Good evening, everybody. Welcome. So tonight we're going to focus on the first three sections of the Sandokai. But first, I wanted to go back a little bit more over the ancestral lineage, because I find it very interesting whenever I study a new text from one of the ancestors. And I wanted to point out that a good thing to do when you're studying, if you haven't done a lot of studying with these things, is to actually go to the introductory section where they often have both practitioners and academics or academic practitioners give background. And it's always very helpful to me. to have that background because you don't necessarily find it.

[01:05]

So in the Sandokai, Michael Wanger did an introduction to, did an introduction and commentary. And he said, not much was known about Sekito's life. The first recorded event is an encounter of 12. with the sixth ancestor Weining in Chinese and Daikon Eno in Japanese who lived in the eighth century. When the precious youth approached, he said, Daikon Eno said, if you become my, you will start to look like ugly like me. Sekito said, fine. He stayed with Daikon Eno for two years. until the master died. And then for the next 15 years, he practiced alone, after which he studied Daikan Eno's disciple Seigen Gyoshi.

[02:12]

So in 742, after Seigen Gyoshi's death, on a large stone at Mount Heng in what is now Hunan province. His name Sekito means stone head. Interesting when you start looking at his dialogues with other people. So Doge Master Sekito did Zazen on a large rock where he had a thatched hut. He sat continuously without sleeping day and night. So I wanted to introduce you to another text that Sojin used to love called The Transmission of the Light. This one is translated by Thomas Cleary.

[03:19]

And Thomas Cleary gives the Enlightenment stories of all of the great ancestors. And the reason I think it's important to look at that today is because it was after his Enlightenment that he, right after his Enlightenment that he wrote . So this is Thomas Cleary's And it's not very straightforward, so you may find it frustrating. Shito Kadukisen called on Master Sagan Gyoshi, who asked him, where have you come from? Shito said, from Kauki, where Zen Master Wei Ning taught.

[04:23]

Sagan Gyoshi held up a whisk and said, is there Kauki? Chito said, not only not at Kauki, not even in India. Sagan Gyoshi said, you haven't been to India, have you? Chito said, if I had, it would be there. Sagan Gyoshi said, that's not enough, say more. Chito said, I don't decline to speak to you, but I'm afraid later on, you will not get it. Shitu said, is it not that they won't get it, but no one can say it. Sagan hit Shito with a whisk, whereupon Shito experienced a great enlightenment. So there's a history of this.

[05:23]

In ancient as well as recent times, I've held up a whisk. to show a clue or introduction to initiate action, to make people abandon sidetracks or to give people immediate direction. Sagan Yoshi also did this as a test, but she too hadn't yet understood what Sagan was calling this and still fixed his eyes on the raising of the whisk saying not only at Kalki, not even in India. So what we can see is that Chitu was a little full of himself. I mean, he went to a famous teacher and he said, you know, I don't think

[06:28]

Maybe you need to tell me something a little bit more in some other way. He was really having a hard time getting past and all of the factual information. And only when he got the whisk whacked at him Did he wake up and leave him and let go of himself and be able to let go of his fixed ideas and let. Of just. Having face to face transmission. Being with being warm hand to warm hand transmission. And. And then he could let go of himself. ideas of what this was what what is it what is this is it the whisk is it the words it is an is it an idea it is that is it a practice it's just this just this just this moment of transmission so audience was very very striking for him

[07:50]

So. So really, as I say, it feels it feels interesting. Learn about second to him as a child. He was really a child at 12. Then he goes and he goes with a great sixth ancestor. Then he goes sits on a rock in a hut for 15 years. He was. He doesn't seem like he is the quickly enlightened person. We talk later on about people who are fast and people are slow or people who can quick enlightenment versus gradual enlightenment. Well, it seems like 15 years was pretty gradual. So I think that it's interesting that his own life, his own biography showed that he was, although he, his first teacher, Wei Ning, as being a sharp, dedicated person who he wanted to invest in energy in, it took him, he also took his time sitting every day for 15 minutes

[09:26]

We don't know exactly, but it seems like that's the case. So it's interesting to look at him as our own case study, as our own case study in the gradual versus the sudden. Could take many, many years. And yet the awakening is still wonderful. or the other way, we'll talk about that a little bit more later. So the first talk, the first line or the first talk says that is on the mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted from west to east. I want to return to repeat. talked to us about before we start talking about this.

[10:30]

She translated that san means many, do means sameness or oneness. And what this basically the mind of the great sage of India is great mind or big mind. To completely understand the relationship between one great whole being and the many facets of the great whole being is Kai. To perceive this reality is to see things as they are or reality as it is with all of its aspects. I also talk of perceiving the ultimate reality as suchness. So things as it is or suchness is seeing reality in all of its complexity, in all of its comings and goings. I'm gonna use some descriptions that Suzuki Roshi talked about in terms of examples.

[11:46]

He talked about actually not. We talked about experiences where we are perceiving ourselves or we're perceiving reality. And noticing that we have certain responses to what we see when we name something. We have responses, we have preferences. When we smell something, it smells good or not.

[12:52]

And we have concrete ideas. that this thing tastes good and I like this. This is good. This thing tastes bad. I don't like it. That's bad. So we have a lot of experiences when we perceive, when we're not using our big mind, get caught in differences and opinions and likes and dislikes. putting things in boxes and making them separate and not making them part of a whole big picture, not being able to absorb the whole picture. Thinking of the particularity rather than the sameness.

[13:55]

One example given by Shohaku in his, was a hand. Sojin used to do that, he used to think about bodies. He said, if I hold up my hand, you'll see, you might see it as a hand. And yet you can also see it as five fingers, fingers, and there is no hand beyond those fingers. Five fingers and one hand are the same two aspects of one reality. With each hand, each finger is different and even has a different name. The Japanese name, we have index finger, thumb, whatever, middle finger. The Japanese have a very particular name for each finger. So, but

[15:02]

The fingers are part of the hand. They don't exist. So the hand is made up of all these particle parts. And so is our body. So our whole body is parts, each of which have particular characteristics and functions and are necessary and have to be paid attention to. See them as separate from the body. They're not separate. They're part of. They're an integral part of. They come and they change. They're not solid. So we can't ever know for sure what the characteristics are because the characteristics are changing from day to day. And they all have something else to do with each other. They're all interdependent. influencing each other.

[16:03]

So big mind, and when we are looking at big mind, we are looking at all of the aspects of our body-mind, all of them, and trying to be as aware and open to them as we can. So when we said awareness, we smell, we We may taste, we hear, we can touch, we feel hot, we feel cold. We're sitting all of that. We hear sirens. We hear people yelling at each other. Except that, that suchness is that this is just, this is it. This is it. And it differs from moment to moment. This is it. This is it, this is it. But you can't separate these things out as separate parts or you miss the whole.

[17:13]

I remember actually, when I was reading this, as most of you know, I was a physician and I taught medical students for many years. Medical students are indefinitely being taught So we have extensive medical histories and exams and so forth. But often somebody comes in with a particular thing. And so we talk to the person about the things that they. And and we try to sort through it. We ask the questions, you know, where does it hurt? What is it? You know, how long has it been going? Whatever. But can be a trap in doing that is that you get caught on the particular complaint. And so you don't necessarily see the whole picture.

[18:21]

And I had some very interesting experiences because I have several dramatic experiences. People came in. We walked into a room and the man was having stomach problems and vomiting and a whole intestinal problem. And so the medical students came in one by one. They asked very nicely. They didn't notice that the patient was jaundiced, that his eyes were yellow. The person had hepatitis. And they were asking about digestive system issues. And there was another time when a person came in with some chest pain or whatever. And the person was a dwarf.

[19:24]

And none of them... was a dwarf. They just saw, they just kept on asking questions about his chest pain. So it's kind of like that. It's like if you don't take in the big picture, if you don't take in the big picture, you can take in all of it. So when we, again, when we have our own observations, of our mind, for example, we can get caught on a particular aspect of our mind, a particular feeling, a particular opinion. We can go off of getting into that that place and and get caught in lost in that conceptual opinion or construction and not ever be actually present. with the full me, with the full mind.

[20:29]

So I think that's really the heart of this, is really how do we work with ourselves? How do we practice? What is our zazen? Which is the whole aim, able to be moment to moment taking in as broad a field as we can. And then we will begin to see maybe, we begin to notice some associations, we'll begin to notice things. But we don't get lost, but caught in opinions. I was talking... talking to people at Wednesday night group, we were talking about the six realms of existence last night. And we were talking about how we, the six realms of existence every day, multiple times.

[21:31]

And everybody started talking about their, you know, their catch points, their stuff points where they, they hated people at the supermarket who blocked aisles. And it was a, Whenever they went, they hated to go to Monterey Market because everybody at Monterey Market blocked the lanes. And some people didn't like Berkeley Bowl because they didn't like that they couldn't pay with cash or something like that. They had all these things that day-to-day stuff points where they were caught. They couldn't let go. And they were caught in repetitive patterns. So I thought maybe that's one of the things we could go into a small group about and think about how have you either noticed, not noticed, or dealt with these habitual patterns that keep you from seeing things as it is.

[22:44]

So can we do that? We can. Do we want to elaborate the prompt a little bit? I think we can take turns. We can take a little time to think, you know, to reflect. Okay. And take turns, and not everybody has to contribute if they don't have a particular thing. Not breaking into groups right now, but general conversation. All together. Meaning you're not asking me to do breakout rooms right now. Well, we can do it both ways. Are you saying that we'll do breakout rooms and have this conversation in small groups? Yes. That's what I thought. So do we want to break into?

[23:51]

We're already kind of a small group. Yeah, we're already a small group. Are they blocking us? Are they silencing us? They can mute us if they want to mute us. This is going to take me a little bit of time. Hold on. get this to go.

[25:03]

Allison, there's a prompt to join. It says you're not joined. Oh, you were the wrong person, right in the wrong place. You didn't get a signed dummy. So let's... I don't know how to have you not... So maybe you can turn the sound off on, I'm talking to the room now, and then Allison and Catherine and I can talk. Okay.

[26:16]

Okay. We tried to do that, Mary, and it didn't work. She can't hear Allison. Take the volume all the way down if we can't hear. Oh, yeah, you can just turn the volume down. I tried that on the shooter, and it didn't. Okay, Allison, here we are. And for some reason, Catherine... I think she joined another room. Sorry about the clumsiness of that. Hi, my name is Mary. Hi. So, I guess the prompt is, how do we deal with our habitual patterns of perception? And I think that it sounds like Jerry's example was pet peeves as one.

[27:17]

I guess that's one. But I don't know what comes to mind for you. I'm trying to. Maybe this is one. It's hard to focus on seeing everybody else moving. Yeah. I don't know how to bring them on. Yeah. I mean, two thoughts came to mind. I've lived at Tassajara for three years. In the most recent time that I was there, I was in the kitchen. Yeah. That's, I think, a particularly fruitful place to explore habits and also have the opportunity to experience flow.

[28:20]

And flow could get interrupted for me and for other people was with interpersonal which I think that's like common knowledge about being in the kitchen, if you've been in the kitchen. But one in particular situation there that was interesting had to do with one person that we perceived, she was new to Tassajara. And she was new to the culture of how we do things there and also exhibited signs of being highly judgmental. And so there are things that she did in the flow that became very hard to speak to because it would escalate.

[29:37]

It would escalate. The dynamics. And so the habit pattern there that I experienced, it probably was a habit pattern, was in not essentially calling her on what she was doing and, like, interrupting it. And I was the Fucatan. So that was part of, you know, part of the role is to... with those dynamics. And at the same time, I, you know, held the way I held it was that you do that with kindness. One does that with kindness. That does not have to be action that's cruel or full of scolding. Yeah. So in any case, Interestingly, like the place that I think it was a habit pattern because then I was talking with Rob Anderson about this and I sunk in talking about this person, you know, like it just was like kind of like I was in a mind fog of like she's doing this and she's doing that, you know, and then he interrupted me and he's like, excuse me.

[31:01]

And he just did the whack, you know, like it was so. It woke me up out of this dilemma that actually several of us in the kitchen who were in leadership roles found ourselves not really knowing exactly what to do. It's really hard. Yeah, and so that was very helpful when Reb did that because it helped me to see... the ways in which the mind reels were going for me to... Yep. So that's one example. It's a great one. Comes to mind. Yeah, it's a really good one. Yeah. I mean, I think that's Sangha Life. I think it's less intense in the non-residential version that we do, but it exists.

[32:05]

in the same get up one's nose. And I think the advantage from my perception of what it's like to be a Tosahara is that it's not really possible to escape. You can't really try to avoid. The avoidant paths are cut off. in a way, because of the frequency and continuous contact. And so we have this form of things festering or not being able to figure out or them going on for a long time between people and people acquiring. I mean, I think in my own working with myself, it's been important to figure out

[33:06]

fixed views of people, like so-and-so is like this and they're going to be doing like this and having these anticipatory responses. Or even viscerally, when I come into some sort of proximity with a person, I could feel my own body changing in almost subtle ways and going into a watchful mindset. about what was going to happen that was actually being fed by my past experiences as opposed to coming in. Are you asking us to come back? Bring it, bring it, yeah. Okay, let me see if I can do that. Nice talking to you. Yeah, thank you. May take a minute for people to close off.

[34:30]

They get 60 seconds to wrap up. Sure. In the Zoom world. It's funny. Yeah, USB speaker. I'm excited. I assume so. All right. Yeah, I hope it is. We could have turned that on. Looks like people are coming back. Now we got a solution for next time. Are we all back? No. Are we fully present? No, we have 17 people. One more. There we go. Okay. Again, some folks. So we'll move on to the second topic. to warm hand. The second talk deals with a longer version of the first.

[35:37]

The mind of the great sage of India is inevitably transmitted from west to east. While human faculties are sharp or has no northern or southern ancestors. Suzuki Roshi starts off by pointing out that Sagan Gyoshi chose Sekito over a great scholar that was also studying with him to receive permission first, even though Sekito had little formal information and spent his time pounding rice in the corner of the temple. He goes on to suggest that there is no difference in value between between the schools of sudden enlightenment and the school with gradual approach. Sojin talked about how we can experience both of these, they come together.

[36:42]

There is no there there. Suzuki says, to be different is to have value. In this sense, each thing has value and thus is equal to everything else. All things have equal absolute value. He mentions the fact that morality, morality is transient and certainly an impermanent and certainly science and philosophy are impermanent. And also we're always changing over time as causes and conditions change. So what is skillful and wholesome at one point can be unwholesome. Another point in a different circumstances. So. Getting back to. So so the northern and the southern schools. So the sharp.

[37:43]

So the sharp or dull. He reminds. And South groups made judgments over which had which had greater wisdom or understanding. Suzuki Roshi brings up. that he was not so sharp. He said, I was not so sharp. In fact, his teacher nicknamed him, of course, famously crooked cucumber. He suggests for both of these. A slow learner takes time and painful effort to master the Dharma. But the sharper ones who quickly learn it, quickly forget it. Sojin always referred to the four types of horses, and Sojin Roshi, Sojin, Suzuki Roshi did too. The first horse gallops at the first sign of a whip, the second when the whip touches his hair, the third when the whip touches his skin, and the fourth when the whip penetrates its bones. Which one are you?

[38:48]

He said that he and Suzuki agreed that the fourth type often became the best practitioners. So. This issue of. As being a marker of smart or dull, you know, that that it's or of one one type of one type of practice is more and more is better than another. For for various reasons. Doesn't make any sense in this context that. Practices are the practices, how we do them, how we do them, when we do them, when we change them, what circumstances are according to situation.

[39:51]

They're according to our own internal situation, what we can do, what we're capable of doing, our mental capacity, our knowledge base. And they're also, they're all just we're exposed to. So any of these practices are as good as the other, basically, is what he's saying. And so there is no what is sharp and what is dull. What horse is the best horse? Is it the best horse who just gets it right away? anticipates the right thing to do, is that better? So the other thing that Suzuki Roshi starts to point out here is that really, if everyone has the ability to awaken, it doesn't matter how they get there.

[41:03]

We all have the ability to awaken and do it whatever way we want and experiment. So he talks about the concept of potentiality. All beings have the potential for awakening. And he says what we do is we get stuck on time. Time and thinking that the smarter people wake up faster. that's best because it means we're smarter and we're capable and we do the practice better. We give up the whole idea of time. We can be generous to ourselves. We can let ourselves go at our own pace in a natural way. I mean, certainly Sekito evolved over a very long time. And even in his life before. So the idea is, If we can allow ourselves to let go of time and let go of time as a value, fast is better than slow.

[42:13]

If we can let go of that, then we are generous with ourselves. And if we're generous to ourselves, we're much more likely to be understanding and generous with it. So we need to look at some specific circumstances. When you study hard, what you receive from your teacher is the spirit of study that is transmitted warm hand to warm hand. You should just do it. That's all, he says. There is no to you, just a path to work with. So there's nothing to get. Basically, there isn't anything to get. I get it. or I had another Ken show, good for me. That isn't a value. You had another moment of, that doesn't have any value. If it's just moment to moment, being aware, being aware, moment to moment, not judging.

[43:18]

I think I want to stop there, actually, and have us look at how, what kind of horse we might be. And what have we observed in our own introspection, in our own observations during Zazen. Have we observed that allows us to open? How do we find that we drop body-mind? When does that happen? When is it? What are the circumstances? What's the path? What's the practice? that suits us and what are our hindrances for that?

[44:59]

Recognizing our potentiality. So maybe we can discuss that. In small groups or altogether? Well, We can, I think, maybe because we'll run out of time, maybe we should do it together. Either way, there'll be fewer people to talk about it if they're a small group or we can hear from everybody as a large group. Well, I think maybe we can hear from a few people in a large group. I think let's go into group again and look at are we sharp or dull? How do we see ourselves, sharp or dull? What are hindrances to opening to the practice without judgment?

[46:20]

If somebody knows Zoom better than I do, how do I exclude the room, the community room, from the breakout assignments? You got an idea about that? That was my trouble before. Silence. Okay, I'm just going to do it, and we'll see what happens. Let me know if it works. Here we go. We have our little group. Can you make group three larger? It's just me and Juana. There we go. In the community room, we'll have to do that because I don't know how to exclude you as part of the members of the group.

[47:34]

Do you understand? So you need to turn your volume down. I think the way to do it is you make another room and you put me in it and then you put yourself in it. Making another room is a thing that I was having trouble with.

[47:51]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_94.34