Sokuzan talks about the Yogacara teaching of “The Five Dharmas” from the Lankavatara Sutra: something arises, naming it, projecting onto it, buddha knowledge and suchness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GI4MBkgiVM

“Noble silence”, or “functional speech” creates a standard to live up to. It is about control. You may go to a retreat and never get a chance to relate to others who are practicing. We are quiet when we sit down, hold still and look. When we get up off of the cushion, it is important for sangha to talk to each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seeM5uCYJQw

If you hear the teachings of the Buddha, you are well favored. If you are not snagged by the circularity of all the people in our society, our culture, our families, our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces where ideas and opinions come around and take you into the orbit of confusion and away from your true nature, you are well favored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-RPj36V_AU

Sokuzan talks about the Buddhist conceptual construct of “The Six Realms” or six ways of breaking down the way the mind functions and the importance of curiosity in the spiritual practice of the human realm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NbXtHTxkFQ

What seems to be very important in studying the Dharma is to study with community, interacting with others around the material that is actually pointing away from itself. All those conceptual constructs are meant to help you transcend this world while you’re in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlnGii9vPds

In our life there’s all kinds of gaps between this and that, the natural gaps that are happening all the time. The word Bardo means gap, it means the space between this and that. Quite often we space out we don’t see the gaps, we go into some other area and daydream on some level. Very good to bring awareness to that situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSW7cYYlRvM&t=3s

What would it be like to walk across the room and not do anything except receive?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFU8LVqbBjo

The mundane path is practical, but it can be run by hopes and dreams, wishes and desires in the material world. Any spiritual path has some component of materialism. But in order to walk the spiritual path, it seems to be necessary to have some kind of inspiration that goes beyond the mundane path. Anytime someone wants to dedicate their life to others, this is starting to have a quality of the spiritual path.

The mundane path is practical, but it can be run by hopes and dreams, wishes and desires in the material world. Any spiritual path has some component of materialism. But in order to walk the spiritual path, it seems to be necessary to have some kind of inspiration that goes beyond the mundane path. Anytime someone wants to dedicate their life to others, this is starting to have a quality of the spiritual path.

We are not trying to meditate to get to some other state. It is difficult to point to something that is already the case then to suggest to someone that they see it. We have to spend a lot of time looking. If you could see without grasping, you would just see the fundamental experience of consciousness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sOFqT3rY1c&t=539s

The Three Natures: Paratantra, the nature of what is dependently arisen, Parikalpita, the imaginary nature that is added onto the dependently arisen, and Parinishpana, the nature of the awareness that no longer rejects, participates in or ignores what is dependently arisen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jYdBn52uGU&t=39s