is yet. I don't even know how to be loyal yet. So if somebody's asking me, I have nothing to say.

[54:53]

So when people go home to visit their parents, they often ask me, what do you want to ask me about Zen Center? And I say, well, as much as possible, tell them that you're not a teacher and that they can't actually ask you about the teaching. Try not to talk about it as much as possible. Just try to help with the dishes and try to be tolerant and not be intolerant of our relatives. So just try to practice with them. Don't try to explain. And if they really want to know, just tell them what they should ask and they'll just teach it. Just try sitting themselves. Try not to talk about it. Because the beginner doesn't even know how to be loyal to you, doesn't even know how to actually receive you, hasn't even received completely and exactly you.

[55:56]

Okay? If you have at the point which you feel that you've been practicing long enough, so that it might be a lot, and if you're not sure, you should ask, is such and such a situation where if I'm asked, I can speak? And if you're told, yes, you can say something, then they ask you, you don't have to say, I can't say anything, you can talk. And you're talking, it's just that the person's asking you a question, and you somehow, you try to listen to them. In other words, another way to say it, the reason why you're allowed to talk, the reason why you're allowed to talk is because you are loyal. And the reason that a person is asking you, not because you're, well, they're asking you because they sense that you're a loyal disciple of Buddha, but they're asking you because you're more than that.

[57:01]

But you're not only a loyal disciple, but you're a devoted disciple. And you're willing to try something for their benefit. So you should listen to them and see what they want. They're asking you to stretch to them, stretch the teaching to their circumstances. And I would suggest that you just sort of... In one sense, you're careful... But in another sense, you're... You just do whatever you think will be helpful to them at that time. And you don't think... As you talk, you just talk. Then you maybe listen. If they don't ask you, then you listen and you say, I wonder if that was okay. I wonder if that sounds like dogging. Like, I wonder if that sounds like Karagiri Roshi. Like, I wonder if that sounds like Buddha. You don't think beforehand, right?

[58:03]

You just think, what will be helpful to them? What do they ask you? And you say it for them. Then you check. Then you ask yourself, how was that? Was that right? If they're a monk, they'll probably ask you something new. They'll say, well, why was this? So many times you have experiences in your practice, or when you say something or do something, and then later you think, oh, that's like a sutra. That sounds like what I heard in a lecture. That sounds like some Zen teacher I heard. But that's... The reason why you can say that is because you've been listening, but what you said has never been said before. And then later you check it out. Later you bring it back. But... When you talk, you're not checking.

[59:09]

I think mostly you're not checking it. But it's to see that it does come back. It's a comfort. And then when you're back, you can go forth again. You know? Well, we could talk a little bit more about the remaining of the section.

[60:35]

Well, we could maybe go into another section. Do you want to go to another section? I just wanted to check. There's something that's neither inside nor outside, that we're really talking about now, I guess. Okay. Well, neither inside nor outside doesn't mean that it's actually not inside and not outside, right? It means it's free and outside, right? In other words, the way a Buddha can be inside and the way a Buddha can be outside. that sometimes we say something that has been said before, and sometimes we say things that have never been said before. But the bottom line of all that, wouldn't you say that it comes back to emptiness?

[61:43]

That you'd be one with whatever is being said, whether it's inside or outside? Well, it's the point that I was hearing that the whole section is about, is that whether it's a pebble or whether it's something in the scripture itself. Like, a pebble in one way is outside and the scripture itself is inside. Mm-hmm. But whether it's a couple or scripture, it's still a matter of being one with whatever is happening. Mm-hmm. I guess I'm just wanting to bounce that off you.

[62:47]

Well, if you have both... whatever you, any phenomena you have, okay, Buddhist text, official Buddhist text, or you have a disciple of Buddha, or anything, okay, right in that thing, you say, right in light, there's darkness, there's light. Right. So writing a thing, whatever thing it is, writing a form or writing a feeling, or writing a concept, or writing an emotion, writing whatever it is, right there, is emptiness. Writing light is darkness. But don't try to see it as darkness. So, if the light is a sutra, right in the light, there's darkness.

[63:52]

Darkness must be right there. Sutra doesn't equal emptiness. Paddle doesn't equal emptiness, but you can never have emptiness unless there's emptiness right there. You can never have emptiness unless there's a pebble. That's what you're telling me? Mm-hmm. What were the baggage and outer trappings that were in China before Bodhidharma came in? Well, this Kashyapa Matanaga is one of the reporters of Buddhism to China. And so what they're saying here is that People were bringing, in terms of like you were saying, people were bringing lattices into China for quite a while before he died.

[65:04]

People were bringing lattices. People were bringing the main river. People were bringing the loyal reproduction. in terms of sutras and various practices. But, until Bodhidharma came, they never saw a real teacher. They never saw someone who could not only bring the lattice, but show how to use the lattice. You need someone that could bring the teaching and show how you use the teaching. I say Bodhidharma here, but anyway, they mean a Buddha, that came and showed how the teaching is used properly to make it kind of alive. And this Zen teacher named Liu Jing is saying that before this figure, which we call Boidang, no one could make it work.

[66:13]

So the other trapeze are bowls, sutras, zappos, Buddhist statues, incense, monasteries, bells, drums, and all these things, which we must have and take care of, but there was no vitality. And there wasn't a vitality before Bodhidharma, he said. Anything else? No. All right. This next section is rather complicated, but perhaps we can take a little bit out of it for now.

[67:32]

We have many times yet. There's several points raised here. Would someone like to read this next section, Section 3? Just the question part. Eminent priests in all the Zen monasteries past and present say, Right here and now, to be without even a speck of discrimination, whether hearing or not hearing, seeing or not seeing, is the way of the Buddhism patriarchs. With that, they hold up a fist, give loud shouts, wield their staffs, making it so their students can't even guess at what they mean. That is, after all, different in time.

[68:32]

that is, after all, different in kind from any part of the Buddha's entire activity of service. They can't even anticipate a favorable future existence. Things of this sort, and friends of this sort, lead the way of Buddhas and devas. So, What does this sound like he's talking about? He's criticizing a branching word. He's criticizing a branching word or he's asking you? He's asking a branching word. Yeah, he says, is this branching word? What do you think, Jerry? Is this okay? So he's noticing that some people, who are these people he's talking about, by the way? You? I don't know. Well, you think he's Rinzai, but Rinzai, what's the name of Rinzai?

[69:39]

He's talking about some Zen teachers, it sounds like, haven't you? It sounds like some Chinese Zen teachers. And Dogen never saw anything like this in Japan. There's some of these techniques here of raising... But remember again, this raising a whisk, I just told you a story about Yin-Yen raised a whisk, right? Yin-Yen is not Rinzai. Okay? Guishan also raised a whisk. Guishan is also not Rinzai. So it wasn't just Rinzai who raised whisks. Dogen himself, if you look at his Ehe-Goroku, he raised his whisk. He threw his whisk down one time. He raised his whisk and threw his whisk too. But this sounds anyway like some people would say this is a Vainzai or Vainzai Zen or something. But anyway, some Zen teachers tell you this. But as you point out, this is obviously some kind of a branch or some kind of a tributary because there's no record of Buddha's doing this.

[70:51]

In India, they didn't seem to do it. We have almost no record of Buddha yelling at anybody or shouting at anybody or hitting anybody. There's one couple of records. by Shakyamuni Buddha being slightly sarcastic. I need to sort of snide a few places, but never so much as to yell or slug it with. Now, here's some teachers that are willing to go way out on a limb. The question is, are they going too far? This is sort of like the previous section, in a way. And he's saying that not only do they go so far as to, when the students are asking questions, usually they allow them to inquire, from reading a different translation, how the Buddhists convert people in its entirety or to anticipate favorable recompense in the next incarnation.

[71:56]

So you can imagine some look comes up to this teacher asking some questions about incarnation, reincarnation. It's always saying that, well, if I do this, then will that happen? Or how about if I do this practice, will that help this? Or what about people who do this, then what will happen? And the teacher, probably in the middle of the question, screams at them. Or tells them to get out, or hits them, or raises a whisk, or leaves the room. And one of the impressions that Dogen is getting from this is that maybe they're suggesting to the monks that there's no effective practice or no reincarnation path. That's one of the implications. So there's a couple of things raised here. One issue that's raised is, are these teachers getting too far out? And the other thing that's being raised is, are they actually saying, implying, that this thing is reincarnation?

[73:02]

And to make a long story short, I would just say that the Buddhist position on reincarnation, which is good to get straight, is that we have the same position on reincarnation that we have about anything. that there is reincarnation, and we don't say that there isn't. And we don't say that there both is reincarnation and isn't reincarnation, or that there's neither reincarnation nor not reincarnation. We don't place that issue in any of these categories. In other words, if somebody tells us about reincarnation, as though that if someone tells us about reincarnation as though it were a thing that existed, this opinion that person might have that it really has existed, that it really was so, that might not be so good for them to take that point of view, that it really did exist. But also, if they take the point of view that it really doesn't exist, that's not so healthy either.

[74:07]

If you say that there's no such thing as reincarnation, then you're going to have trouble showing that there's such a thing as incarnation. In other words, if you say there's no reincarnation, then you're a present body. So to say that there isn't doesn't work very well, unless you say that there isn't this. But saying that there isn't this doesn't work very well either, as you know, it's an extreme position. Or how about if you say that it is? That also doesn't work so well. Even if you say it is, it's also based on saying that this is. So even whether it doesn't work too well, that's one of the reasons why these teachers maybe cut these people off in the middle when they're talking about this. Because they're just kind of, their minds are just categorizing phenomena in the category of existence or non-existence. If they're categorizing it in terms of existence, if you're about to talk about something as though it existed, and someone cuts you off in the middle, you may feel like, well, that means that they think it doesn't exist.

[75:19]

It's not so. It means that they're trying to stop you and make you look at this. And that's what Wu Jing basically says. He defends, actually, Wu Jing defends these people. In a sense, he says that They're probably just trying to keep these people from thinking too much about it directly. However, he says, anybody who says that it isn't reincarnation is not right. That would be a heresy to say that it isn't. But again, it's a heresy to say that it isn't not because it is. All right? Is that clear? So it's a heresy to say that there isn't reincarnation. It's also a radical point of view of what the Buddhists would like to say that there is. Either of those statements are not right. Whatever we do teach on the side of that there is reincarnation, if you have a story of there is reincarnation, then we tell the story.

[76:25]

When you're out there in Russia, the story of reincarnation is laid out there. So if you say reincarnation exists, well, we've got a story for the case of that it exists. If you say it doesn't exist, well, of course, there's no story. There's no story, too. So there are both those stories, but neither of those positions are in the book's position. Neither that it exists or doesn't exist. But we should know, it's good for us to know, in the realm where things exist, we should know all the stories. We should be familiar with the stories of the existing world without attaching to the existence of those stories. We should use these stories to help people be free in the existence extreme. But again, you cannot help people that are caught in existence if you don't learn their stories.

[77:30]

You have to learn their stories. to be constructed first. So that's, in a sense, that's a pretty good idea. This section here, do you want to listen up, please? I don't think there's... Okay. I hope that you can hear me. You said that? I... That you can hear me. Did somebody say that? I don't understand what the question is. Did you read it?

[78:34]

Is it a short question, long question? Um, for the next paragraph, um, when, every paragraph, um, when the results that, if all that were necessary was to come direct with full understanding right now in your hearing and seeing, and that without any faith or in the practice of confirmation of enlightenment, that, et cetera, et cetera. It just seemed that he's going on with this kind of, even though he's upholding the methods as expedient means, still what he wants to do is to point out that expedient means with firm base of understanding it fine. But from other things that I've seen, either commentary by Dorgan, Dengi, or Rujain, he was very adamant about pointing out the problem.

[79:48]

with the teaching methods of contemporary masters of that time, that they were caught up with expedient means, focused at producing Kensho. So it seems that this whole thing kind of focuses around that, the same section. I don't know if I'm really absorbed. That would be critical. That's another aspect of what's here. There's a lot of these around here. So one of the things is, that that regime saying once in your heart there are these these things can be all these things have never been seen before buddhists have not done anything before they may be all right if they're useful okay he's in that sense he's supporting these people the other side is that if there's no such thing as recompense or effect of karma that's of course heresy To say that there's no karmic accumulations is heresy.

[80:52]

To say that there is, is also heresy. To see that all karmic accumulations are empty is correct, and that's what we have to do. To see that all the amassing of karma or merit is illusory also is correct. But at the same time, to see that all a mass merit is empty, is very meritorious. But you're also saying that there's another side of it, meaning you can't deny the fact that certain people with certain background, certain expedient means are not enough. There have to be some. All right? Namely, there is some effect of practice, in a sense. On the side of things exist, then there has to be a lot of substantial... A person has to be well acquainted with existence.

[82:03]

In order for expedient means which show their existence is not a substantial category. The person has to be well initiated into existence. In order to show them that doesn't really hold. Understand thoroughly the relationship between certain kinds of activities and certain effects. Between not eating too much, not sleeping too much, being calm, all these things. seem to be existing. A person should know this in order to be shown something else. So there has to be a deep, I mean, a real exertion of... It needs to show this side, when the student is presenting this side, the student needs to be really

[83:06]

really fully into this side in order for the teacher to show the other side. So, again, the trunk needs to be well established in order for the trunk to be well established. Say, let's go over here now. Let's follow me over there. The student can follow. But the student won't get lost. There's no base. The teacher goes like this and doesn't do anything. But if the student is well-established, the student can feel, can feel a draw out of the source, and can follow it and can come back with it. So, in one sense, Jung is saying, what about all this stuff over here? And Liu Jing is saying, it's okay if it's part of the story. Drawing from the source and returning to the source, it's all right. But if it's just this, Just a firebrand in the air.

[84:08]

That's not for him either, of course. He's not making that one so strong. That's in the other places. But you think there are all these many other places, such a pure... even means that although in this section we accept that... Rujing? Yeah. Yeah, but again, this is... Again, that's another point is that this is Dogen's recollections of Rujing, right? If you look, this is not Ru Jing who didn't, this isn't Ru Jing who wrote it, this is Dogen who wrote it. Dogen Zenji wrote this, or maybe even Dogen Zenji didn't write this. If you look at Ru Jing Zenji's records in Chinese, you don't find this kind of thing to sell. As a matter of fact, one of his speeches that is preserved in the Chinese canon, he starts off by screaming and yelling shit. He himself, that's the record that he... He appears to keep the records of Ruijing in Chinese. He's a very interesting and original personality.

[85:14]

Very not like, not to curse at all in his writings, in his quite unusual, quite energetic and really almost eccentric, you would say. But still is his other side, okay? Which is, and I think, A good example of this, I saw this movie a couple of years ago called From Mao to Mozart. Did you ever see it? And one scene I thought was very good, it's about this. These Chinese people are learning Western instruments, particularly the violin, which Isaac Stern is visiting them, right? Isaac Stern is a good violinist. He's working with these Chinese people, these Chinese kids. And they have their technique down very well, you know. And he's working right next to them, they're doing his piece. And they're good enough so that he can say, he can come up to them while they're going rather stiffly and very exactly to them.

[86:21]

And he can play along with them and he can say, okay, now you've got now dancing. Okay? And they're good enough, their technique is good enough, so he can come up to them and he can say, now dance, and they don't get shaken. They don't shake, they don't get a boost, they go with it. That's because they're very good at what they're doing. Somebody less good, if he said, okay, now go, dance with me, dance with the viburnum, they would get nervous and they would lose it. But they were good enough so they could kick that knee. And you could hear the difference. Precise and accurate playing, and then when they took the jump, when they started to, they went free. Or it's like juggling balls, you know. If I'm juggling three balls, and I've been juggling three balls very well for a long time, a teacher of juggling can come to me. Three balls over me. And he can juggle within four balls and five balls.

[87:26]

And he's, I'm juggling three and he's juggling five. And he can say, okay, now, you're juggling three and I'm juggling five. Now, I'm going to throw you a ball. I'm going to throw you one more ball. And you can do it. Okay, here he is. He's juggling four balls. You take that jump. Because that person's doing five, you can see him doing five and you know he can trust you. You're doing three. and throw you five. You have to not only be able to do three, but do three very well, because if you just learn how to do three and do one more to do four, you probably, you only have the ability to do three. You don't have the ability to do three and adjust to the shock of doing one more. And do one more. But if he's doing five or six, you can see, he knows. He used to do three, and he did four, and he did five, and he's doing six. He knows that you can do four. You know. You're doing right what you can feel, so here it comes.

[88:26]

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