Ikka-no-myoju — Session 3

Yesterday we learned in detail, through our experience, the meaning of “struggling with a demon in a cave on a black mountain.” “Struggling with a demon in a cave on a black mountain” means lots of complicated intellectual discussion. And we shouldn’t take that as any kind of criticism, as we’ll see when Master Dogen comments on the rest of the phrase. We got as far as the last paragraph on the first column on page two. Master Dogen has been commenting on the “one bright pearl” expression by Master Gensa, talking about the whole Universe and how it’s indescribable in words. He went on to say that the act of thinking is part of the Universe and it’s real. And then he went on to say that Master Gensa’s expression was not a widely known expression, but that he thought it would become widely known one day. He wrote that in the thirteenth century, and seven hundred years later, hey presto!, the phrase is being discussed a long way away from Eihei-ji temple in Japan — so it has become widely known. Now he goes on to discuss the last part of the student’s question.

“How should we, your students, understand this?” Although the monk here seems just to be caught up in his intellectual habits, in asking his question, he is fulfilling the essential function of the Universe.

Master Dogen doesn’t in any way criticise the fact that the student asked Master Gensa how to understand his phrase. Although it seems that the student was very intellectual in asking his question, Master Dogen comments that “he is fulfilling the essential function of the Universe.” So he’s affirming it. He goes on to say, in describing what “fulfilling the essential function of the Universe” means:

A wave contains exactly its amount of water, and our daily conduct must mirror this. A large pearl shows a brightness that fits its size.

In those three phrases, Master Dogen is putting into words the fact that we all have to be as we are. So if we’re asking an intellectual question, that’s fulfilling our function. If we’re denying an intellectual question, that’s fulfilling our function. If we’re sitting quietly without asking a question, that’s fulfilling our function. We have to work out what this really means in our daily life. And it’s quite difficult to think it through, because fulfilling our function is just to be who we are without thinking about it. So to sit looking puzzled may be to fulfil our function. To smile may be to fulfil our function. To talk may be to fulfil our function. But we’re all different, and every moment is different. So to fulfil our function means to fulfil our place in the Universe. I heard the other day that artists talk about ‘negative space’, other people too probably, and I’d never heard that before, but it’s very nice because it helps to give a picture of fulfilling function. You can say that although an object is an object independently on its own, it sits in negative space. So it fills its hole, if you like. So I’m sitting here filling the hole that the Universe has left for me. That’s only an image that came to me when I heard the concept ‘negative space’. I’m only giving you concepts. What we’re trying to describe is something else, and that is the experience of being completely whole in the moment, in this moment. And Master Dogen suggests that in the student monk asking his question, “How should we, your students, understand this?”, in the sincerity of his question he is being himself — just like a wave is being itself by containing exactly the amount of water which it has in it. So he’s creating images in an attempt to grasp some kind of fulfilling state, everything in it’s place.

Question: Is there a way in which you can’t be... that you’re not yourself?

Mike: No. (laughs)

Question: OK. So whatever you do is a fulfilment of who you are?

Mike: Whatever we’re doing is fulfilling what we’re doing.

Question: Why is Master Dogen pointing that out then?

Mike: Because we always doubt it. We always doubt. I burst into tears last night — ‘Should I have done that? Maybe I’d better not do it again. I wonder what people think about me.’ But I did it because I was expressing my feeling at that moment, so it was nice for me to do it, actually, but I could feel a bit embarrassed and worry about doing it. Or, you might ask a question and then feel afterwards, ‘Oh, that was a stupid question. I shouldn’t have done that.’ But you did it. So it’s some kind of... If we realise that what we’re doing is part of the Universe, then we can have confidence in what we’re doing however silly it might seem, or embarrassing, or great, or small. Does that make any sense?

Question: There is a link, though, to ‘not doing wrong’, isn’t there? Because you can...

Mike: That is not doing wrong. That is exactly not doing wrong. In Master Dogen’s teachings, not doing wrong is not obeying an abstract moral law but finding the morality in the situation. And the morality in the situation is to be who we are. And we can’t not be who we are, but we can kind of regret it, or sometimes the opposite.

Question: My granddad used to say to me when I was a kid, ‘Whatever you’re doing, don’t do it!’

Mike: (laughs) Were you doing something when he said that to you?

Question: I must have been!

Mike: He thought, ‘That little blighter Harry, he’ll be up to something.’ So that was his cover phrase.

(laughter)

Mike: Well, Master Dogen says, ‘Whatever you’re doing, do it.’

Question: So what happens if you are hitting your child? Not that I’ve done that very much, but occasionally I hit my child, so then I move on to another space which is regretting it.

Mike: Yes, those are the facts. First of all, in the past, they’re gone — so although you might regret it, you did it, and it’s past, and so your behaviour or conduct now is what is important. The only thing we can do is something now. We can’t do something in the past. We can’t do something in the future. So Buddhism’s very narrow-minded, if you like, very focused — ‘I did that, I shouldn’t have done it, but what use is it, I’ve got to do something now.’ So you can regret it, but regretting it is just you. There must have been a reason to hit your child, frustration, tiredness.

[inaudible]

Question: Generally speaking, if we practice Zazen, we can continue ourselves at the best. So even if you regret it — ‘I shouldn’t have done this, I shouldn’t have done that’ — when we did it, that was the best. So in your brain there’s, ‘Oh, I should have done it that way,’ or ‘I’m feeling...’ whatever, ‘wrong’. But that’s just your own thoughts. The action is already past. So just, how can I say it?

Mike: We’re doing our best.

Question: Yes, every time, every moment. So in that way, practicing Zazen helps us to make us balance our action and so on.

Question: We use abstract thinking to reflect on how we’re going to respond again, maybe, to a similar situation, don’t we? So, as human beings, we learn from how we behave and how we respond to that behaviour. So that’s going on as well, isn’t it? If we didn’t reflect or think...

Question: It doesn’t always work like that.

Mike: Well, I’ve got a rather peculiar viewpoint on that. I wonder whether we learn in the way that we say. I think when we reflect on the past and put our thoughts in order, we can do that. So we put our thoughts in order — we kind of explain, think about, and sort out how we think about the situation. But in the future, when we act, how we act doesn’t depend on that sorting out in our mind, it depends on our physical and mental state at the moment when we act. So even though we sort out in our mind, ‘I shouldn’t do that again,’ whether or not we do it again doesn’t depend on our intention, but on our state.

Question: Which is often not a thinking state?

Mike: Which is not only a thinking state — it’s both thinking and physical too. So if we very, very strongly have an intention not to do something, because we worked out that it’s not good and we’ve worked out all the ramifications, that very strong intention sometimes works against us. But if we take a lighter attitude and work out in our minds what we should have done, what we regret, what we want to do next time, and so on, but only in a lighter sense, not as a plan for action but as a reflection on the situation, then we’re free to act in the future. And if we practice balance, then we will act in a balanced way the best we can. It might not fit our plan, but it’ll be the best we can do. But if we hang on to our mental analysis, that will sometimes unbalance us itself. So if we try very hard intentionally not to do something, often the opposite occurs, or we don’t do it for a long time and then the opposite occurs. Like trying to give up smoking — no cigarettes for three weeks, and then two packets.

Question: So if we only use our thinking processes it tends not to serve us particularly well in terms of how we respond, because how we respond comes often from somewhere else?

Mike: From our whole being.

Question: Yes, so if you just allow the thinking to float around somewhere then it’ll find its place in the scheme of things?

Mike: Yes. So, for instance, Maggie’s example, if we’re very frustrated and we clip our kid around the ear and then we regret it and say, ‘Oh no, I mustn’t do that again, blah blah blah blah’ — maybe to go for a long walk, or to have a break, or to do something physical, might have a better effect on how we deal with our child from then than a mental process of regretting and promising to ourselves and so on. Going for a run, or something like that, may be better. To me it always is; but I hesitate to say it always is for everybody.

Question: But we do need to notice what the effects of what we’re doing are.

Mike: I can’t work out the effects of what I do so clearly, can you?

Question: Sometimes, and sometimes much later.

Mike: Sometimes I think I can, but it’s only from my perspective, so it’s not a big picture of what the results of what I’ve done are. It’s just one-sided. So, completely, I don’t know what the results are. I feel that, for instance, sometimes I give a talk, and I think, ‘That was a terrible talk, and so,’ you know, ‘everybody’ll get fed up, they won’t come back next week.’ And then somebody comes up to me afterwards and says, ‘Oh, I really enjoyed that.’ ‘Oh, really?’ And I find that quite interesting. And if you’re in a relationship, sometimes if you try not to hurt your partner, you end up hurting them. So there are lots of situations where we don’t actually really know the effect of what we’re doing. If we look back, we can get some kind of picture of the effect of our conduct, but for me it’s only in retrospect as a bigger picture. I don’t know if other people feel like that.

Question: I think it’s important to say, as well, in managing one’s own anger and, you know, like violence or hitting a child or something, to be talking with somebody else about it too. Because, I mean, there’s a lot we can do ourselves, but often there’s a lot of emotions kind of bunched up in there, aren’t there? It may make you go back to your own childhood or something. And that one-sidedness that you talk about is sometimes changed by discussion with someone else.

Mike: Well, this is something you know a lot about, through experience.

[inaudible comment]

The viewpoint of Buddhism on this doesn’t mean that all other viewpoints are invalid. It doesn’t mean that if we do something it’s gone and therefore we don’t need to think about it, and we can do anything we like, and it’s past so it doesn’t matter, and we don’t need to plan what we’re going to do in the future. That sounds like chaos. Not that; but simply to recognise in the middle of, for instance, the kinds of therapeutic processes which are in use these days to help people who are very frustrated and their frustration and anger affects their behaviour, in the middle of that, for people who practice balance, we can realise that we’re doing our best at every moment. It doesn’t mean that we say, ‘I’m doing my best at every moment, I hit my partner but that’s my best, so ... shrug!’ (gesture)

(laughter)

Simply, ‘I did my best and I hit my partner, but I should go and try and sort that out.’ And then sorting it out becomes another instance of doing your best, and so on. So not to deny that kind of thing, but simply a kind of simple, direct view of our behaviour, based on balance.

Master Gensa’s words, “The whole Universe which extends in all directions is one bright pearl. How could it be useful to understand these words intellectually?” express this fact.

Master Dogen is saying that Master Gensa’s phrase about the one bright pearl expresses the perfectness of reality; but that perfectness is not the perfectness we create in our brain. In our brain we can create perfect me, perfect situation, perfect partner, perfect life, perfect holiday, everything, perfect retreat. But actually our life is different. So what Master Dogen stresses is that it’s that different real life that is perfect, not the idea that we can so easily create in our mind.

This expresses the truth that buddha passes on to buddha, and that one ancestor passed on to another.

There he’s referring to the teaching of Buddhism from one teacher to one student, one teacher to one student, in a line. And “ancestors” refers to the line of teachers going back into the past, back to the man who started all this, Gautama Buddha. And the truth that is passed on is not only passed on by discussing facts like the perfection of reality, but it’s passed on by our actual practice, a practice in which we practice balancing body and mind — and in balancing body and mind we notice that the reality in which we live, different from the reality which we create in our brain, is just as it is, perfect. Not the perfect in our brain, but the perfect in front of us, and that includes all our conduct, whether we’re asking intellectual questions, being too aggressive, being upset, and whatever.

It is this truth that Gensa passes on to himself.

Master Dogen’s suggesting that we teach ourselves. And as there’s nobody else to teach us, I suppose we do.

And if we want to evade the truth that these words convey to us, although we can certainly try, even when we are trying to evade this truth, all of the efforts we are making to evade it are made in the one bright pearl of this present moment.

Master Dogen is saying there, in a very nice expression, that we can’t escape from reality, we can’t escape the perfection of reality, because we’re always in it. And although that sounds like a self-justifying statement, it’s also a true fact. And if we notice that, we can accept the situation and ourselves — not in a passive way, but simply by realising the fact. Now Master Dogen moves on:

When, several days later, Gensa asks the monk, “The whole Universe which extends in all directions is one bright pearl. How do you understand this?” we can see that, although he was teaching the monk a general principle the first time, this time he is testing him out with a concrete example. He is sweeping aside the first time with a laugh and a nod of the head.

So Master Dogen’s moving from the first statement to the second question. The second question that Master Gensa asks is to test and to teach the monk.

To this, the monk replied with the same words as Gensa: “The whole Universe which extends in all directions is one bright pearl. How could it be useful to understand these words intellectually?” This is like a man riding a robber’s horse to chase the robber!

That’s a rather curious expression, and it also occurs in Nagarjuna’s writings a thousand years earlier, so I suppose it must be a very old metaphor. Master Nagarjuna uses exactly the same metaphor, “riding a robber’s horse to chase the robber.” And it suggests something, but I can’t explain it any more than it’s written there. Can you get some feeling from the expression? Anybody like to put the expression in a different form?

Question: I’m guessing that the robber’s horse is [inaudible].... and he’s used to doing these unlawful acts and so he’s not going to do anything against his owner.

Question: The robber might still be on the horse.

Mike: Yeah, that’s what I was wondering. Is the robber on the horse or not?

Question: I don’t know. The expression is identical in Nagarjuna, “riding a robber’s horse to chase the robber.” I suppose if you’re chasing the robber...

Question: You’re on horse and he’s on foot, you’re going to catch him up.

Question: It sounds like ‘chasing your own tail’.

Question: If the robber’s on the horse and you’re on the robber’s horse trying to chase the robber, you’re not going to catch him, are you?

Question: Doesn’t it mean just using the same means of transport as the robber, so it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, you’re still using the same method of conveyance?

Mike: That makes sense.

Question: Are we back in the cave again?

Mike: We’re walking around the entrance, I think! Whether we go in or not...

(laughter)

Question: It reminds me of a dog chasing its own tail.

Mike: Ah yes?

Question: I just happened to read that in Nagarjuna in the last few days, and I can’t remember the words but it I think it was that both of them were on the horse. I just have that feeling.

Mike: I think what Nick said makes the most sense to me — adopting the same method as somebody else.

Question: Well, the intellectual debate is just like riding a horse, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a robber or the good guy.

Mike: So we can say a simple meaning, if we want to explain it, ...

Question: Could it mean that it’s a bit fruitless? Because if you’re actually chasing a robber and you jump on the back of the horse and the robber’s on the front of the horse...

Mike: Well, it’s still a stolen horse, isn’t it?

Question: You’ve stolen the horse, so you’re a robber yourself.

Mike: Yes, exactly.

Question: ... The horse is just carrying on and you’re never going to catch up really.

Question: You can’t catch the robber because you’re both on the horse.

Mike: Yeah.

Question: Is it saying that, well, like saying “The whole Universe which extends in all directions is one bright pearl” and then saying “How could it be useful to understand these words intellectually?” — well the same is, how would it be useful to understand these words, the ‘robber’ words, intellectually?

Mike: Oh! That’s a nice interpretation! So shall we move on? Alright.

Question: Maybe it’s a typo, maybe it’s a ‘rubber horse’.

Mike: Or it could be a ‘rubber hose,’ couldn’t it?

(laughter)

Question: Or a ‘rubber hoose’.

Question: The monk revises the word ‘intellectual’, doesn’t he? I mean the second time the question is asked he’s not asking for an intellectual reply, is he? He’s just saying, ‘How do you understand this?’ which is a much broader thing, and the student brings it back to ‘intellectual’. Which is a bit cheeky really, isn’t it?

Mike: Yes, could be cheeky. But we could also imagine a very sincere student who’s been grappling with the meaning of what Master Gensa said, on and on, day after day, bugging him, can’t stop thinking about it, and then when he asks the master the master gives him this strange reply which says ‘You can’t understand it.’ So he goes off thinking, ‘Right, I can’t understand it. I can’t understand it.’ And then, when asked, he says, ‘I can’t understand it.’ But he doesn’t express the fact that he can’t understand it. He repeats the fact that he can’t understand it, but doesn’t express his own view.

When the eternal Buddha Gensa taught the monk, he had been speaking out with his own independent opinion.

That means Gensa said something from himself. He expressed something from himself in words.

[In merely repeating Gensa’s words], the monk shows that he needs to reflect in Zazen and study how many cases there are where understanding is useful!

Yes. “The monk needs to reflect in Zazen” doesn’t mean that he’s got to practice Zazen and think about it; but simply, sitting in Zazen we reflect ourselves, we reflect the world, so we can experience reality. So Master Dogen suggests that the monk needs to practice some more Zazen and then he can maybe realise that understanding is not always the point.

Tentatively we can say that real things and events that are teachings and practice, when put into words, all become conceptual in nature.

Real things, which are really expressed, when we put them into words, become concepts. What we then tend to do is discuss the concepts, argue about them, disagree about them, agree about them, share them, forget them, remember them; but we forget that the concepts are representing something else, which is reality itself. For instance, we say ‘anger’, and the word ‘anger’ gives us an image of something that resides inside us and stays there and goes away, and if we don’t express it, it sits inside us, and if we do express it, it roars out. But actually what the word ‘anger’ refers to is a very, very difficult thing to define. The edges of anger, when am I angry, when am I not angry? When a politician says ‘I am very angry about this,’ is his anger the same thing that I feel when my blood is boiling? So all our concepts are actually very poor pictures of reality, but we tend to believe the pictures and forget what’s behind them.

Question: That’s what the robber’s horse is, it’s concepts and language that we use to try and understand reality.

Question: Did this all come from Wittgenstein [inaudible]?

Mike: No.

Question: I agree.

Mike: So, either the robber or the good guy, we’re all using the same concepts and languages to try and understand reality, but we can’t. We’re chasing round and round on the same horse. I like that. Neigh-gh-gh!

(laughter)

Now Master Dogen moves on to discuss Gensa’s answer to the monk, when the monk had just repeated his original words.

Gensa said, “Now I see that you have only been trying to understand my words intellectually, as if struggling with a demon in a cave on a black mountain.” Remember one simple fact, since the eternal past, the sun has never appeared in place of the moon, and the moon has never appeared in place of the sun. The sun always appears as the sun. The moon always appears as the moon. This is why, when asked his family name, following the custom, Master Yakusan Igen refrained from giving it, and replied instead that it was a very nice time of year, rather than saying how hot it was that June.

(laughter)

Mike: Over to Yoko! Sounds like Monty Python! First of all, Master Dogen is saying simple facts are simple facts. The sun is always the sun. The moon is always the moon. And the sun always appears as the sun, the moon always appears as the moon. So simple facts in reality are simple facts in reality. He then goes on to give this very curious reference to Master Yakusan Igen, and it needs a bit of explanation. It seems that in medieval China, when monks were asked their name they didn’t give it. I don’t know why they didn’t give it, but instead they would say, ‘It’s a very nice time of year, isn’t it?’ So, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Oh, the weather’s nice, isn’t it?’ I don’t know why they did that, but maybe Yoko can enlighten us.

Yoko: I don’t know my name, so they call me Yoko! (laughs)

We can say that this custom, and it was a custom for monks, may be something to do with the fact that our name is a concept, and we ourselves are beyond our name. So if you asked a monk their name they wouldn’t reply with their name.

Question: Is that why Bodhidharma didn’t answer the Emperor?

Mike: Um, I’m not sure, but I thought, when reading the legend about Bodhidharma, I got the feeling that Bodhidharma was a bit disappointed... Oh, you mean when he was asked his name?

Question: The Emperor said, ‘I’ve got all this merit, I’ve built these temples, blah blah blah, what merit will it come to?’, and he said, ‘None.’ And the Emperor said, ‘Who is this monk in front of me?’, and Bodhidharma said, ‘I don’t know.’

Mike: Yes, so the second question is the same, but the first question is different. When he answered ‘None,’ he wanted to say to the Emperor, ‘Buddhism is not about any kind of achievement, or any kind of fame.’ And in the second half, yes, I think it must be the same.

Question: Does that relate to the ‘Who am I?’ koans?

Mike: I don’t know what the ‘Who am I?’ koans are. Are they a pop group?

(laughter)

Question: It’s a koan where the monks just ask themselves ‘Who am I?’

Mike: Ah, Stephen Batchelor likes to do that.

Question: And John Crook.

Mike: Yes, John Crook likes to do that.

Question: ‘What is your true name?’

Question: ‘What was your name before your parents were born?’

Mike: Yes, there’s a whole industry grown up around this!

(laughter)

I think we can all recognise the fact that sometimes we don’t really know who we are. We know who we are on a particular day, but we’re very good at re-defining ourselves all the time, and sometimes, in the depths of puzzlement or despair, or when we feel there’s nothing reliable, we can wonder who we are. But, beyond that, I think asking ourselves ‘Who am I?’, or so on, is a load of rubbish. And all the koans really are just pointing to the fact that we are not the name that’s given to us, we are far more or far less or far different, just like the Universe is not what is described by the word ‘Universe’.

Question: There’s a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh, ‘Call Me By My True Name’, in which he says ‘I am’, and then he imagines all kinds of different people in different situations all over the world, including different protagonists in the same situation — ‘I am this person,’ ‘I am that person,’ ‘I am a pirate on the South Asia seas,’ ‘I am...’

Mike: Yes, he’s a very beautiful writer. I’ve never met him, but I suppose he’s referring to the fact that we separate ‘us’ from ‘the Universe’, and in fact the Universe is all one. And, poetically, we can express that. But if I say, ‘I am you,’ in normal conversation, it’s quite difficult to understand. But if we reflect on the fact that none of us exist separately, we can catch some deeper meaning.

Question: I think, just simply, our name is just like a coin-locker — number one, number two, number three, that’s it.

Mike: Coin-locker?

Question: Yeah, coin-locker — we put a number.

Mike: Just a number on the door?

Question: Yes.

Mike: I don’t know...

Question: We understand her!

Mike: I don’t know if I’m a coin-locker! You didn’t put any money in for ages!

(laughter)

Question: That’s nice, yes. A label.

Mike: That means just nothing special.

Question: Nothing special. I’m me!

Mike: There are lots of Michaels!

Question: Go on then!

(laughter)

Mike: Can’t win! So, “the monk says ‘It’s a very nice time of year!’, rather than saying how hot it was that June.”

Question: What does the last line mean?

Mike: Well, he didn’t say ‘It’s very hot.’ June is very, very hot in China, Korea and Japan. So to say, ‘Phwoar, it’s very, very hot!’ is a kind of complaint, isn’t it? So he didn’t complain, he just said, ‘It’s very nice!’ And why did he say ‘It’s very nice’? Because monks always said ‘It’s very nice’ when asked their name. So, in other words, he followed the situation, he followed the norm, he’s normal. (To Matt.) Matt! You raise your eyebrows when I call your name, that’s normal. But for a monk it was normal to say, ‘It’s a very nice time of year,’ even though he was dripping with sweat.

Question: So he didn’t respond independently with his own words, he responded with some codified custom?

Mike: Absolutely.

Question: But he made a conscious decision to do that, though, didn’t he?

Mike: Ah, I’m not sure.

[inaudible comment]

Question: But he was speaking about something real at that moment. It was his real experience, so at the same time it was only his own experience. So it’s not just repeating somebody else’s... You know, it’s a habit to say ‘It’s nice,’ but at the same time it is his experience at that moment, and he’s happy with it. He’s not just imitating some other monks. Right? Does that make sense?

Mike: I get the impression from reading the story that in fact June is a very hot time and not so nice, but customarily a monk would say, ‘It’s nice.’ It’s a way of avoiding saying your name.

Question: Talking about the weather... People say ‘It’s nice,’ so I said, ‘It’s very wet, not so nice.’ (laughs) So, depending on individual feeling, nothing more than that, just natural, you know. You get used to it in England, for instance, you don’t miss the sunshine. It’s just normal.

Mike: What’s sunshine?

(laughter)

Question: So if I complain about the very dark weather, why not? [inaudible]

Mike: It’s like ‘Good morning!’ isn’t it. You see someone, ‘Good morning!’ They say, ‘It’s not a good morning,’ and you say, ‘Well, I’m just saying hello.’

Question: Yes, so we say ‘Good morning’ to somebody, which is customary, but at the same time it’s something from our self. So to say ‘Good morning’ to somebody is a nice feeling, a spontaneous feeling, but it’s also a custom.

Question: If somebody says, ‘How are you today?’ you just automatically say, ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ whether you feeling terrible or not. You just go, ‘Oh, I’m fine, thanks,’ and you’re feeling bloody awful, maybe. But it’s just automatic, it’s just a habit.

Question: Businessmen do that, don’t they? ‘How are you?’ and then they crack on, they don’t want to know how you are, it’s just ‘Hello. How are you?’

Question: I’m still not clear why all that lot comes after the cave bit.

Mike: Ah, nor am I.

Question: I just think it’s absolutely extraordinary that we’ve spent fifteen minutes talking about a monk saying ‘It’s a nice day’ in the twelfth century!

Mike: Nice, isn’t it?

Question: Concepts take time!

Mike: Well, you never know with Dogen, do you? I mean this is the thing, you don’t know whether it’s [inaudible].

Question: I’m not saying it’s a waste of time or it’s stupid, it’s just...

Mike: Oh no, I’m not inferring you were.

Question: It’s just when I think of things we probably all deal with in our normal lives, and then we talk for fifteen minutes about a monk in the twelfth century, it just suddenly struck me as an absolutely amazing situation.

Mike: Well, let’s finish quickly!

Discussion of whether the Universe is really one bright pearl or not would be never-ending. But we can still assert that the whole Universe which extends in all directions is one bright pearl — not two pearls or three pearls.

“Not two pearls or three pearls” means something whole, not made up of parts.

The whole body of the Universe is a single eye that teaches reality;

“A single eye” is a common metaphor in Buddhism. In fact, you can even see pictures of buddhas with an eye in the middle of their forehead. But it doesn’t really mean they had an eye in the middle of their forehead, it means one whole thing, one whole viewpoint, one whole Universe.

the whole Universe is our real body; the words “whole Universe” teach the truth;

Master Dogen says “whole Universe” is a true description — not a Universe made up of parts, but a Universe whole.

the whole Universe is pure illumination;

That’s referring to the “brightness” in “one bright pearl”.

in the end the whole Universe is just the whole Universe. And when the Universe is experienced as whole, no hindrances exist; the whole Universe is perfectly rounded, and roundly it rolls along.

So, we spend fifteen minutes talking about a thirteenth century monk, and then we read another paragraph, and then we end the talk, and then we give the chant, and then we go and practice Zazen, and then we have lunch, and so on. So the Universe, or reality, rolls along. And our duty is to roll along with it. So let’s roll along.

Thank you very much.

(End of talk)