I vow to face the truth as the darkness wears. Morning. Morning. Well yesterday was the first day of spring and very beautiful day. It was also Johann Sebastian Bach's birthday. And today it seems very appropriate to have a Bodhisattva ceremony, avowing our karma and renewing our intentions for spring season. or for this month, this moon.

[01:05]

Today I'm going to talk about case number 65 in the Blue Cliff Record, which is entitled various things. A non-Buddhist philosopher questions the Buddha. I don't think I would call it philosopher. I would say a non-Buddhist practitioner. It's someone, literally someone outside of the Buddha way. One translation says a heretic, but a heretic would be someone within the Buddha way who was not practicing the Buddha way correctly or had some, you know, was doing something purposely incorrectly. but I think a non-Buddhist practitioner.

[02:30]

In Buddhist time, there were 95 schools, or... I can't remember the number, but... How many were there? Not schools, but... Five... There was one teacher who had five teacher students, and each one of them had 15 teacher students. So to figure it out. 75 or 76. So this is one of those students. And they had a kind of belief that a kind of annihilationism.

[03:30]

One of Buddha's main features of Buddha's teaching is the middle path between the two extremes of eternalism and annihilation. Reality lies in between. So Master Engo introduces the subject and he says, it has no form and yet appears. It extends in every direction and is boundless. It responds spontaneously and works in emptiness. Even though you may be clever enough to deduce three from one, and to detect the slightest deviation at a glance, and though you may be so powerful that the blows fall from your stick like raindrops, and your shouts sound like thunderclaps, even though you may have that power, you are not yet to be compared with a person of advanced enlightenment.

[04:54]

What is the condition of such a person? See the following, and then Here is the main case, the main subject. A non-Buddhist practitioner said to the Buddha, I do not ask for words and I do not ask for non-words. The World Honored One remained silent for a while. The philosopher or the practitioner said admiringly, The World Honored One, in his great mercy, has blown away the clouds of my illusion and enabled me to enter the way." After the practitioner had gone, Ananda, who was Buddha's cousin, right-hand person, said, what did he realize to say that he had entered the way? The World Honored One replied,

[05:59]

a fine horse runs even at the shadow of the whip." Or, a fine horse runs when he sees the shadow of the whip. And then, Sitcho has a verse, summing it up. He says, the wheel of Dharma remains still When it turns, it will be to the left or right, inner or outer. Mirror of mind hangs on the wall. When it reflects, there comes beauty and ugliness. When loving kindness reflects, no dust of discrimination arises. A good horse glances at the shadow of the whip and runs 1,000 miles a minute. But when you snap the fingers,

[07:00]

he returns to his original stillness. That's the best translation of the verse that I've run across by Ngo Nguyen-Sentral. So Ngo introduces the subject and he says, It has no form and yet appears. He's talking about the great, absolute dharmakaya, which has no shape or form, or characteristics which can be grasped or described, and yet everything is an expression of it. You and I in the fence post are all expressions of it. So this is what he means by stillness, stillness extending into activity.

[08:09]

It has no form and yet appears as all things. It appears as spring today. It extends in every direction and it is boundless. It responds spontaneously and works in emptiness. There's no conflict in the great expression of thusness. When it's still, we call it suchness. No separation, no duality. And when it moves, it creates the various things and gives the illusion of duality.

[09:21]

So we live in this world of the illusion of duality. And this is why the The practitioner was so grateful because Buddha showed him the illusion of duality. So this is about the Absolute and its expression. And then he says, even though you may be clever enough to deduce three from one, when you see, there's an old saying, when you see horns behind a fence, you know there is a cow or a bull behind the fence.

[10:24]

When you see three corners of a cloth, you know there's a fourth. So, It means you're very quick to understand by just saying a portion of something, you can grasp the whole thing. And when it's applied to Buddhist understanding, in each speck of dust, if you really see a speck of dust in its suchness, you'll understand the whole universe. even though you may be clever enough to deduce three from one, and to detect the slightest deviation at a glance, that means being able to judge, like if you see a huge pile of apples, you know how much it weighs.

[11:33]

You can see the weight at a glance. or you can size something up at a glance is what it means. When you are a teacher, a good teacher sees a student and can size up the student at a glance. If you're a house painter who's been painting houses for 20 years and you see another house painter, at a glance you can tell the way he walks, holds himself, puts on his hat, picks up his brush, what kind of painter he is. And then he says, and even though you may be so powerful that the blows fall from your stick like raindrops and your shouts sound like thunderclaps,

[12:37]

you are not yet to be compared with a person of advanced enlightenment, even though you have all these qualities. Of course, this is just an exaggerated way of comparing all these qualities, which are qualities of an enlightened person, to Buddha's enlightenment in this instance. So what is the condition of such a person? The following. A non-Buddhist practitioner said to the Buddha, I do not ask for words and I do not ask for non-words. I don't ask for words and non-words.

[13:54]

He's asking this question. The question implies, what is the truth? What is the truth between the word and the non-word? But the word stands for something. The word stands for existence. And the non-word stands for non-existence, the positive and the negative. So, since this practitioner is coming from the school of negativity or the non-existence of things as their real essence, he's asking the Buddha this question. by saying, by putting it in this way. In other words, he's giving the Buddha a koan. Actually, quite nicely giving the Buddha a koan.

[14:57]

He's saying, I don't ask for it in words, and I don't ask for it in non-words. What can you say? How can you give it to me? How can you open my mind? I think you could say the E-word, nowadays you would say the E-word and the non-E-word. The existence word and the non-existence word. Give me the true word. And Buddha just sat there for a long time. So Buddha sat in his samadhi. Buddhist sitting was not like ordinary sitting.

[16:06]

Buddhist understanding is, as I said, Buddha did not make the mistake of saying, things are eternal or that things are non-eternal. He said, he just sat there expressing the reality of how things really are. And because Buddha embodied this reality, the practitioner could see it, could understand it, could totally get it. So Buddhists spoke without speaking.

[17:07]

But this is also a koan for us. Because he's saying without saying it, without not saying it. And it looked like Buddha was not saying anything. How did he say it? And this is what... So the philosopher said admiringly, the world-honored one, in his great mercy, has blown away the clouds of my illusion and enabled me to enter the way. And after the philosopher had gone, Ananda asked the Buddha, he said, what did he realize? To say he had entered the way. The World Honored One replied, a fine horse runs even at the shadow of the whip.

[18:09]

There's a story, Suzuki Roshi used this talking about the four horses. There are four horses. There's a sutra which uses this simile of the four horses. The first horse, when he sees the shadow of the whip, moves quickly without further ado. The second horse needs to feel the whip on its skin before it moves. And the third horse needs to feel the skin, the whip, biting into its flesh. And the fourth horse doesn't move until the pain is so excruciating

[19:16]

that it can't help itself. And in the Sutra, the simile is that the first horse, I'm hearing that in a distant village, someone had died. immediately starts to investigate the matter of birth and death. And the second horse or person, when hearing about someone in their own village dying, starts to investigate the meaning of birth and death. And the third person, when there's a death in the family, the third horse starts to investigate when finding out there's a death in the family.

[20:32]

And the fourth horse, when faced with his own death or her own death immediately, starts to investigate. So this Buddhist practitioner was like the fourth horse, the first horse, who just upon seeing the Buddha, just upon seeing the mirror of Buddha, got it and didn't hesitate. And Ananda, who had been practicing Buddhism for a long time, right alongside the Buddha with all the monks, didn't quite get it.

[21:35]

So this is a kind of nice, in a way, a nice way of including or breaking eliminating the barrier between the inside and the outside, insiders and outsiders. You know, Buddha saying, you don't have to, even though one may be practicing for 20 years, they still may not get it, whereas someone from outside, just standing in front of the Buddha, will be enlightened into the way without any further ado. That's possible. But, although one may be enlightened in the way, that's just the beginning of practice.

[22:43]

So we should be careful when we compare Ananda to the Buddhist practitioner. Even though the practitioner may have gotten it right away, unless he followed it up with practice, his understanding may not mature. Whereas Ananda, who was not enlightened until after the Buddha died, apparently through the help of Mahakasyapa, when he finally did have his realization, was great enlightenment. So, he could maybe say Ananda, he couldn't say Ananda was the fourth horse. Maybe that Ananda was the second horse.

[23:45]

Suzuki Roshi said, don't you think that Buddha would have more no matter who we are or how much we've been or how smart we are. We're kind of in the fourth horse position, which is very good, actually. If you're the first horse, you may easily think you're enlightened and then gallop off unless your practice has matured, it doesn't mean so much. Sometimes people come to me and express their understanding, which is okay, and I think that's very good, but it doesn't mean a lot to me.

[24:55]

What means something to me is the way I see people practice and how they put themselves dedicated practice in order to mature their understanding. That's the most important thing. And the expression of understanding is your practice. You can have all kinds of good understanding, but it doesn't mean much without your practice. without that long maturing process. So, in Sancho's verse, adding it up, he says,

[26:02]

The wheel of Dharma remains still. When it turns, it will be left or right, inner or outer. The wheel of Dharma remains still. You know, our practice is great activity in the midst of stillness, and great stillness in the midst of activity. When you sit in Zazen, Zazen is great activity, dynamic activity in the midst of stillness. And our activity in the world is great stillness in the midst of activity.

[27:10]

So that whatever you're doing, it's grounded in reality. So stillness and activity are the two aspects of reality. We say the upright and the inclined. This is the way it's expressed in the Chinese. Upright means stillness. It's totally balanced. There's no leaning to the left or the right, backward or forward. This is zazen posture. It expresses this upright. And moving, inclining, means going out of balance. And when the upright moves out of balance, then the world starts.

[28:11]

The world of the illusion of separation. So we easily get lost in the illusion of separation. And then we search for a way to unify ourself with the universe. The uni-verse. The uni-verse is the unified So he says, the wheel of dharma remains still, and when it turns, it will be the left or the right, inside or outside.

[29:14]

The mirror of mind hangs on the wall. This refers to Buddha's mind. When the outside practitioner comes to face the Buddha, he sees the mirror hanging on the wall. When he looks at Buddha sitting there, the Buddha is attentive to him. It's like two mirrors reflecting each other with nothing in between. And looking at the Buddha, the Buddha awakens. The Buddha didn't awaken him. He was awakened when looking at the Buddha. Buddha was just being himself. He was awakened because everything dropped away. All of his opinions and ideas dropped away. And there was just total oneness between them.

[30:21]

And then he says, when this mirror reflects, there comes beauty and ugliness. When he saw himself in the mirror of Buddha's mind, clear mind. He saw the beauty and ugliness, the duality that he'd been living in. And then he says, when loving kindness reflects, no dust of discrimination arises. So when he looked in Buddha's face, there was just no dust. This was the mirror of no dust. which is the mirror of loving kindness, where there's identification, not separation. There is separation, but the separation is not the illusory separation. It's the seeming separation.

[31:26]

All things being independent are also interdependent, all parts of one whole. So he says, when loving kindness reflects, no dust of discrimination arises. A good horse glances at the shadow of the whip and runs 1,000 miles a minute. But when you snap the fingers, he returns to his original quietness. No one else has got this expression except Yoga and Senzaki, there's all this controversy about what he means by snapping the fingers. And all of the commentaries have a different take on it. No one's ever been able to. But this makes the most sense. When he snaps his fingers. But when you snap the fingers, he returns to his original quietness. In other words, there's no problem.

[32:30]

In other words, the horse will run a thousand miles a minute. This is great activity in the world. You can let yourself roam the whole world, but at the snap of the finger, you come back to your original self. Do you have any questions? Yes, Greg? When you say, seeing one corner, you apprehend three, or that... Why isn't that an assumption about three? Yeah. Well, he's talking about... This is not... It is assuming.

[33:39]

It is an assumption. But it's an accurate assumption. He's talking about accurate assumptions. One who is able to make accurate assumptions by seeing the traces. We all can do that. Bill, are you ready for another question? What's the difference between the no words and the non-Buddhist question and Buddhist response? I have to wait for the airplane to pass by because people can't hear you. What's that? Ready?

[34:39]

The difference between no words and non-words? No. The difference between the no-words part of the non-Buddhist question. He said, without words and without no words. Right? So what's the difference between the no-words part of his question and Buddha's response? I would say the thundering word of silence.

[35:43]

Does the non-practitioner answer the koan if you say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, religion was blown away by the wind of Buddha's Samadhi. Yes? You mentioned loving-kindness.

[36:53]

Is that a concept? Is that tradition? That loving-kindness, what you mentioned, was a non-duality? Yeah. Is that a concept in...? I've never heard the words loving-kindness before within the Zen tradition. You haven't? I haven't heard it either. Well, we mostly try to do it rather than talk about it. I saw something over at some hamburgers. I was struck by the phrase illusion of duality and just thinking in terms of what's happening in the world and has been happening in terms of the conflicts and violence and wars which could be attributed

[38:10]

certainly on one level to this, he quotes, illusion of duality. And I think that's the dilemma of our times, you know, how to, in some way, It's the go-on of our time. It is, yeah. Individually and collectively. Yep. It's the go-on of all time. Yeah. We tend to feel that, well, in our time, you know, these great terrible things are happening, you know. They've always been happening. And every time. Sometimes they're more quiet than others, you know. But, it's the same old story. Fight for love and glory.

[39:14]

Well, there is, because it's our time. Yeah. Because it's our time. That's why the koans are so relevant. Because they're about today. Us, you, right now. And this is like 10th century. So there are these perennial problems that don't go away. But because it's not collective challenge, it's individual challenge. It's like the challenge of every single person. And it's the problem of every single person. That's why it's personal to you.

[40:58]

It's totally personal to you. The way you see the world is totally personal to you. And what happens to you is totally personal to you. That's why, you know, we have to deal with the world around us, but we deal with it through ourself, through our view, our worldview, or the way we see things, and the way we see ourselves and the way we relate. That's why the world cannot be cleaned up until everybody cleans themselves up. You can't legislate cleanliness You can you know kill all the flies in China, but you still have all the Everything else so It's really a personal matter Cleaning up the world clearing up the problems of the world clearing up our own acts

[42:11]

Oh, I was pointing way back in the back. You said that it was good that we were all one horse. Oh, you said we are? I did say that, you're right, I did say that. And you also talked about maturing practice, and that if we thought we were the first horse, we were mistakenly thinking we were enlightened, but it seems to me that I didn't say it for, you know, categorically, categorically true.

[43:20]

It's just, I said it for effect, to bring us all down to the fourth, you know, to admitting that our own inabilities, and that we should see that. No matter how, you know, first horse we may be, we should all realize that we're the fourth horse. If I think I'm the first horse out there, I have big problems. Well, when it's you that's dying, it somehow is very different than somebody in the next town. Yeah, we can and we do.

[45:14]

So that's why Buddha said, let go of your ideologies. If you want to see reality, let go of everything and step off with nothing. Everybody comes up with their own ideologies and their own formulas. So, is it eternal? or non-eternal. It's not either one. What is it? It's the same community. Vice people and other luminous groups, they have different schools. Yes. That's right. So we don't name it. Yeah, it's possible to practice outside of the Sangha, but strictly speaking, a Sangha is, there's something missing if we're only practicing alone.

[47:17]

But, you know, we don't practice group practice. Each one of us practices our own individual practice together. and because you don't live in the world by yourself. So your practice teaches me something, my practice teaches you something. So there's all this interaction and mutual individual practice. So it's the individual within the Sangha and it's the Sangha within the individual.

[48:22]

Each one of us is Sangha and includes everyone. So Dogen has a term, independent mutual, no. It's kind of like the unseen assistance that we give each other. That assistance which we don't even know about, which we can't even, you know, like, The activity over here is affecting the activity over here. And this person's practice is affecting that person's practice, even though you don't even see that happening. Invisible mutual assistance.

[49:28]

Going back to what you said a couple of questions ago, it seems that as we age, and I think, just by myself, by the people I'm talking about, we form a view of the world, of how things function, of what causes them, or the effects, or the randomness, or whatever it is. Did you say that we should let go of that, that this is not helpful, or that it's wrong? I did not understand that much very well. I see what you mean, yeah. When I said not to hold a particular view, right? Or even a particular Buddhist view. But, you know, Buddhist practice is to find the way yourself. But this Buddhist doctrine helps us to do that. So you should always check your understanding with what is Buddhist understanding.

[50:32]

And you may agree with it or you may not. But if you keep checking, you will come to a place where your investigation will take you to a very truthful position. In other words, there is a truthful position. There is a truthful position. And a truthful position is no particular position. I think, see we want to be able to figure it out. And really the only way to think, what figuring it out brings you to is trust. If you can just trust, you don't have to figure it out. But we're thinking beings, you know, and we need to create this intellectual structure for security.

[51:37]

But if you don't need security, you can just trust. So, the point of realization is when you let go of all this structure that you've invented, which may be beautiful, but just step off. So when you die, All this stuff in your head won't help. The only thing that will help is letting go. Well, it's when you speak, it should be there.

[52:51]

And when you're silent, it should be there. These are our numbers.

[53:37]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ