say what your ultimate concern is, and you also, and you did say to me, I heard you say verbally to me, you said what the focus of your practice, what your practice for this training period would be, coming out of that concern. So I've heard that, and I've been talking to you about that now, and I will continue to. But I'd also like you to think of what will, you know, how do you intend to continue this after the practice period is over, beyond the structure of the practice period. Think about that, too. If you could have that by the end of the practice period, that would be nice. How about the practice period is? The antidote to laziness is rest. Work. You start working. You're working and then you kind of get into a kind of inertia of your work and you're not paying attention to what you're doing and you overwork.

[01:11]

You don't stop when you should. And then you feel like, God, I hate this work. This is really stupid. You get lazy because you overwork. And overwork is kind of laziness. So you get kind of discouraged and exhausted from overwork. So enthusiastic effort doesn't tire you But still, if you do get lazy and tire yourself out from overwork, because it's pretty hard to work in such a way as to not get really tired, in other words, slip into laziness a little bit, rest can be done as a practice of enthusiasm. You enthusiastically rest with the intention of recuperating your, your yogic alignment, and re-entering the practice with, you know, enthusiasm.

[02:14]

Buddha rested. Buddha rests. But Buddha rests enthusiastically. And then from the rest, then from the rest the Buddha comes into the more, into the non-resting form of effort. Rest is a part of the practice. Just a couple more days before Sashin. So that's the situation that I'm in here. So in one sense, I don't want to give you any more input. I just want to see if you can play with this material. But at the same time, it seems like it's good to put something out there for you to play with. Because sometimes if we just start playing with material, people don't know where people are coming at, and it gets confusing, so sometimes it seems to be helpful to focus on something. So I thought I'd give you a little bit more input, which from some perspective might seem like a lot of input, but to me it's a little bit of input.

[03:22]

I draw this, do this diagram again, expand it slightly. This is kind of like a little, it's a little diagram. So... Right here I put 16 BS with a circle around it is my abbreviation, my acronym. It's not an acronym, it's a graphic, right? It's an image which is for Bodhisattva, right? So 16 Bodhisattva precepts. In this school, Sometimes it's called the Zen school, but also just called the Zen Bodhisattva club. The 16 Bodhisattva's precepts are the gate to what I would call being upright. And another word for being upright that I've been using in just talking to you is non-thinking.

[04:31]

And this is another gate. This is a gate to realization. Realization of the pentachord rising. It's a realization, non-thinking realization. Being upright, non-thinking is the way you enter into the realization of the Buddhist main teaching of the pinnacle of rising. Then, coming up when you realize the pinnacle of rising, and realization of the pinnacle of rising could be called non-dual meditation. Or it could be called non-dual meditation on the pinnacle of rising. That's the thing. Emerging from this realization of the pinnacle of rising is, you tell me, what comes out of the realization of the pinnacle of rising?

[05:43]

Great compassion. Great compassion, right. Great compassion. And out of great compassion comes what? Bodhisattva precepts. This is wisdom down here. Realization of dependent core rising is wisdom. This is perfection of wisdom. This is wisdom here. This is bodhi. Realization of dependent core rising is bodhi. Realization of dependent core rising is bodhi. That's what awakening is for Buddha. Buddha's awakening is understanding the pinnacle arising. Really understanding it at the level of srutamaya, you know, at the level of listening and reading and words. And then you bring it into your heart.

[06:44]

You think about it in terms of all your different ways, so in terms of thinking and studying and reflecting on the Pentagon Rising, and finally the Pentagon Rising comes into your bones, into your marrow, into your cells. That's bodhi. And out of that bodhi comes great compassion, and great compassion is expressed as the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. And then the 16 Bodhisattva precepts are the way you enter into being upright, right? So it goes round and round. In some sense, the starting point is the Bodhisattva Precepts. So it was nice that we started the practice period to receive the Bodhisattva Precepts and then we enter into non-thinking. And we study dependent core arising and understand dependent core arising and then now great compassion is starting to come, right? And the way we express great compassion is the practice of the Bodhisattva Precepts. when one first starts practicing them, one feels like maybe there's some outside yourself.

[07:48]

Like Buddha's giving you the Bodhisattva precepts and now you receive them and try to practice them. When you realize bodhi, when you understand the pinnacle of rising, then the Bodhisattva precepts are you. That's, you know, you naturally, that's the way you live. So that's kind of an overview, right? That's kind of familiar, right? Okay. Now, back to being upright, back to talking a little bit more about non-thinking, which is the way you enter into thinking of the unthinkableness. Thinking of unthinkableness, by the way, is... the realization of dependent core arising. So the great master, Yaoshan, we believe, since he's the great master, that he has realized dependent core arising.

[08:55]

So you ask him, what kind of thinking is going on for you, master? And he says, thinking of unthinkableness. In other words, non-dual awareness of the way things are. You can't think of that. But that's the kind of thinking he has. He thinks of what you can't think of or what isn't thinking. And how do you do that? Non-thinking. So we're studying the practice of non-thinking. We can't actually do thinking of the unthinkable. But we can realize that. Human beings can realize this state of realization, of dependent core rising of Buddhist teaching. We can realize Buddhist teaching but we can't really like actually Buddhist teaching cannot be the object ultimately cannot be something out there. We don't want it to be out there. We want to realize it. We want to actualize it. Non-thinking is the mode of actualization according to Yaoshan and Dogen and so on.

[10:00]

Now you okay so far? Now, Suzuki Roshi said a number of times, he said, our practice is just to sit. And then he says, sometimes he says after that, he says, now we say, I always say our practice is just to sit, but it may be rather difficult to understand what it means to just sit. Remember him, have you ever heard him say that? It's kind of difficult. And some other Zen teachers say too, you know, you can just sit, but you have to understand what that is. If you just sit without understanding it, you're just dreaming of just sitting. Or maybe not even dreaming of just sitting, maybe you're just sleeping, dreaming of something else. So we need to understand what just sitting is. And he also says, Suzuki Roshi says, but it may not be so easy to understand what it is to just sit. And I would say, Another way to say that is, it may not be so easy to understand what the Buddha's teaching of the middle way is.

[11:10]

Just sitting is the middle way in our school. And not so easy to understand the middle way. As a matter of fact, as I study the teachers of Buddhism over the centuries, a lot of the great ones say, it's very hard to understand the middle way. Understanding it in your head, understanding it at the level of srutimaya may not seem so difficult, but to actually understand it in terms of all aspects of your life and have your whole body understand it, very difficult. So don't be discouraged if you have a hard time understanding the middle way. And if you have an easy time understanding the middle way and then you go talk to a Buddhist teacher and the Buddhist teacher tells you that the middle way is not what you think it is, don't have a hard time with that either. That's part of the process. Say, okay, I'll start over. I'll forget about everything I thought about the middle way and start over. Okay, so then... So then one time there was a great master.

[12:33]

His name was Matsu. And a monk said to him one time, I hear you say that the mind itself is Buddha. One time a monk asked Master Ma, what is Buddha? And Master Ma said, mind itself is Buddha. And so then that word got out about that. Another monk came to him and said, I heard you said mind itself is Buddha. And Matsu said, that's what I say to people, to children, to help them stop crying. And the monk said, well, what do you do when they stop crying? He says, well, then I say, no mind, no Buddha.

[13:34]

And Dogen Zenji writes a poem. The poem is celebrating the story he said, mind itself is Buddha. Practice is difficult. Explanation is not difficult. Not mind, not Buddha. Explanation is difficult. practice is not difficult. This story and this poem summarize some of the things I've been talking about. One way to understand mind itself as Buddha is that the way the mind actually is, is Buddha.

[14:41]

And one way to interpret that is that if you practice, if you make your mind a certain way, then that will be Buddha. And this could be understood in some sense as jhana practice. Jhana practice is hard. It's tough. It's really kind of compulsive. Because you have to, like, reject, in order to get into a jhana state, you have to reject the ordinary world of the kamadhatta, which I just erased there off the board. In order to get into a trance, you have to reject everything but what you're concentrating on. When you're in a trance, actually, you don't hear the birds in the trees anymore. You don't see the cats. You just see, like, blue or green. The practice is hard But the explanation is actually not very difficult.

[15:44]

The explanation of how to do the practice is not so difficult. But the practice is hard. Now, not mind, not Buddha. That's being upright. That's non-thinking. Non-thinking is not a kind of thinking, actually. And it's not a kind of Buddha. It is the way to realize Buddha's thinking. Being upright is not mind and is not Buddha. It is the gate to the mind of Buddha. It's The explanation is difficult. The explanation of non-thinking, the explanation of being upright is difficult.

[16:49]

The explanation of being upright is the explanation of bodhisattva precepts. I'm writing a book about this. It's difficult. Bodhisattva precepts, non-thinking, it's difficult to explain this. But the practice is not difficult. The practice of non-thinking is not difficult. Some of you would know this. Some of you have fallen into non-thinking here and there and it was not difficult. It's just exactly what you are. That's all. It's completely effortless as a matter of fact. Your condition is precisely non-thinking and your condition is precisely the way to enter Buddha's mind. Your condition is not your mind. It's the way your mind is. It's your mind being your mind. It's not red, green, yellow or blue.

[17:52]

It's that red is red and blue is blue. That's not mind. Red is mind, blue is mind. When we see red, that's a mental, you know, we have an experience. That's an event. That's a five skandhas event. Form, feeling, mental formations and consciousness right there. Red. Or pain. Or anger. Or confusion. Or happiness. All these phenomena. our physical, psychophysical events. Their mind, their body. But them being them is not mind and is not body. This is not difficult to practice. But to understand that practice is difficult. In other words, to give up all your ideas and just be who you are, that's difficult. But that's being upright. That's now I'm thinking. So now I'm explaining. And it's a difficult explanation, isn't it? I'm having a hard time. explaining this to you, it's hard for you to understand me. And even when you understand me, which you do, then it slips.

[18:55]

And then I try another angle. I can't say the same one over and over. You know, you go blank. So I try all these different angles. And each one opens up another little light into what it is, what this no-mind, no-Buddha is, or not-mind, not-Buddha. Actually, not-mind, not-Buddha is better than no-mind, no-Buddha, I think. But by the power, power, by the function of the bodhisattva precepts and being upright, I can keep talking about this indefinitely. You know? Like, I'm just this little, you know, wind-up thing. Just wind me up with zazen and I start talking about zazen. I never get tired. Just more zazen, more zazen, more zazen. It's not tiring. If I might say, I was telling someone this morning that's leaving early, when you go back home and your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your children say, Daddy's nicer after those practice periods at Green College.

[20:06]

That's a good practice period. If you come home and say, what an arrogant bastard. She thinks she's better than us now. Now she's got a Green Gulch practice period or two under her belt. Now you go home and you're sweeter and you're nicer and you're more loving and devoted. Then they say, ah, those practice periods are good. Go do another one next year. It shouldn't be that when you go on retreat, you come out of retreat and you're all blissed out in retreat and calm and you come back to the city and all the noise happens and you get irritable. The retreat should make you better able to handle this stuff, the pain, the obnoxious fumes, better able to.

[21:20]

Now you might be more sensitive to them, but being more sensitive may be part of being able to handle them better. Whenever anything good happens in my house, whenever something good happens in my house, my wife says, is that because of Zazen? And I always say, yes. I think I'm going to say, no, it's because of me. So yesterday, one of the kind of phrases I thought was good was, some people came and told me, you know, like, oh, such and such happened, you know, like, you know, I was sitting in my room and the ceiling fell on me and squashed me down and broke my bones. And usually when that happens, I feel like, you know, I'm totally crushed, you know.

[22:27]

But I didn't buy into it. And it passed. somebody said that to me something like that they didn't say what they said was this extremely extreme heaviness took over took over like you know something like depression but it wasn't really depression it was just like there was still some life there under the rock you know it wasn't like the squashing and the no but there was some life there and the life said didn't buy into this crushing experience this very heavy heavy feeling and it passed and she said You know, it was heavy, but then when it passed and I didn't buy into it, it was wonderful. Not the heaviness was wonderful, but it was wonderful that I didn't buy into it. Not buying into it is called what? Being upright. Being upright, what else? So, denial is another way to buy into it.

[23:40]

When you're crushed and you deny it, that's buying into it. When you say this is not happening, that's buying into it. But when you neither reject or deny nor indulge, that's called not buying into it. And then the same person, this wonderful person who had this wonderful experience of not buying into this heavy thing and being not really bothered by it and actually feeling wonderful, not just after it passed, but that she hadn't bought into it. Then that opened up into another Vista. Now this Vista was not a heavy Vista. This Vista was an enormous Vista. This was a huge Vista. This was a Vista of the oceanic possibilities of Buddhist practice. All the things that are there to learn. Dharma gates are boundless. And then she bought into that. And was totally overwhelmed and practically, you know.

[24:44]

No, not crushed, more like, yeah, crushed, right. Crushed. But it was, you know, and that happens too. Something happens to you, you don't buy into it, you see how wonderful it is, then the gate of wonder opens to you, then you buy into the wonder, and the wonder crushes you. But it isn't the wonder crushes you, it's the buying into it that crushes you. Nothing can crush you when you practice non-thinking. No way. Nothing can get to the non-thinking, because it's not mine and it's not Buddha's. It's just the gate to wisdom. That's all. And then somebody else came. Yesterday was the big not buying into day. Somebody else came to me later in the day and talked about another scenario that he didn't buy into and how wonderful it was to not buy into this stuff. That's another nice phrase for being upright, another nice phrase for non-thinking, not buying into phenomena.

[25:55]

And as I said yesterday, it's a great day for non-commercialism, non-consumerism. A great day for non-consumerism yesterday, and I hope today too. Actually, it looks like it is so far. Lots of stuff's happened already today. And I see several people who aren't heavily buying into them. Many people, for example, came to talk to me this morning and had these lousy meetings. But they didn't buy into the lousiness of the meetings, so they're fine. Some other people had these great meetings. They didn't buy into those, so they're fine. But to buy into a great meeting is disaster. To buy into a lousy meeting is disaster. Okay? Not buying into, that's non-thinking. Okay? Another way to put this is the way Atisha puts it is the highest wisdom lies in not grasping any phenomena as being what it appears to be. Grasping things as they appear to be, grasping them as being what they appear to be is buying into phenomena.

[27:10]

That's regular thinking, which we do most of the time. And that's going to continue, this buying into, this taking things, grasping things as what they appear to be. That goes on. Okay? But even though that's going on, there can be this non-thinking which doesn't buy into it. Both worlds can coexist. I'm explaining a practice that's not difficult, but it's difficult to understand. The other day, we had this example of, I believe it was Beverly, I think it was Beverly, and then I think Mimi asked a question after Beverly said this thing about, if I go to the Zendo and I think I'm in the Zendo, then, like, you know, isn't that the way it is? Something like that, was that it?

[28:11]

And then I think, what did you say, Mimi? Like if I go and I witness and I agree that she's there or something like that? Yeah. So anyway, that's in a situation where you have this appearance of Beverly in the Zendo. Have some of you seen this? So that's what appears to be happening, Beverly's in the Zendo. So we got that done, right? And then Mimi's question is, blah, blah, blah, is that truly in the Zendo? Well, you could say whatever you want. Yes, it is. But the point is, wisdom, highest wisdom, is that you don't grasp what seems to be happening there as what is happening. You just say, okay, we've got this story of Beverly in the Zendo. That's enough, isn't it? Or do we have to have Beverly's really in the Zendo? Or, yeah, she's there, but she wasn't really aware and she didn't make the right decisions to get in the zendo, so she's not really there.

[29:17]

Various opinions, but anyway, no matter what story you tell, the question is, are you buying into it? Okay? Here's some other versions of this being upright and this non-thinking coming from this morning. So I say to one of these monks, I say something like, what's your practice? And the monk says, Something like, the monk says, I think he said focus. I think he said focus, or maybe he said to be focused. And I said, on anything? And he said, nope. So there is a practice, regular practice. Again, I lightly mention that it's not, strictly speaking, a Buddhist practice.

[30:18]

It's just a concentration practice where you focus on an object. There are such practices. They're called concentration practices. And at the highest level of concentration, they're called jhanas. Like, you're, like, totally concentrated and nothing else is happening but what you're concentrating on. Wow! But it's also going to be a practice, according to some people, they're practicing it, they're just being focused, just being focused, or just being focused, or just being focused. But not necessarily on something, just being focused. It's not really a concentration practice. You're concentrated, but you're not concentrating on an object, you're just being focused. I say, fine. But that's still not quite non-thinking. Non-thinking is just being focused and in fact every phenomena is focused.

[31:19]

Every moment you actually are focused. You're never blurry. You're never sort of what you are. You're always focused perfectly in what you are. But non-thinking or being upright is being focused without getting stuck and making a nest out of being focused. Being you as you are, being a living being as you are, without making that into a nest. Being focused without making being focused substantial. That's non-thinking. And one of the ways Dogen Zenji talks about coming to see the teacher is you come to see the teacher and when you go in the room to see the teacher, you give up your old views.

[32:26]

You give up your old views. And when you get in the room, as soon as you get in the room, you get a new view. Get a view of the room. Get a view of the teacher. Get a view of the floor. You get a view of yourself. You get a view of the world. A new view comes up. You give up your old views. You don't have to give up your views. You can't give up your views really because they just pop right back. give up the old ones, and then a new one comes. And then he says, but without making a new nest. So you go into the room, you give up your old views, and then something happens, whatever. If anything happens, there's a view. But you don't make that view into a new nest. You don't jump out of your old nest and jump into a new nest. That's non-thinking. Non-thinking is you stand, you're just focused, you're just being focused, but you're not focused on something. If you're focused on something, you're still holding on to your own views. But just the being focused, without making a new nest, without substantializing that state, that state, there's a state of being focused, but you don't make it substantial, you don't get stuck in it.

[33:40]

That's non-thinking. Or somebody else was talking about their practice of focus and I said, do you want to continue this practice? Do you want continuity in this practice of being focused? And he wouldn't answer me, so I kept asking. Finally he said, yeah, I want continuity without clinging. So, not only do we have this non-thinking, but it's good to have continuity in it. In other words, to have non-thinking again and again. But again... non-thinking continuously without clinging means non-thinking and you throw it out the window or not throw it out the window but you let go of it and then where's the non-thinking now oh hello and then it's gone again where is it now so you don't make a so you don't hold on to your non-thinking either so that's holding on to your non-thinking is making a new nest out of non-thinking okay get the idea okay

[34:54]

All right. Now, that's some talk about non-thinking. Now, there's another topic which I kind of want to bring up, but maybe it's too much today. I'll just tell you what it's about. It's a little bit more about discussing this relationship between dhyana practice and Buddha's practice. practice of Buddhas, or as we say, the practice of Zazen, the Buddhas-Zazen, the relationship between jhana practice and Buddhas-Zazen. That's a kind of a little bit different topic. It's actually the same topic, but it's like bringing this non-thinking out there and then talking about how it's discriminated from jhana practice and a little bit about how that's the kind of confusion in the history of Zen. But I could also wait and do that some other time if you'd like to open up to questions now.

[36:03]

What do you think? You want to just discuss this non-thinking now for a while before we get into that? How many people would like to open up this other issue now? How many people would like to wait? It's kind of 50-50. Huh? Huh? Well, I could talk about this relationship between the zazen that Dogen Zenji teaches. The zazen Dogen Zenji teaches, he says, in his later years anyway, he said, the zazen I'm teaching is not dhyana. But in his earlier teachings, he was recommending dhyana. And a lot of Zen teachers, it looks like, are recommending dhyana. So in the school called Zen, or in the Zen lineages, there is some confusion about the jhana practice in the relationship to the meditation of the Buddha.

[37:10]

So this is something which I would like the people in this practice period to be clear about. I would like the whole Zen community to be clear about the relationship between jhana practice and, you know, the meditation practice of buddha that we have we understand the relationship here that's something i want to talk about but i can also wait a little while do it tomorrow or next day or next day or next day we have more days and we can stop here and have open for discussion if you like so i want to know how many people would like to open up for discussion and how many people would like to have that conversation be you know day after tomorrow or whatever okay so if you're so i'd like you to vote for discussing that now or having discussion now. So you vote for... So I'll ask people to vote for discussion. How many people want to open for discussion now? Please raise your hand if you want discussion. Just open discussion for what we've talked about so far. We can just talk, you know, open discussion. In other words, yeah, question. Like how many people would like to just have questions starting right now for the rest of the day?

[38:12]

And how many people would like more input on this jhana, Zen, jhana, Buddha's meditation? Is that clear, the question now? So how many people want to open up for questions now? Raise your hand. Quite a few. How many people want this input now? Now, does that seem like more or just raising your hand higher? It seemed like the higher hand. Is it 50-50? It's hard to say. I think it's more this way. They're more rambunctious. I voted. And if it was 50-50, I was going to offer my vote for a bit. So which way would you go? The highest payer? I think I know which side is going to pay more. OK, well, it looks like we're going to go into this discussion.

[39:14]

But since we are, I'm just going to do part of it. Because it's a big topic, and I think there should be some time for questions. I get this feeling like you understood what I was saying up to this point. Could I borrow your notebook for a second, please? I just wanted to show this picture. This is a picture that I passed out during the last practice period here. Some of you have this photograph. And now that you see this, some other people want it. Especially after I tell you what this is. This is a face. See, it's all pockmarked. This is a face of a Buddha statue. And this Buddha statue sat through the Hiroshima bomb. Okay, so, you know, we don't, of course, we don't want atomic bombs to be dropped on cities where people live, or any place, actually, on the planet.

[40:19]

But it did happen. This Buddha statue sat through it. So there it is. This is a face of the face that sat through the bomb. This is non-thinking, okay? You sit through the bomb. And just continue just to be present, awake, giving up your old views and not making a new nest. That's the Buddha way. It's the way to Buddha anyway. So this Buddha is a wonderful reminder of that kind of presence. Of course you get a little scarred, but anyway the way goes on. So now this jhana business the Buddha, you know, it's kind of wonderful actually because the Buddha himself, his life encapsulates this confusion. He himself tried to attain the way by making a certain state of mind.

[41:22]

And he got very good at making states of mind. He made like the best possible states of mind you can make in terms of states of mind in a way. In terms of like making the mind really calm, super, super calm. But he didn't attain the way by this method of jhana that he practiced. But he did practice it. When he attained the way, he was concentrated, but he was in kind of an ordinary state of consciousness where he was like seeing things like stars and trees and earth and people. He was not in a realm of jhana where there's no words He saw the relationship between Venus and Earth and the Moon and humans. He saw all these relationships. He saw how life comes to be and goes away.

[42:27]

He saw how suffering arises. He saw what suffering is. He saw how it arises. He saw how it ends. He saw the way. He saw the path. He saw it in his meditation. because meditation was not a jhana practice, but the person who was, part of the complication is the person who had this great vision, although he wasn't in a jhana practice, he wasn't doing jhana, this happened to be somebody who could do jhana. So he was perfectly concentrated, but not in a trance. So that's part of the confusion, is that Zen, of course, we practice concentration, but the concentration is not bodhi. But some people have actually slipped back into, in some sense, the confusion that Buddha had of thinking that concentration itself is sudden enlightenment. If you make your mind into a mind that has no conception and has no consciousness,

[43:33]

that that mind will spontaneously awake into the full-scale enlightenment. This is not correct according to Buddhism. You just have a very good state of mind, you're very happy, you're blissed out, but it only lasts for a certain amount of time, and when it ends, When you come out of the retreat and go home, your kids might not like you. Who knows? You might be really grumpy when you come out of the trance. And there are stories of yogis coming out of the trance and being rude to the other monks when they come out. And then the monk going to Buddha and saying, teacher, is that what's supposed to happen when you go into retreat, that you come back and you're rude to your fellow monks? And Buddha said, no, it shouldn't be that way. The practice is working right. When you come out of retreat you should be kind and loving to your fellow monks. This is not the correct kind of meditation retreat.

[44:36]

But in fact when you go into these states where basically there's no negative sensation and sometimes enormous positive sensation and not even enormous positive sensation but even equanimity and peace and not even being excited about the positive sensation. This is fight against it, you not only come back to the ordinary world, you go down to sub-ordinary worlds, because you hate the ordinary world in comparison to where you've been. So it's a dangerous practice, dhyana practice. The Buddha knew how to do this, though, and didn't get in any trouble. But he didn't attain the way. Now, we have these three, I gave you these three texts, these three meditation texts. The first one is a meditation text of supposedly the school of Zen. And Dogen Zenji took this text, written by Chang Lu Sung Sa, a very fine Buddhist priest, who wrote this wonderful monastic manual, which was the basis for Zen practice in Dogen's monasteries, and actually was the basis for monastic practice for most Zen monks in China from 1103 when he compiled this manual.

[45:55]

And he had inside that manual also a manual for sitting meditation, for actually sitting jhana. Soa-chan means sitting dhyana. The ceremony or procedure for sitting dhyana. He wrote that. Dogen Zenji basically copied that in a lot of ways and reproduced a Japanese version of it when he got back to Japan. So what I'd like to draw your attention to in Sungsa's text is towards the end where he says, when you come out of samadhi, move slowly and calmly. Do not be hasty or rough. After you have left samadhi, always employ appropriate means to maintain the power, I emphasize power of samadhi, as though you were protecting an infant. So I think the attitude of the way to protect the power of samadhi as though you're taking care of an infant, that's a good way to take care of anything. But the point is, what are you protecting? You're protecting the power of samadhi.

[46:57]

then your samadhi power will easily develop. This one teaching of meditation is our most urgent business. So he's saying, Sun Tzu is saying that to protect your samadhi power is the most urgent matter, the most urgent business in practice. If you do not practice meditation and enter dhyana, if you do not practice meditation and enter dhyana, then when it comes down to it, you will be completely lost. Therefore, to seek the pearl, you should still the waves. And if we disturb the water, it will get hard. It will be hard to get. of meditation is clear, the pearl of the mind will appear of itself. Therefore, the perfect enlightenment sutra says such and such. Then it says, transcending the profane, thus transcending the profane and surpassing the holy oaths, always been contingent on the condition of dhyana, shedding the body while sitting or standing.

[48:09]

You know, these Zen monks do these fancy ways of dying, you know, like they stand up and die, or they grab a tree, hang it by a tree and die, or they sit cross-legged and say, out of here. You know, they do these dying tricks. They depend on the condition of jhana. Again, he uses the word standing, while dying, while standing, are necessarily dependent on the power of dhyana, power of samadhi, the single gate of dhyana as supreme teaching, the condition of the power of dhyana as the basis for enlightenment, this kind of talk. Okay? Okay? And Dogen Zenji, when he writes his manual, the early manual we have, which is called the Tempuku version of the Fukanza Zenji, he says, When you arise from sitting, move slowly and calmly.

[49:14]

Do not be hasty or rough. At all times protect and maintain the power of samadhi. In studying and investigating it, you transcend its higher workings without a basis to rely on. Now something shifts a little bit there. He's introducing something a little bit that maybe if you study jhana, you transcend its higher workings and you stop having a basis there. This is the full realization of the way. So it almost sounds like he's saying if you practice this jhana practice and you keep working on it, it will be an opportunity for you to realize non-thinking. He hasn't quite said it here, but he's on the verge of opening up non-thinking, it sounds like. And then he says, truly this one teaching is the highest and the supreme.

[50:20]

Now, it's a little unclear there. Is he making a transition where he's saying the one teaching is not the jhana practice, but it's the jhana practice where you transcend jhana practice and don't rely on it anymore? It's not clear. But he's still sort of saying, talking about the power of jhana and protecting jhana, and now it's starting to slip beyond. It's not clear. Something's shifting here, though. First taking up full understanding and then turning over a half of verification, such belongs solely to this Dharma. Holding up a flower like Mahakasyapa to Buddha and breaking into a smile like Buddha smiled, making a bow and attaining the marrow like Bodhidharma and the second ancestor, such represents the great freedom gained through the power of its grace." How could bodhisattvas who study prajna fail to follow and accord with it? So the it is unclear here.

[51:22]

Later I feel Dogen Zenji will say it refers to non-thinking. That the great freedom gained through the power of its grace is the grace that comes to non-thinking rather than the grace that comes to the power of samadhi. But right here, in this little paragraph, it's hard to tell whether he's talking about jhana or non-thinking, whether he's shifted there. But then he goes back in the next paragraph, which might make you think he's still talking about jhana. Considering the past, we see that transcending the profane and surpassing the holy have always been contingent on the condition of jhana. Shedding the body while sitting and fleeing this life while standing, are fully subject to the power of samadhi. So, it's not clear. But the next version of Puran Zazengi, he's come to the position, which is quite a few years later, he comes to the position where he says, the Zazen I speak of is not the practice of dhyana.

[52:36]

Now, what you have in your thing on page 15, if you number your page, is the zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. But that could be translated as the zazen I speak of is not the practice of dhyana. Yeah, it is. Mm-hmm. But this learning meditation is, you know, a reasonable translation. Yeah, I think it is jhana. I'll check it one more time. So, even in his later years, well, I would say Dogen Zenji, I don't think ever really rejected jhana practice. I don't think maybe he necessarily really, you know, clearly had finally rejected jhana practice. But he put it down, way down, relative to the practice of zazen.

[53:40]

It's the virtues of zazen that make jhana practice sound low after a while. But in the early days, jhana practice has a higher register, a higher status in his teaching. And so part of what we have to do here is we have to deal with this, is that we can't, you know... there is something good about jhana practice. And even Sangha, who says jhana practice is so important, he also points out that jhana practice is dangerous. I told you some of the dangers about it. It is dangerous, but it also does have great virtues. There is, among the pleasures of the world, even like, what's his name? What's this guy's name? His name was, what's, what's a hedonist? What's the guy who founded the hedonist school? Huh? Epicurus. Epicurus. Epicurus. The guy who was, who was the the progenitor of the philosophy of hedonism, right? He's a philosopher. He basically said, it's about having pleasure. Pleasure is where it's at. He says, what is the greatest pleasure in this world? What's the answer?

[54:42]

Jhana. Concentration is the greatest pleasure in the world. Epicurus said, the greatest pleasure is concentration. He was quiet in a setting. Yeah. Well, you have to be an ascetic in order to practice concentration to get the pleasure. You can't get in these jhana states by being a slouch. You've got to reject all other pleasures to get this highest pleasure. You've got to stop looking at those cute bodies and sniffing those lovely smells. You've got to give them up. No pheromones for you. Not only that, but sometimes somebody sits down next to you who's got pheromones. So what do you do? You hate their pheromones. I hate those pheromones. I hate them.

[55:49]

Get those pheromones out of here. Plug my nose. Then you get into trance. And you get this pleasure which is even greater than the greatest pheromone. It's called celestial smells. That's what you get, these celestial smells and celestial music and celestial colors. That is, anyway, pleasure. There's something good about concentration. It does put you into heaven. However, heaven is not as good a place to practice as Green Gulch. Green Gulch is kind of heavenly, but, you know, we have some problems here, too. So, anyway, it's not that jhana practice is bad. It is not bad. It is good. It is a good thing to do. When you practice jhana, another equivalent to jhana is practicing good. But good is dangerous. Because when you do good, good has a trajectory and comes to its end. And when it's over...

[56:49]

then you're back coping with the end of the results of your good. So you better be practicing Buddhism when that happens. So, concentration is good, and we need concentration, but we mustn't confuse concentration with the way to enter into Buddhist wisdom. I'd say, we mustn't. I'd say, please don't. It would be a sad thing to happen. So, Dogen Zenji also says, in his later works, he says, a lot of these monks, a lot of these Chinese monks confuse, they have the same attitude as Hindus, who think that putting yourself into a state of stillness and silence attains the way, rather than action and speech. The Buddha's way, the Buddha, the Buddha was into action and speech. Of course he practiced silence and stillness too, but really his teaching was not primarily silence and stillness.

[57:57]

It was his actions. It's through your actions and speech that you prove enlightenment. You don't prove it by just sitting quietly, you know, in samadhi, in jhana. That does not prove enlightenment. Now, you could say, yes, but look at the Buddha. Yeah, the way the Buddha, when the Buddha sits, when the Buddha's body is sitting there, it does prove it. But then he also proves it when he gets up and walks and talks. All of his actions, including his sitting still, prove the enlightenment. But some people look really good when they're sitting, but as soon as they start talking, they say mean things. Their speech does not prove their enlightenment. That's where the enlightenment is proved. That's why you go to see the teacher. You go and talk. You show your body. You use your robes in a certain way. You walk in a certain way. Everything you do expresses your understanding. And you do that willingly to get feedback on your present state of realization.

[59:00]

And some people say, look, I know I don't have any realization. I don't need any feedback. Okay, so maybe that's enough. Just to say that we have this ongoing dilemma in Zen. And actually, one more thing I want to say is that at Tassajara, they have these Sesshin admonitions, and it says, Sesshin is a time to cultivate real stillness and silence. And I changed the Sessene admonitions last fall at Tassajara. I said, Sessene is a time to quietly cultivate a deep realization of our ultimate concern and dependent core arising. It's a time to cultivate a deep realization of Buddha's teaching, not just stillness and silence. But even in Zen Center, I think there is, among all of us in our history, some tendency to think that Buddhism is to be silent and still.

[60:07]

That's not the whole story. It's to be yourself. And of course, to be yourself, when you're yourself, you're not moving. You're just right there. But you're also yourself when you're running around Green Gulch, 90 miles an hour. Every step of the way, you're yourself. And every moment, you're not moving. Actually, if you realize the unmovingness in the middle of your action, that's non-thinking. That's the gate to you being yourself. That's dependent co-arising. But it's confusing. So we have an ongoing thing about balancing this jhana practice with the practice of the Buddha. So there's a little time now maybe for some five million questions. Yeah, that's a good thought. Pete? All the guys that say you should not practice dhyana, they first practice dhyana, and then they say, okay, now we must practice zazen.

[61:12]

Isn't it that maybe dhyana helped them to increase their concentration powers, and then they could see so that it's that practice reals awesome. Maybe it's important to practice Dhyana before that. Yeah, maybe so. That's part of the confusion. Like, you know, somebody says, if you look at the Zen texts, where the Zen teachers are yelling at these at these monks saying, you know, Buddhism, not Dhyana practice, everybody they were talking to was in Samadhi. But they weren't in jhana because if they were in jhana they wouldn't be able to hear the teacher. If you're in jhana you can't hear the teacher's words because you've suppressed your intellectual function by which you form sound waves into... coherent speech. So they weren't actually in jhana. And actually, if you look at the lives of most Zen monks in history, in China and Japan, if you look at their description of their concentration practice, it doesn't look like actually too many of them were in jhana states.

[62:16]

Okay, so if you heard of shamatha, shamatha vipassana, shamatha is sometimes translated as tranquilizing or resting or stabilizing concentration. It has nine stages, and actually I taught those here. People love them because, you know, the explanation is easy. You can understand it. Practice, however, is hard, almost no one the ninth stage. But anyway, it's hard. Jhana practice is hard. But anyway, at the top of the shamatha practice, at the ninth stage, then you jump off from there into the first jhana. The jhanas are like on top of the shamatha ladder. Okay, so you maybe heard, if you read Suzuki Roshi's lectures and other Zen teachers' lectures, they say, our way is not step ladder Zen. Step ladder Zen is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. It's like the shamatha stages and then the jhana stages.

[63:21]

So, if you get halfway through the shamatha, you probably have enough concentration to, you know, actually pull off the Buddhadharma. You don't have to get to the ninth stage. Matter of fact, I've heard this story. Tarotoku was here one time giving talks. And he knew this yogi in Tibet. who was practicing shamatha, and he practiced for like 18 years in a cave, practicing shamatha, and he got to like, you know, something like the third stage, or the fourth stage, or the fifth stage, something like that. Really not a very good concentrator, because I've seen people that, you know, that get to the fifth stage, you know, sixth stage, seventh stage, I haven't seen nines very often. I've seen people get to five. This guy got to like three or five or something like that. But then somebody said, in his state of concentration, which is kind of middle range concentration, concentration was something like what some of you have gotten into, I think.

[64:22]

Somebody said emptiness to him. He said emptiness. And he understood the Dharma. Yeah. So you have to be somewhere in the general area of your body and mind. And you don't have to primarily concentrate on these concentrations. You just have to realize that you are a focused event, that all phenomena are in focus, otherwise they don't happen. Things don't approximately sort of happen. So we need something out of that, and then when you're in that state of concentration, then the teacher says to you, concentration is not the point. The point is, how is this happening? And Eric's going to ask me a question about that, but it's too late, Eric. Ask it for next class, for me to talk about going into more details about how you think about the pinnacle rising. Okay? But I think you're right.

[65:24]

Like I said to my brother, you don't have to go to college, but he had to go to college to see that I was right. You know, it's... I did it. You don't have to do it. And he said, yeah, but I got to go to find it out. So he went and he found out. Okay. One, two, three. There we go. Raise your hands again. Okay. Yes. Roberto. Oh, that sounds like you recommend not lying, not Buddha. If you're not crying. If you're crying, let's just calm down now for a while. Let's get concentrated. If you're crying, follow your breathing. Something like that. So, if you're upset, let's just calm down for a while. Let's just relax. I'll hold hands, sit down together, and let's be calm, you know? We're that excited, we can't practice.

[66:28]

If you have so many tears in your eyes, you can't keep your eyes open. So once you're calm, then he teaches, no, not mine, not Buddha's. So not mine, not Buddha's, not what he teaches to everybody. Sometimes he teaches, let's calm down now, let's have a good state of mind. Okay? The practice is easy and the explanation is difficult that we have to understand. Do you have to understand it? Yes. Because if you don't understand non-thinking, what you'll do is, for example, you'll hold on to your idea of what non-thinking is. Now I explained to you what non-thinking is, and after I explained to you, you've got to forget everything, you've got to let go of everything I said. You've got to go to your mat, as they say, go to your cushion, and sit there without holding on to the instruction you heard about non-thinking. Without holding on to it. But also without forgetting it. Because if you forget it, how can you take it deeper? So how do you receive a teaching about a practice and take it deeper without holding on to it?

[67:33]

That's difficult to understand. So if you don't understand the instruction which says don't do that, then what you'll do is you'll take the instruction, you'll hold the instruction and cling to the instruction in order to do this practice. But then you won't understand this practice. This practice requires that you let go of your old idea of what the practice is and then not get a new idea of it. we naturally will slip into making our practice stiff. So take a group of people, give them Zazen instruction, and just leave them alone, and they'll all get really rigid about it. They'll all go sit there, and they'll start doing their version of it, and everybody's really serious and tough about what Zazen is. And it does happen. So you have all these Zen centers, even this Zen center sometimes gets like that where you've got a group of people who have received instruction in Zazen and they're all doing their idea of it and they're attached to their idea of it and they're not, it's like nobody can come up to them and say, could I mention something to you about your practice? They don't want to hear it. Or even if they say, okay, what is it?

[68:34]

I think your practice is kind of a tiny bit off And then they just like, you know, this is not, we don't want to hear this. And then what do you do when you don't want to hear something? All that stuff follows. Not to mention if somebody would come up and say, you know, you totally stink in your practice. You're completely attached. You close down all access to Dharma because you're holding on to your idea of Dharma. But this group is different. That's what's great about this practice period is you people, from my point of view, are not closed to feedback on your practice and you're not holding on rigidly to your practice. You're actually opening up and kind of letting go of your idea and considering that maybe there's a new approach possible. That's why you seem to be so childlike and soft and open and willing to maybe consider that it's not that your old way is wrong, but that you shouldn't hold on to your old way.

[69:37]

that finding the true way. Without that kind of instruction, and without taking that instruction deeply into yourself, which means letting go of it and letting it go deeper, rather than holding it up on top of your head, without that, we will misunderstand because we have deep habits of clinging to our information and being rigid. We need constant feedback inside from other people and ourselves to keep refreshing our practice. And when you do that, then you understand the instruction. Without that, we will make Buddhism into a hard rock and beat people up with it. We do have to understand. Now, if you do a really complicated practice like jhana practice, then you don't have to understand this complicated stuff about dharma. You can just apply this simple practice and go whole hog on it and just be really strong in jhana. But then the danger of that is That you'll go on a power trip because notice the word power is used there. Power, power, power. Whereas non-thinking, the Buddha way is more about love, love, love.

[70:42]

It's about being open and receptive and appreciative of what's happening. But sometimes what's happening we cannot be open and receptive to, right? It's just too much for us now. Don't ask me to love what's happening. Love doesn't mean like, by the way. Love means like, well, what's happening? When the mother's watching the little boy running around the airport, she doesn't love that he's running towards the girl's bathroom. She doesn't love that he's running towards the escalator. She doesn't love that he's almost going to fall over and break his head. She doesn't love that. She doesn't like that. She loves not what he's doing, but she loves him and she takes care of him. So the spirit of being upright is the spirit of loving what's happening. In other words, taking care of it lovingly, being open, not being powerful. It means give up power and embrace all beings. We need to understand that otherwise our practice of Buddhism will get off. And even if we do understand it still, it will get off. But then when it gets off, if we understand it, we know what to do when we get off. Namely, we say, as I was talking to somebody this morning, we say, oh, I'm off.

[71:45]

Not, oh, I'm off, and then beat yourself up. Just, I'm off is enough. When you're off, to know you're off is sufficient. You beat yourself up, you're further off. But on the other hand, if you do beat yourself up and you're further off, then don't beat yourself up for beating yourself up. At some point, stop beating yourself up and just be loving to the manifestation of your life. And that's a complicated thing to do, right? Because again, we sometimes, again, things happen, we say, I can't be open to this. Okay, okay. Close to it. Let's close. Close down. This is not okay. This is not okay. This is not okay. All right. Fine. No good. No good. Let's not be good. But that response is complementary to the no good. It's not symmetrical. The usual thing, and people say, oh, they say something's happening, and they say it's no good, and they go, I feel so bad being so judgmental. See what I mean? It's more like, oh, I'm being judgmental.

[72:47]

Well, that's kind of nice. I have my judgment faculty. That's nice. That's not very judgmental. So it complements, you complement it rather than just doing it again and again. So what we usually do is we do karma, and then we do karma about the karma, and then we do karma about the karma, and then we do karma about the karma, and we do karma about the karma. We got that down. How about doing non-karma about the karma? In other words, do non-thinking about the thinking. That's the practice that Dogen's talking about. Yes, Alison, I think you're next. I was going to ask you about whether the practice of silent illumination is a jhana practice. Say that again? Whether the practice of silent illumination is a jhana practice. Whether the practice of silent illumination is jhana practice, well, that's the thing. Some people hear about silent illumination and they say, that's jhana practice, and then they attack it. So Soto Zen has some great ancestors in it who teach silent illumination. What is it?

[73:51]

What is it? Well, it's hard for me to say actually what it is. It's a teaching, actually. It's a nickname for a teaching. And when some people heard that, they say, see, those Soto Zen monks are practicing quietism. Quietism means that you try to attain enlightenment by quieting your mind and that you think the quiet state will be spontaneously enlightenment. That's not what silent illumination is, but sometimes people think that's what it is and they attack it for what they think it is. And I guess if it were that, it would deserve some criticism. And by the way, the word criticism means to take back to the root. So if you criticize some Buddhist teaching or some Buddhist practice, you criticize it from the point of view of Buddhism. There's nothing wrong with it if it's not supposed to be Buddhism. So you criticize jhana practice in such a way you take jhana practice back to its root. to see if it really matches the root.

[74:53]

Does it come from Buddhism or is it another kind of karma? Let's see some hands again here. Justin? Why is it good? I mean, why is it good to be happy and have pleasure? It's good for, I guess, yourself and others. It's good for me if you're happy. If you concentrate and you feel happy, I like that. It's good for me for you to be happy that way. It helps me, it helps you. And also when you're concentrating, now you're happy, but I think you're more able to cut carrots without cutting your fingers off. you're happier when you're concentrated, basically, usually. It's a good thing. But everything good like that, every worldly good, is also dangerous because good things you tend to attach to.

[75:58]

So then you're concentrated, then somebody says, Justin, would you please help out with this pile of shit over here? And you might say, you know, you might feel really offended that they wanted you to do something which might disturb your meditations. And then you might be angry at them. Like, you know, here I am trying to be a good guy. I'm practicing meditation for the welfare of others. And now they want me to do this thing which is going to undermine my practice. Well, how, you know, unconsiderate and unappreciative of me. You know, you really feel contempt for them. But if you were in a real lousy state and they asked you to clean up some shit, you might say, oh, thanks. Yeah, I'd love to. So one of the advantages about bad things is is that we tend not to be quite as attached to them as we are to good things. So bad karma leads to, you know, unfortunateness and poverty and illness, but we don't tend to get so attached to that stuff. But good karma leads to good results and the danger of good things is we attach to them. That's the danger of jhana.

[77:02]

It sets you up for a fall. Wealth is dangerous. Jhana practice gives you psychic wealth, gives you the greatest psychic treasures. worldly treasures. But then when you have worldly treasures, you're in jeopardy. Kathleen? We're up to Kathleen. How are you? I can talk to her like this. If you happen to make a nest of focus, how can you become aware of that? Go see the teacher. Go see the teacher and say, OK, I'm focused, and I'm not even nesting my focus. If you're focused, if you're focused,

[78:05]

If you feel focused, if you are focused and feel focused, if you are focused, you might not feel focused. But generally speaking, I would say when you are focused, you have a tendency to have some feeling like you are focused. But some people are fairly focused and don't think they are, just because they think focus is something different from what they are. But a lot of people are focused. If you ask them, are you focused, they're able to say, mm-hmm. But not everybody that's focused can say that. So if you think you're focused and in the nest, come and show the teacher that you think you're focused and in the nest. The teacher may say, yeah, I agree, you're nesting in your focusedness. If you think you're focused and think you're nesting, you're probably right. If you feel focused and you're holding on to it for dear life, you're probably right, you are holding on to it for dear life. But if you think you're focused but you feel like, I'm focused but I'm not attached to it, then go tell the teacher, show the teacher, and the teacher might agree with you or the teacher might say, Well, could I test you by doing some stuff which would be hard to stay focused in the midst of?

[79:08]

And you might say, no, thank you. Anyway, if you think you do it, that's what seeing the teacher is about. CFC, give the teacher a chance to test your focusness, test your lack of nesting, basically. Test both focus and lack of nesting. Let's see, I think Rain had his hand up there for like two or three weeks. Yes? The kitchen has to go, I know, I'm sorry. Does what? Does it lead to non-duality? Everything leads to non-duality. How? Right. When you actually realize non-duality is a dhyana? Well, I think that... What I'd like to do is have this be a separate discussion because this ties into Sung Tzu's instruction where he says, be aware of the objects and you'll forget it.

[80:37]

So I think this would deserve a little bit more expansive discussion, rather than me just saying yes or no, which I could do. So since the kitchen left, I don't want to talk too much more. But I see some people's hands. And I would like to answer your questions, but I feel like we should have another meeting. So if you can write down your questions now before you forget them and either keep them and read them again or give them to me, we can discuss them in the next period, our next meeting, which will probably, I guess, be day after tomorrow because tomorrow is a free day, right? So day after tomorrow, I'll try to just present a little bit I think next meeting I can present very little and have like an hour or more for question and answer. So please bring your questions. I already know some questions. Like Eric has a question which I'd like to respond to.

[81:38]

And so is that okay to do that way? And again, I really appreciate your enthusiastic bodies and minds. When the Buddha was dying, the Buddha said, well, I'm going to go pretty soon. Do you have any questions? And nobody raised their hand. And then he asked two more times. And then he said, well, I guess that means you understand what I've said, right? So good luck. May our attention...

[82:16]

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