Teacher Dogen, when he wrote the Fukanzazengi, he was referring back to a text that was one of the most commonly read meditation manuals in China, one of the most popular ones. And that text, there's quite a few quotes from that text in the Phukan Zazengi that Dogen wrote when he, not too long after he came back from China. And then he wrote some other, he wrote three versions of the Phukan Zazengi. One is lost. I think maybe the first one is lost, I'm not sure. And then a second one, and the third one is the one that we chant. So we're chanting an instruction for meditation that's later in his teaching career.

[01:06]

But the early one that we have And there's another one, early one, that we don't have. In the early one we do have, or the earliest one we do have, it seems that he's quoting from this other text, which we also have, this Chinese text. And I told you earlier the beginning of that text, I think, which was bodhisattvas who aspire to practice prajna, they should start by generating great compassion and aspiring to the mind of enlightenment and making great vows. and endeavor to develop samadhi.

[02:16]

That's the introduction to the subject. Dogen did not quote that part. But I think that's a basic message of a lot of teachings of the Great Vehicle. If you want wisdom, you start with compassion and making vows and develop tranquility, samadhi. So here we are. Maybe many of you aspire to prajna, maybe even prajnaparamita. And this morning as a group we've just recited an example of a great vow written by Dogen also. That's his vow. which we recite and consider whether we accord and join that vow.

[03:18]

And then the next point is, after the vows, to cultivate samadhi. And I brought this stick here. Can you see that it has a little writing on it? So the Chinese written on this stick is diligently cultivate or diligently practice tranquility. And it has that character which I wrote on the board the other day. The one that has the radical for blue on the left side. diligently cultivate tranquility, or another meaning of that character is stillness and silence. So it seems like many of you are diligently cultivating stillness, tranquility, silence.

[04:32]

And then there's questions arise now in the process of this cultivation. Kristen raised the question about, well, as you start cultivating samadhi, what about ideas of actually getting somewhere or making some progress or gaining something? Such concerns might arise when you're diligently practicing something. Especially if you hear that the thing you're practicing in a sense has various levels of depth. That there's maybe somewhat superficial tranquility and then there's somewhat deeper and then very deep tranquility. So when you hear about the very deep, you might think, well, gee, it would be nice to have the really deep one And then you might get into, I wonder if I do, and so on.

[05:39]

And my experience is, if I get into the details, and there are some teachings about the details of how you go deeper and deeper or higher and higher, a lot of people find that really interesting. But then after they see all the detailed steps and gradations and subtle changes, then this mind of gain is kind of like stimulated, comes out of hiding. Whoa. And especially if you go from stage one to three and then you hear about four. It seems real close. Could I just adjust this a little bit? I'll go down one. So anyway, I appreciate that we do not — So Suzuki Roshi and other disciples of Dogen strongly encourage the diligent cultivation, enthusiastic, energetic cultivation of samadhi without getting involved in getting anything or getting anywhere.

[07:20]

You aspire to get somewhere without trying to get somewhere. And that's part of the subtlety of samadhi, is that you're cultivating something and you don't know what it is and you're not trying to find out and you're devoted to it. And you're wholeheartedly devoted to it. As a matter of fact, when you are wholeheartedly devoted to cultivating samadhi, you're no longer trying to get it. you aspire to it, and you're not trying to gain anything. And so when these these gaining ideas arise, we have various practices of compassion that are hopefully being also diligently cultivated, and we apply the compassion to any gaining ideas or fear, if you ever, if you got to stage seven, fear that you might slip back to stage four.

[08:32]

So any concern with losing the samadhi you have, which seems to happen to some Zen students, they seem to feel like, hey, samadhi has come and the bell has rung for Kiheen and I do not want to get up. because every time I get up it's kind of like I lose it. Well, we practice compassion towards that, wanting to stay in the seat when you finally are settled. And in being kind to it, we let go of this holding on to the precious samadhi which we have now received through our diligent cultivation. And being kind to the wish to gain something helps it drop away. When I was acting as Jisha for teachers who are giving doksan, I would sit.

[09:57]

And then other people are waiting to have doksan and I would sit. But I would get up every now and then to do some work in relationship to the Jisha job. So I wasn't listening to a bell to ring. So I practiced watching the state of samadhi and then watching what happened to it when I got up and went and did these things and then watched what happened when I came back and sat down and got up. And I usually notice some disturbance of it, in a way, when I got up and went and did something. And then I came back and watched it come back. So there is this kind of thing. But samadhi is, I haven't used this word before, in samadhi there's a playfulness.

[11:08]

Bodhisattva samadhis are playful. They're not trying to hold on to anything. So anyway, I just wanted to again say that yes, we do hear an encouragement to energetically cultivate samadhi with the warning to be careful of any kind of sense of gaining something when samadhi comes, or losing something when samadhi goes. Because it's quite natural that we get into that. And in the middle of samadhi, it's possible that a gaining idea will pop up, a thought will pop up. For example, samadhi has been gained, could come up in the middle of samadhi.

[12:12]

In the middle of samadhi, samadhi has been lost, can pop up. Those thoughts can arise in samadhi. So once there is samadhi, then we can have different kinds of samadhis, in a sense. And the difference in the samadhis is sort of the difference in what we're studying. So you could be in samadhi and then you could study the song of the precious mirror samadhi. You could study those words. study the teachings of that song about that samadhi. And in that sense, you would be cultivating, perhaps, the precious mirror samadhi.

[13:14]

Or you could turn your attention towards the teachings of the self-receiving and employing samadhi to cultivate that samadhi. And then turn your attention towards the instruction in the Fukan Zazengi and cultivate the samadhi of that, of the Fukan Zazengi, the samadhi of the universal encouragements for Zazen. And I just wanted to start with something that you maybe haven't heard, which comes from that early version of the Fukan Zazengi. by Dogen. So the one we have, it says, once you have settled into a steady, immobile sitting position, and I suggest for you to consider, once you have settled into samadhi, think of not thinking.

[14:25]

How do you think of not thinking? Non-thinking. This is the essential art of Zaza. This is when you know But the earlier version by Dogen and the Chinese version say, once you have settled and regulated your breathing and relaxed your abdomen, As soon as a thought arises, just look at it. As soon as you look at it, it disappears. Remaining forgetful of objects in this way, you naturally become unified.

[15:29]

This is the essential art of zazen. So that's what it says in the Chinese text. And that's what it says in one of the earlier versions of Fukan Zazengi by Dogen, that he taught that that's the essential art of Zazen. So again, for example, once you've given up gaining idea over and over, once you've relaxed with any kind of gain or lost concerns, enter samadhi, and then in samadhi the same thought could arise, yippee, gain, or whatever, could arise. When that thought, gain, yay, when that thought arises, just look at it. As soon as you look at it, it vanishes.

[16:33]

remaining forgetful of objects in this way of looking at the object banished, look at the object banished, remaining in this way, you naturally become unified. This is the essential art of zazen. That's what the Chinese text said. That's what Dogen said in his early teachings. And then he moved on and started talking differently. He changed the story. But that early instruction is, I would say, in accord with the later, but the later brings out other things, which we can talk about. So I'm saying this to you partly to make clear that you give up involvement with thoughts, you give up involvement with thoughts, you let go of your thoughts, you let go of your thinking, and you calm down and you become stable and relaxed and open.

[17:43]

And you settle into a steady, immobile sitting position. And then you can do, for example, start looking at the objects, You were looking at them before, too, but you're maybe a little bit primarily interested in looking at them and letting them go. Now you are in samadhi, you look at them again, but now you look at them and it says they actually disappear. You don't have to even let them go and disappear and disappear. This is this forgetfulness of objects. You forget the objects and you become unified, and that's the essential arch. somewhat different. That's instruction in higher vision, in vipassana. Zen instructions for insight.

[18:47]

Even if you're not in a state of tranquility, you can look at an object and maybe it'll disappear. But there's a proposal. If you look at an object and it disappears, fine. Just keep doing that. And if you're not in samadhi, you'll probably enter samadhi if you deal with objects that way. Not try to make them disappear. So maybe you're a little, somewhat, have some insight before you have entered samadhi. Did you get that? Some insight before samadhi. You look at the object, it disappears. It's similar to looking at the object and letting go of it. By doing this, you will enter samadhi if you're not already there, and then in samadhi you would continue the same thing, and the samadhi would get deeper, and you would continue to be forgetful of objects as objects. they vanish, you become unified, and that's a kind of Zen meditation instruction which Dogen gave and which was very well-established instruction in Chinese monasteries when he went there.

[19:57]

But we have other instructions too that you can count many. There is In some sense, samadhi is all the same. Samadhi is basically the same the world around. It's the same in Buddhism, in Islam, in Judaism, in Catholicism, in Hinduism, samadhi, samadhi. What's different is the insight meditations, the wisdom instructions. But in the Mahayana, samadhi is used slightly differently in the sense that The samadhis are different depending on what insight practice is with them. So the different insight practices that are going on in samadhi, sometimes they call that concentrated insight work, they call it a samadhi. So we have the precious mirror samadhi, we have the self-receiving and employing samadhi. We have the ocean seal samadhi. We have the true marks of dharma samadhi.

[21:04]

We have the samadhi of where all dharmas enter and leave. In Prajnaparamita literature, there's one section which has 256 samadhis listed, Mahayana samadhis. And each one kind of describes what's being contemplated in that concentrated state. So during this retreat we can look a little bit at things you can look at when you're settled into a steady, immobile body. And the other day, the last couple of classes and lectures, we looked at, okay, when you're in stillness, when you're settled, then look at your actions, which are thoughts arising of body, speech, and mind. They're appearing. And let each one be an opportunity to raise the Buddha mind seal.

[22:11]

That's one kind of samadhi. Which Dogen taught and which has a little bit different feeling for me than look at whatever thought arises, And as soon as you look at it, it vanishes. Look at whatever thought arises, and as soon as you look at it, it vanishes. Somewhat different feeling for those two instructions. And then there's another meditation of contemplate what's the difference. That's another Samadhi you could look at. What's the difference between when a thought arises, let that be a demonstration of the Buddha mind seal. And then here's another one. Settled into a steady mobile sitting position. Think.

[23:13]

Well, you will. But now it's instructed saying think. So it's not that in samadhi there's no thinking. There are jhanas where there's almost no thinking. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about you're like Tranquil and still. And thinking arises. So now here's an instruction. Think, not thinking. This is a meditation instruction given to somebody who's already been meditating and has now entered samadhi. Now the teaching is, now that you've entered samadhi, think not thinking. And the instruction goes on. How do you think not thinking? Non-thinking. This is the essential art of zazen.

[24:16]

So the teacher's changing his description of the essential art of zazen over the course of his teaching career. And not just once, but many times. And Suzuke Roshi often — I think this is kind of funny — he often said, this is the most important thing. And it didn't sound like the same thing each time. And people go, ooh. And the next day something else was the most important thing. I thought that was fine. There's a lot of most important things. There's a lot of essential arts of Zazen. Of course they're all the same. But they sound different. Just look at it and and cultivate that and become unified. And now, think not thinking.

[25:19]

And again, I think some of you know the story, but I'll give you just a background on that. The story is that one of the ancestors, the 33rd 33rd, yeah. The 33rd ancestor in the lineage from Shakyamuni Buddha down to us. I paused there because it seemed like, geez, it was only 33. Now we're up in the 90s. The 33rd ancestor in the lineage was named Yaoshan. And one time he was sitting still. Not just one time. He probably did it several times. But there's two times I'm going to bring up today. And there's a number of occasions where he was sitting still

[26:28]

where he had settled into a steady sitting and people came to him and asked him what was going on. This is something that happens in not just stories with him. People are sitting and their teacher or their students come to them and say, what's going on? What are you doing? What are you thinking? What kind of thoughts are going on in this samadhi? This is a repeated story. And not just in Zen, but in India too. And even in America. Sometimes people go up to people who are sitting and say, what are you thinking about? What's going on with you while you're sitting? So anyway, Yaoshan One story I was going to tell you is about when he was with his teacher, and another story is when he was with a student.

[27:33]

I don't know which one's best to say first. Maybe I'll tell the story of when he was a student. He might have been already a teacher himself, but he's with his teacher. He was sitting, and his teacher came up to him and said, what are you doing? What karma are you doing in this samadhi? So again, it looks like the teacher thinks that he could be doing karma in his tranquil body and mind. There could be karma still arising and ceasing. What kind of karma? What are you doing in this samadhi? And Yashan said to his teacher, his teacher's name was Sekito Gisen Dayosho, the 32nd ancestor. And he said, Yashan said, I'm not doing anything at all.

[28:43]

There's nothing going on here. So I could imagine he was sitting there and whenever an action arose, he would look at it and it would vanish. Or he could have even said, the teacher said, what are you doing sitting there? He could have said, I forget. Can't remember. But he said, nothing at all. And the teacher said, well then, are you sitting there idly? Do you know the word idly? Al? No? Do you know idly? Can the Germans tell each other what idly means? Non-diligently. You know, lazily. Good. Good. like being indolent. Then are you sitting there idly?

[29:52]

And then Yashan said, if I was sitting there idly, I would be doing something. Being lazy is an action which you are accountable for. I don't know who is accounting, but anyway. What are you doing sitting there? I'm not doing anything at all. Then are you idly sitting? If I were idly sitting, then I would be doing something. But I'm not even being idle. And the teacher said, you say you're not doing anything at all. What is this not doing anything at all? And Yao Shan said, even the 10,000 sages don't know. Again, that echoes with even if all the Buddhas in ten directions tried to measure the merit of one person's zazen, they would not be able to fully comprehend it.

[31:00]

Nobody knows what this wisdom process that's going on in stillness is. And some people understand that and they can tell you they can tell you even the 10,000 stages don't know. So of course I don't. And then the teacher composed a poem. We've been traveling along together, side by side, according with conditions. But even the 10,000 stages don't know who he is. How could How could hasty, inconsiderate people know? And actually some hasty people think they do know, but they don't. So this is one case of asking about what's going on in samadhi.

[32:03]

This is the discussion about it. And later, Yashan is asked by, maybe he's more mature, and he's asked by a monk, who sees him sitting and says, in this immobile sitting, actually it doesn't say sitting even, he said, in this immobile, unmoving earth, he's sitting like a mountain, in this unmovable stillness, what kind of thinking? And Yashan says, thinking, not thinking. And the monk says, how do you think, not thinking? And Yashan says, non-thinking. He described the meditation, the samadhi that he was in, which is tranquility with thinking, not thinking. And Dogen Zenji liked that very much and he put that in the Fukan Zazengi.

[33:09]

And there's another fascicle called Zazen Shin where he studies this instruction for insight in meditation. So it's in Soto Zen in Japan. That instruction has been given a lot of attention. And I just want to say that one of our, let's see, one of the teachers that actually lived somewhat into the 20th century, who Suzuki Roshi was too young to study with, but Suzuki Roshi probably saw him when he was a little boy. His name was Oka Sotan. And He was a teacher of Suzuki Roshi's teacher, not his Dharma master, but one of the teachers.

[34:10]

He made the comparison of thinking, oh, excuse me. So we have this song of the precious Mir Samadhi, and it says, the teaching of suchness. which in Japanese way of saying it is nyo ho no zei. No. Nyo zei no ho. Nyo zei no ho. The ho, dharma, of nyo zei. I'll write nyo zei. Nyo. I'll romanize it. Nyo zei. So nyose is suchness. It's a word for suchness.

[35:16]

And so the playing with this story is Ño, which by itself means like or as, and zei, which means is or this or yes or affirmation. Ño is not thinking. Zei is thinking. No, one character is nyo. That character means like or as. Ze means the or it or yes. So nyo is not thinking. Ze is thinking.

[36:29]

And non-thinking is The question was, are the characters the same? Is that an interpretation that it means thinking? Oh, no, the characters are not the same. The character for nyo indicates where it means like or as, and indicates where it means no thinking. The character for not thinking is fushidiyo. Fushidiyo is the three characters for not thinking. shi-ryo in this teaching, shi-ryo is thinking, fu-shi-ryo is not thinking. And then there's hi-shi-ryo, and hi-shi-ryo is non-thinking.

[37:35]

So the Chinese is fu-shi-ryo, not thinking, and shi-ryo, thinking, and then hi-shi-ryo is non-thinking. So these three things not thinking, thinking, and non-thinking. And I'm tying those together with the Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi, which is about nyose. What's it about? It's about not thinking and thinking put together. Suchness is the non-duality of not thinking and thinking. Or it's about the intimacy of not thinking and thinking. That's nyose. That's suchness.

[38:38]

The teaching of suchness is about the intimacy of thinking and not thinking. And this conversation about what kind of thinking is going on in zazen I'm just giving you kind of like a heads up that we maybe tie these together, that the instruction about the thinking in zazen is also instruction about the teaching of suchness in zazen. It's not that there's no thinking in Zazen. It's not what it says. He says, what kind of thinking are you doing? He doesn't say no thinking. He didn't say no thinking. He said thinking, not thinking. The kind of thinking that's going on is thinking, not thinking.

[39:48]

And how do you do that? Non-thinking. Non-thinking. He didn't say it, but I'll say it to you, and maybe you can catch this. What kind of not thinking is going on in Zazen? Thinking. The kind of not thinking that's going on in Zazen is thinking. The kind of thinking that's going on is thinking not thinking. the kind of thinking that's going on in zazen is suchness. The kind of not thinking that's going on in zazen is suchness. What's going on in zazen is suchness. But if you ask about thinking, I'll tell you about the suchness of thinking. If you say what kind of feeling is going on in zazen, we'll have another discussion. But it really will be the kind of feeling that's going on in zazen is feeling which is suchness.

[40:54]

Feeling which is look at the feeling and as soon as you look at it, it vanishes. And being with feelings in that way, you become unified. Subject and object? knowing and known, Buddhas and sentient beings, delusion and enlightenment. Everything's unified. Yeah. Everything is non-dual. Yeah. One more. So thinking is conscious mind, conscious thoughts, thinking. In consciousness, there's thinking going on. Mm-hmm. So in consciousness, have you ever seen any thinking going on there?

[41:58]

So thinking has been observed in consciousness. If you look at the thinking deeply, you'll understand that that thinking is not thinking. Not yet. But Yao Shan saw it. He looked at the thinking and the thinking he saw or the thinking that was seen was not thinking. In other words, no. An easy way to say this is thinking is emptiness of thinking. Thinking is emptiness. Empty consciousness, empty thinking, empty feeling, empty form. Form is emptiness. Feeling is emptiness. Perceptions are emptiness. Anger is emptiness.

[43:00]

Attachment is emptiness. And that whole pattern is thinking. That's emptiness. In other words, thinking is not thinking. And also not thinking is thinking. So in consciousness you have thinking appearing. You do not have not thinking appearing. The not thinking of thinking isn't an appearance. It's the way thinking really is, is not an appearance. Interconnectedness is one of the teachings which help you realize Because nothing exists as one thing. Yeah, that teaching will help you look at your thinking. That teaching will help you look at your thinking.

[44:02]

And in looking at your thinking in samadhi, you have the chance to understand, like Yashan, that thinking is not thinking. So if somebody asks you in samadhi, what kind of thinking, you say, thinking which is not thinking. Or thinking, not thinking. Thinking is a verb, yeah. Shiryo is, I think, a verb. Thinking. Shiryos. And not thinking. It could also be a verb. He could also be thought. But in this case, the question usually translated, what kind of thinking? Actually, another translation was, what kind of figuring? What kind of figuring is going on? But anyway, back to the question. Are we talking about consciousness?

[45:05]

Mm-hmm. We're talking about consciousness which has been visited by samadhi. In samadhi, there's thinking going on just like people who have not realized samadhi have thinking. But now in samadhi, the thinking reveals not thinking. The thinking shows, the thinking shows what it did not appear to be. So thinking that appears in consciousness usually appears and disappears. Have you seen that? Yeah, have you seen thinking appearing and then go away? Like you think it's Wednesday and then that goes away, and you think it's Thursday and that goes away. This is thinking. Thinking is what's appearing in consciousness. But if you look at an appearance in Samadhi, you see that it's just an appearance, so it disappears as a thing.

[46:08]

It's just an appearance. Then you get to see what's not an appearance. the way things really are is not an appearance. So the way thinking really is, is this not thinking. He sees that, but not as an appearance. Now, if you realize not thinking, then also in samadhi you realize not thinking is thinking. So nyose is thinking and not thinking together, and thinking is not thinking, not thinking is thinking. They're interchangeable in suchness. But how do you get there? You have another kind of activity called non-thinking, which is the way the two are working together. and to contemplate that and open to that. So this is introductory instruction to that version of the essential art of zazen.

[47:13]

And I've just tied it together with the song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi. And the principles of that samadhi, of that song, can help you understand the instruction of Yashan. And I think for me there's a continuity between them, but they feel somewhat different. And the thing that feels most different to me is the instruction to look at the thinking in samadhi and use the thinking, every thought and then every act, every vocalization and every posture related to that thought, use them as opportunities to demonstrate the Buddha mind seal. And again, the Buddha mind seal is also the way thinking and not thinking are sealed They're a seal.

[48:16]

In Buddha's mind, thinking, not thinking, and non-thinking are a circle. They're tied together. I'll be right with you. Yes? Louder, please. Are we to think of Thinking, not thinking as one sort of potentially hyphenated term as opposed to thinking about not thinking? It's almost a hyphenated term, but it's also what do you call it? He did say that Actually, some translations say think of not thinking. Other translations say thinking not thinking. Just thinking not thinking. The of is, you know, different translators would have different feelings about whether you should put an of in there.

[49:21]

It's almost like hyphenated, but I think putting the hyphen in or the of are not justified by the Chinese characters. There's not a Chinese character for hyphen or of in there. But it's one term that is thinking, not thinking, as opposed to a prepositional phrase. No, it's not one term. It is like a sentence. The sentence is... Yeah. That makes it... Yeah. But he did say, see the setup was, what are you thinking about? So he plays along with that and said, thinking about, or thinking of, not thinking. But we're using conventional language to initiate us into realizing that thinking and not thinking are intimate. And the way you cultivate the intimacy of that is the other part of the process, which is to look at them from the point of view of their non-duality.

[50:30]

So that brings me to the second part of the question, which is when I first heard that story and when I heard it subsequent times, what it did for me was I felt like I already had enough of a purchase on this idea of of things being a thing and not that thing. I feel like I kind of had that experience. And then when the teacher answered non-thinking, it was like, oh, it was as if providing me a name for that. Whereas the way the story goes, it almost seems like the teacher means calling it not thinking as a way to teach the student how to think not thinking, which is kind of... I experienced an education in the opposite direction from the student, I think. Or I don't. So I just wanted to, because that seems to, every time I hear it still, it seems like a backwards education.

[51:41]

It seems more obvious that thinking is not thinking. What does backward education mean? It's backwards from the way that I experience, my ontology, my ontology of the concept. So I just wanted to, because I experienced that, I want to verify Well, that sounds like potentially quite beneficial to have backward learning opposite of your ontology. Opposite of your ontology also is like something that makes you turn around and look at your ontology. So it sounds like part of the, and in samadhi you can do that without getting disturbed. You can have your ontologies turned around and look and find out what they were. You may be walking along when you're not in samadhi or in samadhi and not be aware of the ontology that you're carrying along with you. So a teaching that makes you turn around and see your ontology and say, that's the opposite, maybe that's part of what non-thinking is, is to be aware of that.

[52:53]

Yes? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. there are Buddhas, there are those who are enlightened and not enlightened, they're studying blah, blah, blah. And then he goes and does the Heart Sutra iteration of it, saying there is not this, there is not that. And then it says, because Buddha's teaching necessarily goes beyond good and evil, enlightenment and delusion. And my understanding of that is that something like

[53:56]

Even to say not thinking is sort of acknowledging a fixed identity and then getting a conceptual status to thought or thinking. And this is something that goes beyond concept itself. And so yeah, the circular, the circular, of thinking is not thinking is thinking is something akin to saying, okay, well, even not thinking, even saying not thinking is itself framing it conceptually. And so there's kind of a necessary evolution through that, but not necessarily. Again, it's almost like part sutra where we go and we say there is no consciousness. All these things that we've been learning in the original teachings, we shouldn't cling to.

[55:03]

And then, again, we shouldn't cling to the no. And so coming back to thinking and recognizing its emptiness and the emptiness of emptiness is just the next iteration of that . Yes, Leon. I was wondering if the consciousness that, let's say, are in the older texts are something that is a little bit different in our concept of consciousness now in this modern age, unconscious consciousness type of thing? I think that the consciousness that's being imagined and discussed in what we call neural science is getting closer and closer to the Buddhist understanding.

[56:15]

Starting with Freud, recognizing the importance of consciousness of the unconscious and how the unconscious relates to the consciousness. He was approaching Buddhist teaching about consciousness and unconsciousness. And the understanding of what consciousness is now, I think, in neuroscience and neuropsychology is, I think, quite close to what we call consciousness in Buddhism. where the five skandhas are. But the five skandhas are where the self lives in Buddhism. The five skandhas are not the totality of our cognitive life. So we have consciousness, we have unconscious cognitive process, and then we have Buddha mind seal cognition. So we have these three that are going on together.

[57:20]

which I caution you not to equate those with thinking, not thinking, and non-thinking. Don't do that. Newer forms or a newer understanding of consciousness? Anyway, I find recent research by philosophers of mind and neuroscientists and neuropsychologists, I find them helpful to my understanding of Buddhadharma, and I see them in pretty good accord with what's being taught particularly in the Yogacara school of Mahayana. Because in the early teachings of mind,

[58:24]

They taught about consciousness, but they didn't elucidate much about the unconscious process and its relationship to consciousness. In the Yogacara there's development of the relationship of the unconscious and the conscious. in that way, modern research on mind, both conscious mind and unconscious mind, is, I think, having a really nice relationship with Mahayana teaching about mind, which is conscious, unconscious, and enlightened. Those three are working together. And consciousness is where we hear the instruction about how to deal with consciousness and how those instructions help to promote the positive coevolution of consciousness and unconscious process to realize the Buddha consciousness which is already there.

[59:34]

because the Buddha mind seal is actually the way consciousness is, the way the unconscious is, the way they're related, and the way all the consciousnesses of all living beings are related. That's the Buddha mind seal. Which is, you know, the relationship of all of our consciousnesses is living right in this room right now. but it's inconceivable to any of our consciousnesses. I'm talking about it, but I don't know what it is. I don't know how your consciousness is related to mine, but in my consciousness I have a story about it, in your consciousness you have a story about it. But our stories are not it, but it is the relationship of all of our stories. And the Buddha Mind Seal is that relationship. And it's also the way all these consciousnesses are evolving to Buddhahood is also the Buddha mind.

[60:44]

The way we're all bodhisattvas, that's the Buddha mind. The Buddha mind is the way we're evolving together and how none of us can get separated from anybody else. it isn't like some of us are evolving along the bodhisattva path and some people are not, according to that understanding. But again, some people would say, no, there's a few people who are not on the bodhisattva path. They're not really intimate with this process. And yeah, I would say your understanding is included too. And I would like, if it's okay, to stop pretty soon so we can have some sitting before lunch. Especially like the servers, if we don't stop pretty soon, the servers are not going to get to go to the Zendo. They just have to take a break and go and cook. One second.

[61:48]

The Eno who wants you all to go to the Zendo has a burning question. So I just want to say I'd like to stop pretty soon, if you will allow that, so we can go sit for a little bit. But burning question. And I'm glad you have a burning question. Would you say that issues of non-thinking include both thinking and not thinking? Would you say? Non-thinking is like the way to work with thinking to realize it's not thinking. It's a process. Well, they're all processes, but the not thinking is not really, it's like not activity isn't really an activity.

[62:51]

Activity is an activity. But activity, there's a way of relating to activity that you'll realize is not activity. That's non-thinking. So suchness includes everything non-thinking, not thinking, thinking. Yes. Suchness. Yes. And the teaching of suchness is more, I would say, related to, which one of the three am I going to relate the teaching of suchness to? Non-thinking. The teaching of suchness isn't thinking or non-thinking. It's not not thinking or not thinking. The teaching of suchness is about that relationship. So we use the teaching, we meditate on the teaching of suchness to realize that how thinking is not thinking. It's the non-thinking. Non-thinking is how we work with the teachings to realize thinking is not thinking and not thinking is thinking.

[63:55]

But not thinking doesn't really do any work as far as I know. Then, can I say that non-thinking is zazen? No, zazen includes the other two. Yeah. But the other two include not thinking. So I think if you have to choose between three, if you have to choose one of the three for zazen, I guess you choose non-thinking. But it includes the other two. So that non-thinking itself includes other two, non-thinking and thinking. And the other two include non-thinking. Thinking. Yeah. So... I was saying it's odd. So there's a piece of calligraphy over the door where Suzuki Roshi used to live in San Francisco.

[65:03]

There's a calligraphy. And I said to him one time, what does it say? And he said, there's big characters, I think two characters. And he said, it says Cloud Farmer. Or, you know, cloud plower, plowing through the clouds. That's what it says. And then the small characters are kishiryu, non-thinking. So what he wrote there is something about non-thinking. It's how you kind of like cultivate the clouds, you know, the subtle relationship between thinking and not thinking. So in that sense, it seems like non-thinking gets the highest marks. Non-thinking is what's being praised there. So in a sense, maybe you can say that in that triad, non-thinking is really the method of zazen, to realize the relationship between thinking and not thinking, which is to realize suchness.

[66:19]

Okay? So I see that I don't want to stop. How can I stop? How can we stop? Yes? Oh, thank you. Yeah. So part of the reason I wanted to have a class today was so that, you know, to suggest that you, you can talk about other things too, but I suggest that you maybe discuss samadhi in your small group and how you practice it and the questions you have about it. rather than the full, the total range of Buddhist practices. Maybe focus on samadhi in the small groups, since we've been talking about that, and help each other understand what it is and how to develop it and what the dangers and challenges are. I would suggest that. If you finish it all, you know, and everybody's totally like,

[67:25]

settled into a steady, immobile sitting position. And you want to move on to the rest of the teachings. It's a suggestion. Okay? And then two other people seem to think that they should ask their questions too. Do you still want to? I was just curious, the Cloud Farmer thing, is that one that's outside of Cloud Hall? No, that says Cloud Hall. This is an example of the direct path of direct indication. This is Cloud Hall. Oy. So the one I'm talking about is it's over the door in the city center on the first floor.

[68:32]

It's over Oksan's tea room where Blanche has been living. And it's still up there. And the calligraphy is by a man who was the... He was the Godo of Eheji when Suzuki Roshi was a monk there. And he did that Kaleidofe, so that's out there. So thank you very much, Cloud Farmers.

[69:01]

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