Surveying the teaching that I have offered this week, I saw that to some extent what I had given was a kind of, to some extent, a gradual or mediated path. in terms of five stages, in terms of two kinds of intimacy, in terms of two initiations, a kind of historical process. of yogic or shamanic stages.

[01:10]

And yesterday I think I mentioned, and I may have done it before too, that these apparent stages of one, two, or one, two, three, four, five, and so on, are actually a continuous circle. They seem to be one, two, three, but they're one, two, three, or one, two, one, two. One, two, one. One follows two, and one follows five, and so on. So it seems to be, in one sense, a gradual thing, but It can also be seen as a circle. In other words, all two stages, three stages, five stages, ten stages, they happen simultaneously. If you just be yourself, with yourself, by yourself, all stages are included.

[02:29]

simultaneously. But somehow I thought it would be useful to break up one thing into a process for a while and look at it. Like Dogen Zenji says, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. They also say to model the Buddha way is to model yourself on yourself. Or you might say to imitate the Buddha way is to imitate yourself.

[03:39]

To model yourself on yourself, the meaning of that is that you forget yourself. The meaning of forgetting yourself is that you're awakened by everything that happens. And the meaning of being awakened by everything that happens is to drop off your own body and mind and the bodies and minds of others. And this process goes on endlessly without any trace, which means it doesn't have the trace of being done.

[04:48]

Therefore, it starts over again with studying the Buddha way, studying the self, and so on. And this whole process I just described happens simultaneously, but our mind can't comprehend it, so it's broken up into a linear process of sentences. And if you just go around and around that circle long enough, it becomes one integral simultaneous process. When I was a little boy, there was a kid's book, and the name of the book was Little Black Sambo.

[05:50]

And I remember the part about the end of the story, the tiger was chasing this little black boy, and he started running around a palm tree. And the tiger chased him around the palm tree, and he ran around and around and around and around, So many times that finally the tiger just melted into butter. It's like that. I don't remember if he then used that butter on pancakes, did he? So if you just walk around the triple treasure enough, that tiger will follow you and finally it will melt into butter and you can put it on your pancakes. And of course you know what that tiger is.

[06:53]

That tiger is that hare's breath deviation. that slightest bit of difference between you and every other living creature, which is the same as the slightest bit of difference between you and complete perfect enlightenment. Just walk around the three treasures, walk around Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha long enough, and that difference will melt. And not only will it melt, but you can use it You can eat it. So the difference isn't really so bad. It's actually nourishing. And we don't actually try to get rid of it. We just convert it into food for our life of practice on the way. And again, when I quoted that to study the self or to be intimate with the self means to forget the self, we could also say that when I say the words to study the self or to be intimate with the self means to forget the self, that meaning is not in the words I just said,

[08:37]

The meaning will be when you bring your energy, your effort and devotion to those words, then the meaning will come forth. If you bring your life energy, your inquiring spirit to the statement to be intimate with the self, the meaning of that will come out. If you give your whole self to yourself, by yourself, for yourself, the meaning of that will come out. So I think what I'd like to do now is go a little bit more into this gradual process of this gradual picture of the path.

[09:46]

See, when I'm giving talks, I'm always debating whether I should tell you all the jokes that come up as I'm going along in my presentation of, you know, like, you know, to study the Buddha way is to, and then a joke comes up. Should I tell you the joke or should I say the rest of the sentence? See, I always have that, like I was just about to start talking about Yangshan's teaching and then those motorcycles went by. And I thought of this card, which I have in this book, which someone sent to me at Christmas time, which has a picture of these cows riding on Harley Davidson motorcycles. And all kinds of toys and stuff are flying all around. And then inside it says, wreck the malls with cows on Harleys. That's hard to get if you don't speak English as a native.

[11:24]

I can't help it. If I was under control of my mind, if I was about to start case 32 of the book of Serenity and those motorcycles went by, I would just say, the ocean are the world of the dragons. appearing and disappearing. These dragons do. They sport serenely. The sky is the home of giant condors. They fly and cry out freely. Why does the exhausted fish stop in the shallow pond and the sluggish bird rest in the reeds?

[12:34]

Is there any way to figure gain and loss? The one way to read this story, hear this poem, is that, is there a way you can tell the difference between a dragon and a fish? Is there some way you can tell the difference between a giant condor and a dodo bird? Well, yes and no. The gradual path shows you a way to tell the difference. And you can find differences. And it's important to be able to find differences, or I should say it's useful to find difference. It may be useful sometimes. But also, this poem could be saying, is there really any difference between these little birds and these giant birds?

[13:42]

Is there really any difference between the fish swimming around in the ocean and the one who goes through the gate of receiving Buddhist precepts and becomes a dragon. Is there really any difference? Is there really any difference between your daughter before and after she learns to ride a bicycle? Yes, from one point of view. But from another point of view, there's no difference. The truth is very dynamic. and includes lots of zesty, spicy contradictions. But still, let's look at this. Yangshan asked the monk, where are you from? The monk said, from Yu province. Yangshan said, do you think of that place

[14:47]

The monk said, I always think of it. This is an honest person. He should repent. Then Yangshan said, the thinker is the mind and thought of and the thought of is the environment. In the environment there are mountains, rivers, and the land mass, buildings, towers, halls, and chambers, people, and all kinds of animal, and so forth. Now, reverse your thought to think of the thinking mind. Are there so many things there? And the monk says, when I get here, I don't see any existence at all.

[15:55]

So looking at the story now as a way to figure out gain and loss, Yangshan now going to check gain and loss, he says, this is right for the stage of fake, but not yet right for the stage of the person. So what you said is good so far. Let's see if you can take another step. I challenge you to take another step. What you said goes for the stage of the person, the stage of the faith, but this isn't enough for the stage of the person. So here's your chance. But the monk can't take another step and says, don't you have any particular way of guidance? Now, I guessed that on the seventh day of Sashin, getting into this detailed analysis would be interesting to you.

[17:40]

But I'm not sure. I know it wouldn't be on the first day. Maybe I should talk about sex for a while. No? Not for you. How about you, Tayo? What? We have various requests on the floor. So anyway, then Yangshan says in response to, don't you have any other particular way of guidance? He says, to say that I have anything particular or not would be inaccurate.

[18:48]

Based on your insight, you get only one mystery. You can take the seat and wear the robe. After this, you see on your own. So someone came and talked to me about this story, about this monk who did the instructions of looking back at the mind which thinks. And when he looked back there, he couldn't find anything. And so he said so, which is fine, just reporting what happened. Then he was told, well, this is okay for the stage of faith, but not good enough for the stage of the person. At that time, the monk could have said something more, like this person said to me. The monk could have said, stage of faith? Stage of faith?

[19:51]

Oh, yeah? That's the stage of no faith. Therefore, you can say stage of faith teacher. And stage of person, stage of person, that means a stage of no person. So rank me how you will. He could have said that. I don't know if Yangshan would have liked it or not. But he didn't. So he got the seat, the seat of emptiness. He got the seat of, I can't find myself. He can sit there. He got the seat, and he got the bowl. He got the seat of forgetting himself, and now he gets the bowl where he can handle what comes up in his life now.

[20:53]

And maybe... With what comes, you will be able to live out the stage of a person. So, after this, you'll see on your own. There's no more instruction. Instruction is, look back at the mind which thinks. When you get there, what do you find? And he honestly didn't find anything at all. But there's no more instructions. You have to now Take a step, and nobody can tell you where to walk. What step to take? You have to come up with a response. That's the stage of the person. Now, here's a little psychology. The nice thing about the Chinese way of presenting this instruction is that they take, in Chinese, the way the teacher says this.

[22:06]

He says, the ability to think is a character which means think in Chinese. And then you make this compound with the character to think. I didn't draw it this morning. And another character, which means ability. Or when you put it with a verb, it says the ability to do that thing. So the active possibility or the capacity to think. Or you could say the thinking in its active mode is what we call mind, usually. And you take the same character for thinking, and you put another character in front of it, which means the passive side of the mind.

[23:08]

It makes thinking into a passive thing. The passive side of thinking, in other words, the passive side of thinking is that which is thought of, that which receives the thinking. But if you look at the two characters, they're both thinking. Thinking is now split into two parts, the active side and the passive side. The active side of our mind, our thinking, is what we usually consider to be our mind. The passive side of our thinking is what we usually consider to be the world. It's all our mind. It's just two parts. For me, all this... And my body, when I think of it, and my breath, is the passive side of my mind. But I have another side of my mind which can think of all of you and think of my own body and breath, which are still my mind. You are my perception.

[24:12]

You are my thinking. So we're intimately connected through our minds. And I think of my mind, I think of my mind by thinking of you. The instruction is stop thinking about your mind in terms of other people and look back at your ability to think. Now what do you see? And when he did that, he couldn't see anything at all. So when you do look back at your mind, now you know beforehand you're not going to find anything. So don't be frustrated if you don't. But still, you have to go and look for yourself. You can't just take somebody else's word for it. and see if you can actually be relieved of all things by looking at your ability to think. It'll be hard to find it, but you know approximately where it is. And this is also a way to become intimate with yourself.

[25:17]

One way to become intimate with yourself is to look at, think of things. Another way to become intimate with yourself is to notice that you are a living creature which has the ability to think of things. So you both become intimate with yourself by looking at other people and the environment and looking at your own body, which is the environment too, and looking at your own breath. That's one way to become intimate with yourself. And then further become intimate with yourself by looking at your ability to look at things. That completes your intimacy with yourself to such an extent that you'll really forget about things. Now, are you ready to take the next step? If you aren't, you've done a great job. You've realized a lot, but you have further to go.

[26:18]

Now you have a seat and you can sit there. You've realized one mystery. And that's a stage, and it's different from the next stage where you can go forth beyond this. And a national teacher made a poem about this. And another national teacher made a poem about this. Let's see if you can possibly handle all these words. I mean, I got it written here, so it's easy for me. Maybe I'll do it the easy way first. Here's a National Teacher One's poem. Crossing the summit of the mystic peak. It's not the human world. Outside of the mind there are no things. Filling the eyes are blue mountains. Crossing the summit of the mystic peak.

[27:25]

That's the environment. It's not the human world. That's the ability to think. If you look at the passive side of your mind, you see your usual world. Amazing things may be there, but you see your usual world. This is the environment. If you look back at your ability to think, that's not the human world. There's no humans there. This is not the directions that human beings usually look. It is the human situation to look at what we can think of. When you look at your ability to think of things, you don't see the human world. Outside mind, there are no things. This is, when I get here, I don't see anything at all.

[28:34]

And one more line. Filling the eyes are blue mountains. Filling the eyes are blue mountains. is the line that separates the monk from the teacher. This is the line that separates the stage of person from the stage of faith. He didn't see anything at all. When you take the next step beyond the stage of faith into the stage of person, your eyes are filled with blue mountains. But he honestly had to say first, when I get here, when I arrive here, I don't see anything at all. The teacher said, okay, that's good for the stage of faith.

[29:40]

Now, what about the next stage? And he couldn't say, oh my God, my eyes are full of blue mountains. They were, but he didn't think he should say so. He had just left the blue mountains behind. and finally realized, hey, there aren't any blue mountains. Well, that's good. Teacher said, take another step. He couldn't say, oh my god, it's all came back. But it's OK, because for many reasons, but one reason is that he has a seat now. He can sit in the seat of there's nothing at all and wait and learn on his own. eventually he'll be flooded with the world again, and he may be able to understand it. In other words, he studied himself, he studied the environment, he studied the mind, he studied his ability to think, and he studied what he could think of.

[30:43]

And he realized what the self was, and he forgot the self. But he couldn't take the next step, which is to be enlightened by all things. Things were happening to him, but they weren't telling him, hey, guess what? This is the secret. He thought the secret was that he had forgotten the self. And that is the secret of the stage of faith. But the stage of person is that the next thing that happens is the good news. And he didn't see it that way. Okay. So there you can see are some stages. Yangshan has spent some effort articulating these stages, the fire initiation and the water initiation. So there is a way to figure out gain and loss.

[31:54]

There's a lot more subtleties in this case about how to figure gain and loss. And in about a year or so in the Koan class, we'll be probably on this case. We're on case 21 now. So about two or three years, we'll be on case 32. So come back in two or three years to the Koan class, and you can find out, go into more detail about how you can figure out how we can figure out by talking to each other the subtleties of our mind. But I think the next step would be a bit much to take today. So what I'd like to do is, what do you call it, repair the damage that I've done by teaching you the gradual path this week and remind you of the way usually we teach in Zen which is not the gradual path, but the sudden path. I want to go back home to our usual story of the non-mediated path, although I did enjoy talking about the mediated path with you.

[33:12]

Because I think we should realize that Zen, although we're well known for the non-mediated sudden path, we sometimes do use the gradual path. And the Buddha Dharma uses both paths according to what people need. What does it say? Now they are sudden and gradual, in connection with which are set up various approaches. Right? It includes integration and includes the road. So, including integration means the practice of unmediated meditation. You do the practice of integration. You're not going anywhere. You just be whole. But also we have a practice which has a path. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and so on. So we should remember that we have these two approaches. But usually we use this one-step approach.

[34:20]

And I'd like to finish by going back to our one-step approach. Not finish, but take the next step by going back to the one-step approach. I'll finish by trying to show that the two approaches are the same. And I would also suggest to you that in Mahayana Buddhism, There are two main, basically two schools of philosophy, of Buddhist philosophy in the Bodhisattva way. One is called the Yogacara school, and the other is called the Madhyamaka school. In their pure form, the Yogacara school presents a yogic path, a yogic map, so you can yogically transform your everyday mind into Buddha's wisdom.

[35:24]

And they show you the steps and stages, and you can see how it all works. The Madhyamaka path shows that there really aren't any steps and stages, so there's no place to go. The Madhyamaka path is showing the wisdom beyond wisdom. It's showing you practice. The practice after practice is over. Those are two schools. And the gradual approach is this Yogacara way more. And the sudden approach is this Madhyamaka or Prajnaparamita way. But of course, these two schools get mixed up together, too. Because they're all part of Buddha's mind. But just you give people what they need. One day they need Yogacara, the next day they need Majjamaka.

[36:26]

One day they need gradual, next day they need sudden. Got to be flexible. All right, so here's two stories about this. When Chingyuan came to see Huineng, when Seigen Gyoshi Daisho came to see Daikan Eno Daisho, Chingyuan said to Huineng, how can I avoid falling into these stages on the path? How can I avoid falling into these steps on the gradual path? And the sixth pioneer, Hui Nung, said, well, what have you been practicing? And he said, Chingyuan said, I haven't even been practicing the noble truths.

[37:33]

I haven't even been practicing the first basic insight practices of the Buddhist path. And the pioneer said, well, if you haven't been doing that even, how could you... I shouldn't say if you haven't, he said, well, if you've been practicing that way, what steps and stages have you fallen into? And Sagan said, well, if I haven't even been practicing that, how could I fall into any steps and stages? So, in other words, if you don't even start to practice, you won't have to worry about falling into any stages. So don't even start. And here's another one. One day, two Zen monks were walking along. One's name was Dung Shan, and the other was his spiritual uncle, his spiritual elder, whose name was Sung Mi.

[38:43]

So he called him Uncle Mi. And they came to a river or a stream. And Dung Shan said to Uncle Mi, on the occasion now of crossing the river, oh, excuse me, wrong story. They came to a road. And a rabbit ran. No, they didn't come to a road. They were walking down a road. And a rabbit, a white rabbit, ran across the road in front of them. A white rabbit. And Uncle Mi said, swift. And Dengshan said, what do you mean swift? Swift, gradual path. What do you mean swift? And he said, like a commoner being made into a prime minister

[39:45]

like a Chinese commoner being suddenly made into a prime minister, which is possible. They had in China, you know, this graduated system of examinations. So you could take test after test and go up and up and up. And by taking and passing these tests, you could actually, by the skill of your scholarship, you could actually move up the ranks of the government and become like the prime minister of China by these stages. I mean, among millions of people, most people didn't even get a chance to take the test. But if you studied hard, an ordinary person, and there are some cases of ordinary people who are like, one story is a story of a pig herder that studied so much that he became a prime minister. in one lifetime. So Uncle Me says, when he sees the rabbit going across, he says, it's like that. It's like going from a commoner to a prime minister.

[40:52]

In other words, you people, we people, we commoners, could go like that. In one step, like crossing the road, we could go from being a commoner to a great Buddhist sage. That's what Uncle Mi saw when he saw that rabbit. He remembered that potential of a path that we can practice that will take us like that. Just like that. But Deng Shan, younger man, but anyway, Deng Shan said, Uncle Mi, such a venerable old gentleman as yourself, and yet you talk like that? And Uncle Mi said, well, what do you say? And Dungsan said, after generations of nobility, temporarily fallen into poverty. It's not that we can quickly go from this state up through these stages to be a Buddha.

[42:01]

It's not that way. It's that after being Buddhas for innumerable, countless eons, we temporarily think we're a human being. We're dreaming that we're this. We have just temporarily forgotten what we are. It's not that we go through stages and we'll become something better. It's that we already are what we want to be. We simply have to open our eyes to our basic nature. So there's no path to where we're going. It's simply we've forgotten our family name, which happens to be, you know, whatever you want to say. Now, The other story, which I mistakenly started to tell, is that one day these two characters were about to cross a stream.

[43:09]

And Dongshan said to Uncle Mi, how is it on the occasion of crossing the stream? And Uncle Mi said, the feet don't get wet. That's good enough. I think what he actually said was, water doesn't wet the feet. And then Dung Shan said to Uncle Mi, such a venerable old gentleman, and you still talk like this? And Uncle Mi said again, well, what do you say, kid? And he said, the feet aren't wet. Okay, now, could you see that?

[44:24]

Here it is again. Ha Yen said to Xushan, a hair's breadth difference is like the distance between heaven and earth. How do you understand that? And Shushan said, watch carefully, Shushan said, a hair's breadth deviation is like the distance between heaven and earth. Parien said, How can you get it like that? Xu Shan said, I am just thus.

[45:30]

What about you? Fa Yan said, a hair's breadth difference is like the distance between heaven and earth. Sushant thereupon bowed. I think in that story you can see the gradual yoga path and the unmediated yoga path. They're both right there. In that one story you see that there's a hair's breadth difference And if you don't penetrate that hair's breadth difference, it's like the distance between heaven and earth. And there's a gradual path for transcending that difference. In that story, you can see that.

[46:37]

They're talking about that. Demonstrating that story, that there's no difference. If you look at that story, you'll see there's no difference. And also, They show, since both of them are in the story, they show that there's no difference between the two approaches. And also, the story shows that there's no way you can tell that both those things are in there, or that they're no difference, and yet you can tell. you have no way to do it and also you have a way to do it with those words you can tell the difference with those words you can tell there's no difference with those words you have no way to tell the difference and with those words you can tell the difference all that's going on in that story do you agree or disagree You would like some elucidation?

[48:13]

What's the distance, ladies and gentlemen, between heaven and earth? Huh? What is the difference? They touch. And where do heaven and earth touch? What's between heaven and earth? Where's earth? Right here, right? Where does heaven start? Doesn't it start right here? I mean, take me away and heaven meets earth, right? Without me, heaven meets earth. They touch. But you bring me into the situation or bring you into the situation, and then where does heaven start? Heaven starts at the top of your head, doesn't it? So what's the distance between heaven and earth? It's our life. I'm the distance. You're the distance between heaven and earth, aren't you? And you're the way heaven and earth meet. You're the Harris-Brett deviation. I'm the Harris-Brett deviation. We're the difference between heaven and earth.

[49:25]

And we're also what proves that heaven and earth are not different. We integrate the two. Is that an elucidation? So Blanche kindly, if you excuse me for saying so, in the drama of Dharma play, played the role of the, what do you call it, dull fish. She didn't understand. She pretended to not understand for your benefit. Now she understands. She changed into a dragon. What's the difference? She had lunch. She got what she asked for. She's a happy dragon. So here's the poem.

[50:36]

All embracing with no outside. That's what it's like when you look back at your mind. Penetrating without obstacles. There's no obstacles there when you look back. When you look out, they seem to be in contradiction. When you look back, there's no obstruction. However, if you don't understand this line, that your body and mind unite heaven and earth, then you feel separation between heaven and earth. Then rather you being as the union, as the place where the universe is united and harmonized, then you're the reason it's separated from itself, which is a big sin, too heavy to carry.

[51:41]

Then the gates and walls are like cliffs, and the doors and locks are double, triple locked. When the wine is sweet, when the wine is always sweet, it lays out the guests. And though the meal is fulfilling, it ruins the farmers. Once there was a guest at a house, and the host was called out on business. However, unfortunately or fortunately, before he left, he had already given his guests delicious food and very sweet wine, and they drank so much that they were asleep in drunkenness. But just to make sure that they'd be all right, he sewed some jewels inside their clothes.

[52:53]

When they woke up from their drunken dreams, they got up and left, not knowing the jewels inside. But eventually, we find them. Somehow, the universe has given us three great jewels and has been sewn inside of our body and mind. With these jewels, we will unite heaven and earth if we awaken to them. We will realize that we are not the cause of separation, but the vehicle for union. This is our great jewel that has been transmitted to us. Until we awaken to these jewels, we temporarily feel to be dull fish in a shallow pond, lazy birdies in the grass.

[54:14]

Once we notice our function, then bursting out into empty space, the winds help drive the Garuda's beautiful wings. Treading over the blue sea, thunder sends off the dragon. Got to see this dragon walking on the sea, stamping on the water, right? Every step you take, you splash this water of this world and you make this big splash that unites heaven and earth. If you want to step softly and not make a big splash, that's okay too. You can unite heaven and earth with very gentle steps that don't raise any dust.

[55:26]

It's okay. Whatever way you want. But you can also stamp hard on the ocean and create a tidal wave. And when thunder happens, it sends you off. Dragons and Garudas, fish and birds, they're all Buddha's mind, of course. If we can somehow stay in the present, we will understand. Something else I wanted to say, what was it?

[56:44]

Finding the words? What words? You said something. Yeah, it was about that, but I can't remember what it was. Well, there's something that I thought was going to be interesting, and I can't remember what it is. I think it had something, it probably had something to do, it was kind of like, it was somewhere in the neighborhood of encouraging you guys to keep going. Something about that. It was some kind of way that I thought you wouldn't be able to resist. Yeah, it's something about how this session is going to end.

[58:22]

And now, you know, now we're doing really well. Everybody's doing really well. Everybody's really open-hearted. Everybody's willing to be concentrated. And then we're helping, all of us are helping each other. And then we're going to disperse today. And then it's kind of like, in a sense... We've got to give it up and at the same time we want to continue the spirit. There's something about that. And I had a way of putting it that I thought was really neat. But I guess I'll just give up and let it go off into vast emptiness. And while you guys are flying around there, anything that should hit you in the face, I'm sorry. But I did have one little poem from Buddha that I want to read to you.

[59:35]

If I die, please survive me. with great strength. Survive me with such great force that you will awaken the furies of the pallid and the cold. From south to south, lift your indelible eyes From sun to sun, dream your singing mouth. I don't want your laughter or your steps to waver. I don't want my heritage of joy to die. Don't call upon my person. I'm absent.

[60:43]

Live in my absence as if in a house. Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures in the air. Absence is a house so transparent that I, lifeless, will see you living. And if you suffer, my love, I will die again Buddha transmitted that to Pablo Neruda. So now, I think I'll stop.

[61:51]

If that's okay with you, we can sit some more and then have lunch. Is that right?

[62:00]

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