Jewel Mirror Samadhi Part 1

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good morning
ah
i hope you will accept the state of our of the lighting
right now just for trying not to ed and he wants to the environment in here can you turn it up a little bit
since any better yes as a little louder thank you ah
so ah
on labor day weekends we feel less number of years we've had a study retreat had this is sir
this is our study retreat for two thousand and seventeen we are working with his or her texts that we used to chant quite regularly the jewel mirror samadi by don't sean young shea or tucson real guy and actually i've set it up a minutes give to
karen and and can our lunch service is going to be ah he's gonna be the the show marry somebody all chanted is still in our chant books on page sixteen hum and so it's good to look at these things
you know ah
kind of intellectually and and turns of practice and it's also really good just to chanted
caesar says it's called a song of the to marry somebody and you know it fits in with there's a number of texts that are considered ah songs and in chinese ah this ah
earlier than this there's ah
the song of in this well there's the song of faith in mind which we know as the shin shin mi from like the seventh century and there's sir
the song of enlightenment that showed oka
ah which is chanted in rinzai tradition from the eighth century the song of the grass hut ah which is by joke he said who also wrote the sand okay combos the sand okay that's also in that's an elite hey
then in japan have wonderful texts called the song of zazen by ah ha queen which is which relatively late it's it's actually mid eighteenth century and this ah
song of the door mirrors somali
ah is about the ninth century eighth ninth century but
have
it's providence's murky
you know it's ascribe to r
ancestor dunk shot and will speak about and tell you a little play some stories about him ah
and yet it doesn't appear until it actually doesn't appear as a text until about the twelfth century
at that point described to to come shine
hum
so this morning i'll talk about a couple of points couple of significant points in the
in this text and and in the afternoon will go into more detail on some of the images in some of the points this is really just scratching the surface ah hi
blithely
selected this is a topic for this for the study retreat and then ah and sent it into the newsletter and then i started reading it
and realizing that i have a lot of work to do and i have not completed that work
just to be forewarned
so
ostensibly this is referred to as a in before doggett and century this was
one of the
documents that was given as a has a transmission as verification of dharma transmission
they were before dogan have three
palms or texts that were
that were given to someone on recognition of their awakening recognition of their ah
they're trends the dharma being transmitted to them from teacher to student and
those were the sand chi which we know pretty well right ah by shit all or second turkey said
ah which is ah sometimes translated as the merging of
different and sameness
and that was the second one is is this the hook years of my the song of the jewel mirror samadi
and that was about one hundred and fifty years later for generations after sekitar
and the third document or text that was ah
transmitted at times was have also from don't shine it was or what we translate as the five rags or the five positions are the five modes
insertion is taught about about all of these over the years but we haven't talked about them for awhile
ah and the five the five halide to call them the five positions rather than five ranks because they're they're not really to my mind had not really hierarchical ah
but there has will see ah predict previous afternoon they're kind of embedded you know
a more poetic form they are embedded in ah the song of the chill mirrors money
so i want to start by talking about dumb shot because he's one of our principal ancestors actually ah
the so soto school the japanese were soto the tall in so toys on don't shine
and the soul is his disciple susan
a couch on ah so ah i think just did it that way cause soto sounds better than total
i guess you know but on
they are really are principal ancestors and our lineage that we can't we chanted this morning ah
really
flows from from dijon and it continues from dijon ha
it leads from the sixty ancestor cleaning ah
to to dump shine and then proceeds to ah
right down to suzuki roshi and sojourn roshi
i don't shine was a was very able and bright young man
and he went to his first teacher ha or one of his early teaches question
and he brought him a question he had heard what he had read that are
both sent into an incentive beings preached the dharma
and you know we know about scented been speaking the drama
i am trying to do that right now
ah but incentive beings preaching the dharma was hard to get one's mind around
ha
gration replied with a verse from the avatar soccer sutra and that was
tosha didn't get it was beyond his understanding
so croatia said you know what you should go study with union
ha he can help you i i can teach you anymore
and so he's he sent to shine to another prominent teacher at the time union
hand
took asked him the same question
hand you not replied in pretty much word for word as question did although this time ravage rather encoding the our time soccer sutra
he quoted the amitabha sutra a purely land sutra and that said
streams birds trees and forests all chant the buddha and the dharma
the wyndham shot heard that
he had
an opening experience in awakening
and he composed the following verse or gotta
he said how wonderful how very wonderful
the teaching of the inanimate is inconceivable
if you listen with your ears you won't understand
hearing with your eyes
then you know it
so that was his initiation his first encounter with union but it was not yet his full enlightenment
he studied for a number of years with union and finally it was time for him to move on
and as he prepared to go on this
journey into the unknown
union who was quite elderly said
after our separation will be difficult for us to meet again
nunca said
it will be difficult for us not to meet
but after your death
if someone asked me to describe you
what should i tell them
union thought for a while and he said
many another translation
just this one is
just this one is or
another translation is just this is it
just this is it
right here right now
don't shine when he heard this he remained silent for a long time
the still had doubts it was not it didn't relieve him of his
i think his sense of anxiety is sense of being troubled about leaving his teacher
and in his silence union said
you need to be very careful
for you are carrying
an important thing
and thompson was puzzled by this enigmatic statement
and he began his travels and he kept it in mind
in one day
what crossing a
for a calm placid body of water
he looked in and he saw his image reflected in it
and suddenly he understood his teacher's words
all of his doubts were clarified
and he offered this this famous verse
don't seek from others
or you will be a strange from yourself
as i travel alone
i meet him everywhere
he is what i am now
but i am not what he is
one must understand in such a way to merge with such this
mary getting him
don't seek from others and words don't look to get your understanding from someone else
or you will be a stranger you'll be distanced from yourself
as i travel alone
i meet him everywhere
who is was him
he is what i am now
but i am not what he is
it is senses the same
not one not too
same and different
one must understand in such a way
in this way to merge with such this
so this kind of all of this this first sets the stage
for jul seven mirror somebody's as a as will get to it
the wonderful verse in you know it hit i was thinking about it yesterday
and ah
thinking how this this regatta and this experience that tung had his
kind of the complete inverse have sort of foundational the major myth in ah in the western tradition the the myth of narcissus
i just don't read this read not going to go into it damage but
certain narcissus sisters was a was a hunter in in greek mythology he was the son of a river god and a nymph
he was a very beautiful young man
and everywhere you went people fell in love with him
ah monday he was hunting in the woods and the nymph echo
saw him and immediately fell for him
ha narcissus sense that someone was following him
an echo eventually revealed herself and she tried to hug him
and he pushed her away
and told her not to bother him
and in despair
in the in the miss then
enter rome those woods for the rest of her life
hence he sort of faded away
and all that remained of her was what we call an echo a faint sound
meanwhile one of the other ever lot of god's floating around one of the gods nemesis
the goddess of retribution and revenge there's there's a good gig
ah none of us are applying for that job i think ah she heard what happened and he decided to punish narcissus
so she led him to a pool just as dumb shot was led to a poor looked in the water and saw his reflection
when he looked in the water and self reflection he was awakened to
the interconnection and the into being of all existence
narcissus saw his reef his own reflection in the water and he fell in love with it
ha he didn't realize at the beginning it was his reflection
and after a while when he understood it
he fell into despair that to love that he felt could never materialize
and so he committed suicide
so
these are to radically different
perceptions of reality and responses to reality
and i am deeply grateful that
the tradition that we have
he's one of opening rather than one of self love
but they both exist within us
can i just over that has something to to consider you know not
i don't have a large a complicated case it's just these are human potentials that exist for us
but we're going to take up one rather than the other right here

so after he became a teacher on ha
mountain did you guys who went to china to to go to function to to that mountain
ah silly been there i think there's still there still is a living temple there ah
ah
so ah
every year of corsi key the memorial service for his teacher just as we do a general hard to session when we do a ah
a memorial celebrating suzuki roshi his life and his passing
and one the monks ah asked them sean
what teachings did you receive from union
hendrickson said although i was with him he offered me know teaching
among said if if he did not teach you why do you conduct these memorial services
hum do just that is not for his moral character
or for his dharma teaching that i honor him
only that
he never told me anything openly
in other words he let me figure it out for myself
because that's the only way to understand that really matters
and i do think that
our teachers have inherited this way
they let us figured out from themselves and sometimes we are exasperated with him you know i tell me already you know it's like
coming to you for help
you know tell me what i should do know
you have to figure it out
you have to have your own awakening you have to make your own mistakes
so an eight sixty nine don't shine announced that he was about to die
like many of the ancients and masters he had a remarkable passing
ah he shaved his head
any bathe and he put on fresh robes
and he said goodbye to all of his disciples
and he passed away
meanwhile volleyball that happened the monks were like
crying and weeping and wailing
in their grief
and don't shun had opened his eyes
and he said the hearts of homeless months should not be dependent on things
this is true practice what use is there in grieving when this troublesome life
comes to rest in death
ah so ah t
he died but then he woke up again
ah this his resurrection
but for his resurrection what he said he ordered the head monk too perfect to prepare what's called a
a stupidity purifying feast
or are fools feast ah that was designed to ah ditches
to rebuke his assembly for their attachment to him
and so their demonstrations of affection continued ah
while he postponed his death for a week
and he led the you know you can imagine
let the wild party unfold their you know and would happen during that stupidity purifying priest from they had to get really stupid before they pick purifier anything
ha
and last day he entered he entered the dining hall
hair had a small meal and he said i'm all right
when i leave i'm about to leave and when i leave
please you should all keep quiet
he returned to his rooms
the based
he dressed and he sat down in zazen and he passed away
so that's some background about dunk shot
hum
they want to change beers and go to a to talk a little about the the jewel mere mit by the way this this lecture make all little longer than usual since we're doing study but ah i hope you will find it interesting
ah
so as i said there's the story is that he inherited this text was a transmission text was handed to him by union ah and it's a it's a beautiful text ah it consists of ninety four lines
ninety four for character lines and ah that are arranged in couplets and each couplet has a ah has an end rhyme that that meets with all the others
so i'd like to talk about just a few aspects of it this morning ha
now begin with ah post the title and the first line
and then i want to talk about
the subject of it so the subject it's a continuation this this
the subject you could see
as in the first lines what he what he says is ah the dharma of vastness is intimately transmitted by buddhists and ancestors now you have it so preserve it well
that is the
you know that's what it's all about
helen the question is the rest of the poem is an explication of ah what is the teaching of vastness what is this this how does it manifest ah and the context in which that
is unpacked
ha
is really in many ways if you read them next to each other a continuation of the sand okay of the merging of different sameness and we have a whole lot of we've got a lot of kind of dualities that we used to to define
ah that
that relationship so sometimes we talk about the relative in the absolute which has been a controversial
matter in this room over the years
ah you can talk about it is difference and sameness
we can talk about it as a kite as as also as light and dark
as a parent and real
a relative why said relative and absolute guest and host
subject and ruler
ah master sheng in john master talks about it as vexation and wisdom
ah so all these are just
dualistic or to or frameworks of ah the nature of reality ah and what the but the poem does will see as we go into it is just again and again it's it's one after another metaphor that is contextualizing ah point
in as towards different ways that we might see ah
this duality however we want to
ah how are we want to frame it
i will say that i'm i'm partial now of company's talked about this more i'm i'm really partial to guest and host
ah
which to me ah implies relationship
in a way that doesn't contain necessarily a hierarchical
ah hierarchical imagery
but but i'll come back to them
so this is the song of the jewel mirror samadi
and that
ha
the somebody means concentration or meditation or just
kind of dwelling in
the state and the job mirror is our
it's the sense of oneness
and yet there's one this and the mirror also implies
implies difference
this goes back to i think doom chance ah the dumb shines poem
where he says he is what i am now but i am not
who is and he said member history he created this poem after looking at his after seeing his reflection mirrored
in a body of water
some when you see yourself in a mirror
ha you're seeing a version of yourself
you're seeing a version of whatever is reflected in the mirror
hum and as we will see as we go on it's a particular is a poem
it's not identical with the thing itself which we can't describe
the thing itself is the essence
you know if it wasn't for a mirror for example
we can never see the back of our head
can't be done
it's there you know you know it's there i can feel that fuzzy hair the back of my head but i can't see it actually unless i have two mirrors right they've got have wanted back at me and then one in front of me so that i can so i can see the reflection so ah
what i'm seen when i see the back of my head
is that
reality whore is it

so ah in one of his commentaries are
my izumi roshi she says ah
the tool is one's true entity
the mirror the objective spheres
reflect the parts of one's own life
and samadhi is the unity the buddha's wisdom
that are the budo spoke at the moment of his enlightenment when he said ah how wondrous all beings have the to target his wisdom and virtue
so this intimacy of the jewel marry somebody is realizing our true nature
that are true nature which is beyond our understanding and beyond our expression and the phenomenal world are meeting right here has my life
ah in commenting on the title
search and roshi says somali is being one with
the jewel has many facets
buddhism is like a gym with many sides
the mirror is like the source it reflects reality
it is reality
the mirror has his holiness without partiality the mirror has no mind it makes no discrimination to simply reflects seeing things as it is
the mirror is precious and we should be one it with it but i would add that the mirror is also
whatever we see in the mirror is incomplete
you can never see everything
in a mirror
you can never see him everything period
but the mirror when held up from different a variety of different angles
allows us to see things that we don't see ordinarily
and that mirror is cultivated in our zazen
in our in our experience of of same practice
so we come to the the first lines
ah
which is
the teaching of vastness or the dharma of justice is intimately transmitted by buddhists and ancestors now you have it preserve it well
so what is
what is he speaking of when he speaks of sexiness
to me it's interesting i've been speaking with sir
with tiger latent who wrote a wonderful book about dumb show on called just this is it
and he he has a an extensive commentary on this bomb in it
ha
and as we were talking we sort of
there's a sense in which
you know we talk a lot about emptiness
in his room and we explore we explore emptiness we're bringing it us every day when we chant the heart sutra was an at which is an exploration of emptiness
so in that sense
ah
emptiness that spoken of their to my mind is
that things are empty of a fundamental identity they're empty of self empty of self nature all dharmas are empty of self nature all dharmas are
co-created income call composed and our life is like that
there's very little that we can there's no moment that i can point to that
where i can say okay this is the crystallization of my life
every moment is created out of causes and conditions
and so it is empty of self nature
thus this
which in ah
it is translated as a is the translation of ah tathagata or data
ha
hand

thus this is to me
the flip side of emptiness
you know if
reality if the self if everything that we see his empty of
self nature in a fixed or definable way
ah then such this or justness he is
the implication that it is full
have everything
full of everything
that all causes and conditions
come to bear
aren't this moment and co-creators ha

here's a wonderful ah the the thai theravada teacher john buddha data ah whose whose perspective is very close to then writes about writes about this ah this i did does this as the
the flip side of emptiness
he writes the things which delude us
are all the things which caused discrimination and duality to arise in as good evil happiness sadness when lose love hate and so forth there are many pairs of opposites in this world
by not seem to data we allow these things to trick us into believing in duality

so we dislike we like
we get into this that liking disliking hot cold male female defiled enlighten mass delusion causes all our problems trapped in these opposition's we can't see the truth of things we fall into liking and disliking which in turn leads to
to further defilements because we don't see data we don't see the oneness
the fullness of everything
ah
what we must see constantly and d please continuing he is that good
his sankara it's a mental formation
and that evil is also a mental formation the pleasant and unpleasant feelings her boss mental formations getting it disappearing losing and winning are all mental formations there isn't anything which isn't the mental formation that's all things are
our
related all things are tata
so in his first line of the palm ha

yeah the teaching of vastness is intimately transmitted
by buddhists and ancestors this is like the sand credit
teaching of justice is intimately transmitted from west to east right ah
and it's a echoing that so teaching them versus into intimately transmitted by buddhists and ancestors so this is the transmission is taking place to us in the first line of this poem
and in the second line is now you have it
preserve it well
hum which means that this is our true nature
that we have it
means
that we have the opportunity to see ourself and see all beings as buddha
henry have to preserve it well because we're often pulled away from that you know love thinking yes all been to a except for him yeah i know where i know where the alley comes from but he doesn't come from the buddha land

but this is actually this is surgeons in by the way i will say maybe we'll get the studies in there is an incredible compendium which i can get you it is put together by charlie pokorny it's a character by character line by line
ah analysis of of the to mirror somebody had includes looking at commentaries by
written commentaries by quite a number of teachers and transcribe commentaries from sojourn in from and from rab and others ah
but
this is which surgeon says to now you haven't preserve it well means to see that all beings are buddha
this is a challenge for us it's a challenge for us in our society today that's for sure
ha it's a challenge for us you know how do we see the events that unfolded in the streets of berkeley last sunday
you know our the white supremacists buddha
our the black bloc buddha
yards fine we could the you know the
all of the ordinary well intentioned people who showed up for those demonstrations i can see them as buddha you know that's that's that's not much of a stretch
but the people who are doing things that i am really troubled by is that buddha
this is a really i think this is a really live question this is a great question to keep alive for yourself you know ha
how do i hold all beings as buddha this is leno in a senses is what martin luther king jr was speaking of from very early on when you know he talked about haga pay he talked about aga pay which is very similar to my tree
mehta he talked about unconditional love for all beings because to his way of looking all beings have
the embodied form of the divine
we could say or beings are buddha
we can say all beings are
truly human
and because of that he was advocating that we loved
but he was not advocating that we like them
and there is a distinction there
and as we see in his palm it's not
obliterating the the the the thrust of this poem is entered the integrative rather than
ah
drawing lines of distinction
it's
it's yes and rather than yes but
hell it's very to me it it's in line with the teachings that we receive from
sojourn roshi
from suzuki roshi from dogan tracing back to dumb shown that actually our practice is to include everything
our practices to include everyone
and if we can't figure out how to do that and i can't always figure out how to do that
you know how step back
and keep that question hold that question
because i take seriously this line now i have it
now you have it
preserve it well how will you hold it
how will you hold this precious life is precious mind that we've been given
so i think i will pause there and lives in time for ah for questions or discussion handoff we will continue looking at some of the some of the particular lines of of this palm in the afternoon but
ah you have some some thoughts or anything comes up with you
yeah he go
go
address

now

read
gratis
recognize our meeting
right for me
mouth
right
practice
history of that

or so

what is that now
now
yeah well
i think it's i think it's true i think we weekend ah
we can learn from inanimate objects you know we can learn from mountains and oceans cities with organs winters ah because the ocean accepts all waters that's why it's great and we can call it an ocean it just allows everything to be included in it and
a
i also remember ah and it was and he goes listening to her
a terry gross interview on a camera who it was with was talking about our early childhood development in relation of parents him and children and she was asking will watch the
what is the boundary line
for a parent of unconditional love you know when does when does unconditional love shift when is the element of conditionality injected into it and the prison she is hosted well as obvious when the child learns to say no
you know ah
when they when it when a being differentiates him or herself from another being ah then we have
then we are are relational abilities or her challenged now sometimes we we encounter i mean i'm thinking of far you know when he's to work on cars ah i encountered a engines that frequently said
no hopper
you know hum
but they don't speak as loudly
but we can learn we can listen and learn
little knows we can learn how to harmonize with those things as you're talking about him with those materials and how to use them so that we can actually be in close relationship them we can use that as a way of actually working on all of our relationships
but you have to do that consciously he won't necessarily happen
thank you three

if i can
i tried to share it with somebody else who's there
and if there's nobody else there
off
as if there's somebody else there
how do i do that
i don't know

it's really happening a lot lately ah
for reasons i won't go into and

i don't know how i do it i do know that the
years of this practice
have a
they're continuously softening me and allowing me to be sympathetic
he felt sympathetic to myself that i'm sympathetic to others you know that's that's all i can say there's no it's like i not have a methodology
you know if i feel like crying i just let myself cry
ah
i don't know do you how do you do it

what i've noticed about myself ah which is a big surprise
is that i actually have a lot of faith
i have faith in this practice
i have faith in people that i know and love ha and i council of faith that's so maybe that's it but i can tell you how to do that have so ah but i i can rely on
thank you
linda

yeah
oh yeah form an emptiness that's another one right here

where we wait who's as you you're talking about
yeah i mean no let's that
let's focus in here
did i say that

one

yeah it's not that they don't exist
hum
i don't
you know as i said i'll talk about it more later to me the fruitful a fruitful way of looking at this is as guest and host which is a completely fluid relationship in any moment
one might be guessed one might be host one's relationship can can shift ah and that
i don't see that is connected
it as kind of bound by ah necessarily a moral structure or a
form emptiness stricture they're just like either to roles
you know sometimes hear the guests sometimes your host and the next moment and were always partly the guests are always partly the hosted last line of this of this poem is
whoops
ah
you know the last lines i think speak to your predicament in a way as he as you're putting it ha
sake
ministers serve their lords parents serve their children to children's of their parents parents have children to ah ah not obeying is not filial failure to serve is no help failure to serve as no help with practice hidden funk
she secretly like a fool like an idiot
just to do this continuously is called the host within the host so to me the host within the host means
i am
learning how to take care of myself how to be host to myself the guest is is an unspoken presence there ha and that to me includes
you know we can argue that ministers serve your lords children obey their parents you know that's a confusion that's a confucian trope but it also means that we are in relationship to each other in in different ways and we you know which does not exclude
ah right and wrong
you know ah the idea of all this is in words has failure to serve as no help there is there's an underlying
there's an underlying principle of
connection and harmonization
and that which leads in the other direction
is no help you know so this is you know it's
if we have bodies we have we have these problems but i really don't think i've i don't think i valorize emptiness above form myself
ah
see them as having their own qualities
and they also have a complete the unified inseparable nature
that will we will continue this is how did this is always your this is your pressing question which is which is great it's a live question will take one more
gary

people
nothing

people trained for me even
cause it

yeah i think that's right they just are not going to change on my schedule you know ha and this is why you know it just also a to follow up
i really there's something really resonate to me in awe
the idea of vastness has
you know of fullness of ripeness of completeness ah rather than the kind of ah
kind of the envelope of meaning that there exists with the word emptiness but that's
it's not different either
it's it's it's it's not different emptiness is not emptiness emptiness is just empty of self nature which means it's full of everything else okay
will continue to hate her
like this was long i know and we lost some of the audience but that's okay all right thank you