So I thought we, tonight, maybe we'll get to the guidepost of the Hall of Pure Bliss. I was thinking of talking a little bit about this yogic study of the self, the turning within of silent illumination, in terms of the self-enjoyment samadhi and how that appears in Hongzhe. But I thought first, does anyone have any requests? Sections, those of you who've looked at cultivating the empty field, any suggestions? Yes. Request. Face everything, let go, and attain stability. On page 31 of the new edition, or it's the third one. Vast and far-reaching without boundary, secluded and pure. Actually, Mioan, would you read it? Page five, Mioan. You've got to seclude. Vast and far-reaching without boundary, secluded and pure, manifesting life.

[01:01]

beyond subject and object. Subtle but preserving, illumined and vast, also it cannot be spoken of as being or non-being. Only discussed with images. Or discussed with images. What's that? It says it cannot be spoken of as being or non-being, or discussed. Or discussed with images. Excuse me. Your accord and response, you accord and respond without laboring, and accomplish without hindrance. Everywhere, turn around freely, not following conditions, not falling into classifications. Facing everything, let go and attain stability. Stay with that just as that. Stay with this just as this. That and this are mixed together with no discrimination as to their places. So it is said that the earth lifts up the mountains without knowing without knowing the jade's flawlessness.

[02:17]

This is how truly to leave home, how home leaving must be embodied. Do you have a question or comment about that? Well, I think that as far as practice instructions, I've always liked that. Yeah. As far as stay with So this is objectless meditation, which takes whatever arises, this or that, as an object to face. So this, what you just read, thank you, is in some ways a good summary of everything we've been saying. The spirit is without obstruction. It's inherently radiant. He says, brightness does not shine out, but can be called empty and inherently radiant.

[03:23]

It can't be called existent or nonexistent, being or non-being. We can't discuss it, we can't really get it with images or calculations. And he says, right in here, the central pivot turns, the gateway opens. So there's this dynamic quality to this turning quality to this awareness. You accord and respond without laboring and accomplish without hindrance. But the part that you were mentioning, facing everything, let go and attain stability. So this is letting go of attachment to any particular object, just settling into meeting everything that arises, that appears. Stay with that just as that, stay with this just as this. Sometimes the words for that and for this sometimes are used for that as, the ultimate this as the concrete or the particular, but you don't have to take it in that way.

[04:31]

It's just with each thing arising, just be there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it certainly is. That and this are mixed together with no discriminations as to their places. Yeah. Any other questions or comments on that? I don't have so much to say about it. It's just clearly talking about what we've been talking about. Yeah, so at the end it says, this is how to truly leave home, how home leaving must be enacted. And what did I say in the footnote? Yeah.

[05:37]

Yeah, just home leaver is the traditional name for Buddhist monks, referring to back to Shakyamuni leaving his palace. But in China, it also, it's leaving the family system, the kind of social hierarchy to enter the monastery, to enter Buddha's family in a sense. On a deeper spiritual level, home leaving refers to the practitioners letting go of attachments derived from personal, habitual, psychological, and emotional conditioning. So we know this in terms of Western psychology, as has been said, that our family dynamics patterns conditions so much of what what our habitual viewpoints are. So, home leaving also means letting go of all that. So, Mary, you wanted the, let me find that, the bent elbow.

[06:49]

Yeah. So when you were sitting, we don't understand how beautiful that is, actually. We just do it. Yeah. And that makes it even more beautiful and helps us to even go beyond that. Where's the one that you were talking about, Mary? I think that's the one that I don't understand. Which one? What's it near? What is it? Okay, here it is. Oh yeah, the third eye and the bent elbow. Okay, let's try this one. One can respond to every event.

[07:54]

The third eye, by itself, illuminates the solitary castanet of the mind. Both of these gather in or leave with no inside or outside. Many thousands of realms emerge equally with one's self. The three times are naturally transcendent. Vast emptiness is boundless, genuinely illuminated by its own brightness. This is when the elusive illusory appearances are all exhausted. What is not exhausted is the profound spirit, absolute beyond life and death. Arrive at this field, openly letting go of dependency. When conditions, dust, do not pollute it, all situations are intimately matched. Box and cover joining and arrow points meeting are auspicious and do not miss the mark. Roaming and playing in Samadhi, people in this state accept their function. This upper eye and completely bent elbow are the sole matter that this monk transmits and that you should thoroughly embody.

[09:01]

It's interesting, I'm reading it in the newer edition and there were three words I changed a little bit, but it's okay. What is not exhausted is the profound spirit unconcerned by life and death. And I think I said box and lid joining and then this upper eye and completely bent elbow are the sole matter that this monk transmits and that you should thoroughly enact. So I should say about this, I'm not sure I understand this first image. The forearm, it's complicated image. The forearm bending back to meet the body, one can respond to every event. The image there, I'm just going to check what I wrote in the footnote, but it's related to the idea that you see in some places in Zen of the elbow only bends one way.

[10:12]

The elbow doesn't bend the other way. It's also related to just holding things close. So it's an image that I'm not sure I understand exactly how Hongxue was meaning it. It must mean that since you said it. I think. Okay, it means that too. What I wrote is, but it's an image of grasping rather than granting, of holding back rather than extending. Forearm bending back to meet is literally forearm or elbow back. So I'm not sure what it means. It seems to depict a gesture of gathering in or of indicating oneself with forearm drawn back to meet the chest.

[11:14]

This appears to be a posture of self-containment. which Hongzhe recommends as also responsive to events. And we have to hold close to ourselves. We have to be present in ourselves. Yes. And then the third eye is, says the third eye by itself illuminates the solitary casting off of the body. And the third eye is, Well, it's sometimes depicted here on Buddhist statues. But it's this eye that's the eye of insight, the eye of illumination or of prajna. Yeah. But it's also traditionally the eye of Maheshwara, one of the heavenly deities, the king of heavenly deities in Indian cosmology, who's also an epithet for a great, also used as an epithet for a great bodhisattva. So all of that's implied in that.

[12:16]

But again, both images in a way holding back or holding close to oneself. Then we can respond to every event. And this inner eye illuminates the solitary casting off of the body. So this is talking about dropping body, dropping body and mind. And it's something that in some sense we have to see for ourself. maybe your teacher can see that you've dropped off body or mind. But first you have to see it with your own eye of insight. And Hongxue says, both of these gather in or release with no inside or outside. And so they're both images of inside, but actually there's no separation. Many thousands of realms emerge equally with oneself. the three times are naturally transcended.

[13:18]

So this, he seems to be talking about the way in which everything that arises arises, in some sense, in us, in our awareness. Vast emptiness is boundless, genuinely illuminated by its own brightness. So I think this is actually going back to section two before it. I was going to actually read some things from around here. So there is a way, you were asking about the progression. There is a way in which I see how these are related and they refer back to each other. There's some sequence in a way. And this one clearly is coming out of the few before it. Let me finish this and then go back a couple. So he says, emptiness is boundless but also genuinely it's illuminated by its own brightness.

[14:23]

This is when the illusory appearances are all exhausted. What is not exhausted is the profound spirit unconcerned by life and death. Arrive at this field openly letting go of dependency." So it's kind of this inner spirit, not inner as opposed to outer, but this confidence or assurance or this sense of one's own light. So you were asking about how do we know if we're really just sitting. And this is, in a way, a response to that. There's this sense of when we're continuing, this has to do with the study of the self. As Dogen says in Genjo Koan, we chanted earlier, that really being present in oneself, we do find this deeper spirit. And then we have to let go of all our dependency on anything.

[15:28]

So he's kind of talking about, yeah, dignified without relying on others. this state of letting go, which is liberation. Again, dropping body and mind as just this sense of release and relief that we see for ourselves. And then he talks about how this relates to our engagements, because going back to the exercise earlier about engagement with the senses, engagement with sense objects, he says, when conditioned dusts do not pollute it, all situations are intimately matched. So it doesn't mean we don't see the world arising around and within us. But we're not caught by our conditioned sense of forms or sounds or thoughts as separate.

[16:42]

And then he gets his box and lid joining in arrow points meeting. So I talked about that before, this image of, it's beyond our calculations of just really box and lid fitting and the story of the two archers firing arrows at each other. This is beyond our calculations. And yet there's this immediate, unmediated kind of meeting with our situation. So he's talking here about the inner terrain of zazen, or of just sitting. And again, he's speaking from really being long time settled in it. And he's kind of just, these words are flowing out from that. So he says, box and lid joining in arrow points, meeting are auspicious and do not miss the mark. Anything we say about it misses the mark a little bit, but our actual connection with our experience doesn't. And then he says, roaming and playing in Samadhi, people in the state accept their function.

[17:48]

I think it also means that when we're not relying response yeah right here He responds immediately in an appropriate way, and then the whole conflict. Yeah, it dissolves. The problem dissolves. And it's this, yeah, it is natural in the way that the moonlight reflected in the current flows down the stream or something like that.

[18:53]

There's an unmediated quality to it. It's immediate. There's an immediacy. Hi. And she raised her eyebrows. That was the unmediated response. And it doesn't, you know, appropriate, you know, maybe in some ways is some judgment afterwards. But anyway, we are here together. So, this thing about accepting their function, I want to come back to, because this relates to the self-fulfillment Samadhi that Dogen talks about in Bendowa and that Hongzhe talks about here and a little bit before this. But just the last sentence, this upper eye and completely bent elbow are the sole matter that this monk transmits and that you should thoroughly enact. I still think there's something about that image, that there's something more that's not clear about this image of the forearm bending back. But I think it is all the things that Chozen said about kind of holding close and being present in oneself.

[19:56]

Yeah, I think there's some other reference there, and I don't know what it is. Oh. Oh, yeah. Well, maybe so, yeah. Yeah, yeah. What was that? It's a Japanese soto priest. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to drink some tea myself. This thing about roaming and playing in Samadhi, which is this image we've already seen for this kind of free experience of this silent illumination, this dropping body and mind. He says, people in this state accept their function. And I think that's important. I want to come back to that. So I don't know whether to go to talk about it in terms of Dogen.

[20:59]

I'll do it first from Hongxue. So the one, drop off your skin, accept your function, which is two before that, I think is really helpful in terms of a lot of this. In daytime the sun, at night the moon, each in turn does not blind the other. This is how a patch-drobed monk steadily practices naturally without edges or seams. So this without edges or seams, there's an old story of a teacher saying, please build me a seamless monument. How can we? live our life without edges or seams, completely wholehearted, boundlessly. Hongshu goes on, to gain such steadiness. Again, this steady or silent or serene side of the silent illumination. To gain such steadiness, you must completely withdraw from the invisible pounding and weaving of your ingrained ideas.

[22:06]

It's a wonderful image. We were talking about conditioned ideas. He doesn't say destroy your patterns of thinking, he just says, Completely withdraw from this invisible pounding and weaving of your ingrained ideas. If you want to be rid of this invisible turmoil, you must just sit through it and let go of everything. Attain fulfillment and illuminate thoroughly. Light and shadow altogether forgotten. Light and shadow also means time. It's a phrase for time. Day and night, time going by. Then he says, drop off your own skin and the sense dusts will be fully purified, the eye readily discerning the brightness. This doesn't mean turn away from your skin bag here and now. This is drop off in the same as dropping off body and mind. So this is, there's no record of anybody saying dropping off body and mind exactly the way Dogen does.

[23:12]

There's a story about Rujing saying it, but it's not clear. This is close to it though. Drop off your own skin. I think it's the same meaning as Dogen's drop off body and mind. And the sense dust will be fully purified. The eye readily discerning the brightness. Accept your function and be wholly satisfied. In the entire place you are not restricted. The whole time you still mutually respond. So it's not just that you respond to what's in front of you, it's this mutable response. Right in light there is darkness, right in darkness there is light. Familiar from Sandokai. A solitary boat carries the moon. At night it lodges amid the reed flowers, gently swaying in total brilliance. Wonderful poetic image of light and dark interfusing, gently swaying in the water. There's a number of things going on here that relate to Dogen's later writing I've mentioned before, Ben Dowa, one of his first writings.

[24:24]

And there's a section in that, do you chant that, the Jiji Uzanmai, the self-fulfillment? Yeah, it's the last section of Ben Dowa before the question and answer section. There's about three pages of it. It's in A Wholehearted Way I Did with Sho Haku. That's where I mentioned the Dogon saying that when one person sits, even for a short time, fully expressing, fully displaying the Buddha mudra with body and mind, all of space becomes enlightened. And that section is sometimes called the Jiji Uzama or self-fulfillment or self-realizing Samadhi. And Dogen says at the very beginning of Bhandawa that this is the criteria for Zazen. So it's an important idea and it's directly, it's very, you can see how Hongju's talking about the same thing here. So just, I wanna say a little bit about the characters.

[25:27]

I have them here. Some of you know Chinese better than I do and I want to try and write the characters. Anyway, Ji means self. Actually, I could probably do this. Ju is the same Ju as in Jukai, to receive. Evan, I should ask you to write this. No? Okay. And Yu is function. And maybe I'll remember. No, it's OK. It's something like this. I forget. Anyway, it's the same ju as in jukai, to accept or receive the precepts. But juyu as a compound means fulfillment or enjoyment or realization, so it's the self-fulfilled samadhi. It's one of the other many names for zazen, along with silent illumination and dual merit samadhi and so forth.

[26:34]

This is the self-fulfillment samadhi, but the second and third characters together mean as a compound enjoyment, fulfillment, realization. So it's the samadhi of the self fulfilling itself or the samadhi of the self enjoying itself or realizing itself. But separately, the second character means to accept and the third character means function. So it's also, etymologically, the self accepting its function. It's the samadhi of the self accepting its function. And it's the same characters that Hongshu uses here. And I think it's a really neat idea. Accept your function and be wholly satisfied. One way to think of this is the idea of the mandala of the monastery. Each person in the monastery has their function, has their role, has their position, whatever it is.

[27:38]

And the whole thing works because everybody takes on, receives and accepts and takes on their job. But more deeply, it also means that it's the samadhi where the self receives our own function. It's the self accepting itself. So for you to just accept your body and mind as it is in this lifetime, you know, today, this is the samadhi of that. To really just, to not try and be more or less or anything different than just this body and mind expressing your uprightness right now. So Dogen calls this the criteria for zazen. And here, Hongzhe, who's again almost a century before Dogen, says, drop off your own skin and the sense dusts will be fully purified, the eye readily discerning the brightness.

[28:49]

So immediately this eye of inner illumination. Accept your function and be wholly satisfied. In the entire place, you are not restricted. The whole time, you still mutually respond. This is also a reference to something, or it's not a reference to something. Dogen also uses this image of mutually responding in Ben Dawa. Dogen is after Hong Xiu. But this thing about accepting your function, Dogen takes on as this, another way of talking about zazen, to just accept, and use the opportunity you have in this body and mind, in this life. This is the criteria for this serene illumination, just to be willing to meet that inner dignity of just being yourself, of not wanting to be in some other situation. So part of Buddhism and one of the three signs is wishlessness, to be content with your situation as it is.

[29:58]

Of course, all of us can imagine things we wish we had that we don't have. Maybe many of us can imagine things we wish we didn't have in terms of our life situation. But this dropping off body and mind, this dropping off your own skin, in which your eye readily discerns, your inner eye readily discerns, the brightness happens when you accept your function and are wholly satisfied. So, you know, one way to cut off the 12-fold chain of causation is to just eliminate desires, and this is more like a Theravada approach. but to just accept the situation you're in and be satisfied, to be content with the situation you're in, then you don't need to grasp after objects of desire or try and push away things you don't like. It's just, how do we respond? And then this, in the entire place, you are not restricted the whole time, you still mutually respond.

[30:59]

In that section of Bhandawa called the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi, Dogen goes on to talk about, first he talks about how space itself becomes enlightened, and he talks about how there is this mutuality between the self and the person sitting zazen and grasses and trees, walls and tiles and so forth, all of the things, the phenomena of the world, and that there is this inconceivable guidance. This is a word I never heard before I translated that, myoshi in Japanese. It's the myo of hidden or dark. This hidden, inconceivable, non-apparent guidance happens mutually. So he says, and it's really kind of mind-blowing stuff, and it's like the beginning of what Dogen's talking about, and it's one of his first writings, and you can see how he gets a lot of it from Hongzhe, that when the person is sitting, that they benefit the grasses and trees and walls and tiles and all the stuff around them, and vice versa.

[32:05]

So this is about how this relationship to space works. So we were talking, we did this meditation on space, and I talked a little bit about space becoming enlightened, but Dogen says that in Zazen, we actually benefit, he says the people that we come in contact with in our daily life, but also just the elements of reality around us and vice versa, that we receive this inconceivable hidden guidance and support from all the things around us when we're taking on this Buddha mudra. So again, this is, I think, what Hongzo's talking about when he says the whole time you still mutually respond. This goes back to how do we, our seeing of colors and our hearing of sounds, or our seeing of sounds and hearing of colors, the way in which our surroundings support us in our practice and vice versa.

[33:07]

We see here in Hangzhou and then Dogen develops it. Yes, you had a question. Do you have experience of that, of that inconceivable guidance? Yeah. But I can't say anything about it because it's inconceivable. I can't. I mean, I'm not trying to be coy or anything. I have a sense of it. If I thought about it, I could think of examples, but I'm not sure if they're so helpful. What I think this is about is the sense of, It's a little bit like what we were talking about in terms of the Song of the Grass Hut, creating this space that supports us to practice. So there's a particular structure of the mandala of a monastery. And you have this really interesting situation here with all these kind of interlocking buildings.

[34:09]

So it's not built, the traditional Zen monastery is structured like a person. You know, the head is the Buddha hall, and then the heart is the Dharma hall, and anyway, and then there are arms and legs. The monk's hall is, the zendo is like the right arm or, anyway. But just the space of a zendo, there's a kind of particular structure to that that supports us. So that's one thing. But then there's also just the sense of, you know, the environment, the sense of a space. Think of a space. So I want you to think of an example of this. Think of a space, some place that feels lively to you. It doesn't have to be a fancy place, but just a tree that you like or some place where you like to sit outside anytime in your life, even before you started sitting.

[35:12]

There's a way in which it may support something in you. I think it's that kind of thing. But anyway, he says it, this is what Dogen declares, and I actually have come to believe this. How it works, I can't say. But when we take on expressing this, there's some mutual response and mutual guidance with the space of the world. That doesn't necessarily fix all our problems or anything like that, but there's some sense of support Yeah, I think this side of serene illumination is really important. This quality of subtle, mysterious, practical guidance. And yeah, the world is like that when we open our eyes and just meet it.

[36:14]

And yet we have all this work to do to kind of settle down enough to get into a place where we can kind of really, where we can hear this and appreciate it. So it's always there. But the criterion of our zazen is that, oh, yes. So it's a kind of trust, maybe. It's a kind of, again, it doesn't necessarily mean that You know, it doesn't help according to our ideas of what we think we want. And yet, it allows us to accept ourselves. It allows us to enjoy ourselves. It allows us to fulfill ourselves, to be wholly present in this situation, whatever it is. Yes. Yes, same idea. Good. Yes. Well, actually, I'll read the next one, which is between this and the third eye and bent elbow.

[37:28]

Immaculate and dazzling, the field's limits cannot be seen with the eye's strength. So there is this inner eye, but we, again, we can't conceive of this, we can't, we can sense it, we can trust it, but we can't, pin it down in words, or pin it down to some particular shape or color, and yet there's something going on. He says, serene and expansive, its directions and corners cannot be found with the mind's conditioning, of course. People who sincerely meditate and authentically arrive trust that the field has always been with them. So this is a kind of hint here. When we really put ourselves in this position of being present and upright and expressing Buddha mudra, we start to have some sense, some trust that this is the way it is and it's always been that way.

[38:32]

It's not that we suddenly get a hold of it. So the person, so when Buddha realized that all beings are Buddha nature. It's not that he thought that he had made that up then. He realized that it had always been that way. He said, and then Hongzhi says, Buddhas and demons cannot invade it. Pollution cannot poison it. Square around, they just enjoy the center. Their conduct and practice accord with the standard. With amazing effectiveness, as numerous as grains of sand in the river Ganges, they harmoniously mature each other. So this is about Sangha. This is the people who sincerely meditate and authentically arrive. And this was the question that was asked earlier about how to know if you're off in Shikantaza. Well, here Hongxiu says, these people who sincerely meditate harmoniously mature each other.

[39:37]

So partly that's the explicit interaction in Sangha and the difficulties we have with each other and the working out of that. But it's also something deeper. It's on this level of this accepting the self, accepting one's function, samadhi, where we are each expressing this wholeheartedness and this willingness together and something about that. It's not just that the walls and trees and grasses support us, but we each support each other mutually when we're taking on that function. He says, from this field our life arises, from this field it is fulfilled. This matter includes everybody. So that's an important point. You used the 16 precepts from Dogen? Yes, so one of the really important ones is that we vow to benefit all beings.

[40:39]

If you only want to include some subgroup of all beings in your field of Buddha nature, there's a big problem. And of course, everything in our society and maybe in human consciousnesses were directed towards our tribe or our group, our school. Nationalism is a terrible example of this. We have to build walls to keep all the foreigners out and so forth. But he says this matter includes everybody. So there's a kind of practice instruction there to see how everybody is included in this field, even the people we think aren't practicing or are practicing the wrong thing or whatever. Say, if you eliminate certain people and say, well, it's okay to invade those people's country and take their oil or whatever, there's a big problem.

[41:43]

So part of this field is that it's open and serene and inclusive. And just because we've had the great good fortune to hear about this and to actually connect with the lineage of practice of it, doesn't mean that we've got it and they don't. This is something that's always available to everybody. And that's the whole point of this teaching of Buddha nature. So Hongzhe finishes that paragraph, says, just go forward for me and try to see. People who know it's truth nod their heads with comprehension. So it's not about trying to figure out what Hongzhe is saying. It's some kind of recognition. that we resonate with something in what Hongshu is saying. And oh yeah, we may not be able to understand it or articulate it. I mean, it's amazing that Hongshu could put this into words.

[42:45]

But we recognize something. So that recognition, that kind of resonating with some part of the spirit of what he's saying, that's what he's talking about. That's that place where you can find total trust.

[43:01]

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