Morning. This morning I have a koan from the Blue Cliff Record, the Hekigan Roku, that I've talked about quite a bit in the past, but I'm bringing it up again because I really like it a lot. You know, in our practice, we have to repeat everything over and over again, otherwise it gets lost. That's true of the formal aspects of our practice and our, I don't want to say techniques, but our way of doing things. If we miss something a couple of times, that's the end of it, unless we keep bringing it up and reiterating all the time.

[01:05]

So, going over and over these same koans, of course, you know, I think the last time I talked about this koan was 10 years ago or something. But it's important, I think. Studying these koans is important. And if someone receives a koan, they may study it for 10 years. And so in order for you to do that, you have to keep studying it daily. So our practice is like that, daily practice, daily study. Anyway, let's just talk. So this koan,

[02:10]

has several titles depending on how you, who translates it. This particular title is, Mr. Uman's Every Day, Everybody, Everybody Has His Own Light, or Her Own Light, or Their Own Light. Everyone has their own light. Also translated as temple storeroom and temple gate. So, Master U Man was one of the very famous, well-known, important masters in the Tang Dynasty, as you know. And he has the most koans that are printed in this book.

[03:20]

So, I'm going to read the introduction, Master Engo's introduction. Controlling the world, He allows not the least speck of dust to escape. He cuts off the deluded stream of thought, leaving not a drop behind. If you open your mouth, you are mistaken. If you doubt for a moment, you have missed a way. Tell me, what is the eye that has pierced the barriers So, see the following. This is the main subject. Master Uman spoke to his assembly and said, everybody has their own light.

[04:27]

If you try to see it, everything is darkness. What is everyone's light? Later, in place of his disciples, he may be talking to himself, he said, the temple storeroom and the temple gate. And again, he said, it may be better not to say anything, even if it's a good word. So then Master Setjo has a verse on this koan. And he says, it illuminates itself, absolutely bright. He gives a clue to the secret.

[05:32]

Flowers have fallen, trees give no shade. Who does not see if she looks? Seeing is non-seeing. Non-seeing is seeing. Facing backward on the ox, he rides into the Buddha hall. So, I'm going to talk a bit about the introduction. Controlling the world, he allows not the least speck of dust to escape. What does it mean to control the world? There's a koan. What do you mean by the world? What do you mean by the world? I remember Suzuki Roshi used to talk about wherever you are in your surroundings, that's the whole world.

[06:35]

Your surroundings contain the whole world. no matter where you are or what you're doing. So we often say, well, this is our world, this is my world, this is your world. Each one of us has actually a world, a whirl. So when we think about controlling the whole world, that could mean the entire globe But actually, it can also mean the place where you sit. When you're sitting in Zazen, that's the whole world, your whole world. So each of us has a center. Each one of us actually is a mandala. I really have been quite, mandala really expresses our life.

[07:39]

Mandala has a center, and from the center, our life radiates in all directions. So what does it radiate? What does our life radiate? And how do we control that, what comes out of our center? and is filtered through our delusions. And there is something that's very pure that is at the core of our mandala. Each one of us has that purity at the center, the core of our mandala. Children have it. I mean, we all have it anyway, but in children or in babies, it's just there.

[08:45]

I mean, that's why people love babies. you know, because they're attracted to this direct light, direct purity that hasn't been filtered through forming opinions and falling into dualistic understanding. We collect a whole lot of karma as we grow up, which tends to hide our light. So what does it mean to control our world? So controlling the world, he allows not the least speck of dust to escape. Well, dust, you know, we live in the dusty world. Somebody sent me a, I received this yesterday, a package, and inside the package was a ball.

[09:53]

And he said, this is a ball that's made of dust. It was kind of heavy, you know, and beautiful actually, the sphere, you know, a little world made out of dust. That's what he said. It's a ball made out of dust. Please enjoy it. So we live in a little ball, a little ball of dust. But he says he does not allow the least speck of dust to escape. He cuts off the diluted stream of thought. leaving not a drop behind. So what is deluded thought? Deluded thought is thinking that the truth lies in our dualistic thinking. So often in Buddhist terminology, delusion is equated with duality.

[11:07]

And truth is equated with oneness. But oneness and duality belong to each other. So this will come out as we go. If you open your mouth in a dualistic way, you are mistaken. If you doubt for a moment, you have missed the way. Tell me, what is the eye that has pierced the barriers, and what are the barriers? Okay, so, Umban spoke to his assembly, his monks, and he said, each of you, or everybody, or however you want to say it, I like each of you, because he's addressing the monks. Each of you has your own light.

[12:12]

If you try to see it, everything is darkness. So light here really means essential nature or Buddha nature. He's also saying, although we have, we usually think of light as the opposite of darkness, that light illuminates the individual entities that we call things. Light illuminates things. Darkness obscures everything. And often we think of light as good and dark as bad. There are many ways to think about it. But here, it doesn't pertain to good and bad. I would say that light and dark are two sides of dark, or two sides of light.

[13:26]

We think of light and dark in a dualistic sense, and so that leads us to good and bad, right and wrong, and all the dualities of this world. But when he says, if you try to see it, everything is darkness. So what is one's light? What does that mean? And also it implies what is darkness and what does that mean? Of course, we say in the darkness, everything is one. And in the light, all the individual entities are illuminated. So we like light. And we're afraid of the dark. That's true. We're afraid of the dark. I remember, I don't remember, but when people lived in forests, they didn't have artificial light.

[14:30]

And so the forests were dark and dangerous, and all the bad things lived there. He thought all the fables, all the stories in Europe for children were about being the terrible monsters that existed in the dark of the forest, that don't go into the dark forest at night. So, but the dark forest is like, the darkness is the essence and the foundation of the light. Darkness is the foundation of the light. The light actually is, we think of it as the dualistic world. and the darkness as the world of oneness, where there are no boundaries.

[15:36]

So, what is everyone's light? Later in Place of the Disciples, he said, the halls and the gate, or another translation that I like is temple storehouse and temple gate. So it may be better not to say anything, even if it's a good word. In other words, if I tell you all about this, you'll think that you know what I'm talking about. So it's better maybe not to say anything. But we say something anyway, not to explain so much as to make us aware that this is so. So when we talk through these koans, it's not so much to explain the koan with a meaning, but to give us some clue to make us aware of something that we don't usually think about.

[16:55]

And in this case, oneness and duality. It's really hard. no matter how much we think about it or talk about it, to actually live with our feet in the darkness and our head in the light. Our root is the darkness. And the flowering is in the light. This is the way it is with plants. The plants have their roots in the dark, and that's where they bring in the sustenance. And then the plant grows in the light and receives the sun. And the color and the form and the

[18:03]

But for humans, for people, we get mixed up in the light because we get seduced by the forms. So this is the cause of suffering, being seduced by the forms. But at the same time, we're meant to enjoy the forms in the light. So, how do we enjoy the light? How do we enjoy our dualistic life in the world? The reason we sit Zazen is actually to allow ourselves to go deeply into the roots of our life.

[19:10]

Tazen is to not examine anything, not to do anything special, but simply to descend, I guess you'd say, into the darkness, into our roots, the roots of our life. the deeper we go, the more we can support our true life in the world. So when we talk about light, Light is fire. Fire produces light, and light produces, I don't know if light produces fire, but of the elements, our roots are earth, but our roots go deeper than earth, maybe.

[20:25]

So the roots... how do we balance the roots with the flower, with the plant? If we don't pay attention to the roots of our life, then our life becomes superficial because we're always looking for something that we can't find. Everybody's looking for something that they can't find unless they go deeply into their roots. So light is a form of fire.

[21:32]

And we see it cosmically, and we also use fire to illuminate our houses and our machines and our little things that we look at all the time. It's all a form of fire. And how to control Controlling the world is actually controlling fire. Controlling fire. We love bonfires, right? We really love bonfires because they're so free. It's like the fire is totally free. It has no boundary. And so we love it, and we use bonfires for ceremonies and so forth, out in the big space.

[22:39]

But because we are always controlling the fire, we're always controlling it. And when we control it, we can use it. And so we get kind of caught in control. But if we can balance our control with our, if we can balance the light with the dark, then we can actually control our suffering. Suffering comes when we can't balance our roots or the darkness with the light. When the light becomes disconnected from the darkness.

[23:44]

So we can see in our world, people are going around not knowing what to do and making these enormous mistakes enormous mistakes by not being aware or being disconnected from reality. Reality is the darkness, and we're disconnected from the dark. We're disconnected from our roots. And so we make these enormous blunders because we're depending on our thinking, which is crazy. We don't know how crazy we are. Actually, if you tell a crazy person that they're crazy, they'll deny it. But if you tell a sane person that they're crazy, they can say, well, yeah, maybe I am. As a matter of fact, I know I am.

[24:52]

I'm a little bit crazy. Sometimes I'm not connected to my roots or to the dark and I do crazy things because I think that's pleasant. We're all trying to satisfy ourselves with things that cannot satisfy us. That's the problem. That's what we're doing all the time, trying to satisfy ourselves with something that cannot be satisfactory. So, to balance, you know, in the olden days, monks gave up the world and went into the monasteries, and people still do that today, like give up, and just pay attention to the dark side. But actually, we also have to pay attention to the light side, because we live in a dualistic world.

[25:58]

And how we can enjoy the dualistic world without being seduced by it or lost in it is actually our practice. That's why we sit zazen. So we sit Zazen in the morning, hopefully, the best way, good way. And then from Zazen, our life proceeds into the world. So we've touched our roots. And then we proceed into the sunlight. And because we are connected with our roots, I don't say we carry that with us, but that sustains us if we pay attention. And we don't get lost in the light, in the world of duality.

[27:01]

We have to live in the world of duality without getting lost in it. It's so easy. And, you know, it's more interesting. The world of the light is far more interesting than the world of darkness for many people because our mind is always looking for something to attach to. Our thirst is always looking for something to attach to. No matter how satisfying that is for a bit, it's not completely satisfying. There's always something lacking. So Master Setjo, commenting on this, says, it illuminates itself.

[28:06]

So light is a metaphor for Buddha nature. Light is a metaphor for essence of mind, or Buddha nature, or whatever you want to call it. And it's not like blue, yellow, red, or whatever. You can't see it. You can be it, but you can't see it. So, Dogen has a wonderful essay on this. Koan, actually. Komyo. Komyo means something like radiant light, but it's often translated as divine light. which of course is the essence of your original face.

[29:13]

Colvin Gino used to say, we should all be, our practice is to be a vehicle for light. So, that's why we say there's no, to not do something for your own, to advance yourself in some way, so that you become a vehicle for light, and the light you swallow the light so that the light can be expressed through you. I think this is the essence of all religion, basically, to let the light shine through you, to be a vehicle for light, whatever that is, for your basic nature. And that's what we bring into the world.

[30:27]

So sometimes people ask, say, well, what can you accomplish by just sitting there? Doing nothing except bringing light into the world. Expressing light in the world. What good is that? Well, I don't know, but we do it. Probably doesn't amount to much. So anyway, this is our offering. This is our gift, is to reduce our ego, reduce our self-centeredness so that our Buddha nature becomes the center of our life and is expressed through non-hindrance. So we try to do things that don't hinder that light.

[31:28]

And that's the basis of our practice, is to let go of our self-centeredness so the light becomes the center. Buddha becomes the center. Buddha nature becomes the center and is expressed through our activity. So, Satya's verse says, it illuminates itself absolutely bright. It is Buddha nature. He, meaning Uman, Master Uman, gives a clue to the secret. Flowers have fallen and trees give no shade. It means there's nothing standing in the way. It's just pure light.

[32:32]

Who does not see if one looks? Seeing is non-seeing and non-seeing is seeing. Non-seeing is seeing, meaning if you look, if you try to see it, you can't see it. But if you simply be it, it's there. So you can't peek. No peeking. We wanna see, but actually, it's like, in the old days, they used to have coal-driven ships, tramp steamers. And the guys in the hold would be shoveling coal all day long into the furnace. So they're doing the work, but they can't see where the ship's going.

[33:37]

So you just do the work, and everything will take care of itself. If you just do the work. I've proven this to myself over and over again. Just doing the work, everything will come that needs to. Everything will come to you that you need if you just do the work. That's like non-seeing. Where am I going? Where is it going? What's the end? Most people think that, feel that way, and that's fine, but that's work in the world. that you have some vision of what's at the end. But in this case, you just do the work for the sake of the work, and everything seems to work out. If it's true, if it's true working selfless activity.

[34:44]

But if we try to get something, you cover it over. So, facing backward on the ox, the person rides into the Buddha hall. You ride into the Buddha hall, facing backwards on the ox. The ox is your nature. And riding backwards means you just trust yourself. You just trust your nature. You just throw yourself into Buddha's house, as Dogen says, and trust your nature, which is hard to do because we want to trust something else. But we can't find that thing to trust. Very hard. So we make up stuff to do that satisfies sort of But total satisfaction is not there.

[35:51]

So to find the balanced state, that's practice. To find the balance between the dark side and the light side. between Zazen and our daily life. So, It's possible when you're sitting zazen to think, instead of thinking, why am I doing this?

[37:08]

To allow yourself to feel the radiation of light pouring out of your pores without thinking, without trying to identify what it looks like. Do you have a question? Go on. So thank you. It's beautiful what you're reading. I'm imagining myself embodying what you're talking about at the moment. And so here I am practicing not guiding my energy as I sit in zazen, practicing not having an agenda for what I'm doing in zazen.

[38:21]

And as I Go up, get up from Zazen and go out to do, for example, work period. I'm holding no intention, is what I'm hearing you saying. I'm not planning to make flowers, but when I come in contact with petals and stems, flowers are there. And when I come in contact with So going out without any plan to clean or pick or make flowers is operating from the darkness? Am I correct or am I getting close? And then finding the flowers or the cleaning is encountering experience or original face and that's just what the moment's called for? We have to remember that light is darkness and darkness is light.

[39:22]

Light is in darkness and darkness is in light. So we separate those two in order to talk about it, but actually it's not two things. So when we manifest, how would you describe idealized original face manifesting itself? Without being self-centered. without being selfish, without hankering after anything special. So then you can see the quality of everything, the true quality of whatever you're engaged, whatever work or people or animals or whatever you're engaged with, you can experience the true quality of everything you meet. We ignore so much.

[40:28]

We have to ignore a lot in order to be, we ignore almost everything in order to follow our vision. You can't take it all in. But if you don't have that, then you can take in everything. So there are two kinds of concentration. One is the concentration of what you're heading for or what you're idealizing. And the other kind of concentration is to simply let go of everything and allow your whole world to be present. The zazen is the second one, even though we tend to think it's the first one. Be concentrated, you know, in Zazen. We are concentrated in Zazen, but our concentration is wide and not necessarily narrow. Or it's both. Sometimes it's narrow, but basically because you're letting go of any ideal that you have of doing something other than sitting.

[41:38]

you just become part of the whole scene without being self-conscious. We manipulate the light to get ourselves to the seat to let go of our manipulation of the light. Something like that. Let go of the manipulation, period. Ben? Can you say anything about the temple gate and the temple storehouse? About the what? Can you say anything about the temple gate and the temple storehouse? Oh yes, that means like wherever you are, you can see the Buddha nature directly in the most mundane activities. That's why washing dishes, sweeping the grounds is Zen activity.

[42:43]

If you go to some monasteries in Japan, the monks are always sweeping the grounds. That's their daily activity, or picking up the weeds out of the grass. I once was at Soji-ji, and the monks were all down on their knees. picking, you know, little weeds out of the grass, and there were about 10 monks, and the leader would every once in a while say, something, and they'd all go, you know, they're all engaged. This is their whole life, this is the whole world, was picking out the weeds and relating to each other as one body. So, the leader said, something, and they'd all say, So that they wouldn't get lost in what they were doing.

[43:54]

You can get lost in, you know, doing this and wake up. Oh, yeah. Wake up. Wake up. That's why we used to carry the stick. Bam, bam, wake up, wake up. Because wake up, it doesn't matter that you get hit, but you hear the crack and that wakes you up. And nobody gets hurt, except people that want to get hurt. Perhaps this is just my experience, but why does it seem like we go to the dark side? There's so much grief. Well, yes, you carry it around. It's not like you're creating it. The stuff that you've been not thinking about or because you've been so busy, you're opening up the box and the demons start coming up and then you can see what they are.

[45:12]

The best way to deal with your demons is to shine a light on them. And when you shine the light on them, they reveal themselves. And when they reveal themselves, they're not, you know, the demons usually are stuff that you've repressed or don't really look at so much, you know. And then they come up and then you can see them. And then, and you can let them go. You can see them and let them go. You don't have to obsess with them. Although you might, but still. All that stuff comes up eventually. And we all have them, you know. But instead of them controlling us, Control, controlling the world, means you let the demons come up, and you're not trying to control them, because when we repress them, then we are trying to control them, actually, because we don't want to see them, so stay down there.

[46:23]

And then this stuff comes up, and we just let it come up, and let it go on to the next moment. the next demon. They circulate, you know. This is part of zazen, you know, circulation in our mind of this and that. But that's good because it releases them. And you don't have to do anything about it. That's control, is letting go of control. You say you don't have to do anything about it, and I've heard that phrase. All you have to do is follow your breath, and you'll be free, and you'll never go back. Well, I don't say you never go back. But that's what it sounds like. No, because I said that you can keep going around. I've heard that from you, but this is what I hear. Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah, well, you know, life is more complex than that.

[47:30]

That's a simplistic thing. And people like to solve stuff, right? So you're not trying to solve anything. That's the point. You're just letting things be. without becoming attachment to wanting to solve something or attachment to, you know, suppressing or attachment to. The main thing is to let go of the attachment because that's freeing yourself. It doesn't mean things won't return or, you know, it doesn't mean you won't be bothered by things, but it gives you opportunity to be free for that moment. Anyway, I think it's time to get back to unreality. No, I didn't mean that.

[48:35]