Before I start, I'll give you a little news update. I'm going to leave tomorrow, and I'm a few days earlier than I expected, because I seem to have developed a little hemorrhoid problem, I think, and I want to get it taken care of, because I have two sachets to deal with. the first month. So I want to make sure that I have time to do that. I don't think it's anything serious, but it's something that's there. So after breakfast. Okay. We were kind of in the middle of the first rank on page 67.

[01:51]

And we got not too far, actually. So I'll just kind of go over it again. I'll start at the beginning again. OK, well, at the top of the page, Tozan Ryokai's verses on the five ranks.

[02:56]

This is the poem. The apparent within the real. We went through this last time. I'm just going to read it. In the third watch of the night before the moon appears, no wonder when we meet there is no recognition. Still cherished in my heart is the beauty of earlier days. So this is the rank of the apparent within the real, which donates the rank of the absolute The rank in which one experiences the great death shouts Ka, sees Tao, and enters into the principle. When a true practitioner, filled with power from his secret study, meritorious achievements, and hidden practices suddenly bursts through into this rank, the empty sky vanishes and the iron mountain crumbles. Above, there is not a tile to cover his head. Below, there is not an inch of ground for him to stand on. The delusive passions are non-existent. Enlightenment is non-existent. Samsara is non-existent.

[03:59]

Nirvana is non-existent. This is the state of total empty solidity, without sound and without odor, like a bottomless clear pool. It is as if every fleck of cloud had been wiped from the vast sky." So this is, you know, this is the story of Dasan, Tokusan. uh, in Bhutan, Lungtan. This is a koan, actually, in the Lungtan. I think it's number 13. Um, I've got one of my favorite stories, one of my favorite Zen koan stories. Um, Topsan actually was a very famous Zen master, And when he, in his maturity, he had many students, Seppo and Ganto, no, Seppo and Ganto, and Uman was Seppo's disciple.

[05:10]

And when Tokusan was a young man, he had studied the Diamond Sutra extensively, He was a scholar of the Diamond Sutra, actually. He used to carry all the commentaries in a pack on his back and go around expounding the Diamond Sutra. He knew all the commentaries by heart. He read the Diamond Sutra hundreds of times and was an expounder of the Diamond Sutra. rather peeved that these so-called Zen masters were talking about enlightenment and practice without being attached to the scriptures. So he set out to have a little Dharma combat with them.

[06:19]

and to put them in their place. This was around the ninth century in China. And so as he set out, after he set out, he went to where there were various, where he knew there were various Zen masters. And on the way, He stopped at a little shop, a little tea house, tea shop on the side of the road, which this elderly woman was running. And she sold these little tea cakes. They were in Chinese called mind refreshers. And so he thought he would like to have a couple of tea cakes. And she said to him, what is that that you've got on your back? He said, well, this is the Diamond Sutra.

[07:23]

And he explained himself that he was a renowned scholar of the Diamond Sutra and what his mission was. And she said, oh, the Diamond Sutra. She said, Well, I'll tell you what, if you can answer my question, you can have these tea cakes for free. Otherwise, you have to pay me something. So he says, oh, OK, just ask me any question. And she says, well, in the Diamond Sutra, it says, past mind, future mind, and present mind cannot be grasped. With what mind would you eat these mind refreshers?" And he was completely stumped. She really stumped him.

[08:27]

And he felt a little at a loss. She says, well, you know, if you do, as you say, want to visit a Zen master, Master Lungthang lives up the hill, up the mountain. Why don't you go visit him? So he said, OK. So he took his stuff and he went up the mountain to visit Lungthang. Lungthang means dragon pond. Is that the name of the story you told? And so when he got to the top of the mountain and he met Lungthang, he was this little old man, kind of unassuming, nondescript fellow. I don't see any dragon pond around here. And Lung Thang said, well, this is the dragon pond.

[09:31]

This is what you see is what you get. So Lung Thang invited him in and they started talking and they talked all night. And actually, Doshan really began to have a lot of respect for Luntan and began to see where he was coming from. And they really had a very nice meeting. And it was getting late, and Doshan's room was outside of Lungton's hut. So Lungton said, it's time, why don't you go to your room and I'll give you a little lamp so you can find your way. So he, in those days they had paper lanterns.

[10:34]

And so he lifted the paper lantern and just as he was handing it to Lungton, to Dushan, he went, life of light and the whole place was just in pitch darkness. Everything was gone. And then Dushan had this tremendous experience of the first rank. Just everything was completely, not a tile above his head, not a bit of ground under his feet, Everything gone. Completely gone. And it was a tremendous awakening for him. The next day he went out and burned all of his commentaries on the back of the cemetery. Which is kind of a shame.

[11:37]

People do extreme things and extreme circumstances. There is also a koan about the great death in the Blue Cliff Record. Too often, the disciple, considering that his attainment of this rank is the end of the great matter, and his discernment of the Buddha way, complete, clings to it, to the death, and will not let go of it. This is like, you know, at the end of this koan, this is also a koan in the blueprint record, Darshan's enlightenment experience, and it says, this is wonderful for, something I'm paraphrasing, Darshan had a wonderful awakening,

[12:48]

He must spend the next 30 years refining it. So that's like, although he had this wonderful experience, he still had to not stay there. That's the beginning of understanding, but it's not the end. Too often the disciple, considering that his attainment of this rank is the end of the great matter, and his discernment of the Buddha way complete, clings to it, to the death, and will not let go of it. Such as this is called stagnant water Zen. Such a man is called an evil spirit who keeps watching with a corpse in a coffin. Even though he remains absorbed in this state for 30 or 40 years, He will never get out of the cave of the self-complacency and inferior fruits of Pracheka Buddhahood.

[13:50]

Therefore, it is said, he whose activity does not leave this rank sinks into the poisonous sea. He is the man whom Buddha called the fool who gets his realization in the rank of the real." You know, in the Hokyo Zamae, it says, merging with principle is still not enlightenment. That refers to this, this kind of understanding. It is enlightenment, but it's just the beginning of enlightenment. It's not that it's not enlightenment. It's just not complete. agitation and vexation, love and hate, he will find himself utterly helpless before them, and all the miseries of existence will press in upon him."

[15:27]

This is like... I've known many people who just like to sit Zazen all day long. And I remember I had this one friend who was a student, many years ago, And he was a really wonderful guy. But he used to just sit zazen, he'd come to the zendo and sit zazen in the morning. Then he'd sit zazen all day long, and then in the evening he'd come and sit zazen again in the zendo. That was all he did. And it was like he needed to do something else, you know, he needed to activate his life in order to express and to be involved in life. I mean, here's a kind of example of this, what Hockman's talking about here. And one of the kind of dangers of Soto Zen, you know, Soto Zen is also called the silent illumination school, Wanshi Shogaku.

[16:42]

who was the proponent of the Silent Illumination School. And that's a wonderful name. And I think it's a great way to talk about our school. But it came under criticism because it seemed like too much quietism. And it's easy to fall, actually, into quietism. There's so much Zazen. People just like to sit, but they don't like to be motivated to do anything else. So a strong practice is to be able to engage in activity with the same concentration as you engage in zazen, so that there's no difference. And our practice is to go back and forth, zazen, activity, zazen, activity, until finally it just becomes zazen and activity is just one thing. So you don't feel any different, actually, coming to Tassajara as you do being in the midst of Market Street in downtown San Francisco.

[18:02]

Your life should be that well integrated. So you should be, so that you can come and go without any feeling of transition. Say that again? Yes. Sure. I remember the first time I left Tassajara after my first practice period and went out into Carmel and Monterey. And the cars were just speeding by so fast. Getting into that whole world was really something. I could do it, but it was a tremendous contrast.

[19:04]

And I remember going to the grocery store and getting something and bowing to the cashier. But I must be jaded. My practice is no longer that pure. Jaded or what? Well, I don't know. It might go on. So this last paragraph actually is quite nice. He says, therefore, as long as the person remains in his hiding place of quietude, passivity, and vacantness, inside and outside are transparent and his understanding perfectly clear, the moment of bright insight he has thus far gained through his practice comes into contact with differentiations, defiling conditions.

[20:13]

So we think we have some quietude. We think we have some subtleness. We think we, you know, Things are going pretty well until, boom, you know, you bump into some vexation, something that gives you a little problem, and then you're back and you don't know how to handle it. So it's good not to stay at Tassajara all your life. It's good to go back and practice in the city, get involved, the life of, you know, we think, we feel that people are kind of silly in their life. And when you really see it, clearly you can see how people just go around in circles.

[21:16]

just creating big problems for itself. But at some point we have to be able to enter into those problems without being caught by those problems and without creating karma for ourselves through those problems. This is actually Bodhisattva practice. Excuse the words. You can't stay in a comfortable life. You have to test yourself out and mix with people. Otherwise, all of what you think you've gained doesn't really mean so much. It's just kind of private practice. Make yourself comfortable.

[22:23]

So he says, it was in order to save him from this serious illness that the rank of the real within the apparent was established as an expedient. So the next rank, page 68, second rank. The real within the apparent. So in this rank, the real The dark is hidden within the light. And this poem, I'll try to explain it. The sleepy-eyed grandma encounters herself in an old mirror. Clearly, she sees a face, but it doesn't resemble hers at all. Too bad. With a muggled head, she tries to recognize her reflection, thinking, as she says, that this poem, as it's translated, here puts too much emphasis on the sexist, in a sexist way, talking about the old lady, rather than coming to the point about what the poem's about.

[23:39]

But anyway, there's several stories, actually, about what the story's about, about an old woman who woke up in the morning and she looked at her head in the mirror. She looked at herself in the mirror and her head was gone. Couldn't see her head. And so she tries to see, to recognize that what she sees in the mirror doesn't look like what her idea of it was. She's actually, and so in this The way this poem is used, it's like looking, really seeing yourself, but you don't recognize yourself. And it refers to the realm of phenomena.

[24:41]

This is, you know, Tozan's poem? Tozan's Enlightenment poem is related to this. When Tozan was leaving his teacher, Ungan, after Ungan had given him dharma transmission and sent him away, Tozan was, there were parting words where Tozan said, well, when I describe my teacher to people, how should I describe them? And he said, just say, just this one, is." Something like that. And Tozan left, but he was still not quite sure what Hungan meant. He had some little problem with it. He wasn't really quite resolved on what Hungan meant by just this. And so he was crossing a stream, wading across a stream, and he looked down and he saw his reflection in the stream.

[25:51]

had this tremendous revelation. And then he wrote a poem about it. And the poem is translated in various ways, but one translation is, don't look somewhere else to seek him, or from him you will stray. As I go on alone, I meet him everywhere. He is what I am, but I am not what he is. Such should not be one's comprehension to unite with things as they are, or dustness, or hit. So in other words, everywhere I go, I see my own reflection. I see the whole world as a mirror. is everywhere. And so this is the touchstone for Tozan writing the Okyo Zama if indeed he did.

[27:02]

All of his experience from the past and from his lineage kind of coalesced in his experience. And then he passed it on this way. So what does it mean to see your reflection everywhere? And what does it mean to see your reflection in the mirror? Are mirrors the only objects that reflect? And when you do look in a glass mirror, what do you see? You say, well, I see my reflection. I see myself in the mirror. But what we see is an image of our face, right?

[28:05]

But the mirror itself is the true face. Because the mirror itself has nothing to say. Just like our true face has nothing to say, nothing special to say. Therefore, it reflects our true self. So when Tozan looked at the water, what do you think he saw? Some distorted image of his face? The water itself is his face, his mirror. Every place I turn, he says, everywhere I meet him, everywhere I turn, I meet myself and I also meet my teacher.

[29:16]

So this is reflective of his poem. She encounters herself in an old mirror. She wakes up and looks in the mirror. She doesn't recognize herself. Clearly, she sees a face, but it doesn't resemble hers at all. Too bad, with a muddled head, she tries to recognize her reflection. If the disciple had remained in the rank of the apparent within the real, his judgment would always have been vacillating. which he viewed as prejudiced. In other words, one-sided. Therefore, the Bodhisattva of superior capacity invariably leads his daily life in the realm of the six dusts. Six dusts means the six senses. The realm of all kinds of ever-changing differentiation. All the myriad phenomena before his eyes

[30:27]

the old and the young, the honorable and the base, halls and pavilions, verandas and corridors, plants and trees, mountains and rivers, he regards as his own original and true and pure aspect. It is just like looking into a bright mirror and seeing his own face in it. If he continues for a long time to observe everything everywhere with this radiant insight, all appearances of themselves become the jewel mirror of his own house. And he becomes the jewel mirror of their houses as well. And then he quotes Dogon. He calls him Ehe. He calls him by the name of his monastery. Ehe has said, The experiencing of the manifold dharmas through using oneself is delusion. The experiencing of oneself through the coming of the manifold dharmas is satori.

[31:29]

This is just what I've been saying. This is the state of mind and body discarded. Discarded body and mind, which is also a saying of Dogen's. It is like two mirrors mutually reflecting one another without even the shadow of an image in between. Mind and the objects of mind are one and the same. Things and oneself are not two. A white horse enters the reed flowers. Snow is piled up in a silver bowl." This refers, of course, to the Bhagavad-gita. There's reference to snow in a silver bowl right here in the moonlight. They're subtly, they're different, and yet They all, each one looks white, the backgrounds and the foregrounds, but when you bring them all together, you see that each one is actually different. And Snow in a Silver Bowl is a koan, case 13 of the booklet fragment.

[32:45]

And then he says, this is known, this is what is known as the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. What is Samadhi? I talked about that last time, I think. Samadhi, the ever-present continuation, the ever-renewed continuation of the present the awareness of the ever-renewed continuation of the present moment, moment after moment. You know, there's many aspects of time, but two aspects are continuous time and discontinuous time. Continuous time is just now. There's only, no matter how long or how short time is, it's only, it's just now, because there's nothing to break it up.

[33:55]

Discontinuous time is the time that we usually consider as time. It's broken up by the 12 hours of the day, and by the 60 minutes of the hour, and so forth. This is, we, it's discriminated time. or discontinuous, not continuous time, because it's time of moments, discrete moments. But in continuous time, there's only one discrete moment, and it lasts forever. So on this continuous time, we overlay discontinuous time, and call it 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, We take a piece of salami and cut it into different parts and distribute it. So we take one continuous salami and cut it into discontinuous pieces, discrete pieces.

[35:05]

But time, discontinuous time is just one piece. exist now in a continuous time. Yesterday, to the past, present, and... Yeah, past, present, and present. ...Darshan, she says, what the Diamond Sutra says, past, future, and present time cannot be grasped. In other words, you can't grasp the past, you can't grasp the future, and you can't really grasp the present. Although, we can We can't grasp it, but we can be it. You can be it, but you can't see it, so to speak. Just like you can't see your own face. So in order to see our own face, we have to have a mirror.

[36:11]

And in order to see the Dharmakaya, in order to see our own subjectivity, we have to look at it through our eyes and see ourself as objects. In other words, objects in ourself are, even though we call them objects, this is also discontinuous being. There's continuous being and discontinuous being in the same way that there's continuous time and discontinuous time. So continuous being is all objects and myself are one, because there's nothing to discontinue it. But discontinuous being is myself and objects. Everything is separate in discontinuous being, in discriminated being. So mind discriminates, but it doesn't have to always discriminate.

[37:17]

But we have to realize that The discrimination is something that our mind overlays on continuous being. So that's what Suzuki Roshi calls one big being. continuous being expresses itself as myriad things. So he says, this is what is known as the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. This is what the Nirvana Sutra is speaking about when it says, the Tathagata sees the Buddha nature with his own eyes. When you have entered this Samadhi, though you push the great white ox, he does not go away.

[38:18]

I have to explain that. There's a story, kind of a nice little Zen story about, from Chang Ching Toan, 793 to 823. And he had this nice little story. He was apparently a student of Isang. And he wrote this little gatha about the ox. At that time in China, there were many stories about oxes. Ox means you're you know, the ox-herding pictures, the ten ox-herding pictures, ox means our being, looking for the ox means looking for our Self, our true Self.

[39:29]

So, actually Isan, Master Isan apparently has 100 circles in which he described, which he used to describe various aspects of practice. At the time that Tozan was making his circles, the circle was very popular, you know, as a teaching means. The Oxford Pictures Circle, they came later, actually. And Isan had a hundred circles, apparently. I've never seen them, but I've seen some of them. One of the circles that I remember is, there is a cow eating patience grass. Patience? Patience grass. Cow eating patience grass inside a circle. Anyway, here's Chong Ching's poem that he's referring to here about the ox.

[40:36]

He says, I lived with Isang. I lived with Isang more than 30 years. Sometimes the translation says, I lived on Mt. Isan. But actually, that's what it means. Mt. Isan, with Isan. Because Isan's the teacher, right? That's his mountain's name. I lived with Isan more than 30 years. I ate Isan's food. I shit Isan's shit. But I didn't study Isan's zen. All I did was look after an ox. If he got off the road, I dragged him back. If he trampled the flowering grain in other people's fields, I trained him with a whip. For a long time, how pitiful he was. At the mercy of men's words, now he has changed into the white ox on bare ground and always stays in front of my face.

[41:38]

All day long, he clearly reveals himself. Even though I chase him away, even though I chase him, He doesn't go away. That's a nice poem, huh? Yeah. It's one of my favorite poems. So this is what he's referring to. He says, this is what is meant by the expressions. No. He says, this is what is meant by the Jomer Samadhi. This is what the Nirvana Sutra is speaking about when it says that an antagonist sees the Buddha nature with his own eyes. When you have entered this samadhi, though you push the great white ox, he does not go away. That means it's the end of practice. You're seeking something, you know. Seeking the great white ox. Just tending to your practice for 30 years. You're not even studying with Esau. He just sits down with you and you take care of business.

[42:43]

day after day for 30 years, and dealing with this ox. But at the end, even though you push the ox away, it still won't move. It's still just there all the time. So then he says, the universal nature wisdom manifests itself before your very eyes. This is what is meant by the expression, there exists only one vehicle, the middle path, the true form, the supreme truth. The universal nature wisdom is also called the equality wisdom. So this is the wisdom where ego, when ego is turned,

[43:47]

It becomes the universal nature wisdom, or a great equality. You see everything equally. This is without discriminating. No discrimination. Yes? If this is the end of practice, then why are there more manifestations? It's not the end. You said it was the end. Oh, yeah, well I meant... Yeah, I did say that. In connection with the dual mirror samadhi, he says, this is what is known as the dual mirror samadhi, and then he says, even though I chase him away, he doesn't go. I said, that's the end of practice. When the ox won't go away, isn't it referred to the second way? No, I wasn't, yeah, I know. Don't get hung up on the words. Don't get attached to the words.

[44:53]

I'll say something, you know, because this is just pointing at something, right? This is not a system. It's just pointing at something, right? So if I say it's the end, that's okay for that moment. That's what I mean. But I don't mean it in connection with all the rest of this. Anything else I said, I just said it for that. I'm not sure that I understood what you meant, just for that moment. Because the end doesn't mean the end, also. The end, you know, means also just the beginning. stuff like that. The very end of practice is called beginner's mind.

[45:55]

This would be the end of a particular practice, not at all a practice. Well, when I say this is the end, it means for a kind of end of a phase. Because there is no end of practice. Every end is just a new beginning. But it is the end of a phase of practice. It's a culmination of 30 years of practice for somebody where the person is no longer running after something. And the thing that he was running after he can't even, now he can't even get rid of it if he wanted to. And that's the end of a phase. In the next paragraph, Hakuin says that if a student stays in this state, he'd be living in a deep pit of fixation in a lesser rank of bodhisattvahood.

[47:04]

I'm not sure I see what exactly is missing in this state. I haven't got that for you. OK. But my question is, I'm not sure what. It seems like there's nothing really missing if you're always Where can you go from there? What is stuck in that position? I haven't got there yet. So he says, when you have entered the samadhi, you push the great white ox, it does not go away. The universal, and then there's a semicolon there, the universal nature wisdom manifests itself before your very eyes. So that's referring to the wisdom of actually seeing everything as yourself.

[48:07]

That's what that means. Universal nature wisdom means that you actually see everything as yourself. You see the whole universe as yourself. And that's when ego is turned. Ego no longer sees itself as a separate peace of the universe under, but sees the universe as myself. That's what Dogen means when he says, things advancing, or things confirming you, rather than you confirming advancing. But it's reciprocal. As soon as, when things confirm you, you also confirm them. They're also confirmed by you. But the emphasis is on merging, letting go of your side so that you can identify with everything.

[49:13]

That's what the emphasis is on. So he says, this is what is meant by the expressions, there exists only one vehicle, the middle path, the true form, the supreme truth. Well, one vehicle. Do we all know what the one vehicle is in Buddhism? In the Lotus Sutra, it talks about the three vehicles. I don't want to go into all that, actually. Bodhisattva vehicle. the Buddha vehicle, rather than the Pracheka Buddha vehicle, or the Shravaka vehicle. But if the student, having reached this state, were to be satisfied with it, then, as before, he would be living in the deep pit of fixation and illusory running.

[50:27]

And then he explains what he means. Why is this so? Right? He asks your question. Why is this so? Because he is neither conversant with the deportment of the Bodhisattvas, nor does he understand the causal conditions for a Buddha-land. So, these first two ranks are complementary. One is the Absolute, and the other is the Relative. And there are two sides of one. existence. And as I said the other night, you know, the word is is the most important part of that. You know, is looks like a passing term, right? Kind of connecting term. Little words like is and it are actually very important because is

[51:33]

or within, right? The relative within the absolute, or the absolute within the relative. The within, or the is, like form is emptiness, emptiness is form, is means right now. And right now is what both relative and absolute are about, they're about right now. Because that's all there is. So Dogen, Dogen's understanding and his whole practice is concerned just with this now in which everything else is that's what everything else is talking about that's what the absolute is referring to and that's what the relative is referring to it's they're both referring to now and they're both aspects of this now or within or however you what you use the term whatever term you use to connect them

[53:00]

So, Dogen, that's one reason I think why he didn't appreciate the five ranks so well, so much, because he wanted it simpler. Five ranks get a little more complex. He wanted to express himself in a simpler way. Even though... He does not understand the causal conditions for a Buddha land. A Buddha land is a... The land is like... Each one of us has a, let's say, a land What do I call it? Not a land, but an environment that we live in. Each one of us has an environment that we live in and we create our environment.

[54:16]

There are various phenomena that constitute the environment. But each one of us creates our own environment, even though we're all sitting here in the same room, so to speak. Each one of us is creating our own environment from our own center, and our own view and vision, and the way we receive the information, and the way we relate to everything around us. And we do. and our own kind of aura, our circle. I guess you could speak of aura in various ways, but each one of us has a field, a gravitational field in which we attract things, attract phenomena, attract each other,

[55:24]

with which we repel each other and repel various beings. And so each one of us creates our own environmental world out of the stuff that's around us. And when we come to a place like Tassajara, I really tone down our environment, our energy in order to be able to harmonize in this particular environment. And we create a common environment that we can all practice in. So each one of us has a kind of human field.

[56:27]

environmental field, and others enter into it, and we enter into each other's environmental fields. And a Buddha field is a Buddha's environmental field, in which the Buddha teaches and acts, or acts out his life. And so, you know, as a Bodhisattva, Or instead, let's say he's a Zen student. As a Zen student, each one of us has an environmental field, a kind of Buddha field. And when we go out in the world, how do we set up our Buddha land, so to speak? Are we at the mercy of the world, or do we actually set up some environment in which people can feel, can find the Dharma?

[57:44]

So a Buddha's environment, or Buddha-feel, as it's called, is a place where the Buddha sets up the Dharma and people can find their way and find the Dharma within that field. So anyway, it's kind of interesting. So he says, he says, in this, this is a lesser rank If it becomes fixed in this rank of bodhisattva, it's called a deep pit of fixation in the lesser rank. It tends to be dramatic. Why is this so? Because he's either conversing with the deportment of the bodhisattva, or does he understand the causal conditions for a buddha land? Although he has a clear understanding of the universal and true wisdom,

[58:50]

He cannot cause to shine forth the marvelous wisdom that comprehends the unobstructed inner penetration of the manifold dharmas." In other words, even though he has this understanding, he's green. Not ripe, that's what he's saying. He's just not ripe yet. That's why they have the other three ranks. The first two are the fundamental. This is like a baby Bodhisattva who has not gone out in the world yet, not been around the block, so to speak. Baby Bodhisattva who has not been around the block. He has all the stuff. He has the understanding of reality in both the absolute sense and the relative sense, but he hasn't tested it out in the world. He doesn't know what to do. He hasn't put himself into the meat grinder of society yet.

[60:01]

He's untested and kind of naive and fresh-faced. He cannot cause to shine forth the marvelous wisdom that comprehends the unobstructed inner penetration of the manifold dharmas." The unobstructed inner penetration of the manifold dharmas is the fourth position of the Avatamsaka school. And I'll tell you what that is, if you're interested. The Avatamsaka The Kegon philosophy developed the four positions which relate to Tozan's five positions. In a way, Tozan was probably influenced by the philosophy of time from the Avatamsaka Sutra.

[61:09]

was very influential for Zen. Actually, the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Kegon philosophy, is the philosophy of Zen. Zen has been most heavily influenced by that sutra. So, the Four Dharma Doctrines are This is a kind of commentary on them. It makes it a little easier. When one is absorbed by all, one penetrates into all. When all is absorbed by one, one penetrates into one. All penetrates into one. When one is absorbed by one, one penetrates into one. And when all is absorbed by all, all penetrates into all. So the last one, when all means all phenomena, The last one is the interpenetration of all phenomena with all phenomena.

[62:18]

In other words, every phenomena completely interpenetrates with every other phenomena without obstruction. So when he says, He cannot cause to shine forth a marvelous wisdom that comprehends the unobstructed inner penetration of the manifold dharmas. Unobstructed inner penetration of the manifold dharmas means that all phenomena harmonize with all other phenomena. Because He doesn't yet have, even though He has the ability to do this, He doesn't have the experience. So this is like all of us. We all have the ability, but we don't have the experience. So the next three ranks talk about the experience.

[63:22]

Does that make sense? Is the unrestricted penetration the same as the brutal one? unobstructed penetration meanings of all things with each other. Let's see what he says. Nor does he understand the causal conditions for Buddha-land. Although he has a clear understanding of the universal and true wisdom, I think that Buddha-land would contain all four. Not just the fourth. Not just the fourth. But he does mention the fourth here as the highest one. See, it's like, yeah. I was going to say, it would be possible that he's going to relate that to the...

[64:32]

Yeah, in what way? He's talking about this universal true wisdom. Yeah, that's right. So there's something going on there in terms of turning the light on. Right. The first was the mirror wisdom he has. And he also has the universal wisdom. He has those two wisdoms. But he doesn't yet have the marvelous observing wisdom. That's the wisdom of differentiation. That's the one where, if you don't have that, when you enter the world, it destroys you. Because you can't comprehend what's going on. You know, the world is too much for you. Well, his gatha is complete.

[66:07]

Because it's the inner penetration of all things. All phenomena. So, the fact that you were just talking about it before in relation to the dual merismon, the second rank and so on, doesn't mean that it's excluded in this one. Right. Everything is really included. You know, we're looking at it from this angle, and we're looking at it from that angle, and we're looking at it from this angle. It's like you're looking at this, you know, many-faceted thing, huh? It's kaleidoscopic. It's kaleidoscopic, yeah. When you talk about this refining, though, what do you mean? What did I say refining about? Well, the commentary on that. Oh, I see. He had to refine his... Yeah. Right.

[67:11]

So, Dushan had the primal experience, but he didn't have the development coming from his enlightenment. So, he had enlightenment, But then he had to spend the next 30 years developing his practice, refining his practice after enlightenment. And this would be the next three positions, which would illustrate what that development is. So the burning commentary is from the crane, actually. Yeah. That's right. So he says, We cannot cause to shine forth the marvelous wisdom that comprehends the unobstructed interpenetration of the many four dharmas. The patriarchs, in order to save him from this calamity," you know, there's a lot of humor in this too, right?

[68:15]

"...that provided the rank of the coming from within the real." So that's the third rank, the one in the middle. The one where you have a circle, a white circle, and within that a black circle. And the black circle is the real, and the white circle is seemingly, or phenomenally, right? I'll read the commentary. The coming from, I mean the poem, the coming from within the real, with nothingness, I don't like this word nothingness, within emptiness, there is a path leading away from the dusts of the world. Even if you observe the taboo on the present emperor's name, you will surpass that eloquent one of yours who silenced every tongue. So I'll talk about the poem a bit.

[69:19]

The coming from within the real is like activity extending from stillness. And Suzuki Roshi one time defined Genjo Koan as your practice, your life, as it extends from Zazen into activity. That's Genjo Koan. That's the definition of Gengi Wulong. Your life as it extends from Zazen into activity and back. So it's back and forth again. So it says, coming from within the real, with nothingness, there is a path. Now that's very interesting. There's, within emptiness, there is a path. See, we think that, I mean, we're very used to our paths.

[70:24]

And we don't think of our paths as being paths in emptiness. We think of our paths as being paths in form, right? But actually, our paths are paths in emptiness. You know, we have certain marks that we relate to. When on an empty field, There's no signposts. When you get out in the middle of the ocean, in a boat, then you can, and with no land inside, and no oars, and no food, and no nothing, you know, then you can really experience that emptiness. That there's a path in emptiness, but wait a minute, where is it, you know? And so Tozan actually talks about the bird's path. You should follow the bird's path. The bird path is, you know, the bird knows where the bird goes, but there's no trace, or there's no trace of where the fish swims.

[71:30]

There is a path, but it's a path of emptiness. And we have certain signposts which give us clues, you know, to how to make our way in the world. Like what? Well, you know, we have somebody starts walking someplace and they walk back and pretty soon the grasses are even navigating, you know, like the North Star and Venus, right? So we pick out certain signposts that give us a way to navigate. and we're constantly navigating. But actually they're just posts, you know, they're just... and we create our little world and we go around in it, you know.

[72:36]

But we forget the fact that it's all based on nothingness, on emptiness. As soon as you put a dot on a piece of paper then you have a relation point Because if there's no dot on the paper, there's nothing to relate to. So we create our world by reference points. And we're constantly creating reference points for our world. You know, we call it our world. And then after a while we just take it for granted. Did you ever see Art Crumb's cartoon? about, well, the first one is this beautiful empty meadow. First picture is a beautiful empty meadow. Then the second picture is a cow walking across the empty meadow. I think I'm kind of paraphrasing. I can't remember all the pictures. And then the next one is somebody walking on the cow's trail.

[73:43]

And then there's a wagon going along the cow's trail. And then there's a house over here, and a wagon. Then there's a house over there, and some people. And then there's a store. And then there's more wagons. And then the road gets a little, and then the trail gets into a path, you know? And then it gets a little bit bigger, and then it becomes a road. And then pretty soon there's more houses, and there's a town, and there's a, you know, village. and then there's automobiles, and then there are telephone poles, and then there are airplanes, and then there are power plants, and pretty soon this place is just grimy. You know, the telephone poles and the telephone wires look overdone, just dominating the sky and garbage all over the place. But actually, if you really look, there are places where the telephone wires really look like that.

[74:48]

There are places where you do this. This guy is blind with his light. Anyway, kind of interesting. Here's this place with almost no reference points. And then the catalogs, you know, it makes a reference point and then everybody follows in the track. 37, you know, you have civilization. Anyway, So it says, the coming from within the real, within nothingness there is a path, leading away from the dusts of the world. It does seem to say leading away from the dusts of the world, but the meaning is not escape. It means to not be attached to the dusts of the world, to not be hindered by the dusts of the world. It doesn't mean to not ever get into the dust of the world.

[75:57]

It's like the lotus growing in the mud, actually. The lotus has to grow in the mud, but it's not too affected by it. If you observe the taboo, even if you observe the taboo on the present emperor's name, you will surpass that elegant one of yours. You're not supposed to mention the name of the emperor. The emperor may have more than one name, but there's only one name that people know. And it's not really the true name. And this is very common, actually, in old civilizations. And when you talk about the emperor, you don't mention You don't get that personal. And the name of God, you don't mention that. There are many names that you can use, but you don't mention the real one.

[77:00]

Because it's too personal. It's too identifying. In other words, we have names for the Absolute. We say the Absolute or the Dharmakaya. you know, words like that. But those, we understand that those words do not describe it. They're just, they're just a convenience. A convenient way of bringing our attention to something that can't be described. So if you say the Dharmakaya looks like this, then you fall into the black pit of hell, right? 30,000 kilometers. Because it doesn't look like that. Doesn't look, cannot, see what it looks like, or what it is. So, it's a kind of taboo to use descriptive terms. They are only indicative terms. So, even if you observe the taboo on the present emperor's name, you will surpass that eloquent one of yours, who silenced every tongue.

[78:12]

So don't limit reality by naming it. And don't boast of enlightenment experience or attainment. It means that too. So it has various meanings that people ascribe to it. It's kind of taboo to say, I am enlightened, or this is what enlightenment is, something like that. Oh, I was just in line to deliver some money. Just to name it is to relegate it to defilement? Yes. Yeah. That's right. So all these references fit somewhere in the hotel's M.I. actually. So it would be nice to study the Hokyo Zamae in relationship to the five ranks. We haven't really done that.

[79:18]

We're just looking at the five ranks. But I think we should at some point do that because this is the heart of the Hokyo Zamae. And there are many references, actually, to this back and forth. So he says, in this realm, the Mahayana Bodhisattva does not remain in the state of attainment that he has realized. But from the midst of a sea of effortlessness, he lets his great uncaused compassion to shine forth. Uncaused compassion. Dogen has a term. beyond human agency.

[80:19]

You know that term? He uses that in Vendoa. He says the effort or your activity which is beyond human agency means not ego activity but activity in which the whole universe participates. So this is ego-less activity. The sea of effortlessness means uncontrived, actually. innate compassion just coming forth.

[81:27]

Standing upon the four pure and great universal vows, he lashes forward the Dharma Wheel. We know what the four vows are, right? Seeking Bodhi above and saving beings below. This is my most wonderful statement. This is the so-called coming from within the going to the going to within the coming from. Moreover, he must know the moment of the meeting of the paired opposites, brightness and darkness. Therefore, the rank of the arrival of mutual integration has been set up. So this is like Niki Suzuki has a nice way of referring to this, Frank. He says it's like the calm center of the hurricane.

[82:30]

By standing in the center of the hurricane, which is, you know, because the dark is the center and the white is the hurricane of activity. And coming from within the real means that within the tremendous activity of life, that there's always this constant And this is what Suzuki Roshi is always talking about, being settled on. Settle yourself on yourself. Settle the self on the self. And the Zen student should always be in this calm center, no matter what's going on. This is kind of how you tell where a student is in the practice, actually.

[83:36]

I mean, this is one of the basic indicators of where a student is in their practice. It shouldn't be a false calmness. And Hokyo's and mine talks about that too. Like a tethered, cold, and tramped rat. It looks calm on the outside, but when truth comes to show, false part, But this rank is kind of referring to really, to being really settled in the dharmakaya, so that all the activity is based on that calmness of mind, so-called calmness of mind.

[84:42]

Stillness. This is the rank of stillness within activity. And activity within stillness. So that, you know, a great example is in Zazen, is apparently stillness, but our whole body and mind is in tremendous dynamic activity. Completely tremendous dynamic activity. Every part of our body and mind. This is real Zazen. But our whole body and mind is completely dynamically involved in sitting still. And then in our activity, the stillness is within every act that we do. It's the basis of all of our activity. This is actually what we should be. I can strive for this exactly, but you should always have it in mind.

[85:51]

But you can, you can work with that. It's like when anger comes up, just put it into that stillness. When vexatious emotions come up, you just offer them up, just to that stillness. because that's the thing that you want the most. If you're a Zen student, that's what you should want, is rather that, you know, anger comes up and it takes you over because unless you value that stillness or that calmness of mind more than the anger, if you value the calmness of mind more than the anger, then you'll let go of the anger in order to have your composure.

[87:06]

It's a matter of priorities, largely. So, when I come back maybe we can continue.

[87:41]

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