This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Well, it's always nice for me to give a talk at Green Gulch. I lived there a long time. And whenever I walk into the Zen door at Green Gulch... I have a feeling of great familiarity. I feel like, oh, I'm home. And I go to the altar and I look up at the great statue of Manjushri and Manjushri looks down at me, always smiling at me, and I feel happy. On Zoom, I don't have that experience, but nevertheless, it's good to be here with all of you this morning.

[01:02]

So today I'm speaking in the context of the three-week intensive that Kathy and I are doing in the City Center. And so I guess that some of you are participants in that intensive, and some of you are not. It's just the Sunday Green Gulch public talk. During the intensive, which is three weeks long, it started, I think, this week. This is the first weekend of it. We're going to be giving Kathy and I Dharma talks at City Center in Green Gulch on the weekends. And yesterday, Kathy gave a really great talk on the text that we're using for our intensive, Shobo Genzo Zui Monkey, which is a collection of informal talks that Dogen gave to his monastics as recorded by his disciple Ejo. And I hope that all of you heard her talk yesterday. If you didn't, go look it up and listen to it.

[02:06]

It was really good. So this morning, I will also talk about Zui Malki. And I'm not worried that if you're, because if you're not in the intensive, I think you'll easily be able to, it doesn't matter, because I think you'll easily be able to appreciate these words of Dogen. for those of you who are in the intensive i'm going to give you the reference just so you know this is the second passage uh beginning i'll do passages two and three from book three and that appears on page 111 of the pdf version that i have and i think everybody in the intensive has So as I'm talking and quoting from the text, you're going to notice that the version that I'm quoting to you is substantially the same, but slightly different translation.

[03:08]

And in fact, I have an updated translation from Shohaku Okamura, who also translated the version you have, but he updated it very recently. And so I'm using that version, slightly different. So now I'm going to quote from the text. One time a nun asked, even women in lay society study the Buddha Dharma. As for us nuns who have left the mundane world, even if we have some faults, that's fault, F-A-U-L-T, even if we have some faults, I feel there is no reason that we, unlike laywomen, are not in accord with the Buddha Dharma. What do you think? And don't get instructed.

[04:11]

No, that's not right. Although there are some laywomen who study the Buddha Dharma and attain it as laypeople, home leavers who lack the mind of home-leaving cannot attain the way. It is not that the Buddha Dharma discriminates among people, but rather that such people do not enter the Buddha Dharma. There must be a difference in the mental attitude between people in laity and home-leavers. Lay people who have the mind of home-leaving can be released from samsara. On the other hand, if home leavers have the mind of laity, they double their faults. Their mental attitudes should be quite different. It's not that becoming a home leaver is difficult to do. However, to do so completely is difficult. It seems that everyone seeks a practice to be released from samsara and attain the way, but those who completely accomplish it

[05:21]

are difficult to find. Life and death is the great matter. Impermanence is swift. Do not let your mind slacken. If you renounce the world, you should truly renounce it. I think the provisional names of home leaver and layperson are not at all important. Excuse me, Norman? Sorry. We're having some issues. Some people are having a can't hear you. I'm wondering if you could try to move your mic a little bit closer. I'll sit up closer to the mic. That's terrible. I'm sorry. Is this better now? Can anybody who's having difficulty chat me? Maybe just if you could actually move the mic clip a little bit closer or you're using an external mic. I'm using an external mic and it turns up all the way and I'm as close to it as I can be. Okay, great, let's try that. Thank you.

[06:22]

Yeah, I'm not going to go and read that over again. That's a recording mic. It has nothing to do with the sound, yeah. Kathy's giving me advice from this side. So, sorry if you didn't hear all that, but maybe in my making comments on it, it'll be clear what I'm saying. And I hope the sound is better now. Maybe I'll make a bigger effort to make a bigger voice. Am I okay with everybody? Yeah, I see some faces on the screen that are saying okay. Sounds good, Norman. Okay, good. Thank you. Thanks for letting me know. So anyway, you can look up that passage if it's unclear. But... It's very clear, the passage, when you read it, if you heard it, there's nothing mysterious about it or complicated about it. Zui Monki is a much more straightforward text than the Shobogenzo.

[07:26]

And you don't require a commentary to understand what Dogen is saying. Now, since the Zui Monki is mostly advice that he was giving directly to his monastic disciples, when you read the text you may have the impression that Dogen means that you need to be a monastic in order to practice, really, truly practice. And here he's saying very clearly, no, you don't. But in another way, he's also saying, actually, yes, you do. And here's what I mean. The nun is asking, in effect, Well, aren't we, as nuns, ahead of laywomen in the practice of the way? Laywomen are not perfect. We're not perfect. But since we've renounced the world, we're in accord with the Dharma anyway, aren't we? So first, notice that it is completely unremarkable that the questioner here is a woman, and she's asking about the practice of women.

[08:40]

It's totally unremarkable, which tells you that Dogen did practice regularly with women and considered women as equal to men in all ways in the practice. And we know that this is true from other of his writings, and that's in a way kind of remarkable for that to be the case in the year 1235 or whatever year it was. But this nun is maybe a little bit arrogant about being a nun, which is why Dogen is pretty blunt with her. He says, no, that's not right. Your being a nun doesn't entitle you to a free pass. He says it's not that hard to leave home and become a nun. They feed you every day. Plus, you escape the suffering of being a wife and a mother, which I think in those days was a lot of suffering. And even worse suffering would be to be a single woman, an unprotected single woman.

[09:46]

So actually, you're better off being a nun. Now these days, it's much more difficult to be a monastic than it was then. Because we have a lot more to give up. But in Dogen's day, probably as he says... Being a monastic was one of the things that a person could easily do. There was tons of social support for it. There were monasteries all over the place. And it was something that a lot of people did. It's hard for us to think about that now, when it's very rare to be a monastic. But in those days, there was tons of support for monasticism. So it's much harder for us, actually, to be monastics than it was... for people in those days. But anyway, he's saying to her, in effect, yes, yes, in a way, in order to effectively and thoroughly practice, you do have to be a monastic, but not in the sense that you have to leave home and renounce the world, rather in the sense that you have to be completely and utterly dedicated to Dharma.

[10:57]

Because really, the word monastic means dedicated completely to one thing. And if you're a lay person who occupies many roles and does many things, but conceives of yourself as using everything you do and approaching everything you do with a Dharma heart as Dharma practice, then yes, for sure, this makes you a monastic, an inner monastic. And as such, you will for sure realize the way. On the other hand, he's saying to her, if you live in a monastery and gave up lay life, but are not in this way dedicated, then you're worse off. Because now you have a double problem. First of all, you won't realize the way. And second of all, you have failed to be true to a commitment that you have supposedly made.

[12:00]

So in this case, For practice, it's better to be a layperson who has not made such a commitment explicitly. I think it was Dongshan or someone who said, the worst thing of all is to wear the patch robe and not accord with the way. So now I'm reading another... passage. This is the one that follows right after that one. And now these are Dogen's words. Among the laity, I see that people who have good fortune and have enabled their families to prosper are all honest and work for the benefit of others. Therefore, they are able to maintain their family prosperity and their descendants will not die out in later generations. Even if those who are dishonest, or those who harm others, seem to temporarily receive good fortune and are able to maintain their livelihood for a while, in the end, their prosperity will decline.

[13:15]

Even if such people seem to spend their lives without trouble, their descendants will not necessarily be fortunate. Now, I find this really astonishing. what Dogen is saying here. He seems to completely believe that when you do good as a lay person, or not, I guess, when you do good, you will receive benefits. And when you don't do good, you will not. Even if you seem to do well with your cheating and lying, or maybe not cheating and lying, but just sort of mildly shaky moral conduct. It will not last. Your descendants will suffer for it later. Now, in our days, we certainly do not have this kind of moral confidence. And that's too bad.

[14:17]

I mean, we look around and we see all the time evil politicians and other crooks who seem to get away with stuff. They're never brought to justice. They have high-priced lawyers. They don't need to worry about it. And on the other hand, every day we see really good people who are suffering at no fault of their own. Now, do you think this wasn't also the case in Dogen's time? Of course it was. And yet, Dogen firmly believed That good will always lead to good and evil will always lead to evil. Or if evil seems like an extreme word to you, then maybe bad conduct or unwholesome conduct. So Dogen had a very strong faith in karma. And Dogen thought that such faith was absolutely essential for practitioners of the way to have.

[15:25]

And I'll tell you the truth. I share that faith. I really believe it. And I believe that you will feel it too, if you already don't, if you keep on practicing. To me, it seems so important that we have a moral compass to live by, on which we can unshakably rely. This allows us to always know the difference between right and wrong, proper and improper conduct, and to have faith that doing the right thing is always the best thing to do no matter what. Even if doing something crooked or a little tricky seems practical and seems to help you to advance your own life goals, Or defeat the bad guys. And so you do it.

[16:29]

Actually, it really doesn't ever work out in the end. And I think that right now, since our culture does not have this strong moral sense, we're suffering. And we're a little lost. I think we feel like we don't know what we're doing. And I think that's one reason why we are looking back here in America with such nostalgia to the good old days of the civil rights movement when people really did have that moral sense and they were willing to literally stake their lives on it. And they believed in the power of goodness to overcome everything. Now, back to Dogen's words, he's continuing here. Furthermore, when we do good for others, if we do so because of our desire to be well thought of, or to ingratiate ourselves with others, even though this is better than doing harmful things, such actions are not truly for the benefit of others because we are still thinking of the benefit to ourselves.

[17:51]

If we do helpful things for others, although they do not, Notice, we do beneficial things for future generations without considering whom our acts may benefit, or if we do beneficial things for future generations without considering whom our acts may benefit, we are truly doing good things for others. So now he's going into this a little more. So it's not just a matter of good or bad actions. It's a matter of the mind... and heart with which you do those actions. It's always better to do good stuff than bad stuff, but if you do good so that others will think highly of you, or maybe others will be obligated to you because of how good you've been to them, then it doesn't really count as doing good for others. The whole point of Dharma

[18:54]

is to see through the narrow view of self, which, let's be honest, is so pervasive. There is no bigger tyrant anywhere than self. So to do good in a self-aggrandizing way is no good. And usually, when you do good like that, people see through it, even though you might think they don't. They will see that you are talking good and looking good, but you aren't really. They will see that you are really out for your own self-interest. Furthermore, in lay life, if you do good and hope for the benefit for your descendants, that's why I'm doing good, so that my children will prosper, which was something we still care about, but... in medieval Japan they really cared about, well, that's just a different form of selfishness.

[20:03]

In Dharma practice, we want to do good with faith that there will be benefit, but not for ourselves, and not for our descendants or friends or group members, but general good, offered freely to all. That's the Dharma path. So back to Dogen's words. Needless to say, we patch-robed monks should maintain a mind beyond even this attitude. We should have compassion for all living beings without making distinctions based on degree of intimacy and maintain an attitude of saving all beings equally. We should never think of our own personal profit in terms of benefit in either the mundane or the transcendent world. Even if we are neither known nor appreciated by others, we should simply perform beneficial actions for others in accord with our own heart and not let others know that we have such a heart.

[21:08]

So now he's saying that, well, what I've said so far applies to everyone and to anyone. To do good for everyone unselfishly is the best and easiest way to live for anyone, whether you're a Dharma practitioner or not, because this is really how things work. This is really how life goes. And I really believe that, and I think Dogen does too. But here now, he's going beyond this, and he's saying, specifically, if you are a monastic, if your intention is to practice Buddha Dharma, And remember here, he doesn't just mean people living in monasteries. He means anyone who has that intention. So if an ordinary person should do good unselfishly, how much more so should this be true for a Dharma practitioner? It's our job, even if we have children and spouses and belong to various identity groups that we care about, to be compassionate to everyone.

[22:19]

and to really care about everyone without favoring anyone. Now, of course, we know that we have special obligations to care for those closest to us. Obviously, we wouldn't take care of somebody we just met yesterday the same way we would take care of our own children. But in our hearts, it's our firm intention never to exclude anyone. And never to protect those close to us at the expense of others. Never to defend our own and attack others. No, we cannot do that. Even if we don't like the others. Even if we feel like the others are a threat. Even if we think they're corrupt and nasty and so on. Still, we cannot ever close our heart to them. We cannot dig a moat around our compassion and keep some out.

[23:27]

Not only should we not look for material gain, we also shouldn't look for material gain. Shohaku here translates transcendent gain. We shouldn't do good to advance our spiritual understanding or our spiritual position. We should just do it to do it. out of love for others. We should strengthen our heart by doing good, and we should not make a big deal on it and let everybody know how good we are. We shouldn't advertise, and we shouldn't even let anybody know about it. We should just do it. Dogen goes on. The ancient practice of keeping this attitude is, first of all, renouncing the world and casting aside the self. Only if we have truly thrown away the self will we have no desire to be well thought of by others. And I hear he's acknowledging what a tall order this really is.

[24:30]

Who among us could say we've thrown away the self and we never have a thought of self-interest? Of course we do. We all have to admit That we are not yet perfectly capable of always doing good without expecting anything for it. But that's perfectly okay. Because we know we're on the path. That's how we are now. Nevertheless, we should never give up aspiring to do good unselfishly in the future. Yes, we have not yet cast the self aside. And doesn't it seem really scary to do that? When you hear the phrase, doesn't it just creep you out a little bit? Because if you were to cast the self aside, you would have to believe that others in the world will always take care of you.

[25:38]

That you don't have to worry about yourself. And that... if others in the world didn't take care of you and bad things would happen to you, that would also be perfectly all right with you. So that's scary. It's a tall order. It does take a lot of faith. But that's what we're working on. That's the process of our practice, to develop that strength of faith. So we don't give up. We don't justify our natural selfishness. We admit it. We see it. But we don't justify it and we don't get stuck there. We go on with our practice. He then says, however, if we think, I don't care about what others think, because he's just said, you know, don't worry about whether others give you credit for it. If we say, I don't care about what others think and we act unwholesomely or become self-indulgent, we instead go against the will of the Buddha. So it might seem like so far he's saying, do good, don't worry about what anyone thinks, don't do it to make yourself look good.

[26:49]

So it sounds like he's saying, well, then don't even pay any attention to what other people think. But no, of course we care what other people think. We want people to be happy, not unhappy, even though most of the time we have no control over that. And certainly we don't want to be, you know, cowboys who do what they feel like doing when they feel like doing it, no matter what anybody thinks. No, we don't want to be like that either. No, we want to be sensitive to other people. We want to follow precepts, which are expressions of the selfless, liberated life. We do not want to follow our own opinions and inclinations which we realize are most of the time based on very stupid unconscious assumptions and cause us suffering.

[27:53]

No, we don't want to do that. Dogen again. We should simply perform wholesome actions and do beneficial things for others. We should not think about the return or expect to gain a good reputation. We should do things truly knowing there is nothing to be gained and work for the sake of benefiting others. This is the primary point to bear in mind in order to achieve release from our ego clinging. To maintain this mind of no desire for gain, we must first of all be mindful of impermanence. One's lifetime is like a dream. Time passes swiftly. our Jew-like lives will disappear even before the dawn. While we are alive for this short time, we must resolve to perform beneficial actions for others and follow the will of the Buddha.

[28:55]

So we come back, as we always do, as Dogen did in the previous passage I read for you, to impermanence, which Nobody can deny. You don't have to be a Buddhist to know that impermanence is a very true fact of life. Our human life is radically contingent. And that's why being selfish and willful is such a bad way to live. Even if it seems to make sense to us. Or even if it feels good. It doesn't make sense. And it's not good. Because the assumption behind this selfish, self-willful attitude is that we are somehow invulnerable and somehow that our narrow-minded, stupid point of view is better than anybody else's.

[30:00]

We're right, they're wrong, and so on. This is a totally crazy idea. And it's guaranteed that If we live by that idea, life is eventually going to do us in. A footnote here, an aside. I don't know if it struck you that in this passage, as well as in the previous one, in this translation anyway, Shohaku uses the phrase, the will of the Buddha. Did you notice that? You will not be in accord with the will of the Buddha. And it's probably... echoes the Judeo-Christian phrase, the will of God, which is a very common phrase in Judaism and Christianity. So I don't think we should be too literal about this phrase. I don't know the original Japanese, so I can't look this up and tell you exactly what's implied. But I know that it doesn't mean that we're supposed to be appeasing the Buddha and doing what the Buddha wants us to do.

[31:07]

That's not, I think, what it means. I think it means that we be in accord with the teachings. And the teachings are not, you know, the Buddha's will. The teachings are the way that life goes, the way that reality unfolds. We want to be in accord with, rather than resistant to, the way reality unfolds. So, to conclude, What a simple teaching. Totally simple-minded, right? Not complicated philosophically as so many of Dogen's teachings are. What could be simpler than do good for its own sake? Don't be self-centered. Don't be self-protective. Of all the... abstruse and fabulous and interesting teachings of Buddha Dharma that I've studied over the years. To me, this is the best one.

[32:08]

And I have cherished it. And it has been such an enormous benefit to my life. It seems totally true. It's so simple, you know. Just try to be kind to others. When you find yourself being defensive, cut it out. When you find yourself obsessed with your own advantage and your own humiliation or whatever, forget about it. Trust others and the world to take care of you. And the world will. I know how hard this is to believe. And I'm not saying that we should be stupid and impractical people. Of course we should do what we need to do to get by in this world. But I am sure that we can live perfectly well in this world the way it is now without pulling and hauling and clawing our way through.

[33:13]

Maybe you do have to pull and haul and claw your way through if you want to reach the top and be really successful. But you don't have to reach the top and be really successful. All you have to do is live and die. Anyway, in other places in the Zubimokhi, Dogen says very explicitly, it's bad to be too successful. It's bad to have a lot of money. Because being a big success and having people think you're great and having lots of money doesn't really help. It only reinforces exactly that which oppresses you. These things are not the point of our having been born in this human life.

[34:15]

And aiming for them and insisting on them might just distort our whole point of view. So that's what I wanted to tell you today. I really love this. passage in Dogen, I hope you can appreciate it too. Think about it. Think about it. So thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[35:14]

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