Good evening, and hello to everyone online. Does anyone have any questions or comments from last week, anything that arose that occurred to you, or anyone online? Yes, Dina. that okay yes so I've been reading the book that goes with the class and I have been taking the introduction and small little sections and it's just so rich and wonderful just really enjoying it and so thank you for recommending the book appreciate it great were you able to hear the comment online excellent okay okay let's see

[01:03]

Oh, and a question. How did any of you realize or notice Genjo Koan in this past week? For example, I was passing by the construction site and I suddenly realized, oh, there's all these individuals, but there's also this kind of whole field of moving parts. The lunch truck that comes by and and the lunch truck changes from week to week, so they must be in contact with each other, and different supplies arrive, and different crews leave. And it's like, oh, so everybody... So that was just, you know, the two-in-one, the individual beings, each with their own particularity and tasks, but all together manifesting a new building. Anyone else notice anything? Maddie. after class last week i took myself out for a pizza dinner at the beer garden over by macarthur bart and as i was there um one two three four times people started coming up to me and they were wearing name tags and they said are you here for the munch what um and then they're like never mind and walked away and this happened several times and i was like what munch and they're like

[02:32]

Oh, the kink munch. And I was like, well, no, I'm just here with myself for dinner. But I realized I was sitting amongst a crowd of all of these people that were and I was just the one person that was just sitting there having a slice of pizza after genjo call in class. And it was just such a strange coincidence and contrast of like this, that was its own kind of community. Right. And I was coming from to have some contemplative time alone. And I ended up surrounded by this other community. It was an odd moment. Great. I mean, I only noticed the construction site because we've been talking about Genjo Koan. And I've been bringing up how might you know. So anyone online have any comments? OK, we'll carry on. Got to be quick with the thing, with the little raise your hand thing.

[03:35]

Okay, good. So, oh, and we need to chant. So if Bill could, Mary, if you could put the... Genjo Koan As all things are Buddha Dharma, there is delusion and realization, practice birth and death, and there are Buddhas and sentient beings. As the myriad things are without an abiding self, There is no delusion, no realization, no Buddha, no sentient, no birth and death.

[04:37]

The Buddha way is basically leaping clear of the many and the one. Thus there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and Buddhas, yet in attachment blossom. and in aversion weeds spread to carry the self forward and experience myriad things is delusion that myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening those who are greatly realization of buddhas those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings Further, there are those who continue realizing beyond realization, who are in delusion throughout delusion. When Buddhas are true, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas.

[05:40]

However, they go on actualizing Buddhas. When you see forms or hear sounds, fully engaging body and mind, you grasp the body, unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water. When one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the Buddha way is to forget the self. To forget the self is to actualize by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind of the self has bodies and minds of props away. No trace of realization. And this no trace continues endlessly. Thank you.

[06:44]

So we'll pick up with the second paragraph tonight. And I think you can leave them with people. I think they may want them later. And hopefully we'll get through the section on to study the self. But that's as far as I hope to get tonight. And then just to say that next week will be our last class that I am in. final week of the class, Shinshu Roberts, who wrote the book, will be doing a Zoom call and that will be all Q&A. So anything that you have questions about Genjo Koan from Meeting the Myriad Things or just from your study of it, that would be a time to bring questions. This is what she's been really enjoying doing. She's been going to different sanghas and doing this. And I'll be talking more about Genjo Koan during Sashin when I'm giving talks.

[07:49]

So we're going to get as far as we can in the class, focusing on having a foundation that makes the rest of it a lot easier to grasp. So now that you all understand completely the basis of Genjo Koan, we will take particular elements of it. So to carry the self forward and experience the mirror, illusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. Other translations are instead of to carry the self forward, this idea about forward. I was thinking human beings are just completely organized toward forward. Our eyes are in the front. We have bicameral vision. We walk forward. We don't walk sideways or backward. There's a guy who lives up, Russell, who I think he's doing some older man's.

[08:54]

He walks backwards, which is, I found that oddly disturbing. You know, it's like, because he's just wearing like a T-shirt and shorts. He's walking backward down the sidewalk and everyone's smile, looks around. And it's like, no, we orient forward. You know, we look at people. We're, yeah, we're oriented toward what's in front of us. that's front so so carrying the self forward we're moving into space we're going after what we want we're we're taking initiative we have agency this is our human life so we're carrying this self forward and experiencing myriad things and this is illusion in the sense that we think we are a separate self That is how we experience ourselves in relation to the world. There's me, and then there's the rest of the world that I look at. In Shinshu's translation, it's himself toward all things, or you could say phenomena, like in the first paragraph, it was when dharmas, you know, dharmas are phenomena or things, all the same thing.

[10:06]

Conveying oneself toward all things to carry out practice enlightenment is delusion. That's a wonderful definition of the more everyday. It's like, okay, I'm going to bring myself forward to experience no self. But yet that's all we have. So that's where we practice. And all things coming and carrying out practice realization Through the self is realization. I like that translation a lot, that the self is what we have to practice with. So whatever awakening we experience, it's through the medium of the self. So all of these little different flavors, but the main thing is that delusion or ignorance is when... I just heard someone online.

[11:08]

Maybe you need to mute. Blake's got it. So like in the first paragraph, it was when this is happening or at the times when this is happening. So when the self is in charge, when the self is in the driver's seat, that is delusion. Because we're selfing, we're actively selfing. And that, you know, I, me, mine, I want, I need, I think, I do. This is how we live our ordinary lives. And it's hard to see through that, to see anything other than that. We also identify with certain ways, certain roles, like I could identify as a priest or a daughter or a friend or... or a member of a group, a kink match, kink munch, or whatever it is, a bowling team, or whatever it is we identify in this way, which is usually differentiated from other groups who are not that.

[12:25]

It could also be ways that we identify through things like race, or culture, or sexuality, or where you're from, or where you grew up, or where you went to college, or any of these things we can really get identified with. And again, these are actually wonderful ways to study the self, because these are all ways that selfing arises. Also disidentify with things, equally well as identifying with, I'm not one of those people who judge people. Definitely not. it's often related to a couple of things. It's like there can be just a direct experience of liking something, like I like chocolate chip ice cream. I can experience that very directly. But when it starts to become, I am a person who likes chocolate chip ice cream, and it's an identity around it, like I would never like...

[13:34]

That's just, you know, it sounds very silly when you say banana ice cream, but people do this all the time around really interesting things, and we do too. It just makes total sense when we do it. Yeah, the self, the one who likes or dislikes things, and this self that is constructed is not just... It's not just a series of experiences flowing through, which is actually what we're having, but we're making constructs and concepts and ideas, carrying it forward. I carry myself forward in certain ways to meet people, or I notice myself moving in and out of roles, friends that I'm a certain way with, and when I'm in a teaching role, When I'm doing service, my body is in a different way of being.

[14:40]

These are just normal ways that we self. How do we practice with this? Please hold that in mind. We actually develop the capacity to reflect on and think about ourselves and to think about things. I was imagining a child who's like two or three saying, I like vegetables. My mother says, children like vegetables, and that makes me special, that I like vegetables. You can do it about anything, you know, because it's all relational. We do this together. We develop a self in relationship. We don't just have this idea. I'm going to make a self when I grow up. You know, it's like how we're related. We're told. what's good, what's bad. It's mysterious how it all happens, but it's all just happening as we live our lives.

[15:47]

And it is not a problem necessarily to have a self. That is how we live and relate. But when we're caught in it, it's basically the way that we suffer. And there are so many varieties of suffering with that. A lot of it has to do with comparing mind. Not all of it, but a lot. Better, worse, or same. As all these people are, I'm better or I'm worse. And a lot of it has to do with a sense of safety or belonging or being okay. You know, to be endangered is one thing. Othered and shunned from a group or a family is another thing. And this is how we survive, is we tune into people and we tune into what's needed. So we practice in the midst of delusion.

[16:53]

Sojin's copies, and he'd written in the margin in this area, it said, we establish our practice in the midst of delusion. There is no other place. This is where we establish it. And delusion is what's here and now just exactly as it is. There's no other place to go, actually. It's just our lives. Also in the meal chant, we chant, may we exist in muddy water with purity like a lotus. You know, the lotus grows up in muddy When it comes up above the surface of the water, it opens and it's completely free from mud, even though that's where it thrives, that's where it grows. It needs the mud to grow. Dogen says in Flowers of Emptiness, Kuge, the time and place that blue lotus flowers open and spread are in the midst of fire and in the time of fire.

[18:05]

the place and time that blue lotus flowers open and spread are in the midst of fire and in the time, in the midst of suffering, delusion, difficulty. And, you know, this is practicing like our heads are on fire. That's just our daily life, what we're engaging with. So the next section is... of great realization, of delusion, are Buddhas. Those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings. Suzuki Roshi's comment on this is, who is Buddha? Someone who understands ignorance. Who are people? People are... And, you know, Siddhartha Gautama, before he became Buddha, struggled for six years to awaken and tried one thing after another, each one, and finally was on the verge of death from starvation, really extreme ascetic practices, before he realized that this wasn't the path, that what he was doing was not working, and took nourishment,

[19:36]

imagining this state of not knowing, like I've done everything I know how to do, and none of it's working. So this was his great koan, and he had to be completely in not knowing mind, and to let go to it. And he remembered a time as a boy, when there was a harvest festival, and he was just sitting under a tree, and just being, not... thinking about particularly anything, and it was peaceful, and there was no struggle. And he recognized that that wasn't it, but it was more in that direction than the striving he'd been doing. So he had great realization of delusion, because he'd been deeply in delusion of going to free himself and what the world was. And it wasn't until he was able to let go of his ideas and his attachment to self and his particular forms of his delusion that he could begin to see through that and to let go completely.

[20:52]

And he also recognized afterwards, he just, you know, coursed in that space for days and weeks and then he began to think about the rest of the world and, you know, like he would like to share this with people and he thought he could understand. But he thought there was a chance that some people could. So he realized that it wasn't, you know, he was taking it the next logical step. This isn't just about my own awakening. This is actually, it's actually much broader than that. I'm not self and I can share this. So that's embodying the realization that he had living it. Because in the beginning, you know, it's very inward, just his path, you know, these different meditation practices and the ascetic practices, you know, removing himself from his family,

[22:07]

and his whole, you know, his whole life. And he recognized the importance of that, all of that, but also that when you live it, you go back into your, you go back into life and relate with people. Koto Sawaki comments, Buddha Dharma is immeasurable and boundless. It cannot be something which fulfills your desire for your action. All of us are living out the reality of life of interpenetrating heaven and earth. And yet, we want to grasp the self and put it into a cage or a frame of thought. If I had a desire to attain enlightenment, if I attained some kind of enlightenment experience based on such a desire, this enlightenment is still within the framework of my personal desires. Ah! I'll read that last sentence again.

[23:12]

If I had a desire to attain and I attained some kind of enlightenment experience based on such a desire, this enlightenment is still within the framework of my personal desires. Suzuki Roshi once said, be careful what you wish for, you might not... Because it's like, oh, this is awakening just as I imagined it. And then we want to hold on. And that's the suffering is the holding on rather than being like, oh, there it goes. And I'm having feelings and okay. In Only a Buddha and a Buddha, Yobutsu, Yobutsu, Dogen said, if enlightenment depends upon the thought before enlightenment, such enlightenment is surely unreliable. Like, if I do this, then I'll get that.

[24:16]

And in Shoji, Birth and Death, Dogen says, your present birth and death itself is the life of Buddha. Whether you reject it with aversion or abide in it, attaching to birth and death, you lose the life of Buddha. You attach to Buddha only when there is no hating of birth and death, and no desiring of nirvana. To seek Buddha apart from birth and death, this very life, is like pointing northward when you want to go south. You're going away from what you're aiming toward. Living beings being greatly deluded about realization. I'm going to go for it. Just go for it. I'll get there. And yet... We can't rule that out. It's like you won't get there, but there's something about the doing it that actually is moving you, even though exactly what you will then have to let go of.

[25:17]

But you'll get to see it very clearly and be quite realized about, oh, that too was delusion. Okay. Has anyone had some experience relevant to this of seeing through? and go of it and having some shift happen. Okay. Yeah. Linda, Dina. Dina, then Linda. When I first started meditating some years ago and, you know, I was working with teachers and I remember sitting on the cushion back when I sat on the Zafu, which I don't right now, and I experienced the space between thoughts. It was so shocking to me. I almost fell off the cushion because there was this space, and I thought, is that a light?

[26:22]

And you start thinking, and then you fall right out of it. So that was a real eye-opener about how the mind can grasp onto this experience that you project as to what you think it is. the teacher after that and they said oh yeah that's just space between thoughts i'm like okay good to know thank you you know but that that grasping it was like right as soon as you experience you try to hold on to it and that was very instructive to me it's been really helpful yeah i've had very instances it's like oh ow you just it's like the butterfly you made it go away you know yeah exactly linda Say the question again. Have you had an experience where you noticed your delusion about realization or your realization of delusion? Yes. I need to have a different mind.

[27:25]

My mind needs to not be doing what it's doing in order to meditate. And then... know how, probably because somebody gave me that advice. I said, wait, wait. I didn't even say wait, wait. I just said, no other state, no other mind. And then it changed. Okay. Going on? Further, there are those who continue realizing beyond realization who are in delusion throughout delusion. Realization or delusion is a fixed state. They are somewhat different states.

[28:26]

What I was saying earlier, are you centered in small self or what could be called big mind? Or some... quasi-mix of the two it's not very there's like how can you draw a boundary between them anyway you can have you know awakening moments and they may be flash and then you're gone but it's this continual movement it's just it's ways of which is why I keep coming back to can you look around and see this in the world you know can you practice seeing seeing that way, kind of opening to that kind of way of being. I was thinking too, like there's some koans where, you know, the student presents their understanding and then the teacher said something like, well, you've got 80%, which sounds kind of funny, but it's like, yeah, you kind of got it, but you're not all the way there.

[29:29]

I can see that you don't, understand completely, but you're moving in the right direction. You know, the 80% thing is probably like, how do you even... But you're on track. You're on track. This feels good. You know, and later in Genjo Koan, Dogen talks about you can see as only as far as your eye of practice can reach. So as your eye of practice can gradually see farther, you can see more. And you can see more in the everyday, not just in special states of mind. And not just on, you know, sushin or long retreat. It becomes more available. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas. Why do you think that is? When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas.

[30:34]

Yes, they're not solidifying it. Buddhas are not selfing in that moment, so they're not reflecting on I am doing this. They're just living. And we all have plenty of moments of just living where we're not doing that. Some years ago, there was a lot about flow states where you're just absorbed in something and not so aware of self or separation from what you're doing. And that's an example there, too. That's like having a mind that's settled and focused rather than darting all over. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas. However, they are actualized Buddhas who go on practicing Buddhas. There are many teachers whose students, just on seeing them, have been immediately like that.

[31:47]

I want that. Like watching Katagiri Roshi arrange flowers. You know, just like watching them put one sprig in a vase and being like, that's my teacher. Because of their presence. Their very simple focus and presence. Question online. Question. Hi, Karen. Hi. When you were talking about a second ago about the Buddha doesn't know the Buddhism lightened, Is that different from just staying present? You know what I mean? Like somebody who's completely present. Is that what it means, or is it something else? I'm a little confused. I don't think we can say exactly what it is, but I think it's like that. Okay. Thanks. Being unhindered by one's thoughts. It's not that thoughts don't arise, but you don't have to be hindered by them.

[32:51]

It's not some special state. kind of holding the both and of being in this broad field of being. I get all these associations. They're in Star Trek series, because I'm not a Trekkie. The Borg, I think, they have like one mind that they share. character it was called seven of nine that's their only designation there's seven of a group of nine of them and they all have like high so we don't do that but because and that's one mind right it's all like they're on one thing so we all have all these different minds but we're at the same time we are also one with the whole universe I mean like how do we get separate from the universe there's nowhere to go

[33:56]

We're here in the midst of all this. So we're individual and we're completely part of this in ways that we don't even understand how that came to be. Linda. And seven of nine goes on to differentiate herself. That is her awakening because... being part of the Borg was really, really bad delusion. And a recent drama series poses this again. Some extraterrestrial species takes over the Earth and makes everybody one, and everybody's happy and nobody's fighting, and they're totally one, but just a couple of people are left out of it and they have to fight to get individualization back because all being one is not okay at all.

[35:07]

Yes. I'm a little excited about that. Galen. Well, this is what I've been thinking about this week. Last week you were talking about ko-an. And if I remember correctly, ko is the interdependence, and on is kind of the individuality or the uniqueness. Does anyone remember? I think that's right, too. And so this kind of both, the bothness, I think really speaks to one of the major issues of our culture right now, one of the major kind of questions of our moment, you might say. I feel like in a lot of our society, we have had a really strong commitment to individualism as an ism. And I feel like a lot of people in our society are now getting tired of that. They're getting burnt out on maybe some of the toxic aspects of individualism, but they're not wanting to sacrifice individuality.

[36:14]

We're wanting to preserve the uniqueness of the fact that each person has a unique life and that that should be... respected and granted dignity and the uniqueness should be celebrated. So I feel like trying to figure out this avoiding individualism but still affirming individuality, we're looking around and I think there's a lot to speak to that question. There's a lot of direction and orientation there and I'm very excited about that. Great. And it's hard. It's complicated. If you make rules for everybody... and everybody has to follow them, or you're ejected from the... or killed, or whatever. That's simple and straightforward, and a lot of people are going to get in line with that. It's like, okay, I want to stay alive, and I want to be safe, so we'll do that thing. But having to negotiate across all these differences when we're increasingly... is just very challenging, and we can actually do it

[37:21]

but it's a lot easier if you're in that from an early age. I mean, I'm almost 68 years old, so I grew up in the 60s. But people that are in their 30s now, they have understanding of race and culture and class that I did not when I was growing up. And many of them, because they grew up in very diverse environments, many others of them because they went to great universities where this is being taught, like, I forget, Smith College, social work program, where they're seeing all of this and public health and how this all plays out. So they have a whole set of skills. But they're all different skill sets, and the Dharma teaches us a wonderful skill set for how to negotiate that emotional intelligence and concepts. all of this to actually live in these times and thrive.

[38:21]

So I'm excited about it. Blake. Thank you. Thank you, Linda, for that last piece and for your question as well, or statement. Let me return a little bit to when you see a teacher, I want that. Because that, I get that. So it makes me a little bit nervous. Like, what do we do with that feeling, that wanting feeling? Like, I want to be like that person, even though out of mad respect to Mel, to you, to all of our teachers. And what do we, like... Grasping mind. Yes. Well, there's wanting and there's grasping. Just like there's liking and there's identifying with it.

[39:25]

So more skillful language would be, I really resonate with that and I want to be more like it. But like when we're little kids, I don't know, maybe kids don't do this anymore. When I was a kid... You wanted to play mommy and daddy, which meant dressing up in your mom and dad's clothes and tripping around the house in high heels and putting on a tie that you trip on and stuff like that. And that's being grown up. That's not being grown up, but we do what we can see at that time. In AA, they talk about like, I want some of what that person has. You know, I want peace of mind or whatever. And you study them and it's like, well, how did you get to do that? Oh, you meditate, you sit zazen. That's why a lot of people are talking with Suzuki Roshi. It's like this person is present and connected and contained and yet relational in a way that is touching something that resonates deeply that I haven't seen before.

[40:29]

What is he doing? He sits zazen. Okay, I'll come sit zazen. And then you learn what it is for you. But it's ultimately about... how you manifest, anything short of you manifesting and thinking you have to be other than you are. And I'm not talking about causing harm. It's not just, I'm going to do this. This is me. I like to go around knifing people. No. I've got to be me. That's not what I'm talking about. But just our expression of being as a being with other beings and expressing care. Totally individual, how we do that, because we are individual. It's very hard to talk about. And I'm bad at this, so I just need lots of words. Thanks.

[41:33]

I have fun with it. Okay. Yeah, my note was, Buddhas are not looking at themselves and thinking, oh, I am a Buddha now. Just engaging in Buddha activity, which could be Dogen's old Tenzo, his old head cook, drying mushrooms in the sun. You know, old guy, you know, working hard. or Suzuki Roshi moving rocks. He loved to move rocks and make rock gardens and stuff. Much fun. And I just got a cramp, which I do a lot. That's much better, thank you. And the young guys that he was working with would get exhausted so quickly. And they're like, how do you do that? And he knew how to use his body to move rocks.

[42:38]

when you see forms or hear sounds, fully engaging body and mind, you grasp things directly. So seeing forms and sounds refers to the awakening stories of two students of Zen teacher Dayuan Dawei. One saw peach blossoms in the spring and the other one was sweeping and a piece of clay roof tile flew up and hit a bamboo and got a pop. So that was their moment of awakening. Yeah, so when you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body and mind, you have a direct experience. Just not thinking about, oh, it's a roof tile or anything else. It's just... And then there's a moment of, you know, a break in thoughts. Or it is, but it's like, oh, I'm having... an experience that feels direct in a different way than I usually experience it.

[43:44]

I'm available. I'm there. And I think it's somewhat different and yet the same for everybody. And this is enlightenment experiences, not least because we can't adequately communicate it in words. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illuminated, the other side is illuminated. So this is, I've thought different things about this over time. But here's where I am currently. So, you know, there's things and then there's reflections in the mirror and we can look back and forth and we can see both. We can look back and see both of these at the same time. And Dogen's saying, it's not like this. It's when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark.

[44:46]

One side is seeing from the point of view of awakening, and the other is seeing from the point of view of delusion. The moon, well, I'll say first... I think what Dogen's is saying is that we can't see from the point of view of self or the point of view of awakening at the same time. They're kind of mutually exclusive. You're either seeing the many. Yeah, so I think you can't self and no self at the same time, although they might alternate quickly. It's also, my questions about this are related to just the symbolism of, you know, the moon and the mirror. And, you know, moon is usually the symbol of ultimate reality or awakening.

[45:48]

And mirror is like the original mind. Darkness refers to oneness where you can't differentiate things. And the light to differentiation to separate selves. Shinshu writes, when we have an intimate experience of seeing and hearing without dualistic ideation getting in the way of immediate response, experience is different from when we are looking in a mirror and seeing our reflection or looking at a puddle and seeing the moon reflected in the water. Looking in the mirror and looking at the moon reflected in the water, we see both water and moon. We see both reflection and mirror. In the case of intimately sharing, we do not see both sides simultaneously because we are fully engaged with a non-dual perception of self and others. Yet at the same time, both sides are still presencing or individuating, although we are perceiving one thing.

[46:54]

When we are illuminated, the other side is dark. Like, we're still separate selves. but we're not perceiving that way. I mean, I don't lose my personality when I'm having a moment of complete presence. Linda? Microphone? So that when one side is lumen and the other side is dark kind of worries me because You know, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. That's been pretty much enough for me for this matter. And so it's not true when one side is illumined, the other is dark. They are both present together and you're beyond form and emptiness. Yes, we always are. No, well, we don't know it, but sometimes we know it.

[47:57]

Yes. And then we really are. Yes. But then in that moment of seeing it that way, I think maybe we don't see it for a moment as being in delusion, you know, that we're not seeing from the point of view of self. We're seeing from the point of view of self. But I can't... I don't know why I'm arguing as if I knew what this was, but I always believe that seeing, that experiencing as no self... at the exact same moment, you know the form. You know form. Form is just mutating, you know, forget the words, but it's not one or the other. Yeah. My sense, and I'm not going to cling to this at all, but my sense is that, because it's still evolving, experiencing things, is that in that moment of

[49:01]

The self still exists, but I'm not conceptualizing it. Nobody who's ever had any awakening experience has stopped me. The Buddha was still Shakyamuni. So in the light there is darkness, but don't take it as darkness. Don't take it as darkness. In the dark there is light, but don't see it as light. Yes. Like once you start labeling it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Labeling it and then we're like, that's that. That's why I say we can play, we can point. But I think what we're most interested in really is tasting that for ourselves. Comment online. Hello. Hi. Hi, hi. Um... There was a moment years ago where I remembered Sojun saying, talking about Chikantaza, just this.

[50:14]

And I just heard the words. And later in a workshop later elsewhere, I was yelling out, just this. It was that moment... I don't know if it's no self, but it was some... a different kind of awareness before everything vanished back into the usual ruminations. But, yeah. I mean, it didn't ever crash back completely. It was, I think, a turn... Just this. I think that sometimes... these conversations in our classes can be, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then sometimes something gives us an opening. Yes. And we never know when that... We never know when the, you know, the sweeping, the tile will hit the bamboo.

[51:23]

We never know when that's going to be. So... We're going to do breakout groups for 10 minutes again. Four people. One, two, three. Good. Close enough. Try and mix it up. You tend to all sit in the same place, so go be with other people. So the question, the prompt is how do you or how might you practice? What kinds of things could you do? consciously practice with in your daily life. You know, there are many examples from the sutras for ways to practice. That could be something. But be creative, you know. Like Sue was saying, years later, you know, she's in a workshop and boom, just this. Oh. So... It seems kind of accidental, definitely nonlinear, but how might we become more accident-prone?

[52:33]

How might you remind yourself that there's this whole other way of being in the world that you're actually interested in? What would support you in that? Would you read something? Would you draw something? Would you leave a note on the bathroom mirror? Would you memorize something from the Genjo Koan? or write something for yourself that it's like, this is what I most need to hear right now and to remember this. Okay. Ten minutes. Go. Welcome back. Would anyone like to share anything that they've been excited by, thinking about practicing in the coming week? I'd love it if you'd pick something. Please pick something that you would like to practice for the next week, and then we can share how it went next week.

[53:34]

Because, you know, we take in new ideas, you know, we read, we study, we talk, and this enriches our lives and our practice. So sharing it with each other can make it seem maybe not quite so daunting and more fun and creative. Maddie. Thank you. One that I've been thinking about a lot that I kind of would like to offer up to people to also think about, Carl Jung wrote about the concept of synchronicity. And I've been thinking a lot about the three times and the three Buddhists in the three times. And we sent a message tonight in Genjo Koan about reflection. the reflection of the moon and what is illuminated and what is in darkness and it occurred to me that synchronicity is perhaps just the buddha recognizing the buddha between the three times when you experience a synchronicity a reflection of the past or a reflection of the future you don't know which but that you get that feeling of deja vu and and suddenly everything feels uncanny and liminal for a moment

[54:51]

And I had this moment earlier during Zazen where last night I was reading all these old journal entries and I had written down, where can I get more bounce to the ounce on vinyl? Just a song, right? It's like funk song. And around minute 18 in Zazen tonight, there was a loud car somewhere nearby and started playing more bounce to the ounce. And in that moment, I just, it hit me. tile hitting the bamboo right so um if you pay attention to your surroundings and your environment as you go around you know in your daily life you know these these things happen all the time if you're paying attention and and those those are the things that will make you pause in the moment and stir this like oh all buddhas three times ten directions right So that's what I'm going to be thinking about this week. Great. You said that, and I'd suddenly like, here's a whole room of Buddhas, and there's a whole room full of Buddhas online with little boxes, looking so beautiful there, all neatly arranged, very tidy.

[56:06]

But they don't all look just the same. Anyone else have anything they'd like to share? I will share that if I'm thinking about different, I was just like brainstorming like crazy, all the different ways using each one of the senses, like what could you taste? What could you smell? What could you feel in your body? What's an image? What's a movement? Can you move like all beings tend to? I don't know. There you go. Gary, hi. Hi. Can I... I'm hearing an echo. I don't know if I can... Can I say something about the myriad things coming forward? Yes. I've been reading this book by David Chadwick, Zen Failure.

[57:17]

American Zen Failure in Japan. And when he was in a monastery there, the monks asked him, really distracting to hear my echo. Sorry. The monks asked him, what is he going to do after he leaves the monastery? Because he was only there for a short time. And he said, he doesn't know. And they said, how could that be? You don't know. And the monks came back with, so tomorrow's wind blows tomorrow. And Katagiri Roshi jumped in. David Chadwick didn't know what they meant. And then Katagiri jumped in and said, tomorrow will take care of itself. And I thought that was kind of like the myriad things come forward by themselves. in kind of a unexpected way, a surprising way.

[58:26]

Yes, the opposite of, that's enlightenment just as I imagined it. Yeah. You mean, not like you imagined it, like it kind of, and unexpectedly, really unexpectedly. Yes. Yes. That's why I said, not like you imagined. But like, oh, this. Great. Karen, we were in a group. Her dog came in with her. And it was kind of like that. You know, this dog showing up right in your face. Yes. It's fun. Great. Really distracting, the echo, though. Yeah. Gary, you know, it occurs to me the way to get rid of that is turn off your own computer sound, but then you have to remember to turn it back on so that then you can hear a response. But that should get rid of it if it happens again. Okay, thanks.

[59:30]

Yeah. Okay, we'll do the closing chant and have fun with... I'll see you next week. Beings are numberless... Ah.

[59:48]

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