I don't understand it. Could you help me, Master? And Guishan says, well, do you remember the story about the National Teachers' Teaching? And Liangjie said, yeah. Can you recite it? He said, yes, I can. So he says, well, then why don't you try and repeat it for me? So there's young monks walking around, you know, pretty gifted religious being who listens to teachings and then has questions about them. How does that no eyes, no ears apply to me? And I heard about the national teachers teaching insentient beings expound the Dharma. I don't get it. He's listening to the teaching, right? Wondering how to apply it. What does it mean? This is a Zen master, a neo-fighter. He's listening to teachings, wondering what they mean, listening to teachings, scriptures, scuttlebutt from the monasteries.

[01:10]

He's wondering about this. He's walking around wondering about this stuff. Zen practice, not just practicing concentration, not just... letting go a discursive thought and being calm. It's also listening to the teaching and contemplating it and examining it, questioning it, asking the teachers about it, thinking about it, asking the teachers about it. So here's an example. So then he recites the story. Here's the story as he recited it, supposedly. A monk asked the national teacher, Huizhong. National teacher Huizhong is a descendant of his ancestor. National teacher means he's designated as a national teacher by the emperor of China. And usually a national teacher lives in the capital and is a teacher, one of the teachers of the emperor.

[02:13]

The emperor might have more than one national teacher, usually. Usually you only have one national teacher from some other school. But anyway, this guy is national teacher, and the monk says to him, what sort of thing is the mind of an old-time Buddha? The teacher says, walls, tiles, and pebbles. Is that what it says in your translation of the Self-Fulfilling Samadhi? You say wall, tiles, and pebbles? Yeah. This translation says, walls, tile rubble. So you might imagine that he's sitting there, and the monk comes and asks him, and he just sees at that moment, while the monk's asking him, he sees one of those Chinese walls, and Chinese walls usually have tiles on the top, so sometimes the tiles fall down on the ground and break into pebbles.

[03:19]

Probably anyway... The monk says, what's in my ancient Buddha? And he just said to the monk what he was looking at. I could also say, your face. Or your shoe. Or your eyeball. Anyway, he said, wall, tile, and pebble. And the monk says, well, can walls, tiles, and pebbles expound the Dharma? Actually, they said, well, walls and tiles and pillows, aren't those like non-sentient beings? And the monk said, and the teacher said, yeah. And he said, and yet, insentient beings can expound the Dharma? The teacher says, yes. Expound the Dharma incessantly and incandescently.

[04:25]

And the monk said, well, how come I can't hear it? Is Sardinia familiar? How come I can't hear the floor expounding the Dharma? How come I can't hear the walls expounding the Dharma? How come I can't hear your skin expounding the Dharma? How come I can't hear my body expounding the Dharma? And the teacher says, although you yourself have not heard it, this does not hinder those who are able to hear it. Although you don't hear it, don't hinder that which does hear it. So either you're not hearing it, doesn't hinder it, or don't hinder it. And then the monk says, what sort of a person can hear it?

[05:32]

And the national teacher says, all the sages can hear it. The sages, the non-ordinary people, they can hear inanimate beings, walls and floors. They can hear the walls expounding the Dharma. And then the monk says, Can you hear it, Master? Can you hear it, National Teacher? The sages hear it. Can you hear it? And the National Teacher says, No, I can't. The National Teacher can't hear what the sages can hear. The monk said, well, if you have, how do you know that non-sentient beings expound the Dharma?

[06:44]

And the natural teacher says, fortunately, I haven't heard it. If I had, I would be the same as the sages. And if I were the sages, you would not be able to hear the Dharma I teach. The monk says, in that case, ordinary people would have no part in it. The national teacher says, I teach for ordinary people, not sages. The monk says, what happens after ordinary people hear you? The national teacher says, they're no longer The monk asked, According to which sutra does this non-sentient being business expound the Dharma?

[07:52]

And the master teacher says, Clearly, you shouldn't suggest that it is not possible. Haven't you heard it said in the Avatamsaka Sutra, Earth expounds the Dharma, All living beings expound the Dharma. Throughout the three times, everything expounds the Dharma. That's the end of the story that the young monk told the great master Guaishan. The national teacher is not one of the sages. Because he's a Bodhisattva. Is he an ordinary person? Yes. Is he a Buddha? Yes. Is he both? Yes.

[08:54]

Is he neither? Yes. So again, you know, that samadhi number three on that chart, in a sense, is a samadhi where you attain something. And you're a little bit proud because you attained something. So one of the problems of that Samadhi number three, although it's a great attainment, you think you've got something. You're a sage. You can hear insentient beings expound the Dharma. But the next stage, you don't get anything. You don't get to be proud anymore. Too bad. You're an ordinary people. you get to be non-dual with ordinary people so you can teach ordinary people because you're not separate from them and you're not the same as them and when ordinary people hear this teaching they're not ordinary people anymore and yet they're not separate from ordinary people

[10:07]

They're not the same as ordinary people. They're not separate from ordinary people. And actually, according to this sutra, your Buddha nature is that your ordinary is not the same as or different from the Buddha Dharma. The way your ordinary actual way that you're ordinary, the way that you are ordinary, the way you see things in this limited way, the way you don't hear the Dharma being expounded by walls. You're ordinarily coating them over with some way to grasp them as walls. Now all that ordinariness is not the same as the Buddha Dharma, but the Buddha Dharma is exactly, exactly about how you're ordinary. and how that's not really the whole . So there is some, in some of us, a little bit of squeeziness about being ordinary.

[11:12]

Most of us admit that we're fairly ordinary, but we're not, we kind of are a little embarrassed about it. A little bit better than ordinary, slightly above average. Or at least, if we're not above average, we should try to figure out how to get above average. Now, some of you may not feel that way, but most ordinary people do want to be better than ordinary. That's a hallmark of being ordinary. If you don't wish to be ordinary, I mean, if you don't wish to be better than ordinary, and you're totally, like, cool with being ordinary, you're not so ordinary. So some of you may say, Yeah, actually, I'm pretty cool with being ordinary. I accept it. Well, then you slipped into being ordinary again. But when you hear that it's very unusual for an ordinary person to not want to be better than ordinary, when you hear that, and you think, yeah, I guess I'm okay with that. If you just stop there, you're extraordinary.

[12:17]

Stay there without saying, well, it's been a few seconds, I continue to not think I was better than, I'm not proud yet. I guess I'm still extraordinary. It's hard to avoid being ordinary. It's hard to eliminate it because the Buddha nature is about how ordinary people are. It's about ordinary people and Buddhas being intimate. So you can't really get rid of these ordinary people. It's not about getting rid of your ordinariness. It's not about pumping it up until it's finally transcended ordinariness. It's about understanding that the whole body is actually far beyond the body. We don't have to wipe away the ordinariness. It doesn't really stick in the first place. It's already totally intimate with and not defiling the whole body. The ordinariness isn't hurting the whole body.

[13:21]

They are one intimate event. Just like subject and object. Subject isn't hurting object. Object's not hurting subject. They are one life. Like the... That's what his name means. Same life. Those same life. Same birth. Mind and object are dosho. They have the same birth. If you have subject come up, you have object come up. You don't have objects coming up waiting for subject to come up. There's no such thing. Do you understand that? An object is something a subject knows. If a subject doesn't know, you don't have an object. The whole body, the real dragon, is not an object until there's a subject. Doesn't mean there's nothing there.

[14:25]

There is a real dragon, but as soon as it's an object, there's a subject. Subject and object have the same birth, same life. And you also don't have subject coming up waiting for an object. They come up at the same time. And this is ordinary. This is an ordinary consciousness, which is empty of any difference between subject and object. That's the way it actually is, that's ordinary. And that's also . Which, when we understand that, we switch from being an ordinary person to being a Buddha. But the Buddha is just understanding the way ordinary mind is. Very intimate, and yet we have some work to do here. Because it's so subtle, if you get a little bit Any kind of idea stuck in there about how it's going, it splits the whole thing apart.

[15:27]

The story goes on. He finishes the story. And I don't have my whisk. But anyway, the young monk finishes the story. And then he says, And then Guishan says, oh, I have that teaching here, too. He tells the teaching of the national teacher, and he says, we have that teaching here, too. One seldom encounters someone capable of understanding it. One seldom encounters a companion to this teaching. And the young monk, the Aung Je says, I still don't understand it clearly. Master, please comment. And Guishan raised his whisk and said, Do you understand now? And this monk who's been, you know, becoming kind of a national figure shot young monk says, No, I don't.

[16:45]

Please explain. And Guishan says, It can never be explained to you by the mouth born of mother and father. And then Dengshan says, Liangjie says, Master, do you have any questions who might clarify this problem for me? And Guishan says, Yeah, if you go from here over to Yu Xien of Li Ling, you'll find there some linked caves, some linked stone grottoes, and living in one of those caves is a person of the way named Cloudy Cliff, Yunyan.

[17:49]

If you are able to push aside the grass and gaze into the wind, then you will find him worthy of your respect. And then... Liangjie says, what sort of a person is he? And Guishan said, once he asked this old monk, what should I do if I wish to follow you, master? And I told him, he must immediately cut off outflows. And then Yunyan said to him, then will I come up to the master's expectations? And Guishan said, you'll get absolutely no answer. Another translation of that is, you must immediately cut off all outflows, and then Yun Yan says,

[18:58]

What should I tell people was your teaching? And Guizhan says, just don't tell anybody where I am. Quite a bit there to contemplate, but anyway, this is just a description of the kind of person he is to this young man who's going to go visit him. And so Dung Shan, so Liang Jie or Dung Shan walked from Guishan to where Yun Yan was living. And then he goes up to Yun Yan and tells him about his conversation with Guishan. You know, by asking about the national teachers teaching and reciting it to him and raising the whisk and not understanding and getting sent away. And then After that Yun Yan says, non-sentient beings are able to hear it.

[20:09]

Non-sentient beings can hear. Oh yeah, excuse me. So he tells him the story of Guishan and then he asks Yun Yan, what sort of person is able to hear the Dharma expounded by non-sentient beings? What sort of person? The national teacher said, sages can hear it. Yun Yen says, non-sentient beings are able to hear it. And the young monk says, can you hear it, master? And Yun Yen says, if I could hear it, then you would not be able to hear the Dharma that I teach. Kind of copies Guishan. Change the first part. And then a Dungsan says, why can't I hear it? And Yuen Yuen raised his whisk and said, can you hear it?

[21:14]

And Dungsan said, no, I can't. And then Yuen Yuen said, you can't hear it when I expound the Dharma. How do you expect to hear it when non-sentient beings expound the Dharma? And then Dengshan said, and what sutra is this taught? And he expounded the Dharma. And Yunyan said, haven't you heard or seen it in the Amitabha Sutra? Water birds, tree groves, all without exception recite the Buddha's name and recite the Dharma. Hearing this, the young man had a little understanding. They lived happily ever after.

[22:22]

And in their happy life together, one day, Liang Jie came to Yun Yan and said, I'm leaving now for a while. And if later, the standard Chinese term is 100 years from now, if someone asks me to describe your teaching, what should I say? And Yun Yun, I think, was quiet for a little while and said, just this person is it. In some translations it says, just this is it, but that's an abbreviation of a fuller expression, which is just this person is it.

[23:45]

And that expression is what was said in a Chinese court when you would formally confess guilt to some crime. There was this phrase you would say, and that was it. So the future great Zen master asks his dear teacher, how could I describe your teaching? And he says, just this person is, it means just this person is guilty. A criminal confession, a confession of guilt of being an ordinary person. That's his teaching. And then I think Dongshan was kind of sitting there The young monk was sitting there wondering, you know, what does he mean by that?

[24:49]

This is after he'd been studying with him and become his successor, really. And still this is a point he didn't quite get. He's thinking about it. And the teacher says, you must be thorough going on this point. In other words, I just told you, meditate on this, please. This is my parting gift to you. Then the way the story usually goes is that Dung Shan left the temple and came to a river and looked in the river and saw his reflection and had a great awakening. Early, which are also recorded, that first one we told you about, all those other nice insights he had before. And then while they were working together he had little insights. This is his great awakening when he saw his reflection in the river.

[25:54]

And when I read that story, you know, over the years when I read that story and thought about that story, I had this picture. My fantasy, right, of this event was that he left his teacher, sort of walked down the hill, you know, came to a little valley where there was a river flowing, walked across the river, looked up and woke up. But when I was in China visiting Dengshan, looking, and I was looking in the river where he was looking in the river. There's a bridge over the river and it says... The name of the river is where he met it, where he encountered it, or when he encountered him. It's the name of the bridge. So I was looking at the water, and I had a great awakening. Just kidding. There was a Chinese scholar there with me, and I said, how far is it from this river to Yunyan, this place?

[27:08]

He said about 150 miles. So he walked down the hill from Yunyan, walked 150 miles, and came to the river. I don't know what route he took the 150 miles, but he walked. It takes a while, you know? Especially when you don't have roads like we have now. Anyway, he walked and thought about this teaching and then came to the river and saw his reflection and woke up with this poem, which is something like, I've been going along and been with him the whole time to seek it outside or to seek him outside is off the track. Now I see that he is not me and I'm actually him.

[28:10]

Or it is not me and I'm actually him. Here again is this samadhi of the true relationship between the ordinary and the Buddha. not the same, not different. He saw that in his own reflection. And then this becomes, I would say, a hallmark of the tradition of this intimacy between just, you know, and realizing the bodhisattva samadhi. And these people, these wonderful ancestors, like the national teacher in Yunyan and and Dongshan had no problem with being ordinary. They had their, you know, when they were younger they were extraordinary. But as they matured they became less and less extraordinary and more and more intimate with ordinary.

[29:17]

And being more and more intimate with ordinary is what Buddhas do. And being more and more intimate with Buddhas is what ordinary people need to do. but not by trying to skip out on your ordinariness, not by trashing the carved dragon, but just, you know, just this person. Who's guilty of carving dragons? This person. I'm guilty. But also, I witnessed... The same place I witness that this is a delusion. I witness that. I'm guilty of it. The same place of witnessing the delusion that I make the carved dragon and I do this and I do that. And what I think is happening, I confess that. But that same place, same place, I also confess There's something that I also witness at the same time that I can't see, and I witness it, and I'm totally devoted to this thing I can't see.

[30:18]

At the same time, this whole criminal career of carving dragons is always based on the real dragon, which I have become very intimate with by becoming intimate with my dragon carving. And I heard a teaching that these are not joined and not separate. I heard that teaching and I'm thinking about that teaching and I'm more and more convinced of that teaching, which means I'm more and more steeping myself into the Samadhi, the Bodhisattva. samadhi of appreciating the true relationship between unenlightened people, ordinary people, people who impose misconceptions on what is free of conception, both mis- and correct conception.

[31:35]

And those who do not ever believe the imposition and appreciate and fully realize the fundamental reality and help others. Intimacy. I rest my case. because there's something about this third stage wanting to be extraordinary and at the ordinary quality, but is it necessary to go through stage three to get to stage four?

[33:29]

Because it seems like it's part of the fuel of practice. Oh, the samadhi number three? Is it necessary to go through it? Well, and or, the importance of it. Actually, you could skip over that stage and go back and deal with it later, after you're, you know, you could actually skip it. You could actually go to understanding, for example, that attainment is empty, and then go get an attainment. That's a possibility. you don't necessarily have to go through Samadhi number three to get to Samadhi number four. And in some ways, I think it may be that some Mahayana teachers would suggest, you know, to try to like leap over three to a practice where you don't get anything. but you have to go back to samadhi but that attainment includes the attainment of where you don't really feel like you got anything includes the earlier stage where you do feel like you got something but you might want to like first of all understand that there's nothing to get and then go back and get something but then you wouldn't fall for it so the bodhisattva career might temporarily skip over the realm of being a sage just in case you don't have time to do both

[34:51]

Yeah. So actually that's sort of Mordogan's approach is don't even go, don't spend much, don't spend much time in the realm where you think you got something. And immediately go to the realm where you don't get anything. But still, the test of attaining Samadhi number four is could you go into the realm of Samadhi number three where you're like a hot shot sage and not fall for that? Because we do honor the sages in Zen. We do have like over in China they do have all these arhat halls because arhats are spectacular spiritual beings. They're very important and they're really, they're like, I don't know what they're like, they serve a very... helpful function, that some people have attained something. Even though they have this little bit of a problem of thinking they attained something, it's nice to have them around. They're great protectors. There are other beings who are even lesser developed that protect too, like Alan Watts.

[35:59]

He's a Dharma protector. He helped Buddhism a lot. Even though he had some problems, he actually helped a lot. But also you should be able to inhabit the realm of great protectors without getting caught by it. You should be able to cavort with them. But you don't attain all those stages and attain all those powers on your way to the samadhi. Now once you attain the samadhi, then you have to go realize that you already include all these lesser samadhis. You need to verify that and make sure you don't get caught by the arhat attainment or the attainment, the great yogic attainments. That would be a testing of your realization to see that you can go back and do that. And so like a lot of Zen teachers actually in their biographies, after they finish their Zen training and have been initiated into the Bodhisattva Samadhi, their teachers sometimes suggest that they go to Buddhist college. And some of them say, well, why do I have to learn that? Because it helps people. You don't need them for your realization, but you need them for your realization.

[37:07]

you know, your skill and needs, you need to go and learn about these sutras because they're very useful to some people and you need to be able to not get caught by them which you probably won't but you have to go in that realm of Dharma jewels and make sure you don't grab any of them so you can either go through those stages or you can skip actually number three and you can actually skip number two also You can go to number four and have a good understanding, but then to fully realize number four, you can use number two. The development of concentration is necessary to fully realize. So you could have the understanding that's in number four, the basic understanding, and you have to take that understanding and immerse it in samadhi. So Dogen is teaching concentration practice. his teaching is most about understanding the Mahayana.

[38:08]

But then he has a practice which, if you ever did understand the Mahayana, if you ever did understand the emptiness of dependent core arising, of having any kind of... If you ever did understand that, how the real dragon doesn't have the carved dragon in it, if you really understood that, then you would then spend the rest of your life, every morning, getting up and sitting and immersing yourself and cooking that realization day by day, day by day, year by year, bringing that realization, let's say full realization, into daily meditation practice. Always keep it physically immediate. But you could also have the Buddha did all this stuff before his understanding. So he became a great yogi, he became an arhat and a Buddha the same night. But most of us actually won't do it that way.

[39:10]

So the question is whether you learn the selflessness of things first and then the selflessness of person or whether you do this which is the third samadhi and then move on to the selflessness of things quickly before you get too hung up on your pride trip And if you're going to be proud about anything, that's something to be proud of. And you can even be more proud of the bodhisattva thing, it's just you wouldn't know how, because you can't find anything to be proud of. But at the other stage, even though you found this lack of self for the person, there still could be some pride in that. There could still be some feeling like people who have attained this and people who haven't, there's some distance. And that was part of the... that was actually a problem in Buddhist history, that were successful at samadhi number three started to like distance themselves from ordinary people who hadn't realized it. But in samadhi number four there's no distance between those who have realized it and those who have not to those who have realized it.

[40:17]

That's why you have this heroic stride in that state. That's why you're not afraid to immerse yourself in any kind of daily life. because you don't see the difference between, you don't grasp the difference between this attainment and people who haven't even realized Samadhi number two yet. Okay? Yes, Brent. I think, I continually think that there's something to that, there's something to attain. I know you've said the last couple days, it sounds like it might not be such a big problem, but I feel like it's a problem, that I think there's something big to be. And even when I think that I'm not going there, I'm not going there.

[41:24]

Yeah. So you're confessing that you're an ordinary person at that time? I guess I'm confessing that I'm not... Well, I care... There's nothing to attain. And... Yeah, I keep thinking that there's something to attain. I keep getting caught by it. Like, does that, does a person ever, like, a person who practices, does there ever a time where... The Chinese version of the Heart Sutra says there's no attainment, right? Right. It doesn't say there's nothing to attain, actually. It says there's no attainment. But the Sanskrit and the Tibetan say, and no non-attainment. So, you know, this is an emptiness that there's no attainment but there's also no non-attainment in emptiness.

[42:33]

But there is otherwise attainment and non-attainment. It's just that enlightenment, when you attain it, you don't get anything. That's all. It's not defiled by making this wonderful event of attaining perfect enlightenment being dependent on some particular little twig or some dharma or something to attain it. just trying to tell us that this realization is really pure of any conception. Like, what is it, in Dogen's, it's actually not his, but he says it, it's something that you find before him, but anyway, he says there's three kinds of triple treasures. There's a single-bodied triple treasure, the manifested triple treasure and the maintained triple treasure.

[43:35]

The single-body triple treasure is that Buddha treasure and that unsurpassed complete enlightenment. The Dharma treasure is its, that is, enlightenment's purity and freedom from dust. Freedom from dust means freedom from any imposition of any concept on enlightenment. So it's ungraspable. But that doesn't mean it isn't realized. It can be realized. It's just that there's nothing there that's attained. There's no thing in there that you can say what it is. It has no predicate, as I sometimes say. But, of course, there are things attained. And ordinary people do wish to attain something. And one of the things they would like to attain is Buddhahood for the welfare of the world.

[44:37]

It's a passion. Bodhisattvas wish to attain Buddhahood so that they can be heroically striding through the swamps of misery, benefiting beings left and right. They wish to attain that. They wish to awaken beings to wisdom with the Buddha's teaching. They wish to attain that. But then there's the next teaching, the wisdom teaching, is that there's nothing actually that you get. But that doesn't mean there's nothing there, it's just you don't get it. Because it doesn't actually come in graspable form. When it's in a graspable form, it's just a conventional version which obscures the actual working. But in the meantime, if we feel impulse is to get something or obtain something, we just confess that and be intimate with that, don't despise that or esteem that, and get to know this impulse to grasp.

[45:45]

Study the impulse to grasp, see how it works, see how it runs. That would be part of the course to becoming free of that obsession, those obsessions and compulsions. Someone comes up. It's another point where it's stuff. Like, become intimate with it or look at it. Yes. Well, I feel like when I try to do that, I feel like I'm putting something over it, right? I'm not getting as... I'm not being as intimate... as I could, or I could use some type of analytic or intellectual, some type of learning over it. Dogi says it's not learning meditation. So I keep, like, I take this city and I make it into, like, learning meditation, which I feel like is kind of a way of distancing or avoiding

[46:54]

He says this Zazen is not learning meditation right after he says this is the essential art of Zazen. At that point in the text, he's saying that what I just told you about, this essential art, is not a concentration practice. Earlier part of the text, he did tell you about learning meditation. He does want you to practice that as one of your as one of your compassion activities, there's cooking and there's concentration practice, there's giving and so on. So earlier in the text, he actually gives you instruction about learning meditation. Which would be classed under the heading of learning meditation. Is this tranquility? Yeah. Tranquility practice. The learning meditation, that category is the category for the calming practices, the tranquility practices in the Buddhist repertoire of skill and means, which he actually gives you an example of earlier in the text.

[48:01]

What he's pointing to is the essential art. That's not learning meditation. But he would like you to learn various skills, but he also wants you to practice the essential art of zazen, while you're doing all these skills, as much as possible. But particularly when you're in an immobile sitting position, he gives that particular form of sitting as the central ritual opportunity for meditating on non-thinking and so on. And that's not just a concentration practice, it's a wisdom practice. So he's emphasizing wisdom as the of Zazen at that point in the text. And also in Zazen Shin, he's emphasized, he takes the same story as the main story. The think of what doesn't think, how do you do that? Non-thinking takes that same story as the main point of understanding. He wants us to understand Zazen.

[49:02]

He wants us to do the ritual as the main ritual. And then he gives teachings about what that ritual is. So we understand the nature of the sitting posture and the sitting activity. How do we understand it? Well, first of all, you settle into it. Practice non-thinking. And this kind of practice is not just a concentration practice, but if you were doing a concentration practice, maybe temporarily, you might be putting aside this wisdom type of work for a moment. Or you could be doing it at the same time. It's possible. But some people have trouble developing tranquility because when you practice tranquility, you give up discursive thought. You let it go. Whereas in the essential art of Zazen, you're using discursive thought. You're thinking of something. You're using thinking. And you're also meditating on In the instruction, practice non-thinking. You're meditating on that.

[50:03]

You're using discursive thought in the essential art of Zazen. And you're giving up discursive thought in the earlier description of Zazen. Zazen as tranquility is learning meditation. And that's part of the practice. You will need that in your career. And the Buddha did that practice and Dogen's recommending it. But the essential art is this wisdom emphasis here. which is not learning meditation. And this wisdom emphasis is the Dharmakaya of repose and bliss. Be then coordinated with all kinds of practices of virtue, giving precepts, diligence, patience, and concentration. Does that make sense? So wisdom needs to be coordinated with these skillful practices, one of them being concentration.

[51:12]

And these skillful practices need wisdom, otherwise they're not understood properly. Otherwise we think. Our idea of precepts, we receive the precepts, and of course as ordinary people, we receive the precepts, precepts are given to us, we do the precepts, but we have our own version of them. We have our own thinking about them. which is fine. But there's another meaning, another character of the precepts, which is . So we need to practice non-thinking with the precepts. We need to practice non-thinking with all these compassion practices so that they're not being confused with our idea of them. Still, we do have ideas, but we don't have to believe that our ideas about what the precepts mean is what the precept means. You know, telling the truth, according to my idea, but I don't have to think that my idea of telling the truth is what that precept is. I can realize the precept has a more basic quality than my idea about it.

[52:17]

So, when you have an idea that you don't allow it, you just... It sounds like you don't make it into a stumbling block. Yeah, right. That would be the... It would become not a stumbling block. You would use it. You would use it, yeah. You would use it with... You wouldn't believe it, you know. But you can... Something about someone, and it can be not something you believe, but something you use. Sounds like cockroach. Is that so? Yeah. Yeah. So I can think you're a nice guy and not believe that, but I can still use my thought that you're a nice guy. I can use it. I can tell you about it. I can show you that I'm not caught by it. And you can say, wow. Or maybe that wouldn't be so surprising, but I could say, I think you're a jerk. And you can say, but you don't seem to have any problem with me. Or I can say, you're insulting me. And you say, yeah, but you don't seem to have a problem with that.

[53:18]

Yeah, because I don't believe what I say. I don't believe what I think you're doing to me and you notice a freedom in our relationship partly by my but if I didn't think anything about you it wouldn't be such a big deal that I was felt free about you so for me when I heard that Hawkwind story it wasn't I didn't think you know that person said you know you're you're a disgrace you're like ruining Buddhism you rat I didn't think when the person said that to him he didn't feel anything because if he didn't feel anything I wouldn't be interested in what he said but the fact that it probably hurt him a little bit to have this person spitting on him. And yet, he didn't get caught by what that insult was, but he probably thought it was an insult because that's what the person meant it to be. And if he didn't get it as an insult, I think then, if he didn't understand it was an insult, he thought the person was just, you know, didn't mean that or something, then his saying, is that so, wouldn't have meant that.

[54:19]

Or if you thought, this person's really complimenting me, so I'll take care of their kid. Now this person hates my guts. That's what I think they're saying. But he didn't get caught by it. And then when they said this other thing, which felt so nice probably, he didn't get caught by that either. So these are opportunities. You use them. What is it? Jojo says, you're used by the 24 hours. I use them. In other words, I use them to demonstrate that I'm not caught by the 24 hours. You don't really use them, they're ungraspable. You don't get pushed around by them. And yet, you prove you're not pushed around. You show people that you're not scared of time running out. Because, you know, but that's because you're working with the time. If people didn't have any idea of time, it wouldn't mean anything. And the same with emptiness. When people who don't even know about it, people who learn a little bit about it are afraid of it.

[55:22]

But people who understand it really well aren't afraid of it. You see, you can demonstrate that. So these phenomena and these imaginations are all opportunities for the bodhisattva. And if you get caught, you have the opportunity to be an ordinary person and show people that, oh, I'm ordinary, but I have a practice of admitting it And some other ordinary people also have that practice who aren't even thinking that they're bodhisattvas, but they can encourage us. If some person who's not even a member of the community can admit how ordinary they are, we should be able to. But the funny thing is that some people who come to Zen centers are less able to admit their ordinariness than somebody in the street. Well, we should get with the program and be as good as a street person. There are limitations. Now, if they walk into the Zen Center, they'll say, oh, probably shouldn't tell people.

[56:26]

Maybe they wouldn't be able to maintain their openness when they come here. But we should try to be as good as they are at being ordinary. Even more real. Let's see. Anybody? You haven't asked a question. You're interested in the backward step? Learning it? Yes? Continuously receiving. Well, you are already receiving. It's more like you start to see how you're receiving. You start looking at how you're receiving rather than how you've already got it and you're imposing it. So it's more like turning around and looking at how you're in a receptive mode.

[57:33]

It's not so much that who is receiving, but you're receiving who. Who you are is a reception. It's not that you're already there receiving or giving. It's that when things come, you get to be there. And before they arrive, you're not there. So you're giving yourself. Every moment you get a self. That's the kind of self you have. It isn't that the self gets eliminated, it's that you see that who you are is a gift. It's something that appears when other things arise. We are other-powered. We're other-powered beings. And you turn around and look at that teaching You look at that teaching, you look at that teaching, and pretty soon you become more and more convinced, and you notice that you feel differently when you're in the mode of seeing how you're other-dependent, when you think you're self-dependent.

[58:43]

When you start to see and meditate how you're other-powered rather than self-powered, you notice you feel differently about things. Not as afraid, etc., So we try to learn that reverse turn to pivot around from I'm already here acting upon things and now things are coming and then there's me. So as I often say, usually the way we see the world is we think there's the world plus something. And what is that thing that's in addition to the world? Isn't that a coincidence? We don't think there's the world plus some other person.

[59:44]

We think they're included in the world. There's the world which includes all you people, and then there's me. But you think it's actually that I'm included in the world, but you're not. like we're a visitor outside see yourself but this to learn the backwards step is to see there's the world and there's some isn't there something missing see there's the world and it's all you people and it isn't there's something more i i forgot what was it again oh yeah no yeah of course it's me i get i'm there too you're all there i'm here that's reversal but it's on the same point It's the same pivot. It's like, rather than already being there, you arrive at the same birth as everything else. The subject arises with the object. When the object arises, then there's a subject. He's waiting here for the next object. That's what we actually think, naturally. But we're not actually after either.

[60:49]

But when you switch from being before, there's a moment, there may be a gap where you feel like, well, isn't there a subject that's missing? But really that they're born at the same time, same birth. And learning the backward step is to meditate on that until you're more and more convinced that your awareness and what you're aware of have the same birth, same birth. And this meditation on dependent core rising approach to realizing that one-pointedness of subject and object. Well, everything is an expression of the true dragon.

[62:03]

And carving dragons is based on the true dragon. But the initiatory According to the way I understand the essential art of zazen is the initiation into shikantaza is through non-thinking. You enter the steady immobile sitting position and it says think of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking, non-thinking? He wants you to learn how to think of not thinking or think of what doesn't think. But how do you do that? The way you start is by non-thinking. So you start shikantaza by That's the initiation. And it's how you start, but then it's also the basis for the final meditation of thinking about what doesn't think. So, meditating on the true dragon is initiation into getting to know the true dragon, initiation into just sitting. Just sitting isn't just doing what you think is sitting.

[63:08]

Although there's that too. That's called the car dragon of sitting. So you start that way. You start, okay, and you can't find your seat without making a carved dragon of your seat and a carved dragon of your body. Okay, fine. You settle into that. Now think beyond that version. And that's initiation into Shikantaza. But Shikantaza is completed when you are able to verify that there's nothing about the carved dragon in the real world. You see that there's no thinking going on there, actually. Simultaneously there is thinking going on, otherwise there wouldn't be any sitting to be aware of what wasn't there. So your carved version of your practice isn't really present. But you begin your orientation by settling down in your sitting posture and then opening up to the other dependent character of your sitting. The sitting posture that you first make, you carve the dragon of your sitting.

[64:13]

You make it. That's your ordinary approach. I make my sitting. Okay, fine. I confess I do that. I have to. Now I can open up to the other powered aspect of this whole event. Moment by moment, other powered. That's the other way to look at it. That's the real dragon. Can't get a hold of it. It doesn't really... no way to comprehend it, but you're opening to it. Then you're ready to look at your thinking and verify that your thinking is now present in this realm, this unconstructed realm, this deportment beyond hearing and seeing and so on. Then you've realized just sitting. Just sitting means... it's just sitting, it's not your idea of sitting. But your idea of sitting is sitting there, right nearby. Or like, what is it? Sawaki Roshi says, just cut your head off and put it down next to you, right?

[65:15]

But first of all, you need your head to find your seat. So you know where to put your seat. You can pick it up again after the period's over. Take your head off, sit, and then you verify that your head's not really in the sitting. It's just sitting. There's no you doing it, but that sustains you. You get to be there. So it also says, in non-thinking, although there's nobody there doing it, there's somebody who sustains us. There's someone there. You can call that someone your enlightened activity, your Buddha-nature. Where does it come into play? It's the basis of everything. In terms of zazen?

[66:19]

It's the basis of your shikantaza. Buddha's compassion is the basis of our sitting. So our conceptual... version of our sitting is based on the non-conceptual activity of buddha's compassion which makes it possible to be practitioners and buddha's compassion is not the compassion of some guy named buddha that's not buddha's compassion buddha's compassion is the way many many factors are giving us life and not only that but giving us life to practice our own little hip squeaking pop of the actual practice. And you can call it, I would say, that's where that love is the basis of the whole thing. But you can't get a hold of this love, because as soon as you get a hold of it, you lose it. As soon as you know it, you've obscured it. So you have to open to it, learn how to open to it beyond grasping it.

[67:26]

In other words, practice non-thinking. to initiate yourself into this realm of Buddha's compassion. While you're still finding your seat by making a carved dragon, by making a conceptual version of it, but then open up to this realm beyond dimension. It isn't exactly bigger or smaller, it's just beyond all dimension. This love. Get intimate with it. Get to know it. And again, praising it or despising it doesn't help you know it. Give those up and look open. Okay. Is that enough? Yes? Is there a sutra I'd recommend? Yeah, there is.

[68:29]

I guess I would first of all recommend that you study the early sutras, like the first thing that Buddha taught, the first couple of sutras. At the beginning of the sutra, the first sutra he taught, he taught dependent core arising. And then also there's this other text where he teaches dependent core arising. So look at how he teaches it early, and then look at the Mahayana sutras about teaching how they teach emptiness as an explication of dependent core arising. So then, what do you call it? Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way by Nagarjuna help you understand dependent core rising. In other words, help you understand when the Buddha first taught dependent core rising, it may have appeared as though he was saying there's some kind of like principle of conceptual process that could describe the dependent core rising. The teaching of emptiness tells you that any concept we have of how Buddhist causation works doesn't really make it. So in particular, chapter 24 Karaka 18 is very pivotal in understanding the relationship between emptiness and dependent core arising.

[69:37]

But first of all, learn the early sutras where Buddha teaches dependent core arising. The very first one he teaches it. And then there's another one that's really important called the Kajayana Gotra Sutta. There he teaches it too. And lots of other sutras. So study the early ones and see how he teaches it Nagarjuna and see how Nagarjuna helps you understand the actual nature. And also at the beginning of Nagarjuna's description, at his invocation of the text, he basically praises dependent co-arising and then talks about dependent co-arising in the Heart Sutra. Even though that's the real dragon. The real dragon is how things are actually happening and how things are actually happening is ungraspable. So a combination of early scriptures and Nagarjuna are very good. And then you can study, when you're ready, the Samgyenirma Chana Sutra, which goes on and analyzes phenomena from the point of view of dependent co-arising, the other dependent nature, the imaginary nature, and the thoroughly established or empty nature.

[70:54]

I've been having, you know, that sutra's in the back of my mind while I'm talking to you. I could send a reading list to you if you want to see. There's three translations of it available now. So that's another text which elucidates the relationship between emptiness and the pinnacle arising and our imagination. The pinnacle arising, and the sutra explains how We understand dependent core arising through our imagination. That's how we know it. But that's, of course, not it. That's our imagination of it. But when you understand that your imagination is not present in dependent core arising, then you really understand dependent core arising, although you don't know it the way you know it when you laminate it with your ideas. And understanding that it's not there is understanding emptiness. So that sutra gets into the kind of teachings which I've been talking to you about, which I think align up with Dogen's teaching and Yaoshan's teaching of those three aspects of Zazen.

[72:09]

So that essential part of Zazen is meditating on the essential teaching of that sutra. So, you know, before one, that's a little bit difficult. I've been studying with a lot of people for quite a while now, and they're still struggling with it. It's really a challenging text, but there it is. Take care of your health. Where do you find that? If you want to, you can email my assistant. She'll email the sutra back to you. You mean the first discourse of the Buddha? Yeah. If you're afraid of some other way, call my assistant. She's got it on the computer. Yep. Got the sutra.

[73:09]

It's only one page long, or two pages long. It's a... And actually the first sutra, the first sutra, Buddha... immediately gives wisdom teachings in his first teaching. Gives wisdom teachings. And I just recently, it just dawned on me why he gave wisdom teachings right off the bat to his first students. Anybody guess why he did that? Right off, rather than... Yes, but why did he do that rather than give him some other teaching? Like, for example, giving up your discursive thought and calming down. Because you can do the discursive thought part. You're familiar with the discursive thought part. But some people aren't. Some people are not familiar with the thought. They don't know anything about it. Plus, they don't know how to give it up. Usually, the order that Buddhism is accused of presenting the teaching is usually precepts, samadhi, wisdom.

[74:13]

Have you heard that? That's the usual order that's presented. Have you heard that? First, precepts, ethical... concentration practices, then you do the wisdom practice. That's often the order that's presented. Three learnings. You ever heard that? That's usually the order. Shila, Samadhi, Prajna. But the Buddha's first teaching, he gave Prajna teaching, he gave wisdom teaching. How come? Anyway, you made a nice guess. Pardon? That's right, that's right. But some other people, he wouldn't have been able to show them those goods because they didn't know something that these guys did. Anyway, I'm not saying this is true, but... Yes? Showing the real dragon. Yes, he did. But sometimes he prepares people before he shows them the real dragon. Yes, Tom? That's right. I mean, that's right means that's what dawned on me, is that the people he was teaching were people who already had become, mastered the first two aspects of practice, because they were very advanced concentrators.

[75:22]

They were like his peers in terms of concentration practice. And you have to practice precepts to be that good at these concentration practices. You can't be like doing certain kinds of unwholesome activities and get that concentrated. yeah anyway he he taught these guys at the end of the talk one of them had an awakened about boom And within two weeks they all had become stream managers and within a month they'd all become arhats. But these people had already done a lot of meditation practice which far exceeds the level of samadhi that most people ever attain. But I just thought that's why he could... But maybe it's just that, as Dosho said, he was just impatient, just wanted to like... He didn't know how much longer he was going to live, so he just wanted to pop him off right away.

[76:27]

But anyway, the first teaching he gives, basically Four Noble Truths, is dependent co-arising. First truth is the truth of suffering. The truth is that suffering has an origin. Suffering arises depending on something. dependent co-arising. And that's mundane truth. Depending on ignorance, there's suffering and so on. And the ultimate truth is there's cessation, there's nirvana. And that depends on something, too. That dependently co-arises. So he tells, first he teaches them dependent co-arising of suffering and dependent co-arising of nirvana. Right away, dependent co-arising. And many other sutras he teaches. That's his main teaching. Dependent co-arising, dependent co-arising, dependent co-arising. but in the early teachings he didn't mention this emptiness of the Mahayana. That's the Mahayana contribution, which Nagarjuna is the leader of.

[77:28]

But it's good to get the basis and then before you get the elucidation in the Mahayana. Anything else? Yes? Yes. Yes. Yes. He's got a lot going on there. And he's like opening up to this real dragon, and when he opens up to it, you see what the kind of creative transformations that just come flowing out of this of his entry into creativity. He enters this intimacy with this dragon and then you have this spectacular transformation of this material. So he's actually opening to you, he's initiating you into the realm by his poetic transformation that he's going through while he's writing this.

[78:36]

Van Gogh. Like Van Gogh. But Dogen has had a practice to help him soothe himself so he didn't crack under the onslaught of creation. So that's why we need to practice compassion with ourselves. But anyway, I think I'd better stop because there's quite a few interviews to do. Okay, it's okay to stop. Mention Rev. Anderson Hiroshi, the senior Dharma teacher, right? At the Green Gulch Zen community. And... Which one is cool? It's all cool. And... in 1978 and I was astonished and I still

[79:42]

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