Well, last time I said that I would try to finish up with Parkland's commentary on the five ranks and that we would see if we could do that. And you said you wanted to do it. But, you know, I gave you this commentary by Sikhita. How many of you have that commentary? How many of you read the commentary? How many of you understood the commentary? How many of you want to go through the commentary? So we'll do that. The commentary was very clear, very simple. To me the subject was very clear, but I remember when I was first coming across it, it wasn't clear at all, or easy.

[01:22]

I couldn't contain everything that was going on, that was being discussed and so forth. But little by little I understood it and got a handle on it. And I think that the key to the British force, general meaning in a pretty good way. And he also said something about how he relates the verses in a simple way to the verses for each of the ranks. So I think that's important. He kind of shows you what the verse means, the meaning of the verse in relation to the All right.

[02:28]

So I think I will do that. So I'm just going to read and then make comments as I read. And you can ask questions. OK. So at first he talks about the ox-herding pictures, and he explains that the ox-herding pictures demonstrate, or picture, how one comes from beginning looking for the ox, looking for practice, looking for something, to actually having realization, and then expressing that realization. Five Ranks is about after that. Five Ranks is about how one expresses enlightenment after enlightened activity, after maturity of practice.

[03:39]

So he says, in searching for the ops, we are mainly dealing with the process of attaining enlightenment. So we can, you know, it's okay to talk in this way. Taozong's five ranks are concerned with matters after enlightenment, that is, with the cultivation of holy Buddhahood. Certain Buddhist schools assert that there are 52 stages through which the enlightened person has to pass before reaching the true maturity of the Buddha. However, Taozong's five ranks are sufficient to enable us to grasp the essential points before commenting on them in detail, however, we must introduce and explain certain essential terms used in describing the five ranks. So he has several things that he says here that need clarification. The 52 stages of the Bodhisattva are a Mahayana outline of Bodhisattva practice.

[04:53]

And they include what's called the Ten Bhumis, or the Ten Major Aspects of Bodhisattva. And if you read them, you'll become very discouraged. Because that's not for human beings, is it? Who could ever do this? So it's very highly idealized. are very highly idealized stages of attainment as a kind of layout practice. So I'm saying five ranks gives you a kind of quick course in the 52 stages. And also, Lee Sidney talks about So, what he is talking about is living by vow instead of living by karma.

[06:14]

This is about the Buddhist practice. Bodhisattva's practice of living by vow instead of living by karma. In other words, if you read the Lotus Sutra, the Lotus Sutra expresses why a Buddha appears in the world. And the only reason a Buddha appears in the world is to save beings, is to do as much as one can to save sentient beings. Otherwise, there's no other reason for a Buddha to appear in the world. So then he says, when we attain Kensho, an habitual way of consciousness falls off. There appears what is called Dai-en-kyochi. This may translate as the great perfect mirror of wisdom.

[07:19]

So what he's doing here beginning of his presentation. The Mirror Wisdom, the Equality Wisdom, the Discerning Wisdom, and the Perfecting of Action Wisdom. I've talked about the Four Wisdoms before, and the Four Wisdoms are When consciousness is turned, the four Wisdoms appear. So the four Wisdoms are like the other side. The four Wisdoms are in true nature expressed as Wisdom instead of simply as consciousness.

[08:21]

So when consciousness is purified, the four Wisdoms appear. So the first Wisdom is the Mirror Wisdom, the Equality Wisdom, the Marvelous Observing Wisdom, and the Perfecting of Action Wisdom. But don't start reading about it. I'm just going to explain it to you. And then you can look at your So, he says, when one attains Kensho, in other words, when one realizes their nature, and the habitual way of consciousness falls off, there appears what is called Dai and Kyochi. is the great perfect mirror of wisdom, great round which heralds round immaturity, and hence perfect cure-mirror.

[09:35]

Everyone is innately equipped with the mirror of wisdom, however in most people it is long been veiled because of the activity of our topsy-turvy delusive thought. So he talks about, right now he is actually alluding to the poem of the first rank. In absolute samadhi, he talks about two kinds of samadhi. This is his way of expressing activity and stillness. He uses positive samadhi to mean our samadhi and our daily activity. And absolute samadhi, meaning the samadhi of zazen. There are those two distinctions, which is samadhi within our daily activity and the samadhi of stillness or satsang. So, one he calls absolute samadhi and the other is positive samadhi.

[10:47]

So, he says, everyone is equipped with this mirror of wisdom. However, in most people, it has long been veiled because of the activity of our topsy-turvy delusive thought. In absolute Samadhi, the veil is cleared away and the perfect mirror is allowed to appear. This condition constitutes Tozan's first rank. The mirror of wisdom, however, still remains in darkness in the absolute samadhi of the first rank. This rank corresponds to the eighth stage of searching for the ox, illustrated by the circle in which body and mind have fallen off. The great mirror of wisdom becomes brilliantly lit in the positive samadhi of one whose cultivation of holy Buddhahood has reached full maturity. The remaining four words refer to this sphere of positive samadhi. So the first branch is Dviraika Asavutsabhadi.

[11:51]

It's a dark circle with a little bit of light. The light is hidden within the dark. Activity is hidden within concealed things. This is the manner of speaking. So when you sit in Zazen, You're not creating discursive thinking and you're letting go. You're actually dropping body and mind. But the other four ranks are about positive samadhi, about our activity, right? that the remaining four ranks refer to the sphere of positive samadhi. We should note here that the fact that, apart from the first, Tozan's ranks all relate to the positive samadhi should not be taken as belittling the importance of absolute samadhi.

[13:00]

We know that. The latter is the foundation of all Zen practice. So, in other words, absolute samadhi is the base, the foundation. And that is why Tozan places it first. the brilliance of the mirror in positive samadhi is comparable to that of broad daylight, the silence and oblivion of absolute samadhi to the darkness of midnight. So do you have any question about that? Anything? There. See if it's not clear. When we talk about the first two circles, the first one is the darkness covering the light side, and the second one is the light side covering the darkness.

[14:04]

So right now, this is positive samadhi, if you are really concentrated. And the dark side, the absolute side, is hidden. Although, it doesn't mean it's not there. So, the great mirror of wisdom is also referred to by the Zen terms, shou, which means authentic or genuine, and hongbong, which means original, part, Homebrew can be described as absolute, genuine, dark, and empty. It is a state of no thought. However, if you settle down in this dark, empty, thoughtless condition, your development will come to an end. You must return to the world, so the state in which your consciousness operates normally, and live in positive samadhi. So this is what Hakon was talking about when we stopped talking about Hakon.

[15:10]

He was saying, you can't stay in this position. And of course, we all know that. You can't stay sitting in thought all the time. You have to get up and do something. So, we have to participate in the world of activity. Here, however, you are necessarily bound by the restrictions of time, space, and causation. And you live in the world of individuality, confrontation, and differentiation. However, when you have once experienced the absolute equality of the great mirror of wisdom, you can go on to obtain a freedom of mind that goes beyond such discrimination. This maturity in which, while yet living in the world of time, space and causation, you transcend the limits of that world is called the wisdom of equality. That's the second rank. That's the second wisdom, the wisdom of equality.

[16:15]

When we understand the eight levels of consciousness, this helps make sense. Because the first five, what are the first five? And what is the seventh? Ego consciousness. And what is the eighth? Alaya. Storehouse. So when the consciousnesses are purified, the storehouse consciousness, alaya, becomes the great mirror of wisdom. The manas, which is called ego consciousness,

[17:19]

7th. Manas is mind. Manas is mind, yes, but Mano Visnano is the 6th. There are two mind consciousnesses. One is the 6th and one is the 7th. So Manas is mind consciousness but in the sense of egotistical separation, discriminating consciousness, based on self-centeredness. When that is purified, it becomes the wisdom of equality. And when mano vijnana, mind consciousness, which is associated with the five senses, is purified, it becomes the discernment wisdom. that calls it observing with models, observing wisdom. And then the five sense consciousnesses become the wisdom of appropriate action.

[18:29]

Perfecting of action wisdom. So, when he says here So this maturity in which, while yet living in the world of time, space and causation, you transcend the limits of that world is called the wisdom of equality. It is to this maturity that Poisson's ranks point the way. So this is really the most important aspect of realization, is when our ego turns into wisdom. ego is transmuted into wisdom instead of self. So the seventh consciousness, which is the karma creating consciousness. So when the karma creating consciousness becomes purified, it becomes wisdom.

[19:40]

equality, to realize the equality of phenomena. But the other consciousnesses also become purified when manas becomes purified. Because manas is the karma creating consciousness. That's why instead of living by karma, one lives by vow. When one lives by vow, living by vow means turning yourself over to the welfare of all beings instead of simply self-centeredness. So self-centeredness is karma creation. It's not that there's no karma created otherwise, but this is It's called ignorance.

[20:48]

Karma created through ignorance. Do you have any question about that? The perfecting of action wisdom, it makes it sound like action is not mediated by equality or distinction. If that is a separate wisdom, is it? They are not separate. They are four aspects of wisdom. None of this is separate, really. The inconsciousness is just simply eight aspects of consciousness. And the four wisdoms are four aspects of wisdom.

[21:49]

But that can't happen. The terminating, the parivrtti, or the transformation, can't happen until this manas is transformed. So you know, in Buddhism, we always say, get rid of ego, cut off ego, cut it off at the root, and so forth. We've identified the ego, it's monas, the self-consciousness, which corrupts the rest. It's a corrupting consciousness, because it leads to suffering through ignorance, because it replaces, it inserts itself. So in Buddhadharma, we say there's no real manas, no real ego, but it's just a construction.

[22:57]

And that construction is the cause of our suffering. So when we let go of, or offer up, I like to think of it as offering up our manas to to Buddha, then Manas is absorbed into Buddha, or turned, and is driven by vow rather than by karma. So let us put these three matters in another way. At an early stage in the cultivation of holy buddhahood, you may often find yourself failing to behave well. And you do not what you would wish to do, but what you hate.

[24:02]

You say, I should not be so, but to no avail. However, as you go on, you begin to lose these discriminating motivations, and ultimately come to find equality in distinction, and it is the state that constitutes Tozan's second rank. So we use the words show and home bloom to characterize the first rank which we connect with the world of equality. The second rank relates to the world of differentiation and distinction, which in Zen terminology is called hen, or periphery. The two words show and hen have no exact equivalence in English, and we shall not try to translate them here. However, to suggest their meanings, we will list contrasting terms that can be associated with them in each pair. So I haven't introduced these terms, but you've probably seen them. Show and hen. Show is the absolute, so to speak, and hen is the conditioned.

[25:08]

So, Sho and Hin are like absolute and relative, equality and distinction, emptiness and form, absolute samadhi, positive samadhi, dark, light, yin-yang, no thought, thought, inward, outward, central, peripheral, reason, matter, reality, appearance. So here we have a series of concepts that are in opposition to each other. However, in actual life, we find that we simply exist. So this is one of the problems that we have when we study the five ranks. Because the five ranks are comparing the absolute and the relative in various configurations. But actually, it's just one thing. So we realize, yes, it's just this, but then we're dissecting it and looking at it.

[26:15]

We're cutting something, and we're looking at something in a dualistic way, and we understand that that's what we're doing, but I'm making a mistake. However, we have a series of concepts that are in opposition to each other. However, in actual life we find that we simply exist. When we are in absolute Samadhi, we are in absolute quietness. And when we are in positive Samadhi, we are in rigorous activity. There is only one stream of existence and a continuum of the present. However, when we take up philosophical speculation absolute and relative, and so on. Then, once again, we return to the continuum of one single existence. Sho and Hen alternate, each retaining, so to speak, a vague memory of the other.

[27:18]

So this is the problem of the first rank. But two situations can be considered. Hen and Sho, Tozan's first rank, and Sho and Hen, Tozan's second rank. To go on from there, we abolish entirely the dualistic idea of showing an absolute relative, and so on, and bring about a synthesis and integration of them, which is the third rank, coming from the real. That's the circle with the dot in the middle. These remarks, however, are perhaps sufficient introduction to Tozón's verses and are a commentary on them.

[28:19]

We shall deal with the fourth and fifth ranks in their turn below. The reader should understand that the five ranks are not to be thought of as so many grades of achievement, but simply as different conditions. There is, however, a customary sequence in which the different states that Tozón depicts and the five ranks follow the sequence. So there are actually two ways of looking. In the following paragraph, we first give the relevant verse by totem and then our commentary on it. So now, this is the commentary on the five ranks. What we just talked about, or I have, this is the introduction. So, hen in sho, in other words, the relative hidden within the absolute.

[29:22]

At dead of night, with no moon, meeting, yet not knowing each other, you have a vague memory of old days. Where do the verses come from? Are they actually his verses? Yes. At dead of night with no moon, when you are in Absolute Samadhi, everything is darkness, emptiness and silence, like the depths of a moonless night. So, this illustrates the circle, the dark circle, with a little bit of light. Okay. At dead of night with no moon. So, meeting and not knowing each other. In absolute Samadhi, you are not aware of your state. You regain your original nature, but you do not recognize it.

[30:28]

This is because you are in the Samadhi itself, in the original nature itself. Together the two lines indicate that you have returned to the darkness of the I think it's better than babyhood. Childlike, maybe. So you come back to before the state, before ego exists. Before what? Before show. Well, it is show. Before show, it's like, what is your original face before show? Before head, actually. But anyway, you regain your original face, so to speak, which is devoid of conditioning, in other words.

[31:37]

You say return to that, but actually I like to think of you go forward to your innocence, to your original nature, which is before conditioning. So, we're always acting out of our conditioning. So Zazen actually is to let go of your conditioning, even though you carry it with you. And you may carry it with you for years. But you have the opportunity to let go of your conditioning when you sit down and you become totally empty. And then you can start from a new place. We actually have that opportunity. After sitting a period as I said, we get up and we have the opportunity to do anything in the world. But we continue our conditioning. Sorry not to. We also continue our karma, Vedic karma.

[32:41]

Anyway, so the idea of relative and absolute head and shell are of course the product of conceptual thinking. What is essential in our experience of life is simply the fact that we exist. Let me say this again. Our existence must necessarily combine both the relative and the absolute. However, in absolute Samadhi, it is the latter that occupies the central position, while in the former, the former is subsidiary. In positive Samadhi, the reverse is the case. In the experience of Kensho, we find that all objects maintain their individuality while at the same time existing in unity. They are not strangers to one another. Reading it, not knowing each other, going back to the poem, you have a vague memory of old days. So they intercommunicate among themselves displaying differentiation in unity and at the same time unity in differentiation.

[33:54]

This is because kinshow occurs on the dividing line between absolute and positive samadhi. Kensho occurs at the moment when you come out of absolute samadhi and stand on the threshold of positive samadhi. When you thus experience unity and differentiation, the second rank, shou and hen, appears. OK. So now we're going to talk about the second rank. Do you think that's a pretty good description? Well, I think it's the description. I think it... You don't find gross fault with it? I don't find gross fault with it. He's trying to say something, and he's pointing at something. He's not saying, this is the way it is. He's pointing at something, and you get the picture. But he cannot give you the picture. He can't give you the thing by saying something, right? So yeah, he's giving you a kind of analysis, but you can't eat the...

[34:59]

It's good. I think it's good. I do, too. Yeah, it's good. So, here's the second poem, the show in hand. In other words, the absolute hidden within the relative. At dawn, an old woman finds the ancient mirror, immediate and intimate. But nothing particular. There's no need to search for your own face. So he says, at dawn the old woman finds the ancient mirror. At the dawning of the activity of consciousness, the old woman comes across the mirror that she has used to reflect her face when young. That is to say, she emerges show into the light of the ordinary phenomenal world, him, and finds the mirror which she had been provided with from birth, but which as she grew up she had gradually lost under the influence of the habitual way of consciousness.

[36:09]

So in other words, she sees her original face, which has been hidden by her conditioned activity. She has gradually lost some of the influence of that virtual way of consciousness. She suddenly finds this mirror again, sees a reflection in it, and discovers once again her own original face. So, I'm reading the poem again, at dawn the old woman finds the ancient mirror, immediate and intimate, but nothing particular. There's no need to search for your own face. And then there's a story of where this comes from. When reflected, there she is. She is nowhere else but here, as she is. And she is nothing but this herself, who has appeared in the world as an individual among others.

[37:14]

There is no herself apart from this present herself. There is no mode of her being other than the fact that she is as she is just now. Until a moment ago, she was searching after the truth in the deluded belief that there is something real, that there is some fundamental truth called reality, or being, or Buddha, apart from the ordinary sense of beings and things of the world. In other words, she seemed to have been looking for something so many spiritual practices separate heaven and earth. So in fact this present world and its beings, just as she finds them, are sought for reality in the world of Buddha. So when you attain Kinsho, on all sides of you, now he goes into a kind of soliloquy, which I'm not happy with, but it's okay.

[38:16]

When you obtain Kencho on all sides of you, right, left, before, behind, above and below, you find Buddha is making merry! And you yourself participate in this delightful party which goes on, strange to say, in a voiceless serenity, with every scene and every individual shining and animated, yet silent, like scattered jewels. The bell tower and rows of tiles on the roof is Japanese, The trees and the gardens, the stones, the flowers, all were flowing with joy. And happy children in the kindergarten playground. This is the world of children's art, a highly intensified expression of existence. Everything is all right as it is. Is there anything else to be sought? What you had looked upon as the merely contingent phenomena of the surrounding world are real and true." So this is kind of like Leocard. the freedom of someone like Bjorkman. Why would he like that?

[39:17]

Oh, well, it's not that I don't like it. It's just that... It's like Margaret and Walter Keane. Kind of like idealistic. If you awake or have Kensho in a lovely Japanese temple, or even a Berkeley temple, you might see something like that. I mean, we see that even if we just have an ordinary period of sitting with a little distraction. We go out and we see the tiles. I was wondering if you had an idea awakened mind in the middle of the floods of Pakistan or something, you wouldn't talk about it like this, would you?

[40:19]

No. I'm not sure exactly. I kind of know what you mean, but I'm not sure exactly. You know, if you were in an awakened state of mind, in the midst of terrible disaster, where people were being swept away and so on, suffering a lot, then you wouldn't be seeing Buddha's making merry? No. Well, yeah. I don't say this is not right. I liked it when I read it, but then I had this question arise. It's just like... It's a kind of one-sided... I don't particularly think it's important. Someone will have a great Kensho experience and just realize how small they are and how ordinary life is.

[41:36]

So this is kind of an extraordinary kind of feeling. Maybe that's why it's so extraordinary, that it's kind of not expressing the ordinary. But he's saying, well, this is ordinary. It just looks extraordinary. There's an account of a woman who was in the concentration camp in Nazi Germany. She felt that her task was to show people who were in the camp that life was worth living. Because she felt that it was. And that she dedicated her life to trying to make people, show them whatever little joys she could share with them. And I think that's related to this kind of feeling. So she found a way to do that in the midst of that horrible life. Yeah.

[42:41]

Well, there are other accounts somewhat like that as well. That's a thrust of Anne Frank's diary. Also, Jacques Goussérian, who I read that he also, when he was in concentration camp, he had the same. I don't know if I've read that part of it, to avoid that, but that's amazing, his experience in concentration camp. And how he expressed how everybody experienced it, how so many different types of people experienced what they experienced. And he said that The only people that survived, really, were the people who were nobody.

[43:44]

Right. Who were what? Nobody. You had to completely become faceless and nobody in order to survive. It's time for a little break, but I only want to give you one minute. Okay. And we don't have to get up and all this. If you want to get up, it's okay. Can you change your position if you like? Okay, so he says, immediate and intimate, but nothing particular. The woman finds the ancient mirror to be intimate because it is her own self, nothing particular. It means the truth is immediate and simple. There is no special truth that can be arrived at only by complicated thought and speculation. So then he explains where the story comes from.

[44:48]

There is no need to search for your own face. This line refers to a story told by the Buddha that appears in one of the sutras. A girl loved to look at her reflection in a mirror. One day she looked and could not see her face. She thought she must have lost her head and started to make a great fuss looking for it. The Buddha tells us that we have Buddha nature from the outset. Why seek for it from far away? So she would wake up and she would look in the mirror and see her face every day. But one day, for some reason or other, the mirror got turned around. And when she woke up she looked turned around. She didn't believe she existed unless she could see herself existing.

[45:51]

She didn't believe she existed unless she saw her face. Unless she could see herself existing. So when you are in absolute samadhi, you realize existence in absolute silence. In active life, you do the same in positive samadhi. It is alright to regard absolute samadhi as something absolute, and positive samadhi as belonging to the relative, phenomenal world. But remember that these two are two phases of one existence. By experiencing the first and second ranks, we demonstrate for ourselves that these two phases alternate, mutually reverting one into the other. And by experiencing repeated alterations, we attain maturity and eventually arrive at the synthesis of the two phases, which is represented by the third rank. So, Suzuki Roshi always used to talk about coming and going.

[46:52]

Our practice is coming and going. What is coming and going? Coming and going means sansen, today's life. Sansen, today's life. You do that enough so there's no difference. When there's no difference between Sanzen and your daily life, that's maturity. In order to reach that state in which we combine the two phases into one existence, we have to go through them again and again. In Japanese it's called Eigo. It's spelled the same as E-G-O. which means A is reversion and Go is mutual, which may be roughly translated as intra-conversion. So, Hakuen expresses it as the going to, the coming from, the going to, the coming from.

[47:54]

The coming from, the going to, the going to, the coming from. That's one of my favorite eternal symbols. Coming from the going-to, the coming-from, the going-to, the coming-from. So that's expressed as the third rank. The third rank is the synthesis, the interconversion of the two. And if you look at the five... Do you remember when we first started the class? I gave you this page that showed the five positions as two on top, two on the bottom, and one in the middle. Right? This is the one in the middle. And for me, this is the center of the model. coming from the absolute.

[49:03]

It's the white circle with the black dot. And the black dot is the first rank as the basis. The dharmakaya is the basic vairagyana seat. It's that black dot. And it's the center of the madhula and all of the light comes forth from the madhula, from the dark. Absolute. So, he said, And emptiness is the way found, pure and clear. Don't mention the name of the emperor.

[50:05]

You have the universe under your sway. So the third rank stems from this inner conversion. In other words, it is the result of synthesis. interconversion is found only within the first and the second ranks because they are the opposites of each other. It does not occur in the major because it has already been realized in them. They are thus independent and perfect in themselves. So the first two ranks are interconvertible and that is expressed by the third rank and the other two are independent. So, what does coming mean? It means coming from absolute samadhi into the activity of positive samadhi.

[51:09]

In the third rank, we build our behavior on the foundation of show, the real. It is for this reason that in the Rinzai sect, this rank is regarded as the general base and center wherein we should, as a rule, abide in our ordinary daily life. So, when people say, well how do I practice in the world? Well, you practice in the world. show as the basis. The five ranks in the Rinzai school, the five ranks are the last of the koans that are studied in some system. So, coming and going, coming and acting from the real, so, making it the keynote of our life, that is the meaning of the third rank.

[52:23]

So, the Sunyos, we call that always abiding in big mind. Sixth ancestor, we call it essence of mind. Always, never leave your essence of mind and all of your activity. So, that's why we sit thoughts in. and then we go out in the world. And when there's no difference, that's the interconversion of the third rank. Emptiness is the way found, pure and clear. In absolute Samadhi there is no activity of consciousness, no Neng thought in your mind. Everything is empty and pure. Neng means One pure thought moment. The way is open to you in all directions. Oh yes.

[53:25]

When your consciousness once again resumes its activity, there is no obstruction to uncover your mind. The way is open to you in all directions. You have absolute freedom of action. Therefore, an emptiness is the way found. don't mention the name of the emperor. This line refers to the fact that in the old days it was customary for Asian people to call the emperor not by his actual name but by his title. The emperor was regarded as a sort of absolute being and it was thought that to give him a name would be a disequation. I think most religions actually have that kind of understanding. There are various names for the deity, but not the right one. That absolute being evades all description is a tenet of philosophy generally. Our topic here, the real, which is show, is absolute.

[54:27]

Absolute is absolute. It is in itself, by itself, for itself, and of itself. It is not to be described, but directly caught hold of. And again, once you get the idea that you have realized it, you are thinking about it as an object, and it becomes separated from it. You yourself must become absolute. You have the universe under your sway. That's part of the poem. You are the master of the real. Come out of the real and use your freedom of activity. Everything is empty like outer space. You can go anywhere and everywhere and you have perfect freedom. As a person, you are mature in this rank. But Tozan now sets up two more ranks. There is profound significance in this, which we must now try to explain. I just want to say that the third rank is kind of like the quiet, the still place in the center of the cyclone. The black dot is like the center of the cyclone, and our life, cyclone by cyclone,

[55:36]

means the activity that rotates. So within all of our activity, there is always this still place. That's how we practice in the world. There's always this still place in the center of all our activity. So here's the fourth rank. Perfection in Him. Two swords are crossed. The spirits of the warrior, like a lotus flower shining in the fire, soar high, penetrating through space. This is kind of like a lotus in muddy water. An intensity and patience combination. The fourth rank is reached when you acquire maturity in both understanding and demonstrating Zen truth. It is in this rank that your consciousness is polished and emits a shining light, like that of jewels.

[56:42]

The activity of your consciousness is developed into a living masterpiece. Two swords are crossed. The swords crossed in fighting are to be taken as representing the most highly intensified concentration of mind. The point is not fighting, but the brilliantly intense condition of the mind. So, like a lotus flower shining in a fire, this is a special flower referred to in the Sutras. Imagine a lotus flower protected with jewels, serenely emitting glittering, flashing reflections from the midst of roaring flames. This lotus in a flame forms the central image of this verse. Thich Nhat Hanh's first book was called A Lotus Flower in the Sea of Fire. In a person maturing Zen, in prasna samadhi, and with his mind perfectly clear and pure, even the simplest, most trivial actions, such as lighting a candle before the image of the Buddha, or the movement of his feet in white socks, stepping along the corridor like two white rabbits,

[57:57]

takes on an indescribable beauty. It is a masterpiece of movement. We have referred to this previously when discussing Ka-tsang's beating the drum. Dancing is one of the most highly developed forms of human movement. The result of highly sophisticated training and practice, for the person mature in Zen, comparably exquisite actions and postures arise spontaneously, without artificial consciousness and every action shine like jewels in the fire. Each action is a highly intensified expression of that person's existence. The overflowing spiritual power of the artist at the moment of creation is the constant condition of his daily life. When one attains the maturity of this fourth rank, even though one may have been a mediocrity before, one acquires profound insight and gets a look perceptively into other people's The mature person places himself in the position of the person before him, thinks with him, delights with him, implores with him, and understands him.

[59:08]

With regard to Zen, the person at this stage develops maturity in understanding and in demonstrating the truths of Zen. The majority of understanding manifests itself as a seemingly inspired ability to cut through the Gordian knots of koans with unprecedented quickness and clarity, as for the demonstration The route to enlightenment is now equipped to him as if he were looking at an aerial photograph. He can point out simply and clearly all the hills, passes, gorges, and streams where his students are now struggling. He can give them the exact appropriate help and guidance that they need. He displays the all-around ability and activity of the three-faced, six-armed Buddha. It will be apparent now why this rank is called perfection in head. It is a stage in the differentiation. It is the stage of a highly developed activity of consciousness in the course of positive samadhi. It is said in a sutra that the Svatagata sees Buddha nature with his own naked eye.

[60:11]

And the whole field of view as far as the eye can reach is alive of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas. What is seen as it is, is Buddha. For the person who has reached the condition of the fourth rank, this becomes the constant and ordinary state of daily life. I don't want to read the whole thing. So we're going to want to get to the fifth one before we quit. This is like a maturity in action, the maturity of the master's action. which is perfection in integration. As the poem goes, falling into... this is a totally black circle. The fourth minute was a totally white circle, which is just phenomenal life.

[61:15]

Now this is the black circle, which is perfection in integration. Falling into either u or mu, meaning yes or no, who can join the Master while others strive to rise above the common level? He unites everything just sitting quietly by the fire. Some people say coal and ashes. The fair is over, as a great river empties itself at last into the ocean, leaving no trace behind. So the mature Zen master forgets all of his merits and achievements and seems to retire to the old state of blessed ignorance. This is called in Hokyo-samae, the host within the host. The last line of the Hokyo-samae. The pot-bellied This is referring to the oxen.

[62:26]

You said depleted? I think it was. You said depleted, I think? That's what it said. I'm sorry. Patanjali Osho, depicted at the end of the search for the missing ox, comes barefoot into the marketplace, showing his chest. His appearance symbolizes his spiritual nakedness. However, to your surprise, you may find that he is carrying some wine in that basket, and perhaps something more. Old Tokusod, a great Zen master. Tokusod was famous for his many things, but one is using his stick to hit people. A great Zen master, one day mistook At the time, it came down to the refractory with these bowls. This is a koan. Seppo, then the kitchen master, and later himself a great Zen master, said, The dinner bell is not yet rung. Where are you off to? Tokusan nodded as if to say, Oh, is that so?

[63:28]

I see. And he returned to his room. That's Koan. I mean, mostly. Tokusan nodded as if to say, is that so? I see. This story has become the basis of the famous Koan. In his prime, Tokusan had been a vigorous man, famous for using his stick. This is Zen spirit prompted him, but now The old man sitting by the fireside, with ruby eyes and running nose, may seem to be approaching his second childhood, but suddenly he calls to a friend to go out into the garden with him, and together they start filling the well with snow. This is a reference to Hockowin's commentary, the end of Hockowin's commentary, the fifth rank. He says, the foolish wise men filling the well with snow. That's another terrific quote. Old foolish wise men filling the well with snow mean you just do this impossible task without worrying about whether it's possible or not possible.

[64:39]

They carry it energetically from the backyard in buckets on pole. Their perseverance at this hopeless task is ludicrous, but they keep at it. So this is a true demonstration of practice. And he gives counsel to a forsaken young man, lending him a helping hand. Some of the senior monks may admonish him, saying, that fellow stole money from his father's company and squandered it in dissipation. He was disowned by his family and was sent to prison even when he visited us. He extracted money and things from various people with his glib tongue. Once he stole into the sick monk's ward and made off with their money in other positions. To give him more help is like throwing coins into the sea. And he nods, but says, oh, he's not a bad man. I'm a wicked guy. If he continues as he is, he will end up a lost man.

[65:48]

As for a petty sum of money, it is of little importance. What he now needs, most of all, is to feel the kindness of other people. I don't care for the moralist's theory that if I give him even a little money, I do, even if I give him. If I give him even the little money I do, I should be contributing to his decline. It is a cold theory. I do not agree with it. Seven years ago, a certain tunnel was being built, and they came across a deep fault that seemed to swallow all the concrete they were able to pour into it. It was like an abyss. It seemed impossible to fill it. They were almost in despair. However, they persevered, refusing to admit defeat. And eventually they won. If I turned my back on that man now, he would be lost forever. So he recites the Zen saying, Sin and blessing are all empty. The snake swallows the frog. The toad sucks up the worms. The hawk eats the sparrows. The pheasant eats the snake.

[66:50]

The cat catches the rat. The big fish devours the smaller ones. And everything's OK. The monk who offended against the commandments does not fall into hell. So encouraged by these words and by his easy manner, some young monk, avid readers of modern fiction, raise the saying, the passions themselves are boating, which is a kind of true statement. But they assert that Shakyamuni Buddha hit the nail on the head there, as modern literature does. Now that the passions are to be given free reign, monks can indulge themselves as they like, but the answer is, you make a great mistake there, and for this reason, every meant thought of yours creates its effect. This is karma. A good intention at this moment leaves you with a good state of mind. An evil thought increases your evil impulses. Every action has its effect. Raising your hand, taking a step, covering your mind's great mirror of wisdom.

[67:50]

The law of causation is exacting and severe. It is so relentless that you should humbly lower your head as if an air raid were in progress. You should walk quietly as if you were in the imperial presence. Don't be fooled by these writers. They may be widely admired, but where is their maturity? He seems to be almost in his dotage, but coming to the point, he is suddenly all alert. Falling into neither Wu nor Mu, who can join the master? Wu here means form or him. Mu means emptiness, show. He is in neither form nor emptiness. However, while active in the ordinary world of phenomena, he does not leave the real. While others strive to rise above the common level, in the early days of his training in the anti-media, he was able to excel. He wanted to emerge distinctly from the ruck, and his struggles to do so were prodigious. However, now, he unites everything, sitting quietly by the fire.

[68:54]

Everything is integrated in maturity. The struggle is over. He is not dispirited, but he is above it. He sits quietly by the fireside, an old man with a runny nose. He has forgotten Zen and everything like that. But if you observe him carefully, looking at his casual and seemingly trivial actions, his carriage, his manner, his words, you will discover how wonderfully harmonious and mellow they are. You reach this state of mellow maturity by repeating the circle from the first rank to the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, and then coming back once more to the first To the first, each rank gains in profundity and becomes increasingly mellowed with each repetition. The third rank, which can be regarded as the base camp for your ordinary life, is enriched by experience of the fourth and fifth ranks, as well as the first and second. Training is done by repetition. Each rank is independent of the others and has its own individual character.

[69:56]

So, is that clarifying? We kind of needed something to really clarify. So, I don't know. We never did finish Huckerman's commentary. But if you want to, we could do that next time. Having read this, I think it's a good basis for Huckerman's commentary. And that will finish us off. OK. OK. Now, this is about it, right? Pretty close. OK.

[70:47]

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