Present: Kobun (K) · Mary Kate (MK) · Steve (S) · Carol · Edie (E) · Rob Crist · Hathaway · Babette (B) · Ann · Glenna (Gl) · Joyce · Angie (Ang) · Carmelia · Judy C. · Nena — C: is genuinely ambiguous: Carol and Carmelia are both present, so the bare initial is kept as typed. R: too: Ruth is not on this week's list and Rob Crist is, but the note-taker wrote him RC: the week before; kept as typed. The A of "A and S" could be Ann or Angie.
May 12, 1975. Judy Cosgrove's House.
S: How was your trip to Padma Jong?
K: Good.
B: Anybody have news of Barbara?
A and S: She's fine.
MK: Did you have many students at Padma Jong?
K: I didn't count. About ten, and staff, Padma Jong People, around ten people. It was nice.
MK: What did you talk to them about?
K: (laughing) Same kind. Spontaneous crazy talk.
MK: That was appropriate. Trungpa always does that.
K: Entire time I was feeling what mountain and river mean. Mountain and River Sutra.1 Beautiful Place. Best season. Green. Lots of water. Flowers. Birds. Deers. Clear air.
(pause)
K: It was big struggle, that...explain, so-called-it Buddha-Dharma and anuttara-samyak-sambodhi is identical, and shikan taza is nothing but... synonymous...point this word...is named on same thing. That was quite hard to speak. Behind the struggle there was struggle of enjoyment, too. To express crystal transparent light with colors, sounds, is very hard... almost impossible. By color to express no color is hard thing, but when we look our life closely, we often experience it. At the same time, constantly we are doing it, what-ever we do. Sounds strange? Sounds strange?
Struggle, what I meant, is very...effort to clarify something with very directed...sometimes very directed, using very conflictive and dualistic way of thinking and way of feeling. So to approach to it is very confused in a sense. Without destroying silence, to play music is very hard thing. Like to...when you paint a picture...canvas or rice paper...with...how do you say?...to... (long pause) It is very hard to feel what paper wants what paper wants on it. It's little strange to say, but when you feel how paper want to be touched, and what is expected to be on it is very hard... Usually this sense is not sensed, is passed through. Necessity to feel that is instantaneously experienced, and the artist go whatever he want to do, whatever inspiration takes form, so there is no such problem to keep sensing what paper wants to be done.
Like, to put...to lower the dimension...to lower dimension from three to one and express three dimension, phenomenal three dimension is very hard thing. To say, to let appear round cubic moon in the flat paper is quite difficult. More difficult is by doing so, to let people feel, or to let himself live more real moon than actual moon, by doing so is almost impossible thing. But artist job...I mustn't say artist, it is every-one...there is such world we are constantly experiencing and... to experience this inner joy or suffering of life and share it with other people, this is how we are living. Expressing what has to be expressed, listening to others and what should be listened to. Not just to, just watch or see or hear ...but more real thing which is quite invisible has to be shared.
S: One of the obstacles of the artist is that sometimes the artist experiences reality through his media. I always think of Monet, when his wife was dying he had trouble seeing the situation as other than a visual field, seeing colors. He wasn't experiencing from the other point of view. In poetry, if you get very much involved, every new experience becomes a rich source of phrases and words. You experience it beyond language, beyond color, beyond form...it can become...it seems to get in the way, sometimes.
MK: Like when you read Russian novels, everything becomes like a Russian novel. Are you saying it is more real than the moon itself? Whatever it is, is the reality?
K: When you're dreaming while you sleep, that's quite real. Dream is real.
MK: And then, if we create our worlds as we go along...
K: Create our worlds?
MK: Of course it would be our reality, but it would be very private.
K: It is. So you say, "Don't bother me." Man is world, created world. Each man is very powerful samadhi.
MK: So then, I get the feeling you're saying our job is to recognize this individual reality, and then to reach out to others2 with it.
K: (nodding) Yes.
(pause)
Gl: Sometimes I think that the impulse is to reach out to someone else's world, but what I'm working on is for that one to confirm my world. (lost) ...Music interrupting silence...speech to interrupt that silence. Sound that doesn't interrupt silence isn't looking for confirmation. It's truly going that way.
MK: If you're not looking for others to confirm you, you're putting it out to confirm it yourself. When you get to music...not destroying the silence, that leaves me!
K: When you said confirm...
MK: That's what I want...so I know I'm here.
K: You do...you confirm others. That's a big subject. You may say acceptance, or confirming this, or you say, see a thing as it really is. There is something to do from your side which is amazing attitude. Audience of the music is all confirming. (to Glenna) Don't you think so?
Gl: Yes. There is so much energy.
K: Do you feel same way if you play music with no audience?
Gl: There's never no audience.
K: Yes. But what then confirming?
MK: She said she is never without an audience.
Gl: You have to be somewhere. Air is listening...otherwise...well...
K: That may be enough to say.
Ann: There's a lovely story about a Scandinavian violinist who was ship-wrecked and managed to save himself and his violin, and was rescued by a lighthouse keeper who had had almost no connection with the outside world. He nursed the violinist back to health and to repay him the violinist played for him, more beautifully than he had ever played in his life. There was a long quiet when he finished. Then the lighthouse keeper said, "That's true." (paraphrase)3
C: Talking about music, I saw the connection between sound and something else. It's not sound, it's something else. Is it essence?
K: Yes, that's interesting.
C: So it really has form...Or does it?
K: Sounds like music is already there, and by bringing the sounds into the space you...everyone confirm it is done. It is done, which means music is expressed.
C: Mary Kate said the individual reality reaching out to many realities, but it4 thought there was only one reality...
K: Reaching out...that is illusion. Reaching out is very dynamic illusion. Don't you think so?
MK: That's ok with me.
K: Reaching...letting others reach out is reach...you say to you?...is not illusion.
MK: Letting others reach out to you.
K: That is what we are talking. Listening. Accepting. Confirming. This relate with Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.
MK: But it could only be not an illusion if you could rid yourself of your own reality.
K: Yes. Illusion is not unreal thing. It is real. It is co-called-it5 creative energy. You create new relation.
MK: From inside of yourself.
C: Is it like the music being out there, and the tools you develop to reach the one reality...
MK: There is no such thing as one reality. One truth, many realities!
E: The word confirmation worries me. I don't know if you meant seeking confirmation. I feel I shouldn't be seeking anything, but be moving...Could you say more about confirmation?
K: Yes, confirmation is a sense you are not alone. Not alone. That is birth of the universe. It means when...how can I say?...when a flower blooms, the blooming is the confirmation. To be, because of confirmed, so that it can be.
E: If I am with another person and see his back, I am confirmed, even though he doesn't see me?
R: Music is to noise what flowers are to weeds. People agree which are flowers and which are weeds. Maybe you disagree. Now with your music confirmation is where you and I agree which are flowers and which are weeds. We agree together. To confirm is where your value is reinforced by other person's value. This strengthens your world...
E: But that's different from what Kobun is saying. He's saying it takes more than one to confirm. What I want to be confirmed is, can I be confirmed all by myself?
Gl: The other day Kobun was saying, if there's noone around, make the sun your friend, if no sun, make the moon your friend. No moon make the air your friend...
R: No air, make the last gasp your friend.
Gl: Buddhist weekend. All kinds of Buddhists. Some very verbal. I found myself again and again not being with someone; wanting to open a door for them, but then I realized I just wanted to confirm my world.
K: Was it successful?
Gl: No.
K: Unless you confirm them, you'll never be confirmed. Waiting is confirming, waiting is confirmation with distance. Patience is confirming action with having separation.
Ang: Couldn't you say that unless you do confirm, you don't have a world, you are not really wanting to be confirmed...it works the other way?
K: The begin of creating world is why Annutara samyak sambodhi is Buddha, and supreme perfect enlightenment is the same thing so create...like at this point so-called-it karma, or karma consciousness is remembrance of annutara samyak sambodhi. Did you get this? Remembrance is one closest confirmation about existence. Remembrance and real happening is different.
Confirmation, word in origin of Buddhism, called it Buddhism, the movement started with confirmation all are Buddhas. That was the beginning of so-called-it Buddhism, maybe from that point Buddhism disappeared. If you say all, there is nothing else. Future Buddha has to be seen in that way. Where you are is future Buddha, and at the same time all past Buddhas is sitting over here like this and we called it present is very fine realm of moment you're really confirming your existence is confirmed by all beings which is Buddhas, and so...
S: But there's no special action going on that we can call confirmation.6
K: Maybe simply realization.
S: That's too much.
K: To say things too much, to put sound is quite shameful action. Such recognition, such realization is there, that's enough.
S: That's what Buddha meant when he said, "I alone am the world-honored one." He said this as soon as he came out. He didn't have to look around.
K: So with very deep compassion, Ummon7 said, "I'll chop him in a thousand piece and feed the pieces to the dogs."
MK: I don't understand.
S: He means Buddha said too much.
K: That is too much, Ummon was too much!
R: Presumably, chopping baby Buddha into pieces will cause less suffering in the world than having Buddha grow up. It was an act of compassion.
K: That's why over and over again (lost) Nirmanakaya, innumerable Shakya-muni Buddhas. It's very simple what beings, things are now, in order to point by Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi this word come. Innumerable Shakyamuni Buddhas.
Naturally, each existence become, no matter how much we suffer, how present we are, to be, to exist is very...how do you say?...unexchangable. That preciousness is absolute because, dewdrops' preciousness is absolute same as each one of us, because to be totally ignorant is basically no problem. It's a very surprising and amazing way of talk. Dōgen Zenji's way: "Million Dharma advances into you and confirms themselves." That is called enlightenment. So we are such existence, each of us as such existence we are advancing. Maybe advancing in same spot.
Like sense of time, it's very good example what time is. Is that real thing, or is that just idea, or vehicle to, one of the consciousness we create, we develop? Same as pain, or sensing something. Is time to say it took five hours to drive here to there, there to here, is simply same sense we touch, this is the rug? When we are doing very important thing which you really wish to do, you always feel, "I have no time." If you see someone come, "Could you help me?" "I have no time." Time itself is creating something.
S: How does that relate to million dharmas coming forth and confirming themselves?
K: (lost) Myriad Dharmas, as far as seed exist it's obvious this is start of Buddha seed which has form. If I am a seed on ground, myriad Dharmas cannot advance into seed. But seed is possible to say, "I'm that which myriad Dharmas advanced into me." That is possible. That me is actually myriad Dharmas. Me, not that seed. Pratītyasamutpādah,8 you remember how you translate this word. Dependent co-origination. And emptiness is what it is. And it is another quite scientific concept, and maybe very mathematical way to say all reasons, causes, merge in order to let something exist.
R: Does this mean we have to get emptier all the time9 in order to receive the myriad Dharmas pouring in? It's a race, it's either I eat them, or they eat me. Either I make room for them, or I am one of the Dharmas rushing into something else.
K: You don't need to be stuffed. Your awakening expand, that's all. You don't need to say, "I got it." You got it one thousand years ago. You are still expanding this awakening.
S: Is this awakening necessary for all Dharmas to confirm themselves?
K: It is not necessary. Mind which feels necessity is extra. Truth is, so this necessary is extra.
S: That makes a lot of things unnecessary. A good part of our spare time.
MK: That's what we're here for, to do unnecessary things!
K: To ask sun, "Is that necessary, you shine?"
S: Sun is clearly out of our control. Some things are within our control. Then to ask is it necessary seems to have some meaning.
K: Our memory is necessary (lost)...each birth, inhalation, exhalation is amazing thing which we do not know in the very beginning. This question necessary shrink to the personal existence, "I am not a useful person, so I can take care of myself in this way," and you stop. That is not so good, it is your existence.
Ascetic,10 at end of exhalation, you say goodbye to all breaths, and as far as possible you reject return inhalation. Many ascetic yogis went exhalation and whole muscle stopped working, and inhalation doesn't follow to exhalation. One inhalation and (lost lost) Ascetic way to cut...how do you say?...idea comes first and mind follow to the idea. It means our body and mind is not possible to separate, to put separation between. If you see this existence simply as a mind, it is possible everything is mind. At the same time, you see same thing from completely opposite angle, this is body, material, mind can become material so to discriminate between body and mind is to separate your elements into piece. It is path of illusion you take. It means idea go alone and existence go with idea and leave something there. Idea is very dualistic. Many ascetics actually felt this body, to separate this physical existence from spirit, is complete peace. So while he lives on this earth (lost) try to separate body from mind.
Gl: Vast pride behind that. I am not a useful person, but this body and mind seems so precious...seems great striving and pride.
K: The one who is judging so is pretty proud.
MK: It's twenty minutes of twelve, Kobun.
K: Ok. (pause) Shall we stop? (pause) (looking about) How is everything with you?
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