Well, I'm welcome. Usually, in the recent past, the meeting starts at, the class starts at 1.15, 7.15, but in the schedule it says 7.30. So we compromise by me walking over at 7.25. So somebody may appear. We don't know. We should decide what time it is in that class. And since everyone is here, presumably, that is going to be in class, we need to say we start at 7.15. I like 7.30 better, but 7.15 is fine. We did earlier. Okay, so as you know, the subject for our class is Dogen Zenji's Genjokou.

[01:05]

I've given this class several times in the past. on this subject, and I think it's really good to keep renewing so that more people will have access to Dogen Rinji's teachings. Jinjo Koan, of course, is a touchstone, considered a touchstone, for all of Dōgen's teachings, all of his Shōbō Genzō, which is various compilations called Genjō Kōhan, which is the collection of Dōgen Zenjin's writings. It's unusual for a Zen master to do so much writing, especially when he talks about Non-verbal communication.

[02:09]

Nevertheless, Delgad doesn't consider his writing in the usual sense, actually. When we read Delgad, Delgad is pretty difficult. Anytime you start reading any one of Delgad's fancicles, it's very difficult. which are difficult to understand. So, when we read Dogen, or study Dogen, I don't say read. The best way, you know, is to just not try to figure it out. Dogen takes on a kind of journey through his mind, through his big mind. So, it's actually like being inside a dharma vision.

[03:11]

We just follow the way he expresses himself. So it's not like writing a novel or something that is interesting in some way or another. Each line, each paragraph, each sentence is expressing the dharma. in a certain non-dualistic manner. And so, you know, ginjo koan is the name of this fascicle. So, ginjo means something like manifesting in the present, or presently manifesting. It's like, just now, or just, or this. Koan has various meanings.

[04:12]

In the usual sense, a koan collection of various encounters of the old masters with their students and other people. These koans are an expression of the master's understanding in a total, non-dualistic way. The origin of the meaning of koan seems to be like a public case. If you're a lawyer, you go to the precedence, pres-a-dence, in order to verify or get some picture of how to deal with a case. So the koans and the old message about precedence, you go to study them in order to see, well, what do they think about Zen, or life, or enlightenment.

[05:25]

This Genjo koan of Dogen, the koan, meaning a koan, you can look at it a little bit differently. Ko means like even or equal. And on means like a position, a particular position. So, in a rhetorical, hierarchical sense, you can say on means the position of each thing in this, the position of each thing on this horizontal plane. So, an is like vertical or hierarchical.

[06:35]

And ko is like even or equal. So, in the case of genjo koan, the equal The equality within differentiation and the differentiation within equality, where they meet, is your koan, every moment. So, if we have a vertical line and a horizontal line, right where they meet, you can say that's called mind. Big mind. That's what we call now or the present manifestation and that's true every single moment. So every moment arises as a new moment within the moment that is not subject to change.

[07:51]

In other words, the eternal moment, which is always now, and the ephemeral moment, which is continually changing. So, now and then. I love Sesame Street. You know, I don't know how it is now, but when my son was a boy, a little boy, I remember at the break, Gary Sistine and I would go, I used to live upstairs there, that's where we lived. And he'd be watching Sesame Street. And this is the word, now. This is the word sit. This is the word walk. Step. It's really simple. They're teaching Zen.

[08:59]

Now, I'm going to make a little adjustment here, because at the end of my toenail, it goes into the mat and it hurts. So I put my little kitten under there. What's the kid's name? There he is. Bob brought this back from Nepal. He rents this in Nepal. And so it goes like this. But I use it this way. Raise my toenail a little bit. So, Densho Kōran has been translated and commented on in many ways by many people.

[10:12]

And back in the 70s, by Zumi Roshi, when he was the abbot at the Elisha Center in Keito, John Lurie. John Lurie, who at that time was a photographer. So they put me in this wonderful book of Genjoko on translation and commentary by Maezumi Roshi with photographs by, I know, John Lurie. It's way out of print, a few years ago. I use it a lot, and it's got all my notes in it. But there are other translations, and you have, actually, you have this translation. So that's the one I will work with, with comments from other translations or from other people. So, there are certain key words that I think are essential to remember.

[11:34]

And one phrase that my zinni goes, intrinsic and experiential. When we look at the elements, the fundamental elements of our life, there's the intrinsic and the experiential. So intrinsic means buddha nature or that which is fundamental. That's what's intrinsic. Our true nature is intrinsic. Experiential is like what we experience. our thoughts and feelings, the five skandhas, and all the dharmas take part in our experiential life. So, how do we put all that together?

[12:38]

That's what Gajagopala is about. How do we put the essential and the experiential together? How does that all work? Nobody knows. But Dobin will give us some point to this problem. Our practice is based on Dogen's teaching. He was born in the 13th century, in the year 1200, as a matter of fact. So it's easy to tell how old he was by just the year. When he was 1225, he was 25 years old.

[13:41]

So he'd have to be 54 or something like that. So not very old. and brought back what he felt was the true Dharma from China to Japan. He felt that Japan was, the practice in Japan was too intellectual and scholarly, and although they had a lot of practice, you know, the 10th high school where he practiced when he was young, was an eclectic school. Tendai school, just like Buddhism in China now, or the way it was before the revolution, China amalgamated all of the practices into one practice. And one of the ages of the Tendai school

[14:45]

You can find all the practices of Buddhism in that school. And that was a dominant school in Japan that was transported to Japan. And Shingon was the other one. So Dogen was not satisfied with that practice. He was searching for Zen. Long story short, he went to Japan and brought back... He went to China and brought back... and established the school there. Of course, Keizan, who is the fourth patriarch, actually established the Soto school, but Dogen brought back the essence. So he usually studied Dogen as the essential teacher. So when Dogen came back, he wrote this genjoku on 4A.

[15:58]

But it is the touchstone. Whatever you find in Genjo Koan, he expands in all the other classicals. So he uses, if your studies don't get to any extent, you can see where each classical has its origin in Genjo Koan. So I just want to look at my notes a minute. presenting the fundamentals of the Mahayana teaching as the basis for his Zen.

[17:09]

So that's why Mahayana teaching includes buddhanature as the fundamental basis for existence. So he lays out three sentences, four sentences actually, and so I'll read the four sentences and then talk about them, and then I hope we can have a discussion. So I'd like you to see, unless you have a real or after, at the point where we'll say, do you have any questions? So here's the way Dogan starts out the ginger call.

[18:15]

With Dogan, in almost all of his fascicles, the opening statement is the main subject. and then the rest is the commentary. So these four statements are the fundamental and the rest is commentary. So he says, when all dharmas are buddhadharma, there are enlightenment and delusion, practice, birth and death, buddhas and creatures. When the 10,000 dharmas are without self, there are no religion, no enlightenment, no buddhas, no creatures, no life, and no death. The Buddha way leaps clearly beyond being and non-being. Actually, I kind of need to take this a minute. I'll read what it is. The Buddha way transcends being and non-being.

[19:17]

Therefore, there are life and death, delusion and enlightenment, creatures of Buddha. Nevertheless, flowers fall without a testament, think we spring So, in the first sentence, the word when is important. It's been translated as as. In other words, as a given. Or always. But actually, the word when is is agreed upon. The word when means at time, at that time, at a time. Now, at a time can mean when one opens one's eyes, when one has some enlightening experience.

[20:28]

At that time, one realizes this. That's the meaning of when. Seems to be the meaning of when. When one realizes all dharmas are buddhadharma, there are enlightenment and delusion, practice, birth and death, buddhas and buddhas. I don't like to say life and death. I usually like to say birth and death because in this case birth and death are opposites. And if you say life and death, life is bigger than what we consider life. For me, life is bigger, is more inclusive than what we usually think of as life. We think, well, now that you're dead, there's no more life. But that's seeing life

[21:32]

in a dualistic sense as the opposite in a very small way actually. So birth and death, birth is a process and death is a process. You don't know certain birth and death is death. But life includes both birth and death from my understanding. Life includes both birth and death because birth and death is a duality whereas life is not. So, I like to say birth and death. And a lot of translations translate it as birth and death as well. So, at the time when we realize that all tarbans are pinatana, they are enlightenment and delusion. Enlightenment and delusion, of course, are a duality. We think that enlightenment is the opposite of delusion.

[22:37]

But that's just a dualistic understanding that definishes both enlightenment and delusion. And then he says, practice. But there's no opposite to practice. Here you see, practice doesn't have an opposite. So that's interesting. Birds of death are opposites and birds and creatures seem like opposites. So we have three pairs of dualities and then we have practice as standing by itself. This is presenting, people say, well, there are three different ways to observe these three statements, or these four statements. One is, well, I don't want to talk about that.

[23:44]

I just want to talk about what I think. We can think about this as the water and the waves. Intrinsic is like the water. Experiential is like the waves, right? Or like the water is one whole being, and the waves are this expression. But the waves are also the water, and the water is also a wave. So this particular, this first sentence is talking about waves are waves. Genjo Koan has waves.

[24:48]

In other words, Dendro-Koan is our life of activity, where our Buddha nature is hidden, and only the ways are revealed. It's like the movie, screen and movie. This is about the movie, on the screen. When the movie comes on the screen, you don't see the screen, you only see the movie, right? But without the screen, there's no movie. So, this is Genjo-Koan as the movie. Nothing wrong with it, actually. I'm not criticizing it. I'm just saying, this is Genjo-Koan as the movie. As the activity of our life. As drinking tea, as cutting firewood, walking, grilling, whatever it is that you're doing. That's our life. Of activity.

[25:49]

And practice includes all these dualities. So this is the duality of non-duality. Because non-duality is the intrinsic reality. So then, when the 10,000 garments are without self, there are no division, no enlightenment, no goodness, no creatures, no birth, no death. So this is emphasizing the ocean. This is focusing on the ocean. The first one is emptiness is form.

[26:58]

From the Heart Sutra, this sentence is form is emptiness. All form is just emptiness. No self. No self means emptiness. Buddha nature means emptiness. Empty of what? This is the ocean without the waves. When we sit down there, it's the ocean without the waves. There are some waves, you know, there are waves, but not much. It's as close as you can get to no waves. And then when we step out, it's waves. Just consider it as a wave.

[28:01]

But here, it's just the screen without the movie. And then, the third sentence is, the Buddha way, now let me read it according to a different translation. Instead of saying transcend being and non-being, The Buddha actually says, the Buddha way is leaping clear of the many and the one. Leaping clear of the ocean and the waves. In other words, no ocean and no waves. The waves are the ocean and the ocean is the waves. This is the last of the five ranks.

[29:07]

This is the kind of, you know, if you studied, those of you who have been studying the five ranks, you will see that he includes those in a very subterranean way throughout the Ginjo Kōan and the Ginjo and the Shogun Gensokyo. Although, which I have always suspected, Now, that brings you a little something from Thomas Cleary, one of the commentators and translators. He says, Gengyo Koan is one of the most popular and oft-quoted essays in Shogun Genso. Written to a lay disciple, it contains a number of key points stated in a more concise fashion. The very first paragraph contains a complete outline of Zen in a covert presentation of the so-called Five Ranks, or Go-Iko-Wan. device of the original Chinese so-called Zen school. The scheme of the... Oh, sorry, that's me. That's me at the beginning of the poem.

[30:09]

You can turn it down. No, can it back up? You can turn it down. Okay. The scheme of the five yings, the relative and the absolute, The absolute within the relative, coming from within the absolute, arriving in the relative, and simultaneous attainment in both relative and absolute. So that's the third sentence here. Simultaneous expression for the relative and the absolute. So sometimes people think of this as a progression. You start from the first one and then there's the second one and the third one. But that's not Darwin's intention to make a progressive from delusion to enlightenment. That's not what he's saying here. What he's saying here is that these are three ways that we observe things as it is.

[31:18]

three different viewpoints, which is the same as with the five ranks, even though Ackermann makes a progression from Temporalism to Enlightenment. Tolkien here is not doing that. These are three aspects, three ways of viewing both stillness and activity as Ginjo-Kon. So that's why we didn't know Shinzuki Roshi when he talked about Ginjo-Kon. He said, Genjokohon means our life as it proceeds from Zazen into daily activity.

[32:31]

And we always talk about that. Not everyone I want to say. This is Philippians teaching. expressed to us through Suzuki Roshi's understanding. You know, this is what Suzuki Roshi talked about all the time, with Dogen's teaching, without saying, that's what it is. But expressing it through the ways that he felt that we could understand it. But he never said it. And he did talk about Genjo Goan a little bit, and Dogen a lot, but he never said it. Nero was systematically talking about it. We put together, actually, Michael Wenger and I, mostly Michael, put together a composite of his various things that he said about the Angel of Golem into a kind of lecture. But he never gave a systematic lecture about it.

[33:35]

But everything he talked about was coming from this understanding. which reminds me that we put together a book of three talks on Kenjo Komaka. Uchihama Roshi's comments, and Suzuki Roshi's comments, and Nishihara Bokusan's comments, three Japanese commentators, I translated the Nishinori Bokusan, who was a leader in 1910 or something. So, that should be an interesting set of commentaries that will be published this year, I think.

[34:42]

Maybe later this year. So, the Buddha way transcends being and non-being. Therefore, there are life and death, delusion and enlightenment, creatures and Buddhas. So, when we're looking at these three sentences, there's this very famous quote saying that before engaging in practice, When you observe mountains, mountains are just mountains. When you observe rivers, rivers are just rivers. When you engage in a practice in which your observation becomes enlightened observation, mountains are no longer mountains. Rivers are no longer rivers. nothing is what it seems, then when you re-enter the world you see mountains are just mountains, rivers are just rivers, but with a difference.

[35:58]

So that gives us some feeling for these three senses as well. One sees them in an enlightened way, and When one sees the name of the enlightened way, the first sentence is seeing things in an enlightened way, and the second sentence is seeing things in an enlightened way. So, usually we think about that the experiential aspect is still vision, and that the intrinsic is enlightenment, but that's simply a dualistic split. So we don't try to get rid of ignorance or duality or delusion. Delusion and enlightenment are two sides of the same coin.

[37:06]

It's like a fish can't live in pure water. That was in the newspaper not too long ago. Somebody put the fish in pure water but the fish couldn't live of course because you can't live in pure water. So we say purity is only to be found in the impure. So, it's time to take our 5 minutes, or 3 minutes actually, of cleaning up. If you want to talk quietly without speaking. So I'm going to talk about the meaning of the word dharma here.

[38:24]

As you remember, if you took the last class, we talked about the hundred dharmas of Vasubandhi and what the meaning of dharma is. Some of you are familiar with that and maybe you already know what that means. Dharma with a capital D and Dharma with a small d. Dharma with a capital D is intrinsic. Buddha's teaching, Buddha's understanding, reality, and truth. Dharmas with a small d are all the constituents of psychological and physical and dental of our makeup. So when we talk about a self, we don't talk about that there is an actual self.

[39:30]

We just talk about there are dharmas interacting with each other. And there is no self in the dharmas. In a large sense, everything is a dharma. all phenomena as phenomenally existent as dharma. But specifically in Buddha dharma, we are mostly interested in the human. Our lack of understanding of how dharmas cause suffering is the focus. So we studied the dharmas. We studied greed, dharmas that are conducive to greed, dharmas that are conducive to suffering, dharmas that are conducive to ill will, and dharmas that are simply delusional.

[40:36]

So this is called Buddhist psychology sometimes. And all the physical thoughts as well. So, obviously there's no... sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, are all Dharma. Hate, love, all of the aspects of good will, all of the aspects of bad, evil will, all of the aspects of the human composition, each one of those is a Dharma. But Buddha Dharma is about how to let go of suffering caused by not understanding how the dharmas work together. So, when we studied Vasubandhu's 100 dharmas, they also included the eight levels of consciousness, nilayam, jnana, ego consciousness, and so forth, and how this all works together.

[41:45]

to create the human sense of self and ego and suffering. So, Gogen says, when all dharmas, that's what he means. When all those dharmas are Buddha dharma. When we realize that all those dharmas, good, evil, neutral, they're all Buddha dharma. Each one is not outside of Buddhadharma. Suzuki Roshi, people would say, they would complain about some unworthiness in themselves. Like, oh, you know, I'm so tired. You know, that I can never... I can't really synthesize it properly because I'm so tired.

[42:53]

And you'd say, oh, tired Buddha. Or, I'm so weak. Oh, weak Buddha. Right? So, Buddha is there with everything. With all Dharma. All Dharma is there. Buddha Dharma. And then he says when the 10,000 dharmas are without self, this is like a realization that all dharmas are without self. Without self means no inherent existence. All dharmas depend on everything else. So every dharma is dependent on everything else. There is nothing that exists in this world that is not dependent on everything else. You can't pull the plug. You know, I remember a singer saying, you can throw a stone, but you can't throw a stone outside of the universe.

[43:55]

There's no way that anything can be thrown outside of the universe. So, it lands somewhere, and it's thrown in a position Every dharma has its dharma position that's experiential. As we are like dharmas, each one of those dharmas has its dharma position. Can we have our dharma position? in the intrinsic matrix of things. So everything is buddhanature. That's what he's saying. So then the buddha way transcends being and non-being.

[45:00]

It transcends dharma and dharmas. Therefore, in our birth and death, After you realize that the no-self of things, then you see the self of things. You can accept the self of things. When you realize that the self of things is not a self. Before... I talked about those three positions. Before realization, rivers are rivers, mountains are mountains. You just take it for granted. There's the mountain, there's the river. But you don't know what they are. We just see them in one aspect. That's a mountain, that's a river. But that's not seeing them as it is. We have to see them as a river is not a river. A mountain is not a mountain. A self is not a self. And then, when we realize that, then we can say, oh yeah, how are you, Joe?

[46:08]

But you know that Joel is just a collection of darkness. Strangely enough, everything is totally interdependent and dependent on the whole universe. There's nothing that you can't take away. If you don't understand the meaning of this, you shouldn't hear it. But when you understand the meaning, you realize that you can't kill anything. This is the meaning of don't kill in the precept. Nothing can be killed. There is no such thing, because nothing is really born. But this can become an excuse for killing. So that's why I hesitate to say this.

[47:17]

But the fact is like that. Dharmas manifest. Human beings manifest. Animals manifest. Trees manifest. everything else. Nothing lights up. You know, we all sit here breathing the same air. And, well, as long as they're going like this, all the blood, you can dye everybody in veins and carcines through the body. We're all doing the same thing, but we're not doing this. We're really not doing it. It's just The universe is expressing itself in this way.

[48:22]

But still, you're there, I'm here, we're doing stuff. We have to understand the complete thing, and not just part of it. We get caught up. So, Govind says, nevertheless, flowers fall with our attachment and leaves spring up with our aversion. Now this is a sentence which doesn't need explanation. This is like The first three are like doing the story. And this is like what actually happens. So, if you have any questions, now is the time to discuss it.

[49:35]

If the first three sentences are the movie, on the movie screen? The first sentence is the movie. The second sentence is the screen. What's the last sentence? The last sentence is the movie and the screen. You mean the third sentence or the last sentence? Well, the third sentence is unique. The last one. No, the fourth one? Nevertheless, flowers fall without protection. What is that one? What do you think? I don't know, so I'm asking you. Well, I'm sure you don't know. It doesn't seem like it could be the movie or the screen. No. It's our experience. It's our actual experience. In our life. That even though it's like... It's about suffering. But even though...

[50:37]

It's Buddha sense. We suffer when we don't have what we want. We're not with people we want to be with. We are with people we don't want to be with. We get things we don't want. We're in a situation we hate. We're not in a situation we love, and so forth. So, that's what this is saying. Even though we want it to hold on to flowers, they fall. And even though we don't want suffering to come up, it comes up. This is the life of suffering. That's our experience. Not having what we want and having what we don't want. Um, Denise?

[51:42]

You have to speak up, because I'm hard of hearing. Maybe it's not a question, it's just how I perceive this poem written by Duncan. And it's basically, he's describing some stages of enlightenment. He's describing this my own commentary on them. Yeah, I just didn't hear what you said. Yeah, I said, this is a ... it feels funny yelling. This, to me, is a description of different stages of awakening. And the first one is the stage when the person sees all the phenomena as the Dharma. And it's sort of an overlay to do that, to just experience things directly without any overlay is to experience them directly.

[52:43]

But the person is seeing them as all phenomena, as the Buddhadharma. And the second stanza, so that's still a duality, actually. Even though it's a beautiful one, it's still a duality. And then the second one, this is like emptiness. So they're kind of returning to emptiness. It's kind of hard to decipher between the second and third one, but it's like a dropping away of any kind of, you talked about self, right? And the third one is this profound sense of oneness that comes forth. Well, that's right. But that's one way of looking at them. Well, I'm going to tell you the rest of my way of looking at them. So the third stanza is like this profound sense of oneness. There's no this and there's no that. And yet, at the same time, there is still life and death and delusion and enlightenment.

[53:44]

But it's all pervaded. There's no duality there. And then the last one is actually because even if you have a awakening experience, you're going to be involved cultivation. We often think that some kind of nirvana is like a final state, but it's actually awakening followed by cultivation. And so flowers fall with our attachment, and we spring up with our aversion means that still, even after we've had this kind of awakening, suffering arises, unresolved chalices arrive. And so we're back into practice of cultivation in a sense awakening and resolving, letting go of those collective spikes, if we are attentive and aware, can do it at the root of awareness? Well, yes. But Duncan sees these as all being equal.

[54:48]

Not as two different stages, but these are the various... One is not better than the other. One is not more enlightened than the other. And that's correct because there's a lot of kalesa to leave us. It's the act of comparing minds. Somebody, some person thinking they're better or worse or in relationship or equal. Better or worse or equal. So yes, all these stages have no, there's no higher, lower, It's pure in itself. Each situation has its own purity to it. There's no higher or lower or equal. Everybody's where they are. Yes, that's the inventive thing, nevertheless.

[56:15]

Well, the nevertheless is that, because, that's not, the third stanza is not a come. There's, even if that experience occurs, there's cultivation that happens after. After an awakening, these things happen. the chalices still resurface and that involves cultivation after that kind of awakening. Well, for Dogen, For Dogon, it's not cultivation after awakening. Cultivation or practice itself is awakening, is enlightenment. That's why he can... all three of these are three different ways of seeing practice and enlightenment.

[57:23]

If there was a Theravada in the room, they would argue with you attentively, but since I come from That's OK. But thank you. I think that's a good observation. That's a good observation. I appreciate that. My first response before you said your commentary on the last statement, on the fourth statement, was a sense that the first three were an absolute truth and the duality of non-duality and the non-duality of duality. Relative truth and absolute truth. Yeah, and the relationship between them. And then the fourth seemed to say to me, but what we do still matters.

[58:25]

And I was wondering how, if you can read it both ways, in terms of it's our experience and our suffering, We don't have what we want. We have what we don't want. But also that with attachment we cause flowers to fall. With aversion we cause youth to spring up. I think that this is an interesting little koan. Because it can mean anything. Not anything, but it can mean any of the things that we think about in our life. how what happens to what happens. But the first sentence is like the relative truth. And the second sentence is the absolute truth. And then the third sentence is the relative absolute, and the absolute relative. And then the fourth one is

[59:29]

This is like the start of our life. This is stepping into it. Could this be like the last picture in the Oxford pictures? Which one? I know that, but it's in reference to... Before realization, mountains and rivers are almost like... Yeah, so coming back to the marketplace is like coming back without any hang-up, right? coming back into the place where flowers are falling and we just bring up. Yeah.

[60:34]

But you would come back with a realization of Buddha nature being there. Buddha nature. Where it wasn't before. Right. Buddha nature is always there. I don't know what Dogen had in mind, but how I hear that fourth statement, what it means to me, is that even though we may have some great understanding of duality and non-duality, that the problem of desire and craving is so big that that's the major, even though you may understand all of this, still the power of craving is so big that we really need to deal with this.

[61:41]

See that's interesting because this little And everybody has their own meaning. So you can't say it means this or it means that. What it means, it means this to me. So what does it mean to you? I just said it. Because Marie asked me so. It means that even though I want something to be a certain way, that's not the way. even though I don't want something, it comes on. And how do I deal with that? So the question is, how do you deal with that? But why would he link that to the first three? Why would he even bother to say all that? Because the first three are theoretical. Theoretical, in a sense.

[62:43]

And the fourth one is the actual algorithms. Could you say more about how to study this without trying to figure it out? I wouldn't say you shouldn't try to figure it out. What I'm saying is that when you read it, It's good to just kind of go through his mind. Then you come back and read it and go through it. The more you go through it, it reveals itself. So I would say the way to study it is to let it reveal itself. And of course, you know, this is just an attitude. It's not a method.

[63:44]

I'm not talking about a message, I'm just talking about an attitude of letting the dog in, going through his rollercoaster, and letting it, and absorbing it, and let it inform you from the inside. Oh, now I know what that means. But, you know, we can say that anyone's right. Back to you, I can't see. You got it. I just have one comment on three lines, or the four lines, rather. The first three aren't really heady and philosophical. But the fourth line is poetic. And I'm just wondering if he wasn't playing with the, you know, you talked about the criticism of Japan before he went to China. And I'll just throw that out there.

[64:50]

I don't know. What is it that you're throwing out? Well, I'm saying that maybe he's saying these three really heady, intellectual, and philosophical things. But then in the end, he says, I still feel. And I still have the flowers still fall. And I'm sad about it. And we still spring up, and I'm happy about that, too. Well, that could be. Whatever you think. Whatever you think is right for that, too. But I wouldn't say that it's heady philosophical. I think it's just difficult to put your head around it, around some of these things, unless you really have some background. in Mahayana, then it's easier to see what he's talking about. But still, Dogen has his own way of speaking, and he takes you to deep places.

[66:02]

And you can say philosophical, but it's philosophical in a sense that has quality of But I don't see it so much as intellectual, although the intellect is there. But I think it's deeper than the intellect. It's deeper than intellect, and it's deeper than just philosophy. Well, also because he is a poet. And he's a poet, yeah. And so it has this metaphorical aspect. So each one of these sentences has its own poetical aspect as well. Reading the text has the feeling for me of listening to a difficult piece of music for the first time. And you listen to it and you don't make judgments about it or even try to understand it. Just let it go through you. And then you hear it again and again and you listen until you think you understand it.

[67:06]

And then the more you listen to it, it begins to fall apart again. And you don't understand it. But you keep hearing it over and over again. I keep that very true. Very true. I remember when I was in art school, when I was about 20, and I went home to L.A. to my parents' house, and there was nothing to do there. I laid in bed, I laid down, and I listened to Bach talk. That was in the 1950s. And, you know, that was really Unintelligible to me. His cortex and something. And I just listened and listened and listened all summer. And it all just opened up for me. You know, I couldn't... Just by becoming familiar with it, familiar with the language and hearing parts that were going together and dissonances that actually were consonances and so forth.

[68:10]

It all just opened up, you know, by just staying with it. There was no way I could figure it out. So in the first sentence, we've got practice. So it's part of the movie. But then there's no more practice in the second sentence or in the third sentence. That's right. Where'd practice go? Well, it's implied. I think it's just a good question. I understand. I understand the question. within duality.

[69:12]

And the second sentence is the practice in non-duality of non-duality. And the third is the practice of duality within non-duality and non-duality within duality. So the practice is implied in the other two. I'm struggling to move beyond my linear mind and not see these as steps, but would the metaphor be that they are as if they were simultaneous universes, and one could at any moment focus into one of these universes, or take one's lens and focus on this way of looking at it, or that way of looking at it, There are three universes.

[70:15]

The first is the universe of form. The second is the universe of formlessness. And the third is the universe of form is emptiness and emptiness is form. The thing about, you know, if the heart, if this equates with the heart, so the form is emptiness and emptiness is form. But, that's dualistic, right? And Suzuki Ueshiba used to say, but Dogen saved us by saying form is form and emptiness is emptiness. And I often wondered about that. And then he said, the Hatsuka said that, but I can never find the Hatsuka. But Dogen wrote a fantasical Hanya Haramitsu which is a commentary on the Heart Sutra. And in that commentary, that's what he says. So, form is form, and emptiness is emptiness means form is just form.

[71:20]

But, it's like, they call it mu. Mu means no, right? In Chinese, they're mu. Mu means no identity. Does the dog have the buddha nature? No. Moo. But that moo is not the moo that's opposite of yes. It's not the no that's the opposite of yes. It's the no that includes yes. Otherwise it wouldn't be a koan. So, form is just form. It means there's nothing outside of form. Form includes emptiness. In other words, it's not that it includes emptiness. When you say form is emptiness, emptiness is form, there's still two things. So when you say form is form, it includes emptiness, so you're going to have to say so. In other words, it's that oneness.

[72:23]

Emptiness is just emptiness, and form is just form. Then it's all included. The other is included. That's actually the third sentence. You don't have to say, you don't have to say from this entry, this entry, this point. And that's total inclusion. That's where we're actually coming from. And realization is to realize that. It's easy to understand intellectually, but how do you realize that and practice it? So it's time to end. So we have to decide at what time we're going to be here next time. OK, 7.15, next time.

[73:24]

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