Well, in our practice period class, we've been studying the Xin Xin Ming, trust in mind, of the third ancestor, Chinese ancestor, Sheng San, So San. And so I'm going to, you know, we never get finished with it because it's kind of long, and in our class we usually take one line for the class, one couplet for the class. So I'm going to read the first paragraph. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When freed from love and hate, it reveals itself clearly and undisguised. That is the way. A hare's breadth's difference and heaven and earth are set apart. If you want it to appear, have no opinions for or against it.

[01:05]

The duality of like and dislike is the dis-ease of the mind. When the deep meaning is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed. So there's a lot here to unpack. And the first line, the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. So the preferences is also synonymous with discrimination. Discrimination, as you know, means to divide, to separate, to set apart. So discrimination is the process of duality. And preference has various levels of understanding. So we're always, every moment of our life, making choices.

[02:12]

based on one thing or another, usually called preferences. I like this, I like that, I want this, I want that. Here's a list of dualities. Recognizing, ignoring, gain and loss, love and hate, like and dislike, praise and blame, right and wrong, giving, taking away, granting, grasping, are taking hold, letting go, warm and heated and cool, on, off, expectations, just this, assertive, reticent, and so forth. This is the world that we live in, moment by moment. So what's the problem? It's called the Saha world, the world of duality. So the first line, the great way is not difficult for those who have none of these preferences.

[03:19]

But how do you live without these preferences? When freed from love and hate, it reveals itself clearly and undisguised. Now, you notice that it doesn't say when freed from love and then when freed from hate. It says when freed from love and hate, which is a dualistic division. Love and hate depend on each other. All dualities depend on each other. Buddhist understanding is that dependent origination is how things work. So what's the problem? The problem, a hair's breadth difference, and heaven and earth are set apart. So what is heaven and what is earth? Heaven means non-duality, and earth means duality.

[04:29]

Earth is the world of divisions, and heaven is the world of oneness, right? Yes. Yes. So if you want it to appear the way, well, what is the way? Here we bring in the question, what is the way, right? Is it heaven or is it earth? Well, of course it's heaven and earth. Right? Hell and heaven are dualities, right? And so the common way of thinking is this is hell, and heaven is where we go to if we're good. But then we don't know what good is, so it's a real problem. We don't really know what good and bad is, because good and bad are always changing.

[05:33]

Nothing is fixed. What we thought was good yesterday is bad today. What we think is bad today is good tomorrow. That's the way it goes. This is the realm of hell, actually. I think about it all the time. The jailkeeper opens the door and we're born into this realm. And then we think we have freedom to roam around and do stuff. And so we create all kinds of stuff to make us happy. Most of which makes us unhappy because we can't get happy. We can't stay happy in the dualistic world. We can only stay happy in the world of unity. which is called heaven.

[06:37]

Heaven is the world of unity, where there are no impediments to happiness. But you can't make happiness because you live in hell. So then our life is limited to a certain amount of time. And then we have to go to another world. or whatever, right? So we think in those terms, heaven and hell, and in between, well, in between is what we call life. And then there's a kind of space between leaving and entering called purgatory for some, you know. We have all kinds of ideas about it. So good. The duality of like and dislike is the dis-ease of the mind.

[07:41]

When the deep meaning is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed. So this is not about whether you like chocolate or vanilla. It's about the deep meaning. The deep meaning is how do we deal with this problem? which causes us so much misery. People, in Berkeley, as I've said many times, we have this wonderful, happy life, you know, liberal. The Berkeley Bowl is right over here. The Monterey Market is right over there. Anything we want, we can have. Anything we want, we can have, really. and yet there's so much suffering in this place because we can't get it together. It's hard to get it together. So getting, what do we mean by getting it together? Getting it together means heaven and hell.

[08:50]

So heaven creates hell and hell creates heaven. If the problem that we have is picking and choosing, or discrimination. But we need discrimination. So let's look at, well, before we look at that, no, let's look at that. Master Dogen says, The art of zazen, they call it art, I don't know if that's the, everybody says the art, so Dogen must have said art, meaning the facility, the way. The art of zazen is think not thinking, which makes you think in a funny way. Dogen's thinking in a funny way. Think, not thinking. So thinking is discrimination, right?

[10:01]

Master Yaoshan was sitting Sazen, and a monk came up to him and he said, what are you thinking so diligently in your fixed sitting? And Yaoshan said, I think not thinking. Then Wang said, well, how do you think not thinking? And Yaoshan said, non-thinking. Non-thinking. So, what is thinking? What is not thinking? And what is non-thinking? Thinking is discrimination. there's live thinking and there's dead thinking. And not thinking is freedom from thinking, freedom from discrimination, actually.

[11:05]

So within Zazen there is ordinary maybe it's not hell, but we don't have to go that far. It's mind flowers, mental flowers in the sky called delusions. Actually, they're called delusions. Delusion in Buddhism doesn't necessarily, doesn't mean, you know, the small things that are nutty make us crazy. That's not what we mean by delusion, that we don't understand certain things, or we think certain things are different than what they really are. But it's the whole thing is the world of delusion. So then there's the world of, the heavenly world called not thinking.

[12:07]

Or we call it sometimes emptiness. Emptiness not so good there because emptiness doesn't mean vacuum. It means fullness. It means its opposite. Emptiness means totality. That's great. And thinking means discrimination or compartmentalization. So, which is best? Discrimination or totality? So, the problem is that we discriminate totality and make it into little pieces. and then we believe in the pieces. But the pieces are important. We can't live without the world of pieces. We just can't live without the world of pieces because that's the world that we live in and we can't fix that.

[13:14]

So we have to work with it. We have to make the world of pieces work peacefully. But that's impossible because everything's changing. So what is non-thinking? Non-thinking is in between the two, right? Non-thinking, in order for, to make peace, we have to, everything has to include its opposite. That's the hard part. We believe in separation. We believe everything's really separate. which it is, but it's also one piece. It's one piece and many pieces at the same time. This is non-thinking. Non-thinking, if you say it's the bridge between the two, then it means that they're two things, but they're really not two things. So this is a tricky statement to articulate.

[14:17]

Very tricky statement to articulate. Well, that's what we usually say, beyond thinking and not thinking, right? But that's also, that's not quite accurate. That's accepted, that we transcend, right? Go beyond thinking and not thinking, right? So in a sense, you can't say that's wrong, but it's not completely accurate. Everything has to include, in order to have real peace, everything has to include its opposite. Good has to include bad. Right has to include wrong. But the problem is our preferences. And what is it that creates preferences?

[15:20]

Ourself. So what is it that creates self? Our preferences. preferences is what creates self. So we say we have no self, right, in Buddhism. But if you just say that we have no self, that's not right. It's only half right. The other half is, yes, we do have a self. Sorry, we do have a self, but the self is made of non-self, and the non-self is made of self. So if we deny anything, we fall into duality. Master Joshu, this famous koan, Master Joshu says, a monk asked him, does the dog have Buddha nature?

[16:22]

He said, woo, because he was Chinese. Which means, no. And, well, everything, oh my God, you know, no. You know, of course a dog has Buddha nature. Little boy, you do have Buddha nature, you know. We believe that dogs have Buddha nature, don't we? I mean, not everybody does. Dogs will not go to heaven. But dogs, no, they don't have Buddha nature. He didn't say they don't have Buddha nature, he said no. And then later a monk came up and asked him, does the dog have buddha nature? And he said, of course. So which is it, yes or no? People only remember that Joshu said no. That's famous, that Joshu said no. But it's not famous that he said yes.

[17:24]

But he did. He did say yes. So that's why it's a wonderful koan. Is it yes or no? So you can say that Joshu transcended yes and no. But how did that happen? Because yes includes no and no includes yes. It's not like one eliminates the other or that they float up in the air. You include me and I include you. This is called subject and object. We are the subject over against the object. Everything is an object for us as a subject. That's our dualistic thinking, which is necessary because I have to recognize your separateness from me and my separateness from you.

[18:32]

Otherwise, it gets very sticky. Nevertheless, I include you and you include me. We're actually one. But when we meet and interact, you're you and I'm me. So we're both one and two. But actually, it's neither one nor two. Because you can't, when you're trying to sort it out, then you lose it. When you try to peek, you lose it. You can be it, but you can't see it. So we act from inside, rather than as the observer, we're the actor. And when we're acting, it's all there. When we're the observer, we discriminate it.

[19:35]

observation discriminates, because we're looking over there. The path, let's look at the first sentence. The great way means the path, right? It's not difficult for those who have no preferences. So where's the path? A path is usually going someplace, right? You start here, and then you go there. So There's another woman, Zen master, China, and she had all the monks baffled because when they would pass her by on their way, she was only in the same place, when they pass her by on the way, she'd say, oh, there goes another one. And they're always wondering, what is she talking about? Actually, they were talking to their teacher, Joshu.

[20:39]

He said, well, I'll go investigate her for you. And so he went walking, and they walked by her, and she said, there goes another one. What did she mean? I just figured it out. She means, they think the path is like that. They think that the path is going someplace, but actually the path is coming here. This is the path. You're out there, you have to come here. You have to find what you're looking for here, not out there. So how do we find the path here without going out there? Wandering monks is a tradition. You know, we don't have to go someplace to wander. We can wander right where we are, and we do.

[21:40]

So, he said, the way is perfect, like vast space, where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Walter talked about that yesterday a little bit. when nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. So, we have everything we need. We really have everything. Suzuki Roshi, one of his most wonderful statements, for me, was that everything is falling out of balance and regaining its balance. moment by moment. This is the world of falling out of balance. And we have people who demonstrate this wonderfully. Tightrope walkers and gymnasts and people who take these, those are archetypes of how we live our life.

[22:47]

and to do that in a way that makes sense. People like to dance. Our life is a dance of one kind or another. Everybody's dancing to some tune or another. So what is our tune? What do we want to dance to that creates harmonious, rebalancing moment by moment and keeps us light and flexible? light and flexible is how everything works well. That's called letting go and finding our balance moment by moment. As we hold on to something and we can't let go, we get more and more tight and inflexible. And then we go to doctors and we get cuts and placements.

[23:49]

Remaining flexible is the most important thing. And all of this stuff we learn in Zazen. Zazen is our great teacher. Our teachers always point to Zazen, but oh, great teacher, Zazen, sit more Zazen. I remember that was a refrain back in the 60s, you know, like, oh, you got problems? Sit with Zazen. But I believe it. It's not more Zazen, it's let yourself go in Zazen. Because Zazen teaches us how to live in complete combustion. with the universe and all beings in flexibility and lightness. But you know, the thing about Zazen is that there are two things.

[24:55]

One is heaviness, the other is lightness. One is pain, and the other is freedom. These are dualities that need to be reconciled When we know how to do that in Zazen, it makes it easier to do that in our daily life. So we say, no gaining mind. Everything is there. There's nothing to gain. If we try to gain something, we lose what's already there. No, gaining mind doesn't mean you shouldn't have a pair of shoes if you want to get it, or have a nice car, BMW. That's not gaining mind. Gaining mind means that we don't think that we have what we already have, and so we're going looking for it someplace else. So no gaining mind simply means pay attention to what you already have.

[25:57]

We have everything. But we tend to divide the discriminating mind from big mind. It's all one piece. So we can experience big mind sweeping the floor. When you go to a Japanese monastery all day long, the monks are just sweeping the floor. You think, well, God, that's, you know, what are they doing? Can't they do something constructive? Interesting? They're just sweeping the floor all day. Just cleaning their mind. Suzuki Roshi used to like to hear us when up at Page Street. His window was on the street. And in the morning the monks would come out and sweep the sidewalk.

[27:03]

He said he loved to hear them sweeping. They're sweeping their minds. Cleaning their minds. So I'm going to read this little thing that says, I'm skipping around here. Let go of speech and thought, and there's nowhere you can't pass freely. So there's nothing wrong with speech and thought. It's just that if we depend on speech and thought, on dead speech and dead thought, then we can't pass freely. So there's live speech and dead speech. Suzuki Roshi used to talk about live precepts and dead precepts. Dead precepts is when you simply follow the line, the Buddhist line, don't do this, by rote.

[28:10]

That's dead precepts. Live precepts is how you meet each situation without falling into discrimination, without creating a split between heaven and earth. how you meet every situation without falling into the division between heaven and earth. That's live precepts, which you cannot legislate. You can only live it. So live thinking, live precepts, and live thought, which means to be able to respond freely to something, to whatever it is you're facing.

[29:14]

Tomorrow afternoon, our shuso here is going to have a shuso ceremony. Juso ceremony, for those of you who don't know, means that he will sit up there on that seat, and all the people in the practice period will come and ask him a Dharma question, and he has to respond. He doesn't have to answer, he just has to respond. And he has to respond without thinking. Not without thinking, but with live thinking. live thought, not dead thought. That's his great test. And I have to tell you, he's very good at it. So there's nothing wrong with thinking. Of course, it just should be alive. Live thinking is a vehicle, it's not a thing.

[30:24]

So what is it a vehicle for? It's a vehicle for big mind to illuminate. Zazen is a vehicle for big mind to illuminate. If we don't feel illuminated in Zazen, it's dead Zazen. You should feel illuminated when you see something. I'm not saying you should, you know, I can't do it. That's okay. Nevertheless, keep trying. It's not, you can't try to do that either. You can only be totally present and let go. When you let go, it fills your hand. So returning to the root, we get the essence. Following after appearances, we lose the spirit.

[31:27]

One moment of inner illumination goes beyond appearance and emptiness. The changes that appear to go on in an empty world we call real because of ignorance. There's no need to seek the real. Only cherish, only cease to cherish opinions. That's a famous line from here. There's no need to seek the real. Just cease to cherish opinions. So we say you have the way-seeking mind or have the mind that seeks enlightenment. That's great, but we should not be attached to those lines. That's why Suzuki Roshi, people used to criticize Suzuki Roshi in the old days because he didn't insist that we have Kensho experiences or look for enlightenment. He said, just do the practice. Because when you seek something, you lose the practice.

[32:36]

And it's not the enlightenment that's the most valuable, it's the practice that's most valuable. The enlightenment is just there when you do the practice. But if you look for it someplace else, you just go astray because you think that it goes that way. But it's here in the practice. The practice itself is, but if you say, if you look for the enlightenment in the practice you won't find that either. You just have to do the practice and put on a blindfold and jump into the practice and start swimming. You know, there are practices which are step by step. You learn this and then you learn that, which is fine, but it's not our practice. That's why people feel kind of lost in our practice. Where's the, you know, where can I, it's not there, because you jump into the ocean and you don't know how to swim, and you start swimming.

[33:45]

That's our practice, and there are no boundaries, and there's no, it's just a big ocean that you're swimming in, and you have to find yourself in that ocean. That's live practice. That's what we do. No need to seek the real, only choose, cease to cherish opinions. So, um, I'm going to talk about objects and subject. Object is object because of the subject. The subject makes the object and the object makes the subject. This is very clear if you look at how you see something. There's the object and the subject and consciousness.

[34:49]

So in order to see something, there has to be an organ called the eye, as differentiated from the eye, and an object, and then consciousness, three things. So if there's no subject, if there's nothing to look at, you can't see anything. And if there's no eye to look at that, can't see anything and if there's no consciousness you can't see anything, so it takes all three to see something or to hear something, takes an organ. So the subject creates the object and the object creates the subject and there's no difference until we contact that, So the object is object because of the subject, and the subject is subject because of the object.

[35:54]

Know that the two are originally one emptiness. So we're separate in one way and unified in another way. In this emptiness, the two are indistinguishable, and each contains in itself the whole world. When no discrimination is made between coarse and fine, how can a one-sided and prejudiced view arise? Coarse and fine simply means things that seem opposite to each other. There are four wisdoms. The first wisdom is called the round mirror, which sees everything just as it is. This is non-thinking. Non-thinking is like a round mirror which sees everything as it is.

[36:57]

So we have thinking, not thinking, and non-thinking in zazen, of course, in our life, moment by moment. Non-thinking is the brown mirror which sees everything just as it is and has no prejudices at all. That's the non-self of self. And then there's the wisdom of equality, where we see everything is exactly the same as one piece. Then we have the wisdom of differentiation, where we see everything in its individuality, just as it is in reality. not in delusion. And then, the fourth wisdom is the wisdom of action, which is based on the other three wisdoms. That's called correct action. That's called the path.

[38:00]

Because the horizontal, which is hierarchical, and the vertical, which is vertical, and the horizontal, they meet, and where they meet is true mind, big mind, because we're not prejudiced in one way or another. The big mind It is right there at the crossroads of the vertical and the horizontal. It's not one or the other. Horizontal includes vertical, vertical includes horizontal, and it's all ... Everything is seen just as it is, and then our actions come from that understanding. and that's called the path or enlightenment. So it's not seeking enlightenment, it's just doing the practice.

[39:12]

When you're doing the practice, enlightenment is there, but if you look for it and try to grasp it and go as a prize, it bumps you on the head. You want something for nothing, boom. If you want the most precious thing, you have to pay the highest price. Nothing is free, and everything is free. So that's what makes practice difficult. It's not because of the pain in your knees. That's difficult enough. to remain steadfast in the practice without letting difficulties move you. Do you have a question? Yes. You always have a question. That's good. I appreciate your question. Thank you, Doctor.

[40:16]

Cold water on a warm day. Yes. Is the ultimate division Ideas and no ideas? Well, I wouldn't say that's the ultimate division, but that is a division, a significant division, because ideas are fine. Nothing should be eliminated. This is the problem that we have, you know. We think, well, if we just eliminate all this stuff that we don't like, everything will be okay over here. But it's not like that. We have to include the dirty stuff with the clean stuff, with the uncomfortable stuff, with the comfortable stuff. That's the only way. That's practice. If you look at ISIS, they want to eliminate all the stuff that's not their little jewel.

[41:18]

You can't do that because the Middle East is one piece. You're just cutting your limbs off when you do that. And that's an example of what we're doing all the time. We want to eliminate the bad stuff, but we have to include the bad stuff and the good stuff and see it as it is so that they transform each other. It's all one piece. That's the thing. You know, quicksilver, you try to grab it and it goes over here, and then you try to grab it and it goes over here. Things fall into the good basket and they fall into the bad basket, but the basket is all one piece. And the more we try to eliminate things, it doesn't work. So the all-seeing eye sees things as it is. and doesn't get involved in that kind of stuff.

[42:20]

That's called being careful of karma, to be careful of karma. And so, this is the problem we have in our politics. you know, the good side and the bad side. And they think each other is bad and they think we're good and so forth. And those things do exist, but because there's no sense of reconciliation or inclusion, it just gets worse and worse. Yeah, Dean? I really like these classes. Yeah. When I was a kid, I was allowed to do art on my walls, and one of the things I wrote, in glow paint that would... Your mom loved that, yeah I know. Nothing is good or bad, only thinking makes it so. And so I've spent, since I was a child, not really being able to think that way.

[43:29]

And I find that now, Even after being here, there's this part of me, this gut, that does feel like some things are okay, and some things are not okay. But I've noticed that there are times when I'm, for lack of a better word, free from the suffering of something. It's like my gut still believes something. No, some things are okay and some things are not. If you don't think that's right, that's escaping. So you should not be attached to one side or the other. Some things are right and some things are wrong. The thinking that makes it so is yourself. So when the self is not involved, then you can see things as it is.

[44:29]

because our self is always biased. That's the nature of the self, is that it's biased, and you may not think so. You say, well, I'm not biased. But you are. Just saying I'm not biased is biased. Well, James, you're the last one. That's what you have to find out. That's your koan. If you want me to answer it, that's not, that won't, I won't. I put that back on you. It's what each one of us has to decide and figure out on our own. That's live thinking. If you just do what I think, that's dead thinking. And it's dry. Pry Bones

[45:32]

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