Shall we chant? We can start at the beginning, and then I'll just say, stop. Yin chin ming. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When freed from love and hate, it reveals itself clearly and undisguised. A hair's breadth difference and heaven and earth are set apart. If you want to appear, have no opinions for or against it. The duality of like and dislike is the dis-ease of the mind. When the deep meaning is not understood, the mind's essential peace is perfect like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Because of grasping and rejecting, you will miss its suchness.

[01:01]

Pursue not the outer entanglements. Dwell not in the inner void. In oneness and equality, confusion vanishes of itself. Stop activity and return to stillness. Within that stillness is the great dynamic activity. Failing into one extreme or the other, How can you recognize oneness? Not penetrating the unity of the way, both sides go astray. To deny the existence of things is to miss their reality. To fall into emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the more you go astray. Let go of speech and thought and there's nowhere you can't pass freely. Returning to the root, we get the essence. Following after appearances, we lose the spirit.

[02:03]

One moment of inner illumination goes beyond appearances and emptiness. The changes that appear to go on in an empty world we call real because of ignorance. No need to seek the real, only chief opinions. Okay. You know, the first opening paragraph of a piece like this contains the essence and the rest is commentary. So there's a lot of commentary here. But each one of these sets of couplets or quatrains, I guess you call them, is looking at the same thing from a different perspective. So there are many perspectives and ways to analyze the subject. So when we read, when we chant, we should use this.

[03:06]

When we study, we'll use the other book that has the comparative quotes. Does that make sense? I think it does. So I think we were at the place where we say, the text says, pursue not the outer entanglements. Is that where we left off, or did we do that one? Nobody ever remembers what we did last time. That's where we left off, right? I think so. So, here he's talking about pursuing not the outer entanglements, which is conditioned—oh, this is—no numbers on the pages. Yeah, 10. You're right. Page 10. It's up at the top left-hand corner. Left hand corner, page 10. I see what the problem is.

[04:11]

The numbers are on the side that has the English. Yeah, it's not on the Japanese side. I mean, it's not on the character side. It's on the... He's got one copy that's printed laterally. There comes Ron to rescue you. It's right there. That's it. We're just looking at the English. Okay, pursue not the outer entanglements, which means conditioned existence. Dwell not in the inner void, which means emptiness. In oneness and equality, great wisdom, I'll explain that. In oneness and equality, confusion vanishes of itself. So, confusion is the problem here, is the result of getting stuck in either form or emptiness, basically. Is this form or is this emptiness? Is this real or unreal?

[05:14]

Is this big mind or small mind? How do I tell the difference? You know, the Xin Xin Ming is about, basically echoes the Heart Sutra. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. It opens up with this statement. The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. So what does that mean? Do you prefer form or do you prefer emptiness? Well, this is written for people who are like monks, basically, who have some understanding of the duality of oneness and multiplicity. So multiplicity, as we know, is an expression of the singular.

[06:17]

The many is the expression of the singular, right? From the singular is the mother of the many. Many children come out from the mother, right? Yes, so we're all children of the mother. The mother is Prajna Paramita, the great mother of all the Buddhas. Prajna Paramita is the mother of all the Buddhas. There she is. She's the mother. They're sitting there, and there's the Buddha. She's his mother. So, you know, emptiness, In the esoteric Buddhism, there are two mandalas. You know what a mandala is, right? Anybody don't know what a mandala is? Okay, there are two mandalas.

[07:18]

One is the vajra mandala, and the other is the womb mandala. So the womb mandala represents emptiness or And the vajra mandala, the diamond mandala, represents suchness. So emptiness is the formless aspect of our life, and suchness is the form aspect of our life. So our life is both formless and form, all. And this is what duality and nonduality is about. It's not necessarily about whether you like chocolate or vanilla. If you like chocolate, eat chocolate. If you like vanilla, that's okay. You can have preference, right? I prefer chocolate. If you don't have any preference, either chocolate or vanilla doesn't matter.

[08:23]

But the spice of life is in choosing, making your life tasty in some way, making things tasty. But the fundamental of our life is emptiness. So some people prefer the side of emptiness. Some people prefer the side of form. So What do we choose? Don't ever be late again. So what do we choose? Some people would prefer to not have to deal with the world, and so those people prefer emptiness. Some people have no idea of emptiness. They're only stuck in form. like most of us, we're stuck in form. So, what we're being told here is that don't get stuck in either form or emptiness.

[09:34]

Don't get stuck in suchness, don't get stuck in emptiness. Emptiness and suchness work together with each other and are really the same thing. So, in the old days, proceeding from Shakyamuni, the Hinayana so-called, I don't want to say, the Hinayana is not any special school, it's an attitude. So Hinayana, small vehicle, attitude. The monks were, many monks, felt that in order to escape from the realm of samsara, or entanglements, and find nirvana was to cut off any activity that created entanglements. So these were monastics who lived a very narrow life in a monastery in order not to create any entanglements in the world in order to reach nirvana, which is total freedom.

[10:47]

perfect freedom, nirvana. But when the Mahayana developed, although it was always developing, but when it became into prominence around the first century or second century, the understanding was that samsara and nirvana are not two things. So that brought in the understanding of non-duality. Duality means the entanglements are separate from the nirvana. So nirvana is only to be found within samsara. That's Mahayana understanding. The Middle Way, Madhyamaka, the Middle Way, which was popularized by Nagarjuna, our ancestor Nagarjuna. Okay, so here, Sengtsan, Sosan, is expressing this non-dualistic understanding to us.

[11:55]

So he's saying, in this particular statement, pursue not the outer entanglements. Okay, this is kind of Hinayana idea, actually. Pursue not the outer entanglements, which is conditioned existence. In other words, don't get caught blindly by following, getting hooked on delusional activities, which trap you in your life and cause suffering. And dwell not in the inner void. So don't get caught either way. either in samsara, the idea of samsara, or the idea of nirvana. Don't split it, so that, he says, don't get caught in samsara, but don't get caught in nirvana either. Don't get caught in either one, emptiness.

[12:57]

So he says, in oneness and equality, great wisdom, confusion vanishes of itself. But he's not talking exactly in the... I think we need to look at the next page. I'm going to take these two together down at the bottom of the page. He says, stop activity and return to stillness, which is zazen. Within that stillness, and this is my contribution. Within that stillness is the great dynamic activity. Falling into one extreme or the other, how can you recognize oneness or non-duality if you fall into one extreme or the other? So this is where I want to bring in the understanding of the four wisdoms. The four wisdoms are the mirror wisdom,

[14:02]

The wisdom of, actually the wisdom of, there are actually four wisdoms which express non-duality. So the first one is the wisdom of great mirror, great round mirror wisdom. Round means all-inclusive. And mirror means reflecting everything exactly as it is. So when we fall into one side or the other, we have a bias. I guess bias means two things, right? It's a split into a bias. So it's impossible with a bias to see everything as it is, because a bias always presupposes a view. And later on, and Sosan says, don't get caught in views. Views are something that means opinions.

[15:08]

Views implies opinions. So opinion is a bias. It's okay to have an opinion as long as you know this is a bias. This is my opinion. I don't say this is the truth. This is just my opinion. So that's fine. You can have that as long as you don't say this is the truth. Yes, so the great round mirror sees everything just as it is, which is very hard to do. How often do we actually see everything completely as it is? Almost never, actually, because everything, thinking is a bias. Thinking is a discrimination. So a thought, it discriminates, which means compartmentalizes. and divides, divides and compartmentalizes. So that's also why he says, stop thinking and talking.

[16:11]

Because as soon as we do that, discrimination arises. And so it's very hard to see everything exactly as it is. Sometimes poetry can express that, I think, you know, the right kind of poetry. But even so, it's beyond everything. So, just a minute. So, The mirror has no interest in what it sees, but it sees what it sees perfectly and completely, and without a split, without a conceptualization, which is also a bias, and without conditioning, which is also a bias. So we live in this world of opinions and biases and partiality. So it's very hard to actually have a mirror mind.

[17:18]

The closest we get is in zazen. If we do zazen correctly, the mind is like a mirror and it simply sees and observes everything without a self. There's no self to be centered on. So it's non-self-centered activity of seeing just as it is. Everything goes by and is seen, cognized, but there's no discrimination. That's how we said sadhana. There is no discrimination. Everything is just seen as it is. And there's no preference. There's no like and dislike. There's no want or not want. That's very hard to do. But that's what we do in zazen when we actually sit zazen without complaining. So all of the history, the history and

[18:26]

memory of our alaya consciousness is held in abeyance because history also is a bias and affects our sight or our perspective. So as you know, when we investigate something scientifically, our scientific investigation has an effect on what it is that we are investigating, so it's really hard to actually have a completely mirror mind. And then the next wisdom is the wisdom of equality, which means that we see that which is common to everyone. I mean, we all have noses and eyes and so forth. We do have all that in common.

[19:34]

But there's also something much more significant that we have in common, which is actually we're all the same person. That's very difficult for us to accept, that we actually are, we're just one person. It's like, this is one person, right? I mean, this is one fist. but the one fist has many extensions. When I open the fist, those are the extensions. When I close the fist, we don't see the extensions. So it's hard to see that we're one person because we're only looking at the extensions. We only see the extensions. We only see, we don't see the forest for the trees. So that's the equality. that actually everything exists equally. We're all part of the same, as Yasutani used to say, the same nose hole society.

[20:36]

So, but, and then, that's when our ego becomes transformed. The transformation of ego is to, instead of seeing everything as separate, to see everything as one. So that's the second wisdom, the wisdom of equality. And then the third wisdom is the wisdom to see everything as different. That this is oneness and this is differentiation. So every single existence has its own merits and qualities. and to understand what that, and to see and understand what those qualities actually are and how they exist together with the oneness. So oneness is horizontal. Nothing extends up beyond anything else.

[21:43]

But the wisdom of discernment is that everything is vertical and on a hierarchical level. So hierarchy People think that hierarchy means one thing is better than another in a hierarchy, but actually it simply means that everything has its position in comparison with everything else. That's all. That's hierarchy. And I don't know anything about botany, but in botany, a stem and a flower and all the parts are called the hierarchy of the plant. So, but the stem doesn't say, I'm better than the flower. And the seed doesn't say, I'm better than the color, and so forth. Everything, all those things are working, all the parts are working together to create the flower. If only we did that, we'd have a great world. To understand hierarchy without ego.

[22:48]

So everything takes its place in harmony with everything else. So with the vertical, I mean vertical and the horizontal meet is that crossing. And right at that point is called mind. So faith in mind, this is the, The title of this piece is called Faith in Mind. That's what we mean by mind, where the oneness and differentiation meet and the whole thing turns on that axis. This is the meaning of the svastika. Svaha, svastika, which all you have to do is put the spokes on it for it to turn.

[23:54]

You know, the Nazis stole this from the Buddhists. Originally, this was a great Buddhist symbol of the way the universe works in harmony. But the Nazis took it and perverted it to mean its opposite. Terrible. But it's a symbol of how it works. So I don't like abandoning it. I understand people have big, you know, we all have big emotional response to this. But basically, it still has meaning for me because it expresses this very well. So he says, pursue not the outer entanglements, conditioned existence, and he means It's the fourth wisdom. Oh, I'm sorry. The fourth wisdom is the wisdom of appropriate activity.

[25:00]

So appropriate activity means in the hierarchy of consciousness, we have the five consciousnesses of seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and feeling, smelling. Those are the doors of perception. And all of our information comes in through the doorways of perception. Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, feeling, touching. And then we have a consciousness, the sixth level, which perceives and translates and makes known and differentiates between the senses this is hearing, this is seeing, so forth, and thinks, but it's not an ego, it simply thinks in a conscious way. And then the seventh consciousness, of course, is our ego, the consciousness which creates a self-centeredness and imagination and so forth, and creates the entanglements.

[26:17]

This is called the consciousness that creates the entanglements, the karmic consciousness, which, because it's dependent on self-centeredness, it creates duality. So duality is actually created through consciousness. Then the eighth consciousness is alaya-vijnana, which is the storehouse consciousness, simplistically speaking, of all of our memory and the seeds of memory, which we keep perpetuating through our karmic activity, and it creates what we call our life. The consciousnesses working together are what we call myself. And with Manas, the seventh consciousness, as the center, which is why we call it self-centeredness.

[27:21]

And when the seventh consciousness is transformed and releases its hold, it's called the wisdom of equality. So ego, turns into the wisdom of equality. I've talked about this quite a bit, but that's simplistically, I don't know if you can remember all that, but some people have studied this. So, in other words, delusion turns into wisdom. Yes? that be one's true nature? No, the vertical aspect is simply the wisdom which understands what creates the differentiation.

[28:28]

So it's the opposite of equality. It's not the opposite of equality, but it's the complement of equality. True nature is mind, which is at the crossroads. The horizontal is equality. The vertical is differentiation. And where the two meet is mind. That's true nature. That's that place where they meet. So there's both equality and differentiation. and not to get caught in one side or the other. That's what he's talking about. Don't get caught either in oneness or equality or differentiation. If you're in differentiation, okay. If you're in equality, that's okay. But when they're perfectly balanced, then that's non-duality.

[29:31]

So non-duality includes duality, but it's not controlled by duality. So Master Joshu said in his koan, I don't prefer one over the other. In that koan, Walter expressed so nicely last Saturday. Yeah, that's right, I have to finish what I was saying there. So yes, so appropriate activity comes out of that, yes. Appropriate, given the mirror, seeing things as it is, understanding equality and differentiation, then appropriate activity follows. That's what appropriate activity is based on. It's based on seeing things as it is, and it's based on seeing everything as equal, as well as seeing everything in its differentiated form accurately, because you have the mere wisdom to seize clearly.

[30:50]

And then appropriate action follows. We have to stand up for a minute, but I just wanna, I'm gonna let Judy Say, give me a short question, just one subject. I'm just wondering the relationship of these four wisdoms to the Eightfold Path, particularly where right thought enters. Well, actually, the four wisdoms are related to the eight consciousnesses. The eight consciousnesses and more than the Eightfold Path. The Four Wisdoms come out of the Eight Consciousnesses. I'm sure that they're also related to the Eightfold Path, but I'm only going to say yes as the conclusion to that question. I think we can stand up for about 30 seconds. Okay, folks. Yes?

[31:52]

Yes. It is. I explained that. I said that round means all-inclusive. Yeah. So if that's shape, shapes do mean something, right? Triangulation. There's squareness and there's roundness. Some people put them three together. Yeah, square, those are three fundamental shapes that are used. No, it's two-dimensional. You know, And when we get into that, we get into different dimensions. So I think it's simply a metaphor.

[33:10]

It's not a thing. So as a metaphor, it means all-inclusive. If we go beyond that, then it gets into shapes and forms. So it has no special shape or form. It's only round. This is the roundness that has no special shape or form. where people were trying to represent Nagarjuna's roundness in drawings and things that included circles and spheres, and he'd go, will you lankhets, please knock it off. Yes, that's right. So that's an interesting story. Kanadeva was Nagarjuna's disciple. This is, of course, Buddhist mythology, right? And Nagarjuna was sitting and expressing the dharma to a group of people.

[34:16]

And when the people looked at Nagarjuna, all they saw was a circle. They didn't see the person. And then Kanadeva, was explaining what Nagarjuna was doing. Do you see? And they said, yes, he just turned into a circular form. And then Dogen said, you should not believe that this actually happened like that. This is a metaphor. What people saw was, Nagarjuna's mirror mind, not something tangible that you could see as a mirror or as a circle. So it's expressed that way, but it's expressed metaphorically and not, what would you call it?

[35:19]

Literally, yes. Not literally, yeah. So nothing in Zen is literal. I keep saying this over and over again. As long as you take things as literal, language as literal, you miss the point. It's all just pointing at something. Because basically you cannot describe what it is that we're doing or teaching or thinking. You cannot describe it. So everything we say is just pointing. And the pointings may be nice or clumsy or whatever, but there it is, because it's like there's a big hole in the ground, like a volcano, and people are walking around the volcano and saying, well, it's this and it's that. And then there's a jewel that has many sides, and so you walk around and say, well, it looks like this.

[36:22]

And then you walk around to the other side, and you say, well, no, it looks like that. That's why we have so many names for the same thing, because there are all these sides that we look at it from, positions, standing points that we look at this thing from. But it's indescribable. You cannot describe it. You can only look at the point of the moon, the finger pointing to the moon. Let's say that over and over again, the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon itself. Also, actually the finger is the moon, but the thing that you're pointing with is the moon, but you're looking at the moon to see what that is, when it's actually the finger. But anyway, don't take that literally either. So turn the page, please. Page 14. Wow. I think that's the page we're on.

[37:26]

Sometimes these pages have a way of slipping. Oh, yes. Okay. So at the bottom of the page, 14, he says, not penetrating the unity of the way, both sides go astray. To deny the existence of things is to miss the reality. So these are the two sides, right? To deny the existence of things is to miss the reality. To fall into the emptiness of things one-sidedly is also to miss the reality. So either way, when you fall into one side or the other, you miss it. So it's hard to stay in the middle. It's really hard to stay in the middle. When you started driving, when you started learning how to drive, You know, there's the white line going down the road and you're looking at the white line and you're really trying to make sure that you don't go off the road and hit somebody. But as you begin to become more accustomed,

[38:31]

You don't even think about that, you just drive, right? Because you absorb the principles and it's part of your body, it's part of your being, driving or riding a horse. People say the horse and I are one, but when you first get on the horse, you're this big animal. He reaches out and takes this huge clump of grass and starts chewing it, you know, and wow. But once you get used to riding the horse, you and the horse are one. You and the car are one. So you and the way are one. When you can walk the tightrope, and then little by little, the tightrope becomes a path, then it becomes a road, then it becomes wherever you go. But at first, it's walking a tightrope. You don't want to fall into one side, and you don't want to fall into the other side. So how do you stay in the middle? That's called our practice.

[39:35]

Not penetrating the unity of the way. Both sides go astray. So the unity of the way. You know, when Jacques, what's his name, the tightrope walker, Philip, yes, I think it was Philip, I don't know, anyway, walked between the two Trade Center buildings on a tightrope. You know, he had this big, long stick that helps him balance. But balance, he has to. If you did that, or if I did that, you know, it would really be difficult. But for him, The little rope, it was a cable. It was just like the open road to him. He lied down in the middle of it on his back and then he stood up again and just kept going.

[40:39]

That's amazing because the rope, the tightrope was just, he had somehow, he had reconciled duality. He had reconciled certain components of of duality, and he was at one with it, with both sides. So that's the Tao, the path, is not falling off into one side or another. So to deny the existence of things is to miss the reality. So we say there's no self, and there's no self in things. This is the Heart Sutra also. The five skandhas are all empty. The mark of all skandhas is emptiness. You know what a mark is. A mark means a characteristic. Characteristic of the five skandhas

[41:40]

is form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. That's existential marks. And also, all dharmas are also marked with emptiness. So all the skandhas, their true mark is emptiness. Like the mark of fire is heat. The mark of water is wet, right? Characteristic. main characteristic. So the main characteristic of all things, all dharmas, meaning things, is empty. So to deny the existence of things, so denying the existence of things is to say that they're all empty. So a thing only exists momentarily. But in that momentariness, there is existence. dharmas don't exist except within the context of the moment's activity.

[42:51]

But things are changing so fast that there's never any existence that lasts very long. And so we think of ourselves as entities that exist for a long time, but it's only momentary. because all of the juices, I'll call them juices, in our bodies are continually changing, continuously. But there is this feeling of rhythms and moments. I'm here today and I'll be here tomorrow, I was here yesterday, but what exists only is just now. The one that's going to be here tomorrow is like the one today, but not completely, because some things are changing really quickly and some things are changing more slowly. So the things that are changing more slowly is our appearance, but the things that are changing quickly are all the activities, atomic and physical.

[43:54]

fluid, and it is constantly exchanging in our bodies, right? So everything's like that. So we can say, yes, things do exist momentarily, whatever a moment is, but at different moments, different speeds, and so on. So the reality is in the change. We like to think that the reality is in the existence, but actually the reality is in the change. Everything exists as real, meaning momentary. You get that? But we like to think of existence, the real existence is what, you know, our bias. But true existence is momentary. Did you say that then the apparent persistence of my addiction or my habit is every moment voting to do it again?

[45:03]

Yes, yes, we're creating it moment by moment, and this is the understanding of this cycle of, we can't get off of it, it's hard to get off of this cycle of the deed goes into the memory bank and then the activity moves the seed, perfumes it to sprout. And so there's sprouting and planting and sprouting and planting and this keeps going on and on until we stop it. So it's possible to change our karma, but hard. to change our karma, but it's possible. So we don't have to be driven by karma. Most of us are driven by karma. We don't have to be, but we don't know until we realize that we don't have to be, we don't know what to do.

[46:05]

And so everybody's addicted to something. Yeah. And this is what is referred to as permanence and impermanence? Well, as impermanence. The only thing that's permanent is change. Change is permanent, and that changes the reality. And what we think of as permanent is the delusion. And that's to think that, but we know that everything changes, but there's something, you know, we act as if it's not. That's a whole interesting thing. So he says, to deny the existence of things is to miss the reality. So if you deny the existence of things, you miss their existence. So we shouldn't get caught in denying the existence of things. And then he says, to fall into the emptiness of things, which is nonexistence, that's also a problem.

[47:12]

We shouldn't get caught in one side or the other. We shouldn't get caught because we think, well, everything is empty and changing and there's, nevertheless, we live in a world of duality and our experience is relating to our surroundings and doing something. Feeling and so forth. Thinking, feeling, and so forth. We can't deny that. Even though we know that that We know what's happening, so we can actually act out without being caught if we, that's possible. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yes.

[48:22]

Yes. Yes, they can, but they don't necessarily know that that's what they're seeing. They say there's something about that person. There's a story about Shariputra, or one of Buddha's disciples, the two of them are walking along and they're just recent disciples, but they're very, you know, his arhats. And a man looks at them from a distance and he says, there's something really unusual about those two people. There's something about their bearing and the way they hold themselves and their pace and their certain quietness and certain settledness in their bearing. So he walks up and he says, what is it about you guys that you're like this?

[49:28]

And they said, well, I didn't know we were like this, but we're disciples of the Buddha. That's the story. Judy. that appearance changes slowly and activity changes quickly and that somehow in that interplay there's a rhythm. I'm not sure if I heard you accurately. Well, almost. What I was saying that we have many rhythms in our being. We have mental rhythms. We have physical rhythms, and some of the rhythms are very slow rhythms, and some of the rhythms are quicker, and they're all doing this thing at the same time. They're all active at the same time. Psychic rhythms, emotional rhythms, body rhythms, parts of us are changing more rapidly than other parts, right?

[50:41]

So there's all these different rhythms going on And to harmonize all those rhythms is part of the walking the rope. To be able to harmonize all those rhythms so that what we think and what we do are the same thing. That's an important part of practice, is what kind of, our attitudes create this kind of harmony. It's really important, our attitude is really important, because our attitude expresses what our purpose is. And then when our purpose is expressed in our attitude, then it helps to harmonize all these parts of our psyche, body, mind, of the five streams called the skandhas, and they all harmonize into one activity.

[51:42]

Whatever we're doing. This applies to everything. That's right thought. Yes, right thought is attitude. So to fall into the emptiness of things is still one-sided, right? And that's to miss the reality. So we don't fall into either delusion or Enlightenment. Enlightenment's not necessary because you can't make it happen. Whatever we have is already there. You can't add something. This is what we mean by no gaining idea. That's the meaning. No gaining idea doesn't mean, you know, should I eat more ice cream or not? That's not it. It's no gaining idea. It's not, am I going to get money? It means not falling, not realizing that everything we have, everything that belongs to us, we already have.

[52:53]

We don't need to get anything. And you can't lose anything that we already have. You cannot lose it and you cannot gain it. So that's what you're looking for. That's not no gaining idea. You're not trying to get something. You're just revealing yourself. It's clear that all the things that we will be, we are not presently. All the things that? That we will be, we are not presently. Is that so? Okay, okay. all of those becomings are already in our own being. Potential. We have what's called potentiality. Without potentiality, we don't exist. That's a very important point for our understanding.

[53:56]

The reason you're here now, like Suzuki Roshi, Thich Nhat Hanh also says this, The reason that we're here now is because we've always been here. But that doesn't mean in the present form that you are now, which isn't changing. But actually, that's also true. But each one of us exists in potentiality, otherwise we couldn't be here. We don't just appear out of nothing. You can look at it genetically, when all the conditions are appropriate and come together and spark, so to speak, then something arises. This is true with everything. Everything comes together, everything exists because of causes and conditions which come together at a certain time and place.

[54:58]

So physically, you can say that the mother and the father, the sperm and the oven, and the ova, ovary, the sperm and the egg, come together, and the conditions are therefore to express its potentiality, the potentiality of both of those. which have potentiality to be what they are, and those potentialities are fueled by those potentialities and so forth. So we don't know where everything comes from, right? And then something arises, and that's called, it's expression. So it's the universe expressing itself as a form. Emptiness doesn't mean nothing. When we say it comes from nothing, what we're from emptiness doesn't mean nothing because emptiness is the container for everything.

[56:07]

It's the raw material for everything to be expressed. So we're all expressions of the one mind, big mind. Everything is an expression that way. So potentially, everything, we all exist all come forth from this potentiality. So we say, oh, he's been here, because although everything is new, everything is stardust, right? I mean, stardust is the raw material for everything. And then there are various reasons, conditions, which create forms. So, I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, you know, you can throw a rock pretty far, but you can never throw it out of the universe. It'll never get lost, is what he said.

[57:09]

It'll never get lost. He didn't say throw it out of the universe. It can never get lost. Where can it get lost? We only think of regain and loss because of our individuality. So our individuality is very precious to us. The most precious thing in the world is our individuality. But when we let go of that as a center, then we relate to the universe as ourself. Instead of seeing the universe, it's over against ourself. Yeah. And that is oneness? That's oneness. Yes. So let's turn the page to page 16. So the more you talk and think about it, the more you go astray. Let go of speech and thought, and there's nowhere you can't pass freely. Okay, so the more you talk and think about it, that's true, but you can't not talk and think about it.

[58:17]

If you realize that the more you talk and think about it, reminds me of a koan, the name of which I can't remember, but I do remember some of it. But the gist of it is, the two monks are sitting down, and they're arguing about something, about this, basically. And then, finally, one monk says to the other, well, what do you think? And the other one says, well, I don't know, what do you think? And then the other one says, let's have some tea. That's a good idea. So they sit down and have some tea. But they enjoy talking about it, right? We say, no gossip, don't gossip. But actually, if you have good understanding, then gossip can actually be Dharma talk.

[59:18]

If you understand real attachment, then it's okay to have attachment. So the more you talk and think about it, rationalizing or, you know, opinionizing, the more you go astray. That's basically what he means. It's like trying to put it into your rationale. Let go of speech and thought that is discriminating mind and don't be attached to words. and there's no way you can't pass freely. So, this is also coming back to the balance, coming back to the still point, basically. Even though there's no still point, there's still a still point. You know, for everything you say, the opposite is also there. Do you ever think about something and then you think, this is really true, You think, well, what about the other side?

[60:24]

The other side, oh, so true. Which is the right one? So how do you find the middle, which is the real truth? Somebody comes to you and they say, do you know that so-and-so said to me that blah, blah, blah? And you think, whoa, that's terrible. That person's hateful. You're really swayed by that person's argument because it's so wonderful and accurate. Then the other person comes and says, do you know what that person did to me? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh my God. So everybody's got the right opinion. And you're swayed by that, right? So you should never listen to one side without hearing the other. So this is also an example of opinionatedness, which means big duality. And we get caught. So basically, don't get caught by either side. This is one of Suzuki Roshi's main teachings.

[61:26]

He just uses it casually, you know, don't get caught by anything. And then you think, okay, don't get caught by anything, but what does that really mean? What does it really mean not to get caught by anything? So these are words. Don't get snagged. We also have the board-carrying fellow, the Tambang Khan, which is the figure I should talk about. A guy's walking with a board on his shoulder, so when you're doing that, you can't see over that way, you can only see this way. So you think everything's going on, the whole truth is over there, but because you have the board that's blocking your view on the other side, you can't see anything, and you miss the reality. So don't be attached to words.

[62:28]

It doesn't mean don't talk. It simply means don't be attached to your words, because words are only indicators. There's poetry where words have more meaning than just indicator. The word actually goes inside. A good teaching is when you hear the words and they go inside but you don't understand them, and then you're walking along one day and suddenly, boom, it explodes inside you. Say, ah, now I got it, now I understand. I hope some of you have that sometime. So let's turn to page 18, five minutes. So then he tells us what to do. Here he's telling us what to do. He says, returning to the root, we get the essence. Following after appearance, we lose the spirit. One moment of inner illumination goes beyond appearances and emptiness.

[63:35]

So returning to the root, we get the essence. Well, the root in essence is the same thing. Essential nature, as the sixth ancestor always used to say, don't stray from your essence of mind. Don't stray from your essence of mind where the balance is between, is where the horizontal and the vertical meet. That's essence of mind, the essential. don't stray from the essential. That's what others call turning the light inward or taking the backward step that illuminates from inside. So following after appearance, we lose the spirit. So we're so much swayed by appearances, don't you think? Of course, the face, you know, does reflect what's inside.

[64:38]

Even if the face is hiding what's inside, which it often does, that tells us something. There's something, there's a mask. Something's hiding behind the mask. And we would like to get inside. So following after appearance, there's something called reaction and something called response. Reaction is when, in an encounter, we bounce off of the person. There's an outward appearance and we bounce off and then have a reaction to, well, that bounce, and then we bounce back. Response is when we have an encounter And what bounces back, we don't bounce back. We simply hold it and consider it, and then through deep consideration, we make a response.

[65:46]

And the response is not a reaction, because it's something coming from our side, whereas a reaction is getting caught by someone's reaction. So we get caught by reactivity. Reactivity, you know, always coming up, like you do something and somebody has a reactive response to what you did or said, but it's a conditioned reaction. It's not a true reaction. So we get caught with this conditioned reactions. So, we shouldn't just follow the appearance, we should try to understand what's really going on so that we don't get caught and we can actually help somebody. So one moment of inner illumination, you could say that's finding the right response.

[66:48]

Goes beyond appearance and emptiness. And it's time to stop. I'm gonna leave it there.

[66:57]

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