It was the unborn. It was like a river. But then the river became a road, and the road covered everything. And because the road is originally a river, it was always hungry. Somebody said that our deepest unconscious wish, our deepest intention in our cognitive unconscious is to be in this river of constant change.

[01:47]

We want to return there. But we also want to maintain the river. I heard this statement in Minnesota that there's two seasons in Minnesota. There's summer and railroad period. We want to change. We want to be different from how we are. And we want to keep ourselves the way we are.

[03:01]

We're conflicted. We have conflicting values. We're ambivalent. I just learned that Roy coined the term ambivalence. It's a general word. conflicting feelings and thoughts. So we are kind of... When we're in the river, we want to get a hold of something. So we build a road. When we have a road, we're starving for the river and the life of the flow and our experience. Out of this painful conflict, this spiritual pain, trying to grasp for something where nothing can be grasped, so then making up something that we can grasp and alienating ourselves from reality by this delusory exercise, out of this has emerged a thousand of the Buddha ancestors.

[04:29]

The Buddha Samadhi has arisen from this painful, conflicting, pulsating, boxed-in, constricted life. It's trying to burst out of this confinement at the same time it keeps patching the walls of the prison. And then when the samadhi has arisen, it seems that some people might be able to learn about it. Because the samadhi transcends and brings peace right in the middle of this causal situation. So the samadhi speaks and it teaches, first of all, cause and effect, karmic cause and effect.

[05:33]

The Buddha's teaching of cause and effect emerges from Buddha's zazen. And then, if we receive this teaching deeply and study it, we can engage and enter Buddha's zazen and teach others kind of cause and effect, which if they listen to, study and accept, they too can practice the zazen of the Buddha. The teaching of cause and effect is based on Buddha, is based on Buddha Buddha's way of being, which is Buddha's meditation, Buddha's a meditator. Based on Buddha, based on enlightenment, come the teachings of cause and effect.

[06:41]

Based on Buddha, based on enlightenment, come the teaching of the precepts. The precepts are based on Buddha's meditation. So it also taught, or understood, it's obvious that if you're practicing Buddhism meditation, in a sense, the precepts are already included. The teaching of cause and effect is clearly realized. There's nothing in addition to Buddha's enlightenment. The Buddha includes the teaching of cause and effect, the reality of cause and effect, But the problem is that when people hear this, when they hear actually that zazen completely includes the precepts, and Dogen says, when you practice the zazen, what precepts are not upheld and maintained? It's true.

[07:42]

Keeping the zazen is the zazen of Buddha. But some people here, in various centers around the world, particularly in America and France, they say, hey, we practice zazen. Precepts aren't necessary. Not necessarily because they're already polluted. The precepts are based on Zazen. We practice Zazen, so don't worry about the precepts." And I might say, yeah, but you should be teaching them constantly. Not worrying about them, but having deep faith. So, what happens then is you have moral degeneration and people dreaming that they're practicing Zazen,

[08:44]

which includes the meaning that they're practicing, the zazen, which includes moral cause and effect and the precepts. But in fact, in fact, this attitude that we don't have to look at cause and effect can lead into the implication that cause and effect isn't important, that the fact that actions have consequences isn't very important, and thinking that the consequences of actions aren't important could lead into thinking, who knows, there really isn't any consequence. And this destroys the Buddhadharma in our heart. We have to have Buddhadharma in our heart to practice bodhisattva. And another difficulty, which I mentioned before, I'll say again, is that the process of karmic cause and effect, which is taught by the Buddha, the teaching of which comes from enlightenment, the teaching and the process being described, being taught, is selfless.

[10:19]

There's no self in the process. of the actor, there's no actor doing it, there's no self in the action, there's no self in the consequence, and then again people hear that, then they again slip into the wrong view, well then there isn't any consequence, there isn't any action, nobody's responsible. The selflessness which is in the process is then misapplied to the process. To think or say that there's no retribution for good and bad action eliminates the Buddha dhamma from our heart. And once that happens, we can't practice us.

[11:25]

So part of the conflict there too in Dobi's teaching is that he's teaching the way of Zazen and the Buddhist ancestors. And that's really primary. And then he has, and then people misunderstand that, so then he has to say how important karmic cause and effect is. Then he has to run back over to say, zazen is most important. Back and forth, back and forth. Wanting to change ourselves, wanting to be different from what we are, is not compassion. But it has a cause, and its cause is that we are constantly changing.

[12:55]

We want to get with that program. But we can turn that into seeking, which is not compulsion. And wanting to make in ourselves is not an accordance reality. And that's grasping. So Zen teachers are well known for recommending no seeking and no grasping. Seeking is birth, grasping is death. Seeking and grasping is samsara. Not seeking is no birth, not grasping is no death. It's the practice of nirvana. And from the practice of nirvana comes the teachings of causing effect.

[13:59]

You've got to sit. I've got to sit. Everybody's got to sit. Everybody's got to sit, too. We walk little walks. How are we the same? We're the same in not seeking, in not grasping. How are we different in seeking and grasping? The teaching of cause and effect is a provisional teaching. It's not an ultimate teaching. But it naturally emerges from the ultimate.

[15:25]

in response to beings who are in conflict, who are holding on to the road and yearning for the river, or being a river trying to build a road. The teaching for us when we're like that. Receiving this teaching, we can enter the ultimate. Entering the ultimate, we can give it up When you join hands with people, sharing the practice, you'll cause attention to come causing effect. That's probably enough. It's kind of a finisher to them. So do you understand how to practice now?

[16:32]

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