I vow to face the truth with the darkest words. Good evening. One thing that I just wanted to say in case we had some idea that Tozan was making all this up. It's just Mahayana Buddhism has filtered through Tozan's glasses, filtered through his understanding to make it available and easy to understand.

[01:09]

So on page 37, this has to, the Cleary translation, it says, naturally real yet inconceivable. It is not within the province of delusion or enlightenment. We're talking about it, and it means probably the mirror. Naturally real, yet subtle, not in confusion or enlightenment. Wonderful is the eternal reality beyond delusion and enlightenment. Genuine and wonderful, it is not subject to delusion or enlightenment. True nature is inconceivable, it has nothing to do with delusion or enlightenment. is purity and unchangeability is wonderful.

[02:21]

It belongs neither to illusion or enlightenment. So here we're talking about, as you can see, everybody translates this fairly. The meaning is pretty clear in all the translations. We think of enlightenment as the opposite of delusion. Or we think of enlightenment in contrast to delusion. But here, the text is saying, true enlightenment is beyond enlightenment, the duality of enlightenment and delusion. If you say, I was deluded and now I'm enlightened, that's dualistic understanding. So we say zazen is enlightened activity. We sit in zazen in the midst of enlightenment. But you can also say when you sit zazen, you're sitting zazen in the midst of duality, in the midst of delusion.

[03:28]

You're sitting right in the middle of your delusion. So how is that so? We say Buddha nature, Buddha nature is the same thing as the mirror. Only when we say Buddha nature, we talk about it in a different way. When we talk about the mirror, we talk about something reflecting. When we talk about Buddha nature, we talk about something that is. The usual interpretation of Buddha nature is that everyone has Buddha nature. But this is the way it appears in the Maha Parinirvana Sutra. All beings have Buddha nature. This actually, there was a time in Buddhism, when there was the idea that there were people who didn't have Buddha nature.

[04:33]

And you can understand why. Sometimes you just think about certain people. They just don't have buddha nature. But the Mahaparinirvana Sutra said all beings without exception have buddha nature. And Dogen radicalized that and he said all beings are buddha nature. So if you say beings have buddha nature, that's dualistic. Because you're talking about beings that have something. So when you say all beings are buddha-nature, it means that each being is an expression of buddha-nature. Each being is an individual expression of buddha-nature. So buddha-nature expresses itself as forms. Emptiness is form and form is emptiness. So all beings are expressions of buddha-nature.

[05:39]

That's why all beings can be saved, so to speak. Salvation is open to all beings. In Buddhism, Buddhism is a religion of salvation. And they even have a messiah. Buddhists have a messiah called Maitreya. Maitreya is messiah. There are a lot of parallels in this way in religion, and so Buddhism is a religion of salvation. And we say it all the time, I vow to save all sentient beings, right? So you are my trail. What does that say? It doesn't say Maitreya. We think of some persona that's going to be Maitreya.

[06:44]

nirmanakaya. We think that there will be a nirmanakaya maitreya. Maybe. I mean, yeah. But if you look at it another way, we say in Buddhism that, and this is what Buddha said, apparently, Each person should seek their own salvation. Salvation from what? From suffering and delusion, of course. From delusion, meaning a wrong understanding of what birth and death is about, and suffering because of that. So to find our salvation means to discover our true self, our Buddha nature, and to realize the nature of transiency, and the nature of suffering, and the nature of clinging, and the nature of attachment, and the nature of freedom.

[08:33]

So each person's salvation is unique to their own way of salvation? You have to speak a little louder. How can we know how to save all beings when each person's salvation is different? Yeah, that's a good point. So each person has to find their own salvation and yet we say, I vow to save all sentient beings, right? So that's your koan. You didn't think Buddhism was easy, did you? It doesn't mean that I personally am going to save all sentient beings. That's not what it means. It means we express the desire for all beings to be saved. That's what that means. We express the desire for all beings to be saved and we express the desire to help them do that.

[09:41]

So in the New Meal chat we say, free all beings, right? I vow to free all beings. So you go around with your Dharma scissors and cut their bonds. so that they can find their own salvation. It's just a desire which is a very altruistic desire, but you shouldn't take it literally. You don't take these things literally. Otherwise you say, gosh, how am I going to do that? The people I'm going to save are already dying while I'm talking, right? Thousands and thousands of people are falling off the face of the earth while you're sitting there looking at me, so how are you going to save them? Although Buddhism is impossible to complete, we don't try to make it that difficult.

[10:51]

Just going back to the idea of Buddha nature, I think we have a reading somewhere that some schools of Buddhism don't either accept that idea or see it in a certain way. Is there something controversial about Buddha nature? There's nothing controversial about Buddha nature, it's just that there are different schools of Buddhism. So Buddha nature came, as a concept, came forth with the Mahayana. Let me use the word Hinayana, not as applying to any special school of Buddhism, but as an attitude. So the Hinayana schools, or Hinayana Buddhists, don't particularly line up with Mahayana thinking and Mahayana understanding, even though Mahayana understanding has been around since the beginning of Buddhism.

[12:12]

We think that there are the Theravada schools, well actually there are 18 schools of Buddhism, up until, well quite, you know, for hundreds of years, or at least 18 schools of Buddhism which we can identify. And they all had different ideas about what the Dharma was. Each school had a different idea, and there were some very prominent schools that had very fixed and strong ideas, and these schools would have controversies with each other for hundreds of years. So, and then around the first century with Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna is called the Dharma, the ancestor who turned the second wheel of the Dharma. Buddha turned the first wheel of the Dharma and then Nagarjuna in the first century turned the second wheel of the Dharma with the Prajnaparamita Sutras.

[13:20]

We chant the Heart Sutra, but the Heart Sutra is only a very small sutra within the Prajnaparamita collection of sutras. So there's a Prajnaparamita in 25,000 lines, there's a Prajnaparamita in 100,000 lines, Prajnaparamita in one letter, and so forth. So the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra are kind of like complementary sutras that are about the same length, more or less. And so the Heart Sutra is a Mahayana Sutra which, if you study it, you'll see that it makes a comment on all the old ways of thinking that came before it. And the second turning of the wheel means that it expresses the non-dualistic understanding of Buddhadharma.

[14:23]

And there's the Four Noble Truths and all the main doctrines of Buddhism are included in the Heart Sutra. And know this, know this, know this, and this meaning non-dualism. To understand it in a non-dualistic way. to understand Buddhism in a non-dualistic way, and so the Mahayana developed out of that. There are other Mahayana sutras too, of course, but Prajnaparamita specifically, and the Lotus Sutra also criticizes those old ways of understanding. Although some of the doctrines of the old schools, you can see them Mahayana literature kind of coalesced and this Mahayana understanding is pretty much shared by all the Mahayana schools of Buddhism even though their outlook is a little different.

[15:27]

So Buddha nature is a very fundamental understanding in Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhists from the old schools, or schools that didn't go along with Mahayana, who may not think in terms of Buddha nature. Some do, but you don't hear them expressing themselves that way. Yeah. Did he say something with the difference on how Buddha's enlightenment, how he said all beings are enlightened, they just don't realize it? Well, he said a lot of things, nobody knows exactly what he said. Right, but isn't that debatable, that premise, and it's part of human nature and not everyone having it?

[16:35]

Not everyone would express it that way. Well some school would say there's delusion and then you work to enlightenment. Mahayana, there are schools of Mahayana which, especially Zen school, which says because enlightenment is your nature you can be enlightened. You're not adding enlightenment to something. You're not creating an enlightenment, you're allowing your true nature to come forth unhindered, which is called enlightenment. So Maitreya, each one of us is Maitreya. because each one of us has the nature to save ourselves.

[17:47]

So Maitreya is in each one of us. And our practice brings that forth. I just read recently Thich Nhat Hanh saying that a community is Maitreya. You can think of a community as Maitreya, not just some person. So Maitreya is the embodiment of salvation, attitude, or put into practice. So I agree with all that. I think Maitreya is right here. just within our practice. So enlightenment is beyond the duality of enlightenment and delusion. We can speak of enlightenment in different ways, and we do speak of enlightenment in a lot of different ways.

[18:52]

You can speak of it dualistically or you can speak about it non-dualistically. But when you speak about it dualistically, you're thinking about it in opposition to delusion. But that's misleading because when you realize your own enlightenment, you realize that it's not something to hang on to. There's not something for you. It's not a flash card. It's like you realize your nature and you realize that if you cling to that you're just holding on to... You know, Suzuki Roshi used to talk about the person who put the mark on the boat. Now you're out in the sea and you want to come back to the same place tomorrow so you put a mark on the boat.

[19:54]

Or the rabbit, you know, the farmer or the hunter went out to hunt for a rabbit and while he was standing there next to a stump where the tree had been cut off and this rabbit ran out of the woods and ran right into the stump, killed himself. So the hunter, you know, stood there the next day hoping that another rabbit would come out and I'll run into the stump. So anyway, your Enlightenment experience is your wonderful Enlightenment experience and you don't think about your delusion within your Enlightenment experience. But if you hold on to that Enlightenment experience, that's delusion. So we have Enlightenment experiences all the time. All the time you're having enlightenment experiences. Just let them go into the sea of... Because enlightenment is beyond enlightenment and delusion.

[21:08]

The problem is, if we hang on to an enlightenment experience, then we think, the next day, when it's fading out, we think, God, you know, this is pretty crummy. waiting for the next enlightenment experience. Or, how can I make that return? And then you forget all about where you are. So, enlightenment experience is, this is exactly where I am, with this ship. You may enlighten on the toilet. A friend of mine said a Shasheen once, what he felt was like an awakening experience and he thought it was just fantastic and he went in to tell the practice leader about it and this practice leader said, Master Dogen didn't really write about satori's very much and he said he wanted to see you then and you and he walked in the room and you could tell what was going on and he said excellent keep going

[22:18]

How would you speak about enlightenment dualistically and non-dualistically? It's better not to speak about it at all. So you can't speak about it non-dualistically? Well, the thing is, you see, in Buddhism, especially in Zen, We use dualistic words to express non-duality. That's why Zen is so confusing. If you hang on to the words, you're lost. Because the words don't say what they mean, dualistically. So, does the dog have Buddha nature? Wu. Well, Wu means no, right? Well, is that right or wrong? What do you think about the dog?

[23:33]

If all beings have Buddha nature, if all created things are Buddha nature, what about the dog? Is it a nonsensical question? No, not a nonsensical question. That's because you're thinking dualistically. In dualistic thinking, you think it's a nonsensical question, because no is no and yes is yes. In a non-dualistic understanding, no includes yes. Yes includes no. You include me. I include you. You making me and I'm making you. At this moment. Dualistically, you're sitting over there and I'm sitting over here. Non-dualistically, it's because you're there, I'm here. And because I'm here, you're there. So how does one move through the day practicing that? That's the koan. That's what you're supposed to be working with.

[24:35]

If I tell you, you won't be working at it yourself. And you say, oh I know now. I say, how the hell, when did he say that? So, you know, naturally real yet inconceivable is not within the province of delusion or enlightenment. This is the fifth rank, Tozan's fifth rank, beyond delusion and enlightenment. Could you say a few words about presence? Two words about? Presence. Presence? Two words or a few words be present No Ask me again Ask me again.

[25:56]

If a dog has a state of consciousness... The same question. Yes, I'll ask you again. If a dog has a state of consciousness where it is present, does it have Buddha nature? No. Just take your pick. Just take your pick. You can say either one. Either way, either one's okay. But it doesn't matter if that's deluded me. No. It matters if it's present. No, it really matters if you're deluded by yes and no. Beyond delusion. Beyond delusion. Yeah, because we're using dualistic term to express non-duality.

[26:59]

You can use a dualistic term to express duality, but in Zen we use dualistic word to express non-duality. You have to understand that. When you read koans, you have to understand that the teachers are using dualistic terms to express non-duality. That's why they seem confusing. And when you let go of clinging to dualistic thinking, it will become apparent what the meaning is. You're still clinging. You have to be able to let go of that idea about yes and no as a duality.

[28:08]

How? How? Keep asking that question. So the next page, page 38. So on this page, this is talking about it shining. It is shining. starting at the top, with causal conditions, time and season, quiescently it shines forth. It shines bright. What did you say? Quiescently.

[29:15]

Quiescently. Quiescently. Yes, that's right. Quiescently. The E is like third. Yeah. Quiescently. Thank you. With causal conditions, time and seasons, quiescently it shines forth. It is shining forth. So, within causes and conditions it's shining forth is the meaning. He says, with causal conditions. I think what he means is within causal conditions. Under the right conditions, at the right time, it shines bright and serene tranquility. With concurrent cause and time prevailing it will appear both bright and still. Bright and still it appears as causes and conditions. I like that one because that was mine. Bright and still it appears as causes and conditions. That's right, it appears as causes and conditions.

[30:17]

It doesn't shine through causes and conditions. It appears as causes and conditions because it is causes and conditions. To say it shines through is dualistic, because there's it and whatever is shining through. Those are two different things. But it shines as ... It's the causes and conditions, nature, shining. So that's why it's so difficult, because we think in dualistic terms. We're always dividing things into dualistic terms. Always. And we have to do that in order to identify things, at least we think we do, and we do. So it's not that there's something wrong with dualistic thinking, it's just that unless we understand non-dualistic thinking, then dualistic thinking is delusion. If we understand non-dualistic thinking, then dualistic thinking is also enlightenment.

[31:21]

So there is an idea that we call Soto Zen silent illumination, practice of silent illumination. So practice of silent illumination is pretty ancient, but in historical terms, it was kind of the term Silent Illumination was popularized by Hang Zhou in around the 12th century. The Rinzai school kind of criticized the Soto school as practicing silent illumination and characterized by rice bags sitting in a row or dead trees.

[32:44]

But this was a misconception and sort of then as you know. Anyway. But silent illumination is definitely our practice and it was that Doge didn't use the word silent illumination, he used the word chikantaza. to by sitting. And Hongjie, do you know the book called Cultivating the Empty Field? It's wonderful poetry and his Zazen admonitions of Just incredibly wonderful.

[33:51]

So if you haven't read that, you should read it and then you'll understand the background of Silent Illumination Zen. Called Cultivating the Empty Field. Dan Leighton and a Chinese man, scholar, translated it. But this is not talking about silent illumination, even though it seems like it is, because the characters are not the same. But it is talking about illumination, anyway. It's talking about illumination, but it's not talking specifically about the practice of silent illumination. So there's some confusion here. Even I fell for it. But I did say, in the realm of dependent co-arising, the mirror always shines through all of our activity.

[34:52]

I like that. There, it says MW. That's me. So, it's silently illuminating. but not silent illumination, specifically. In other words, he's not talking about sitting zazen. He's talking about just the nature of things. If you look around you, you'll see that all these people are silently illuminating. It's just a fact. Yes, it's true. Yeah, what did you want to say? I'm not sure I understand what you said there in the realm of the kind of go around the mirror, always shines through.

[35:59]

I'm not sure exactly where you are. Oh, right, where your work's at, on the page FW? Yeah, earlier you said that you didn't like this one translation that said it shines through causes and conditions, because that's dualistic. How's what you're saying different from that? Yeah, that's not different. That's what I said. So I didn't like it. I like what I said. I didn't like the way he said it. I like the way I said it. In other words, like, you know, I changed my mind and I like the way he said it too. It's just a little subtlety, that's all. A little subtlety. But see, where it says FW, that's also where we translated it.

[37:08]

Bright and still, it appears as causes and conditions, time and occasion. It appears as that. So that's a little more inclusive, a little less dualistic. But then I wrote something else that says, everything is Buddha nature. That's why we need to have reverence and respect for things. We bow to the pillar and we bow to dogs and cats. And this is Tozan's mirror. Wherever I turn, I see Buddha nature. Some of these translations I get the feeling that they're saying, under certain conditions, the illumination is the same always. Yeah, so I don't understand the under certain conditions. But I can see maybe why they mean that. They may mean that sometimes you realize it and sometimes you don't. And under certain conditions you realize it.

[38:10]

But if, there's always. But it's like the sun. is always in the sky, or the moon is always in the sky, but you don't always see it. So, it seems like there's kind of three options here. One, you can say that it shines through causes and conditions, you can say that it is causes and conditions, and that... Sorry, what was the one he just said? Under certain causes and conditions you can see it. So, I don't know, can you say something? Are they all kind of right? I think, yeah, I think that it's true that you can see it in two different ways. Because you can see it as, like Richard said, sometimes you see it and sometimes you don't, even though it's there. And the other way of saying it is that it's always there, shining through conditions, whether you see it or not. So it's different ways of viewing, different ways of

[39:14]

talking about it or perceiving it. So should we look for it? You should look at it. In the mind or with the eyes? You should look at Buddha nature. Don't look for it. Look at it. Because if you look for it, you think it's somewhere else than where you're looking. One way of saying this is a metaphor, and the other way not. Is one of these a metaphor, and one of them not a metaphor? Like a metaphor for understanding something. the spiritual sense of things in our mind versus actually seeing the energy or light or something.

[40:20]

Yeah, I think that's there too. I think that's there too. So there's one that says, causes and conditions right at this moment shine completely in the silence. That's interesting. And then another one says, at each time and condition it quietly shines. So that means it's always shining, whether you see it shining or not. So, you know, we say reality is right in front of our eyes all the time. It's always there to be seen. But we don't see it. But we do see it. We just don't recognize that that's what we're seeing. Yes? The second two, the time, moment, opportunity, occasion... Second two?

[41:25]

The third and fourth characters. Oh, characters. It sounds like it's really... this, like you know this bamboo knot or node, like this, this very thing, it's it, this particular manifestation, any and all. Right, through all manifestations it's shining. Know what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah, well I think that's the sense of it. Through every manifestation it's shining and even though it's not perceived, it's seen. We just don't know what we see. So the difference between enlightenment and delusion is that we look at the same thing and when we see it with a deluded mind we see it one way, when we see it with an enlightened mind we see it another way, but it's the same thing we're looking at, but it's not the same consciousness.

[42:28]

We'll get into that a little later because when we start looking at Hakuin, we take a look at consciousness and how consciousness observes things. You look at me when you say You know when you look at waves in the sun. The oceans, you know, the breakers are there and the waves are in the ocean and they're breaking on the shore.

[43:36]

But you see the light of the sun reflected in the breaker, right? So, within that activity, the light is shining forth. It doesn't matter what the activity is. The activity, everything is at rest. But it's not an although, because although means besides, or even so. That's, you know. Yeah. That's right. So they say, the bridge is moving while the water is standing still.

[44:50]

Because that's its nature. Where is the fundamental practice in it? To be yourself completely. So page 39, it's still talking about it and how its size, in its fineness it fits into spacelessness, in its greatness it is utterly beyond location. So this is talking about conforming to

[46:05]

whatever circumstance. It has no special shape, and it has no special shape or form, so you can't describe it. This is why it's impossible to describe Muna nature, impossible to describe the mirror, because it doesn't have any special shape or form or characteristics. There's no special shape or form or characteristics that it has, but every shape and form are the shapes and forms of what it is. So all shapes and forms are its characteristics, but if you point to anything and say, well, this is what it is, it is that, but that doesn't describe it. Like Tozan looks in the stream, he says, it is me, but I am not it.

[47:18]

It is what I am, but I'm not it. But there's no place that it's not. I think all of these translations express pretty much the same thing. So fine that it penetrates no space at all, so large that its bounds can never be measured, so small it enters into spacelessness, so large it's beyond dimension, small it enters where there is no space, large it bursts all bounds. So they're all pretty much saying the same thing. In other words, it just It's kind of like water. Water would just fill up whatever container, whatever space that it finds, that it flows into. And air is the same way.

[48:24]

So I don't think it needs much explanation. Here it talks about hells. If you come to the top, the second and third characters, Wu and Ji. Does the dog have Buddha nature? Wu. That's the character for Wu. But it means without, no. And Jian in Chinese is interval or separation. gap. And if you look down at the bottom of those two characters, they're connected. The two of them together mean Avicii. Avicii is a Sanskrit word meaning a certain kind of applied to Buddhist hells, the eight Buddhist hells. And it gives a description about the eight hells. I don't think that has anything to do with it, frankly. I just kind of wanted to make a comment on Avicii Hell, uninterrupted or without intermission.

[49:36]

So I think it applies to this in the sense that it's uninterrupted. It's just like there. You know, just all pervasive, just everywhere, without exception. So that's the kind of, I think, the meaning of uninterrupted or avicci. The avicci hells in Buddhism are the hell where, well, one of them is, you know, you just go right there, you pass go, and just go right there. It's interesting, Buddhist hells, it's a little off the mark, I mean it's a little diversion to talk about Buddhist hells, but in Mahayana Buddhism, even though there are these illustrations, wonderful Japanese illustrations of these hells, I have some pictures which I'll show you, we create heaven and hell.

[50:48]

Heaven and hell are places where we live right now, and they're created by ourself, by our mind, except in extreme circumstances where we're thrown into a dungeon or something like that. But ordinarily we create our own dungeons and our own heavens, and we try to create our own heavens. This is a big problem. We smoke dope and we create all kinds of circumstances to make our lives heavenly, to create these fake heavenly realms to live in. And society is just loaded with it. The American dream is like this fantasy of creating a heaven and we're just creating a hell.

[51:50]

The more conveniences we have, the harder we have to work to get them, and we have to work at them to make them work. I don't want to diverge, but what's happening now is that the offense industry is making mechanical soldiers. That's the wave of the future, mechanical soldiers who will be able to think for themselves up to a point. Anyway, we're creating wonderful heavenly realms here. The enlightenment is to be able to know, this is hell and I have created it.

[52:56]

This is our heavenly realm and I created it. Yeah. It, it, it keeps coming up. It, yeah. It's the sister of it. But it seems like there's not a There's not a character that's it. I know. Somehow this is all about it, but in Chinese, it is never. That's right. Yeah. So it is not, you know, it is a neutral term. It does not have an object unless you assign it an object. So we assign object, we assign it to object. And we say, this is it. Right? So, and then, whatever we point to, we say, whatever we assign, we say, this is it. But, it is like zero.

[54:01]

If you have an equation, and you have a line, and below the line is zero, and above the line is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. So, 0 is it, because 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 all contain 0, and all depend on 0. So, 0 is it, but if I want to talk about 5, 5 is also it, because I assign it to 5. So, this is called the real and the phenomenal. Out of zero comes ten. This is the same thing, as form is emptiness and emptiness is form, if you see it in that light. So it, we talk about it all the time, it is so minute, it is so big, because the only way you can talk about it is to say it, because it doesn't apply to anything in particular, but when you say it, it's zero.

[55:12]

Buddha nature. It's what you want to be. But it also applies to phenomena. There's something beautiful about that Chinese can do that without even saying it. Yeah, well yeah, I mean they have a different way of expressing it but for us to express it we have to say it. So it's just about time. and have a nice sleep. Have a nice day off.

[55:51]

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