Good evening, everyone. This evening I want to speak about a line from the Song of the Precious Mara Samadhi that we just chanted. If you want to get your chant books out, you can. This is one of those lines, one of those Zen utterances, which contains all of the teachings of Buddhism. So this Song of the Precious Marrow Samadhi was written or is attributed to the founder of the Soto Zen lineage in China, in Dongshan, in Yangjie, who lived in the 800s. And in the middle of this teaching poem, which I'm going to just talk about a little bit, he says, you are not it, but in truth it is you. Or you are not it, but. Actually, it is you. So this goes back to the story of his awakening and his receiving the transmission and the lineage from his teacher, whose name was Yun-Yang.

[01:23]

So there's a story about that. When Dongshan, after some period of study, was ready to leave his teacher Yunyan, he asked him, if someone should ask later on, what should I say was the part of your teaching? Dongshan paused. And then he said, just this is it. And Dongshan was kind of, didn't know what to say, which was okay. And then Yuanyang said to him, you are now in charge of this great matter. You must be most thoroughgoing. So the very first line of this song of the Precious Mara Samadhi is, the dharma of thusness, of suchness, the teaching of suchness, the practice of suchness, the practice of just this, is intimately transmitted by the Buddhas and ancestors.

[02:46]

And in this translation it says, now you have it, preserve it well. And that's what Yunyan said to Dongsheng. You are now in charge of this great matter. You must be most thorough going. Now you have it. Preserve it well. And I kind of have the feeling, you know, when we chant this, and I like to chant this, and we chant it somewhat regularly, when we chant this and say, the Dharma of Lessness is intimately transmitted by Buddhas and ancestors, now you have it. Preserve it well. just by virtue of your being here and sitting zazen and chanting this, now you have it. Take good care of it. Even if this is your first time sitting zazen. Now you have it. Preserve it well. That's maybe a radical interpretation, but anyway, that's how I feel.

[03:48]

So what is this about? Well, Dongshan really didn't know what to say, but he left and started off on the old tradition, the old Shan tradition in China. You studied with a teacher for a long time and then you were confirmed by them or sometimes that happened. And then he went off and studied with other teachers or went to other teachers and saw how your practice was and checked out other teachers and so forth. So I guess that's what Dongshan was doing. He was wandering off as a monk. having heard this from Yun-Yang. And a little while later, he was wading across a stream and he looked down. And he saw his reflection. And he awakened to something. And he wrote a verse which says, just don't seek from others or you'll be far estranged from self.

[04:50]

Now I go on alone. Everywhere I meet it. It now is me, I now am not it. One must understand in this way to merge with suchness. So this, it now is me, I now am not it, is echoed in the John Marin Samadhi song. You are not it, it actually is you. Same thing. And there's so much to say about this. I'm in the middle of writing a book about this. But I'll say a little bit tonight. So one way to hear this is that he was looking down at the stream, and he saw his reflection. And he realized, that now is me, but I'm not it. That reflection

[05:53]

that was an image of him. He could not be reduced to just this reflection in the water. And yet, the reflections, while the reflections are not this ultimate reality of suchness, suchness fully includes all of the images, all of the reflections of you. You're not it, but it actually is you. This is a very subtle line, and yet it gets to the core of the Buddhist teaching of non-self. So again, this teaching of suchness, just this. So one way of talking about... I don't know what to say except it. One way of talking about ultimate reality, sometimes in Buddhism we talk about emptiness, or the emptiness of any inherent individuality of anything.

[07:04]

So we can talk about it in terms of emptiness, or interrelatedness, or interconnectedness, the entire universe is one bright pearl, or various ways of talking about it. It's this practice, so he says the dharma of suchness at the beginning of this song. It's a teaching, it's possible to have some understanding of it, but it's really how do we meet and engage just this, just this is it. So we sit facing the wall. Just this, this bare attention, this suchness, Again, any word I say misses the mark, but what is it, what is it that sits on your Kushner chair tonight? Beyond your ideas of yourself, beyond this constructed self that we all have, what is this? So meeting this

[08:07]

Dynamic suchness is our practice. How do we meet the suchness of all reality? You're not it, but it actually is you. It now is me, but now I'm not it. So this has to do with the relationship, the intricate relationship. of this you, this me, this I, this constructed, limited self that we cling to sometimes, that we grasp onto, that we cherish and try and, you know, make it better and self-improvement and all of that stuff that is about me. That's our limited human life, this constructed self and all the stories about all the things that have ever happened to you or ever will happen to you. So non-self in Buddhism doesn't mean getting rid of that.

[09:12]

It means seeing through it, or seeing this intricate, dynamic relationship of, I'm not it, but it now is me. What is our relationship? What is your relationship? What is the relationship of each? person sitting on a cushion or chair here tonight, to just this, to this suchness. How does that work? And there are lots of philosophical discussions of this, the relationship of this limited I to the all-encompassing, universal nature. And of course, any individual, I or me, is simply a particular, partial, limited expression of that. So there are lots of theories about this.

[10:15]

We could talk about this in terms of the Huayen school's fourfold dharmadhatu, which is the relationship of the universal and the particular, the universal being all of them, the particular being, the particular set of eyes sitting on your cushion and chair, and everything else. So there's the universal, the particular, and then they talk about the mutual non-obstructive interaction of the universal and particular, how they interact. This is unfolded in the great Flower Ornament Sutra. And then, of course, there's the, if you see the intimate mutuality of it now is me, I now am not it, this me and all of it, [...] then there's also the mutual non-obstructive interaction of the particular with so-called other particulars.

[11:16]

So that's the Huayen Fourfold Dharma Dada, but forget about that. You don't need to know that. If you think that what I've just said is something you have to understand, that's not the point. The point is how do we actually practice this dynamic interaction. And in Soto's teaching, this got unfolded even more in the Five Ranks teaching, which is the five degrees, which are kind of initially formulated in this song, The Precious Mary Samadhi, by Dov Chan. And don't worry about understanding that stuff. I mean, maybe I'll talk about it more next six months as I'm working on this. But the point is, you are not it. but it truly is you. It's enough to hold that statement. You are not it. It actually is you. There's a really wonderful dynamic of lively interaction implied by that.

[12:19]

So just to say a little more, the Buddha declared that All selves are illusory constructions, not real as separate entities, but mutually interdependent. So this teaching of non-separation is that we're not isolated, separate, individual. Our society talks a lot about individualism, but we're all a product of innumerable causes and conditions. Each one of you here tonight is here because of many reasons, many causes, many conditions. Everybody you've ever known is part of what is sitting on your cushion or chair right now. Really. Some maybe more strongly than others, of course. our attachment to our cherished self and its patterns of grasping and confusion obstructs the seeing into deep reality, seeing into suchness, and the possibility of an awakened awareness that compassionately sees this deep interconnection of oneself and the supposed others.

[13:29]

So we naturally think in terms of self and other, subject and object. This I now am not it is about this teaching of non-self. It now is me gives us a deeper context for seeing the full reality within which we engage phenomena and can act responsibly. So one of the various Other kind of context for thinking about this that I found useful is from the French poet, 19th century poet, Artur Rimbaud. I don't know if any of you know of him. I think he wrote poetry from the time he was 16 until he was 19 and then he stopped completely and did all these other things.

[14:31]

Went off to Africa and was a gun runner. Anyway, but he wrote this brilliant poetry when he was, And it was like teenage years, mid-teenage years. And one of the things he said, well, he said, je suis un autre, which literally is, I is an other. This has something to do with this dynamic reality of I am not, it actually is me. The world appears to be out there, not connected to oneself, to me, and the things out there also are, seem to be unconnected to each other. So it's, you know, most of the, much of the time, it's possible, this happens to many people in our world, we see the world out there as a collection of dead objects.

[15:36]

for us to manipulate, take advantage of, and use to get where we want. This is this basic sense of, it's not just in consumerist societies where we're trained to try and get more and more. It's part of the nature of consciousness that, in Yogacara terms, the seventh consciousness or manas, that we see this sense of separation. When Rimbaud says, I is an other, he's describing experientially the construction of a self that we've all had. It's necessary to survive adolescence. And he was 17 when he wrote this. He sees his own I as another, just as any other is another. And when we see clearly this process

[16:39]

of how this I is constructed. Yeah, I is another. Whenever we are not fully engaging the body of suchness, then we have bunches of others, including this I, which is another. Fences and walls are others. I is another. So, part of our practice of non-self is to gently, you don't have to get rid of everything, but see through, pay attention, gently, sustainably, see through how we've constructed this eye. It's not about getting rid of the eye, but to see that it is an obstruction, that it's illusory, to open up to just this. So this I is another Rambo said after saying in one of his poems, it is wrong to say, I think.

[17:42]

One ought to say, people think me. Very interesting. The constructed self, ego self, is not one's own private property. It's a co-creation of all the events of the universe. So actually, this illusory self is created by everything, by all the people who think me. So Taigen is just what everybody else thinks Taigen is, actually, in one way, in the sense that Taigen exists independently of anything. When we see, however, that this is what's happening, that there's this mutual, non-obstructive interaction of particulars with other particulars, we see this self as simply a reflection of everything, and then, it now is me. I'm not it.

[18:43]

So another way to look at this, I don't know if I'm getting this across, maybe it's impossible, but this, I'm not it. This I, this me, this other that I call me, that's not reality, that's not suchness, that's not this wonderful, interconnected, Dharma field, that is the awakened state. And yet, it, the Sotus, actually is me. So it's important to see this other side, too. I've been talking more about I am not it. But it actually is me. One way to see this is from a teaching by the Japanese founder of the Sotus School. So Dongsha was in the 800s, Dogen was in the 1200s, In his Genjo Koan, which we've talked about, and Shohaku Okamura was here talking about, Dogen says, to carry the self forward and experience myriad things is delusion.

[20:02]

That's exactly, you are not it. I am not it. When we carry the self forward to experience the things of the world, that's, I am not it. That's this I and, you know, looking at all the its and becoming another it. Dogen goes on, that the myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. That's, it actually is you. So we're totally, each one of us, in our own particular way, expressions of justice. and our practice is to come back to this dharma of suchness, to see that, I don't know if we have it or it has us, but anyway, here it is. How do we take care of that? And then, you know, precepts and the practice and taking care of our lives individually and together as Sangha and the world

[21:13]

with all its problems, is the natural response to that. So again, this it now is me, is that everything in the whole world, interdependently, interactively, co-arises, mutually experiences this, you could say, wider self. But now it's not, it's just 10,000 things. It's not me imposing my viewpoint on reality. This totally interconnected, dependent, co-arising it is exactly you. So our practice isn't to get rid of I am not it, and it's not to try and get a hold of it actually as you, it's just to dance in the middle of this interaction of facing the wall.

[22:31]

So sometimes this practice of zazen is called wall gazing, going back to Bodhidharma, the legendary founder of Chan in China, The story goes, went up into this cave at Shaolin and been there where the cave is and sat facing the wall for nine years. You know, it's called wall gazing. But actually the practice is not to sit facing the wall. The practice is to sit facing like a wall. When you sit facing the wall on Zazen, do you see the wall facing you? Can you sit like a wall and be just there? Of course, in that experience, all of the things that think you arise, and we have many thoughts and feelings, and it's not that you should get rid of that. But it actually is you.

[23:33]

The whole thing actually is you. So, going back to Dongshan's verse, there's more there that I didn't say. Just don't seek from others, or you'll be far estranged from self. You can't get it from someone else. That's why we do this practice. You can't read a book and figure it, or go to a Dharma talk and hear it, and then that's it. It's something that meets us when we are willing to open up to, allow, and zazen to sit us allowing Buddha to express itself in the body, mind, dāna, kṛṣṇa, or jhana, in whatever way Buddha feels like expressing it. He says, I now go on alone, yet everywhere I meet it. So we emphasize this practice of sitting and facing, and being the wall facing the wall.

[24:40]

Yet everywhere this is the way it is. And if you develop a sustainable practice of sitting several times a week or more, and just allow yourself to be present and upright, you're not it, but it actually is you. This sense of the world or whatever you want to call it. Suchness expressing itself through you is available and is helpful in your activity, in dealing with the world. So, there's lots more to say and this song on the Precious Mary Samadhi has many other hints about and guidelines about all this, but I'll stop now and see if anyone has any comments or questions or responses.

[25:44]

If you have any questions about other lines in the Precious Mary Samadhi, you can ask that too. Please feel free. Question? I'm always, my interest is by the reference to the teaching in the text, and I wonder if you want to speak to that at all. I'm sure that to make those kinds of things make sense, it's pretty, I mean, it's really, I think it's interesting. Yeah, I actually like the I Ching, too, and it's referenced in here. How many people know, heard of the I Ching or know something about it? A few. Anyway, it's an old Chinese text, pre-Buddhist text, that it's sometimes used as a form of divination.

[26:49]

You can throw coins or throw the aristotles as a way of getting six lines, which is called a hexagram and it's referred to here. The illumination hexagram is one of the 64 possible combinations of six lines. And this is kind of technical. It's mentioned here in this Precious Marrow Samadhi Song because of the illumination or fire hexagram. So there's two trigrams, there's fire, there's three lines, and they can be either yang or yin, or yang changing to yin or yin changing to yang. Yang is the creative and active, yin is the receptive. Anyway. This particular hexagram is a particular way in which the combinations of the two trigrams. This is very technical. There's a five-fold permutation. That's the reason. That's one reason it's in here.

[27:50]

Actually, that particular hexagram is pretty interesting. But the reason it's mentioned here is because there's a fiveness about it. And one of the things that Dongshan developed So I mentioned the fourfold Dharmadhatu, so maybe I should say a little more about this, these five. And many Soto teachers warn against getting hung up on the system. It's a very neat system, and it's very tempting to try and understand things based on it. And it's not the point. The point is the actual practice. But there is, again, we talked about universal in particular as this totality and the individual, you could say. And so the fiveness that comes out of that particular technical way that hexagram works is what this is about, and there's five interactions. in terms of the integration of totality and the individual, we could say.

[28:50]

And I don't know if I want to get more into it than that, unless somebody wants me to, but that's why that's there. But the hexagram, the I Ching is a pretty interesting book. It's the book of changes. Originally it came from, it was a form of divination based on looking at tortoise shells. Anyway, it goes away, it goes back 4,000 years or more in Chinese history. but it's referenced here for a technical reason. Yes, Sully. That's exactly it. So okay, I'll say a little more. Upright and inclined is a way of talking about these two sides. There's the universal or the ultimate and then there's the particular or the phenomenal world and they're also talked about in terms of Well, one way is upright, representing the truth, the ultimate, and the inclined is kind of the phenomenal or the particular.

[30:00]

I don't want this to seem mysterious. It's not. There's the universal quality of ultimate reality, which is referred to as the upright. And then there's the aspect of the particular, the phenomenal, and our practice is both. It's the integration of both these sides. How do we lend, give ourselves, receive ourselves from the particular situation of our life, the particular phenomenon of our life, with the context of this background, upright, universal? So this is this underlying philosophy of all of Zen, actually. And again, the practice is what's important, but it gets referred to in various ways. Upright and inclined is one. Also, they sometimes talk about guest and host. The host is the upright, or lord and vassal. There's lots of metaphors that talk about this. And so there's a lot of references to it, indirectly poetic references to it in the Jewel Mary Samadhi.

[31:07]

The point of all this stuff is these images or metaphors in Zen talk are ways of feeling or hearing something or letting this interaction So again, the point isn't to figure out something, but it's to open up to this underlying, deeper, interactive reality, which arises in our willingness to settle into just this, to just being ourselves, to be this interaction of suchness with you. Other comments, questions, responses? Yes, Jane? Good. I think it's full of jokes. It's very funny, yes. Which one, what did you, tell me one of the ones, one of the parts you laughed at.

[32:11]

Well, I'm not sure that I can, there were many places that I did. I guess, I think children, when they first look into a mirror and realize what a mirror is, they'll start to laugh. Yeah, good, yes, yes. I was especially taken, well actually I had already been reminded that when I got to the stove room and she got up and danced, that was, that I thought was very feminine. And the wooden man starts to sing, and her arrow feet get on, how could it be a matter of skill? I thought the whole thing was funny. But many of the lines in this have particular references. So, The Wooden Man Sings, The Stone Woman Gets Up to Dance, is a reference to, out of the stillness of being willing to meet this, just this, and just this, and sit like a wall, some deeper vitality arises in our life.

[33:18]

So there are many sayings like this in Zen, like a dragon howls in a wooden tree, in a withered tree. So a lot of Zen sayings have to do with this creative energy, this vital, stuff that we can connect with when we're willing to stop, just breathe and settle into being present as yourself. And what is yourself? Well, you're not it, but it actually is you. And then the thing about the arrows meeting head-on, that's a long story, but Okay, I'll tell that story since you put that in. There was a teacher, there was a greatest archery teacher of the age in China who had a very good student and that student, and this has happened a long time ago, I don't know exactly which century, but that student realized that he was really a good archer and that

[34:35]

He thought he was even better than his teacher. And if he just killed his teacher, then he would be the best archer in the world. So he took his bow and he shot his arrow towards where his teacher was. And the teacher immediately knew that. He fired an arrow, and then that hit on the middle of the air. So then the teacher and student were willing to just realize that they were both hit. Now, how could that be a matter of skill? So this is talking about this. So this is a metaphor. Again, all these stories are metaphors for how we actually meet this reality of suchness and how it meets us. And it's been intimately transmitted. Now you have it. How do you take care of it? You're not it, but it actually is you. Jeremy. I disagree. Good. Yeah, you can think that.

[35:43]

This is what you does. You think, oh, I'm it. This is how we construct yourself. And all the things about you that you know, you know, that's it. Yeah, hey, I'm it. But that's okay if you actually think that, because it actually is you. To experience delusion intimately is awakening. To experience delusion intimately, to express the dream within a dream, to actually see the nature of illusion, is to see through it and then there's awakening. It's not to hold on to the delusion. thinking me.

[36:44]

One more comment, yes Ken. I would look into the mirror at the reflection and it's kind of like, wow, who is that? you get caught up in the flow of dealing with, you might say, the 10,000 things in the world, you sort of forget about yourself, and you sort of interact, and you become your interactions with the whole world, in a sense.

[37:55]

And I don't think that's necessarily a realization, but it is something. Can you speak to that? Say the last part again. I think I heard you, but say it again, please. Oh, it's just that, you know, You know, you can be, at certain points in your life, sort of aware of the I as the other, you know, like seeing yourself in the mirror. But at some point, you begin interacting with the things, the people, the activities of the world, and you forget about being preoccupied with the I. Yeah. Yeah, and that's the many things arising and then you're not in the way of that. So that's getting to it, yeah. When you're just willing to be amidst the flurry of all the stuff arising. then you're there, but you're not there as an other.

[38:59]

You're there as the whole process, ideally. And of course, the fiveness is about the dynamic interaction and how all that works and the complexity of that. And it's not about getting a hold of anything. It's about letting go more than getting a hold. It's can you allow suchness to express you?

[39:25]

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