I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Evening. Evening. Someone has said that they were cold. Ah. And maybe we could ask somebody who knows how to turn the heat on to turn it on. Yeah. Maintenance man. I was trying to think if I remembered. Yeah, because this is a smart, this is a smart controller and it knows we're not here. That's why it's cold.

[01:03]

Well, I only came to a couple of these, but I think it's nice to start by actually reciting the Fukan Zazengi, so I passed out some booklets. But I'd like to do it the way Bhaika, as a chant. We'll chant it. Richard, would you be the Kokkyo? Okay. Fuka, Tsan, Zen, Chi, Principles of Tsan, Zen, Ame, He, Doga, and Daisho. The way is perfectly perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma vehicle is free and untrammeled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is The world's dust, who would believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is, when there's the use of going off here and there to practice.

[02:12]

And yet, if there's the slightest discrepancy, the way is distant as heaven from earth, if the least like or dislike arises. Confusions of those, one gains the pride of understanding and inflates one own enlightenment, a glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things, attaining the way and clarifying the mind, raising an aspiration to escalate the very sky. One is making the initial final excursions around the frontiers, but still somewhat of division. Free of total emancipation need I mention the Buddha who was possessed of inborn knowledge. The influence of his six years of upright sitting is noticeable still. Our Bodhidharma's transmission of the mind seal, the fame of his nine years of wall sitting is celebrated to this day. How could it today dispense with the negotiation of the way you should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after-speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to inflate yourself?

[03:16]

Hop away, your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay. For zazen in a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside all involvements. Cease all affairs. Do not think good or bad. Do not administer pros and cons. Godness mind, engaging of all thoughts and views, have no designs on becoming a Buddha, assumption is nothing, whatever you do is sitting or lying down at the side of your regular sitting, spread out thick matting, place a cushion upon it. In the full lotus position you place your right foot on your left thigh and your left foot on your right thigh. In the half lotus you simply press your left foot against your right thigh. You should have your ropes and belt loosely bound and arranged in order. Head on your left leg and your left palm facing upwards on your right palm. Thumb tips touching, thus sit upright in correct bodily posture, neither inclining to the left nor to the right, neither leaning forward nor backward.

[04:22]

Be sure your ears are on a plane with your shoulders and your nose in line with your navel. Place your tongue against the front roof of your mouth with your teeth and lips flushed out. Your eyes should remain open and you should be breathing through your nose. Rock your body left and right. Tidal into a steady and mobile sitting position. Think non-thinking. How do you think? Non-thinking, non-thinking. This in itself is the central art of Zazen. The Zazen I speak of is not churning meditation. It is simply the dharma gate of repose and bliss. Totally calm and enlightened, it is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares never reach it once its heart is grasped. You'll be like the dragon in the water, like the tiger when she enters the mountain, for you know just where there is a zin. Karma is manifesting itself and that from the first, dullness and distraction are struck aside. From sitting rows so incommon and doomed to not rise suddenly or abruptly in surveying the past, we find the transcendence of both enlightenment and enlightenment, and dying, or either sitting or standing, have all depended entirely on the strength of zazen in addition to bringing enlightenment by the opportunity provided by a finger, a banner, a needle, or a mallet, and effecting of realization of the aid of a hosu, a staff,

[05:46]

A shout cannot be really eliminated by discriminative thinking. Indeed, it cannot be fully known by the practicing or realizing of supernatural powers either. Beyond hearing and seeing, is it not a principle that is prior to knowledge and perceptions? This being the case, intelligence or lack of it does not matter. Between the dull and the sharp-witted, there is no distinction. If you concentrate, you're chiffered single-mindedly. That in itself is negotiating the way. Naturally undefiled, going forward in practice is a matter of everydayness, in general this world and other worlds as well. An overall prevailed character of the school, which is simply devotion to sitting, total engagement and immobile sitting, although it is said there are as many minds as there are persons, still they all negotiate the way, solely and zazzy and wily, behind the seat that exists in your home. Off to the dusty realms of other lands, you make one misstep, you go astray from the way directly before you.

[06:51]

You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. Do not use your time in vain. You are maintaining the essential working of the Buddha way. delight in the spark from the flintstone besides form and substance are like the dew on the grass destiny like a dart of lightning emptied in an instant vanished in a splash long customs to groping for the elephant do not be suspicious of the true dragon devote your energies to a way that directly indicates the absolute revere the person of complete attainment who is beyond all human agency in accord with the enlightenment of the buddhas sustained I like it that way. So we've come to the last three paragraphs, and thank you all for coming. I was wondering if anybody would come tonight.

[08:01]

I wanted to say a few things about Dogen and where this translation comes from. And I checked with Richard and mostly I'll be saying things that haven't been said. But at the time, 1227 or so, there were lots of, there were several Zazengis available. But they were mostly just the Zazengi part, not the Fukan part. And when Dogen came back from China, this is supposedly the first thing that he wrote. He felt it was very important. He brought this back. He didn't bring back any sutras.

[09:09]

He didn't bring back a trunk of sutras or a lot of statues or anything. Everything he brought back was in his mind. And in our syllabus, they found a note at Eiji that he had written. It doesn't say when, but he says a little bit about why he wrote this, and I'd like to read that to you. In Japan, it's never been possible to learn of the special transmission outside the scriptures. the treasure of the right Dharma-I, not to speak of the principles of Zazen. They are thus not transmitted here at the present time. As soon as I returned home from the land of Sung during the Kuroku era, students began coming to me for instruction.

[10:11]

So I compiled this Zazengi. I was obliged for their sakes to do this. Then he goes on and talks about some of the other teachers. And I won't belabor that or go into detail, but he does say so-and-so has made a good many errors. has an overall tendency to ambiguity and is unaware of the understanding beyond the words themselves. I think this was a private note, not for publication. He's a tough critic. He says, who could fail to see this? But then he says, therefore I gather now the true secrets that I have seen and heard.

[11:16]

I am putting these words down in place of what is imparted in the mind transmission. So, I guess he wanted to write these things down, but he couldn't give mind transmission to everybody, and there were just too many piling up. So that's kind of what was on his mind at the time. But actually, the one that we just chanted is from a version that he modified in 1243. So it's quite a while later. By 1243, He had his own temple and his own group of monks on Mount Hiei.

[12:20]

Hiei was Koshoji. And 1243 was right about the time when the other monks from around the mountain, the mountain is loaded with temples, started coming around trying to burn down his temple. Because he was an outlaw. With all his secrets and his true secrets. He had the true secrets. So they're going to burn his place down. So actually that year he did decide to get out of town and that's when he went to AAG. But he was at the peak of his powers. And he'd written a lot of the parts of the Shobo Ginza then. And it's also intimated in several things I looked at that the original version was much more oriented towards sudden enlightenment, like he had when his master hit the student next to him.

[13:38]

But when he revised it, 15 years later, 16 years later, and he was further away from that first samadhi, and was sort of living with his practice, he changed the nature of the teaching to be more focused on practice realization and on continuous enlightenment. So that's the direction that his practice matured to the point where he made the translation that we're looking at. I'd like to give you just a feel. I don't expect anybody to understand what I'm going to read next, because I don't.

[14:47]

But it's like reading what we read on mountains and rivers. You read it many times and you get the feel of it, and eventually it kind of soaks in and has some meaning for you. But this is just to give you a feeling. This is Dogen with his declaratory logic. This is Dogen logic. Dogen logic comes from the belly. So it's hard to get it with your brain. But this is from something called Zazenshin in the Shogun's book. And it was written right about the time when our Fukan Zazengi was modified. It's kind of like admonitions for Zazen. He spends a long time talking about his master and

[16:03]

and a master before his master. And he says, whenever my late master gave a formal Dharma talk, he described Wanshi as an ancient Buddha. He never referred to anyone else like that. Once one possesses the ability to evaluate others, Buddhas and patriarchs can be readily discerned. Know that it is possible to find such Buddhas and patriarchs in the stream of Tozan. After reviewing Wan Chi's admonitions for Zazen, I've decided to compose my own version. Today is March 18th, 1242, about 85 years after Wan Chi's death on November 8th, 1157. Here is my version. So the other version has been about 10 pages. Here's his version. The essential function transmitted from Buddha to Buddha is the dynamic element passed from patriarch to patriarch.

[17:11]

It is actualized in non-thinking and appears in equanimity. Actualized as non-thinking is actualized as self-awareness. Appearing as equanimity appears as self-enlightenment. Actualized as self-awareness is undefiled. as self-enlightenment is beyond absolute and relative. Undefiled is awareness. Awareness that relies on nothing and is thus true liberation. Beyond absolute and relative is enlightenment. Enlightenment that has no definitions and is thus real practice. The water is pure to the bottom and fish swim like fish. The vast sky extends to the heaven and birds fly like birds. I do not want to insinuate that Zen Master Wan Chi's admonitions are incomplete.

[18:16]

I merely wish to add these few points. The descendants of the Buddhas and the patriarchs must study Zazen as one great matter. This is the true seal of the direct transmission. So, that was the mood he was in at the time. And we've, the first part is, the first and last parts are the universal promotion. And so we're looking at the last part, which is his last chance to sign us up and to give us the secrets.

[19:18]

So I'm just going to go through the text now. comment on it and maybe read a couple of other things. So he says, in general, this world and other worlds as well, both in India and in China, equally hold the Buddha seal. An overall prevails character of this school, which is simply devotion to sitting, total engagement in immobile sitting. Well, there's another translation, which actually I kind of like a little better for this particular sentence. And this is the Masanaga translation. And for that same set of characters, this translation reads, Buddhas in this world and that, and the patriarchs in India and China equally preserved the Buddha seal and spread the true style of Zen.

[20:37]

All actions and things are penetrated with pure Zazen. It fascinates me. We have six different translations here in this manual. And they all come from the same set of characters. And we also have the literal translation of each character. And sometimes you can't even find common words. And sometimes they're very close. But that's the business. So, the way I see this is that we are manifested, we are Buddha nature manifested, as is everything.

[21:56]

And the school that is devoted to sitting has this secret, this way of finding out this nature and realizing it. And we've passed it down. all these years." And then he goes on to say, although it is said there are as many minds as there are persons, still all negotiate the way Soli and Zazen. I have a very sort of general feeling when I read that line.

[23:09]

I see the Buddha mind as a a similarity that connects each moment with the next. Kind of like a physical law. If you watch successive moments when something is dropping out of the sky, You see how it changes where it was each moment. There's something behind that. And that's what I see as negotiating the way solely in zazen. the kind of feeling that Zazen connects you with.

[24:31]

It's the best I can do, folks. Why leave behind the seat that exists in your home and go aimlessly off to the dusty realms of other lands? Well, you know, Dogen kind of did that, you know. And maybe he's telling us that it's not necessary. He came back. And I think it's true both specifically and in general.

[25:39]

Specifically, I think he could have been saying that, well, we have the teaching here now, but also the teaching resides not necessarily in in a particular mind or a particular style, if the teaching is really the true teaching, it has to come from the actual structure of the universe and all of the things that are in it. So you don't have to go anywhere. It's all right there. But you have to make it realized.

[26:44]

And that's where he says, if you make one misstep, you go astray from the way directly before you. And that connects directly with you have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form, but we'll get to that later. We're blessed with great abilities with our minds, but we also have the ability to discriminate and to create delusions. And I see the misstep as just taking that little twist in your mind and going from non-discrimination to discrimination.

[27:51]

And it's almost imperceptible. Discrimination, I think it's tied to the concept of time. We discriminate Discrimination seems to tie to the fact that this could be one way or this could be another way and this way is better and maybe next time we can make it that way. And it seems to me discrimination is tied to our concept of time and our concept of time is is usually of a flowing time.

[28:57]

I went over this a lot when I was Shuso. Time in all of the theories of physics and all of the writings of Dogen is not a flow. Time is just this moment. Suzuki Roshi used to say, we live at the intersection of space and time, and all of us don't have any reason to judge that there'll be another moment. They're each a blessing.

[30:03]

And we get quite a few of them sometimes, some of us. So So the misstep, I think, is having this feeling of discrimination related to time. And the way to escape that is to apply what he tells us earlier in the for Kansatsinghi, just sitting and facing that wall and becoming harmonious

[31:24]

with everything around you, seems to rectify these missteps. So it really is a treat that he's brought us. And he'll keep stressing this in the rest of the paragraphs. But I think we can take a break and come back in about 10 minutes or so. Is everybody rested? I got much more. Did that page. The one thing I really liked about Bhaga's talk last week was that everybody just jumped in.

[32:35]

So don't think that I know what I'm talking about. Just jump right in. Well, I'll jump right in. Okay, great. Don't assume that I think you don't know what you're talking about. You might not want to assume that I do either, though. In the beginning, you said something about that Dogen at first you know, the enlightenment was about when the guy sitting next to him got whacked. But then he sort of changed it from then on out, and then it sort of turned into more of a, it wasn't something that just happened, it was something that sort of was almost like a process thing, that's how he started writing about it, is that kind of what you said? Yeah, he sort of It's kind of like that whack caused him to see something.

[33:38]

And then over the years he sort of saw that it was all around him, is the way I see it. Because it sounded like in the beginning that was the definitive enlightenment. That's what happened to him at that moment. And it's sort of like he realized his time went on Oh no, that wasn't enlightenment, that was just one of the many pieces of enlightenment. Not exactly, well, the way I see it, it was like eating your first grape, you know, and then realizing that there's all these fruits, you know, you can eat them all. Kind of like that. It was more like a, that's the way I see, that's the way I see what happened to him as he got older. I mean, I don't have anything to judge from, but it seems like that's what would happen.

[34:48]

So was he enlightened when he ate that first grape, or was he enlightened when he decided to eat it? He was enlightened before he ate it. It sounded like his teaching changed, that for him, he was enlightened by having this grape, but that for people that followed, he sort of changed the way he wrote about it, because it was more of a... that he taught it, that it was something that comes more slowly, although with him it wasn't like that. Yeah. Actually, that was why I brought all that stuff up, because I wanted to make it clear that... We're looking at what he arrived at when he was a mature teacher. It wasn't something that he had just had happen and was real excited about. It was something that he'd lived with for a lot of years and was very sure about.

[35:49]

I was kind of astounded by that. I know he was a genius, but... We don't know how much he changed it, because I don't have the other version, but I've just read here and there that that was how it changed. Could you say something about the translation that we're reading to? Well, all I... It's the Abe Waddle translation. Waddell. And I don't know anything particularly about it. I don't know. I haven't studied the origin of the translations or the character of the translators. Do you know how recent it is? I might be able to tell you. Yeah, 73.

[37:16]

And the other one I'm reading about is, or the one other in Masanaga is 64. It's an older. All of them, we have one here from 53. 53, two from 72, one from 64, and one from 73. So the Aave Wadel is the newest translation. That book was probably put together back in the 70s too. Yeah. That's why there are no more recent translations. Yeah, I wasn't at the meetings. Who put this book together? I've marked in it. Oh, proliferated. Oh, proliferated. Oh, I thought you... Yes, Susan. Yeah, thank you. Doug, this has been very interesting.

[38:18]

You passed out another text. Actually, Walter did. Oh, Walter did? God, that was you. What was that from? Well, that text came from the book, the liturgy that we were given at Eheishi. That one, and actually I like that translation, but that translation was done by Soto Shu in cooperation with Rev. Anderson and others, right? Oh, this is what they gave to us when we were... Yeah. All the translations in there are quite, I think, quite good. This is excellent. But this book, the syllabus that Doug is talking about predates that. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I'll have to go back and read that one. Darn. Sorry, I should have brought it. I should have, yeah.

[39:20]

I should have got turned on to it. There's a copy in the library. Yeah, I've got a copy at home. Unless, well, there was a lot of stuff we threw away because our luggage was getting so full. You should have kept that. They gave us all this junk, you know, 40 pounds of stuff apiece. the velvet painting of Dogen. I'm rooming with Sojin and I look at him and he looks at me and says, I'm not taking this home. That was hard. That was hard. Yeah, I brought my plastic Buddha. Yeah, they were very nice to us. Well, let's see, I think we were almost to, well we discussed making a misstep.

[40:28]

right or wrong either, I have no clue. Maybe it was that this notion of sudden enlightenment or whatever as being kind of a state, that is to say something that exists and then kind of continues without effort, but rather practice enlightenment and recognizes that it's not a state. The moments that you talk about there are choices being made. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it's kind of great if enlightenment is continuous in everyday life. It means you don't have to go off to dusty realms and the pressure's off. And the pressure's off, you just might make it. But to have this pressure of waiting for this giant opening of the heavens and all knowledge to come in be immediately absorbed into you so that you are changed absolutely for the rest of your life.

[41:43]

I wouldn't hold my breath. But is that what happened to him? Supposedly? Or is that what we used to believe that happened to him? That he had that... I think he was just as smart before as he was after. But as you said, he resolved all his doubts. I think that's the pivotal thing that we see. We all change. You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. That's a very prideful statement, you know. I mean, Suzuki Roshi used to talk about human beings and stuff, and he said, well, If we were the fox, it would be okay if we ate the frog. We're humans, we can't eat frogs.

[42:53]

We can't eat frogs. Bruh. I think it brings up the six realms of existence. being born in the human realm, we have an opportunity to wake up and that if we're in the god realm, we're hungry, ghost realm, or the other five, that we're not going to have an opportunity to practice. Because if things are really sweet and good in the godly realm, you don't think about, I'm going to have to do something better. If things are really lousy in the hellish realm, then it's like it's just too far out of reach. So it's interesting that in the human realm, we experience all those I like that way of looking at it, yeah. I was thinking along the lines of, you know, I couldn't figure out why this was such a great thing, but what I was thinking is that along the same lines, I mean,

[44:04]

We're humans, we got all this baggage. We commit suicide, we kill people, we destroy the earth, we eat all the frogs. But another thing Suzuki Uroshi says, we should be thankful for our problems and take joy in them. Because they're an opportunity to practice. So I kind of see it, you know, we do. We have the pivotal opportunity to practice in human form. And we have the prescription right here. So, yeah. I heard this lecture he wants to talk about. But if you grew up in the East, you would have grown up with this total understanding of the idea of reincarnation and rebirth.

[45:16]

This was an issue like we think about in Western culture, like going to heaven. It's pretty pervasive in our culture. But in that, in Eastern cultures, it's pretty pervasive that there is a rebirth, that there is a constant recycling. It's much more vivid in that culture. So it fits right in with that culture too. And that's the key, you are here. You are here. Do not spend your time in vain. My wife and I were walking, we were driving out of Death Valley towards Independence.

[46:19]

And it was really hot. And we saw this giant tarantula walking along the road. Beautiful. So we stopped. And we got out and we walked back to look at it. And we were just standing there about, you know, five or six feet from it when this car just came by at about 60 miles an hour and turned it into a spot on the pavement. So, that's what I think of when you sit, When I read, don't use your time in vain. There's no guarantees. You are maintaining the essential working of the Buddha way. So, how many people think that he's kind of laying this really hard trip on us?

[47:34]

Or is he just telling us something about ourselves? I think it can be taken either way, but he has made statements to the effect that Buddha Way permeates all existence and all things. So if we figure he's being consistent, then he isn't really laying so much on us, he's just telling us what we are. It kind of brings the question to mind, as far as the use of time, what we're doing, and this kind of... Our use of the dharma treasures that... Yeah.

[48:52]

That's a way of looking at it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It goes on to say, Why take wasteful delight in the spark from the flintstone? Besides, form and substance are like dew on the grass, destiny like a dart of lightning, emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash. Well, it says who would take graceful delight from the Spartan foots, and there's a whole bunch of us that would. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to remember, you know, he lost his father at two and his mother at eight, and he entered the priesthood at 13. But this is the... that's kind of concentrated, but it is the human condition. You know, it's just the manifestation of change and these bodies, these walking chemical reactions have come together out of the cosmos after many supernovas and condensations and supernovas and formed these

[50:31]

molecules and they've kind of all strung together for a little while and then they're going to go off and do something else. And somehow we arise during this whole process. Yes? I was looking at this as, what does it mean to use your time in vain? enlightenment early in his life, which is the spark from the Flintstone. It seems to me not so much as a guilt trip as saying, don't focus so much on that moment. The moment is just lighting a fire that's going to keep burning. And it's the fire that you really, it's really important.

[51:34]

That could be. I never saw it that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So you came back to this idea of the Asian culture, the idea of rebirth. You know, they talk a lot about the cycle of suffering. When you die, you're reborn into the world again to suffer more. You're constantly doing this. And the only way to escape it is by basically Nirvana, the ending of desire, enlightenment. And that's, to my mind, kind of in part what he's talking about here is that you're here, don't waste time because this is your chance to get that enlightenment, to end this cycle of suffering. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would say it's not about ending desire. There's something about that model that is always fascinating to me, because it implies that the only remedy is to not be born again.

[52:49]

It's to end life. This is the Asian view of it. OK, you're not, OK. I'm not promoting that. I think in the context of what he's writing about, he's writing to Asians in his own book. Yeah. To stop all suffering. to stop all suffering and delusion. The Bodhisattva task. Well, let's see how that fits in with what comes next.

[53:59]

Please honored followers of Zen long accustomed to groping for the elephant, Do not be suspicious of the two dragon. Devote your energies to a way that directly indicates the absolute. Revere the person of complete attainment who is beyond all human agency. I had a quote that I wanted to read for that. This is a footnote from the Waddell translation referring to this sentence. It says, Just as zazen is the practice of total reality, the one who practices it is a man of complete attainment beyond all human agency.

[55:07]

A description probably derived from the Shintao Ke, referring to one who has achieved ultimate attainment. For Dogen, this means every Zazen practitioner. So every Zazen practitioner is a person of complete attainment who is beyond all human agency. Sue and then Walt. Yes, yeah. What does that translation say? Oh, yeah, the latest one from Please, fallen followers of Zen, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, do not doubt the true dragon.

[56:20]

Devote your energies to the way of direct pointing at the real. You fear the one who has gone beyond learning and is free from effort. Accord with the enlightenment of all the Buddhas. Succeed to the samadhi of all the ancestors. Continue to live in such a way that you will be such a person. the treasure store will open up itself and you may enjoy it freely. That's pretty close. This is close, but Beyond All Human Agency takes it very far away from us. And I think it's talking about time. When there's no flow, when it's now, there's no distinctions. There's no liking and disliking. It's just now. And that's available now to anyone. Does that make sense?

[57:34]

I like it. So the human agency, you get beyond human agency by being in this moment. So human agency is some kind of a discriminatory function. Yeah. I like that. Walter. I'm interested in elephants and dragons. It's like that joke about the blind guys hold on to different appendages of the elephant. That's the image I get. Someone's got it by the tail, another's got it by the trunk, another's got it by the leg. They all have very different views. Well, you know, there's a lot of ways to I think it's really fat.

[58:46]

I think it's really skinny. Yeah. But if we, in fact... Am I enlightened now? If we, in fact, studied all of the parts of the universe and knew it intimately, we still wouldn't see the dragon. Right? Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, I think that's really good. Because it's saying, regardless of what appendage you're holding on to, Don't doubt the true guide.

[59:47]

Which is maybe the whole thing. Yeah. You know, he was writing again to his audience. They were studying lots of different kinds of Buddhism and lots of different kinds of Zen or pseudo-Zen. That's what I interpret as the different parts of the elephant. Yeah. Long accustomed. Well, only comment I had about dragons since Lori talked a lot about dragons is that the dragons that I've met, the dragons that I'm afraid of are the ones that come up and say, I'm the true dragon. I'm afraid of those. But the ones that are gentle and quiet,

[60:52]

I like those ones. This one's quiet. Dogen doesn't sound like he was too quiet. Oh, no, I... I mean, he says in there that, you know, I've got the secrets. I think if I'd have been around, I would have steered clear of Dogen. He's a scary guy. He's about as bad as Louis Alvarez. We would have gone off with chocolate. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, down the road. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Dogen was fierce. I mean, no wonder they chased him out of Kyoto. He was a formidable... It would be interesting to hear, to read some information about what the guys who did the chasing were thinking about them. Yeah. Yeah. Were they Semeru?

[61:57]

No, it's probably Tendai sect. They had arms. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's why they had to stay up in the hills because they wanted them down in Kyoto. Yeah. Well, What I liked about this last sentence is... Gain accord with the enlightenment of the Buddhas. Succeed to the legitimate lineage of the ancestors Samadhi. Constantly perform in such a manner and you are assured of being a person such as they. Your treasure store will open of itself and you will use it at will. So this is what he promises if we do this practice, which was outlined.

[63:11]

And that's a really strong promise. Well, it doesn't say you can fly or anything, but I remember, I only remember Suzuki Roshi making one promise about this practice. He said, you will cry a little less and laugh a little more. That's all he promised. But I like the confidence that your treasure chest, treasure store will open up itself. I mean, and you will use it at will. We can live as though everyday life was enlightenment, and it's all around us, and it just flows out of

[64:24]

the connectedness of all beings. And if that is actualized, not in our brains, but in our actions, in our bodies, in our being, then we use it at will. And if it's not that way, then go set. And I think that sums up what he has to say. So now we'll just finish with questions. I don't know, when we were talking, I just realized, I always pictured that as, at some future time, my storehouse, you know, I mean, and probably it'll never happen, but if it is gonna happen, it's at some future time when I've really been practicing hard.

[65:40]

I just, I mean, probably other people get this, but I just realized, oh, but, you know, we all have moments of that. Yeah. When we're in that place, and our treasure store, And then we go back to sliding the lid down. Yeah, doing what? Coping for the elephant. Discriminating. Don't discriminate. But yeah, I think it's just like sitting Zazen. That's why Zazen is such a wonderful tool because everything is just like sitting Zazen. And it gets you Settings us and gets you comfortable with life. And vice versa. Ross.

[66:45]

Oh, man. It's... It's the fact that our brains are so good, and so we hold all of these things. You know, I've got to make this appointment at a certain time, and I have to have that done by then. I think you can, I mean, sometimes it happens that you just take things one at a time and they come.

[68:42]

at you, and the other ones… How can I put it? You can think so fast that you can make yourself a little schedule, and then you can do one thing at a time. It seems like we can handle… one thing at a time very well, but we don't multitask very well. Actually, we think we multitask very well, and we get real excited, but we don't seem to really multitask very well. I think there's been a lot of experiments that are showing that, especially like, say, driving and talking on the phone. And I don't have a real answer that I can vocalize other than doing zazen seems to provide a framework where you don't get attached to these time-ordered things in a way that causes you to have

[70:22]

Uh, suffering. That's all I can say. We got, we have more time if we want to, we got about five minutes, don't we? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Um, I'm wondering how you understand So, if the monk is sitting alone in his temple, and sitting in Zazen, how does that, and he reduces his own suffering. Now, does that lawfully help the suffering of all beings? Or is that, I was just interested in your idea. Well, when I start thinking about this, it's action at a distance.

[71:28]

And Newton was the first guy to come up with that. And I'm a physicist. So I start thinking about all the physical laws that I know about, and how could this monk sitting there possibly affect someone suffering somewhere else? How many people does it take sitting really good zazen to save somebody else? And I have to say that I think there is possible mechanisms, but I can't do a calculation.

[72:36]

I don't think it's impossible. I think that it's quantum mechanical and electromagnetic. I know that quantum mechanically every a particle of your brain has a certain relationship to every particle in the rest of the universe. And I know that when you do Zazen, you make certain things happen to the electrical currents up there. What's going on? We've measured those. So you're doing something. You're perturbing the fabric of the universe when you sit Zazen. I feel that regularly. Yeah. And the question is, what does it do to those other people?

[73:45]

And my feeling is that we're not trying to stop pain, and we're not trying to stop death, and we're not trying to stop starvation, but we're trying to stop suffering. Suffering requires a self that suffers. And when you set a certain pattern in your brain, it affects the other ones, maybe very little, maybe very much, but it's not impossible that you're helping other people. I mean, if I could quantify it and measure it and get a law passed, then we could

[74:51]

put it to work, but you can't. But I think that it can and does happen, and I've seen it happen. So, not just in Zazen, but in the power of our chanting. in our services. So, Russ? I'm reminded of the story in the Buddhist time of the mother who lost her child and she went to him for solace and he said, we'll go to a house where there's a mustard and give me a mustard seed from where someone has not died and she goes and she can't find any household and then she's free and she realizes that And it's also true that we actually, through sitting, expand out and realize that the whole universe is suffering, is experiencing some form of the suffering that I have felt.

[76:16]

And in that interconnectedness, we can find our freedom. So it kind of seems to go both ways. Physically, I don't know how that would be explained by that. Yeah, it's the same thing. They would say it's the same thing. Yeah. Yeah, I was talking with Greg down at Tuscarora. How long are you going to stay? And I said, oh, we don't know, Linda. But they said, well, we'll stay till all sentient beings are saved.

[77:17]

So I guess they'll make a call out every couple of weeks.

[77:27]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ