Okay. Well, good evening, everyone. Can you hear me okay? Thank you for showing up this way. As most of you probably know, so Lori got COVID in Paris last Friday. She came down with it, and she came home yesterday and She's still testing positive, and we're being very careful around the house, sleeping in separate rooms, eating separately, being masked around each other. But I want to honor the precautions that we've put in place at Berkeley Zen Center. And so I'm... online tonight, which I wish that I were there in person, but this is the way it is.

[01:05]

But thank you for showing up. And by way of housekeeping, say we were supposed to have an in-person Shosan, Dharma question and answer tomorrow evening, but we're not going to do that. But we will have online shows on Monday morning at 7.30. And so if you can come to that, please do and bring your questions. And we'll do our best to engage with each other. And I'm pretty sure I should be – Laurie should be in the clear. I tested today. I'm fine, but I'm still being pretty careful. and I expect to be in the clear for Sashin, which is upcoming. So, this is the last class of our practice period class studying Zen Mind Beginner's Mind.

[02:12]

I think I'm going to continue with the Saturday lecture this week and some of the Sashin lectures, at least. If not speaking from Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, certainly speaking about and from Suzuki Roshi, just so we have a complete experience of that. So today's chapter is a chapter called Believing in Nothing. And it begins in a challenging way. Suzuki Roshi says, I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something that has no form and no color, something which exists before all forms and colors appear.

[03:15]

And we'll discuss that a bit, but I was thinking, I was trying to think about whether I had any musical references to share with you, and I want to share with you a piece of a Bob Dylan song to start off. Nothing was delivered And I'll tell this truth to you Not out of spite nor anger But simply because it's true Now

[04:21]

I hope you won't object to giving. Giving back all of what you owe. The fewer words you had to waste all this, the sooner you can go. Nothing is better. [...] take care of yourself and get plenty of rest.

[05:21]

That's, that's very much, uh, it seems to me a Zen message for us. Uh, uh, I don't know if anyone has any, any comments about that. Sue? Well, I think Yun-Men would agree in his koan. Something is not as good as nothing, he says. Right, right. Um, And we have a lot of references to this in a sense. Koro Sawaki Roshi said, zazen is good for nothing. And then he said, unless you fully understand that, it really is good for nothing. And then, of course, we have... The Berkeley Zen Center banner, which we take out on certain occasions, has our logo on it, the Lotus logo, and the motto, which says, Accomplishing Nothing Since 1967.

[06:41]

So this is very good, Accomplishing Nothing. And yes, as Yunmin said, a good thing isn't as good as nothing. And Suzuki Roshi, of course, says we have to believe in nothing. So what does that mean to you? What is nothing? What does he mean by believing in nothing? I'll use N students. Somebody must have N.A. I can take a stab at it. Go ahead. Yes, please. And then I'll unmute Mary after that. Yeah. At least for me, not adding anything extra.

[07:41]

Enjoying kind of the openness and spaciousness and harmony of the moment. Okay. Mary. Go ahead, Mary. I thought we were always corrected when we experienced emptiness as nothing. And I kept reading the nothing as emptiness out of which everything arises. So I guess it's a terminology question. And I asked Yunman's question, I don't know if it's a question, but better is not as good as nothing. This is the question I have about that. Is that a way of saying that the relative is better than emptiness?

[08:49]

Is that a weighing in? On that? That's how I keep wondering. That's it. If anyone needs to mute, please do. What do you mean by... I'm not sure I understand what you mean. In terms of which question? Is he saying that the relative is... Absolutely. So what is he, he says that better, basically nothing is better than better. I mean, the whole thing about nothing is better. And I guess it feels to me like a wane of the relative and emptiness or the ultimate

[09:52]

As a comparison, is that what that statement means? The better. Deborah? You're really reverberating. I feel like you're in the Star Wars galaxy talking to us. Now? No, now you're okay. I think it was Mary's sound for some reason. Oh, okay, thank you. Yeah, I think, I mean, this is a great question. I think if I said something, I would say it's pointing to, I would say, non-attachment, non-duality. It kind of just, on a human level, I would just say, it's like dropping body and mind. It's just like trying to be present. It's a very hard thing to put into words. That's why they don't, you know, most of the, there's a con that tries to describe it.

[10:57]

Some people raise a flower, you know. That's all I can say about it. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Yeah, Marie-Tresa. What if we read it as no thing? Yeah, that's the way I read it. And in that sense, to go back to Mary's question, to me, no thing is the expression of emptiness. A good thing is the expression of the relative, because a good thing is... where we are already ascribing value and preference to something and that we'll get to that in in this chapter uh but that's the way yeah that's the way i i understand it and uh uh gary uh yeah thank you um i

[12:20]

i read this thing like the last four nights before bed and um at the end of the writing i see i got the feeling that uh no form no color um before no form no color was was saying to me that stay present Because you're waiting for form and color to come forward. I don't know if that's answering what you asked, but that's the feeling I got, is that he was somewhat getting at, at least at the end of the writing, just dropping like... Deborah said, dropping body and mind and being present.

[13:22]

Well, I don't want to jump ahead to that. Let's get to that. Pauline, did you... I think I was also jumping ahead, so I'll wait. Okay. Okay. Well... Is it okay if I unspotlight myself? I'd like to see everybody. And you don't need to see me in the center of everything here. So Suzuki Roshi goes on. He says, that is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color, something which exists before all forms and colors appear. To me, what he's saying here is that this is the potentiality from which everything arises, that it doesn't have a form, no thing.

[14:30]

It has no thingness. It doesn't have a particular form, but it has the potential according to causes and conditions. And he says that... a couple sentences later, he says, but if you are always prepared for accepting everything we see as something appearing from nothing, knowing that there is some reason why a phenomenal existence of such and such a form and color appears, then at that moment you will have perfect composure. I want to come back in a moment to that last clause, but I think this is what he's talking about, that whatever it is that we perceive as a thing is arising from this formless no-thingness.

[15:37]

Does that make sense? Jeremiah. I was just going to say that everything, everything is tentative form and color, right? No matter what kind of formation it is. But no thing, you know, is before it becomes a thing, right? So that's the way I think about it, that every last thing is tentative form and color. But before it became a thing, it was no thing. But I think that the message of the Heart Sutra is that even after it becomes a so-called thing, it's still no thing. Because it is just a confluence of causes and conditions.

[16:40]

It has no mark of identity. other than the interpenetration of various causes and conditions that take what we perceive, we perceive that to be a certain form. And I think that's... So that was my, you know, when I first started to practice, I remember the first summer I was practicing, I went to Tassajara, And there was a Mexican family who had spent some time here. Ron, do you remember? There was a family. The guy's name was Juan. I can't hear you. Yes, I remember them. Yeah, they had Juan and his wife, and they had two children, right?

[17:41]

Two really cute children. Yeah, a very cute family. Yeah, and they were at Tassajara for the summer. And so we already had met them here, and he gave a talk in the dining room one afternoon, just sort of an impromptu talk, basically on the nature of emptiness. And it was like... That was really sort of my... Just the real... compelling introduction to emptiness as potential, as complete conditionality. So it's not that nothing exists. It's that it exists in this – everything exists as the coming together of causes and conditions.

[18:41]

So there's no – you know, there's no – thing. So if you're looking, we've talked about this endlessly, you know, if you're looking at a car, you point to the whole car and you say that's a car, but you can't point to any one part of that car and say that's a car. And the car, you know, if you take away the tires, if you take away the motor, then this thing that we call a car is probably more effectively used as a planter, you know. It's a car by virtue of of all of these coming together of causes and conditions. And so that's the other side of this no-thingness. There were some hands up here. Maria Theresa. The other thing that I think is that the coming together of elements to form something is very temporal.

[19:43]

It doesn't last forever. Nope. It's a matter of time before it disintegrates into something else. So, you know, it all comes from emptiness and it's a play into emptiness. It's always emptiness. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Ron? I think Natasha had her hand. Oh, okay. That's fine. Yeah. Natasha? Yeah. Hi. Kind of what I'm hearing here is like, I don't know if folks are familiar with the concept of like shredding your cat, right? Like there's this box and the box maybe has this little grandma, either dead cat or a living cat. And you don't know until you open the box. Right. And so it's this idea of being a comfortable with the idea that you, you don't know. Right. And also that like. Yeah. Perhaps you don't describe value one way or another, right? And that when you close the box again, you do not know again, essentially, right? It's consistently swapping back and forth.

[20:46]

Yeah. It's funny. I had a mishearing of what you said. I thought you said shredding your cat, which I thought, no, that's a terrible idea. But you had Schrodinger's cat, right? Yeah. Ron? Well, I think that the beginning of the Heart Sutra is also important. All five scanners in their own being are empty. There's no own being. But there's plenty of circumstances and causes and conditions going on all the time in our relationships. But there's no own being anywhere that exists independently of everything else. Right. That's exactly right. That's a... Drawing from the text, that's exactly what I was saying about this ultimate conditionality. But in between these two sections that I read, there's another piece that I want to share with you.

[21:51]

Suzuki Roshi says, no matter what god or doctrine you believe in it, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea. You strive for a perfect faith in order to save yourself. But it will take time to attain such a perfect faith, and you will be involved in an idealistic practice. In constantly seeking to actualize your ideal, you will have no time for composure. So... This word composure is a really interesting word. Suzuki Roshi uses it a lot. Sojin used it a lot. It has a wonderful envelope of meaning. I think here, everything that we see, everything that we are, of course, is a composition, right?

[23:05]

And yet, because we have this self-centered idea, we're always trying to find the own being. We're looking over and over again for the own being because that will be the secret to the composition. And in fact, if we're constantly seeking for the composition, then we have no time to rest. in composure, in simply the being of the being in the being the composition. Does that make sense? And so it's a Suzuki or she talks about, he talks about composure a lot and it's interesting because he brings up here, he says, You strive for perfect faith in order to save yourself.

[24:06]

Of course we do that. Sooner or later, we hit a wall and we realize it's not going to work. But the faith that's being spoken of here, this whole piece to me is about faith. This whole chapter is really about faith, but it's about faith in It's about believing in nothing without making a thing of nothing. That is a kind of faith that we can drop into at any moment. Jake? I agree, and yet we also have to believe in what's outside our mind, even though everything is, it's in our mind, everything.

[25:20]

And yet every day we're confronted with this and that, people who are suffering, people who are happy. have to respond to them so there's that interplay of not believing believing in no thing and yet believing in things plenty right so the other side and i know yeah i i looking at my notes that i wrote uh yesterday the day before i had written down this um it's kind of proposition Believing in nothing, and then I put a slash, respecting everything. I think that's what you're saying, right? Yeah. And this is what Sochan was saying when he said, as we've all heard repeated many times, don't treat anything like an object.

[26:26]

Treat everything and everyone with respect. Now, it's just like things are relatively easy to treat respectfully. They're easy to treat respectfully because they don't talk back. Unfortunately, we may have noticed that people talk back and that's where it gets hard. So there's To go back to the text, if you are always prepared for accepting everything we see as something appearing from nothing, knowing that there is some reason why a phenomenal existence of such and such a form and color appears, then at that moment you will have perfect composure. That's one of those deals that

[27:33]

It's one of those places where Suzuki Roshi kind of slips in the whammy. It's like then at that moment you have perfect composure. It's like it appears to be a logical progression and yet there's also a leap there I think. And he's challenging us. He's always challenging us to make that leap. You know, we think, well, I can accept this, but where's my perfect composure? I'm not necessarily feeling it. We're constantly thrown back to look at that.

[28:37]

And the next sentence is even harder for me. Again, one of the things that I really love about Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, is that it's so inviting and so warm and that it says these things that are incredibly challenging. So, for example, the next sentence, when you have a headache, there is some reason why you have a headache. If you know why you have a headache, you will feel better. Really? I have trouble with this. Does anyone else have trouble with that? Actually, I had a headache today. And I kind of knew why I had the headache. And it didn't feel better until I took a couple of aspirin. Erna. Sorry, I don't have my camera hooked up.

[29:41]

Yeah, I, what, I kind of, I didn't know from his experience, like why he said that, because I've been reading like crooked cucumber. And so it's like, he didn't experience that when he was really ill. He said it was like torture. So, you know, and he had some rough stuff in his life before he came over here. So I don't know why he said that. I can't tell from his personal experiences if he really, you know, Especially when he goes on and talks about, oh, well, it's because you know that part of your body is healthy. Right. Otherwise it wouldn't have pain. But that wasn't what he said of his own experiences.

[30:46]

So anyway, that's always a conundrum to me. But I do think he was trying to transmit faith. He was trying to transmit faith. I think that the only thing we can do is to believe in nothing and not to be caught, not to be caught on a self-centered idea. But let's hear Ron and then Jim. Well, in terms of being sick, my favorite quote from Suzuki Roshi is when he was diagnosed with cancer, he said to his secretary, Yvonne Ran, I have a new name. It's cancer. So he basically was saying he identified with it. It wasn't that something had attacked him, but he was identifying with it. Well, the other thing that I remember from that story, which I was very moved, until he was diagnosed, they didn't know what he had, and they...

[32:00]

were concerned that whatever he had was contagious. And when he was diagnosed with cancer, what he was celebrating was, oh, I'm not contagious, so we can eat together. I remember that as part of the story. Does anyone else remember that? Yeah. Jim. In listening to Erna speak, it occurred to me that maybe understanding that you have a headache, making you feel better, it's not that the headache goes away. It's that you feel better about knowing that you have a headache, that it's just one more thing in a continuum of things that happen, some painful, some not. Right. There's comfort there. It's also, it's important to recognize that whatever afflictions we have, they are not necessarily permanent.

[33:10]

And we are not reduced to our illness or disability. There's something larger than that. Jeremiah? Sorry, my video is not on. I work until 7 o'clock, so I'm actually driving in a car, not looking at my phone. It's sitting in the seat. I work in a medical facility surrounded by people dealing with chronic illness. And, you know, I participate in all kinds of groups, like serious illness groups and all kinds of where we talk about it. And I think that... For a lot of the people that I work with, I think there is a comfort in being able to know why you have a headache. Yeah. You know, because if you know why you have a headache, you know, if you don't know what's going on, you can really worry about anything that could happen.

[34:16]

But if you know what's going on, then... It's circumscribed. And you're not necessarily adding the anxiety on top of the... the pain. Sue? Similar comment. I was raised to not know if I didn't feel well because I wasn't allowed not to feel well. So there was a vicious circle and you know being able to say oh this is because you're allergic to something. It's sort of like, not my fault. Does that make sense? It is a relief. Well, I think this is one of the things about one of the strange conditions about illness is that we can feel that we are to blame.

[35:18]

That we are to blame for the illnesses that for this or that illness. And that's usually not the case. I mean, sometimes we do things that are self-destructive and there's a consequence. But much of the time, we just don't know. And this happens because we are of a nature to grow old and to grow sick and to die. just facts. And, you know, not just... I wasn't there. I never met Suzuki Roshi. But I think all of us had an opportunity to watch Sochin through his illness. And, you know, we watched...

[36:23]

these certain abilities and things that he, he did so regularly and so easily, uh, over the last, over the, his last year, we watched those abilities drop away. Um, and, uh, that was hard to see. And he met a lot of them with a lot of grace, but also, uh, If your idea of perfect composure is, oh, it's okay, I accept it all, I don't know that we're going to ever meet somebody like that necessarily. But if we meet somebody who can take it moment by moment and move through those states of mind and those states of body,

[37:24]

then I think that's more what Suzuki Roshi is talking about, composure. But if you do not know why you have a headache or something, you may say, oh, I have a terrible headache. Maybe it is because of my bad practice. If my meditation or Zen practice were better, I wouldn't have this kind of trouble. This is what I'm talking about in terms of we blame, we're inclined. It's a self-centered idea to blame ourself for whatever discomfort or pain we experience. If you understand conditions in this way, you will not have perfect faith in yourself or in your practice until you attain perfection.

[38:33]

And you know what? You won't attain perfection because that perfection is just an idea. It's not real. you'll be so busy trying that I'm afraid you will have no time to obtain perfect practice. So perfect practice. He said, so you may have to keep your headache all the time. This is rather silly kind of practice. This kind of practice will not work. But if you believe in something which exists before you had the headache, if you know the reason why you have a headache, then you will feel better naturally. To have a headache will be all right because you're healthy enough to have a headache. Maybe healthy or not healthy. I wouldn't put it that way.

[39:36]

I would put it... To have a headache will be all right because you know you're alive. And as long as you're alive, things have an opportunity... Your life has an opportunity to change, to shift. You have an opportunity not to be caught on the circumstances of your life. Yeah, Pauline. I was going to say, I don't know that I've had this happen to me with a physical headache, but as far as emotional afflictions, anger, depression, or whatever, that's very relatable. having that sort of thing happen and then say, oh, this is happening to me because my practice is bad. If I were a better Zen student, I wouldn't be feeling like this. So, I don't know. Viewed in that context, I think what he's saying right here is very helpful for me.

[40:37]

Well, it's interesting because we have this, along with the practice that we have of The principle of no gaining idea, we also have these very early models in Buddhism where again and again the message is with enlightenment, with nirvana, all doubts are resolved. All suffering is ended. And then if you read the Paranirvana Sutra, the Theravada Paranirvana Sutra, the Pali Paranirvana Sutra, which is the sutra that's the narration of the Buddha's last days, there's pain.

[41:46]

There's discomfort. It is not... a pleasant situation, and you know that he felt pain. They didn't narrate it. They didn't talk about how he perceived pain, and he didn't talk about how he perceived pain that I can recollect. But the narrative description of what the experience was is obviously painful. We shouldn't expect that our practice will be good enough that we can avoid all difficulties like this, whether it's as we're dying or even in our life right now. I want to see if there's anybody else, anybody who hasn't spoken who would like to speak, share something or ask something. Susan?

[42:58]

So I just wonder what happens when we take the me out of the headache. Right. I mean, to me, that's what he was always telling us in the Zendo, is take the me out of the pain in the knee or the back or wherever it is. And as you're talking, it seems to me that that's what the leap is, to continue to practice taking the... the me, the myself, my headache, my pain, whatever it is, to take that out of it and observe what happens. Right, and I think that that's kind of the logical extension of believing in nothing. The ultimate nothing is oneself. The ultimate no thing is just... what we experience as the self is this flowing together of causes and conditions.

[44:00]

And we have the habit of me. And pain is a wonderful concentrator. That's a real challenge of practice to have to step back from the self-concept in the midst of pain. It's very hard, really hard. I think it can be done. Sometimes it can be done. But I think he was just, Suzuki Roshi was just urging us in that direction. Ryushin? Yeah, thank you very much for this conversation. Building on what was just said. You've got to speak up a little. Sorry that's echoing. sure what it is. But building on that to what I hear also, gosh, I'm just, I'm there.

[45:09]

Maybe it won't echo back to me. So building on that, what I hear also is for me, totally accepting the pain, totally accepting the headache. actually living in the midst of what my life completely is, which means this is going on, I may not like it, I may work, but I know I have it. That's what makes me alive is that I'm completely within my experience. I'm not outside of it. And in that way, in a way, it's less personal because I'm not trying to create something outside of myself. I'm accepting all of my life's experience. In dealing with people who face serious illness, when people actually completely embrace and accept that whatever's happening is what's happening, that's a turning point for them actually being able to live their lives, in my experience. Lizanne, you're muted.

[46:13]

Should we take a minute and just for a bio break for people? Let's just do that. You all come back now. Okay, are people coming back?

[49:04]

Jake? Oh, thank you. Just a couple of things on pain. For me, emotional pain where I know I've hurt someone... I become very entangled with myself and relating all that. It can be awful. Yeah. I personally suffer from a lot of physical pain at times. Not right now, but I get up there in the eight category fairly often. Excruciating pain, where sometimes I think, you know, I'd just rather end it all, you know, that kind of thing. And when I'm in that state of pain, there is no ego. There is just screaming fucking pain. Sorry, but it's just one sensation of God. This hurts.

[50:16]

So I just wanted to put that out there. Darlene Cohen, I really recommend people who haven't discovered her, read her about pain. Yeah, my own experience of extreme pain was when I had sepsis about 22 years ago. And I was really sort of hovering on the brink of life and death. It was just excruciating. I just wanted to jump out of my skin. And, you know, Laurie said, you know, this cliche, she said, you have to take it, you know, she said, you have to take it one breath at a time. And I said, I thought about it for a moment, and I said, okay, I'm going to, but I'm going to groan.

[51:18]

And every outbreath, I just groaned. And it was, there was no, I was not there. You know, it was just complete, engagement with that sound which was the expression of the pain and uh well here i am anyway yes that's it yeah you're muted again all right So it is absolutely necessary for everyone to believe in nothing. But I do not mean voidness. In other words, he doesn't mean existence as a vacuum. There is something. But that something is something which is always prepared for taking some particular form. And it has some rules or theory or truth in its activity.

[52:26]

In other words, things come together in certain ways ways according to the rules of the universe, according to gravity, according to genetics. You're very unlikely to see a jackalope or a snake with wings or something. Things come together according to some rules. This is called Buddha nature or Buddha himself. Then he talks about Buddha, Dharma, Sangha as three Buddha forms. He said, without this understanding, the understanding of the way things come together, our religion will not help us.

[53:40]

We'll be bound by our religion, and then we will have more trouble because of it. If you become the victim of Buddhism, I may be very happy, but you will not be happy. While you are practicing zazen, you may hear the rain dropping from the roof in the dark. Later, the wonderful mist will be coming through the big trees. And still later, when people start to work, they'll see the beautiful mountains. But some people will be annoyed if they hear the rain when they are lying in their beds in the morning because they do not know that later they will see the beautiful sun rising from the east. If our mind is concentrated on ourselves, we will have this kind of worry. And then this is a pivotal sentence. But if we accept ourselves as the embodiment of the truth, or Buddha nature, we will have no worry.

[54:46]

We will think, now it is raining, but we don't know what will happen in the next moment. If you understand yourself as a temporal embodiment of the truth, You will have no difficulty whatsoever. That's lovely. Sue? To me, the paragraph that goes on after, so it is absolutely necessary for everyone to believe in nothing, I do not mean voidness. There is something that is something. It sounds like people believe in science then. I mean, that does sound like a belief to me. I'm not quite sure how to hold this paragraph. I'm not quite sure what you mean. Well, he said, this is not just theory. This is not just the teaching of Buddhism.

[55:49]

Let's see. You know, you talked about genetics or gravity. That sounds like that could be a belief. How do we hold it? Is that a belief? If we're to believe in nothing, do we not believe in gravity, or am I just using the wrong language for this? Well, I think about teachings from Bernie Glassman, who... derived this from the Big Lebowski, where Lebowski says, you know, well, that's just like your opinion. That's what came up for me from your book, reading that. Right. And Bernie would talk about the Four Noble Opinions.

[56:52]

And We had some argument about whether everything was opinion. And I've come around to understand, I think what he was doing was that was a reframing of Yogacara teachings, a reframing of everything What everything is opinion, what it means to me is like everything that we see, everything that we perceive or think in our minds is a concoction. It's something that is cooked up by the causes and conditions of what we call our mind. We test these things out according to science.

[57:58]

The closest we can get are... We can't get to certainties. We get to probabilities, some of which are very, very likely, and some of which are unknown. So what Suzuki Roshi is saying here is... This way of looking at emptiness is not just a theory. But in a sense, it also is a theory. It's a way of looking at things that is useful. To the extent that it's useful, let's use it. To the place where you get caught on it as a doctrine, then discard it, please. I don't know if that speaks to your question.

[59:03]

Yeah, Natasha? It sounds like don't mistake the tools for the thing itself, right? We can kind of discuss ad infinitum what experience is or reality or whatever, but essentially you just have to be there, right? And like... All of these things may be helpful in helping people to understand what's happening, but ultimately it's not the leap you're talking about. I think a little bit before is the being there, and all of this can only get you so far. Right, and I just think that Suzuki Roshi's method is just constantly to encourage us to open ourselves to... to the acceptance, to be completely receptive, so to be able to take everything in. And he's just always encouraging us to do that.

[60:08]

Yeah, Mary? Following on what Natasha just said, the leap here is to have faith in something that That is ephemeral beyond conception, beyond rational thought. So we actually can't, it is a faith in something we actually can't understand by theory or by conceptual rationalization. Yeah. How can we understand anything? How can I understand that I just scratched my face? How did that happen? That's like a miracle. How many causes and conditions were involved in that? We take it for granted. We do. We can't linger in meditation on everything, but life itself, the existence, even the ephemeral existence of everything is inconceivable.

[61:22]

To move on, a paragraph later, sort of getting towards the end, he makes a shift. He says, using the Buddhist terminology, we should begin with enlightenment and proceed to practice and then to thinking. So he's asking us to take on the view that we've learned from Dogenzenji, that we don't practice to become enlightened. We practice to express our already enlightened nature. So that's what it means to begin with enlightenment. And if we begin with enlightenment, then the practice of zazen and all the other practices,

[62:26]

and everything that we do is an expression of our enlightenment. It's an expression of what I was saying a moment ago of the inconceivable mystery and miracle of our existence, which is another way of speaking of enlightenment. Then he says, thinking is rather self-centered. In our everyday life, our thinking is 99% self-centered. Why do I have suffering? Why do I have trouble? This kind of thinking is 99% of our thinking. For example, when we start to study science or read a difficult sutra, we very soon become sleepy or drowsy. But we are always wide awake and very much interested in our self-centered thinking.

[63:32]

But if enlightenment comes first before thinking, before practice, your thinking and your practice will not be self-centered. By enlightenment, I mean believing in nothing. So he comes around sort of full circle here. By enlightenment, I mean believing in nothing, believing in something which has no form and no color, which is ready to take form of color, which is what I was speaking of at the beginning as nothing as just the great potential, the potential of manifestation. This enlightenment is the immutable truth.

[64:41]

It is on this original truth that our activity, our thinking, and our practice should be based. So we still have some time. We can discuss anything that seems to have come up, also anything that seems related. Yeah, Debra. Thank you. These last words, I don't know, they just really remind me of the Heart Sutra. You know, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. I just, I really felt the speaking from there.

[65:46]

Reminded me just to say that much. Thank you. I think that's right. Rich? You're muted. Okay. Thanks. He stops short though, right? Like the extension of that is to realize that there's no separation and that becomes the basis for practice in everyday life, I think, right? Like you have to believe in this sort of, we have to understand the causes and conditions or acknowledge those causes and conditions and the no self. And then we can see that there's no separation between me and you and can act accordingly. Yeah. Well, I think that it's not so much that he was stopping short. It's just this was the particular talk that he was giving.

[66:49]

And the whole of the book is circling around certain key points. But it seems to me that the more I've been reading it, the more I think he's often speaking about faith. And faith as, not as a principle, but faith as an activity, practice as faith, as the manifestation of faith. And also, as we read in other sections of the book, what he gave us, and maybe he doesn't talk about it so much here, he gave us a practice that we do together.

[67:56]

It's one of the interesting things. Reading... reading Sojin's memoir, in his memoir, which will be out later in this year, he also doesn't talk about the dimension in which this activity that we're doing is something that we do together. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's the complete context for everything. It may be so obvious that it doesn't even need to be said, but it doesn't hurt to say it. Other comments or questions?

[69:05]

I have a question. Yeah. So Suzuki Roshi is telling us to believe it's something with no color or form. If there's no color or form, how do we know that it exists? Is it kind of like faith in other religions? It doesn't exist. It's not a thing. Words fail us. So all he says, believing in nothing is maybe as close as he could get to it at the moment. Nothing is one way to express it. Emptiness is another way. And each of those words has connotations in English that... that are problematic.

[70:15]

Which is why, for me, I... So, you know, at Upaya Zen Center, they use a translation of the Heart Sutra that Roshio in Halifax and Kastanahashi came up with. They translate emptiness as boundlessness. And... It's hard for me to make a shift in my head. I'm just so used to the language of emptiness, and it doesn't bother me. But I think that for maybe for the average person coming to Buddhism or coming to the Heart Sutra, boundlessness is a useful way to frame it. And I think that's what Suzuki Roshi is talking about. A boundless... realm without space or form or color uh out of which things emerge does that make sense yeah that makes a little more sense yeah yeah okay yeah i mean that's what i was thinking is that

[71:43]

something which has no form or no color which is ready to take form and color is the present so like you were saying uh emptiness you're just talking about emptiness well everything comes out of it and takes form and color which is basically a present moment It takes form and color in, yes, in... It only appears in the present moment. And then in the next moment... It appears again. It appears differently. Yeah, all right, right, right. Yeah. I mean, the difference is maybe minute. I mean, it's like looking at frames of a motion picture that from frame to frame... which are going by 24 frames a second or something, the movement is almost imperceptible.

[72:50]

But as those frames flicker across through the lens and across the light, then it creates the illusion of movement. But each frame is distinct. And Dogen talks about this. This is a whole other discussion. Dogen talks about the Dharma moment and the Dharma position. Talks about nin and yin. And this is something that gets taken up in Genjogon. Oh, Lori. Hi, everybody. She emerges from the shadow. I wasn't planning to emerge, but what I just keep thinking of... is that he's doing this thing where he's trying to get you to not believe in all the things you believe in, in a funny way. You know what I mean? I mean, he's trying to sort of help you extricate, because these other things that you keep believing in, these things, just keep changing and failing you.

[73:59]

So he's sort of, I just, that's where I keep going, is like, oh, he's... Look over here. Get your money out of that. Take your money out of the stock market and put it in nothing, you know. But it's because that's the only way you'll have composure because your composure is always going to be thrown if you have something you're connecting to, you know, that you're counting on, basically. You can be like Lehman Pong and take all your possessions, put them in a boat and take them out to the middle of the lake and sink them. Yeah, right. But you don't even have to do that. No, you don't have to do that. But what you're saying to me is very much aligned with, I think that is what Bernie was getting at. Yeah. You know, it's the same message with a different vernacular. Yeah, because when we tighten up, it's always around something we thought was going to happen or wasn't going to happen or we're counting on or not counting on.

[75:05]

Yeah. Clutch, it's always around comparing what's happening to what we thought was going to be happening. And so if we just get away from that somehow, he's giving you a little way to do that if you can grab onto it or non-grab onto it. Yeah, I think that's right. Sue? Well, I have a note in my book that Lori taught this class. I taught this class on this chapter in May of 2020. Really? Yeah. But I didn't take notes on what she said or what I understood. But I thank you for that opening, Lori. And I hope you feel better. Anyone else?

[76:15]

We can certainly end a few minutes early. And it's been very, really good discussion tonight. Let's see. Last coordinator. Yes. Thank you. If you're looking to... Well, I'll read this. This is from... Sandy posted this for Ryushin, I believe. Is that right? The class coordinator expressed thanks to all the members who made our hybrid class possible. Sandeep, Joe, Jonathan, James, Gimpo, and Ross, and to everyone for your participation. Thank you. Carol? Well, I keep thinking about the Xin Xin Ming Sutra. You know, life would be perfect. If you had no opinions, it's easy. But we can't, we have opinions.

[77:20]

That's the way it is. I think the whole thing is remembering, oh, there I go again. That was my opinion or that was my belief or that's my thought. You know, it's not real. It's just seeing it again and again and maybe getting pulled into it. Right. So the chinchinming, the first lines of the great way is not difficult. If only you don't. You have no preferences. You have no preferences. And to me, that's an expression coming from the absolute side. And that is very important. What Suzuki Roshi is always doing is And what Sojin was always trying to do was to speak of the interpenetration of the relative and the absolute. So never speaking just from the absolute side, because the absolute includes the relative.

[78:28]

Even the authors of the Xin Xin Ming, they were putting... All texts are given in a certain context. There's a moment in which... and there's a circumstance under which they are generated. Maybe in that situation in which the fourth ancestor composed the Shenzhen Ming, he felt like his students were caught in the relative and needed a strong dose of the absolute. But that's not the final word. If you attach to that as the final word, then you're going to have trouble. Of course we pick and choose. It's like even if we get up in the morning and wash our face and brush our teeth, that's picking and choosing. We have to do that.

[79:31]

We don't live in the absolute, but the absolute is always... with us in its interpenetration with the very mundane things of our lives. So that may be a good place to end for tonight. Thank you so much for this class. I really appreciate meeting with you. It seems we had really good discussion tonight and I'm glad that we managed to do it even though I'm being really careful about my health. So I will see you this weekend. And also someone could everybody mute themselves? Someone is echoing. Anyway, let's chant Bodhisattva Vallas.

[80:33]

Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma-gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it.

[80:59]

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