Good morning, everyone. Welcome. And happy Mother's Day to those of you who are mothers or have mothers or have had mothers. And just to honor the origins of Mother's Day in the 19th century as a holiday dedicated to world peace. So happy Mother's Day. Today I'm going to continue talking about this text we've been talking about. We're towards the end of a two-month practice commitment period here, which is ending next weekend, in which we've been talking about a particular text from the Soto Zen tradition that we are part of. Going back to the founder of this tradition in 9th century China, named Dongshan, this is a text called the Song of the Precious Mirror of Samadhi or the Jewel Mirror of Samadhi.

[01:10]

So a number of people here have been following this and studying this through this practice commitment period and others through just attending during the past couple of months or so. And we also have a number of people who are new this morning who just had meditation instruction, which is wonderful for all of us. So welcome. So this is, in some sense, this morning kind of advanced Zen teaching. But also, in some ways, it's basic Zen teaching. So what I want to talk about this morning is a teaching that is kind of esoterically part of this dual Mara Samadhi teaching called the Five Ranks, which is kind of basic, or Five Degrees, which is kind of the basic underlying philosophy, not just of Soto Zen, it's also part of the other main branch of Japanese Zen, Rinzai Zen, it's studied in that too.

[02:24]

And I'm going to try and show where it appears in this poem, this long teaching poem we've been studying, which is on page 10, I believe, of your chant book, so you can follow along when I refer to it. But I want to talk first about what it basically means in terms of the basic aspect of our practice. So this Five Ranks has to do with, or Five Degrees, has to do with the interaction and integration of two basic aspects of our practice. These could be called, sometimes they're called the upright and inclined, sometimes the real and apparent, sometimes sameness and difference. Another way to talk about them, which I'll refer to probably most, is the universal and the particular, or the ultimate and the phenomenal.

[03:28]

So these are a lot of fancy words. They're also referred to in this text in terms of metaphors from Chinese and Japanese feudal society, like lord and vassal and host and guest. what they're about is two sides of our practice, two sides of reality, two sides of suchness or thusness, which is what this is basically about, this dharma or reality or teaching of thusness is what this verse starts out with. So the one side is Well, we might call it conventional truth, the particulars of the phenomenal world, everyday reality. This is the reality that we all know. This is the particular aspects of the world, of our everyday activity, the differences between things, the distinctions between things.

[04:34]

This is how we usually see reality. The other side is the universal truth, or the ultimate truth. And this is what we start to glance when we do this practice that we've all done here. This morning, the practice of just stopping and settling, and sitting uprightly, and somewhere in the middle of that, even for those of you for whom this was the first time you did this, somewhere in the middle of that, there's this taste, this glimpse, sense of something, well, you know, there's no way to speak about it accurately, actually. It's beyond, as the Jalmer Samadhi says in some ways, it's beyond words. But it has to do with this connection to wholeness, or the ultimate, or the universal.

[05:40]

this way in which we are all the same, or all of the distinctive particular things are all the same. So it's not even just about people. It's just this way in which reality is one taste, this universal ultimate truth. So in our practice, we start to taste that. We start to get a sense of that. And some spiritual practices are about Just seeing that or getting deeply into that, merging with that. There's a teaching poem that goes before this, Harmony of Difference and Sameness, that says that merging with oneness is still not enlightenment. So the point of these five degrees or five ranks is it's not about just seeing universal truth or ultimate truth. Our practice is about how we integrate that with everyday activity.

[06:43]

So first we do sit, stop. Sit upright, be present. Feel what it's like, what is actually going on in this body and mind as we sit here uprightly on our cushions or chairs this morning, this situation right now. Beyond our stories about who we are and what the world is. So this, we start to get a sense of this upright reality, this ultimate reality, this universal reality. Sometimes it's referred to in Buddhism as emptiness, as opposed to the holding on to ideas of some self or some entity. But the point is that then we get up and go out into the world. So here in this storefront temple in the middle of Chicago, we have an opportunity to

[07:46]

play with that dynamic of settling into wholeness and ultimateness and then going out and seeing how we can carry that or how that expresses itself in our everyday activity. So that's the point of these Five Ranks teachings. But it turns out that this process of integration of these two sides of the ultimate and the particular. These two aspects of reality, they express that the process of integration, the process of their interaction, the process of unfolding of those happens in a five-fold way. And this is pretty interesting, because there's a fiveness to a lot of aspects to his teachings.

[08:48]

I'll come back to that. So this five ranks is considered, or five degrees is considered to be one of the core teachings of this Jwal Meru Samadhi. And yet it's not obvious in here. So for those of you who've been studying this for a couple of months, it's not obvious where this is. So I'm going to say a little bit about where it appears in here. But the other thing to say right off the top is that there is this kind of systematic approach of five ways in which the phenomenal and the real, to put it that way, the phenomenal reality and the ultimate reality interact. And through this tradition, Shaodong in Chinese, Soto in Japanese, through this tradition, it's very much recommended not to get too hung up on the particulars of these five stages or five aspects. So it's enough to just hear that there is this process.

[09:50]

So I could stop talking right now, actually. There's the particular phenomenal reality, and there's this universal ultimate reality. And they work together. And they work together in a five-fold way, and that's what this teaching poem talks about. So don't worry about remembering what the five are. It's better not to. And yet I'll talk about them a little bit. And I'll say a little bit about where they appear in this song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi that some of you have been studying for a couple of months. So taken as similar, they are not the same, not distinguished, their places are known. This goes right to this aspect of there's sameness and there's difference, and they're together. there's a way in which there's similarity. So Dogen, the founder of this branch of Zen in 13th century Japan, was a Japanese monk who went to China.

[10:51]

He came back from China after studying for four years and he said, and they asked him what he brought and actually he had this mastery of this huge body of Chinese Chan stories, so he brought back more than this, but what he said was, eyes horizontal, nose vertical. So we're all the same that way. And that's enough to know. And yet each of us, you know, have a different way of expressing eyes horizontal, nose vertical. When we look face-to-face, you know, we can recognize differences between faces. Or most people can. There's, you know, some people with particular aspects of brain damage phenomena can't recognize the differences between face, but maybe they can see eyes horizontal and nose vertical, I don't know. Anyway, taken as similar, they're not the same, not distinguished, their places are known. So there's sameness and difference both working there.

[11:54]

Then there's this part a little further down, where it talks about fiveness. And it talks about fiveness in particular ways. Well, it talks about, like a newborn child, it is fully endowed with five aspects, no going, no coming, no arising, no abiding. Baba Wawa is anything said or not. So a baby has these five aspects. It doesn't go, it doesn't come, it doesn't stand up, it doesn't stay, and it doesn't speak correctly. And in some sense, there's a Buddhist sutra, the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, that says that's what a Buddha is like also. Doesn't go, doesn't come, Buddha doesn't arise, doesn't abide. This is talking about emptiness, and that actually through the Buddha's 40 years of teaching, he never said anything. So there's a fiveness there.

[12:56]

And then, so I'll come back to this illumination hexagram. This is the double split hexagram, the fire hexagram, and inclined and upright interact. And really, so I've been asked about this. I'll say a little more about this particular hexagram. Do any of you know about, have any of you used the I Ching or know about the I Ching at all? A few of you. So I can say a lot about that hexagram and I've been asked about it. Really, as he mentioned here, just because for Chinese people, when this was written, that was kind of part of cultural knowledge. It's like referencing Shakespeare today or something, or Roth Lyric. But I'll say a little bit. But coincidentally, there's parts of that particular hexagram. And I'll say more about the, I'll come back and talk about the I Ching. But really, it's piled up, they become three, the permutations make five. It's the way in which that particular one of the 64 combinations of six lines fits together that has a five-ness to it.

[14:07]

That's really why it's in this poem. So these are examples of five, like the taste of the five flavored herbs. So there's a Chinese I don't know the technical name, but it's said to have had five different flavors. And there was a Chinese restaurant I used to go to a long time ago in New York City that had five-taste chicken on the menu, which used that herb. So anyway, there is a particular herb that's said to have five flavors, and it did have a complicated flavor. And then there's the five-pronged vajra. This is something that's not used in Zen practice, but this is a five-pronged vajra here, and this would be familiar to all Buddhists in East Asia. because this is something that's used as a ritual implement and in practices in Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism, and that was part of Chinese Buddhism. It was very much part of the background of all of Japanese Buddhism, the Tendai school that Dogen was part of.

[15:14]

They used these ritual implements in various ways, in various mudras. So it has five prongs. There's four, and then one in the center, which represents the five elements or the five aspects of the five Buddhas. There's various symbolism to it, but it's mentioned here because of their five. So, again, there's a fiveness to There seems to be this fiveness to reality, and there's this fiveness to the way in which this real and apparent, or universal in particular, integrate. And that's why these five are mentioned here. Nathan gave this wonderful talk last Monday evening, which I can make available to anybody who's interested about the five paths of Longchenpa, and I can correlate that to the five ranks, actually. It does work in some ways, and there's also There's various five teachings in Buddhism, and it's possible to correlate some of them.

[16:17]

So I'm going to get technical here, and just don't worry about remembering any of this. But for those of you who know about some of this, Zhu Yi, the great Chiantai founder, really the founder of Chinese Buddhism, talked about the five periods of Buddha's teaching. And they totally correlate with the five ranks. The Tamasaka Sutra, the early Agamas, the early Buddhist teaching, the early Mahayana teachings, that's the third. The Mahaprasna Paramita is the fourth. And the Lotus and Mahaparinirvana Sutras were supposed to be five periods of Buddhist teaching, historically, according to Jigme. And they totally work and fit with the five ranks. Something about the number 5 seems to be interesting. So I will tell you what the 5 degrees or 5 rags are. But I'll also say where they are in this text, for those of you who are interested.

[17:18]

And again, don't remember all of this. In fact, it's dangerous to get too caught up in all of this. But I'll just tell you. Actually, in the first page, in the first half of this Song of the Precious of Marisimoni, there are five places where the character, True, or Sho, as in Shobo Genzo, appears. In Darkest Night, it's perfectly clear. This is true, and this correlates with the first rank. You are not it, but in truth it is you. This is the second rank. In the end, it says nothing, for the words are not yet right. That's the third rank. and the illumination hexagram inclined and upright, that's true, interact. It's the fourth and the fifth, wondrously embraced within the real, and actually that's the character, true, drumming and singing begin together. So there's this process of integration. So I'm just mentioning that. study this, I will include that in my book on Dongsheng that I'm working on, but the point is that there is this fiveness to this process of the universal and the particular and how they integrate.

[18:37]

So let me tell you what the five are. So the first one is phenomenal reality within the real or within the ultimate. So this can be described as seeing the particulars against the backdrop of the ultimate. So in some ways, we can think about foreground and background. In the first one, there's the ultimate or universal. It's the background. That's where things are. And we see phenomena against the backdrop of the ultimate. That's considered the first of these five. Sometimes they're talked about as ranks, as if they were stages, but they're really five aspects of this process of integration. They're all sort of working as a circle. The point, again, is that there is this process of integration that's part of our practice.

[19:41]

So you don't have to trace them or track them. It's going on in our practice. The second is the real within the phenomenal, seeing the ultimate or the universal truth right in each particular event. William Blake, the British poet, talks about seeing the universe in a grain of sand. That's the second rank. So trying to get examples of the first two. And the first two are sort of two sides like a seesaw, the same thing. The first one is there's the ultimate reality, and then we see phenomena in that. Second is seeing particular phenomena, then seeing something wonderful within them. So, you know, this is like walking down the street and you see a flower and suddenly you see... Are you reminded of some sense of peace or wonder or wholeness maybe that you glimpsed in zazen or, you know, maybe you just... There's nothing to do with zazen, you just feel that.

[21:02]

And then the third one is coming from within phenomena. So this is talked about as emerging silent and shining from the experience of union with the ultimate. Coming from within phenomena. This is like, so sometimes we sit for a day or for three, we're sitting next week for three days, some of us. And in Zen we also sometimes sit for five or seven days. And sometimes if you've been sitting for a long time and you get up and, Walk. Go out for a walk. It's like things are shining or we see things differently. That's kind of like this third rank. We come out of silence. The fourth is going within together, where we have a sense... We have both the sense of the particular reality, the phenomenal reality, and the universal. And there's some familiarity.

[22:08]

We can use them both. And the fifth is arriving within together, where they're both, it's kind of like the fourth but more, where we, this is kind of this ultimate aspect of integration, where both the phenomenal and the ineffable ultimate reality are used freely, without attaching to either one, and without even seeing them as separate. So that's just to name these five aspects. And again, so for those of you who are here for the first time, this is kind of ultimate Zen philosophical teaching. Don't worry about remembering or figuring it out. In fact, it's advised not to get too caught up in thinking about this. But I think it is useful to see that there are these two sides of our reality. So again, basically just that we stop and sit, and we have this sense of something deeper, something whole, something universal that's beyond us.

[23:26]

So in the Drona or Samadhi, there's some play. This is actually the third rank, but it plays with the whole thing. You are not it, but in truth it is you, this line. And it plays with the whole thing. It's not about you, but it is you. There's this way in which we do have, we can have this taste of universal reality. And yet, there's also the particulars of, you know, getting up, brushing your teeth in the morning, taking care, you know, getting to work, just everyday stuff. Both are there. It's not about you know, leaving home and wandering off and living on some mountaintop forever. It's not about... In fact, it's a big danger to try and, you know, bliss out into the ultimate reality or emptiness or however you want to think about it.

[24:27]

The point is, how do we bring our sense of ultimate reality into the particulars of this world and its difficulties. How do we express that in this world? So it's this process of integration. How do we express our sense of ultimate suchness, this background of ultimate suchness, in the particulars of our everyday life? And vice versa. So I want to go back, because I've been asked about it, I want to go back and talk about this illumination hexagram. Just for those of you who wonder why it's in here. So I'll say a little bit about the I Ching, which is an ancient Chinese

[25:32]

Well, it became a book, but it goes back to divination using tortoise shells and then using arrow sticks and there are various versions of it. It probably goes back a thousand B.C. or older. It's pre-Confucius, but there are lots of commentaries in Confucianism. And it's based on six lines or two sets of three lines. And each line can be either solid or broken, yang or yin. And there are various images that are created by that. So there's a process of unfolding that is referred to here that makes five. And that's really why this is mentioned here. the process of five-ness, I've seen various descriptions of it, but it has to do with the combination of the wind trigram and the lake trigram and how they're combined in a way that it ends up with this double fire hexagram.

[26:44]

So, you know, maybe Dongshan or whoever put this together. We don't really know the history exactly. I thought this was neat to cite as an example of fiveness just because that hexagram is called elimination of fire. And so I'll read you a little bit about it since some people have been really curious. Fire is beneficial for correctness and development. Raising a cow brings good fortune as the basic judgment. The basic image about it is so light or illumination has dual function, thus do great people illumine the four quarters with continuing light. So, you know, we could see how it may be And then I'm going to reach from a Daoist commentary. So there were various, a whole history of different commentaries about this I Ching book.

[27:49]

And parts of this may seem familiar. The qualities of this hexagram above is fire or luminous and below is fire or luminous by inner illumination reaching outer illumination So the lower part is called the inner and the upper part is called the outer. By inner illumination reaching outer illumination, outer illumination perfecting inner illumination, illumining inside and illuminating outside, inwardly illumined and outwardly illumined. It goes on like that. This is from a Taoist commentary, and just historically, this has to do with Taoist meditative processes that became part of Buddhism. So the fact that this is referred to in here is an indication of that, that working with energy as Chinese Daoism does, was part of the culture of Buddhism also.

[28:54]

So I'll read a little bit more that actually feels relevant to our Buddhist meditation practice. Although fire is beneficial to correctness and development, if you only know how to use illumination and do not know how to nurture illumination, you will not attain development. Outer illumination has to be based on inner illumination. Using illumination requires that one first nurture illumination. Therefore, raising a cow brings good fortune, is from the original objection. Raising means nurturing. The cow is a symbol of receptivity. The cow does not use its strength. Its nature is almost docile. If people can nurture illumination with flexible receptivity, turning the light of consciousness around to shine inward, which is actually familiar as a Buddhist, as one Zazen instruction, turning the light with the head. Shutting out deviation and preserving truthfulness, first illumining inside, then illumining outside.

[30:03]

And inside and outside will both be illumined. Open awareness will be clear. So that's just a little bit from a Taoist commentary about that hexagram. Again, it's used in this poem mostly just because there is this process that ends up with a five permutation. So a lot of what I've been talking about this morning is kind of technical. What's important is to hear that there is this process of integration. And in various different ways, both in the Soto Zen School and in other parts of East Asian meditative practice and philosophy, there has been this study of how does this work?

[31:05]

What is this process and how does it work that we integrate our sense of taking care of the particulars of our life and nurturing. So this, you know, in terms of the I Ching, it talks about activity and receptiveness and the balance of that and the process of that. And that does fit with this process of these five ranks, these five degrees. And maybe I'll just finish with another version of these five degrees from Dongshan, that Dongshan mentions, and these do seem to actually be a set of almost stages that correlate with the five degrees that I talked about. Again, I'll mention those five again, the phenomenal within the real, or within the ultimate, the ultimate of the real within the phenomenal,

[32:07]

coming from within the phenomena or emerging from that, going within together and then arriving within together, totally integrated. And he also has these five degrees of development of realization of those. So this may be a little more accessible in some ways. The first is called conversion or intention. This is mindful commitment. So we can see these as aspects of practice. The second is service, following and carrying out the practice. The third is achievement. And in our branch of Suzuki Roshi's way of America, we talk about not holding on to particular achievements. But yet, this achievement is described as immersion in non-discrimination. So when we do get some sense of this wholeness, some sense That's great, enjoy it. The fourth is collective achievement.

[33:10]

And even better is, and this is about returning to caring interaction with beings. So this is Sangha, and many aspects of Sangha. How do we take care of those around us? And then fulfilled achievement is individuals and their universal interpenetrating, interconnectedness, seen as identical, not separate. when we see that our interconnectedness and interpenetration with everything and everyone is not separate from ourselves. To take care of others, we need to take care of ourselves. Taking care of ourselves is taking care of others. And how do we do that together? So this is another way of looking at these same five. So that's a lot of stuff. Again, just to say that at the very end of this song of the Jewelmare Samadhi, it talks about the host within the host, which is another way of saying, maybe the fifth one, this ultimate integration is just to do this continuously.

[34:30]

which doesn't mean you don't take a rest or whatever, but to kind of find a way of sustaining this. So the point of our practice isn't to reach some particular fancy state of being or state of mind or state of whatever integration, but just to continue. So for those who came to Zazen Instruction for the first time today, I would emphasize to do this at home in your spare time sometimes too. You're welcome to come back now to practice with us anytime, but also to take time in your during the week, several times a week if you can, to just stop and it doesn't have to be 30 or 40 minutes like we do here, but just to stop and sit and be present and feel what it's like to be present like that, uprightly. So I'll stop now and we have a little bit of time if anyone has comments or questions or responses.

[35:37]

Yes, George. Is Zazen, is meditation in itself sufficient for integration to occur? No, you've got to get up and go out and, you know, you have to get up and do walking meditation. You have to, you know, go out and, you know, interact with family or friends or, you know, people at work or whatever you do. So, now that, maybe that's meditation too in a way, but if you define, so I don't know what you mean by meditation, but we live in the world, in the world of suffering beings. And so our meditation is involved with that. So how does, the point of all of this is how does our experience of settling in meditation express itself in our lives, in all of our lives.

[36:38]

Thanks for the question. It was a lot in there. I was just trying to make sense of it in my own way and I was wondering about the, in some ways you're talking about the ultimate in the particular you're talking about. And then you have us human beings with our particular, you know, brains and bodies and, you know, eyes and nose and how we move through that reality and try to take it in and perceive it.

[37:49]

And so there are times that we are focused that we're focused on our own, you know, somewhat distorted, self-centered ways of perceiving reality, right? And so it's like through practice there can be some glimpses of reality that are more but over time that maybe are less self-centered and more accurate or something. Well, both are accurate.

[38:52]

So it's not that you have to walk around thinking about this stuff. So forget about it. But occasionally you might notice that, oh yeah, I'm taking care of a particular stuff, and that's your job as a human being, as a person in the world. But also, practice gives us this sense, this, I don't know what to call it, this perspective of the ultimate or the universal or the wholeness or this process that's back here beyond that. And it starts to be available. And it's not that we have to kind of try and figure out how to apply it or something like that. It's not something that we manage and direct and control. So that's an important point. It's part of something that becomes part of how we express ourselves. It's an organic a chemical process, so thinking about Taoism maybe is relevant, but it becomes our way of being in the world as we practice.

[40:04]

And you can notice it, you know, but you don't go around thinking about, oh, now I'm in the particular, now I'm in, you know, it's just, it starts to be how we express ourselves. And so having that background sense, if you're practicing regularly, that's there. You don't have to do anything about it. But you start to notice that there is this process. And we can support that, this process of bringing this background awareness into how we express ourselves. It's not that we can control what happens, but we can hang out there. We can allow that process to be how we want to be.

[41:11]

Does that make sense? Yeah, I think I'm just seeing something about the relationship between the self-centered quality and the particular, and they're not the same thing. No. Yeah. So, because I guess I'm kind of focused on moving between the self-centered kind of tendencies and more just seeing things as they are without all that, you know, grasping and controlling, you know. But then in seeing things more as they are, even in there, there is a moving between the particular and the ultimate. And as we get into that process, our self-centered grasping sort of loosens up a little bit. Those tendencies may still be there, but we can notice them and be more

[42:11]

they can have less control over us gradually to some extent. Other comments? Alex? I have a question. I was curious where this sutra fits into the canon of sutras. From my experience, I find this was actually one of the first sutras I kind of came upon in my interest in Buddhism. And it's always been just stuck out. It's really thick and difficult to grasp what's being said here. And I find other sutras much easier to kind of get into. So that's why I was curious if this is just a particular thing for me that I'm having trouble with this, or is this kind of a, it's somewhere in the canon that is, you know, above others or, you know. Well, actually, technically, this song of the Jomar Samadhi isn't sutra as such.

[43:17]

It's a Zen or Chan teaching poem that's part of our Soto Zen tradition. There's a lot of material in here that relates to the sutras. So it's part of the canon in the sense that it's part of the Zen teaching tradition. It refers to material that's from the sutras are technically words of the Buddha, so they come from India, but this is part of the Zen tradition, and it is very, very dense, and it is, you know, and so we've been struggling with it together the last couple of months, and there's lots of now talks on the website about, you know, talking about it, and There's so many different aspects of Buddha's teaching that if there's one text that doesn't work for you, forget about it. There are different aspects to the Buddha's teaching.

[44:20]

Use what helps you. But also you can ask questions about it. or find the parts of it that do speak to you and sit with us. Sorry. Along those lines, I must confess, when you started talking about five this and five that, a lot of sort of numerology and too mystical for my brain, but I think thinking about the relationship between those different aspects of the universal singular can be really, really helpful. I don't know if I think that five-fold is kind of super special in the universe still, but it's very useful to hear that stuff untangled, and I also appreciate

[45:25]

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, no, I'm not claiming that everything in the universe is based on five or anything like that, but it just happens that there are, that there happens to be in Buddhist teachings, you know, a lot of things that are five. There's also a lot of things that are six and that are ten and that are In early Buddhism, they used numbers to help to remember various teachings. Well, it's funny that there's a lot of cognitive science that shows that human brains can't actually remember more than four things. We don't actually count past four. We get a different part of our brain once we start hitting the number five. So that was kind of interesting. I have trouble past three myself. Yeah, most languages, it's one, two, and many. And they do, they stop at three. Thanks. Yes, kiss. So earth, metal, okay, wind, water, fire?

[47:32]

Firewood. Firewood. And then in tantric Buddhism there's earth, wind, water, fire, and space, they do sometimes. Anyway. Any last comments or questions? Yes, Jane? I would like to be a person who could walk around and not think about this all the time, because I do think about it a lot. And I think that, I think it might be because I'm older, and as you get older you become more interested in the universal maybe, and less in your own focus on life. You know, I laugh at things, and if you try to study the atom, you run into the same stuff as if you try to study the universe.

[48:37]

And to me that's just... My field was botany, and if you study plants, it's the same. Everything goes together, and yet everything is universal. me a phenomenon. And I also got into the idea of the, what do you call that thing that you put by your eye and turn it and it keeps changing the design? A kaleidoscope? I think a kaleidoscope is actually just two mirrors that are

[49:16]

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