If you want to be an educator, practice meeting people ‘where they are at.’ Every single person is completely unique. Sokuzan talks about the teachers who responded to what was showing up in his mind stream rather than some authority about what was being taught. You don’t have to know, you don’t have to understand, you have to see what this is.

https://youtu.be/jopNBULBy_M

Sokuzan talks about his relationship to his teachers, and how the relationship to a teacher might show up for you. An insightful teacher will know who they are teaching. The student is one who understands what it means to be a student. It’s important to be genuine, honest and sincere with each other.

https://youtu.be/RBlUPlDhi7A

There has to be a sky in order to have clouds. There has to be a foundation, and here it starts with Shikantaza. It’s not the importance of what arises in the sense fields, it is the space in which it occurs. See what arises in that fundamental space without doing anything with it.

https://youtu.be/-ok8yGbVKCU

If you think everything around you is real, you’ll continue to torture yourself with the illusion that you’re deluded by. You don’t have to get rid of the illusion; just see that it’s not real. It won’t be a conclusion. If you see through the illusion, you’ll just see yourself.

https://youtu.be/6noqk256RZI

Even though the landslides are inescapable we fight against them anyway. One of the the landslides is the one in your mind that started before you were born. The source is unfindable. Your job as someone who is a meditator on a spiritual path is to observe that movement in your mind stream and see that there is no solid singularity anywhere.

https://youtu.be/RXvZWRfsa3E

https://youtu.be/rTjvhkv5NRQ

The poem from the Shobogenzo chapter ‘Flowers in the Sky’ was written by Zhang Zhuo upon his enlightenment. It begins, “Radiant light serenely illuminates the sands of the Ganges.” Talking about the mind of awakening is very difficult. The poem ends: “Nirvana and birth-and-death are both flowers in the sky.”

https://youtu.be/34xQxJYoR1k

The five dharmas are a good way to introduce looking at this. Things appear, we are compelled to name them, then we interpret, analyze, and stir things up. These three dharmas are in everyone’s lives. The spiritual path of buddha knowledge and suchness is understanding and seeing the illusion.

https://youtu.be/5Y71iRIwjeQ

https://youtu.be/FxYJ6aov1kc

This has been called the five dharmas in the Lankavatara Sutra. The five dharmas are just one thing. It’s going to look like a path until it doesn’t. Even without the 4th dharma of buddha knowledge, you can awaken to muchness.

https://youtu.be/IYHFKj6x6tI