For more information on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, please visit our website at www.ancientdragon.org. Our teachings are offered to the community through the generosity of our supporters. To make a donation online, please visit our website. That's profound and wondrous karma is rarely met with. Even in a hundred thousand million kalpas, now I can see and hear it. accept and maintain it. May I unfold the meaning of the Tathagata's truth.

[01:04]

Good morning everyone. Good morning. Can you hear me online? Yes. So we're in the last few weeks of the practice commitment period this spring. And so we've been studying, talking about taking in the teachings of Hongzhi Zhangshu, infiltrating the empty field. Today I want to talk about the guidepost for Silent Illumination for people in the room, that's on page 14. If you want to follow along, you don't need to. And I'll try and say something also about the guidepost for the Hall of Pure Gris on page 12. So these are teachings by Hongzha that we sometimes chant.

[02:15]

So... The guidepost to the hall of pure bliss starts, silent and serene, forgetting words, bright clarity appears before you. When you reflect it, you become vast. When you embody it, you are spiritually uplifted. So this silent or serene illumination is the name that for Feng Shui's way of teaching Zazen, or just sitting, It's actually not a phrase that... ...Hong-Chi himself uses very often, silent illumination. It was used more by... ...Lingy and other people who... ...criticized this practice because they said it was... ...too quietistic. And we know that actually, as we've been reading the practice instructions...

[03:21]

that uh uh talks frequently about responding to the world that we start by sitting settling feeling this serene illumination and then um then we go out and respond to the world so there's these two sides and they're very much part of this chant that we do, this silent, serene, upright sitting, settling within, facing the wall, settling into this body-mind. And then there's responding to the world when we get up from our seats and go out into our lives and for our non-residential sangha in Chicago.

[04:23]

We are all involved in the world in various ways. So, for Homsha, the point is, how do we, as we've been talking about, graciously share ourselves, coming from this place of calm and settling? So I want to go through some of these guideposts. for silent elimination, again silent and serene, forgetting words. This is beyond our usual language and usual cognition that's based on language, our usual way of thinking that is about subject, verb, object, and we think of the world as objects out there. But when we settle into this sitting, bright clarity appears before us. When we reflect, it will become vast. So this is about both space and time, that this sitting allows us to open up to the space of all beings, wherever in the world.

[05:33]

So we're joined online by people from New Mexico and Michigan and maybe elsewhere. When you reflect it, you become vast. Where you embody it, you are spiritually uplifted, spiritually solitary and shining. Inner illumination restores wonder. So this inner illumination is this, it's referred to as a light, but it's not as other teachers in the tradition after Hong Jin specify. blue or yellow or red or black or any particular color. It's just this inner life which we can feel. It's not particularly visual. It's more tactile. It's okay.

[06:47]

So this inner light that we feel when we settle into our inner sinning, turning the light again, inner illumination restores wonder, this sense of wondering, a sense of wonder, the sense of awe, the sense of appreciation of our life and the world, which we can feel when we take on this practice. And Hongzhi, as we've been talking about, uses many nature metaphors and nature imagery to express this. Here he says, dew in the moonlight a river of stars, snow-covered pines, clouds enveloping the peak.

[07:54]

So the river of stars is a East Asian way of expressing what we call the Milky Way. Anyway, appreciating the world around us, the world of nature, the world of people, the world of beings. It continues, in darkness it is most bright, while hidden all the more manifest. And we can feel the familiarity with this from the Jewel Mara Samadhi where it says, in darkest night it is perfectly clear. In the light of dawn it is hidden. So in the darkness of night there's a light that includes seeing all the beings, seeing ourselves, seeing our own struggles and joys and settling within. So Holmes just says, the darkest night is most bright, while hidden all the more manifest.

[09:05]

Crane, dreams in the wintry mists, the autumn waters flow far in the distance. images of how this appears in nature. Endless calculus or ages are totally empty. All things completely the same. So this is seeing the emptiness and vastness of space, but also of time. All the endless ages are empty, which is to say they're right here. Everything is empty of being objectified. David, maybe for the people online who can post the text. So as we're going through this guidepost for silent illumination, when wonder exists in serenity, all achievement is forgotten in illumination.

[10:20]

So this practice is not about achieving something. It's not about attaining something. It's about just appreciating our life, our presence, now and everything. Emptiness means that everything is right here, right now, in space and in time. Of course, we can make distinctions between Chicago and Michigan. because of the Shrum and the Mexico, but endless ages are totally empty, all things completely the same. We can see the sameness, the oneness, the wholeness of everything. This is a gift of our sitting practice, of our sustaining our sitting practice, of our sustaining just sitting and being upright and appreciating

[11:28]

ourselves in the world. So we said, so again, the guideposts for silent illumination, Aung San Su says, when wonder exists in serenity, all achievement is forgotten in illumination. What is this wonder? Alertly seeing through confusion. This is the way of silent illumination and the origin of subtle radiance. It's a kind of inner light. Again, it's not a particular color, it's just this sense of... Any word I use isn't it. That's part of the issue, that talking about it doesn't get it. But Hangzhou was a master, as we've been looking at his practice instructions, in expressing in words. something that points to this subtle radiance.

[12:31]

Vision penetrating into subtle radiance is we're weaving gold on a jade loom. This jade loom is interesting. The next line is relevant. Upright and inclined yield to each other. Light and dark are interdependent. So upright and inclined are traditional ways that in the Soto tradition we talk about the ultimate or universal and the particular or phenomenal world. And this loom in the J loom, the word, the character for loom is also the workings. It's also a machine, is how things work. And there are various places in Soto literature where they talk about the jade pivot. So there's a pivot. This is fundamental to our teaching and practice in Soto Zen, as continued by Dogen and by Suzuki Roshi, who brought it to California.

[13:43]

This pivot between seeing the ultimate, feeling the ultimate, the universal, in our sitting, the possibility of wholeness, the universal truth. So this is an ancient Mahayana Bodhisattva teaching about going back to the two truths, that there is the ultimate universal truth, and then there's the particular phenomenal truth, and we have to honor both of them. So this is this jade machine, this jade loom, this jade pivot. and we turn within and settle into wholeness, into some sense of ultimate, universal reality. We glimpse that through sustained upright sitting practice.

[14:48]

But also, we don't disregard or ignore conventional truth when the light turns readily stuck. I like to understand ego. So, they're ultimately not different, but they feel different at first. They seem different at first. And this jade womb, this jade pivot, this precious workings allow us to shift our awareness back and forth. Ultimately, they're not different. One product of sustained upright sitting is this sense of the ultimate that can persist in our everyday activity. It's not that we have to stop and think about it. We can stop and take a breath in the middle of the confusion of the world and the difficulties of our life. But they're both here, and that's what this guidepost for Silent Elimination is about, most fundamentally.

[15:55]

So again, vision penetrating into subtle radiance is weaving gold on a jade loon, jade workings, jade machine, upright and inclined, yield to each other. So they don't obstruct each other. This is also in the Huayin teaching, the Flat Ordnance Sutra, which is kind of a fundamental background to all such as Upright, ultimate, universal truth, and inclined with this leaning over to respond to the situations of our life in the world. They yield to each other. They pivot from each other. Light and dark are interdependent. Not depending on sense faculty and object,

[16:57]

at the right time they interact. So in the practice instructions we've been looking at, often Hongzhi talks about our perceptions and the subtlety of listening and sounds and the subtlety of seeing and visual objects and not being caught on either side of that. So here in this guide goes for silent illumination, He says, upright and inclined yield to each other. Light and dark are interdependent, not depending on sense faculty and object. At the right time they interact, so everything comes up together. We are aware of the world around us and within us. So I'm just going to go through all of the lines.

[17:59]

Some of them are more, maybe more useful than others. Drink the medicine of good use, beat the poison smear drum. This is a strange reference. The poison smear drum is a reference to a drum, and this is an old Indian lore, Indian Buddhist lore, that there's a drum that when you hit it, it's not poison, it's actually the sound of awakening. That can reverberate to us. But here, that's how Hongjo refers to it. When they interact, killing and giving life are up to you. So we have this basic precept of not killing, which also means supporting life and vitality. Through the gate, the self emerges and the branches bear fruit. So the self is the starting point maybe, turning within.

[19:03]

But then all of the branching streams coming from this source of our awareness, they emerge and they bear fruit. So this is also a reference to the Buddha and all of the lineages and all of us as children of Buddha who continue this practice, this teaching. Only silence is the supreme speech. Only illumination, the universal response. So, ah, and then responding without falling into achievement, speaking without involving listeners. So, ah, only silence is the supreme speech. we settled into silence in our city. And Shakyamuni Buddha, Buddha of our age, was said to teach from silence.

[20:05]

And there's this famous story of Shakyamuni holding up a flower and Mahaka Shapa, considered the first ancestors, one of his ten great disciples, smiling. And that was the first transmission or conveyance of the true dharma-eyed treasury, according to these stories. Only silence is the supreme speech, only illumination, the universal response, responding without falling into achievement, without falling for all of the way our culture emphasizes Achievement, getting ahead, getting more, accumulating consumerism and spiritual consumerism, spiritual materialism, trying to get ahead in some way, even trying to be the best Zen practitioner or something like that, which is just really silly.

[21:12]

Anyway, only silence is the supreme speech. Only illumination is the universal response, responding without falling into achievement. speaking without involving listeners, again, not being caught up in objects. So I appreciate all of you here and online, but I'm just talking. And, you know, each of you hears it in your own way. And hopefully it's helpful in your practice. So there is silence and there is response. respond to the suffering of the world. We try and be helpful. The 10,000 forms majestically glisten and expound the Dharma. All objects certify it, everyone in dialogue. So we think of, you know, the world out there as 10,000 separate forms of objects. But actually, these are all Dharma gates.

[22:16]

We will chant our poor bodhisattvas later and we say Dharma gates are boundless. We don't know how to enter them. Every situation in our world, in our everyday activity, is an opportunity to feel this deeper ultimate truth. And it's not that we have to think about it and try and impose it on the difficult situations of our life and the world, but it's there in the background. when we continue sustaining this right sitting, it's there. And each situation is an opportunity. Each situation is an expression, an expounding of the truth, of reality, of the Dharma. So this next section I'll just go through. No objects, all objects certified in everyone in dialogue.

[23:17]

So Dogen later says, When you carry yourself forward and experience myriad things, that's delusion. Project ourselves and our ideas and our perceptions onto the things of the world. That's what's called delusion. When the myriad things come forth and experience themselves, that's awakening. And we're included in that. We're amongst the myriad things. We're not separate from the things of the world. We are among the things of the world. We are expressions of this earth, each of us, in our own particular way. So he says dialogue and certifying, they respond appropriately to each other. And I've talked about response in the practice discussions, practice instructions of Om Chia, where he talks about response and an appropriate response. And so here, Om Chia says they respond to each other appropriately, and the great teacher from the 9th to 10th century, Yunmen, founder of one of the five houses of Chinese Chan,

[24:28]

was asked, what is the teaching of the Buddha's whole lifetime? And he said, an appropriate response. This is a challenge to us. How do we respond appropriately to all of the difficulties of our life and the world? And to the joys in our world and the playfulness of our life? If serenity neglects illumination, Merkiness leads to wasted dharma. When silent illumination is fulfilled, the lotus blossoms. The dream awakens. Oh, I skipped a line. If illumination invlets serenity, then aggressiveness appears. That sort of sounds funny. How could illumination produce aggressiveness? Well, we need to have this settling, this calming practice to help us to respond appropriately. And, you know, insight. So take me back, step back.

[25:32]

Silent illumination is an echo of an earlier teaching in Chantai Buddhism. Actually, it goes back to India. In Chinese, it's Chirguan. It's stopping and seeing is one way to translate it. It's settling, turning within, turning away from the things of the world. to settle into this serenity, this stillness, this silence, and then the other side of that is insight. Here he talks, so Hongjo is echoing that. It's not exactly the same, but silence and elimination are this pair that are part of our zaza, both. So the sixth ancestor said, when we settle into samadhi, in meditation, insights appear. It's true. Some of us can testify to that, that as we sit and settle, whatever's on our mind, whatever problems we're having this week or this lifetime, you know, sometimes insights arise.

[26:44]

We don't have to stop and go and write them down. They're part of us now, when these arise in the settlements. So, Again, this is a shamatha vipassana in Sanskrit, qiguan in Chinese, and that's part of what Huncher is playing with, with this silent illumination. So here he says, when illumination, when insight, seeing into the heart of things, insight is not the same thing as knowledge, it's seeing clearly, just this, what's happening right now, in the world or in our body-mind. But when that He says, neglects the calmness of serenity, then we can become aggressive. We can become pushy. And so this is about balance. Suzuki Roshi talked about losing our balance against this background of perfect balance.

[27:48]

So if illumination neglects serenity, then aggressiveness occurs. If serenity neglects illumination, Murkiness leads to wasted dharma. How could there be wasted dharma? It's kind of a funny phrase, but when our settlements doesn't also include seeing into what's happening right now in our body-mind, in the world, then murkiness, sleepiness. Being sleepy in and of itself is not a problem. Because it happens, we're going to be doing a three-day sitting, seshing, in a couple of weeks. And it's possible at some time during such a sitting that we feel this murkiness. And then the truth, the reality, the teaching is kind of wasted because we're not getting there. But sleepiness doesn't have to be wasted. You can pay attention even when you're sleeping.

[28:50]

So I'll be talking about that later in the year. Where silent illumination is fulfilled, the lotus blossoms, Hongjo continues, in this guidepost of silent illumination. When silent illumination is fulfilled, when we are integrating both sides, the upright and the incline, the illumination and the settledness, the serenity, a lotus blossoms, The dreamer awakens, a hundred streams flow into the ocean. A thousand ranges face the highest peak. All of the mountain ranges are gathered together. Like geese preferring milk, like bees gathering nectar. These are images from the Mahaparnama Sutra, which I want to talk about at least a little bit in the guidepost for the quality of bliss.

[29:52]

When silent illumination reaches the ultimate, I offer my teaching. The teaching of silent illumination, of serene illumination, penetrates from the highest down to the foundation, down to the source. So in his practice instructions, Songzhi talks about the source, which is not something that happened, you know, back in history. It's right now. It's part of it. It's dependent colorizing. our experience, within and without, arising right now. The teaching of serene illumination penetrates from the highest down to the foundation, the body being shunyata, or emptiness, connected to everything. The arms in mudra, so mudra is just a particular hand position, and we can say that the Buddha mudra is just sitting upright on the altar there, but this we do often is a mudra.

[31:03]

This hand position we put in our belly during meditation is a mudra, and there are many others if you look at other Buddhist statues. Anyway, the arms and mudra, from beginning to end, the changing appearances and the 10,000 differences are one pattern. So that's an interesting word, the pattern of all the changes and differences. And then there's this reference to something that's in Chinese culture. So Feng Shui talks about, uses references, like we might use a reference from Shakespeare. She'll be in on the balcony and we know what that means. seeing Romeo and Juliet, or to be or not to be, as Daniel said. These kinds of references from Shakespeare are part of, you know, our everyday discourse, or references from rock politics.

[32:08]

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be. Anyway, this next line may be mysterious. Mr. Ho offered jade to the emperor, and Mr. Shang Wu pointed to his flaws. So this goes back to a classical Chinese story. Erling and then Ho had this large rock which he knew was inside a jewel, and he offered it to the emperor. The emperor thought it was just a rock, and he had his assistants cut off one of the feet of Mr. Ho. Mr. Ho had persisted and managed to offer it to another ruler who did the same, so he lost both of his feet. But eventually, an emperor realized that this was a big jewel. And within this rock, so you've seen, I guess, geodes or rocks that inside are beautiful. So the story, again, this is a classical Chinese story, that this minister of a later emperor, Changwu, offered it to another emperor, and the emperor,

[33:23]

appreciated it and accepted it but then he he had promised that he would uh free uh that he would give to the to chungwu's uh master a number of cities in exchange and then he and chungwu saw that he wasn't going to do that so this story is complicated chungwu managed to get the this rock and take it back to his master anyway. That's what that line is about, which seems mysterious to us, but it's a classical Chinese reference. Facing the changes has its... So he's been talking about patterns. There's a pattern to all of this. And part of that is the ruler stays in the kingdom, the general goes beyond the frontiers. This is a kind of... warlike image that i'm not so fond of but it's a it's a metaphor for the buddha just sits stays in that kingdom the general the bodhisattva goes beyond the frontiers bodhisattvas go out and are helpful that's what this actually refers to our schools affair hits the mark straight and true transmitted to all directions without desiring to gain credit so

[34:49]

This is not a practice where you get credit for it. It's not about, you know, oh, I'm a great Zen teacher. I'm a great Zen practitioner. You know, that's not helpful. So, but we do convey it in our everyday activity from having this experience of settling into sitting. We have something to offer. So we do share it. Bong Jo says also, graciously share yourself in your everyday activity. So I want to hear your comments or questions about this, but I just want to say a little bit about the beginning of the Guidepost for the Hall of Pure Bliss, which is another chant we do, which is another poem by Bong Jo. And I just want to say a little bit about the beginning of this, and maybe sometime I'll talk more about all of it.

[35:51]

But by seeking appearances and sounds, one cannot truly find a way. The deep source of realization comes with constancy, bliss, self, and purity. Its purity is constant. Its bliss is my self. The two are mutually dependent or interdependent, like firewood and fire. The self's bliss is not exhausted. Constant purity has no end. Deep existence is beyond forms. So I'm going to go back to this. Constancy, bliss, self, and purity. So, many of you have chanted this. We chant sometimes the . So you can take away this. We chant this short chant for the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

[36:56]

And it's , and , [...] And you may recognize that these are the opposite of primary teachings, historical teachings of the Buddha. So constancy, bliss, self, and purity are the opposite of change, tranches, Anyway, constancy as opposed to impermanence. Bliss or as opposed to suffering, dukkha, which are basic teachings, early teachings of the Buddha.

[38:10]

Self, instead of anatman, non-self. So we are used to this teaching of non-self. There's no self. separate from everything else. But here, the Buddha, this is from the Mahaparnirvana Sutra, where the Buddha talks about these four, constancy, bliss, self, and purity, purity instead of defilement, which is one of the usual four. And the Buddha explains in this Mahaparnirvana Sutra, which obviously Hongzha was deeply versed in, that he taught impermanence and suffering, and non-self and impurity or defilement as an antidote to the way that people usually see these things. So we first have to hear about impermanence, suffering, non-self. But then in the Mahayana version of the Buddha's last teaching before his nirvana, he turns it around and he talks about this.

[39:16]

Chotrakagajo, constancy, bliss, self, and purity, which are actually what the Buddha says in that sutra, the way things are. But he had to teach the others before people, the opposite, before people could hear them. So anyway, this is... The Mahapara Nirvana Sutra, which has been recently, part of it has been translated by Mokpa as the Nirvana Sutra, so that it's available in English now. And part of it talks about Joratha Gajra, in sign of Japanese, constantly bliss, constancy, bliss, self-impurity. which the Buddha says in this sutra, this sutra just before he passed away, that this is actually the nature of our reality.

[40:27]

So, I'm sorry, this is a controversial teaching to introduce at the end of this talk, but that's what it's being referred to in this guidepost for the Hall of Pure Bliss, which we chant sometimes, and in the image of Bukenonjo, which we chant in Sano-Japanese sometimes. So, I can keep babbling, but we're getting close to time, but I want to have to give time for questions and discussions, and I imagine that there might be questions about the guideposts for the silent illumination and the beginning of this guideposts for all of your guests. So, comments, questions, responses, here in the room in Lincoln Square Zendo or online, Please feel free for questions and responses. Okay, I see. I was just wondering about this little story, this Chinese story of Minister Ho and the Emperor and Shangru.

[41:35]

Yes. And wondering what the cliff note message is, because usually in these Chinese stories they're sort of like little pithy message. And so what would you take away from that in like everyday American English. Okay, thank you. Yeah, good question. So, the point is that sometimes there's a jewel and we don't recognize it. That's the first one. The rest of that story, though, was like the... Yeah, that's the first part. Then the next part is where Minister Shangru offered it to another emperor who realized that it was valuable somehow. And he wanted to take it, but he had promised to give the king who was offering it who Shang-Ru was acting on their behalf. He promised to give him some cities and Shang-Ru was pretty astute and he saw that that wasn't going to happen. So the longer story, not the cliff coast, is that Shang-Ru said, oh, I want to show you something about this jewel.

[42:38]

And he took it and he held it against a wall with his head so that if they tried to do something that would shatter. That's the story, anyway. I don't know how these rocks and jewels actually work. I'm not a geologist. But the point of the story is that Shangru could see the deception that was happening, and he managed to get the jewel back to take it back to his camp. So what's the pattern here? It was your question. What is the everyday meaning of this? First, again... So, take care of the jewel. Take care of the jewel. And don't give it to thieves. Yeah. Deceptive thieves. Don't use it improperly. Yeah. And take care of it and keep it well. The non-sexness is intimately transmitted. Now you have it.

[43:40]

Preserve it well. So how do we... take care of this jewel of practice, of this jewel of surreal illumination. And yeah, it's a funny story. But anyway, it's a Chinese classical story like Shakespeare might be for us. I don't know if it's the Analects or, I think it's some other early histories or some other early classic Chinese text. Maybe I have a footnote. It's a story from the Warring States period of China, which was 480 to 220 BCE. I'm not sure what text, but it's an old story. Oh, one place it's found is in Hanfei Su, basic writings. I think that's a particular or classic Chinese philosopher. So thank you.

[44:45]

You know, I just wondered, like, Chinese person heard this and then told me what it meant. What would they say? Yeah, well, I'd do my best. Don't shop your jewel around. Don't, you know, take good care of this jewel. And sometimes it's not apparent. Sometimes it just looks like an old rock. So, thank you. Other questions or comments or responses to any of this? Please feel free. Yes, Doug? Okay. Maybe I had a question, too, about this line, the crane dreams in the wintry mists. I really love that image, but I'm just wondering if that's a reference to something else as well. It might be, but it's also just this image, the crane. Cranes are wonderful animals. In East Asian lore, cranes have great longevity.

[45:49]

So they're sacred in Taoism. The goal of practice was longevity. So cranes, I don't know if cranes actually have very long lines, but that was the story in East Asian. So that's in this silent illumination? Yeah. Like seven or eight lines down there? Yeah. And there's another line from another poem by Hongzhi where the cranes are in the high trees and the trees fall down when they're seeing the cranes fly away. So all of these images from nature that are in Hongzhi, we looked at some of them in the practice instructions. A lot of them have particular references in them. Chinese culture. Yes, Douglas? Well, I also thought of it as the crane being viewed only, not being viewed clearly through that mist, very much like the silver ball filled with snow here in Hidden in the Moon.

[47:04]

It's there, it can be discerned, but it's sort of blending into the background at the same time. Yes. The particular is disappearing into the more absolute general world, universal. Yes, and so that, yes, and that, thank you, that calls up this interplay between, you know, the particular phenomena and this, the wintryness, the background of total interconnection. So these images from nature are used by Mongeau in that way. Thank you. And the crane is dreaming, too, which speaks to its agency, I suppose. And just the ability to discern the crane dreaming on our part is the deep interconnectedness between us and the crane, maybe.

[48:07]

Yes. I also took the crane as a tame practitioner. It's a dream that we're all living in. And the mist is also the boundless vastness, so there's no separation, like I think Douglas was pointing out. I think of the crane as a crone. Yes, that's a wonderful... English language pun, you know, which wouldn't have been available in the original Chinese or Chinese. And that's, you know, I really like those when we find bilingual puns. That's the playfulness. So, I talked about Hongjo advising, romping and playing in samadhi. Playfulness with all this material. It's not about necessarily what did Hongjo or Dogen mean when they said this, but also in translation in the habit of me, so thank you.

[49:11]

Is there another comment or question or response? David Ray. I'd like to ask you to say more about the beginning of the guidepost for the... all of pure bliss, and those contraries of the three marks of existence, and sort of the, I don't know, sort of maybe the psychology of it, something like that, you know? You mean the four? Well, it's four, isn't it? But it's the three marks of existence, and then I'm like, wait, what's up with purity? Because defilement isn't one of the three marks of existence. Ah, it becomes a fourth? Yes, and stories about Shakyamuni's early teachings. Ah, I see. Well, those marks of existence are kind of, psychologically, they feel kind of like relief.

[50:16]

You know, Douglas often says nobody really, at least in this culture, comes to Zen Buddhism because their life is so awesome that they want to practice. And, you know, it's a relief to hear those three marks of existence. if, as I think maybe most people, one feels in some way, oh, my house is on fire and I'm being devoured by internal creditors, and all those feelings, and to be told, well, yeah, actually, this is how the world is. The world is quite unsatisfactory. And then to learn that those things are empty and that they also include the contraries, or they're not separate from the contraries of themselves. I'd just like to hear more about how to think about that, because I feel like it's not just an exoteric teaching about life being miserable, and that's why you're miserable, my friend. On the one hand, and then an esoteric teaching, oh, by the way, these things are actually empty and include their contraries. Yeah, so these contraries, as you say, constancy with self,

[51:23]

So this self isn't the self of the ego self. So when we talk, so part of what, and it's been a while since I've looked at it, and that's a whole separate talk, but what Shakyamuni Buddha says in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Mahayana Sutra of his passing away, there's a much shorter one that's in Theravanna that is also available, but he goes on about how people don't, can't understand, can't really get that there is constancy, there is bliss, there is self, there is purity. But they see them in a twisted way, so that he had to teach, first of all, impermanence, suffering, the dukkha, non-self. The self that he's talking about here is not the self of the personal ego self. It's this larger self that is, everything arising together, that we are included in.

[52:26]

Sometimes they have Self in a capital S in some English translations. So, in the Mahāpārāvāna Sutra, he talks about this at great length, and he says that people weren't ready to hear, when he, after, you know, his first teaching, after Chaktanūni awakened is, in the Flower Ornament Sutra, which some of us chant monthly, the Abhatamsaka, the Chinese Huayin Sutra. And that's kind of this amazing psychedelic, wondrous sutra. And the story goes that after 49 days of proclaiming that, Nobody could understand it then. Maybe very few people are willing to even listen to it today. So then he came back and met his companions from who he had been practicing asceticism with, and they saw that something had happened to him.

[53:41]

They asked him, and that's when he taught the Four Noble Truths, which the Four Noble Truths are the opposite of these four. In those terms of purity, constancy, less, and so on, are terms that also used to be, were in earlier traditions used to refer to nirvana, not actual qualities of nirvana, because nirvana has no qualities, but they are the opposite of samsara, and so ease is the opposite of anis, sukha is the opposite of dukkha, and so on. Even Dogen uses that when we talk about it. In Maidana, when you collapse the difference between Nirvana and Sansara, this world is itself. This constitutes a purity and so on. Even Dogen in Phukhan Zazen, he talks about the reality that appears before us in Zazen, that's the gateway of joy and bliss. Yes.

[54:43]

Dogen also was very much influenced by the Mahākārīvāna research. Well, I was thinking about this. How come? How is it that people aren't ready to hear these teachings? What's that about? Because on the one hand, I feel like it's wisdom that seeks wisdom. Like we come to practice because we're seeking. some liberation from the suffering that David Ray is referring to. And then, these teachings are very liberative, right? Yes. So, you know, it is true, of course, that the early version of what the first sutra that Buddha taught, you know, it's the middle way. But that middle way also includes the extremes in some ways in the Mahayana, I would say. And so there's an inclusivity, or I wonder if we're ready for these things now in our culture.

[55:48]

With all the division that's occurring, that there's also a cry for connection and openness and inclusivity, and that we're working with this culturally. So I'm just sort of reassociating to this kind of like what aren't we ready to hear? Are we not ready to hear that somebody who has a different opinion than me is actually a valid human being who needs care and love? Well, that would be wonderful if we all understood that. But we resist that because of our psychological limitations maybe in our biology that wants to divide everything in good and bad and on and off and whatnot. Yeah, we're caught in dualistic perception and thinking, I would attribute some of it to our culture too. Our culture, our consumerist culture emphasizes, you know, getting ahead, getting credit, you know, accumulating stuff, you know, as if that's the point of my life.

[56:55]

But is that different than Shakyamuni's culture in India 25,000 years ago? I would say somewhat. I still couldn't hear it, so maybe we're really in trouble. I think we're really in trouble. And what you were saying earlier about how the non-difference between samsara and nirvana is exactly to the point, this is basic Mahayana teaching, that all the suffering, you know, all of our angst, you know, psychological and physical suffering and famines and wars and all that. You know, that's the world we live in. And the encouragement in our consumerist society to get more and more and more. And we have to get all the things that are advertised in all the TV commercials or whatever. You know, that takes us away from seeing the wholeness.

[57:58]

Yes, Jerry. But isn't that sort of the beauty of Zaza, that when you sit, and you realize that suffering isn't necessarily better than bliss. That devilement isn't necessarily better than purity. And then as you sit and they merge together, then you get to the bliss. But when you think that one is better than the other, you can't hear. That's right. And so this is a yoga class. practice, where we're actually modifying our physiological and psychophysiological responses to things that frighten us. And I see that Anastasia has something to say. Yeah, yeah, so Anastasia is better and different. I have a question that may or may not be in part online with whatever's going on, but where does fear So we talk about not being ready in this time and other times, so where does fear fit into any of this, and does it?

[59:05]

Sure. I mean, it's, you know, you look around and you see all the violence in the world and all the prejudice in the world. And, yeah, so that's part of what, it's a big part of what prevents us from seeing that, and on this rightness, I'm sorry, to seeing that there is constancy of self-impurity And fear is encouraged, I would say, by the people who want us to consume more and more and more and the people who have power and want to have more power. So that's sociological criticism. But yeah, fear is also an animal thing. You know, we see some threat outside and there's fear of flight. And so, yeah, this is deep. psychological stuff, too. And so, you know, I feel like maybe I should apologize for telling you about constancy, about constancy, purity, constancy, bliss, self, and purity.

[60:16]

Maybe that's a disservice to all of you, but this is the Dharma, actually, and this is what Homge is talking about, and Dogen also. you know, comes from this place. And I have to say, in response to what David Ray said, I have to say something personal. So I think it's true that many people come to practice, you know, out of some great difficulty, out of some great sadness or suffering. That's true in our culture and probably always. I have to say though for myself, I had intense questioning as a teenager about all kinds of things. It was during the horrible Vietnam War and all that. But at the time when I actually started formally practicing, my life was in pretty good shape. I had a great job.

[61:18]

I was getting a good salary. I was happily married. And I just heard about Reverend Nakajima, who was such a priest, and I had been exposed several years before to looking at wonderful Buddha and Bodhisattva statues in Kyoto and Nara, and seeing the law gardens, and so I had known something about Buddhism, but then I didn't know I could have anything to do with it. But then, several years later, I heard about Nakajima Sensei and went to the Zazen instruction, and immediately, so I'm just talking it for myself, just as an exception to David Ray's generalization, that it just really clicked, oh, this Zazen is what I've always wanted, and I feel this wholeness about everything, and doing just this first period of Zazen, and of course he was talking about Dogen at the same time, so I had to figure out who it was, anyway, just to say that,

[62:23]

It's true. I think I might not be the only person who came to practice from being in a very good, happy place. But I don't know. Maybe I'm unique in history. Well, I just want to say, maybe I came to practice in two stages, one of which life was grand and glorious, and another of which it was in a shambles. This thing that you're saying about these four contraries, I want to go back to the thing that Jerry said. Jerry, you said a radical and amazing thing. Zazen presents us with the possibility, I think I heard you say, that joy might be preferable to suffering. Right? And that is a radical thing to take on, because those four things, the jo, raku, ga, jo, are scary. They're scary because they're... In some ways, they're unfamiliar Seneca. The Roman Stoic says that one of the reasons that we feel a lot of grief and pain is that we think we're supposed to.

[63:24]

We think we owe it to somebody to feel pain all the time, and so we do. Yeah, so they're challenging, too, in addition to being exciting and scary. Interesting. Because there's a grieving, David. There's a grieving of holding on to pain and difficulty and the holding on to bliss and purity. I don't think I meant to say that one is better than the other. I meant to say that they're both equally enjoyable. Well, you know, this may be part of why Chakyamuni Buddha didn't teach these other four until the end of his life. because he would get some blow baths. Yes, Brian, hi. Hi. You mentioned in passing some time ago, selfless capital S, and it made me think that perhaps one way of looking at these four things is seeing the oneness of the ultimate and conventional, that impermanence is a kind of constancy.

[64:45]

suffering can be, as Jerry was maybe pointing towards, part of overall bliss, ultimately, strangely. Non-self is ourself, and impurity is a part of the purity of all. Very good. So you've got both conventional and ultimate. It's true, isn't it? Yes, yes, yes. These words are you can say something that's either true or not true depending on which one you do. Yeah, we get caught up in words. Yes, thank you very much, Brian. Yeah, I think that's right. Exactly. That constancy includes that we're aware of impermanence. It's not separate from impermanence. It's constancy that includes impermanence. Bliss includes that we have some sense of the suffering of ourselves and the world.

[65:46]

includes it has to and this is in the mahabharana sutra but you're saying it more clearly than i did self includes that we've seen how our limited ego self is not ultimate so this ultimate self includes that and even purity includes awareness of how we see impurity so it's it's it's what what i'm just saying in this guidepost for silent elimination is to see both sides. To see that, to see the serenity, to see the insider illumination, but that doesn't negate impermanence and non-self and suffering. It's just a wider sense. I think that's what you were saying Brian, that's really important. There's a wider sense of including all of our experience. Yeah, and that ultimately there are all of the inconstancy and impurity and non-self is our constancy and self and purity.

[66:59]

Thank you. Good. Yes. It's a way of... I'm sorry? That's what Jerry was saying, too. Yeah. Yes, yes. Thank you. That's exactly right. It's this different view that Shakyamuni wanted to let us know about. in his last teachings, and the Mahayana and Mahapana Ravana Sutra is very fast, maybe it's longer than the Plano Ravana Sutra, but it was here clearly something that was important for Hongjo and it was important for Dogen, which talks about it in his Buddha nature essay. So, yeah. So this, This seems opposite to the original teachings of Buddhism recurred, that there's impermanence, you know, everything changes. There's suffering, another suffering, gosh.

[68:02]

And there's non-self. Our idea of our self is a phantom. But then there's a wider set. Anybody online have any comments or questions before this time? Okay, well maybe not. This is a challenging teaching, but it's part of what has been saying that we've chanted. So, anybody else in the room, masters? Okay.

[69:03]

So, thank you all very much. There's announcements, but first we'll chant the four bodhisattva vows. They're on page 36 in the chant book, and I will also share the text. Things are numberless, we vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible, we vow to cut through them. Karma gates are boundless. We vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. We vow to realize it. Beings are numberless. We vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. We vow to cut through them.

[70:05]

Dharma gates are boundless. We vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. We vow to realize that beings are numberless. We vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. We vow to cut through them. Dharma gates are boundless. We vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. We vow to realize it.

[70:51]

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