Well, originally this was going to be a lecture, and it would have proved to be too noisy, or too competitive with the stream. And so we decided to have the lecture here, but this is an informal gathering, so I decided to start my class. So this is somewhere between lecture and class. And I told you that the class would be the Chi Chi Xing Yi of the Hei Hei Hei. Hey, hey, again, Shiggy. Yo, again, Shiggy.

[01:00]

Hmm. part of the Ehe Shingi. And Shingi is monastic regulations. Yes, you can't hear me. I'm formulating my thoughts. So the Shinggi consists of several parts.

[02:13]

One part is the Tenzo Kyokun, which most of us are familiar with, and I've talked about that many times, and that's the regulations for the Tenzo. And then a second part of Ehe Shinggi is the Bendo Ho, which is the way of practice. Sometimes, recently, in the past few years, people in Japan have been, monks in Japan have been trying to resurrect what Dogen's original practice was. And this is called Bendo A. Katagiri Roshi tried practicing Bendo-e at Minnesota for a couple of years in conjunction with Narasaki Roshi.

[03:16]

There are some monks in Japan who have been trying to find the original practice, which is very hard to find because the Soto school has gone through so many transformations since Dogen's time. Dogen's practice was just one small part of the Soto Zen practice, and actual Soto Zen practice started with Keizan Zenji. So Dogen and Keizan are like considered the mother and the father of Soto Zen. Dogen brought the Cao Dong school's teaching to Japan from China, and Keizan Zenji, who came three generations later, actually popularized the teaching and formulated it as the Soto school teaching in Japan.

[04:18]

So it's a kind of mixture of Dogen and Soto and Keizan and all the other ancestors which have followed, and everyone adds or subtracts or modifies in some way Keizan's teaching. So there are actually a number of Shinggis. And Pai Chang's Shinggi is supposed to be the original Zen Shinggi from China. And Dogen mentions this a lot. And there's also the Zen En Shinggi, which is, I'm not sure when that dates from, but nobody can find the original Pai Chong shinghi, and some scholars doubt that it ever existed. Anyway, we have the important shinghi for Soto school is Eihei shinghi and Keizan shinghi, and the Keizan shinghi is actually the one that's used more than Dogen's shinghi.

[05:29]

We don't really have it, but there is a translation, Keizan Shingi, which I saw in Maezumi Roshi's study when I saw him over Christmas. I said, what's that? He said, oh, that's Keizan Shingi. That's even more used than Dogen's Ehe Shingi. But he said that there's going to be a 750th anniversary of Dogen's founding of the Heiji something like that, at Eheji in seven years, and the Santo school is preparing now for this event. They said if we were good boys and girls they would invite us. That's my language. They didn't say girls. say anything. This is how rumors get started.

[06:37]

But in the preparation for this, they're printing these. They've printed both the Eihei Shingi and the Keizan Shingi in these nice red volumes. And we have the Eihei Shingi in San Francisco, and I didn't bring it down with me. I didn't think of that. But I'm going to have it sent down. But they're not supposed to be out yet. This is just kind of pre... They're not for sale or anything, you know, they're distributed, but they send us a copy, which is very nice of them. And they sent my Sumi-roshi a copy of the Heizan-shinri. So, these are the two, anyway. And Bendo-ho, to get back to Bendo-ho, regulations for practice in the monastery, the way to practice. And Bendo-e, as I was saying, These monks, I've been trying to get back to Hashimoto Roshi and who else?

[07:49]

See, Kanagiri Roshi studied with Hashimoto Roshi, and Hashimoto Roshi tried to find out what was the original Buddhist robe, the okesa. And so they went back, you know, and tried to resurrect that. And they reinvented the robe. And that's what we wear today in Zen Center. And this also, the Raksu, is also not what most people in the Soto school wear. This is the... supposedly original style, if there was such a thing. Raksu actually originated in Japan about 300 years ago. But it's a small robe held on my straps.

[08:50]

But the way it's made is according to the old way, which is called Bendo-e, the old way, the original way. So our cases are made in the original way. I didn't always wear that. I would also, you know, regularly sew through school robes as well. But this is what, when we started sewing robes, Katagiri Roshi brought over his teachers to help us, show us how to sew the Bindo A style of robes. And that's what we wear. But when we go to Japan, you find that the monks don't wear these kind of robes. But some do. Some of them do. But not everybody's interested in the original way. As a matter of fact, most are not interested in the original way. There actually were troublesome robes to wear, but Suzuki Roshi wasn't that interested either, actually. Kanagiri Roshi was very interested.

[09:51]

He was really gung-ho on the original way. Suzuki Roshi wasn't so interested, but he went along with it. He always wore the other style of robe. But it was okay for us to do this, and he was glad that we were sewing. But in Japan, they don't sew their robes like we do. So, it's kind of nice, though. We have a really good practice, you know, to sewing our robes and going, finding out, well, what's Dogen's original way? Going back to the root source. And that movement is alive in Japan, but that's troublesome, too. So Hashimoto had a number of women disciples who followed that tradition, right? Joshin-san and so forth. So this is as much as we can find in Dogen's way of practicing, but not completely.

[11:14]

Some people think that Dogen's way of practicing in the beginning, you know, the time was different. The sense of time was very different in those days when they didn't have clocks. We go by the clock. And in those days, people went by the rhythm of nature much more. And when they wanted to time something, they would time it by an incense stick. or they get up with the sun. And so there is a kind of cyclical rotation for the year of when the monks would get up according to the cycles, the daily cycles. And they would move much more in conjunction with the daily cycles, whereas we move much more in conjunction with artificial time. I don't know exactly how they did that.

[12:16]

They tried doing that, I think, at the Bendo A, when Kadagiri, my Meili was there. She showed me this chart, right? Meili? I think so. What? I think so. Yeah, you did. You gave me this chart that showed how you calculate Winding it up every day. So, and he also, someone was telling me that people weren't expected to be in the Zen Do on time. It was more free-flowing, kind of. I mean, there was a sense of time, but not such exact time. You know, we time things to the minute and the second, you know. But in those days, there's no way of... I mean, if you go to a foreign country, you know, people are not as concerned about time as we are. You go to Mexico, people are not as concerned about time.

[13:19]

Okay, I'll be there at six o'clock. Oh, hi. Okay, senor. And, you know, midnight, you know, or... And that's expected, that you don't... Nobody pays that much attention to time. And in those days, I'm sure they didn't pay that much attention to time, even in monastic life. They paid attention to time, but not in such an exacting way. Anyway, when the bell rings, you go. I think that's the way. And Suzuki Roshi, that was his way. When the bell rings, that's when you do something, rather than at this particular time. I remember one time I rang the bell, the wake-up bell at Page Street, an hour early. And somehow I woke up and I looked at the clock and I thought it said five and it said four. And I rang the bell an hour early and everybody came out in the hallway and started going to the Zendo.

[14:22]

And then they were looking at their watches and they said, hey, wait a minute. And they started going back to their rooms and Suzuki Roshi came out and said, get down to the Zendo. He chased everybody down to the zendo. And then he said, when the bell rings, you just put on your robes and go to the zendo. It doesn't make any difference what time it is. And then, there's the fushu kuhanpo, which is how to eat with oreoki. It tells you how to eat with oreoki. It has all these details. And this is a very poor translation. This is the only translation that we've had for a long time by Yokoi, who is a wonderful man, but he did a terrible translation. That's why I wanted to do this other translation, so it would be more in our English. And then there's the Shuryo Shingi.

[15:27]

The Shuryo is the monk's hall. So there's regulations for how to act in a monk's hall. That's where the monks calmly read sutras, reflect on themselves, have respect to each other, and lead a peaceful life between the intervals of zazen. And to this end, etiquette between senior priests and juniors must be strictly observed. And then he's giving a little overview of what the shuryo shingyi regulations are. Accumulation of impious offering, loud voices, noisy sounds, passing through the hall, rude sitting and lying, bearing weapons and musical instruments, receiving visitors, bringing in non-Buddhist books and incentive food. I think that's good.

[16:27]

Incentive food. Well, you know what incentive food is. Candy bars. Something that makes you drool. And worldly talk is all strictly prohibited. Also, in seeking lost things, several regulations are ordained for fear of disturbing the minds of other monks. So you should do Buddhist deeds day and night. And then the taiko, go-ge-jari-ho, is the manners of junior priests towards senior priests. The taiko is a monk who has been practicing in the monastery for five years. You know, in regular Buddhism, there are ranks of seniority, very strict ranks of seniority.

[17:29]

If you were ordained one minute before someone else, or first in line, then the next person, you would have seniority over that other, over the second person. And that's the way it's very, always been strictly, except that it is strict, but not immovable. sometimes a person who has ability will have a position over a person who has seniority. And that's also important. But the seniority has always been important in Buddhism. And so after five years, you're a taiko. And then after 10 years, you're something else. And after 15, after 20, you're something else. And these are aspects of seniority which are respected always in the monastery. So, there are 62 articles of manners toward the taiko, how you respect seniors.

[18:44]

And also, there should be something about, there is actually, how seniors respect juniors, It's very important that seniors respect juniors. Sometimes it looks like the juniors are just always respecting the seniors and everything goes from the bottom to the top. But when Dogen talks about how the officers relate, he's always talking about how they should relate with respect and kindness and thoughtfulness to juniors. That's a very important part of being a senior. And then there's the Chi Chi Shing Gi, which is the regulations for Chi Chi priests, or the officers in the monastery, which includes all positions, actually, major positions and minor positions. I think the regulations were just read during

[19:47]

So that's our bare bones tasahara shingi. I think that in time, as time goes on, we'll be able to develop our own tasahara shingi. which is not just rules but kind of inspiration and examples of how to practice. If you just have rules, not so good. And as a matter of fact, Suzuki Roshi was very careful not to give us a lot of rules. He never made up, he hardly ever made up any rules. And he said, we should have rules, you know, we should. But if we're too serious, it will be a big problem.

[20:55]

And if we're not serious, it'll be a big problem. But he was very careful that we shouldn't have too many rules. If you start having too many rules, there's something wrong with the way things are going, I think. So I think the best way to teach and to lead people is through inspiration. And everybody wants to do something the right way. But then, you know, there's some problem. And when a problem comes up, you analyze it, and then you decide whether or not, well, this would be good for a rule. So in Buddha's time, people would come to him with some problem, and that's how the rules were made, one by one.

[21:59]

Not by sitting down and deciding, you know, a whole lot of things, but one by one, it looked like, well, this is not acceptable, and this kind of behavior is acceptable. have some regulations about what kind of behavior is acceptable and what kind of behavior is not acceptable. And then you have major and minor rules, which is the way it worked out. And when they had, when Buddha was dying, according to the legend, Ananda came and said, you know, I can understand us practicing the major rules, but what do you think about all the minor rules? Should we keep them? And Buddha said, well, not necessarily. But when they had the big conference, Mahakasyapa decided that since they didn't know which minor rules, he didn't specify which minor rules weren't necessary, he said we should keep them all.

[23:01]

So Mahakasyapa became a disciplinarian. And Buddha's practice has been very disciplined ever since. But I think it's important to understand Dogen's example and his concerns and so forth. But I think it's also important to question everything and not just put on these clothes, but to decide whether or not these clothes really fit. for which clothes fit and which clothes don't. And make our own, with thoughtfulness, decide what rules we should have. And this is what Suzuki Roshi wanted us to do.

[24:07]

He said, you should have your own precepts. Develop your own precepts as you go along. and your own regulations. But we should understand Dogen. We should understand completely where he was at, where he was coming from, and what his purpose was. So, in this little introduction to the Chiji Shingi, Yokoi says, the Chiji is the office of conducting the important affairs in and out of the temple. This book begins with the words, the office of Chiji is noble and valuable. None but mighty senior priests should be appointed to the office. None but excellent students awakened to the Buddha's wisdom can be equal to this Chiji. So you have very high standards, you know.

[25:10]

The Chiji is divided into six ranks, the Tzus, the Khants, the Fus, the Ino, the Tenzo, and the Shisui. The Tsus is the director. Actually, we used to use these terms in the old days. And the Kans is what we call the assistant director. But in the Japanese monastery, the Kansu is more than that. The Kansu and the Tsus are kind of equal and manages affairs, certain affairs. But we used to have a Kansu, I was an assistant director. But we could never find out exactly what an assistant director did. And I remember one summer, when I was the director, I was at Soos, and we had a cons. And we had a meeting in the dining room here in the middle of the summer. And the cons came in, and I looked at him, and his eyes looked so strange. You know, immediately, this guy had been smoking pot.

[26:11]

So after the meeting, I said, have you been smoking grass? He said, yeah. I said, that's great. And he didn't want to stop smoking, and he didn't want to do any work. He wanted to just completely stop working and do what he wanted. Why do we have to do all this stuff? Why do we have to do it? He just wandered around, did what he wanted, and smoked pot. We just gave up the position. We decided that there was no sense in having that position. Sounds like a good job you made. Did he inhale? So instead, we added the shikha. And the shikha is the sixth person on the Rukpa Chigi. And the Fus, who takes care, is the treasurer. And the Ino, who you all know, takes care of the monks in the monks hall, and the Zendo, and the Tenzo, and the Shisui.

[27:25]

Shisui is the work leader. Work leader. Shisui, that's you. Shisui. Shisui. Shisui. This book can be summarized into two parts. In the first part, some instances of ancient qiji priests are described. Nanda, Pao-en, Yang-chi, Hua-en, Chu-an, Gui-shan, Dao-wu, Wu-chao, Fa-yuan, Jia-shan, Tai-yang, and Pao-fu fulfilled their offices of qiji completely. Chao-chao, She-shuang, She-xian, and Fa-yan devoted themselves to their duties of Qi Ji. Lin Chi trained himself even after he obtained enlightenment. Huai Tong was very careful about giving a minor office. Yang Chi chose the severe practice of Buddhism before the construction of fine houses."

[28:29]

What that means is, what he's saying here is that he preferred, he neglected to fix up He said, never mind fixing up the monastery, just sit in this room. The monks are sitting there, the snow is blowing in, the roof is collapsing, the walls are falling apart, and these guys are just trying to sit down. He said, never mind fixing up, just sit Zazen. That's what this story is talking about. I think he said, there are places on the benches where the snow isn't. Go sit there. Yeah. When one monk got up, there was no snow on his seat. So that's what he means by, Yangshan chose the severe practice of Buddhism before the construction of fine houses. See, that's why his translation is not so good. In the second part, the contents of the officers of Kants, Ino, Tenzo, and Shisui, and mental attitude of Chiji priests for these officers are detailed in the former paragraph with a quotation from the chapter of Shingi of the Regulations for Zen Monasteries.

[29:40]

And then there are the minor positions, as well as the major. Those are the major positions, those six. And that's what we call the staff. So we do follow this. order of things. And I can read you some of the staff positions. They're kind of interesting, you know. It shows you what people did in those days that's like what we do and a little different than what we do. So the hanju is the person in charge of the rice. So one person is in charge of rice. That's the job, the position. And a kuju is in charge of the soup. A person makes soup. You know, some of the old Zen masters like Seppo used to, people in those days would travel around in China from one monastery to another. And Seppo was known as a famous cook and he would carry his ladle with him and his rice paddle when he traveled from one place to another.

[30:50]

Dōsu is in charge of, maybe the assistant Ino, I think. And Shoki is a secretary. And the Chizō is in charge of the Sutra Treasury. So every monastery had a Sutra Treasury. And if you go to Rinzōen, which is just a temple, Suzuki Roshi's old temple, Hoitsu's temple, there's a building on the temple grounds. which is the Sutra Treasury, and it's a little like pagoda, and inside is the Tripitaka, and it's on a big wheel, and it has spokes coming out from it, and you get a bunch of people in there and you turn the whole thing. They don't do that anymore, but they used to do that. turn the whole trapezius, and it's just this house, you know, with this trapezius in it.

[31:57]

So, there's one monk in charge of that. When Hoitsu was in Eiheiji, his job was taking care of the kaisando. That was his position. The Chiyoku was in charge of the bathroom, the baths. I'm not sure whether that's the toilet or the baths, And the Chidan, we know what the Chidan does here, but Chidan could have another meaning there. And the Kanju is someone in charge of the firewood. And the Hanju was the rice cook. And the Beiju is in charge of rice and barley. And the Benju, no, Enju, was the person in charge of the vegetable garden. The Maju was the one pounding rice and wheat, especially, or pounding into mochi or various forms.

[33:03]

And the Sushu is in charge of the temple manor house, like on Page Street, the guest house. Or here would be Jamesburg. And the Kang I can't read my own writing. Kangshu or Kangtu is the accountant, and the gaibo is the fundraiser. He says it's the person who goes out in the street and collects money from people. Could be. The tanju is in charge of firewood and charcoal. I guess it's making charcoal out of firewood, I would assume. And the shoju is in charge of soy sauce. Soy sauce is very important. I'll show you. And the shukujo makes gruel. And the hanguju is in charge of the prajnaparamita citrus.

[34:09]

You know, the citrus are in scrolls. And also at Rinzowen and Zendo, there's this cabinet with this prajnaparamita citrus. in scrolls, and they're not very well taken care of. They need a Hangu Jew there. And then the Kegon Jew is in charge of the Kegon Sutra, the Avatamsaka Sutra. And the Sui Jew is in charge of water. And I would imagine that that must be a very important position, to collect water and keep it pure and make sure that there are no bugs in it, But I think that's probably a very important position. And the Maju is in charge of pounding rice. Some of these seem to overlap, but you know, the sixth patriarch, when he went to the fifth patriarch's temple, the fifth patriarch putting him in charge, not in charge, but he said, go to the rice pounding area, and that'll be your position.

[35:15]

And the Toju is in charge of lamp oil. And then there's the Jikido, and the Kaisan-ju. I just made that up, but I must be right. The Kaisan-ju would be in charge of the Kaisando. And then a lot of other positions. But each one of these positions is important. It's a job, but it's a way of practicing, which is equal to Zazen. And there's no one position which is more important than any other. It's like, but they seem, you know, there seems to be a hierarchy of positions. There is that aspect, the hierarchy of positions. But there's also, all positions are equal. And we should be willing to take on any position, you know. Sometimes we ask people, well, what would you like to do next practice period?

[36:20]

Oh, I'd like to do this." Sometimes it's good to ask, but mostly it's not good to ask. In the old days, we never asked people what they wanted to do. We just said, now it's time for so-and-so to do this position. Someone is deciding for me what I should do. That's wonderful. To allow ourselves to have someone decide, to have our friends, our sangha, decide what we should do is really To be able to do that without it being a problem for you, or if it is a problem for you, it's also good too. It can go either way. If it is a problem for you, it's a good problem. But to allow ourselves to be put into a position by our Sangha members and relate to the Sangha members from that position. So what we used to do, is rotate positions.

[37:24]

We still do, of course. But without asking. We never asked anybody what they wanted to do. And everybody just found out their position. And pretty much we're doing that again, I think. Suzuki Roshi once asked me what I wanted to do. And then when I told him, he wouldn't let me do it. It's true. When did we get the position Tanto? I never hear Tanto mentioned. that within Zen Center, the position of Tantra has a lot of meaning. Oh, it does. Sorry, I just wondered where does that come from? I never hear it. Oh, you don't hear it in here. Tantra could be a later position from this. I mean, it could be something that developed after this. It may be in Keizan Xingyi. Boshuso. Boshuso is here. It's not mentioned here. but it's mentioned later. He did actually, see these are not, it's a good question, but they're not part of the six officers.

[38:26]

It's not part of the Roku Chi Chi, but it is part of the larger Chi Chi. But this aspect of practice in which you allow yourself to be put in a position and not choosing is very important. It's how we give ourselves over to the Sangha and the practice. And with faith, you know, and confidence in the Sangha and in our teachers who decide what they think is best for us. It's kind of parental, but parental mind is part of practice. And in the Tenzo Kyokun, Dogen says there are three minds, the joyful mind, parental mind and magnanimous mind, which are the three minds that we need to develop in practice. And how do you develop parental mind without being a parent, without being heavy?

[39:32]

You know, if you ever have children, it's not easy to have parental mind. Parental line is the most difficult thing of all, I think, to develop. But we don't treat each other as children, but we do treat each other with that kind of care. That's what he means. Not that you treat people as children, but you treat everyone with that kind of care. as the same way you would treat your children. So, the rules, you know, are really, I feel that this is the most important thing, that the rules are meant to bring forth compassion and kindness, not to put some kind of damper or restriction on people.

[40:46]

But restricting our activity allows us to practice in the correct way, in a way that limiting our activity allows us to see our actions in our mind in a way that we can't see when it's not limited, when our activity is not limited. limiting practice allows us to have unlimited mind, actually. It's the opportunity for... And if you look at it in the most microcosmic way, zazen is the most restricted activity that you can possibly do, the most limited activity, which gives us the most total freedom.

[41:47]

The purpose of zazen is to give us total freedom, but the activity itself is the most narrow and restricted. And the same way with practice. Monastic practice has parameters and restrictions, but it's compassionate practice, which, if we know how to practice with it, will give us great freedom. So the purpose of practice is not to tie us up, but to free us. And if that's not happening, there's a problem somewhere. But it looks like it's taking something away from us. So, did I finish this?

[43:05]

Yeah. So, I had some copies made. Did you get your copies of the... On the stone office. Yeah. Kate, click on it again. So the first part of the Shingi, well, let me think about this a minute. So these are the parts of Dogen's Ehei Shingi. And it would be interesting to study all the parts. Actually, Taigen and Shohaku Okamura translated the whole thing. Well, Kaz and I were doing our translations of just this part, and I found out they were doing the whole thing, but we finished anyway.

[44:13]

And I think Kaz compared them and helped them a little bit. So the whole thing is translated, and it's going to be published sometime this year. So we'll have an opportunity to study the whole thing. I just had a note in that the library copy from this library isn't in there. The library copy of this? Yeah, the translation. Well, I'm sure there's a lot of things you won't find in this library that are supposed to be there. Which part is that in that little book? Which part of the whole thing is in that book? Well, this is the whole Chichi Shingi.

[45:14]

I mean, this is the whole Eihei Shingi. It's all there. But you have to kind of decipher the English. I think there's only enough copies for it. There are only enough copies for the regulars. And these copies are actually going to be Zensen's copies. So you can make some notes in them, if they're important notes, you know, like changes that we come across in our study. You know, this is an ongoing thing, and so it's possible to make changes here. It's not, we're still working on it. But this should just go to the regular folks. But you can look on with each other. We can print some more for pastry.

[46:23]

Is what Dogen considers inspirational stories. And he usually picks stories which could be controversial or give people startling stories. I think he made some effort to put in startling stories. And then the second part is he talks about how the officers in his position should act in their position, how they should, you know, what kind of mind they should have when they do these positions. So I'm going to see how much time we have left. We were supposed to start at 8.30, and now it's 9.30.

[47:41]

We started a little late. But if we start reading stories now, it'll go to noon. Oh, 8.45, okay. So we have a few minutes. I just wanted to give you the books and have this introduction, but we can't really start now because we'd get too far into it, because we have to have discussion. So, do you have any questions? We can, let's turn to page four. I don't think so because, you know, it's already, we're going to have to translate, something's already been translated.

[48:50]

Page four. Section three. Page four, section three. Here are some examples where an officer of the monastery encountered the master. One day, Master Guishan called the director of the monastery. When he came, Guishan said, I called the director of the monastery. Why did you come? The director remained silent. Goishan asked his jishya to call the shuso. Goishan said, I asked for the shuso. Why did you come? The shuso remained silent. Saoshan, at a later time, putting himself in place of the director, said, if I had, I'll just read it.

[49:54]

I know you didn't call me. Putting himself in the place of the shuso, he said, If you had asked the attendant to call me, perhaps I wouldn't have come." Much later, Master Fa Yan said, just now that you should call. I think it could have been translated in a better way. Cao Shan, at a later time, putting himself in place of the director, said, if I had been there, I would have said, I know you didn't call me. It makes a little more sense, doesn't it? If I had been there. And the same with the other one. If I had been there, if I had been in Shuso, I would have said, if you had asked the attendant to call me, perhaps I wouldn't have come. What do you think of this? What?

[51:02]

You made the job, but you don't do you. No, nothing extra. You don't come with an ego. That's pretty good. What would you have said? I think nothing's pretty good. Well, nothing's pretty good, but you can't, everybody can't say nothing. Not all the time. So that's what, you know, Cao Shang said, well, if I had been there, I would have said, I know you didn't call me. And if he had been there when he called the Shuso, he would have said, if you had asked the attendant to call me, perhaps I wouldn't have come. And I think that I was trying to see it, because maybe when they came in the room, they were them and not the position.

[52:12]

Because many people take the eno position or the tenso position or the recto position. The eno is a pick-off or a pick-on, you know, because in some ways it isn't. And some of the people who take that position could care less who's in the zendo. But when they become eno, it's their job. So they take that on as their job to worry about who's in the zendo. But that's because of the eno. If it was them, they'd never look around and see who's there. But they're the people who, when they take on a position, they're the position. And it's not necessarily their natural position. So I wonder sometimes when I hear the story of when they walked in the room, they were too much an individual and not the position. Yeah. I called the director of the monastery. I didn't call you. Yeah. And then you enter as the director. You don't enter as you. Right. It's a different field. I think when we take some of the positions, it's not necessarily our natural chance to want to do what the position calls us to do. It's our job to work with that.

[53:14]

That's the kind of koan, right? That's the kind of koan. You can look at it and you can talk about it, but you can't explain it. I had an alternate feeling about it. I call the abbot, why did you come? But more, I call the abbot, why did you, you know, why did you, why did you come? I mean, it depends on where you put the emphasis? No, it was your way. Why did you come, or why did you come? No, no, that he's, that it's, that question to me is more about the human of who is it who comes when? Well, who is it that comes? That's right. That's the question, is who is it that comes? So, you know, if I say no, you say, who is it?

[54:19]

And who... So, that's one of the... I don't think those two are different. Yeah, that's true. Somebody in the back there. Yes? Could the director say I'm no longer here. You could have said that. You could say something. I'm no longer here. Well. That could be presumptuous. Bragging. Yeah, that could be like bragging. I can also read it like, actually as a help for the person that responds to the call, to make them aware how, what's the part that's coming and how is that related to the position, not in the sense it's the wrong one that came, but actually to make more aware

[55:33]

What's right now coming from me with that position and how is it related and what? Well, it challenges all your assumptions about who you are. Yeah, it's a great gift. Because first when I read it, it was like, I read it more like a rejection, like the wrong one thing. Well, that's right. When a rejection comes up, that's part of it, right? Who is being rejected? He gets his way of rotating positions. Well, I don't know, the feeling I had about it too was, I called the director of the monastery, why did you come? It's almost like he didn't, you know, there was no need to answer because why did you come was, You did take the position. You accepted the position. You're willing to come when you're called. That was the feeling I got from it.

[56:35]

But the answer to everything is no answer. Right. But you can't use that. In this case, that was the feeling. Right. I understand. You can always use the not-saying-anything answer, which answers every question, except that there's also another answer which It relates actually to what she said right now, just to the last thing, just now the teacher called, in the sense that be always aware of your position, because the teacher is all the time calling, and there is not necessarily a need to come. Come to the position, to be in the position, all the time, whatever you are doing, don't forget your position. So when I hear just now the teacher called, it's like calling all the time. That's interesting.

[57:36]

And so maybe why did you come? Was it necessary actually for you to move from here to there or not? Or you want to be a director that shows up? There's a director showing up all the time. but who is the director? Right, each time a question. Yeah, each time a question. But it's always related to being the director. The call is always there. Yeah. The director told me about the notes. Told you about? Told me about the notes. Told you about the notes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. You should always know exactly where you are at any time and be ready to respond with the right, with the correct response on each moment.

[59:21]

My sense is very similar to that. Actually talking back to grade school, And on the way to the principal's office, all the stories would start about why, who am I, what did I do wrong. And in this case, it probably was a very simple request. I'm asked to see the director, but who did the director really tell me? Was it exclusive to her or was it an agenda? Rather than just responding to a simple request. Well, it always brings to question, this is actually dokusan. You know, it's a kind of dokusan, calling the men and giving these, just, you know, great,

[60:31]

I would offer, one is that the director of the mind assertion should show a fiction. And the person presents. And it's a way of asking, are you this fiction? And another way is looking at it, sort of taking language more literally, and thinking of it in terms of reference to mind. I call it the director. The mind, the director. mind. Why did you come? Or, I called for the one who sits in the second seat. Is that you? And in the realm of answering, I might have answered, this is just one of my minor faults. And in the realm of recollection, the national teacher called to his attendant three times, and three times the attendant answered, and finally the national teacher said, So I think all those things are in there.

[61:50]

All the things that, the ways we responded to it are all relevant to this case. So then Dogen says, in taking up these matters, investigate thoroughly the life vein of the temple officers. So, when you take your position, who are you? And who is doing this? Who is it that's doing this? And with what mind and what body is this being done? So it brings up a lot of good questions. So anyway, this is just one example for today.

[62:55]

And next time, we'll start at the beginning. Now as to help, hopefully to help this process, to think about and be aware of the teaching which you learned in this class.

[64:21]

things where you see self and elements, you're aware of that, you're aware that you're thinking like that, you're aware that there's these ideas happening, there's an idea of self, there's an idea of elements, idea of self, idea of elements, element, element, all these ideas of elements, this is happening, and there's ways to tell that you're attributing, that there's some erroneous imagination going around in this process which could be kind of like, when you're looking at this level it could be kind of clean, it could just be Awareness, some reflection of that, and awareness of that by this reflection. And that could be all there is to it. Life would be very simple. I'm not saying it would be better or anything, or even if I do say it's better, you could just say it's better and let it go at that, without attributing some erroneous imagination to that value, like that's true or something. If you hear about this world, this very simple mechanical psyche process here, where life is very simple and very basic, and where there's no belief in the substance of the things over here that are known, there's no belief that they exist independently.

[65:40]

And the reason why there isn't is because manas has ceased to be manas. It's just reflecting now. It's no longer looking back into a laya. The reason why it's not looking back into a laya is because actually it is looking back into a laya, but it doesn't see anything in the dark anymore because the dark is no longer dark. The reason why the dark is no longer dark is because the dark has been turned into light. Because every time anything came out of the dark, it was seen as a visitor from the dark. The visitor from the dark forest, somebody was sitting in the clearing and said, oh look, who's coming? Now, you started to spot that because of many, you know, spending quite a bit of time sitting in the clearing and noticing that you felt a little funny.

[66:46]

You know, noticing that you're starting to hate your friends. or do all kinds of weird things in the clearing and little by little you noticed that the weird things you were doing had something to do with these visitors and you started to notice the visitors and after a while you noticed every one of them and you noticed when they came and when they went back and after a while they didn't go back anymore they just came and they [...] came and you sort of did this thing with them and then that was it He didn't send anybody back. Pretty soon there was nobody out in the forest anymore. Not pretty soon, but... But anyway, after a while, Manas, there was no visitors. They were just sitting in the clearing, and that's all that was going on. The unconscious... Freud had this idea of pushing out into the unconscious, you know, bringing... building these little jetties, or these little piers out into the ocean.

[67:51]

That that would be good. The idea here is that somehow, actually, you can clean up the whole thing, appease the whole field by witnessing how these things come and what effect they have. And when that happens thoroughly, that happens to arhats, and it happens on the supramundane path. But this manas is... well, the alaya, the dark area, is released. the dark area is released, or dissipated, or it's transformed. Because you become so skillful at noticing the functioning of this idea of self, objects of self. And again, the proposal here is that upright sitting is what makes this transformation occur.

[68:55]

And it might seem like, geez, such a big job, but there's so many experiences that happen. And if you sit still with them, you actually learn, you can learn on many, [...] many occasions. So it is possible to get quite a bit of work done if you work really thoroughly and intensely and sit in the middle of this process and handle all these cause and effects just by noticing them. So, in Alaya, gets transformed or released from playing that dirty role. Manas gets cleaned up, and the situation gets quite simple. Okay, now let me see if I can go back so you have a sense of how to meditate. Okay, now, that's the case, and there was questions, and I think the questions were Mark was one, Carol, who else? John and Robin. I think Tara was first.

[69:57]

Were you? Yeah. One is just a comment, which is, you're talking about beings inside, you mentioned beings inside, beings that are non-conscious inside of... You said beings that were... Anyway, what you were talking about, that seemed to me an explanation of, like they all participate in consciousness in a sense, so like grass, trees and walls all engage in Buddha activity. It seemed to me like an explanation of that. Nonsentient beings teach. They teach how they function as nonsentient beings. Livers teach. Gallbladders teach. Dharma is safely residing in the gallbladder. But gallbladders don't reproduce, as far as I know. They themselves don't have greed, hate and delusion. Inside of gallbladders there are lots of beings who do have greed, hate and delusion. And inside those beings there are other like little gaullettes and bladderettes.

[71:00]

And those too do not have greed, hate and delusion, but they function to support the beings that live in the gallbladder. And inside of those gaullettes are other living beings and so on. So there's smaller and smaller living beings. The living beings have motivation, you know, they have consciousness. Whereas their organs don't. But the organs make support and make possible the living beings. So the organs are part of the ... Our heart and the mountains and rivers are part of the physical world which makes possible our life. Other than the question ... Just let me say once more, but our heart and liver and the mountains are still the Buddha ... are actually the Buddha way being manifested right now. It's just that the Buddha way is not just manifested by living beings. It's also manifested by non-living beings. Non-living beings, in some ways, teach more consistently than living beings.

[72:04]

Even though living beings teach, too, in their stupidity, you know, it's not quite, it seems to be changing pace. Excuse me. And then the other thing goes back to something you said at the very beginning of the class, and this derails the class, again, we can talk about this later. but when we talked about in Dharmadhatu, there was percepts and concepts. And so I wonder if you wanted to discuss the difference between percepts and concepts, or is there a difference? Or in my mind, like, there's like a difference in what I perceive. Okay, I'll say a little bit. Is the self just a concept, you know, without any perceptual quality to it? Or concepts, the perceptions of the mental, you know, whereas you can see something, but then in the sixth consciousness what you have is percepts as the objects instead of physical data? Physical data are percepts.

[73:06]

Right, but so what about concepts? Concepts are not physical data. That's the short answer to your question. Percepts are direct physical data and concepts aren't. the percepts can be physical. So is the self a concept? The idea of a sense of independent self is a concept as opposed to a percept? I don't know of any percept of self, but I do know of concepts of self. I haven't heard about a percept of self. People think there is a percept of self, but when they look they usually go and find a Is that a concept like a triangle, like an abstract concept, like a triangle? Pardon? Is self like a concept like a triangle, like an abstract concept of triangularity? It's like that, yes.

[74:08]

It's something you can imagine, but which you can't actually establish. Mark was next? I'm not sure. I'll try to ask my question. the six consciousnesses, and then you focused on the sixth consciousness, and then you brought in awaya, and I'm not confused, I'm confused about what system you're talking about, if you're talking about the system of eight consciousnesses, or you're trying to fit awaya into your sixth? Okay, let me say that I'm not presenting an eight consciousness system, I'm trying to present what Vasubandhu said. I don't think he's presenting an eight consciousness system. I think he's presenting a story of how the sense of self and elements arises.

[75:12]

Okay? How that happens. And he's using these three transformations of consciousness to explain how the sense of self and elements arise. transformations of consciousness are another way to explain the sixth consciousness system. But by explaining it using these three transformations, I'll say it again, I understand these three transformations of consciousness as another way to explain the functioning of the six consciousnesses, the six consciousnesses, okay? Particularly the sixth, all right? And the advantage of this three-fold presentation is that it particularly shows how the six consciousnesses will produce sense of self and other. But you can also... I can also talk about how the six consciousnesses produce self and other without talking about alaya.

[76:23]

Okay? However, the advantage of alaya is is it shows how the effects of doing it once, how the effects of once having a self and an element, or a self projected onto an element, how you do that once, it tells a story of how that effect then becomes a cause to do it again, and how the situation gets more and more entrenched in self-centeredness and self-projection and erroneous imagination. That's why the three transformation systems are nice. because it accounts for the birth of this illness. And the more you can diagnose the illness, more specifically, easier it is, usually, to meditate on it, and therefore to cure it. So that's the advantage of bringing the threefold transformation system on top of this one. But I think it's helpful to not make it a different system, but make it the same. described in a slightly different way, to get in on the illness of this system. This system, aside from that, is the mind of a Buddha.

[77:28]

A Buddha's mind does this, but it doesn't do this defiled manas, it doesn't have this defiled manas anymore. Because the person has sat and watched so many times this process of defilement, has watched so many times the mind bringing up the effects of past self-clinging from some place, from its past self-clinging. It's watched the mind, you know, convulse its past errors into present erroneous imagination so many times that it's no longer caught by it and the situation is cleared up and dullness and distraction are struck aside. And then you still have this functioning though, but now it's pure. The next person was Robin. Huh? What? He was? Next person was John. Okay, I'm wondering about this characterisation. Next person after Robin is Albert.

[78:30]

This two-eyed characterisation of Manadhyama. Yes. And I have another understanding and I just wanted to say it and see what you think about it. Okay. Which is that it's a little confusing to talk about it looking back onto a laya or because it seems like it's looking into something that's, by its nature, not cognizable. But instead, maybe, it makes sense to think of three classes of elements in dharmadhatu, which are the kind of... so that things are being influenced by alaya, but not cognized from, and then their defiled elements of dharmadhatu, and then their perceptions or concepts of the karmic patterning, and then their elements that are free from that.

[79:30]

You have dharmadhatu, right? You have some elements of dharmadhatu, right? And somehow or another you can overlay dharmadhatu with these things which aren't, strictly speaking, things you'll find in dharmadhatu. I thought dharmadhatu was all the potentialities. Right. All the potential objects. So you have one particular object that's being pulled up, right? But you have all these dispositions around it which aren't being pulled up. Right. So the ones that are in the dark, around the one you pulled up, you call that a liar. Instead of having a liar out there someplace, you could let it seep right into the Dharmadhatu, so whenever you pull an element out of the Dharmadhatu to be aware of, you pull all the other goo up around with it. Right, so when you have the visitor in the forest, it's in Dharmadhatu, right? The visitor appears within Dharmadhatu.

[80:31]

No, the visitor is in the clearing. The visitor is the campfire or something, or your banana. or the person you're talking to, or a cup of coffee, you know, that's something in the dharma doctrine which you're not aware of. It's in the light, okay? There's things in the clearing that you're aware of. What I'm saying is that you don't know of anything in a laya until it's in the light. And then you can talk about it as Dharmadāsa. Or you could say that if you want to, but the thing is that still there's things from alaya that are affecting the situation which aren't in the light. And those are what are important because people do not usually notice that these four afflictions are standing around everything they're aware of. Right. That's the part of alaya that's important. So that's like precognized.

[81:33]

I mean, alaya, I thought, kind of definitionally, was pre-cognized. That as soon as you're aware of something, and say, well that was an alaya, then in a sense, it's moving out of alaya. Yeah, as soon as something's, you're aware of it, it's not an alaya anymore, right. Then it's just Dharmadattu, and it's an object of mono-vijnanadattu. Okay? However, when you're looking at something here, like a frog, or pain or something like that, the seed for that could have been in the laya, but now it's just something that you're aware of, okay? That's not a problem. That part of the effects of past actions is not a problem. We've had pain before, now we're having pain again. We had pleasure before, now we're having pleasure again.

[82:35]

That's also part of the cause and effect, right? Simultaneously with that pain is a whole bunch of dispositions. Those you do not know about. Those are not in the light. And they're happening right now around that pain. Maybe your body's cringing, you're angry, whatever. Because you're attributing erroneous imaginations to this event in some kind of dark way. Those are a lie also coming to fruit. Those are a lie also coming to fruit, but they're not known. And as you can somehow become aware of those, those things coming out of the dark, as we become more aware of those, we become more aware of the results of self-cleaning, and now the cause of self-cleaning, and now also the cause of future seeds, spontaneously.

[83:40]

As a matter of fact, if you try to mess around with it at all, you're hooked. Because you trying to mess around with it is exactly the process that is now unfolding right under your nose. But to let it unfold without messing around, this is something new. And this is something which the system might say, hey, wait a minute. Stop this. This is no good. This is a waste of time. Call this off. because there's nobody gets paid for this. It's been there's no exploitation of this is a totally you know what to call it. Time to stop. But Robin. Yeah. I have two part questions. The first one is very quickly I really related to the visitors from the dark story. Can you give me just a few examples of those visitors. and keeps getting it and then losing it and getting... Would that be like anger or... Who are those visitors that you're watching come and go back, come to go back and then eventually... Well, if you saw a picture or something, you see somebody's face, and if you notice you're angry at them, then when you notice you're angry, that's not a visitor.

[84:59]

Then it's anger you're aware of. It's something clearing now. But when you see somebody's face, And you don't just take it as a face, you know? Like, just take it in with the concept of face, but you have all kinds of associations with that face. What you think you know about the person? Right. In fact, it's possible to see a face that's really... that you don't have as much associations with as another face. Or that, you know, it takes you a while to sort of like decide what that face is before you to know which dispositions to bring into bear. Or you might say unknown faces bring a certain set of dispositions and known face bring another set of dispositions. The dispositions of the visitors? The dispositions of the visitors. Because you don't notice when sometimes you see a face and you don't know why you feel a certain way.

[86:00]

You see somebody and you start to relax. where you start to feel uptight and you just met the person, right? Or that's because the dispositions are there, you don't know what they are yet. Then as you spend time with the person, you might not, still might not know what they are, you just might sort of like just develop more and more disposition, they get more and more intense relationship with the person, but never notice from the very moment you met them that the dispositions were working. And to start to say now, Why am I feeling so bored with this person who I've just met? I mean, I've only been talking to this person for, like, three seconds, and I'm already feeling really hot, you know? Or I'm really feeling really bored. I'm really thinking this person is a real jerk. I want to punch this person, you know? What is going on here, you know? Could this person have done that much to me already? You could say, yeah, this person's practically raping me, you know? Look at the way he's doing, you know, or whatever, you know? A lot's going on there. And you could say, well, it really is that person. Some people might say, this person really is a jerk.

[87:02]

I mean, this person has really done terrible things in the last 10 seconds that I've known this person, just by the way he looked at me. Well, you could get a whole bunch of people to say, yes, that's true, or something like that. But some other people might say, you know, I just don't know what you're talking about, Robin. Including that person might not know. So it's not a matter to prove. This person really is a terrible creature, and really did look at me in these horrible ways. That's not going to really be much good, that line of reasoning. People do that quite a bit already, as you may know. What's being proposed here by me tonight is that you notice in those situations how much you do or how much I do. And mostly, if you just met somebody and they didn't say much of anything, why are you so bored? How could they get you that bored? You don't get that bored with a tree. You know, you don't get bored with a tree, like in 13 seconds, you feel like, oh, I can't breathe.

[88:03]

But maybe you do. You know, some people really have these tremendous calming backgrounds with trees. Maybe they meet a tree and they just go. But again, that's because of their background with trees, right? If they just kill a bunch of trees and put them in a room with a tree, they might really freak out. But basically, The thing that makes these intense reactions on short-term meetings is mostly because of past actions of the person who's having the feeling. But you don't know what they are. You know what I mean? You don't know why you like this person so much right away. And sometimes you do. Sometimes you say, oh, I see. There they are. There's a disposition. I know exactly why I like this person, because they look just like so-and-so, and they did such and such with so-and-so, and that's why I like this person. Or they look just... Some people are really angry at you because you look like their uncle. Some people are really angry at you because you look like their father. They don't even know it sometimes. Then, after some years, they say, oh, now I got it. You look like my father.

[89:06]

And I've been hating you all these years, you know? You can uncover what these dispositions are, but mostly they come in unnoticed, from the dark. And they come fast. They come right at the beginning of the moment. It's like the moment happens, goes away and they come later. They come at that moment or they don't come at all. They come fast and they have their effect and you can notice them or not. And the best way to notice them is just to be still and upright moment after moment and watch because this stuff is coming. And it's very educational if you can see what's going on. it up in the meantime it makes some difference i think even to start studying you still feel funny and you don't know why but you but but you're not you're some kind of sense of well you know i don't know if i should act on this feeling i mean i don't know if i should tell this person you know that they're really boring that i just met i don't know if i should tell this person this thing maybe i should work on myself this person's probably had a lot of other people tell him that already so he probably doesn't need it

[90:33]

Or just walk away and try to figure out what happened, you know? Take the opportunity to try to figure out what happened to you. Where does that come from? I think that what seems to me, like I say, I was just reading Freud, and when he was talking about that seething, fierce, blah, blah, blah, you know, it sounded a lot like a laya to me. However, I don't know if the Western understanding of the unconscious includes all the functions of a laya. Jung, from his studies of Yogacara teaching, he thought that the laya was the collective unconscious. Okay? That's what he thought. I'm sort of like, I haven't been studying young very much lately, so I'm not going to equate the two, but there's certainly, like I just said, the thing I read today, I felt like, ah, it sounds like a lie, you know, it sounds like my experience, which recently has been verified, but maybe my experience wasn't a lie, maybe my experience was, for I was unconscious.

[91:49]

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