and events are the single reality body of the Tathāgata. Abiding in this state of mind, all interlinked vexations would be eliminated of themselves. In an atom of dust are contained the infinite worlds. Infinite worlds can be gathered into a single pore. Because all phenomena are thus, they do not interfere with each other. The Hualien Sutra says, within an atom of dust appear all phenomena of all the worlds in the cosmos. Now this may not be interesting to you, good news or bad news, but if you see one dust, if you see one object of dust,

[01:09]

that contains the whole universe and therefore you make the whole universe an object and therefore the whole universe is going to harass you. Just see one speck of dust and you're in for full scale trouble. Just don't see one speck of dust and the entire universe will not bug you anymore. Actually no matter how fast you run you can never catch one speck of dust. You can never meet one speck of dust. But if you can see an object that can bug you completely. So don't worry about things being too small or too big. Just see if you can understand

[02:15]

a thought that has no object. Then Dao Shin says, let us outline the practice of pacifying mind, or calming the mind. The outline is, it cannot be expounded in full. The proper skill at it comes from one's own innermost heart. As briefly pointed out, it is impossible to exhaust everything when it comes to describing the methods for calming the mind. In this, skillfulness comes from the heart. So if you're getting a talk, it's okay to bring a book with you, or have a translator

[03:27]

sitting next to you. Or bring a mother, or bring your dog. It's alright, those are methods for calming the mind. Or wear a robe, or follow a schedule. There are inexhaustible methods for calming your mind. Use them and calm your mind. But notice that everything you use to calm the mind, your mother, your dog, your robe, your schedule, actually what they do is they complete you. They make you not worry anymore about objects of thought. You've got your translator next to you. You and the translator together can handle English language. You've got your mother with you, you've got your dog with you. In other words,

[04:30]

there's no object, and you've arranged to actually feel the world to be that way. Well, as they say, there's more where this came from, but it looks like you've had enough.

[06:02]

So my main message today is, your hands may help you go down, and no objects of thought. Thought which has no object. And one more message is, the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. Students of the way would do well to catch the mind when it first moves. The early bird gets the worm. If you can go down today, down to the ground, you may catch a worm. That first movement of thought, that will be very useful

[07:26]

to you and to me, to all of us, if you can catch your mind as it first starts to move. Dawn comes several times a day, fortunately, not just once. So there's many, many dawns you can catch and experience. This is really useful. You can go down there to the ground and catch those little worms sticking their heads up at dawn. They have a secret to tell us. And it's just for you. Each worm has a special story for each one of us at that moment. Om Namo Shakyamuni.

[09:15]

Om Namo Shakyamuni. [...]

[10:23]

Om Namo Shakyamuni. [...]

[11:51]

Om Namo Shakyamuni. [...]

[13:20]

Does it seem to you that we've been talking about the fourth ancestor for a long time? And I wonder if you're getting impatient to move on. How is it? Hm? Seems okay? To me it seems like, I remember we were talking about Bodhidharma a while ago, but to me it seems like, I feel like I'm sort of stuck, stuck on the fourth picture of the fourth ancestor. You don't feel so much that way? Being stuck is okay. One is as good as the other. What? One is as good as the other. What did you say? There are a lot of thoughts, but not much I can say about it. That's how I feel too. That's how I feel too.

[14:20]

I just feel like we're barely getting into his teaching and it seems like I've been concerned with it for a long time. But even though you seem to be tolerant of this situation, I still want to justify it by saying that when I'm reading the teaching of the fourth ancestor, part of me wants to go ahead and get on with, start studying some of these other teachers, the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and so on, up into later China and Japan. I want to get on. So it's probably not, you don't feel this way as much as I do. I'm kind of like, I feel in myself a kind of longing or greed to get to the more flowery period of Zen.

[15:23]

When the five petals open. But I also feel when I'm reading this, I'm thinking about this fourth ancestor, I feel like I don't want to leave yet because I feel I'm looking at the roots of our practice. And I feel really, I'm so kind of moved to feel the roots of what we're doing here in this teacher that lived almost 1400 years ago. 1400 years ago. And just to see the roots just ready to pop into sprouts in his teaching or just sprouting. In my head, I know, yes,

[16:34]

the practice we're doing has its roots back there, but to actually see it, to see it coming forth is a different matter. And I keep running into these little nodules, these little roots in the ground and I feel I want to share them with you. Just as I was walking over here, I was thinking about this show on TV several years ago called Roots. It was about the roots of the black people in America. And that program was a big encouragement to some black people because, or a lot of black people, because being brought over on slave ships, generally speaking, they don't know their roots. And being an oppressed minority and having no sense of your roots, you will continue to be oppressed because your roots are your real strength. Where you come from is your strength.

[17:36]

And the plant doesn't know about its roots. It can flower, but then eventually it'll just fall over on its face. And root work is, of course, in the dark. So there's some it's underground and it's in the dark and it's in the winter and it's again, there's something in me that wants to get on with springtime and get out of the ground. But if I can resist that impulse to go ahead to the more flowery time, to the lovely spring of our practice, the real power is a kind of germ power in that. The power of thorough germination can sustain the later plant. But anyway, I feel in myself some impulse to get on. And I'm sharing with you this this dynamic of

[18:39]

I want to stay here and settle these roots and eliminate these roots at the same time I want to get on with other things. And oftentimes when in a session when I give a series of talks, I often for myself, and I think it helps others too, to review the day before, and oftentimes reviewing the day before takes the whole lecture. Still I want to review again one of the main points from yesterday was Dao Shin's teaching that for us to think of Buddha is Buddha's mind. For us to think Buddha is Buddha. And to think Buddha is to have no objects of thought. So

[19:46]

it's another kind of root work, a very basic work of what does it mean to have no object of thought? And as I mentioned yesterday I feel that when you can give rise to a thought which has no object this kind of thinking is a big relief. And I thought of I gave some examples, but again I thought of some more examples like for example when you when you were kids some of us used to go to the movies on Saturdays and they had these serials, series of movies and one of the most common scenes was Bokobo in Indian movies when our heroes, or the people we identify with were being overwhelmed or harassed, and there was an experience of

[20:52]

reinforcements coming. Here comes the cavalry, over the hill comes reinforcements to help us. And that feeling of relief when the reinforcements come to save us when our complete force arrives that kind of relief and joy is what it's like to have a thought that doesn't have an object. And one time I was in Japan and I was by myself and I was surrounded by Japanese people and I wasn't speaking English I was speaking something like Japanese to these people and they were speaking Japanese to me and I understood sometimes what they were saying and sometimes I didn't Anyway, it was nice to make an effort all day long to try to speak Japanese and try to understand and on one occasion

[21:55]

I had to make negotiations with an artist to do the sculpture of Suzuki Roshi which is in the Founders Hall in San Francisco and now the conversation was not just about mine, it wasn't just about it was about something big and what I said and what I understood was going to have consequences people were going to ride in airplanes to America or not huge pieces of wood were going to be bought and transported across the ocean or not, depending on what I said and what I understood and so it was a particularly tense conversation for me and then in the middle of the conversation this artist worked at a school, he was a teacher at an art school in the middle of the conversation the English teacher of the school came into the meeting he was a Japanese person who taught English and he came in to translate

[23:00]

so I didn't have to do the work all by myself anymore well I relaxed quite a bit, sort of sat back in my chair that's the feeling of having no object of thought and you feel at peace and complete as long as somebody else knows Japanese better than you, they're not there to help you a little bit tense and worried as long as there's one speck of dust that's outside your mind you won't be at peace because that speck of dust contains the entire universe and you're at peace considering that we put

[24:02]

so much of the universe outside, we're doing pretty well not to be totally harassed and frightened we do our best under the circumstances of having objects of thought we do pretty well, but real peace comes when there is no object of thought and this having no object of thought is very similar to the teaching of emptiness and the relief and serenity that comes from having no object of thought is basically the same as the relief that comes when we realize emptiness because in emptiness there are no objects of thought there's no I, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind there's no color, no sound, no smell, no touch in other words, there's no color that's an object of mind there's no sound that's an object of mind

[25:07]

and this, when we have no colors that are objects of mind we are saved from suffering and to have no objects of thought is to think Buddha ... [...]

[26:08]

... [...]

[27:14]

... [...]

[28:14]

... [...]

[29:20]

... [...]

[30:27]

... [...]

[31:33]

... [...] because I've diluted people's thinking. Actually I always have been there and always will be there. Like it's, what does it say in the dual near samadhi?

[32:35]

Because there is a base, there are dual pedestals in fine clothing. Because there is a startlingly different, there are house, cat, and cow. Ye with his art of skill could hit a target a hundred paces, but when error points meet head-on, what is this to have to do with the power of skill? What is, when error points meet head-on, that's when everything is an epithet for the dharmakaya. Then it's not a matter of skill, everything that meets your eye is error points meeting. But because of our delusion, we need to concentrate Buddha at some place rather than every place.

[33:36]

Therefore there seems to be these nice teachers, so this doesn't mean that you should start spitting on nice teachers. It's not their fault that they look so nice. So the question is, if the Buddha is like this great mirror, why does it look like the Buddha is some particular little activity there in the middle of the great mirror, some particular nice thing in the middle of the great mirror? And he says, well actually it is just that great mirror and that mirror is effortlessly reflecting all phenomena perfectly, equally, purely. But people want to have some kind of subsection within that great mirror that they can relate

[34:39]

to as a teacher, therefore they get it and they use it. And then what does it say to them once they use it? It says, actually this is just a show, actually everything is like this, you should appreciate everything like you appreciate me. You should respect and learn from everything just like you learned from this Buddha. And what does it say? Because of their delusion we call black is white, it's just because people want to see things segmented fashion that we presented segmented Buddhas. And in the past it was just because they wanted to have male Buddhas that we had male Buddhas. Now they want female Buddhas, so we're going to have female Buddhas, but really there's no male or female Buddhas. That's just because of people's delusions that we have male and female Buddhas. But if people want it, we'll give it.

[35:42]

Takes a little time though because if you give it right away people don't believe it, because they want a story. So again, remember that the Tathagata does not teach and Buddha is not Buddha. Buddha does not save sentient beings. The first teaching in the Abhidharmakosha is Buddha does not save sentient beings. Buddha's got a lot of tricks too, you know. He could look like he saved sentient beings if he wanted to. He could even look like she saved sentient beings if she wanted to. But he doesn't reach down there and pull these little buggers out of the muck, shake them out and clean them up and set them on a shelf. What does he do? He gives them Dharma. Buddha's human heart would like to help people, would like to save them, especially when they

[36:49]

say, �Save me, save me!� But Buddha knows it doesn't help. What helps is Dharma. So Buddha holds back that impulse to some extent or even gives in to it, but it doesn't help and then gives Dharma. Sentient beings save themselves by listening to the Dharma and practicing it, and Buddha gives Dharma. As a human being, Buddha would like to save sentient beings, but boy, Buddha would really be appreciated if he saved sentient beings. That's real job security. But instead, Buddha gives Dharma, which eventually people will appreciate more, because then they can also give Dharma. Anyway, Dharma is what works, not having somebody else save you. Therefore Buddha doesn't save people, never has and probably never will.

[37:56]

So Buddha doesn't teach Dharma, doesn't save sentient beings, and yet because people want to see it that way, it looks like that for a while, like Buddha's getting up there and teaching and helping. This is the Zen teacher saying this, and he's quoting the Lotus Sutra and the Nirvana Sutra. Now, if practitioners cultivate their minds and exhaust their defilements, then they know that that Veda Tagata never teaches Dharma. This is what is meant by listening perfectly to the Dharma which is taught by the Buddha.

[39:09]

Listening perfectly involves all phenomena. Now, there's two translations here. One is, this is listening perfectly. In other words, to know that the Tagata never teaches Dharma, that is listening perfectly. So the translation is, they realize that the Tagata never teaches Dharma, only this is complete learning. These two translations I thought were rather interesting, translated differently. One says this is perfect learning, one says this is complete learning, the other one says this is perfect listening. Listening and learning are very closely related, so much so that they're interchangeable in this particular moment.

[40:11]

When you're concentrating, the first stage of concentration in the nine stages of mental stabilization, the power associated with the first stage is called power of listening. But it's also called the power of learning. And I'm always impressed in Sesshin to watch this power accumulate in people. If you give a lecture during Sesshin the first day, well, people look kind of like normal people. But as the Sesshin moves on, people start looking like, I don't know what, like flowers waiting for the dew or something. Every little drop of moisture that hits them, they sort of vibrate and tingle, because they develop, everybody in Sesshin elucidates the first stage, and they develop the power to listen, the power to learn.

[41:19]

So that by the end of Sesshin, anything you say to people, they listen to. Anything you say to people, they learn from. But it's not what the lecturer is saying that's teaching them, it's their responsiveness. You can go boop, boop, boop, and they go, learn, learn, learn. What they do with what happens with them is the learning. And after three days, it's already starting to happen here. You're starting to realize that the Tathagata never teaches Dharma, but the Dharma is the interaction between somebody talking or somebody burping and you. It's that listening where you realize that somebody's not teaching you, that teaching

[42:23]

is not an object of your listening. That's called perfect listening or complete learning. And this kind of listening involves all phenomena, you see. No matter what I say, and if I stop talking and you hear the stream, you learn from that too. And if the stream stops and the blue jays start, you learn from that. Everything that happens when you have this kind of learning, when you realize that the Tathagata isn't teaching Dharma, this is perfect listening. This is perfect learning.

[43:23]

Again, this relates to the teaching of suchness. It is the teaching of suchness, that the Tathagata doesn't teach Dharma. Suchness is not about anything. One of my favorite Zen stories is about this guy named Zweigan, who used to wake up in the morning and say, Hey, Master! Are you awake? And he would say, Yes, I'm awake. He didn't say, Hey, Zweigan, he said, Hey, Master. He wasn't talking to Zweigan. Now, you could start up waking in the morning and say, Hey, plant, are you awake?

[44:44]

And say, Yes. But how about, Hey, Master, are you awake? This is not about something. This is an answer to a question. It's a good answer. No is a good answer too. The Yes, neither the Yes nor the No reach it. The meaning is not in the Yes and not in the No. And yet it responds to the inquiring impulse. When you say, Hey, Master, are you awake? Something responds to that called the teaching of thusness. If you come with some energy, the teaching of thusness says, Good morning. It responds to that.

[45:47]

We say it responds to the inquiring impulse. Literally, what that says is, it responds to the arrival of energy. It's just big, bright mirror. It responds to the inquiring impulse. Words cannot reach it, but it responds to the arrival of our energy. It's not about something. Speech is suchness, but suchness is without speech. Suchness doesn't have anything. The mirror doesn't have anything. It's not like there's this mirror called suchness and then it's got some, over on a shelf nearby, it's got a pile of possessions called the universe or whatever, you know. You name it. It doesn't possess anything.

[46:48]

It is without anything. It is without speech. It is without truth. It is without goodness. It is without badness. It's without you. It's without me. It's without self. It's without obstruction. But it reflects obstruction. It reflects self. It is exactly obstruction and self and good and bad. It reflects them, but it's without them. It's not about anything. It already includes everything perfectly, mindlessly, effortlessly. So, I was thinking, you know, Eric or Zori can demonstrate suchness. They could come in here and give a lecture on suchness. Because Eric and Zori, better than us in a way, Eric and Zori don't ever talk about anything. From our point of view, they're never about something.

[47:54]

We don't think they're about something. They're just Eric and Zori. We have to deal with them as such. And there are some people who are like that too, who we don't think they're talking about something. We wish they would learn how, but in fact, at certain times in a way, they don't talk about anything. Or like, imagine some very beautiful person approaching you slowly, speaking a language you don't understand. They're not talking about something. Or a tiger moving slowly towards you, growling. It's not talking about something. So, for people like that, or animals like that,

[49:17]

we realize when we see them, even if they're making sounds with their voice, we realize that what we're aware of is not what they're talking about. We're just aware of their talking. We're just aware of what they are. There's no duality. No object of this object. In this way, the Tathagata never teaches Dharma. Now I'm going to skip over a little bit here.

[50:38]

Now, Dao Shin says, when sitting in meditation, we must be aware of the onward flow of the conscious mind from its first movement. When we are sitting in meditation, we watch carefully to know when our consciousness starts to move. The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. So, again, we're still going down here, in this session, trying to go down to the ground, to the roots, to the roots of our tradition, to the roots of our experience.

[52:04]

We're down to the ground, and at that ground, dawn occurs. Consciousness starts to move. As I said, you can use your hands to get down there. You can use your spine to get down there. You can use your thighs, your knees, to get down there. Use your body to get down to the ground. Doesn't that make sense, that you use your body to get down to the ground? And when you get to the ground, sit and watch for the moment

[53:08]

when the clouds crop up. Watch for the first movement of the mind. Once I heard an artist say, once I heard myself think I heard an artist that said, people think that if you understand, you can create. But actually, it's the other way around. If you can create, you understand. In other words, if you can witness creation, you understand. And when you understand,

[54:13]

then you can create. But again, you don't witness it. I don't witness creation of mind, the movement of mind. The witness is empty, and radiantly bright. The witness is the mind of our ancestors. The mind that can settle down on the ground and witness the first movement, that is empty and radiantly bright. There's nobody home. As these dishes are being concocted. So again, please see if you can go down, down, down to the ground and catch this first sprout of consciousness.

[55:15]

Catch the secret that comes at dawn. This is a kind of surrender to your circumstances that gets you down to the ground. Surrender to having a body, to having a leg or two, to having a spine, to having breath. Surrender to it. Actively surrender. Surrender is not passive. Are you awake? Are you awake? Surrender is not passive. There's a yoga posture called backbends. Kind of like this. I won't do it right now. But anyway, you go back, put your hands on the ground like that. Arch your back. Have you seen that one? That's a surrendering posture.

[56:22]

And it is very hard work.

[56:25]

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