Yesterday I talked about Icho, the case of Zen Master Hogen and Icho. And Icho asked Master Hogan, what is Buddha? And Master Hogan said, you are H.O. I want to read the Ingo's introduction again and point out some things in his introduction. As you remember, he said, This is a little different translation.

[01:05]

This is Tom Cleary's translation. The thousand sages have not transmitted the single word before sound. If you have never seen it personally, it's as if you were worlds away. Even if you discern it before sound and cut off the tongues of everyone in the world, you are still not a sharp person. Therefore it is said, the sky cannot cover it, the earth can't cover it, support it, empty space can't contain it, sun and moon can't illuminate. Where there is no Buddha and you alone are called the World Honored One, for the first time you amounted to something. Otherwise, if you are not yet this way, penetrate through on the tip of a hair and release the great shining illumination then in all directions you will be independent and free in the midst of phenomena.

[02:06]

Whatever you pick up, there is nothing that's not it. But tell me, what is attained that is so extraordinary? Does everyone understand? No one knows about the sweating horses of the past. They only want to emphasize the achievement that crowns the age. Leaving this matter aside for the moment, What about Shui Tu's public case?" And then he... Shui Tu presents the case. But there's an interesting passage here in the introduction where Engo says, where there is no Buddha and you alone are called the Honored One, for the first time you've amounted to something. Otherwise, if you are not this way, penetrate through on the tip of a hair and release the great shining illumination.

[03:11]

Then, in all directions, you will be independent and free in the midst of phenomena. How do we penetrate through on the tip of a hair? what is penetrating through, and what is the tip of the hair, and penetrating through to what? There's a saying, something like, seeing a trillion Buddhas on the head of a pin, How can you see a trillion Buddhas on the head of a pin? Standing on the head of a pin? Or on the tip of a hair?

[04:21]

How can you realize completely your true self in every activity. As I said yesterday, this is the gateless gate. Zen is the gateless gate. Where is the gate? Where is the entrance? Where is the entrance to reality, to our deepest nature? How do we discover that and how do we maintain it? Joshu Sasakiroshi used to say, Buddha is the center of gravity.

[05:46]

He used this term when he was talking about Hyakujo and the fox. Buddha is the center of gravity. He said in the old days, in Buddha's time, science was not so developed. So they didn't... there wasn't a term for gravity. So Buddha used the term Buddha nature. But you can also use the word gravity. It's not something that you can see or take hold of or grasp, but it's constantly there, and everything is affected by it. Everything takes its place in this world with respect to gravity.

[06:56]

Our whole life in this world is conditioned by gravity. Everything we do in this world takes into consideration gravity or Buddha nature. Just sitting still, just sitting in zazen is dealing with gravity. Moment to moment, what we're doing in all of our activities is basically dealing with gravity. We develop our... our physical body is developed through gravity. We jump and run and play and sit and interact all with gravity.

[08:04]

in respect to this gravity, that which pulls everything. And in a sense, when we reach the center of gravity, we all stand in the same spot. All of us stand on the head of a pin together, The other fact is that nothing stands alone. Nothing stands by itself.

[09:08]

And each thing is composed of different elements that interact with each other. And in order for myself to exist, myself exists because of all of the things around it, or because of all of the things around me. Without all of the things around me, I don't exist. So, this is a deep, profound fact which is played out in the utmost simplicity of our life. So, what I do creates the world, and what the world does creates me.

[10:21]

The world and myself create each other, We're both one world. We're both sitting, everything in the universe is sitting on the same center. And we keep continually creating new forms. New forms of the one big mind. called Buddha nature or the center of gravity or whatever. So our real work is to find and maintain ourself within Buddha nature.

[11:30]

within the center of gravity. When we find the center of gravity within ourself, then we're connected to all beings and all created things. So even though there's no particular purpose in zazen, no goal in zazen, there's still some reason why we sit. Often I ask people, when somebody comes to dokusan, often I say, Where is your breath? Where do you breathe from?

[12:32]

And often people say, well, I think my breath is here, or I think it's here. But if you think that it's here or there, it means you don't know where your breath is. Zen students should always know exactly where your breath is at any moment. The task, actually, of a Zen student is to always find your breath, to always find your center of gravity, to always find a source of Buddha nature, to be immersed in a source of Buddha nature. You can forget everything else, but you should remember that.

[13:39]

I'm not saying you should forget everything else, but this is the most important thing. This is the entrance. When, you know, this body, we say, my body, my mind, But actually, we say it as if it belongs to something, to somebody. Like we say, this is my car, or this is my money. But, this is my body, this is my mind. But actually, this body and mind does not belong to anybody. It doesn't belong to ourself, to me. It's just something that comes and goes. And when it goes, When it's here, we say, it's mine.

[14:45]

But when it goes, what happens? Where will we find ourself? Where is the place that doesn't come or go? Even the breath will stop. But at the center of this body-mind, the center of this body-mind is the center of

[15:47]

this universe. When we reach that center, then we can live this life under any circumstances, because we know what our true life is. Yesterday I talked about the four wisdoms. The great mirror wisdom, which sees everything just as it is. And the great quality wisdom, with which we see everything as exactly the same quality. The eye, which sees everything with the same quality. The absolute sense of things. nothing is different, essentially.

[16:52]

And then there's the wisdom of subtle observation. And this wisdom of subtle observation is where we actually live our life with things. To see realize that everything that we see and interact with is a different manifestation of ourself. Just a different manifestation of ourself. We say this, we look at things as objects, and they do have an objective quality, but they're just different manifestations of ourself. So, when we treat things badly, We're actually treating ourself badly, but we don't always know that. When we steal, we're just stealing from ourself, but we don't know that.

[18:05]

When we're enraged, we're just enraged at ourself, but we don't know that. Master Dogen says, there's a boat and we enter the boat and we pull up the sail and we take hold of the tiller. But the boat only becomes a boat when we step into the boat. It only becomes a boat when we pull up the sail. It only becomes a boat when we take hold of the tiller. And when we hoist the sail and take hold of the tiller, the boat becomes the boat. I become myself. The boat becomes me, and I become the boat.

[19:13]

The boat makes me, and I make the boat. The same is true of any activity. Whatever activity I confront creates me. We may say, a painter may say, I just made a wonderful painting. We always speak from the point of view of ourself. But actually, he could just as easily say, this painting has just made me. This painting and I have just created each other. So, it's important to go behind the facade and peek out through the eyes from the other side.

[20:22]

It's hard to see ourself that way. So we look in the mirrors, but everything is a mirror. Mirror is not just a pane of glass or a clear lake, but a broken tile is a mirror. The pillar is a mirror. The altar is a mirror. When I come into the zendo, the cheat-ins always laugh at me or get angry at me or something because I always put the incense bowl over a little bit or adjust the scroll or I'm always moving these around a little bit because when I come in I always want to align everything together. And if it's a little bit off, I notice it.

[21:34]

And I just put it back. I align it where I think it should be. The altar is very easy to deal with because you have vertical lines and horizontal lines. And they're pretty straight. There's a little dot right there in the middle of the altar which you can't see down below. which is right in the center. And Buddha should be sitting in the center, but you go from the top of his head, down through his nose, through the incense bulbs, and to that little dot with your eye. And you line everything up vertically that way. And then you go across, horizontally, lining up the centers of all the objects. And if you're careless, or not thinking, or not at one with the activity, then it's easy for the objects to be off.

[22:51]

So when you align all these objects, that activity is creating you. It's not that you're just doing something. If you feel, I'm just doing something, I'm just arranging the altar, then that's only half a person. The other half is, the altar is arranging me. The altar is arranging my mind, this mind. This mind is being aligned and the objects and myself are just two parts of one being. But this altar is pretty easy to deal with because it's straight lines. Our life is not straight lines. Our verticals go like this and our horizontals go like this.

[23:56]

And how do you find the center? of those verticals and horizontals when they're going like this? How do you line that up with your eye? How do you line it up with your gut? How are you always in harmony with your surroundings, with the things that you're engaged with as yourself? Very difficult. Very hard. But this is our practice. When we don't pay attention in this way, then even though we look like we're practicing, it's kind of a waste of time. It's just like our mind in Zazen.

[25:01]

The mind goes out to lunch. The mind is wandering around, and we keep bringing it back. So, what Zazen actually is, the main thing is bringing it back. So, we can scold ourselves and each other, but actually, this is the nature of our life. That our mind wanders, and we bring it back. Our attention goes and we bring it back. We split ourselves and then we make ourselves whole again. We lose our center and then we get it again. And as Suzuki Roshi says, everything is constantly falling out of balance. Constantly. Everything is losing its balance and finding it again. You lose it, and then you find it, and you lose it, and you find it, moment after moment. This is Zazen. Losing and finding, sleeping and waking up.

[26:09]

Forgetting, becoming aware. So we have these things that help us to wake up, become aware, be centered, be one with everything. Realize that that which I make, makes me. And that everything is my own mirror. And the entrance is everywhere. in our life we have kind of two goals. One goal is to get to accomplish something.

[27:12]

We dream something and then we accomplish our dream. We work out our dream. And that's called our goal. If we don't have a dream, then it's pretty hard to know what to do in this life. Even though we breathe, and eat and sleep. If we don't have a dream, then how do we motivate ourself? What do we do now that we're here? So, the dream gives us a goal, but our activity has more than just working out the dream. Because even though while we're working out the dream, moment to moment, we have our absolute sense of life, the dream is on the relative plane.

[28:27]

But our life itself and each activity, each moment, is an absolute moment. You can say an eternal moment. It doesn't depend on activity or cause and effect. This breath is life itself. pure and perfect, and everything is contained in it. In Zazen, we can appreciate just one breath as the whole universe, as the breath and life of the whole universe. So, these are two aspects of our life. If we're only lost in the relative aspect of our life, then we are truly lost.

[29:44]

So, when we get lost, then we look for a way to come back, and we find our breath again. center of gravity. So, if I ask you, where is your breath? At any moment, you should be able to tell me. You should know where your breath is on each moment, because both of these aspects of life should take place at the same time. Even though we have something very important to do, at the same time, the most important thing is just the quality of being. Just the quality of pure existence, which we overlook because we want so much.

[30:49]

So the main practice is to always be aware of the quality of being. What is the quality of being? It has nothing to do with any activity, although it's constantly there in all activities. So we can say, oh, nothing special. no special activity, but the most special activity, the most important activity is just the awareness of pure existence. Sometimes we feel that there's a life up here and then there's a life down here, which is

[32:14]

like a deep river. I remember when I was in junior high or high school and I was walking across a parking lot and I looked at my life and I realized that there was this life that was full of events on the surface but underneath was a real life that I couldn't express to anybody. that I shot with my real life. What we have to do is bring both of those lives together so that it's one life. So, when we walk in Zendo, although we're going somewhere, we walk as if we weren't going someplace.

[33:46]

When we do Kinhin, we walk as if we're not going anywhere. There's body, mind and breath. And when you lift your foot, you lift your foot with the breath. You lift your foot when you inhale, and you put your foot down when you exhale. So the breath is always involved with the movement. When you take care of the altar, your eye your body and breath. You always move things with the breath, with awareness of breath. When you move things with awareness of breath, ah, it has a very different quality. Even though everything is arranged, if you took a ruler and arranged everything with a ruler, ah, that would be one way.

[34:53]

But you have to do it with your eye. You can't do it with a ruler. You have to do it with your eye. You have to train your eye to see alignment. And it has to be done with the eye, with the body, and with the breath. And when something is done with the breath, consciously, you can tell it. When you're serving soup, it should be done with the eye, the body, and the breath. The breath grounded. You should be grounded in the breath. That way, all of our movements, all of our activity, has the quality

[35:57]

of being grounded in the center of gravity. And all our movements are in harmony with everything around us. And then everything around us is ourself. No gap. If we want to bring peace into the world, we have to be peaceful. Not just in our mind, but we have to be connected. So first we take care of ourself, and then we take care of everything else as ourself. So precepts are based on this kind of understanding.

[37:13]

Don't harbor anger. Don't harbor ill will. Don't kill life. Don't steal. Don't get attached. Don't slander people. Don't raise yourself up. Don't delude your mind. Just stay there, in that place. Do you have a question? I didn't ask you for questions this session. I have time for one question, but maybe you don't have any.

[38:36]

I'm hap... Oh! Okay. Buddha, Bodhidharma, Buddha, and Dogon. It's a scroll that Suzuki Roshi made for his students, his disciples. And I just put it up when we have Suzuki Roshi Memorial. It stays on the altar. That's why I just display it at that time. I don't like to keep it up all the time. It gets dusty, starts fading. I want to say I'm pleased that Akiba Sensei is here today and sitting sashin on this last day with us.

[39:43]

And he's the priest at Kojin-an, which is next door to Yoshi's restaurant. In the attic is a wonderful zendo. I encourage you to go over there some Sunday morning and sit with him. And Yoshi, Thank you for coming.

[40:08]

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