Today is the last day of our seven-day Buddhist Enlightenment Sashin. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, in December we have a seven-day sitting commemorating Buddha's enlightenment. And the date that's agreed on is the 8th of December for Buddha's enlightenment. So we've been sitting here day and night, eating in the same position that we meditate, and doing nothing else.

[01:02]

And once a day I come in and give a lecture. And I've been talking about, I've presented two cases from the booklet record. And then and I've been talking about the various levels of consciousness. And Charlie yesterday said, when you give us so many different cases, how do you keep from getting confused between them? Or something like that. And so today I want to clarify the confusion that may have come up. The two cases that I talked about, one has to do with a baby, the mind of a baby, and the other has to do with the mind of an old man.

[02:14]

And they both have to do with the mind of reality. So the first case, which is number 80 in the Blue Cliff Record, a monk asks Joshu, Zen Master Zhao Zhou, does the baby have the sixth consciousness? like tossing a ball on a swiftly flowing river." And later the monk asked another teacher, he said, what did Joshu mean by throwing a ball on a swiftly flowing river? And the teacher said, non-stop flow. This case is about

[03:22]

It looks like it's about does the baby, the question is does the baby have the sixth consciousness, which is called discriminating awareness. Discriminating awareness is the awareness or consciousness which clarifies the difference between seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching, and thinks. So it's called thinking mind. Does the baby have this thinking mind? And we know, of course, the baby has thinking mind, but it's not developed. So this discriminating mind which divides and partitions and identifies, according to naming, is called discriminating consciousness.

[04:36]

And this consciousness divides the world. Originally, the baby has one mind, one undivided mind, which is one with the universe. And as the thinking mind becomes developed, the world becomes more and more divided until when the baby becomes a mature person, we become lost, the baby becomes, the grown-up baby becomes lost in discrimination. Only wandering around in a world of comparison and losing the sense of unity with the universe.

[05:37]

So the monk's question bears on this. But the real deeper meaning is, does the baby have the same mind as an enlightened sage? So this brings us to the other koans. Vimalakirti was a Buddha in the time of Buddha. He was a layperson. He wasn't really a member of Buddha's priest congregation or monk congregation. He was a layperson who was actually supposedly a Buddha who had the same understanding as Shakyamuni Buddha. And Shakyamuni Buddha would send his best disciples to Vimalakirti in order to test their understanding to see how they stood up under Vimalakirti's questioning.

[06:52]

And Vimalakirti um, was, uh, had a, a, uh, small, uh, little house called, uh, Ten Foot Square House. And, uh, which, uh, Japanese monks have a little, a little hojo, a little ten foot square house where they give their interviews. And, uh, it's called a hojo. And, uh, somebody told me that back east they had these, um, Restaurants called Hojo. So Vimalakirti is enlightened, but he suffers. The message of Shakyamuni Buddha is how to end suffering. That's what Buddhism is about, how to end suffering.

[07:55]

But Vimalakirti is in his ten-foot square room, taking on the suffering of all sentient beings. So that's his work, his practice. He doesn't have to do this for himself, but because everyone is suffering, he decides that that's what he's going to do too, because he doesn't want to set himself apart from everyone else. So he invites everyone in and Vimalakirti, when they come, he's cleaning his room. Cleaning his room means cleaning out his mind of all dualistic presuppositions and making himself receptive to reality, undivided reality. So the Buddha sends 31 of his best disciples, Bodhisattvas, and they come and each one questions Vimalakirti.

[09:04]

And the last one to come is Munjushri, who is the Bodhisattva of Wisdom and the teacher of all Buddhas of the past, according to the mythological view. And Vimalakirti asks him, what is your view? And Manjushri tells him. And then Manjushri says, well, what is your understanding? And Vimalakirti doesn't say anything. The question is, what is the entrance to the non-dual door of reality? What is the entrance to the doorway of non-dualistic reality? Vimalakirti just sits there. This is called the thundering silence of Vimalakirti.

[10:10]

So, here we have, on the one hand, a question about, does the baby have the sixth consciousness? Sixth consciousness is the doorway to duality, the discriminating mind, which divides up the world into the various appearances. classifies the mind that receives information. Nowadays, information is the thing to have. We keep producing more information, trying to digest more and more information, and the mind becomes more and more divided and divisive. And the more information we have, the more divisive the world becomes, actually.

[11:17]

I don't want to get into that, but The question to Vimalakirti is, how do you enter the door of unity? So the question between them is, is Vimalakirti's mind the same mind as the baby's mind? And is the baby's mind the same mind as the Malakirti's mind? The answer is yes and no. But you can see how these two koans are two aspects of the same koan. Two ways to look at discriminating mind and non-discriminating mind.

[12:23]

An old teacher says, the baby's mind is the best, but the baby's mind is the mind of the baby. The adult's mind is the mind of the sage. They're the same, but they're not the same. The baby has not yet started to discriminate. So the baby has this unified mind which has not yet been developed into a discriminating mind. And the sage has the experience of discriminating mind and attachments and must re-enter. the realm of non-discrimination, which is much harder to do.

[13:40]

So when all of these various bodhisattvas gave their answers, they were just answers. But Nirmala Kirti didn't say anything. What can you say? If you say something, as soon as you say a word, You've discriminated. This is what words do. Right now, you're listening to my discriminating talk. Nevertheless, we have to speak, and we have to move, and we have to name things. So this world is the world of duality. Nevertheless, the world of duality is based on the world of unity. So the sage discriminates, but he discriminates on the basis of unity.

[14:50]

There's another interesting story, which will complicate matters, I hope not. This is a very famous story, you probably already know it. There was a, back in Tang Dynasty China, there was a monk who used to do zazen in a tree. And they called him the bird nest monk. And one day the governor of the province came by and saw him sitting up in his tree. He said, isn't it kind of dangerous up there? And the monk looked down at him and he said, well, it's funny that you should speak of dangerous. He says, when your passions are on fire and your mind is unsteady, how can you call this dangerous? The governor said, well, tell me something about Buddhism.

[16:12]

In a few words. So the monk said, avoid all evil. Do what is good and purify your mind. This is just the three precepts. I said, any child of three can do that. Oh no, any child of three knows this. And the monk said, yes, any child of three knows this, but an old man of 80 has a really hard time doing it. son, Daniel.

[17:17]

I invited him to come to have Doksan. He says, I really hate religion and I don't believe in God. And sometimes he gets very angry. And so I feel that somehow I... And I'm gone a lot. I go to Tassajara and Sishi is the word. And so I feel that I need to somehow meet with him. We get along very well actually. And actually our understanding between us is very good. But... I felt, suddenly I was sitting, after doing doksan in my doksan hut, I was thinking it would be really good if he was here right now.

[18:23]

So I invited him to come and so we had, I went and I got some crackers and cheese and His mother likes to celebrate Hanukkah even though she doesn't understand anything about it. And then this year she thought, well, I won't even do it. And then he brought it up. He likes to celebrate Hanukkah because of the candles. in the presence. But this is good. So we had this big blow up.

[19:27]

I went home to, I decided that since I was gone a lot, I would go home and eat dinner with him. And so he brought up the subject about Hanukkah. And presents, you know, and she hadn't gotten him any presents, or only gotten him one present. He wanted a couple, two or three presents, you know, to make up for the nights that he'd missed. So, this is discriminating mind, you know, running wild. Just screaming and yelling and, you know, go to bed, put on your pajamas. If I go to bed, I'm going to scream my head off. So I finally left and came back to Sassoon.

[20:29]

But then, we'd already planned on having this. our dog stop and he came last night at five o'clock and he was very enthusiastic you know and we came and we had our stuff and he was very calm cool then I I asked him I said what what do you think is the is the most important thing to relate to, I can't remember exactly what I said, but what is the most important thing to think about, you know, in our life? And I said, you tell me first, and then I'll tell you what I think. What's the most, what's really important in our life to think about, to, as the main thing in our life? And he said, I said, don't say that just to please me.

[21:38]

I don't want you to give me an answer just to please me. And he said, well, I do think that. And he does actually like Buddhism, even though he doesn't like religion. And I said, well, I think what I think is the most important thing to think about is truth. I said truth is more important than religion, and it's more important than science or art or music. If religion relates to truth, then it's fine. And if science relates to truth, it's fine. So truth is higher than religion. It doesn't matter. You don't have to believe in religion.

[22:41]

You don't have to worry about that. Because when we look for something, we're looking for something that's the highest thing. We're actually born into emptiness. We're born into an empty world that looks like it's full of stuff. But each one of us is suspended in emptiness. But actually, we're in totally emptiness. And we find our reference points. If you're out in the middle of the desert, with nothing but sand and sky, you say, well, which way shall I go?

[23:47]

It's arbitrary. And then you say, well, you look at the stars, and you say, oh, there's the North Star. So something is in that direction. You have a reference point, and you have a way to go. So in our life, We look around, but what's my reference point? What is our reference point? And we look for the reference point that we can rely on, something that we can rely on. And some people say, oh, it's God. Some people say it's science. Some people, machine guns. Whatever. But truth is maybe a fundamental reference point. But we organize our group minds to think in terms of religion.

[24:53]

as reliable reference points. But none of those are completely reliable. Religion is not a reliable reference point. Science is not a reliable reference point. And truth is very elusive. So what is this truth that is the reliable reference point that everyone is actually looking for? So we've been sitting for seven days entering the door of non-duality, letting our normal, usual reference points drop away, and just sitting in emptiness.

[26:11]

It's very difficult to do that. Very difficult to just sit in emptiness, letting all of our reference points, false reference points, drop away. And at some point, the only reference point is your breath. And everything drops away until you can feel secure with nothing. This is the point of Sashin. So after Sashin, your mind is very open. Even if you, whether you had a hard time or an easy time, your mind is very open. And people often say, well, I'm kind of afraid to go out in the street, because you don't have, you no longer have any defenses, or very little defense.

[27:27]

And then you realize how when you get out in the street, how we build up our defenses in order to meet the world. So, in Sishin, we resume our ordinary mind. Ordinary mind, not in the sense of usual mind, but ordinary in the sense of fundamental, mind. So you may step out in the street and you see a car coming and you're not really... it's interesting. But fortunately we haven't lost our responses so we step back on the curb. Nobody's been hit so far. But I just want to say that

[28:30]

This is an opportunity to see things in a fresh way, and to meet life in a fresh way, without our conditioned responses being subdominant. And to not be afraid of that, because it's a little scary sometimes. You don't have your conditioned responses to rely on. So you have to rely on the freshness of your mind, which is called spontaneity. And to have some confidence in the spontaneous quality of your own mind, of your fresh mind. Sometimes you feel spaced out. That's kind of the way we describe it, spaced out. But this spaced out means that you have lots of space in your mind, which is not so tight. So we step out into this busy world with a broad, empty mind.

[29:51]

And you shouldn't think of that as something wrong, that there's something wrong with you. because your mind is so spacious, you can bring the world into your mind and let the world enjoy the spaciousness of your mind, rather than feeling that there's something wrong with you and you have to suddenly begin to fill your mind up with clutter. and conditioned responses. So Sashin is a kind of purification. It's like going, you know, when you take your car through that washer, all the brushes are gone.

[31:01]

It's kind of like that. mind, clean body, ready for what's next, and without being attached to the spaciousness of your mind. Just going back into ordinary activity, but realizing that this is the case. So it may be good to re-enter the world, the busy world, slowly, a little bit slowly. Get used to it again. Do you have any questions?

[32:07]

Yes? One of my concerns about labeling myself a Buddhist is that it's going to separate me from the rest of humanity, from the Christians, from the Islam. It's going to become this people-pitted-against-each-other thing, or I'm better than you, or something like that. And I wonder if you could give me some advice about dealing with this, these labels that keep us from experiencing our universal reality. Yeah, that's a good point. Each discipline has a label. So if you want to associate or be able to meet people from various different religions on a unified level, All you have to do is unify your own mind.

[33:12]

You don't have to get rid of the labels. Just get rid of the labels of your own mind. We talked about that too when I was talking to Daniel. I said, don't be so hard on people who believe in God because God is a very powerful word. And it's a word that's been developed over thousands of years and people feel very strongly emotional with the word God. very religious people, that word is sacred. And so when you attack someone or criticize someone on that level, then that's very painful.

[34:29]

how you criticize. So he said, oh yeah, his aunt is Catholic. He says, when I tell Aunt Sue that I don't like, that I don't believe in God, she gets very upset. I said, that's right, you can't go around criticizing that because you're touching people at the very core of their being. So we have to be able to realize that everyone is searching for this reference point in emptiness, and some people call it God. the most precious thing to them.

[35:39]

So this always has to be respected. So Buddhism doesn't use God as a reference point. Buddhism uses truth as a reference point. Reality is a reference point. But that doesn't mean that you should criticize people who use other metaphors. So we have to be respectful of everyone's truth. And if you're respectful of everyone's truth, then it doesn't matter. You can go to church and do a service. If you understand that this is also a different way of expressing something, even though the way of thinking about it is different. Buddhism and Christianity, Judaism, Islam, somewhere each one has truth as the fundamental thing.

[37:01]

So if truth is the fundamental thing, all you have to do is keep that in your mind. wander through the whole world of particulars without losing yourself. Thinking is the beginning of discrimination because we think in words. Is there a kind of thinking that doesn't use words? That's a good question. That's a koan. How can you say it without either opening your mouth or keeping it closed? That's a koan. As a matter of fact, there are three or four koans that have the same

[38:05]

Without opening your mouth or closing it, how can you say it? It seems to me that the non-discriminating one, which would be undifferentiated or carnal That, as far as babies are concerned, baby mind is wonderful, but one can't survive in this world. We're talking about this in our actions. It's just that there's no survival, so that ego, discriminating mind, all these things that we speak years. that if you, when you begin to break through those eco-structures or defense mechanisms or whatever, it's very, very critical kind of thing, rather risky.

[39:29]

But I'm wondering if the aim or the general purpose Is this somehow to arrive at an appropriate interaction somehow between these two? This seems to me the... Yeah, what's appropriate action? That's the big question. What is appropriate action? That's right. So the point is, what do you do? What's right action? What's right view? What's right action? What's right understanding?

[40:32]

It's just the Eightfold Path. And what's right livelihood? That's supposed to happen. Which is the result of right action. which is the result of right views. The main thing is to see everything as it is, in reality, without partiality. Discriminating means to partialize. That's one meaning of discrimination. And partialize means you can only see one part without seeing the rest. So, the point is to be able to have a unified understanding, then you know how to discriminate. But if we only discriminate without seeing the whole thing, it's like the elephant.

[41:34]

Don't be like the man and the elephant. We want to know what's the whole elephant. If you don't know what's the whole elephant, you don't know what the parts are. And we're always guessing, what are the parts? So, we need to know what the parts are. Parts of what? With Dogen, the dropping body and mind is really the way. To study, yeah. It's the dropping body and mind that then reveals.

[42:37]

Yeah, dropping body and mind means to drop your partiality. the discriminating mind which divides you from the universe, and realize the fundamental unity. And then you know how to divide, and what the purpose of division is, and how to operate in the world without killing it. Yes? As you're speaking, I keep thinking about Saturn. Yeah. And the sense of reference that they have for their journey.

[43:41]

Well, yeah, because a Zen student is... Salmon is a good metaphor for a Zen student. The salmon... The salmon goes up... knows where it's going, even though it may not know. Right. You know, it knows but it doesn't know. It just knows it has to get there. Just like the Zen student. It knows and it doesn't know. And there's a path in emptiness. And, you know, why does the salmon just do that instead of some other place, right? Well, there's this reference point. And then there's this path that goes to that point. And the salmon never forgets that. Oh, the Zen student may forget.

[44:46]

It's less complicated. So the family gets to the place and then does what it has to do and dies, just like the Zen student. Well, because we realize that everyone is myself. And so what everyone feels, what I feel, is what everyone feels. So when I am compassionate toward others, I'm really being compassionate toward myself. A little selfish, but it seems selfish.

[45:49]

It's true selfishness. complete, wholehearted selfishness, which doesn't have any... because there's nothing outside of myself. So what did Danny say after you told him all about truth? He said, I really like this cheese. Is this creating a new trend in Dhammasara? You never know what you can expect. My son's favorite cheese at age 10 still is brie.

[46:53]

And what does he like? He likes, there's a certain kind of cheese that's really stinky that my wife gets. I can't remember the name of it. But he really likes it a lot. I got some brie. And then we talked about types. This is a whole other talk, which I don't want to get into. But there's the faith type, the intelligence type, and the discursive type. And then there's the greed type, the hate type, and the delusion type. And the faith type and the greed type have a lot in common. One is the upside or the downside of the other. if you want to speak in terms of up and down.

[47:53]

And the intelligence type and the hate type are very much connected in their way. And the discursive type and the delusion type are very much connected. I'll talk about that some other time. But, you know, we agreed. I'm a faith type. He's a faith and greed type. And he is a intelligence and anger type." And I said, what about mom? What's she? And he said, what? She's a delusion type. I said, I think she's an intelligence type, intelligence anger type, bordering on delusion. at equal time tomorrow? I'm sending her this tape.

[49:00]

I said, well, you should go home and discuss this with your mom. Thank you.

[49:08]

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