Well, this is the final class, right? Yeah. It's too bad. I'm having a good time. I enjoyed coming over here. So now, it's probably a very fitting conclusion to to our time together looking at Dogen's writings to discuss preaching a dream within a dream, or expounding a dream within a dream, which is what we've been doing all along. So we might as well talk about it, I guess. Mu chu setsu mu. in this case means dream. Mu Chu, in the middle of a dream. Set Su means expounding or preaching.

[01:04]

It has a sense of like preaching the Dharma, explaining, expounding. So explaining a dream or expounding a dream in the midst of a dream. And I think that last time we spoke a little bit about how one of Dogen's key themes is language and especially Dharma language, teaching and so forth, Dharma teaching. And he is always speaking against the conventional Zen, what seems to be the conventional Zen attitude that on the one hand there's real experience and on the other hand there's mere language and explanation and that what we're supposed to do is go beyond language and explanation and have real experience and Dogen's point over and over again as he makes in this text is that language itself is experience

[02:17]

and that all experience is a form of language. So that the idea that there's some sort of dualism between language and experience is to not have a profound enough view of language or a profound enough view of experience. More or less what he says here and elsewhere. So why read the text? Now we know. So I guess since this is the last class and this text is too long to go through in the way that we went through Zenki, I'll do my best and probably skip parts. The path of all Buddhas and ancestors arises before the first forms emerge. It cannot be spoken of in terms of conventional views. This being so, in the realm of Buddha ancestors there is the active power of Buddhas going beyond Buddhas.

[03:23]

Since this realm is not a matter of the passage of time, their lives are neither long nor short, neither quick nor slow. This cannot be judged in any ordinary manner. Thus the Dharma wheel has been set to turn since before the first sign of forms emerged. The great merit needs no reward. and becomes the guidepost for all ages. Within a dream, this is the dream you express. Because awakening is seen within awakening, the dream is expressed within a dream. So the truth of the Buddha's teaching is the pattern of all of being itself. there's our own experiences and thoughts and what we can describe and speak about, but prior to all of that, prior to the existence of Buddha, prior to the existence of any teaching called the Buddha Dharma, there's this deep, essentially unidentifiable, because it's so deep, pattern of reality, and that is

[04:41]

what the Buddha Dharma is all about, he's saying. It's not something that Buddha invented or discovered. In Zen, we talk about the seven Buddhas before Buddha. It's a kind of a metaphor or an image of this, that it wasn't that the Buddha is the originator of this great religion or something. The Buddha is that which arises out of reality as an archetype, So, because this is so, this is the deepest dream that there is. It's a dream that goes beyond the idea of dream and waking life. It's a dream that includes all realities in it. Dream, reality, waking reality. It's the deepest dream of all. The place where the dream is expressed within a dream is the land and the assembly of Buddha ancestors.

[05:47]

The Buddha's lands and their assemblies, the ancestors way and their seats are awakening through awakening and express the dream within a dream. So if you study the great Mahayana Sutras and I would recommend them especially I'm thinking now of the Avatamsaka Sutra, which is an amazing spiritual document. I don't know how many thousands of pages long it is, but it's really long. Once I had a three-year class and we actually read the entire Avatamsaka Sutra, every word, and I'm getting closer to doing it again. This is a big undertaking. But this sutra will curl the hairs on the ends of your ears if you read it, because it's a vast, kaleidoscopic description of this sort of archetype of the Sambhogakaya realm of Buddhism.

[07:02]

And the Mahayana sutras are full of this extravagant acts of the imagination. In the Avatamska Sutra, there's a part that I usually read every year, or I used to, those days are gone, but when I was Abbot of Zen Center, I used to read every year the section of the Avatamska Sutra describing the birth of the Buddha. And it says something like, inside the womb of Queen Maya, there were countless Buddhas being born simultaneously inside of world systems, all contained within her womb, and all these Buddhas were walking up and down in her womb, and millions and gazillions of them in still her womb that never got any bigger than it was from the beginning, you know, this kind of stuff. On each atom of each being of each flea in each world system.

[08:04]

There are Buddhas and each Buddha has a retinue of 10,000 disciples and there's trees that look like this and so on and so forth. It just goes on and on and on and on, this vast, endless description of the Buddha lands and the worlds that inhabit this dream within a dream that is the ultimate reality. So he's saying here that the language of these sutras and the imagery of Buddhism the archetype of the career of the Bodhisattva that begins with raising the Bodhisattva vow, and then training, and then receiving a prediction, and then serving Buddhas, and requesting teaching, and making offerings, and this and this and this. This is the shape of every moment. This is the shape of reality itself. This is the big dream within a dream. The everyday conventional reality that we live is no more or less than this. It's not that that's real and this isn't. It's that it's all a dream. It's all a dream and all aspects of reality from this vast cosmic, this depictions of the Avatamska Sutra to the everyday realities that we experience are all of a piece, not better or worse or any different from each other.

[09:20]

And this is the realm of awakening through awakening. to see this, to understand this, is to appreciate the realm of awakening within awakening. Now, this anticipates something that comes in another minute in the text and also is an echo of one of my favorite lines from the Genjo Koan where Dogen speaks of delusion within delusion. It's a very famous part of Genjo Koan which says something like Anyway, I don't remember the whole thing, but he says to be deluded throughout delusion is enlightenment. To be deluded throughout delusion is enlightenment. And what he means by this, I think, is that there is no enlightenment outside of delusion.

[10:24]

to be in the midst of delusion and know it to be delusion, see it for what it is, that's the only enlightenment that there is. There's not some separate category called enlightenment. So we're always living in relative reality and there is no absolute reality other than the relative reality. To recognize the Absolute is to recognize the relativity of the relative. To appreciate our minds and understand what they are and not overestimate them is to be awakened. So here he's using the opposite phrase, to be awakened throughout awakening. To be awakened and recognize that the mind of awakening is only another relative mind. In Dogen's way of thinking, enlightenment is just another state of mind in a succession, an endless succession of states of mind, all of which are absolute mind.

[11:34]

But on the relative level, there's enlightenment, there's delusion, there's up, there's down, there's good, there's bad. All these things come and go in succession. To recognize them for what they are, and live them as they are is awakening regardless of whether it appears in the form of awakening or in the form of delusion. So in the dream within a dream we get to appreciate in this Sambhogakaya Buddha realms we get to appreciate awakening throughout awakening and when we can appreciate awakening throughout awakening then we can explain the dream within the dream. Every dew drop manifested in every realm is a dream. This dream is the glowing clarity of the hundred grasses. What requires questioning is this very point. What is confusing is this very point. So every dewdrop manifested in every realm is a dream.

[12:39]

This means every appearance in every world of that which is impermanent, flashing into existence and then flashing out of existence. Every appearance of everything is this dream. So, this regular world that we live in is this dream. The world becomes hard and fast and bothersome and troublesome and discouraging and so forth and so on by virtue of our projection onto it. If we could see average everyday stuff without that projection, without coloring it with our mood and our ancient twisted karma, it would appear, as it is, a miracle.

[13:44]

absolutely a miracle. You could wake up in the morning and look at your hand, just look at your hand and all that your hand is and can do, and just be unable to get out of bed for spending the rest of the day looking at your hand. It's so miraculous. Any flower any other human being. The fact that you could say to someone, good morning, is a miracle. This is to me the most baffling thing in the world. I think about it almost every day, that time passes and that every moment arises and then it's gone and nobody knows where. It goes as fast as it comes and you can never find out where it is. To me this is absolutely a fantastic thing, the preciousness and the uniqueness of everything that happens.

[14:50]

So everything really is a dream. It's really a dream, but a dream that is completely inexplicable. It doesn't mean it's an illusion. The term dream is a little misleading, because as soon as you say dream, you think, well, waking up. In other words, what we mean by dream is completely conditioned with the idea that, oh, it was just a dream. Not too long ago I had one of those dreams that I very seldom have had where, maybe you've had a dream like this, where something very difficult is going on in the dream and you're struggling with it and you're trying to figure it out or solve it or whatever, and then you wake up. And you say, oh, it was just a dream. I actually don't have that problem. What a relief.

[15:53]

It's a great feeling, you know. It's like, whoa. You know, I thought I had to do this and fix that and I don't have to, you know, it was just a dream. Well, so There's a big contrast between the dream and the waking up. And when we say dream, it automatically implies, well, it's a dream-like reality, it's not really real. But this dream that he's speaking about is a dream that has no opposite number. There's nothing but a dream. And that dream is this very impermanent world that also includes all imaginative worlds and all worlds all rolled up into one. And this point is what requires questioning. This is what is confusing.

[16:56]

So this is what we need to study. I think we should think about it and intellectualize about it. I think it means we need to bring ourselves with our full energy and attention to the spirit of investigating every moment of experience. And our failure to do this is what confuses us in our lives. automatically assuming our projections and preconceptions to be what reality is, rather than making the kind of effort to strip all of that away and just being present with things as they are. That's the kind of effort that we need to make in our practice. And this is the most, I think, the most interesting thing, the most challenging thing of all, is to try to bring ourselves

[18:02]

to every moment of our experience in that way. Of course, usually we fail at that, we have to admit. So one of my things I often say is that Zen practice is mostly about failure. In other words, you don't mind. If you think about succeeding and not failing, you're in the wrong business. You should take up something else because in Zen practice mostly you fail most of the time, but it makes no difference because failure is also a dream, right? So you make the effort. This is the effort that we make to come back. over and over again to the intense ineffability of our own experience, to the dream quality of our own experience. This is what needs to be questioned at each point of time. A failure to appreciate it is what gets us confused, but if we know we're confused, you see, that's alright.

[19:12]

At this time there are dream grasses, grasses within, expressive grasses and so on. playing with words here. The title of the fascicle is Expressing a Dream Within a Dream, so he uses the three characters that are used in the title in the sentence, dream within and express or expound. At this time, the whole issue of expounding a dream within a dream is present on each occasion of our experience as we identify experience which can't be which can't be pinned down to our identifications and our language and our concepts. Even as we're doing that, we're creating a world which is a dream world and we're doing that inside of a dream world. So, do not mistake this as merely dreamy, means do not mistake this as a kind of a dream that we usually think of, a dream that we're going to wake up from sometime.

[20:18]

No. this dream, even when we wake up, we're just waking up into another kind of dream. However, those who do not wish to study Buddhadharma believe that expressing the dream within a dream means speaking of unreal dream grass as real, like piling delusion upon delusion. But this is not true. This is the case of someone who over here, but that's a dream, who believes in some kind of distinction between a dream and reality, who doesn't see the big picture, but insists on using the mind to delineate and distinguish between something that's a dream and something that isn't. That person, he says, is not someone who's studying Buddhadharma, rather only piling up delusion upon delusion. When you say still you should follow the path in the vast sky known as delusion throughout delusion, which as I said, elsewhere he says, that is enlightenment, to be deluded throughout delusion.

[21:28]

And this is what you should investigate thoroughly. Turning the Dharma Wheel is just like this. Turning the world of the Great Dharma Wheel is immeasurable and boundless. So when you appreciate this sort of measureless quality of your life, then each act, no matter how small, has a decisive reverberating quality. So you don't need to wait for Did I tell you that I was at a wedding in Miami? And it was a real peak moment. Did I tell you that? It was a peak moment in these people's lives and it was very special and kind of wonderful.

[22:31]

It's very dramatic. They had, I don't know how many groomsmen and bridesmaids they had, but there was a lot. So when they had the procession, The doors would open and these people, usually a couple, a man and a woman, friends of the Bridinggroom, young people, would walk down the aisle. It was very beautiful. And then the door would open again and somebody else would walk. This would go on for some time while this kind of gorgeous music played. And everybody in present had on tuxedos and beautiful dresses and things. But then, when the Bride came, that was really something. First, the Bride's parents came, and they came so far, and then they stopped. Everybody else had come all the way down to the front. This time, the Bride's parents came so far, and they stopped.

[23:34]

And then, the music stopped. Silence. The doors opened, and there was the bride. You should have seen her. She was unbelievable. She looked like an angel. She had a gauze in her thing. She had a train behind her that looked like foam from the ocean. And she walked in, and everybody was breathless. And then as soon as she came in, the music started. And then she came down. So that was a peak moment. She'll never forget that. It was well documented. they'll all have pictures and I'm sure they'll show videos and everything like that. Well, so that was really, I mean a lot went into making that a very special moment and it was. But as much as that was and as much as that cost, the truth is that every moment is a lot more than that

[24:40]

makes however many tens of 20s or 50 thousands of dollars that that cost pale by comparison. You know, universes and world systems needed to be created so that, you know, this morning I could wash the dishes in my little house or you could do whatever you did this morning or are doing right now. So even within a single particle, this dream within a dream is manifesting itself. And this is the kind of thing that is written about so beautifully in the Avatamska Sutra, on each moment of each world system of each atom is a Buddha and so on and so on. My wife teaches science, you know, in middle school, and she brought home this film that was an extraordinary film.

[25:53]

If you ever have a chance to see it, maybe the library has it or something. It's called Powers of Ten. Maybe you know about this film. Powers of Ten. It's a very brief film. It's maybe 15 or 20 minutes long. And it was made by a couple named Charles and Ray Eames. who were very famous, they were designers, you know, from Chicago, I think. No? The West? LA? Anyway, the premise of this film is just that there's a person lying on a picnic blanket in Chicago by the lake. And the camera shows the person from above. And then the camera backs up. And it goes back, each time it goes a certain distance, and the next time it goes that distance to the power of 10, like 10 feet, and then it goes 10 feet squared, 100 feet, and then 100 squared, and then each time.

[27:00]

So the camera, in a very short amount of time, of course, goes out of Chicago, off the planet Earth, past the solar system, past the galaxy, way back there, and you see this, this is like you see, and then it comes back in to the starting point and then goes the other way. Inside, it goes down into the person's hand and inside the pores and then down to molecules and electrons and the space, just as far into the very, very small as it had gone to the very, very large. And it's quite an incredible experience because it's so mysterious and you just see, of course, the farthest point here

[28:07]

and the farthest point there are pretty much the same, you know? Space, right? And this is not some metaphorical poetic thing. This is actually how it is, right? Or at least, let's put it this way, it's another metaphor that's no more or less real than anything else. A dream within a dream is not some nice doganism. That's actually how it is, right? We're living a dream within a dream. The truth is that, like my wife also explained to me, she explains many scientific things to me, which I wish I had a better mind to retain them. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but when stars implode in on themselves, sometimes they make something so dense that it's quite remarkable from our Earth perspective, but there could be like a teaspoon full of matter that's so dense that it weighs more than the Earth times three, something like that.

[29:26]

How could that be? Because mostly what we understand as matter is full of space, so full of space that it's much lighter, it's not very dense by comparison as what it could be if all the atoms collapsed on each other. So we're all space, we're all pretty much actually empty space in all the atoms of our body and on each particle of each atom of our bodies Not to mention, what is a thought made out of? What is an emotion made out of? This dream is taking place. This dream within a dream. Accordingly, whenever such a dharma is turned, even an antagonist nods and smiles. Everybody knows it's so, you know. Even if they don't believe it, they can't help but recognize it. On some level we all recognize the truth of this. Thus, the endless turning of Dharma traverses the entire land.

[30:31]

In the all-embracing world, cause and effect are not ignored, and all Buddhas are unsurpassable." Now, this is a very crucial theme also of Dogen's. Certainly, you would think, if you think about this dream within a dream, the space that's inside our body and that surrounds our planet, and the reality of that. Of course, who thinks about that, right? Usually we're thinking about something very small. But if we think about this, you might think, well, what the hell? What's the difference? What I do or what happens? I mean, I've been a good boy all this time, but why bother? It's a big world. But Dogen says here, and he'll say later in the text, within this dream cause and effect are not ignored.

[31:34]

And this means karma, causality, the necessity of the practice of ethical appreciation of the bigness and the ineffability of our lives, quite the opposite. Our being able to harmonize with that in our lives and be supported by that in our lives absolutely depends on our careful, compassionate conduct. And he's really a bear on this point, and I think I might have mentioned before that there are other other fascicles where he takes to task all these Zen masters who talk about the emptiness of karma, the emptiness of causality. And he said, no, emptiness means that you must practice right conduct, not with the spirit of accumulation or fear, but with the spirit of expressing the dream within a dream through the beauty and kindness of one's actions.

[32:49]

So this is a really important point for Dogen. all things emerge and arrive right here, right here. Everything, this big space of the dream within the dream, comes up and arrives right here. This being so, one plants twining vines and gets entangled in twining vines. This is the characteristic of unsurpassable enlightenment. So, twining vines is a kind of a technical term, and again, this is another thing that Dogen does all the time. Those of you who are familiar with Dogen's writings will know. In a minute, there's another passage where he does it again. He's very fond of taking conventional Zen expressions, which everybody knows means one thing, and then he

[33:50]

So twining vines in Zen means, again, language and expression. You should be free of twining vines. When you get caught in language, you get tangled up. Your conceptual mind will spin you around. You'll be confused. What you need to do is cut through that, let go of that, and rest in real, authentic experience of awakening. Sometimes, Twining Vines also is further code for koans. And koans are taken to be, in this way of thinking, koans or Zen expressions, you know, the paradoxical kind of nature of many Zen expressions, are taken to be a particular kind of Twining Vines, which when you penetrate them, when you understand them through your meditation practice, then you they become the means for entanglement from 20 vines. So it's using language to cut through language and being free of language.

[34:59]

So either way though, 20 vines are to be rejected, and enlightenment is certainly far away from 20 vines, conventional view. But Dogen says the opposite. He says, because everything is a dream within a dream, right here you plant 20 vines, and you get entangled in them. And this is the characteristic of unsurpassable enlightenment. Just as expression is limitless, sentient beings are limitless and unsurpassable. So expression itself and sentient beings all are the dream within a dream. All are equally avenues for awakening. Just as cages and snares are limitless, emancipation from them is limitless. And in the middle of the cages and the snares is the emancipation already.

[36:00]

Life is entering into problems. Being alive is kind of a problem, right? Believe me, if you could get all the conditions perfect, all the conditions that you are annoyed because they're not now perfect, and if only they would be perfect, you think. We all know that if they were all perfect, still there would be some kind of a problem, because this is the nature of living. And far from the idea that enlightenment is a way out of that, Dogen is saying, it's exactly the condition of living itself as it is, with its problems, that is already its own emancipation. So don't think that you need to get over that. You would be dead if you got over it. You need to enter into it. Delusion throughout delusion. Every problem is an opportunity.

[37:07]

Every cage is emancipation. The actualization of the fundamental point is I grant you 30 blows. And the actualization of the fundamental point is Genjo Koan, another important term of Dogen's. Every moment, the fundamental nature of our lives is being manifest on every moment of experience. And what is that? I give you 30 blows. The problem of our life is manifested. on each moment. This is the actualization of expressing the dream within a dream. Thus a tree with no roots, the ground where no light or shade falls, in a valley where no shouts echo, all of which are impossibilities, right? They're all logical impossibilities, self-contradictory concepts. All these things are no other than the actualized expressions of the dream within a dream.

[38:12]

This is neither the realm of humans nor of heavenly beings and it cannot be judged by ordinary people. So the world of the dream within a dream is a world which transcends our conceptualizations and that's why it appears, when you talk about it, to be self-contradictory or paradoxical. It's not that it's paradoxical or it's some kind of a joke designed to confound us or something like that, some trick. It's that the dream within a dream of the true reality, which has no dualistic opposites within it, is bigger than what we can conceive of. It's literally called inconceivable. So who could doubt that a dream is enlightenment since it is not within the purview of doubt. That's wonderful, I think.

[39:13]

Who could doubt that a dream is enlightenment since it is not within the purview of doubt? So, we have many doubts. I think that practice requires an uncommon degree of honesty, I would say, although it's very tempting to be dishonest, because the ideals of practice are so sublime that one could easily aspire to them and not want to recognize the extent to which one doesn't really manifest those ideals. So this excessive idealism that leads to cruelty toward others and oneself. So it's very tempting in spiritual practice to be dishonest, self-deceptive.

[40:17]

But being honest, on the other hand, leads to great doubt when we say, how much have I really taken to heart these teachings? And do I really believe them? Is my laziness in the Dharma not due to the fact that I don't really believe in that much? I wonder about myself, what am I doing? These kind of things. In the middle of the night, one can doubt even one's own life and its value, right? And I think that anyone who hasn't Woken up in the middle of the night with thoughts like that, it's either overlooking something or you have that to look forward to. I think this is part of what it means to be a human being, is to recognize that everything that one is and does is fundamentally shaky.

[41:29]

So we all have to have doubts. It's normal and it's necessary to activate our way. In practice, we have to be open and honest enough to look at those doubts. But the dream within a dream, even in the midst of such doubts, is not touched by those doubts because it's not subject to doubt. What's subject to doubt is what's contingent. We can doubt ourselves because we can imagine an alternative. We can doubt the Dharma because we might have some other point of view, some other teaching or some other perspective that we maybe think is better. But the dream within the dream is not in that realm at all. It's like, you know, the camera way out here. from that perspective, or way in here, from that perspective this kind of doubt, this kind of confusion of our lives doesn't apply.

[42:41]

And I think that our goal is not that we would give over doubting, give up having the range of emotions that one has, but rather that we would always know that those emotions are held in the dream, within the dream. And knowing that makes a big difference. Knowing that makes a big difference, because then we know, regardless of what is in our hearts or minds, we're not lost. We're not lost. We know exactly where we are in the dream. So, let's take a dreamy break now. Ten minutes or so. Thank you. Well, let's go on and see what happens next.

[43:45]

This is like a novel, right? It's a page-turner. Another translation? There are at least two other translations that I'm aware of, although I must say that without being partisan or what we call it, partial to, yeah biased, I do feel like this is the best translation I've compared. There's a four volume Shobo Genzo by Nishiyama and Stevens, which is actually easier to read because they often interpolate traditional interpretations into the body of the text. Instead of footnoting them, they actually basically don't translate the text of Dogon, they interpret it in the translation. So there's that one. And then there's another one by a man named Nishijima.

[44:47]

which is worth reading because it does have a lot of footnotes, and he talks about specific Japanese terms, and I find it useful. But when it comes to something, to read something and understand it, I really think that the translations in this book are more readable, and also, I believe, more accurate and true to Dogen's meaning, in my opinion. So I don't think it helps that much, because I've been doing that in my study here, trying to look at the other, and it doesn't actually help that much, I don't think. In fact, it makes it more confusing. Yeah. So. Norm? Yeah. Can I ask a basic question? Sure, yeah. There's a dream within a dream. Are there two dreams being talked about, or is it just one dream? Ask this question to other people. Other people have not figured this out either. Well, you see, that very question would not be relevant or germane to the dream because then we're talking about distinctions between dreams or then ranking, is this dream more dream-like than that dream and so forth.

[45:59]

That's exactly the conceptual mind, right? This dream transcends those kinds of distinctions. So you could say, yes, it's two different dreams, a dream within a dream, No, it's not two different dreams, there's only one dream. Both. Because either one would be, you know, limited, right? Either one would make of the dream that we're discussing something with parameters and boundaries. Oh, I see, there's this dream over here, and then there's this dream over there. Which one is better now? or even if we don't care which one is better, they're two different dreams. But this is a boundaryless dream, just like when you pull that camera back, I mean, you know, the idea of what is the limit, what is the boundary, literally, of space or of the mind, confounds scientists and philosophers, right? And it's that boundaryless, boundless, unthinkable dream that Dogen is talking about.

[47:02]

Why we think that things are not a dream is because we can think of a world that is not a dream. We can define it. So it's not a dream. It's real. But that's just another dream. So in our practice, our idea is not that we're going to walk around with our head in the clouds. It's not the idea. The idea is that we would walk around in this dream called, like lately I've been thinking, you know, I have a new life now, right? I no longer go to the temple, and all these years I've lived a temple life. Now, what I've been thinking lately, I'm calling this my experiment in everyday life in America, which to me is the most fantastic thing, you know, it's the most amazing thing. I drive around like everybody now, in the car, I'm on the freeway, I buy gasoline.

[48:05]

I mean, I always did before, but not that often, because how much did I ever go anywhere? But now, I mean, I drive around, I buy gasoline, and I'm on the email all the time, and all this. And I'm telling you, to me, it's like a dream. It's like a dream. The idea is not that we would walk around in the everyday world with our head in the clouds, but we would recognize that it's another dream. Buying gas and sitting at the feet of the Buddha underneath the salt tree 2,500 years ago are both dreams. They're really the same thing. Do we see it that way? If we see it that way, and then each dream has its own, you know, every dream, dreams are very logical, right? Even though from the standpoint of regular life, a dream is like completely fractured logic. But inside the dream, it makes perfect sense, right? Well, this dream that we're in called an experiment in everyday life also has its logic.

[49:14]

So we're supposed to, you know, kind of grok the logic of this dream and live it, but know that it's a dream. And when we know that it's a dream, then it's like that dream that I was telling you about a little while ago, where you wake up and you realize, this is really not a problem. Well, everyday life is like that. And this happens to me about five times a day, when I have this big problem, and all of a sudden I realize, this is not really a problem. I made a problem out of it. It's not really a problem. Anyway, does that have anything to do with what you brought up? So there are all kinds of dreams, he says. And there are all kinds of explanations within dreams. And without being in a dream, there cannot be any expounding of a dream.

[50:16]

that there's only our explanation of reality because reality is a dream. And conversely, without expressing dreams, there is no being within a dream. Without our explanations of dreams, our expounding of the dream creates the dream. And there's no creating, there's no explaining without the dream, and there's no dream without the explaining. And furthermore, without the dreams and the explaining of the dreams, within the dreams there are no Buddhists. This Dharma Wheel is no other than a Buddha together with a Buddha, which is another famous expression of Dogen's that he got from the Lotus Sutra, which says only a Buddha and a Buddha. Awakening only occurs with a Buddha and a Buddha. So we are so strongly conditioned to think of individuals, me and you, and someone is enlightened and someone isn't, someone is accomplished and someone isn't, someone is this and someone is that, but in fact there are no someones at all.

[51:25]

There's only the endless interplay and interaction, the endless process, the big pattern of the flowing of reality together as we're always doing together. We're always flowing in and out of each other. None of us has any separate contained pouch of being that's impervious to the influence of others. We're all constantly, you know, an interchangeable, mutually influencing, ever evolving single entity. So awakening only happens there in the recognition of that constant borrowing and influencing. So this is the encounter of a Buddha with a Buddha and in this encounter we recognize that we don't possess anything, our thoughts, our hands, our feet, our head, anything is not our possession and then when we don't have attachment, one who buys gold sells gold.

[52:41]

In other words, when we recognize that we are all a Buddha and a Buddha, that our life is always the interaction, the negotiation, the mingling of a Buddha and a Buddha, then we recognize that everything that's in our life is something that's given to us that we don't possess, and then knowing that, we don't hold on to anything, and then when we know that, we can buy gold, we can get something, and then we can give something away, freely. That's the idea. It's an old expression. One who buys gold, sells gold, means you can be free. giving and receiving freely. This is the mystery of mysteries, the wonder of wonders, the awakening of awakenings, the head above the head. And now he's going to launch into a whole thing about a head above the head. So, and this is another one, in Zen there's an old expression, don't put a head on top of your head. Gee, you really look like Akin Roshi. Whenever I see you sitting there, I always think, God, there's Akin Roshi sitting there.

[53:42]

Now I'm really in trouble. But you're not, are you? No. No. He's older now, so he looks different. Right. But every time I look at you, I'm thinking, oh, geez, this is a bad deal. So in Zen, there's an old expression, don't put a head on top of your head. Did you ever hear this? Yeah, don't put a head. Again, it's yet another expression about conceptualization. Just have the experience, don't explain the experience. It's like putting another head on top of your head. Just have your head, don't have another. So here again, Dogen is saying, They tell you don't put a head on top of your head, don't conceptualize, but what is that head on top of your head? Whose head is that really? That head on top of your head is the head of Airochana Buddha.

[54:51]

So, the conceptualizing mind recognized as such is not to be overthrown or gotten rid of because it's really the head of Vairochana Buddha. And it's an amazing thing, you know, the top of your head. Try it. Did you ever feel the top of your head? Not many people do, you know. And it's sort of a little known. Think of all the parts of your body that you have no idea. You think that this is me, right? But you have no idea, you know, about most of the parts of your body, but the top of your head is really something. I mean, it has all these different... It's something, the idea of touching your hand to the top of your head, and all that occurs in doing that, it's really a mystery.

[55:59]

that you could feel something and that you could have feelings about it, emotions about it, thoughts about it, some experience of it. The head on top of your head is Buddha's head. That's Buddha, right? It's all of that that can happen. Like one thing, sometimes you could do Zazen. I remember one time when Mick Sofko at Green Gulch was the Shuso and he was giving talks. He would give the greatest talks about paying attention, sitting in Zazen and paying attention to your back. And I don't mean like whether your back is straight or something, your posture, but like the experience of what's behind you in your back. which usually you don't think about that, you know.

[57:07]

And then I was reading this Jewish meditation book which said, quite astonishingly, that the most effective, it said there's a meditation on nothing. And how do you meditate on nothing? You imagine what's behind your head. Because you can't, you know, it's nothing. Because you can't ever be behind your head or know what's there. So to imagine what's behind your head is to meditate on nothing. So the actual experience of the top of one's head or any part of one's body as it actually is is quite unknown to us. When we think of our body, actually, and I encourage everyone here to reflect on this and check it out, but mostly when you think of the body, your own body, the experience is one of concept and emotion rather than the actual experience of the body.

[58:29]

The body is you know, the proprioception, is that what it's called? The sense of meanness of the body is one of the most mysterious things. There's some kind of rare ailment where you lose that and you don't have the experience like, this is my arm, and it's very, you can't move. So the complexity of the actual experience of being embodied is quite something. And the mysterious and profound fact of being able to function in a body and to have the awareness of the body, if you study it, it's really something. So he's saying that the consciousness that inhabits the body and knows the body to be the body, the head on top of the head, which is essentially a conceptual process, is Vairochana Buddha.

[59:32]

So again he's turning that old expression upside down. Then he says this passage in the middle of toward the first big paragraph on page 168. You should know that yesterday's expression of the dream within a dream was the recognition of this expression as expressing the dream within a dream. The present expression of the dream within a dream is to experience right now this expression as expressing the dream within a dream. Indeed, this is the marvelous joy of meeting a Buddha." That was really hard to understand, isn't it?

[60:36]

So I spent a long time. It's a great thing. I was very happy to read this fascicle and just delighted with it because it was a great relief from the I get emails, it makes me nervous. Sit there in the computer doing all these emails and zipping through all these different files on my computer, it makes me nervous. I can't do it very long. So after I did it for a little while, I stopped doing it and read this fascicle and I was very happy to read it. So I spent a long time thinking about this part. So yesterday doesn't necessarily mean yesterday, it means the reflective moment, the moment that we can think about, you know, that just passed. In all conceptualization is yesterday's moment, right? So yesterday's expression of the dream within a dream was the recognition, the recognition, re-cognizing.

[61:43]

Yesterday we're always re-cognizing, right? recognizing. And yet all acts of perception are that, all acts of perception are recognition. So yesterday we were recognizing this expression as the expression of a dream within a dream. So in the act of perception, conceptualization, we understand, recognize, can say that, can know that, this now that I'm saying to you, I mean I'm not talking about anything, I'm just expressing a dream within a dream. Right? So that makes sense. The present expression of the dream within a dream, not

[62:47]

a moment too late, but right now, the right now that never comes, that can't be in our experience. The present expression of the dream within a dream is to experience right now this expression as expressing the dream within a dream. So you have the recognition and you have the experience. Recognition is the head on top of the head. the conceptual, the experience is the head. Both of these, he's saying, in fact you can't really separate or distinguish or make any hierarchy between these, and this is our human life, is to live out both of these, one of which we can appreciate and know, the other of which is unknown to us, but with our body we can touch it, although we can't know it as we know other experiences.

[63:54]

Both of these together are our human life and this is the marvelous joy of meeting a Buddha. In other words, embracing our human life as it really is, not trying to cut off our heads, of meeting a Buddha and a Buddha. Now, I'm skipping a little bit. Now he's quoting here a verse by Shakyamuni Buddha in the Lotus Sutra. You know, the Lotus Sutra also I recommend, you know, to read. In the Lotus Sutra, this Buddha appears, Shakyamuni Buddha appears, and I forget exactly what happens, but everybody's surprised, you know, that he's there, because, gee, we thought you died.

[65:04]

There was this whole thing, you know, there was parinirvana and this and that, So what are you doing here? How could that be? So Shakyamuni Buddha says, well, it's very simple. I recognized your minds at the time and I knew that if I told you the truth, you would never believe me. Besides, if you did believe me, you would become very confused and it would be counterproductive. So I pretended to die, and I put a lot into it. And I told you about impermanence, and if I was going to really be convincing on the subject, naturally I was going to have to die. And I knew that you needed to hear about impermanence, because without really hearing about it and getting it, you were never going to practice. So that's what I did at the time. But now that you're further along in the path, I can tell you the truth.

[66:07]

which is that I really never was born and I really didn't die and impermanence is just another version of permanence and actually on every moment I'm always present and I'm always teaching and endlessly arising like that way. So the career, like I was saying before, the career of a bodhisattva is not something that I did, me, Mr. Buddha, this happened, that happened, then I died. It's actually the shape of reality itself. It's not a story about my life and times, me as a person, it's the shape of reality itself. And now I'm here to tell you that in the Lotus Sutra. And then everybody says, wow, we didn't know that. But now that we know it, we're really happy to hear it. That's kind of what this verse amounts to. And then the part that I want to say a few words about is where Dogen then says, this dream of Buddha's, so it's a dream.

[67:15]

Shakyamuni Buddha, his birth and death is a dream. I just did that, it was an illusion, it was a dream. So, now you may think that this is a metaphor and an analogy, and Dogen says this is not a metaphor. This is not a metaphor. As the wondrous Dharma of all Buddhas is mastered only by a Buddha together with a Buddha, all Dharmas awakened in the dream are genuine forms. In awakening there are aspiration, practice, enlightenment and nirvana, which is the career of Bodhisattva. And within the dream there are aspiration, practice, enlightenment and nirvana. Every awakening within the dream is the genuine form. Every awakening within the dream, every dream, every version of every dream within the dream is the genuine dream. It's not a metaphor. without regard for large or small, superior or inferior. So sometimes I say the metaphor of or something, and I say that on purpose, you know, because so as to be clear that this is not to be taken literally and two-dimensionally or three-dimensionally as if it were like in the world that we live in.

[68:31]

On the other hand, I always feel a dis-ease when I say that, because to say that it's a metaphor is to sort of defang it, make it trivial. The world in which the Buddha endlessly sits under a jewel tree preaching the Dharma is not a metaphor, it's a real world, and it's no more or less real than than this world, the world of this room with its wood and its light fixtures and us with our glasses and our rock suits and stuff like that. And when we appreciate that, then we'll really be able to appreciate the dream that we're in and we'll be able to operate gracefully within the dream logic of our present dream. And again, it's dangerous language because, you know, It could sound like you're trivializing reality.

[69:32]

Remember, Dogen counteracts this by insisting so strongly on causality, karma, ethical conduct, and the necessity of that as being the active side in our lives of actually living within the dream. Well, that's all, I think. Just a few minutes if anybody has any comments or questions or something that we should say or think about. But I think we've done as much as we're going to be able to do and should do or need to do with this text and I hope everybody will forget it from now on. Don't worry about it, but just maybe you won't forget this phrase, a dream within a dream. Yes?

[70:34]

Yeah, I'm thinking of Suzuki Roshi talking about simplifying. Yeah. And like a lot of the things that the Zen masters studied before Dogen came along. Yeah. But in a way, could you say that Dogen Well, I'm glad that you brought that up, yeah. Well, Suzuki Roshi, of course, was a great follower of Dogen. I mean, he was always quoting Dogen and was a proponent of Dogen's thought.

[71:36]

But I'm glad that you bring this point up because, yeah, I mean, I suppose you could read this text and you could think that, oh, Dogen is advocating an intellectualized, very complicated kind of approach to practice. But I really don't think that's so. I mean, the practice, when you think about it, the implications of what Dogen is saying don't point us toward a complicated intellectualized practice. What he's saying is that, what does it amount to? Just practice and give yourself to your life, to everything you're doing. Don't undertake some sort of a course of practice that you're going to accumulate Dharma steam until you get enlightened and pass the course. Don't do that. Just practice every day wholeheartedly, very simply with every moment of your life and don't look for anything or don't ask for anything. When Suzuki Roshi talks about no gaining idea,

[72:37]

This is what he's talking about. He's saying, no gaining idea, not because it's bad to have a gaining idea, not because of that, but because everything that we could possibly gain is right here, every moment. Practice as if that were so. Don't practice as if there's something to gain, like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and if only you will do all the right things, you're going to get that pot of gold. Don't practice like that. Right here is where it is. That's why I say, and it's not a joke, forget about it. the text, forget about it, because we're not supposed to. The idea is not that we're going to read these texts of Dogen and we're going to learn what he's saying and be able to explain it and memorize it or somehow understand it. It's not like that. It's just an experience to study A Dream Within a Dream or any of the Dogen texts, to experience it and practice it the best we can, just as we would practice Zazen the best we can, and then when the bell rings, get up and forget about it, and then when it's time again, say it again. So it's a kind of just a practice to read these texts.

[73:39]

But no, I think the practice that's implied in what Dogen is saying is something very simple and radically simple. Just practice faithfully now, and that's all that we ever need. And then the next minute, it's another now. So thank you for bringing that up, because definitely you could read this text and imagine that he's talking about something very highfalutin and complicated. But he's not. I think that he was objecting to people practicing with the idea of accumulation of knowledge and spiritual power. I think that he must have seen that in the people that he practiced with, and he must have seen the effects of it. And I think he was very strongly trying to tell people, no, no, that's not it. It's not about accumulation of knowledge or power. It's about shedding all the ways that we have of living that remove us from our experience.

[74:47]

If we can only recognize our experience as it is, and that means physical experience, mental experience, emotional experience, intellectual experience, just recognize our experience for what it is and face it wholeheartedly, then that's all we need. That's what it's pointing toward. I think it's a very beautiful thing, you know, a wonderful message really. It's not complicated. The words are complicated for sure, the ideas are complicated, but what it's pointing to is not complicated. So thank you for bringing that up because it certainly seems complicated when you read the text. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

[75:54]

Well, in a way, yeah. I mean, I think Dogen has certain key points that he repeats over and over again. It's hard to I find all discussions of same and different inherently confusing, because everything is the same and different. He's like, yeah, it's the same, yeah, but it's also... But I don't think they're so far apart, radically different points. No, I think quite similar in many ways. And I think any Fascliff-Schobogenza that you would pick up, especially when he's bearing down this closely on practice. Some of the fascicles are more discursive, like the first one we read, which is not part of Shobo Genzo, but the diary from China, where it's more discursive. And there are passages in the Shobo Genzo that are like that.

[76:59]

But every time he really bears down on the sort of most intimate point about practice, there's a certain similarity, even though some of the ideas are different. It's a certain, I would say, a handful of themes that he always brings up. You always have real long questions, have a short question. I was just going to say, I don't know if it's a question. Maybe a question, have it be a question, a short question. you either failed or you played it more quickly than you thought you could. So it kind of made your rational mind go away. Yeah, yeah.

[78:00]

You can't calculate anymore. Yeah, yeah. Because you're going in all these different directions. Yes, yes, yes. There's a wonderful book actually called Dogon and the Koan Tradition, which is a very hard to read in a way, it's sort of like consummate work of postmodern scholarship. It's actually very good, but it's hard to read. But basically the burden of the book is that Dogen's fascicles of Shobo Genzo are koans, that we think of koan study as being a particular thing, but that's just one style of koan study. To read the Shobo Genzo is to study koan. because every fascicle of the Shogoganza is a steady koan, which is like that sort of experience of doing that which can't be done. It's like scat singing too. He just takes the ideas and he starts with the concepts and then he just puts them all together in different ways.

[79:03]

So you get something that's kind of non-linear, it means something else, but it illuminates. It goes in all directions, it has all kinds of angles and facets. Well, I must say that I really enjoyed coming over here and giving the class. It's been a long time since I've been to Berkeley and I really love coming over here and seeing all of you. And I'm sure that, yes, why not? I'm sure. Should we all live that long and that we could have the opportunity to come together in some way, that would be excellent. That would be excellent. So thank you very much. Please take care of yourself and you have a beautiful way of practice in Berkeley. It's kind of wonderful. So please take care of it well.

[79:58]

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