Not two, not one - Suzuki Roshi / You and I are the same thing... (MERGED THREADS)

[Tomás ESP]

"Not two, not one. This is the most important teaching. Not two and not one. Our body and mind is not two and not one. If you think our body and mind is two that is wrong. If you think your mind and body is one that is also wrong. Because our mind and body is two and one."

Here is the full Dharma talk: https://suzukiroshi.sfzc.org/dharma-...august-8-1965/

Gassho, Tomás
Sat

[Kotei]

Thank you Tomas, I enjoyed reading.
To me, practice is a lot about experiencing this "Not two, not one" - "There is Other, there is not." non-duality.

"To take this posture itself is our purpose or practice. It is not some means of obtaining some special state of mind. When you have this posture you have right state of mind. So there is no need to obtain some special state of mind. This point is also very important.
When you try to attain something your mind starts to wandering about somewhere else. If you try to attain your mind will start to wander and your mind isn’t here."

Gassho,
Kotei sat/lah today.

[Ryumon]

You and I are the same thing...

Although you and I are the same thing, I'm not you and you're not me. And both of those facts exist simultaneously.

John Daido Loori


(This is from a koan talk, Minister Peixiu Sees a Portrait.)

Gassho,

Ryūmon

sat

[Jundo]

I shall merge this with the other thread. The two threads are not two not one ...

Not two, not one - Suzuki Roshi

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?18839-Not-two-not-one-Suzuki-Roshi

Gassho, Jundo (not two not one with Kirk and Tomas)

STLah

[Kokuu]

Although you and I are the same thing

Old, bald and far too handsome for our own good?

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Doshin]

With all respect intended. When this topic arises my mind always drifts to the song “I am the Walrus”. Now I can’t get it of my head again.

Doshin
St

[Tom A.]

What’s confusing about this to me is that we don’t practice to experience something because to say there are two experiences (one deluded and then one enlightened) just divides the self even more and gives lie to the wholeness and completeness already here and yet if we don’t experience something that also seems wrong. Where is my confusion? Is this a koan or am I thinking too much? Maybe this is a good time for the Buddha mountain metaphor.

Gassho,
Tom

SatLah

[Ryumon]

What’s confusing about this to me is that we don’t practice to experience something because to say there are two experiences (one deluded and then one enlightened) just divides the self even more and gives lie to the wholeness and completeness already here and yet if we don’t experience something that also seems wrong. Where is my confusion? Is this a koan or am I thinking too much? Maybe this is a good time for the Buddha mountain metaphor.

Think of it as there being only one experience, but the deluded one has a veil over it that alters it. Removing that veil is enlightenment.

Gassho,

Ryūmon

sat

[Seibu]

What’s confusing about this to me is that we don’t practice to experience something because to say there are two experiences (one deluded and then one enlightened) just divides the self even more and gives lie to the wholeness and completeness already here and yet if we don’t experience something that also seems wrong. Where is my confusion? Is this a koan or am I thinking too much? Maybe this is a good time for the Buddha mountain metaphor.

Gassho,
Tom

SatLah

It seems to me that the division you mention is based on the idea that there are two experiences. Perhaps the deluded experience isn't an experience but a way to perceive one and the same experience. Just as Uchiyama says that we are living out our life whether we realize it or not.

Gassho,
Seibu
Sattoday

[Tom A.]

Thank you both

Maybe this is what Dogen means when he says “to carry yourself forward and experience the many things is delusion. That the many things come forth and experience the self is awakening.”

Does this mean to divide the world into delusion and then enlightenment is delusive thinking, and to let the veil drop away on its own is awakening? Or in other words to think you are deluded and then enlightened at some future state that you’ll never arrive at because you keep dividing the world is the wrong way to go about it, let the wholeness and completeness that is already here drop the veil?

Gassho,
Tom

SatLah

[Kokuu]

Hi Tom

I don't think that to divide the world is delusion exactly, as we can see that the world is comprised of different people and things. As Daido Loori Roshi says, "Although you and I are the same thing, I'm not you and you're not me."

The delusion, for me, is when we buy into this divided world completely and don't see the flipside that all of those things that appear to be separate are part of one luminous whole that can never be divided.

As Daido Loori goes on to say: "both of those facts exist simultaneously".

So, depending on whether we look at the separateness or the wholeness, both are happening at once just as, in the age-old metaphor, each wave on the ocean is a wave and part of the whole ocean and each leaf on a tree is a separate leaf but part of thr whole tree.

To say we are one (not separate) is only part of the story, and to say we are two (separate) is also only part of the story. So, we say, not one, not two! To be caught up in ideas of emptiness is as bad, if not worse, that to be caught up of ideas of separateness.

In the end you are both Tom and the whole universe. Admittedly that takes some getting your head around and mostly I prefer just to have some tea and watch the squirrels!

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/watchedsomesquirrels-

[Tom A.]

Thank you Kokuu. The way you put it makes a lot of sense to me.

It makes sense because we need to divide between the self and everything else, in other words: boundaries, to stay safe, keep others safe, be autonomous and emotionally healthy and to function in the world, to help make the world a better place, the 2nd rule of Shikantaza. I thought about all the "Zen masters" (as well as leaders in other religious traditions) who did unspeakable abuses and how what they were practicing was NOT really Shikantaza because Jundo told me (or implied) that Shikantaza is not Shikantaza without leaving the world a better place. I am NOT judging them because I am human too and prone to terrible mistakes (to paraphrase Master Nishijima about the present moment and wise action: it is a miracle when the pearl stays balanced on the blade and doesn't fall off to the left or the right). I will say that maybe we sometimes make mistakes because we didn't form enough boundaries.

Gassho,
Tom

SatLah