Tile is a tile, jewel is a jewel. Dogen, this was Sukhyoshi's favorite story. He told it more than any other story, repeatedly. When you are you, Buddha is Buddha, means you're in a stopped, spatial world. Am I making sense? And this is experienced as sitting fixedly, but it's a tremendous opening Because you're sitting fixedly, everything pours into this one spot. The more you know that, the more you have that experience, you are educating your regular body. Does that make sense? You're educating your usual body. And you find life is joyful, simply joyful.

[01:04]

Various things happen. You can be involved with them and be concerned about it, but really it somehow doesn't matter anymore. So we could say more about this. I've talked about Buddha as a practice of maximal greatness. This is a related practice. But I think we can work with, and we can work with tonight when we sit, if we do have time to sit, and tomorrow morning with the sense of seated Buddha. This is a kind of paradigm shift. It's not you sitting, it's Buddha sitting. You're letting Buddha sit. You're a receptacle for Buddha. And that also means you have to drop your mental shield and body shield.

[02:08]

If I'm trying to observe this, it's quite hard to observe it unless I can hold it still. And if I'm moving as well, and this is moving, it's quite hard to observe it. That's just obvious, right? So we have to make something still. in order to examine anything. It's much easier to make the body still than the mind. That's the basic teaching of yoga. You can still the body much more easily than you can still the mind. You could describe the process of zazen as something like this. We learn to still the body, which involves things like... The taste of still body is so delicious, more delicious than anything else on the planet. But, you know, you get greedy. It's okay. It's greedy for something good. So you begin to know this still body, and if you're willing to open up your paradigm to say, you know, people go out camping, they say, I love going out and camping.

[03:32]

It's so fun to go out and camp. Very few people, Randy's one, who are willing to say, okay, yeah, this is a hell of a lot better than sitting in an office. But most of us go back to the office and think this is our real life. And we simply don't have whatever it takes to say, I'm going to live exactly in the way that's most satisfying. And Buddhist practice is only continued by people who say, I will only live in the way that's most satisfying. And if I have responsibilities and other things, I will be aware that I'm sacrificing, I won't pretend to myself that I'm sacrificing the most satisfying way to live to fulfill these responsibilities. And then I think you fulfill the responsibilities differently. I'm not saying you shouldn't fulfill your responsibilities. So, as you begin to taste still sitting, still sitting also gives you the ability to observe the activities of the mind. And the skandhas, for instance, are nothing but a way to see the arising of mind.

[04:35]

Because you're all arising in my mind right now, and you arise through a way to observe that. Skandhas gives you a way to observe the arising of consciousness. So I'm seeing, when I see you, I see my own mind. That's a basic truism of Buddhism. I can repeat it over and over again. When I look at you, I see you, and I see my own mind seeing you. Every place I look, I see my own mind. That's basic Zen teaching. And you should get into the habit of that. So you never look at anything without also seeing your own mind. So you begin to observe the mind and observing the mind, beginning to see the spaces in the mind, allow the stillness of the body to draw out the stillness of the mind. Then the mind begins to settle and we now see that mind itself has a gradient. As water has a gradient, we could say, mind has a gradient. If you don't understand that mind has a gradient, you don't understand uncorrected mind, you know, etc.

[05:41]

So you're allowing uncorrected mind to open you to the gradient of mind itself settling. Okay, then what do you find? Some things don't settle. So now you need tools to deal with that which doesn't settle when mind settles. And Buddhism gives you a bunch of tools to work with what doesn't settle. If you take a glass of water, you put it out with mud in it, in the morning the mud's at the bottom. Some things in our mind don't settle at the bottom. They stay, you know, Paradigms are one thing. Views are another. So then we need techniques to break up that which doesn't settle. So this is like bringing your attention to your breathing as one, etc. There's lots of techniques. But you're trying to only break up that which doesn't settle to allow the process of mind to settle on itself. So when...

[06:50]

When the mind itself is experienced mostly through its stillness more than its formations, and the body is experienced mostly through its stillness and not its formations, that's sitting fixedly. And that sitting fixedly, the more you know that and taste that, everything in the world is experienced in a somewhat different way. And that's the investigation that occurs through sitting fixed. It's quite simple. It's just a matter of getting it correct transmission. and letting it happen. But Buddhism is fairly simple. What it really requires is commitment. Understanding is fairly easy. The commitment to do it makes the difference. And if I look at all the people who practice with Sikhi, it wasn't the smartest people who are still around, it's the ones who are most committed.

[08:01]

The ones who simply said, hey, okay, this is what I'm going to do. Because there's a wisdom in this commitment and the practice which transcends talent or something like that. And so I think that's why Dogen also trusted, I mean, clearly Dogen, Eijo and Keizan and Gikai weren't Dogen's equals in most things. But he trusted them because seated Buddha was president. Still sitting was president. And they also surpass him because they're in their own unique... They start where he left off. So that's enough. Not too much. So why don't we sit for... Sorry, I started downloading. It's a zip drive. So let's sit for a few minutes and then see if we can... nourish ourselves.

[09:04]

We've already created some kind of Sangha body. If you want to understand the rules of Sesshin, you see that they're all designed to establish for a short time the entrainment of a Sangha body, so that that which is outside our three-dimensional knowing can be known. And this is the short way. This shared somatic wisdom, intelligence of our larger Sangha body. And the more we taste or come to or approach this sitting fixedly, the true human body is realized in us. I think this is Dogen's main point, just bringing together the horizontal lineage and the vertical lineage.

[11:25]

And the vertical lineage is propelled by the mutual realization of the Sangha body. We can't think this being, but we can begin to know this being and think through it as non-thinking. We can say maybe a process of knowing of knowing goes on, which we usually connect with thinking, but now proceeds not through thinking, but through non-thinking.

[13:30]

But it's a process of knowing characteristic of thinking, but limited by thinking. Thinking is one surface, a conscious surface of a process we can call non-thinking. Thinking is the surface we see in our consciousness. You sitting and seated Buddha are one profound activity.

[15:48]

As profound and deep as sleeping is, I mean, I can't imagine living without sleeping, but can you explain sleeping? You sitting bring together the profound activity of being awake and the profound activity of being asleep. Maybe we could call sitting the sleep from which a blue awakes. We don't want Buddhism just to be another paradigm that replaces our present paradigm.

[18:08]

It's that. But it's also a freedom, hopefully, a freedom from paradigms that also becomes a way of knowing and becomes possible when we have the stability of still sitting. as seated Buddha. For to be free of paradigms, which is another way to describe emptiness, takes a kind of stability and warrior mentality. are simply of deep acceptance, trust.

[19:11]

Thank you for letting me say these things. Now we've got quite a rich soup here. And clear broth. composed of what Dogen said, what we've been studying of Dogen, and what you've all said, and what I've said. And we can say that that constitutes the immediate text. I mean, a koan, for example, is a case, but that case is often meaningless without the commentary. So the commentary is part of the text, not just the case. So we have the classical text, but then we have the immediate text, and the immediate text includes what we, at this moment, what we think about it.

[21:02]

I think it's important to notice that because when you work on a koan, for instance, you What your mood is of the day happens to be part of the text. And if it's a real text for the ages, something that has basic truth, primordial, fundamental truth, not just historical truth, It will have different ways it is understood or different truths depending on when it's read historically or when you read it and so forth. So you should bring, when you work in a koan, you don't try to get at its universality. You try to get at its particularity right then as you're feeling. Exactly what you feel that day as you're working in the koan is part of the koan. And if the text doesn't work that way, it's not really a koan. Don't have some idea in your mind there's some truth that you've got to get out of the koan.

[22:09]

Truth is in this immediate text. And with something like this, like this lancet seated meditation, if we can understand one portion as we've been working on well or pretty thoroughly, And ideally, if we can understand it in the way we're doing it, which is to understand it as exactly as you can as Dogen presented it, or as it's presented there in whatever form it is, in this case English, and you can understand it in the mix of your own experience and in the mix with other people. So testing or shaping or... refining your understanding through your own experience and through others' experiences, the way you really come to understand something with some depth.

[23:16]

And that's, of course, what we're trying to do here. And if you understand one small portion, pretty well, it opens up the rest of the text. Because if you understand a different portion well, it can open up the text in a different way. But still, a one portion well understood is the way you really open a text up. So I think we've done some good work here. And for me it's always quite new to look at these things with you. It's always like I barely looked at it before. Sometimes it's the case I barely looked at it before. So more often it's like I barely looked at it before. And if I come into a seminar or something, depending on the way I understood it once, it doesn't work at all.

[24:22]

I have to start all over again. It falls flat. Because it's something delicate that arises among us. It's not something that I possess. So what I would recommend, and I talked to Dan a little bit about it this morning, and Dan's particular suggestion, and I agree, is the next thing we should look at is this koan of Matsu and Nanyue, Suikyoshi's favorite koan, and certainly one that probably Dogen's do, and use it as a way of looking at the text and through how to practice with the text. Because this is a little model or Tiffany of the text as a whole that we can look at as entering it through practice. But first I think it would be good if we continued our discussion from yesterday morning and now including what the further parts of Doug and we went over a bit and what I said yesterday.

[25:38]

And if you don't mind, what I'd actually like to do is excuse myself for a little while. I'll come back and let Dan moderate the discussion for a while. And then when I come back or after the break, we'll start on the koan if it's okay. What I would like to do is go around the room and have each of us read a short passage. And I'm suggesting that we go up to that break. About in the, above the middle of the page on 197.

[26:47]

That's where it shifts gears and it's going to be slightly different. In other words, it's the last, through the last of that, on page 197, there's bold type. You see that? See what I'm making of it? So I don't know how to exactly divide it up, but I would suggest there's approximately about as many paragraphs as there are of us here. And in some cases, there's a paragraph concentrates one sentence. Let's just limit it to one, whether it's a long paragraph or a one-sentence paragraph. Let's just say it one line at a time. So we'll kind of go around the room this way, maybe circle back again. Samarian. Did you say one line or one paragraph at a time? Well, no, sometimes, let's do one paragraph. Sometimes one paragraph is only one line, okay? Where were you going? At the beginning of this koan, which is the beginning of the bold print on page 191, and we'll go up through the bold print on page 196.

[27:55]

Okay, so Miriam, if you would read that, just read that first little paragraph up through Daji, or wherever it seems like the paragraph ends. Okay. When the Tongue Master, Daji, at Zhang Xi was studying with the Chan master Zhao Wei of Nanyue. After intimately receiving the mind seal, he always sat in meditation. Once Nanyue went to Zhao Xi and said, really one, what are you figuring to do sitting there in meditation? We should calmly give concentrated effort to the investigation of this question. Does it mean that there must be some figuring above and beyond seated meditation? Is there no path to be figured outside of seated meditation? Should there be no figuring at all?

[28:59]

Or does it ask what kind of figuring occurs at the very time we are practicing seated meditation? We should make concentrated effort to understand this in detail. Rather than love the carved dragon, we should go on to love the real dragon. We should learn that both the carved and the real dragon have the ability to produce clouds and rain. Do not value what is far away and do not despise it. Become completely familiar with it. Do not despise what is near at hand and do not value it. Become completely familiar with it. Do not take the eyes lightly and do not give them weight. Do not give weight to the ears and do not take them lightly. Make your eyes and ears clear and sharp. Let's see you get one of those one-liners. Chong Chi said, I'm figuring to make a Buddha.

[30:00]

We should clarify and penetrate the meaning of these words. What does it mean to speak of making a Buddha? Does it mean to be made a Buddha by a Buddha? Does it mean to make a Buddha of the Buddha? Does it mean that one or two faces of the Buddha emerge? Is it that figuring to make a Buddha is sloughing off body and mind, and that what is meant here is a figuring to make a Buddha as the act of sloughing off? Or does figuring to make a Buddha mean that while there are 10,000 ways to make a Buddha, they become entangled in this figuring? It should be recognized that Tachi's words mean that Siddha meditation is always figuring to make a Buddha, is always the figuring of making a Buddha. This figuring must be prior to making a Buddha. It must be subsequent to making a Buddha. It must be at the very moment of making a Buddha. Now what I ask is this, how many ways of making a Buddha does this one figuring entangle?

[31:10]

These entanglements themselves intertwine with entanglements. At this point, entanglements, as individual instances of the entirety of making a Buddha, are all direct statements of that entirety and all are instances of figuring. We should not seek to avoid this one figuring. When we avoid the one figuring, we destroy our body and lose our life. When we destroy our body and lose our life, this is the entanglement of the one figuring. At this point, Nan Wei took up a tile and began to rub it on a stone. At Lang's touch, he asked, Master, what are you doing? Who could fail to see that he was polishing a tile? Who could see that he was polishing a tile? Still, polishing a tile has been questioned in this way. What are you doing? This what are you doing is itself always polishing a tile. This land and the other world may differ, the essential message of pulsing a tile never ceases.

[32:13]

Not only should we avoid deciding that what we see is what we see, we should be firmly convinced that there is an essential message to be studied in all the ten thousand activities. We should know that, just as we may see the Buddha without knowing or understanding him, So we may see rivers and yet not know rivers, may see mountains and yet not know mountains. A precipitate assumption that the phenomena before one's eyes offer no further passage is not for me to study. Okay. None of you said, I'm polishing this tile to make a miracle. We should be clear about the meaning of these words. There is definitely a principle in polishing a tile to make a mirror. There is the koan of realization. This is no mere empty contrivance. A tile may be a tile and a mirror a mirror, but when we exert ourselves in investigating the principle of polishing, we shall find there are many examples of it. The old mirror and the bright mirror, these are mirrors made through polishing of tile.

[33:19]

If we do not realize that these mirrors come from polishing of tile, then the Buddhism patriarchs have nothing to say. They do not open their mouths, and we do not perceive them exhale. Tashi said, how can you produce a mirror in polishing of tile? Indeed, though the one who is polishing a tile be a man of iron, who borrows no power from another, polishing a tile is not producing a mirror. And even if it is producing a mirror, it must be quick about it. Rasa. Well, we'll just go around. Go ahead. Nanui replied, how can you make a Buddha by sitting in meditation? This is clearly understood. There is a principle that seated meditation does not await making a Buddha. There is nothing obscure but the essential message that making a Buddha is not connected with seated meditation. Tachi asked, then what is right?

[34:24]

These words resemble a simple question about this practical matter of what to do, but they are also asking about that final rightness. You should realize that the relationship between what and right here is like, for example, the occasion when one friend meets another. The fact that he is my friend means that I am his friend. Similarly, here the meanings of what and right emerge simultaneously. And then he replied, when a man is driving a cart, if the cart doesn't go, should he beat the cart or beat the ox? Okay, now I'm going to suggest that we jump to those who had one letter. So, Talisa, why don't you take the next one? Now, when we say the cart doesn't go, what do we mean by the cart's going or not going? For example, is the cart going analogous to water flowing?

[35:26]

or is it analogous to water not flowing? There is a sense in which we can say that flowing is water's not going, and that water's going is not its flowing. Therefore, when we investigate the words the cart doesn't go, we should approach them both in terms of not going and in terms of not not going, for it is a question of time. The words, if the cart doesn't go, do not simply mean that it does not go. Fred? Should he beat the cart or beat the ox? Does this mean that there is a beating of the cart as well as a beating of the ox? Are beating the cart and beating the ox the same or not? In the world there is no method of beating the cart, but though ordinary men have no such method, we know that on the path of the Buddha there is a method of beating the cart, and this is the very eye of Buddhist studies. Even though we studied that there was a method of beating the cart, we should give consecrated effort to understanding in detail that this is not the same as beating the ox.

[36:32]

Even though the method of beating the ox is common in the world, we should go on to study the beating of the ox on the path of the Buddha. Is this ox beating the water buffalo or ox beating the iron bowl of the clay ox? Is this beating with a whip with the entire world, the entire mind? Is this to beat by using the marrow? Should we beat with the fist? The fist should beat the fist and the ox should beat the ox. Renick, why don't you read the next line and then the next short paragraph? She did not reply. We should not miss the importance of this. In it, there is throwing out a tile to make it into jade. There is turning the head and reversing the face. By no means should we do violence to his silence. Suzanne, why don't you read the next two little paragraphs? Then you went on. Are you studying seated meditation or are you studying seated Buddha?

[37:36]

Investigating these words, we should distinguish the essential activity of the patriarchal ancestors. Without knowing what the full reality of studying seated meditation is, we do know here that it is studying seated Buddha. Who but a scion of true descent could say that studying seated meditation is studying seated Buddha. We should know indeed that the seated meditation of the beginner's mind is the first seated meditation, and the first seated meditation is the first seated Buddha. In speaking of this seated meditation, Nan Yu said, if you're studying seated meditation, Meditation is not sitting still. Okay, now at this point I've lost track who we're meeting had only one little line to read. Okay, go ahead. The point of what he says here is that seated meditation is seated meditation and is not sitting still.

[38:41]

From the time the fact that it is not sitting still has been singly transmitted to us, our unlimited sitting still is our own self. Why should we inquire about close or distant familial lines? How could we discuss delusion and awakening? Who would seek wisdom and eradication? Then Nan Wei said, if you're studying seated Buddha, Buddha is no fixed mark. Such is the way to say what is to be said. The reason the seated Buddha is one or two Buddhas is that he adorns himself with no fixed mark. When Nanue says here that Buddha is no fixed mark, he is describing the mark of the Buddha. Since he is a seated Buddha of no fixed mark, the seated Buddha is difficult to avoid. Therefore, since it is adorned with this mark of Buddha is no fixed mark, if you're studying seated meditation, you are a seated Buddha.

[39:48]

In a non-abiding Dharma, as Naniwe goes on to say, who could grasp or reject something as not the Buddha? Who would grasp or reject it as the Buddha? It is because seated meditation has sloughed off all grasping and rejecting that it is a seated Buddha. Nanui continues. If you're studying seated Buddha, this is killing Buddha. This means that when we investigate further the notion of seated Buddha, we find it has the virtue of killing Buddha. At the very moment that we are a seated Buddha, we are killing Buddha. Indeed, when we pursue it, we find that the 32 marks and 80 signs and the radiance of killing Buddha are always seated Buddha. Although the word kill here is identical with that used by ordinary people, meaning is not the same. Moreover, we must investigate in what form it is that a seated Buddha is killing Buddha.

[40:55]

Taking up the fact that it is itself a virtue of the Buddha to kill Buddha, We should study whether we are killers or not. If you grasp the mark of sitting, you are not reaching its principle. To grasp the mark of sitting here means to reject the mark of sitting and to touch the mark of sitting. The principle behind this is that in being a seated Buddha, you cannot fail to grasp the mark of sitting. Since we cannot fail to grasp it, though our grasping the mark of sitting is crystal clear, we are not breaching its principle. This kind of concentrated effort is called sloughing off body and mind. Those who have never sat do not talk like this. Such talk belongs to the time of sitting and the man who sits, to the seated Buddha and the study of the seated Buddha.

[42:00]

The sitting that occurs when the ordinary man sits is not the sitting of the seated Buddha. Although a man's sitting naturally resembles the seated Buddha, or a Buddha's sitting, the case is like that of a man's making a Buddha, or the man who makes a Buddha. Though there are men who make Buddhas, not all men make Buddhas, and Buddhas are not all men. Since all the Buddhas are not simply all men, man is by no means a Buddha, and the Buddha is by no means a man. The same is true of a seated Buddha. Here, then, in Nan Jue and Qiang Xi, we have a superior master and a strong disciple. Qiang Xi is the one who verifies making a Buddha as a seated Buddha. Nan Jue is the one who points out the seated Buddha for making a Buddha. There was this kind of concentrated effort in the congregation of Nan Jue and the words like the above in the congregation of Jue Xiang.

[43:02]

So let's go back and we can start wherever we'd like to, but let's look at page 191 and see what we've got here. What I would like to invite is to hear from you what As a point of departure, will somebody please, or take turns with all of us, what is it that jumps out at you? What seems either pertinent, what seems particularly puzzling, what seems particularly tethy, what seems particularly clear, or something that touches you? Please make a common eye, and we'll pick up the ball from there. Who would like to pick it? Something, yeah, catch it. What for me is word puzzling, and it might just be the language, I'm not quite sure, is the word figuring.

[44:23]

I mean, first it's almost like, I mean, when the question is asked, what are you figuring to do sitting there in meditation? It's almost like, what do you mean to do, or what do you think you're doing? Or what do you want to do? And then with these variations of figuring, I'm getting lost. And it seems that maybe even more meanings to the word. I don't know. Okay. Does someone want to toss that back to respond to that? I'm not going to beat that cart. Wait, you can comment on that. Well, I can build the cart to fit the rocks.

[45:25]

Actually, I agree 100% with that question. That was exactly my question as well. I would like to know what that word figuring is. I think in other versions of this koan, it's intention or something. Does that make sense? What's your intention? Yeah, I think that's what it makes sense, but my memory is imperfect on that. But you must know, Dan. I'm in the same boat, we're all in the same boat here, and I'd like to hear from anybody who, particularly I'm curious now, because I'd like to get around to everybody who speaks, but particularly somebody who has a question or a comment right off the top. Amy, please. I like figuring, because it has a quality of movement within thoughts or non-thoughts, it seems related to thinking... That was the exact thing earlier that was said about thinking of not thinking and non-thinking. There's an aspect of the movement within all of that that figuring seems to get to.

[46:30]

So I like that word in that sense, but I still was very curious about the way Doug and then goes about it, if he's meaning one thing for that process, or if the meaning has several different meanings as he goes on. Amy, I really like what you said. Would you take a look further, when you said there's movement within that word, what does that word mean to you, figuring? Figuring is like coming at one thing from many different angles and trying to sort something out or to grasp, maybe there's a grasping to it, or a There's a coming and going in figuring and trying to get clarity. For me, that's what figuring means. There's an element of unknown and you're approaching it and leaving it and coming back. Because you're trying to figure something out, maybe, is the way that I'm more familiar with the way that word's being used. Do you see, does anybody see any resemblance in that word figuring, and particularly as Amy has brought it up, in our discussion yesterday about investigating?

[47:37]

I mean, they're different words, but is there anything similar about it? Well, I mean, one way to think... Oh, I'm sorry. No, please. Go ahead. I mean, one way to think of it is what do you intend to do? So there's an intention. And you can think of it that way. I don't know if that's... That's Dogen's intention. What was that? Um... I have a sort of mathematical impression from it, as if you're... The intention is a broad word for me, and figuring is very particular. Being an accountant? Yeah, figures represent something. I hadn't really thought of that till now, but figures represent something.

[48:39]

That's why Amy's comment about movement was something I hadn't really thought of, that you're sort of going in and out and tinkering a little bit with what's going on to try to find the entry place into the problem and We do spend some time particularly talking about words, which is good, and I'm glad we have some trained people and some sensible people in figuring out what words mean, but I still come to the word calculating, which to me is much more specific than just intention, which is kind of a benevolent sort of thing. Calculating is very focused on getting to a particular place or a... Result. That's it. A result.

[49:40]

To be very particular about this, isn't it calculation? I mean, you don't know beforehand what the result is. You follow a particular path. Yeah. And then see what the result is. Right. But you're definitely heading... To me, at least, and I'm not a mathematic person. I mean, I deal with numbers, but I'm not gifted in that way. People who study math are different than what I do, so... They usually can't do what you do. The other word that came to mind, which is not mentioned in here, but they're almost folk words. That's why I'm surprised to see figurine used here, because... Definitely the colloquial feel to it. Where I'm from, for instance, people use the word reckon in this thing. Where are you reckoning to do?

[50:44]

And that's when I'm like, what is this? I think it's odd to choose figuring here, because it does have a kind of folksy, like you say, colloquial quality to it. I think it does, but I think... And I kind of look at it a little bit differently as having more of a static quality to it also. I mean, there is that dynamic and that investigating quality to it. You can also look at it as figuring in the sense of a figurine. Making a figure? Yes, and so are you figuring, are you making yourself a figure of a seated Buddha, and what do you intend to do by that? Closer to where I took it. Interesting, it hadn't... Yeah, that's probably why he's not moving, because I'm sort of in your school. And I look at him peeking away at something.

[51:48]

That you're sort of in there. Like that. Tim, could you give us a comment? Fran? Frank? Do you have a problem with I mean, is there a question about this word? Randy? At first, this figuring to make a Buddha... Excuse me, Randy, I didn't hear what you said. It sort of put me off, this figuring, that choice of the word. I don't know... No. what he's working with in terms of the characters. But it didn't occur to me until just now that there's a sense of the word figure, which is good. And I think intention, what are you trying to do?

[52:53]

What are you doing? It's a provocation. Here's a disciple who apparently is adept, having received the mind seal. He always sat at meditation, so one might wonder what he's doing. Maybe he's made it, so why does he keep sitting? That's one question. If sitting is a method or a way, and you've attained the goal, then why not get rid of the boat, if sitting is a boat? It reminds me of Suzuki Roshi, who I never met, but who I heard said to people when they first discovered him, Anglo folks, I sit every morning.

[53:54]

You're welcome to join me. Now here's a great man who, in his little office or whatever, sits every morning. Is he trying to make a Buddha? Is he a seated Buddha? And he invites people to join him in this activity. When Changshi is sitting and trying to make a Buddha, intending to make a Buddha, or is being made as a Buddha in this activity, then this figuring is a more spacious activity. And Dogen is a madman with these words in him.

[54:55]

Or is that Carl? They're both in closer here. I mean, this is just, you know. But also wonderfully playful for a serious dude, for a towering figure. I thought it sounded kind of teasing like that. Yeah, this guy. Hey, what do you think you're doing? Dogen, in this case, is quite wonderful, I think, because he can, you know, he can knock off a Shogun Ginzo. But what is in Shogun Ginzo? An amazingly playful, rumbling, deep, scary, quality. Dogen is truly a strange figure.

[55:57]

So, okay, the provocative quality, how the teacher provokes, you just This is a tricky matter, or a deep matter, or a difficult matter, or a simple matter. And here, a gifted disciple has received a certain acknowledgement, and he's sitting, enjoying the fruits of that, perhaps. And here comes this old guy. What if you just poke him, poke him, poke him? What are you doing there? You can just see the irritation come up in the guy. He thought he was done. What do you think I'm doing? What is this? I'm ready to give you an assignment. No, no. So it never ends. And it has a playful quality.

[57:00]

I think Dogen brings that out. And we can... I can join in this playful quality because Dogen is taking anything and everything and any word and making it Buddha. Anything, any activity. This is his joy. He's not only an imposing figure, he's a joyful figure. Fran, you look like you're ready to jump in. I'm not... I can't come in on that easy, except to enjoy it. But... was able to settle down enough to get into the part that I find personally the most intriguing, which is that both the carved Buddha, the carved dragon and the real dragon bring rain and are life-giving.

[58:14]

Which I think, you know, is wonderful. I mean, in some way he revalidates the guys that he's criticizing. Because even if your old carved dragon isn't the real dragon, it's still included. It's still part of the larger life-giving force. I kind of like that. And I like the story. Rhonda? Nothing at this time. No comment? No problems? Problems, yes, but I won't share with you a problem. Oh, I'm still sort of just, you know, it's just just daily. The thing about figuring, I mean, if you read it without having figuring in there, it's sort of interesting, because Worthy One, what are you doing sitting there in meditation? It changes its sight a bit.

[59:20]

How does it change? What's it like for us? Well, when I think of figuring out, I mean, I think about baking. So, baking with high altitude. It's a huge... So, when I'm trying to figure something out, you have to get all the facts. You have to look at all the different possibilities. Later on, there's a reference to the top of page 192. Or does figuring to make a Buddha mean that while there are 10,000 ways to make a Buddha, they become entangled in this figuring? I'm just thinking about that. Susanna? Not really at this point. For me, the Thessalonians' task was in Thailand, remember, so I'm going to hold up until then. I first experienced this story, I don't know when, but it was probably used by Alan Watts as an argument against sitting.

[60:27]

That, you know, to study Zen, you don't have to sit. And then when I read this a couple months ago, it was really refreshing to see, as Brandy described, Dogen's playfulness with it, and see how much richer it really was than sort of a simple, oversimplified anecdote to say that you don't need to sit. I think the version you're talking about also, I think that Todd Sheen is not a Chan master at that point. He's still a student. And Nan-Yue comes up to him and says, well, what the heck are you doing? He says, I'm trying to make a Buddha, and that's what anyway lays into him. That's not the way to do it. I think that's where the interpretation of not sitting, that Zazen is a path to enlightenment.

[61:38]

I think D.T. Suzuki actually also has that same interpretation. Actually, The comment that Amy made and the comment that Melissa made, to my mind, come together nicely with the earlier dyad of verification and investigation. And somehow it seems to me that if there was sort of a movement between these two elements, rather particular elements, that in total that could be a kind of a figurative Instead of only wondering about the word figuring, I think what is interesting is that you have two aspects, figuring, but figuring of what? Of making a Buddha. And for me the question is really more also, what is making a Buddha? And what is the relationship between figuring and making a Buddha?

[62:39]

And the other word that is, I think, not here... When studying meditation, we are seated in meditation, we are making up what we are figuring. These are three elements. I've got to be clear about the relationship between them. They're untangled. Just taking it off. A couple of pages further on, though, page 195, he says, the first seated meditation is the first seated Buddha. It's like you just leave out that figuring for the work's already done. seated meditation and seated Buddha are connected by that is. So you don't need to polish the tile.

[63:40]

You've already got your mirror. But you also do need to polish the tile. That's the interesting aspect. You want to jump in? Well, I want to jump in with... We seem to be using the word figuring in a couple different ways here and assuming that we're all coming from the same point of view or the same concept about the word figuring. For instance, the one that came up for me was embodying, manifesting, as in the figurine. You know, this figure right here is Seated Buddha. And... Is there to be no figuring? What would that be? Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. This form is the seated Buddha. And then there was a way I was leaning into the carved dragon. and do not be terrified of the real dragon. So a sense of how easy it is to get attached to seated meditation versus actually being a seated Buddha.

[64:52]

Grasping to the form of the carved dragon. We love the carved dragon. It's my favorite thing. And yet, that holding back from actually being the real dragon, slash seated Buddha. So are you relating a seated Buddha to a carved dragon? No. Only in the absolute. Okay. One thing I just noticed is that yesterday we were looking at the question if seated meditation, sitting meditation is itself investigation. And if we see figuring in the sense of investigation then

[65:59]

then the process of figuring and seated meditation belongs together. The one is the other. And so in terms of asking what is the relationship between seated meditation, figuring, and making a Buddha, so that the practice of enlightenment or making a Buddha, if that's the same, I'm not sure about that, is seated meditation and is the investigation into everything or opening. Carson? Well, yesterday, when the term second nature came up, which I have some difficulty with the term, but the idea of creating, generating, I think, was the words that were used. What was important for me, because it pointed out to me that I had been doing exactly what he was cautioning against, I think.

[67:06]

I know he was cautioning, and I think that I was doing it, but I had liked doing it, and that was viewing the process as discovery. And I didn't realize that implicit in doing that was assuming that there is something permanent to discover. So it was very fruitful for me to consider it from a different perspective that is creating or generating something. Well, then immediately turn around and run into this. Because at a simplistic level, I thought, oh, well, you're not going to create a seated Buddha, kind of like some people are saying, sort of already are a seated Buddha. And I wanted to... I guess the short version of it is I want it to stop somewhere. I get to be a seated Buddha and then I get to stop. And that's what Randy is pointing out. ...thing or something that can come along and push you.

[68:23]

and say, you can't stop there either. Dogen clearly talks about, in other instances in the Shogun Ginjo, about practicing Buddha beyond Buddha, or the sense of ongoing practice. It's not like a final... Right, you don't get there, you get to stop. At the comment, I couldn't find it in here, but I know yesterday it was... There is an aspect or something of the practice of the Buddha that is not making the Buddha... That was in the text, so I'm not sure we could find it, but that's where I went to sleep was worrying that one. Frank? The Quran starts out that this guy got the mind seal, received the mind seal, and this sounds like an accomplishment, doesn't it? And yet, in this question, what are you trying to figure out?

[69:28]

And then Dogen talks so much about figuring. I believe he just reminds us this is a lifestyle. And if you choose sitting or seated meditation, and whatever words you put them, as a lifestyle, naturally, like, whatever we start, we usually progress with things. But after a certain accomplishment, you know, take craftsmen, so apprenticeship, German, master, things like that. But the day he stops, is he still master cabinetmaker or something? And this is more, and that's what I see here, the reminder to keep going. You might have accomplished certain things, but we might have to put it into words somehow, but... But keep going, you know, and live this lifestyle. Don't stop because, you know, he's really provocative.

[70:31]

He said, what are you trying to figure out? You've got this mind seal. Why the heck are you doing this still? And you said, no, it's me. That's my life. Chris, do you want to make a comment or something? I find it's useful to me when reading Dogen to remember that I feel like one of his key points is that practice and realization and effort and fruition are completely synonymous, that they are one. And so a lot of times there's this verbal play to entangle them, if you will. That's a lot of what it's about. It seems like you're doing this for this purpose will be the superficial reading of it.

[71:39]

What are you figuring to do? Like there's a progression or something. And then in what Dobin goes on to say, there's so often so many of these just flipping arounds of the words. They mean one thing at the beginning of the paragraph, they mean another thing later on. Yes, it means this. No, it doesn't mean that. And I don't know that it would be useful to try and figure it out. Forgive me, my use of that word. so much as to let it evoke some kind of synchronicity with the various aspects of practice and realization, effort, fruition, ignorance, delusion, enlightenment, and so forth. What am I suggesting in the light of that? And it's easier to say than to do, but to hold all the different aspects of the word figuring and how he uses them. Because it's clearly, Roshi, the question or discussion that first arose by examining and questioning the use of figuring.

[72:42]

Are you into the koan already? We just started talking about, yeah, the first question, worthy one, what are you figuring to do sitting there in meditation? So we've been investigating figuring. I'm figuring you just sit here and listen. Anyway, just to brief review, is that... So you didn't discuss yesterday at all? Yes, it's been weaving, definitely has been weaving. And in fact, I think an underlying factor is using yesterday's investigation of... Investigation. Excuse me, Rob? Investigation of investigation. Trying to figure out what this figurine means.

[73:44]

And many hidden aspects of that word emerged that are surprising to me. Catherine, can I put you on the spot and ask you to review your question about the figure? I mean, how does it feel to you now? Or would you rephrase or can you pose it again? What figure you mean? Oh, it was certainly fruitful and helpful for me to write a song To have these two main aspects, I mean, at least that's how I would describe it. On one hand, figuring some activity done with intention, to find out something.

[74:51]

So that would be a part that has some similarity to investigate, like probing something from different angles and trying out different ways to find out more about it. And then the other aspect, figure like a posture. And, um, I don't know, portraying something by, through posture, by posture. Like figurine. Part, you said? Posture. Posture. I didn't know for that day. Or like a figurine. Make a figurine. Um... That, yeah, that was... what I've understood from our discussion about the different meanings of the figure.

[75:54]

I think one aspect of this that we didn't really talk about is that the way Dogen introduces this particular koan is he seems to present them as co-equals. One way it's been written in the past is that one is obviously, which you mentioned earlier, one is obviously a student, one is obviously a teacher, but introduced, you know, Tachi has the mind seal, and Nanue, you know, also... And it seems like they're challenging one another. I mean, on one hand, you know, when sitting, the other one comes up and asks, what are you doing? But in one sense, the sitting is a provocation in a way. The other one asking the question is also a provocation. And I kind of see them as kind of this dharma duel of sorts, you know, to see how much do they really know. You know, one thing that I get from the play on that is you say Dharmadu as though there was a competition, but it feels to me underlying and fundamental to this fascicle throughout is that the raising of a good question is itself the polishing of the towel, is the activity of... Dharmadu might not be the right word to use.

[77:21]

I mean, it's almost like Here's just two guys just hanging out and this is what Zen guys do. Have Russell or Randy do it right there. Well, at the very end, I mean, Jogan makes a big point about this is the way they used to study. Why don't we do it this way? You know, I think we've lost something now. Yeah, I don't think that we can under, what I want to say, underestimate that it, yes, and more so the importance of raising these questions between one another. And then someplace where Dogen says in here, even don't assume that what we see, we know what it is that we see. To take something seemingly obvious and be willing to raise a question about it, a sincere question, has this capacity, does it not, to open up, you know, a vastness. Even if we raise the word, the question about figuring, it's almost, we talked about how it's like a colloquial term, it has these meanings, or it tends to have these meanings, and yet if we could pursue it further,

[78:32]

that what all the Dogen is seeing and asking us to examine is in this word, victory. I just noticed, for some reason, what Robert said. I raised it up, but the question is almost the same as the one in the previous koan. And the previous koan is clearly between a student and a monk. And this one, he makes them... equivalent high-ranking Zen guys. So there's a parallel structure there, which is, I suppose, at least conveys to me, a certain equivalence, a dynamic equivalence, which I think is interesting. But to me, the difference between the two questions is that there is this aspect of intention in figuring.

[79:33]

The other question was, what are you thinking about while you sit there? But here is, what's your intention by sitting? Russell, did you want to jump into this phrase? No. I mean, for me, the figuring has a... When it first comes up in a way, it's mostly used as a quality of planning. You know, what are you planning to do? Or intending, or something like that. But for me, it sounds that way. And I also pass through my mind this idea of making a figure, but maybe later on it comes out like that. But the way it first appeared... to me anyway in the way it's used just in terms of the language has this idea of planning which is this kind of thing about what are you doing and then what you're doing is something that's looking to actually do something else later on.

[80:37]

But what I'm struck by later in the text is the seated Buddha is a fixed mark. And so if we're looking to assign a fixed mark in terms of planning or even making a figure that you might be sailing into... into deep kimchi with that kind of thing. Sailing into... It's a place off the Caribbean. You mean the North Korean hot pepper? It'd be in hot water. Sailing into kimchi. What was getting us there? Trying to assign through planning or making or assigning this figure as a mark of seated Buddha.

[81:53]

Seated Buddha is a Buddha of no fixed mark. It's precisely that markless quality. And the question is, how is that planned for? How is that figured? And how could that be figured? For me. But the lioness that always jumps out at me, even though it seems entirely tangential to the conversation we've had thus far, but I'll just mention it anyway. It's on 193, tearing over the paragraph from the page before, the last one. Precipitate assumption that the phenomena before one's eyes offers no further passage is not Buddhist study. And that's what lies in this whole piece for me. It gives me a rudder sailing in a deep kinship.

[82:57]

Russell, what do you think precipitate means here? Kind of like, for me, precipitous or hasty. When I looked it up, I found reckless, hasty. Can you kind of explain further what you mean by that? I actually read that paragraph when we were going around, and I read that sentence out loud, and it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I'm just curious what Russell thinks about that sentence. Well, for me it's just something that is a kind of reminder. that whatever it is that's before your eyes is precisely the place where, or before your eyes, whatever's in your current experience is precisely the place to begin an investigation or verification or training or study. Thank you. I think that that's co-equal or synonymous or important to look at in the light of that sentence on page 192,

[84:05]

toward the bottom of that page, not only should we avoid deciding what we see is what we see, etc. But is that not a tendency that we fall into? I certainly catch myself, have to alert myself to that. That to see something, maybe name it, and that, okay, I know what that is. And it seems as Dougan is saying, you see, To me, an opportune word is the decision that we've decided that what we see is what we see. How to leave anything and everything open. And what we're doing is we're examining even a seemingly colloquial term like figuring. I feel there's a lot more to pursue with that, but that how even such a simple word And that Dogen is alerting us to it is that there's a vast realm in such a wood.

[85:09]

I got caught in just that place with the polishing of the tile. As well you should. That was the idea of Talisa. There's a trap still. Okay. So... The discussion that we've had over the last few days about investigating sitting fixedly, investigating seated Buddha, that configuration, held at the same time with my precipitate decision that Only a fool would polish a tile thinking they're going to get a mirror. That's obvious. Any idiot knows you can't get... You know, that sort of... Oh, yeah, that's what I was thinking. I remember they didn't have glass in those days. Yeah, well, you know what? Today I was thinking of Native Americans. Mirrors were polished metals. Yeah.

[86:10]

Well, Indians polish clay. To make the black glaze on a pot is not an applied glaze. It's a rubbed on thing. It takes a long time to do that. That's why those pots cost an insane amount of money. You take a little tiny rock and you sit there and you polish a tile and make a mirror. Oh. They even have stones to polish. They even use stones to polish. So another aspect of this figuring line is, it's interesting to me, it's almost like a setup. That's one, we were talking about the playfulness of Duggan, and I sense the playfulness of... who's asking, as Randy was saying, he's sitting there.

[87:18]

In other words, he threw, the master threw the word figuring at them. And he, to like to probe, is there any figuring going on? I mean, he didn't say, what are you doing sitting there in sublime, towering, gotsu gotsu shikantaza? He said, what are you figuring? Is there any figuring going on there? And he said, well, I'm figuring. I mean, he caught a fish with it. But, again... Is it a fish or is it a dragon when we look at the polishing tile aspect of it and how Dogen refers to what, as Celestin was suggesting, perhaps when we first think of that, he said, oh yeah, it's ridiculous, polishing this thing. So there's something to me interestingly averse about the figuring, where we first might think of it as somewhat of a pejorative word. Figuring to do.

[88:20]

And yet, as Dogen, again, in that paragraph, right after the first full-face paragraph, he turns around this figuring again and again in many different ways. And throughout the whole, his commentary, there's many aspects of figuring that we haven't even touched upon. What about... Such as? Such as? Such as... The first time he raises it, Dogen raises it in his commentary. Does that mean there must be some figuring above and beyond seated meditation? In other words, somehow separate from, higher than, removed from, superseding? He's asking us, can we fall into that trouble? Are they separate? Is figuring separated from seated meditation? Then he turns that around. Should there perhaps be no figuring? Should we have seated meditation sans figuring?

[89:25]

Is that our goal, objective? We're going to set no figuring at all, clean, as the figuring we're somehow... less than. And then he talks about the nature of figuring being an entanglement. And again, perhaps that's less you didn't mention, but in the vein that you, as I would, well, an entanglement. We want to be free from entanglements, don't we? Not how Tolkien uses entanglements. I mean, that somatic intelligence that came up yesterday and talking about, is that a level of figuring that's happening in this question and answer? That they're together creating that delicate something? I think that's a critical point, the fact that they're doing it together, because I was just thinking what Russell said about that sentence, the precipitate assumption that the phenomena before one's eyes offer no further passage is not going to study. It seems to me that

[90:25]

Not in any way is doing exactly that when he sees Tachi sitting there. And that's what he's, I mean, just sitting there, he comes across, there he is. And it's the both of them together. It's not one master, you know, trying to push the student along. It's the two of them together as co-equals trying to find that space. I don't know what, I'm not really sure where I'm going with that, but do you kind of see what I'm saying? I mean, I think you can relate to that sentence back to the very beginning. Rani, you want to take a stab at the Tarvini? Well, a couple things came up. One, when he says, you know, what are you feeling through sitting there, whether or not, you know, part of that is, are you sitting there with some gaining idea?

[91:29]

Is there some gaining idea about this sitting? Not that that's necessarily the only part of it. And something else I was thinking about... Oh, with something like this, it's like a dance. So we're witnessing a dance, a dance of language, a dance of practice being manifested. And it's like, how do you express what can't be expressed? And somehow, in studying it, you I sometimes have a feeling for what can't be expressed, but it's visible in the dance, although I can't say what it is I understand. I don't know if that makes sense. I once met a woman who, whenever you asked a question about how can I do something, her response was always, take away the how.

[92:37]

And it took me a while to really figure out what some of the wisdom in that was. But I think when you apply it to what Tai Chi says, you really see It really helps to clarify a little bit about the translation of this question. Tachi says, how can you produce a mirror by polishing a tile? You read that a little bit differently. Can you produce a mirror by polishing a tile? That would strictly be a question. But when you put the how in front of it, the translation of it is a little bit different. So when Tachi says, how can you produce a mirror by polishing a tile, it becomes less of a question of can that be done or can't it be done, but show me how you're going to produce a mirror by polishing a tile. And then likewise, the same thing works for how can you make a Buddha by sitting in meditation?

[93:43]

It's not a question of is that possible, but more of one where you're asking, show me how you're going to do that. Take a break soon. We've been having half hour breaks. Are they too long? Shorter or longer? Shorter. 15, 20? 20 minutes? 25 minutes? 20? So we come back at 11.20? Yeah. If you have the book. It's the easiest place to read the koans straight through. So maybe, Fran, you could read the first half. I'm sorry, 141? 141. Oh, okay.

[94:44]

Done in the middle of it. Yeah. During the Kwanzaan era, 713-41, there was a certain Sramana Matsu, Tai, who looted the Chuan Fa Hermitage and practiced Siddhic meditation all day. The master, Nandwe Weijang, knowing that he was a vessel of the Dharma, went to him and asked, Virtuous one, what are you figuring to do sitting there in meditation? Dao Yi replied, I'm figuring to make a Buddha. The master, therefore, took up a tile and began to rub it on a stone in front of Dao Yi's hermitage. Dao Yi said, Master, what are you doing? The master replied, I'm polishing this to make a mirror. Okay.

[95:44]

Suzanne? Dao Yi said, How can you make a mirror by polishing the tile? The master answered, How can you make a Buddha by sitting meditation? said, what should I do? The master said,

[96:00]

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