It is 9 o'clock. You can use it for the time or the weather, but not only for the time or weather. Everything is actually it. We are also it, you know, but we don't say it. Instead we say, instead of it, we say he or she, me or I. But actually we mean it. So if everything is it, it is at the same time a question mark. When I say it, you won't know exactly what I mean. So you might ask, what is it? So it doesn't have any particular object. There's no particular object that is it. But whenever we point to, we can say, this is it. So it has both a phenomenal meaning, comparative meaning, and a non-comparative meaning.

[01:08]

So even now we say you are Mary or Joe. Mary or Joe is also it. So it covers everything and has no particular shape or form. But everything applied to is it. So this is how we talk about fundamental reality. And discriminated reality, fundamental reality, in fundamental reality everything is simply it. In discriminated reality everything has a name. Discrimination means to divide and give a name. So discriminated reality is comparative reality after it's discriminated.

[02:21]

And usually in our life we think of our life in the realm of discriminated reality, and rarely do we see our life as a fundamental reality of it, which is not discriminated or doesn't depend on discrimination. So he says, when I talk about time, it might be now time or lecture time. We don't say so. We don't say, I'm sorry, we don't know. So it might be a question mark for everyone. You might say, what time is it? Or is it time for lecture? So it or you know is something definite at the same time a question. So this is very important for us to know. Right now, it is hot, but it is not always hot. Very appropriate.

[03:24]

This is a summertime lecture. Summertime it will be cold, we hope. So in the sense of time, there's continuous time and discontinuous time. Continuous time is called now. Any time you want, you can say, this is now. Discontinuous time is met up. We say one o'clock, two o'clock, springtime. Phenomenal time. Phenomenal meaning discriminated time. discriminated time is where we usually find ourselves. And we don't often think so much about non-discriminated time, which is continuous time.

[04:30]

But discriminated time is continuous time cut up into little pieces. So if I have one big piece of cloth, We take and cut it into many pieces and then we fashion it into all kinds of clothing and materials to use. We take one whole piece of cloth and cut it into little pieces. This is how we live our life, by taking this piece of cloth, cutting it into little pieces and making clothing and objects and so forth. And we've done this with other materials as well. But we are not usually aware of the one piece of cloth.

[05:35]

Even if we cut the one piece of cloth into a thousand tiny pieces, it's still one piece of cloth in the realm of continuous time and discontinuous time. So no matter how many little pieces we chop time into, it's still one continuous time. Matter of fact, excuse me, the only time there is, is now. We'd say past and future, but past is an idea in the present. Future is an idea that hasn't happened. We just think about past and future as if they don't exist. We think that the past has existed sometime back there, and the future is something that will happen. But future is just an idea. And of course, we think about the future and our goals for the future.

[06:45]

That's how the future happens. But there's no future that's coming to us or that we can take hold of. So these are ideas and concepts, and we live in the realm of ideas and concepts, and our ideas and concepts create our world. So we say human beings are self-creating. We're continuously self-creating. This is called the realm of karma, of course. Karma is volitional action. That's all it means. Karma means a volitional action, something that you do, an action or a thought that creates an effect. It creates another action which creates another effect and snowballs.

[07:48]

And thus the effect is called the fruit of the action. So every action has a result. And through action and result we create our lives down one path or another. We can always change our path and change the direction of the karmic consequence. So we have that freedom. Life is not faked or determined. We're continually making it up. So, uh, continuous time is sometimes called eternal time. I like to use the word continuous because eternal has certain connotations. It's okay to use it as long as you don't get stuck in the connotations. But the continuous time is the continuous moment of now, and it only becomes discriminated when there's activity.

[09:02]

When there's activity, we begin to have discriminated time. which is what we call time. But the important point is to not base our life on discriminated time, but on continuous time. That's the basis. So in our Zen practice we're always allowing ourself to depend on the fundamental. So in the last talk, Suzuki goes, he says, although we have to live in the world of delusion, we shouldn't base our life on the world of delusion, but on the realm of reality, which is continuous time of realizing what it means to be just thus. So when we talk about time, we can see that time is continuous and also that time is definite.

[10:19]

Definite means discontinuous. When it is half passed out, we point out a certain time. Now time is discontinuous. But time by its nature is continuous. So the one word has two sides, continuity and discontinuity, and that is the nature of reality. In the Mahayana we talk about the two truths. It's easy to get mixed up, so we talk about two truths. One is the truth of discriminated time that we live in, and the other is the truth of nondiscriminated time, or basic reality, which is not changing. So Dhamma's energy talks about practice not as something special, but something continuous, something mixed up with everything.

[11:23]

So I think I have to explain that a little bit. He doesn't talk about practice as special, but something continuous, something mixed up with everything. So something mixed up with everything is continuous time, or emptiness. Emptiness is mixed up with form. Form is mixed up with emptiness. You can't separate them. You can't separate continuous time from discontinuous time because they're one thing. Discontinuous time is the activity of continuous time. And continuous time is the fundamental of discontinuous time, the essence. So essence and form go together. So he says, if you fall to the ground, stand up by the ground.

[12:34]

Use the ground to help you stand up. That's wonderful. He says, if you fall on the ground, stand up by the ground. Does it make sense? If you fall on the ground, you stand up by the ground in that place. Also, he says, if you fall on the ground, stand up by emptiness, by nothing. Without discussing why this is, we can't have a complete understanding of our teaching. Actually, we stand up by the ground, but he says that we shouldn't. What does that mean? If you think you can always stand up by the ground and don't mind falling on the ground, you'll fall on the mound quite easily. You don't have all that, oh, it's okay if I fall on the ground, I can just stand up by the ground. If I practice with this kind of prejudice or easier idea, that's wrong practice. So this point is important. It is like an enlightenment.

[13:36]

If you have a lie or an argument, you will be someone who doesn't announce himself, makes mistakes. Your flaws are a load and I am a half of the ground. So it's kind of like, you know, anything we do that we say, well, it's okay, I can always fix it, you know. It's okay if I lie and drink, I can always go back to AA. So this is a very subtle point. Of course, we have to stand up by the ground, but if we stick to the idea of the help of the ground all the time, we will lose the trail and fall into the ground. In other words, even though I make a mistake, we should not make the same mistake many, many times, thinking that it's okay because we know how to get up. So really what I'm talking about now is practice. This is not what we learn when we show reality. Das Dar happened twice in the same way.

[14:38]

There are about things happening twice in the same way. There was a hunter who went out hunting one day and he was standing by a stump. And a robber came out of the woods real fast and ran by and ran into the stump and killed itself. And he said, boy, this is an easy way to hunt. So the next day he got out his rifle, stood by the stop, and nothing happened. So the guard is not always the same. It can be a stick sometimes, or it can be a stone. It can be water. The guard is it. It learns anything, not just ground. It learns to practice all right without trying to repeat the same experience.

[15:38]

So this is what happens often, you know, in Zazen. Someone would say, Zazen was so easy yesterday, and today it's so awful, so hard. So my legs hurt today, or my mind was going, and I couldn't stop it. We think in that way. So we want to have some perfect thing called good zazen. But there is no such thing as good zazen or bad zazen. Good zazen and bad zazen is in the realm of discrimination. Zazen is just zazen. It's just whatever is happening on this moment is it. This is the point of zazen. This is the essence of zazen. Whatever it is that's happening on this moment is it. But we don't appreciate everything that's happening on this moment, because we think there's something better than this.

[16:41]

There's got to be something better than this. When you sit on the fourth day on the Sashin and your legs are screaming, you say, there has to be something better than this. But It's just in the realm of discrimination. So that's what we call the realm of delusion. Although there is something called better and worse. We get stuck in better and worse. If one way of discriminating on the basis of like and dislike We can't accept what we have right now because we want something else. And as soon as you want something else, you start suffering. Buddha says the problem we have is suffering caused by the desire for something else.

[17:45]

How to accept the fundamental reality of what's happening on each moment is enlightened practice. We don't define enlightenment, but we talk about what are the effects of enlightenment or what is the expression of enlightenment. Expression of enlightenment is to accept things just as they are on each moment with gratitude You can say, well, I don't feel gratitude for this. Enlightened practice is to accept your situation at each moment without discriminating between like and dislike, even though you may not like it. It doesn't mean you can't change. It simply means that you're grounded in fundamental reality.

[18:55]

It's hard to stay grounded in fundamental reality. You know, when we sit zazen, we sit very still. And the more still we sit, the easier it is to accept whatever is present. Because we're being grounded in fundamental reality of, you know, Now, this is it. We have a koan, a very famous koan, what is it? That's the koan that, sometimes I like to call it mo. But you know, the koan mo is, the answer to the koan mo is it. Mo is it. What is mo? Mo is it. What is it? The answer to that is, this is it. It is this.

[20:01]

And the more you want to say it, it comes out right. So we are trying to depict the sound experience. So there is nothing about I in our practice. But on the other hand, there is always something provided for you. Always. According to the circumstances, you will have some aid to practice our way. Even a pair of legs is an aid. By the pair you have, you practice our way. The pairing is it. It is anything, but at the same time, it is some definite experience or particular problem. It can be drowsiness. It can be hunger. It can be hot weather. So when I look for corn leather, or harder, or mosquitoes with a pair on their legs, can I imagine a practice with which you stand up and establish your practice? So not all of Buddha's teaching, but everything, can be an egg to us.

[21:07]

So, as I was saying yesterday, there are no obstacles. There are only opportunities. in practice. This is how I can tell a mature student from an immature student. An immature student will complain. A mature student does not complain, but always accepts everything as it is, without resentments, without anger, totally based on fundamental reality. without trying to unwind something, and without hanging on to something. This is called perfect freedom. So, you know, J learns things, and you know, Ren is Sanon who was practicing Zazen. Sanon practicing something.

[22:10]

That is reality. or we could say saiyan dimming something, that yin-nau is a discontinuous particular being which has form and color. Form and color is a kind of technical term in Japanese Buddhism which means phenomena, the world of phenomena. So, if that is so, and so on, Dan Zazan already includes, oh, I'm trying to find my place. Yeah, so on practicing something, that is reality. Or we could say, so on doing something, then email is a discontinuous particular being, which has form and color. in the realm of discrimination. But as Dharmavadji says, practice is something continuous, something mixed up with everything. So sometimes, you know, Dogen will say, practice continues on forever.

[23:16]

This is how you have to understand practice continues on forever. The fundamental reality of practice continues on forever. The forms are always changing, but the fundamental reality is continuous, and the forms are always arising out of the fundamental reality. And the forms are the fundamental reality, and the fundamental reality is the forms, but at the same time, forms are forms, and fundamental reality is fundamental reality. So wherever you are is it. But at the same time, everything is continuously changing. So if you stand with it as the fundamental reality, you can't get lost. There's no way to get lost. It is so, in fact, that this is so that so-and-don't-exise-it-already-increases-everything.

[24:23]

So-and-don't-exise-it-already-increases-everything. [...] So-and-don't-exise-it-already If I have a solitaire, then I can say something, something, something. What is that? That is complete realization. Everything happens in this way. So if you stick to the idea of hell or enlightenment, then solving a mistake. You have separated yourself from everything. Some might say, well, he studies Soto Zen, but he denies the enlightenment experience. People used to... Because Suzuki Roshi didn't... emphasize practicing to create an enlightenment experience, people often criticize him as he doesn't bear the enlightenment experience.

[25:25]

But, you know, at Sathya Zen or Dhamman, practice and enlightenment are not separate. enlightenment and enlightenment is practice. So instead of emphasizing an enlightenment experience, Suzuki Roshi emphasized practice. In other words, practical, to do something, to actually engage in practice and not to chase after some idea called enlightenment. If we continuously act out our practice, throw ourselves out in the practice, then none is there. You don't have to create some idea called enlightenment. But we don't realize the enlightenment. Even though we're practicing in the midst of enlightened practice, we don't always realize that. So instead of talking about enlightenment, we usually talk more about realization.

[26:29]

to have to realize what you're really doing. So he said, This is not so. Most sattva students do not stick to anything. We have complete freedom of practice, complete freedom of expression. Our practice is the loving expression of our true nature or reality. So for us it is not possible to stick to anything. Moment after moment we practice in a new, mad, refreshed way. So this is enlightened practice, that every moment is a brand new birth, actually, of life. We also think about birth and death as happening at each moment. Each moment is a moment of re-well. And in order to have them know, something has to get right.

[27:32]

So our life gives way to no life, moment by moment. So we have gone as far as thinking about birth and death, whereas I was born on a certain day and I lived my life and then I died. That's why I'm thinking about birth and death. But birth and death are happening at each moment. as well. This is how I can actually study the reality of birth and death. And we should study it all the time. You can study it in a moment and continuously. So birth and death are not something to fear, but If I understand it, the morality of birth and death, we can say that everything is just right, just as it should be.

[28:37]

Somebody said, you know, I can't stand the fact that we die. Well, that's because you don't understand the morality of our life. That's too bad. That just causes pain and suffering. Imagine the pain and suffering of, I'm angry because I have to die. So, you know, what is the great matter? We should be studying the great matter. Dogen talks about the great matter. The great matter is the matter of birth and death. What is it? What is it really? You know, there's life, but life is not the opposite of death. Birth is the opposite of death because birth and death are the inspiration and expiration.

[29:45]

Inspiration is coming to life. Expiration is letting go. That's what we call our breath, inspiring, inspired and expired. And so expired, not inspiring. Inspired means coming to life. And we do that continuously all the time. Life itself is continuous. Life is like it. Life is immoral. And it's not affected by birth and death. This is the fundamental. So life itself is continuous, but birth and death are the changing of, like, night and day. So we don't like it, but, you know, death interferes with our life.

[30:53]

So we don't really like it. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Not yet. But unfortunately, we don't have a lot to say about it. But if we can accept our life on each moment just as it is, we can accept everything as it's supposed to be. So, right or wrong is that nothing belongs to us. That's very fundamental. You know, we have our claws, and we have our money, we have our this and that, and we say, those are mine. But they're not mine. Nothing is mine. Nothing is my property. Nothing is mine. Everything is just stuff to work with, like her, to pass the time with. But we get very caught up in all this and to take it very seriously, very seriously.

[32:02]

So, our practice should be independent from past practice and future practice. We cannot sacrifice our present practice for some future attainment. He's talking about enlightenment, you know, if I'm always thinking about enlightenment, moment is unsatisfactory. If I'm always thinking about something better in the future, this moment becomes unsatisfactory. So that's called wasting my life, because you don't see the value of this moment. We totally miss the value of the present moment by wishing for something better in the future. Not that something won't change and you'll enjoy something that you think is better in the future. So this is much better, but maybe it may be better, but fundamentally it's not any better.

[33:06]

Fundamentally, everything is the same. But discriminatively, things are better and worse. So we can't sacrifice our present practice for some future attainment because all about us attain enlightenment in this way, and all about us in the future are going to attain enlightenment in this way. In this way means not in a particular way. Sometimes it may be satem way, sometimes wenzai. According to the circumstances, it may have been the way of another school. Some are in the Italian Enlightenment when saying a flower or hearing a sound. Some are in the Italian Enlightenment when taking a hot bath or going to the restroom. Let's just put our Italian Enlightenment in various ways so actually there's not a satem way or a wenzai way. We have discussed practice rather abstractly, but this is what it means. Whatever it is, we should accept it. Whatever it is, we should accept it, but not as well as moment after moment. More or less, we practice our way.

[34:10]

There's no other way to attain enlightenment. So, you know, because anything, whatever it is that sounds like a problem is also an aid. So when I say, I wish I didn't have this problem, but how can I use this problem rather than how can I be used by this problem? So do you have any questions? Yes? You said everything is as it should be. Yeah. And you also said that we can change our actions. Mm-mm. Didn't you say that? Mm-mm. Oh. I said, it is not fake. Not, not fake. The thought was, someone was deterred, and they can't change it. So you can change actions. Absolutely, that's what, that isn't as best of them.

[35:11]

Right, so isn't that a contradiction? Of what? If you, if you're able to change things, um... Yes, if you're able to change, change. But then... then it's not as it should be, or is it still as it should be? It's not as it should be. Change, whatever it is, is as it should be. In other words, you know, we're talking about an attitude, not about a mo. You have to understand that. We're not talking about, this is a mo. We're talking about, this is an attitude with which we approach our life. Now, if you start picking out things, then you can't make it into a rule. So we have to understand that. We also have to understand that a talk, in expressing this, expresses something that you should understand rather than something that is going on in front of you.

[36:11]

And I have to learn to turn our eyes, or as it's said, the back of the page, which is where the reality lies. So unless we're putting out exceptions and saying, wait about this, we have to be careful because we can always change. Karma is not fixed. Whatever action we do determines who we are and what we have become. That's just, that's the wrong But you can change your karma. You can change and go in a different direction. You always have that freedom because everything's fixed. But when I asked you before, you said we're all going to the same place. We have different destinies, but we're going to the same place. We have different destinies. Destiny means destination. And destiny means because of what you do, you go out of that place,

[37:15]

that has a direction, right? So I have a direction and all directions are all different in the phenomenal world. But in a world of continuous tunneling, there's no special direction. Everything is completely still. So activity arises out of stillness. But to the best of our ordinary activity, to the best of our own activity, is to not be noted in our irony. Because the universe is changing. There's nothing in colonial grasp, in the norm of phenomena, as subtle. And then look at the norm. You think it's stable, and then boom, everything changes, and then boom, it changes again. There's no stability here. The all-stable place is in the fundamental reality, which is all is stoneless. And the status is the same, that's where they all meet.

[38:18]

They all meet in stoneless, in the fundamental reality. But the discarded reality is where they all Sometimes want and sometimes don't. That's all the problems. But it's all based on fundamental reality. So when we touch the fundamental reality, we have that possibility of being enlightened, whether we are or not. But we can always change our direction. Otherwise, you'd be hopeless. And who knows, it might be hopeless anyway. So that's how I make us, you know, pray so well and so forth. But I always make sure that because this is the world of God, the world of discrimination, the world of denial.

[39:20]

Sometimes it's God, sometimes it's peace, and sometimes it's war. And it's all mixed up. There are the past and there are now, are always there. Because that's our discriminated nature. It's a natural divinity. Just always going on. When you talk about suffering so much, what about joy? Yeah, I didn't talk about it so much. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. It's more of a question, but that's enough of a question. It is, yeah. The noble sin is more or less based on the Four Noble Truths. So the First Noble Truth is everyone has a problem in this world, and that problem is the problem of suffering.

[40:23]

There's such a law that there's no joy. It's simply talking about the problem, not talking about the other side. Of course there's joy and so forth, although in some cases the understanding is that even our joy is suffering, because without joy and suffering, everything suffering is joy. Well, that's right, the joy doesn't last very long. You have to catch it as it flies, as someone said. Catch the joy as it flies by. But it's possible to live a life of enjoyment, but that's on a deeper level. When you touch reality, the enjoyment of touching reality is not dependent on circumstances. So the jhāra that we usually think about is the jhāra which is dependent on circumstances. So we're a jhāra for our own, we're a jhāra for our own, we're suffering, and then we're a jhāra for our own suffering.

[41:27]

And one thing follows the next. But in the realm of fundamental reality, when you touch, it's like a deep river that runs through your life. And no matter what the circumstances, You start... There's a dead jar that runs through everything. I was thinking that when we talk about reality versus delusion... Not versus, but... Well, reality and delusion. It seems that cultivating a joyous attitude helps you to embrace things emo. Absolutely. If you suffer all the time, then I've noticed talking to people, I think, oh, you're afraid to be hurt. Oh, you're afraid to be hurt. That's right. You're afraid to be hurt. And so then they want to shut out a lot of things because those things may hurt them. That's right. And there's more delusion, I think, in that. I'm asking you, and in joy. Some child comes from accepting everything as it is. When they accept everything as it is, even though they're prepared to start joy.

[42:36]

It doesn't eliminate joy. So when I'm talking about joy, it's something separate from pain. Buddha talked about pain. So that's why we talk about pain a lot. He talked about pain and what is called the physician. First of all, heroes are subject to suffering. And the reason why is because of desire, the unfulfilled desire, which is called delusion. Delusion in that reaching for something unattainable. or the illusion of something which is unattainable, because we can't... Anyway, that's how I suppose that is.

[43:38]

Now as the care, the care is to realize that there is a man out of that. And the way out of that is to follow the Dharma, which leads you away from the illusion of suffering, or the delusion of, or how you get into suffering. Right. So, what is the end of suffering? That's what Don't Understand is about. Not so much about suffering, but how to get rid of suffering. So, when do they want to stop? When do they want to try? Right? So it's like, unless you're saying, this is joy, this is joy, that would be a misunderstanding. So it's simply having a care of something. And then joy is a result of something. Happiness is the result of something. Right? So we're talking about how and when, more than trying to get joy.

[44:39]

We're talking about happiness. There's no such thing as a-happiness or a-jongle. Jongle is the result or the expression of something. So when we're fighting, you have jongle. But to try and manufacture, which we do all the time, I call in society jongle manufacturers. It's all manufactured. We don't enjoy the simple things as much. We know we should, but we sometimes forget how much great pleasure there is in just having a healthy body and breathing and cool water on a hot day. I just think that there's such a great joy in it, and yet we focus it on, oh, it's too hot. The hand baths are subject to overstimulation. I often felt so heartbroken that all the farmers left the farms, you know, for the city.

[45:45]

Once you're with this nut that I found. They're going to keep it down. And fire everywhere. Some were saddened by all this stuff. And when you get sad, you know. That's right. Then you're grounded. You don't need so much. You know, you could say a couple words. I recognized yesterday, I don't know actually for myself, I do know difference for other people, but I do not know for myself what is the difference in compassion to myself and indulgence. I do not know what's the difference. Well, compassion is for others. Indulgence is for us. Yeah, I said it a little differently yesterday.

[46:46]

Come on. I hate repenting myself. Yeah, because there's no one answer. Language is really tricky. What is? Language. Language, yeah. And when you say acceptance, you say something about the kind of acceptance that is the understanding of acceptance that's an acceptance of resignation that expresses itself through not doing, and then the acceptance that expresses itself through being grounded. Right. To accept ourselves, one of the things you would think of is, we're still small, but we'll try and stuff it in. That's not acceptance.

[47:46]

Acceptance is growing bigger to expand to include everything. That's called big mind. Big mind expands to include everything. And then it's not suffering. It's only suffering when we find our limitation and we don't have room for what's present. The secret of Zazen and our life of practice is to expand, to accept everything. Because if you don't expand, you can't really accept. So you just grow bigger to encompass everything. Just with that, because I feel like a little bit not hearing something, if you could say something in the acceptance that grows bigger and can hold everything, that part of that expression is responding, responding to what's happening. Oh, absolutely. There's action involved. It's responding, not necessarily reacting.

[48:48]

Reaction is to be caught by something. Responding is to go to that fundamental place and open up, and then you know how to respond. Time.

[49:11]

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