Good evening and welcome to YouTube. So yesterday morning, OBSU gave a talk about SARS-CoV-2 and eyesight, eyeballs, and sleep. This is it. Something to explore with all our senses. But as I said, so tonight I was more involved with the listening. So, all of, can you hear me okay, everyone? Yeah, so I want to continue talking about meditation.

[01:03]

And Jogen's general instructions for zazen, he says, The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation, but the dominated, purposeless, practiced realization of a totally culminated origin. So, this means the zazen is not learning meditation. Well, commonly we refer to zazen as meditation, right? But technically, in early Buddhism, meditation involves various techniques that people learn. So, it's not, the zazen is not for yoga, it's also for zen. So, just to do a little background, in terms of the paramitas, the transcendent practices,

[02:09]

are generosity, ethics, patience, effort, enthusiasm, meditation, and so forth. Jhana paramita, once translated as the reflection or transcendent practice of meditation, sometimes it's called samadhu. But jhana is the word that was transliterated into Chinese as charm. Charms at school, it's named after that because everybody said, oh yeah, those people meditate a lot. But technically, charm in Chinese is translated into Japanese as zen. But jhana, technically, predates Buddhism. It's a system involving four stages of mental purification. So, it's involved in stages, it's involved in mental purification.

[03:12]

And so, same with the zazen. But this was practiced by the Buddha. And it can be, it has been practiced by certain people. And it can be helpful in the context of zazen. So, the first stage is transcending desire. That produces a heightened apprehension of form, formative form. The next one is... And this is the stage of meditating bliss, joy. Which, you know, some people may experience in seijin. Sometimes, and sometimes in the period of zazen. But then, the next stage is to let go of the joy. Joy that's forsaken for equanimity.

[04:13]

And the next stage, reception of all these forms. Such as a concentration of formless qualities. Which leads to heightened awareness. Now, this is not technically Bodhisattva practice. It can't be helpful for that. But, this is... What's called, what Dilgit is referring to, as learning meditation. And there are various other kinds of meditation programs. There's meditation objects that one can focus on. And there are libraries full of descriptions of these meditative techniques. Dilgit says this is not... Zazen is not one of these types of meditations. So, the practice of samadhi, or that concentration.

[05:26]

Generally, it's just about settling. Calm it. Setting in the mind. This is the practice of zazen. This is part of the practice of zazen, basically. So, our meditative practice is just to settle. Just to calm. Just to find our settingness. And, um... Sutra Ancestor. This five-foot sutra talks about samadhi and prashna. This is something we can experience. Maybe all of us here have experienced this in some way or another. When your body-mind-state is concentrated,

[06:29]

samadhi, samadhi is just this concentration, but it's a way of describing this meditation. And even zazen. When we're settled. Calm. Concentrated. Very naturally. Sensuous. So, this is what the Sutra Ancestor was talking about. That settling and samadhi and prashna are one. Together. Not separate. And, again, as you're sitting, over a period of zazen or two or three sittings, it's very natural that insights arise. Whatever is on your mind, whatever issue you are working with, this week or this month or this lifetime, some insight, some prashna, some awareness.

[07:33]

So prashna is often translated as wisdom. I think more literally it's good stuff. That good stuff arises. You're not letting your body mind settle. That's very natural. And these insights can be helpful. And it's not that you have to have a notepad by your sheet of paper and write them down. Once they are, once the insights arise, they are present. But you need to recall them. I want to make it clear for you. So, this is part of the process. Zazen. But, again, Zazen, I speak of, is not learning meditation.

[08:34]

Learning meditation techniques. And I will say that sometimes people do zazen. Zazen is objectless meditation. There's no particular object of concentration. But there are, again, libraries full of concentration objects. Sound. Or you could work with eyesight. I said this was talking about Christian women. But with poems or phrases from the teaching, you could work with, I say work with a colloquial language. They are incessant. You don't have to think about it to figure it out. But it's part of the insight that arises. Now, it's okay if you want to go, and from a modern perspective, I would say, it's okay if you want to go study and learn about meditation techniques.

[09:37]

I think that can be helpful. But it's helpful in this wider context of zazen. Shikantaza is an objectless meditation where we are not dependent on some particular object of concentration or focus. And an open awareness. So this objectless meditation specifically has punished me. Pay attention. There are some schools of zazen where one should pay attention in a harsh, strong military way. It makes you sick if you just start to close your eyes. But sometimes that's traditionally practiced here. It's more of a gentle kind of settling and opening.

[10:38]

And it's dynamic. It involves continued awareness. Pay attention. Pay attention. Notice it. Even when we're sleeping, notice what that's like. Or when our minds are running around, we bump our minds. Just notice what's happening. Not trying to do anything. So when I said inside your eyes, it doesn't mean that you have to track them or follow them or figure out anything. Just open awareness. Apart from any particular technique. Just pay attention to what's happening in your body. In your heart, in your mind. Rise. Strong sense when it's there. Physical sensation. Shoulders or your knees or your back or whatever.

[11:42]

Feeling what you're feeling. Just be present. So, this leads me to the chant we did tonight. The Five Posts of Silent Illumination. By Ongzho Shangshui, who is a great dharma uncle, so I can't remember if he's still around. And this Silent Illumination is considered a hallmark of Ongzho's teaching. He doesn't actually mention that phrase very much. Though he does mention it, he won't tell us about it in particular. He talks more about just feeling the aura. Continuing to open up the aura. I want to go through just a few of the lines in Five Posts of Silent Illumination. And I think this does reflect this objectless meditation.

[12:47]

And as I've studied the background of Dōgen, Chinese Saodong, which is from Sōtō in Japanese, Saodong tradition, going back even before Dongsha, the founder of lineage, going back to Shinto, Yamsha, and other ancestors, before Dongsha, there's a kind of consistency. And the consistency of this open, just serene, serene meditation that we've been doing. And again, if you want to go study some meditation, it's okay. It's not forbidden. I'll help you. Anyway, I want to go through some of this. Actually, if I was translating this now,

[13:48]

it's not in the Silent Illumination, but I actually prefer translation serene. Anyway, that character. So the first line, and a few people in the hall, if you want to get out of chat, let's look at the section. Welcome to the key object. The first line, silent and serene, forgetting words, light clarity appears before you. So this is our object, this conversation. Silent and serene, forgetting words. Forgetting words implies to me going beyond subject to object. Our language is about subject to object. Forgetting words, forgetting language. So I'm not going to go through the entire poem,

[14:51]

but for poetic nature, which is like the praying beast going into a nice yard watch for the father of the darkness. But I wanted to point to some particular lines. When wonder exists in serenity, all achievement is forgotten in meditation. So this sense of wonder arises when we are settled in serenity. Achievement is forgotten in meditation. So, you know, all of these systems for so-called learning meditation, for training particular techniques of meditative awareness, you know, lead us to feel like we've achieved something, which is another stage of experience.

[15:52]

But in this serene illumination, wonder just exists, this apology is forgotten. A couple of lines further, it says, this is the way of self-identification and the origin of subtle radiance. Subtle radiance is another way of talking about this. This term that I'm in, I don't get it. The successors of actual, of total loss is achieved with this enlightenment. The aim is the subtle radiance. So, vision penetrating, the subtle radiance is leaving all opportunity. Upright and inclined yield to each other, like a dog on a train. The upright and the inclined is an important part of centers of teaching. Again, going all the way back

[16:54]

and from the upright to the train, up to the train. So, upright implies the ultimate, the social aspect of the unconscious, the bodhisattva perspective leaning over to all beings, but also the particulars. Not just all beings separate from us, but ourselves too. Upright implies this dynamic interactivity that is background policy, objectless penetration. So, again, I'm just going to pick out a few lines. Only silence is the supreme speech talked about from all care to all school. Back to spirit. Abrupt silence was the supreme speech. Only illumination is the universal response.

[17:56]

Just to feel the silence is the basic response to our life in this world. Responding without falling into achievement, speaking without the call of listeners. It's the best form of gesture of listening. I found the dog on a chair was always not falling into achievement. It's not about whose satsang is better. Is it important to say such a thing? Or can we even do that ourselves and say, oh, that was a really good period of satsang, or that was a crappy period of satsang. All those gestures of each satsang it's not about achieving something, trying to better the people around you. Just be present. Then there's these important lines.

[18:59]

If illumination neglects serenity, aggressiveness appears. Then the other side of that couple lines down. If serenity neglects illumination, well, achievement leads to a wasted dog. So that sounds kind of funny. How could there be wasted dog? How could illumination lead to aggressiveness? Well, this is again about this upbringing of the mind. Even though we're talking about this unctuous silent illumination, which is to me basically the same as how I'm just sitting, there's a history to this in terms of Buddhist teaching. So serene illumination echoes the Chinese qianzai schools teaching jiu guang, jiu guang means stopping, guang means inside your awareness, guang is the guang, guang yin, or the center of compassion.

[20:01]

That goes back to India, to where it was invited from, shamatha, asma. So that's again, stopping, and inside. And they point to two sides of our samsara. It's not about, you know, this again, what Pugat's was talking about this morning, just being aware of our eyes, our sight. Duncan talks about studying it, so study it, but not like trying to figure anything out, but just be present in the middle of it, in the middle of the samsara. So, there's these two sides, serenity and illumination. So, illumination is,

[21:03]

I'll start the other way around, serenities are settling, peacefulness. Very important. And that can involve some discipline, some focus. So, if your mind is wandering around, it can't be helpful to focus on something. Focus on the sound, focus on patterns of the market, the law. Not to try and define that or figure everything out, but just this general open awareness. So, that's a kind of discipline, that is focus. Focus on settling, the market. And then the other side, vajna, or form, is illumination, awareness.

[22:04]

This is spaciousness, this is conscious. Perhaps this discussion is impulsive, but it includes meditation on spaciousness, openness, aliveness, and all emptiness. Just this open awareness. So, these are two sides of what happens when there's autism. They're settling, and they're not separate. That's important, they're not separate. They're settling, calming, and there's openness, awareness. So, consciousness, illumination, neglects serenity, restlessness appears. If your mind is just full of insights, not settled, not aggressive,

[23:06]

serenity neglects illumination, becomes working. So, there's this balancing, this middle way, which is so much a part of all groups. And it's okay to be aware of these two sides. And it's not that you should try and get one and get the other, or, you know, but just be aware when you're, as I said yesterday, because the last time people were at Salsa Instruction, at least I was at Salsa, was, we're always kind of looking at, what is the Salsa? It includes both. Settling, and this spaciousness. So, that's kind of the main thing I wanted to say,

[24:12]

and I want to hear your comments, questions. I'll just mention a couple more poems. Too much. The ruler stays in the kingdom, the general goes beyond the frontiers. So, there's this settledness, staying in the center. China was called the central. This could refer to Buddhism, but the general goes beyond the frontiers. So, there's the settledness, just sitting like that, and then there's going beyond the frontiers, opening up a sense of space. The last one, the archer says, just transmit it in all directions, share it with everyone, without desiring to gain credit. It's not personal, you know? If you're Salsa,

[25:14]

and your practice is good, it's not about you. I make a conclusion, of course, but it's just, it's just this ancient tradition that goes back to my ancestors, from India, from China. That's just a little bit of song over the next song. It's the same, it says, it's a great line. So, yes, lots of feelings arise, lots of well, it's just for the next time. So anyway, this is a little bit about our practice of Salsa, object of salutation, it's really interesting.

[26:15]

So, so thank you, you can take away the text, and I'm just interested in hearing comments, questions, responses, on my note. Okay. Yes. And I think, you know, can you say more about, because it's such a power, more and more, I've been feeling it's such a powerful image, you know, minister, serve the lords, like, like that, like you said, that sort of dance between upright and inclined, but it's,

[27:19]

it's a rubrics as far as I understand it, in times that this, you know, texts were circulating, kind of responsibility to the community, so they could stay in their castles. And, you know, but there was this conversation, so there was the centeredness, but responsibility. So it wasn't like, just like hiding out there, you know, and that, that everybody had sort of these Dharma positions that were dancing around. I just, I just think it's a very rich, and it can be hard to, to drop sometimes, because you take them ministers and rulers, you know, we don't want those in the United States, but, well, you know, sorry, but, you know what I mean? So, I don't know if you want to comment more on the historical meanings of that, or just like, you're a copy of it.

[28:19]

Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. No, it's not that you've got to study all this stuff, and memorize all these, these teaching poems, but they're there as resources for us. And there's definitely this, this continuity between Tsukiyoshi going back to Togeto, that Hongzhi going back to the Sanxian, going back to, to Kishito, or Sekito, to Dongshan, and so these teaching poems so we, these are all part, these are part of our liturgy. Chants, and we chant sometimes, and you can find them. Our chant book are on the website, the teachings of the chants, and they're all there. So, yeah, the Song of the Juro-Polaris, not a favorite song, along with this journal. But anyway, that, yeah, totally is

[29:21]

part of this five books, Chant of Liberation, Moksha, Nareto-Moksha, and the Ornery of Gifts of Sameness, Song of the Grasshopper. And there are others, there are other wonderful teaching poems, or talks throughout the tradition that talk about this dynamic of objectless meditation. So yeah, and consent is the Chinese school who teaches through nature, imagery, and through poetry. So, yeah, these teaching poems are wonderful treasures for us. It's not about going and reading like some English class trying to figure out what each one is, it's just their songs. And also the deputies of the

[30:21]

Association of Black Fellowships who sell out marriage. Thank you. Other comments, questions, or anything in this way? I actually also had a question about the Pilgrim of Samadhi. I was hoping you could say something about finding it off-grid, because I would like to know more about that. Individual mirror samadhis have an illumination hexagram and find it off-grid interact. Tiled up, they make three, the permutations make five, which just sounds like Greek to me. So maybe you could shed some light on that. Is this the I Ching? There is a reference to the I Ching there, but so in my book, just this section on the chapter on some individual marriage samadhi, and actually going online, but

[31:21]

find it off-grid. It's a way of talking about the principle and knowledge, but it's about two sides of reality. It relates to the two truths of the darshan, but it's so poetic when they talk about this upright and the divine. The upright is the ultimate truth, universal truth, which can be expressed in the samadhi. The divine is the particular prominence of the Anyway, and the son of the general marriage samadhi leads to this teaching that Goksha first presented and was studying throughout such a

[32:23]

history of the five degrees or the five ranks, which is this fivefold way in which they interact. So the point is not to learn some specific theory, but that upright and direct, that the ultimate and the particular do interact. our sense of universal truth that we sometimes arise is also expressed, we've talked about this here, expressed in our everyday life, in our everyday world. I was just talking about this the other day, and yeah, that's the point about practice. So practice is to get high. There are various ways of getting high, that's what you want, but the practice is to realize ultimate universal truth and upright and then integrate it

[33:23]

in our everyday activity. This is a lifelong practice, and you'll never get it perfect. It's a little wobbly, but it's about the middle way, it's about finding way. And it turns out that the earliest people in China expressed this about there was a five-fold progression about how the upright in particular interact. There's a chapter on that too, but it's about, the point is, how do we express our ultimate truth in our everyday activity. In the world, in Chicago, out on the streets, in our job, in our work, with our neighbors. This is a lifelong practice. It's not about just reaching, so it's not about if

[34:23]

this is the illumination. The illumination is really these ways of talking about this middle way. I don't know if that helps. Very much so, thank you. You're welcome. If anybody on the line had questions, I think at some point we Maybe no. understood it. If you're on the line. Nicholas has another question. Tyson was saying about the history where the text comes from and you know, the is literally versus symbolically. To me, maybe I'm wrong, but this is kind of a teaching

[35:23]

that if I take it literally, it reads like yesterday's newspaper. But when I take it symbolically, how does it land in my body, in my mind, in my life? How does it point to these interests? Like rulers within, generals within, all of them are in it, right? And so it's just helpful for me to view these texts, you know, to try to visualize them, identify with them. So it's not a literal thing. we'll take the Bible literally, and it's just kind of ridiculous, but there are lots of great stories in the Bible if you look at it from a symbolic

[36:25]

point of view. Like a myth. So ultimately these are facets of, you know, the mass mind, yeah, throughout centuries. So there's all this wisdom, detail, keys to, you know, awakening that have been cultivated over centuries, right? So it's just rich, and yeah, so I just wanted to throw that. Yes, I agree, you can. So everything you just said applies also to the mass mind. But there's a side of that where it's metaphorical, psychological, if you will,

[37:25]

and deep, but also literal. So I'm trying to think of an example that comes up. There'll be a talk about reading out your walking. Well, of course, we have to study that if we want to know our own walking. Of course, that's about seeing how there's a lot I could say about that. That's about how we express the landscape of the natural world. But also, there's a way in which that's literally true. Over a long span of time, mountains shift, mountains get higher or lower depending on seismic activity or whatever. So I think, I'm not sure if that's a good example, but a lot of these stories

[38:26]

also with the verses to get the sort of archaic and literal and also most importantly, as you said, metaphoric. I'm tempted to go back to the question that there was this structure particularly starting with the red snow mountains. He was teaching in a lot of ways to the upper class. He also helps the peasants down the mountains. He sent food down the mountains. Anyway, there's a line in here that may be calm, may be

[40:22]

He likes that story. So, yeah, there's a metaphor and it's about our own practice, but it also refers to the chicken remnants. I'm just thinking of a witch tale that didn't exist. It's not an exceptional answer. It's something literally. Exactly. Right. More examples of that, it's just time for one more question. Yes, go ahead. So, the what if illumination neglects serenity and aggressiveness appears? Yeah, I feel like personally attacked by how accurate that is. Testimony. Lots of illumination,

[41:23]

very little serenity, and then lots of aggressiveness. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank you. We need both. And one of the things that happens in Zazen when you're giving yourself Zazen instruction is to see when you're getting overexcited because it incites your eyes and settle down with it. terms of the eyes, or if you're feeling sleepy, straight ahead. Finding Zazen is this process of inner balance and physical balance. It's a process that goes on. So, yeah, that's a great

[42:26]

example. I want to check off this because I recently watched this video from like Tassabara in like the 60s, Tsukinoshi opening Soriyoki bowls. So, in this video, the person sitting next to him, I think by the rep, you could see such a difference in their, you know, rep was such a young person and having sat next to rep. Yeah, just younger than any of us, I think. And having sat next to rep, I don't know if I see his bowls now, but it was so interesting to see Tsukinoshi opening his bowls so naturally and serenely and confidently. And to see other people in the Zendo really struggling with that kind of aggression around it or spacing

[43:26]

out, but you could see the enthusiasm for practice has an aggressive quality sometimes. I'm going to sit so she did not move, you know. So it's a really great point, I think. Yeah, thank you very much.

[43:40]

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