So this morning I'm going to continue with Dogen Zenji's Ginjo Koan. I'm just going to start with the part that we did yesterday, because this and make a few comments on this first part. So Dogi says, when a fish swims in the ocean, there is no limit to the water, no matter how far it swims. When a bird flies in the sky, there is no limit to the air, no matter how far it flies. However, no fish or bird has ever left its element since the beginning.

[01:10]

When the need is large, it is used largely. When the need is small, it is used in a small way. Thus, no creature ever comes short of its own completeness. Wherever it stands, it does not fail to cover the ground. If a bird leaves the air, it will die at once. If a fish leaves the water, it will die at once. Know then that water is life. Know that air is life. Life is the bird, and life is the fish. Beyond these, there are further implications and ramifications. mortality, immortality. I'd left out the ands. I just want to go back to when a fish swims in the ocean. Fish is like the person. You are the fish. You are the bird. I'm the fish. I'm the bird. Swimming is the way. And the ocean is the place.

[02:12]

So it's the way, the place, and the who. So place is space. And way is time. Way is movement. And place is station. I don't know about station here. but station. So we have a station. So the whole universe is nothing but emptiness. So in emptiness we put a nail into space and that gives us our orientation. That's called place. It's arbitrary, even though there are conditions which point to where we should put the nail. Well, this is in this column in the book of equanimity.

[03:23]

I think the Shakyamuni was working with his company of disciples and Indra, the chief of the gods in the Brahmanic hierarchy, with Watson, as usual. And Shakyamuni said, this would be a good place to set up a monastery, or a practice place, or something like that. And Indra picks up Pali's grass. He didn't kill it. He picks up and breaks the grass. the place has been established. So, we pick, we decide arbitrarily where to put something and then we orient ourselves around that place.

[04:27]

So, it's interesting, I don't want to get sidetracked by talking about something really When my son was born, Daniel, I watched him grow up. And when he was very young, I watched how he made decisions. And I was wondering, how does he make decisions? What are they based on? And I thought, so many of his decisions were just arbitrary. But once he made the decision, he created a ground, or created a space around that decision from which to make decisions. So, life is like that. We create a ground to make decisions. We put our base. So, when a fish swims in the ocean, the ocean is talking to us. We say that the ocean talks about the fish's way and the bird's path.

[05:33]

The bird's path, yes, leaves no trace. When we watch the bird fly, we're just... Why does he make his decisions anyway? And they're so quick to go from place to place. But it looks like you're just flying in the sky. There is a column called Three Embarrassments. One of the three embarrassments is when you're standing under the tree. So there's no limit to this empty space. And we find our way somehow in space. That's called the path. And so how do we do that? We find out everybody's looking for it, you know.

[06:39]

Running around and finding ways to do these things that we do. And then we establish certain ways of doing it. And we call that civilization or something. But it can go any way, you know. The Pygmies had a great civilization. Far, far more productive than ours. The more complicated we get, the more we call it civilization. The more problems we have, the more we call it a civilization. We think that we're doing something great, and we're just destroying the world. Anyway. But it's a great civilization. So when a bird flies in the sky, there's no limit to the sky, no matter how far it flies. So, a bird flies is the way, and sky is the place. So sky and place go together. There's no way without the place.

[07:43]

The way exists with the place. So we exist as our surroundings. And as I was saying yesterday, when we let go of our self-certainness, then we can more easily identify with the way and work with the way instead of destroying the way. So then he comes back down, all the way back down here, and so he talks about, at the end of his thesis, in this way, there are practice and enlightenment, mortality and immortality. So, if you say practice and enlightenment, that's a dualistic statement, and that implies You can't say practice and enlightenment because it implies two things. So it's practice slash enlightenment.

[08:46]

Practice is the activity of enlightenment. And enlightenment is the place of activity. It's the ground of activity. Enlightenment is the ground of activity. So on the ground of practice activity, we practice on the ground of enlightenment. And that allows enlightenment to manifest. Mortality, immortality. We say mortality, immortality as if they are two things. believe that they're two things and we rarely put them together. So mortality means life, immortality means death, and immortality means life, continuously.

[09:50]

But mortality is immortality and immortality is mortality. Within immortality, immortality swallows So what do you mean they swallow each other? Not literally. I guess I'm asking what you mean. It means that, I'll explain it as a seed. A seed, in order for a seed to continue, it has to die. In order for life to proceed, it has to die. In order for anything to fulfill itself, it has to die. So dying and living are just two aspects of the same thing. Life and death are the same thing. They're just two ways of viewing it.

[10:55]

So the seed dies and produces a seedling. which produces a flower, which produces a dove horn. So, this cycle is continuous. So, we look at nature and we see how that happens. We see how the seed produces the flower, produces... and goes through this whole cycle. But when we look at ourselves, we don't know what happens. So, life itself is continually dying and being reborn. Everything is continually dying. I can't say that I believe in reincarnation at all. But I don't say yes or no. I just say, ah.

[11:57]

But, because it's obvious that, I don't know how this all happened, but if you look at the patterns around us, Death produces life, produces death. Without dying, you can't continue living. Nothing can continue. And so, moment by moment, we're dying and living. If we didn't die on this moment, we couldn't be living on this moment. So, mortality, immortality. This is immortal, mortal moment. So this is how we can understand that we are, that each moment, this is what makes each moment sacred. Because each moment is total time. Total being and total time. It seemed to me you were saying that we are dying.

[13:10]

We're dead. Now we're alive. I'm not sure what that means. I can't explain it any further. So we can't find our death in the market? Well, yeah, we can. One thing has to give way to another. Yesterday has to give way to today. The last moment has to give way to the present moment. What happened to the last moment? Is there any way we can pamper our egos through this whole path of life so that we aren't Pamper?

[14:13]

Yes. That's all we do. We pamper our ego. That's a good way of talking. That's what we do. We pamper our ego too. You don't have to learn that. What you have to learn is how not to pamper our way too. So what you're saying, when something dies, it could be looked at that it changes form. Like you were thinking the seed, it dies as a seed, but it becomes something else. And when we die, we die as a living, breathing body, but we become either something that lays around in a casket, or something that sits on a mantle, or something that's spread in the ocean. But we're still, it's kind of like a different

[15:15]

That's right. That's what I was saying. Actually, there are various levels on which we view things, right? On one level we view things as living and dying. On another level we view things as not being born and not dying. Yeah. Sir, when you say that Buddha mind is neither born If you believe in science of planetary cosmology, maybe this whole earth was a lump of molten rock at one point. It still is. It's just got a crust. And it's got like zebras and opera and zen buddhism and cheesecake.

[16:19]

You know, we tend to think of ourselves as things that are separate and independent. But I was thinking of them as the objects that you're talking about, all the phenomena, are extensions, like rubber. Do you remember when I was balloons that go, and then all these heads and arms pop out. That's how I think of it. But they're not, they look independent, but they're not. They're just extensions of the Earth. Extensions of all the various causes and conditions which So, mortality and immortality, really, one includes the other.

[17:29]

That's what, that is exactly what Dogen was talking about all the time, you know. Suzuki Roshi said, I used to, whenever he was sitting up in his room sick, and the students in a pastry were out there sweeping the grounds, sweeping the sidewalk, and I'm like, I'd love to hear them sweeping, they're sweeping their own mind. I used to have this argument with Nathan Roushey, because he thought nothing special meant, yeah, you know. But the meaning of nothing special is that everything is totally special. Everything is a totally precious moment, moment's activity. If we understand that, then we realize that only things only happen once. And our experience, why do we waste, what is called wasting our time?

[18:36]

Wasting our time is not being present for each minute activity. Are there two meanings to immortality? Like, on the one hand there's... Well, there's two ways of viewing. There's more than two. There are many ways of viewing, yeah. I'm thinking of immortality as transformation. all the extensions of one and then immortality of the moment where time is not linear. Yeah. Continuous, this is how we talk about continuous time and discontinuous time. In continuous time, that's immortal. Continuous time is mortal. In discontinuous time is mortality. Continuous time is immortality. Because continuous time has no It's just now. Within this one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, that's discontinuous time.

[19:41]

And that's mortality. Those moments are individuated. And whatever is individuated is mortal. Dies. One o'clock is dead. 2 o'clock is dead. 2 o'clock is alive now, but it's no longer 2 o'clock. So there's a trail of mortality, but on the face of the clock, which has no numbers or hands, it's just now. That's immortality, because there's nothing to change. When there's nothing changing, that's it. So change happens on the face of it. Immortality. Without immortality, there's no mortality.

[20:45]

And without mortality, there's no immortality. They create each other. We have to also see them in the non-dualistic way. Otherwise we can't understand them. But it's hard to understand non-duality because we're discriminating consciousness. So it's not very radical. Life is death and death is life. That's too radical to believe. Because we're oriented towards duality. I've been longing to hear the next paragraph of Joseph. Okay. Thank you. I agree. There's a page, as my son said. I'll tell you his story. Well, we lived here on Otter Street.

[21:49]

It's close to Otter Street. And there was one I used to read about the fire engines. So there was a fire in Otis Street. So we all went out to look at the fire in Otis Street. And we said, see, there are the fire engines, just like in the book. He said, turn the page. I've heard that before. Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the limit of its element before moving it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place. Attaining this place, one's daily life, is the realization of ultimate reality, or ginjo koan.

[22:59]

Attaining this way, one's daily life, is the realization of ultimate reality, ginjo koan. Since this place and this way are neither large nor small, neither self nor other, either existing previously or just arising now, they therefore exist thus. Thus, if one practices and realizes the Buddha way, when one encounters one Dharma, one embraces one Dharma. When one encounters one action, one practices One of the reasons why I wanted to go back to the previous part is to point out way and place. So back to the beginning, if a bird or a fish tries to reach the limits of its element before moving in it,

[24:03]

This bird or the fish will not find its way or its place. This is what we experience in Zazen. People ask me sometimes, maybe a new person will say, well how should I approach Sushin? How should I prepare myself for Sushin? And I would say, don't even think about it. When the time comes, just do it. If you think about it, my God, seven days of this, one day, two days. So, yes, if the bird or the fish tries to reach the limit of its element before you mind it, Right? That's trying to reach the element, trying to reach... Suzuki Goshi says, Soto Zen is like one long, endless noodle.

[25:15]

It's like a railroad track going way, way up in the distance. So if you look down the track, you never see the end of it. So just start where you are. Just start where you are. When you see bugs or something, like, there's a bug on me, you know, and the bug falls down Isn't that interesting? They don't get hurt. Sometimes they don't get hurt. They fall ten feet and they don't get hurt. So if a bird or a fish has to leave... We're all leaving now. Have a good day. The rest of us. At least the limit of a film, people are moving in it. This bird and this fish will not find its way or its place. So, boom, wherever we are, that's where we start from.

[26:34]

That's practice. People say, how do I practice when I'm not in Zendo? That's how you practice. Wherever you are, that's the beginning. now. That's where your life begins, because your old life a minute ago ended. You can't count on that. We do, of course, because the past conditions the present, which will condition the future, but firewood, instead of it's state of being firewood, right now, and has it's own before and after, it is totally Immortal. It's mortality. So, this moment is just this moment. And you start from now. Otherwise, you can't sit sashimi comfortably. You can struggle, but it's not comfortable. The only way to be comfortable is just now. Just now. Just now. Just now.

[27:35]

The past is gone. There's no such thing as the future. It's only just now. So every single moment, we're totally facing the abyss. But we're supported by it. We're supported by the abyss. And so we're trusted. So, sitting, sitting takes trust and faith. and after we exhale, suddenly we come back and we inhale and we come back to life. And then, goodbye. Hello. Goodbye. We never know when it's going to end, but just enjoy it while it's here. This is the radical Attaining this place, one's daily life is the realization of ultimate reality called Ginjo Koans.

[28:43]

The koan of your life as mortal and immortal at the same time. Attaining this way, one's daily life is the realization of ultimate reality, Ginjo Koan. Since this place and this way are neither large nor small, there's no way to measure it, neither self nor other, no self, no particular self, neither existing previously nor just arising now. So what? There's no past and no present. They therefore are thus. So thus is the key word. Just like this. The key word is thus, or like this. That's what it means. Non-dual ultimate reality.

[29:46]

Thus, if one practices and realizes the Buddha way, one gains, I don't like the word gains, one encounters. one Dharma, one penetrates. Now, you always use the word penetrate because it offends certain people, but it's the masculine. So you can say, one penetrates, everyone embraces. Embraces like the feminine. It has nothing to do with men or women. Because we contain both masculine and feminine aspects in each one of us. And this is the way the world works. one penetrates or embraces, depending on how you want to say it, one dharma. One dharma means right now. The activity, the place, the way, and the substantiality

[30:52]

When one encounters, when one penetrates one dharma, or embraces one dharma, when one encounters one action, one practices one action, so the dharma is taught the place. Action is the way. We say, we have this term, Ichigyo-samadhi, one act, samadhi. The samadhi of being totally present without self-centeredness. within each activity, each momentary activity. I always have this question about how long the moment is, when you're talking about the moment. How long is the moment? Well, yes, I'll tell you how long the moment is. Mathematically. Mathematically, a moment is this fast.

[31:58]

In one moment, in one momentous, in one momentous, uncountable moment, there are 658 quadrillion trillion billion moments. They were counted in the past. And it didn't end counting until the present. Because it takes too long. So a moment is... Can you make up your own? Yes. The Indian moments are much longer. There are many more Indian moments than there are American moments. Isn't that right? Many less than the Indian moments. Indian monks are a fantastical number.

[33:02]

And your akalpa, in the length of time it takes a heavenly maiden to wipe a gossamer piece of cloth over Mount Atopius, and when it disappears, that's the end of the akalpa. They do it once a year. Moment is not... there's something called a moment and something called a minute. Sometimes we say, I'll be there in a minute, or I'll be there in a moment. If we say a minute, that's a distinguished period of time, 60 seconds. But if we say a moment, it can be anything. A moment has no particular time limit. It doesn't matter. Subjective? So you could have a very long moment. Yes. My life is like a moment. But I can look at it differently and say, God, almost 81 years.

[34:07]

That's a long time. But actually, depending on, you know, quicker than a moment. Just depends on where you're standing. How you're looking at it. Everything is that way. So we want determinate things. We live in a universe or in a world where we want determination. But everything is indeterminate. It's all indeterminate. And people try to pin it down to determination. So we have time sequences and we try to make our world as stable as possible by making it seem determinate. So one of the problems we have is we One of the problems that causes suffering is trying to put a determinate grid over an indeterminate problem. And it doesn't work, you know. It doesn't work.

[35:09]

You see, the spirit of the law or the letter of the law. We try to put the letter of the law over the spirit of the law and it causes all kinds of suffering. You know, we have all these stop signs and signals and everything to make the traffic work really well, except that it makes the traffic work like this, instead of like this. When you go to China, it works like this. You know, everybody's careful about what they're doing, rather than going by certain rules Trader Joe's in Emeryville. There's a place where you kind of turn this way. You know where that is? And so it used to be where there was no signal at the outlet. And people just kind of moved, you know, because they were aware of what was going on.

[36:12]

And then they put a signal there. This big back up of traffic. Back into the parking lot. You know, you can't move because So anyway, I don't want to go into a lot about that. But it's all indeterminate. And so we make rules and try to make things work for us in an indeterminate way, but it doesn't work very well. So then we talk about organic. What does organic mean? It has different meanings. not trying to put so much money stuck on rules or trying to kill the bugs so they don't destroy the crop and put a lot of artificial ingredients into the soil to make things grow instead of working with

[37:17]

In a way, working with the ground, working with the plants, instead of working at them. It's like talking at somebody instead of talking with them. Sachin has pretty strict rules and very strict time frame. Time frame? Yeah. How come? Sachin has strict rules. It's very strict schedule. Yes, that's a good question. It's interesting. How come we don't do things arbitrarily? Because we work with time. It's like, in order to be, it's really interesting. Because we are part of the system, we as human beings, we're not separate from putting a grid on time.

[38:29]

In order for things to work well, in an organized way, we have to put a grid on time. So, if we could work without putting a grid on time, but then we get kind of disorganized, So because our practice is so amorphous, we have to morph it in order to see it, in order to experience it. So this is not a new question. Suzuki Goji used to say that in order to experience or to actually experience practice, you have to put into narrow parameters. You have to have a confined or narrow space so that you can actually bounce off the wall.

[39:35]

If there's nothing to bounce off of, if there's nothing to meet you, no way to contain you, then it's one thing to say vast emptiness, no barriers. But that's in the absolute sense. In the actual experiential sense, we have to have those containers and barriers so that we don't leak out all over the place. So that keeps our energy confined. If we didn't have this body, the energy would just go someplace else, right? So we have this body which is a container for our energy. Sometimes if you have all I wish I could get out of this body and be free. But you have to find this freedom within the constriction. You have to find the freedom of our body within the body. You have to find our mind within the container of our mind.

[40:40]

So that's why we have this kind of strict practice. so that we can't escape the way to find our freedom is within the confinement. And so we're always complaining about the confinement, you know, because our ego doesn't want to be tied down. It's like, how do you find your freedom within the confinement? So Zazen is the confinement. You can't get more confined than this. You probably can, but this is it. How do you find your total freedom within this confinement so that you are free and at ease? That's the question. That's the practice. Also, what I hear you saying is that there are certain things that work well with the grid. For example, my schedule and all. Absolutely.

[41:42]

But what we tend to do is we put everything in this grid. Like, I'm going to come talk to you because you did something that irritated me. And I put it on a grid that this is how the conversation has to go. This is how I'm going to act. This is how you're going to act. Because I put this grid on something that doesn't work well with the grid, I'm going to end up in a mess. We have to have both. Both form. Not so strict, you know? So this is why the same forms don't work for everything. So whether you're in the zendo, the form in the zendo creates the atmosphere for practice. When we go outside, we don't have that. So how do you find your ease? Your informality within the formality. To me, this is not formal.

[42:45]

It's formal. But I find my total ease within this formality. I'm not restricted by this formality. I'm totally freed by it, actually. Almost. We have to stop soon. Every art form has its form. And is wildness within the form. That's exactly. And free modern dancing is totally different. It's all form. You just practice creating the forms all the time. And dancing and dancing is all form. But who's the other dancer? That's another question. Well, I want to just ask you to say a few words about, I mean, for me, kind of, it's sort of more difficult to practice when I'm not in me than though. And I just wanted to say a few words. The outside has its form, you know, and then you turn it inside out.

[43:49]

And just because you turn it inside out, you don't recognize what it looks like. So in Zen, though, the form is all there for you to practice with. So it's just the opposite. So that's the creative side. The other creative side, both sides are creative, but the creative side of practice is how you turn all the forms that you make into forms of practice.

[44:52]

That's how you practice. I'll give you another example. I said practice becomes fun. There's a way called dancing.

[45:05]

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