And then I was thinking about Genjo Koan, Dogen Zenji, as the foundation of some Zen practice. And the verses in Genjo Koan And we have a copy of your interview that we've written about. It is a very famous, well-known passage that came to the fore to study the Soviet Union. of the mind as it was that of others.

[01:44]

And this endless enlightenment, this traceless enlightenment continues forever, endlessly. So this is one long statement of Dogon, which is really interpretation of Buddhism. His interpretations are quite unique, but they're always based on basic Buddhism. And they're always based on all of the Buddhist teachers that he admired so much.

[02:51]

So we find traces of his teaching all throughout his works. So in order to trace some of the teaching in the Gensho poem, and especially in that in a certain style. And one of the styles of teaching in the Tang Dynasty, in China, in Zen, was the use of

[03:56]

forms have always been very prominent teaching devices. So my intention here is to put these two things together, the heart, Dogen's in Tozan's Five Positions and Circuit Forms. I gave you Sakida Sensei's commentary on the Please start commentating in the circular corner.

[05:27]

It's hidden zazen, and it's this circular form, called the Cosmic Ludrus. Cosmic Ludrus. It's a circle, an empty circle. In China, during the Tang Dynasty, a very famous Zen master, and he had a system of 75 circular forms, which he used as teaching devices.

[07:07]

And if the circular form is emptiness, or your mind, a dot or a character or a line, then you have disturbance. And disturbance is called creation. So creation is a kind of disturbance of stillness. completely still without any ripple, and you throw a stone into the pond, you have disturbance. If there's a fish, and you're sitting there, you don't have fish there, and the pond is very still, and the fish is very still also. which means disturbance or undulation or movement.

[08:44]

So we have, on the one hand, this stillness And as soon as you have comparison, you have duality. So disturbance is the breaking up of a singular form into many parts, which is called discrimination. Discrimination means as we're born into this world, we create some disturbance.

[09:53]

My mother told me that I brought on depression. At least her depression. from stillness and leave, or the relationship of the absolute realm and the relative realm, which is where all koans lie. A koan is a kind of question which comes up around where absolute and null to be. And the reason that you can't solve a koan is because to solve a koan would be to continually stay in the realm of duality.

[11:16]

So a koan can't be solved But it can be resolved. There's a resolution, but it's not something that you can solve. It's not a kind of question that you can solve. And it's a question that always exists. And as long as we exist as a persona in this existence, we have this problem. So it's the problem of unity and separation. How do we achieve unity within this realm of separation? Basically, that's where the koan is. How do we find unity, basic unity, within this realm of separation, within this discriminated realm? And Tao Zhang, in Chinese, is the so-called founder of the so-called school of Zen in China.

[12:50]

Yeah. The school is named after Tozan. I'm going to use the Japanese pronunciation because it's easier. Tozan and his disciple, Sozan, together, their names together form the Soko, or school. So is for Sozan, To is for Tozan. And the reason why Soh is before Toh is because it's easier to say. Some people say that Soh Toh School is Toh Zon and Soh Kei, the six patriarchs. But I think most scholars agree that it's Soh Zon and Toh Zon, Toh Zon and so forth.

[13:53]

And about Toh Zon, five positions in order to illustrate the core of the absolute and relative from various points of view. And he also used it as a kind of map of the past. Poisson's five positions are most well known.

[14:58]

And in Japan, in the 16th century, Master Hakuin, who revived the renzai spoons in Japan after it had died completely, five ranks and talk about them and the implications and how the five positions relate to Dogens in Japan.

[16:11]

So in these first two sessions, So the first way is more philosophical. But once you understand the first set of five positions, it's easier to understand the second set, because the first set is more directed.

[17:38]

The five positions were always used as a teaching device in the Sopo school in China for a long time. But then they became kind of, people used them in a kind of philosophical way. And it got to a point where it became very confusing. are gone, you use the five positions without saying that that's what they were.

[19:31]

The easel has fiber. The reason I use this common chair.

[22:03]

And if you're familiar. Suchness.

[25:52]

Suchness. I'm sorry.

[27:27]

Either Kozan or Sozan gave these forms names like the host and the guest. Or the host is the dominant.

[29:31]

This is, you could say this is, form is emptiness. This is where the emptiness form is emphasized. Did you have your hand up? No, I was just thinking. Anytime you want to have a question, you can stop. And this is always like looking at one thing and describing it in different ways. It's not like a different reality or something. It's always the same thing from different... But describing relationships of host and guest in different ways, from different points of view. The one way to see it is as a progression.

[30:32]

There we see the host. So these two are like a pair. The reason why we put them this way is because these two are like a pair, and these two are like a pair. And this one is in the middle. So you can say that this stands for... Now, Huckoen says that in the first rank, it's where

[34:38]

There are several ways to talk about the five positions. One way is to say, this is an illustration of life after enlightenment. But you can also say, this is the illustrious practice after enlightenment, after some kind of realization. But you have to realize that just entering into practice is realization. It's not necessarily practice after great enlightenment. reality as it is, that within the absolute

[36:34]

within nature. In other words, there's nothing that you can't get out of the birthless or the deathless. So, this is like seeing things as they This rank here is called the mirror mind. The mirror mind is the mind that sees everything just as it is, without any distortion, which is very hard to do. So the two sides of the coin, it's one coin, but one side is dark and the other side is light.

[40:20]

And they form the basis for this. the guest. And this is called the emerging of the host, coming from within the host. And it's like the eye in the center of a hurricane. Because the light side is like the activity of life. And the dark side So, in the center of a hurricane is that stillness.

[41:38]

So this is called practice. This is called This is where we live. As a Zen student, this is where you live. It's in a calm place. No matter... Well, the difference between two and three is that this is in the center, and they all have elements of each other.

[43:24]

But you can see what the difference is, is that the guest position, or the phenomenal life, is taking the stage. So that in all activity, this stillness is always at the center, no matter what's going on. To what extent...

[44:33]

coming from within the real, to what extent is our relative reality caused by the absolute reality? There seems to be some implication in that drawing. It looks like it's caused, but this is the basis. So even though the stone is thrown into here, this is the part of the pond that's not disturbed. Or the ripples go out, but this ripple doesn't go out.

[45:47]

The screen disappears. movie is projected onto the screen and onto different things.

[47:47]

It's one thing. And then when the movie stops, you just have the screen. But the movie also looks continuous. But the movie is made, the film is made of little increments. Which one is Joe Montana playing football? Well, coming from an Inuit kind of translation, that's what it's called. It means that the real and seeming.

[48:49]

See, this is also called the real and seeming. Dark is also called real. That's another name. And this is called scene. And this phenomenal world is called scene. It seems to be real. It seems to be real. It seems to be real because we connect all the increments of the film in one line. But actually, each one of those movements is a little increment in time. And our mind connects them up. The world is made up of molecules and energy.

[50:11]

But, yeah, it's a little confusing. In other words, I think what it's saying is you see the reality of phenomena coming from within you has absolute nature. And that's what its reality is. The reality of phenomena is in its non-substantiality.

[51:43]

So, you see, everything is real. because that's the reality of everything. We think everything is real because it's substantial. When you think about what's real, you think about what's substantial. So it's just the opposite. Our thinking is upside down. and movement are the two characteristics.

[53:54]

So, everything actually, in its true nature, is still, even though it's running around. You're welcome.

[54:55]

It's not. Perspective isn't enough. But there's something else. Well, it's like... To use your example of the film, of the screen, one could be watching the film and be so into the film that one forgets that you're watching the film and that there's a screen. And that seems like an oversimplification of this. There's something else beyond that. But that's what... So, there's the screen, which is empty, and then there's the movie on the screen. And when we watch the screen, the movie on the screen, we forget about the screen, we also forget about ourselves. on something.

[56:43]

body and mind. It's not the same. It's not the same as dropping body and mind. It's all mental. It's mental, emotional, you know, and it's not your own life that you're dealing with, you know. It would be different in your life where you meet adversity and wonderful things and, you know, as you One of the difficulties I was having with the thought about perspective is that if one is aware of something beyond our daily you and me type existence, then

[58:21]

It would seem that it might. fall into, especially with religion and spirituality, is to think about the beyond. And in Buddhist practice, Zen practice, That's funny.

[59:34]

Let's go back to the analogy of the movie then. It seems like the Absolute and the Relative literally keep shifting in the sense that at some moments the Absolute is say, and this is what's wonderful about the movies, is that you can't say which is, you know, that one part is real and the other part isn't real.

[61:33]

They're interpenetrating each other. The real is being able to see exactly what in real But what he means by that is to be completely enlightened. Because to be completely deluded means there's nothing outside of delusion. And so when there's nothing outside of delusion, It's a win-win situation. of complete delusion.

[63:03]

Or complete enlightenment. Because there's nothing outside the three forms of life. So if he had said a bunch of bananas then it would have been the same thing? If he had said a bunch of bananas then it would have been the same thing. A bunch of bananas. But have we skipped stages here? Have we skipped stages here? Positions? Yes, we have. Could I just ask, is The price of rice in Luling, the same thing in this context, is three pounds a flat. Because I understand that one, I think.

[64:11]

I have more difficulty with three pounds of flax than I do the price of rice. That's why you're the treasurer, right? That's right. It's all factored in. And these two are the basis. They're like the opposite. The nature of emptiness and the nature of form. And the complete balance is here. That's good.

[65:58]

As soon as we start to have any difficulty, we look for a way out. That's why in a lot of Zen monasteries, people are lighting a stick all the time, shouting, keeping the monks concentrated and encouraged. You have to, you have to get there. Just be as calm as possible. It seems like for me that when my knees are hurting or there's something going on that it's like position two where the relative realm is in the forefront and that there's this faith or understanding that this too is unconditioned but it's a concept that this too can be unconditioned but it's very much in the background.

[67:53]

It seems like I oscillate between two things. You know, in your daily life, people say, You can always tell if your mind is calm by looking at your breath. That's the indicator, you know. You're confronted by somebody who's going to And when something happens, that's where you find yourself.

[69:15]

That's where you are. You don't have to try. This is your practice, is to stay in that place. And better be, you know, dropping the ego. So this rag, this position here, is empty. There's no, this is completely activity. And this is the, if you want to look at it as progression, this activity comes out of enlightenment. But it's the activity of a vow.

[70:17]

It's not the activity of karma or desire. So I want to explain the difference between intention and desire. Because intention But desire and intention, a life of desire and a life of intention, although they have the same basis, or the same energy, are two different paths. So a life of desire is called a life of karma, where you just follow your desires.

[71:22]

If you want something, you go look for it, you know? And the life of desire is always being stimulated by various objects, by things that move. And then desire becomes victimized by the things that move. Because when you, you know, the cat starts playing with the ball, and then pretty soon The ball is playing with the cat. You know, the ball has the cat. If you shake the stick at the dog, the dog follows the stick. Pretty soon it's captivated by, you know, through desire. But intention means living a life guided by a certain path, like Buddhadharma.

[72:29]

If you live your life according to Buddhadharma, that's intentional life, and you're not creating karma. Of course, karma means action, I mean volitional action, but you're not creating karma of your desire. in the same way when you need an intentional life. But you're still creating karma, right? Karma is always being created, but it's not detrimental karma. It's not karma that's compulsive or habit-forming. So, a compulsive life is created by karma. It's created by desire. Karma created by desire create this compulsive result. Was it kind of like unconditioned? Conditioned. Right, but is intentional action like unconditioned activity?

[73:32]

Well, intentional, I don't want to go that far. Intentional means you live by some code or some rules. And the code or rules are binding karma, binding results from being caught by desire. It seems to me that I'm having trouble with intention because I'm thinking of it, I think, in a different sense than you need it. I could say that, you know, I might realize the effect of following desire, but yet I could still intend to do that, to do it. Yeah, you're right. But, it sounds to me like what you're talking about comes out of a different place. Yeah, it's a different use of the word intentional, because intentional is a technical term. Meaning, when desire, which creates habit trauma, is transformed,

[74:47]

See, what we think, we think, well, I want to follow that path of desire, right? We think that that's our intention, but it's actually our captivation. It means our emotions and feelings are caught by some object, but we don't see it that way. We just say, oh boy, I really want to go after that. And it looks like intention, but it's really being drawn by the thing. Understand the difference? Whereas intentional life means that you are always in control of your life. And advertising is in a big sense, meaning something that beckons. She just died?

[75:57]

She just died. Yeah, she just died. She's a dancer, you know, a beautiful lady. And he's a professor, you know. I don't know, maybe he's the head of the school or something, you know, and he walks upright, uptight. Maybe, you know. And it's a classic example of being led by desire. He says, I want this. Sure, he wants it, but what is it that wants it? It's his feelings. Who am I? My feelings? My emotions? Is that who I am? It seems like there's something really someone something so much. I mean, there's an underlying, maybe a Buddha seeking Buddha, and that is just misdirected maybe.

[77:05]

Yes, that's right. It's because desire is, what is desire seeking? Satisfaction. But how do we get satisfaction? What we want is personal satisfaction. With that personal satisfaction is, I'm guided by desire. I want something for myself. And wanting something for myself is guidance by desire. Intentional desire. But as soon as you give up that, just wanting something for yourself, then you live an intentional life, which can be like a vow. You know, I've mentioned vows a number of times, So that, to live that life, that's called intentional life. It's not for myself. I don't, no longer just live my life just for myself, but to benefit life around me.

[78:13]

Yeah. It seems though in doing that, the two aren't separate though. No. Well, they're not, they're the same thing, but it's called churning. Churning from, it's called dropping body and mind. Dogen calls dropping body and mind. And when we first come to practice, mostly we come out of desire. But underneath the desire is some yearning or some But still, you know, there's some desire to... Desire is not wrong. I'm not saying it's wrong. But we have some desire to do something for ourselves. But after we understand what good Dharma is, we're no longer worried about whether or not we have progress.

[79:26]

have something for ourself, we start our practice is really to add to our, to the well-being of our surroundings. We give up that personal, I mean, you no longer need that personal motivation for yourself. And that's maturity in practice. When you become mature in practice, then you practice just for the sake of practice, which includes helping everybody else. I always get confused about what the Hinayanas think, because the examples you gave were all Mahayana. So the Hinayanas, I mean, they're not completely glued, or at least... Well, Hinayana is a term that goes anyplace. Everybody got something out of Hinayana, you know, and it's an old Hinayana, you know, from the first century, you know, the Mahayana was going with him, you know, I mean small vehicle.

[80:36]

So it can be various things. But it doesn't pertain to some school, even though some schools are kind of Hinayana-ish, you know. But it means the state of, these days, it means that kind of, you know, all of the schools have kind of changed a lot, transformed a lot since the first century. So the Theravada is not necessarily Hinayana. Hinayana is more like a state of mind or a certain kind of practice which is dualistic. So Hinayana understanding of Buddhism is that nirvana is different from samsara, that there are two different things. That's Hinayana understanding. My understanding is nirvana is samsara and samsara is nirvana.

[81:37]

You don't have to leave the world in order to have freedom. You don't have to separate. As soon as you start separating samsara from nirvana, you have duality. But do you think that if a human being has reached nirvana, The Hinayana text would be a Mahayana? Well, it depends on what you mean by Nirvana. See, in the Lotus Sutra, which is a Mahayana text, Buddha is giving a sermon, you know, and he's saying that to the certain arhats, he's saying, what you perceive as Nirvana is not really Nirvana yet. And the 500 Arhats got up and left.

[82:39]

They were disappointed? Is that the implication? But they came back. Well, I didn't know what to do. I went to the movies. Well, anyway, so this is a complete activity, selfless activity. That's why the reason I'm saying this is because this is intentional life of activity, which is just complete activity, just complete immersion in activity. And this is where a Zen teacher should be. This is the position of a Zen teacher. Just in complete selfless activity, meaning and intention of life, and teaching and so forth.

[83:47]

So it's kind of like a freedom from desire. But desire is there, but it's there as intention, not as captivity. According to Buddhism, without intention, desire is just a vehicle for we just get victims of desire. Is desire led by a fear of the host? It could be. You know, fear of emptiness or fear of... Well, I don't know if it is, but, you know, it's uneducated It matches.

[85:03]

Most people never get beyond the little kid stage. It matches as far as emotions and desires are concerned. And so, we all need education and desire. How do you deal with desire? I mean, it's really, you know, the whole world is burning up and people are shooting each other in the head. The desire leads to attachment, attachment leads to suffering. Yeah, that's correct. But desire is also wonderful. You don't have, you know, they say get rid of desire, but actually you can't get rid of desire otherwise. People don't know where to put it.

[86:16]

Well, dishrags need dishes in order to fulfill their life. Yeah, it's true. I'd rather be a dish than miserable. You're dishing it out. It's almost 9 o'clock and I'd like to This is an old view, right? This position is called complete integration. Or, you know, in Hosea Jeremiah, it's called the host within the host. This is the position where this person is no longer concerned about anything. It's beyond teaching, beyond Zen, beyond... Because this person is so well integrated that everything they do is teaching.

[87:30]

And then you think about whether they're teaching or not, they just go about their business. This is called just real life... It's kind of like... apex or final beyond enlightenment and delusion. Is it something like Buddha and the fourth one is Bodhisattva where you kind of, you've done all this stuff and you still are out there teaching? This complete realization to where you're not conscious of realization. It doesn't matter to you. The ordinary things, the ordinary life. Nobody recognizes it. It's called fool. Just to be like a fool.

[88:32]

Is that putting snow in the well? Yes. One of the other foolish ways is filling the well with snow. At that stage, then, do you still vow to avoid evil and do all good? Or do you not discriminate? You don't discriminate. You don't have to. Do you at stage 4? At stage 4, yes, you're moving into that. I'm really following the four vows. Inspiring people. But this is like, maybe an old man. Sometimes it's described as an old man with a runny nose. And you wonder, who's that old guy?

[89:37]

But yet, there's something about him that's startling. I thought there wouldn't be anything startling about him. Well, it's startling. Actually, Suzuki Hiroshi was like that. Most of his teaching was just in his action, just standing up. And walking, you know, casual, actual, you know. Would ryokan be an example of something like that? Yeah, ryokan would be an example. That's like you're playing with kids, you know, no particular self-consciousness. We're no longer worried about the morality of oneness. Is that a person who's alive right now?

[90:43]

No, we all kind of lived in the 17th century. I'm not sure. Circulation died in 1971. So anyway, this is the overview of the five positions. And I'll open it up to the next speaker. Read your commentary now. Now that you have this position, you know, read your commentary.

[91:09]

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