There's a film made in 67 or 68, which was made by the public television channel in San Francisco. And I've never seen it since 68 or something. Then I watched it. the night before Sashin, until Lissa brought it up. And I can see why I didn't, I never watched it again, because I'm such a jerk in it. It's a film of Sukhiroshi Nye and Sally, who was then three or something, now 32, going down the coast. First it starts out, you see the old Zendo in Sokoji.

[01:02]

It's in color. Actually, I remember it as being black and white. And then we go to Tassajara and you can see the kitchen under construction and things. And you see Dan Welch with a shaved head. And so if you want, I'll maybe on the evening of the 8th or something like that, if you want to watch it, you can watch it. Oh, please. You're irrepressible. And not that I'd want you to be otherwise. Daisy Sattva. Yeah.

[02:09]

Anyway, I think if we do see it and you want to, I have to give you a little ten minute introduction to it, partly to apologize for my behavior and partly just to tell you the context in which it was done. And when we did the memorial service for Suzuki Roshi, I based the echo, as is customary, on the Sandokai. And in fact, there's a whole series of lectures in the Sandokai, which they want to publish in San Francisco, but most people think, some people think, the publisher thinks that I should work on it. But I don't see how I have time unless they've sent me the manuscript some seven or eight months ago. Maybe I should do one.

[03:16]

It's an important thing for us to study and to work with Roshi's lectures, but... Maybe I could do one just for us at some point, working with the Sandokai and his lectures. In any case, San-do-kai. San means three. And do means one. And kai means to shake hands. So sando kai means many. The three and the one shake hands. But it also means this piece done by the grand Dharma son of the

[04:21]

Sixth patriarch. But it also means many. And san means many as well as three. And do means one mind or big mind as well as one. So it also means all things shake hands in the big mind. So I thought I might talk about magic and mystery today. We say, practicing deep meditation or something like that. But Konze translates it, coursing in emptiness, coursing in the prajnaparamita. though we're coursing in magic and mystery, maybe the magical mystery tour we're talking about.

[05:30]

And Sukhya, she says, the world is its own magic. And in the translation of the Sandokai by Cleary, he translates the end part, those who study the mystery Masanaga translates it, those who practice the way or something like that. Somebody else translates it, those who seek enlightenment. But anyway, let's stay with those who study the mystery. And Dogen says, well, in any case there's a book about Dogen called Impermanence is Buddha Nature. We could say Dogen says all sentient being is Buddha Nature. And he also says the equivalent of at least that Buddha Nature is impermanence. Now once I start Doksana I hear and I always hear

[06:40]

from Sashin and seminars and things that I say too much or that I say more than you can figure out how to relate to. I don't know if that's true, but some people think so. But let me say again what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to of course, give you a feeling for practice, but I'm trying to give you a sense of the attitudes which inform practice. The way of looking at the world, the way of looking at yourself, the views or attitudes that inform practice. And I'm also trying to give you a sense that it all hangs together. That if you pick it up at any one point, and you practice thoroughly, all of Buddhism will appear. Like if you take practice with background mind, Buddha nature appears.

[07:49]

Or the paramitas appear. So I gave you some way in which looking at just the simple beginning practice of developing a background mind. All of Buddhism appears through this. So the third thing I'm trying to do is give you various ways to pick it up or to continue with the ways you've already picked it up. And as you know, I believe in our society and in our human culture, this practice is unnecessary. You know, we chant in the morning, now we open Buddha's mind or robe, a field far beyond emptiness, the Tathagata's teaching for all beings. The Tathagata's teaching for all being, and I believe it is a teaching for all being, including vegetables.

[08:59]

And I think we don't know yet what civilization and culture can be. You know, as I said a while ago, that both the words civilization and culture are quite recent words, one of German emphasis and one of French emphasis. The idea of civilization and culture is new. Something that various ways life is structured that's different from place to place and shared as well. And you have the efforts of Zimmer and Joseph Campbell and Jung and others to say that somehow it's all related. You know, I don't quite agree with that. You do, but I don't. Okay. Well, maybe. We had this discussion in Naropa. Yeah. Well, of course, it's all related somehow.

[10:14]

since we're all here. But my feeling is that we're just beginning to learn how to talk with each other, we human beings. And I think it's not entirely useful to think it all happened in the past and if those guys, whether Buddhist or Greeks or somebody, had it down. I think we're beginning to have discovering, I mean, just the invention of dialogue in the West and with Socrates and the Greeks and the invention of dialogue in Buddhism is, and the emphasis on dialogue in the Khans and in Doksan, where the conditions of the conversation are it's a conversation based on equality and with no rules except how you get in the room and how you get out and possibly probably should stick to practice as a subject but really it's quite open-ended and I don't know myself

[11:40]

I feel I'm always in the midst of discovering conversation with you and among us together in various ways. So, see how I can approach what I'm feeling. I've been emphasizing impermanency and non-inherency. Now I don't want to make that, you know, it sounds rather abstract and I'd like to give you a feeling for it as magic and mystery. When a child dreams and has a bad dream, we say, it's only a dream.

[12:52]

Or you go to the movies and they're scary, you say, it's only a movie. But of course it's not quite true when you tell a child it's only a dream because dreams have a reality. But we also say, you know, when we practice, that it's only consciousness. There's this consciousness-only school, but it's the only consciousness. So when I see something, really what I'm seeing is my own consciousness, my sense feels, etc., as we've discussed. And practice means, adept practice means not just mindfulness, How can I put it? Not just mindfulness of objects and your activity, but mindfulness of mind itself. So that you will always see your mind on everything. Sukershi said, talking about the Sandokai, is when we see a vegetable, you don't say, it's just a vegetable.

[14:00]

If you say it's just a vegetable, you've activated small mind. It's also part of you. So it's not only interdependent with you, whether you eat it or not, and interrelated with you, but it's also at this moment part of one great being, or one big mind. This is the teaching of the Sandokai. But we don't understand that. It's a kind, I mean, it is a mystery. And mystery means, in English, that which cannot be fully understood. So Socrates' admonition to know oneself, to know thyself, in Buddhism it's to know the unfindability of oneself. Quite different.

[15:03]

I mean, it may be in many ways the same. Because you come to know yourself and have a security, an absolute security in yourself. Like a mountain, you know, a big tree or something. Not only in its stability, but in its fullness. But also, you, when you practice Azen, you know, no matter how much you practice and still you don't reach the end of yourself. You don't know. Every day it's something, every zazen it's something mysterious. And that mystery, that unfindability extends also to the phenomenal world. So the same mystery you discover in yourself, this

[16:05]

Zazen mind is uncorrected mind or unfindable mind. That same unfindability is in the phenomenal world too. And the word magic... means something like the power to do something by unknown means. The power to do something. And you can feel it. You might say, it's a wonderful evening. You know, you have some feeling. It's a wonderful evening. Or you might say, it's a beautiful evening. But if you say, it's a mysterious evening, there's some different feeling there, something unknown that touches you.

[17:12]

Or if we said, again, it's a beautiful evening or a wonderful evening, or we said, it's a magical evening, it means the evening is touching us in some way. some unique way, some unexpected way. But Buddha nature is impermanence itself. It means you have discovered that each situation is both mysterious and magical. When I offer incense, you know, every religion seems to use, or ones I know about use incense. I don't know what they're reason is, but in Buddhism it's kind of almost like recognizing that the altar is a potion. There's the incense burner and the candle and the Kannon and the Bodhidharma in Sukershi's picture.

[18:23]

But you may have a mind which sees it as permanent, but this correctly assuming consciousness, accurately assuming consciousness, knows it as impermanent and when you know it as impermanent, really you know it as impermanent, that its structure is not entirely predictable and its function is open all the time. you will feel something different as you offer incense. Or as you go to bed at night, if your mind is permanent, well, I have to fall asleep tonight and I'll get up in the morning, and you're sleeping as some kind of chore or maybe just a welcome relaxation. But in practice we hold to the impermanence, or now I'm trying to touch it with these words magic and mystery, that there's a magic just to going to sleep or taking a nap.

[19:37]

And if you have that feeling, that just an ordinary event like going to sleep, each night is unique, magical and mysterious. Which, in fact, it is. It's a different chemistry. So Buddha nature's impermanence means this mind, this magical mystery tour, this magical coursing. This mysterious coursing in the phenomenal world and in being itself is present. And that, Dogen calls Buddha nature. Not your human nature or self nature or impermanent nature or inherent nature or something like that. But unfindability itself becomes a nature.

[20:40]

When you say, again, it's only consciousness or only a dream, you're also noting that when you practice seeing mind as impermanent, seeing mind as... consciousness as your senses and so forth, you're actually joining, you're beginning to see those dimensions of mind and activating and creating a mind that's intimately related to dream mind. So with this practice of seeing mind on everything, only consciousness and only a dream, you're relating daily mind to dream mind.

[22:00]

And you're beginning to open up daily mind into dream mind and dream mind into daily mind and you're beginning to create a continuity of mind that goes 24 hours. So you begin to feel a flow of identity where dreams don't surprise you, where a flow of A kind of narrative, but not the usual narrative of ourself. So this is also, you know, many things in one mind that shake hands. So this... mind of a sage which knows neither north nor south, east nor west, flows east and west, and so forth, is in some senses a political statement because there is this division of north and south in Buddhism and all.

[23:11]

So the Sandokai emphasizes this division isn't real. But as typically in Buddhism, that's one level. The other level is The mind which doesn't know directions, the mind which has no over here, over there, and here, or north and south, east and west, that mind knows a vegetable is part of our great being, as Sukershi would say. It's rather hard to explain. I don't know if I can make it any clearer, but maybe there's something a little bit frightening in it. Because on the whole, if you want to see things as predictable, they're mostly predictable and we need that.

[24:17]

But also, if you can open yourself to this power of doing things through something unknown, or mystery of things as being not entirely knowable, then this situation we're in right now has some unique karmic qualities. Of course, I'll stop and the bell will ring and we'll go to Zazen and so forth. But there's other hands and minds that are being shaken.

[25:27]

May our intention equally penetrate every being and place.

[25:51]

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