My wife's name is Virginia. Can you hear me in the back? Okay, no. All right, my wife's name is Virginia and her mother has been, always been a person of extraordinary energy and vitality and yesterday she's quite young. Yesterday morning she had breakfast with some relatives and went into her room and a few minutes later staggered out rather incoherent and partly paralyzed and she'd had a stroke from which it looks like she'll die. Anyway, Virginia has flown with Sally to Florida. I mention this not because it's

[01:26]

of so much interest actually, I mean this kind of thing happens all the time. But there are three generations of girls there now, my mother-in-law, her daughter, and my daughter. Sally, my daughter, wanted to go very much because she was not there when Her grandfather died and she feels some feeling she should be there. She shouldn't avoid it. And of course, same thing may happen to Virginia and same thing will happen to Sally. Something like that is unavoidable. when you have no more choice.

[02:38]

Sometimes I wonder what keeps us reproducing and starting all over again, over and over again. No matter how difficult life is, we keep reproducing more children and reproducing more, well as I've been speaking during sasheen, we turn, keep turning toward rebirth. Suzuki Roshi said once, talking many years ago, that children always say, I know, I know. You know, you say something, they say, I know, I know. And he said, old lady says to them, now keep quiet. Buddhism is something serious. It's quite a big important thing. Be quiet. And the child says, I know, I know.

[04:32]

And Suzuki Roshi said, that's enough, you know, I know, I know. So, second story in Blue Cliff Records, Joshu says, quoting So San, the third patriarch in China, the real way is not difficult. And then Suzuki Roshi said, I know, I know. Anyway, Joshi said, quoting Sosan, the real way is not difficult, but it dislikes the relative. The real way is not difficult, it dislikes the relative. So I want to talk maybe, if I can, about the relative and the absolute or something we started talking about yesterday, the relative and the absolute. I think it's rather difficult, it's rather difficult for me to convey to you what's

[06:09]

in my mind but maybe you'll feel what I'm talking about. In Buddhism, you know, Buddhism sounds very pessimistic and I myself talk about death quite a lot and Buddhism doesn't give us any goals. In fact, the end of goals is the point of Buddhism. So Buddhism doesn't give you some relative goal or some heaven or some thing you should work for. So taking aside all your illusions you're left with something that from a relative point of view looks rather dismal, you know. You can't see much except the enormous difficulty it is for so many people. And we see how seeking some physical comfort or temporary possessions, how

[07:41]

innocuous and maybe revolting that makes our life. So Buddhism you know of course teaches us to do with very little not many possessions and in not even mountains and trees, when we look at the, when we try to understand what our true nature is. Yesterday we talked about sun rising and setting and maybe

[08:51]

I can't remember exactly how you put the question, it was rather a good question, I thought. We can't, we have, we look up, how did you put it? Do you remember? Oh, okay, I'll make something up. Could you hear what he said? No? That's the dark corner over there, sunny but dark. He said, we can be quite sure that Sun will rise at some specific time, 8, 10, we can calculate it exactly even. And this kind of thing may give us something we can rely on. So, of course, relatively that's true, but

[10:36]

I want to use this example to talk a little bit about what we mean in Buddhism by non-duality, how thoroughly we mean non-duality, you know. From one point of view, of course, because sun comes up, we get up. But our understanding in Buddhism is we don't ... maybe this way, sun doesn't get up because we get up. Sun doesn't come up in the morning because we come up in the morning. Sun doesn't care whether we get up or not. It's just going along, you know. It doesn't even know where it's going maybe. And we should be the same way. We get up just going along, you know. And maybe it's coincidence that sun and us and we get up at same time. That sun comes up in us, not in the sky.

[11:58]

we ourselves are the sun. So you can say, well but sun came first and I became second and actually maybe not even second because plants were second or water was second, So we're a child of the son and so we follow our parents, you know. But I used to say to Sally, Sally don't disagree, my daughter, don't disagree with me, after all I made you. You belong to me. And she'd say, even very little, she'd say, It's too late, it's too late now." She'd say, I belong to me. Which is quite true, she belongs to Sally. And we don't belong to Sun, you know, we belong to us and Sun belongs to us.

[13:30]

know which came first you can't say Sally or me or Sun or something before the Sun. Anyway right now for Buddhism right now is the origin. So if you look to the Sun or stars to find out something about your life or if you go to a reader future may be or what your nature is. It may be very interesting and may be useful, but excuse me for saying so, you're sabotaging your Buddhist practice. Relatively that kind of mixture of going to a reader or looking at the stars in Buddhism may make some good cultural mix, that will help you guide your life. But if you want to realize your true nature, you know, it's a pretty big mistake. How seriously we mean non-dualism, you

[15:00]

You don't get up because of the sun, you get up because you get up, because it's time to get up from you. And if the stars and moon influence you, they influence you in you. When we say in Buddhism, don't seek outside yourself, it means literally don't look to the sun or don't look to reader. If you want to improve your life, you know, improve it non-dualistically, improve it by being one with your own But describing practice in this kind of way, some way similar to this, you know, maybe, mountain seems very high, maybe too high for us. But if you can put all your eggs in one basket, one non-dualistic basket, your feet will be on the mountain immediately.

[16:29]

Do you understand what I mean? I'm sorry. we give you so little aids in Zen practice, you know, no program to follow, no special practices except Zazen. And of course, you know, something will come up but mostly we give you no program and so To practice Zen way, you have to understand how thoroughly we mean non-dualism. Not part way, when it's convenient, and when it's convenient to do something else, you try to solve the problem some other way. Though, sometimes it may be, you can't be insane about it. Sometimes we take some expedient means, some medicine,

[18:05]

Ideally, you could solve any disease by internally adjusting yourself, but we know that we are not so perfected as that, so we may take some medicine. But our basic understanding should be we do everything we can, non-dualistically. Sukhirashi said, sun and moon are not necessarily two and sun and moon are not necessarily one.

[19:31]

was trying to say, you know, I can't add much to, you know, just that, you know, but that kind of thing is the mystery of our life, you know. Sun and moon are not two and yet not one. You know, we, from our relative point of view, have to say, this is sun and this is moon." Or from our relative point of view, Joshu said, you know, after he said, the real way is not difficult yet it dislikes the relative, he said, this old monk is not in the absolute. Do you understand? from relative point of view we say sun and moon are one. This is all we can say to express that sun and moon are not one and two or two and one or just one or just two.

[20:54]

But it's you, sun and moon are you. You include sun and moon, sun and moon includes you. And this fact you can only know by your own being. There's no relative way to describe it. We are not capable of, it's not in the realm of the describable. It only is and you can be it. But again, someone said to me, I'm always speaking about to be here now, you know, but actually I don't mean that. Be here now may be a good admonition, you know, but it's not a description of a place, a here which you can be in. There's no such place. What I'm talking about has no boundaries. You can't say, as Dogen said, it's a circular ocean or four-cornered or sky or ocean. We can't describe this. All we can say, but I can say, don't be over there. Don't be at two places at once.

[22:25]

I can't say only be in one place because this one place is indescribable. There's a poem of Setso commenting on this case of Joshu, which goes something like, the real way is not difficult. It dislikes the relative. I don't remember the whole poem, but some of it is interesting. Sun, moon sets and sun rises. So we finish our practice, zazen, and retire. He doesn't say that, but that's feeling. And next to wooden railing, you know, in Chinese or Japanese house, there's various levels and you can see he's sitting on tatami and then there's kind of usually a wooden

[23:55]

kind of hallway with sliding doors and then sliding doors again and then a wooden kind of porch, each fairly narrow, maybe as wide as one tatami, and so two sets of sliding doors which are usually open most of the year. And he must be describing a temple deep in the mountains because he says Moon sets and sun rises and next to the wood of the railing, blue of distant mountain, cold water. The something relative and absolute, difficult, difficult, ponder this. So we can say, you know, blue mountain may be absolute and stream, water coming from mountain is relative. But you can't actually say where there's blue mountain there is cold stream. And yet if you want to experience your

[25:20]

know your true nature, you know, as I said, talking about the ox-herding pictures, you know, the last one where you enter the world to do your work, before that you must make the world disappear. So if you, if we ask about, if you want to understand Buddhism, you have to understand your true nature. And if you... if we talk about your true nature, we must say there's no mountain, no sun, no moon, no tree, no flower, no human being. Maybe this is absolute. So one way is no mountain, no tree, no flower. Other way is there is tree, there is mountain, there is flower. But beyond either of these ways, if you forget all about yourself, a mountain will appear. And if we speak about mountain, there will be flower, and flower will appear.

[26:56]

and also emptiness will be there. If we say just flower or mountain and you have only that understanding, there may be some trouble for you or suffering. But if you understand the other side of the truth, no mountain, no flower, that point of view, which is all points of view, which you can't experience, that sun and moon are not necessarily two, not necessarily one. But by forgetting yourself completely, your being is continuous with everything. This is some mystery, you know. I think if we talk about it, you don't want to accept it, because

[28:08]

It seems troublesome. What would you do with such an idea in your life? But actually we know it's true. You know you're not separate from sun and moon. So we don't have to talk about it so much. just maybe zazen will keep us continuously in touch with our more fundamental nature in which things both exist and don't exist and we won't stray so far into existence only.

[29:10]

and lose our way and our happiness. At some point we think the way back is too simple, it can't be that simple, so simple as just non-dualism and so difficult. So we try some circuitous route back by drugs or drinking or some pursuit of happiness. It happens to everybody. I don't think anyone doesn't do it. But by zazen I think you can be in touch with your nature, you know, in which things both exist and don't exist. Actually there's no nature, you know, but provisionally I have to say something.

[30:39]

abandoning your nature maybe over and over again abandoning your nature everything will appear Do you have some question or anything you'd like to talk about? Yes? You talked the other day about taking the limited and wind. Arise there is fan and wind. And then in another part of the gift of God, it said that you're... I can't remember exactly how it expressed it. It said that when you are realized, it's not like the moon reflected in the water.

[32:14]

When one thing is in light and the other thing is in darkness? When one side is in light, the other side is in darkness, yeah. Are those two paths related? All three, you mean? Yeah, all three. And what do you mean? Could you hear what she said? Very difficult question. Dogen says, when the, how does he put it, when the Dharma is, when we think the Dharma is sufficient, we haven't fully, when we think we've realized, when we think the Dharma is, when we think we've realized the Dharma, maybe, realized,

[33:16]

there is some insufficiency. But when we experience some insufficiency, when we've realized, we experience some insufficiency," he says. And he says, when one side is in light, another side will be in darkness, the other side. And he says, enlightenment is not like the moon reflected in a pond. That's the same thing he said, actually. I don't mean that you should have known it's the same thing. He takes the end where Dogen says, quoting a famous story, is it the fan or if the wind is If the wind is everywhere, if the absolute is something, you know, if the wind is everywhere, why do you fan yourself? And same meaning is, moon is not necessarily two and not necessarily, moon and sun are not necessarily two and not necessarily one.

[34:44]

to look at this kind of statement you have to maybe have to be able to do zazen or to have some steady steady uninterrupted experience of yourself that is detached from are not caught by the flow of your mental and physical events. So, those of you who sit most still actually ask the most penetrating questions. Notice that, it's quite interesting. Because you're able to consider your what's happening, because you can sit through the distractions. So you're able to penetrate beyond the ordinary questions to some deeper question, and you're able to bring that question up over and over again in your life, till you absorb it and resolve it.

[36:22]

So to work with a question like this, maybe your attitude is something like, it must be so, but what can it be? What can it be? But you have that urge not to drop it. I understand it pretty well," and you put it aside. No, some urge to understand it completely, or till you realize it's not understandable, or till you get beyond the realm of understanding or not understanding. So you see it out of the context of understanding. Then maybe you can see, ah, that's why someone would say such a thing. It's the only way to say it. And that comes from your own experience. Oh yes?

[37:47]

question, maybe. Maybe the question is enough without my saying anything. The one who becomes detached is the one who becomes detached. Who is attached is the one who is attached. But you want to get rid of the who, is that right? Who is neither detached nor attached? I would like to see who it is. Who is going to see it? I see. Well, if you can locate somebody who can see it, I'll explain it to him.

[39:13]

Okay, please show it to me or tell me, introduce me someday. And these natives did not know how to count. They didn't know how they were going to swing ten people without counting. So, anyway, they handed a plate to each one of them. Yeah, there are in the Laplanders don't count. and don't figure things out, but they can meet you in an exact place later in the year. But if you talk to them about later in the year, they don't think of it that way, you know, but they have some spatial sense of physical location and the variety of the physical location and they can meet you on that basis.

[40:42]

Do you understand this point of non-dualism, you know, of not seeking outside yourself? I think intellectually it's fairly difficult to grasp actually. not because it requires intelligence, you know, but because it's hard to see its application or how extensively it's true. So maybe at first, over and over again,

[41:59]

once this idea of relative and absolute or origin and or beginning and end, this kind of question occurs over and over again in the details of your life and you can see how you're caught by thinking there's a beginning or by comparing this to that or preparing for that, you know, in a way which denies, you know, the future. After you've seen it in many cases, you begin to understand what, how deep this idea of non-dualism is. The next step is acting on it, you know. It doesn't actually come in sequence. You begin as soon as you see it, you know, but next step is to thoroughly act on it. And it means taking chances, you know. You are quite convinced, I'll be better off if I do this, but you decide, I'll not seek outside myself.

[43:26]

It means giving up enlightenment, giving up everything, just what you are, you know. You have everything you need. Just at this moment, you know, even in utter boredom, not trying to change your situation, Yeah. Do you think I'm outside you?

[44:34]

That's an interesting question. That's basically the question, why do we practice? Why do we have to practice is Dogen's question. If we are already enlightened, if we're already Buddha, why do we have to practice? Do you understand that same question? Why do zazen? Why read sutra? Why speak to me or something, right? When I sit down, I don't feel like I'm going outside of myself. If I ask you a question, I feel like I'm going outside of myself and asking for guidance.

[46:13]

In this kind of question there's so many, not for you, I'm speaking now, but for all of us, there are so many intertwined attitudes and one of the most prevalent feelings in this country is we should do it ourselves, by ourself. That's better, you know, like Buddha did it by himself, I should do it by myself and not have any assistance. And I used to have that feeling myself, you know. So, I would go to Doksan with Suzuki Roshi, and Suzuki Roshi would ask me sometimes, do I have any questions about practice? This particularly occurred around the time of the koan that was presented by Bishop Yamada, Yamada Roshi and Suzuki Roshi, about Nonsense Cat, which I've told you, most of you, about that time when they presented that story to me. Most of you, right? No? Yes. Anyway, at same time, in same sashin and doksan, they asked me, and I'd been asked before, do I have any questions, and I said,

[47:44]

No, I bring my questions to Zazen. I said, yes I have some questions but I always bring them to Zazen, which I did. I had some way of finding questions arising and then repeating them like a mantra and working with them day and night and in Zazen. And Suzuki Roshi heard me and said, yes, oh, that's very good, but he didn't mean it was good enough. And there's no way I can, even if I tell Suzuki Roshi everything, which I did, and any question. Still, I have to bring it, solve it myself. You know, he can't give me the answer. But, same time as I had the koan, which I'll tell again, you know, what happened. Nansen, you know, held up cat and said, if anyone can say one good word,

[49:20]

I'll save the cat." You can save the cat because the two wings of the monastery were fighting over the cat, whose cat it was. Rather petty battle. And no one said anything, so he killed the cat. So Yamada, Reiren Roshi, asked us, asked me, please save the cat. As soon as they told me, I was ready with answer, I thought. I started to say something. He said, not so quick, not so quick. Too quick, they said. Go away. So I went away and in the afternoon I came back and I said,

[50:22]

I would walk away. I would go away. This was a very important koan for me. I said, I would walk away. And I tried to explain that Nansen would be killing the cat because of my stupidity, you know, fighting with the other monks. or because I was there, for the monks he is killing. So if the monks went away, there'd be no one there for him to kill the cat for. So in a way I was saying, I will ask the questions myself, you see. I will present the questions to myself for a solution. they wouldn't really let me explain and they both got quite angry with me and they said, you you have some responsibility the monks have some, you have to solve it there with everyone you can't walk away those monks who stayed and the cat was killed are better than you they said

[51:52]

So, I went away, upstairs to the Sindho, and I'm still here. But if any of those monks could have understood nansen for one instant, they could have saved the cat. And as you know, second part of the story I talked about a few weeks ago or a few days ago or sometime recently anyway. And Joshu, same Joshu as the poem, real way is not difficult story. Joshu came back and said, and was told the story, and Nansen said, told the story, and after he heard the story, from Nansen I guess, Joshu took one sandal and put it on his head and walked out. And that's very interesting, you know, because in that answer there's no comparison

[53:23]

you know, of that moment with the time in which the monks were fighting about the cats. I don't think you understand quite what I mean, but there was no comparison. He didn't try to figure out what should the monks have done to save the cats, because cat was no longer there. You know, just Nansen was there and he'd said something, just as he said something about the cat. So Joshu just said, you did something terrible, completely upside down, you know, to help those petty monks. How great, you know, we must enact, how we must sometimes do something like that to prevent people from killing their Buddha nature. So he too quick. So he took sandal and did something upside down, one sandal on his head and walked out. And Nansen said, oh if you'd been there you would have saved the cat. Because just then he just was at one with his teacher. And Joshua Nansen took care of that monastery like one person.

[54:43]

So we don't need to have the... Non-dualism doesn't mean you don't get up when the sun gets up and that you don't ask a question of anybody or anyone can be your teacher. It means you should be one with someone and a teacher is just an opportunity to be one with someone. That's all. No more questions like that, please. Yes. Well, I myself don't like cross-cultural, cross-religious comparisons, because maybe if my friend Paul Lee was here, who studied with Paul Tillich, etc., he could give me background of the kingdom of God is near.

[56:22]

Because that kind of expression, like Joshu putting his sandal on his head, when people just treat Buddhism as literature, they don't understand anything about what's going on. So, for me, that's more like literature. Kingdom of God is within. So, I don't know what practice meaning it has for Christians. But certainly, just as a statement, the Kingdom of God is near, It's very similar to, it sounds like if we say, you don't have to seek outside yourself, Buddha is here. Sounds the same. Sounds the same. Yeah? If I was bored now and I didn't try to change it, would that necessarily mean that I would no longer be bored? Yeah. You all heard what he said? No. He said, if ... I knew that when I said that about boredom it was going to ... I was asking because I immediately thought of some problems related to what I said. He said, if right now he was

[57:49]

quite bored, which you may be, I don't know. Would his accepting being bored, would that make you not bored? You know, something like that? Actually, it's so, right? That's true. But if you do it because accepting it means you won't be bored, you'll be bored. And it's an interesting problem because there's no way out of that. You can't accept pain because you know if you accept it, the pain will stop. It won't work. You have to actually, actually, genuinely, fully, okay, this bloody pain can go on forever and be ready for it to go on forever. then you can find some space that is not pain. So that's rather interesting. We're much more complicated than we think. This is a very simple example. I was at a meeting a while ago and

[59:16]

we were voting, this sounds really rather strange, but we were voting for new members of the board and I could feel everybody's preferences and I expressed what I wanted, what I felt about various people. We had to speak about who should be on the board. So I expressed my feeling and I voted provisionally for several people and by the way the votes came out, ties and various things, some people changed their votes. And when the meeting was over, all the people who I wanted to be elected were elected, but they weren't the people I voted for. You know? So that's rather interesting, you know? If you try to plan it, to figure out, I vote,

[60:42]

If I vote for this, this person will then change. You can't figure it out. So you have to genuinely vote for somebody. And you can't say, maybe I'm quite contented with either way it comes out. So whoever gets elected, I'll feel that's wonderful. But anyway, it's very complex. That kind of situation is very complex. And we can't figure it out. But if you do just what occurs to you at each moment, some process occurs with everyone that is far more complicated than you can imagine. And at this moment you may do something that you exactly mean genuinely. I don't care if suffering exists forever. And next moment you may not have any suffering, you know. But both have to be genuine. There's some power in that, but it means that you can't have a state of mind which is comparing this moment to next moment, or even concerned about next moment, because each moment is a completely new pattern of possibilities.

[62:03]

But if you want to control the outcome of your life, you can never understand or participate in this subtle seventh bhumi. You know the bhumis? Seventh bhumi is far-reaching, the understanding or able to exist in far-reaching realm, which is maybe the same as sun and moon, not necessarily one, and sun and moon, not necessarily two. but we are sun and moon. The realm in which sun and moon and you

[62:55]

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