When I first proposed doing this class I thought that there would be adequate texts available to back it up. That is to say the transmission of light. Thomas Cleary, Translation and the Transmitting of the Light by the same thing by Donald Cook. We do have a copy or two in the library. I put one up on the top shelf, reserve shelf for your perusal. But unfortunately it turned out that the Cleary Translation has run out of stock and it's going to be printed this summer but alas not until after the class is over. I am trying to get some copies of the Cook Translation which I like very much and in the meantime what I propose to do and I think I'll continue to do as we go on is to make Xeroxes of the first few sections that we are going to look

[01:14]

at. I don't know how far we'll get. There are, you know, some 53 cases here. Even if we did two a night there would only be 12 we'd get done in six lessons. But the point is not that we go very far with it because each case is similar to the case before. But I thought it would be interesting for us to get as far beginning with Shakyamuni Buddha as we could get. We have in this class, how many are new to the class who have never been here before? This class? No, any classes. You're part time though, right? You're just here for a short time. How about you two folks? Are you just guests? No, that makes it easier for me since we have old time Zen students. Every morning we chant some 61

[02:24]

names, Daishos of the Buddhas and ancestors. We chant this lineage, this genealogy of Zen as it's come down to us through Keizan Joki's text. And that 61 includes, of course, the six Buddhas. We as well as four Japanese ancestors. This particular text takes place or takes care of both texts, take care of the 29 Indian ancestors, the 22 Japanese or Chinese and the just two of the Japanese, Dogen and Koen Eijo. Tetsugi-kai, who was the abbot at the time that Keizan Joki wrote this, was not

[03:28]

included. He was still living. And of course, Keizan did not include himself. So what I'd like to do before I hand out the first two chapters is make a few, if I can, a few preparatory remarks about the text itself, the message of the text and even maybe how to read a text like this or how to come at it, if I may, as much as for my own clarification as maybe for yours. So the first thing, considering the text itself, why and how did it come that we have to have a genealogy or a lineage? Because, you know, in India this was not the case. And in the first 700 years in Japan,

[04:38]

or China rather, it was not so much the case. It really became more, thank you, it became important after the Zen school began, there were schools began to become the dominant competitive schools of Buddhism in China in the 7th, 8th, 9th centuries. Competing for patronage, competing for imperial favor. And of course, that meant for the future of the particular sect that was struggling for its survival and existence as a sect of Buddhism, the Zen sect, the Chan sect. And it was, of course, on Chinese soil. And in China, there was already, as you know, because of the Confucian history, background, the whole sense of family or familial lineage, the tradition was already in place in

[05:45]

which the authority in society was the authority that has passed along from, in the case of families, from father to son, and so on down the line of family, families. But as in truth, also in any kind of formal practice, whether that was a practice of, you know, artisanship, the master and the student and disciple, or whether it was in government, or whether it was in religion, it was important to establish credibility by having a lineage. And of course, the lineage that was to be promulgated by the Zen traditions needed to go for its authenticity and its

[06:47]

you might say, identity, to go all the way back to Shakyamuni Buddha in India. Now, of course, this was something that took place in the Sung dynasty, which was already almost 2,000 years after the event of, some 1800 years after the event of the Shakyamuni. And so the texts that were the lineage that would be established through the various stories, the various lamp traditions, and there already were lamp or lineages being established by the other schools, the Pure Land School for one, each would have to establish their own particular methodology of how they would come to credibility. So if you look in Cloud Hall, you see on the wall a genealogical chart

[08:10]

of all the Zen schools, with many, many successors in each of the schools, some of them dying out, some of them supplanting other schools, and so forth. But the particular single genealogy or lineage of a school was usually with just one teacher and one disciple, rather than several, passed down, rather than naming all of them, they just named one, like the father would give his recognition to the son, the main son. And there was this idea already of what was called the seal, or sealing it with authority. They also had a stamp, which they still use, which we even use to this day, and the lineage that has come down to us as practitioners, those of you who are sitting with Rakasus are part of this lineage, and the Kechameyaku, the bloodline and the precept line, which is established all the way down through Shakyamuni, through Dogens, and then,

[09:20]

of course, all the way after Keizan Jokin, to the particular temple in Japan, or monastery, and all the abbots, so that at Tassajara, we have another 35 or so names, since that is the monastery, the home monastery, that is added to the original lineage. This is the tradition that the Japanese established later. I don't know if they do it in China or did it in China. So we actually chant down there some, what, 96 Buddhas and ancestors in Tassajara. See, the thing was, as I understand it, it makes this interesting, it wasn't a doctrine that the

[10:28]

written sutras or the shastras or the commentaries that was so important to be passed on. It was something much more intangible called, of course, the passing on of what? The most important thing, of mind, the enlightenment of our mind, or the enlightenment of the light itself, to pass on the light from person to person, that the student would have the mind of his teacher, or her teacher. And this idea took hold in China because, you see, everything was already always sealed, officially with a seal. And so this idea of the mind seal being passed on, mind to mind, that the teacher would impress his or her mind upon. I think I'll use the term his, because this didn't include many women at that time, pretty much of a male dominated lineage. So the idea, of course, of the master's mind being impressed upon the student's mind,

[11:30]

and the student then finding somewhere another student, in which that understanding or that light could be passed on. The idea of the lamp, the substance and the function of the lamp, the light being the image of the teaching originally from Shakyamuni, you might say, as a kind of repetition of a timeless identity, is one way they put it, which is something we'll look at, that particular idea, as we get into it. Now the text itself, the Khezan wrote, came to write that the kind of form he used was already in circulation, it was the Koan form, and this is, by the way, the transmission of light called the Dinko Roku, is one of the texts that is used by the Rinzai tradition, as well as the Soto tradition, or the Koan tradition, together with

[12:33]

the Blue Cliff Record in the Gateless Gate, Mumonkan, as one of the books that the students are expected to pass, the Koans that are listed in the Dinko Roku. And the first part of the Dinko Roku, the way it is established, is that the Koan, the case, is first presented. It's kind of a short story, and then after the case, the history or the circumstances around which the student meets the master who's, the two of them, are wandering about looking for one another. And then the next part, the third part, is usually what Cook calls the Teisho, or the actual Zen teaching, based on the particular Koan. It's not broken down that way in the clear translation, but it is in the And finally, with a gatha at the end, a summarizing verse for it. So each case is written in the same

[13:36]

way. Now these, this tradition is actually, you know, one could call it a hagiography. You know, a hagiography is a study of, or a biography of saints, a biography of exalted, almost supernaturally exalted personages. And particularly as you study the biographies that are of the Indian, the 29 Indian ancestors, there's a lot of very, what we just say, supernatural phenomena that is brought into play, as we know, in the part of the Indian mind. Keizan Jokin actually took all of those particular cases, and many of the Chinese cases from two Chinese classics about transmission of the lamp, which I won't bother to go into. It's a rather interesting history in and of itself. And who was Keizan Jokin actually? We should say maybe something about him, for those of you who are

[14:48]

not too familiar with the history. So Dogen Zenji, you know, having, after he came back from China, he had his own particular, I want to talk a little bit about the 13th century teaching of the idea of enlightenment in Japan. But anyway, Dogen, you know, when he first came back, had a hard time with the traditional establishment, official establishment on Mount Hei, the, can't think of the words tonight, Tendai. The Tendai school was the oldest school, along with the Shingon school in Japan, had been there for years, was very much the establishment area in the school, was supported by the imperial court, and so on. And when Dogen came back,

[15:49]

in the part of the 13th century, Japan was in a very chaotic state of civil, had been in a chaotic state of civil war, and many natural disasters were happening. And there had been all of these monks, Dogen was one, Shinran was another, Nichiren was another, they had all been monks at Mount Hei, Tendai monks. The basic teaching of the Tendai is both esoteric teachings and, of course, based on the Lotus Sutra, much of their fundamental teaching. But it's a very eclectic kind of teaching that they had. And because it was establishment, and because it was very power oriented, there was a great deal of disaffection or dissociation from it, by people breaking away

[16:49]

and trying to find the heart of Buddhist practice at that time. And, you know, there's the three periods in three cycles, you might say, in Buddhist teaching. The first cycle is the first 500 years, they call it, of the growth of Buddhist teaching. Then there's a kind of settling out, or mediocre, or kind of a watering down of the teaching, a kind of establishment of the teaching through the churches and so on. And finally, the third period is called, of course, we know it's called Mapo, or the degeneration of the teaching. And during the 13th century, the Japanese, because of all that was going on in their country, being invaded by the Mongols, you know, twice being almost being overrun and invaded. And a number of famines, a number of natural disasters, and so on, the people were looking for new ways to understand life. And usually at such times,

[17:50]

as we know, you know, it's a crucial turning points in history, there, people look for new answers. The old orthodoxy doesn't really satisfy. So people like Dogen and Shinran, Shinran was the one who set up Shin Buddhism, that is a Buddhism that is, was no longer monk oriented, but oriented to the population at large, you didn't have to be part of the clergy, you don't have to be a monk in order to have salvation. And the same with Nichiren, which is, both of these schools are still flourishing today. The Nichiren school was a school based on a man who believed that the Lotus Sutra was the basis of understanding and of Buddhism. And all that was necessary was to simply repeat over and over again, a single practice, which was Namo Myoho Renge Kyo,

[18:51]

Namo Myoho Renge Kyo, Namo, just say that with great faith and so on, and the possibilities through your faith of salvation was possible, was available. So, Dogen, you know, each one of these schools was already aware of a practice called a single, a single practice. Each school had a single practice by which one could reach salvation in this lifetime. Dogen's single practice, of course, was Zazen. Shinran was to this, was to, the Daimoku was Namo Amida Butsu, [...] over and over, just a repetition of it, something that the common people anywhere could do. They didn't need a lot of elaborate, in fact, they needed almost no particular schooling of the history of their, of Buddhism and so forth.

[19:56]

They just needed faith in this one particular practice. And behind that particular practice, there had developed in China already the idea of what came to be known as Hongaku in Japan, which was the doctrine of original enlightenment. The doctrine of original enlightenment stated that one did not have to, as in the case of India, practice long paths, many lifetimes of purification in order to reach Buddhahood. But one was, could already become enlightened in this lifetime based on the idea or the doctrine that found its authority in the Lotus Sutra, that one was already, already had Buddha nature. Of course, Dogen changed that already have Buddha nature to one already is Buddha. So these various men went off, Dogen went to China and Shinran and Nichiren,

[21:03]

they were all contemporaries, found a way to try to reach people that were not any longer satisfied. There was a new need and they were, they filled it in the society at that time for belief in the practice of the Buddha Dharma. And of course, this, this caused enormous, I'm getting back to the fact that Dogen had a hard time when he came back from China because the monks on Mount Heiei, the Tendai monks were very much incensed by his particular emphasis on Zazen alone and did everything they could to block him. And as you know, after establishing himself at various places in Kyoto, he finally found a patron warrior who in northeastern Japan set up what was later to

[22:06]

become a Heiji, his own monastery. And at that place, Dogen, you know, was a purist. He was very severe and very much limited to just monastic practice. He wasn't so interested himself in spreading the word or finding a way to spread the word to the common people. He was interested in a pure practice, however, of enlightenment, of what he considered to be enlightenment. And it was up to his disciples, actually, and particularly as it would turn out to be Keizan Jokin, to be the one to spread the word of what Soto Zen was really about. Keizan Jokin was Tetsugikai's disciple. After Dogen, there was Koan Eijo, who, as you know, he passed the lamp to him and his understanding of what his, you know, the dropping off of body and mind, just sitting and so on, all that doctrine

[23:14]

was passed on to Koan Eijo. Koan Eijo in turn passed it on to Tetsugikai. This was all done in Eiheiji at that time. But at some point, apparently, and I'm not sure the year, but it was sometime in the still in the 13th century, that there seemed to be a schism, a break in the succession in Eiheiji. And Tetsugikai was forced, and we still don't know quite why, as far as I can see, was forced to leave Eiheiji, set up his own monastery. And Keizan Jokin, who was his disciple, went to study with him, left Eiheiji actually, and eventually came back to Eiheiji. And when he took on the abbotship, he didn't take it on actually at Eiheiji, he took it on at what was another temple that had been established by Tetsugikai. Keizan Jokin was born in 1268,

[24:22]

some say 1264, died in 1325. Dogen was already, he was 11 years old. Dogen died, you see. So he, you know, Dogen has been called, some of the textbooks say that Dogen is called the father of Soto Zen, and Keizan Jokin is the mother, the one who propagated, the one who went out and established the church. There was a huge need in the countryside to gather the people under a new umbrella. The Rinzai tradition was pretty much established, had been the aristocracy, and the new rising military class of the Kamakura area took to Rinzai. It was a much more militant way of practicing, a very highly authoritative and somewhat militant way of kind of musculars in, as they call it. So that left a lot of the common people, the peasants and the farmers,

[25:22]

actually they were going to become peasants. This was the beginning of the feudal era in Japan. So Keizan Jokin then established, had a kind of genius for establishing the church, the Soto Zen church, and eventually the Soto Zen kind of cornered the market on practices like performing funerals and doing commonplace practices for the people. It became much more ornate, much more ritualized. It incorporated an earlier, a very early Zen practice called the Darumashu or the Bodhidharmashu, and these were originally ascetic monks, mountain ascetics, who didn't really belong to any particular school but practiced a kind of mountain asceticism, gathered together under a teacher and had their own school. They didn't particularly practice the precepts, just were interested in ascetic practice, sitting,

[26:27]

personal asceticism and enlightenment, whatever that meant to them. And this later became incorporated into the Dogon's tradition through Keizan Jokin. What form did it? The Darumashu? Yeah. The Darumashu, well this is a long story but I don't want to get into it too much, but what happened is that the government, the government always was very concerned, both in China and Japan, about how many people were wandering around in the hills practicing and not contributing to the economy, as it were. And so they kind of had limits and kind of enforced people to take on a more formal discipline. Now what, that's a little bit of the kind of the idea of the tradition, having some sort of authority in the tradition. And so there was not yet a, it wasn't until Keizan Jokin actually wrote this transmission of light that

[27:35]

that Soto Zen had its own particular lineage that it could point to. And of course, when we read it and we read the Koan version of the Indian teachers and so on, it's very interesting because it's really something that was developed almost 2,000 years later in the Sung dynasty. This was not what happened in India. As I said, enlightenment in India was considered to be something that one had to work toward, a path of several lifetimes. But when it came to China, there was already a tradition in China that virtue of one's own hard work through their examinations, the social service, civil service examinations and so on, anybody could achieve a place in the world, could be somebody if one could pass certain examinations. So it wasn't based on class distinctions as it was in India, that is the four classes in India. There wasn't the idea that you were born into a karmic situation and could not climb out of it.

[28:42]

In other words, that idea that enlightenment didn't have to be gradual, it could be sudden, was a Chinese idea. It was not an Indian idea. So sudden and gradual became, would eventually become two kinds of schools in Buddhist practice. But that through gradual study, one could have a sudden enlightenment even in this lifetime. That was already in place by the time Dogen Zenji began to practice. Dogen was in gradual practice, gradual enlightenment, right? Through practice, realization? No, I don't think so. Dogen's practice is that, well, I want to get to that. I'll get to that in a minute. Dogen's practice actually is that everything, the whole universe is nothing but Buddha already. And that practice, as soon as one practiced, as soon as one sat in Zazen, one is already practicing the Buddha Dharma. So it wasn't that one could claim to be Buddha

[29:52]

without practice. Neither Shinran nor Nichiren nor Dogen said that practice was not necessary. Practice was necessary to understand what was basic to our nature. And what was basic to our nature, interesting enough, is an idea that was not clear to all the traditions because, it's not clear because, the early teachings said it was one thing based on the dharmas. The later teaching of the Yogacara said it was one mind. The Madhyamaka said you cannot find any ontological basis for anything. All things are empty of self. The Tathagatagarbha tradition said there is Buddha nature that is inherent and eternal and is the basis of all realization. All of these were confabulated into one teaching at the time of Dogen. So, sudden and gradual realization of what? Well, that's what these stories are about.

[30:54]

What is it that we're studying? What is enlightenment? You see, it's an interesting problem because if there is an eternal identity, then, in a sense, it's not much different from what was earlier considered to be the substrata of all phenomena in India, which was the Brahman and Atman doctrine. That there is something underneath all of this that is eternal, radiant, inexplicable. That there is some kind of awakening beyond our conceptual knowledge. This would become a question of some dispute and different schools, and we'll get into that as we study these teachings together. One of the things that I find in studying these books that I want is that if we come at the book, if we come at the study

[31:59]

with the idea, let's say it's a modern idea of simply, you see, if you're inside of a tradition, you kind of take it for granted. You have a belief already that whatever is written is probably. We have some sense that there's something in this that we can believe impartially, that what Dogen experienced, what Tetsugikai experienced, what Buddha experienced, what Bodhidharma experienced as enlightenment was always the same thing. Well, how can that be, you see? I mean, as society changes and new ideas arise, new information is incorporated into the acculturation of the people who are studying. That is a dependent co-arisen event. How can it be that there can be the same kind of realization 2,500 years ago that we are experiencing today? So one could look at this in a kind of postmodern

[33:07]

way and say, well, these are just stories, you know, about, have a kind of detached view, and that one is not really, one is simply basing their belief totally on faith. And if you look at even Dogen based this, all of these traditions based partly on the faith that there is such a thing called enlightenment and that we can all experience it. But the nature of that is not, that's not a settled question. The deconstructionists can say today that that's, you know, a linguistically designated way of approaching our experience. But if we read the texts and we find, as we read them very closely and we find that we are challenged in our ideas and our feelings about who we are as we read them, we begin to see our own prejudices of mine. We begin to react to the form of the text itself. Then it becomes a dialogue between ourselves and the text. So as we read these stories, rather than just simply looking

[34:10]

at them as stories, kind of far out stories at that, and as something in which is actually challenging our own, who we are. The stories are not really about Buddha or enlightenment, they're about who we are, each one of us at this moment. So we should look at them as the studies of ourselves, I think, and read them in that light. This is a kind of critical encounter. Okay, maybe that's enough of my talking and we'll pass the stories out and begin to read them together. Yeah, let's do that. Yeah, break them up. If you're not going to be here, read them tonight, but then give them back to me if you're not going to be here after the other, right, to keep them for... Any questions about any of this?

[35:21]

I was just wondering chronologically where Kukai... Kukai, that's Shingon. Kobo Daishi, he was in the 8th century in Japan. He was one of the first to go to China and bring back the esoteric, the Tantra tradition of what became Shingon. And this was before the kind of the tendency to crack down or to make, you know, like, because most of his followers were wandering around the countryside, weren't they? I don't know a lot about the Shingon, but the Shingon was pretty well established. At first, maybe, he incorporated some of the wandering ascetic, but I think the Shingon became a church. They had a hard time also with the establishment at first. So, this interest brought back by Eisai, from China, the Rinzai tradition of Koan study. Anybody else have a question?

[36:31]

When you're talking with the mountain monks, you said they were interested in practicing the precepts, and I wonder what that meant. You see, in China... I mean, were they violating them? I mean, were they mooring them? Yeah, in China, no, but in China, you could be, for example, a Taoist, you know what the way is, but you could still drink wine, eat meat, have sex and so on. It did not depend on that. The Chinese were not concerned with the kind of purification of the flesh. That was very much of an Indian tradition. And that was true of the Japanese mountain monks? And the Japanese, what did they call them? I can't remember, but anyway, they were called Yamabushi. They're kind of like the hippies of their time. They were dropouts, essentially, people who dropped out, but they dropped out for reasons of finding some kind of transcendent practice, or maybe immanent practice, actually, within themselves. But it did not depend on any formality. That is to say, they didn't have to have a precept line.

[37:35]

So, in fact, actually, they were the people that would come, like in the summertime, they'd come and help build the temples and so on. They did a lot of the work, but they were more free-spirited. But they could be very troublesome because they kind of went their own way. They didn't have a formalized or an orthodoxy. They were a heterodox tradition, part of the heterodox tradition. And in Japan, as the country became very, it was already very highly organized in its administration, heterodoxical traditions were not, and still aren't, particularly welcome. So they were gradually absorbed into other traditions, other formalized traditions, like Dogen's. Dogen, actually, Dogen took a lot of the esoteric practices, I'm told, and there's interesting things about that in this particular introduction that you might want to read. I'll give you a bibliography at some point.

[38:39]

Okay, so let's read this together. Any other questions? Yes. I just wanted to remind you of what Charlie Perforney said, that he, tomorrow, the reporter used copies of the Transmission of the Light and copies of Cook's translation, but he has to know by tomorrow. How many people would be interested if we could get, actually, this, I think, may still be in print. Which one is that, Cook? This is the Cook one, and I've asked John in the library, in the office, if he will see if he could order some copies. How many people would be interested in having… Which would you recommend of those two? Let me write the names down. Well, just take a number, let's just take a number. I don't want to spend all that time right now, I'd rather… Well, pass a piece of paper around, the names down. Okay, just give me a count right now. Which one do you prefer, actually? I think they're both good. I like his introduction better than I like the introduction that Clery has, but…

[39:45]

Is it a good comparison? Pardon me? Like when we took the Lotus Sutra class… Yeah, I think it's interesting to compare the two. I'd like to have both of them, actually. Can I have one smaller count? One, two, three, four, either, either one, just… It doesn't tell him how to order, though. It doesn't tell him how to order. Okay, Cook first. Nick? Yes. Right, right. Here. So Cook's not in print anymore? No, it's Clery. Clery will be in print again in July, we'll get a lot of them. Hold on, keep your hand down, you can put your hand down, Ray. Bert, you can put your hand down. That's what happens when your wife is conducting. She's the boss. The follow-up person. Anyway, I'd like to do this a little

[40:46]

later if we could, and that's… Wow. New. Arlene, Arlene, you've been told that he wants to do this later. Can we do this after? Can we go on with the text? Yes. I mean, we really can do this after, yeah. Let's go. That's all for Cook. I have Cook's. I'm actually reading right now from the Clery tradition. Shakyamuni Buddha, because that's the one that I duplicated, but we can go back and forth. Shakyamuni, now this is the first one. Here's the King. Shakyamuni Buddha realized enlightenment on seeing the morning star. He said, I and all beings on earth together attain enlightenment at the same time. Cook says virtually the same thing, simultaneously. He might just use different words. That's part one. Shakyamuni, now we go to some of the traditions. Shakyamuni left his palace one night when he was 19 years old, shaved off his hair.

[41:47]

After that, he spent six years practicing ascetic exercises. Subsequently, he sat on the indestructible seat so immobile there were cobwebs in his brows, birds' nests on his head, reeds growing up through his mat. Thus, he sat for six years. In his 30th year, on the 8th day of the 12th month, he was enlightened when the morning star appeared. Then he spoke the foregoing words, the first lion's roar. He spent nine years helping others by teaching, staying, and seclusion. With just one robe and one bowl, he lacked nothing. He taught at over 360 assemblies and then finally entrusted the treasury of the eye of the truth to Kasyapa and its transmission has continued to the present. Indeed, this is the root of the transmission and practice of the true teaching in India,

[42:52]

China, and Japan. Now, all of these lamp stories talk about this one true tradition, don't they? And as I think it was Mark Twain who said, there is only one true religion, 10,000 interpretations. The behavior of Shakyamuni Buddha during his lifetime is a model for the disciples he left behind. Even though he had the 32 special marks of greatness and the 80 kinds of refinements, he kept the form of an old mendicant, no different from anyone else. There is in India the idea of the Chakravartin. The Chakravartin is the one who is born with special marks of being a great, either secular or religious ruler. And of course, we know that Atisa said when Shakyamuni was born, according to the legend, that he already

[43:53]

had these 32 marks. I brought along a book because usually somebody asks, what are the 32 marks? But I won't spend our time reading it tonight. Do you want to know what they are? Yeah. Haven't you ever read what the 32 marks are? No. How many have? Well, yeah. How many want to hear them? Are you ready? Thank you, thank you. 32 marks. His head has a turban-shaped protrusion on the crown. His hair curls to the right. His forehead is broad and even. He has white hair between his eyebrows. His eyes are very dark, with lashes like a cow. He has 40 teeth. His teeth are even, without gaps, and very white. He has a keen sense of taste. He has a lion's jaw. His tongue is long and slender. He has an excellent voice. His shoulders are round and even. The back of his body has seven round curves, buttocks, thighs, shoulders, and back. His trunk is thick. His skin is smooth

[44:54]

and golden-hued. His arms reach his knees. When he stands straight up, his torso is like a lion's. His body has the proportions of a banyan tree, height equal to arm span. His bodily hair is curled to the right. He stands straight up. His penis is concealed in a sheath. His thighs are well-rounded. His ankle bones do not protrude. The palms of his hands and feet are soft and delicate. He has webbed fingers and toes. He has long fingers. He has wheel signs on the palms. You've seen that. Hands and feet. His feet are well set upon the ground. His arches are broad and high, and his calves are like an antelope's. Very high. So anytime you see somebody walking around like that, you know. But this was, of course, an Indian, this is very much a part of the Indian tradition to have special marks and look for special. In fact, all the ancient traditions in all countries had something like this. How about the 80 kinds? Anyway, by the way, if you're interested in all the numericals, the threes, the fives,

[46:03]

the tens, I think that the Holy Teachings of Virmala Kurdi by Robert Thurman at the back is one of the books I always refer to when I'm looking for numerical enumerations of which Buddha in which the Buddha Dharma seems to thrive on. Therefore, ever since he was in the world, through the three periods of his teaching, this is what I talked about before, the genuine imitation and the derelict teaching. Incidentally, that mapo, that derelict teaching, although Shinran didn't subscribe much to it, Nichiren really did, really said that the reason Japan was in such terrible shape is because these priests had really created the task of self-understanding, self-understanding foremost, having been transmitted from Buddha to Buddha, from adept to adept. The true teachings have never, never been cut off. This story clearly points to this. They take it on authority that this story is the...

[47:07]

Even though what the Buddha pointed out and explained in more than 360 meetings over 49 years was not the same, the various stories, parables, metaphors, and explanations do not go beyond the principle illustrated in the story of his enlightenment. That is to say, I... Now, this is the taisho. This is Keizan Jyokin's Dharma talk point at this from now on. That is to say, quote, I is not Shakyamuni Buddha. Even Shakyamuni Buddha comes from this I. And it does not give birth to Shakyamuni Buddha. All beings on earth also come from here. Just as when you lift up the net and the holes are raised in the same way when Shakyamuni was enlightened, so too were all beings on earth enlightened. And it was not only all beings on earth that were enlightened. All the Buddhas of past, present, and future also attained enlightenment. Well, this is so. Do not think of Shakyamuni Buddha as having become enlightened. Do not see Shakyamuni Buddha outside of all beings,

[48:10]

on earth. However immensely diverse the mountains, rivers, land, and all forms and appearances may be, all of them are in the eye of Buddha. And you too are standing in the eye of the Buddha. And it is not simply that you are standing there. The eye has become you. Buddha's eye has become everyone's whole body, each standing still. Well, we can hear Dogon in this. This is, of course, Dogon as interpreted by Keizai. Therefore, this clear bright eye that spans all time should not be thought of as people evidently hear. You are Buddha's eye. Buddha is your whole body. This being so, what do you call the principle in enlightenment? I ask you. Now remember, he's given this taisho. His first taisho was given around 1300. This is actually exactly a hundred years after Buddha's birth, after Dogon's birth. What do you call the principle of enlightenment? I ask you.

[49:15]

Is the Buddha enlightened with you? Are you enlightened with the Buddha? If you say you become enlightened with Buddha or you say the Buddha becomes enlightened with you, this is not the Buddha's enlightenment at all. Therefore, it should not be called the principle of enlightenment. Even so, I and together are neither one nor two. Your skin, flesh, bones, and marrow are all together, and the host inside the house is I. It does not have skin, flesh, bones, or marrow. It does not have gross physical or mental elements. Ultimately speaking, if you want to know the undying person in the hut, what's that word? Undying. How could it be apart from this skin bag? Who's the skin bag? Who's skin bag? Yeah. Any of us. Yeah. Whoever is present. So you should not understand the beings on earth as distinct from yourself. Well, the seasons come and go, and the mountains, rivers,

[50:20]

and land change with the times. You should know that this Buddha is raising his eyebrows and blinking his eyes. So it is the unique body revealed in myriad forms. It is effacing in myriad forms and not effacing in myriad forms. The ancient master Fa Yen said, what effacing or not effacing can you talk about? And Dai Zang said, what do you call myriad forms? So studying from all angles, penetrating in all ways, you should clarify Buddha's enlightenment and understand your own enlightenment. I want you all to see this story closely and be able to explain it, letting the explanation flow from your own heart, not borrowing the words of another. I also want to add a humble saying to this story. One branch stands out on the old apricot tree. Thorns come forth at the same time. It's interesting that his translation of that same poem. Know that in a remote place, know that in a remote place in a cloud, no, sorry.

[51:28]

A splendid, here he says, a splendid branch issues from the old plum tree rather than one branch stands out from the old apricot tree. A splendid branch issues from the old plum tree. In time, obstructing thorns flourish everywhere. In time, he says, thorns come forth at the same time. So what is it? So, so what do we think about this? He says, what do you call the principle of enlightenment? Is the Buddha enlightened with you? Are you enlightened with the Buddha? If you say you become enlightened with the Buddha or you say Buddha becomes enlightened with you, this is not Buddha's enlightenment at all. Therefore, it should not be called the principle of enlightenment.

[52:30]

So what is this principle, do you think? What school are we talking about here? What, what is the principle of enlightenment that he's looking for? Nonduality. Nonduality is one of them. Emptiness. Yeah, but where, if all things are empty, it doesn't sound like there's, all things are empty of inherent self, that's true. All things are selfless, but it sounds to me like he's talking about something that's, when you wake up, you wake up to the same thing that Buddha woke up to. Does it sound like that to you? What is that? The I has become you. Whose I has become you? Buddha's I.

[53:31]

Who's Buddha? What did he say? All beings on earth. Is there, if we stripped away all beings on earth, is there just being? Oh, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter? No. If, if there's being, that is to say, is there just naked awareness prior, already prior to the arising of any phenomena? No. No. Of course, what are we, a yoga chara? Depends what school you're in. Depends what school you're in. This is a yoga chara, Tathagatagarbha doctrine. As far as I can see, the yoga chara is the mind only. All things are projections of our mind. All phenomena is a projection of mind.

[54:32]

But mind is the touchstone by which, ontologically speaking, or being itself is a touchstone on which we understand all things are mind. The Tathagatagarbha doctrine is that there is eternally present the Buddha mind, the radiant, ungraspable, unnameable consciousness, awareness, which is called Buddha. Does Garbha mean seed? Huh? Does Garbha mean seed? Garbha means womb, the womb of the Buddha. I think that the, myself, that the Daimoku, the idea of the original enlightenment was born in China with the doctrine after Madhyamaka, and we can ask Rev about this, but that human beings want, we human beings have some kind of idealism that we want

[55:34]

we want something beyond what is tangibly or explicitly or, what would you say, empirically available to us. We want to feel, I feel, I think we want to feel that underneath phenomena that if we just practice long enough, hard enough, all our conceptualizations, all our ideas, all our histories, all our feelings are going to drop away and we're going to go eureka. I finally understand. That's what these stories seem to tell us. But how can that be so? If all things are dependently co-arisen, that means that all things are also dependent on the linguistic formations or designations that are culturally contrived. It is an axiom of Buddha Dharma, whatever school it is, that all perceptions is mediated by concepts and therefore is not pure. All schools.

[56:36]

Conception or perception? Perception. All perceptions are not such a thing as a pure perception. Although there is a pure perception, it only occurs in the first 160th of a second, according to Dharmakirti, in the 160th of a second. And that raw perception in itself cannot articulate the Buddha Dharma. It has to next have what? Conceptualization. And what is conceptualization? Verbal designation. Exactly. Verbal and conceptual. Aren't there some yogis, though, that do see direct perception? Yeah, they say they do. There are all of the jhana states, the eight jhana states, and one of them is perception and non-perception in which the perceiver and the perceived become one. And it is said that in that particular state, conceptualization drops away. But in that state, you are no longer maybe available for functioning.

[57:43]

Ramakrishna could go into a state of trance and sit there for seven days like this. But as soon as he came down, he was back in the world. He was back into the conceptual realm. I asked a question once. I think I asked Rick, actually, this question. But the question was, anything not experienced as something is not experienced. Or anything not experienced as something cannot be said to be experienced fully. In other words, not until we form the concept that there is an experience happening.

[58:47]

There's nothing about that first raw perception. There's just a sense. Not until it finds conceptual designation. And generally speaking, in the Buddha dharma, concepts are the bad guy. Until you clean. Since in the Buddha dharma, we project onto phenomena our ideas about phenomena. And phenomena are empty of our ideas in and of themselves, according to what we've been learning about samadhi states. Then all we are seeing in the world is a response to our own projections. That is, what we're actually responding to is our own projections of what reality is. Our conceptual designations. However, if we could understand through conceptual designations that that is what we are doing. And it's very interesting that it is through words, it is through language, it is through text, the study of text in Buddhism,

[59:50]

that we come to understand through language itself. That language is inherently empty itself of any... Language is itself empty of any inherent existence. So that whatever we hear, conventionally designated, dependently co-arises in our culture and so on, is just the story. But it's not just the story. It is a story that functions in the conventional world. And therefore we have what's called the two truths. We've been studying that. The truth of the conventional world, which is conceptually and linguistically designated. And the story of the ultimate truth, which is understanding, in some sense, the emptiness of all dependently co-arisen events. That is the Madhyamaka point of view. It has nothing to do, per se, with the under... some kind of underneath stratum of awareness called the Tathagata Garbha.

[60:55]

Except later. What was the Yogacara's position? Yogacara's position is that the... Well, the Yogacara position is that one must first find, in conventional designations, a valid conceptual object of observation. A valid conceptual object of observation is all things are impermanent. I'm impermanent, you're impermanent. That's a... And then from that point, you begin to analyze, from the point of impermanence, what is a valid or invalid conceptual designation, or valid conceptual designation. So first you find those points, and then you use that to analyze your responses, your reifying responses to phenomena and language itself.

[61:57]

I find this very interesting, this text very interesting, because it challenges me about who I am in terms of my resistance to any doctrine that purports to suggest that there is something eternal and everlasting. I had always assumed, or from my reading and my study, that all things are impermanent. Although, as we study this deeper, it is said that, for example, what we call permanent is part of the conventional world. But that itself, because it is a dependently co-arisen idea, that is to say, it's a linguistic idea that we agree on among ourselves, that it is a relational phenomena, because it is dependently co-arisen, has no substance to it whatsoever. So the Madhyamaka point of view, the Nargajuna's point of view,

[63:04]

is we can talk about mind as being the place from which we, that mind is the one place that, though it cannot finally be designated, is as mind itself. So, the Buddha Dharma is this luminous mirror image of the world. And the Madhyamaka says, how can you say that? Madhyamaka point, Nargajuna's point of view, is how can you, on what do you base that? So, although the middle way, the Madhyamaka point of view, does not assert anything in its place, we have a hunger that there's some ongoing eternal Buddha Dharma. And I always have the feeling that when I read the Transmission of the Light, that in some sense, Dogen Zinzi takes that position. I'm sorry, I lost you.

[64:08]

I have a feeling that Dogen has confabulated into his teachings, the Tathagata Garbha of the womb of the Tathagata, that there is, that the Buddha Dharma is, arises, cannot arise from deception, cannot arise from delusion, but has to arise from something that is already uncontaminated and pure, basic awareness. Or the Tathagata Garbha, in Yogacara, you see, what Yogacara said is empty is duality. Just as the Yogacara school said, what is empty is that all dharmas in the Abhidharma are empty of any inherent existence themselves. But the Madhyamaka point is that all things are empty, period, of any self.

[65:11]

And what the Tathagata Garbha says is that the original pure Buddha nature is empty of defilement. So that there's a pure, undefiled, unconceptualized substratum to existence. But that sounds very much like we're back into Vedanta of Brahman and Atman. What? Is that called the Nirmanakaya? Well, no, that's called the Dharmakaya. The Dharmakaya, the pure, unadulterated... Substance. Yeah, but it's, well, you can't call it substance, but the thing, it sounds like an essentialist doctrine. Once you say that the past, present and future have no inherent existence, so that says time has no inherent existence. So then eternal is meaningless.

[66:13]

Yeah. Yet? Yeah, go ahead. I mean, isn't one of the facts of reading these teachings is the fact that Buddhism is the only, quote, faith, religion or practice that deconstructs itself constantly and it is constantly invited to deconstruct itself. Yes, that's true. But one of the interesting features, that's particularly true of the Madhyamaka, but one of the interesting features of reading the transmission of the light is that it seems to be saying that there is a timeless identity that is passed on in the transmission of the light, that is of enlightenment. But at the same time, there's all the doctrines in Zen Buddhism about going beyond your teacher. So if it's a timeless, dimensionless form, then how can you go beyond it?

[67:20]

Yet you're asked to go beyond it. The only way you can go beyond it is as an acculturated individual in a society that is constantly adding new information, constantly having a new take on what the old school is about. Dogen brought to Japan his own particular, the dropping off of body and mind was Dogen's version of what he thinks enlightenment is. Nagarjuna had his own version of what he considered enlightenment to be. Vasubandhu had his mind-only version of what enlightenment is. Today, in our post-modern deconstructionist time, we try to study this and say, this is not history, this is ahistorical, let's stand apart from it and have a kind of critical and analytical approach to this. But that is not the Buddha way of doing it, because our own subjectivity must become involved in these texts for us,

[68:20]

as we read these texts, to change. Do you get it? In other words, we're all dependently co-arising this stuff all the time, re-describing, re-defining what enlightenment is. So I think if you think that Shakyamuni Buddha was enlightened, and therefore you're not, or if you're enlightened and Dogen wasn't, it all depends, you know, the truth kind of depends on the position from which it is viewed. It is dependently co-arisen, the truth. It is not, how can it be something that is unrelated to anything else? But this moment. But this moment. Yes, they're all interested in learning about ourselves and relations of who we are here

[69:25]

and now, in this moment. But who we are here and now in this moment is defined by everything that we understand about the past. That is all conventional designation. That is all linguistically defined. We all have a history. I think the biggest thing we're trying to learn in this moment in these teachings is not to cling to any aspect of that, but we learn that clinging through words, through language. The biggest thing that is happening today in linguistic studies is that perception and conception come up together. Conception does not follow perception. What about that sixteenth of a second? Well, maybe so. I don't know. Maybe Swachhana said they arise at the same time. Right. Well, it depends on what part of the OHR is true. Dharmakirti says not. Chapter five. Anyway, what is interesting in this is, in order to validate what they thought they were

[70:29]

in China and in Japan, you needed a tradition to go back and say that my understanding is the same as my teacher's. My teacher's was the same as his father and so on. This does not hold true in the United States particularly. We go to the other extreme of thinking what I individually experience and think is the truth over and against what everybody else might think. But in Asia, that was never the way. In Asia, you finally understood the truth when it fit in with what's commonly considered, at least in a particular circle, to be the truth. In Japan, you're considered free of your neuroses when you finally understand that mommy and daddy were correct. In this country, it's just the opposite. In Asia, in Japan... It's not just the opposite in this country. No? Well, let me put it this way. In this country... The good people who are actually doing something and moving the society forward

[71:30]

believe the same thing. That's true. But in Japan, you would say, you know, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. In this country, we say the squeaky hinge gets the oil. So could we go back to the Dharmakaya and the three other kayas? So in my conception of what you were talking about, the Dharmakaya was like all of this. The Sambhogakaya was the creative sound. The bliss body. Yeah, but it's through sound that everything is created and thought. And the Nirmanakaya was the space that you were describing as infinity. No, the Nirmanakaya is the taking on the flesh, the actual flesh of the two abstracts. Yes, but the flesh of the two abstracts are like not here and now.

[72:34]

In the way that I couldn't pinch that like I can pinch myself, which I could pinch the Dharmakaya. Or I could build a beautiful monastery, have lots of people come and have reference. Well, this is an interesting point, but I don't know if I could argue with you right now. No, I meant, were you touching on that? I don't know that it was touching. As I see the Dharmakaya, the Dharmakaya is the ineffable, indescribable. The first flash. Right. The Dharmakaya is like being in deep sleep. Dreamless sleep. Then as you come out of that dreamless sleep, you begin to stress. You haven't quite come into your day-to-day reality. You go, oh, it's kind of blissful to come out of that dimension into some sort of form, begin to take form. Then all at once you're back into the conventional form of yourself.

[73:36]

Designation. That's kind of like the Nirmanakaya as I see it, as I understand. That's just my kind of feeling about it. Anyway, it's almost ten minutes to nine, folks. And I'm getting hoarse going around in circles here. So can we extend the class until ten o'clock? So now everybody who wants to get a book of either this or this, see Arlene. And we'll see what we can do about getting text. I have the names for the cook. The cook is about $15 and both of them are $14.95. Okay, so for cook, I've got Mick, Kate, Carolyn, Wren, Bert, Jackie, Emanuel, Cedar, Kathy, Early, Andrew, Bob, and nobody for transmission of the light. Jackie. It's a used version. If we can get them now, we don't know for sure.

[74:40]

I have a feeling, though, that maybe the cook will come through from some supply house, book people or something. Okay. Maybe transmission of light will also be available in these bookstores or something like that. Thank you very much.

[75:02]

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