Sometimes I can encourage you to practice as if there was something you were missing, as if there was something separate from you to be gained. But this isn't true. It's so simple and so complicated at the same time to talk about. I don't know what to say sometimes. Can you hear me in the back all right? It's interesting to read Blake.

[01:02]

as much as I know of him, which isn't too much, he's in specific saying pretty much the same thing that we say in Buddhism. But the elaboration of his symbolic expression is sometimes aesthetically satisfying and sometimes helpful, but at the same time makes religion... I don't believe in religion, you know. I don't think there's... There's no alternative to a religion. Religion isn't a choice you have.

[02:08]

But it makes the truth seem very fanciful or unusual. One of his creatures is Albion, who represents various traditions. the universal man from various Western traditions, who includes his guts. His guts are stars and his various parts, his thighs, I guess, are the moon. I don't know. Anyway, various parts of Albion's body represent the cosmos. And Albion, falls, when he externalizes nature. Satan represents externalized nature, a world of rocks and stuff, dangerous stuff, is Satan.

[03:22]

Dogen says, those who enter here enter free from worldly fame or gain. If you entered by mistake, he says, with due deliberation you'll leave. But Albion in Blake, the sense that when you externalize nature you have a devilish world, is the same as Buddhism. how obvious it is not to externalize things. But when we do, how difficult it is to return to that innocence or tangible emptiness.

[04:57]

And it can't be expressed, so you have to use, we have to use, cultures have to use some symbolic process to direct you. Some symbolic, non-dual symbolic process. Kai-in-sam-mai, ocean imprint samadhi. literally, ocean imprint samadhi, kayin samayi. I mean that when I say seamless sea, seamless sea, I mean kayin samayi, in which there's no opposition, no externalization. My suggestion yesterday is, last night, ask your breathing, what do you want breathing? This is to direct you toward kāyinsamā. What do you want breathing?

[06:31]

and let your breathing answer by its breathing. And you may find many images, unusual feelings or colors come up. If you can just be open, you'll find your breathing answers, not just in its breathing, but throughout your being. And one thing I should say is there are many possible people in our lives. Maybe this is too... a little funny to say, but by possible people I mean

[07:38]

Our parents – let's just limit it at first to our parents – our parents could have been other people. And as you know, your father or mother also had alternative lives that they could have led or wanted to lead or wished they had led. And sometimes These possible people, shall we say—I'm trying to make this up as I go along, how to describe what I mean—sometimes these possible people took possession of your parents, or spoke in between the words, or spoke every other word. I'm saying they have a time.

[08:40]

kind of actual existence. So you get contradictory messages from people. Because of, you know, living in an externalized world, you have some divided nature. So those various natures, as we talked about in Seigaki ceremony, have their own life. And sometimes it's very clear. Their past, you know, sometimes it's very clear. A person's child will realize a possible person, the parent. What the parent always put aside is their alternative life. Or maybe completely unconscious of it, the child will do. And I want to say, too, that you know these possible people. Of yourself, you have them yourself, and of your parents, extremely intimately, more than you know your own friends, probably. And often you know what they look like. You know, because we are so wonderful,

[10:08]

We can give some image to someone, you know. You may have something come into your mind, someone lying in bed with blue nightgown on. I know that person, but you can't figure out who that person is. That person was lying in bed for many years, but you don't know anybody who is lying in bed for many years. In some way, there was such a person. As a reference point for you, what about this aunt, this nonexistent aunt who laid in bed for many years? As one alternative way to live, maybe you or your mother or someone always had a tendency to wish they could just go to bed and not get up. My explanation is quite primitive. Because when you realize this function of the mind, you see this

[11:44]

externalization is more and more, ever more subtle. And most of us incorporate all of that in one, pretty much in one activity, and are able to ignore the other possibilities. But a schizophrenic person can't, you know, ignore it and they are taken over or have some conscious or active, if not conscious, active conflict between these possibilities going on. Dogen speaks of the joyful samadhi of upright sitting, playful activity of upright sitting. The spirit of this is how safe you are in upright sitting and how various realms can have their existence.

[13:12]

freely, without fearfulness, without your trying to have to capture them in one definition. So you can sit in zazen. This kind of lecture shouldn't be taped. It's all right. We'll erase it later. Because if out of context, people wouldn't understand what I was talking about. So Kensho, or seeing into one's own nature, as Kensho is defined, is a wonderful experience. But again, it's on the side of you're missing something and you're going to see into something. But real direction of our practice, of our middle way, is

[14:58]

Already you are saved. Already you are enlightened. There is no externalization, no other to be seen into, not even this other. So maybe a mantra would better be already, already, already, until you can recognize already Instead of not yet, not yet, I'm going to push on, not yet. The same kind of effort is required in already as not yet. But already means not just seeing into your nature, but into the seamless sea, samadhi, ocean imprint samadhi. see into everything all at once, into the non-externalization of everything. Science has led us astray by being so much the study of rocks. Blake says,

[16:31]

man falls when he sees the world, the phenomenal world, as being something outside his own mind. This is also Buddhism. But now science is, by their instruments and by their more thorough detailed study is back, you know, not so sure it's external. Even nirmanakaya body and sambhogakaya body are a kind of externalization for others, you know. And Dogen emphasizes jiju, you samadhi, samadhi of complete internalization, not even some nirmanakaya body.

[17:42]

So, if you sit and you count your breathing, there's five words. What do you want breathing? Or, what does my breathing want? It's a little different to say it that way. You can count your breathing that way. Twice would be 10 breaths. Or you can say the whole phrase on one breathing. And let your breathing answer. If you're ready, your breathing will take on a life of its own if you don't interfere. and many aspects of the world and of your own world may swirl around you or appear, or some subtle intensity in some part of your body. It's so interesting how

[19:38]

Opposites. How fundamental words, statements contain their opposites. Like, again, artificial. Artificial, of course. Artificial and artifact means simply man-made. So it's man-made, it's artificial because God didn't make it, maybe, but anyway. The R, the first part, comes from harmony, and it actually means your shoulder, where things fit together, where most of us have our deep emotional problems in our shoulders.

[20:40]

But our shoulders are, the word for shoulder is a source of art fitting together. And the last part means to do, if you remember Latin, and just It's very similar to the expression, what came down? It means, what came down? Ocean imprint, maybe. It means the form of perception, the place of perception, the place of harmony. It's rather like Blake again says, The sun, the sunlight needs an eye to see it. So the second part is related to hearing and audience.

[22:06]

the vehicle or place or receptacle for emptiness, harmony. And as I'm speaking now, according to Blake, when it's not man-made, it's Satan. When it's not When it's externalized, made by God or made by science or made by the Big Bang or something, it's Satan. But when it's man-made, it's true, truly artificial. So you can see, if you don't have a central experience... You know, why we call Buddhism the Middle Way is because the Middle Way is you. The teaching means something. Only as you, in your middle, you're the middle. Make use of it.

[23:39]

So unless you know the other half, you know, there's a story. Joshu, I think Joshu, is asked by a monk, you say the ultimate, quoting Sozon, the third patriarch, the ultimate path has no difficulties. Only don't pick and choose. Or the absolute or enlightenment is not difficult, or the true way is not difficult. Only refrain from discriminating. And the monk says, you say this, but you, you always say this, but you explain it, you know. Or you say something, and this is picking and choosing or discriminating. What do you mean by this? How can we teach the truth, you know, if we don't discriminate and you yourself discriminate?

[25:14]

Anyway, he's, as you know, very interesting. And he says, but would you please complete my statement? You left off half. Anyway, so the monk is not so bad, and he says, that's all I remember up to there. Would you please complete the statement for me?" And Joshu says, The true way is not difficult. Only refrain from picking and choosing. Unless we know the missing half of Joshu's statement, it's very difficult to know what we mean when we say artificial or what the many externalizations we are involved in that catch us mean. It's very simple, but without this central looseness, you're always putting it together in some way that hampers you, that in fact kills you.

[26:51]

by excluding and excluding. So by your meditation when you become more and more sensitive to unexpected the brown telephone. You all know the story I told you about the brown telephone? I think so. Yeah, you do. I'll remind you. One time I was, many years ago, working on some question. I was repeating to myself over and over and over and over again. And I don't remember, maybe I was I can't remember. Anyway, not in zazen, but not active either. And this, while I was saying it, or whatever comes up, you know, so I went over and lifted up the seat, and it told me the answer.

[28:22]

So you never know what to expect, you know? What's going to happen, you know? So when you do some simple thing like asking your breathing, what do you want breathing? Depending on your comfort, you may find many ephemeral but highly clear images or feelings or perceptions for which you are the container or are more or less seeking a container. And we find out, when we can be loose in this way, something about externalization. Instead of a simple externalization, there is so much, and some of it is so real, which is most unreal, most artificial.

[29:57]

just some possible person, not even a real person. And yet they have maybe a visual form, or name, or maybe they even take possession of you sometimes. So by getting rid of your topic, What is a topic? If I say, it is I, what is it? It is I. My topic is the logic of grammar, of language. If I say, it is me, my topic is more philosophical. What you, who are asking, who is it? Expect, they expect. What they see, objectively, me. So it's me, you who you know as me. But the topic can shift and shift and shift and shift.

[31:20]

And when you completely loosen up on the topic, the whole way the world is held together changes. And first you may go through a release into numerous and numerous forms and externalizations. Ways where you can understand very easily why people say, you hear with your eyes and see with your ears. Your senses will be as one as you were once oneself. Even if you don't have this kind of experience, which so puts the relative world into its proper perspective as, you know, the 17th century or a billboard or a painted teacake. But from a painted teacake, from a sutra, which painted teacake means sutra, from a sutra we may find out Buddha's teaching.

[32:42]

Although you may not have this kind of experience, if you do zazen, and zazen only, you can really do just zazen, you are having this experience. And in fact, the more Completely, you can do this. The less resistance you have to doing it, the less you'll actually have that kind of unusual experience. Because everything finally becomes just the flower, just the air, just your eye open, and your doors are very pure. Just you see something without any thoughts, and everything is included. So that's why we emphasize this mudra, which includes all mudras, you know? This is universal mudra. So in universal mudra and universal zazen,

[34:14]

kāyīn sammāy. It means there is no discrimination anymore. Everything is just a circle, or just what you see. Or it's not inside and outside anymore. Whole world, everything you see, is created by you. Green of the plant is created by you. You, seeing green, is created by the plant. You are created by the plant. The plant is created by you. If you think you can, it doesn't make logical sense, but if you think you can kill yourself and the plant will still be green, it's not quite true. The plant can kill itself and the other plant will be still green.

[35:31]

This is more than just ecology. It means the real, I don't know how to say it, words don't work, but the real way it's green is on the level of internalization, not externalization. And in this way we help each other. Here we are, all caring for each other, taking care of each other, here at Tassajar. And yet, if we think in external terms, we can't figure out who we are, this stuff of ribcage, breathing, a decision to get up or not to get up. And even though we can't identify that externalization,

[37:03]

more than temporarily, still we help each other, still we take care of each other, still we see the green of the plant, still springtime comes out, sitting quietly doing nothing, Spring comes, grass grows by itself. You grow by yourself. Because you grow by yourself, grass grows by itself. It means you can't abdicate this responsibility. If you do, The whole world gets into turmoil, and that's a fact, as Blake was pointing out by saying, the externalization is Satan. And I suppose we could say we're living in some ways in an age of Satan. God, I'm sounding very Christian. But Blake also said Satan doesn't exist.

[38:35]

evil doesn't exist. So Buddhism isn't something that you try to study and come back even to the original Buddhism or bring yourself closer to Buddhism. But we re-enact Buddha's life, re-teach his teachings. by this, you know, you can know, Blake can know what's happening today. Or Dogen doesn't have to know that by modern techniques of textual analysis that the Sixth Patriarch's Sutra, the Sixth Patriarch was written, was not, are not the Sixth Patriarch's words. This is most contemporary Zen scholarship by Yanagida Sensei.

[40:06]

he has established that the Sixth Patriarch Sutra is not written by the Sixth Patriarch. But Duggan says that in the 13th century, because you can read it and see it couldn't have been said by the Sixth Patriarch. It's false. So if you know Joshu's, the missing half of Joshu's statement, you know the Six Patriarchs, Sutra of the Six Patriarchs is made up. And you know all sides of the word artificial. You're not caught by externalizations. So as you get more and more harmonious, and many beneficial relationships occur around you, and your life gets easier and easier, the rawness doesn't get farther away.

[41:30]

The actuality of our suffering does not get farther away. You know, the Four Holy Truths, it says there's suffering and there's an origin of suffering or a cause of suffering. And so I think we miss that the other side is when there's no origin or no cause, there's no suffering. It means seamless sea samadhi. The actual events of the cosmos. the simultaneity of the cosmos. From this missing half of Joshu's talk you can understand how the world goes when it's the 17th century and when it's the 20th century.

[42:54]

and you can participate in it clearly, without reservation, with the resolution of all your possible people participating. Now they all have existence. now the cushion floats, the earth floats with you in levitation. This is the teaching of Mahayana Buddhism and of our patriarchs and Dogen Zenji and of your actual experience. when you don't need anything and you stop externalization? What do you want to breathe? What do you want? Shoulder. What do you want? Moment.

[44:36]

You will be sleepy this session. Make use of that sleepiness. Be awake in the midst of your sleepiness. Welcome your sleepiness and be awake in the midst of it. have a radical regard for truth and sacrifice your various externalizations. And you will find the true source of your and every externalization.

[46:40]

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