There are the days, the truth, and there are the targeted words. Morning. This morning, I'm going to talk about case number 82 in the Blue Cliff record. In the introduction to the case,

[01:01]

The commentator says, only those with eyes can see the fishing line. Only adepts can handle devices outside of patterns. But say, what is the fishing line? What are devices beyond patterns? To test, I'm citing this old case. Look at this. So here's the case. A monk asked Da Long, the physical body rots away. What is the hard and fast body of reality? Long said, the mountain flowers bloom like brocade. The valley streams are brimming blue as indigo. Then Setso has a verse.

[02:06]

Asking without knowing, answering still not understanding. The moon is cold and the wind is high. On the ancient cliff, frigid juniper. How delightful on the road. He met a man who had attained the path, who didn't use speech or silence to reply. He grasps the white jade whip and smashes the black dragon's pearl. If he hadn't smashed it, he would have increased its flaws. The nation has a code of laws, 3,000 articles of offenses. Well, you know, they say that if you explain this, you fall into hell. But since I've already fallen into hell, it doesn't matter. Only those with eyes can know the fishing line.

[03:25]

The teacher casts the line. and there's some bait on the hook, and the student or the fish nibbles around or gets hooked, or a clever fish just takes the bait and leaves the hook. So only adepts can handle devices outside of patterns. So the monk asked a question. And this question is a dualistic question. I mean, according to, from the point of view of the commentator, it's a stupid question. It's the wrong question. It's a question that comes from his head.

[04:30]

and not from the depths of his being. That's why it's a stupid question. If it comes from the depths of his being, no matter what the question is, it's not a stupid question. So, simply to satisfy his intellect, his curiosity, but not to satisfy his inner reality. So, Dairyo gave him a response outside of the patterns. This is considered a quite wonderful response because he doesn't answer the question. He simply presents the reality. So the commentator says, only adepts can handle devices outside of patterns.

[05:47]

So the implication is that the monk missed the response, the meaning of the response, because it wasn't set up as an explanation, which would have been a pattern. usual patterns are, we ask questions and then we want a response that matches our idea. This is one of the big problems in Zen, is that we make this big mistake on purpose. which is called traipsing through mud and water, muddy water, called giving answers to questions. Giving answers that satisfies a person's superficial understanding.

[06:55]

But you can't help it. So then he said, well, what are devices beyond patterns? So look at this case. A monk asked Da Lung, the physical body rots away. What is the hard and fast body of reality? So he's asking a question about the phenomenal and the absolute, as if they are two different things. So here we are in this world, and even though we're still growing up, we're also disintegrating, disintegrating, coming apart. So the goal of life,

[08:00]

We may have various goals in our life, but the major feature is to come apart. If you were born, the great climax is to come apart. So this is the phenomenal aspect of life. Whatever comes into existence through causes and conditions, is subject to disintegration because everything that comes into integration comes through causes and conditions and those causes and conditions are continually changing and eventually wear out. So this is natural, this is called natural progression of things.

[09:05]

So we say, I was born, you know, and then I will die. That's a phenomenal outlook. But from the point of view of absolute reality, absolute truth, there is actually no one who is born and no one who dies. And when we think in terms of, I was born and I live my life and then I die, then the other side of that is, well, there must be something that is substantial on the other side. We want a substantial land called the pure land or heaven on the other side to catch us. so that we'll be okay. I mean, we don't want to be, die and then find out that there's nothing.

[10:10]

We all want to continue in some way. So there's this desire for continuation, which has some meaning, some root. If there, you know, If you look at nature, the way nature works, and as we are a part of nature, the end of one thing is the beginning of another. So the progression of what we call life is bound up with life and death, birth and death. So we have what we call the two truths in Buddhism. want the mundane truth and the absolute truth. So that's to keep us from getting confused. So we say in the realm of mundane truth, yes, I was born, I lived, and I died.

[11:24]

Everybody feels that. But in the realm of absolute truth, there's simply transformations, endless transformations. And there is, even though there's the feeling of I was born and I lived and I died, that's a narrow view. The wider view is that there's simply endless transformations. from the perspective of phenomenal truth. I came from somewhere and I'm going somewhere because we think in terms of coming and going. We think in terms of progression of myself. And we also think in terms of time going by.

[12:27]

But from the point perspective of self-centeredness, it looks like time is going by. But from the perspective of the absolute perspective, time doesn't go by. Time is not divided into little pieces. There's only absolute time, which is always the time of now. So everything happens now, which is not movement. So there's change from that perspective. There's change within or movement within non-divided time.

[13:34]

This is called eternal moment. So it's like two sides of a coin. One side of the coin is the phenomenal side. The other side of the coin is the absolute side. One side of the coin is change, and the other side of the coin is no change. Coins are change. Excuse me. But everything changes. That's the rule. but we think of it in dualistic terms. So the monk is looking for something that's, something that, the monk is looking for the absolute, which is not connected to the relative.

[14:56]

He's looking for the ocean without the waves. We say that phenomenal activity is like waves on the ocean and when the wave has a beginning and an end and a life Wave is water, and water is wave. So the wave has a life, but where is the beginning of the wave? And where is the end of the wave? So water and wave, water is the activity of wave, and wave is, wave is the activity of water, and water is the substance of wave. They can't be separated. but we can talk about them in our mind as different things.

[16:02]

So we talk about phenomenal phenomena as separate entities, but phenomena, all phenomena is just one thing. So when we talk about the one thing, we can't talk about the one thing without talking about the phenomena. So the phenomena are constantly in transformation. The phenomena are the activity of the absolute. The absolute is the substance of the activity. So nothing is ever lost. So we talk about This question comes from what happens after we die? And it's the question that everybody has. It's the ultimate question.

[17:05]

What happens when we die? Where do we go? Is there life after death and so forth? Well, there's life within death and there is death within life. They're not two different things. This may be easy to rationalize, but we must find this reality in our practice. This is what our practice is about. You know, everyone, without exception, goes through this process. Some people don't have time to go through the process. So, people have different views about what the process is, and I will grant them all their views.

[18:18]

without being critical. Because everyone wants some kind of security, some kind of religious security. So we have heaven and hell and we have, the Buddhists have all kinds of hells and all kinds of heavens, but none of them are permanent because when the causes and conditions are no longer sustaining a place, then things change. So, the monk asks, the physical body rots away, what is the hard and fast body of reality? And Lung said, the mountain flowers bloom like brocade.

[19:22]

The valley streams are brimming blue as indigo. When we talk about coming and going, according to a view of our Buddhist understanding, we don't come and go. I remember Suzuki Roshi talking, saying, the reason why we're here is because we've always been here. We've always been here as potential. And when causes and conditions come together at the right moment, then we arise. Our parents are part of the catalyst that creates the causes and conditions for our arising.

[20:25]

But we have always been here. Every one of us. So we don't really come from someplace and we don't really go to someplace. We arise from here and come back to here. Here, you know, means right here. Is there someplace else? We may go to the other side of the world, but that's still here. We may go to Mars, but it's still here. So this is a kind of nice warm response. Da Lung, who's in Japanese, he's called Lung Tan.

[21:33]

Not Lung Tan, he's called Dai Ryu. Gives him like a very warm-hearted response. In the verse by the commentator, he says, asking without knowing, answering still not understanding. So the monk asked, asking without knowing kind of means without understanding the real meaning of his question. Asking without realizing that he's asking the question in a dualistic manner, looking for a dualistic answer. And then answering, still not understanding. So he receives the answer, but he still doesn't understand it.

[22:40]

And then he says, the moon is cold, the wind is high. The ancient cliff, frigid juniper. this is a very kind of cold comment, right? This is a different, the other side of the warm response. So it's very interesting. The cool response is, if you, the warm response is granting, giving something comforting. The cool response is, the cold eye taking everything away and saying, this is the way it is. We have what we call the selfless, the signless, and the wishless in Buddhism. The selfless means that to not be attached to what we call this self, because this is what creates our suffering,

[23:48]

and it's a delusion to be attached to what we call our self because the self arises through causes and conditions and is a construction. The signless means that we assign names to things and then we take away their reality by and use the name instead of directly being in contact with the thing. When naming covers, it puts a, something in between ourself and the subject and the object. Naming creates objects. So that's called assigning or putting signs on things.

[24:54]

So that we are out of touch with things. We create a split called subject-object split. We have to name things. We have to feel that we are somebody. But problem is our attachment to both the self the idea of a self and the idea of what things are. And the wish list, the wish list means to not hanker after things, to not get caught by desire, to not let our desires run away with us so that we get caught in fantasy or dream life, dream world. You know, we really promote the dream.

[25:59]

We promote the dream world, and especially in America, Disneyland, you know, theme park. Do you know that the world is becoming theme park? It was just a nice idea 20 years ago. I mean, they were kind of Disneyland, you know, golf course and so forth. In Asia, in China, and Japan, theme park, dreamland, is taking over. China is creating all these incredible theme parks which are like totally un-Chinese. Anyway. I don't want to get into this, but I do want to get into it. We're being sold dreams, you know, we live on dreams. And the hard reality is to escape the hard reality of life.

[27:06]

People want to do that. So the wish list means, doesn't mean you don't wish for something, It simply means not being caught in the realm of dreamlike desires. So this selfless, the wishless, and the signless, to not get caught in a subject-object split by assigning names and believing in them, believing in the name. You know? This is a table. Well, you know, we know it's a table, it's okay. But we should also know that it's not a table. That's the hard part. So, then he says, how delightful on the road

[28:15]

he met a person who had attained the path, who didn't use speech or silence to reply. So we would say, well, but you said something, right? But not using speech means not explaining. There was a monk who was asked, why he was honoring his teacher. And he said, because he never explained the great matter to me. So his hand grasps the white jade whip and smashes the black dragon's pearl.

[29:16]

Well, there's a whole kind of explanation about this, but the black pearl here means the monk's ignorance, his dualistic understanding, his ignorance of non-duality, and the white jade whip is Dairyu's response. So if he hadn't smashed it, he would have increased its flaws. In other words, if he had tried to give an explanation, like I'm doing, it would have made matters even worse. So he says, the nation has a code of laws, 3,000 articles of offenses. He's kind of using that as a simile.

[30:22]

But there is the immutable law body, right? But you can't explain what that is. But you have to know what it is. It's because it's, not, as soon as you explain it in dualistic terms, it's not it. So we have to understand the non-duality of duality. Because duality is the area, is the atmosphere, it's the place where we live. We live totally within the realm of duality. and the realm of non-duality at the same time. So things are, but they're not what they seem to be. The immutable law body is the basis for all the activity.

[31:40]

in the activity is the expression of the immutable law body. But, and there are rules. Morality keeps changing. Morality is, you know, and ethics keep changing. But the immutable law body is always consistent we may find a way to keep people alive longer. But, in the end, it's just a matter of time. So, the question is, how do we live our life?

[32:49]

in such a way that how do we live, how do we live our dying, and how do we die our living? So, you know, we say, we divide them in two. And we say, now I am alive. And then at some point we say, now I am dying. And we split them in two. but it's really one thing. We can talk about them in two different ways, and our experience will be in two ways. But the reality is not a split, because in each moment of living, it's a moment of dying. So how do we live our life totally up to the end? And how do we live our dying completely?

[33:52]

And how do we allow our dying within our living? To allow our dying within our living is to continuously let go into the next moment, which is always this moment. And how do we live each change? How do we get older and older and live according to how life changes? And adjusting to the modes and adjusting to what we can do, what we can no longer do and so forth. And each change is its own lifetime. If we know how to adjust continuously, then we can actually live our life completely.

[35:04]

But it's important to be able to adjust continuously. When we don't adjust continuously, then we have a lot of suffering, cause a lot of suffering. and where this is proven is in Zazen. So we can know this in our head, but Zazen is where we experience the reality. If we don't adjust moment by moment, we suffer. It's just, you know, this is the immutable law. You learn the laws, in Zazen. So some people think, well, meditation is just an escape.

[36:10]

Meditation might be, but Zazen is not. Zazen is where you totally face yourself and face your difficulty, face your pain, face your suffering, face your emotions, your feelings, your thoughts, and sit upright within it. Sometimes Zazen is very easy. Sometimes Zazen is very difficult. But this is where we prove it. We prove this understanding to ourselves. And that's where it goes deep and not just up here. If we know how to live our life thoroughly, we'll know how to live our dying thoroughly.

[37:15]

Do you have any questions? I think that if, well for me anyway, if I die my living and live my dying, How I do that, or I think of doing that, is I just try to live each day like this is it, this is the end. I try to. This is the last day of my life today, and so I try to not accumulate a lot of things. Anyway, there's various things that I do to live each day like it's my last day, because it could be. I guess I'm thinking more about renunciation or materialism, because there's not as many renunciants as there are people living in the world and accumulating.

[38:39]

And so if you want to die, you're living. I mean, what are we doing here? I mean, if that, like, ultimately, what is Does this help something? And if it helps something, what is it helping? Helping something? I don't know. I just... You're making a suggestion to die a living, that you're dying, but what I want to know is... What ultimately is that about? It's about freeing all beings. It's not helping. It's about freeing yourself and freeing all beings. Can you do that and still be a homeowner?

[39:44]

Yeah, as long as what you own you don't own. There are various ways to live this life. A monk renounces everything and has three robes and a bowl, right? So that's one way. Another way is to allow the material things of the world to interact with your life. So you interact with the phenomena of the world, but you dance with it rather than cling to it.

[40:49]

So you play with it. When you start taking it too seriously, then you get caught by it. So we call this a playful samadhi. You play with these things. But when you take it too seriously, then you get caught by it. So when we get too serious about our material things, then it creates suffering. We're always afraid of losing something. When you have something, you're afraid of losing it. So we have insurance. Who are the wealthiest people in the world? The insurance companies. Uh-oh.

[42:03]

Peter? I hate to consign you to further aeons in hell, but I just want to share one quick thing. It was when Jerry Brown first came to Tulsa, Colorado, he talked about his experience in the seminary, which at that time, the seminary was very strict. to speak to. But he talked about this thing of not having possessions and having possessions. And he said, you know, really, all you have is a book and a candle, which is kind of what these guys had in their rooms. But, you know, you can get all wound up in that. I wanted to ask you about this metaphor of two sides of the coin. When the coin has no thickness, no dimension, How do we approach this in a way in which absolute and phenomenal reveal themselves together?

[43:17]

Well, if you want to study emptiness, you have to study it through form. I don't know if I'll be able to really articulate this properly, but if you're in the process of dying your life, if you can let go moment after moment, how can you maintain that on one hand, but on the other hand, maintain your goals, your structure, your ambitions, where you want to go? Because if you don't have that kind of attachment, you can easily rationalize maybe not doing anything, not fulfilling some part of yourself or having those future ambitions. Yeah, at that point that you're talking about, the goal is to just totally be present.

[44:23]

That's the goal. There's no other goal. To just be totally present. That's totally living, you're dying.

[44:47]

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