The pure and simple color of true practice, of the true mind and faith, of the true body and faith. as you see themselves. New people have arrived tonight, and I will try to integrate you into what we've been studying, discussing for the past three days.

[01:03]

One way to talk about it is we've been the mind of Buddha, or enlightenment, and the bodhisattva precepts. And what we just chanted is a vow, originally a personal vow, the vow of a person. The person is Ehe Dogen. And this is a verse to arouse his vow, and we can also use it as a verse to arouse our vow. And it starts out by being the vow to hear the true Dharma. And...

[02:08]

you may not know, may not have heard, but hearing the true Dharma is quite an event. Even people who lived at the time of Shakyamuni Buddha and were in Shakyamuni Buddha's presence while he was talking to them, even those people did not all hear the true Dharma. However, some people did. fortunately, and those who heard it were enlightened at the time of hearing. Hearing at Tridharma is the usual occasion for entering into enlightenment. It's not the same as becoming a Buddha, but it is hearing and entering Buddha's world. And I propose to you that, well, that I think that the situation in which we hear the true Dharma is a situation in which we are meeting a Buddha face to face.

[03:27]

So he doesn't say this, but you could write a different vow. I could write a vow. Maybe I will. I vow from this life on throughout countless lives to meet Buddha face-to-face and in that meeting to hear the true Dharma. Other places, Ehe Dogen said that in meeting Buddha face-to-face, it is in that situation that the Dharma is heard, the Dharma is transmitted. Before we hear it, we cannot hear it, of course, But when we have the opportunity to open up to meeting the Buddha, or meeting Buddhas, in that meeting there's... we have the requisite condition, one of the requisite conditions for Hiramitra Dharma, is to be meeting Buddha. I propose to you also that the Buddhas are constantly

[04:43]

hovering around you, practicing with you. They feel no separation from you. They're with each of us all the time. And if we can see them in that meeting, we have a chance to hear the Dharma, see the Dharma. Even if you see a Buddha when a Buddha is talking to you, you won't necessarily immediately hear the Dharma. There are a number of stories of people meeting the historical Buddha, actually meeting the Buddha and having the Buddha give them a private talk, sometimes, or a public talk, but anyway, the Buddha talking right to them, and they don't even know it's Buddha. But as the conversation goes on, they suddenly realize who's talking to them. And once they realize who's talking to them, they realize they're meeting the Buddha, and then, in that space, they hear the Dharma.

[05:46]

So Dogen says he wants to, he vows to hear the Dharma. In other words, he vows to meet Buddhas in this life, and for countless lives, he vows to meet Buddhas and listen for the Dharma, and eventually hear it. And then he says, when you hear it, you will renounce worldly affairs. And renouncing worldly affairs, you will be able to, and you will maintain the Buddha Dharma. And that in maintaining the Buddha Dharma, the whole earth and the entire sky will turn into enlightenment. All beings together will attain the Buddha way when you maintain the Buddha Dharma. But in order to maintain the Buddha Dharma, we need to give up worldly affairs. And in order to successfully give up worldly affairs, Hearing the two Dharma makes it really kind of easy. You can try to give up worldly affairs before you hear the Dharma, but it's so hard.

[06:54]

You can try to maintain the Buddha Dharma, and you might be somewhat successful, but when you hear the Dharma, you can try to maintain the Dharma, but hearing it, meeting the Buddha and hearing it, things go much more smoothly, so that's why. again, and some other people vow to hear the Chudana. That's the logic of the first part. The second part is, the next part is, however, it says although, but you can also say however there's a problem. Because of our past karma, because of the stories we've been telling for quite a while, because of the way our mind has been working, there are consequences of that karma, and part of the consequences are that we can't hear the true dharma. By telling the story for quite a while, that we're not in the presence of the Buddhas, by telling that story, by telling the story that we're not surrounded by supportive, compassionate beings, by telling that story, by telling the story that not everybody's helping us

[08:11]

And by telling the story that we're not helping everybody else, by telling stories like that on various renditions of that, the consequences of that is we don't see anymore that everybody's supporting us and the Buddhas are with us. And we're helping the Buddhas on their project and helping all things. We have trouble seeing that. Because we told stories in the past which have consequences by obstructing or hindering our vision. So by noticing that we don't hear the Dharma and noticing that we have these obstructions to hearing the Dharma and notice that we, even though we hear the teaching that the Buddhas are with us and practicing with us, we kind of don't get it. And we're kind of not practicing with the enthusiasm we would practice with if we actually felt them surrounding us right now.

[09:14]

So by confessing that and repenting that, in the presence of the Buddhas we can't quite clearly see, gradually the hindrances melt away. The hindrances are removed. We are freed from the karmic hindrances. Studying the precepts and thereby studying them in conjunction with art current storyteller, by giving close, kind, and generous attention to all of our actions, particularly, fundamentally, all of our storytelling, all of our mental construction of the world we live in, by giving close, kind, generous attention to this karma, which then can be expressed verbally and physically, I should say verbally through speech, and physically through posture. By looking at all this karma, and confessing it, and looking at it, caring for it, letting it be, and so on, in the presence of the Buddhas, inviting the Buddhas to witness us, give us Sipha.

[10:32]

These images are removed, and then we see. The Buddhas, we see the Dharma, We see the precepts, which we've been working with, but not clearly seeing them. And confessing that we don't clearly see them, and confessing that we don't clearly see that we're living in accord with them. And repenting them. In other words, feeling what it's like when we don't feel an accord with this dharma, with these teachings. There's different renditions of the Bodhisattva precepts.

[11:35]

One of them is a rendition of, for example, of 58 Bodhisattva precepts. That's a very influential and important rendition of the Bodhisattva precepts. There's 58 of them. Ten major ones, and 48 minor ones. It's very popular in Chinese Mahayana Bodhisattva circles. for a couple thousand years. It's been popular there. Still is not so popular as it used to be, but it's making a comeback. And the potential of a billion and 400 million bodhisattvas over there, lining up, not yet ready to commit to these precepts. When those 58 were transmitted to China, the ancestor, the great ancestor, Dogen, received them, And then, as he became a teacher himself, he made a new version of them called Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts.

[12:38]

And that rendition is on the board there in the entryway, slightly modified by itself there. And that is the tradition of Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts, which were transmitted to me, and which I transmitted to Galen, and which she's transmitting to you. And I've also transmitted, I've given them these precepts to a number of youth. I've transmitted them to her. Sixteen bodhisattva precepts. Ten of them, the last ten, are the first ten of the fifties. Ten major ones. Ten in that list of sixteen. The first group is called refuges, and the first refuge is to go for refuge what he said. Return to and rely on Buddha. Rely on Buddha. Rely on Buddha's body. Rely on Buddha's mind.

[13:41]

Rely on Buddha's practice. Return to Buddha's mind. Return to Buddha's body. Return to Buddha's practice. Buddha's body is represented by the next three Bodhisattva precepts, the three pure precepts. Those three are Buddha's body. And those are three aspects of Buddha's body, those next three. The first precept, the first Bodhisattva precept in this tradition is Buddha. It's the Buddha treasure. And it is to the practices to return to the Buddha. So, what is Buddha?

[14:50]

There's different aspects of Buddha, but the first aspect of Buddha is enlightenment, unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. That's the first aspect of Buddha. The first merit or virtue of Buddha is supreme awakening, unsurpassed awakening. And unsurpassed awakening is the silent bond among all beings. It's the silent way that all beings are supporting each other. It's the silent way that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are supporting each of us. It's the silent way that we're supporting them. It's the silent way we're supporting each other. That's enlightenment.

[15:54]

And it's silent in the sense that, no, I'm talking about it right now, but these words do not reach this bond. I'm talking about the bond among us, And I'm saying that's what enlightenment is, but I'm telling you the bond is actually quiet. Because my words don't reach it. Nobody's words, even Buddha's words, don't reach its bond. And I vow to realize this bond. But also, I vow to hear the true Dharma, and the true Dharma is that silent bond talking. It's a silent bond, but no words reach, but it can talk. It's silent, no words reach it, but it's not without speech.

[17:00]

It speaks. And what it speaks is called the true Dharma. And it's speaking all day long. Just that we can't hear it sometimes because we're busy with our karmic hindrances. Which are quite interesting to us. And quite familiar. So then we're busy with the karmic hindrances later on the true dharma. We move on now. Something interesting. But even though I'm interested in something besides the true dharma, also I vow to be more interested in it and eventually hear it. No trace of consciousness reaches this bond among all consciousnesses. The Buddhas got really high-quality consciousnesses.

[18:05]

But all the Buddhists, high-quality consciousnesses, great Buddhists, high-quality consciousnesses, our consciousnesses of various qualities, all those together, supporting each other, working together, practicing together, that's enlightenment. And that enlightenment is beaming a message to all beings. All the time. and we can bow, we can want to hear it, and we can bow and commit to hearing it, which includes committing to studying karma, moment by moment, learning to study it moment by moment, with the understanding that studying our karma, studying our mental activity, studying how the mental activity goes into our speech and posture, that that study, including confessing the quality of that, That will remove hindrance to our hearing the Dharma.

[19:08]

And when we hear the Dharma, we'll be guided into the realization of that bond. And then we'll be totally in concert with it and with the teaching of it and maintaining it. I was on the track of talking about consciousnesses, and nobody's consciousness reaches this enlightenment. There's no trace of anybody's consciousness, not even Buddha's consciousness, is in the trace of the light and illumination of this enlightenment. And this light, this bond, the way we're working together, is very bright in our It's a very bright thing because it's so energetic, the way we're helping each other and the way everybody's helping us.

[20:10]

It's very warm and bright. And in that brightness, nobody's consciousness, there's no trace of anybody's consciousness in there. However, that light can illuminate all consciousnesses. But the life can be, in a sense, hindered, or the recognition of the life, and the perception of the life can be hindered by the effects of karma. But speaking again about the three first precepts, the first one is it's the Buddha jewel and it's going for refuge in the Buddha jewel.

[21:19]

And the Buddha jewel has the aspect of it can be this perfect, this supreme enlightenment, but also has the aspect of the historical Buddha, also has the aspect of the the actual transformation of being. So, Buddha can be enlightenment itself, the unsurpassed enlightenment itself, a historical formation of a Buddha. And also, Buddha is when beings are edified, when beings are illuminated. That's the working of the Buddha. the manifestation of the Buddha is a historical being among certain types of beings. For us, it's a human. And then the single body of Buddha is enlightened itself.

[22:23]

Then comes the Dharma. And the Dharma, the single-bodied Dharma is its purity and freedom from dust. The Dharma Buddha Dharma is the Buddha's purity and freedom from dust. That's the Dharma. The Dharma is the truth or the teaching about how Buddha is pure and free of dust. Buddha is free of being separate from her. Dharma is the teaching that this bond is totally inseparable from us, which of course makes sense. And also it's free of dust in the sense of this Buddha is not an object out there separate from us. The Dharma is that way that the Buddha is.

[23:25]

So first of all, the Buddha is this bond among all of us. Second of all, the Dharma is that this bond is not separate from us, and not out there. Enlightenment is not out there, separate from us. And it's not exactly the same with us, because it's not really us. It's the way we're related to each other. It's not me. It's not you. It's how you and I are helping each other. It's not me. It's not Buddha. It's how me and Buddha are partners. And that is free of dust. And nobody can get closer or farther away from it. Like the Dharma. And the Sangha is peace and harmony of the Buddha and Dharma. The first precept of returning to Buddha means returning to the Buddha with no discrimination about what Buddha is and what Buddha isn't.

[25:17]

No discrimination between you and Buddha. That's returning to Buddha. But even that is difficult to do because of karmic hindrance. So again, we need to study our karma in order to actually practice the simple, realize the simple, yet inconceivable profound reality of going for refuge in Buddha. Of returning to the non-separation of ourselves and the Buddha, which is Buddha. Buddha in some sense isn't Buddha. Buddha is the bond between Buddha and I. One of our major stories in the Zen tradition is about people in our tradition, and we have this sixth ancestor in China, and a person came to visit him once,

[26:37]

I think the person's name is Huaihrong. Huaihrong. And Huaihrong met the sixth ancestor. And sixth ancestor, I think, said, where are you from? And Huaihrong said, I'm from Al-Sung. And sixth ancestor said, What is it that thus comes? Now, I guess I should have maybe told you beforehand that thus comes is an epithet for Buddha. One of the epithets for Buddha is thus comes, tathagata. And I'll talk maybe more about the tathagata tomorrow. Hmm. But kathagata means, it actually can mean both what comes, what thus comes, and also can mean what thus goes.

[27:52]

In this case, and in Chinese generally, they translate kathagata as thus comes. The epithet is thus comes. So, the Ancestry says to Huayran, what is the tagata? What is it that does come? But also, he's saying to this person in front of him, what is it that does come right now? And Huayran says, to say, it's this, and this is the point. The point of it misses the point. And then the answer just says, well, then are you saying that there's no practice in realization? Or he says, what's Buddha? What's enlightenment?

[28:53]

What is it that thus comes? What is enlightenment that comes? Point at it misses the point. Then are you saying there's no enlightenment in practice? And the white one says, I don't say there's no practice and enlightenment. I just say that it must not be defiled. It can talk, but if you talk about it, don't defile it. So he's not going to talk about it, other than saying, I'm not going to talk about it. He doesn't want to defile that which is free of dust. doesn't want to talk about it in such a way that he or the ancestor will think it's someplace else in their mind, in their relationship. So he'd say, well, he could have said, he said, well, what is it photography?

[29:58]

He could have said, us. Or he could have given him a hug and started dancing with him. But he didn't. Not that time. He just said, I'm not going to say anything because to do so would defile it. It would miss the point. I'm not going to defile it. And this Ancestry says, if you say, good, this non-defiled way is the way of all Buddhas. Now, now, it's like I'm like that and you're like that and we're like that. Now we're like that. We're like all Buddhas have been Not defiling. Just together, here we are together, you and me, not defiling. That's the way they always are. So we're like that too. So we're happy campers.

[31:11]

Let's see... During this retreat, I also reissued to new people and to the people who have been here for three days, I reissued the invitation to give me feedback, to give the gift, And I invite you to give the gift on this little mat here in front of me. If you'd like to, at any time during the talks, you can just come up here and sit down there or stand there or etc. and express yourself as a gift to me and to the tradition and all your friends. Anyone would like to offer anything at this point? You're welcome to do so.

[32:11]

You can offer various types of gifts. In general, I would suggest money. Or something perishable, like chocolate or flowers. You can offer frustration. You can offer questions. You can offer minute analysis of proceedings. You can offer something that's bothering you. You can express praise. Pretty much whatever. But actually, I would encourage you, let me do so. Be very mindful. And concentrated. And calm. And kind. And generous. Not perfect. Just all those good things. But if you want to come up and you don't feel that you can do all those things, you're still welcome. I just want to remind you that that's what I would encourage you to come with.

[33:28]

You know, bring all of yourself forward and offer all of yourself as much as possible. Anything you'd like to offer? Patty cake is also fine. Yes. I do not mind. Anything else that anyone cared to offer?

[34:56]

I'm rightful of Kyle. Thank you for coming. You're welcome. When it occurred to me in a conversation with a Buddha recently that part of the responsibility that was transmitted to me and that I accepted was basically seeing everything as feedback being willing to look and accept feedback. And in this conversation and in this thinking about it, I realized that seeing the world that way doesn't necessarily mean that other people see it that way. So it suddenly occurred that I had to make that explicit as well.

[35:58]

So I see my responsibility as accepting feedback from the world. And so I guess I have to invite that publicly. You guess that you have to publicly invite feedback from the world to help you realize that the world's giving you feedback? Mm-hmm. That's right. Did I get that right? You did. And there are several ways to play patty cake. The version you played earlier today was not the one I'm familiar with. Oh, you'd like to show me the other one? Okay. There's clapping. Okay. Daddy cake. [...]

[37:03]

Daddy cake. Daddy cake. Have you just said that you invite people to get feedback? Yes, and more instructions on patty cake. Thank you. Is there any further instruction on the feedback that you'd like to offer, or any other requests around feedback that you'd like to make? Not at this time.

[38:06]

I would on her behalf. And that would be, I request feedback, but when you come to give it to me, please ask me if I wish to have it now. Because I might not be ready right now. You know, like if I was trying to remove a sliver from a Mary's eyeball. And you came up to me and asked me if I wanted feedback. I might say, later. Let me finish this and I'll be with you. Or if I, you know, if somebody just gave me some feedback and I was still absorbing it or reeling from it, I might say, wait a minute. I'll do it later. So it's good to, even though I asked for your feedback, still it's good to check with me sometimes and see if I'm ready, because sometimes I might wish to wait a while.

[39:12]

And then you can, and then I might say, but check with me again later. Okay? Heather? Yes, ma'am. Metamorphosis. It's a book. Oh, beautiful. It's a movie. It's a home movie of the metamorphosis that certain animals go through. Is it a butterfly or a moth? It's a butterfly. Thank you. May I give you more feedback? Yes, you may. It's not that it's a butterfly. My son got a book like that at Christmas.

[40:17]

And at first I explained that that kind of book was an optical illusion. And if you flip it fast enough, it looks like reality. And then I stopped. And I said, I think, Mike, it slows reality down so that you can feel it. But I like that. I do, too. Okay? And one other thing is that if you come up, if people come up to talk, and you cannot hear them, like in the back, it's a place often hard to hear.

[41:22]

If you can't hear them, raise your hand, and then I will signal to them to raise their voice, to put more volume of air into the voice. Okay? You raise your hand, and I'll go like this to the person speaking. Could you hear her okay in back? I hope people couldn't hear you. Thank you. Another explanation of this is that it offers you pictures in such a way to help you understand how you construct your story. Anything else tonight?

[42:26]

Okay, well, then let us conclude. Thank you.

[42:51]

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