I have to face the truth, but I trust words. Evening. Evening. So, tonight we're going to deal with the part where Dogen says, when a fish swims in the ocean, there is no limit to the water, no matter how far it swims, which comes right after what we studied last time. When a bird flies in the sky, there is no limit to the air,

[01:00]

no matter how far it flies. However, no fish or bird has ever left its element since the beginning. When the need is large, it is used largely, and when the need is small, it is used in a small way. Thus, no creature ever comes short of its own completeness. Wherever it stands, it does not fail to cover the ground. If a bird leaves the air, it will die at once. If a fish leaves the water, it will die at once. Know, then, that water is life. Know that air is life. Life is the bird, and life is the fish. Beyond these, there are further implications and ramifications. In this way, there are practice and enlightenment, mortality and immortality, or unlimited life, actually. It's an interesting word. It means various things. Immortality. But to start at the beginning,

[02:02]

when a fish swims in the ocean, there is no limit to the water, no matter how far it swims. And when a bird flies in the sky, there is no limit to the air, no matter how far it flies. However, no fish or bird has ever left its element since the beginning. What do you think about this? What's he talking about? Talking about us. Well, how is he doing that? Sounds to me like we can't escape our true nature. Yeah, we can't escape our true nature. No matter how far we go. Wherever we are, we have all we need. We have all we need. Wherever we are. Yeah, we have everything we need. Sometimes we don't, but...

[03:05]

Basically, we do. Yes. So, ocean and water are the elements that we live in. Or the birds and fish, but we're the bird and we're the fish, of course. And the ocean and the sky are Buddha nature. Our ocean, actually. So, I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, and I've mentioned this before, he said, don't worry, wherever you are in the universe is where you're supposed to be. So, there's really nothing to worry about. Nothing will ever get lost in the universe.

[04:09]

There's no way to get lost in the universe. The only way we feel that we're lost is when we lose our body-mind. So, we identify with this body and mind as myself. And then we don't like to lose that. There's some fear about losing that. Because then, what? So, this is called identifying with self. So, this is why Buddha Dharma is always talking about not being attached to self. Because the self does not belong to us in the beginning, from the beginning. It really does not belong to us. Even though, in a sense it does.

[05:13]

We say, this is me, and this is mine, and these things belong to me, and so forth. But, this is conventionally, a conventional way to identify. And this is called conventional truth. Conventional reality. To identify with body-mind, and objects, and the world, and its activity. That's conventional truth. But, if we identify with life itself, not just with birth and death, and our activity, which we must identify with, but if we only identify with our activity,

[06:14]

we miss something. So, we must identify with life itself. Because life itself is bigger than myself. Life is much bigger than just this body-mind. So, this is the basis of religion. There's something bigger than just this body-mind. And this body-mind consciousness is, of course, interactive with the whole universe. When we think about it, we eat our way through the universe. We eat our way through the world. We're constantly devouring and eating.

[07:20]

We eat with our mouth. We eat with our eyes. We eat with our ears. We eat with our nose. We eat with our fingers. All of our senses are devouring something continuously. And then, something is continuously devouring us. Everything is living off of everything else in this material world. Everything is continuously living off of everything else. Inside of our body are uncountable organisms that are living off of us. Devouring us. Sometimes the balance is not so good and we get sick. But because we maintain a kind of balance and equanimity,

[08:23]

we don't think about it so much. But when we get sick, we realize I'm being eaten by something. So, everything is continually living off of everything else. So, in a sense, you know, we say that we pay homage to three treasures and are thankful for this food. The work of many beings and the suffering of other forms of life. So, we cause suffering with whatever we devour. But Akin Roshi, I remember, changed his verse to the offering of other forms of life.

[09:25]

And that's a kind of interesting koan. Is it the offering or is it the suffering? Everything is actually offering itself as well, even though maybe reluctantly. But some forms are not reluctant, you know. Some forms are actually happy to be transformed. So, we eat apples and oranges and we say, well, apples and oranges are not unhappy to be transformed by us. I don't know whether they're happy, but they don't seem to be unhappy to be transformed by us. But animals seem to be unhappy about it. But everything is food for everything else.

[10:37]

So, in this world of transformations, there's nothing that belongs to us, really. Everything is given and taken. And we experience this transformation. No matter how much we try to stop the transformation, we can't do it. So, the bird flies in the immense sky and there's no end to the transformations. And the fish swims in the great ocean. There's no end to the transformations. We move around in the great world and there's no end to the transformations. So, everything is part of everything else and everything is contributing to everything else

[11:40]

and everything is becoming everything else. That's our understanding. We say, well, we don't come from any place and we don't go any place. Where do we come from? And where do we go to? It's like the waves in the ocean. It looks like the waves are falling on the beach. The long wave, you know. But actually, the water is just rising and falling. There's energy that's moving. Energy moves and the water rises up and down and it has the feeling of the wave moving. To a certain extent, the water moves. But it doesn't move the long distance.

[12:41]

The energy moves that long distance and the water goes up and down. It doesn't come from some place. It doesn't go some place. He also says that the bird needs the air and the fish needs the water. Yes. So, is he talking about different distinctions? Talking about what? We need... A bird dies if it leaves the air and a fish dies if it leaves the water. So, what is the water and what is the air? You see this bigger picture. If you're a fish, you need water. If you're a bird, you need air. And if you're a fish, you can't be with a bird. And if you're a bird, you can't be with a fish. Right? Or is that wrong view? Well, we have to look at the metaphor. A bird has the form of a bird. It lives in the air.

[13:42]

A fish has the form of a fish. It lives in the water. But air and water are actually metaphors for emptiness. Everything lives in emptiness. Birds and fish. So, if the bird leaves the water, it will die. But the fish doesn't leave the water no matter how far it flies. I mean, it swims. The bird doesn't leave the air no matter how far it flies. So, yes, if it leaves, it will die. But it doesn't leave. If it were to leave, it would die. And so the understanding is that there's no end. There's no way to leave.

[14:42]

So the air and water is like, that kind of emptiness is like potentiality, isn't it? Emptiness is potentiality. I don't want to define emptiness. We have to be careful when we talk about these terms. Like to say, emptiness is this, like this. Yes, but that's a characteristic, but not a definition. So, emptiness is potentiality. You know, we talk about space. There are two unconditioned dharmas. One is space and the other is nirvana. Space doesn't mean air. It means that in which everything can move and transform. Without space, there's no transformation. So space is not really a tangible thing, but it's the matrix or the space

[15:56]

in which it allows everything to change because it's not something that's fixed. And emptiness is the quality of everything which allows for transformation. It means no fixed identity. Emptiness means no fixed identity. It also means interdependence because everything depends on everything else. So there's no fixed entity. There's only transformation of elements and even the elements are not fixed. This is what the Heart Sutra says. All dharmas as well as the skandhas

[17:03]

are empty of their own being. That's a kind of response to one of the older schools of Buddhism which said, of course, there's no self, no inherent self, but there are dharmas which are real. But then the Mahayana came along and said, even the dharmas are not real. And that's what the Heart Sutra is basically about. Even the dharmas, even those elements which are interactive with each other are also empty of inherent existence. Yes? Does the Big Bang fit into this in some way we can talk about? Well, yes,

[18:07]

but I don't want to get too theoretical even though this sounds theoretical because what we're talking about is not really so much. We need to stay constantly focused on the person. Whether the Big Bang... Big Bang sounds like one thing explodes into many things. Right? Well, I was thinking of it expanding. Yeah. There's the Big Bang and there's the black hole. So if you're going to talk about the Big Bang, you also have to talk about the black hole in which everything gets sucked in. You could say that physically speaking it's generation and retreat or...

[19:15]

Annihilation? Annihilation? Well, not annihilation. No, annihilation is something else. It's like expansion and contraction. So if you see the forms, you know, if we look at the world itself and how things grow and how they expand and contract, it's a model of the universe. The world is just a model of the universe. I don't know how it could be different. So something grows, something comes into existence and grows and has its life cycle, gets old and makes way and drops and becomes compost for something else, for regeneration and makes way for regeneration.

[20:18]

The older generation makes way for the new generation and this is the cycle that continues over and over. So in some sense you could say that this is like rebirth for human beings. Not reincarnation, but action influence which where the former life of a person that action influence has some regenerative quality in another existence, another personal existence. But it's not the same person. But there's some qualities that continue to contribute

[21:23]

to the continuance of the race, of the human race. But I'm not a scientist so I don't know about genetics. Genetics probably have it's interesting in thinking about the regeneration of things. Anyway, so let's go on. However, the fish or bird has never left its element since the beginning. That's interesting too because since the beginning, since what beginning? So, since the beginning, meaning the beginning of its life

[22:24]

or the beginning of its life cycle or the beginning of its action influence over some long period of rebirth. So then he says when the need is large it is used largely and when the need is small it is used in a small way. Thus no creature ever comes short of its own completeness. So what is he talking about there do you think? Some animals have a very short life like maybe one day long and then some animals or creatures or trees have a very long life like thousands of years but each of those creatures their life is just their life.

[23:26]

Right. All my life is long all my life is short. Yeah, you know there's a Zen saying tall bamboo is tall and short bamboo is short. So, short bamboo is totally complete in itself as a short bamboo and tall bamboo is completely itself as a tall bamboo and a mouse is completely itself as a mouse and an elephant is completely itself as an elephant and no creature ever comes short of its own completeness. So, when the need is large it is used largely so whatever one needs is according to one can find one's completeness

[24:37]

according to whoever we are. If we want to find our completeness no matter who we are we can find it because each one of us is complete. Complete means we are all totally part of the universe. Each one of us is a total expression of the universe. You are the whole universe as yourself. I am the whole universe as myself. But we tend to think well, I am this little piece, you know and the universe is so vast. But actually you are the whole universe expressed as yourself. This thing, this microphone is the whole universe expressed as this microphone. So,

[25:48]

wherever it stands it does not fail to cover the ground. It is interesting to cover the ground. It doesn't fail to cover the ground. So, if I stand there I cover the ground where I am standing, right? But wherever I am standing I'm standing on the whole world. Aren't I? The world, you know, we limit ourselves and say, well, I'm standing on that little piece of ground. But that little piece of ground covers the whole universe. It's a ball. I'm standing on top of the world. Or I'm standing on the bottom of the world. Or I'm standing on the side of the world. It doesn't matter. I'm sitting in Mexico. You may think, well, I'm in Berkeley, and I'm sitting in the Berkeley Zendo on my seat. But I'm sitting in Mexico. As a matter of fact, I'm sitting in Germany.

[26:49]

The boundaries are just something that we arbitrarily invent. They have no real meaning. They only have a conditioned meaning, a convenient meaning. But they really have no meaning at all, ultimately. So it really is true that wherever I'm standing, I'm standing in the whole world. It took me a long time to figure out what Suzuki Roshi meant when he was saying, I knew what he meant, but I couldn't quite grasp it, that we think we're here at Tassajara, and we think San Francisco's over there.

[27:54]

And in order to get to San Francisco, I have to take a trip of 150 miles to get to San Francisco. He said, but right here at Tassajara, I'm at San Francisco. And I thought, I get that, but I don't get it. But now I get it. I'm sitting right here in San Francisco. But there's another way of thinking about it, too. I have to go across the bridge to get there. That's true. But basically, there's no difference. It's all one piece of world. And there's no such thing as San Francisco, and there's no such thing as Berkeley. We just call these places that for convenience. So he says, if a bird leaves the air, it will die at once,

[29:03]

and if a fish leaves the air, it will die at once. That's true. Know, then, that water is life, and know that air is life. Life is the bird, and life is the fish. That's a wonderful expression. Know, then, that water is life. We say that water is water, but water is life, just in the same way that we say, wherever we are, we're always in the same place. Water is more than just water. Water is life itself. Air is not just air. Air is life itself. And life is the bird. The bird is lived. We say the bird is living, but actually the bird is lived as well. We say,

[30:03]

I am alive, but actually I am being lived. To look at it from the other side is important. Life is living us. If we say, I have life, that's kind of backwards. We can say that, and we usually do. I am alive, but life is living me. So there's no way that you can lose life. You can let go of something, but we can't really lose life. Because life has us. But if we realize life has us,

[31:17]

we can also say, I have life. Because life allows us to do that. But we cannot be attached to that idea. Life is the bird, and life is the fish. Beyond these, there are further implications and ramifications. Further steps can be taken. In this way, there are practice and enlightenment, mortality and immortality. For Dogen, practice itself is enlightenment. And mortality and immortality, we think of mortality as life which has an end. And immortality is life which has no end.

[32:18]

So it's true. There's mortality and immortality. Mortality is conventional truth, which we have to pay attention to. We live in this world of mortality, where everything is continually changing. And this is the truth. The truth of mortality is that everything is changing. That's the reality. So we do live in this reality. But this real means non-substantial. This is all real. Everything here is real, totally real, which means non-substantial. And then there's the immortality,

[33:28]

which means nothing ever is born or dies. That's absolute truth. So we need both of those to understand both sides. If we only are... try to take refuge in immortality and ignore mortality, it doesn't work. And if you're only immersed in life of mortality and ignore immortality, it doesn't work. So this is what we call the two truths. The reality of insubstantiality and the reality of continuous life.

[34:28]

Yes, OK.

[34:41]

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