Some of you have studied Mr. Dogen's Tenzo Kyokun, the practice of the Tenzo, the practice in the kitchen, and he talks about not reaching a grain of rice, but seeing a grain of rice as your own, as containing the whole universe, actually. And Gohan is rice, meaning breakfast, actually, in Japan. But Gogen would say O-Gohan, meaning the O is honorific. It means venerable. And this is the Kesa, but he says O-Kesa. We call it the O-Kesa, meaning venerable or honorable. So we treat a grain of rice as an honorable being.

[01:07]

And when we prepare it, we do it with consciousness and care as to what it really is and how to bring out the best quality and flavor. offering with a grain of rice. So that when you offer it to people, you're offering them... It's like the nature, in other words, the liveness I would say grain of rice. You know, grain of rice, especially brown rice, if it's cooked correctly, which is not easy, then it becomes translucent and then has a little green line in it.

[02:18]

We usually cook our rice to death, but If you cook it just right, it's translucent and there's a little green line in it. That green line is like the heart of the grain of rice. And then when you chew it, it goes pop! It's amazing. Anyway, I appreciate everybody's rice. I'm not criticizing anything. in each being, like a grain of rice or a cup of water. You may say a cup of water or a grain of rice is something that you see in brightness, in other words, as you see it. But when you pay full respect to the grain of rice, I mean, when you actually respect it as you respect Buddha himself, then you will understand that a grain of rice is absolute. In other words, a grain of rice is the whole universe.

[03:23]

When you live completely involved in the dualistic world, you have the Absolute World in its true sense. So, this is Sandokai. It's not like you separate the dualistic world from the world of Oneness. But you synthesize. You find the Absolute World in the relative I had a thought the other day that just came to me, and many of you might know a lot more about Christianity than I do, but the miracle of Jesus Christ with the loaf of bread and the fish, I really felt like that was, it just popped in my brain that that was a metaphor for what you're talking about now. Of course, it's not about food, it's not about fish and bread, it's about spirit, it's about how do you awaken everyone with the least means, with what's right in front of you.

[04:36]

Yeah, of course. So, I wanted to ask about that mind you just read, because I was actually very surprised I think, when you live completely involved in the dualistic world, sounds like how I think most people live. The average stockbroker is totally involved in the market and he's not conscious or aware of anything. He's living, you know, he's totally caught up in the world of the daydream of money and value. That's completely involved in the dualistic world. He's a Zen guy. He's not necessarily a Zen guy. But he's not. Yes, so when you live completely involved in the dualistic world, you have the absolute world in the true sense, right?

[05:43]

When you're totally one with your activity. But that doesn't mean necessarily that your ego is totally involved. It's not about your ego. Is the stockbroker really about the market and whatever buying and selling is he? What kind of thing? Which guy are you talking about? We're talking generalizations. I guess he can be self-centered. He's worried that he's going to lose all his money. But he's working for somebody else. Because even criminal, let's say he's a stockbroker and he's just working for, doesn't care about grandma. They laughed at grandma who lost all her money. So, yeah, it's there, but he doesn't get it. He can't realize it.

[06:46]

It's not realized. You have to be completely involved in the dualistic world with some kind of self-awareness going on. Right, and you live in the dualistic world totally with some sense of what, like you expressed it, would you say? With some self-awareness? With some self-awareness, yeah. That's also problematic to me too, because when I think of self-awareness, I've created a witness to some degree, and so there is some kind of, I've created a separate person that's watching me? It could be, but that's self-consciousness. There are two kinds of self-consciousness. There's something objective about that. There are two kinds of self-consciousness. One kind of self-consciousness is where we feel that there's a separate person looking at us, that we're two people, or two sides, two aspects, like the witness.

[07:50]

That's separation, that's separating yourself That's called being alone. Right? And then the other self-consciousness is consciousness of the whole universe as yourself. That's self-consciousness. That's total self-consciousness, which is not isolation, but inclusion. So it's good to be self-conscious in that way, because then you realize that just like myself is the whole universe. So it's also true that Zazen is not something special that we do, but everything in the universe is practicing Zazen. All the time. There's not necessarily awareness. So it's like personal and impersonal, but everything is really personal with you.

[09:07]

So then he says, when you live completely involved in the dualistic world, you have the absolute world in its true sense. So when you practice zazen without seeking for enlightenment or seeking for anything, So it's about not seeking. When he's talking in this way, he's talking about just doing. Just doing. Which is called shikantaza. Shikantaza is the practice. Whether you're sitting in zazen, so to speak, or whatever you're doing, it means just doing without seeking for reward. When you practice that way, everything comes to you. It's not like being passive. It's being totally active. But you give up your isolation for inclusion.

[10:16]

So you're not being self-centered or self-conscious, in the sense of being isolated. You're being self-conscious in the sense of being one with everything. That's what he's talking about. I wonder if the example that Paul gave, it reminds me of... I can't hear you, Rafi. I remember him lecturing about going to Las Vegas and watching people working the slot machines and admiring their one-pointedness, which gave me a lot of trouble at the time. And what I think about it now is concentration.

[11:23]

In the Eightfold Path, there's always a modifier. Right. And that's, I think, the non-self-centered dimension, or the all-centered dimension, rather than... It's different from concentration or mindfulness. All these things have Sama in front of them, which means sort of holding lightly the idea of all beings and interconnectedness. Well, selfless activity is really what it's about. I was thinking about, what do you want to be when you grow up? And we used to say, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, or something like that.

[12:27]

I don't know if you remember that. Why not be a bodhisattva? Why not have a career as a bodhisattva? You will not be wealthy, except that you will be the richest person in the world. Anyway, I think it's a good career. You can't be a stockbroker. So you play the stock market, and you get a lot of money, and you give it all away. You help people with it. You don't have a bank account, you just give it all away. Bodhisattva activities.

[13:29]

Hey folks, look what I got! So, the key aspect of this, you know, living by vow. Living by vow, yeah. Selfless activity. You do everything thoroughly. Thoroughly? Thoroughly. But it's not about you and what you get from it. It's a vow. Well, you have to be careful, because then you will think, So there's always, you know... It's selfless. Yeah, selfless means without a string. No strings attached. That's the hardest part. We can be very generous, you know, but at the same time, there's that string. like Othello, and you have a character like Iago, who is this totally evil type of guy.

[14:52]

Everybody has their eyes riveted on this guy, because there's something cool about it. You know, he's totally self-centered and all this kind of thing, but he's just so totally that that everybody else looks kind of pale or drab by comparison and you can't help but getting caught up like gosh this guy's making this wicked plan and he's calculated this out and all this and I think that the reason that we like that is that there is this certain virtuosity.

[15:59]

And we identify with it, right, at the same time, because it's a part of ourself. And as successful as he is in his deviltry, his suffering is tremendous. And so we can also identify with his suffering, because there's no way out for him. This is called selling your soul to the devil, in these kinds of terms, because you decide, well, I'm just going to be evil, and that's going to give me success. And people do this. That's why you can be really successful doing that. But in the end, it's just tremendous suffering, even in the middle.

[17:06]

But they have a lesson, nevertheless. In fact, I think Zen masters have sometimes said, like, you know, if you'd only... he had the one-pointedness of this burglar there, like, he's not... He's totally focused on what he's doing, like he's risking his life. Have that attitude when you're doing zazen or when you're cooking or something. There's some wonderful qualities about that, yes. But the problem is that those qualities look wonderful, but actually the most wonderful qualities are the qualities of innocence. we fall over into the other side of admiring qualities because they're virtuistic, so to speak. But there's no innocence in them. Innocent being pure. It's all impurity. But it's seductive.

[18:11]

Really seductive. And so many people are falling into that. Look at the guys with the guns, you know. They just trade in their unborn Buddha mind, as Banke would say, for this trivia that upsets the world. Yeah? This reminds me of a talk I gave a little while ago about professional sports and how have a hero worship and identify with things that are necessarily not wholesome, but the national pastime is baseball. And I was thinking, why can't the national pastime be Zaza in response to your point of view? Why can't we have the Bodhisattva instead of the doctor, lawyer, Indian chief aspiration?

[19:13]

Good idea, but why not full-time rather than pastime? So you hit them on the cushions for the first time, and then you find you've got a sport that's more boring than baseball. Well, that's why I like football. Life is complicated. So can I ask another question? Yes. About the same phrase. OK. Because what you've said to me is that what you have to do, you have this attitude while you're living completely involved in the dualistic world. The attitude is very important. The attitude is the oneness of myself and the universe, so to speak, or whatever, like that. So I think I understand how that will, if I have the absolute world, if I see that oneness,

[20:20]

you know, that I'm not separate from anything at all. It's making me, you know, whatever, I'm very much a part of it. I'm not separate from it. I don't see how that's living completely involved in the dualistic world. I'm seeing something much different, very different from the normal dualistic world, if I'm doing that. I'm already directly perceiving the absolute world. Basically what he's saying, yes. dualistic world. That's where we live. And that's where we have to be. And that's where we have to give ourselves over to. That's what he's saying. When you do that totally, then that's the other side as well. Because form is emptiness and emptiness is form. I have to see the emptiness. No, you don't. The way to see emptiness is as See your nose, totally empty.

[21:25]

That's the emptiness. And that's how I see the connection between myself and everything else. That's right. I have the idea that the dualistic world is seeing only one side. Yeah, this is seeing one side. The side of the opposites, where everything is separate. Right. Yeah. So, to see... I like what I understand you to be telling me, even though it looks so very different from this. It's more helpful than what that sounds like. Well, that's why I'm here. Thank you. Let's see what time it is. What time do we start? 5.30. But it's getting dark. Yeah, maybe we can open this now. No, just that one is OK.

[22:27]

Let me just turn that a little bit. This is how much you can stand to put that down. That's it. That's it. Less. Put it down, but just through the slack. That's pretty good, huh? Maybe it's this dark inside the plate. Do you want a lamp like we use for class at night? Do you want a lamp? No, no, I'm fine. Thanks. So these are the next four lines.

[23:27]

The four elements return to their natures just as a child turns to his mother. Fire heats, wind moves, water wets, and earth is solid. So four elements are fire, wind, This is the ancient way of talking about four elements, and mind is a fifth element in this kind of system. But usually we talk about the four elements, which stand for various qualities. So here's what Suzuki Roshi says. According to Buddhist thought, the four elements are fire, wind, water, and earth. Though not a perfect description, we say that these four elements each have their own nature.

[24:33]

So the nature of fire is to purify. Wind brings things to maturity. I don't know why, but has a more organic activity while the activity of fire is more chemical. And the nature of water is to contain things. Wherever you go there is water. Water contains everything. And this is opposite to the usual way of thinking about water. Instead of saying there is water in the trunk of the tree, we say the water contains the trunk of the tree as well as the leaves and branches. That's interesting. The water contains the tree, and we say, no, no, no, that's not right. But it can't be right. So water is something vast in which everything, including ourselves, exists. And solidness is the nature of earth. Earth here does not mean land, but rather the solid nature of matter.

[25:37]

So when we talk about of these elements. Fire has the nature to purify, which means fire burns everything up and everything disappears. That's purity. It becomes ash and then ash becomes fertilizer. brings things to maturity. The thing is, what he doesn't say is what are the marks of the four elements. The Heart Sutra talks about marks when it talks about dharmas.

[26:40]

We're talking about the dharmas and the skandhas. The five skandhas are all empty in their own being, as well as the dharmas. And they are all marked with emptiness. So mark means the quality, the identifying quality of an element. The identifying quality of fire is hot heat, right? And the identifying quality of water is wet, the identifying quality of earth is solidity or hardness, and the identifying quality of air is ethereal or clear or something like clarity. But the true mark is emptiness.

[27:46]

The true mark of all elements is emptiness. This is the Heart Sutra. He says, according to Buddhism, if you analyze imaginable. That smallest final unit is called Gokumi. The Gokumi. Although sometimes defined as atom, it is not really the atom, because the atom is not the final unit. I don't know the proper names, but according to my understanding of modern physics, the smallest final unit of being has no weight or size. It's just electrical energy. I think that probably Strangely enough, Buddhism has a similar idea. Although Gokami has the four elements, fire, wind, water, and earth, it is not something solid.

[28:49]

When we reach this point, we see that its nature is just emptiness. So all dharmas are marked with emptiness. All dharmas, meaning all things, The true mark of all things is emptiness, even though they have characteristics which mark them. Those are the four elements are not just material, they are energy or potential or readiness. Interesting, readiness, I like that. This is Gokumi. So to these four elements we add the quality of emptiness. So fire, wind, water and earth are all empty. Even though they are empty, from this emptiness these four elements come into being. So the mother of all elements is emptiness. The father and mother of all. The parent of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 is zero. You have zero in the line and above that you have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. So, this is a Buddhist understanding of being.

[30:09]

It looks as if we're talking about matter, but these elements are not just matter, they're both spirit and matter. Thinking mind is included. Accordingly, emptiness includes both matter and spirit, both mind and object, both the subjective world and the object world. which our thinking mind cannot reach. So, there's a story about the monk who asked the teacher, how do you describe emptiness? And the teacher said, well, how would you do that? Or how would you not describe, but how would you capture, how can you grasp emptiness? And the teacher said, well, how would you do that?

[31:12]

And the teacher went like this, and the teacher took his nose and went... So accordingly, fundamental nature, that is, comes to emptiness just as a child turns to his mother. So without the mother there's no child. That the child is here means the mother is here. That emptiness is here means that the four elements are here. And even though the four elements are here, they are nothing but a momentary formation of the final emptiness. So emptiness is the mother of all forms, but has no special form of its own. And that's what we call the dharmakaya.

[32:21]

Dharmakaya is... Yes? So dharmakaya is the final one? Well, if you want to talk about that one, but Dharmakaya is the unformed dynamism, creation's essence. So, in these four lines, and in the six lines that follow, Sikhito is explaining reality in two ways. One is independence, and the other is dependence. So this is kind of getting at what he's talking about, dependence and independence, which is kind of where Paul was going. He talks first about the truth of independence. Although there are the four elements, these elements naturally resume their original natures.

[33:25]

Although there are many things, each one of them is independent. So a child, even though it has a mother, is independent. So each one of us is independent. Fire is independent in its nature of heat. Wind is independent in its nature of movement. Water is independent in its nature of moisture. And Earth is independent in its nature of solidity. Each thing is independent. I want to read the lines for the next talk so that you can understand the lines for this talk better. When we were translating, when we were editing this, because he was talking back and forth so much, we had to, it was really difficult. It means nice, but really difficult. So, eye and sight, ear and sound. This is the next four lines. Nose and smell, tongue and taste, thus for each and everything dependent on these roots, the leaves spread forth. Trunk and branches share the essence, revered and

[34:29]

So these lines express the understanding of what I call independency. So this is a word that Suzuki Yoshi made up. Independency, which means dependent and independent. The things have a tendency, dependency. Independency means things have a tendency to be what they are. Yes, dependent. Yes, independent. but not to be pinned down. So each of you is independent, but you are related to each other. Even though you are related to each other, you are independent. You can say it both ways. Do you understand? Usually when we say independent, we have no idea of dependent, but that's not a Buddhist understanding of reality. so we will not be mixed up.

[35:36]

We should not be confused by independence or independence. If someone says everything is independent, OK. That is so. And if someone says things are interrelated, that's also true. So we understand both sides. So whatever you say, whichever you say, that's OK. But if someone sticks to the idea of independence only, we will say to him, no, you're wrong. So there are many koans like this. For example, if the final karmic fire burns everything up at the end of time, the final karmic fire burns everything up. At that time will the Buddha nature exist. So in other words, at the end of time, when the karmic fire destroys the universe, that our universe?

[36:38]

Will the Buddha nature still exist?" And the teacher said, no. And then someone else asked, does it exist? And he said, this is what makes it a koan. A koan is not some trick, it simply goes beyond our usual dualistic way of thinking. So we go, And then we think, well, this is nonsense. But it's not nonsense. It's reality. So, there are many koans like this.

[37:50]

For example, if the final karmic fire burns everything up, at that time will the Buddha But at another time, he will answer, no, it will not exist. Both are true. Someone may ask him, then why did you say it will exist? That person will get a big flap. What are you thinking about? Don't you understand what I'm saying? Of course I don't understand what you mean. That buddha nature will not exist is right, and that it will exist is also right. And it's just about time. I'll leave you with that one.

[38:28]

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