Good morning. Well, this morning, this is the sixth day of Sashim. We have people who have been sitting all week, and a bunch of new people who have just arrived. And it's like the stream is flowing, the mountain stream is flowing into the ocean, and the ocean has been sitting here for a long time, and the mountain stream And maybe the ocean is saying, well, pretty soon I'll get to go home.

[01:23]

We should be very careful that we don't start becoming anticipating something. The purpose of stanching is to put an end to anticipation. If you can put an end to anticipation, then you can be totally present. So there's nothing to expect, and there's no place to go. And this is the end of the line. I remember at Tassajara, one practice period, people give their talks about their lives, and one woman said, people usually say,

[02:38]

where are you from?" when they meet somebody. But she said, Tassajara would say, how did you get here? Meaning, this is where everything stops. This is like the end of the line. This sasheen actually is the end of the line and possibly your life will start over again in a day or so, hopefully. But our attitude should be that there's no tomorrow, there's no next moment.

[03:44]

So every moment is a kind of gift, no matter what's happening. A wonderful surprise. This is the only way that we can sit sasheen. just moment by moment after moment, one moment at a time. So when you start thinking about the difficulty you may be having, just appreciate each moment If you start thinking ahead, if you start anticipating, you have a lot of difficulty.

[04:53]

This is the biggest cause of our difficulty. We have to do some, you know, we have to prepare meals and think about how things work. Just serve. When we eat, just eat. When we have good feelings, they're just good feelings. When we have bad feelings, just bad feelings. But we just call them good and bad. We must remember this. So the purpose of this Sashin is to give us this total freedom from good and bad, and making judgments, and allows us to live our life completely in the present, or allows life to appear completely in the present

[06:22]

So this is enlightened activity, basis of enlightened activity. So Dogen says, firewood turns into ash and does not turn into firewood again. But do not suppose that the ash is after and that the firewood is before. We must realize that firewood is in the state of being firewood and has its before and after. Having this before and after, it is independent of them.

[07:36]

Ash is in a state of being ash and has its before and after. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, so after one's death, one does not return to life again. Thus, that life does not become death is a confirmed teaching of the Buddhadharma. For this reason, life is called the non-born. that death does not become life is a confirmed teaching of the Buddhadharma. Therefore, death is called the non-extinguished. Life is a period of itself. Death is a period of itself. For example, they are like winter and spring. We do not think that winter becomes spring, nor do we say that spring becomes summer. Dogen says, firewood turns into ash and does not turn into firewood again. But do not suppose that ash is after and the firewood is before.

[08:39]

Firewood does not turn into ash and ash does not turn into firewood again. So we say everything has its own dharma position, meaning on each moment, each existence, Each dharma has its position or place or shape, time and shape on each moment. But do not suppose that the ash is after and the firewood is before. because ash does not turn into fire, firewood does not turn into ash. Firewood is firewood and ash is ash. This understanding, this comes from the understanding that there's not some special thing that turns into something else.

[09:51]

When we talk about our life, we say, well, I was a child and now I'm an adult. And we say, from a child I turned into an adult. But there is no someone who turns from one thing to another. If there was someone that turned from transformed from one thing to another, then there would be something permanent that doesn't change, even though something changed. For one thing to change into something else would take a complete transformation of that thing, and it would no longer be what it is.

[10:57]

So something doesn't change into something else. This person that I am right now does not change into some other person or some person on the next moment. This person is this person. Next moment's person is the next moment's person. But because of our idea of continuity, because one moment's existence influences the next moment's existence, we get the idea of permanency, or an abiding self. So we say, well, that firewood turned into ash, but the firewood

[11:59]

was the firewood. The ash is the ash. And each has its own dharma position. Each has its own position as existence. So firewood has its before and after. It has its own history. Firewood has its own history. and its own future. But actually, future is just a word we have to designate something that hasn't happened. Future is something that hasn't happened, so it's just an idea. Past is also an idea, but it's something that's happened. So we can say that the past has happened to me. The future hasn't happened to me, but the past has happened to me.

[13:06]

But who has the past happened to? Is there some abiding entity that the past has happened to? When we look at a movie, it looks like a life. It looks like a whole slice of life. But the movie is made of one frame after another, one moment's frame after another. When you look at a Walt Disney movie, one drawing after another, millions of drawings to make this movement. So our life takes place in millions of micro-movements on each moment, each one discrete, but influenced by the past moments.

[14:22]

So it looks like something is happening, looks like one progressive thing. It has that quality, but its reality is that there are only discrete moments, and each moment has its own history and its own possibility of future. If you look at your vertebrae, it looks like one piece. all stacked up together. If you look at your body, it looks like one piece, but it's a bunch of pieces all hanging together. If you look at your mind, it looks like you have a thought, but it's just many electrical waves in some sequence.

[15:32]

So Dogen says, we must realize that firewood is in a state of being fire and has its before and after. Yet having this before and after, it is independent of them. Ash is in a state of being ash and has its before and after. It's like We say, milk is turned into cheese. When I churn the milk, it turns into butter. But actually, milk is milk and butter is butter. And the milk was the milk. But the milk is not the butter. The butter is the butter. We say, milk has a function in the production of butter.

[16:38]

But once milk has ceased its function, it has nothing more to do with butter. We say, steer and meat. When we look at the steer, we don't say, that's meat. Look at that meat. We say, look at that steer. But when you have it on the plate, you say, look at that steak. You don't say, look at that steer. We can do that. But we don't, because the steer is the steer, and the steak is the steak. The steer is a cause for the steak. But they are two different things. Otherwise, there would be a something that would be both steer and stake.

[17:46]

So, there's... Dogen is saying that There's no enduring substance that turns from one thing into another. Things just appear moment by moment. And our life appears moment by moment. And when we talk about birth and death, he says birth does not turn into death. Life does not turn into death. This is a very fundamental Buddhist understanding. Otherwise, there would be one thing that at some point was life and at some point was death. So he says, just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, so after one's death, one does not return to life again.

[19:16]

One doesn't jump back to being firewood. Ash does not jump back to being firewood or come around to being firewood. Although, in the long run, ash can be a contributing factor to firewood. the farmers burn the corn stalks, burn the ground, and make ash. And then the corn grows up again, and the ash is a contributing factor to the corn. But the ash is the ash, and the corn is the corn. When we eat something, we are what we eat, but that's just a matter of speaking. Thus, that life does not become death is a confirmed teaching of the Buddhadharma.

[20:18]

For this reason, life is called the non-born. That death does not become life is a confirmed teaching of the Buddhadharma. Therefore, death is called the non-extinguished. Life is a period of itself, and death is a period of itself. For example, they are like winter and spring. We do not think that winter becomes spring, nor do we say that spring becomes summer. So spring is just spring. Winter is just winter. Although we say spring comes after winter. And winter is a contributing cause to spring, but spring is spring. Winter is winter. Summer is summer. All the states of life interact and influence each other, all the momentary states of life, so-called life, birth and death.

[21:21]

But everything is renewed moment by moment. So when you talk about birth and death, birth and death is something that's happening constantly. Although we perceive the appearance and disappearance or the integration or disintegration of something. So we can call this whole thing life or we can call the whole thing death. We call it either one. In a dualistic sense, we say life and death. But in a non-dualistic way, The word life covers both life and death, birth and death. The only way you can express the non-duality of duality is by using a dualistic term.

[22:29]

So monk asked Joshu, does the dog have the Buddha nature? Then he said, no. If you understand that no is the opposite of yes, then you say, well, we know that dogs have buddha nature. The monk asking the question if the dogs have buddha nature. But Joshu said no. No. Joshu is using no as a non-dualistic term. I mean, no includes yes. Just no. Sometimes this is called using the thief's horse to chase the thief. In other words, using the dualistic term in a non-dualistic way. When the emperor asked Bodhidharma about the nature of reality, Bodhidharma said, nothing holy.

[23:54]

Nothing holy means everything is holy. When we talk about form and emptiness, Emptiness is form. Emptiness means form. Form means emptiness. Birth means death. Death means birth. So, in order to actualize our life, our actual life means to be established each moment in our position.

[25:09]

We can't depend on some kind of continuity. We can't be complacent. Real life does not allow us to be complacent. It means that we have to respond on each moment and renew our life on each moment through the response. This is why we sit sasheen. We have to respond to each moment and come to life in each moment, moment by moment. Otherwise, we miss our life. So there's only life from moment to moment. And this life looks like continuous, something continuous. And it does have that continuous quality.

[26:14]

certain kind of continuity and direction. So, on one level, our life has continuity and direction, and we know where we're going, we know what we're doing, and we take it all for granted. But underneath that, life and birth and death are right there on each moment. And we have to establish ourselves on each moment. establish our life on each moment. And we have the opportunity to have this kind of freedom. This is called ultimate freedom or liberation. Not trying to escape from impermanence, but accepting impermanence completely. complete acceptance of impermanence and acting in accordance with it.

[27:24]

And this is what is called liberation. So we have this opportunity, when we have Seshin, to give up the idea of past and present, or past and future, and just be present, responding to each moment's situation, moment by moment. Suzuki Roshi used to say, life of enlightenment is just living your life moment by moment, completely. a little bit at a time, living your life a little bit at a time, moment by moment. But usually we think in terms of big ideas, a big idea about something, and then we go ahead and do it.

[28:39]

That's okay. But we don't so often have the opportunity to live our life completely, moment by moment. without discrimination of good and bad and right and wrong. Actually, without fear. When we're really there in that moment, there's no fear, there's no heat, there's no cold. There's just complete merging. And then, and it's like complete dying, completely dying, holding on to nothing.

[29:47]

And then, miraculously, we come back to life. even though our life is conditioned, letting go of everything and just being present. And so there's an old saying, today we do today's work. Tomorrow we do tomorrow's work. In monastic practice, monastic practice is set up so that there are many periods in the day.

[30:58]

And when there's a signal for the end of an activity, you just let go and go into the next activity. No matter how nice it is to be doing something, you just let go and you die to that activity and become reborn in the next activity. And if you can't do that, then you have a lot of trouble. And the same thing applies to hanging on to feelings. The ninth precept is don't be attached or don't harbor ill-will. Don't harbor ill-will doesn't mean say don't get mad. It says don't harbor ill-will. When ill-will comes up, there's a time to let it go.

[32:06]

And to let it go is to find liberation, of course. But we bind ourselves with it and cause our own suffering. This goes for all feelings, sensations, We bind ourselves very tightly and wrap these ropes around ourselves. So liberation means just that, to allow ourselves to be free. So usual life is to accumulate, but the life of practice is to continually let go.

[33:16]

When something goes up, let it go. And just keep letting it go until you just stand there in freedom. Doesn't mean that you don't engage, but this is called non-attachment, life of non-attachment. to engage and yet not to be stuck. When anger comes, just anger. And then, like a cloud passing, it rains, then the cloud passes. So, to establish ourselves moment by moment in our position, abiding in the dharma position moment by moment.

[34:18]

When this applies to our work, You have to take care of your children at that moment. That's your Dharma position. And without bringing all the stuff from the past or worrying too much about the future, to just take care of that moment. So much of our problems come from the residue that we bring with us to a situation. And to just be able to take care of a situation in this moment, as this moment, is very rare. Because we usually have so much accumulation that we bring to a moment. Dogen says, to let go is to free the bodies and minds of ourselves and others.

[35:34]

So how do we let go of our stuff in order to free our own body-mind and the body-minds of others? I talked in the first day about dedicating this session to world peace. This is our fundamental practice of bringing peace to the world. stuff that we bring to us in each situation. So anyway, it's rare to be able to do this, but this is our practice. This is enlightened practice.

[36:41]

So what Dogen is talking about continually here is through our activity, enlightenment comes forth. Enlightenment is our own intrinsic nature, but it doesn't manifest unless we practice. It doesn't manifest as enlightenment. It's completely bound up with our activity. Kind of like the light on a bicycle wheel. The gear is engaged in the wheel, and the more the wheel turns, the brighter the light gets.

[37:42]

But when the wheel isn't turning, the light doesn't go on. So, each one of us has our position. In this Sashin, we each have our position. Some of us are cooking, some of us are serving, somebody's taking care of seeing things run well. And during work period, each one of us has some task. And during Zazen, our position is just to sit. So on each moment, We have our Dharma position. And we're not thinking about something else. We're just here doing this.

[38:44]

And from our position, cover the whole thing. Each one of us is a contributing factor to the way this thing works. I have my position, someone else has their position, but I make it work for my position you make it work from your position. So each one of us is actually in full control of how things work. From our position, from our Dharma position, we control the universe without controlling anything. So there's no need to compare where we are.

[40:00]

Each one of us is perfect and complete within the situation. Dogen says, therefore, wherever one stands, we don't fail to cover the whole ground. This is an important understanding. Wherever one stands in this way, We cover the whole ground. Perfectly complete. I just happen to be, have my things to do, and you just happen to have your thing to do. Different, yet not different. Do you have any questions?

[41:28]

It seems to me that to perceive each frame, we need to be in a position that abides. To perceive each thing, we need to be in a position to see? Abides. Abides. It continues. So there is something that continues in order to make sense of what it is that occurs in each frame. Yeah, continuity, which is called movement. I think that's something different than what I was saying, but maybe not. Otherwise, there's no point. That's right. We take a point. We make a point. We establish a point. And we say, this is the point. But a point is something that we establish.

[42:34]

I think it's something that is there that we find. It's there that we find. That we understand, for example, that peace is our goal. It's just an idea, you know. I understand. But that it matters versus not being at peace. Yeah, it's not that it doesn't matter. But, you know, we also say peace is good and something else is bad. But it's still judgment. But we accept that judgment because we want to live. Well, I think in enlightenment, We see that. That abides. It abides. And in order for each frame to be related and to have a position, there needs to be a context that abides.

[43:42]

Right. But that abiding is not permanent. It changes. The abiding also changes. And the idea of peace changes. What is peace? Well, peace is the absence of restlessness. But you can define it in many different ways, right? You can define peace in many different ways. It's a standpoint we take. We take a standpoint. We say, from this standpoint, this is peace. From this standpoint, this is restlessness. Someone else can take another standpoint and say, from this standpoint, this is peace. Or from this standpoint, this is... So we have to agree on what we think these things are.

[44:48]

As a matter of fact, people who want peace do not agree on what it is. So we live our life through agreements, through ideas and agreements, which are impermanent. But the teaching that's passed on from our ancestors, the bodies, even has it changed? Well, yes and no. For a while it does. Not so many people pay attention to the Upanishads anymore. There is something that abides, and there's some yearning and desire for it. Nevertheless, we don't all agree on what that is. The yearning abides. getting this say there's milk and there's butter but there's a point at which milk is becoming butter and so it's neither milk and it's not milk and it's not butter but it is milk and it is butter at the time of transformation well that's like when you breathe in and breathe out there's a point

[46:24]

at which you have your exhale, inhale, and a point at which you exhale, and a point at which you inhale, right? But the point at which, I don't know if there's a point at which it's milk and then it's butter. It's not clear. And another question. You said some time ago that trees are buddha nature. So is ash buddha nature? Why not? Ash is buddha nature, and it has its own position as ash. And it has its own before and after, just like everything else. I could say no. A monk asked Joshu, does the dog have buddha nature?

[47:35]

And he said, yes. Well, then that would mean that a newspaper paper plate would have buddha nature. You're getting it. It's not has buddha nature. It's is buddha nature. Everything is buddha nature. That's the name of the game. And all these particles of buddha nature pop up moment after moment. understand why do we need to see things, see these states in discrete moments.

[49:10]

I don't think of it that way. You don't think of it that way? Right. I think of, I mean, I'm not sure, in order to accept non-self and impermanence, I don't necessarily have to think of everything as having this fixed moment of firewood, say, and ash, that if you see causes and effects interacting constantly in a flux, then I feel like that's the way I look at things. And to say, this darn moment is firewood. This darn moment is firewood with 1 64th of an inch on the left corner charred. This darn moment, a little more, a little more. That's just splitting hairs.

[50:12]

It is. Someone asked a question about that. It's the same question. It's actually the same thing that Susan was saying. That's the question Susan asked. That's right. So that's... I said I didn't want to split that here. But what's the... Okay, let me say it another way without splitting it here. What's the importance of... He's making a real point about us seeing the Dharma moment. seeing ourself or living our life moment by moment so that we can express that reality. I'm not talking about seeing something. It's just really the way things are. Maybe you say, well, I see the way things come together and life is continually transforming This is just, that's one way of saying it.

[51:23]

This is one way of saying it. Yeah, I'm not sure. There's also another way of saying it. As a matter of fact, Dogen's continually talking about different ways of saying the same thing. As a matter of fact, in this practice, there's only one question and one response, and it's being said in innumerable ways. I agree with you. Because... Because as he said, I realized that I am now in the position of being tank of so many things. And to be able to see life as a being of each heart helped me to stabilize myself and take a position for each, what you call it, each flame. And so I think that, you know, it's many ways to say it depends on where we come from and what we need to get out of it. Candace, actually.

[52:29]

Well, I think that what Dogen is describing is reality state. This is what it is. And that a scientist might use another, would use another language, well, firewood turns into ash, and do a whole description, but Dogen is working on the Zen view, or just, this is what it is, that style. Yeah, I had this wonderful experience with my father-in-law, during Thanksgiving weekend, and I was talking about, something about my life, I can't remember exactly what I said, but I said something about my life, And he says, what makes you think you're alive? Or he said something like, what makes you think that you're alive? And I was really startled by his question, because he's a scientist, a famous scientist, actually.

[53:36]

And I said, I can't agree with you more. I said, that's the most arrogance, to say, I am alive. And, you know, we were both agreeing on something from two different points of view. Because I remember one time when I first met him, I asked, you know, he has this experiment on Mars, and I'm looking for life on Mars. He's an expert on looking for life on Mars. And he said, well, there's no life on Mars. I said, but Mars itself is life, isn't it? Anyway, we're getting a little closer. Susan? Well, I love the idea that there isn't any past or any future and that the present is just that each new moment is a new gift when you start the lecture.

[54:41]

And that really there's just a succession of present moments. But the trouble is that it seems like, going back to this frame again, there really isn't such a thing as the present either, because if you think about the moment, anything that you can experience as a moment, if you just get down to the quickest cross-section you can get to, you have to experience it as the blink of an eye or something, and then you're just remembering the blink that you just blinked in the past moment. Isn't that what Blake says, catch the joy as it flies? You can't catch it as it flies. The Diamond Sutra says, past, present and future cannot be grasped. So, it's true. But still, Even though that's true, we still talk about the present, and we still talk about the future, and we still talk about the past. So anyway, whatever it is that we're talking about is just an idea that tries to express something.

[55:45]

And you have to realize that it's an idea that tries to express something. And if you try to get it perfect in words, then you go beyond a certain point at which you're just dealing with words. We have to remember to stay in that place where we're talking about something, but the words don't exactly hit it, right? So you have to get through between the lines and not hang on to the words. I don't mean to be picky. I kind of think that in a way, the fact that there isn't really any present moment Well, it's true, but at the same time, to say there's no present moment implies that there is a present moment. It means everything is in this present moment. So whenever you make a statement that says there is or there isn't, the opposite is right there.

[56:48]

That's right. To say, you know, sudden enlightenment, right? Sudden enlightenment sounds like something that happens like this. But what does sudden mean? Sudden can be from the time you're born until the time you disintegrate. Or an enlightened thought can take 20 years. Or a sudden thought can take 20 years. Short and long, sudden and gradual, are just ways that we have of talking about something. There is nothing that happens suddenly. If we say, you know, it takes billions of light years for the light from a star to get to the earth, that's sudden.

[57:59]

I can say, that's sudden, just as well as someone else can say, that really takes a long time. It just depends on where you're looking at it from. So, because there's nothing stable, we establish stability. We establish our life through wanting to make a stable situation for life, for our life. And it comes down to, this is peace and this is war, you know, disease, uneasiness, restlessness. I think it's the word discreet moment that sort of says I'm supposed to be seeing something or experiencing something that's different

[59:17]

Discrete moments, that's right. The moment as beginning, middle, and end. I feel we shouldn't have lost the moment here. I think the point is that the firewood doesn't turn into ash. That the firewood's firewood. The ash is the ash. And the ash is ash. And it has its history. It has its, you know, past. It has its future. And we can talk about what past is, we can talk about what future is, but the point is to be present moment by moment without clinging to something or expecting something. But the rest of the point is that this one moment is completely unique and is eternal. because it does not change into something else.

[60:35]

So this is ko and om, what we've been talking about, that this present moment in all of its diversity is exactly the absolute moment. And when we can do that, that's how we experience it. That's called experiencing reality. I think it's really important to just say experiencing, because we talk about seeing, we talk about ideas, words, everything, but there is still an experience that isn't future, isn't past, and isn't now, and is all of them. Right. And it's experienced. Thank you very much.

[61:54]

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