Bussho — Session 4

Jane mentioned during the tea break that Gautama Buddha said that Buddhism is not asceticism, though sometimes it does feel like it when we’re putting up with pain in the dojo. It’s true, but it’s funny, the situation where we make ourselves put up with something is very interesting. And we do make ourselves put up with pain in the dojo.

Initially we say that the leader is making us put up with it, but I’ve never told anybody to put up with it, so we can kind of transfer to some extent our responsibility; who is making us put up with this? We can transfer it to someone else.

But actually in the end we’re making ourselves put up with it. Sometimes we can make ourselves put up with too much, sitting in Zazen shouldn’t be so painful that we are rocking backwards and forwards waiting for the bell. But I’ve done that, everyone has, so why do we do that? Well I suppose we do that last five minutes of a kind of hell because we don’t want to disturb anybody, we think it’s only five minutes so we want to complete it. And we have a nice feeling when we do, immediately the bell rings all the suffering disappears suddenly. But ten seconds before the bell it can be agony.

But somehow that’s not asceticism in the sense that Gautama Buddha meant, he studied asceticism for eight years to deny himself physical comfort in order to attain a spiritual state. And usually we put up with pain in the dojo either in order to finish the sitting, or sometimes we unconsciously want to make ourselves stronger or discipline ourselves. This is no different to walking or in my case mountaineering. People think that… I used to show people slides of the Himalayan expedition I went on, and they’d say how wonderful it looked, the beauty of the landscape, how wonderful it must have been. Actually it was hell. But it was also great. So why do we put ourselves through that kind of pain? I think it develops our ability to put up with things and that in itself is very useful.

In Japanese there is the very common phrase “gaman suru” which means “to put up with”. I think it’s in the Japanese character to be able to put up with things. Just the act of making ourselves sit when we’re in pain does actually develop some kind of ability to put up with things. In my case I’m sure about it, to carry on that last few yards or last ten minutes I think is incredibly valuable.

However, there is nobody telling us to sit through pain if we are unable to bear it. And if you are in really bad pain, then quietly get up and go out, go for a walk or sit outside on the wall, I don’t mind and I don’t think anyone else would mind. So don’t put yourselves through hell but at the same time I’m sure we all put ourselves through more than we expected. Isn’t there something about the parent-child interaction Harry? We have a part of us that is a stern parent and part of us that is a kind of timid child. It feels like that, my parent tells my child to stay on my cushion.

Question: There are kind of standards set aren’t there, if you hear that people do it for half an hour, if you stop you think you’ve given in not for just now but for the future.

Mike: That’s right yes, there are many aspects to it. But I’m not telling you to get up and go out after 25 minutes, what I’m saying is that it’s not me that’s stopping you, that’s all. And I don’t think anybody else is stopping us. But I agree with what you say, that we do get some kind of benefit and that it is worthwhile.

Question: You keep assuring us that it gets easier as you practice.

Mike: Well yes because the pain comes partly from the tendons being stiff, we’re not used to sitting like this.

Question: So you haven’t experienced any kind of pain at all?

Mike: I’ve got terrible pain at the moment, it comes from sitting in Zazen. But it’s something to do with the peculiar nature of my hip joints, they are too flexible so the deep muscles at the back have to hold the hip joint in place. I have that problem.

Question: There’s something about, I mean that’s the whole thing, physical side of it and there’s a mental side. One thing I notice is that the pain is tremendous and I’m thinking about what I’m going to do on Monday and the pain is gone. There’s a whole kind of mental area. Then the ideas go and I think “oh my hip”. There’s a balance between the two.

Mike: Ah yes, well in that case we can put up with that kind of pain. But sometimes there’s a stronger pain and you don’t need to put up with that. There’s a pain that doesn’t go away and is so strong that you can’t think of anything else but the pain, and that happens sometimes. So you know, do take a break if you need one.

Question: I was worried that I was doing damage, pain is about your body warning you not to damage yourself isn’t it? Having done it quite a lot now I don’t believe that I am damaging myself.

Mike: I don’t think that pain is always the body’s sign that you are doing damage to yourself. Athletes push themselves, it’s about controlling pain at the highest level, whether you’re a runner or cycling in the Tour de France.

Shall we go on to Bussho? Harry said to me at the end of the last talk, “has an eel got buddha-nature?” And I said I thought that was too slippery a question so I didn’t answer it. But the next story is about a worm, so we can’t wriggle out of that one.

(Groans)

Jiku, who was a government officer and studied under Master Chosa Keishin, asked his master: “If you cut an earthworm into two, and both parts are still moving, which part has the buddha-nature, I wonder?” The master replied: “No delusions!” The officer replied: “But if both halves are still moving…?” The master replied: “It is merely the worm’s physical energy, which hasn’t dissipated completely.”

Quite a simple story. The answers are quite clear in a way. The government officer asks an almost humorously silly question, and the master says “no delusions”. Master Dogen comments on this:

Now when the officer says “If you cut an earthworm into two…” is he thinking of the one earthworm that existed before it is cut into two? If he is, this is not the way to look at it according to our Buddhist ancestors. It is not that the one earthworm before it was cut into two has two parts after it is cut.

He’s talking about the way we think about events here. We think that there was an earthworm cut into two, so the earthworm is in two parts, but that description is wrong he says. There’s no earthworm any more. The worm did exist but when it’s cut into two it doesn’t exist any more.

We should look very carefully at the meaning of “one” and “two”. In saying “…and both parts are still moving,” is he referring to the two parts of a whole earthworm that existed before it was cut, or did he think that from the ultimate Buddhist viewpoint the two parts should be seen as one? Whether or not the officer understood what he was saying, we should not ignore what he said. Do two separate parts put together make a whole, which then exists?

Again he’s referring to the way that we imagine situations.

In describing the movement, he says “both… are still moving” We should interpret the moving in “both are moving” here as in the story from the Kegon Sutra: “Move (your mental block) with balance, and remove it with wisdom.”

I can’t explain why the Kegon Sutra’s story, why he refers to it as an interpretation as to why both parts are still moving. Can anybody here explain it? That’s what he does, he refers us to this sutra. No? We had better pass over it in silence then.

The question “Which part has the buddha-nature?” can also be expressed as “The buddha-nature has been cut into two; which part is the earthworm, I wonder?”

Reversing everything.

Expressing the truth in this way needs careful study. “Both parts are still moving, which part has the buddha-nature, I wonder?” Does this mean that buddha nature cannot be in both parts if they are both moving? If both are moving, although there is movement in both parts, can buddha-nature only be in one of those parts?

These are rhetorical questions which are actually right to the point. They refer to the way that we imagine buddha-nature to be, and to the way that we imagine an earthworm in two parts and buddha-nature being in both of them, and the way that we construct an image when someone tells us the story.

Question: Mike, I think I’ve worked out what that thing before meant.

Mike: Have you?

Question: Well the first half is referring to the idea of it being two, it was one now it’s two. Presumably that’s our mental block needing to shift.

Mike: Could be yes.

Question: Then he’s going on to the next part of the story.

Question: What was that?

Mike: Nick is saying that the quotation from the Kegon Sutra, the reason why Master Dogen refers to it there, maybe he’s referring to the mental block that we may have about our concept of the earthworm, about it being cut in two, and buddha-nature being in one or both parts. Or we could say the officer’s mental block.

Question: It’s analogous to that koan with the flag flying, one monk says the wind is blowing the flag and another monk says the flag is blowing the wind, and the master says it’s your minds that are moving. It’s the same principle isn’t it?

Mike: Yes it could be, yes. I didn’t look up that quote, there is a koan story about that quote but I didn’t look it up. So I don’t know what the context surrounding the quote was, that’s why I don’t know what to say about it. But yes he could be referring us to the way that we fix our minds in a certain way.

The master replied: “No delusions!” What did he mean by this? Does he mean that the two parts moving is not a delusion, or beyond delusion?

This is because the Chinese doesn’t say “don’t have any delusions” it just says “no delusions”, so there is no subject or verb. Master Dogen is again asking what does this statement mean?

Or does he simply mean that buddha-nature is without delusion? We should also look to see whether his “No delusions!” could be unrelated to either buddha-nature or the two parts of the earthworm.

So his questions have a kind of humorous tone to them here. That last sentence, “we should also look to see whether his “No delusions!” could be unrelated to either buddha-nature or the two parts of the earthworm”, suggests that the master is saying that the officer may be deluded.

When the official says “But if both halves are still moving…?” does he mean that because the parts are moving, we have to attribute buddha-nature to them?

I.e. if they are moving they must be living, and all living things have buddha-nature.

Or that because the parts are moving, they cannot both have buddha-nature? Saying “It is merely the worm’s physical energy, which hasn’t dissipated completely” might make buddha-nature appear! And should we call what appears buddha-nature, or physical energy? We should not say that they both appear at the same time, or that when one appears, the other cannot. We should not say that physical energy is the same thing as buddha-nature. This is why Master Chosa neither said that the earthworm had buddha-nature, nor that it did not have buddha-nature. He simply said that we should not have delusions, and that the physical energy has not dissipated. To understand the dynamics of buddha-nature, we need to listen to Master Chosa’s words.

So “to understand the dynamics of buddha-nature we need to listen to Master Chosa’s words”. He’s saying that we cannot say that physical energy is the same as buddha-nature. So that when Master Chosa said that physical energy is dissipated, he still hasn’t said anything about the buddha-nature of the worm.

Question: Where he was saying that the… it’s a statement of truth. It says “saying ‘It is merely the worm’s physical energy, which hasn’t dissipated completely’ might make buddha-nature appear”, is that because it’s a statement of the truth?

Mike: Yes, because if he said something very realistic to the officer, then the officer might realise what the real situation is. So buddha-nature might appear in the officer, not in the worm. Master Dogen’s way of commenting on this story is almost kind of tongue-in-cheek. He’s pointing us towards something obvious but not telling us what it is.

Question: There seems to be a lot of almost pointing to it and telling us what it isn’t, it’s not this or this. There are some very attractive ideas about buddha-nature which we could get hold of and hold onto.

Mike: Not saying what buddha-nature is?

Question: Telling you what it isn’t is a way of telling you what it is.

Mike: The reason he doesn’t tell us what it is, is that it’s impossible to say what it is. But it’s obvious what it is. Master Chosa in his answer didn’t say whether it was there or not, but he said something very realistic, and in saying something very realistic the officer could have, and we can, notice the very real and simple situation. If we discuss buddha-nature in the earthworm story, it’s not buddha-nature, it’s the concept of buddha-nature in the earthworm story.

Consider the words “The worm’s physical energy hasn’t dissipated completely” calmly. What did he mean by hasn’t dissipated completely? Did he mean that there would be a time when the accumulated physical energy would have dissipated completely, but that time had not yet come? That’s not the way to think about it. The physical energy which has not dissipated completely is a buddha showing us what reality is. The fact that the dissipation of physical energy is not complete yet is reality showing us what a buddha is.

Strange sentences. Can you make head or tail of that?

Question: It seems to challenge that process thing again, reality is the wriggling worm and as soon as you get caught in the idea of how long it’s going to wriggle. Which half was making it wriggle? You kind of…

Question: I am struggling with this, for something to manifest itself there have to be certain conditions. If you chop a worm in half those conditions are probably not going to be sufficient to keep both halves going.

Mike: What’s not going to be?

Question: I’m only looking at it practically, I can’t get to where I think I need to be but if the major organs are going to be in one half which is the half that normally survives…

Mike: Yes but if you cut a worm in half it keeps wriggling.

Question: So there is some momentum and life force there, and although it’s been cut things will carry on for a bit longer. There are still conditions there for it to manifest itself but…

Mike: Right, so which half is buddha-nature in?

Question: It’s all buddha-nature, but…

Mike: All of it? Is it all one buddha-nature divided by the two halves, how has it split over the gap?

Question: I think it’s all buddha-nature whatever that is, but the conditions have changed.

Mike: But the worm is still there and in two halves, does buddha-nature jump into the half that will survive? At what point does it jump?

Question: That’s the bit I can’t get.

Question: If I was cut in half which half is John?

Mike: Are you cut in half?

Question: Well say I was.

Mike: Ah, I think we need practical contributions.

Question: Isn’t it like the firewood and ash thing?

Question: You can’t divide reality and you can’t divide buddha-nature, I just can’t get past the idea that when you cut a worm in half the conditions have gone for it to continue to manifest itself. I think buddha-nature is impossible to cut.

Mike: Impossible to cut?

Question: Yes. If one thing disappears then everything else goes.

Mike: Everything else goes? Any other offers?

Question: I’m still confused because weren’t we saying earlier that pebbles and tiles and things have buddha-nature?

Question: It’s not about whether or not the worm is alive is it? Why are they discussing this, is it because people associated buddha-nature with living and sentient beings, so there’s this question…?

Mike: Instead of fences, wall and tiles they are discussing living beings, because?

Question: Would the general received opinion at the time have been that buddha-nature was something that living beings had?

Mike: I guess so yes.

Question: What we’re doing is exactly what this story is about.

Mike: Oh is it?

Question: Yes, we’re dissecting things and analysing them and…

Mike: Ok, so how many buddha-natures are there then?

Question: It’s nothing to do with buddha-nature or words. We’re playing word games and it’s getting silly frankly.

Mike: Did it get silly before you spoke or after?

Question: No it was silly before I spoke…

Mike: Is it getting sillier as you continue to speak? Or after your speaking did it get less silly?

Question: I’m hoping it will improve from now on.

Question: Can it get sillier?

Mike: It just has.

Question: Something like that firewood and ash thing isn’t it, he says that firewood not turning into ash; just firewood in one situation and ash in another situation, mind makes ash there in those logs that we look at (looking at the fire), all there is now is logs.

Question: Things can transmute but we can’t get rid of them. Just because you chop a worm in half.

Mike: Those for firewood and ash raise your hands, who is for worms? Master Dogen uses the simile of firewood and ash to make us see that what is here in the present is not what was here in the past. And yes, we connect the past to the present and we call it process. The whole of human civilisation works on process, cause and effect is process, science is based on process. But Master Dogen has another different view in which he says that if you put a log in the fire it becomes ash, and we say that the ash was a log, but he says no, the ash is ash, the log was a log. So all he is doing is focussing us on the present. In that story he does the same yes.

Question: So he uses a worm.

Mike: There’s no worm is there, are there two halves?

Question: I can only use that as two wriggling things, as soon as you say half you imply there was a worm.

Mike: Right, in these two wriggling things can anybody tell me whether there is buddha-nature? Or if it isn’t in the wriggling things where is it?

Question: It’s in Keith.

Mike: It’s a puzzle isn’t it?

The fact that the dissipation of physical energy is not complete yet is reality showing us what a buddha is. For example, when something we hear teaches us what reality is, it happens in the moment of the sound.

We describe it as a process, but it happens in the moment of the sound is what he is saying.

And the moment of that sound is the sound teaching reality. For that sound is reality, and reality is that sound.

This is a kind of assertion that process is a mental construction.

Still more, thinking that buddha-nature can only exist while there is life, and when death occurs, buddha-nature disappears is too simple-minded, too naive. In the moment in which we live, we totally manifest buddha-nature in our existence, and we are without any [concept of] buddha-nature. In the moment in which we die, we totally manifest buddha-nature in our existence, and we are without any [concept of] buddha-nature.

So there is the answer to Harry’s question.

When we are discussing whether physical energy dissipates or not, we appear to be discussing whether buddha-nature dissipates or not. But even when the physical energy has disappeared from the earthworm it is both manifesting buddha-nature and at the same time is without buddha-nature.

So everybody is right then.

And even before the physical energy has disappeared from the earthworm, it is both manifesting buddha-nature and at the same time is without buddha-nature. If there is anyone who thinks that the existence or non-existence of buddha-nature depends upon the existence or non-existence of movement, or that the existence or non-existence of spirit depends upon the existence or non-existence of consciousness, or that the existence or non-existence of matter depends upon the existence or non-existence of perception, then we must think that they are attached to the mistaken views of non-Buddhism. From the eternal past, many stupid people have equated buddha-nature with the idea of soul or spirit, but thoughts such as these are so plainly absurd that we cannot take them seriously – indeed we might die laughing!

So the reason he brings in the idea of spirit here is because we think of buddha-nature as something that can exist in half an earthworm, or we divide it into two, this is some kind of belief in spirit.

To explain buddha-nature further, although we don’t need to remain in the limited area of words, we can describe it as concrete things such as walls, streets, bricks, and concrete. What is buddha-nature from the ultimate viewpoint? Do you understand fully what it is? It is the usual mix of thinking, frustration, and stupidity in which we live our lives.

Shobogenzo Bussho

This lecture was given before an audience at Kannon Dori Kosho Horin Temple near Kyoto on October 14 (lunar calendar), 1241.

This modern interpretation was completed at Dogen Sangha Bristol on 17 May 2005.

So what was all that about? Any questions?

Question: Where did the word come from in the first place?

Mike: Buddha-nature? It came from very ancient Buddhism, from the Sanskrit. I can’t tell you where it emerged from in its first use, but it means the nature of a buddha, or the characteristics of a buddha. In Sanskrit, buddha is “buddha”, and buddha-nature is “buddhata”. If you put “ta” on the end of a noun it makes an abstract noun usually. So it was easy in Sanskrit for people to say “buddha-ness”. Buddhata means buddhaness. Buddhas have buddha-ness. So who is a buddha? Someone in their natural state is a buddha, do they have buddha-ness? Well they have something which is attributable to the natural state of a buddha, but it’s not what we can capture with any concept of buddha-ness. In all these stories, sometimes people say they’ve got it, and some people say they haven’t got it, and they are both right. But the basic idea of buddha-nature is simply the buddha-ness of a buddha. It was very much discussed because it became more than just describing something about the characteristics of somebody who is a buddha. First of all someone who is a buddha became elevated to some kind of special spiritual state, so what they must have attained, must be something special and spiritual. So then the term came to mean some special spiritual quality. Then it went from there. All the Buddhist scholars got into gear and started discussing it.

Question: Master Dogen at the end says “it is the usual mix of thinking, frustration, and stupidity in which we live our lives”.

Mike: Yes. So he must be right.

Question: The nature of teaching that is very strange isn’t it, because you add something to your student’s mind, then ask them to tell you that they’ve removed it, to show you that it’s no longer there.

Mike: Yes, that’s true. But then we can say that even if they’re trapped in the concept of buddha-nature they’ve still got buddha-nature according to Master Dogen. So what can it be? It’s a real puzzle. Sorry I can’t do more than that, I haven’t a clue what it is.

Question: When we talk about our experiences in Zazen we kind of often agree that there was something that happened then, but we can’t say that it’s happening now, but that back there, I think that’s what we’re on about. So that’s like saying I have buddha-nature. I didn’t notice I had it, then we come out and say I wonder if a dog feels like that. I wonder if a worm would feel like that if you cut it in two?

Mike: Would it feel twice like that?

Question: Then if you read that last sentence he’s saying that it doesn’t matter what the situation is because there is buddha-nature anyway. So it’s not just the bit…

Question: No the bit, I think I had it…

Question: The whole thing of it.

Question: I’m sitting there thinking about a beach in Honolulu, that’s what I’m doing?

Mike: Are you?

Question: But Honolulu would…something like that?

Mike: All Buddhist concepts refer to real things, and real things only exist here and now. So all stories are abstractions. What were you going to say John?

Question: I have one comment, then I have a question. The comment is about buddha-nature. I was at a talk a few months ago, a German scholar has done an amount of research into this, into the first usage of the term buddha-nature. It was in the first or second century BC, with the rise of the Mahayana literature, and there was more than one Sanskrit term, there were a few different Sanskrit terms in a variety of Mahayana scripture. So the important thing is that the term doesn’t go back as far as the 6th century BCE, the time of the Buddha. The discussions of it took place maybe three or four hundred years after. I don’t know the importance of this factual point. My question is that earlier today, we came across the phrase “not being fully in our body usually means that we are mistaking our thoughts for reality”. And then in the very last line, the dramatic last line here, it says that buddha-nature is the “usual mix of thinking, frustration, and stupidity in which we live our lives”. I am confused there, it seems a bit contradictory in a way, that the earlier passage is distinguishing between reality and our thoughts, and on the last page he’s affirming – what is buddha-nature, what is ultimate reality? It’s our thoughts.

Mike: It doesn’t say ultimate reality is our thoughts, it says that ultimate reality includes everything, including our thoughts.

Question: But the function of that sentence is, if you go through it all and you think you’re kind of beginning to get a idea of what buddha-nature is…

Mike: Get an idea of what buddha-nature is…

Question: Exactly, then you get that last sentence and it sort of cancels it out.

Mike: Cancels it out.

Question: Another way of asking the same question in very practical concrete terms, we are sitting, and we have thoughts about lunch or whatever flying in, and every now and then things kind of settle for a couple of seconds, and then I have thoughts again. If I’m correct in simply thinking that those thoughts are not reality at that moment, what is really happening at that moment is that I’m sitting on that cushion staring at the wall and in my mind I’m thinking about what I’m going to do next week..

Mike: It’s a kind of reality, but actual reality is you and me sitting in this room, that’s the important thing. So we have even levels of reality.

Question: I think thoughts are real though, thoughts aren’t imaginary.

Mike: Which thoughts are real?

Question: Any thought.

Mike: Which thought? Give me a thought that’s real. Any thought is real? Do you mean the thought is real?

Question: It definitely exists.

Mike: Where does it exist?

Question: I don’t know where it exists but it’s as concrete as a wall.

Mike: Which wall?

Question: It will have to be that one as that one is here.

Mike: Ok, so which thought is as concrete as that wall, I know that the wall is here because we can all see it, but which thought are you talking about? Is it the thought that you’ve created in our thoughts? So in our thoughts we’re creating a thought, and you’re saying that this thought that we’ve created in our thoughts is as real as that wall?

Question: No I’m not saying that. Clearly that’s not right, but…

Mike: What are you saying then?

Question: Well I’m not really sure of what I’m saying but I don’t think it’s right to say that thoughts are not real.

Mike: We’re really having them.

Question: Yes that’s the point I’m trying to make, we’re really having thoughts, in Zazen you really do get these thoughts arising, they are real at the moment we’re having them.

Mike: Yes we can say so, but there’s another “real”. There’s a “real” that we use in discussion and there’s a real real. The real real thoughts we’re having are the ones we’re having now. And directly we talk in general terms, in ultimate Buddhist terms, we’re not talking about reality we’re talking about an abstraction, a second level of abstraction. This makes it all very complicated and tiring.

Question: Can I ask you about that wall?

Mike: Yes I’m an expert on that wall.

Question: You use the term real, I’m having a problem with that.

Mike: Ah.

Question: We say that the wall is real, there is an assumption that there is something on the other side of that wall, because we remember it. Are you saying that this wall is real, what would you say about the other side of that wall? I can’t see this wall, I remember this wall. I’m assuming that you can see it… etc etc.

Mike: I understand what you’re saying, it’s a big philosophical problem, it’s like the tree in the forest thing.

Question: If a branch falls off a tree in a forest and there was no-one there would it make a sound?

Mike: That’s right.

Question: There’s another one about a rhinoceros behind the sofa.

Question: He said it’s possible that there is one there.

Question: That’s Russell and Wittgenstein on Bishop Berkeley. So I know it’s a perennial question, but I’m asking you about that reality or that wall, there is a problem there isn’t there?

Mike: No, there is no problem.

Question: There is a problem there, the reality of that wall.

Question: What’s the question?

Question: Is it the limits of language? I’m asking the question, not making the case.

Question: What is the question?

Mike: The question from Peter is, if an earthworm is cut in two in which part is buddha-nature? But he is putting it in a different way. He said “if I’m sitting in this chair and I can’t see the wall behind me, is the wall really there?”

Question: You will say the wall is real because you can see it, I remember you saying that the wall is real, I remember you saying that.

Question: Does the “usual mix of thinking, frustration and stupidity” refer to..

Mike: Us.

Question: Are thoughts in the present moment real thoughts as it were.

Mike: We have real thoughts in the present moment, and with them we create unreal scenarios. We are here in the present and we all know what’s real and what’s not real, it’s obvious to even a god. More obvious to a god. But when we think, we create thoughts about reality which are not reality.

Question: Is reality a shared experience or is it an individual experience?

Mike: My reality is shared with you.

Question: Not with regard to that wall.

Mike: Not with regard to that wall.

Question: Apparently.

Mike: OK I’ll share that too then.

Question: I’m wondering whether my reality is peculiar to me and your reality is peculiar to you.

Mike: Yes?

Question: You talk about the real world.

Mike: Yes. But do you want to have your reality personal to you, my reality personal to me, we have to invent another reality for those two people to live in don’t we?

Question: I struggle with that concept when you use it.

Mike: What concept?

Question: The “real world”.

Mike: Don’t you think we are all somewhere? Are we not all here together?

Question: I can see that wall, you can’t.

Question: You’re just talking about metaphysic, which has got nothing to do with…anything. We are just having a bloody discussion about metaphysics, and why? I don’t understand. You were talking about Wittgenstein, Bishop Berkeley, that’s the venue to talk about that wall behind you surely, but surely!

Question: [inaudible]…Uchiyama…to what Peter was saying, that everybody has, when you’re born, your reality is born with you and when you die your reality dies too. That’s what he said.

Question: So is that reality or your interpretation of the situation that you’re in?

Question: I was just trying to say that I understand, I understand the point that was being made here and I’ve seen it made. Perhaps you can…

Mike: Uchiyama is wrong isn’t he.

Question: Maybe I interpreted it wrongly when I read it but I thought that’s what he was saying.

Question: Yes that’s what he was saying.

Mike: If he says that there is a cup, and I have a point of view on it and you have a point of view on it, where does that all take place? How can we have two points of view on a cup in two different worlds? It’s ridiculous, it’s impossible!

Question: I think he meant that the world is real, that we bring our overlay, and we actually live in two different worlds at the same time as being here.

Mike: That’s right yes, I agree absolutely yes. So the real world is the world in which we all create our own worlds. It’s the basis of everything, if there is no basis of everything then everything is a dream. So I’m inventing all of you and having a conversation with my dreams. Well you can believe that if you want to, but I don’t believe it. I think that we’re all real, this is all real, and the noises we are making at each other are real. So in order for that all to happen there must be somewhere that it happens, there must be a time-place in which it’s all happening. So I just call that time-place reality.

Question: In terms of how…people have talked for ever about that, my understanding the thing about thoughts and reality, is, these thoughts are quite useful that I work in Bristol, if I don’t carry around that thought I could be in Salisbury tomorrow. There’s certain thoughts that make the kind of social world shared agreements move around but they’re not…they don’t have the same quality reality as sitting here banging the table or speaking to you. But sometimes I forget that, I get really wound up about what’s going to happen in Bristol tomorrow or Monday morning, a big scenario, but there’s no reality in that. That’s to me whether that distinction between ideas and reality is useful. We can live our whole lives in the future or the past in our heads and people do.

Question: Mike, does the last sentence imply that we don’t really need to worry about buddha-nature very much?

Mike: No we don’t need to worry about it at all.

Question: We can’t put this into philosophical categories.

Question: That’s what Master Dogen is saying, do you think?

(Bell rings)

Mike: I hear buddha-nature. Thank you.