So I just have one request, and that is that when we come in for this class, that you come in and sit zazen, and not talk. It feels very strange to walk into Zen Dojo, and everybody's talking, and I'm bowing and offering, and everybody's still talking. So I think you get to prepare your mind and your body by Just come in and sit down and do zazen until we start. That's my request. OK. So today, last time... Last time, we just went through the Hokkyo Zanmai. in order to refresh our memory. And so today, we're going to start talking about the Tozan's five positions.

[01:08]

A little louder. So we're going to start talking about Master Tozan's positions, five positions, called five ranks. They're called various things. We're used to calling the five ranks ranks. I don't know. It's a kind of ranking kind of way of ranking system. But as you can see, there are many ways of looking at these five ranks, five positions. I'm just going to read a little bit to orient us to the five positions. So in Hokyo Zamai, in Junir Samadhi, it goes like, at midnight it is truly bright, at dawn it shows no trace.

[02:22]

For beings, it becomes a guide and functions to remove all suffering. Although not fabricated, it is not without speech. It is like facing a jewel mirror. Form and reflection behold each other. You are not it, but in truth it is you, like an ordinary infant, fully endowed with five characteristics. Okay, so these five characteristics. Not coming, not going, not arising, not abiding. Bah, bah, blah, blah. Speech without speaking. After all, nothing is grasped, because the talk is not yet right. And then it says, in the double fire coignee hexagram. This is a little different translation than we're used to. In the double-fired cleaning hexagram, the phenomenal and the real interact.

[03:26]

Piled up, they make three. The completed changes make five. Like the taste of the five-flavored Z grass, like the five-pronged vajra, wondrously embraced within the real, drumming and singing spring forth together. So drumming and singing are kind of lit. Within the Sokyo Zamae, Master Tozan is continually bringing up ways of talking about the universal and the particular. So drumming and singing is like the universal and the particular in harmony. The stone woman gets up dancing, the wooden man This is like the harmony between the relative and the absolute, between the universal and the particular. So these are all examples of the harmony of the universal and the particular.

[04:28]

And it just goes on and on about this. So that's one example of five ranks is about. So, in the last, when we had our class, I handed out some material, and I hope that all of you who had the class brought that with you. If not, you have to leave. No, I'm kidding. So, among the things I gave you, What's this? A diagram. In a circle. Which you didn't bring with you. Which you did bring with you. A diagram. OK? Who doesn't have a diagram?

[05:31]

Well, that's pretty good. That's Alexandra's favorite service. Oh, great. Thank you, Alexandra. That's very nice. OK. So if we look at the diagram, we went through this when we had our class. We went all through this. But I'm going to talk about it in a different way than I did when we had the class. So if you look at this diagram, this page, this diagram is a picture of what I just read. The picture of what I just read. So I'll read it again. After all, nothing is grass because the tar is not yet wet. In the double fire hexagram, I'm sorry, in the double fire clinging hexagram,

[06:38]

That's the I Ching on the left. The phenomenal and real interact. Piled up, they make three, and the completed changes make five. Like the five-flavored z grass, like the five-pronged vajra, wondrously embraced within the real, drumming and singing come forth together. Now, I'll go over this again. If we look at it from the top, which transforms into five positions? They taste like a five-flavored herb and look like a thunderbolt. So at the top, we have five circles. You see the five circles in a vertical line? And then below, we have the diagram of the five circles in a different pattern.

[07:41]

You see that? And then, what is it? The triple base underneath the vertical circles, the line number two, four or even five positions. See that line? Is there anybody that doesn't see that line? You don't? Underneath the vertical, at the bottom of the vertical circle, there's a line that says the triple base, this is a little line, a little tight. The triple base is transformable into five positions. And it looks like a thunderbolt. Well, this may look to you like a thunderbolt, and it may not. It looks to me like a cow. But pretend that it's a thunderbolt.

[08:50]

Like a Vajra. I explained the Vajra before, and some people said they didn't know what that looked like. But it's like the Tibetan Vajra. It has a handle in the middle. five prongs on each end. You have to stretch your imagination a little bit. Just see it as a mandala. Instead of a vertical succession, see it as a mandala. So, if you look on the left of that mandala, there's in parentheses A, B, and C. Right? A, B, and C. That's the triple, the triple base. And the triple base has, the A has two circles, right?

[09:52]

And then B is just one circle. And then C is two circles. Right? So all together that's five. So he challenges this in mysterious language, but really it simply means there are three, a basis of three, which contains five circles. Anybody that doesn't get that Don't be afraid to raise your hand. I don't want to go on with somebody not knowing what we're talking about. Yes? I don't know what we're talking about. OK. See the A, B, and C? Yep. A is one section. B is one section. And C is one section. All right. OK. And within, A is two circles. OK.

[10:54]

So you're saying that both those circles are part of a. OK. Got it. OK. He has two circles and he has two. No, he only has one. OK. So B is a circle within itself. A circle. Yeah. OK. Whatever you call that one circle. It's one circle. Yes. One circle. And the bottom is two circles. The triple base is transformable into five positions. It's just an analogy to something. An analogy is that the high sap plant has five different flavors and each of the flavors is related to the other four. And so that's the meaning here. There are five different flavors here and each flavor is related to the other four. Using the word flavor to mean circle.

[11:56]

So it's really not talking about circles, it's just using the circles to talk about the planets. It's like the phases of the moon, in a way, like the phases of the moon. So when Dogen says in the Gendo Kalan, When one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. He's talking about this, actually. When one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. So, you notice in the circles, there's a dark side and a light side. Each circle has a dark side and a light side, except one circle is totally dark and one circle is totally light. So we can use the moon as well as an illustration. I like the idea of the moon actually as an illustration. Because the moon is a symbol of enlightenment.

[13:06]

And the phases of the moon are like the balance between the universal and the particular. The dark side is the universal. and the light side is the particular. This is always the case. In the Sun Dōkai, Sekito talks about the light and the dark. Within the darkness there is light, and within light there is darkness. This is called go-i koan, the five positions. Go-i is Japanese. Within each one of them is a kind of koan. Within the five positions, there is an aspect of light and an aspect of dark. So there is the universal and the particular in various phases of balance.

[14:11]

When you sit Dazen, it's mostly dark. And when you turn off the light, it's dark, right? And everything becomes one. There's no differentiation until you start walking around and bumping into things. But if you're just sitting there, and you turn off the light, that's oneness. And when you turn the light on, that's differentiation. So the light side is differentiation. The dark side is the absolute, or oneness, before discrimination. So these are different phases within enlightened understanding, or within enlightened practice. Because these dry ranks are about practice and realization, or practice after realization.

[15:17]

So these are the five racks. And the five racks according to what I just explained. So if we look on the right hand side of that vertical line of circles, this is the real containing the C main. one from the top down, and then the seeming containing the real. So seeming and real, you can use those terms, you can use any terms you want, but seeming and real. Real means universal or absolute, dark. And seeming means things are not what they seem to be, but this So I call them seeming. Things seem to be real.

[16:23]

And there is a certain reality to what things seem to be. It's only a momentary reality. And then seeming within the real. So this is the balance between the light and the dark. And the resurgence of the real, that's the middle one. and the seeming within the real, and the integration of the real and the seeming. So those are the five regs. But I don't want to talk about that now. I talked about it before, but I want to talk about something that I haven't talked about before. I'll get back to that, and we'll study that too. And then if you look to the right of that, you'll find five terms. On the top is called shift. You see shift right next to the real receiving. And then it says submission.

[17:27]

Beloved. And then it says achievement. Beloved. And then it says collective achievement. Beloved. And then it says end of achievement. So this is a different set of five racks. So the one on the left, the one with the dark and the light we just talked about, these are positions which reflect understanding. Understanding the absolute and the relative, and the interaction of the absolute and the relative. The ones on the right shift submission, achievement, collective achievement, and absolute achievement are kind of like a map of practice. I think it just occurred to me that the circles The circular forms are like Mahayana.

[18:41]

The other, the one on the right are kind of like Hinayana. It's like, you know, if you read the Hinayana sutras, they're not really Hinayana, but we just call them that. They're the Theravada sutras. They're more practical, you know, and the Mahayana sutras are more dealing with the dark of the light. That's the emphasis. So there are two different aspects of how we view practice. So if we look at shift, shift means how we hear about practice. Someone said to me one day, you know that this is back in the 50s. She said, you know, I go to the Zen temple, and there's a Zen master there. And I thought, that's interesting.

[19:46]

You should go for some time. But I never went. But I heard about it. So that was the first thing, I just heard about it. And then someone else took me there one day, a couple years later. So that was my shift. Once I experienced and entered into practice, then I decided that I would do that. So that's the shift from ordinary life to Dharma life. That's the first step. But it's also the first step from living by karma to living by vow. to learning a step from egocentricity to buddhicentricity. So, from self-centeredness to buddhicentricness.

[20:51]

So, that's the first step. That's what's called the shift. And then, the second position is called submission. In other words, Once you make the shift, then you submit to the practice. So these are stages, stages of practice. And then the third one is called achievement, which means that you actually have some realization and that you have realization and you don't... you're stuck. You're convinced that this is what you're actually doing.

[21:52]

And then it's called collective achievement, which means that it's not just your achievement, but you are helping others to Collective means that you're gathering others and helping others to practice. So your achievement is not just your achievement, but it belongs to everybody. So this is really opening up your universal mind. And then Absolute Achievement is like where the first four are kind of like steps, but the fifth one which is Absolute Achievement is like there's no longer any question about absolute and relative, or subject and object, or duality or oneness. It's all resolved. It's just perfectly resolved. So that's like the end of practice which has no end.

[22:54]

And Dogen uses this in his Genjo Koan. How many of you have not read Dogen's Genjo Gohan? Someday you will read Genjo Gohan. But in Genjo Gohan, Dogen has this famous verse which Alexander handed out to you. And you all know this. This is the heart of Dogen Shobo Ginzo. The heart of Dogen's Genjo Gohan. Genjokohan is the first fascicle of his famous 100 fascicle work. And it's the touchstone for all the others. And this is the heart of Genjokohan. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.

[23:57]

To forget the self, oneself, is to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas. To be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas is to be freed from one's body and mind and those of others. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment continues forever. So, each one of these lines, of course, is a koan in itself. But if you think about it, you can see that the shift in Taozong's first rank is like, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. That's the shift. Well, what does that mean, to study the self? And then submission is to study oneself is to forget oneself.

[25:07]

So forgetting oneself is letting go of body and mind, dropping body and mind. And that's like submission to reality or to the dharma. And then to forget oneself is to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas. So that's achievement, which means that you and all the 10,000 dharmas are not different. And you realize the 10,000 dharmas as you saw. And then to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas is to be free from one's body and mind and those of others, which is collective achievement. That's the fourth one. And then the fifth one, absolute achievement, In other words, there's no difference between delusion and enlightenment for this person. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this trace of enlightenment is continued forever.

[26:13]

So that's the culmination of practice, which is never culminated. So I've talked to Vaibhumi Roshi about this. before he died, unfortunately. And I asked him if it seemed to me that Dogan's, this part of Dogan's Kendro Koan seemed to be similar to the Five Ranks. Dogen used, he said, he was pretty sure that it is. And Dogen didn't condone studying the five ranks. He didn't like that. Because he felt that it was, there were too many, it became too much of an intellectual game or exercise.

[27:26]

And if you have this book, I don't know how many people have bought this book, But you'll find that when you read the book it'll boggle your mind because you see so many different commentaries and the way people, monks and scholars have thought about it. There's no one way to think about it. And I'll talk about that. After talking to him, he came out with this explanation about equating Dogen's statement with the Five Ranks. But his statement was with the second five ranks of practice, rather than the five ranks of circle.

[28:33]

So I'll read it and comment on it. He says, After reading, I've just been to you to study the Buddha way and so forth, and then he says, I see this particular passage being almost exactly parallel to Mastiff Tozan's Five Ranks. So Tozan, when you read Dogen's works, you can see the Five Ranks as being hidden or embedded in a lot of the pretty much stuff that he's talking about. So, you know, for a long time, the five ranks was part of the transmission ceremony for monks, for priests. And then they stopped using it because of this problem. But actually, Dogen used it.

[29:43]

And he uses it in the transmission documents. but it's in a way that he used it in his own way. Dogen did this with so much of Buddhism. He's presenting Buddhism, but he's presenting it in his own understanding, and it's often just disguised. Unless you really understand that you see these things cropping up, but if you don't know that, you don't see it. Somebody stopped using it because of this problem? Well, yeah, they stopped using it as part of the transmission sampling. Because of what problem? Because of the intellectual entanglements. Oh, okay. Yeah. Dog and leg were straightforward entanglements. Anyway, so this is by Buzumi.

[30:44]

He says, as I have often mentioned, we can appreciate Dogen Zenji's writings in many different ways. And Dogen Zenji himself said that you shouldn't study the Five Ranks. Forget about it. And yet, in saying so, he himself used it in a way that shows that he really digested the idea of the Five Ranks as expounded by Master Tozan, and actually presented it in his own way. In other words, he absorbed the Chinese Zen heritage into his own understanding and expressed it in a very different way and yet basically it's exactly the same. I always say, if you give a talk on Zen, it's good to give a talk on what you have absorbed. If you simply give a talk about an idea, then They won't carry it for people. So we study, but then we digest it, and it becomes our own.

[31:48]

And when it becomes our own, then we can give a talk in our own way, and it's the same thing. So what I see is that Dogen Zenji tried to avoid an intellectual, conceptualized understanding of the Five Branch. to be intellectual, especially with well-structured koans like this, in which there are five stages to develop. So today I want to briefly mention how Doge and Zenji interprets and expresses these five ranks, rather than how Master Tozan does it. It's fascinating, the two are almost exactly parallel. So what are the five stages and how do you make the ranks is a major brief guide for your practice. So the heading here is, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. So this is Dogen's first line. And he says there are different kinds of five ranks.

[32:53]

The particular one I'm going to talk about is called kokun. The five ranks is a kind of progress of achievement. The first stage is called ko'i, or shift, the position of shifting, which I talked about. Shifting from what to what? Shifting from the ordinary way that we think to the way of the so-called Zen tradition or Buddhadharma. Shift our attention from, I don't know if secular is the right word, our actual discursive or self-centered way of thinking. Self-centered doesn't necessarily mean something derogatory. I like that line. But rather based on one's own ideas for evaluating everything. That's what everybody does. So shift from that way to live to the so-called Buddha way.

[33:55]

That's the shift. That shift is to study the Buddha way is to study oneself. Self-centered doesn't necessarily mean something derogatory. It simply means centered on the self, which everybody is. And so in Buddhism we get into a kind of critical mode. When you read the sutras sometimes, the commentaries they seem to get into a kind of critical mode, especially among when we were talking about right and wrong, good and bad, and so forth, into a kind of dualistic way of moralizing. But human beings tend to be self-centered, which is quite natural because of our discriminatory way of thinking.

[35:00]

And so to go to the next stage of practicing the Dharma in order to help us find our way out of being self-centered is just a stage in our life. It's not like by being self-centered all our life it was bad. It's simply the cause of our suffering. So we can't be blamed for the cause of our suffering as being bad. That's just the way we are. And so when we discover the Dharma, we have a way out of that. It's time to take a break, right? Would you like a bag with me? Would you like a bag with me? The power, the power.

[37:18]

There we go. So then he says, you know, in what's translated, I'm assuming you don't get to get your poem, and he said, in his translation, to study the self and to forget the self.

[40:31]

But actually, he says, study is really not the right word. It's almost like we're doing the opposite thing. Instead of forgetting the self, we're reinforcing the self. So how do we forget the self? I'm sorry, I've got... I've written it in the wrong place. There's some problem with the translation. I translated naaru as study. The word naaru means to learn. Not to study in the same way that we study a text or study a book or something. To study the self, to learn the... I would say to learn the Buddha way is to practice the self. Or even just practice. To practice the Buddha way is to practice the self. To study is to study. To learn is to learn.

[41:32]

So, study is a little different. And he says it's like doing something over and over again. We used to think practicing the piano is not like zazen. But actually, it is. You do something over and over and over until it becomes part of you. We always say that we learn through our pores. We learn the Dharma through our pores. not through our head, and through our bones. And to the ache in our bones. Even down to our aching joints. So, there is some problem with the translation. I translated in Narao a study where Narao means to learn, but to learn in a very repetitious way, just doing it over and over and over, just like how kids learn something from their parents or from school, in the Japanese style.

[42:39]

Day after day, the pattern of life is the same. That's what we are doing, in a way, in Zazen. So we do Zazen over and over and over. So, to learn the Buddha way is to learn the way. In other words, what we are repeatedly doing every day is learning the way, as well as learning the Buddha way. Then we focus that upon so-called zazen, whatever zazen is. Of course, there are different ways to interpret what zazen is, but anyway, we can generally understand what zazen is, and that's good enough. Here. So then, the second line is to study the self, is to forget the self. I called the first one, it just occurred to me, in the fifties we used to say, turn it on, tune in, drop out. Kind of like that. So the first one was tune in. No.

[43:55]

To study oneself is to forget oneself. And that's called, the second stage is doi, or submission. Dogen Zenji says, to study the self is to forget the self. How do we do that? It's almost like we are doing the opposite thing. Instead of forgetting the self, we are reinforcing the self. So that's what we're doing all the time, is reinforcing the self. So how do we forget the self? What is the self? We begin with anyway. So that's what we study. What is the self? And this is what we spent our last two days, I mean our two days of Sheen studying. What is the self? Little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. And boys are made of puppy dog tails. Are we reflecting upon our practice in that way, in such a way? That's what we should be doing. This submission, give up something that we usually cling to, and study oneself.

[44:59]

To practice the Buddha way is to forget oneself. I think to forget oneself is called renunciation. That's what we mean by renunciation. There are many things that we call renunciation, like taking all your belongings and throwing them into the ocean or something. Actually, it needs to let go of self-centeredness. And, you know, when the young monks go to Eheiji or Sojinji, well, Eheiji anyway, this young monastery in Japan, they are nobody. They just are nobody. And they just submit themselves to the practice. And they're brainwashed. And they come out all nice and clean. They've learned how to... They've been through the experience of no-self by the time they're... So...

[46:10]

So that's called a submission, which is the third of these acts. And then the fourth one, tapaho. The third stage is ko'ini. The pronunciations are the same as the first stage, but this ko'ini means succession or achievement. When you really do that, in Dogen Zenji's words, to forget the self is to be confirmed by or to be enlightened by the ten thousand dharmas. to be verified, to be confirmed, to be enlightened by the 10,000 dharmas. In other words, there's no difference between when you have realization and there's no difference. Although the 10,000 dharmas are all different, they're also all the same. I talked about Dharma in our two-day study.

[47:30]

When the eight consciousnesses are revolved or turned around, transformed, become transformed And the ego, self-centeredness, becomes the wisdom of equality. And the madhava-jnana, which is the consciousness which distinguishes between the various sense input, becomes the vertical, the wisdom which sees into the true nature of all objects, of all phenomena. So one is the horizontal and the other is the vertical, the hierarchical. So this is how we understand all dharmas as a reflection of our self or as since there is no more self

[48:50]

We no longer view this person as a self, basically. There's only darkness. The whole universe is the true self, becomes your true self, which it already is, of course, but we block it out. And this is also the fifth circle, which is dark. fifth circle which is darkness, the four wisdoms become, the eight levels of consciousness become the four wisdoms. And so there's no more discrimination on the basis of self, on the basis of view of self. You have to remember, when we say no self, it means no view of a self. You don't see yourself as a self, which is only a separate self.

[50:00]

Because the center is no longer the false center. The center is the Buddha center. You are centered on Buddha instead of centered on self. So all of our activity becomes the Buddha's activity. You have to change your seat. Sit on the Buddha seat. That's what you do actually when you sit zazen. Zazen is getting off your self-centered seat and sitting on your Buddha seat. That's what we got out of the cushion. Because that's the buddhacy. And you no longer think of yourself as myself. You don't refer to yourself as myself.

[51:01]

When you're sitting dazen, it's just dazen and sitting dazen. Hearing is sitting zazen, seeing is sitting zazen, feeling is sitting zazen, and so forth. But there's no I sitting zazen. So there's no self-centeredness. It's Buddha-centered. So you take the Buddha seat. And so how do you stay in the Buddha seat all the time? So that's why he says, whatever Zazen is, we can look at Zazen in various ways. It's more than one way to look at what Zazen is. Not just yourself, oneself.

[52:10]

Dogen Zenzi says, to be confirmed by the ten thousand dharmas means to free one's body and mind. Or he uses the words, drop out. But actually he means drop off. Drop off one's own body and mind as well as those of others. In other words, a bodhi in other's body and mind. That's a funny sentence. Drop them off, ease up. Someone was just asking this morning about the vows, save all sentient beings. What does that mean? Well, how can we save all beings? Sentient being means save yourself. Dogen Zenji is talking about the same thing here. When we really save ourselves, when you really liberate yourself, that's the moment that you will see what is really meant by all beings are liberated. So Shakyamuni Buddha says the same thing. All beings have the Buddha nature and virtues. That's what the Buddha said when he attained realization in the 4th stage of Goku-I, or do your thing.

[53:18]

Let me stop off. Being confirmed by the 10,000 Dharma's, everything comes to you and it's not alien. more than $10,000. Free the body and mind of others. You know, we have samadhi jiyu zamai, the samadhi of the self, the samadhi of self-enjoyment. Of course, who is it that enjoys that? That's another question. Self-enjoyment, samadhi. Or self-fulfilling, samadhi. And tad juhyu is samadhi, other fulfillment. Other fulfillment for others.

[54:19]

So, when we have our own realization, then we can... it's contagious. And we can affect other people. So we kind of help people to... It's kind of like a pinball machine. And the ball goes out and it hits these little... Each one of them lights up. Each one of the stops lights up. So then the fifth one is called Absolute Achievement. And for Dogan, it's no trace of enlightenment remains. And this traceless enlightenment is continued forever.

[55:22]

I really like that sentence a lot. no trace of enlightenment remains in this tracelessness of enlightenment as a continued form. So it's like unselfconscious. This is the state of being totally unselfconscious. It's called far out. Then the last one, the fifth stage of koko ii, integration of that achievement, you forget about that In Dogen Zenji's world, he said, there are the traceless enlightenment. Allow that traceless enlightenment to continue forever. So this is called, Tozan called it the bird's path. The bird's path is like, you know, you fly away, but you can't trace that line where the bird lives, or you can't trace the line where the fish swims.

[56:24]

and allow the traceless enlightenment to continue forever. When it continues forever, time is being expressed, and in space, that it manifests moment after moment as our life. That's the fifth stage. Integration and succession. We are not just casually sitting here. We are not just sitting here to practice shikantaza, or zazen, or whatever. So this is beyond all that. It's not just to nourish further our ego, or one's own ideas of such, or daydreaming of some sort of how can we proceed to practice in such a way. Why don't you think about yourself? How you practice is to proceed. Why you are sitting here? Why are you sitting here? It will kind of give you a certain direction and how we can do it, and how much we can do it, and how much we can do it.

[57:32]

That's our practice. So, the fortunate part is that we can appreciate our practice from intrinsic aspects and experiential aspects. But this is important. Intrinsic and experiential. The intrinsic is like the dark side. And experiential is like the light side. When you look at these circles, there's a light side and a dark side. The dark side is intrinsic. In other words, we have this nature. Everyone has Buddha nature and it's intrinsic. What is experiential is the light side. So the light side is like form. The experiential is like form.

[58:32]

And intrinsic is like emptiness. So in the Heart Sutra you say form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Form is form, emptiness is emptiness. This is the essential and the experiential. And the intrinsic expresses itself as the experiential. So all of our experience is based on what is intrinsic. As Suzuki Roshi used to say, don't worry about where you're headed or what happens when you die. You will always find your place in the universe.

[59:37]

Wherever you are, you will always find your place in the universe. That's kind of like what practice is. Wherever you are, you will find your place wherever you are in the universe. Because the universe is yourself. Even though sometimes it doesn't seem like it. Most of the time. So he says the fortunate part is that we can appreciate our practice So even though experientially, wherever we stand, we shouldn't forget that intrinsically our life is no other than the Buddhadharma, ourselves, or itself. And always there, intrinsically, for liberation. Then how to really go with it, and yet, month after month, day after day, moment after moment, to refresh that, to appreciate, to live our life in this way.

[60:43]

So he says, I hope I made my point clear. So please refresh yourself and refresh your devotion and determination, so-called Bodhi-mind, which seeks for Bodhi-enlightenment, or wisdom, or realization, or the way. However, how do we get that implication for Bodhi when we seek for it, and as well as to have the understanding as our life itself is no other than then each moment you have a contention. And at the same time, each moment is a moment in which you seek further advancement. So, in other words, right here is where we settle, and yet we keep going. So, in 35. What time am I supposed to end? You're 45? Okay. So, I didn't mean to talk all the time, but I did.

[61:47]

And then I didn't mean to talk all the time. Do you have any questions? Is that fairly clear? Or not clear? I have an experiential question. I caught a thief last weekend. You had a what? I caught a thief last weekend. She caught a thief. A thief? A thief? Yeah. He stole something. He took something from my bag at Keith's Coffee in Norfolk, please. Wow. So I caught him. I caught his... He was in his car and I asked him for my thing back and pretty much hollered. But I have a quandary because the police had me ID him and I have such a not great feeling about sending him to any possible punishment, because I just don't feel very positive about the penal system that we have.

[62:53]

And so they want me to sign a paper after IDing him, and that could mean that something could happen to him. And on the other hand, because he did take something from me, even though he did give it back, so this brings me sort of a great some amount of trouble in my mind because I don't feel resolved what's the right thing to do so I thought I would ask the community what they think. Well, I'll give you a story from Dogen who talks about this... He was a famous Dogen told a story about a prince, a warrior prince, and someone took his sword.

[63:59]

He stole his sword, which was a very unique kind of instrument, and a very valuable thing. They caught this thief, right? And they brought the thief to the prince, and you know, and then here's the sword. And the prince said, that's not my sword. I don't have a sword, and it's just not mine. one way of dealing with that kind of situation. Nobody can tell you what to do. People can make suggestions, but you have to make the decision. The economy is so bad, I can't feel it. Well, I don't know who hasn't heard of the economy. We understand why people steal, for various reasons.

[65:05]

Because they don't have money? I don't have a job. He gave you back whatever you want. I don't know if I lost some $20. I don't really care. I just got my tickets back for Ellsworth. So you have some compassion for him and you don't want to... In other words, it's over for you. Is it over for you? Well, I have to... the police want me to sign something. But you don't want to punish him. I don't. Don't sign it. If you don't want to punish him, don't sign it. But some people say to me, oh, but he did steal something. You've got to teach him. And also, you have to ask yourself, sometimes you don't teach somebody something. It depends on what you want to teach him. Tell him. People going to jail don't usually learn much. That's right. But if you show him compassion, that's something you might be able to learn.

[66:08]

That there's another aspect. But he made you think that you don't want to do that because you think he'll come and get you. But if you don't think that, you just say, I don't want to sign it. I don't want to punish him. He gave me back my, whatever he took, and I'm not interested in punishing him. I think if I was in your boots, if I was you, which I'm not, I'm going to change your wardrobe. I might do that. Go ahead. If you were in my spot. I might do that. But I can't tell you what you should do. On the trigrams, I understand the top trigram and the second trigram. And I understand how they can be combined to make the fourth and fifth trigrams.

[67:11]

Let's get next question. OK. Well, I just want to say this. Yes. I haven't studied the I Ching. So that's something I'm not so concerned about. OK. So I can't ask you a question. Ed? Yeah. Just a quick question. This talks about advancement and achievement. Right. Yet our tradition, it seems like since I've been here, we've talked about not having a gaining idea, and our practice, and so I'm just wondering how to work with this. Well, that's good. And it's a natural progression. It's not like you're trying to achieve something. So this is a volition. Yeah, it's not like, oh, I'm going to get to that stage. Although, aspiration is different has a different quality than gaining.

[68:22]

Because you're not trying to get something from outside. What you're doing is bringing something from inside. So to stimulate or to coax the Dharma from inside, that's what the stages are. You're not trying to achieve some stage. The stages come about through repetition. Just thinking about it over and over again. It's like, as they always say, when you walk in the fog, your clothes get wet unawares. So, practice is called walking in the fog. But then at some point, oh yeah, I'm wet. There's somebody next to you there. We say my self, your self, about self.

[69:27]

There's one self. And there's my self and your self. And I remember in Japan when I was there, the Japanese people that were talking would say my self and your self. awareness of being part of the same self. Dogen uses the term myself-yourself as one term, kind of like with a slash, myself-yourself. We are inseparable and at the same time we are separate. And would the big self that we are all part of, would that be the Buddha self? Yes, but all the parts are also the Buddha self. I can't remember everybody's name.

[70:30]

Mine? No. The lady with the blonde hair. So I just wondered, you know, we've got this book, and we have these other things, but I kind of like, you know, from one class to another, I don't really think about this very much. And I'm just wondering, is there anything in particular that you would suggest that we read, or in between, or just not? Well, yes. There are things we can read. I didn't make a bibliography. I could do that. But the one book that I suggested was this one called The Infinite Mirror, which is Master Sheng Yen's commentaries. So I always suggest that. I don't agree with everything he said. But the other part of that is that we don't have to agree. Everybody has slight variations.

[71:34]

the meaning. So, in different ways, and sometimes the... I meant to say this, but I kind of denied that. Sometimes, if you look at the five positions, the first two positions are like what was emptiness and emptiness of form. It's the basis. and then coming from the agenda's reel, and then the emergence of the reel, and then the other two. And so sometimes they're affixed in a different way, arranged in a different way. So when I look at Chen Yen's arrangement, it didn't accord with what I was used to, but since this is arrangement, we can arrange them any way we want. We can arrange the circles any way we want. to satisfy your understanding of the dogma.

[72:40]

So we'll talk about that next time. It's OK. Maybe this is just because I haven't studied the joke on. But thinking about his translation, his note on translation of study. So the second line is. To study one's self is to forget one's self, or to practice the self is to forget the self? To be one with the self is to forget the self. It's a dropped body and mind. Where are you going to drop it and what are you going to drop? But to forget the self is to be totally one. without an opposite. That's to forget the self, because the self arises with discrimination.

[73:43]

That's exactly what makes the self arise, is discrimination. Discrimination is not when you cut the cat into one, Then there is no opposite. Death dropped, the self dropped. Time out.

[74:05]

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