Like a scorpion's tail. Maybe that was the sewing or something. Because a lot of stitches still have to wear out. So at home, and put my head down for two weeks, for ten days. That's where I was. Like this. And I had lots of wonderful people come over and give me massage, back rubs. David came over and practiced his violin. People came and read to me. It was nice. I haven't had so much action in the house since we moved from here.

[01:05]

Kind of like people walking, coming in and out all the time. But I managed to keep my head down a lot. And so it's like a 24-hour thing, you know. And this bubble, Of course, it's still there, and it takes maybe six to eight weeks for it to dissipate, and it gets smaller and smaller. And I can see it in there. When I go like this, I can see the edge of it. And as it gets smaller, I'll be able to see the whole thing. But it's like having a show, like this eye sees everything out here, and this eye sees everything that's going on inside the eye. There's a little sideshow going on. And when I was taking a walk the first day, the tenth day, I could see my shadow on the ground as I was walking, but I could also see the whole thing reflected in my eye on the bubble.

[02:17]

So this bubble is a really interesting thing. And I see reflections, like light. It's like, you know those morel mushrooms that have all these kind of fluted things? It's like that. All the flutes are illuminated, like Christmas tree. They make great Christmas ornaments, Christmas tree ornaments. So I have to keep putting eyedrops in all the time, ten times a day. And every day my eye gets a little better and I can see, it's like with this eye, looking through this eye is like looking through a swimming pool and seeing shapes at the other end, people's legs, you know, but you can't see their legs, you just see the skin, the color of the skin and the movement and stuff like that. But every day it gets a little more. So it'd take about six weeks or eight weeks before I have my final vision in this eye.

[03:25]

And we don't know exactly if this thing works or not. The bubble has to press against the top of the eye. That's the reason for keeping your head down. And it massages the hole. It's a little, teeny hole, you know. But it seems to massage the retina so that the hole, it doesn't actually, It's like a door, you know, it closes, but it's not one piece, it's still a whole, even though it's closed. So, some people get 70, 80% of their vision back, some people 30, some people none, but mostly people do. And there's a high level of success And so, I just have to wait and see.

[04:30]

He said some people have to do it over again. Yes? Medicare? Oh, yeah. Cost me nothing. People slam Kaiser, but I bow down to them. I have so much, like all the work I've had done in the last couple of years was tremendous cost. And I mentioned this to the doctor, he says, yeah, you know, we lose money off of you, but it's okay, because that's the kind of business we're in. Just out of curiosity, how did you sleep with your head down? That's a good point, you know, only when you're conscious do you know. So, you know, I kind of nuzzle my head into the pillow, you know, or find ways of, you know, you just... Also, I had a... That's right, my wife made a

[05:51]

What do you call that stuff? Foam. Foam, yeah. Some foam pads for me. Foam form. Foam form. And I used that a lot. But I just ended up in bed by just finding a way to keep my head down as much as I could. Sleeping on your stomach, which I haven't done for a long time. So when I went in there, just before the operation, he says, well, how do you feel about all this? And I said, well, I don't think about it. Which is true. I just don't think about things like that. I just go about my business. And then when I have the operation, I just lay down on the table and put myself in his hands.

[06:55]

So, he said, that's really a good way to live your life. And then I said, well, I also do meditation, so I think that that will help in doing this. I'm used to sitting still. He says, well, Swami. And then when I came back, the first thing he said to me was, well, did the meditation help? It was like sushi in a way. I can't remember what happened except the back rubs. But you know this, just like after seven days, what happened? I've seen that, yeah.

[07:57]

Oh, massage chair? Japan, they have those all over the place. They have them in their public baths. And at Rinzohin, Suzuki Roshi's temple, there's one. Yeah, I remember seeing there. So I was moving around. It's great. It's really good. Can you ride your bike? Can I? I can if I want to. Well, it's better to have something over the other one, because this one is distracting. See, I go like this, and I move my head, and it jiggles. The image in my eye jiggles. So if you get a black hat, will you promise to wear it? Well, it doesn't have to be black. It can be orange or something. But I'm not wearing it now.

[09:02]

I only would wear it, I think, if I drive or something like that, because I think it's distracting. So one eye is okay. I can see okay through this one eye, which is what I'm doing anyway. Actually, I found out that we favor one eye and we actually look through all the other eyes. They're doing its thing. We really look through one eye most of the time, or see through one eye. But I was told that you can't really gauge depth perception with just one eye. I think you do it through calculation or memory or something. Yeah, Paul? Say that again? Yeah, I just paint the images that I see in my left eye. So it's like this little world going on.

[10:05]

It's around. What? Is there a world that has a Buddha in it? This world has a Buddha in it. I see him sometimes. Do you have any thoughts about the eyes, content, vision, the visual world? Well, it made me realize that all these organs are just connected to nerves and receptors. It's just like the inside of your TV set or something. And it can all be manipulated and replaced. It's amazing. We're in the age, the bionic age, and I think its implications are far-reaching.

[11:08]

Actually, I think it will be possible to keep people alive. It will be possible to keep, I say people alive, but to keep a body going for a long time. I'm realizing that right now, every day, there's cutting-edge medical technology that's keeping all these people who should be dying alive and going. And it's just going to keep improving and getting more so all the time. In leaps and bounds, I can see. I mean, the heart stuff, you know, that's coming out every day is, I think before very long, there won't be very many people dying of heart attacks because there'll be preventative medicine.

[12:12]

That's happening. So when I think about this eye, I realize it's all constructed. It's all a construction, but when you're looking through this eye, you're not conscious of the eye or of seeing. You're only conscious of what's seen. But when you look through this eye, you're conscious of how things work. It's very different. So I have this kind of dual thing going all the time. So it's good to realize that, I think, not take it for granted. So, well, before I start, I have to tell you that in the middle of next month, I'm going to have another operation to take my head off.

[13:59]

I'm telling you about this because it's going to keep me out of the Zendo for a couple of weeks. That's why I won't be here at the end of April, very much. So I'm going to have an operation on my prostate. The prostate is, as most of you know, is a little walnut around the urethra. And as it gets bigger, man, it starts squeezing. So you can't pee very easily, even though you want to. And it makes you want to pee more than you want to. So it's kind of like the, I just thought of this, the hungry ghost of peeing. So, what they do is they carve it out.

[15:42]

They put a little knife up there and they carve it out. They don't take it away, fortunately. They carve out the excess so that it's not so big and relieves all that pressure. That's wonderful. And so I said, well, can I do zazen? He said, no. I mean, for the first few weeks after that. He said, don't drive. You know, just kind of. So I'll be not, present after the 13th or 14th, middle of the month. And that's the reason. Kate? Yes? Will you be able to have back rubs? Back rubs? Yes. The back is always open.

[16:44]

You know, the front may be having problems. I'll be able to work on your stomach. So I wanted to continue with Suzuki Roshi and Sekito. And I'm going to read up to the point where I'm going to talk about it from the Sandhukai, the harmony of difference and equality. The mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted from west to east. While human faculties are sharp or dull, the way has no northern or southern ancestors.

[17:47]

The spiritual source shines clear in the light. The branching streams flow on in the dark. Grasping at things is surely delusion. According with sameness is still not enlightenment. All the objects of the senses interact and yet do not. Interacting brings involvement. Otherwise, each keeps its place. Sights vary in quality and form. Sounds differ as pleasing or harsh. Refined and common speech come together in the dark. Clear and murky phrases are distinguished in the light. The four elements return to their natures just as a child turns to its mother. Fire heats, wind moves, water wets, earth is solid. 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.

[18:49]

Revered and common, each has its speech. In the light there is darkness, but don't take it as darkness. In the dark there is light, but don't see it as light. Light and dark oppose one another like front and back foot in walking. Each of the myriad things has its merit, expressed according to function and place. Phenomena exist like box and lid joining. Principle accords like arrow points meeting. Hearing the words, understand the meaning. Don't set up standards of your own. If you don't understand the way right before you, how will you know the path as you walk? Practice is not a matter of far or near, but if you are confused, mountains and rivers block your way. I respectfully urge you who study the mystery, do not piss past your days. It must be a Freudian slip. Yes, I did.

[20:07]

Don't pass your days and nights in vain. So the part that I want, this chapter is, in the light there is darkness, but don't take it as darkness. In the dark there is light, but don't see it as light. So Suzuki Roshi says, first I will talk about the two terms may and on, light and darkness. May is light and An is darkness. Light means relative, dualistic world of words, the thinking world, the visible world in which we live. And darkness refers to the absolute, where there is no exchange value or materialistic value or even spiritual value. I've talked about this quite a bit, the dark and the light, and I think you understand that pretty well. So the darkness refers to the absolute, where there is no exchange value, no comparative values, no materialistic value, or even spiritual value.

[21:17]

I think that's an important point. we usually think of the spiritual as being the ultimate realm, but there's a realm beyond the spiritual, because spiritual and material are still polarities. So there's something beyond both spiritual and material. And as Suzuki Roshi always said, What we think of as our spiritual understanding is still on this side. It's still on the materialistic side, usually. Our way of understanding what is spiritual and thinking about what is spiritual and what we call spiritual is still on the materialistic side. The world that our words and thinking mind cannot reach.

[22:18]

Living in the realm of duality, we must have a good understanding of the Absolute, which we may think of as a deity. Living in the realm of duality, which is our world, we must have a good understanding of the Absolute, which is why we practice is largely ignored by most people. So, living in the realm of duality, we must have a good understanding of the Absolute which we may think of as a deity. But in Buddhism, we do not have any particular idea about a deity. The Absolute is the Absolute because it is beyond our intellectual or dualistic thinking. We cannot deny this world of the absolute.

[23:23]

Many people say that Buddhism is atheism because we have no particular idea of God. We know there is the absolute, but we know it is beyond the limit of our thinking mind. So we don't say so much about it. That is what we mean by on or darkness. So I think this is interesting because he talks about You know, some people think of this as God, some people think of this as deity and so forth. In Buddhism, we don't use that as a model. So people think, well, Buddhism is atheism. Well, Buddhism is not atheism. I usually refer to it as non-theistic. Buddha was not concerned with theism or atheism. According to some of the story, when asked about whether there is a God or not, or a single God or not, of course in India there were always loads of them, he didn't affirm or deny it.

[24:43]

He didn't say, yes there is or no there's not. He just remained silent, as if to say, this is not the important concern. This is not what I'm concerned about. It's not the model to be used for our understanding. So it's very interesting because people have belief systems and they invest their psychology in belief systems and then they fight each other over whose belief is right or wrong and the beliefs are totally based on emotional responses. So Buddha was trying to remain clear of that kind of

[25:44]

model and way of thinking, and stayed clear of giving into, which is so easy, giving into a belief system. It's so easy to do that, because you want to rely on something. We have this need to rely on something, and so God is the easiest thing to rely on. just real easy. And also, in Buddhism, reincarnation is a real easy thing to rely on. You know, what happens after you die? Well, you get reborn and all this stuff, you know, which is folk literature. Buddha never said that, even though it's attributed to him, these words, certain words are attributed to him. to not give in to any belief system and to maintain without criticizing, without being grasping or rejecting, to just stay in the middle.

[27:11]

continuously stay in the middle, settling on reality, which is not easy to do, but it's the middle way without falling into holding on to something, some belief, or giving into despair that there's nothing. And I always follow the questioning. What is it? What is it? Without saying what it is. Without falling into, falling short by accepting something that your mind can conceive of. We always want to find something that our mind can conceive of to give us some assurity and relief.

[28:17]

So Suzuki Roshi says, the absolute is the absolute because it is beyond our intellectual or dualistic thinking. Whatever we can conceive of, it's beyond that. So we have to have a certain amount of trust and faith in emptiness. Faith in no special thing, but There is, Katagiri Roshi used to talk about religious security, how to have religious security. You know, that's why everybody needs to find this religious security, or some kind of security. So to criticize the various ways that people find this, I don't think it's so good.

[29:40]

I think whatever anybody finds, as long as it's not harmful to others, is fine. In this great sea, whatever you can hold onto to keep from sinking is good for people. It's okay. I don't think we need to be very tolerant of the ways people find to do this. But for someone who is studying Zen, to not rely on anything and to keep searching, to keep without falling into any particular model. you find your religious security in your letting go. He says, many people say that Buddhism is atheism because we have no particular idea of God.

[30:58]

We know there is the absolute. But we know it is beyond our limit, the limit of our thinking mind. So absolute is like Dharmakaya in Buddhism, or Buddha nature. There are many names for it. And in Shingon Buddhism, esoteric Buddhism, it's all, there is, it comes very close to having a deity. Shingon comes very close to having a deity. of Vairocana Buddha. It's about as close as you can come in Buddhism to Avogadhi because Vairocana is the expression of the Dharmakaya, personification of the Dharmakaya. And Vairocana, there are two aspects of Vairocana, the active and the passive. So the active side of Vairocana Well, the passive side is called the womb, and in esoteric Buddhism there are two mandalas, the womb mandala and the vajra mandala, the diamond mandala.

[32:21]

in the passive aspect of just sitting still. And the active form, mandala, is vairagyana, and the diamond mandala is emanating light. So you could say the feminine aspect and the masculine aspect. And Vairagyana embodies both the feminine aspect and the masculine aspect. And the feminine aspect is potential, and the masculine aspect is enactment. So all the forms emanate from Vairochana and the active aspect.

[33:32]

Vairochana is called the emanating light Buddha. Radiant light Buddha. And all the forms are the forms of that light. So I think Einstein was very much interested, not in Vairochana, I don't know if he knew about Vairochana, but he was very much interested in light. What is light? That was his actual most biggest question. And of course, it's the religious question as well. What is light? So Vairochana is the source of light. and the emanation of light as well. And then he's surrounded by, or she, is surrounded by four Buddhas. And the four Buddhas represent the eight levels of consciousness, which I've talked about a lot.

[34:44]

So Vairagyana is like the ninth consciousness. and which is transformation of enlightenment. So consciousness is at the center of things. People have different understanding of what the term consciousness means. I saw this on TV. thing put together about what is consciousness, and scientists talking about what is consciousness and various people talking about what is consciousness, are animals conscious? Certain people, maybe some scientists think only human beings have consciousness, animals don't have consciousness, all they have is instinct, which is total baloney. Animals are totally conscious, have great consciousness, but they express it in different ways.

[35:52]

So there are different levels of consciousness. Rocks also have consciousness. The problem is, when we talk about, do animals have consciousness? Do rocks have consciousness? The question is backwards. People don't have consciousness. Animals don't have consciousness. Consciousness has animals. Consciousness has people. Consciousness is rocks. So when you only look at it, it's like there are a lot of people who still think that the sun goes around the earth in their way of thinking, because they use the earth as the stable point. So they're always looking at things from their own point of view. And naturally, as long as you're looking at things from your own point of view, you have these unresolvable questions. they only become resolved when you get off your human point of view and see things in a more holistic way.

[36:57]

There was this one guy who was wrestling with, he was a bear trainer, he was wrestling with this bear, and the bear was, you know, just like a dog, you know, except it weighed about two tons. And he just had this wonderful rapport with the bear, you know. Instinct is also consciousness. To say that there's instinct and consciousness is two different things is also to split things up. Instinct is also a form of consciousness. So, according to me. So consciousness is Well, to study the source in Buddhism is to study consciousness. That's why these nine levels of consciousness are so, not just interesting, but I think really important way of understanding, coming to some understanding.

[38:09]

It's a model for understanding ourself. understanding our spiritual side as well as how things work. So, in Buddhism, the Buddhists came up with the idea of the trakaya, the three bodies of Buddha. because you have to explain somehow how things work. And if you only talk about Buddha as a person, then you miss the cosmological aspect. So they came up with the Dharmakaya, the Sambhogakaya, and the Nirmanakaya, the three bodies of one Buddha.

[39:09]

whose being is consciousness. So consciousness is a big word in Buddhism, and I think we really need to understand what is meant by consciousness in Buddhism. I thought about the duality of birth and death. Do we see grasping at birth and averting at death at the end of the Metta Sutta? The duality of birth and death. Well, death comes about through our grasping, and birth comes about through our aversion.

[40:22]

Flowers fall, we spring up. But I think there's a connection. There's a connection in the sense of self appears through our grasping. self appears when we have attachment and grasping. Even though there is this persona that moves and acts and thinks and so forth, it doesn't solidify into self except through grasping and aversion and attachment. Rick.

[41:29]

Well, I don't know. Maybe. It's anybody's guess. But he may not even remain quiet. He may just have, you know, who knows what he did. But it also agrees with what you said about not criticizing. Possibly. sale.

[43:39]

Well, sometimes you know that if you answer, it will just start an argument or some kind of give the person some basis for continuing in a way that doesn't go anywhere. So that is a way of stopping things before they start, but it's hard to know exactly what the person is going to say before they say it. But I think that the point of Buddha's either saying it's not relevant or or that he wouldn't say one way or the other, I think it's a really good point, because it leaves you with a question, and the question is what leads you on.

[45:27]

It's a really good koan.

[45:32]

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