So today we're going to start our study based on Hakuin's commentary on the five ranks. Before I start, can everybody hear me? Now we can. Okay, this is the beginning of the third month of practice period and we just finished our seven-day sasheen and during sasheen, sasheen is very intense and our energy is intensely concentrated

[01:20]

And after sasheen, this day off, personal day, even though there's no person, an impersonal day, and then our energy kind of disperses, you know, we feel kind of let down maybe, or change, it's a change. The weather's changing. Sometimes it's a little bit hot or clear and then sometimes it's raining. We don't know quite what it's going to be. And we've been here for two months. So there's, you know, we get a little bit out of tune maybe. And then we start to feel tired, a little sick. These things start happening. So far, the practice period has been relatively free of sickness, and people have been up mostly for it.

[02:25]

So that's been very nice. I don't know if that's a record or not, but now there's a little bit of falling off. Someone, magician, I'll name him, once wrote down on the, what is it called? Tenken. Tired. No. Rest. Oh, rest. Rest. Which is, no one has ever written that before. There's another one on there that says, don't feel like it. So anarchy is starting to... Now, one person writes rest and then someone sees it and, oh, and then someone else writes rest. And pretty soon it becomes a kind of fad. This is how fads begin.

[03:26]

So we want to be careful. that we don't start a rest van. We go to bed pretty early, we get up pretty early, and we work, you know, pretty hard all day, and sleep is one of the deprivations that we often feel. But we have work day when we get up later and go to bed earlier, and we have personal day where we get up and we can rest. You can sleep all day if you want to. So, it's not like we don't have space for rejuvenation. We do. But, I'm not totally opposed to rest. I'm not totally opposed to that. I would rather that We take a morning of rest if we have to rather than get sick or fake it.

[04:36]

You don't have to say, oh, I'm sick. So you feel an excuse to have to take some time off for some reason or another. I think that it's good if we have a little bit of a buffer rather than people getting sick. This is a radical idea. But a little flexibility, I think, is okay. But if we take advantage of that, or misuse it, then it kind of destroys the whole idea. So I would like us to be careful with ourselves. If we need to take a little time, called rest. I think it's okay as long as it's within reason, reasonable and not an indulgence or I don't feel like it or something like that.

[05:43]

If you can't keep your eyes open and you're tired and you're falling all over the place, lay down. But you know what I'm saying. So within reason I think it's okay to Rather than saying I'm sick, which is an excuse, just say tired or rest for a period or something like that. I think that that's better. To just be honest about it, you know, I'm tired. I need a little bit of rest. I like that better because otherwise we feel that we have to get sick. And I don't. I'd like us to stay pretty much healthy. and keep up our energy. Does that sound okay? You can do whatever you like. It gets very hot in here.

[06:48]

And once the doors are open, we'll get used to it. The breeze blowing through the empty hall. I have difficulty hearing you over the sound system. There's a chair right here. There's a seat right here. Right next to me, too. Yeah. Saved it for you, let you get your seat. Thanks, everybody, for getting her over here. Hi. Thank you. OK. So Hakowin was born in 1689. And he died in 1769. And he is credited with the revival of the Rinzai school in Japan. And he was a very dynamic teacher. And he systematized the Koan system in Japan.

[07:50]

People used Koans Zen teachers used koans throughout, well, I don't know, the Sung dynasty. I don't think so much in the Tang dynasty. A lot of the koan stories come from the Tang dynasty, but they were not used so much as koans. I think the koan tradition started later. and not necessarily systematically practiced. But I think because Hakuin wanted to have some kind of structure for reviving the Rinzai school, he systematized the Koan, or created a Koan system, which pretty much is what the Rinzai school practices today. In the Rinzai school, there are two studies that are the end of the koan system.

[09:06]

One is the precepts, which is interesting because we usually think of precepts as what you study when you start to practice but they use the precepts as the end of study. And also, Hakuin recommends the five ranks as the end of study, whereas some people think the five ranks are just, you know, a beginner's model for practice, which it is. Hakuin thinks of it as the deepest model for study. So within the Zen school you have many different divergent attitudes and ways of thinking about practice, which is very nice. We should have different ways, even though our way is the best. Okay, so, I'm using a different, I'm using the original, so my page numbers are not your page numbers.

[10:22]

And so, I'll try and find your number. You probably, if somebody can... Page 89. 89. Okay, so this is called, this is printed in Zen Dust, which is an out-of-print, wonderful out-of-print text. And it's called, The Five Ranks of the Apparent and the Real. So this translation uses the terms apparent for the phenomenal side and the real for the noumenal side. The orally transmitted secret teachings of the monk who lived on Mount To, that's Tozan, because Zan is mountain. So the teachers were known by the name of their mountain, often.

[11:33]

Tozan is Dongshan, same thing, Liangjie. Tozan Yokai. but Tozan is his mountain name, the monk who lived on Mount To. So, he says, this is Hakuin, we do not know by whom the Jewel Mirror Samadhi was composed. From Sekito Osho, Yakusan Osho, and Ungan Osho, So you're familiar with these names, right? Vibhashiputra, okay. It was transmitted from master to master and handed down within the secret room. Secret room is like the transmitted, the transmitted. It's like, secret is a funny word.

[12:35]

Private, I think, is better. It's not exactly secret, it's like intimate. It's like when two people get together and act intimately, it's kind of secret, but it's not secret, it's intimate, private, so it has that feeling. So it was transmitted from master to master and handed down within the secret room. Never have its teachings been willingly disclosed until now." This is characteristic of Chinese and Japanese Zen, is that there are some things that are esoteric, that are not public, that are just handed down from one to another and kind of holding your cards to your chest.

[13:40]

And dharma transmission is kind of like that in the schools. This is something that happens between teacher and student, teacher and student, and it's not public. So there are many things that are public now, secret before. But nobody knows that. They just think, well, this is a public property. So many things are coming out now, which before were very intimate, which are now in the public domain for everybody to chatter about, like the five ranks. Do you think that could be a source of the sort of corruption of true teaching? I'm thinking when Jesus would do a healing, he would say, go and tell no one.

[14:46]

And it's like what you're saying. And then telling it somehow becomes, I don't know, shallower or misunderstood. And then we start acting on that misunderstanding and everything goes haywire. Well, I think that's right. Because you want to make sure that something gets done correctly. and with someone, with a vessel that understands, a vessel that can contain it, right? So this is, you know, dharma transmission is like that and transmitting these various things is like that. It's like you want to make sure that it's the right vessel who understands what is being transmitted and is not just kind of broadcasting it helter-skelter, but using it in a way as a source, teaching. It's very interesting because Suzuki Roshi almost never taught us anything that was a doctrine or something that was like this.

[15:51]

He knew all this, but he didn't talk about it. Using this as a source, he just spoke in a very plain, ordinary, was talking about and the way he taught, you trace it back and you can trace it back to all these teachings. So in that sense I think that it's not like one keeps it for themselves, but one has the source and they use it and transmit it in their own way. So every teacher transmits something in their own way, which is a way of a more intimate way, actually, between the teacher and the student, rather than something in between. And this is one of the problems with the Five Ranks, is that originally it was a transmission document.

[16:57]

Well, when you have transmission from teacher to disciple, There are, in our school, three transmission documents. And there are things that the student copies out and then they study. And this is like It's private. You don't show the documents around, but they're the source of your teaching. What are those three documents? Well, there's a Kechi Miyaku, which is what you receive when you have lay ordination. You already know what that is.

[18:04]

That's one of them. And the other one is called daiji, which means the great matter, and is a kind of document of, it's a map of practice. And then there's the shisho, which is the main transmission document. And it's a circular document which includes all the ancestors and how they relate to each other. It's not so, you know, esoteric, but it's a special thing, you know. As a matter of fact, you can look up the Shishou if there's a book called Dogen's formative years in China. It's a book called Dogen's Formative Years in China.

[19:05]

And it has a copy of Dogen's Shishou. And it talks a little bit about it. So, there's the Keshinyaku, the Dai-Ichi, the Shishou, that we no longer include the five ranks? No. It's not included as a transmission document. It was at one time. It was at one time, but the problem is that it became too intellectualized. And Hakuin talks about that here. People used it too much. There were a lot of entanglements and it became a kind of misunderstood complicated thing, whereas Dogen, and the reason that Dogen kind of rejected it was because, as Suzuki Roshi says, Dogen wanted something much simpler.

[20:07]

Like, the monk asked the teacher, where do you go where you can escape from cold and heat? And the teacher said, When it's cold, let the cold kill you. When it's hot, let the heat kill you. This is the kind of teaching that Dogen liked. Very simple and direct. Dogen wouldn't be so good at conditioning. We don't know. He probably wouldn't. He'd probably get a cold. No, I don't think he would be. That's right. China, when he was in China, and Japan in the summertime, it's very hot. So you get used to that. If you live in Arizona as an Indian, you don't mind the heat. But if you live there as a liquor store salesman, you turn on the air conditioning.

[21:18]

So I think Dogen was probably used to the heat. B1 was the pain in your legs. Let the pain in your legs kill you. What do we do with the pain in our legs? So, I'm going to read this again because I could just spend the whole time on this one paragraph. I don't want to do that, but it just keeps getting more interesting. We don't know by whom the Jeweled Mirror Samadhi was composed. So we say it was composed by maybe Sekito. Sekito actually is credited with the Sandokai. And the Sandokai has all the elements, or most of the elements of the Hokyo Zamai.

[22:23]

And the Hokyo Zamai is a more elaborated version of the Sandokai. And if you read Suzuki Roshi's lectures on the Sandokai called Branching Streams Flow Out of the Dark, you get a very good understanding of the Hokyo Zamai. For some reason I didn't lecture on the branching streams because I talked about it before but it directly segues into this. Anyway, so from Sekito, who was a disciple of the Sixth Ancestor, and Yakusan, who was Ungo's teacher, And Ungo, who was Tozan's teacher, it was transmitted from master to master and handed down in a secret room. So even though we say that Tozan composed it, he says he's not sure where it comes from.

[23:29]

Never have its teachings been willingly disclosed until now. After it had been transmitted from Tozan Oshu, he made clear the gradations of the five ranks within it and composed a verse for each rank in order to bring out the main principle of Buddhism. Surely the five ranks is a torch on a midnight road, a ferry boat at the riverside, where one has lost one's way." The nice thing about Hakuin is he's very dramatic. And he uses this kind of dramatic. He's a lot like Dogen, actually. They both use the same kind of language. And actually, Hakuin liked Dogen, even though he didn't like Soto Zen. But alas! The Zen gardens of recent times are desolate and barren." So this is the time of decline of the Soto Rinzai school in Japan, and of course also the Soto school. Directly pointing to the ultimate, Zen, is regarded as nothing but benightedness and foolishness.

[24:35]

And that supreme treasure of the Mahayana, the Jewel Mirror Samadhi's five ranks of the apparent and the real, is considered to be only the old and broken vessel of an antiquated house, meaning the Soto school. So there's always been this rivalry between the Soto school and the Rinzai school. And Hakuin is always criticizing the Rinzai school, Soto school, for just sitting around on the cushion. lounging around. And so no one pays any attention to it. Today's students are like blind men who have thrown away their staffs, calling them useless baggage. of themselves, they stumble and fall into the mud of heterodox views and cannot get out until death overtakes them. They never know that the five ranks is the ship that carries them across the poisonous sea surrounding the rank of the real, the precious wheel that demolishes the impregnable prison house of the two voids."

[25:42]

So, he talks about, he uses this term, They stumble into the mud of heterodox views and cannot get out until death overtakes them and they never know that the five ranks of the ship that carries them across the poison..." This is a kind of quote from the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Ancestor. One of my favorite poems by the Sixth Ancestor is about what a teacher of the Dharma should be like. I'm going to read it because I really like it a lot. This is my own edition. I edited it myself and I like it better this way. He says, at the end, he says, this stanza is for the sudden school. It is also called the big ship of dharma for sailing across the ocean of existence. So the big ship of dharma.

[26:44]

I've always liked that and I often use it myself. The big ship of dharma for sailing across the ocean of existence. So the sixth answer, and this is a diversion, I know. Maybe I shouldn't read it. One who is a master of the Buddhadharma and has realized their essence of mind may be likened to the bright sun in an empty sky. Bright sun is like vairocana. That's what vairocana means. It's like brightness, light. Such a one teaches nothing, and this is the position of Vairochana actually. Vairochana sits and is the essence and it's like the Sun Buddha and the Buddha of infinite light. Such a one teaches nothing but the Dharma for realizing our self-nature. which is their purpose for being in this world.

[27:46]

They don't have any other purpose for being in the world. And to make people aware of erroneous views, we can hardly classify realization of the Dharma into sudden and gradual. Remember that? Some will attain enlightenment more quickly than others. This way of realizing the essence of mind is above the comprehension of the ignorant. Ignorant means those who ignore it. We may explain it in 10,000 ways, but all those explanations may be traced back to the one principle. In order to illuminate the dark dwelling place of the afflictions, we should constantly set up wisdom. Erroneous views keep us in devilement, while right views remove us from it. When we are in a position to let go of both of them, both right and wrong views, our mind is then pure. Purity means non-dual. Bodhi is imminent in our essence of mind, and to attempt to look for it elsewhere is erroneous.

[28:53]

Within our impure mind, the pure mind is to be found. And once our mind is set right, we are free from defilements, evil karma, and karmic retribution. If we are treading the path of enlightenment, we need not be worried by stumbling blocks. Provided that we keep a constant eye on our own faults, we will not go astray from the right path. Since every species of life has its own way of salvation, they will not interfere with or be antagonistic to one another. Therefore, if we leave our own path and seek some other way of salvation, we shall not find it. And if we plot on until death overtakes us, we shall find only regret in the end." That's another quote that Haguen uses here. If you wish to find the true way, right action will lead it to you directly. But if you do not make effort in the way, you will grope in the dark and never find it. One who treads the path in earnest sees not the faults of the world.

[29:56]

If we find fault with others, we ourselves are in the wrong. When others are in the wrong, we should ignore it. For it is wrong for us to find fault. By letting go of the habit of fault-finding, we cut off a source of defilement. When neither hatred nor love disturb our mind, serenely we sleep. Those who intend to be the teachers of others should themselves be skilled in the various expedients which lead others to enlightenment. When the disciple is free from all doubts, it indicates that their essence of mind has been found. The pure land of Buddha is in this world, within which enlightenment is to be sought. To seek enlightenment by separating from this world is as absurd as to search for the horns of a rabbit. Right views are called transcendental. Erroneous views are called worldly. When all views, right or erroneous, are let go of, then the essence of bodhi appears. This stanza is for the sudden school. It is also called the big ship of dharma for sailing across the ocean of existence.

[31:00]

Kalpa after kalpa, a person may be under delusion, but once enlightened, it takes but a moment to realize buddhahood. So Hakuin says, of themselves they stumble and fall into the mud of heterodox views and they cannot get out until death overtakes them. They never know that the five ranks is the ship that carries them across the poisonous sea surrounding the rank of the real, the precious wheel that demolishes the impregnable prison house of the two voids. What are the two voids? Well, yes. Two voids are atman and void. The two things that are void are atman and dharmas. Atman means self and dharmas means things. Dharma and dharmas.

[32:03]

Dharma is a word that means the law. or the truth, or the reality. Dharmas, with a small d, means those things that the law is about. It's spelled the same, but it's a small d? Yes. So, the dharma is about the dharmas. It's about things. Dharmas, in a wide sense, means things. the differentiated things. Phenomenal? Phenomenal side, basically. But, specifically, it means the psychic, physical constituents, psychophysical constituents that make up what we call the person. Those are the dharmas. Kusula, akusula, and neutral.

[33:07]

Wholesome dharmas, unwholesome dharmas, and neutral dharmas. Like all feelings, emotions, and so forth. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions are the dharmas specifically that we're concerned with. So he says, they do not know the important road of progressive practice. So progressive practice is what Hakuin is interested in. It's Rinzai Zen. Soto Zen is not interested in progressive practice. But there is always progress anyway. They are not versed in the secret meaning within this teaching. Therefore, they sink into the stagnant water of Śrāvakahood or Pracekabuddhahood.

[34:12]

They fall into the black pit of withered sprouts and decayed seeds. Even the hand of Buddha would find it difficult to save them." So, Śrāvakas are followers of Buddha who listen to the Dharma. And Pracheka Buddhas are someone who has realization but doesn't transmit it. Stephen, the other day, said, that he was reading from Sheng Yen. He said that a person could be a realized Buddha without having to follow up with practice. Is that right? Yeah. So this could be a Pratyekabuddha. So a one who has

[35:14]

enlightenment, but doesn't practice or doesn't follow up with practice. This is the kind of Buddha that's always criticized. I'm still not clear on the prison house of the two voids. Is it attachment to self and attachment to dharmas? Attachment to self and attachment to dharmas. Okay, and then what would be this poisonous sea surrounding the real? Is that sort of like birth and death, greed, hate and delusion? Yeah, right. The poisonous sea surrounding the real is like, it's just a kind of picture. It also sounds like attachment to the to others. It's attachment to samsara. I was going to say the poisonous sea surrounding the real would be like your body in a sense, that your karmic condition at this moment could be seen as a poisonous sea surrounding the real.

[36:18]

What do you mean body? The human body, the form. That's the result of causes and conditions brought about by karma. Can you separate that from the mind? No, I can't. So it's... I think that... You're just talking about... Did you ever see a Bosch painting? A randomist Bosch painting? That's the sea that he's talking about. I can't hear, I really can't hear you.

[37:30]

Two voids, extremes of eternalism and nihilism. Oh, extremes of eternalism and nihilism. Yeah, those are two extremes. That's not what the two voids are. It could be, but eternalism is... What's a good question? That's a good question. I always thought of it as atman and dharmas, self and ego, self and dharmas, which are devoid of any permanent nature. I don't know. Could be. Could be.

[38:32]

But rather than speculate on that, I think I'd rather go on. So this is Hakuin's presentation. That into which he starts talking about himself, That into which I was initiated 40 years ago in the room of Shouju, that's his, Shouju Rojin is his teacher. I shall now dispense as the almsgiving of Dharma. When I find a superior person who is studying the true and profound teaching and has experienced the great death, I shall give the secret transmission to that person. Since it was not designed for those of medium and lesser ability, take heed and do not treat it lightly." There's a koan in the Blukav record, case 41, does a person who has died the great death come back to life again?

[39:35]

So this is a kind of term used in Zen sometimes, to die the great death. in order to really come back to life. This is also true in Christianity, isn't it? To be born again. We have born again Buddhists. Sounds more like the dark night of the soul spoken about by St. John on the cross. Could be. Or resurrection. Or resurrection. I don't know about that. Oh, resurrection. Well, now we get into... Maybe. Resurrection. It's the death of the old man, St. Paul's old man. It's the death of St. Paul's old man. Oh yeah, the old man. The death of the person itself. No, it's not the death of the person itself, that's right. Of the personal. Yeah, the death of the ego. I mean, the death of the baggage.

[40:41]

The death of the baggage. So the loosening of the luggage, letting go of the luggage. Does case 41 give an answer to the question of whether or not that person was born again? There's one who died at a great age to come back to life again. Yeah, is there an answer given? Or is this just a question in the whole case? Well, it's a koan. So I'm not going to give you... I understand that, but I wondered if it was one of the koans where the style where like a student asks a question and then the teacher... Yeah, oh yeah. Is there an answer given in that koan? Well, the koan never gives you an answer. That's fine. Okay, that's the full koan is simply to ask the question. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I have to add up to, you know, present the koan in order to get the full thing, but this is just like the gist of the koan. This is the gist of the koan.

[41:47]

So then he says, how vast is the expanse of the sea of the doctrine? How many fold are the gates of the teaching? This is like the third bodhisattva vow. and has experienced a great death. Among these, to be sure, are a number of doctrines and orally transmitted secret teachings. Yet, never have I seen anything to equal the perversion of the five ranks. The carping criticism, the tortuous explanations, the adding of branch to branch, the piling up of entanglement upon entanglement. The truth is that the teachers who are guilty of this do not know for what principle the five ranks was instituted. Hence, they confuse and bewilder their students to the point that even a Shariputra or an Ananda would find it difficult to judge correctly. So he comes down on people.

[42:50]

Is he criticizing the five ranks or the perversion of the five ranks? The perversion, of course. He's upholding the five ranks. Or could it be that our ancestors delivered themselves of these absurdities in order to harass their posterity unnecessarily? For a long time I wondered about this. When I came to enter the room of Shouju, the rhinoceros of my previous doubt suddenly fell down dead. Do not look with suspicion upon the five ranks, saying that it is not the directly transmitted oral teaching of the Tozan line. You should know that it was only after he completed his investigation of Tozan's verses that Shouju, Hakuen's teacher, gave his acknowledgment to the five ranks. After I had entered Shouju's room and received the transmission from him, I was quite satisfied. But, though I was satisfied, I still regretted that all teachers had not yet clearly explained the meaning of the reciprocal interpenetration of the apparent and the real.

[44:03]

You understand what that is? The reciprocal interpenetration of the apparent and real is what we've been studying all along. The interpenetration The interpenetration of two things. So we're talking about that spot where they come together and there's wholeness. Not the apparent, not the real. Apparent and real together. The interpenetration. The interpenetration. Thank you, I'm sorry. That's one of the five ranks? No, that's the essence. That's what it's about. So, I still regretted that all teachers have not yet clearly explained the meaning of the reciprocal inner penetration of the apparent and the real. They seem to have discarded the words reciprocal inner penetration, which is what it's all about, and pay no attention whatsoever to them.

[45:10]

Though I wished to hand it on to others, I was ashamed to squeeze out my old woman's stinking milk and throw it in the monk's mouth. What does that mean? Well, he means feeding his children. That's his self-deprecation. I'm ashamed of myself for feeding him this stuff, this poison. What he's saying is, even though I have the understanding, I'm still hesitant because I don't know how I can do this. I don't know if what I'm going to feed them is really... If I can express it. Yeah, if I can really express it to them. He doesn't want to make a mistake. He doesn't want to do what the other people have been doing. The reciprocal interpenetration of the apparent and the real, is that the same thing you're saying?

[46:39]

Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. No separation? No separation. That's right. All of you who wish to plumb this deep source must make the investigation in secret with your entire body. I don't think secret is the right word. I think it really means by yourself. All of you who wish to plumb this deep source must make the investigation by yourself with your entire body. My own toil has extended over these 30 years. Do not take this to be an easy task. Even if you should happen to break up the family and scatter the household, do not consider this enough. You must vow to pass through... I think that means to become a monk. You must vow to pass through seven or eight or even nine thickets of brambles.

[47:45]

And when you have passed through the thickets of brambles, do not consider this to be enough. Vow to investigate the secret teachings of the five ranks to the end." So he really pushes people. For the past eight or nine years or more, I have been trying to incite all of you who boil your daily gruel over the same fire with me to study this great matter thoroughly. But more often than not, you have taken it to be the doctrine of another house, the Soto school. and remained indifferent to it. Only a few among you have attained understanding of it. How deeply this grieves me. Have you never heard the gates of dharma are manifold? I vow to enter them all. How much more should this be true for the main principle of Buddhism and the essential road of zazen?" Zazen can be construed as either dokasana or zazen. Dogen uses the term sanzen in the Fukanzu Degi to mean zazen.

[48:56]

But in Rinzai school, it means dokusan. So here is the first teaching. The first teaching. Shouju Rojin has said, In order to provide a means whereby students might directly experience the Four Wisdoms, the patriarchs, in their compassion and with their skill, devised the expedients, first instituted the Five Ranks. What are the so-called Four Wisdoms? They are the Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom, the Universal Nature Wisdom, the Marvelous Observing Wisdom, and the Perfecting of Action Wisdom. This is something that I will present to you as how that relates to the five ranks.

[49:59]

Followers of the Way, even though you may have pursued your studies in the threefold learning, which is discipline or precepts, meditation and study, continuously through many kalpas, if you have not directly experienced the four wisdoms, you are not permitted to call yourselves children of Buddha. True children of Buddha. Followers of the Way, if your investigation has been correct and complete, at the moment you smash open the dark cave of the eighth or alaya consciousness, the precious light of the Great Mirror Wisdom incidentally shines forth. But strange to say, the light of the Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom is black, like lacquer. This is what is called the mark of the apparent within the real. Okay, so we've come to the first rank, the apparent within the real, but sometimes it's the two are reversed, the two first ones are reversed. So he's talking about, and then he talks about the alaya consciousness. So he's brought in three elements here, four elements.

[51:07]

One is the five ranks, the four wisdoms, and without saying so, the eight levels of consciousness, and which also, and added to this, are the three bodies, Dhammakaya, Sambhogaya, and Amogha. So all of these fit together or correspond to each other. So what I want to present to you is how these four categories all correspond to each other, and that's a little complex, but I'll have to lay it out for you. So that's what I'm about to do now. I just want to, I can do it without my

[52:09]

Not everybody can see the blackboard, but... Why don't we take a chair on the right? Is that okay? Yeah. Not everybody will be able to do this, but... There's a whole bunch of chairs in the middle here that are empty. We need the eraser in the chalk. Yeah, right here. Here's the eraser. Okay. Okay.

[53:33]

So over here, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So green is going to be black. Because these five circles represent the five ranks.

[54:39]

I thought I had the best seat in town. You have a sign that went back. But you got it there. It's all there. I mean, it's all in the book. It's all in the book. Then, he talks about the four wisdoms. I'll sit down after I do all this. So this is a mirror. These two. This one is equality. It really causes something else. And this is action.

[55:47]

Action. Activity. That's the highest. This is Dharmakaya. Sambhogakaya. And this is Sambhogakaya. So she is page 77. Okay, and this is nirmanakaya.

[56:50]

The third circle is sambhogakaya. Which two are sambhogakaya? Observing and universal. No, I'm wrong. Which two are nirmanakaya? So does your mind, because... Oh, the eight consciousnesses. We have... Oh, there are actually nine. alaya, mana, mano, jnana, and five senses.

[58:07]

Is that one going to catch him? Okay. A liar. Here. Now maybe, wait a minute. Oh. Here we have the five positions. And then we have the four wisdoms which correspond to Start to read. Could you just say what the word was?

[59:35]

Which word? Just read what you've written. Yeah. This is wisdom, mirror, equality, observing, and action. Those are five wisdoms. Four wisdoms. And the first two, both these are the mirror. Together. because they're just opposites. And dharmakaya corresponds to mirror wisdom, sambhogakaya corresponds to equality, And nirmanakaya are these observing, correspond to these two.

[60:42]

I'll explain that later. And amala is a chitta. Chitta? Chitta means... It's like dharmakaya. It's like consciousness which covers everything. Citta is used in different ways. Sometimes citta means something very specific, sometimes it means something very general, as far as consciousness goes. Sometimes it's used in a specific way, sometimes in a general way. But in a general way, it's like the ninth consciousness, which is dharmakaya. It corresponds to dharmakaya. Because Dharmakaya has no special shape or form. That's the big consciousness. The big consciousness divides itself into eight parts in order to form human beings. So you see Amala, and the Citta, and the Alaya, all basically one thing that correspond to the Dharmakaya?

[61:54]

Well, I just wrote it down. I'm not explaining it all now. I'm just kind of giving you some hints. So, Alaya corresponds to this. Manas corresponds to this. Madhna-Vijnana corresponds to this. And the five sense consciousness correspond to that. So these are correspondences. That's all I'm giving you now. I'm not explaining it. I'm really sorry, but I can't tell what you're saying this and that out. I understand. Could you say it on numbers? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5? We'll have something available that people can copy from. Yes. As a matter of fact, I do have a sheet that has this on it, but it's not Xerox. Could you just remind us, the five sense consciousnesses, there's a mind consciousness that corresponds to that.

[63:01]

Is that Mano? Yes, that's Mano. And Manas is the one that sometimes is referred to as ego? Yes. And Alaya is storehouse? That's right. Yes? I'm confused about the ninth consciousness. It doesn't really correspond to the wisdom, does it? No. This is like the source. So, it does not correspond to anything here. Directly. Amala is the background. In other words, Amala is like You can think of it in different ways. One way you can think of it is like the screen on which the movie is played. Suzuki Roshi gave this talk about how life is like a movie played out on the screen, the empty screen.

[64:10]

So without the screen, there's no movie. But when you look at the screen, there's nothing done in it. So you can't really describe the screen, because there's nothing to describe. But when you project a movie on the screen, then actually the screen is functioning and the movie is functioning. This is the inner penetration of form and emptiness. You can't have one without the other. But the other way of looking at Amala is that Amala is Dharmakaya. And Dharmakaya is the matrix of phenomena. Everything comes out of Dharmakaya. All the forms are forms of Dharmakaya, even though you can't describe Dharmakaya. So, Dharmakaya is characterized by Vairochana, the pure Dharmakaya Buddha, right?

[65:34]

Vairācana Buddha, pure Dharmakaya, which is same as Amala in a way. And pure means non-dual. In an introduction to Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, Suzuki Roshi says, People think that Zen is difficult, and it is, but it's not difficult because of the pain in your legs. It's difficult because it's hard to maintain the understanding of non-duality. the purity of nonduality. Pure means nondual. They don't understand what the meaning of pure practice is. Pure practice means nonduality. So that's kind of what we're studying.

[66:42]

The Aliyah and the Amalah go together, is that right? Aliyah? Is that what you... they go together? No, they are... from the German... No. German-Iranian era? Listen carefully. Okay. Amalah is not involved here. Got it. Okay. I think maybe pure practice is more like working without guilt, rather than working with guilt. Pure practice is not... There is no such thing. Pure practice means non-discrimination on the basis of ego. It's simply Buddhist practice. There's no such thing as non-duality. Well, non-duality means the oneness of the twoness, and the twoness of the oneness.

[67:54]

So if you only stick to two, that's delusion. If you only stick to subject and object, that's delusion. That's impure. So, two are one and one is two. So we say, not one, not two. Okay. So, This is the gist of what he's talking about. So you're familiar with dharmakaya and sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya, right? I'm familiar. Dharmakaya is your essential nature.

[69:03]

That's what dharmakaya is. Dharmakaya is your essential nature. And it's very personal to you. We think of Dharmakaya as the great sky out there. It's very personal to you. It's your essential nature. Sambhogakaya is your non-dual wisdom. Nirmanakaya is your presence right here in this body and mind as Buddha. Nirmanakaya is the Buddha who walks and talks. If you read the sutras, it looks like Dharmakaya is some big thing out there, and Nirmanakaya is the reward body, and Nirmanakaya is Buddha. But Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya are you.

[70:08]

If we don't see it as ourself, it's just a bunch of bologna. That's why people say, well, I read the sutras, you know, it's boring, or it's like I don't get it, or it's too hard, or, you know. The sutras are about you, not about, you know, some, but the way it's all presented, you know, it sometimes looks like it's about something out there. But it's really about you. All the koans are about you. Yes. How do you characterize Sambhogakaya? Which one? Sambhogakaya. Sambhogakaya is your wisdom. Your non-dual wisdom. Manjushri. Manjushri? You are Manjushri, yes. Manjushri is your non-dual wisdom. That's right. Samantabhadra is your shining practice. The shining practice Bodhisattva is what we used to say, and I can't believe that we've eliminated that in favor of great activity.

[71:17]

So pedestrian. the innumerable Shakyamuni Buddhas all over the world, is what we used to say originally. That's what the original says. The innumerable Shakyamuni Buddhas all over the world. That means you yourself are Shakyamuni Buddha. When your practice is Shakyamuni, you represent, or you know, you are the Shakyamuni Buddha. So it's all about you. All of that stuff is about you and your practice. That's why we say it. It kind of makes it hard to get rid of the ego. It's all about me. Well, I mean, it's all about your practice. So, when we look at the five ranks,

[72:25]

The first rank, according to Hakuin, is... Let's see the terms he uses. Well, it says, the rank of the real in the... The real and the seeming, no? The real and the... The apparent and the real, okay. So, the first rank is the apparent hidden within the real. There's a potential within the real, but the real, which is this black, is what's This is emptiness, right?

[73:34]

And the next one is the real hidden within the apparent. So this means, like, everything is ... this is the apparent right here. Everything is apparent, the light side. The light is shining on everything and reveals all of us. When the light goes out, it doesn't reveal us. So that's the first rank. The light is out. Everything is black, like lacquer. That's what we're talking about. The next rank is when you're in the kitchen chopping vegetables. Or sitting here, looking at this. So these are the two sides. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. That which is form is emptiness. That which is emptiness is form.

[74:36]

So these two balance each other. This is the two sides of how the apparent and the real inter-convert with each other. Sometimes one is apparent and sometimes the other is apparent. When we're sitting zazen, it's this one. When we're going to work, it's this one. That's why I have this arrow. because these two are connected. So when you look at the five flavored herbs, the five-pointed thunderbolt, it's written out like this. One, two, three, four, five, right? And these two are those two. And then you have

[75:37]

The coming from within the real. The coming from within the real. That's the third one. The black dot in the middle is the real. That's this one. Of the first two, either one by themselves would be ignorance or emptiness. That's right. And that's exactly what Hatha was talking about. But if you will talk about here. Although, form is form and emptiness is emptiness. Well, I'm kind of drawing a blank on all of this. If there's a, I mean on the first two, if there's a mirror, let's say the condition of the dual mirror.

[76:42]

This is to see a phenomenon within you. This is to see a phenomenon as not apart from you. This is to see things just the way it is. Without distortion. It's like two mirrors looking at each other. I can't see how that is dark. I can see how that is in the darkness. Darkness doesn't mean within the dark there is light, but don't see it as light. Within the light there is darkness, but don't take it as light.

[77:46]

So, just be patient, because in order to explain all that, It'll all become clear as we study, okay? I hope. But anyway, I don't want to go any further because otherwise, otherwise we'd get bogged down. So I don't want to get bogged down. I'm just presenting this as a layout. Now, and as we study it, it'll all start coming together. We haven't really started yet. So, it's 10.30. What do you think? Do you want to continue or do you want to go to Zazen? Well, let's go to Zazen.

[78:50]

Let's stop. And it'll be next time we just start with Hakuin's teaching. I know as a young student, I don't like to study much. I'm only kidding.

[79:18]

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