Good evening. We'll just sit for a few minutes and then continue our conversation about Doug and Zenji. forgot to stop sitting.

[08:55]

Where'd she go? Anyway, welcome, welcome, Sangha. So I have really been enjoying getting into a bit of the deep water with Dogen Zenji and he certainly has been a part of my life. I've heard so many of his teachings and we read his teachings and every week we read them. Fukanza Zengi and Genjo Kon and so it's certainly it's sort of like our family you know our strange uncle from many centuries ago and yet I I haven't it's not been such cozy Dogen isn't someone I think it was very cozy you know sometimes I try to imagine that maybe he had a cat or something like that just to humanize him a little but he was pretty serious guy and I think he was coming from as this terrible trauma as a young boy when he lost both his beloved grandmother and his mother quite young.

[10:00]

And he had vowed to her that he would follow the Buddha's teaching and become a vessel or a light for the world, which he certainly did. So I have tremendous respect for his completion, his fulfillment of that promise to his mother. So I wanted to begin this evening by repeating a number of Dogen's key teachings. I think it might be helpful if I do that each time, just kind of go back over a few of those significant elements of his teaching. For example, I think it's useful to remind ourselves that his sole purpose as a teacher was to help us awaken from delusional thinking. That's what he was up to. And especially about the nature of delusional thinking itself. What is delusional thinking? We might assume we know what that is, and we might think we're rather good at it, as a matter of fact. But maybe it's not what we think.

[11:01]

And he's giving us an awfully wide range of ways to think about what it is and what the value of it is. So as he says in the Genjo Koan, those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhas. Those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhas. And those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings. So there's quite an important relationship there between delusion and enlightenment. And I think that's going to be more and more obvious as we read through his thinking and his poetry. And also what the scholars have to say about this relationship, which is not about replacing one with the other, but about how illumination, enlightenment, is basically for the purpose of helping us to see delusion. It's like turning the lights on in the attic or in the basement. And like, wow, we've got a lot of stuff stored there. And then we begin to go in there and sort things out as best we can, put them in some kind of order that's maybe more wholesome or maybe more beneficial.

[12:08]

Oh, I also looked up this word delusion. When I was in high school, I took Latin for, I don't know why, I just thought it might be really nice. And there was this really, you know, amazing former priest who was teaching Latin, you know, he's probably one of the most interesting grownups at my high school. He'd been a priest for quite a while. And so I, you know, also wanted to find out about that. I had some inclination toward whatever that thing is called spirituality from when I was fairly young. So I thought, Oh, here's a wonderful opportunity. you know, to be with this person who has a calling or had a calling. I think he married was part of the reason he left the Catholic priesthood. But anyway, taking Latin, I thought was probably the best class I took maybe in all of my education because I could begin to see words in a very different way. You can see the origins of words.

[13:11]

It's like, oh, that means that there's some earlier meaning to that, that actually really helps to understand, you know, because a lot of times words are just we just know them, and they fly through. But if you stop to look at them, take them apart a little bit, it's like, it kind of deepens the sense of what they're referring to what the words are about. So anyway, delusional, I was curious about delusional, what's that about? And it turns out that it's from the Latin to mock, or to deceive. And it's a combination of this de this uh this preface de which indicates that it's pejorative it's not a good thing so when you see de like divisive or delusional it's not so it's not a good thing um and then it's that it's combined with ludare latin ludere which means to play so it's playful only it's it's not good play it's not such a good play it's kind of a bad play um so it's akin to this word ludicrous which

[14:12]

means a stage play, something that's happening on stage, like acting. So delusional thinking is kind of your mind acting up in not such a good way. And it's this very busy mind that is staging the play that clouds our view of what is actually going on behind the costuming and the scenery and the wish to be seen a certain way. So we all know this. We all know about this play. The self is a play. how we manufactured a performance that we probably invented sometime in junior high or maybe a little earlier than that, of how we would be seen. My partner is really fond of this koan, for whom do you put on your makeup? For whom do you put on your makeup? Who are you putting on the play for? So this is a pretty good koan to think about too. And yeah, Although throughout his teaching, Dogen is using words and letters as tools for undermining our delusional thinking, it's ironic that his way of using language gives even greater value to words as a means for understanding or entering into enlightenment, to awakening.

[15:27]

And so he has declared several times in his writing that words and letters which are emblematic of the relative truth You know, words and letters, language, that's how we make up things about the world is by calling them names. You know, you call it a cat. I don't know what it is, but you call it a cat. You call it a dog. You call it the moon and so on. He declares that these words and letters cannot be separated from the ultimate truth. Of course, ultimate truth is all inclusive. So words and letters are back in, you know, have a very important role to play in our project of awakening. Dogen also expects that his listeners are devoted to the practice of Zazen, in this silent, upright, immovable sitting. And he says later that through intellectual study, words and letters, the mind is turned. And through wholehearted practice, the body is turned. So turning the body, turning the mind.

[16:32]

And in Bendo Wa, I read a bit of this for you last week, which is another fascicle we'll look at at a later time, called On the Endeavor of the Way. Sit zazen wholeheartedly, conform to the Buddha form, and let go of all things. When you practice in this way, how can those who are concerned with the traps and the snares of words and letters be compared to you? So words and letters also are, as we know, can be used to deceive, to falsify, to lie, to seduce, to do all kinds of things which are not wholesome and not recommended in our practice. So how can those who are sitting upright, silently, and still be caught by the traps and snares of words and letters? So I've heard it said, you know, zazen is a very safe place.

[17:34]

You know, nobody's doing anything wrong when they're sitting zazen. It's pretty wholesome behaviors. I really enjoy that every morning. Right now there's like 60 people in the room who are not doing anything that I would consider unwholesome. You know, occasional sneeze or cough, but that's kind of about it. And they're all sitting there together, you know, very peacefully. And it feels like a very sweet way. to be with my fellow humans. So another important point to remember about Dogen's understanding is that in all moments we are whole and that we are lacking nothing despite however we're feeling about ourselves or whatever we're thinking at any given time. That doesn't affect the fact that we are always whole and we always lack nothing. That's the ultimate truth. all-inclusive. So for Dogen, intimacy is the primary antidote to this delusional feeling that we have about not being whole or complete in every moment.

[18:42]

Intimacy. So try out that word every now and then, you know, just when you're moving around through the day or you're talking with someone, kind of, you know, conjure up the idea of intimacy with whatever you're doing, with whatever you're seeing or hearing. That's what it's referring to, your experience in every moment, is intimacy. And there's no gap, there's no separation between you and what you experience. It's all one thing. So this moment and what we are doing in this moment, what we're all doing right now, are one complete and intimate expression of life itself. Just this is it. And so Dogen says that we do not sit in order to become enlightened, you know, some later time. We sit because that's what Buddhas do. So these primary teachings are reflected in the essay that we're looking at right now, the Fukanza Zengi.

[19:45]

I don't know if you all have, I think I sent that on to you, didn't I? Do you have a copy of it? I hope so. It's in the liturgy. If you go to the San Francisco Zen Center website, all of those things are there. You can find them in I think download them very easily. Our chant book from the morning, which is where you can find the Fukanza Zengi, also the Genjo Koan. So many years ago, these texts were chosen by the Zen Center as part of our morning service. So I think this morning we chanted, no we didn't, yesterday, we chanted one half of the Genjo Koan together. So these works, or fascicles as they're called, essays, are from a collection of writings called the Shobo Genzo. And Shobo Genzo means the treasury of the true Dharma I. The treasury of the true Dharma I. So I thought I would say a few things about Shobo Genzo this evening, sort of to help place this primary teaching of the Fukanza Zenge into its context.

[20:47]

So this term Shobo Genzo is best known to us by referring to Dogen's collection of teachings, including This one, Fukanza Zengi, including the Genjo Koan, the Bendo Wa, which I mentioned a little bit earlier. Another one, Uji, Time Being, and the Tenzo Kyokun, which is instructions for the head cook. And that's one of the fascicles that our Tenzos often read with their crew. And they'll read a little portion of it every morning before going to work in the kitchen. It's really a lovely practice that has gone on now for many, many, many years at Zen Center, reading the Tenzo Kyokun. So we'll be touching on each one of these that are the more well-known fascicles in the months ahead. But also this term Shobho Ganso can be seen as a synonym for Buddhism itself, as viewed from the perspective of Mahayana Buddhism. So the term as understood in Mahayana teaching refers to Buddha's awakening, the true Dharma I.

[21:51]

is the awakened eye, which is not contained in the written words and letters of the sutras. So in earlier times, the treasury of the Dharma literally referred to the written teachings. So it was it was the basket of teachings, you know, the Dharma, that's what the Buddhist sermons were called the true Dharma eye or the treasury of the true Dharma eye. And so these earliest references to that term are about the triple treasure, the Buddha Dharma Sangha. So there's the Buddha, there's the treasury of the Buddha's teaching, and there's the Sangha. So in Zen, the real treasury of the true Dharma eye is not found in the books, but in one's own Buddha nature, based in original awakening, Honggaku. This is Dogen's big question about Honggaku. If I'm already awakened, why do I have to go out of this trouble of sitting Zazen and wearing these robes? living with these monastics, you know. So the Shobho Genzo is something that is, it's not a thing, it's an understanding that's handed down from teacher to student in what we call Dharma transmission.

[23:04]

So beginning with the Buddha's own transmission to Mahakashapa, I think you might remember from the first chapter reread in the Transmission of Light that the Buddha held up a flower and he twirled it. slowly in his hand. And of all the monks who were there at the time, only Mahakashapa smiled at what the Buddha was doing. Buddha twirled a flower, Mahakashapa smiled. The flower was not outside. It wasn't inside. It was connecting. It was the intimacy of his teacher and his teacher's action and of his connection to that, his awareness of that. And that was the Dharma transmission. from Buddha to Mahakashapa. And at that time, the Buddha said, way back in Chapter 2 of the Transmission of Light, you can look at that again if you like, I have the treasury of the Eye of Truth, the Shobogenzo, the ineffable mind of Nirvana, and the formless teaching of complete illumination.

[24:06]

These I entrust to Mahakashapa. The ineffable mind, the ungraspable mind of Nirvana, and the formless teaching of complete illumination, awakening, treasury of the eye of truth. So it also says in chapter 2, you raise your eyebrows and blink your eyes in the ordinary course of things. Talking to us. You raise your eyebrows and blink your eyes in the ordinary course of things. And Buddha blinked his eyes when he raised the flower. So I guess he blinked too. He raised the flower, he twirled the flower and blinked. Or winked. I'm not sure which one. Maybe he winked. That's probably more like it. He winked his eyes and he raised the flower. These are not separate at all. Your talking and smiling and Maha Kashapa's breaking into a smile are not different at all. Once you come to know your inner self, you will find that Maha Kashapa can wriggle his toes in your shoes.

[25:08]

Intimacy. Over thousands of years. Toes in shoes. Whose toes? Whose shoes? Hard to say. So this is the transmission of the true Dharma eye that Bodhidharma brought to China from India. And the collection of essays that Doga named the Shobo Gansu were written in Japanese between 1231 and 1253 and delivered to his disciples as sermons. So he gave these talks that he prepared and then later on were collected by his descendants and eventually printed up into these large sets of essays. Some of them have 85 fascicles, some have 60, there's a 12 fascicle. It's not really clear what the actual intention, Dogen's intention was. He had planned to write 100 essays. for this collection, but he became ill and passed away before he could complete his hundred essays.

[26:14]

So we really don't know what he would have put into the final version. So his students made that determination over the centuries that followed. So for several hundred years following his death, Dogen's Dharma works were largely restricted. to the most senior monks in Soto Zen temples in Japan, and therefore were not available for study, and in some ways they were forgotten. Dogen was not a major influence in Soto Zen for quite a long time. His works were kind of hidden away in the libraries, and maybe were thought to be a bit odd. And then in 1703, So this is 13th century to the 18th century, right? Many years have gone by. There was a petition by a very influential Soto Zen teacher named Manzan to the Japanese government, who then the government agreed to two things that had a major influence on our school.

[27:17]

The first thing they agreed to was that a monk's lineage is tied to a teacher rather than to a temple. So if my lineage is not with the San Francisco Zen Center. My lineage is with my teacher, Tension Anderson. And his is to his teacher, Richard Baker. And Richard Baker's is to his teacher, Suzuki Roshi, and so on. So our lineage is actually this warm hand to warm hand. It's from person to person. There's intimacy. It's pretty hard to be intimate with the San Francisco Zen Center. And I often say to people when they say, you know, Zen Center, I don't know, they hurt my feelings or whatever. And I go, you know, Zen Center is not a person. Who hurt your feelings? Who was it that was upsetting for you? You know, really good to try to be specific because otherwise it's just this abstract feeling like, you know, America. hurts my feelings. But what about it? We have to get down to some detail there to make any sense.

[28:20]

So your your lineage is through a person, you can name the person, you know who you've been talking to, and they've been talking to you. So there's some accountability in that as well. So from that time on, from 1703 to the present day, study and analysis of the Shobo Genzo has greatly increased, you know, So, oh, did I say the second thing? No, I didn't. So the first thing was that the monk's lineage is tied to a teacher. And the second thing they agreed to is that the Soto Zen school must base its practices on the teachings of Dogen Zenji. So this was huge. Manzan understood there was a treasury of the true drama eye locked up in the library. He must have been looking at those texts. And so he was able to get the government to declare Dogen's teaching as primary for Soto Zen. And it was from that, that this analysis of the Shobu Genzo became, you know, greatly, it became the, you know, coin of the realm for Soto Zen was Dogen's teaching.

[29:29]

So, as I said last week, that Dogen's teaching predominantly is from the perspective of the two truths. with particular emphasis on the value of the ultimate truth for illuminating the delusional aspects of our unenlightened worldview. So that's the purpose of the light, turning the light in enlightenment on, is so we can see our delusions. So in Zen discourse, as it evolved over the centuries, there was a shift that occurred toward a meditation in which one was no longer instructed to kind of know be a dead a dead tree or you know like a rock but to be ever on your toes vitally and spontaneously engaging in phenomena you know this is lively effervescent like just like us you know always moving always changing full of all kinds of amazing things and learning how to be that how to be with that in a good way so yeah

[30:32]

So we're beginning to take the appearance of these conventional realities very seriously as they arise and they cease, using our awakened consciousness to witness how our everyday thoughts about ourselves and about the world are most likely not reliable and even more likely not true. So this is a good thing. Do not believe your thoughts. It's okay to have them. It's okay to share them. It's okay to wonder about them. But believing them is kind of extra. And that's where the problems have come from. So that takes us again back to Dogen's original question that set him off on his quest for enlightenment, you know. If the way is perfect and all-pervading, how could it be contingent on practice and realization? This is the beginning of the Phukansa Zengi. So write the first line. The way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma vehicle is free and untrammeled.

[31:34]

What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is. Intimacy. So what's the use of going off here and there to practice? Okay, so that's the assertion. So then he later on in this same... teaching he gives that famous answer which is the no answer answer regarding both the method and the goal of our practice when he says that the essential art of zazen is to think not thinking and monk asks how do you think not thinking and Dogen answers non-thinking the essential art of zazen fascinating I think that's what keeps us sticking around. It's like, what?

[32:36]

What did they just say? I think I'll come back next week, see if I can get the rest of the story. So this evening, I want to look at with you at this first section of the Fukanzazengi, meaning the universal recommendation for Zazen. This is basically Dogen's Zazen instructions, which he brought back from China. One of the first things he wrote was the Fukanzazengi. And you can see it, in some ways, you can see it as having three sections. There's the first section, which is in response to what I just read, the introduction. You know, if the way is basically perfect and all-pervading, how can it be contingent upon practice and realization? You know, why would you do anything? Everything's already just fine the way it is. So section one is a response to that, like the why. And it begins with, and yet. It's a paragraph that says, and yet. So Dogen expounds the rationale in this section, section one, for our mental cultivation, you know, the why we sit, why we sit.

[33:42]

And then he gives examples of both the Buddha's six years of effort and that of Bodhidharma's seated meditation inside a cave for nine years. These are both pretty impressive exertions of effort in the face of basically perfect and all-pervading. So he continues in this section to challenge practices based on intellectual understanding, words and letters, and encourages us instead to learn the backward step that turns your light, the light of your awareness, inwardly to illuminate our self, our true self. And then he ends with, if you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay. Just this is it-ness. Just this is it-ness. So the next section, which is section two, there are concrete instructions given for seated meditation. So that part starts with, you should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself.

[34:54]

Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay. That's a little bit of the end of section one, a little bit of the start of section two, the kind of overlap there. So in section two, there's these concrete instructions, as I said, for what he calls sanzen or zazen, in which a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs. Do not think good or bad. Do not administer pros and cons. Cease all the movements of the conscious mind. Have you tried that yet? Cease all the movements of the conscious mind. The gauging of all thoughts and views. Have no designs on becoming a Buddha.

[35:59]

Sanzen has nothing whatever to do with sitting or lying down. So, and then, so this is section two, it goes on a little bit more, we'll read that in a bit. So in the last section, in section three, he praises the virtue of meditation and he gives us some encouragement to practice it as a full body-mind practice that he calls the Buddha Mudra. The Buddha Mudra. Mudra is like a seal. You know, we call the posture we use for our hands. For those of you who've had Sazen instruction, you've been shown the Buddha Mudra, which is basically making a little cradle of your fingers are overlapping, and then your thumb tips are touching. And that's called the Cosmic Mudra. And the Cosmic Mudra is held just about at the height, the thumbs are at the height of your navel. and resting, just lightly resting against your abdomen with this little cradle that you've made out of your hands facing upward like a little bookshelf that's sitting there on the outside of your abdomen.

[37:05]

And not too open. I remember my teacher said to me, after many years of sitting with my cosmic mudra, kind of like this. He said, I think that's a little wide. I said, oh, really? And he said, you know, close it down a little bit. It's like, whoa. I said, why did it take so long, you know? Why didn't you tell me that? But anyway, so many years of this really big cosmic mudra. Now mine is a little bit more in the middle way between too much and not enough. So the mudra refers to an impression or a seal. Like you would put... you know, into hot wax, you seal a letter with an impression, maybe your initials or something like that. So that's what a mudra is, you're sealing, you're making impression, you know, on the universe, with your hands, on the cosmos. So you're making this kind of little connection between your own umbilical, and I like the idea that it's right at the umbilical, at the belly button, where you were attached to your mother,

[38:12]

then you're showing you're holding that opening there where you're attached to the universe as a whole it's a cosmic mudra so so in the Buddha mudra in which the practice of a Buddha is not to seek making a Buddha that would not make any sense that would be like me seeking to make me or you seeking to make you say you don't have to you were already got it so the Buddhist practice has no such gaining ideas something Suzuki Roshi says again and again. No gaining ideas. Don't try to get anything out of it. It's already here. You already have it. You just have to realize it. That's all. And as one scholar pointed out, there is no method that can overcome what is not real. So whatever you try to do to overcome what is not real, delusions, isn't going to work. Because the only thing that's real is awakening itself. So this is what we are called to realize.

[39:16]

Thus this wholehearted single-minded effort, as Dogen calls it, asks us to first recognize and then relinquish the internal mechanisms that bring us to believe in an external world that is separate from ourselves. So there's something going on in here that has led us to believe that the world is outside of ourselves. That's what we're hunting. That's the self-making mechanism. that the Buddha was studying under the tree awakening. How am I doing this? What is this delusion? How do I make this play in my head that's really tricking me? It's fooling me. It's a delusion. This is not a good thing. This is something that is not healthy for me and it's not healthy for anybody. So because ordinary thinking does not realize that action and rest, arising and fall, do not in fact, are not in fact happening. They're just an appearance. Arising and ceasing are an appearance.

[40:19]

You know, we don't really, it's really seamless. There's another thing you might try sometimes. Can you see the beginning of something and the ending of something? You know, if you can think of anything, you know, I went to the movies and the movies began and then they ended, but really? Really? Where was that line of beginning and ending? Where's the line of the beginning and ending of today or of anything you experience? So really, being very clear about the questions you're asking to yourself about what's going on is really helpful. Just keep peeling away at the onion of what you think is true or what you've been told is true. It's like, really? Is there a beginning and ending? I don't know. It would be very good to try to find it. So because ordinary thinking doesn't realize that actions and rest do not in fact arise or cease, that is, they are both empty categories, empty of inherent or measurable existence, they're re.

[41:22]

We therefore need to give up ordinary thinking in order to see reality as it truly is. We have to turn off the play, you know, turn off the bubble machine just for a while, you know. Calm it down. So the Phukhan Zazengi is not merely a practical manual on methods of contemplation. It is also a declaration of the Soto Zen approach to Buddhism, and particularly Zen discipline and training. Just concentrate your efforts single-mindedly. That in itself is negotiating the way. Practice realization, one word for Dogen, practice realization, is naturally undefiled. Going forward in practice is a matter of everydayness. Every day is practice realization. As you practice, you realize. Every moment. Every moment of your conscious effort to wholeheartedly practice the way is realization. You don't have to do anything special. Everyday mind is the way.

[42:25]

So here again is the opening statement that begins this fascicle. followed by the first section in which Dogen is responding to these assertions with which he began this essay. So one more time. The way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma vehicle is free and untrammeled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice? So this is this assertion of the Hong Gaku, the original enlightenment, your Buddha nature. This is the question that drove Dogen to China. And then section one, and yet, and yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy,

[43:30]

The way is as distant as heaven from earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion. So it's lost in dualistic thinking, also known as karmic consciousness, or delusional thinking, or dream walking. which leads to activation of the three poisons, greed, hate, and delusion. So if you can remember from our looking at the 12-fold chain of dependent core rising, which is basically an elaboration of the first and second noble truth, there is suffering and there's a cause of your suffering. Ignorance is what kicks the wheel off to spin. Ignorance of non-duality in combination with our relentless desires to have something be different than they are. We want things to be different than they are. More of this, less of that, none of that, you know, all of that. So that's going on. That's what delusional thinking is made up of. It's a play, a play of longing and of not belonging, of being, you know, basically outside, an outsider.

[44:39]

We're all outsiders, you know, in one way or another, we see ourselves as outside, not really invited to the party, right? terrible feeling of isolation. So this combination of ignorance and desire is the second noble truth, the cause of suffering. And yet, Dogen is actively overturning this early Buddhist tradition's very sober concern with overcoming the cause of suffering. by entering into what's called the final extinction of nirvana, the cessation of suffering, nirvana, extinction, blow it out, you know, gate, gate, goodbye. So, but instead, what he's advocating in all of his teaching is an exuberant celebration of an awakened life, a non-abiding nirvana. You don't stay there. You know, it's fine to drop in now and then just to get a little break. But basically, there's no home.

[45:41]

There's no home. It's non-abiding. You're not trying to build a home on a bare rock. We want to stay alive. We need real things and real people and real activities, real human connection for our lives to be joyous and to feel the belonging of being with others. So in other words, he's making a radical shift from focusing his teaching on the path, on the way, the cause, for the end of suffering. He's not focusing on that. He's focusing on the effect of the path, which is an awakened life. So Dogen is basically, just forget about all that cause stuff. Let's just go right to the dessert. Let's just get right to the main menu, what's on the menu that we're really all waiting for. So Dogen's practice in the great Song China, which is where he landed, that era in China, was really just saturated with a teaching that kind of sparkled with Zen, Chinese Zen ancestry, an ancestral tradition from India and China that simply said, you know, just sit and drop off body and mind.

[46:56]

Sitting and dropping off body and mind. He was totally stoked. You know, just sit. It's just perfect, easy. I brought nothing back but this. Just sit. Just sit. It all will be revealed. And yet. There's a lot of and yet's in Dogen. That's what I like about it. I'm beginning to really like about it. You just think, oh, that's really helpful. And then it's like, and yet. Whoa, wait a minute. I just had it. Oh, yeah? Well, I'm going to give you something else. So for those of you who were at Kokyo's lecture this morning, which I thought was delightful, I hope. It's recorded. So check it out. It was a very, very good talk. And he was talking about Dogen. and the Fukanza Zegi. So I was so happy. I thought, oh, he's talking about what we're talking about. And he pointed to a very interesting, another fascicle, much later in the Shobu Genzo, I think it's number, it's case 72. So we're looking at very close to case one in the Shobu Genzo, or early on in the Shobu Genzo.

[47:58]

And this one, which is called the King of Samadhi, Samadhi. King of Samadhi, Samadhi, meaning Zazen. he wrote later. And he directly contradicts this very instruction that he's giving us in the Phucans of Zengi, which calls for the dropping of body and mind, the ceasing of all movements of the conscious mind, and the gauging of all thoughts and views. That seemed very clear. You just stop it, just drop it, you know, let it go. But instead, he says to, I just, I was reading this fast, I said, Oh, my goodness, that's amazing. I just read it a little while ago. He says, instead, thoroughly investigate our intellects by asking ourselves all kinds of questions while we're sitting in all things, while we're sitting in Zantan. The king of Samadhi Samadhi, he says, you should be not wasting your time. You should be exploring all kinds of questions, for example. And he gives these examples of questions to ponder during our upright sitting. For example, investigate whether the universe is vertical or horizontal.

[49:04]

What is sitting itself? Is sitting inside or outside of sitting? Is it thinking? Is it beyond thinking? Is it a somersault? Is it doing something? Is it not doing something? You know, Dogen then says, there should be an investigation of thousands and tens of thousands of points like these. Sit in the full lotus posture with the body, sit in the full lotus posture with the mind, and sit in the full lotus posture being free of body and mind. Being free of the full lotus posture, right? So, Dogen. So it seems as though Dogen is quite set on not setting anything up, you know. But rather helping us to open ever wider with ever greater curiosity about not only just this is it, but also about what is this that just is?

[50:15]

What is it that thus comes? Not just that this is it, but what is it, you know? Not for the answer, as Kokya was saying this morning. You're not looking for answers to these questions. We're just asking questions. And we're listening for the sound of the bird. We're listening for response, you know. Hello? Good morning. Is anybody here? Maybe so. So he says, this is going beyond Buddha. And as Kokya was saying very delightfully, he was really enjoying himself this morning that, you know, beyond Buddha is it so you get a little glimpse of enlightenment, like Dogen talks about that in his in his first paragraph of section one, one is making the initial partial excursions. But by glimpsing the wisdom that runs through all things and attaining the way and clarifying the mind raising an aspiration to escalate the very sky. One is raising

[51:18]

One is making the initial partial excursions about the frontiers, but is still somewhat deficient in the vital way of total emancipation. So, you know, you can have this amazing experience, like, I think I got it. I think I got a little touch of Buddha here, you know. And then he says, okay, I'll go beyond that. And then there's an even bigger Buddha. Oh, okay, there's a bigger Buddha. And then you go, okay, got that one, now go beyond that one. You just keep going. Eventually, you'll be an all-inclusive universe. You will be re-itself. You will have become the all-inclusive universe. As the Buddha said, the entire universe in the ten directions is the true human body. So don't stop anywhere. Just keep asking questions. Be curious. As he also said this morning, very delightfully, and be kind. and be helpful, and be generous. And I asked him a question.

[52:20]

I asked Kokyo a question. I said, so I'm about to give a talk at a university, a very well-known university, and as part of the School of Medicine. So it's like medicine? I'm being asked to present some medicine. And I thought, well, that's appropriate. The Buddha was a great physician, and the people who were putting on the program said, you know, these students have worked very hard to get into this university. And they didn't say this, but, and it's very expensive. And probably their parents paid for this education of theirs. And they're really like the best of the best. They have made it and been accepted. And now they've got many years of dealing with, you know, competition and stress. And she said they're not healthy. A lot of them are very unhealthy. They're using all kinds of medicine to keep themselves alert and producing and competing and so on and so forth.

[53:23]

And this is kind of a tragedy, right? I think we kind of know that at the race to nowhere. Because what's going to happen when they graduate? Well, maybe a computer screen, if you're lucky, and a big salary. guess if you're lucky but so anyway it's kind of like oh so and I'm been thinking about those guys those those children they're probably 18 and 19 year olds you know and so I asked Kokyo what to do about that is what do i say to them after all this that you just said today which was so lovely and so inspiring about you know going beyond buddha and all of that uh where's the employment opportunities in this practice you know how are these people going to make a living and pay back their student loans um so i mean everyone laughed because it's no joke i mean we're actually caught in this wheel of accomplishment and and finances and so on

[54:24]

So what he said, I thought was very good. He said, well, if you study, Buddha would say the most important thing is to understand the teaching. And the most important thing is not to get a great job to make a lot of money. The most important thing is to really use your short life, your short time on the planet to ask the right questions and listen for, you know, if there's an answer, listen for answers if they come. And he said, and If you're like that, if you're that kind of person who's really open and curious and kind and all of that, probably someone would want to hire you. You might be somebody they'd like to have around. I thought, that's good. That's probably true. And he said, and if not, you won't be worried. You'll be fine. Okay, I'll buy that. I said to him later after the talk, I said, why didn't you mention the farm apprenticeship program while you had an opportunity there? You need a job? We've got all kinds of jobs here at Green Gulch Farm. Anyway, it was very sweet.

[55:26]

I do recommend you listen to his talk. I thought it was really good. It was really good for me. I really appreciate it. So this shift from thinking, from not thinking to thinking, from not thinking to thinking, and then back again, you know, resonates with this classical meditation techniques from the old wisdom teachings of shamatha vipassana. So shamatha means tranquility practice, shamatha, sounds like that, shamatha. And vipassana is insight. So the vipassana tradition, which is pretty well known in our country nowadays, it means insight meditation, meditating for some understanding, for some insight about the mind. Another way of saying that is to calm the mind and then discern what's real. When you calm your mind, you can then see more clearly. When your mind is agitated, very hard to see what's going on. Everything looks like that. So when you calm your mind, you begin to have some better access to what's happening there, what's going on here.

[56:31]

Ask better questions. So not thinking is akin to shamatha. and thinking to Vipassana. So you pivot back and forth is liberation from any set position or perspective. Think, not thinking. Think, not thinking. How do you think, not thinking? Non-thinking, not getting stuck on either one. The essential art of Zazen. Fluid, pivoting, moving. um oh well that's kind of all the time for right now so i was going to go back to the fukans of zengi but i'll do that next week and i just very much enjoy hearing from you seeing how you are and looking at your faces which is always delightful um make a note okay i think master gi has his hand up i think Karina, are you there?

[57:36]

My stage hand. Hi, Guy. Hi, Fu. Hello, Sangha. Thank you so much for the talk. I definitely want to, I didn't get a chance to watch it, but I'm definitely going to watch the recording this morning as well. And if I can, and if it is recorded, when you do give that talk to the students, I would love... to hear that one as well. I have no doubt that based on what you've already taught us, I think it's going to be of great benefit to them and I would love to hear it as well. I hope it doesn't make them unemployable. That's something that's so wonderful. I remember when we were speaking about branching streams, I think in there where Suzuki Roshi had talked about burning yourself up completely in whatever you do, like a good fire. And it's unbelievable, you know, to what Kokyo said of, you know, I think that makes you pretty employable.

[58:42]

I think people do want to employ somewhere, regardless what it is, you do it wholeheartedly, right, as part of the way. It's, yeah. But I also wanted to share how wonderful it's been reading Dogen and his way of really, you know, leaping beyond, leaping clear of many in the one, right? He really takes with, given the two truths, how does that apply to time? How does that apply to birth and death? And so it's challenging, right? Because the two truths is already there. And then he's like, all right, let's take it. Now let's apply it to the, and it's, There's just something so, it's a challenge, but it's been very, very remarkable. And how the questions that he asked maybe don't have answers, but the closest to knowing or not knowing it sometimes comes in sitting.

[59:49]

And it's almost as though something is there. And then the moment that I tried to make it as if something's there, it just flies away. And it's all just words. And I have no idea what... what it really was right it's it's there's something really really wonderful about about studying and and the depths that he goes to the to the truth so yeah just wanted to share that personal experience but it's always nice to see you smiling about dogan or anyone yeah yeah i mean it's after well another thing that i really noticed is suzuki roshi's compassion towards all of us in the way that he teaches us through Even Beginner's Mind and reading Beginner's Mind where I read some of Dogen and then it reminds me of some things that are said, right? I think I mentioned recently in Beginner's Mind where he was saying, well, the Suzuki Roshi that's going to be in Altadena is not this Suzuki Roshi and those sorts of, and then tying it all back, right, to seeing his great respect of Dogen and how the teachings can really be articulated in so many wonderful ways.

[60:58]

depending on what comes forth right so yeah he was he was in our time he was our he's kind of our dog and he really is transformational figure for for us and and we won't know how impactful that was it's going to be a long time from now but anyway my hunch is big a big deal yeah very big deal yeah there's no doubt so thank you thank you Hello, Melissa. Hello, Fu-sensei. Hello, Sangha. This is actually probably a pretty perfect comment slash question on the Tales of Gi's contribution. Reading Dogen and studying Dogen has... brought an awareness of yeah he is he is a trickster right he's constantly playing with this horse that we're riding language and and that's why the contradiction and that's why the constant yes and yes and yes and and um i was thinking and i wanted to thank millicent for bringing forward the article um in a previous saga

[62:10]

a meeting about that Jiryu wrote in The Lion's Roar about AI and the whole chat GPT thing he was building around, you know, Roshibot, I guess. It really got me thinking about the nature of language and how it's almost, yeah, it is the horse for writing and it's a bit of a black box. in that words come out and are received by someone else, but what they receive is largely a mystery to us because it calls upon all these myriad of experiences that this person has had in the past and affects them in a very particular way. And I thought, well, what's the other thing that does that music? Music does that too. It's a bit of a black box. Like we don't know why certain pieces affect us as individuals in the way that they do. And then I thought, you know what? I think that's what AI is too. And I'm wondering if, I just wanted to put that out there to the sangha of like, is that, am I saying that correctly?

[63:17]

Is AI kind of this next wave that we're riding of learning how to interact with each other in different ways? And it's a bit of a black box. And the way that things are going, we can't escape it. It's a new communication tool that we just have now. And as things ever change, we will change as a result of it. And it just, anyway, I wanted to throw that out to the group. If anyone has thoughts, especially you, if you have thoughts on that, I'd love to hear them, but it's been a delightful thought exercise. It's a great AI question offered to the chat bot. You know, I've tried that with a few questions like, good answer i asked him to tell me about the two truths what are the two truths and it's like very good answer came back i'm like okay all right they've been well um stocked this storeroom is like amazon you know they've got all the data in all the languages

[64:18]

And I do think there it is a I like the idea of a black box. I think there are people online I'd like to hear respond to you, too, because I know a lot of folks have been really tracking this. And they're both amazements and concerns, you know, because we're kind of wimpy when it comes to what makes us run and what we think and how we vote and all these other things that are kind of determining safety and well-being and violence and all kinds of stuff, you know, so big deal. Yeah. Okay, thank you, Melissa. Yay, Paul, I was just hoping you might. That one was bait for me. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I'm totally into watching the whole AI chat bot thing. And trying to, and I'm completely mystified as to where we're going with that. So I may have more comments in the future.

[65:25]

I'm still trying to formulate some kind of reaction to the situation. But the thing that's most fascinating, I guess, is the term that they're using called emergent behavior, where the chat bots come up with something nobody ever thought it could do. so it's um yeah but it the problem is that it's working it's called a large language model it's all language which is part of our downfall is we're living in this world of language and so are these things so is this programming is all language Maybe I can formulate a better response or discussion in future sessions, but it's very concerning because it seems to have great capability that people are looking to depend on, but it doesn't seem to be any way to validate whether its responses are true or false.

[66:38]

So we're entering into this really murky, not that human responses are true or false either, that we're entering into this just no man's land. Yeah. Yeah. I think they call them also hallucinating. They hallucinate. They chatbots, they can hallucinate and make up, like they cited some reference books that don't exist and the authors and the data. They just make up stuff sometimes. It was like, what? Yeah. So that's really intriguing. I'm, I'm, I don't have a definitive answer on that, but I think what I read was in the earlier versions where they were not fully trained with as much information as they are now, the earlier ones were only trained through about September of 2021. So when there's a question related to more recent times, it made up the answer. They don't want to appear to be stupid.

[67:44]

Apparently not. That's another good question. It seems like there is an infinite number of questions to ask these things and see what they come up with. This could become another full-time job or full-time task is asking the chatbots these questions as if we're asking Roshi. We're asking Kokyo. It was a little bit of a weird sense of Kokyo as chatbot where he asks questions and he comes up with an answer. We like the answer. And I like that he has a really sweet smile. I don't know about the chatbots, the face, face-to-face. They're going to come up with those, too, I'm sure. Yes, they're already generating face responses to the language. I saw a picture of a cute little chatbot sitting with a very old woman in a, you know,

[68:44]

what she's called old people's home, retirement home, she's very old, and they don't have enough nursing staff. So the little chatbot is sitting there, talking to her. And she's smiling and laughing and there have there's companionship, you know, so there's all kinds of ways this is playing out that that we're gonna hopefully I'd like to live a little longer to see what's going on here. But it's it's the beginning of I think of a whole revolutionary transformation of consciousness. you know, that's human stuff that they put in there. And that's, you know, that's, and it's not all good. And as we know, so the last thing, let me just say one last thing. There was a movie in 2014 called her. Yes, was a precursor or a science fiction chat bot story. Mm hmm. And I'm not sure I need to go back and remember the end, but they got into the chatbots or the operating systems, they called them, got into spiritual study and Alan Watts or whatever, and they decided to all leave and go follow him.

[69:58]

And so everybody in the end was left back on their own. Kind of a weird ending, isn't it? But the chatbots became spiritual entities. So anyway, thank you for today. But this is something I think we're in a new, just totally new era. And I'm fascinated as to how it interacts with Dogen's teaching. How does it interact with the fundamental teachings of... Yeah. Well, I think the Hawaiian guys got there first. I think they saw the, you know, infinite interconnectedness. What do they call it in the Einstein film? The... Entanglement. Entanglement. You know, it's like they got that. They knew it. And there's something, you know, like, oh, yeah, that's old news. You know, but here we are doing it in a more literal way. It seems literary way, like words, you know, rather than intuition. And so anyway, I look forward to you speaking more.

[71:01]

Thank you. I look forward to you speaking more on the... Remind me again, Wei Wen or Wei... Huyen. Huyen. Avatamsaka Sutra. Yes. We're reading, oh my God, the Flower Ornament Sutra. We're reading it in our senior studies. Please bring that in when it seems appropriate. I will. Thank you. Okay, you're welcome. You're welcome. Ari. Well, I have a more, I guess, personal question, but I would bridge it to that discussion by saying that, you know, you raised the question of intimacy or the opportunity of intimacy as a foundational, maybe you can remind me actually, it was like, maybe like as the language of read, maybe as a way to say it in a way, since we're talking about language so much here.

[72:03]

And as to the AI, I wonder, if we are asking questions of this amalgamation of knowledge, I wonder what that says about intimacy as maybe an alternative to intimacy, which is sometimes scary or painful. But that's my question, or my bridge. That's my bridge. But my question is, I have had the occasion to see people I love and perhaps myself as well, but right now I'm thinking specifically of people I love, seek intimacy with others and feel a lack of it, you know, a rejection of it. And I wonder, like when you see that suffering or experience that suffering, how you think about the sort of idea of like ever-present wholeness that

[73:05]

re-represents like when you see that absence of intimacy i'm interested in that in your in your feelings about that duality yeah well i think we all share in the heartbreak of trying to be intimate with others that didn't work you know that somehow even it turned into animosity or enmity you know how can intimacy become enmity how's that possible you'd be so close and then and then not at all it is certainly common human experience. I have plenty of that in my own history. And at some point is sort of like the questions change. I mean, the desire changes from something about I want that or I long for that or I got to have that I got to get that there's something wrong with me, you know, all of that stuff that goes on when you're young, to like, wow, what a fascinating world. What an amazing thing it is the night sky, and your face, Ari, and like, the things that are actually here in the world that I do have that I can't escape, are so occupying of my attention and my, and my affection.

[74:20]

You know, when somebody talks to me, I'm meeting them, I have a really small room right now where I meet people privately, and there couldn't be experience of greater intimacy than sitting in that room with another person and and when they're beginning talking about their sadness or their longing or their you know the break that you're talking about from intimacy right there in this intimate situation you know I I feel like come here what are you thinking here we are this is it it won't last that's the challenge for us is impermanence. It's really not intimacy, it's that nothing that we're intimate with, the sunset, the spring flowers, the rain, the sun, it doesn't last, it all transforms, it shifts, and so on. And coming into relationship with what I've been calling the facts of life, that things don't last, no matter how wonderful it is, that this is not going to go on forever, there's no forever.

[75:24]

you know, and somehow facing the facts of life being aware of not attaching to some idea you have of eternal whatever, or forever and ever the stuff we say in weddings, not getting caught up in that kind of language. But really, you know, being open, really open to every day and what's happening there. And I think it's a kind of a shift from a from the person part to the more like a spiritual connection, that's not doesn't require people to somehow meet you in the way you need, you know, because they won't, they can't, and you can't. So somehow it's this other, vaster sense of we belong together. No way out. You said another way that opportunities for intimacy are, are infinite. Constantly.

[76:24]

All the time. They're happening. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for your question. Hi, Dean. Hi, Fu. I have no idea if this is going to make sense to anybody but me. But I just have been listening to a series of lectures on the Platform Sutra. And I've also... been in this koan class, and I met with someone. This thing that I heard has come up regularly through this talk. But I met with someone who's in the koan class. I am not a metaphor person. I just don't understand them. That little spot in my right brain is just white matter. But we met, and we were talking, and she said to me, Well, I think the purpose of koans, and I did a little change at the end to make it make more sense to me.

[77:32]

The purpose of koans is to see the many ways they can be interpreted so one can then see the absurdity of pinning something down. And that's what I have heard over and over today. And it seems like... Everything for the last week has been that, oh, it's absurd to pin anything down. And I've heard that a number of times today. So it makes me smile every time I hear something and I think, well, can't pin that down. That's right. And yet. The thinking, no thinking, that effort. Why do we have to make effort if we're all ready? all of those things, it's just the absurdity of it all. And I find a light in that thought. So thank you.

[78:33]

Well, keep it well. Now you have it, so keep it well. But don't hold on to it. Hi, Millicent. Hi, Fu. I'm laughing and responding to your Wisdom, Dee, because in my constant quest to pin down, re and g. You go, girl. Let us know when you get there. Well... I realised that I've come from a very, very dualistic condition in having been deep, deep, deep in the Christian tradition, which, of course, is deep, deep, deep dualism. So trying to resist dualism with the teachings of Re and G. Actually, I heard a song.

[79:43]

called the Mobius strip. And so I made a little Mobius strip. Ah. And all it needs to make a Mobius strip is half a turn, just a tiny little half turn, and then inside and outside just disappear. Wow. And then I think I got it. Well, don't hold on to it. Give it a toss. I'm not ready to yet. Maybe not today. Somebody told me about the Mobius Strip and I said, well, what about outside the Mobius Strip? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh.

[80:44]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. Yeah. Oh. Is anything outside the Mobius strip? I don't know. See, I do flourish with metaphors, but to let them go, oh, that's so hard. Anyway, that's my latest. That's very good. It's nice to have an artist in the crowd. But it's amazing, isn't it? It is amazing. No inside and no outside. And that somebody got to name it by their name, Mr. Mobius. Well, you can let that bit go. But, you know, you take your pencil and there's no inside and there's no outside. Mm-hmm. And he is reality. Oh, now there you go. You call it a cat. What do you call that cat? This cat is called Dana.

[81:48]

Dana. So anyway, thank you, everybody. Thank you. Very, very interesting conversation. Pretty scary, actually. I think it may get better as we dig into Dogen because he's like, he's a devil dog. He's just... Well, when you say he's very serious, I think anyone who says we turn somersaults in Zazen. Good point. He's my kind of guy. Maybe he's a silly guy. Yeah. You know, Suzuki Roshi in one of his little books was asked, what do Zen masters do when they get together? And he said, we laugh a lot. I bet. Yes. Yes. Anyway, thanks. Thanks to everyone. Okay, Guy, one last swipe, and then I think we'll all go off to our whatever, wherever we are. No, mine, mine was quick. I just, in the conversation, it had me thinking about, of AI specifically had me thinking about life.

[82:57]

Right. What what is life? And I remember in Jiria's talk, him saying, if we really look, is there anything that's not alive? And maybe that's where so much fear comes from. Right. What is life when is it really making things up or do we just not know what's not made up? Right. Yeah. Well, you bring life to everything because that's what we do. As soon as I as I see it, I've brought life to it. As soon as I hear it, I bring life to it. As soon as we named it, right? I don't know the name of this trip, but now it's a thing. Yeah, that's right. You bring life to it. You bring your life. And we bring each other to life in that same way. Buddha and Buddha. Life to life. Can't help it. Can't miss. Can't miss. Okay, everybody, you're very welcome to come on and say hello, goodbye. Good night, everyone. Thank you. Good night, everyone. Thank you, Sue. Sue, you're an inspiration.

[84:00]

Yeah, for sure. You make it sound so doable and easy and obvious. Yeah, well. Ain't it? The ultimate path is without difficulty, right? I just need to figure out how to not pick and choose because I'm a beginner. Yeah, that one's on you. Let me know. Still working on it. Thank you all so much. Thank you, everyone. The highlight of our week is the five o'clock hour on Sunday nights. Aww. Me too, really. Thank you. Me too, really. Yeah, me too. Okay. Lovely, lovely people. Bye, everyone. Have a good week. Bye-bye. Thank you so much. So welcome. You truly are.

[84:52]

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