Intuition and the Cosmic Order

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BZ-02520
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 Rohatsu Day 7

 

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well
today is our seventh day of i robot suit says sheen
shakyamuni buddha's enlightenment
day
ah

so we've been sitting continuously
most of us for seven days
my talk today
is the kind of continuation of what we've been talking about
during this time so if you haven't been here are are fairly new to the practice
ah
i'm not addressing
you for a exactly so
i just wanna let you know that i'm continuing
i've been talking about and ah
i hope you understand
another if you haven't had the preparation that you may not have the preparation that but it's okay it's left a difficult to understand

so one of the subjects that
i present it was

the idea of following the cosmic order that our practice
don't get they don't don't worry about her over there just pay attention
that
a practice book called what we call following the cosmic order in other words you know we all want to find our place in the universe
i think that's what conscious people do will it were conscious or none of it that basically what we do is finding a place in the universe moment by moment so there's the macro cosmic universe
which is beyond our comprehension and then there's the microcosmic universe in which we focus our attention
so and astronomer will focus his attention and the macro cosmic universe and a
practitioner will focus
or other people will focus on a microcosmic universe the universe that is within our comprehension and within our reach
a planetary system
in this the in a what we call our universe
now revolves around the sun
when i was in bhutan some years ago
in the monastery there the whole monastery has is like a tattoo all the walls have paintings and and
mondelez
wherever you go and one showed the cosmic a cosmic plan where the earth is the center
and so i said to somebody you know it's funny that you you still have the earth is this as the simple of the center of the universe and
a you suggest we do
and then i thought of kind of strange because almost everybody
knows that the earth revolves around this fun
but he's he said nope this is the way it is but i don't think that he believed that i think that this model was there as a kind of
a relic of
the way people thought at one time
so i didn't you know press the know try to convert him to kick after
they probably know this i'm sure
so you don't at an astronomer has one way of studying universe or relating to the universe in a physicist has a way everyday new interests and little religious way
we have a way of relating to the universe and if you mix them up you have an argument
so it's best not to mix them up but to respect each one's discipline and what the media is needs discipline
and then we can no peace among
a
the three disciplines
so what do we mean by the cosmic order of our planet following the cosmic order of our universe
you know our practice here
is very narrow and also very wide
i remember when i used to work my teacher
when i first went to
so koji temple in san francisco which is where our practice started nineteen sixty
nine i started in nineteen sixty four
and it was an unusual
well what was happening there the place looks something like this with cushions and sober and
ah the practice was to sit on those cushions and do a meditation practice which we called thousand
and then we'd get up and we bow with added we chant a feature called the hydrogen
and then we go again and leave that was a practice
just a very narrow kind of practice microcosmic practice
which follows our cosmic order
the
the teacher would come on him
ah into the room
wow
light incense and and could take his seat
and we will all be seated and then at the end we would do this what call service bowing a chanting and then at the end
he would leave and we would all about him on the way out and that was it and every day he did the same thing
twice a day
and i thought that's really interesting i've never because my way of thinking and touch with to about us before my way of living was to never do anything twice the same way
so this moral like japanese way of ordering their universe
but there was something really interesting about it
and
ah
after a while i realized you know the cosmic order was
if you teach you at the center the alter the altar the teacher and the teachers
a relationship to entering
and his movements
ah where the same every day even though they were never the same it had the same pattern
and then sometime later i realized that his whole way of thinking have been a movement was
the presenter was a kind of car cosmos
you know often he would say this room is our whole world had right this moment this room covers the whole universe this particular space covers the whole universe we don't have to fly out to the moon in order to
get perspective on the universe we don't have to peep through a little tube in order to get a perspective on the universe because when you can study the whole universe in this narrow space
as a matter of fact sitting zazen is the most restrictive posture that you can take you fold up all your whole body and you don't or and you open up your whole body you take the most restrictive posture and you open yourself up completely so these are the two polarities
what is the most restrictive pasture and which you don't know you can move you are but you don't
and you open yourself up completely
as an offering to the universe
and then the universe
expresses itself through you
better fact the universe is expressing itself through us all the time
but we don't have that awareness necessarily because they're always acting
now
according to our self-centeredness
with each other and we have well
the result is what you see today
in our a world
the world of conflict
because we don't really understand or we don't really have a tune herself to the cosmic order
we don't pay attention to that
we simply think they were isolated from the cosmos basically if we're
it were waiting for some sign from the universe is that anybody else out there
maybe we were at it didn't take i don't know why i said i heard something from outer space
but interspace is outer space
we make a big distinction between inner space and outer space and so we'd go to the moon we go to mars bars as next
when you see these movies about space
it's always one person not always but often it's the one person in a spaceship that they didn't build
it's an enormous spaceship with all this stuff and nearly there the driver
and
plowing through space for years in this lonely lonely space is so isolated and moving
actually the further out you get into space out there the more lonely it gets
so i really earth people but we need to expand ourselves you know you really need to open our so i'm not complaining about this and criticizing it but it's just the way we human mind mine and
idealism works
we can only get to the moon but i got to the moon and it just like you know
doesn't special of
we are the moon actually
that's just a piece of them
a little satellite
anyway
so
the two terms we use which i've talked about before yogi and dhaka
japanese terms red practice
yogini is continuous practice in other words it's not like i come to the zendo and that's my practice and then i go home and that's something else
continuous practice means that our practice is
a it is not separate from everything that we do when we have a practice everything we do is i practice so the other term is
a token don't comment as how we actually do a specific thing
so when i came to the as sendo in san francisco
by teacher was doing a specific thing called
doka
which it was a kind of like moving in
a
a kind of cosmic space and the cosmic that because he would do that every day there was a terrific powder in it
because his mind was not scattered he was not doing other things he didn't do it for any special purpose
he just did it
which is totally remarkable it's like the universe the sun is there but it doesn't have any purpose is just does what it does
the planet they just do what they do but there's something a kind of order that keeps everything and spit in place sometimes gets out of place and then you have a big cracker but for a long time according to our way of calculating may not be a long time maybe just have fun
but according to our way of calculating a lot like time the planets have been doing this
and they know each other intimately
and they the the order has a certain power and the sun has a
a great power so the teacher
head with the center of that universe
and
the teacher since has set the example of how to
create a space
that is not driven by self centeredness although the teacher is the center
the teacher cannot be self centered

the teacher has no ego because he does she should not doing something that
for some special purpose
but it's only a a a wheel or a a
ha ha
cog in the wheel
and since it an example for all the satellites for all the planets
our body is also a
cosmic system
the sun is here
and all the appendages are
planets that move around the sun
you call it the solar system to solar plexus a little bit above that but i like to think of it is solar the sun plexus right here and the the energy and light
flow out of that the motivating like clothes of so or ah
it's the same with a
dental practice
each one of us is a part of that solar system and the light flows out from within the system each person's like flows out it's not something is the as soon as you say oh i see that light is no longer there
this leads me to talking about intuition
intuition is to be
thinking is to see
seeing and beating
have some relationship
sometimes seeing is being and sometimes being seen
but being
is that is no separation
seeing in order to see we have to have some separation
so seeing as though is
has a dual function
seeing as seeing something
sometimes because her eyes and we say i see but doesn't mean the same as ordinary see it means inner vision
which is can be the same as being
but actually
we can be it but we can't see it
if we'd be it we can't see it
and if we see it we can't be it
for seeing it separates us from being it
understand that's called duality
so our practice is to be it but sometimes it's also to see it but we shouldn't confuse the two
confusion is when we think that seeing it is it
this is just ordinary plane buddhism
then
so as soon as you start to peak for be it you lose it
so that's why we talk about is beyond our understanding
when you will be it is the piano understanding
because we want to see it and then it's not there
suzuki issued i teach you will talk about
we can talk about buddha nature and we are buddha nature but as when we try to open up and see it it's not there
because we can only be it
that is be like to take a peek but didn't work
picking makes it disappear
this like our eyes we can see through our eyes but we can't see your eyes
we can see the back of it
but it's there
and i seen
but what we see is always a distance in order to play ball there has to be a distance
so in our relationships there's always this distance
even though we are one being

so we talk about
i'm in buddhist understanding there
you know buddhist like to use numbers
this three these things into for of those things in the five of these things and ten of these things where it can be enumeration because there's the aspect of buddhism which is analytical
buddhist like to analyze and they
categorize things in numerical is
so we have
the three nature's
but when you go to study the three nature's is confusing it can be confusing because there are different three nature's even that are all called for the three nature's
so the nature of things as they are as it is which is
i have a what we call the fulfilled nature and seeing the reality of what something he actually is
and then we have the nature of imagination of of
a representation i talked about this yesterday where
instead of seeing if something is it really is we create a picture of it which is the representation and so we take their representation for the thing itself as soon as we named something
it creates the representation
and so we live our life of a lot in the world of representations instead of as it is
and then there's the realm of imagination which is simply
the things coming up in our mind which we imagine now these three are no there's nothing bad about
in any of them they're all necessary
but we should that mistake the the representation for the reality as long as we know if this is the representation
this is the imagination
but it's hard to stay with the reality
i but something actually is
then the other another three of nature's
is the same except that the second one is the nature of interdependence
independence is the way things are there's nothing that exists just basic buddhism is living that exists independently everything is dependent on everything else and will be understand this thoroughly
then it's
we it's not so hard to see things as it is
in their actual reality
so our practice is to realize
the interdependence of everything this is called emptiness emptiness means in this understanding at independence we talk about emptiness a lot in buddhism
emptying this means independence that everything is empty of it's have an inherent nature
and it's always changing so there is nothing that exists this moment that's lasting everything is history

i just wanted to clarify that
in
a medieval times or in the west iran during the renaissance music there were theorists who talked about
the music of the spheres
which i thought was it's very interesting how to to align music with the cosmic
a system
and they made diagrams you know a a beautiful diagrams of how the that the planetary systems
well what is the music of planetary systems
you know if you crush the golden gate bridge
the
stringers the the support for the bridge
the cables the
four or five cables together
and when in the wind you can hear them seen
then it's great music
so and we also talk about
the dragon singing in a withered tree that as then go on the dragon is singing and a weather tree
dragon is singing in a withered tree
i will go into that
anyway and ah
i'm clutch should be shot today because we have stuff to do already and obsession is not over and we should have i want to encourage everyone to continue as until the end as we have been or more than what we have been
so

oh well yeah we will have following this we have a
buddha's enlightenment ceremony where we make an offering to put it on the altar and
basically we chant three brought new permit the heart sutra and we circumambulate the zendo throw tossing
flowers
not everyone
yeah everyone's invited
this is rehabilitate his room
no if your is room way
it's it's a six feet square but thousands of the people of enter
find their comfort there is plenty of room a gregor

to be to be yes just to be
not to see
and let's see
when it okay to see why loki's yeah
just to be
hum
is to see
but
if you try to see you don't see but if you just be you see

he is also the same as by picking them
right thinking is no thinking
and no thinking
a problem is that would always fall on one side or another
and we can't get out of it
the tuition i've heard it said that i am the center of the universe
that you weren't this to the universe group and i wonder if the good these that was there
concept of having the earth is a center that we to create the universe industry that maybe that was the inspiration for that tend to maybe
you know the center of universe is everywhere
if you say i am the center of the universe your this and if i say this said and i am the center of the universe
it's true and it's false
i as an isolated person
i'm not the center of the universe but i as the universe
m the center of the universe because there's no i
that is not the whole universe
but i don't know whether they felt that are not and i don't want to speculate
my teacher said
were you there
i guess at i started to describe a place that had never been and he said oh were you there
that was a a as tory for me

it's okay
you're talking about things as it is yes
now is that
by in the relationship off on a nice job of amen water
what a water or made a c pay
wait am i going to let water yes you can see you live in water you a a a saying as this is why are as it as it is is and i'm not
the problem is is getting too analytical
wave is water and water is water
water is way way it was a letter
so we just
way is the activity of water
that's all
things and thing water thing wave it's things i waves are things water is water water is singular waves as plural things as it is
it is singular waves is plural
things as it is
he's not a mistake

no we gotta get we have to move right this sorry butcher