Good evening. Welcome. So the last three days, people have been sitting here, settling into what we call Samadhi. And I wanted to talk, just review a little bit about what I talked about this weekend. A few of you were here for parts of it, or all of it. So samadhi is another way of talking about zazen. Samadhi is a Sanskrit word. It means concentration. And practically speaking, it refers to settling, settling into being present, being present in this body and mind as it is. Samadhi is the basis for our practice of precepts or engaging the world. So a lot of our teaching in Soto Zen is about how to express meditative awareness in the world, how we take care of the stuff of the world, the situation of our sanghas and our relationships and our work life and how we respond to the problems of the world, all of which is the realm of precepts and the guidelines to supporting life

[01:24]

engaging with all beings rather than just a select few, not causing harm, being aware rather than intoxicated. But how we engage all of that comes from this deeper settling. then there are lots of ways of talking about it. So we chanted the Jewel Mare Samadhi tonight. That's one description from Dong Shan, the founder of Soto Zen in China. There are many other particular Samadhi texts and names for Samadhis. But this weekend we've been focusing on the Samadhi of Light. from a text from Dogen's main disciple, Koen Ejo, a text called Komyo Zo Zatmai, the Samadhi of the Treasury of Radiant Light. And light's one common way we can talk about this settling, but actually, it's impossible to talk about what this

[02:41]

deeper energy and deeper awareness is, anything we say about it is incomplete at best, if not downright misleading. And yet, sitting for a period or sitting for a day or two or three, but even sitting for one period, we can taste this. We can get a sense of it. All of these glorious Samadhi texts may seem very lofty, and yet they're not describing something that you need to achieve or figure out or gain some experience of. These are ways of talking about something that is the fabric of the underlying reality, right here, right now, on your cushion, this body, this mind. So light is one common way that it's talked about. And I think this is, so I wanna go over a few of the main images that are talked about and that I talked about this weekend, and maybe I'll get to some of the others too, but, you know, as humans, we have, well, in Buddhism, six senses.

[04:03]

Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind. We see, we hear, we smell, we taste, we touch or feel with our skin, hot and cold. And then also we have the sense of mind where we have mind objects. song lyrics, to-do lists, various thoughts that float through our mind organ as we sit also. And in Buddhism, that's considered a sense like seeing. But seeing is particularly important for human beings. We say, oh, I see, to mean I understand. We have visions to describe deeper or loftier awarenesses. were very visually oriented, not exclusively. We have music and we can like the sense of touch and so forth. But for dogs, for example, I've walked dogs where whatever was going on that I was aware of visually, they were going from smell to smell.

[05:16]

So for dogs, it might be the samadhi of smell, for dog Buddhas. And actually in the Vimalakirti Sutra, it describes one, mentions one Buddha, forget his name, but he teaches by fragrance. So all of these are metaphors for something that is beyond sense. It's not separate or outside of our sense of perceptions, but it's a way of talking of a deeper experience that we can't get a hold of. So, I'll come back to that in Graspability. This text by Koen Ejo is based on a shorter text in Dogen Shobo Genzo, but he expands on it a lot. There's several particular references he refers to old teachers. And I'm going to take them out of the order that Koen Edger gives them, although closer to how Dogen presents them.

[06:30]

I lost this reference. Here it is, yeah. So he quotes a saying from great master Changsha, great, classic Zen master. And introducing it, Koenajo says, once we are talking about silent illumination pervading the universe, why should these be the words only of some famous poet? Why should they be the words of Buddha even? Why should they be your words? After all, whose words would they be? So listen clearly and hear accurately. Grade Master Changsha said to the assembly, the whole universe is the eye of a practitioner. The whole universe is the family talk of practitioners.

[07:34]

The whole universe is the total body of practitioners. The whole universe is one's own light. In the whole universe, there's no one who is not oneself. So to talk about light, we might say it in other media too, is to talk about our connectedness to everything, to wholeness. Everybody you've ever met is part of what's going on when you're pushing right now. We don't usually think that way. Our process of thinking is to narrow down our awareness. If we were constantly aware of everything that is part of the hard drives of our head or whatever, the memory banks, we couldn't function. So we actually need a discriminating consciousness to focus on particulars.

[08:36]

But ultimately, the whole universe is one's own light. In the whole universe, there's no one who is not oneself. We are deeply interconnected in many ways. This is kind of the context we're talking about this light. And I want to say a little bit about this and then have some chance for discussion. Those of you who were here this weekend or for parts of this weekend may have more reflections to give or whatever. But this is what, when we talk about light here, though, this is not, light in the ordinary sense. So he has a few quotes from the great Master Yunnan. Oh, no, this first one, though, is from Shakyamuni himself. He said, the light of lights is not blue, yellow, red, white, or black. It is not matter. It's not mind. It is not existent.

[09:37]

But it's not nonexistent either. It is not a phenomenon resulting from causes. Well, all phenomena result from causes. This is the Second Noble Truth. This is basic. And this is the realm in which precepts work, and this is the realm in which we actually have to apply the awareness and the settling that we get in zazen and meditation. But what I'm emphasizing, I talked about this last Monday too, and this week I'm emphasizing, is that part of how we can respond more effectively to phenomenon is to see this light that is not a phenomenon resulting in causes. Instead, it is the source of all Buddhas, the basis of practicing the way of Bodhisattvas, the Enlightened Beings, fundamental for all Buddhas. So somebody, actually a Catholic priest recently wrote me saying, asking about shadowless light.

[10:41]

Also related. What is shadowless light? And there's a line in a sutra about the tree that has no shadow. How do we see the light that's coming from things? It's not that we ignore the sun and the moon and the light bulbs and the candle, but there is a light in everything. And we can't quite see it, and yet we can actually be there. And it's not that you have to get a hold of it. In fact, you can't. And yet, it's not separate from this space. So, he comments, the way cannot be attained by the conscious mind, but it cannot be attained by mindlessness either. It cannot be communicated by words, but nor can it be reached by silence.

[11:43]

As soon as you get involved in deliberation, you are 10 million stages away. And yet this light is something that... I was going to say that you have a relationship to, but it's more like the light has a relationship with you, just by virtue of your being here, just by your willingness to be present and upright, this body, this mind. here, this space. So, he mentions Yun-Man prominently in this, and quotes Yun-Man talking to his assembly, all people have a light, but when they look at it, they don't see it, so it's obscure. What is everyone's light? So there are reasons why this light is not totally amazingly apparent in front of us all the time.

[12:57]

And these reasons have to do with things called greed, hate, and delusion, and our habits of mind. And yet, it's all right here. So Jungman said, what is everyone's light? What is everyone's light? And then, also, nobody replied, and Yuen Man said, on behalf of the assembly, the community hall, the Buddha shrine, the kitchen, the mountain gate. So I could say the entryway, the zendo, the kitchen, doksan room, bathrooms. Our light is this space we inhabit. bring our habits to, we bring the workings of our mind to. This space is the light, and we are related to it. So Dogen says in the Self-Fulfilling Samadhi, when one person sits, even for a little while, displays Buddha Mudra with their whole body and mind, all of space itself awakens.

[14:12]

This light is something to do with something very elemental. So this kind of talk is not regular Zen talks, maybe. This is the kind of talk that is about a deep kind of awareness that Maybe we don't recognize. You know, maybe until we've sat in many sessions, or maybe just, you know, it takes a while of regular sitting. Or maybe the first time you sit down, you might feel it. You might not know it. You can't get a hold of it. So the dual marriage samadhi we just chanted says, turning away and touching are both wrong, for it is like a massive fire. We can't touch it, we can't get a hold of it.

[15:17]

It's light. How do we hold light in our hands? And yet, once we have some sense of it, you can try to run away from it, but really you can't. This light is part of you. And after you've sat a little bit, you kind of know that, in some way that's not The kind of knowing that you can write down a discursive paragraph about, or an outline, or something. Maybe you don't know it, but your elbows know it, or your knees know it. Tension in your shoulders knows it, know it. So you can't turn away from it, but you can't... What is it? How do you touch the light? It's like a massive fire. So, as part of this Samadhi of Light, Kuan Yin-che also refers to Xue Feng, a student of Yan Men, who said, the Buddhas of all times turn the great wheel of the teaching in flames of fire.

[16:42]

So this is an image that's talked about a lot in classical Chan, that all Buddhas sit in the middle of fire. It's like a massive fire. And sometimes we feel that incessation through the burning or the pain in our knees or something. But also, the struggles of our life, you know. This difficult world, all of the desires and aspirations and frustrations and sadnesses and regrets and fears and joys. All of this is the fire of our life. So Xuefeng said, the Buddhas of all times turn the great wheel of the teaching in the flames of fire. And his student Yunmen said, or his teacher Yunmen said, the flames of fire expound the teaching. Wait a second, I've got to go.

[17:45]

Xuefeng was the teacher, Yunmen was the student. Anyway, Yunmen said, the flames of fire expound the teaching to the Buddhas of all times. The Buddhas of all times stand there and listen. So it's not just that Xuefeng said that the Buddhas express the Dharma in the middle of fire. Fire teaches the Buddhas. And Buddhas just sit and listen to the fire. How do we listen to the fire of our life? How do we listen to the fire of our suffering? How do we enjoy the radiance of this light, too? Fire is tricky. Fire is energy. Now we know that the fire of our Energy systems is a fire burning the planet, and we're going to face many changes in the not-so-distant future because of how we've used this fire in the last, whatever, 100 years, 50 years, 40 years.

[18:53]

And in our life too, and in our sitting too, just in this body and mind. all of the flames. Fire and light is an interesting image. We see things, we know things through light. And yet we also feel pain through light. Put our hands in a candle flame and it burns. Our sitting is like that. We start to know in a different way. So again, it's not that our discriminating consciousness and our usual ways of knowing are bad, but it's also that they're limited. We know things in a different way.

[19:57]

If you've sat for a period or a day, there's something you know about your body and mind and heart that You maybe didn't know before, and you may not even know that you know it. That's pretty common, actually. We may feel like, you know, what am I doing here just sitting around for half an hour or for a day or two? It may feel like this kind of useless activity, and yet there is something that is happening. Sometimes it's happening most when we think nothing is happening. Sometimes when, sometimes our sitting, you know, we feel some radiance, we feel some openness, we feel some joy even. And I, you know, I like Thich Nhat Hanh's meditation instruction that when you sit, you should smile a little bit.

[20:58]

There is a joy in this life too. But it's a joy that doesn't turn away from the frustrations and fears and sadness. It's willing to be present right in the middle of everything. The whole universe is in the eye of a practitioner. There is nothing that's not oneself. So to settle and take on samadhi as a practice, to take on this settling, is a way of facing, sitting with, being upright in the middle of flames. But also it could be cool flames, it could be light flames. So light also means to lighten, to arise, to... feel the lightness of being.

[22:00]

Light is as opposed to heavy. Light is related to air. Light is fed by air. So again, this Zen way of talking uses images and metaphors and poetry I'm talking about this image of light as a way of talking about our deeper settling. This is all about pointing to some underlying reality, this reality of suchness or business that, again, has some relationship with us, but sometimes maybe it's best to convey it through silence. But we have been given these words so we can share our sense of this together by talking.

[23:15]

So rather than getting burned up, we can just be kind of cool lights. Although the Buddha says the light is not blue or red or yellow. So I've been talking about this for the last few days and enjoying settling into being present with whoever's here in the room. I'm interested in whatever any of you might have to reflect about this light or to talk about it in any other way. So, comments, questions, reflections, responses, please feel free. Anyone. Hey, Marcus. So it's been great to come here, especially at this point in my practice, and hear about the Samadhi of life, and to enjoy it.

[24:37]

Marcus is visiting us from the Atlantis of Docent Center. So now we're going to go back to that poem. Someone said, well, you've been given the gift of the Dharma while you were in Chicago. I think it brings you into a greater Somali mind. Like today I was in downtown doing a little walking tour of the Chicago Fire. I mean, all this philosophy of architecture really could not be there if it had not been for the Chicago Fire. Maybe we see it, well, the Harmony of Difference and Sameness says, right in light there is darkness, but don't, how does it go, Dawn?

[25:46]

Right in darkness there is light, but don't see it as light. But it's true what you say, the Chicago fire allowing the, development of architecture, the whole invention of the skyscraper, and the variety of that that is in the loop in Chicago, is thanks to fire. And there are many ecosystems where fire is very important in clearing away. There are some kinds of trees and some kinds of ecosystems that totally rely on fire to thrive. So yeah, sometimes there's something that gets burnt in our life, something that gets burnt away or some upheaval, and that may be healthy.

[26:49]

It may allow something new to sprout. So the practice then is to just be present and watch it and feel what you feel with it. But again, to stay upright in the middle of that, to just sit upright in the middle of flames and then see what emerges. After there was this huge fire, A couple of years, summers ago now, in Tassajara, it almost burned down Tassajara. Five monks went back and saved the buildings of Tassajara. But after the fire, there was a tremendous new growth of wildflowers and other plants that had been dormant for a long time that came up through the fire. So, yeah, there is a rhythm of light and darkness. And right in the fire, right in the light, and not just to talk about fire, but right in the light of the dharma hall, there's a darkness too.

[28:00]

And right in darkness we see this deeper wholeness sometimes. We see the oneness of merging. So, yes, these fires can be great opportunities for growth. Next door at the Globe Pub, you can watch another kind of Chicago Fire. Yeah. How are they doing this year? Really bad. Yes, Tom? So, I mean, a shadow or fragrance are different ways to view some reality. Yeah, that's an interesting way of putting it, some reality, or the sum of reality. I was thinking of the first one, not the addition one, but the quantifier.

[29:01]

But is there one ultimate reality or are there many ultimate realities? I can't think of a reason why there wouldn't be many ultimate realities. Okay. But I'm sorry, I interrupted you. Did you have a question? Well, I was just, I was just, I mean, to some extent, is, [...] you know, I mean, the thing with fire, and I could be wandering around the Pacific Northwest where fires actually, you know, cause new, new growth, and that's why I didn't have time to think about that, but, I mean, they actually, it comes across like things are not always what they seem to be. Right. But viewing something as a shadow or as fragrance or other ways, I mean, there's different ways to experience some reality.

[30:09]

Right. Whereas in the case of fire, it's just that the reality was more involved. You couldn't see past the fact that it was So in that sense, they're both different ways to view reality, what's obvious. Yes. And also part of this is, and the Jalmera Samadhi is particularly about that, is again the relationship of the deeper reality to the practical everyday stuff and how we take care of that. And that's really, so, you know, there are spiritual traditions and some branches of Buddhism even, maybe, that focus on reaching the light, to put it that way, or finding oneness, or finding emptiness, or, you know, something like that.

[31:11]

But really our practice is the integration. How do we, in our struggles with the various difficult people we encounter in our life and the difficulties of the world and the challenges of our society now and so forth, how do we negotiate our way in those realities with some sense of this underlying reality that using light to talk about tonight, but that we can talk about in many ways, and we can't really talk about it at all, and yet, in our practice, we taste it, or we smell it, or whatever. So the point isn't, so there's great warnings in Zen about entering the cave of demons, getting attached to emptiness, getting attached to non-attachment, getting attached to oneness, or some merging with

[32:17]

totality. The point is, how do we have some experience, some deep experience, some deep, very, you know, maybe some deep, flashy, visionary experience, some great experience of light even. Those kind of experiences, you know, happen in many ways. They happen through, they can happen for individuals through art or music or athletics. They can happen through use of psychoactive substances. The point though is not to enter some deep reality, but then how do we take care of that in the particulars of our life and our world and our interactions? So it's that integration that's really what this practice is about. And so I try and talk about both sides. And if I've been talking about precepts too much, then I need to talk about samadhi too. But really it's about how these meet, how these interact. Yes, Eric.

[33:19]

And you're talking about the sensory modalities and how you're just not going to experience this light with any of them. So I've got to conceive of it at this point in my practice. Could you say that quote again? Sure. Education is what's left over after you've forgotten everything that you learned in school. Yeah, so Duggan talks about the most, in one place in the extensive record, he says, the most important teaching, he tells one of his favorite students, the most important teaching, the central seat teaching. Do you want to hear what he says it is? He says it's to please forget every single thing I've said. Which is kind of tricky, because if you forget everything you said, you might forget that you're supposed to forget it.

[35:04]

Or you might remember that you're supposed to forget it. And that's not it either, so anyway. But yeah, it's... I had never heard that before. The education is what's left over after you've forgotten everything you've learned in school. That's great. Any other lights for us? Nathan? I have a question about one of the first things you said. You said, I think, that samadhi could be another word for zazen. Yeah. I was reading Rev Anderson. One of Rev Anderson's essays, or it was a talk, I guess. And he made a distinction in that talk between zazen and concentration. Yes.

[36:05]

Saying that zazen is just sitting. Right. And concentration may or may not be happening while zazen is happening. Yes, so okay, we're getting into some technical stuff about meditation. Good. So zazen is sitting meditation, and in our tradition from Dogen and Suzuki Roshi, just sitting is just sitting. You can't do it incorrectly, actually. Show up, sit up more or less upright, keep breathing, that's it. And so when Isha Fujio was here, he was talking about this too, that zazen, zazen is not learning meditation. It's not, you know, so we have all these different samadhi texts and special concentration practices, and there's libraries full of special concentration practices that, you know, go back to Theravada and, you know, but lots of them in Vajrayana too.

[37:09]

So when I'm talking about samadhi, the samadhi of light, when Konecho's talking about this, it's not exactly some focused concentration. Samadhi technically does mean concentration, and there's a value to concentrating sometimes on something very, you know, a very specific concentration, excuse me, on some way of following breathing, or on a mantra, or on, sound or many, many, many concentration objects. When I'm talking about Samadhi, I'm not talking about becoming an expert in those practices. It's possible to do that, and that may have some value. And practically speaking, for all of us sitting Shikantaza, just sitting, sometimes we need some focusing thing to help settle for a while. But don't hold on to that. That's not the point. Becoming expert at seeing lights is not the point. Becoming expert at really being totally in touch with your breathing is not the point.

[38:18]

The point is, so the samadhis that are described as what I would call synonyms for just sitting, like the samadhi of the treasury of radiant light, or like the jewel mirror samadhi, or like the ocean seal samadhi, or as Dogen talks about the self-fulfillment or self-realization samadhi. So there are many different names of different specific Samadhis in the Buddha Sutras. I was talking last Monday night about the Samantabhadras, the Samadhi of the imminent body of the Buddha. creator of suchness or something like that. There are pages full in sutras of names of different particular samadhis. Some of them are focusing practices, which is not Zazen exactly, although it may be useful as a background, as a kind of way towards Zazen. But some of them, like the Samadhi of the Treasury of Light, like the Jewel Marrow Samadhi,

[39:24]

There's nothing to hold on to. It's like a massive fire. And the Ocean Seal Samadhi also are ways of talking about objectless concentration, or objectless Samadhi, or panoramic awareness. in which, which is really what, which is more like the just city that you were describing, that Ram was talking about. Just to be open to everything, to just sit face to wall, face yourself, whatever comes up, okay, that's it. We don't need some special object of concentration. So this is getting into the technical aspect of meditation. And my feeling about just sitting is it's open to everything, including doing those exercises, if that seems helpful. Does that make sense? Do you have a follow-up question? So would that awareness have to be happening for Zazen to be happening?

[40:45]

You might not necessarily be aware of that awareness. There's always some awareness. This goes back to Adhidharma. The way of any mind works, according to this early psychological science of Buddhist study, there's always, any mind, any consciousness, there's something that it's attending to. Something. It may be, you know, very diffused and vague, and it may be jumping around, but at any moment, there's something that the mind is attending to. So one of the instructions that Dogen talks about, and it's in the Song of the Grasshopper too, to turn around the light to shine within. take the backward step that turns the light inwardly to eliminate the self. Now, it's not exactly focusing on any very specific thing.

[41:50]

It's a way of focusing on everything, and yet it's a direction or a kind of vector towards which to hold one's awareness. And if you do that, you might not be aware or thinking about, oh, I'm paying attention to the self, or I'm paying attention to whatever. And yet, something's going on. So one of the things that Zazen is not is just kind of sleepy, dead mind. I mean, we may have periods when we're feeling sleepy, but then pay attention to that. Enjoy your sleepiness. That can be very challenging in Zazen if you feel a little sleepy and groggy. mind is sliding around, but to actually bring awareness is the point, to pay attention. And it can be in a very gentle way, and I think maybe most of the time it's better if it's a gentle way. But there are these exercises where it can be a very sharp, focused, dynamically disciplined way of paying attention to something, to some object.

[42:53]

I'm not sure if I responded to your question at all. That was good. So if Zazen is happening, then Samadhi is happening. Yeah, in some way. But it may not be a specific Samadhi. It can be a wide open Samadhi. It can be like serene illumination. It can be like vast and open as the space or the sun. In fact, one of the most wonderful meditation objects is space itself, and space is one of the unconditioned dharmas. It's not a function of cause and condition, space itself. Space is just everything. The space between Adam and me, the space between my ears, the floorboards, everything is space. So to focus on samadhi of space is to feel this sense of spaciousness and openness.

[43:57]

And that's pretty good. But sometimes we need to focus really sharply just to kind of get a hold. So there's not, you know, it depends on the situation and what's going on. Marcus, you look like you have a question. So I've spent a lot of time doing yoga over the last six or seven years, and I just want to take one idea in yoga that I think is very synonymous with some things. The full expression of the pose is yoga. Yes. The full expression of the pose is asana. Yeah, another way of talking about that is mudra. So we talk, this is the mudra that we sit zazen with. But also, you know, this is a mudra, this is a mudra.

[45:12]

Sometimes there are Buddhas with these mudras. Dogen says, when one takes the Buddha mudra, when one displays the Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind. So a mudra is a physical position, but maybe it's also a mental position. The mind isn't separate from the body. So, yeah, that relates to what you're saying about yoga. to actually express something through physical bearing includes a kind of awareness that, yes, can be cellular.

[45:50]

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