This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Morning, everybody. You heard that? Yeah, everybody? Quality of sound is not too muffled. Yes? Very good. Good. Okay. Pretty great morning this morning, right, on the way to the Zendo? Maybe you remember there was a full moon this morning. Everything bright and glowing. Actually, last night, Kathy and I did

[01:00]

see the eclipse of the moon. Maybe you've noticed that you could begin to see it as we were coming to Zazen. The moon was hiding behind a cloud, but it would peep out every now and then. And if you look closely, there was a kind of a dark smudge on the moon, which was the beginning of the eclipse. And later, when we walked down to the flats, The moon kept peeking out. And then it would go back into hiding again. And then it would pop out again, suddenly, breathtakingly, in this cloudy and shadowed look. Mellow. And otherworldly, like a moon from some other planet. And then later on, there was a bright edge to it.

[02:06]

So with all this, you can really understand why our ancestors thought the moon was a really good image for awakening. So thank you to Cathy for this glimpse. There is no doubt that if left to myself, I would have been too tired and too lazy and I would have gone to bed and missed all this. This morning, I would like to begin talking about Zhiryu's famous text on meditation, The Six Subtle Dharma Gates. I bet some of you have studied this text before. I know that at Green Gulch, Zhiryu has made a study of it. And he even wrote a really good article about it in the Buddhadharma magazine. So probably some of you have studied this already with him or with other teachers, or maybe you encountered this text on your own.

[03:14]

Zhir Yi lived in the sixth century in China. He was one of the great practitioners in the history of Buddhism in China. founder of the Tiantai school, which became the Tendai school in Japan, which is the school that Dogen was ordained in and practiced in up until he went to China and met Ru Jing. So there's almost no doubt that Dogen knew this text and practiced it, and that Dogen's teachings on Zazen are based on this text. Although, as you'll see, This text is very different from the way Dogen speaks. If you contemplate Dogen's extensive writings about zazen, you realize that he says very little, in all his words, he says very little about how exactly you do zazen.

[04:23]

because his main concern is to explain what zazen really is and how we should understand it. I think he's trying to correct what he sees as pernicious misunderstandings about zazen. So I think he doesn't mention much about the mechanics of zazen quite on purpose. because he thinks that emphasizing techniques for zazen can't but make you think of zazen as something specific, that you do for a reason, for a result, that you do right, that you do wrong. And for Dogen, this way of looking at zazen is a big, big problem. Probably, this was Dogen's own problem. are usually teaching about their own problems. So Dogen, as a very serious and skilled practitioner, probably needed to talk himself out of his own fanaticism and striving into a deeper, broader, and more permissive, almost a cosmic sense of what practice is and should be.

[05:50]

So this is how his teachings on Zazen are. They're very broad. They're very open. Very inspiring. I find them so anyway. Full of compassion and appreciation of the human condition. He's always emphasizing that we are Buddha just as we are. That it won't help for us to try to make ourselves into something that we are not. And that our very humanness, when we learn how to appreciate it for what it truly is, is perfect. So if we think of zazen as a meditation technique to be mastered so that we can fix ourselves, then we're naturally going to forget

[06:56]

this most important and most fundamental point. But Dogen knew and practiced the six subtle Dharma gates. And by the time he went to China, his zazen was already strongly developed with this practice. So at the risk of giving you the wrong impression, I thought it would be worthwhile study this text and practice it because we're doing a lot of zazen in session and all the time so maybe this will help a little bit okay I'm checking again with the sound I turn my head from side to side does that affect the sound no we're still good okay So the English text that I'm using for this discussion translates the title as, The Six Dharma Gates to the Sublime, rather than the usual, more usual translation, Six Subtle Dharma Gates.

[08:15]

The translator that I'm working with in this text is Bhikkhu Dharma Mitra, who is an American monk in the Chan tradition of Master Swan Wa. And this text is published by the Kalavinka Press in Seattle. We don't read in session, so it's unimportant that you read this text even after session. You can read it sometime if you feel like it. So Master Zhir Yi has a preface to the text in which he makes a few important points. The first point, he says, more or less, is don't get that excited about six Dharma gates. Buddhism is a religion of lists. That's how the teachings are organized. And we are so literal minded, we think, oh, right.

[09:23]

four foundations of mindfulness, four noble truths, five skandhas, eightfold noble path, five powers, five faculties, seven limbs of enlightenment, 37 wings of enlightenment, and now six subtle dharmagates. But no, actually there are not for foundations and for truths. There are infinite foundations and infinite truths. Don't we chant this? Dharma gates are numberless, right? But numberless is a big number. So you have to start somewhere. So you list. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 16.

[10:30]

So if you want to talk about infinite subtle dharma gates, which is the same as 0 subtle dharma gates, instead of just 6, subtle Dharma gates, then you're going to end up sounding like Dogen, which is good. But if you want to make things plainer, even though naturally you'll be misleading, then you can talk about six subtle Dharma gates. Dogen has the advantage of not ever being misleading. Amazingly, he manages to more or less speak about things as they actually are, which is why he is so hard to understand.

[11:39]

Master Zhu Yi is probably more understandable. So, six subtle Dharma Gates, only six. The word translated as subtle or sublime is Mio. I know that some of you have the character Mio in your name. I know I've met Mioho. I know her name, but probably I bet there are many others of you who have the character Myo in your name. It's a great character, very popular in Dharma names. And it does mean subtle or sublime. Maybe it means wondrous, awesome, which is a great word to describe life, existence itself.

[12:46]

even though we have a big struggle and a lot of trouble and tragedy, and we know what a mess our minds can be sometimes, even so, life, your life, is actually myo, sublime, wondrous, awesome. To be alive, to exist at all, is immense. It's really true. After all, you don't have to be here. And anyway, where are you? And who are you? But all of a sudden, for absolutely no reason, here you are.

[14:01]

You did not make this happen. You're being here. And not only are you here, you are surrounded by an immense universe that is absolutely perfect for you. with the earth that grows exactly the kind of food you like to eat, with the air that's just the right mixture for you to breathe, with exactly the right people around you to give you problems and teach you how to love, with a vast cosmic universe all around you, full of twinkling stars, so vast and mysterious that you can't even begin to understand it.

[15:06]

So your mind has plenty of room to stretch out in all directions. This is great, really great. It is so sublime, awesome. I think the philosopher Kant used this word sublime in his treatises on aesthetics, or anyway the German equivalent of the word, to describe a certain kind of beauty. Not just beauty that is pleasant to look at, but the kind of beauty that absolutely floors you. that makes you gasp. A flower in a vase is beautiful. Maybe it's also sublime. But for sure, a raging torrent, like maybe a giant tsunami or a hurricane or an earthquake, or maybe when the rain pours down from the mountain,

[16:21]

And the boulders are smashing together in Tassajara Creek and the trees are bending and breaking. That kind of beauty is awesome and sublime. So immense, it might even be a little scary. But really, it is a beautiful thing to behold. Just like you. That you are here. That you were born. That you will struggle. That you will die. This is daunting. This is scary. This is awesome. This is sublime. So Bhikkhu Dharmamitra.

[17:25]

does well to translate six Dharma gates to the sublime, because the practice of these gates is going to help us all realize and recognize the sublime as it appears in us and in front of us all the time. In his preface, Master, gives us a very specific meaning in the discourse of Buddhadharma for the word sublime, myo. So it's a little maybe complicated, but it's worth mentioning. We know that there are four noble truths, or a million and four, or none, But there are four.

[18:27]

Suffering, origination, stopping, and path. Or we could say suffering, cause of suffering, cessation of suffering, and path to the cessation of suffering. So we know that. But less well known is that each of these four truths has four aspects. So there are four kinds of suffering. Impermanence, which puts us off balance all the time. Regular suffering, the kind we know where you feel crappy and bad things are happening. Emptiness of inherent existence, which accounts for most of our disappointment. And non-self, which is why we all have so much trouble being persons. So those are the four kinds of suffering.

[19:32]

And there are four kinds of causes of suffering. Causality, origination, productivity, and conditionality. And these are a little more complicated to define in short order. But there's a whole sophisticated discourse in Buddhadharma about them. The path has four aspects. That it exists at all, that there is a path. That it accords with reality, that it's really true. That it has a progression, it's going somewhere. And that it leads forth, meaning out of this mess that we're in. And cessation of suffering has four aspects. Cessation, meaning the end of the energy of suffering, tranquility, deep peace and contentment, abandonment of the clinging that produces suffering and all desire for more or different from what is,

[20:57]

And the fourth aspect of the cessation of suffering is the sublime. Pranita in Sanskrit. In other words, the end of suffering, the fulfillment of the path, has the quality of letting go, the quality of peacefulness and contentment. but it also has the quality of immense appreciation of how things actually are beyond our small projections and desires that are in the end so very, very painful, innocent, as they may seem at first. The sublime Dharma is much more than anything we imagine, anything we desire, anything we're aiming toward.

[22:04]

It is awesome. It is endless, like the waves on the ocean. I hope I'm getting you excited about the six subtle dharma gates, which I haven't mentioned yet. Now I'll tell you what they are. Well, not quite. I'll say first that the Six Subtle Dharma Gates is a breathing practice. It's a six-step breathing practice. Or anyway, as Master Ji makes clear, You can practice the six as six steps, but actually you can practice them in whatever way seems best to you according to the moment in which you are practicing them.

[23:06]

You can practice all six of them as six different practices. You can practice any one of them as all inclusive of the others. But if you're going to talk about them, you better just talk about 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. It's easier to do. So I love breathing practice. This is the great thing. Of course, not all meditation is meditation on breathing. But I think breathing is the best. It's my favorite. It's a wonderful way. It's the first practice described in the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. And there's a whole separate sutra just on breathing practice. When I first learned how to do zaza, my teacher said, just sit up straight, set your posture, and start to count your breaths on the exhale from one to ten.

[24:13]

And that practice comes from the six gates. Breath really is... When your last friend goes away, your breath will still be there until the end. Because breath is life. In the Bible, it says that God created this and that by saying simply, let there be this and that. Just by words. God created stuff. But when it came to human beings, words were apparently insufficient. God breathed a breath into them. So breath is soul. Breath is life. Breath is sacred.

[25:17]

And when you breathe in a breath, you are literally giving life to your life. An inhale wakes up the blood vessels. Wakes up the blood flowing through the vessels. 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your body. That seems outrageous, doesn't it? It seems impossible. Could that really be true? But that's what you can read in a book about the human body. They say there's 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your body. If they take away all the flesh, all the organs, and all the bones, and the only thing left is blood vessels, the entire shape of the body will be there, every finger, because there's 100,000 miles of blood vessels. And each inch of that 100,000 miles is waked up

[26:24]

and vitalized when you inhale. And when you exhale, everything in you that's extra goes out. You breathe in air that plants have expelled and you breathe out air that will be breathed by others. All of us breathing literally the same air from this thin delicate envelope of air that has surrounded the planet Earth for a very, very long time. The same air breathed by our ancestors from the beginning of human time we are breathing. So breath itself is awesome and sublime. And the rhythm of the breath is the rhythm of the planet. The whole and all its life is breathing with us in this rhythm.

[27:28]

Inhale, exhale. Day, night, living, dying, picking up, putting down, rising, falling, rolling in, rolling out. So when you practice breathing, you are in tune with the great motion of emptiness. You are in tune with the loveliness of being. And to practice breathing brings great peace. And when you unite your lively awareness with breathing, you can go into and through tranquility and develop insight into the nature of this grand pattern that gives rise to your life. You can touch impermanence with your body. You can touch Buddha, with your body. And when you do that, you can learn to let go of stupid self-clinging.

[28:35]

Because you can see how stupid it is. It's just extra. You don't need it. And it comes from just, you're not knowing who you are. You're not knowing how it is. So breathing practice is really good. Really, really good. And there's so many different kinds of breathing practice. All slightly different, but in essence, more or less the same. One of them is the six gates. Now, finally, I'll tell you the six gates. Counting. Following. Stabilizing. Contemplating. Turning. Purification. So counting means counting.

[29:41]

Just like I learned the first time I ever did zazen. Counting the breaths, very simply, from one to ten on the exhale. Following means... not counting anymore, but just following the breath in the body. And there are various ways of doing this. Stabilizing is not counting and not following, but sitting with a profound stillness, inside and out, with the breath now only gently present. in the background. When you practice stabilizing, you're pretty still and awake, and you are one happy camper, because it's really pleasant to sit quietly like that.

[30:43]

And you are having a lot of joy, and you are thinking, wow, I would like to keep going like this forever. But you begin to notice that when you keep going for a while, you get dull and sleepy. So you can't just keep going like that. You have to rouse yourself. You have to have some energy to investigate your life. So you practice contemplation. Contemplating the breath means investigating the breath, understanding it, feeling its various characteristics, seeing how it comes and goes, seeing how it has many parts, many beginnings, many endings, which are so subtle they almost disappear under scrutiny. You see how the breath itself is evanescent.

[31:51]

There almost is no breath. It's an empty dream, the breath. And all your life emerges from this empty dream. Maybe you don't think of it quite like that, but somehow you feel it with your body. And it's a liberating insight. It makes you happy. Because you realize all of a sudden that all the problems you have ever had in your entire life or will have are actually solved already. And you have been and will be always okay because your life is held aloft by the breath. Turning is the practice that Dogen mentions in Fukanza Zengi when he says take the backward step and turn the light inward to illuminate the self.

[33:06]

If when contemplating the breath you are experiencing the truth of an outward object we call the breath when you practice turning now you are experiencing the truth of an inward object The mind itself that experiences and thinks and knows. You turn the mind around and you investigate. What is the mind that's counting and following and stabilizing and experiencing all this? Who is experiencing all this? And you see there's no thing. called the mind. That the mind is automatically free of itself. The mind is like a bird flying in empty space forever. It's like a fish swimming in pure, clear water forever.

[34:16]

Perfect in its element, ceaseless in its gorgeous movement. And it's certainly doesn't belong to you. Mind and world are made perfectly for each other. Mind and world are each other. So you and others and all things are in perfect embrace. And this becomes itself the practice of purification, the sixth gate. You see the purity of all dharmas, the perfection of each and every thing that arises. I'm pretty sure that everyone here has experienced

[35:26]

some suffering. And that everyone here is aware of the suffering of others and of the world. Naturally, for ourselves and for others, we would like a reduction in suffering. We would even like it if the suffering were entirely eliminated. Maybe we think we have suffered because we have made a mistake. Or someone else has made a mistake. Or there are mistakes built into the world. Or built into us. But when we practice purification... We know that even the suffering is beautiful and pure because it is the face of love.

[36:43]

This is the most difficult point in Dharma study. And maybe it takes a whole lifetime to appreciate it. Probably, for sure, it takes a whole lifetime to really appreciate this. Somewhere in the text it says, when you see this point, you feel tremendous sorrow and tremendous joy at the same time. Sorrow, because you are a limited being and you care about your own pain and the pain of others. Joy, Because you are also an unlimited being. Mind is unlimited. And you see that all empty dharmas without exception are perfect dharmas. So this is the practice of purification. Sometimes in Zen we call it suchness. Or just this.

[37:49]

So now I'm going to say a little bit more about counting practice, which seems so simple. Maybe counting practice is not advanced enough for us. But according to Zhiyi, counting practice is very thorough. came down thinking about this text to Tassahara and I've been practicing counting so far during the practice period. And I can't tell you how enthusiastic I have become about counting. I've gotten such great energy and inspiration from counting. So I really hope that you will get to appreciate the true and very surprising greatness of counting.

[39:03]

Before you count, though, you have to start with your posture. Right here in the sternum, you have to lift up. Dogen says, ears in line with shoulders. And that's what that means. Your ears will be aligned with your shoulders if you're lifting up. But I think we usually think of this in the wrong way. We think, I am going to lift up in perfect posture. I'm very frustrated I can't get the perfect posture. But to think that you are supposed to lift up and sit up straight is the wrong way to look at it. Instead, you should be watching for something already in you that wants to be uplifted.

[40:10]

Bye, guys. Thank you for coming and listening. So you get in touch with this something in you that wants to lift up, and you let it do that. So instead of thinking, I'm going to sit up really, really straight, you feel from the inside, I will allow my body to be lifted from within. So it's very gentle. It almost happens without your making it happen. Probably when you do this, you find you sit a little further back on your cushion than you usually do.

[41:17]

It might even feel not right at first. When you emphasize that it is you doing zazen, then you're automatically in a struggle with yourself. And so usually you're leaning into your zazen. Leaning in like that famous book, Leaning In. We're all leaning in to our zazen. But it's better not to lean in. It's better to lean back and allow your body to hold itself up in a beautiful way. So with great attentiveness and care in the beginning of every period, you let your body find its dignified and upright sitting posture.

[42:20]

And you hold your mudra beautifully and gently in your lap. You hold it with great care and love. And then you begin to breathe. We always say feel your breath in your belly, but in the beginning it's also good, I think, to feel the breath very strongly in the chest also when you inhale. Because when you inhale in the beginning and feel the breath in the chest, it's going to give you tremendous energy and power. The point of breathing practice is to bring stability and peace. But if you're too relaxed, you get dull really easily. So you need to build up some strength. So in the beginning, if you breathe in and lift and feel the strength in your lungs also falling down into your belly when you exhale,

[43:25]

grounding you, as Kathy said, in the earth. You're going to find strength that you didn't know you had and peacefulness too. Anyway, you all need to experiment with this in your own way. But the breath will feel very bright and very alive. And then on the exhales, you're counting one through ten. And if you lose count, you start again at one. And it makes absolutely no difference if you lose count a million times. It does make a big difference that you come back to one each time you notice that you're losing count. If at any point in the counting you see that you're becoming dull and the mind is wandering, then you go back to breathing in the chest and make up more strength.

[44:40]

And then back to the belly and counting. And if you keep practicing this way and adjusting your energy, you will feel that every single breath is like an entire lifetime. Every single breath is an adventure. The rising up. Whoa. The falling away. Ah. Whoa. Amazing. Every breath. Living and dying over and over again. Floating on the breath. This is what the word means. You are inspired. Right? Sure, maybe a thought comes every now and then. But who cares? Who cares when you're really established in the breath? The thought just disappears.

[45:43]

It doesn't matter. You're not thinking, oh, what's wrong with me? I'm thinking. You don't care. A thought comes, it's gone. The thoughts do not compel you. Because the breath, your actual life force, is so much more compelling. So thoughts or images or feelings and sensations can come, but you are strongly counting your breath. In the first chapter of the text, which is called Six Gates in Relation to Meditative Absorption, Zhuri says that the practice of counting, just the practice of counting, will bring you through all the deepest states of meditative absorption, all of the eight jhanas. And from there you'll leap into liberation, if only you will commit yourself to counting.

[46:50]

Chapter 2 of the text is called The Six Gates in Sequential Development. In every chapter he talks about the six gates, but every chapter he speaks of them differently. So in this chapter he speaks of them as if they're to be practiced in a sequence. So he says each of the six has two aspects, a cultivation aspect and a realization aspect. So in this chapter sense, when you're counting, the cultivation aspect is to just pay attention and count every breath. And doing this will make a rough breath smooth after a little while and a rough mind smooth after a little while. That's the cultivation stage. In the realization stage of counting, The counting is just going on.

[48:02]

You're not counting anymore, but something is counting. And it's always there, the number. And now, if your mind is wandering, it's not because you're distracted. It's because counting is now stupid. Who wants to count? One, two, three. It's so clunky. Your mind is way too subtle to be counting like that. It's like some school chore, you know, counting. Forget about it. So you abandon counting. And you're following. Right? You're just following the breath. So on the one hand, counting is all you need. You should count forever. On the other hand, pretty soon counting gets really boring and you stop counting. That's why your mind is wandering because counting is too boring and you start following. So counting, when it's fully realized, automatically leads you to the next step of following.

[49:10]

So following, now you're not counting anymore. You're just paying attention to all the quality of the breath as it's coming and going. But now you're feeling... Not only the breath, but the breath is everywhere, right? 100,000 miles of breath everywhere in your body, and you're noticing that. You can feel your whole body being lifted up. Your whole body being brought to peace by the breathing coming and going. Maybe now you feel, all at the same time, you can feel the breathing in the nostrils, in the chest, in the belly, and everywhere. And now, this is really joyful. This is great. And the sensation of breathing is so strong that there's hardly any thinking. And again, a thought comes and you barely notice it. Or if you do notice it, you think, wow, what a thought. And then you go back to following.

[50:13]

And this is the cultivation stage. The realization stage of following is when you're very stable. And you feel like following is such a chore and a bother. And you just sit there. So I hope I'm getting you enthusiastic for this breathing practice. I'm trying. I'm trying really hard. Six gates. So on the other hand, I don't want to overwhelm you. So in case you have some other practice that you would rather do, then please do that. And there are some people for whom breath practice is not the way to practice. Some people, it's not good. So if that's the case for you, then sorry, I wasted all of this time.

[51:20]

But at least... You're not just sitting there by yourself. But if you do feel like it, do practice this way. Dharma gates are numberless. And all Dharma gates are good. So if you use other Dharma gates, that's good. Please find the Dharma gate that's best for you. But I'm inviting you to practice the six subtle Dharma gates. Actually, it's not important which Dharmagate you go through, but it is very important that you not waste your time, that you not be too lost and wandering around too much in the forest on your cushion. Do not forget for a moment that myriad causes and conditions have fallen into place, giving you

[52:24]

the blessing of this practice period, which throughout space and time will never come again. And yet you are here. So you should use your precious time well so that you can realize what you have never realized before. And that's why. I'm speaking about the six gates in the hope that something of what I'm saying will be of use to you. And I will speak more about the other Dharma gates in subsequent talks. And I will close my talk today with a short poem by the Japanese poet Shiro Murano.

[53:25]

Hiro, have you heard of Shiro Murano? No? He wrote during the Showa era, which is the era that ended in 1989. It went from 1926 to 1989, possibly the most drastic time in the history of Japan. He lived through that. His poem is called A Little Poem. Like a coxcomb, something is swaying inside me. Its blood seems rich. Its flesh seems dignified. Every time I vomit, every time I hiccup, this unknown is boosted up and finally becomes a crown on the top of my head.

[54:38]

Its comical and uncertain form molds in its entirety my every jagged experience. into the shape of eternal fire. So onward, gang. Thank you very much for listening to my Dharma talk this morning. 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, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

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