Well, this morning, I want to give an encouragement talk for Zazen. You know, ko'un ejo, we say, Ko-un Ejo was, as you know, Dogyun's successor, main successor, when he died. And we say, in the lineage, when we chant the lineage, often people say Ko-un Ejo, but it's actually Ko-un Ejo. It's a little distinction. Koan is a little different. Ko Un Eijo Daiyosho.

[01:02]

So Eijo wrote one piece that we know of which is called Komyo Zo Zamae. Komyo is light and is like divine or radiant. You can take it either way. So it's called, the title is Treasury of Divine Light, something like that, or Treasury of Radiant Light, Samadhi. So, this is the Samadhi of Zazen. We have various Samadhis, Jijuyu Zamae and Ichigyo Zamae and

[02:14]

Hokyo Zamae, Mirror Samadhi. Hokyo Zamae is the Great Mirror Samadhi, and Jijyu Zamae is Self-Joyous or Self-Fulfilling Samadhi. Ichijo Samadhi is One-Act Samadhi. One-Act means Samadhi which of each and every moment, in every act. So Komyo, Samadhi of the Treasury of Radiant Light, is the way it's translated here, This little book called Minding Mind, I don't know if you've ever seen that or not, it kind of went by when it was published, A Course in Basic Meditation, translated by Thomas Cleary, where he has various historical talks on zazen.

[03:45]

from various Chinese teachers, Japanese, and so he has translated the Komyōzō Zemai, and this is the first time it was published, but part of it is in here, the part that most people quote, which is the end. So I want to read the comment on it. So he says, I have some earnest advice for those who sincerely aspire to practice. Do not be pulled by a particular state of mind or by an object. Particular state of mind is, states of mind are rising all the time in zazen. One period of Zazen can contain as many as 84,000 states of mind, as you well know.

[05:00]

So he says, don't be pulled by a particular state of mind. We just let mental states come and go. or by an object. Don't get caught by some mental object or physical object. So do not rely on intellect or wisdom. You can't rely on anything that you think or that you know. You really can't rely on anything you know. It's interesting, you know, when I was first beginning to practice, and I had so much trouble with the pain in my legs. My legs were screaming, and I would think, well, here come the sharks now.

[06:01]

And then you wonder, well, let's see, what can I do to get rid of this? Or what can I do to deal with this? You go through all the litany of everything that you can think of and nothing works. Nothing at all works. So you can't rely on anything you knew or know or even your wisdom. Anyway, God doesn't work, nothing works. So he says, do not carry in your hands what you have learned on the seat in Zazen or during a lecture or whatever.

[07:04]

He says, just cast your body and mind into the great Komyo-Zo and never look back or don't doubt. In other words, just throw your body and mind into tsa-tsen and swim. That's the thing about our practice, is that it's not based on learning something. It's like jumping into the ocean and swimming without knowing how, which makes it different than all other practices of Buddhism, except maybe pure land. I think Zen and Pure Land, Zen has some affinity with Pure Land in that you simply, it's beyond learning. You simply throw yourself into the practice. And Pure Land Buddhism, you simply, the wonderful thing about Pure Land Buddhism is you realize how inadequate you are.

[08:09]

And right there is enlightenment, And then you simply chant the name of Buddha and become absorbed into chanting Samadhi. When I was first starting to practice back in the 60s, 64, And Master Wa, who was then called To Lun, had a building on the corner of Sutter and Laguna, around the corner from the old Sokoji, which was on Bush and Laguna. And I remember going over to practice with him after being with Suzuki Roshi for a while. some buddies, there were four of us, and we asked him if he would do a sasheen for us.

[09:19]

And he said, okay. And part of the sasheen was walking and chanting the name of Buddha in Chinese. And you just get into this chanting samadhi, walking around and chanting the name. Wonderful. It's kind of absorption. Samadhi means absorption and stability. I was up at City of Ten Thousand Buddhas a couple of weeks ago. We did that, the whole meditation hall, full of about 150 people. We did it for like 45 minutes. It was terrific. Yeah, it is. It's really wonderful. Just Namo Amida Buddha, the whole world in a little melody. So Master Hua became To Lun and founded the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, but at that time he just had this little house on Sutter and Laguna.

[10:24]

It wasn't a little house, it was, you know, San Francisco house. And nobody was practicing with him. He just had himself and a few people that would come by once in a while, but he didn't have any students or anything. So this Samadhi is close to Zen, and actually in China A lot of the Zen practitioners also did Pure Land chanting. Dogen totally discouraged that, and most Zen practitioners don't do that. They don't mix Pure Land with Zen.

[11:27]

At some point in his life, at the very end of his life, practiced Pure Land chanting rather than Zazen, or maybe together with Zazen. But I think Pure Land is closer to Zen in that it's not dependent on learning or study or whatever. It's simply throwing yourself into practice. So he says, and Dogen says this, you know, cast your body and mind into the great Komyo-Zo, Samai. Dogen says, cast your body and mind into Buddha's world. Just throw yourself in, jump into the ocean and start swimming, and then find out how to do it by doing it. So he says, neither seek to be enlightened nor drive away delusion.

[12:42]

Enlightenment and delusion. Seeking enlightenment or driving away delusion. This is the practice of what they would call Hinayana Buddhism, striving for enlightenment and eliminating delusion and making a duality between enlightenment and delusion. There are many ways to, many levels of delusion, but delusion and enlightenment are a duality. So we have to be very careful that we don't split delusion and enlightenment into a duality. We practice enlightened practice within our delusion.

[13:47]

I remember Bill Kwong once sent me a photograph of himself and he wrote a caption under and said, I thought, yeah, that's nice, that's good. That's what we're doing. We sit in the midst of our delusion, which is enlightenment. So enlightenment is beyond enlightenment and delusion. One has to transcend delightment and illusion. in order to actually be practicing in the realm of enlightenment. So, either seek to be enlightened or drive away delusion.

[14:47]

Because we're already, you know, enlightenment is our natural state. When we are in our pure non-dual, expressing our pure non-dual nature, that's enlightenment. We don't have to seek something, because enlightenment is not a thing to be sought. And if we just try to get rid of delusion in order for enlightenment to be present, delusion is not a thing either. to get rid of, and there's nothing to seek. But we still go around seeking enlightenment and trying to get rid of delusion. And we have to be very careful about how we criticize ourself and beat ourself up over what we think is our delusion, just adding delusion to delusion.

[15:58]

He says, neither hate the arising of thoughts nor love thoughts and identify with them. But when we sit down then, no matter how long we sit, we still criticize ourselves for having thoughts. It's hard to believe, but it's true. We just beat ourselves up over our mind. Terrible. Thoughts just come up and go. They just come and go, just sit stably and calmly, just sit stably and calmly in samadhi. If you do not continue to think, thoughts will not arise by themselves. Well, that's questionable. They do arise whether you want them or not, whether you call them up or not. I'm not sure if that's what he means, but that's what he says.

[17:07]

Just to sit as if you were the boundless sky or the weight of a flame. There are two ways of translating that. One is like a ball of fire and the other is like the weight of a flame. I like the weight of a flame more than a ball of fire, because, you know, Zazen is the cool state, right? So, I think this is like Suzuki Roshi talks about the lamp and how a kerosene lamp, you know, you have to always adjust it. When it's out of adjustment, it flames up and burns, it's a ball of fire. But when you adjust it just right, it's just a wonderful light. So everything is working very beautifully together.

[18:09]

Body, mind, and breath are working in total harmony. Then it's like a well-adjusted flame. And then ... produces this wonderful light. So, you know, our nature is light. And our whole nature and being is light. So when we sit tazen, we allow ourself to be eliminated in the most fundamental way. We're simply expressing illumination. That's what's so wonderful about Zazen, is the harmony and balance allows our original nature, our essence of mind, which is light, to illuminate.

[19:21]

This is our contribution to the world. So just to sit stably and calmly in this samadhi, if you do not continue to think, thoughts will not arise by themselves. Just sit as if you were the boundless sky or a well-adjusted flame. Trust everything to inhalation and exhalation. Suzuki Roshi talked about breathing as a swinging door. Remember that the breath is like a swinging door. Inhale and exhaling, and there's nobody there, just the door, just the inhale, the motion of inhaling and exhaling. Even if 84,000 idle thoughts arise, each and every one may become the light of prajna,

[20:32]

or non-discriminating wisdom. If you do not pay any attention and simply let them go, every thought itself is not something to be angry at or to think is wrong or to create a problem. The problem we create when thoughts come up is that we worry about it. We think it's wrong. But each thought, if we allow each thought to arise, the thought itself is essence of prajna, wisdom. But we don't hang on to that. We can't cling to anything. Thoughts are interesting. So we let them go. This is called not clinging to states of mind, because every thought is a new state of mind. you think is a great spiritual insight than what?

[21:38]

That's your mind thinking that it's a great spiritual insight. That's also a problem. There's no greater spiritual insight than simply sitting Zazen without thinking. Right, that's because you have the problem of thinking that you're not supposed to have done that.

[23:01]

That's the problem. That's just what happened. Judgmental mind is delusion. Simply let go of judgmental mind. That was 10 minutes of whatever it was. Do you have any choice? No choice. Each one of that 10 minutes was 10 minutes of enlightenment. If you don't let it bother you. Problem we have is we let it bother us. And then you have a residue This is called leaving a trail, leaving a slimy trail, a sluggish, slimy trail of old thoughts that have no relevance to anything.

[24:11]

I wasted my time for 10 minutes. You know, we can also enjoy our thoughts. I thought, oh, that's wonderful, all right. Or, gee, this is the most profound thing I ever thought of, you know. And then, zazen. You know, like, good thoughts, bad thoughts, ten minutes of losing it. Zazen is over and over and over returning. It's called the practice of recollection. Oh yeah, zazen. Over and over and over. And all the times that you get carried away, it's called the dream world. The dream world and the waking world. The dream world is the world of delusion. Isn't that bird? The dream world is the world of delusion, so-called.

[25:15]

So, delusion is part of zazen. We don't try to get rid of delusion. We don't blame ourselves for being deluded. We don't judge ourselves. Delusion is part of life. Just like waking and sleeping is part of life. Doing things right and wrong is part of life. So if we're always going around judging, we lose the moment. When we do something that's off, we get on, that's all. Oh, it's off, get on. No judgment, oh, that was bad. Just uh, [...] uh. Dream, oh, come back. Dream, oh, come back. So every time you realize that you're dreaming, that's called waking up. That's all. No more than that. No more than that, just simply correcting, self-correcting.

[26:20]

It's like a ship, you know. The wind is pushing over and, oh yeah, okay, get back on course. Oh God, we're off course. You don't need to do that. That's just called interference. It reminds me of that expression, careful in the beginning, and this is always the beginning. Always the beginning, yeah. Right, every moment is a new beginning. It's the life of birth and death. There's an aspect of coming back again and again that I've been noting, which changes for me radically from time to time, about how easy or difficult it is. It has to do with tenor tone, what you were saying about the slide girl in London. It doesn't seem like it's part of the 84,000 states of mind. It feels like it's something else.

[27:20]

It's more like something about surrender or resistance. Like, there are times when for an entire Sashin, I feel like I fought the schedule, I fought me. And other times, I just do Zazen. That's what he means by throwing yourself into the Samadhi. That means surrender. Lay down your guns. Lay down your resistance. But then, you know, when you do that, resistance is also enlightenment. There's nothing, within the realm of practice, there's nothing that's outside of practice.

[28:24]

So, we have resistance, we have delusion, we have love and hate, and we have freedom, and we have enlightenment. It's all just, all in the realm of practice. And if you realize that, things are much easier. Because, you know, then everything is perfect as it is. But when we're outside of the realm of practice, then there's nothing that contains all that. But we have all these problems, because everything that's not perfect becomes a problem. Everything that's not the way we want it to be becomes a problem.

[29:27]

This is called renunciation moment by moment. That's true renunciation. You have the feeling, you have something that's built up in you, and you let it go. And you are born new on each moment. we're born with all this stuff again. Our karma, right? Our karmic load just keeps being reborn with us moment by moment. I think one of the things that I find so wonderful in the practice here is when I come to you, and sometimes to other people, you don't handle my taste balance things, but you start fresh. Yeah. Yeah, otherwise we need this big trail.

[30:58]

So that's the point of practice, is to let go. So renunciation is a big part of practice, and forgiveness is a big part of renunciation. That's actually what forgiveness is, is letting go. It's not about the other person so much. It's about you. being attached to your stuff about this other person. But it's also that people here are going to see someone fresh, you know, and it's a wonderful model to go to someone and not carry your whole load of what you think they are. That's right, yeah. So we're conditioned to thinking about how somebody is.

[31:59]

And so when we address them, that's part of what's addressing them, instead of simply seeing who they are now, fresh. Yes? So he says, where am I? He says, even if 84,000 idle thoughts arise, each and every one may become the light of prajna. If you are non-discriminating wisdom, the reason why it becomes the light of prajna, which is non-discriminating wisdom, is because you're not discriminating the thoughts. In that regard, can I just say a word for Swami Kriya? Oh yeah, slime trails are okay.

[33:09]

Just don't slip. Not only in sitting, but every step you take is the movement of the light. Step after step, no discrimination. Throughout the day, to be like a dead person. completely without personal views or discrimination. The word that I use is unassuming, which is not ... Unassuming means not thinking, I know. We're always assuming that we know something, but to not assume is the same as not knowing. not knowing is the non-discriminating state of mind. So not knowing is the highest, actually, state of mind. We usually think it's the most ignorant, but it's actually the highest, not knowing.

[34:14]

And when you say, if you come against something you don't know, and if you say, I don't know, then something that clears your mind And then knowing appears because you cleared the air. Like a dead person? That's just a... Poor translation. No, no, no. Like a dead person. It means, doesn't mean, you know, it means unassuming, basically, not to be taken literally. In the same way as kill the Buddha doesn't mean you should kill the Buddha, it simply means ...

[35:18]

You should be careful not to assume what somebody else says is correct. You should find out for yourself. So even though Buddha said it, it doesn't mean that you should take that without giving it some thought yourself. He says, to inhale or to exhale, to listen or to touch, being without thoughts and discrimination is nothing other than the tranquil illumination of the light in which body and mind are one. Therefore, when someone calls, you answer. There are a number of koans that have to do with someone calling and someone responding.

[36:32]

But it simply means when someone calls, it kind of means when something is eliciting your attention, you respond. Without thinking, simply respond. This is actually the essence of so many koans. The teacher and the student are in a dialogue and the student simply responds without thinking, so that it's beyond the thinking mind and the discriminating mind. This is how, hopefully, the shuso ceremony should be.

[37:34]

The student asks the question, the shuso responds in a way that is so accurate that it's not thought out. Simply, boom. So this is the light in which ordinary people and sages, the deluded and the enlightened, are one. Even in the midst of change, the light is not hindered by it. Forests, flowers, grass, leaves, human beings, animals, big or small, long or short, square or round, all manifest themselves simultaneously, independent of discriminating thoughts or will. This is proof that the light is not obstructed by change. The light illuminates of itself. It does not depend on the power of the mind. From the beginning, the light does not rest.

[38:38]

Even when Buddhas appear in this universe, the light does not just then appear. When the Buddhas enter nirvana, the light does not just then enter nirvana. When you are born, the light is not just born. When you die, the light is not just die. Does not increase in Buddhists, does not decrease in sentient beings, neither is it diluted, even if you are not enlightened. Even if you are, it has no position, no special position, no special appearance, no name. This is the whole body of phenomena. You cannot grasp it and you can't throw it away. It is unattainable. Although it is unattainable, it penetrates the whole body. From the highest heaven down to the lowest hell, all places are perfectly illuminated in this way. This is the divine, inconceivable spiritual light. If you trustfully open yourself to and believe the profound meaning of these words, you will not need to ask someone else what is true or false.

[39:44]

You will be as intimate with the reality as if you were to come face to face with your grandfather in a town. Do not seek from your teacher certification of your enlightenment, which is called Inca, or a prediction as to when you will attain Buddhahood." In the Lotus Sutra, there are chapters on Buddha, predicting when someone else would attain Buddhahood. Much less should you be attached to clothing, food, or a place to live, or be driven by attachment to sexual desire. From the beginning, this Samadhi, Komyozo Zamae, is the dojo, the place of practice, which is the ocean of Buddhahood. There's also the Kaiin Zamae, which is samadhi. This zazen, which is the sitting, sometimes zazen is called the great ocean samadhi. All those samadhis are aspects of zazen.

[40:51]

This is zazen, which is the sitting of the Buddha, the practice of the Buddha, which has been faithfully transmitted. Since you are already a child of the Buddha, sit stably in the manner of the never sit in the manner of hell dwellers, hungry ghosts, these are the six worlds, animals, fighting spirits, human beings, heavenly beings, śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, practice shikantaza in this way." So this is another name for, this is the most common name. Dogen used this shikantaza and this samadhi, for the name of this samadhi, just going. Practice shikantaza in this way and don't waste your time. This is the dojo or the place of straightforward mind. This is called komyo zamae, inconceivable liberation. Dogen wrote a fancicle called Komyo, which is what inspired Eijo to write this Komyo Zamae, and this fancicle of Dogen's.

[42:23]

And Dogen, of course, was inspired by Masayunman, of which there is a koan about This is all connected. And each one is a commentary on the other. And Pilgrim says that you should be careful not to try to see some special kind of light as this radiant light. Because it's simply the presence of everything. In other words, it's Buddha nature. Another name for Buddha nature. But enlightenment, if you want to use the term enlightenment, what does that mean?

[43:27]

It means light. Enlightened. illumined, illumination. So illumination is what our practice is because it's simply what is, it's the practice of what is, which is Shikantaza, just the practice of what is, how. And it's all connected to the Hokyo Zamai The other Christ chant. Sandokai. Sandokai talks about dark and light. Within the darkness is light, within dark light is darkness.

[44:31]

So, light is not some special thing that we think it is. It is also the essence of darkness, and darkness is the essence of light. Yes? I'm looking to ask this, but you read that last little part, all about, you know, that it's ungraspable, but it permeates everything, et cetera, et cetera, kind of fast. I know because of the time. I didn't comment on everything. I'm going to continue tomorrow. Yeah.

[45:13]

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