I have to taste the truth and then talk to the Spirits. Good morning. Last week, we had our seven-day Sashin. Can you hear? No, something's funny. No, not here. Is that better?

[01:07]

That's better? Better. Good enough? Okay, so last week we had our seven-day rohatsu seshin commemorating Buddhist enlightenment. And I talked about three things. I talked about faith, doubt, and enlightenment. And today I'm going to continue with some things that I think I didn't bring out. So I'm going to start off with a koan from the Book of Serenity. This is the fourth case in the Book of Serenity, this Book of 100 Koans.

[02:20]

I think a lot of people, a number of you, are familiar with this case. This is called The World Honored One Points to the Ground. And the introduction is, as soon as a single mote of dust arises, the whole earth is contained therein. With a single horse and a single lance, the land is extended. Who is this person who can be the master or mistress in any place and meet the source in everything? With a single mote of dust, the whole earth is contained. You know, you can't take a single mote of dust out of the universe.

[03:32]

You may think we can, but actually we can't. Everything is made of stardust and is ancient. But every single thing has a function in this universe. Even what we call chaos, which is just another kind of order that we don't understand, that doesn't fit into our idea of order. So as soon as a single mote of dust arises, the whole earth is contained. So if we really understand a speck of dust, we'll understand everything. If we understand what it means to eat oatmeal, we'll understand everything. With a single horse and a single lance, the land is extended.

[04:45]

It means the single mote of dust is getting down to the tiny thing, and extending with the horse and the lance means making things extended. So we have reduction and extension. So with a single horse and a single lance, the land is extended. Who is this person who can be master or mistress in any place and meet the source in everything? So how do we meet the source in everything? Master Uman says, the gateless gate, the gate of Zen is the gateless gate. Wherever you are, you can enter. There's no special gate. If you take every dust note to its source, you can be the master or mistress wherever you are.

[05:55]

So what is this source? As the World Honored One, this is the case, As the World Honored One was walking with the congregation, he pointed to the ground with his finger and said, this spot is good to build a sanctuary. Indra, the emperor of the gods, took a blade of grass, picked up a blade of grass, stuck it in the ground and said, the sanctuary is built. The World Honored One smiled. This is a little bit different than when Shakyamuni held up a flower and Mahakasyapa smiled. Here, Indra picks up a blade of grass and sticks it in the ground and Shakyamuni smiles. Simple action.

[07:00]

The sanctuary is built. So what is a sanctuary? A sanctuary is a place where we find, it's an unassailable place, I think. It's a place where nothing can disturb or enter. On the big island of Hawaii, there is a sanctuary, ancient sanctuary, where people who are being chased or criminals or whatever, if they entered the sanctuary, no one could touch them. Until they came out. So, what is a sanctuary? What is a sacred place? In the old days, There were various places that were considered safe or sanctuary.

[08:14]

Sometimes, in ancient India, people really had great respect for old things, like an old tree. Nobody knew how old it was. We have, of course, those trees in our mountains. as old cypresses that are thousands of years old and have seen all of civilization pass before it, all the wonders and follies of civilization. So people respect these things. And sometimes the tree would serve as a gathering place. We'll meet under the old tree and have a profound meeting because the old tree is our witness. And sometimes it would be a pillar. In ancient India, King Ashoka, who introduced, who kind of promoted Buddhism, one of the first king to promote Buddhism, had these pillars erected.

[09:28]

Many of them are still there. And they became a gathering place for people, a focal point. And, of course, a stupa. In India, people built stupas, and they put relics in the stupas. And sometimes they would put Of course, people are always claiming this is the relic of the Buddha, a bone, you know, a little bone of the Buddha. But they would also put sutras and various articles that they considered sacred would be put into the stupa. And then a practice was for people to circumambulate the stupa and chant, or just circumambulate the stupa and do whatever. So these are kind of sanctuaries. A monastery and a temple.

[10:29]

A temple is a sanctuary. A monastery is a sanctuary. Sometimes a field, a certain power spot, a mountain or a power spot. In the 50s, 60s, on the 60s, late 60s, when we were just getting started, We used to circumambulate Mount Tamalpais on Buddha's birthday. Gary Snyder and various other people would get together and we'd all go out in the morning, bring our lunch, and circumambulate Mount Tam and come to certain places and chant and offer incense. It was really nice. I don't know why we don't do that anymore, but I think maybe it's too primitive. We've become too sophisticated. Well, actually, it's still being done.

[11:30]

Yeah? Yeah. I'm an older man who's done it since that time at Pasajara, and the first interest that I have is this phone number. Good. Well, we'll bring that up later. And then, actually, any place can be a sacred place or a sanctuary. So we have these special places that people meet and share. But there's also the question of where is this place? What's at the center of this place? So, when we have a ordination, we say that we take refuge in the three treasures, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

[12:44]

So taking refuge means what? Finding a sanctuary. We find a sanctuary in Buddha, we find a sanctuary in Dharma, we find a sanctuary in Sangha. But actually, basically, we must find a sanctuary in ourself. So when we say refuge, that's okay, sanctuary, but also we say return. Now I return. That's another version, another way, and sometimes we say that. Now I return to Buddha. Now I return to Dharma. Now I return to Sangha. there's what's called the practice of recollection.

[13:51]

Recollection means to remember who we are, to remember where we come from, to remember what our basic life is about. Because it's easy to when we're quite young and young children, we have a basic faith in life. And as we get older, we start expressing doubt. And it's easy for doubt to take over. And then at some point we come back to our true self. So this is called straying. This is exemplified by the story of the prodigal son in the Lotus Sutra.

[14:54]

This is a very famous story from the Lotus Sutra of the prodigal son, which also appears in the Bible. They're a little different, but basically they're not so different. The prodigal son has everything he needs, and his father is a very wealthy man, wealthy, powerful man. And the son, of course, has everything he needs, but he doesn't know this. gets bored, and leaves, and wanders around, and goes through all kinds of adventures. But in the end, he's left without anything. And then he winds up coming to his father's place, and his father recognizes him. He's in rags by this time.

[15:56]

Father recognizes him, but he doesn't say anything. and he sends three of his servants to tell the young man that he's welcome here and that if he wants a job, he'll hire him. So the son says, okay, and he puts him to work in the stables. And then little by little, he works his way up until he has some confidence in himself. And Ken feels he's really very close to his father, but he doesn't know that it's his father. And then at some point his father reveals himself. He says, well, you know, I'm your father and all this is yours. Goodbye. So this is his inheritance, right?

[16:59]

His true inheritance is the place that was always his own. It's always his, but he didn't know that and he left. So this is like the story of how we forget who we are and then at some point we have some guidance from the Buddha and we find our true home again. And so it's not like we've gone someplace and gain something is simply that we've found our return to our true nature. We turn to our, and found our real treasure. So, this is called, now I return to Buddha, now I return to Dharma, now I return to Sangha. So we enter through faith. When we have the ordination ceremony, we say,

[18:03]

in faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's realm. So it's not like there's some Buddha outside of ourself. Returning to Buddha means reclaiming our true treasure, which is our true self. Returning to Dharma means that we have all that we need to understand inside. And what we learn from outside is simply to stimulate what we already know. This is called education. Education means to bring forth. although we often think of it as stuffing information into our head, but actually it means to bring forth what we already know, what is already our true understanding. I remember Suzuki Roshi, when he was giving this talk on Uman's everyone has their own light, at the end he says, in his comment, he says, before I say anything, you already know all about it already.

[19:22]

So taking refuge in Sangha is to take refuge in ourself and to return to our true self. Because each one of us is Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. We tend to think of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as something outside of ourself. But actually, you are Buddha, you are Dharma, you are Sangha. So these are three aspects of each one of us. the law or the dharma is already within us. The Buddha is our true self, our true nature. So when we say Buddha, it's not some anthropomorphic being, but our nature. We each have Buddha nature. And Buddha nature is basically enlightenment. So we don't strive for enlightenment. Enlightenment is what stimulates us to practice.

[20:29]

Enlightenment is what brings us back to our true nature. Enlightenment is what leads us to practice. So we say, to have the thought of enlightenment, to raise the thought of enlightenment. When we raise the thought of enlightenment, that thought leads us to practice, because it's something that we already have. So we don't find, get enlightenment, we proceed from enlightenment. Enlightenment is the basis. Enlightenment is the ground from which our practice springs. there is enlightenment, and then there's great enlightenment. So, enlightenment is our basic nature, but it has to be stimulated in order to come forth.

[21:34]

So, we may be practicing without understanding enlightenment at all, which is okay. Because enlightenment and realization are not exactly the same. Realization is understanding or realizing the enlightenment. So we can practice within enlightenment without having realization. Realization is like, oh, I get it. Then Great Enlightenment is another stage of enlightenment and another stage of enlightenment. So one becomes more and more secure or more and more, our faith becomes deeper and deeper as enlightenment becomes more fully realized.

[22:49]

So when we say to have a satori experience or something like that, it means Within the enlightenment that is already there, there's more of an opening, more of an understanding. So, as Suzuki Roshi said, we should have an enlightenment experience moment to moment. If we can have an enlightenment experience moment to moment, it means that you're entering on each moment. When you say, I'm wasting my time, or someday it will be, that's wasting your time. You think there's something more than this. I feel so sad, I had hurts all over. You think there's something better than that. That's why we don't feel enlightened. We think there's something better than our rotten life. So because we think there's something better, we think this is worse.

[23:57]

Better and worse are just subject to each other. They create each other. So a practice place is like an outer sanctuary, so to speak. Sometimes people come through the gate and they say, oh, feels so good to come in the gate, you know, feels so wonderful to be in this sanctuary, this little oasis in the midst of everything. But that's the outer sanctuary. The inner sanctuary is our self. Actually, when we say we take refuge in Buddha, it means we take refuge in our self. There's no Buddha outside of ourself. And each one of us is the Buddha. This is the Sangha. The Sangha is, each one is Buddha, and there's only one Buddha.

[25:02]

There are infinite Buddhas, but the infinite Buddhas are all aspects of one Buddha. Myriad faces of one Buddha. This is the mystery of the one and the many. Is it one or is it many? So, yes, each one is independent. And at the same time, each one is just one. So, we proceed from enlightenment, enlightened activity, to express this enlightenment in our life.

[26:45]

We all make mistakes. We all make an effort. The effort is not to get enlightened. The effort is to bring forth our nature. In Zazen, we don't sit to be Buddha or get enlightened because we are already. We don't need to do that. But we need to make an effort in practice for the sake of practice. What is practice? practice is acting our true self in the world. So we have Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, the three treasures, which is our true self, and then we have the pure precepts to do good, to not do evil, and to work for the benefit of all beings.

[27:52]

So this is how we respond as our practice. That's what we do in order to express enlightenment. And then we have the ten clear mind precepts. Not to kill, but to cherish life and to promote life and so forth. But we always have this question, question of, if I take refuge in myself, what is this self that I'm taking refuge in? That's a big question. Because we want to take refuge in something that is unassailable. A sanctuary. But this sanctuary, you know, when we talk about how to feel at ease in this world, people invent many scenarios.

[29:15]

Usually we say, people say, well, in order to feel safe in this world. We really have to wait until we get into the next world, which is called heaven. Heaven or hell? Heaven and hell are places in this world. We can make this world heaven or hell, but if you go to heaven in this world, there's still hell. So be very careful because hell creates heaven and heaven creates hell because these are two polarities and polarities create each other. So how do we eliminate these polarities? But if we do that, we have nothing.

[30:18]

So we take refuge in nothing, but nothing has an opposite called everything. So actually, we take refuge in everything. So how do we do that? Everything is moving. As soon as you put your hand on something, it changes. Everything we put our hand on turns to dust at some point. So we have to take refuge in change because change is the only thing that works. There is momentary existence and then there's change. And the flow of change is where we find our refuge because change is me.

[31:23]

Everything is dependent on everything else. There's nothing that's not dependent. If you take one speck of dust out of the universe, it'll collapse. So, where do we take our refuge? In this continual change, to allow ourselves to change, to allow ourselves to transform. So then we say the whole universe is the true human being. We just identify with staying in our place, then that's called suffering. Release is to flow with the change. Sometimes we don't know how this change will work. It doesn't matter, because there it is. There's no one or no thing in this world that will keep its place.

[32:34]

So we take refuge in nothing particular, but accepting all the changes. We have some ability to guide the transformations, So we rise out of this earth and we go back into this earth. Suzuki Roshi and also Thich Nhat Hanh both say the reason we're here is because we have always been here. something can appear that isn't already here. It's a strange thing to say, but if you think about it, because we have always been here, we are here.

[33:41]

But we need to have some catalyst to make us appear. when the right time to appear, when the right conditions are there for us to appear, then we appear. And when those conditions are no longer there, we disappear. But we're always here. We're always, you can't get lost. The only thing we can lose is what we think that we have. But if we have nothing, we lose nothing. We can only be born and die if we think about birth and death as something real. There's just transformation.

[34:44]

This is to take refuge in Buddha, take refuge in Dharma, take refuge in Sangha, to return to our true nature, Everyone who's ever appeared on this earth appeared and is no longer here in that form. But everyone is here. Everything is here in some way. We don't know all the beings that we contain within us. So when we have, we all look for faith in something. We look for faith in material things, but it doesn't work.

[35:47]

We look for faith in heaven, doesn't work. We look for faith in stability, doesn't work. Stability comes from inside. I remember Suzuki Hiroshi saying, when I first started to practice, we are protected from within. Interesting statement. It's kind of like having an inner gyroscope that no matter how rocky the sea, it just stays level, which is called zazen. So our life proceeds from zazen. And in zazen, there really is no coming or going. It's not still and it's not moving, even though it feels still and it feels moving.

[36:57]

We have to find our stability within the chaos, within the movement. So zazen is the perfect balance between stillness and movement. So in order to practice, we have to have faith. And our faith becomes more confident as we come to understand what we're doing. And even though we don't think that we have faith, we have it, we may not know what to call it. Do you have any questions?

[38:16]

Yeah, Charlie? What are we to make of the appearance of Indra in the story? Well, according to Buddhist mythology, Indra is the ruler, I guess, of the pantheon, the Brahman pantheon. And so, Buddhism, you know, includes all of the deities, but the deities serve the Buddha. So since Indra is such a high-ranking deity, Indra is respected and it's like two companions walking together.

[39:37]

I'm sure that you have more historical Just to give a more unidealistic view of the answer to that question, it's a case of religious imperialism. Religious what? Religious imperialism. Yeah, religious imperialism. But it happened both ways. So that, you know, one big religion wants to show that it encompasses the other competing big religions, so they take the king of the gods of the Brahmins, some may say, he's really a disciple of the Buddha. But the Hindus did the same thing. And they said, oh, that Buddha, he was only the ninth avatar of Vishnu. He was a pretty shady one, too. So that happens in religion all over the world. I don't know if he's a disciple of the Buddha.

[40:45]

Well, he's a buddy. He's a buddy, yes. But Buddha's in charge. I don't deny what you say. Now the question. Well, you say that better and worse is a delusion. What kind of delusion? Better or worse life? Well, I didn't say it used the word delusion, but better and worse create each other. I mean, yeah, better and worse create each other. Well, would you say the same about greater and lesser enlightenment? Could be. Yeah, I think they do create each other.

[41:51]

I don't believe there's any greater or lesser enlightenment. That's fine. There is no greater or lesser enlightenment. That's true. And at the same time, there's unexamined enlightenment, or enlightenment that is not revealed. One doesn't even know that that is, and then there's a great enlightenment which leads to greater understanding. Even though it's all the same enlightenment, It's not that there are two enlightenments.

[42:56]

Thank you.

[43:14]

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