Ikka-no-myoju — Session 4

The One Bright Pearl. The whole universe is perfectly rounded, and roundly rolls along the top of the last page. The metaphor of the universe being rolling along is also expounded in another chapter in the Shobogenzo called Hokke-ten-hokke, which is the universe turns the universe, and it's talking about the subject of life moving forwards. Sometimes it feels like we move our lives forward.

Sometimes it feels like the world moves our life forward and we have to keep up. And sometimes it feels like we and the universe move forward together. That's the subject of that chapter, which is very interesting. But the idea of the universe moving or rolling along. is quite important in Master Dogen's writings. But from the next paragraph, Master Dogen is kind of, he's now, he's commented on the different parts of the story, and he's now summarizing the whole meaning of the phrase and the interaction between Master Gensa and the student.

Because the nature of the universe is one bright pearl like this, ancestors like Avalokiteshvara and Maitreya and others, like Master Reiun Shigon or Master Kyogen Shikan, who realized the truth on looking at plum blossoms or hearing the sound of a pebble striking bamboo, appear in the universe. And as it says in the Lotus Sutra, the many Buddhas of the past and present manifest the body of a Buddha and preach the Dharma. The reference to Avalokiteshvara and Maitreya were two legendary Buddhas who existed in the past. And Master Reiun Shigon is a Chinese master.

Who is in one of the koan stories, and also commented on in several of the chapters, he realized what reality was when he was looking at plum blossoms. Just one day he was looking at the blossoms on a plum tree in medieval China, and he realized something fundamental, that reality is just here and now. And Master Kyogen Shikan, there's also a story about him. It seems that he was quite puzzled by what Buddhist philosophy was explaining, and eventually went off to live on his own in a little house in the hills.

And one day, when he was sweeping the path, the brush flicked up a pebble, and the pebble hit a bamboo, and it made a very loud ringing sound. And that ringing sound is said to have made him realize what reality is. These are two quite famous stories. So Master Dogen is saying that the reason these ancestors of ours, these four people, realized the truth is because the universe is one bright pearl. But if we try and explain that in terms of a Therefore, this happened, therefore that happened. We can't find a logical connection.

So, because the universe is one bright pearl, people in the past can realize what the truth is. People in the present can realize what the truth is. People in the future can realize what the truth is. And he then quotes from the Lotus Sutra, which of course is written in Chinese characters, so he often quotes these Chinese quotations in the middle of the Shobogenzo. The many Buddhas of the past and present manifest the body of a buddha and preach the Dharma. So, the Lotus Sutra has many beautiful passages which suggest Buddhas appearing. It sounds like they appear from nowhere and they preach to us.

And we can take that kind of image as meaning reality is all around us. We're in the universe, and the universe and all the things in it teach us. So, something appears and teaches us. It can be a person or a dog or a plant in the garden, an incident, a sound. Something tells us what reality is, not some kind of mystical this is reality. But just, ah, I see. If I keep going to bed late, I can't get up in the morning. At last I understand. Or something real like that.

So we can say those things or people or beings that teach us reality are buddhas. And this is the theme of many parts of the Lotus Sutra. If you want to read the original part of the Lotus Sutra, I think it's referenced in our book, with a translation at the back of the book. But the Lotus Sutra is very flowery and it sounds very mystical.

Question: Is it translated in the book the way that you would translate

Mike: it? I can't remember. Mm. Three two five two. Good son. If living beings in any land must be saved through the body of a buddha, the bodhisattva Regarder of the Sounds of the World manifests at once the body of a buddha and preaches for them the Dharma. To those who must be saved through the body of a Pratyekabuddha, the bodhisattva manifests at once the body of a Pratyekabuddha and preaches for them the Dharma. To those who must be saved through the body of a shravaka, the bodhisattva manifests at once the body of a shravaka and preaches for them the Dharma.

To those who must be saved through the body of King Brahma, the bodhisattva manifests at once the body of King Brahma and preaches for them the Dharma. To those who must be saved through the body of the god King Shakra, and so on. So the Lotus Sutra quotation is suggesting that if there is a human being who needs to be saved, then there is this mythical bodhisattva Regarder of the Sounds of the World, and he appears in many different forms.

So, for instance, the body of a Pratyekabuddha, the body of a shravaka, the body of King Brahma, and those are all symbolics, symbols of different kinds of Buddhas. So a shravaka means a voice hearer. Somebody who learns the truth through listening to preachings and so on. So it's a long passage. It goes on and on. To those who must be saved through the body of a Brahman, the bodhisattva manifests at once the body of a Brahman, and so on. To those who must be saved through the body of a boy or girl, the bodhisattva manifests at once the body of a boy or girl.

So the image is this mythical bodhisattva appearing in the body of all different kinds of people in order to save human beings. So the meaning, as I said, is that in the universe the truth is everywhere, and so the truth, the bodhisattva in the Lotus Sutra, appears and teaches us. And it can appear in many different forms. It's the symbolic way of the Lotus Sutra. But in fact we can say that all of the universe is teaching us what reality is because it's all real.

So we may learn from our children, or we may learn from our dog, or we may learn from trees what reality is. So for instance, we can be wound up by our work. And our busy mind is just whirling round, and we go for a walk through a nice forest with rustling leaves, and the forest and rustling leaves tell us, You're in the forest and we're rustling. Here we are. Shut away all that wound-up stuff and be here, I imagine. So there we are. That's the quotation from the Lotus Sutra.

At this very moment, the universe is one bright pearl pervades through the whole of space, like the priceless pearl in the Lotus Sutra, tied within someone's garment, or hidden under the black dragon's chin, or hidden in someone's topknot. This is what you referred to, Malcolm, yesterday.

Participant: Hmm.

Mike: In the Lotus Sutra, there are stories suggesting that we have pearls hidden which we don't know about, and there are some parables. Two friends. One friend gets very drunk, and the other friend helps him home. And then when the drunk friend sobers up, he finds that his friend has hidden a pearl in his clothing, and then gone. And it's very, it's all metaphorical. Pearl means some kind of wisdom or true teaching of the truth. So wisdom or teaching of the truth can be hidden in, within our garment. We meet somebody and they slip a pearl under our garment and leave us.

And that suggests that we meet somebody and we realise something about reality through the encounter, and then they're gone. But often we don't find the pearl until afterwards. Hidden under the black dragon's chin. I think that's a legend that there is a black dragon, and under the black dragon's chin is hidden a pearl. But I don't know that in detail.

Question: It's a blue one, right?

Mike: What's under its chin?

Participant: A carrot.

Participant: [unclear: “Hairy.” ]

Mike: Right. Pearl.

Participant: A lime.

Mike: Yeah.

Participant: Pearl.

Mike: And hidden in someone's topknot equally. We can look up the stories in the Lotus Sutra and see that they're metaphors. Is that the right word? Metaphors for finding out valuable things from others and then realising they are valuable. These are all cases of the universe which extends in all directions being one bright pearl. It, that's the pearl, is often hidden beneath a garment, and we shouldn't expect to find it displayed prominently. So, if we receive a pearl of wisdom from somebody, we shouldn't expect it to be obvious necessarily. We may receive it and not recognise it.

Participant: It's interesting that we have that saying, pearl of wisdom.

Mike: Oh, that's true. It is often hidden in a topknot or under a chin, but we shouldn't go searching for it there. That suggests that we receive the wisdom of the universe unexpectedly. If we say, The universe has got wisdom, right, I'm off to look for it, we don't find it. We stumble on it accidentally, or we bump into someone in the street and they slip a pearl into our pocket, or pull our wallet out of our pocket.

Participant: Might be the same thing

Mike: Could be, yes. So it's just suggesting the universe as it is is full of the truth, and we get little bits of the truth as pearls, and often we don't recognise them, we don't find them till later.

[audio recording likely incomplete]