Shakyamuni Buddha is also a transformation body. It's a transformation of this pure Dharmakaya into an appearance of a human being. So in that way I feel that this final chapter on the pure reality body of the Buddha and the emanations of that pure body into appearances for the welfare of sentient beings is, I kind of see that it's almost a perfect fit with the robe and what's under the robe or what the robe wraps. or where the robe emanated from, because the Buddhist robe emanated from pure Dharmakaya being asked, being requested to make a uniform for the disciples of the Buddha.

[01:10]

So then the Buddha responded by suggesting this robe, this type of robe, to wrap around of intimacy. And also the dharmakaya, as we've said before over and over, is unconstructed, unfabricated, unelaborated. But so is intimacy. Intimacy is not fabricated. It's not constructed. The intimacy of beings with themselves and with each other, we don't make that. Fabricated, you're fabricated, But the actual intimacy of our relationship is not fabricated. It's actually quite pure. And that intimacy also, just like the Dharmakaya, is radiant.

[02:16]

And that intimacy can be translated into many forms. Like this morning, I almost never wake up dreaming of baseball. But I woke up and I realized I had been dreaming that giants won the World Series. And they were very happy. And it was kind of wonderful to wake up, you know, dreaming of baseball, or having real baseball just before I got up. And it was, yeah, it was nice. So, this is an example of a transformation body. The intimacy of their relationship, this team's relationship, they became very intimate towards the end of the season.

[03:20]

They were off and on during the season, they were intimate too, but at the end, they became very intimate. And this intimacy was like radiant, it was like unbelievable. I mean, it's kind of hard to believe how intimate they got and how it's like cooperating with them. You know, like somehow these great batters couldn't hit the ball anymore. But the San Francisco players, when they were playing, trying to hit the ball, somehow could hit it. I don't know how it happened. So they won the World Series because as a, what do you call it, as an encouragement to us. An encouragement to your grandson.

[04:21]

An encouragement to my grandson, yeah. An encouragement to my grandson. Is that an encouragement to you by any chance? I also dreamt of him last night. He was like, really, his face and head were like heavily populated with long curly hair of various colors. I could hardly see his face. So I'm wondering how he is. Hmm? What? No, how he is. I just got a message that he just produced a new translation of the big work by Tore Zenji, Hakuin Zenji's disciple.

[05:28]

So that's a beginning to suggest the relationship between this teaching and the dharmakaya, the ongoing teaching of this practice period. And another point was, I think I said something about the dharmakaya that its blessings only come when there's a I'll say, yes, that's right, but now I would say also that we're always requesting blessings. It's our nature to request the blessings of the Buddhas. The Buddhas are always radiating these blessings and we're always requesting them. However, The basic level is that we are not conscious of the request and we're not conscious of the transmission of the blessing.

[06:44]

That's the basic level. That's all that's going on. That the blessings of the Buddha, the transformation bodies of the Buddha are constantly being offered, constantly requesting them. But on a basic level, we aren't cognizant of the request or the blessing. Just like people sometimes go to Zen monasteries and they don't consciously think, this sitting is requesting the blessings of the pure Dharmakaya. They don't consciously think that's what their sitting is doing. But it is. Doing Bodhidharma sitting is a request of the pure dharmakaya to come into this world to benefit beings.

[07:47]

And not only is it a request, but the dharmakaya does respond. And also it says in the dual mirror samadhi, inquiry or request and response come up together. So when you're sitting, it's not like you're sitting and then later the blessing comes. The blessing is totally manifested by the sitting. The sitting is the request and the response. The sitting is the request and the blessing. However, for a lot of people, they don't feel the request and they don't feel the response. But it's there. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you think, this is a request. And you don't see a response. Sometimes you feel like there's a response. And sometimes you feel like this is a response, this is a request, and here's the response. To the story of the ancestor Shaoshan and the elder De, there's a poem in relationship to this which goes something like,

[09:50]

The flowers consciously fall into the flowing river. The flowing river mindlessly carries the falling flowers. the flowers fall into the flowing waters. The flowing waters mindlessly carry the fallen flowers. So the pulley is kind of like, it seems like an inanimate thing, but the pulley also, you know, is an expression of human request.

[11:21]

Human request, human desire for water is represented by the pulley and the working of the pulley. So there's a conscious kind of like falling into the water of the bucket on the end of the pulley. And there's a conscious, there's a mindless reception and response to the bucket by the well. The Dharmakaya is not described in terms of mind, thinking, but it is an awareness. It's an awareness which is a fruit of bodhisattva practice. It's an awareness which is emptiness itself. It's an awareness of suchness, a non-conceptual awareness of suchness.

[12:26]

It's mindless in the usual sense of mind. In the sense of the sentient being mind, it's mindless. but it's an awareness that can respond to all minds. And in Thomas Cleary's translation of the commentary on this case, back in the days when his face wasn't shorter, or his hair was shorter, it says, Oh, there's a verse celebrating this case written by Tian Teng. No, not Tian Teng. Yeah, Tian Teng. Tian Teng Hongzhi.

[13:34]

His teacher was Tien Tung Ru Jing. So the person who wrote this poem was the abbot of that temple two generations before Dogen's teacher. So he wrote a verse celebrating this story. And in the verse, is the Book of Serenity in this room? No, it's okay. It's okay if we don't have that? So there's a poem. Another Zen teacher says, as for the pulley looks at the well, it actually says, as for the ass looking at the well, the donkey, and the well looking at the pulley, admit of any understanding by dividing them?

[14:44]

Can you understand this story by dividing the two? The pulley looking at the well and the well looking at the pulley? That's the question. Can you have an understanding if you divide those two? And does it admit of any transmission by learned understanding? So someone might think, well, if you're studying the commentary, aren't you sort of on the brink of learned understanding? So when we study the commentary on this story, We question ourselves about whether we're getting into learned understanding of the story or whether we're sitting upright with the story and simply, you know, becoming upright with it. And in the uprightness, the transmission occurs.

[15:49]

Or as we said in other case, the transmission occurs, where does it occur? Where does the transmission occur? It occurs paying respects to the great teacher. Remember that one? The transmission occurs in prostrations to the great teacher. When we're studying the commentary, We're not trying to learn something. We're not trying to get something, right? That's like, I think, what he means by learned understanding. You're trying to learn something from this thing. The transmission of this kind of teaching comes from in the process of prostration to the story. So when we study the case, when we study these cases, the spirit is a spirit of prostration to the case, prostration to the mind, the ancestors that's demonstrated by this particular story.

[17:04]

Or the same as paying our respects to the great teacher. We're paying our respects to the Dharmakaya, by studying this transformation body of the story. That's the spirit of, I say, that's the spirit of a Zen student. That's the way a Zen student studies. They sit upright, and their upright sitting is a prostration. A prostration to what? The transmission of Whatever you want to put in there. Dharmakaya, intimacy, the Buddha mind seal. It's transmitted in the uprightness of our body-mind. That's how we study this case. So the question is, does understanding admit of learned does the transmission admit of learned understanding? And I would say learned in the sense of leaned, leaning into the case to try to get the meaning.

[18:10]

This is not going to work. So somehow we have to get somewhere in the neighborhood of the story, in the neighborhood of the sutra, without going towards the sutra. Uprightly approach it to pay our respects. Not to get something, but to give something. We're going to give something to the sutra. We're going to give something to the Book of Serenity, Case 52. What are we going to give? Our life. And we're going to give it respectfully. We're going to prostrate ourselves to the transmission and for the transmission of the intimacy of the pure dharmakaya. Hey, librarian, would you please go get the Book of Serenity?

[19:24]

I wanted to share with you something in the Book of Serenity, a dream I had in the Book of Serenity, and I want to see how you interpret it. Did someone, yes? So I'm wondering if the Dharmakaya is always emanating without ceasing. It's just, that's what it's always, emanations are always coming off. And sometimes, you know, we don't know them. but we're always receiving. I think so. I think that it's saying that number one is that it's always like radiant and the radiance emanates. So it's not like a black hole except if you try to get it. Then it suddenly becomes a black hole. But actually, if you don't try to get something from it, it's glowing radiantly and it's

[20:30]

that glowing goes out constantly. So this sutra says that, like for example, it says, what is the characteristics of the dharmakaya, of the tathagata? And it says, it's characteristics, what is the characteristics of the complete perfect enlightenment, the turning of the dharma wheel, and the entering into parinirvana of the tathagata? And it said, non-dual. So it says, they do not enter parinirvana because of the purity of the dharmakaya. And they do enter the dharmakaya because the emanations are constant. So the sutra says the emanations of the dharmakaya are constant. Radiance is constant. Radiance is his nature. And the emanations are its response to beings. And both are constant.

[21:31]

So in terms of prostrating to the Book of Serenity or to another emanation. Yeah. Thank you. Is there a distinction between prostrating to the Book of Serenity versus prostrating to any other emanation of reality, of the reality body? Not really. Really? Make a distinction. I remember, I think my first practice period here, we were expecting Suzuki Roshi to come down to be our teacher. I mean, he was our teacher, but we were expecting him to come to Tassajara. And in the fall of that year, in the fall of the Lotus Sutra here, And then he was going to come down in the winter and continue. So during that fall, I was trying to study the Lotus Sutra. To make a long story short, that's the end of that one.

[22:34]

And then when we came here, a number of us studied the Lotus Sutra in preparation for our teacher coming to talk to us about it. And the question arose, well, what's the difference between reading the Lotus Sutra and a comic book? So if you venerate the comic book, or you venerate the Lotus Sutra, what's the difference? And would you venerate the book as an emanation of the Dharmakaya? If you would, I think, kind of the same. If you venerate the white pages of the telephone book as an emanation of the Dharmakaya, I think something will open for you there. And what might open for you there is that you realize you should go look at the Lotus Sutra. Because I mentioned to somebody that when I first started studying Abhidharma, it was like reading

[23:38]

The white pages, not the yellow pages, of the dictionary, I mean of the telephone book. And not just the white pages, but the section of the white pages on like the Andersons. You know, Anderson, Anderson, Anderson. It's like that. Sufficient veneration to the text, there's a response. So would you say that because of our psychological makeup, some things are we designate certain things to be more worthy of veneration than others? And that's connect to the Dharmakaya through whatever emanates from the Dharmakaya that we find worthy of respect. Well, right now I feel like Dogen Zenji says, the greatest sutra is the Lotus Sutra. By him saying that, we get to struggle with that statement he just made and ask the kind of questions you're asking.

[24:50]

Is that dualistic, Dogen Zenji? Or are you putting that out there for us to see if we can venerate what you talk about? And then can we venerate the Lotus Sutra? If he said, everything is the greatest sutra, would we be disoriented by that? The founder of Esalen, one of the founders of Esalen's name, and he had a son, and his son's name is, I think, what's his name, McKenzie, McKenzie Murphy. And when he was a little boy, he said to his dad, what's God, you know? And Michael said, but he said something, and he said, well, does that mean like the lamp's God? And Michael says, yeah. Does that mean that the roof beams are God? He said, yeah. Does that mean like the rocks are God?

[25:52]

Yeah. And the kid fainted. And Michael called 911. But he came, he came to quite quickly. So, It may be more beneficial for Dogen who grew up with the Lotus Sutra and learned the, what do you call it, the virtue of venerating it from childhood. He would tell his students, it's the greatest, means it's the greatest virtue because I venerated it and now I'm going to transmit my veneration to you. So what is it? Somebody said, one of the secrets of teaching is that the students love the teacher and so then they'll love what the teacher loves. So Dogen says, I love the Lotus Sutra to get you to love the Lotus Sutra. But he could get you to love something else. You say, but would he get you to love something else?

[26:53]

Well, If he had grown up loving something else and become who he became, he probably would tell us to love that. But he did grow up loving that. if he had grown up loving, what could he have loved? Mochi cakes. Mochi cakes. Not just mochi cakes, but maybe making mochi cakes. And he had been able to veneration of mochi cakes is where it's at because that's what he would transmit because he had found the power of that devotion. Because the Lotus Sutra and the Dharmakaya, these things are they're all Armachaya and the transformation.

[27:44]

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