When we were studying the part about light and dark alternating with each other, the light is in the dark. Just at midnight it's light and at dawn you can't see it. So there's a koan in the bluecliff record that you might want to study. Master Oumong, I think it's over 86, case 86, called Oumong's, master Oumong, Oumong was one of the most well-known Zen masters in the Tang dynasty. Master Oumong spoke to his assembly and he said, everyone

[01:17]

has their own light, but if you try to see it, everything is in darkness. What is everybody's light? Later, in place of his disciples, he said, in the monastery, in the Buddha hall, in the administration building, in the main gate, and again he said many things, depending on who translated it. He said, it may be better not to say anything, even if it's a good thing to say. And then Master Setso, who is a commentator, has a poem. He says, it illuminates itself, absolutely bright. He gives a clue to the secret. Flowers have fallen, trees give no shade. Who does

[02:27]

not see, if they look? Seeing is non-seeing, non-seeing is seeing. Facing backwards on the rocks, he rides into the Buddha hall. So write that down, you may want to look it up and study it. I have to arrange all this stuff. So, where we are in the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, it is like facing a jewel mirror. Form and image behold each other. You are not it, it actually is

[03:41]

you. So this, these four lines refer to Tozon's enlightenment experience. So Hokyo-Zamae is a kind of, although it's a many things, one of the things that it is, is an exposition or presentation of Tozon's enlightenment experience when he was crossing the stream. So Tozon had left his teacher Yin-Yin, and he was on his way, and he crossed the stream, was crossing the stream. And when he looked down into the stream, he saw his reflection. And when he saw his reflection in the stream, he had an awakening. And when he had his awakening, he wrote a poem, which depending on who translates it, goes something like this.

[04:57]

You should not search through others, lest the truth recede far from you. When alone I proceed, when alone I proceed through myself, I meet him wherever I go. He is the same as me, yet I am not he. Only when you understand this will you identify with Ta-Ta-Ta. Ta-Ta-Ta is the Buddha, or the Buddha's Buddha nature. Ta-Ta-Ta means just as it is, the actual reality. So a term for reality, things just as the way they really are. Suzuki Roshi has a very loose translation, and his translation is very interesting.

[06:14]

When Bill Kwong was Shuso, 1970-something, he gave this to Bill as his Shuso ceremony statement, and that's when I was so impressed. So Suzuki Roshi says, Do not try to see the objective world. You, which is given as an object to see, is quite different from you yourself. I am going my own way, and I meet myself, which includes everything I meet. I am not something which I can see as an object. When you understand self, which includes everything, then you have your true way.

[07:32]

So this is kind of his understanding of Tozan's poem. When you see yourself as an object, that's not you. People are always looking for who they really are, but you can't find it. It's very interesting. You really can't find it, even though you look very hard. You can be it, but you can't see it. So if you peek, you lose it. You can't peek, yes. Do you want me to read the poem again? It's kind of faded out here. Do not try to see the objective world. What he means is, don't try to see the world as an object. You, which is given as an object to see, is quite different from you yourself, from who you really are. I am going my own way, and I meet myself, which includes everything I meet.

[08:52]

I am not something which I can see as an object. When you understand self, which includes everything, you have your true way. So, yes. Yes. As a matter of fact, I went up to Bill's one day and I said, where's that thing that Suzuki gave you? He said, oh, yeah. He dug it up and then he sent it to me. So, this is it. This is a Xerox copy. So, I can print it out for you. I was going to be in our workbook. So, the clue here is, when I look in the mirror, what do I see? So, when you look in a mirror, what do you see? You see your reflection in the mirror.

[10:14]

So, when you see your reflection in the mirror, you say, well, that's not me. That's my reflection in the mirror. And I'm over here. But actually, the reflection in the mirror is you, even though you are not it. So, this is like, it is me, even though I am not it. This is, I meet him wherever I go. He is the same as me, yet I am not he. So, Tozan, even though there are ripples in the water, he still sees his reflection. In other words, everything you meet is reflecting who you are. And everything, the whole universe is a mirror for you. So, when you walk down the path and you bow to somebody, you have a certain something that is reflected off of whoever you meet. And whoever you meet is something that is reflected off of you. So, we are always continuously reflecting each other.

[11:35]

And if you want to know who you are, just look at who you meet. Or look at what you meet. Or how you meet whatever it is that you meet. Because we are always meeting. And we are always relating. And we are always reflecting. So, if we see ourself as only from the point of view of partiality or ego, then we don't know who we are. And the more we try to find out who we are through analyzing our ego, the further away we go. Because that's not who we are, which I'll explain more later. When we study the five positions. Because the five positions are also related to the eight levels of consciousness. And in the eight levels of consciousness, we've located the ego. And it's called manas.

[12:49]

And when our ego is operating without being self-centered, or without thinking of itself as the center, then you know who you are. Because ego obscures our identification, our identity. Is there a time when it's appropriate to analyze the ego? Yes, which we will do. Well, you know, in Theravada Buddhism, that's what they do. They analyze the ego. They analyze everything until you keep peeling away the banana peel, or the plantain peel, until you get to no ego. But in Mahayana, we transform ego into beneficial action, and into wisdom, and into seeing everything as it is, and into equality, wisdom.

[14:06]

So there are the eight levels of consciousness, and the four wisdoms, and the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya. And all of these are interactive, and different ways of expressing something, different ways of actually expressing the same thing. That's what makes it kind of interesting. We get a chance to look at all this stuff that we've been chanting, and what it means. Pure dharmakaya, paruchana? What's paruchana? What's he got to do with dharmakaya? So it's like facing a dual mirror. So, Tosan saw his reflection in the stream. In other words, he saw himself reflected in the dual mirror, because the dual mirror is infinite. And he saw that his true self was infinite.

[15:26]

So everywhere he went, he meets himself. Every place he turns, he meets himself. But if he says, I know what my self is, then he doesn't meet himself. As soon as he starts to objectify, he doesn't meet himself. Even though he does meet himself, he just doesn't know it. So, once he sees himself for who he really is, it's like a Kensho experience, but this doesn't mean that that was it for him, and he was permanently enlightened, that he had to basically maintain this state in order to re-experience Kensho constantly? We can't re-experience anything. Even though you think you re-experience something, you don't. You simply experience everything new. As a matter of fact, it's a good point.

[16:43]

It's like when you chant the Heart Sutra every day, you say, oh, we're doing this again. When you bow nine times, oh, we're doing this again. You are not doing this again. You've never done it before, and you'll never do it again. That's why every time you bow, this is a whole new experience. It's a whole new thing, and otherwise you can't appreciate what you're doing. You just think you're repeating, doing repetitions. Nothing is repeated, ever. You say, well, I went to the store, now I'm coming back home. You can't come back to anything. You're going forward to what you think you're coming back to. It's just a manner of speaking, and we create the world through our manner of speaking. We have our cliches and our habit patterns and so on. So, how we cut through the habit patterns and the conditioned responses...

[17:49]

Habit patterns and conditioned responses... Habit is important. We do things through habit, but we have to be careful not to get caught by habit or conditioned responses. Otherwise, we're more and more removed from direct reality. So, Tozan sees his reflection. He sees direct reality. It's called intuition. Intuition means directly touching without the intermediary of thinking. It bypasses thinking and directly touches. You can look it up in the dictionary. So, this is very interesting. Tozan sees his reflection in a jewel mirror, and what he sees is his true self. And the mirror itself is himself, and the reflection he sees in the mirror is himself.

[19:05]

Not different. It's like subject and object. We see ourself as the subject, and that which is over against us is the object. So, I'm the subject, and you're the object for me, and you're the subject, and I'm the object for you. But that's just a way of thinking. Actually, if you look at my fist, this is a fist, but there's a thumb and there's a finger, and the finger waves at the thumb, and the thumb reacts to the finger. But really, they're both two aspects of the same thing. If the thumb is gone, the finger is out there all by itself. So, because of the thumb, the finger understands itself.

[20:14]

There's an old saying, when the bird flies across the sky, you see the sky for the first time. Because the bird makes the sky, and the sky makes the bird. They're really just two aspects of the same thing. So, the bird's true self is the sky. The sky makes the bird. The bird makes the sky. When we interact, we make each other. We create each other. When I pick up this glass of water, this glass of water is controlling me. Because if I let it go, it's going to make a big splash. It's actually controlling me. And so, it's not just like I picked up the glass, I can put it down, but still, it's telling me what to do. It's speaking to me, and I'm responding to it. And when I have this glass in my hand, this glass and myself are one thing. The form is emptiness.

[21:32]

So, I want to read you a little bit from Thich Nhat Hanh that might hallucinate. He's talking about consciousness. This is a wonderful book. You should all read it. Maybe we should study it sometime. It's called Transformation at the Base. Transformation at the Base, where he talks about the transformation of consciousness. This is interesting. This part is about perceiver, perceived, and wholeness. Perceiver, the one that sees, the one that's seen, and wholeness. So, if you make a circle and you divide it in half, one half is the perceiver, the other half is the perceived. But the circle is the whole business. So, they both belong to the same, as Yasutani likes to say, the same nose-hole society.

[22:57]

Consciousness has three parts. Perceiver, perceived, and wholeness. All seeds and mental formations are the same. So, he says, this verse is a snake. There's a sutra called How to Catch a Snake. It's about not letting the sutras become a snake to bite you. If we read a sutra and we take it literally, too literally, and we don't understand what's implied, then it turns on us and bites us. The Bible is a terrible snake, because the way people construe it, not only does it bite them, it bites everybody else. So, we have to be very careful in our study how to discern, how to get the reality or the truth out of a text without misunderstanding it or getting caught by it.

[24:21]

When you read the study Zen text, or the koans, nothing should be taken literally. Nothing should be taken literally. If it was to be taken literally, it would be just these simple statements. These statements are meant to evoke something within you. They're not meant to be taken literally, and the sutras are like that too. So, he says, this verse is a snake. If you're not careful, you will be bitten by it. Reading it, you may think it teaches that consciousness has three parts, perceiver, perceived, and wholeness. But this verse is intended only as a skillful means to show us something, and the Hokyo Zen master is certainly like that. Don't believe anything you read about the Hokyo Zen master. Don't get caught by the idea that consciousness is something that can be divided into three separate parts.

[25:31]

The divisions are only a framework designed to help us understand the reality of consciousness. Once we understand, we can stop dividing. Suppose I draw a circle and I divide it in two by a vertical line. The circle is the base, consciousness. And from that base are manifested the subject and object of consciousness. But these two halves never leave the whole of the circle, just as waves never leave the water. If you think that any one part exists separately from the other parts, you'll be bitten by the snake. So, he said, when I was studying the manifestation-only teachings... Manifestation-only is his term for what is in the Yogacara system called mind-only. Manifestation-only means although things... everything actually is potentially present, but when due to causes and conditions, a thing will arise.

[26:50]

So, if you say, where do I come from and where do I go? This is a big question. Where do I come from and where am I going? Well, what we're talking about is when did this manifestation arise and when will this manifestation no longer be arisen? Wake up! So, instead of saying, I was born and I'm going to die, we're talking about something manifesting through causes and conditions. And when the causes and conditions are no longer manifesting, the elements return to the base. Just like if we look at a tree and look at its fruit, and the fruit starts out and it's born and becomes ripe,

[27:59]

and then it falls and it becomes overripe, and then it composts and then something else grows out of it. But the energy is continually manifesting in various forms. So, everything is already here. We were always... the reason we're here is because we've always been here. What is... The base. The base? Well, life itself doesn't... in other words, the manifestations of life are always life. So, return is just a manner of speaking. Well, let's continue the meeting.

[29:03]

So, he says, when I was studying the manifestation-only teachings as a young monk, my teacher illustrated this verse by drawing a picture of a snail crawling over a leaf. So, the snail crawling over a leaf. He designated the two antennae of the snail as perceiver and perceived. And the body of the snail is the base. The thing in itself. So, the thing in itself means the reality of what something is. So, the reality of something is the base. And then the manifestations that arise are also part of that. Yeah. That was my snail. Shadow puppets. Yeah. So, he designated the two antennae of the snail as perceiver and perceived.

[30:07]

And the body of the snail is the base, the thing in itself. The first antenna represents the subject of perception. The second one, the object of perception. And the entire body of the snail represents the base of both. And the whole substance of perception. My teacher once picked up a snail from a bush to show me. When you touch a snail's antennae, it pulls them in. Likewise, the perceiver and perceived aspects of consciousness may not always appear. Perception, then, returns to its base. Where you cannot see its two aspects. Subject and object. Consciousness has three parts. Perceiver, perceived, and wholeness. The subject is the first aspect of perception. That's the person who sees. The second is the object of perception. That's which is seen.

[31:08]

The third aspect, the base of both the subject and object, is wholeness. Subject and object are born at the same time. When the snail sends up its antenna, he sends up both at the same time. Consciousness can manifest, or fail to manifest, depending on whether both the perceiver and the perceived aspects manifest. When consciousness manifests, we say it exists. When it does not manifest, we say it does not exist. But this idea of existing and not existing causes us to suffer. The subject of perception manifests at the very moment that the object of perception manifests. And neither is possible without the base. So wholeness is everything. So if we identify with wholeness, which is reality, then we begin to understand who we are. Or begin to understand that we're not isolated beings which are born and die.

[32:14]

And create fear and suffering. So it's really important. Because everybody, without exception, is kind of worried about when they're going to die. So we have to study this. And if we understand it, to the best of our ability to understand it, we have some way to see the reality of what's happening in our life. It's interesting here. He says, the teachings of the Avatamsaka Sutra tells us that the infinitely small contains the infinitely large. Didn't that sound like Hokyo Zamai? And the infinitely large contains the infinitely small. We already studied that a little bit. If that's so,

[33:21]

then the infinitely small has the same nature as the infinitely large. An atom, a leaf, or a trail, a vapor, each carries within it all the information needed to understand the entire cosmos. When we discover the truth of an atom, we discover the truth of the whole universe. When we understand a single drop of water in the ocean, we understand the whole ocean. If we look deeply enough into a pebble, we can see the universe. So this practice of this is called Zazen. You know, Soto Zen, some people kind of criticize this. Soto Zen, when I was shuso, Tatsugami Roshi was my jugoshi, my teacher, and

[34:22]

he said the characteristic of Soto Zen is menmitsu no kafu. And he said that's kind of the temperament of the practice period. Menmitsu no kafu, which means very careful kind of family way, but paying attention to detail, paying attention to each other, and to how we do something, how we relate, how we relate to the minutia of our life. And to do things carefully and attentively so that no one thing is any more important than any other thing.

[35:25]

Everything is equally important. Cutting a carrot is equally important as chanting a zendo. Whatever it is that you're engaged with becomes the most important thing. And you give it your whole attention. And when you understand I don't know about understand, but when you give your attention totally to what you're doing the whole universe is right there. You may not understand it, but it's right there. You can study the whole universe through whatever it is that you're doing. So we say Zen is the gateless gate. What does the gateless gate mean? It means that there's no place that you can't enter.

[36:27]

So we say, well, when am I going to have an enlightenment experience? Well, you can have one right now. Just pay attention to just realize that what you're doing now is the most important, valuable thing that ever happened in the world among all the other important things that happened that are also the most important thing. And also, nothing special. Nothing special. Can I ask a question? I just find it so perplexing that a room full of people were constantly thinking about this. When you say, go ahead. Right now, you can do it.

[37:35]

None of us did it. Maybe somebody did, but I didn't hear a loud aha. It's shocking. I mean, so this is like because we're overlaying our consciousness or holding on so hard to the way we think of ourselves and objects and subjects are relating. So it's like a stick or a whisk? We have to be very careful because when we're talking with the E-word, when we're saying the E-word, then everybody gets an idea. And as soon as you get the idea, you've stumbled past it. So that's why we don't use it much. We use it very little because everybody gets an idea about it. So we put the emphasis not on enlightenment, we put the emphasis on practice. Practice and enlightenment

[38:38]

are like this, right? But we don't put the emphasis on enlightenment, we put the emphasis on practice. In other words, pay attention to what you're doing, not what you're thinking about. Because whatever it is you think is not it. So we just get this idea and then we say, well, where's the enlightenment? As I said, you can be it without seeing it. So I see a lot of enlightened activity. But so what, you know? Just make a big deal out of enlightenment, which is our natural state. Buddha talked about, what Buddha talked about was the norm.

[39:38]

When I do it, my teaching is about the norm. Well, what's that? What's ordinary mind? Ordinary mind is the way. Well, what is ordinary mind? Ordinary mind is the norm, right? Well, what's that? What is ordinary mind? That's really a good koan. What is ordinary mind? Ordinary mind? Does that mean my everyday mind? What does that mean? Ordinary. It means that which is... Well, it means different things, but it means... It depends. That which is closest to you, right? Ordinary. So we tend to dismiss ordinary as

[40:41]

kind of lower than extraordinary. But ordinary is like plain tofu. You may not like tofu, but it's like... It doesn't have any special flavor, but it flavors everything. It's like salt, actually, more like salt. It has a flavor, but salty. But it's... It's like salt in the ocean. You know, very ordinary, but... We tend to not recognize ordinary mind. We tend to dismiss it because we want excitement. So ordinary mind is like a placid lake.

[41:41]

It's like this still lake, no ripples. Then you throw a pebble in, and then it becomes something else. All these waves. That's activity. Activity. But... And this is what we're talking about all the time. The mirror, right? The placid lake is like a mirror. Clear mirror. And you can see yourself in it. Then you throw the pebble in, and it becomes all agitated. And this is what... What mirror do you think Tozan saw? As soon as Tozan was crossing the stream. The stream is not like a mirror. The stream's got ripples. So there's a poem. If you want the dragon's jewels, see them in this wave and that wave. So

[42:48]

the clear... The ordinary mind is underneath everything, but it also is everything. This is the mirror. But we tend to think, oh well, that's ordinary stuff. Let's get on to something exciting. But that's what Zazen is. Zazen is ordinary mind. And then cutting carrots is ordinary mind. Driving up the road is ordinary mind. So when stillness and activity are one thing, you've reached a certain level of realization. You can do that any time.

[43:52]

We're doing it all the time. But you just... When I say, oh well, enlightenment, you go around and go like this. So just don't talk about it so much. Just practice. Just do the practice. And don't worry about enlightenment. Okay. I also was talking about something else. So this is very, you know, can be kind of confusing. It is like a babe in the world, in five aspects complete. It does not go or come, nor rise nor stand. Ba ba wa wa. Is there anything said or not? Ultimately it does not apprehend anything because its speech is not yet correct. So this is all about the baby. Baby mind. Baby mind.

[44:53]

There's a koan about baby mind. In a book I think it's number 80. Joshu's newborn baby. A monk asked Joshu, Jarjo, does the newborn baby possess the six senses or not? Jarjo said, it's like throwing a ball onto the rapids. The monk later asked Tosu, what's the meaning of throwing a ball in the rapids? Tosu said, moment after moment, non-stop flow. And Setjo's verse says, the question, the six senses, purposelessness, well acquainted with it, the masters. A ball is thrown into the rapids is things in themselves. Their mode of perception

[45:55]

is direct. Their nature can be wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral. And they operate on the sense organs and the sensation center of the brain. What he's talking about is sense consciousness. I'll just read it just a little bit before that. Based on mind consciousness, the five sense consciousnesses separately or together with mind consciousness manifest like waves on water. You get that? The sense consciousness based on mind consciousness is not chitta, but it's sense consciousness here means ego consciousness. Mind consciousness. Based on mind consciousness,

[46:55]

the five sense consciousnesses separately or together with mind consciousness manifest like waves on water. So we perceive through the senses and then mind consciousness is mano vijnana. Mind consciousness perceives the messages from the five senses and says, this is seeing, this is hearing, and identifies and separates them. Otherwise, you would say, I hear this light, but no, I see the light because of my eye. So mind consciousness separates or distinguishes between the sense consciousnesses and also thinks, but it's not an ego consciousness. Sorry. Based on mind consciousness, the five sense consciousnesses separately or together with mind consciousness manifest like

[47:55]

waves on water. And their field of perception is things in themselves. In other words, the reality. Their mode of perception is direct and their nature can be wholesome, unwholesome or neutral. Direct means without thinking. You simply sense something. You see, I like, there is something seen, right? This glass of water is seen. But if I say, I see this glass of water, then that's an interference. Because I don't see that glass of water. That glass of water is seen through sense perception. This is called direct perceiving. Directly perceiving. When we sit in zazen, we have direct perception. Until we start thinking about something, what we're seeing. If the airplane goes over, it's just

[48:57]

something heard. Direct perception. Or there's a bug crawling on the wall and it just... But if you say, oh, that's a bug, that's not direct perception. That's modification. And then it becomes an idea of a bug. Yeah. Direct perception is seeing things. But as soon as you say, I see the bug, that's, you've created a self. Self arises through attachment. That's how self arises, through attachment. Attachment. Attachment means you're attaching to a thought. That's a bug. I know it's a bug. I've always known that all my life. It's not a bug at all. We just call it a bug. So the act of

[50:02]

labeling is at the very moment you label the moment self starts. That's right. As soon as you label something, self appears. I never label my thoughts. That's crept into Zen practice through Theravada practice. Labeling thoughts. That's crept into Zazen practice through Theravada practice. Because I think there are a lot of people who do label thoughts. And a lot of the teachers now say, you should label your thoughts. It's a way of dismissing them. You know, you recognize them. Well, we do recognize our thoughts. We let the thought be it. But it's not necessary to say what this thought is or to say, this is now anger or this is whatever. That's just solidifying

[51:03]

a thought. Creating a thought. If we don't identify the thought through identification in that way, then it's just stuff passing through the mind. So this is called not thinking. As soon as you think about it, then it's thinking. But if you just let the thoughts arise and the thought arises, there it is, and there it goes. It's called not thinking. It's only thinking when you do something with it. Yes? Is there a limit to direct perception? A limit to direct perception? I didn't get the word. Limit. When you're in the moment, and you're sitting there, well, when I'm sitting there, I'll notice, you know,

[52:05]

my legs are aching, but then I don't feel the pain. Right. So as soon as you say, my legs, that's... I notice that when the thought comes in, the perceptions of other things are cut off. See, as long as you say, my legs, it's not direct perception. It's only direct perception when there's a feeling being felt. So when you feel the feeling, can you also... No, you don't feel the feeling. There's a feeling... There's a feeling being felt. Yes. There's also an airplane being heard, a light being seen. Yes, that's right. Yes, there's seeing, there's hearing, there's smelling, tasting, touching, but there's not a smeller, or a taster, or a toucher, or a seer. So all this perception coming in must be very energetic. And mind consciousness

[53:05]

separates those and allows that to happen. And the separation, do things get blocked off? What? In the mind consciousness, the separation of things... Well, it allows perception to distinguish between things. Otherwise, it'd just be one mass of things. We have to distinguish between things. But... And we have to say, we and me, and so forth. Me, myself, and I are the three people that are here. But we don't have to do that. That's just convenience. So direct perception you don't distinguish anything? No, no. In direct perception, you distinguish what's there. Direct perception says, direct perception sees this clearly. It doesn't say, that's a glass. Then the next

[54:06]

level of consciousness says, that's a glass. And then the next level of consciousness says, glasses are made by glass blowers, and so forth. And so it gets further and further away from direct perception. So direct perception is without the thought of what that is. But that doesn't mean that there isn't knowing. There's knowing, but it's not knowing of conceptualization. In other words, one sees this as it is, instead of as a glass. When you see that as it is, do you also experience sitting on the seat as it is, and experience everything around you as it is at the same moment? Yeah. No, there's distinguishing.

[55:10]

You're not distinguishing, but mind consciousness is distinguishing between all those things. So the senses are always working? Senses are all open. Totally open. Yeah, the senses are totally open all the time. And then there's hearing, and there's seeing, and there's tasting, smelling, touching, but there's not a taste or smell or something. The levels of consciousness, which I don't want to get into right now, because it's a big, you know, more stuff. But I just want to say that there's mind consciousness and then there's manas, which is self-consciousness. And when self-consciousness

[56:11]

discerns, then it's always false. Without self-consciousness, do you see the reality? Before you name it. Naming distorts. That's just called discrimination. And discrimination, it means you separate. So, without discrimination, you can sense the oneness of things. In other words, the subject and object are not so distinct. But, no, I don't want to answer any more questions, because I just want to read this, because we don't have any time, right? We're all going to go to bed. So, I just want to read this. But I appreciate the interest. So, he says, the field of perception

[57:14]

is things in themselves. Their mode of perception is direct, direct meaning without thinking. And their nature can be wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral. They operate on the sense organs and the sensation center of the brain. So, the mode of perception of the five sense consciousnesses is direct. The sense consciousnesses do not need to operate through the medium of thought. That is why, from time to time, they're able to arrive at the realm of things in themselves, meaning the reality of the thing itself, without distortion. In this way, the sense consciousnesses are like the eighth consciousness, eighth consciousness of the storehouse consciousness, which also has the direct mode of perception, and whose field of perception is also the realm of things in themselves. Manas, which is the seventh consciousness, which is mind consciousness, which is ego consciousness, self consciousness, and mind consciousness, which is perception of

[58:15]

the consciousness which I was talking about, which separates, which sees the difference between sense consciousnesses, and the mode of perception of Manas is always false, because of its obscuration. Even when Manas has a direct perception, it's false. Even so, even when our thinking mind has a direct perception, it's false. Mind consciousness is capable of all three modes of perception, direct, by inference, and false. But because it is based on, influenced by Manas, its mode of perception is usually erroneous as well. But, he says, the sense consciousnesses can reach the realm of things in themselves, in combination with mind consciousness, as long as they are functioning directly with their objects of perception. Direct seeing, direct hearing, direct, right? A baby looks at a toy in a way that does not use

[59:15]

her mind very much. There is no comparison. There is no remembering or judging. She has not yet learned to think. This toy is not as colorful as that toy. She doesn't think that. I like my toy better. She doesn't think that. She simply enjoys the form of the toy, which is the sense object. That she simply enjoys the form of the toy, the sense object, that her eyes, the sense base, make contact with. That way of looking is in the direct mode of perception. And through it, the realm of things in themselves can be reached. So in other words, to to you cannot go back to being a baby. That's not possible. And even when you get real old.

[60:16]

But you can be childlike. You know, you can let go of learning. You have to kind of unlearn to be able to see things with direct perception. So once mind consciousness, thinking and discrimination, joins in, however, there is less chance for a sense consciousness to perceive the thing in itself. Mind consciousness tends to discriminate between things. Yes, between the sense fields. He uses mind consciousness to look for both manas and manuryana. So it's a little disconcerting. So mind consciousness tends to discriminate between things, to name them or compare them. And when it does, the realm of things in themselves is no longer available.

[61:19]

The sense consciousnesses are then also operating in the realm of representations. So it's called representation only. Because they arise from the mind consciousness, like waves on water, prior to the activity of mind consciousness, of comparing, naming and remembering, before seeds arise from our store consciousness and manifest as mental formations, which is memory and ways of looking at things, the seeds from our life. The five sense consciousnesses, before that, the five sense consciousnesses are able to perceive by the direct mode. Once mind consciousness enters, it brings the seeds of memories, experiences of joy and sadness and comparison and the direct mode of perception is no longer possible. So in Zazen we say, don't think. Stop thinking. It doesn't mean that thought is not there, but you stop.

[62:21]

Stop is not a good word either. It's just that you make the effort to see things as they are, direct perception, without thinking, even though thoughts keep popping up. So this is a big problem for us. I sat Zazen for 40 minutes and only one minute was my mind clear. But that doesn't mean that there was thinking. You just think it was thinking. Because only those thoughts that are recognized or taken up or distinguished and modified by our thought processes are thoughts. But those thoughts that are not modified by our thought process are not, we don't consider those thoughts. We don't consider that thinking. They are thoughts

[63:23]

but they're not thinking. Thinking is something that is volitional. So there can be lots of thoughts but there's no it's not thinking in the sense of discrimination or creating something. You said volitional? Volitional. What about habitual? Well, habitual is semi-volitional. We are controlled often by our habit energy. And so the question is, is that volitional? Well, that's a good question. We don't have to stick to volitional. It can be volitional or habit energy. Yes.

[64:29]

What does my time check say? Okay. So I just want to read a little bit more. Not much. Five minutes. Can I get five minutes? Okay. So when we perceive something So he's talking about the previous chapter. He says in chapter 24 we learned that the Buddha said our perceptions are mostly based on memories and not on the reality of something in the present moment. When we perceive something, we are actually remembering or comparing it with a past experience or feeling that is already present in the form of a seed in our store consciousness. Our perceptions have a great deal to do with the seeds of past experience and reside in our store consciousness. When the seeds of thinking, comparing and judging manifests as mental formations in our mind consciousness,

[65:30]

the image that results is not the true nature of the perceived object because our perception is stained by our emotions, memories, views and knowledge and we cannot touch the true nature of what we observe. When we look at a flower directly without thinking or memories, without comparing it whether positively or negatively to another flower we saw a week ago or a year ago, we reach the realm of the flower in itself. This is perception without mind. It is a function of our sense consciousness working independently of our mind consciousness making direct contact with its object. Because it is direct, it can reach the realm of things in themselves. It is as innocent and fresh as a newborn baby's perception. So I'll read this again. It is like a babe in the world in five aspects complete, five senses. It does not go or come,

[66:31]

nor rise nor stand. Is there anything said or not? Ultimately it does not apprehend anything because its speech is not correct. So, do you see the relationship between these two? Thank you very much.

[66:50]

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