Well, I've gone through, I talked, made a commentary on all of Suzuki Roshi's talks in a book called Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness by Sekito Kisen, Suzuki Roshi gave these lectures in 1970 and we published the book called Branching Stream Flow in the Darkness and I, one by one, have talked about each one of his talks, but today I want to go back and talk a little more about one section Sandokai, you know, the equality of difference and unity, talking about the oneness of things and the diversity of things, and the equality between the oneness and the diversity.

[01:11]

Also, their inequality. So this is the section where Sekito, the author of this poem, who lived in the 8th century in China, one of our ancient ancestors, this part says, eye and sight, ear and sound, nose and smell, tongue and taste. Thus for each and every thing, depending on these roots, the leaves spread forth. trunk and branches share the essence, revered and common, each has its speech." So I just want to talk a little bit about what's being said here before I talk about anything more specific. So, eye and sight, ear and sound, nose and smell, tongue and taste.

[02:13]

For the eye, there is sight. For the ear, there is sound. For the nose, there is smell. And for the tongue, there is taste. So these are the senses and their function. And then he says, for each and everything, depending on these roots, the leaves spread forth. Actually, depending on the root, which would be Buddha nature. So leaves and branches, for each and everything, depending on these roots, the leaves spread forth. And trunk and branches share the essence. So all the parts share the same essence, which is Buddha nature. And then he says something like, a little confusing, revered and common, each has its speech.

[03:21]

Revered is like, you know, every language has both a formal and an informal aspect. Or you could say, for old languages, there's a sacred language and a secular language. So Latin is a kind of sacred language in a sense, or maybe Latin has a sacred side and a more worldly side. Hebrew is a kind of sacred language and Yiddish is a more secular language. There are other examples of this. in Buddhism, Pali and Sanskrit are more high languages, and then local languages are more mundane.

[04:32]

But this is also expressing the two sides of sacred language is about unity and So, for example, in Buddhism we say Dharma. Dharma is a very Buddhist word. But Dharma with a capital D is more like sacred language. It means Buddhist teaching, the law or the truth. And Dharma with a small d means things or the diversity of things. Each thing actually is a Dharma. and all the feelings and emotions we have are dharmas with a small d. So the dharma is the teaching of reality about the dharmas. It's about the oneness of the dharmas and the oneness of that diversity and the diversity of oneness.

[05:46]

And this is what Sekito is talking about in the Sandokai in many different ways. The oneness of diversity and the diversity of oneness. So I want to start here, where he says Suzuki Roshi is commenting on this, and he says, now I want to explain these lines which describe reality from the viewpoint of independency, and as I said once before, independency is a term that Suzuki Roshi to describe or to point out that although things are independent, interdependent, and dependent, there is a space between all these which Although each of these has its, what should I say, although things are dependent and independent and interdependent, they're not exactly so.

[07:11]

They have a tendency to be. So something has a tendency to be independent, but it's not quite independent. I feel independent, but I'm also dependent. So since I'm not quite independent, I have independency, the tendency to be independent. So this word talks about the tendencies we have rather than, you know, if you say only independent, that's not right. If you say only dependent, that's not right. If you say only interdependent, that's not right. So it uses the word independency as a kind of way to describe the not-quiteness of reality. So, he said, I want to explain these lines which describe reality from the viewpoint of independency.

[08:13]

He says, eye and sight, this is how the poem starts, I mean, this is how the, these are the first lines. Eye and sight, ear and sound, nose and smell, tongue and taste. I already explained what that means. So it looks as if Sekito is talking dualistically about the dependency of eyes on their objects. So in Buddhism, Buddhist analysis, we say for the eye there has to be an object. in order to see, but that's not enough. There also has to be consciousness. So these three factors are necessary in order to see something. There has to be consciousness of seeing, there has to be an eye, an organ, and then there has to be an object. If any one of the three is missing, we don't see.

[09:14]

So it looks like that's what Sekito is talking about. That's dualistic. The reason why that's a dualistic way of seeing things is because we're taking one thing and dividing it into three. So there are two ways of describing reality. One is through analysis. And the other is through synthesis. So through analysis, we say, I see you. That's analysis. I see you. And that's discrimination. As soon as we analyze, we have discrimination. So discriminating mind arises all the time. I hear the airplane.

[10:20]

I am driving the car. There's I driving the car. These are three stages of analysis. And so we objectify what we're doing. There's consciousness, an I, and then there's object. And when we say object, that's objectifying. So there's a subject here and an object there. seen through the eye. Subject is consciousness and then there's the object. So we're continuously objectifying and discriminating. dividing our world into parts, which is necessary. That's one side of reality. The other side is the side of synthesis, where there is no I, no I, and no object.

[11:24]

Everything is totally subjective. In other words, there's nothing outside of myself. There's no subject and no object. But this, in the analysis side, we're used to that, you know, because that's the way we understand things in this world. I see you. But the other side is the side that's always there, but we're always discriminating it. So because we're always discriminating, although we act from the side of synthesis, we're not so conscious of that. So Suzuki Roshi says, It looks as if Sekito is talking dualistically about the dependency of eyes on their objects.

[12:26]

But when you see something, if you see it in its true sense, there is nothing to be seen and no one to see it. Only when you analyze it is there someone seeing something and something to be seen. Only when we analyze it. If we don't analyze it, there's simply the activity itself, which is not divided. So when there's true seeing, what is seen is not an object. what is seen is myself. So for instance, I usually use the carrot as a demonstration.

[13:39]

I'll demonstrate cooking today. When we cut a carrot, We say, I am cutting the carrot, and the carrot is an object. There's an object called a carrot which is sitting on a cutting board, an object called a cutting board, and I have in my hand an object called a knife, and then I cut the carrot. This is the analytical side or the of cutting a carrot, but when there's cutting the carrot, the carrot is not something outside of myself. In order to cut a carrot, I have to ask the carrot

[14:39]

something. How shall I cut you? And then the carrot tells me how to cut it. We have to listen to the voice of the carrot. The carrot is actually speaking to us and the carrot can speak to me because the carrot is not something outside of myself. Carrot and myself and the act of cutting the carrot is one total activity. There's no subject and no object when there's complete cutting, completely cutting. So the carrot says, well, you can cut me in various ways. You can cut me long ways. You can cut me diagonally, you can cut me little slices, or you can just bite my head off.

[15:43]

It's up to you, but I'm telling you how you can do this. So the carrot, we have to listen to the language of the carrot. Everything has its language, and it's speaking all the time. And the reason we can understand what the carrot is saying is because the carrot is not something outside of myself. At the same time, the carrot is the carrot. I am me. The knife is the knife. But only when I discriminate does the carrot become an object. and I become me, and the knife is the knife, the cutting board is the cutting board. But myself, and the knife, the carrot, the cutting board, and the table, and the floor, and the walls, and you could go on forever. The whole world is participating in this activity.

[16:50]

But we narrow it down, you know, it's too much to think of the whole world as participating in the activity of cutting this carrot, but that's actually what's happening. It's not I am cutting carrot. The whole world is one being. And this is an act of, a universal act of the whole universe. right here on the cutting board. But in order for me to understand something intellectually, I am here, the knife is here, and each one is independent. But it's only independency. It's not truly independent. It's just the tendency or the idea. of independency. So we need both. We need to see things independently and objectively at the same time to understand that none of this is outside of myself, that it's just one thing.

[18:06]

So because the object, when I see the object, the object is creating consciousness. the object is creating the I. So the carrot is creating me. Although I am cutting the carrot, the carrot is telling me what to do and actually creating my existence. Little carrot controlling me. So actually whatever we're doing whatever we are involved with is controlling us. So we have to decide what we want to be controlled by. But it's not exactly so, because although the carrot is controlling me, I'm also controlling the carrot. So it's more like we're dancing together.

[19:11]

I'm dancing with the carrot and the So we don't really think of it as controlling each other, we think of it more as mutual creation. But we do tend to want to take control. How do we control our world? the problems that we have in our world are mostly caused by somebody wanting to take control and other people not wanting to be controlled or people wanting to be controlled because we don't have this sense of interaction. how to actually listen to trees, listen to carrots, listen to the objects, so-called objects. So Buddhist practice, Zen practice is actually, and Soto Zen practice, is based on how you take care of things as yourself.

[20:26]

Dogen, when he's talking to the cook, he says, you should arrange things according to the best place for them in the kitchen. These pots should go on the bottom shelf. These pots should go on the top. Everything has a place where it's best suited to be. and you should take care of the rice in the same way that you take care of your own head. And you should respect it. So everything is respected. There's a term, O, which means it's respectful. So it's not just rice, it's respectful rice. which means that it's myself, you know, and before objectifying.

[21:48]

So everything is speaking to us. How does the rice want to be cooked? We have to speak to the rice and then listen to what it says. It says, well, don't turn the fire upon me so high. Or stir me quickly so I don't stick. It's actually speaking, but it's not speaking in words like we speak to each other. It has its own language. So you have to understand the language of rice. You have to understand the language of pots and pans. You have to understand how everything is speaking. So he says, only when you analyze it is there something seeing, someone seeing something and something that is seen. It is one activity that can be understood in two ways. I see something, but there is no one seeing it and nothing to be seen.

[22:53]

Both of these are true. Here Sekito is talking about this oneness of I and form or object. That is how, as a Buddhist, things are observed. We understand things in a dualistic way, but we don't forget that our understanding is dualistic. This is the problem. sometimes we say, you know, when you read a lot of the literature and so forth, it says, non-duality, you know, don't think dualistically. And because we don't understand that there's something emphatic being said, we think that we should never think dualistically. Zen Master would say, stop your dualistic thinking. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't think dualistically. You can't help thinking dualistically. This is the dualistic realm, the world, where there's good and bad, right and wrong.

[24:01]

Everything is its opposite. Yes and no. Nevertheless, within yes is no. within no is yes, within good is bad, within bad is good. You can't say that things are this way or that way. They're only this way or that way in relation to something. So we have to respect the duality of things. We have to respect this is yours and this is mine. At the same time, nothing belongs to either one of us. So these are interpretations. Oh, he says, I see or someone or something is seen by someone. I see is one way of observing things.

[25:06]

or you can say something is seen by someone. You don't have to say I. As soon as you say I, I appears. So I is a kind of convenient term we use. But we know that we're speaking dualistically. If you say I and you don't know that you're speaking dualistically, then you're simply lost in duality. So we have to realize, yes, we do say I all the time, but we realize that it's just a convenient term. We're not attached to that. I mean, we shouldn't be attached to that, even though we are. We're attached to I. So these are interpretations of subject and object that our thinking mind produces. Subject and object are one, but they're also two.

[26:10]

So we say, not one and not two, and one, which means both one and two. So it's like the hand, right? This is one, that's two. But even though it's two, it's one. or five, you know? It's five and it's one at the same time. So there are many examples of this, you know? If you play a musical instrument, and we say, I play the instrument, but actually the instrument plays me.

[27:14]

I play the instrument and the instrument is playing me. The instrument is telling me what to do. Saying, well, you can't get what you want unless you do what I tell you. And I'm telling you this all the time, but you're not listening. And then one day he said, oh yeah, it's like this. I said, yeah, yeah. And then you appreciated it. Oh, that's such a nice instrument. And the bell is the same. I talk about the bell a lot. We say, I ring the bell. I hit the bell. We say, no, no, you don't hit the bell. You ring the bell. But the other side of that is the bell is ringing me. The bell is creating me, actually.

[28:23]

It's telling me what to do. I am, at that time, under the control of the bell. But if we try to control it, it doesn't work. Only when we let the bell speak to us can we let the bell speak. We have to listen to it, listen to ourself. The bell listens to my mind, but my mind also has to listen to the bell. So what do you want to say Where is your voice?

[29:25]

What is the voice of this bell? So you sound it many different ways until the voice starts speaking to you. And then when the perfect sound comes out, there's no you and no bell. It's like during Zazen, when we carry the stick and we hit somebody with a stick. which is not a brutal thing, it's just, you know, I think it's like in church, you know, when you see these movies, the old church, and they had a kind of little long stick with a ball on the end, and people would fall asleep and they would tap them on the head with a bell.

[30:27]

Stick has that kind of feeling, you know, you wake people up. But anyway, it's a sharp crack, the stick disappears and the person disappears. And then you start all over again. So in In two sutras, it says walls, something like walls, tiles, and pebbles are continually preaching the Buddha Dharma, incessantly preaching the Buddha Dharma. And you can extend that to trees, flowers, sky, your friends.

[31:36]

Everything is birds continually preaching the Buddha Dharma in their own language. So we have to listen to this language of everything around us. And what it's saying is, even though I'm different from you, I'm not different from you. Even though I look different and act different, we're all one thing. So Dogen Zenji says, if there is no river, there's no boat.

[32:46]

You know all about this. When there's no river, there's no boat. Even though there's a boat, it will not be a boat. Because there is a river, a boat can become a boat. Usually the reason that people become attached to the objective world or to something they see is because they understand things in only one way. The understanding is that something exists independent of them. But actually things don't exist independent of them, of us. Everything is creating everything else. Nothing exists independently. And when we have a conversation, I'm creating you and you're creating me. Because we have no fixed self. We're continually creating and being created by our surroundings and by each other.

[33:55]

So what will we do? How do we act? If we react to someone with anger, if someone responds to us angrily, then our tendency is to react with anger. Same way, right? So we become like the person who is making us angry. if we step back and respond with something else, then we're not caught by being created by anger.

[34:56]

We have some choice as to how to respond to things. so that we can influence the world. We can influence the world with compassion and love and kindness because it's all empty and it can be created in any way we want to create it because it's malleable And because everything is ourself, we can actually influence the world. So he says, the normal way of understanding things is here is something very sweet to eat, but cake becomes cake because we want to eat it.

[36:16]

If we didn't want to eat it, we may call it a cake, but it's not really a cake. So we make a cake. There is no cake without us. When we understand things in this way, we are seeing cake, but we are not seeing cake. We're seeing cake, but we're not seeing cake. This is in keeping with the precepts. in keeping with the precepts means that precepts exist on a dualistic level and also on a non-dualistic level and every moment we have to take into account the dualistic aspect of

[37:24]

our life and each moment's activity, as well as the non-dualistic level. So the example is, you can't, even though you stomp the earwig, cut it into a whole bunch of pieces, you still can't kill it. That's the non-dualistic understanding. And the dualistic understanding is when you squash the earwig, it's dead. Don't kill it. But even though you kill it, it's still not dead because it's simply life itself in this form, in the form of an earwig. It's you in the form of an earwig. And this is you in the form of a human being.

[38:28]

And the squirrel is you in the form of a squirrel. And your friend is you in the form of your friend. So these are important things to think about. You can think about them dualistically. Or you can simply act. This is called keeping the precepts. As Suzuki Roshi says, precepts are really nothing but compassion. If we act compassionately, we're always keeping the precepts. So you have to ask yourself, what is the compassionate thing to do in this case, moment by moment?

[39:35]

If you just follow rules, it doesn't work so well. Following rules is the analytical way, but simply acting out of compassion is a more fundamental way. But both are necessary. Rules are necessary, and spontaneous action is necessary. So, keeping the precepts means, from this point of view, to realize the oneness of things as well as the duality of things and to act compassionately.

[41:00]

knowing that everything is really an aspect of your own self. So that you can't escape from this world, no matter where you go. So to take care of things is to take care of ourself. And to take care of ourself is to take care of things.

[41:38]

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