Here, this is what always, as I said earlier, the moon in the water in the mirror, it's the image in the mirror reflection. It confuses me so much, because here, the image of the moon reflected on the water, whereas before it was an image of duality. In other words, Gengo Kola is not like the moon reflected on the water. It's total entry, everything is there, the moon in the water. And here, the moon in the water is used as an image of merging or awakening. So it's used, the same image is used in the opposite way, which I think is Dogen, certainly is not unaware that he was doing that as part of his method, his literary method, to take the same word or the same image and discuss it in detail one way, and discuss the same image in detail the opposite way. So enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon is not, the moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.

[01:02]

So in other words, if the water is us, our life, and the moon is enlightenment, enlightenment is not painted by our life. It appears in our life, and it's not affected by our life, nor is our life as our life destroyed or changed fundamentally by our encounter with enlightenment. Enlightenment is enlightenment, our life is our life, enlightenment pervades our life, our life pervades enlightenment, and neither one needs to change or affect the other, just like with the reflection. Although its light is white and gray, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. So the entire moon is in a puddle an inch wide. So even though our life may be small, everything is there in the same way.

[02:03]

And the whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in two drops on the grass, or even in a single drop of water. Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. Conversely, you can't hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon and the sky. So our life as ordinary, confused mortals remains so, even though all of enlightenment manifests in the middle of our life. And no matter what our life is, it doesn't hinder enlightenment. Enlightenment is still there, it's still attached, regardless of what our life is. The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. So even though people differ in their capacity to express and appreciate enlightenment, whatever the capacity of the person is, all of enlightenment is there for that depth. There is no comparison, because each reflection, however long or short its duration,

[03:10]

manifests the vastness of the dew drop, the vastness of our individual mortal life, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky. So, regardless of what our life is, all of enlightenment is there, and enlightenment shows the vastness of our individual mortal life, and our individual mortal life shows the limitlessness of enlightenment. So this is, again, another expression of the word, the title, koan, as it's interpreted by, yeah, I don't even know what you'd call me, the individual, and koan meaning universal. So this metaphor expresses the interpenetration of the universal and the individual. A person's becoming enlightenment is like the reflection of the moon,

[04:23]

in water. The moon does not get wet, nor does the water ruffle. Though the moonlight is vast and far-reaching, it is reflected in a few drops of water. The entire moon and heavens are reflected in even a drop of dew on the grass, or in a drop of water. Our not being obstructed by enlightenment is like the water not being obstructed by the moon. Our not obstructing enlightenment is like the non-obstruction of the moonlight by a dew drop. The depth of the water is equal to the height of the moon. As for the length or brevity of the reflection, you should investigate the water's vastness or smallness and the brightness or dimness of the moon. So then, yes? Right, I was just looking at Wendell and Cleary's translations.

[05:23]

They, in the way they translate, brings it back to the example you just described. Cleary translates just in the last sentence. As for the length and brevity of time, if you examine the great and small bodies of water, you should observe the breadth and narrowness of the sky. And Abe Wendell, who is somewhat different, but points to the same thing. As for the length and brevity of time, when you fully examine the water's breadth and smallness, you clearly observe the size of the sky. So if you want to understand enlightenment's depth, just plumb the depths of anything that's in front of you, including your own thought or emotion or a flower or another person or whatever it is.

[06:30]

That's how you can scrutinize enlightenment, when it's reflected in it. And in terms of the horizontal and vertical time, if you want to understand the relationship of vertical time to horizontal time, look at the moon and the sky and look at the size of the water and the movement of time. I think this is a kind of acknowledgement that, on the one hand, there are differences between people and things. There are greater enlightened buddhas and ordinary sentient beings and criminals and good people and bad people. But here, all enlightenment is reflected. What's going on? When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient.

[07:31]

When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. There's a comment by a folksong here. It says, it's not only that something is missing, but the entire body is lacking. It's a comment to that. So, again, I've said before that all of the things that Dogon is saying may have various levels of interpretation. On a psychological level, we could say that this means that one might think, at some point in the practice,

[08:36]

that you're getting it. Oh, I'm getting better at it. I'm understanding it. I know it. I feel sufficient. This would be an incomplete understanding. When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. So that when you're really immersed in the dharma, you have a great feeling of humility. Because you know that no matter how much you practice and how much you understand, it will always be missing, always lacking. And that always lacking, that effort to endlessly practice, is a mark of dharma filling your body and mind. No accomplishment, no sense of accomplishment, no sense of being an expert or being a master. Whereas, in an earlier stage, you may think of yourself as being an expert or being a spirit. So that's on a psychological level. I have a comment in my notes here, which I'm not sure if it includes anything, but it's interesting.

[09:45]

It says something. It's a line from the Prajnaparamita, an 8,000-line sutra. It says, all dharmas are isolated and unincluded. All dharmas are isolated and unincluded. So that strikes to the metaphysical level of this saying of Dogon. And that's what Bodhisattva is indicating. He said, it's not that something is missing, but the entire body is lacking. This is interesting. So, if we think something's missing, then we think, well, I have something, and I need more. If there's something that's missing, I could get that later on. That's the psychological state of feeling that something's missing. It's a problem, it's something we yearn for, something that we need. But these statements from the sutra, from Bodhisattva, point to the absolute aloneness,

[10:48]

the absolute aloneness of each and every person, each and every moment, isolated and unincluded, which is simply another mode of understanding complete interdependence. So complete interdependence and isolated and absolutely alone are two modes of understanding the same thing, two ways, two angles of seeing the same thing. Interdependence is more popular, because it seems nicer. But, you know, you think that we're all included with each other, and it's a nice, happy world. But the real meaning of interdependence, I think we have to also appreciate that the real meaning of interdependence is total isolation and aloneness. And both simultaneously express the truth of our relationship to the universe.

[11:50]

So there are these two levels of understanding this statement on the one hand, and we feel psychologically humble and always wanting to learn more, and really not feeling in any way that we've learned anything. It doesn't help to feel. But on a deeper level, on a metaphysical level, we feel the sense of now aloneness, in this case, or isolation, or the whole body is lacking. When we hear that from the standpoint of this, we think, oh, how sad, how lonesome. But, from the standpoint inside the experience of Gengo Koan, it's more like Buddha's famous saying, on his enlightenment, on his birth, and all the cosmos, I alone am the world-honored one. When you hear that, you think, gee, what an arrogant statement. Such a big shot. But actually, the metaphysical meaning of that statement is like this. Not that, you know, I alone, you know, everybody else is a shemot, you know, only me, you know me.

[12:57]

It's this sense of all dharmas are isolated and unincluded. Each one, you know, each one is a total king and queen of the universe, a shemot, without any king, without any king. But it goes through aspects of understanding. No? Um, as far as what you know, I don't know much about this man. I looked at my notes last night, and I can't tell you where I wrote down the definition of a dharma. That's where a dharma is. That's right. A dharma is a... And it's somewhere around here. Yeah, a dharma is, the word dharma is, has several meanings simultaneously. The technical meaning is that the smallest possible unit of existence is a dharma. So a dharma would be something inside of us, an attitude, a perception, a feeling.

[13:58]

Or something outside of us, a particle of matter, the smallest particle of matter, but also the dharma. So our experience is made up of many dharmas arising that we put together into a coherent experience, which we identify as self going through time. Actually, dharma is arising, dharma is passing away, dharma is arising, dharma is passing away. And then I was saying that in modern physics, brain studies, they have similar view of reality. These things arising and passing away, that when you try to look at them and isolate them and grab them, they always disappear. And so in Buddhism they say the same thing, that dharmas are empty. There is no actual being or substance in anything at all. If you look for it, of course there is none. So that's why dharmas being like that, you can say that in one dharma are all dharmas. Because it's not the space and time, it's all on this line. It's all conceptual.

[15:00]

So in reality, experientially, in one dharma can be all dharmas. Because all dharmas are empty. We can penetrate one another, and also simultaneously the meaning of that interpenetration is kind of isolation. I guess I'm kind of confused that you're isolating the aloneness of each dharma. You're not talking about the feeling of being alienated. No, right. You're talking about the metaphysical aloneness. It's not like the psychological aloneness, it's not metaphysical. Yes. But my understanding is that all dharmas are interpenetrating, polarizing. Right. So they're not isolated. Well, the real understanding of interpenetrating polarizing is causation, right? But... Yes. But Nagarjuna, in his analysis, denies causality. He said there is no causality. That's the side of isolated and unclear, working absolutely wrong.

[16:05]

Meaning that there's no future? No causality. Just like there's no death, there's no birth. So causality is so thorough-going that the deepest meaning of causality is non-causality. Yes. Yes, there's definitely contradiction. In language, there's a contradiction. Because when we think dharma is being interdependent with one another, we think, oh, there's all these dharmas, they're all together and one thing after another. Well, but the other dharmas...

[17:08]

Yes. Well, what I'm trying to stress here is that conceptually, it is a contradiction. But the contradiction is pointing to the fact that... I think when we understand conceptually all dharmas are interrelated, we appreciate that up to a point. If all dharmas are really and truly interrelated, and there's no dharma outside of interrelationship, then that fact is the same thing as all dharmas are unincluded and isolated, and there's only one dharma here. These two things are the same thing, and logically they appear to be a contradiction. If we don't appreciate both sides of that, we're not thoroughly penetrating into one another. And everything is silent. Unincluded. So it is a contradiction.

[18:11]

Here's the emptiness of dharma. I can see it as saying that that must be causality. Because dharma doesn't appear to be necessarily dependent on one another. I don't know if it's causality. Even in one moment, if dharma arises, it just arises like that. And that's causality and emptiness. Without causality, we're getting the high technical Buddhistic thought here. Yes, the idea of the emptiness of all dharmas and emptiness of all dharmas. And the idea of dependent co-arising are absolutely one idea. And also, another way of looking at the emptiness of dharmas and dependent co-arising

[19:17]

is that all dharmas are isolated and unincluded, and all dharmas are totally lacking. Totally lacking. Totally lacking. Totally empty. So that's why he says... Lacking is very different than isolated, as you call it. Lacking becomes very different. Being is very different. Maybe the word lacking is harming us here. Maybe we don't do that. Instead of lacking, we just say empty. Or no true existence. I'm going to call it. You haven't spoken. So, to think of it like you just said this, that it is isolated from a lot of things, the intersection of a lot of things and a lot of things, or the fact that you were talking yesterday about one world and a string of worlds, is that like isolated in that one? It's not exactly disconnected, but it's also isolated. No, because everything is included in that one. Yeah, but it's also one. But it's one. Yeah, it's one. Yeah. Right.

[20:18]

So, like, it's not the feeling of I feel alone. Because when we have the psychological feeling of I feel alone, the reason why that's a painful feeling is because we think, oh, I could be not alone. Or others are not alone. Or I want others to be with me. That's why I feel alone. Or I'm disconnected. Or I'm disconnected. Right. This is an absolute alone. There is no other. So it's not as sad. Although, you know, so we may have this experience or appreciate this aspect of darkness. Right. And it's not to be forlorn and lonely. And at the same time, we're human. So we might have some shadow of that feeling, forlorn and lonely. But I think there is, you know, in this experience, there is sometimes that feeling of being absolutely the only one in the world. And therefore, our human feeling about that can be intermingled with sadness.

[21:19]

So I think that, to me, sadness can be a profound emotion. Or loss of grief can be a very profound emotion. And it's sort of, I would say, a psychological feeling that arises as a result of our appreciating some deeper insight. Except that when we appreciate the deeper insight with this feeling of loss, the feeling of loss is not the anguished feeling of loss that we feel when we think lonely, when we don't enter into the feeling of loss. In other words, when there's loss and I'm thinking, I wish this hadn't happened, this is terrible, blah, blah, blah. Then that's different from the feeling of loss that I might feel when I experience the universe as one. That's clear. So I think that human emotion has some sides to it. There are ways of appreciating our human emotion. I think that the spirit of James O'Connor, as I understand it, is that human emotion

[22:21]

is, although it's characterized this way, it's also available here. And we're always human, even in our deepest moments. We're always human. That human side is there also, but it's tempered by this appreciation of the real nature of our lives. I think that's clear. I think it's clear. I think it's clear. I think it must be. Human emotion. Yeah, human emotion is on this continuum. But of course, everywhere on this continuum, there's this line. Yeah, right. So it's not as if human emotion is irrelevant. Our human emotion is there along with everything else. Every moment of our experience has that dimension to it. Yes, Stuart. Just on the issue of causality, which you made a very important point, in order to appreciate it, I think it's important to understand that causality is how we conceptualize the relationship

[23:27]

among people. What we use to string the world together on a separate basis. So we say everything independently co-arise, and we usually conceptualize that as everything kind of hooks together. And what Dicharshi does, he goes around and he shows that there aren't any hooks. That everything comes up together, everything is intimately connected, but you can't see any connection. You can't find any relationship. It's just that somehow, in some incomprehensible way, everything happens dependent on the other. No books, no light, no... Yes, so if you really look at causality and really understand it, then you understand causality is non-causality. And that's why earlier he says, if you really understand birth, it's non-birth. If you really understand death, it's non-death. And then Lee referenced the 9th Sutra yesterday, which has a whole string of those things.

[24:31]

I forget the ones that he uses, but there's no giver, there's no gift. Everything that arises, if you really understand it, you see that it's in of any substantiality of any human being. Therefore, it's a non-act, whatever activity. So like I say, the interdependence part, from a human point of view, it seems much more comforting. Because we like that everything is there. But to really understand and appreciate interdependence means that we understand that nothing is there. There's nothing to hold on to. Nothing exists in the way that we think there is. Which is a lonely and unincluded part, a total lack part. So one way of discussing emptiness is to say, nothing really exists. And that is a scary prospect from a human point of view. There's nothing that exists. That's why interdependence, I think he was very skillful to speak about interdependence as the dominant mode of understanding emptiness.

[25:34]

He understood that we needed to hear it that way, otherwise we would never accept it. And overall, if we did accept it, we would misunderstand it. So he made it much more palatable. And also, emphasizing that way, he was able to also emphasize love and passion. Because that side, of course, is about love and passion. The other side is about isolation. Yeah, and throughout Buddhist history, the problem of understanding emptiness nihilistically has been cradled and always argued against. So we have to, ultimately, in our understanding, we have to appreciate both sides. And I think it was the genius of the Gahan to emphasize this side, given the fact that we're beginners, beginning students, it's probably better to emphasize that side. That's very important. But here, Dogen is referring to the other side. Acceptance.

[26:35]

You gain everything, and then you see there's nothing to gain. And these things are conceptualizations. Ways of understanding something. All these words and all these concepts are very clunky ways, and totally wrong ways of speaking about something that's basically unspeakable. Because language is always this. Language has to be this. So we're struggling here, you see, to use language to express this, which it can never express. So basically what we're doing is like turning language on itself. That's why Martin said this is a contradiction. Well, it is a contradiction. Because as soon as we language something, we're over here. When we're trying to appreciate this, we're going to be in a linguistic self-canceling situation. You can really feel it going.

[27:38]

This exquisite scariness, say, of those anesthetics. Without the need for non-language. Yeah, non-language. Where there is this scariness, feeling of isolation, loneliness. But whatever is in it is just wow. So, oh. Yeah? Yes. People go on. Yeah. Yeah. And this feeling that we're talking about, what David brought up, is probably the dominant mode of Japanese aesthetics. Because, which comes from, had this Buddhist root. It's the way that the Japanese took it. And that's probably, I forget what it is.

[28:43]

Wabi. Wabi, yeah. Wabi. And the idea is this sort of sense of loneliness and loss. In the human realm, with an analog in the realm of depth, of everything here now. So everything else. So anyway, this is one of the key themes of Japanese poetry. You know, cherry blossoms falling. This kind of wistful feeling, which has a very profound root. So the cherry blossoms falling, you know, often has an analog in human emotion, but it's somehow deep in there. I feel lost because my loved one's gone away. It's not human anguish. It's a human anguish. You start from there. Like I was saying, quote Stephen Hawking. My pain becomes deep pain. So with this human emotion, falling through, we come to the depth of the same impermanence. Which is impermanence.

[29:46]

Which is emptiness. Which is being colonized. Which is isolated and alone. All these things are different languages, but the same phenomenon. Talk about the nature of these moments in our lives, these moments in our experience. There's a wonderful image in a column called Fishing with a Straight Book. That's important. Go get it. Go get it. Discuss it there. But fishing, you know. Right. Yeah, the current book would be language and its ability to describe something. It's a very benign activity. Yeah. Won't kill you. How do you say it's steady? Is it my way or your way? It's steady. It has to be. That's what it is. Did you hear what I was just saying about Japanese? Steady. It has to be steady. It has to be. Well, I was saying that. So, impermanence, emptiness, dependent co-arising or causality.

[30:54]

Each moment, including all moments and there is no other. All these things are the same. Different ways of describing the same thing. Different modes of understanding or looking at the same thing. So, this isolated and unincluded or impermanence of thinking is here and gone. This is a profound and deep understanding which is not particularly good or bad or sad. But when a human being appreciates this, often there's a feeling of sadness that comes with it. Not the sadness of loss and anguish, but the sadness of appreciating the way our life really is. But sad mixed with joy and beauty. Beauty, this wistful beauty of our life, of our world. So, it's not necessarily wistful and sad, but to a human being it might appear that way.

[31:57]

So, I'm trying to make a distinction between that kind of sadness and the sadness of beating my breast. There's a beauty to the sadness. So, it just so happens that that particular teaching of Buddhism struck the Japanese. It struck the core of the Japanese, a way of looking at the world. Because the Japanese had a pre-existing feeling about the world that this Buddhist idea brought out. And so, they made it into an aesthetic. So, it's a key concept in Japanese poetry and Japanese art. And the tea ceremony and all this stuff that the Japanese created out of Buddhist culture comes from that. The cultural root that's echoed, the Japanese cultural root that's echoed in Buddhism. Other Buddhist cultures didn't quite hit it in that way. That's one of the things I think that we've all enjoyed about the Japanese culture. The beauty. They're beautiful. It's really an experience of beauty as something quiet and almost sad.

[33:01]

That's what it is. What kept running around in my head, which may not make you fully believe it, was being in nothingness. Being in nothingness. Sort of in a circle. Would that have anything to do with it? Yeah. Well, birth is non-birth. Yeah, non-birth. Yeah, being in nothingness. And that's sort of what I thought the idea of the tea ceremony was. Yeah. The tea ceremony is very simple. It's a moment. It's gestured. It's profound. It's simple. It's quiet. I wanted to just share, because you started with the talk, first of all, about what makes this important, and how we can pop it in our lives and be able to get the call on our future. And this piece just gave me a lot in that way.

[34:04]

Contrarily, it didn't make me feel sad to hear you start, like, I needed it alone. It actually calmed me. Because I think part of an anguish that I would fall into a lot, or have fallen into a lot, is always wanting more than there is. And to kind of be that in every moment of my life, and still have it in. Why don't they want it to be with me, and let the God want it to be with them, and all that kind of stuff. So hearing this is sort of just like, it's just the way it is, and then I can be more in the moment of what is, rather than always wishing for it in a different way. It's very healing. So we feel, we part. And one of the big things, you know, in Japanese poetry, and Chinese poetry, too, is parting. We're always trying to have a party. So we feel sad, as human sadness is part, and yet we know that we'll always be together. And we've never met. At the beginning.

[35:07]

Okay. So now he's going to explain more about this. He's going to explain more about this. So, for example, when you sail out in a boat in the middle of an ocean, where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. Which is true. And Dogen knew this, because he sailed on a boat to China. It must have been years, you know, on a boat. I don't know how long he was in China, but it was a long trip. He was gone for a number of years. I don't know how long he was there, but it was considerable. And he was experiencing it every day, being out in a boat in the middle of the ocean. And when you look around, you say, oh, the ocean is definitely round. Is it round? Yeah. So when you sail out in a boat, and there's no land, the ocean looks circular. But the ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace, it is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see.

[36:11]

At that time, all things are like this. So this is, of course, the features of the ocean are not really infinite in variety. I suppose you could make a map of the boundaries of the ocean. But here, he's using the ocean. That's something bigger than the ocean. When he says that, you're in the middle of the ocean, you look around, the ocean looks a particular way to you. And then when he says it's like a palace, it's like a jewel, he's referring here to a passage from a sutra, and I can't remember which one, which he extensively writes about more in this other essay called Mountains and River Sutra, very beautifully, one of my favorite passages. Basically, the sutra says something like, what is the ocean? Well, to a human being, it's the ocean. But to a bird, it's a jewel. The ocean is not an ocean, it's a jewel. In other words, when a bird flies over the ocean and looks down,

[37:12]

the sun reflecting on the ocean, it looks like a jewel, literally. They want you to understand, literally. It's not an ocean, it's a jewel. Just like I was saying the other day, when we're reading the Dear John letter, and we're crying over this letter, and an ant is walking across the cage, to the ant, it's not a Dear John letter. Nor is it even a Dear John letter to somebody who doesn't read English. So it's a totally different world for that creature. And it's a different world to a paper-eating insect. To a paper-eating insect, it's not a Dear John letter, or it's not cared for, it's food, and they're eating it. Yeah, they're all whining, they're eating. So, in the same way about the ocean. To a bird, it's not an ocean, it's a jewel. And it's a palace to a fish. So a fish is swimming around in the ocean, it's this gorgeous palace. With all these beautiful shacks of life, and gorgeous decorations, and everything like that. It's not an ocean to them.

[38:14]

It's the palace that they live in. And then, similarly, you could enumerate a number of other creatures, mythical and real, for whom the ocean is not an ocean. But to us, out in the middle of the ocean, we see it as an ocean. But really, the ocean is neither round nor square. It's not the way it looks to us, it's not the way it looks to the ham, it's not the way it looks to the fish, it's not the way it looks to the bird. It's beyond any of those descriptions. But it does look circular as far as we can tell. And all things are like this. So we need to appreciate that the way that the world is to us, is a limited view. There are many other views. So in that sense, when Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. We can take that as another aspect. When we really understand Dharma, we always know that our view of things is just our view.

[39:19]

And it can't be the totality of the way things are. And we really know that. So we appreciate that, yes, this is who I am, and this is my conditioning at this time, to see the ocean as circular. But I appreciate that this does not exhaust the meaning and description of what the ocean is. And so I hold my view with that knowledge and with that appreciation. And therefore, I don't beat everybody over the head and get them to agree with me about it. And I can appreciate that other people have other views. And I can even, if I listen and appreciate, I can hear and understand other views. Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. So in the world, in the dusty world, is this world, this world of dependent co-arising, causality.

[40:22]

The world beyond conditions is literally the world beyond non-knowledge and causality. There are many features in both these worlds, but we can see, we can always only see as far as our understanding and our conditioning will take us. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, myriad things means all things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety. Whole worlds are there. It is so, not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet or in a drop of water. So this is, again, another aspect of Angel Koan, that whatever is in front of us, we completely merge with it and give ourselves to it. And yet, on this level, we only see a limited aspect of it.

[41:24]

And we have to completely have confidence in and appreciate our view of it, and that's the only view we have. Knowing that our view is only our view of this moment, based on our conditioning of now, we all know that we've seen things differently over time. A person, then, that we saw a certain way ten years ago, we see them now in a different way. And we will probably see them in a different way later still, for ourselves. We see them now in a different way over time, or anything. So, knowing that our view is just our view, and knowing that we must live our lives based on our view, because that's the only way that we can live, still we appreciate it's just a view, a conditioned view, and there are many other views, and the world is unknown. Basically, a view is a view, and nobody has the correct view and the absolute view. Each view is another view, another angle. There are many valid views of a particular phenomenon,

[42:26]

and no one view, or even a combination of all views, don't exhaust the essence or meaning of this particular phenomenon, because it's essentially, you know, infinite and unknown. And we really appreciate it. When we meet another person, you know, we don't think, oh, that's so-and-so, and they're this way and they're that way. We think, oh, that's the person, and I might have a particular view of that person, which is my conditioning. But basically, this person, this moment, this event, is essentially infinite and unknown. I could never exhaust the possibility of knowing. So we act according to our view. Yes. But we hold it in this lighter way, because we know that it's just our view, the working view. So we're all stuck with our conditioning, right? We own that and appreciate it. And hopefully, as we study dharma, this is part of our conditioning. Part of our conditioning is that we study dharma a long time, and we've worked on it, and we've listened to teachings,

[43:27]

and we've studied it, and we've sat in education. It's part of our conditioning, and certainly our view of the present is conditioned in part by that. But regardless, it's still a view. And we have to take action. We have to know for sure. We're all doing it. That's right. And some of the worst things that happen happen because people are absolutely sure it's their view, and they think everybody else should have the same view. And that's how terrible things happen. More things happen because of people's certainties of their views than bad things happen because of people's certainties of their views than unselfishness. I think this is the whole point of building and writing a text like this is to point out that ordinary, garden-variety selfishness is really small potatoes, and most people aren't that selfish in that way. But this kind of selfishness, selfishness of view, and self-identified view, this is more subtle and much more difficult to uproot.

[44:29]

And we can all get over it. I can share my piece of toast. And I share my view of reality. And let's all be smart to hear these points that happen. Also, I feel like there's permission there to go ahead and act on your limited experience. Go ahead. You're never going to get... You might be able to go ahead. Yeah, yeah. No, definitely. This is the whole point of Genjo Koan is that when you appreciate Genjo Koan, you have full permission to see who you are and act on what you know and do what you feel needs to be done, understanding that this is a conditioned appearance of everything coming up to you. So this is really all about honoring ourself and the particularity of our experience as an expression of that. So, yeah, we have to be...

[45:33]

So, this is the relative world. The relative world brings up the whole vast world. This might be a question, but do we do good? Yes, we do. Because in the relative world, we do good based on our conditioning and based on our knowledge. And in this world, we're good at that. But we just can't understand. Yeah, so we must... You know, a famous saying, you got it from someone else, and it was, when you are you, dharma is dharma. So our job here, in the light of Genjo Koan, is to completely be ourself, completely discover the deepest sense in which we are the person that we are, different from everybody else. And to honor that person and act from that standpoint and appreciate the depth

[46:35]

of where that comes from. Yeah. I'm not quite clear, but the whole last few sections keep bringing up sensory awareness. Just from the study of Shana. And to be like when you're, when you're not... When you are empty and clear that way, you are expressing the life of self, on that self. when I get out some of your lines, like, for example, when you practice, you can look at your journey and where you are, and you feel it's nothing at all, because I'm changing the self. There's no self, because there's just perception, perception, perception, perception. There's no, there's really no anything else in that. And there's something that's missing. When Dharma fills your body and mind, when you're truly integrated with what you are at that moment,

[47:36]

how you can perceive that moment, there's something that's missing to use all the exercise lines. It's not... It's not... Yeah, that sounds good. I like that. That's very good. And I feel that's, that's something. Yeah, in a way, I'd say another way of looking at all this is that, that is, Gengo Koan, is being yourself completely without getting in your own way. When you, when you just, you know, receive the moments of your life, you know, with open hands, you could say, in that way, you are most completely yourself. And you could also say, in that way, there's no one there, you know, that just experiences this good, this, that. But, we don't want to make that into a view,

[48:40]

an ideology. Because then, if you do have a thought of self, or some not inside, and you said, well, that's not good, I shouldn't be feeling that, I want to be without these problems, and just, you know, leave each moment of experience, then you would be ignoring the fact that that feeling, not of it, is itself a moment of experience that needs to be turned to and appreciated in exactly the same way. Because there is no difference between what's inside and what's outside. It's experience, that we're talking about here, not a particular kind of experience, but a way of relating to any experience, even if it's the experience of I'm confused, or I'm mad at myself, or whatever it may be. So that's the beauty of the Genjo Koan. It's completely inclusive. There's no experience that's outside of it. That's why it's hard to understand it, you know, because we want to say it's this, it's not that. The Genjo Koan is all. You can't.

[49:43]

You're always yourself. So you're always practicing the Genjo Koan, whether you appreciate it or not, or whether you're making the effort or not. It's true, you know. All beings are already Buddhas, whatever they've been. But this problem, you know, is exactly, do you see this? This is exactly Dogen's original problem, right? If we're already Buddhas, why do we have to practice? If we're already, the Genjo Koan is completely inclusive, and everybody's already doing it anyway. Because as soon as we say it's this, we say no. Even if you don't do that, you're still going to feel like it's that. No? You don't see that? Well then, what's there to do anyway? And, I'll give you a hint that this is discussed very directly in the last time, but we're going to permanently. Yeah, Joe. Yeah, I was just going to say there's really a paradox because I was in the bed asking you to really be yourself, because with so much products about

[50:45]

conditioning and our culture and what we've been taught, how do we let go of that conditioning? How do we know that we're not just acting out what we've been taught to be? Well, we are. We are acting out what we've been taught to be. We are acting out our conditioning. We can never escape from our conditioning, but we can hold it freely. So, maybe, maybe the difference is not that we build a new house, but that the house that we live in, we open up all the doors and windows and we let light in this area breezy and open versus all the light, all the windows and doors are barred shut and dark and damp and very confined and very oppressive. You're thinking we can build our own house, too. That might be another step. Well, of course,

[51:45]

this house we're constantly building, right? I mean, every moment of our lives is another addition, right? It's not like our life is this thing and it never changes. It's changing every minute. What it is is always a production and part of it is conditioning and we receive ideas from others and part of it is our own intention and our own action. So certainly our lives are not determined entirely by our childhood, say, but certainly our childhood is a big factor in what our lives are. I mean, we're born, we're all born, most of us here, not all of us, not all of us, but most of us are born in a particular culture. We're born in America. That's a huge factor in who we are. Huge factor. If we were born in Japan, then we're different, right? But, of course, we're born there and that conditions us and then we have limited to that. We build our own lives and then we change but it's always so. It's both. Well, the matter of appreciation

[52:46]

is not small. No, no, it's not a big deal. It's a big deal. Yeah. You might have to get blacklisted. It's a big deal. Yeah, it's a big deal to appreciate one's conditioning and I think that I feel that I feel I feel I feel in practice you always have to come back because one's conditioning is always one's conditioning. You have to appreciate it even if one's conditioning was very negative, you know, and many people do have negative events that occurred in their lives to make their lives difficult. I think ultimately one works through that and one comes to the place of feeling that whatever the conditions were, I appreciate it. I do. But this is this is what I have to work with. This is my box of tools. This is how I express this is my unique contribution even through all the suffering and all the confusion and all the trouble. And I think that of course it's very unskillful

[53:47]

to say to someone who's in the midst of grappling with difficult conditioning well you should appreciate this wonderful conditioning. It's not a good thing to say when someone is in the midst of struggling with it. It's stupid to say that at that time. You have to appreciate the struggle and be able to listen and hear with them the negativity and the lamentable quality of their conditioning. But on their own time and their own way as they practice they themselves will come and really appreciate this. This is what has made my life given me this possibility of expressing all of reality on this moment as all that's happening. And when you can appreciate that you're free. And you're still your life still appears as a production of that conditioning but you're free of it since then. It's an all-encompassing phenomenon. So appreciation is not a small thing. It can totally change your life. It's certainly like you were saying

[54:49]

about this moment where you have this direct perception come up which is very important in practice because in fact it's so incredibly difficult when the perception doesn't come up usually this is this wall of your ideology that I started to believe in and I didn't realize anything about it until I died. Either that or this enormous outflow about feelings notions associations and yet they're just triggered by that perception. You know it would be something someone else is in their memory or association or good or bad ability to have about that person. And what I noticed is that although that does shut out a lot of negative and painful things it also shuts out a lot of joy and appreciation and then what I came to see is that this is not very hard is that

[55:52]

in some ways I wanted this small self. I didn't want that suffering because if I just had a pure perception there's this discomfort of having to let go of my ideology and let go of myself. I to let go myself. Any of things are very painful that why I to let go myself. And so That's really true. I mean, the approach to practice is wonderful. And, you know, sometimes it becomes so pretty, you know, to be there. And that goes so far, you know. It's true, you do come to a place where you come to realize,

[56:56]

boy, you know, I love my suffering. I really love this suffering. I really don't want to give it up. I mean, it's very uncomfortable. And I'm scared to give up my suffering. And then you have to really struggle with that. And it takes some courage, and there's fear involved, and you feel, well, what will I be left with if I give up my suffering? If I give up my self-control, what will happen to me? Will I be there tomorrow? What will we do? And, yeah, so it takes a while to feel comfortable with the fact that, yes, you give up your suffering, and you give up everything else. That's the reality. I mean, that is life. Life is giving up everything. No matter what you think about it, or whether you like that idea or not, that is what it is. And that's what we're all destined to do, to give up everything. And we'd better get good at it. Otherwise it's a problem, a worse problem. So you come to see how the feeling of resistance and fear is small potatoes compared with

[58:04]

what will happen if you don't, if you take a step forward. In other words, not practicing is much scarier than practicing, actually. Because it gets taken in the wrong setting, right? Yeah, right, that's what I'm saying. Because it gets taken in this ungraceful giving in the wrong setting. Right. You can either live in cooperation with reality or in resistance to it. In the end, reality is a lot stronger than you are, so you might as well go out and get it. Because it's going to get you in the end, you know. You're very empty. Yeah, completely empty. Our relationship with other people is often based on trouble. Yeah, the mutual conspiracy creates something for each other. Ally. Yeah, oh yeah. You keep all that up and you're alone.

[59:04]

That's what it's taught you. What? There's a time, you know. Yeah? There's a time out there. Yeah, that's right. And if you get right into it, you really do not have a need to arouse it. That's right. Then sickness and death is too soon. That's right. You know, we love our suffering and there's a time that's too soon to give it up. That's right. It's not now. We have to really listen to ourselves and understand, you know, well, let's not stop going forward and let's go forward at a pace that really we can go forward. There's no hurry. It doesn't take too long. Your suffering may be familiar and you may be unknown to the world. I'm pressing on a bit. A fish swims in the ocean. No matter how far it swims, there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky and no matter how far it flies, there is no end to the air.

[60:12]

However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large, their field is large. When their need is small, their field is small. Thus, each of them totally covers its full range. Each of them totally experiences its realm. If the bird leaves the air, it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water, it will die at once. Know that water is life and the air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish. It is possible to illustrate this with more analogies. Practice enlightenment and people are like this. This line, it is possible to illustrate this with more analogies. It's probably not quite correct. It's probably more like. And there are further steps beyond this. In other words, this that's been discussed above is not the whole story.

[61:26]

There is more. There is all of this and then plus there is an infinite number of other things beyond it. Practice enlightenment and people are like this. And this is a little bit like what we were discussing. A minute ago. I have a quote here from a Zen master on this topic, on this paragraph. Life is what I make. And I is what life makes me. Life is what I make. And I is what life makes me. So a fish swims in the ocean. Let's, before we're going to go into that stuff a little bit, let's try some other. Try some other. We're going to go, we haven't done this one before. This is one of the numbers. So interpret it, let's see how it interprets it.

[62:30]

A fish in the ocean, wherever it swims, finds the water limitless. A bird in the sky, wherever it flies, finds the air unbounded. Nevertheless, fish and birds from the very beginning have always been one, respectively with the water and the sky. Put it simply, when their need is great, their use is great. When their need is small, their use is small. Acting in this manner, they never fail to make the fullest use of their environment at all times, nor do they ever reject what they may find there. Even so, if a bird is pulled out of the air, in short order it will perish. If a fish is pulled out of the water, it will quickly die. You must have realized by now that the water signifies life, just as the sky signifies life. A bird refers to a life, just as a fish refers to a life.

[63:41]

Being alive should be taken to mean rebirth, well as being fish. Moreover, this should be taken one step further, since the situation is no different with spiritual practice and realization, or with the flow of life, and the life in that flow. Nevertheless, after someone has thoroughly explored what water is and what sky is, if the bird or the fish should remain so that they stand in contrast to water or sky, then he will not find his way in either ocean or in space. He will not arrive at the place. That's why I just quote, Life is what I make, I is what life makes me. This is all about the relationship of our self. Each one of us, each thing in the universe is a focal point for everything. So what's the dynamic of the relationship between that individual thing and all of everything else? Between me and all of everything else.

[64:43]

And that's what this paragraph is about. Oh, life is what I make, I is what life makes me. So then I have a note here where it warns us. There's no life outside of individual existence. There's no such thing as life. You know, like some substance that gets put into somebody. There's no life outside of individual existence. Existent things. And there are no individual existent things, really. Only the manifestations of life. So it's like the metaphor that's often used, the waves of the ocean, which I'm sure you've heard of. The wave is an individual thing, apparently.

[65:44]

There's a wave. But the wave is only a momentary expression of the ocean. There's no ocean without the wave. The ocean only exists as waves, and waves are manifestations of ocean. So in a way, it can't be name or hell, because it immediately falls back into the ocean and comes up to the ocean. So ocean and wave mutually express each other. The wave is an expression of ocean. Ocean is a substance of wave. So in the same way, there's no life outside of individual existent things, and each individual existent thing is an expression of a whole block of life. You want to see the whole of life, look at one thing. All of life will be there. You want to see the whole ocean, look at one wave. But you can't grab a wave. You can't possess a wave. You can't fix a wave. It's always changing. And so we're like that, too, at home. This is the bird, this paragon.

[66:47]

A fish swims in the ocean. A being is alive, and no matter how it swims or how far it goes, it will never touch the bottom of life. It will never exhaust the possibilities of life, no matter where we go or what we do. We travel all over the world. We'll never go into space. We will never exhaust the possibilities of being. And the same with the bird. So although they fly around, wherever they go, any place, infinitely, forever, they never leave their element. Whatever we do, wherever we go, we never leave our life. And we have different capacities, and different relations to this life. Some of us live in a little room, and we just stay there forever, our whole life. And exhaust life in that little room. Others are explorers, and end up traveling all over, and running from the people, and this and that. The other thing is that we're accessing life on major levels, and we realize all of life that way. So whatever our need is,

[67:48]

our field may be large or small, but regardless of whether our field is large or small, we totally cover the range. So all of life can be lived in that one little room, like on our little cushion. We can sit on our little cushion. When we live, you know, we see all of life just breathing in this one body, in this cushion. Never even talking to anybody else, we can see all of life. Or, you know, doing all these other things. So whatever our need is, or whatever our field is, it will totally cover the range, and experience the realm. But if we somehow let go of our engagement with life, we will die. And this means, you know, in a spiritual sense, if we were to withdraw from our lives, somehow spiritually, we would be cut off. If there's a bird that can't live out in the air,

[68:53]

and a fish can't live out in the water, we can't live. Out of total engagement with all of life, coming up through our individual life. To really be alive is to engage all of life through each of our activities. Whether large or small, whatever our field, whatever our range, it's all there. So we don't need to envy anyone. There's no one to envy. There's no experience like, oh, I wish I had. It's a foolish thought. Whatever it is, right now, the opportunity is right here. In the situation that we're in, we can find all of life. We don't have to travel around to find it, or get another job, or have another husband or wife, or whatever. It's all right here. The possibility is right here. Totally right here. If we really understand our life, we know that all we have to do is open up our eyes and engage right here. All of it is there. So water is life, air is life, bird is life, fish is life. There's no life outside of my life, and your life. There's nothing else that we're missing out on.

[69:54]

And, you know, basically, that's not the end of the story. It goes on forever. You're practicing life, and you get what I'm about to say. And then another quote I have here, I've been using this same text for years, so I'm looking for memorial notes. I don't know where they're from or what they mean. This one says, thus there are, it's a quote from someone, thus there are practice and enlightenment which encompass both eternal life and limited life. I bet you that's what I'm focused on. Thus there are practice and enlightenment which encompass both eternal life and limited life. So again, you see, you're getting a picture here that this is not, you know, the same as what was said in the first paragraph. And all throughout, making the same point from a number of points of view, from a number of angles. And this is koan, right? Koan. That's why Genjo Koan, the manifestation of life in this moment,

[70:57]

the koan of that. Koan in the sense of our approaching that with the intensity of koan, and that intensity that we bring to it being the effort to discover in the particular, every, in each moment of our lives, whatever our experience is, positive or negative, good or bad, looks like Buddhism, doesn't look like Buddhism, whatever it is, you know, emotional, non-emotional, intelligent, non-intelligent, sick and bad, or running around having a great time, whatever it is, in the period of our life, in this moment, this moment, is the doorway to total, to total everything, beyond eternity, to total eternity. Limitless life is opened up that door. If we open up that door, take the handle, open it up, practice the koan of this arising and everything is there. So this is another statement of that. The bird in the air. The bird never exhausts the air, never leaves the air,

[71:59]

and whether it's a bird, one of these birds that migrates gazillions of miles, or one of these birds that only lives right around the block, only comes to this one tree, either way, all of the air is in this bird. And it's like that bird. So that's it. We're getting this down, right? No problem. It's really understood. Joseph. Yeah. When I was in Thailand, one of the statues you see all over Thailand is the Buddha standing with his hands like that, and I kept asking, well, what does that represent? And I always got the same answer, which is it's the Buddha stopping the waves of the ocean. And, you know, I've been carrying it around for the last 10 years, so it was a meme, but now I'm guessing that it's that Buddha is able to exist in that vertical time, in this even millisecond where the waves can even be optimized. Yeah, well, the Buddha,

[72:59]

you know, as a figure on the altar, or as a figure of iconography, is the image of that, of this, just like you say. So when we venerate the Buddha, and we bow to the Buddha, and we make offerings, and so on, this is appreciating that aspect of our lives that we feel we must appreciate if we're going to really live full lives and not create suffering for ourselves or others. So this is the Buddha as an absolute, you know, the absolute aspect of our lives. That's nice. I actually never saw a statue of him. That's a long time. Yeah, so, in Thai, Mayan Buddhism is something that emphasizes nirvana as extinction. Dogon, and Mayan Buddhism in general, emphasizes

[74:01]

this, this, that, that compassion, affirming our own lives, and continuing to live them for the benefit of others. It's, you know, so Domi would, would stop the way Domi would point you. Let's go. I'm just reminded of so much of the ancestors that were involved in the civil state, like the death, like the, how expensive, you know, the civil life was, you know, just coming to the world, and they walked in these expensive, you know, go out to the cities, and it was a battle against, you know, how many of them just came to live. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I was, I was sort of disconnected from what you were saying about the swamp.

[75:01]

It's a little bit connected, but Joe was saying, when we were talking about the waves, I was thinking of, when you think of it, like, when we're talking about one wave in the middle of the ocean, you think of the ocean and your mind, and the way it might be in motion, and if you have, and how that can shape, in a way, the land or whatever that is, it also creates the kind of waves that are there. So in some places, stiffness would never go, because you don't get between waves. You know, it's just too late, you know, for that to come. And I could imagine sort of putting your hands out, like, to stop the waves in motion, taking a stance on that. But I, but I also felt like, there's some way, I was just disconnected from how these waves particular waves that keep coming up, they also, in some way, identify

[76:04]

the terrain, the terrain, our terrain, or something like that. so, I know, I'm sort of seeing that as a continuity, or something, in a way, that we manifest or recognize. But I wondered how, you know, in terms of practice, and how that changes sort of in these huge waves, that keep coming up, how does that manifest itself in music? Well, so, in motion, I think that with practice, there's a, what do you, so I think that we're experienced, very long practitioners, so plenty of emotion. But,

[77:04]

with this kind of, we've been talking about appreciation, fully engaging in what occurs to us, what occurs in our lives, with this appreciation, comes less resistance to experience. And with less resistance to experience, I think there's less storm in the ocean. So, there's more even-mindedness. Although, one appreciates many emotional states, but not, I think that the force of a huge emotional state comes from the wind, and resistance, and attachment, and diversion, and stuff like that, make the ocean very dramatic, which at some point in our lives seems desirable. One storm from excitement, but after a while it seems quite repetitive. Exhausting.

[78:05]

Unnecessary, unnecessarily distracting. So, I think if you see it as exciting, good, go for it. Until it wears you out. In the meantime, enjoy yourself. It's interesting, because I would think that when we approach one of these metaphors, the interesting thing about it is that we approach them very physically, like the real ocean, real waves, storms, physics, all this stuff, but probably

[79:07]

for Dogen, you know, if you write Chinese, Japanese, metaphors become stylized. In other words, this metaphor means that, period, they don't think about all the implications of the ocean, but every metaphor is really physical to begin with, the original. Whoever originally created these metaphors did it, they saw it, and now it's a physical thing, so it does bear all these wonderful interpretations, but probably Dogen would be sitting here, she's actually interested in that. Well, even the section when you were talking about that it was the previous one that was metaphysical, I kept thinking in terms of being alone, the isolation, the absolute aloneness, and I was thinking that physically, at birth, and death, there's a lot of assistance and I think

[80:07]

the part that the mother has, and the birth, and hopefully other people, and death, and the same thing, but physically the journey is alone. Yeah. Yeah, focus on this point that where we have translated here, there are other analogies that could illustrate this, and I said it seems to be consulting other translations that actually think there are further steps beyond this. Bogosan has a comment on that, which says, this means we should not be stuck in our place.

[81:07]

Pretty clear. So, in other words, when that line, you know, there are other steps beyond this, this is the situation, and don't forget that it's the epitome of truth that we won't always know. Okay, one more section that we'll do. Now, if a bird tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird, or this fish, will not find its way or its place. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs in Jokon. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs in Jokon. For the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours

[82:11]

nor others. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past, and it is not merely arising now. In other words, it's not just, when you say the present moment, but the present moment is not just merely the present moment. It's not from the past, and it's not even the present. Accordingly, the practice enlightenment of the Buddha way, in the practice enlightenment of the Buddha way, meeting one thing is mastering it. Doing one practice is practicing the Buddha. When you arrive at this place, you have a bird

[83:11]

or a fish trying to eat you. Yeah, that was included in that. Yeah, that was included in the last part of your report. I think you read the paragraph. Nevertheless, after someone has thoroughly explored what water is and what sky is, if the bird or fish should remain so that they stand in contrast to water and sky, then he will not find his way into the ocean or space. He will not arrive at his place. That's the same part of that. Yeah. So, in other words, if he stands apart from here, that might be to make it clearer that if the bird tries to reach the end of his own life, so the sense of it is, in other words, if we see ourselves as standing aside from life, we don't appreciate that

[84:11]

all of life comes up in us and we see that life is over there and we're over here. In other words, should the bird or fish stand in contrast to water or sky, then he will not be able to find his way into in ocean or space. He will not arrive at the place of the capital peak. He will not be able to appreciate him until gone. So here it's given us, as they say, to reach the end of its element. When you arrive at this place, you will have been spiritually questioned what is before your very eyes by traveling away of the Buddhism ancestors. When you locate the path you have been following, you will discover that it is the

[85:11]

spiritual question that has been before your very eyes as you have traveled away. So the spiritual question before your very eyes is Gengo Kon. That's the translation of the term Gengo Kon. This path, this place, are neither large nor small, neither self nor other, nor something from the past, nor something revealed in the now. It is just as it is. Thus, when someone spiritually practices and realizes the way of the Buddha, it is a matter of his having received some teaching and penetrated into that teaching, a matter of his having received some sentence of instruction and putting into practice what that sentence says. Here is where the path place is. if a

[86:25]

bird or fish tries to proceed farther after reaching the limit of air or water, it cannot find a path or a place. If you find this place, then follow this daily life is itself the manifesting absolute reality. If you find this path, following this daily life is itself the manifesting absolute reality. The path and the place are neither large nor small. They are neither self nor other. They neither exist from the one practice authenticates the Buddhist way, the Buddha way, then when one understands one thing, one penetrates one thing, when one takes up one practice, one

[87:32]

practice becomes and the place are neither large nor non-persistent or substantial. one thing, place. On So, if there were a bird or fish that wanted to go through the sky or the water only after thoroughly investigating its limits, he would not, in other words, the bird wanted to go through the sky or the water. So, I think what I'm getting out of this is that, and we'll have to discuss this, right? But, I think the idea is, fish tries to reach the end of itself before moving in. In other words, one insists on knowing life before trusting and giving oneself to it, as if life were something other than oneself. It's sort of like, don't get caught up in studying too much. Yeah. Yeah. And don't hold yourself separate.

[88:55]

That's what you study. You hold yourself separate from it. I think that's the idea. Does that sound right? Yeah. Do you want to hear a couple more? Yeah. Well, let me just finish this one, then we'll move on. So, if there were a bird or fish that wanted to go through the sky or the water only after thoroughly investigating its limits, he would not attain his way, nor find his place in the water or in the sky. If one attains this place, these daily activities manifest absolute reality. If one attains this way, these daily activities are manifest absolute reality. If one attains this way, this place, in largeness, longness, that might be. Then, since in this place, and since in this is the place, and since the way pervades everywhere, the reason that the limit of what is knowable cannot be known. So he really does know it. Therefore, for a person who practices and realizes the Buddha way, to attain one dharma is to practice one dharma.

[89:57]

To encounter one activity is to practice one activity. And that's important to remember. And what does John Hopewell say? He says, therefore, if there are fish who want to swim or birds who want to fly only after they investigate the entire sky and all the water, they will find neither path nor place there. And when we make this very place our own, our practice becomes manifest nature of reality and is known. When we make this path our own, our activity actually becomes actualized reality and is known. This path, or this place, because it's big or small, or itself, or others, it has not existed before this moment, nor has it come to exist now. Therefore, the reality of all things is self. And in the same way, when a person has done a practice and licenses the Buddha way, as the person realizes one dharma, the person permeates that dharma.

[90:58]

As the person encounters one practice, the person fully practices that practice. For this, there is a place and a path. The boundary of the known is not there. This is because the known, which appears rather limited, is born and practiced simultaneously in the complete penetration of the Buddha's dharma. We should not think that what we have obtained is conceived by ourselves and known by our discriminated mind over complete enlightenment. It is immediately actualized in intimacy, to such that it does not necessarily form a view. So this thing about knowing a limit to the boundary is about knowledge. Knowledge is having known things. Knowing things is always fully separate. A bird can't know the sky, and a fish can't know the ocean.

[92:07]

And in reality, fishes and birds don't try to know the sky. They don't try to know the ocean. That's why they don't have the kind of problems we have. They don't see fishes and birds. They know when it's empty. Or psychotherapists and birds.

[92:24]

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