Talk Notes:
Now we come to what many find the most interesting part of the Sandokai:
- 當明中有暗 In the light there is darkness,
- 勿以暗相遇 but don't take it as darkness;
- 當暗中有明 In the dark there is light,
- 勿以明相睹 but don't see it as light.
- 明暗各相對 Light and dark oppose one another
- 比如前後歩 like the front and back foot in walking.
How ancient and universal is it for humans to think about the light and the dark. And to have those experiences and ideal wired into us in all kinds of metaphorical ways too.
A core teaching in all of Zen is to watch out for the ways that dualisms, opposites, can blind us and limit us. That the root of freedom is not getting stuck in different kinds of oppositions.
To see how interpenetrated they are which this passage emphasizes so strongly and also how dependent on each other they are. And if they are dependent on each other than neither one has any kind of independent existence so there's are beloved emptiness again - the kind of universal solvent for getting unstuck in Mahayana Buddhism: the odd sounding term "emptiness."
In the first line "In the light there is darkness" actually has the Chinese character for "middle" or "central" right in the middle of that line. The English misses something here. The darkness isn't hiding in some corner of the light as a kind of secondary quality, it's right in the middle of it, interwoven through it.
How do we practice with this?
Our conditioned minds tend to desire just the light. We want to be happy. Energized. Excited. Connected. Fired up.
And we start to see that it's okay that right in the center of happiness is sadness. In the center of connection is the inevitability of disconnection. That that isn't the "oh shit" moment, it's always there. Can we learn to completely open to that.
But not get lost in it. Not get lost in fear of the darkness when turning towards the light.
勿以暗相遇 but don't take it as darkness
The verb that's translated as "take it" can also gives us something more like "don't meet it through the lens of darkness". See light for itself, not as the opposite of darkness.
If we think light is a special something separate or different from dark we're grasping for the light. Reaching for the light. The Zen masters are encourage us to relax. Let light and dark swirl through us. Light interlocked fingers not fists opposing each other.
Same thing happens with the next two lines:
當暗中有明 In the dark there is light,
Again the character for middle - chū in Sino-Japanese - is right in the middle of the line. Light is interpenetrated into the darkness. It's just an idea, a trick of consciousness, that light and dark are separate.
That makes me think of a famous quote from Albert Einstein of all people:
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Separateness and unity are just like this discussion of light and dark. And that brings us back to the title of the piece, doesn't it? The merging of difference and unity.
A confusion for our brains is it sounds like something we're supposed to do. How do I merge difference and unity in my life?
But actually the teachings here are pointing out they were merged to begin with. And as usual language isn't quite accurate. Merged but not one is maybe closer.
Our conceptual minds think well light is one thing and dark is another thing. I am one person, you are another person. And we're learning that they are actually two different things that are merged. Sometimes the odd phrase non-different or not-two is used and you can see why. It's not one - totally separate; it's not two - totally merged; so it's not-two.
Can you feel into this with your heart instead of your head?
When they talk about "understanding" in Buddhism (The teachers are often saying "Do you understand?" - they mean something more like that and less like "ah ha! I get it now." Although teaching in a 2nd language sometimes I think they actually just were asking if the students understood their English or not and in the early days of putting Asian teachers so high on the pedestals that all sounded like a very mystical question. I experienced that myself once in Mexico. I wrote out the opening of a talk in Spanish. My vocabulary is small but I'm good enough with pronunciation and basic grammer so it just seemed polite to say something in Spanish even though I needed a translator to really explore the Dharma with them. So I read my Spanish language opening and didn't have total confidence it had made sense so I looked up and asked, "Ustedes entienden?" Do you understand? And was suddenly like, DANG just like the great teachers of old and maybe it was a pretty simple question after all! These Asian teachers just weren't sure if their English made sense.)
Anyway then we close this 4-line exploration of the non-duality of light and dark: 2. 勿以明相睹 but don't see it as light. Here Shitou did use the verb for "to see." In the dark room it can be what we really desire right? I can't see, so I want some light. So don't get hooked on the desire for light in the darkness.
And now our conceptual brains are a bit confused so he breaks out a really great metaphor to talk about the relationship between opposites, between dark and light as our example here:
- 明暗各相對 Light and dark oppose one another
- 比如前後歩 like the front and back foot in walking.
I love this metaphor because of how active it is. The feet are in motion. You can see each foot as it's own foot - the right foot is the right foot not the left foot - and you need them both together for standing and walking. But it's not that two feet are stepping down, one is. And then the other. And you can do the whole thing backwards too. In the Mountains and Waters Sutra essay Dōgen talks about this:
Sansui kyo
Examine walking backward and backward walking, and investigate the fact that walking forward and backward has never stopped since the very moment before form arose, since the time of the King of the Empty Eon.
And I think the rest of the poem is pretty self-explanatory which makes it no less profound and important. Let's work our way through it and then I'm really curious to discuss what darkness and light are for each of us.
