...having it to see and listen... ...remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? Good. I want to start by thanking Hojo-san for inviting me to give the talk this morning and also to maybe apologize. As I consider what to speak about, it's always what's alive for me in my practice at this moment.

[01:03]

I was realizing as I was preparing for this talk and we're studying Dogen and the Mountains and Water Sutra that my mind has been going to Dogen and pulling Dogen quotes from here and there and turning the teachings. So a couple of days I was like, oh, I wonder if I'm watering too far onto the abbot's turf here and bringing up any teachings that it's been keeping for the practice period. So I almost asked in your cabin a couple of days ago when I was like, well, what if he says, yeah, I don't think you should talk about that. What am I going to do then? So I have some faith that this will be complimentary and I'm not copywriting anything, I'm going to say. So some of my thinking has been around themes of... How does practice actually occur?

[02:05]

And what are supportive conditions for us to wake up? And when is the moment to let go? I want to start by sharing a little bit of my own journey by reflecting on my practice in a different school and how it illuminated some of the teachings of our school for me. In 2010, I spent a number of months with a Pure Line Buddhist Sangha in Europe, based both in England and France. And I left Zen Center the year before. I'd been at Zen Center for about three years. Left, was trying to come back. I had a lot of visa issues at that time. It was religious worker visas that were difficult. So... I had a call to come back here and ordain as a priest, and it didn't seem like the universe was cooperating.

[03:08]

And after about a year of being away or so, it seemed like that door might open again. I wanted to go into a residential sangha, actually just to confirm this was what I wanted to do. And it wasn't that I was drawn to Pure Land particularly, but a friend had... gone to practice there a few months before and recommended it, and they had some emphasis on social engagement. I don't remember there being many moments of silent meditation practice there, as the primary practice was the chanting of the Nanbutu, reciting Namo Amida Bu, I take refuge in Amida Buddha. So Pure Land Buddhists, generally, part of their philosophy is around this belief that, which is not exclusive to Pure Land Buddhists by any means, but that we're now living in the age of spiritual decline and mappo, where there's just so much confusion all around.

[04:22]

It's a little too hard to practice the way people at the Buddha's time when it was quite easy to wake up. So what one needs to do is to rely on the grace of the Amida Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light, to bring one to the Pure Land, which is a place where conditions for practice are more favorable than right here. So people take that literally to be reborn in the Pure Land after we die, or more figuratively, that's by chanting and reciting the number so you bring your mind to state a piece where conditions are more favorable for practice engaging in whatever we're doing from a place of practice so just to step back a little bit and put

[05:25]

these teachings in some historical context. As Hojo-san was mentioning in class, Dogen lived at a time when Tendai was the predominant school in Japan, although it was starting to lose some influence. And some of the characteristics of Tendai is that it's a comprehensive and scholarly approach somehow. when Buddhism was coming from India and all the texts were being brought to China and there was hundreds and hundreds of years of Buddhist texts being brought during a period of decades and some of these teachings being contradictory, this Tiantai, which is a Chinese name for Tiantai scholars, organized them systematically so there would be this sort of would all fit together these were all buddha's teachings and as long as the lotus sutra came out on top that was that was sort of one of the organizing principles so they had a similar eclectic approach to practice where there's a lot of different practices that were emphasized and one of the movements during the time of Dogen was this of going to

[06:55]

selective practice, making one practice one's primary practice. The Japanese name says senshaku is for selecting one practice. So for Honan, who was the founder of the Jodoshu, the Pure Land School in Japan, it was chanting the nonbutsu. For Dogen, it was msasen. And for Nichiren, it was reciting the name of the Lotus Sutra. So they were all kind of simplifying things in some ways. And as these new schools were coming, arising, there were some, I don't know, kind of bickering or distinguishing oneself in relation to the others that were going on, definitely. And including our Japanese founder, Dogen, who was quite critical of the Pure Lands school and saying in the Bendowa,

[07:56]

You do not understand the merit that one gets by practicing sitra chanting, Buddha mindfulness, and the like, do you? To think that simply flapping the tongue and raising one's voice is a meritorious Buddhist act is utter fantasy. As an approximation of the Buddha Dharma, it is far off the mark and headed in the wrong direction. As for opening the sitra books, if you clearly understand what the Buddha taught about the procedures of sudden and gradual practice, if you practice in accordance with those teachings you will certainly attain realization to voice words incessantly like frogs who croak day and night in the paddy fields in spring is also without benefit so you can see that having been thoroughly offended by our ancestor who i think we should be a little embarrassed about um it's a little wonder that pureland buddhists may want to criticize our tradition, our practice as well, which is part of what I found living there.

[09:01]

And one of the main ways in which they do so is to distinguish between self-power practices and other power practices. Jiriki is self-power and Tariki is other power. So San then was considered a self-power approach. It's our own great effort, discipline, and rigor that's driving our practice, and Pure Land being an other power approach, where it's surrendering to the grace of Amida Buddha to support one's practice. And so self-power was deemed arrogant. It's sort of a, I'm going to pull myself up by my own bootstraps, and the lonely hero practice. The story of Bodhidharma falling asleep repeatedly and sitting and cutting his eyelids off in order to stay awake is one they liked criticizing.

[10:13]

Sort of representing our school. I did spend a few years before that, a short period of time in a Zen Buddhist center, the Bodhisendo in southern India. And these two men there who had done some practice in Japan and they were each talking about how much snow there was blowing in the window and walking on that cold floor and so forth and all these, how hard it was. And I asked the partner, one of them, did you practice in Japan as well? Or have you practiced Zen before?" And she said, yeah, but not this boy's Zen. I could recognize that danger of the sort of machismo attitude of Zen practice and maybe the arrogance as well.

[11:17]

But the argument that I think really resonated with me was that to focus on one's individual effort and striving as a ways to awaken can easily become counterproductive. It seems like there's a real trap there that if the goal of our practice is to lessen our attachment to self, and then why would you put that sort of teeth grinding self in the driver's seat? And if it's... Our practice is to study the Self. The practice of studying the Self is to forget the Self. How can this happen if we're relying on that Self to bring us to where we think we want to go? That's the blind leading the blind. My deluded mind cannot lead me out of my delusions. So as Zen was being criticized and I was becoming very clear while I was spending time there that I really wanted to be back at Zen Center ordaining as a priest, that was my call.

[12:35]

So I had to find some way to meet this criticism, not necessarily engage in argument, but just the arguments that landed on me just to reconcile them for myself in some way. And so either I could have been defending the self-power approach to practice, or I could reject the premise that Zen practice was an inherently self-power-driven practice, which has seemed the natural way to go, as it seemed like the Zen practice they were criticized was a straw man's kind of Zen. What I found surprisingly easily was just how many of these other power elements there are all over our practice, the teachings and our liturgy.

[13:38]

By other power meaning this invitation for support in one's practice from mysterious sources, the opening up to it's not just me who's going to make something happened here just a expression of devotion that's just to see how much of that is actually in our Zen tradition and how I had not I just sort of selectively looked past it because I was not interested in that religious stuff so just I think the first place my mind went was the Ehi Koso Hotsu Ganmon as we say although our past evil karma has greatly accumulated indeed being the cause and condition of obstacles and practicing the way so it's just this knowledge meant already that it's our karma that's creating obstacles and it's not whatever is bothering us it's it's our karma and the way to deal with the obstacles needs to include acknowledging our karmic conditioning and how the way we're looking at

[14:56]

and what's in front of us is fraught. May all Buddhas and ancestors who have attained the Buddha way be compassionate to us and free us from karmic effects, allowing us to practice the way without hindrance. May they share with us their compassion which fills the boundless universe with the virtue of their enlightenment and teachings. Dogen has this mind-expanding take on time where the old Buddhas are awesomely and actively doing Buddha work right here and right now and able to share their compassion with us. And so we depend on them for support, according to these teachings, or at least we could use maybe a little help.

[16:01]

And so this is where it gets kind of incomprehensible for a mind. race and a materialistic and scientific worldview. And so it's easy to just drop this part of our teachings and focus on what's less mysterious or religious in some ways. Which is what I had been doing up until then. But since our teachings include this element, turning towards something mysterious, whether calling it Buddha or Buddha nature or whatever you want to call it. And our teachings are also cautioning us to not go about designing our own ideas about enlightenment and the path of getting there. Then how do we relate to this part of our tradition?

[17:05]

and what might these teachings have to offer us. Mostly I just want to encourage, sort of highlight that they're there and encourage us to look at them and to see how they resonate when we do chant them. And so for Dogen, he calls both of our, on our lineage of Buddhas and ancestors, there's the... great bodhisattvas, and really the whole world around us in supporting us for our awakening. Grasses, trees, walls, tiles, and pebbles, all teaching the Dharma. This is our school. And so what would it be like to practice if we were actually supported in that way? Imagine ourselves being supported in these ways. It's not so much that we should to wrap our heads around that, but just to simply just bow down and embody the admission that we can't do it all by ourselves.

[18:19]

And there's some things we don't quite know how they work, and maybe there's a chance that there's some specks of wisdom and compassion that might just come flowing in through the back door if we leave it open. Hagen-Dan Leighton, who I had the opportunity to practice with for a number of months a few years ago, has this to say about Dogen Sassen and other power practice. It says, Dogen Sassen, without gaining ideas or reliance on self-power, remains available, but the first generations of American Zen practitioners probably still lack full appreciation of the devotional depth of Buddhist practice. This is due in part to the influence of some Western psychotherapeutic orientations that promote ideals of mere self-improvement.

[19:21]

Consumerist conditioning has also led practitioners to seek to acquire dramatic meditative experiences as products. He goes on to say, it may well be that American Buddhism will not become fulfilled until the value of other power is recognized. So going back to the rather offensive statement Dogen made about the pure land practice, frogs croaking, there's a more generous, a little more generous reading of it. It doesn't let him off the hook, but it seems like part of what he might have been upset about Part of my evidence of studying to Dogen was not so much the chanting per se, but rather this sort of calculated effort of if I'm chanting these many nambutsus, I'm going to attain this merit and so forth.

[20:34]

It's like this practice becomes around gaining merit to get to some better place. I think that's what's hard for him to stand. There's some similarities, as I've been trying to point out, between Dogen's approach to practice and that of the Pure Land founders in terms of this reliance on other power. And I think there's a major difference here in what's possible in our practice, actually. Dogen was not, as I understand it, a believer in this... age of this being the age of decline being too hard to practice right now and we've just got to try to get ourselves to a better place in the next life he was pretty optimistic in these ways and just after the for example after the passage in the day that I quoted he quotes the Chan master

[21:41]

Before Buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we. Enlightened people of today are exactly as those of old. And the Shubha Gansen Svemonki says, When we practice following the teaching, all of us should be able to attain the way. Each and every human being has the possibility to clarify the Dharma. Do not think that you are not a vessel. When we practice in accordance with the Dharma, all of us should be able to attain the way. So maybe what he really was upset about was that the schools of Buddhism had just given up on enlightenment altogether, or at least in the conceivable future. And just setting on, you know, the best we can do is generate merit for a more advantageous rebirth or advantageous conditions. So I just wanted to up

[22:45]

Uplift Dogen's Dharma. It's a very uplifting dharma in this way. I don't always read it in that way, but it's, again, this, and we'll get into this in the practice period, just that mountains and waters are teaching the sutra, and all, the entire earth is teaching to us constantly, including those croaking frogs, right? They are teaching the dharma for us as well. As for my own experience with the Pure Land practice of chanting the Nembutsu, I try to embrace it, which included a suggestion of the teacher I drop my Zazen practice for the time to make that my primary practice while I was in the community when in Rome.

[23:59]

After a month or so, I was so irritated with each and everything that I was ready to leave. As I'm on my way out, I was trying to apply for jobs and figure out the next step. I'll start sitting zazen again. So I'd get up half an hour earlier in the morning and I'd sit before we had the morning service. And then it changed my whole experience. All of a sudden, the practice chanting was accessible to me, and I felt that there was a sort of a resonance in my body with this. It felt like my chest opening up, and I was finding a voice I hadn't found before. And for someone who's struggled to find his voice for most of his life, it was a powerful and empowering practice for me. And as the Sangha there was going through several different crises at the same time, I was finding my own clarity about my own path and that I really wanted to be back in Zen Center and ordain as a priest.

[25:18]

And I wasn't willing to say that this was the work of a cosmic Buddha getting me there but I think what I can say from my own experiences was that when I let go and which I think I needed half an hour of Zasana to sort of relax and let go in some way that something something did happen which was not in my control so as In the beginning of the Vandawat, Dogen says that although this dharma is abundantly inherent in each person, it is not manifested without practice, it is not attained without realization. When you let go, the dharma fills your hand. And so the question that I'm turning for myself is, how do I let go?

[26:25]

When do I let go? If I don't push myself out of bed in the morning when I hear the wake-up bell, if I listen closely enough, is there something pulling me, calling me, wanting to be in here? Is there something that's not just about I should and this is the expectation, but is there some... or as I'm rising out of bed and making that little effort, is there something there who sort of helps to lift me? And then when I get to the cushion, what does letting go look like when I'm there? Dogen, again, Genjo Ko on this time. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point.

[27:33]

When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. Shohaku Okamura's translation says, When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality. When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality. And so it seems like to find one's place where one is does require some amount of discipline and effort. That's my experience. And while that is so practiced, it's actually not something that I do. It's something that occurs under the right conditions. And we have some power in setting up those conditions, such as coming to a Zen monastery for three months, Probably we're all here because we think these are supportive conditions for some kind of awakening.

[28:38]

But we can't control these conditions. This control would be totally incompatible with letting go. So we're neither instructed to have our sense of self drive the meditation once we sit down, nor are we just to drop everything in daydream because it'll still be the same self running the show. So what is it to practice with neither? I am focusing on my breath, my body. I am counting my breaths to drop that eye-driven effort. And then also to not resort to just letting the mind wander in whatever direction it wants to, just our karmic conditioning, reconditioning itself.

[29:44]

What is it to sit without this eye at the center and to be really studying the self by forgetting the self and to be actualized by myriad things? I think some of this might explain why it is that we speak a lot more about getting to the Zen, though, than what we actually should be doing in Zasen. I should do this. It's not so emphasized. This effort of following the schedule completely is actually an expression of... devotion it's it is a practice of surrender and letting go our practice is to show up and to show up even when we're tired we want to sleep and don't feel like being here and even when it seems like the conditions for concentrated practice are far from ideal it's it's a devotional act to still show up

[31:05]

even with those difficulties going on. And then we come here and we take the posture of the Buddha, which is a devotional act in itself. Two final Dogen quotes in this talk. This is from Only a Buddha and a Buddha. He says, What you think one way or another is not a help for realization. If realization came forth by the power of your prior thoughts, it would not be trustworthy. Realization does not depend on thoughts, but come forth far beyond them. Realization is helped only by the power of realization itself. Just set aside your body and mind, forget about them, and throw them into the house of Buddha.

[32:08]

Then all is done by Buddha. Thank you. Are there any questions? Yes. yeah I think thank you for that question yeah the one part that seems like pretty easy you know doesn't take too much contemplating is that it's a whole lot easier to do this schedule with

[33:27]

all of you than by myself, right? So I come in and I bow to my seat and to my neighbors and I turn around and I bow to all of you as an expression of gratitude for that support. The next thing that comes to mind which is a harder one to admit is how we all actually mirror each other and when we have difficulties with each other it's actually We're helping each other to show aspects of ourselves that we've been successful enough with too often to sort of step away and they're rising to the surface under these conditions where we're spending a lot of time in silence, a lot of time in meditation. There's things that we get to see about ourselves that we often don't get to see in most other life situations. So that's another kind of support and power. of our Sangha friends.

[34:29]

But it's harder to stomach sometimes. And we do say right before the servers come in with a pot and trusting ourselves to the Sangha, we invoke. We go into the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas right there. So that's the very thing we do. remind ourselves before we eat, before we nourish ourselves. I think that's really significant. Thank you. That was Elliot first. Yeah.

[36:10]

I think, I don't think we have to believe. That's one of the things I found practicing with this Pure Line Buddhist and sort of as a a non-believer and not a convert and among people who faith was the primary thing and it seemed so I was struck by how vulnerable a position that was because if your practice is based on your own effort in some way there's like you can it feels a little easier to sort of grind through the difficult times or something like this but if it's if you're basis of your practice is faith then when what do you what happens when you that despair when you're not in touch with that presence of of of the other whatever it is right if you can't sort of access that and have those moments of doubt seem so painful places to be so i appreciate that we that kind of faith is not the primary

[37:23]

thing here. And we're actually, you are expressing your faith in this practice by showing up, by your actions in some way, just coming into the Zendo time and time again. That is an expression of devotion. And whether you're feeling it or not, that's that. It makes it, it can help at times, I think. But whatever the yes, this is what I won't, actually I'm choosing to get up at 350 and have these long days and challenging my body in this way because of some yes. So I think that is a kind of devotion to be in touch with that. Joko.

[38:26]

Thank you. I guess what's clear to me, at least, is that arguing about which way is better is not helpful. Back and forth, barbs. When we practice together here, I guess I would like to maybe say something about how, because we're practicing strong man's zen or self-powered zen, then how do we not fall into making this, you know, our songwriter no longer be to it, a competitive sport, you know, when we compare our practice. It seems to be a really dangerous way, something that we can fall into.

[39:41]

Yeah, kind of like those two monks that were bragging about how cold, you know. Yeah. I mean, one practice that comes to mind, which goes back to Chisot's question, I think, is seeing everybody as Buddha. Why would we be competing with the Buddha, right? And I think it's something to look out for when you're like, oh, look at, you know, I've got my oryoki, this person's, you know. all over the place, right? So there's to see, yeah, it would be praising self at the expense of other, yeah.

[40:47]

And that's, I think, can come out of some faith theories. If you feel that this practice is working on us and really have some faith in it, then we have the sense that, oh, I'm, it's easy to get caught in self-improvement, like, I'm becoming a little better than this, so therefore I'm Maybe I'm a little better than you. Yeah. to say that I wanted another cookie or something. Am I letting go to the part of me who is in that moment and in that flow of wanting another cookie?

[41:52]

I can not resist that. Am I letting go of the fact that I'm trying to have rest cookies? You know, this being a metaphor for practice. You mentioned not letting the mind Yeah, it's tricky how to not do, because either one sounds like it's the self that's trying to do something, right? Whether it's A or B, it's still the self. And it's hard not to operate like that. is maybe that has a little more space for exploring it and I don't know what the yeah it's like this sort of trying to think our way out of something and what's the right thing here somehow that gets a little caught in this entangled in the self so recognizing that and

[43:05]

Take a breath and see what happens. Do you have a question? Last one, yeah. Yeah, we're kind of a mix, more Jodo Shin, but little Jodo Shinshu in there too. It was a Western adaptation of Pure Iron Buddhism, yeah. Yeah, I think so.

[44:37]

Raising that compassion. One last question. Thank you. I was just curious. the impression that you do.

[45:47]

I was just wondering, could you say something about that space where those two very different issues and then there, you know, in your Yeah. My understanding, which is limited in this, I think therapy is important for establishing a healthy sense of self. and repairing, doing some repair work in some ways. And then Buddhist practice is more about deconstructing that self.

[46:53]

So sometimes actually you need to have a healthy sense of self before starting the work of untangling it. So I think there are complementary aspects. And they have different goals too, so to not sort of confound that If we're expecting Zen practice to be therapy, we're probably not going to find what we're looking for. But I think the two can go together. And it's not necessarily first therapy and then Buddhist practice, but I think they can go hand in hand. value to both of us, I understand. Does that answer your question? Thank you very much.

[47:56]

May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way.

[48:11]

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