I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. So why don't we start by chanting the song of the jewel mirror samadhi. The teaching of thusness has been intimately communicated by Buddhas and ancestors. Now you have it, so keep it well. Filling a silver bowl with snow, Hiding a heron in the moonlight when you array them, they're not the same. When you mix them, you know where they are. The meaning is not in the words, yet a response to the inquiring impulse. If you're excited, it becomes a pitfall. If you miss it, you fall into retrospective hesitation. Turning away and touching are both wrong, for it is like a massifier. Just to depict it in literary form is to relegate it to defilement. It is bright just at midnight, it doesn't appear at dawn. It acts as a guide for beings, its use removes all

[01:02]

Though it is not fabricated, it is not without speech. It is like facing a jewel, a mirror, a form, an image. Behold each other. You are not it. It actually is you. It is like a babe in the world in five aspects complete. It does not go or come, nor rise nor stand, blah blah blah blah, is there anything said or not? Ultimately it does not apprehend anything, because its speech is not yet correct. It is like the six lines of the double-split hexagram, relative and absolute, integrate. Piled up they make three, the complete transformation makes five. It is like the taste of the five-flavor herb, like a diamond thunderbolt, subtly included within the truth. Rest. is not within the province of delusion or enlightenment. we're just

[02:25]

But even though the basis is reached and the approach comprehended, the true eternity still flows, outwardly still, while a bit illegally, like a tethered coal, a trapped rat, the ancient saints pity them and bestowed upon them the teaching, according to their delusions they call black, as what, when eroding its imagination, sees the aprias of the mind, realizes If you want to conform to the ancient way, please observe the ancients of former times, when a bath can fill the way of Buddha, who engaged in a tree for ten eons, like a tiger leading part of his prey, a horse with a white left hind leg. Because there is the base, there are dual pedestals, fine footmen. Because there is the starting point, But when arrow points meet head on, what has this to do with the power of skill? When the wooden man begins to sing, the stone woman gets up to dance.

[03:32]

It's not within range of feeling or discrimination. How could it be made of consideration and thought? So, does everybody have, who wants, has everybody gotten the copies of the text, first of all? I think everybody has that. And then, did copies of the, Text of the Chinese, we have some of those. And you can talk to Sonia about arrangements for that. And so tonight, where we're at in the text, we're starting with, although it is not fabricated, it is not without speech.

[04:39]

And there's just all kinds of wonderful things to speech about. in this and the rest of this page, and part of my quandary, which I thought I'd just put out right out front, is that there's the text, which is very interesting, on the surface level, and there's a subtext running through this, which is known as the Five Ranks, and is a complicated issue as to how to talk about. And we're approaching, and actually we're already into it, the first of the Five Ranks, we've passed already. I just wanted to say that, right from the beginning, that there's lots of levels on which this thing works. So I thought we'd start just kind of at the surface level, but before we go on to, although it is not fabricated, it is not without speech, I wanted to ask if there are any questions, comments, reflections, anything up to there. So as I said, I would love to.

[05:44]

in some way finish this whole text in six weeks, but that's maybe unrealistic, considering that many of these sentences we could talk about for six weeks ended up themselves. But does anybody else have anything further to say or ask or comment on, or anything up to there? So it feels like turning away. Nobody wants to touch anything again that we passed by? Turning away and touching are both wrong. Okay. Going once, going twice. Okay, we've already talked about speech as an issue in this text, so part of what What is going on in this text? One of the themes, there's only one of the main themes in this, is language and how we use language and how we express the dual merit samadhi, how we express Buddha's way, how we express the meaning of our life.

[06:53]

So we already hit this sentence, the meaning is not in the words. So our meaning is not in words. There's a meaning beyond words, but there's a response. And this next sentence is somewhat parallel to that. but it takes it a step further. Although it is not fabricated, it is not without speech. So, this fabricated means constructed or put together. So this is kind of a technical term in Buddhism and also in Taoism. This is literally, this is ui, or it has construction. And some of you may have heard of wu-wei, which is a Taoist term, which means non-action. So this is not the opposite of that. Non-action is also a technical Buddhist term. It means, or used as a technical Buddhist term, it means unconstructed, like the unconstructed dharmas. So this is, although it's not a constructed thing, it's not something that's, so again, the it here is always referring back to the teaching of vastness.

[08:05]

So this it is not, this teaching of thusness, this teaching about how, or the dharma, the path about how to be in reality, which has been already communicated to you, and please keep it well, which is, so this whole first sentence is kind of a subject throughout. That's something that's not, that's beyond the realm of things that are put together, or constructed, or fabricated. There's one aspect of it that's psychological. It's like we construct our experience. We make up our world by discriminating. When the light's on, we can distinguish books and papers and microphones and tables and pens and so forth. So there's that level of that we do that, that part of our experience creates the universe, that each of us creates the universe through this psychological process of constructing.

[09:13]

But I think it also implies something more kind of, even beyond, something about the way the world is. It has to do with causation and causality, and that everything is interconnected through mutual causation through dependent arising, through the ways in which, if you take any single place on the net, everything else helps to create that. Everything else is reflected in it. So there's a sense in which, what are the unconstructed dharmas? There's an earlier teaching of Buddhist psychology in which most of mental experience and form is constructed It also includes form, but then there's... What are the ones that aren't constructed, I forget? Space. Space is one of them, right. Nirvana. Yeah, nirvana is not constructed. I don't think time is there exactly.

[10:18]

There's a cessation, I think, of consciousness, which is like this trick you can do temporarily, yogically. It's not the same as enlightenment, but there are meditations that can lead you to the state which is almost like that. The point of this though, even though this teaching of justice is not something like that, it's not something that's put together, it's something that's more fundamental than the things that we put together through our perception and discrimination. Still, it's not without speech. Or it's not without language, it's not without words. So, I'm sorry, you were asking, Mae asked about, to identify these for those of you following the Chinese, this is section eight, this sentence. Ui ni arazu to i e domo kore ponaki ni arazu. Anyway. One of the other translations says, it is not inexpressible.

[11:21]

Yeah, you could say that. But the character there is literally speech or words or language. So it's not inexpressible. It's also not inexpressible through speech. So it's not just that it's not inexpressible, like you might express it non-verbally, but this is also, it specifically refers to verbal expression. So what I think this is pointing at is a kind of language which is part of the language in here, which is also kind of like Koan language or like language that is used to point to, is used to express and point to this experience that is the subject of all of this, which is this dual Mara Samadhi, which is another name for Zazen. there is some way of talking about it. Even though the meaning is not in the words, there's a way of using language to... There's a kind of language that is an expression of the teaching of thusness.

[12:34]

Does that make sense? I think reading some of the koans or reading some of the old stories, we can get a sense of that. But there's a teaching here about how to talk about it. And so far we don't know what that is exactly, but it keeps saying that there is a way to talk about it. And... Presumably this is the way. Yeah. It doesn't quite say that, but it's talking about it. You can judge that yourself, whether or not this text actually helps to bring you closer to this experience of the Jhalmera Samadhi is the test. in light with the Buddha saying, be a lamp unto yourself, you can see if this jewel mirror, this teaching about the jewel mirror helps you to have some sense of what that experience is.

[13:49]

Well, it goes on to say, it is like facing a jewel mirror. So we talked about this the first class, but I think we should talk about it some more. It is like facing a jewel mirror. Form and image behold each other. you are not it, it actually is you." So, I think this, you are not it, it actually is you, is one of the most important sentences in this whole text. Well, I may say that about a number of them. This is section 9 and 10 of the Chinese and Japanese So it is like facing a dual mirror when the form and the image, the figure and the reflection, the appearance and the shadow are meeting each other, facing each other. And then this thing, you are not it, or you could read it, you are not him, he actually is you. This pronoun here is kind of indefinite. But again, I would suggest that it's talking about the teaching of thusness.

[14:58]

you are not, or thusness itself, or the way to live in thusness. So teaching of thusness is the dharma of thusness, the way to be, the way to recognize and follow and be in accord with things as they are. So this you are not it, it actually is you, As I mentioned in the first class, this is a reference to another earlier poem by Dongshan, which he wrote upon his awakening experience. And I told this story in the first class, but Dongshan left his teacher, Yunyan. As he was leaving, he said, if somebody asks me, how should I express your teaching, or how should I express your reality? And Dongshan, and Yunyan, Dongshan's teacher, paused for a while and said, just this is it.

[16:00]

And Dongshan thought about it and smiled, didn't say anything and left. And was thinking about it, still reflecting on it. And the story is that he was wading through a river. Here's a picture of this. Fortunately, somebody was following him to kind of, you know. Do you take? Courtroom sketch. Yeah, right, the courtroom sketch, right. And he was awakened seeing his reflection in the river. So this thing about self and other or about form and image or about form and reflection is part of that story too. And what he wrote was, just don't seek from others or you'll be far estranged from self. I now go on alone, meeting it everywhere. It now is just what I am. I now am not it." Or, it actually is what I am.

[17:05]

I now. I am not it. You must comprehend in this way to merge with thusness. And I talked about this the first class in terms of this saying from Dogen. that's in, is it Genja Koan, to bring yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion, that myriad things come forward and experience themselves is awakening. So I think that's another way of saying the same thing. When you bring yourself forward and experience things, experience the world of objects in terms of yourself, you know, I'm saying this, I'm seeing this, then you're bringing your own Already your own construction of self separated from objects, of self separated from others, of others separated from each other, of things, of the world as dead and objective.

[18:06]

So you are not it. It's not you. It's not your ideas about the way that things are. It's not the way you want to impose or project yourself on things or how you want to control things. But it actually is you. Everything you see is you. Everybody you've ever met is you. Every place you've ever been is actually what you are. And when you allow things to just be there and experience themselves, that's awakening. So... Does that make sense? It's not like what you are, it's more like it complements what you are. It makes a whole. It has to direct. What are you talking about, it actually is you? Yeah. You said it... You said, and you're saying it actually, you're changing it to, it actually complements you, or you're asking, yeah.

[19:14]

I mean, it's you and the language makes it sound like, it's not like what you're saying, it's a replica of you. When you look in a mirror, it's exactly your direct reflection. Is that right? Right. But I don't think it's that it complements you exactly. It's like any one thing is the total sum of everything else. Like if you draw a circle, then the circle is defined by everything that's not the circle. I mean, in the whole universe, that's that thing. So it's like... Yeah. But what you said about replica and reflection I think is interesting in this context. We are talking about image and appearance and reflection. how we meet that.

[20:17]

So what this is about is how do we meet the world? How do we face whatever is our experience? What is our relationship to what is the you in the middle of whatever it is that your experience is? Day to day, going to the Zen, going to the kitchen, walking down the path, going to your job, talking to your friends, whatever. What is the relationship between it and you? It is all of it. So this idea of a mirror in Asia, Japan, and I'm pretty sure in China, they have mirrors that are like, it looks like a mirror, you hold it up and it's a round thing, and it's not like a reflecting glass, but like some sculpted scene sometimes, and they call that a mirror. So traditionally in Japan they have mirrors where there's all these sculpted cranes and tortoises and trees and stuff, and that's called a mirror. So a mirror can be something that you look into that actually reflects your image, but also there are things which are called mirrors which are an image of the world.

[21:27]

So we have this idea of mirror which is like you know, right and left are kind of opposite, but actually the whole world is in mirrors, or, I don't know, this is playing with that idea. I don't understand why, if everything reflects everything else and everything contains the whole universe, then why, I don't understand the first part of this, why is it true that you are not it? Why aren't we off each bit? It seems sort of you existed before it. It's not that way. You existed before it? Yeah, as if they're separate. You did exist before it? Or I think in this it's like, if you say you are not it, it's maybe what you're saying is to it, or maybe it works.

[22:37]

What I thought you were saying is that the you, if you have a you that exists before it, that's not it. Is that what you were saying? Yeah. The idea of you that you have is yourself. Yeah, to carry yourself forward, you know, this is who I am, and experience myriad things. That's delusion. Then you're experiencing, you're experiencing things through these eyes which, you know, and actually this is how we are. So this is actually related to this next line about abatement in the world. But when we, this has to do with the whole process of how we see other or the world or environment. Self and environment. And there's this, in terms of, there's this Buddhist psychological teaching about Manas consciousness, which is the consciousness where you distinguish self from the whole world. Where you start to, there's this faculty of perception, consciousness, awareness.

[23:44]

that is one of the levels of consciousness where you say, that's out there, that's an object, that including everything. So this kind of separation, the split we make, where we define ourselves. And we see it in a three-year-old nephew who's, actually this happened about a year ago, but now he's quite into language and defining things and all. But watching him, develop languages and there's this kind of faculty that happens where children at that age, two or three, actually kind of develop this kind of split. But it happens younger too on different levels. And it's something that we're all doing all the time. It's like how our consciousness works. And this is saying that that separation is not it. Well, it's kind of, I think what confuses me is that I think it's not, I think of it as being like a mathematical equation where you say it is actually you.

[24:50]

In math, you put things on either side of the equal sign, you can switch it around and it's still equal, but you can't do that. Right, that's right. Everything depends on how you begin. You begin from you. You begin from small self then. A part of it isn't it, by definition, isn't the whole of it. But the whole of it does include the part of it. That's right, and it's also directional, I think. It's really hard to talk about this. It's kind of like, I want these arms. But, I mean, it's my mind that's just sending those arms. I mean, I'm not there, but actually I'm... What you are is, at that moment, defined by however you perceive whatever's in front of you, yeah.

[26:00]

So there's this level of this that's kind of phenomenological like that. It's about perception in a way. It's about how our mind works. That's one level of this. The word actually here, I want to point out, is the same word show in showbo-genzo, true or correct. You could say it truly is you. I wasn't sure when to start this, but this is actually the second rank. It actually is you. You said the second rank? Yeah. Okay. There's this whole thing about five aspects, fives here. Are they in order, or…? Yeah, so maybe I should… So I was thinking I would do that after we talked about Baba Wawa. Let me just run through that really, this next little section, and then come back to this fiveness that's going on here.

[27:06]

So, it's like a babe in the world and five aspects complete. This baby in the world, that means we could say common or worldly or… any baby infant. It's like an ordinary infant. There's another way of reading that. This in the world means just any infant in the world. In Five Aspects Complete, so this is in the text, section 11. In Five Aspects Complete, is interesting. This means in five marks or five characteristics, it completely possesses. Another way of saying that, again, this is a technical Buddhist term, but there are no outflows. There are no... So, this is the level of the infant who has not yet made the distinction between self and other.

[28:09]

Now scientists can see, and actually all of us can see sometimes, you can see a newborn baby and see kind of characters, characteristics and aspect, you know, you can see some kind of quality of characteristic. But there's another level too, where an infant is In terms of their own perception and process, they haven't separated themselves out. Maybe Mother's Breast is like this thing that they recognize is amazing, but it's not like they're making distinctions. There's this kind of quality of the whole world is the whole world. It's all kind of merged. That's all part of its body. The whole world was one body. Of course, we're kind of hypothesizing this now because we're not in that state. And this is based, this kind of way of talking about what is it like to be that kind of infant is, you know, not… We're assigning language to it.

[29:14]

Right, exactly. We're defining it. where we're kind of postulating that there's this consciousness before definition. And if you look at how an infant functions, it seems to be that they're just kind of there. And when they're hungry, they start crying, but they're just totally crying. I mean, it's just one thing going on. And in a sense, an ordinary infant is complete in terms of five aspects. And these are five aspects of the Buddha too. So the Buddha doesn't go or come. doesn't arise, doesn't... stand means actually to stay or abide, doesn't sit. So they talk about a Buddha neither coming or going. Does rise mean the opposite of stand? Get up and move. Or go away or stay still, sort of. Yeah, so that's one way to talk about it. It literally means to get up, to arise. And what it says stand, it means to abide, to stay put.

[30:18]

So what are the five aspects? So one is not going, not coming, not arising, not staying. And the fourth is speaking. So we have another reference to speaking. Wa, wa, wa, wa. Is there anything said or not? Is there anything expressed or not expressed? So the saying of this, anything said or not, is the fifth... The fifth aspect? Yeah. So those are... There's one or two different aspects around it. There's a footnote somewhere that goes into this pretty clearly and clearly. I think it's in Pell. But there's actually a reference from the, I think it's the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, if you're interested in this. Yeah, so a Tathagata, thus come one, which is another name for Buddha, the common infant is analogous to the behavior of the Tathagata.

[31:22]

An infant is characterized by the inability to get up, stay put, come, go away, or talk. Similarly, the Tathagata does not raise the thought of any dharma, does not abide in any dharma, does not have a body that would be capable of actions such as coming, does not go anywhere because he is already in nirvana, and although he has taught the dharma for living beings, has in fact said nothing. And there's some system in Chinese where they say the ba of ba, ba, wa, wa, wa, and the They equate the first one with permanence and the unconditioned, and the second one with the teaching of impermanence. But that's kind of a third-hand interpretation, I think. What footnote is that? This is the material you have. This is footnote number 1, page 87 of the PAL. Is Baba Wawa a translation? Baba Wawa, it's baby talk.

[32:23]

So is it phonetic in Chinese? Yeah, it's phonetic, so it's po-po-ho-ho in Chinese or something like that. So why does it say po-po-ho-ho? Because we used to chant this in... Why did we change it to ba-ba-wa-wa? Because the Japanese pronounce it ba-ba-wa-wa and we, for a while, used to chant this in Japanese. I see. Back in the old days before we had a good translation. So this is baby talk translating? It's baby talk, right. This is Japanese baby talk, although the baba is also, I don't know if this is incidental, but the baba also means like old woman or grandmother, and the wa of wawa means speak. But I think the meaning is not important. It's baby talk. Anyway, the thing about is there anything said or not, is there speech or not, is also parallel to Does a Buddha talk or not? So this again is another reference to how, I counted eight references to speech in this whole thing, book pages. But there's a story, for example, that Buddha was asked what was his main teaching throughout his life, or what was the teaching of his whole life, or something like that.

[33:36]

And he said he had never said anything since he was enlightened. to talk about the dual merasamadhi is to talk without defining things, without actually saying anything. So this is just a white page, you know, on some level. Or this is a commentary on silence. The whole thing is just a commentary on silence. The experience of the dual merasamadhi is beyond any language. It's unfabricated. Still, it is not without speech. There is a way to talk about it that doesn't get caught in subject and object or in taking this side or that side. So there's this balancing act that's going on all through here. We talked about this, I think, in the first class too, that one of the issues along with speech that's in here is balancing of the universal or the absolute level of reality and the particular or the relative level.

[34:38]

And that's exactly what this five rank stuff is about. We're about to get to the hexagram, so let me get to there, and then we'll go back to the five. Ultimately, it does not apprehend anything because its speech is not yet correct. This correct here is the third use of the show, the third truth. This is something I just discovered yesterday, looking at the text, that there are five uses of the character, show or true. They all have different readings. Yeah, but it's the same character. So in a different context, it's reasonable to translate it differently. But it's also, when I realized it and looked through it and saw that Dongshan's poems about the five ranks actually match up with those five places. The thing about... Okay, so we can come back and go over all of this stuff more, but I want to kind of push ahead in order to kind of get to the other level that's going on here.

[35:49]

Ultimately, or finally, or in the end, it does not apprehend anything because its speech is not yet correct. Its speech is not yet true. So this is about this common worldly infant. this kind of consciousness that does not have distinction, discrimination. Finally, does not apprehend anything. The word that's translated there is apprehend is literally to gain or attain. It doesn't actually get it because its speech is not yet correct, because its speech is not yet true. So part of what this is talking about is that we have to learn how to talk about this to totally understand, what, to totally, I don't know, understand, to totally be in this dual merit samadhi. Part of what's going on here is learning the language. So this is learning the language, how to talk about zazen without getting caught by

[36:56]

our usual subject-object distinctions, without talking in such a way that we actually get caught and think we live in a world that's full of dead objects, where we actually see the interaction and the ways in which the world is alive. So... Would you say it doesn't apprehend anything? make more sense to say, there is no apprehension. And what does not apprehend? Oh, good question. The baby. The baby. Yeah, I think in this sentence, the it there refers back to the baby. Oh, what does the baby refer to? An ordinary infant. Literally, for that sentence, in the Chinese it says, In the end, nothing is gained. There's no attainment of anything.

[38:00]

And I kind of think it might that, in terms of our talking about non-gaining attitude and all that, that we shouldn't just take it as negative. Finally, it does not apprehend anything. That's OK. It's not gaining anything. That's another way to say that, literally. because his speech is not yet true, because his words, his expressions are not yet. This word true here, which is translated correct in this place, means true, correct, upright, and it's one of the two poles that we talked about. So we're almost ready to talk about the five ranks. but it also seems to be saying there isn't. Just to depict it in literary form is to relegate it to defilement.

[39:02]

So how can you get to the point where you could actually talk about it in true speech? Well, true speech is not literary form, then. So literary form is kind of like fancy words, is the way to translate that. So there's a way to talk about it, but it's not through kind of worldly literary qualities. It's not through fancy expressions. Well, literary has an aspect of writing it down. I think in this case the word that they translate as literary, that Cleary translates as literary, means that, but it also has the implication of fancy adornments, fancy expressions. We'll go back for that. The word that he translates as literary also could be translated as rhetorical flourishes as a compound.

[40:18]

Colorful phrases. So it has that kind of sense. So this thing about not yet true, this refers back to this upright and biased is one way it's talked about. In fact, those are the characters that are used here, which are translated as relative and absolute. So there are these two aspects of our experience that we've talked about some already, but What's going on in this particular passage, in this section, is talking about the interplay between the two of them. So on the one side there's the true, or the upright, or the correct, or the absolute, or the universal, or what's talked about as the host, the host within the host.

[41:24]

And then there's the particular, or the phenomenal, or the, it's talked about in terms of upright and biased, or the relative, absolute and relative, universal and particular. So the universal is that we're all empty of self-existence, or that we are all, how are we all the same? Sue, how would you express what the universal is? Aren't we all the same? No. No, we're all impermanent. Good. Impermanence is permanence, right? Is anybody else warm?

[42:25]

Oh, okay. See, it's the same class as last week. So, okay, the one side is the upright, the correct, the true, the universal. Maybe I should say each one with the other side. Upright and biased, true and... It's not true and false, but the true and the partial. We could say the complete and the partial. The universal and the particular. I think that's maybe a good way to kind of understand it. The universal is what is universally true of everything. The particular is each thing is a particular jewel on the net, is a particular expression, is a unique expression of totality of blessings. So there's these two sides of our experience.

[43:31]

There's these two sides of our awareness as we enter this realm. And what's going on here is this kind of dialectical process of their interacting, and there's a fiveness to it. So there's various vibes here. Before I say anything else, it's kind of controversial teaching. It's kind of the fundamental Soto philosophical teaching, at least in China. But traditionally, it's kind of suggested not to study it too much or not to get too caught up in it as a system. And there have been, there are books full of philosophical kind of discourses based on the system of five and trying to analyze things in terms of the system of five. Dogen, for example, very strongly suggests that this is a waste of time, basically, and not to get caught up in this five-ness, and not to see things only in terms of universal and particular.

[44:32]

On the other hand, there's a way in which it's very useful. So in a sense the fact that it's kind of in here not so explicitly is not unintentional. And I think in terms of our studying it, we can study it in more or less detail. I think maybe what's most useful is just to be aware that there is this kind of polarity and that there is this kind of five-fold process of our dialectical relationship between the absolute and the relative. Does that make any sense? Do you know when the system of fives first sort of appeared? In this text. Okay. Are you going to tell us what are the fives? As explicitly as this text gets, it says that it is like the six lines of the double-split hexagram.

[45:34]

the particular or the biased and the upright, the partial and the true, interrelate or rotate or turn on each other or integrate. Piled up they make three, the complete transformation makes five. Okay, this is a reference to the I Ching. Is there anybody here who's familiar with the I Ching? It doesn't matter, you don't need to know about the I Ching. I'm gonna go through a little bit of it just because it's mentioned in here. But Dongshan mentioning the I Ching would be like somebody in England mentioning the Bible or Shakespeare. I mean, it's like a common reference that intelligent people in China, that educated people in China would know about. And there are various commentaries that talk about the quality of this particular hexagram and so forth. And it's a little bit interesting, but it's not the main point that he's making.

[46:39]

He's picking a particular hexagram. So the I Ching is a system of 64 sets of six lines. And they're yang and yin, which we can see is positive and negative. any six hexagrams together make up a, any six lines together make up what's called a hexagram. And those are made up of sets of three lines, which you can see here. And each of these kind of corresponds with an image. And the point, so there's actually five, a set of five hexagrams that are relevant to this text. They're up on the board. For anybody who's interested in I Ching stuff, I can go into this a little bit more, but nobody's expressed a lot of interest so far. Basically, the first one is the image of wind repeated, the second one is the image of lake, and then

[47:47]

The relationship of the two, when you put them together, gets two others. And then the fifth one is the one that's referred to specifically here, the double-split hexagram, which is fire repeated. And it's hexagram number 30, for those of you... That's the one that's fire? Yeah. It's fire over fire. Fire over fire, and it's synergy is the one translation of it, or clinging. So those, I didn't mention what hexagrams those are. For those of you interested in this stuff, the first one is 57, wind. The second one is 58, lake. Okay, first one is 57, which is wind. Second one is 58, which is lake or delight. If you don't know how to consult the I Ching, don't worry about this. 28 is predominance of greatness or passing of the great. And then the fourth one is inner trust or sincerity in the center, number 61.

[48:50]

And then the fifth is number 30, which is the one that he specifically refers to. Where did you get these other ones from? Yeah, the first four. Where did they come from? Well, this particular interpretation is from Yanagida Seizan, but there are various interpretations. He was one of the leading Japanese Zen scholars. But there are particular interpretations based on the I Ching of this text, because he does mention the I Ching in here. The main reason he mentions it, though, is that there's this way in which these 64 six-line symbols are kind of 64… their kind of computer program is built around it. It's a binary system and there are 64 possible combinations. So there's something that's mathematically kind of you know, complete about this system. And it's a traditional, I mean, it's a very old Chinese system. It goes back to 1000 B.C.

[49:50]

at least. And it's, so there's a whole system of philosophy that is fundamental to Chinese philosophy that's based on this. And it's in Taoism and Confucianism. But Dogen isn't mentioning the other four. Don't shop well, he's mentioning Is the where that comes from is piled up they make three and the complete transformation makes five. So what's that? Those are the five No, no Okay, so what this is about though is there's a way of working with these lines that has to do with seeing relationships between them so if you take wind, for example, which is an open line and two solid lines above it, and take parts of that. There's a system, which I don't know and is not really so important, but a lot of people reading this at that time would have understood this, that for that particular hexagram, the last one, fire or synergy or clinging, the way to unfold that from within the hexagram, the different parts of that,

[51:06]

makes three. And then when you... I mean, three other hexagrams? There's three steps. So one interpretation of the... Three transformations? Yeah, three different symbols. Is it about taking the top line from wind and moving it to the bottom? No, it's actually from taking like the... Start with the last hexagram. It's actually about taking the second, third, and fourth line. reading from the bottom. The second, third, and fourth line is called an inner trigram. And then the third, fourth, and fifth line is called an outer trigram or something like that. And so the second, third, and fourth is wind. The third, fourth, and fifth is lake. So that's the three. And then there's another way where they work it out where then you have two other hexagrams based on that. There's wind, and then there's lake, and then there's wind above the lake, and lake above the wind. And each of those has... So, this is particularly just a process that they were familiar with that comes out of this last hexagram.

[52:14]

So he's just using this as an example of fiveness, really. There is another reference later maybe to something from the fifth hexagram. Particularly the fifth hexagram, the double-split hexagram, the fire hexagram, is kind of interesting to look at in terms of other things in the Song of the Dual Mere Samadhi. Is the question of where does the student stop? Oh, no, I don't think it's related to that. That's interesting, maybe. What's the reference for the discussion on these hexagrams? Well, there are lots of places where it's discussed. Yanagida Cezanne, and I think I got that actually from Powell. But there's, see, okay, there was a whole philosophy built up around, or a whole systematic thing built up around that with diagrams. Okay, here, I'll lay this stuff on. There are whole sets of diagrams of five with circles, with partly shaded and partly white, and there's a whole process.

[53:24]

And part of this goes back to Huayen, or Aba Thomsaka's whole dialectic system, and this is an outgrowth of that. So there's this whole system there. And this system of five that's developed implicitly in here, again, I don't know how much we should talk about it. We can go into it some more or we can kind of just know that it's there and stay with the surface level of the text. But basically... Isn't there a system of fives that pertains to the construct of the human body? Also in Chinese, in... There are a number of systems of fives. Yeah, there's... Actually, the structure of the Zen monasteries in China is based on fives, you could say, because there's the... There's the Buddha hall, and then there's like the head and the shoulders and the legs. So there are various fives.

[54:28]

There's also... five elements in the Chinese system. I mean, there's the four elements, earth, air, water, and fire, but there's also wood, metal, wind, fire, and air, wind, fire, and water. So there's lots of fives. But what this is about is that there are five, there is a particular five-ness relationship between this universal and particular. And there are books that go into these philosophies about it, and there are various diagrams that work it out. And there have been Soto monks in China and Japan who've spent a lot of time analyzing this and applying it to various other teachings and so forth. But I think the main thing is to see how there is this relationship between the absolute and the relative.

[55:33]

So there are five ranks, and we should go into it a little more. The first one is the phenomenal within the real, is one way to talk about it. So real is another word for true. Phenomenal is a word for biased. So the phenomena within the real. Second one, or we could say the relative within the absolute. Yeah. Then the second relation, these five are not like five steps of achievement or something. These are five like kind of ways in which these things interact. They're not like a progression like, you know, you don't climb, you know, the fifth isn't the best or something like that. These are just five kind of unfoldings. So the first one is the phenomena within the real or the relative realm, particular realm within the absolute. Second one is the absolute within the relative or the real within the phenomenal. And these are defined in various slightly different ways to their various permutations on these five.

[56:41]

Third one is the coming from within the absolute, coming from within the real, emerging from the absolute. The fourth is going within together, where you have both relative and absolute. Going within together is one translation of it. Going within together. Can you say that again? Okay, another way of saying that would be... I don't like that way of saying it. Okay, so the first one is the relative and the absolute, the second is the absolute and the relative, third one is coming from within the absolute, fourth one you could say going within both absolute and relative. Going within. Going within or coming within.

[57:41]

Yeah, going within. Going within together. So it's actually using both, the absolute and relative, the universal and the particular. And the fifth one is arriving within both together, which is where you have the relative and the absolute together to such an extent that you don't distinguish them. So in a sense, that's an ontological culmination of these five. But it's not like it's, you know, like a higher level or something. The fourth one, going within both absolute and relative, uses both particulars in the sense of the universal with familiarity. It uses both. The fifth one, arriving within both together, you use both without making any distinction. You don't see them as separate. They're totally integrated. So the fourth, you have them both. The fifth one, there's no distinction, in a sense, where you don't see any separation between them.

[58:45]

This whole thing can seem really abstract and intellectual and not so relevant to our ordinary, how do we get through the day or whatever, but there's a way in which just knowing about this, we can see that there is this interplay of this sense of the real and the sense of something incomplete. There's lots of different ways to talk about it. So is the it, the absolute, and the true, the relative? No, no. That's an important point, thank you. Yeah, so the teaching of thusness is all five of them. It's not that the true is good and the partial is not good. These are, so, this is like in the merging of difference and unity where he says, merging with principle is still not enlightenment.

[59:54]

It's not that, so merging in oneness, you know, kind of seeing, like we were talking about this morning, seeing everything as one and just kind of this wonderful blissing out, that's not it. That's like one side, you know. There's also how do we function in the regular ordinary world? which is why Zen training emphasizes sweeping the walk and cutting carrots and just doing everyday stuff. So it's a step past just seeing the world as dead objects. just to know that there is this quality of sameness, universality, which is part of our life too. So part of the process of experiencing this dual merit samadhi is seeing this other level of the absolute or the true or the thusness or suchness. Well, okay, now I just did that. I just created thusness with the true, excuse me. To see this, yeah, go ahead. I'm interrupting.

[60:56]

I just wanted some clarification. Go ahead and finish. Well, just that, to see, to see that, first you see, you know, from one point of view you can say, first you see the relative, you see the, you know, and everybody sees that, everybody, or at least once, once you're three years old or whatever and you make distinctions, then you see the relative world, the phenomenal world. Then there's the level of going back and seeing the fundamental or the absolute or the universal or however you want to say that. And then you have to see that, but that's, then there's coming from within the absolute, which is where you kind of, you know, really get this glow on and feel all blissed out because you've merged with everything. But then you have to come back out into, well, what do I do about that? How do I function in the world? You can have some great experience in there, but you still have all your nasty habits there, you know? And so you're saying that's the complete transformation, which makes five. That transformation that you were just talking about.

[61:56]

Well, this complete transformation, yeah, in a way. I think in a way this is just saying that this is just about some particular mathematical process using easy chain lines. But also I think it's true, yeah, that the complete transformation that I'm talking about makes five, because then there's a merging from kind of being merged with the absolute, then there's seeing that they're both. the, we could say the practical or the phenomenal and the universal. The kind of quality of principle or oneness or something. We talk about it in terms of oneness in many. Unity and diversity, or unity and particularity. So then you see that they're both, and then the last stage is to see, is to work with both together in such a way that, you know, that it's as if they were the same. It's not that they're exactly the same. That's because you still have all five of those. And all five of them are always operated in the same way.

[62:59]

So how does that relate to synergy? Or fire? Which is the fifth? Okay. Partly I think this is just a... One answer to that is that it's not particularly about that. This is just an example of this mathematical thing that happened with this particular hexagram. So that's one answer. The other answer is that There have been commentators on this who've talked about that particular hexagram, and one idea is even that this line we haven't gotten to yet about making mistakes is auspicious, do not disregard it, is almost like the first line or the first step of that hexagram. Because it's there, I'll read what it says, the basic part of this hexagram, the first impression. It says, fire is beneficial if correct, then there is success. Raising a cow brings good fortune, which is not irrelevant since we'll talk about cows later on in the Dhromare Samadhi.

[64:03]

Then the overall judgment is fire is clinging. The sun and moon cling to the sky. Plants cling to the earth. So this is a little bit like form and image behold each other, or there's this way in which this clinging has to, we can see that as having to do with mirror and reflection. Clinging to what is correct with twofold illumination transforms and perfects the world. Flexibility clings to balance and correctness, and so is successful. Therefore, raising a cow brings good fortune. And then the image is illumination doubled makes fire. Great people illumine the four quarters with continuing illumination. So this could be read as fire. It could also be written as illumination. So it says illumination doubled. It's two fire trigrams together. That's what they say.

[65:06]

I'm kind of stuck getting myself... If you were to read those lines... This is complicated stuff, and I think I'm going too fast. If you were to read those lines, the double-split hexagram are the diagrams that you were showing us, and you've given us some kind of relationship to those. Right. When you say that the relative and absolute integrate, piled up, they make three, you're talking about the third rank. Is that... And then the complete transformation is five, or the fifth rank, or the... Yeah. Is that what you're saying? No. Not really. Maybe so. Actually, maybe they can be read that way. I'm not sure, you know. I'm studying this with you. There are some commentaries in English, but not enough. I think one level of what it means is just that there is relative and absolute, and that relative and absolute integrate. Then, referring back, they are like this double-split hexagram, because when it's piled up, it makes three. And this happens with the biased and the upright.

[66:13]

And then the complete transformation of this double-split hexagram makes five, and the relative and absolute also, when they are completely transformed, they make five. So yeah, it's kind of referring, it's using this hexagram as an analogy to what happens in the process of working through universal and particular. So three and five have nothing to do with the ranks, necessarily? I'm not sure. I read it a little differently. I have no idea why. I'm probably wrong, but I thought that when it was talking about relative, it was referring to the piled up three. And when it was talking about absolute, it was talking about the rearrangements or transformations that the relative three go through in order to come up with the other two. No, because what's piled up are the relations. This is not about relative or absolute.

[67:14]

It's about the relationship between the two of them. phenomenal side of our experience relates to this kind of universal or oneness or unified side of our experience. And there's this kind of balancing that's going on all the way through this. So it's about balancing, and there's this kind of five-fold balance. You know, when we were studying this Janatasara with Mel, they have all these analogies for how it works, the five things. And the Chinese, the hexagram analogy was sort of incidental. I mean, it sort of like helped sort of plug in and give credibility to culture at the time, but it doesn't seem to be very fruitful to kind of delve into it to understand relative and absolute, you know, the five rings. Right, it is kind of a secondary thing. There have been commentaries based on these hexagrams, though.

[68:18]

Yeah, you can do that. But it's not, yeah, it's a distraction. You can go on forever with it. Yeah. The point is, though, that there is this five-fold relationship between these two sides of our experience. And the hexagrams themselves are maybe a little interesting, but kind of secondary. The next two are, I want to go back a little bit, but first let's go ahead. So we're moving backwards and forwards here. And we haven't finished with any of it. But it is like the taste of the five-flavored herb, like a diamond thunderbolt. Those are just more analogies. So the five-flavored herb is a common spice in China. It's a particular herb that is said to have this complex taste. And I actually, there was a Hunan, my favorite Hunan restaurant in New York, in Upper Broadway, which is this little hole in the wall, serves something wonderful called five-taste chicken. And it had the five-flavored herb in it, I'm sure.

[69:21]

And it was delicious. And I don't know that my palate was sophisticated enough to separate all five, but it was a complex taste. So the Diamond Thunderbolt is another example of five. So this is the Diamond Thunderbolt. This is, in Tibetan, called a dorje. In Sanskrit, it's called a vajra. And there are various different ones of them. You have another one, right? Did you? Yeah, so some of them have, like, that one has... This one has nine. Seven or nine. This has five. There's a center and then there's four. So this is a diamond thunderbolt. And it's, again, it's just an analogy. There's five. Actually, this one is like a horse with a white left hind leg because there's one missing. This particular one, which is, is there some story about that? I don't know the story about it. Anyway, there's a whole symbolism to what this thing is, and that's beyond the scope of getting into tonight, but these were used in all of Buddhism, and basically it's, this is again just used here in this case as an example of fiveness, okay?

[70:32]

He's talking about this fiveness quality. What's it called, the diamond thunderbolt? Diamond because it's adamant, because it's the hardest substance. A diamond cuts glass. No, but diamond is used, it means, not just translated as adamantine, but it means it can cut anything. It's the hardest substance there is. Can it cut through illusion? Yeah, it's the same work. So the Diamond Sutra is also Vajrachetika. It means the Diamond that cuts through illusions, the Sutra of the Diamond that cuts through illusions. and subtly included within the true, and this is the fifth use of true, so I'm gonna go back over this.

[71:34]

This is like the fifth rank. Subtly or wondrously included inside the true, inside the absolute, inquiry and response come up together. This is a pretty neat sentence, actually. Wondrously inserted, we can say, inside the absolute, inside the correct, Inquiry and response means that, but literally it's like drumming and singing. Literally, it does mean inquiry and response, but it means like, this goes back to in response to the inquiring impulse, right? So, Sue? She looked up. See, that's inquiry and response. It's like this audit, it's talking about, it's not talking about asking some intellectual question and getting some answer. It's about, and you hear a sound. It's an immediate quality. It's like drumming and dancing, maybe, or, you know, or this looks forward to when the wooden man begins to sing.

[72:42]

Let's tell him he gets up to dance. So ko, the translator here is e, you're saying is also, is drumming, I think. Let me find it in the text. It's actually covered. This is, yes. Drumming, it can also be translated as drumming, beating, yeah. So that's section 16 for those of you following in the Chinese. And it's the show, the second part could be also yelling or chanting or preaching. But it's to hit and to yell is also. So like if you hit someone, they might yell. It's like this immediate response. And it also means questioning and answering. And they come up together. Another meaning for this word come up is they're celebrated together. They celebrate each other. Or they're celebrated as a pair.

[73:48]

So all through this, okay, I feel like we've actually gone through the first level of just talking about this five-ness because all through this, there's this inquiry and response. There's this kind of polarity which it's working with. There's calling and responding. There's hey you, yes. There's hospital. Through the whole text, there's this two-sidedness which is being worked out in five. So, part of what this is all about is like, how do you hold subject and object together? How do you hold separation together? How do you see that self and the world are not these kind of separate, dead, objective things? That there is this dance. This is a song. We said in the beginning of the first class, this is the song of the Juhamara Samadhi. So this is a song or a dance about how we keep together these two sides of our life.

[74:53]

And there's lots of different two sides that are here. There's lots of, and it's all about, this song is all about how these things interact, how they interrelate, how they celebrate each other. You could say, inquiring and responding, celebrate each other. So now I wanna go back and just mention where the five are. The first one, it is truly, it is bright just at midnight. You could read that it is truly bright at midnight. That's the first rank. That's the first use of this show. The second one is... Yeah, I'm sorry. Bright's not the first rank. What is bright just at midnight? It's the first... Well, okay. This is just... This is a theory I have, okay? That's the first rank is bright just at midnight? Yeah. It's a phenomenon within the male? Yeah. And I'll go back and show you further how I mean this, but let me just identify them first. The first, right now all I'm identifying is the five uses in this text of this character, truth or absolute, or correct or upright.

[75:55]

The first one, it is uprightly bright or it is correctly bright at midnight. The second one is you are not it, it truly is you. That's the second use of this character, true. So you are not idiot. It truly is you, or it actually is you. It actually is not incorrect there in that context, but the character for it is this correct. The third one is because of speech is not yet correct. And the fourth one is the relative and absolute integrate. That relative and absolute, the way he translates it there, literally it's the biased and the upright, or the partial and the correct. And that absolute there is also this character true. Can you say that one again?

[76:56]

The relative and absolute integrate? Yeah. So the word, the character that's translated there is absolute. is this character true, or upright, or correct? And then the fifth one is subtly included within the true. Drumming and singing celebrate each other, inquiring and responding, calling and answering. Come up all the way to the end, come up together. Well, no, I'm just talking about these five pieces of character. But yeah, okay. Well, yeah, this is my theory right now. And so I passed out for the beginning of the Pal these verses that were written later by Dongshan about the five ranks. So this is before the Pal translation of this. So this is the time to look at those. I just want to say, I feel like we haven't really fully honoured just the surface level of everything that's going on in this part of the text that we've talked about.

[78:00]

There's a lot more to talk about in terms of, ultimately, does not apprehend anything because its speech is not yet correct, for example. Or about the babe, the worldly babe. And the you are not, it actually is you. There's a lot more we can say about all that, and this is stuff that we can sit with and work with, and there's lots of koans here. But anyway, just to kind of talk about my theory about these five, the first place in the text, again, where it says, where it appears, the character true appears, it is truly bright at midnight, it doesn't appear at dawn. verses for the five ranks. The first one is the phenomena within the real. And he says, at the beginning of the night's third watch, which is midnight. Does everybody have this? It's page 61 of this. You should all have this. The phenomena within the real is the first stage, the first step.

[79:01]

of these five, and it says, at the beginning of the night's third watch, in other words, at midnight, before there is moonlight, don't be surprised to meet, yet not recognize, what is surely a familiar face from the past. So this is a little bit like, it is truly bright at midnight, doesn't appear at dawn. So he says here, don't be surprised to meet, but yet not recognize. So it's a little kind of overtone there. It's about midnight, both of them. The second one is the real within the phenomena. And this is the second place where he uses the character true is you are not it, it actually is you. Form and image behold each other. And we have here an old crone having just awakened comes upon an ancient mirror. That which is clearly reflected in front of her face is none other than her own likeness.

[80:04]

It actually is you. Don't lose sight of your face again and go chasing your shadow, which is you are not it. The third one, which is third use of this true in this text is, that the babe in the world ultimately does not apprehend, or finally, in the end, does not gain or apprehend anything because its speech is not yet true or correct or upright. So this is emerging from within the absolute, emerging from within unity, coming from within the real. And he says, amidst nothingness there is a road far from the dust. If you are simply able to avoid the reigning monarch's personal name, then you will surpass the eloquence of previous dynasties. This is about, there's a taboo about mentioning the emperor's name in China, which is referred to in a number of Zen texts, so this is about silence and speaking.

[81:09]

If you can avoid... If you can avoid saying the obvious, if you can avoid stating the emperor's name, then you will surpass the eloquence. So this is about, there's a level of speech that it's talking about here. It does not apprehend anything because the speech is not yet correct. Anyway, I mean, I can't explain all of this, but this just gives you more material to resonate with here. The fourth one, it is like the six lines of the double-split hexagram, the particular and the correct, or the true, the partial and the true, the relative and absolute integrate. And this is, the fourth rank for Dong Shun is going within going within relative and absolute, or real and partial, phenomena and real together.

[82:11]

He says, two crossed swords, neither permitting retreat, dexterously wielded like a lotus amidst fire. Similarly, there is a natural determination to ascend the heavens. This is about this place where both of them are there, kind of. Right, you have both the particular and the universal. Spreading it out, in a sense. Is this a lotus plant? Emits fire referring to these hexagrams? I don't think so. Well, gee. I don't know. It is the fire hexagram, isn't it? And there's water. Well, yeah. These images work in lots of ways. I wouldn't assume that it had anything to do with that hexagram. The lotus amidst fire is an image for Zazen, or an image for all Buddhas sit in the middle of the fire.

[83:14]

So it's an image of, it's also an image of the particular and the universal, in a sense. And then the fifth one is, wondrously included, marvelously included inside the true inquiry and response, calling and answering, come up together. And he says, arriving within together, falling into neither existence nor non-existence, who dares harmonize? People fully desire to exit the constant flux, but after bending and fitting in the end, still return to sit in the warmth of the coals. So, do any of you know the 10 ox-herding pictures? The final picture, it goes through the stage of these images of taming the ox, and the ox going from black to white, and looking for the ox, finding it, taming it, riding it home. And there's one image where it's empty, but it's just a blank circle. And the last one is going back into the marketplace.

[84:18]

It's a picture of Hotan with his bag, and it's just going back into the ordinary world. So it's talking about that here, too. people fully desire to exit the constant flux, but after bending and fitting, after being piled up, in the end, still return to sit in the warmth of the coals, which means going back to just function in the world. So in the end, it's like an image of bodhisattva practice, of going back and just being, functioning in the world with the sense of both the partial and the ultimate, we could say. And this is just like calling and answering or drumming and singing, celebrating them together, celebrating each other. So there are a lot of other images for this going back to sit within the coals in the second half of the Song of the Jewel-Married Samadhi.

[85:19]

So I feel like this has been like a whirlwind of going through this stuff. And I don't know, I didn't know how else to do it. But identifying these particular stages is not the point. The point is to see that there's this process of how we deal with the facts of our practical everyday existence and the experience that this is talking about, which includes, it's not only about this kind of ultimate experience, but it includes that. So how do you include what's being talked about here in lots of different ways, and it's also talking about how do we talk about it, is how do we include the sense of the ultimate right in our everyday life? What do you think, Tensho-san? How do we do it? No way. So these five are

[86:26]

Sir, did you have any more to say? That was pretty good. There's one thing. In the Refining Your Life by Dogen, he brings up, as a fool, and he says that you should really remember this. He italics that. That the fool thinks that he is it. It's a wise man, knows it. One thing I was visualizing actually is when you were winding down is when I think of this jewel mirror of the image it's actually like a crystal that's got all these cuts on it. So every time he does five this, five that, I mean it's like, it keeps, it's just like another face.

[87:33]

Yeah, different facets, it's like a five. It keeps repeating, just another cut, another face. It's like a five faceted jewel revolving and showing from different angles. Yeah. It would be interesting to see if, I don't know what I want to say, thread that holds it together, you know, so that it's a jewel, in a way. Well, there is, and that's why there have been Soto monks in China and Japan who've studied this system of five and worked it out and done various, you know, kind of interpretations and so forth. And yet, more often than not, Soto people have said, don't get too hung up on the system. In fact, forget it, you know. hear about it and then just, you know, don't worry about it. Well, I think the only thing that seems useful to me is that it's still part of one. It's just five here, it's reflected here, it's reflected this way, it's just showing all the different facets or ways that five comes up.

[88:42]

I mean, this is a particular system, it could be sevens or nines, I guess, whatever you, I mean, this is what they worked out, but if your own jewel worked out, The Avatamsaka Sutra is on tenths. That's true. Well, they have a system of four too. It just comes out of... You know, I think there are ways of studying this system of five and actually using it, but for our purposes of studying this text, I think maybe that's, you know, I mean, if it comes up again, great, but through the rest of this text, there are lots of images which play with balancing, which play with how do we use language, which play with this bodhisattva thing about not getting, about coming back into the world or not going all the way out of the world. And that kind of balancing thing, a lot of the images which come deal with. So do we leave vibes and go into balancing?

[89:42]

Well, I don't think we have to leave it. We can bring it back. In fact, we should maybe go over some of this stuff again on other levels. Keep looking at it, and bring any questions next week, and we can go over some of it again, and then when we're ready, we'll start with communing with the source and communing with the process. And I feel like there's a lot more discussion we could do around this, but it's time now, so let's close, and if anybody wants to hang out after we begin. May our intentions equally penetrate every being and place.

[90:24]

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