Good morning, everyone. How's the melting going? Are you all puddles yet? You found yourself merging with the source. You're part of the big Dharma ocean. Everyone's like, I don't know. Are you ready to do a big, deep dive into this Dharma ocean with Dogen? You should see the Shuso's face. She looks like Kinu when you ask, do you want to go for a walk? Do you want to go for a walk? And then you pull out the Dogen ball, and she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:01]

Today is a deep dive in Dogen. Again, the opening paragraph of the Mountains and Waters Sutra. These mountains and waters of the present are the expression of the old Buddhas. Each abiding in its own Dharma state fulfills exhaustive virtues. Because they are the circumstances prior to the kapha of emptiness, They are this life of the present. Because they are the self before the germination of any subtle sign, they are liberated in their actual occurrence. Since the virtues of the mountain are high and broad, the spiritual power to ride the clouds is always mastered from the mountains. And the marvelous ability to follow the wind is inevitably liberated from the mountains. So this is our fourth talk.

[02:06]

It's part of our five-day sushin, and we're going to, like I said, be continuing with Dogen. And as I said in the previous class before the sushin started, the opening sentence here, in this opening sentence, Dogen establishes the fact that mountains and waters are expressing the teachings of the Buddha and ancient sages. just as a sutra does. So we were just chanting a sutra now. So the same way that sutras offer us the words and teachings of the Buddhas, so do mountains and waters. How is that? How is that happening? This is what Dogen is trying to eliminate for us. But the thing is to clarify that the sutra is not about mountains and waters. It is the mountains and waters. Indeed, if we examine this teaching very carefully, we'll see that all phenomena are, or is it is?

[03:15]

I'm confused, are constantly expressing the truth of the universe. Everything, each and everything, is expressing the truth of the universe. This glass, this table, this watch, everything is truth. Do you accept the truth? And how do you see the truth? How you see the truth will determine the way that you relate to each and every object. Are you meeting it as truth? Or are you meeting it as something separate from yourself? Something to be controlled, manipulated, tossed aside, grabbed onto. How are you relating to the truth of just this? So now we move on to the second sentence of the first paragraph. So we only have 46 more paragraphs to go, folks. And we're kind of moving through this festival as quickly as mountains walk.

[04:18]

So we might be here for a little while. I hope that's okay with you. Hold on to your seats, though. This is going to be a ride. So again, each abiding in its own dharma state fulfills exhaustive virtues. Other translations of this first sentence include, this one's from Nishijima, both mountains and waters abide in place in the Dharma, having realized ultimate virtue. And Kasanahashi translates it as, each, abiding its phenomenal expression, realizes completeness. And Kozen Nishijama translates it as, Both mountains and rivers maintain their true form and actualize their real virtue. So many different ways of expressing this. So this idea of dharma state is a very important teaching for Dogen and appears throughout the Shobugenso. As Okamura points out in his commentary, dharma state is a translation of the Japanese word or characters hoi, hoi.

[05:30]

which is a term from the Lotus Sutra, and it kind of references in the Lotus Sutra line that says, each and every being dwells within its own hoi, or dharma state. Bokamura translates hoi as dharma position, which I actually also prefer, because I think it better points to the sense of how each person phenomenal thing has its own particular and unique location or position in the nexus or unfolding of interdependent origination. I am in a monthly Dogen study group that's led by Shinshu Roberts. who is a Zen priest. She's a former San Francisco Zen Center resident, and she's the co-founder of the Ocean Gate Zen Center in Capitola, along with her spouse, Jakku Kinst, who happens to be one of Jodi's teachers.

[06:37]

So there is connection here. Seven years back, in our Dogen Sori group, we studied Dogen's classical Shobogenzo Uji, which... again, Uji, time being, being time, out of which Shinshu wrote her book, which some of you may have seen, Being Time, a Practitioner's Guide. I highly recommend it if you haven't had a chance to look at it. Uji is like a difficult concept to grok, and I think Shinshu does a wonderful job of unpacking it for us. So this is what she says about drama position in her book. A Dharma position is a moment, thing, or event of being time that is also definable as transitive and impermanent. A person is a Dharma position. Since nothing ever stays the same and all things are in flux due to their interactive, interpenetrating nature, it would be folly to say that a Dharma position or a moment of being time, uji, begins here

[07:50]

and ends there. Dharma positions are not finite in this sense, nor are they sequential way stations along a continuum of past, present, and future. A Dharma position has a past, present, and future, but it is freed from being defined by that past, present, or future. Each Dharma position is particular and interdependent. We are aware of past experiences and future desires when actualizing our enlightened mind. But such ideas do not abstract our ability to respond fully to the totality of each situation. So, in other words, a Buddha can be aware of past, present, and future ideas and concepts, but that doesn't hinder them in any way for responding to the moment as it's appearing right now, wholly and completely. This non-obstructive awareness is important because the independent nature of Dharma position allows us to choose how we will respond to them.

[09:03]

From the perspective of non-duality, past, present, and future are present in this moment. All of them simultaneously present. Yet at the same time, each moment must have the freedom to express its individual flavor, just particular this moment completely. This instantaneous arising and vanishing is the dharma position as fluid and all-inclusive. At the same time, it is an independent dharma position. So Dogen famously expresses this idea in his classical Genjo Koan, or translated sometimes as manifesting suchness or actualizing the fundamental point, where he writes about the respective natures of firewood and ash. So this is to give you an example. Firewood becomes ash. Ash cannot become firewood again.

[10:05]

However, we should not view ash as after and firewood as before. We should know that firewood dwells or abides in the firewood Dharma position of firewood, it's completely firewood, and has its own before and after. Although before and after exist, past and future are cut off. Ash stays in the position of ash with its own before and after. Each thing, each abiding in the moment has its own past and future, but it's not connected to the next thing that manifests in that particular way. As firewood never becomes firewood again after it has burned to ash, there is no return to living after a person dies. However, in the Buddha Dharma, it is an unchanged tradition not to say that life becomes death. So in other words, each position, whether that of firewood or that of ash, is 100% itself and never becomes something else.

[11:07]

And likewise, this is the saying that life and death. life is a position or a complete expression in time death is also a position or a complete expression in time so life is life and death is death and there's no going back and no going forward into the next thing regardless of what you think about reincarnation so in each moment there is just this just a state called life, just a state called death. Each stage or state or expression is absolutely independent, absolutely complete. One thing, such as a tree, is not an earlier state of another thing, such as firewood or ash. Each is completely itself. It is not a becoming of the next thing. You are not at the coming of the next thing.

[12:14]

So as Shen Shu noted, however, within each Dharma position, there is a past and a future, which is part of the present Dharma position or stage. There is a before and after, she writes, but the before and after are cut off. This moment is a complete, perfect time with nothing lacking. So when we consider the relationship with Dharma's position to Dogen's idea of time being, or being time, excuse me, being and time are one thing. Remember, being and time, according to Dogen, are the same thing. They're one thing. So each moment and each being is complete and independent. It doesn't flow. It doesn't flow into the next thing. It is. It is one complete time being, right here and now. Still, This time that doesn't flow is flowing. Uh-oh. There's that paradox.

[13:18]

Huh? What? Time? What? I don't get it. A tree becomes firewood. Firewood becomes ash. So something's happening there. Things aren't moving. They're totally in their Dharma position. And yet flowing is happening. What is that about? So what this leads to then, as Okamura describes it, is that within this present zero moment, remember the other day I was trying to say a little bit about Uji, about the present moment, I should say, and how the present moment is, in one perspective, according to Dogen, a big zero. Doesn't exist. Don't tell anyone, okay? So whenever anyone tells you, be here in the present moment, kind of look at them like, huh? How do I do that? So, Within this present zero moment, the entire past and future are reflected. That is the self in Dogen's teaching.

[14:21]

All that is the self in Dogen's teaching. The entire universe is reflected even in a jewel drop. All beings in the entire universe are reflected even in one tiny thing. So let's unpack that a little bit. This introduces the image that's often used when talking about Dharma position, and that's of Indra's net. Anyone know about Indra's net? A few hands. Okay. So Indra's net is a metaphor that's often used to illustrate the concepts of shunyata, or emptiness, partitya sammupada, dependent origination. Forgive me if my Pollyon Sanskrit is off. You're welcome, if you know Pollyon Sanskrit, to clarify or correct me afterwards. I would appreciate that. I want to be learning how to pronounce things correctly. That goes for Japanese or Chinese or anything else I say. Don't hesitate to say, can I tell you? If you know. If you don't know, don't bother. You're just confusing me even more.

[15:24]

So Indra's net is a metaphor that's often used to illustrate the concept of shunyata, emptiness, dependent origination, and interpenetration in Buddhist philosophy. So Indra is a Vedic king. of the gods. And he is said to have, notice it's a he again, multidimensional net. So he has a multidimensional net that stretches out infinitely in all directions throughout all time and space. So I like to imagine this kind of cosmic spider web without end, right? And it goes out, but it also goes up and down in all directions. And there's no end to this spider web. The whole universe is just one giant spider web. I hope I never meet the spider. And at the nexus, or the intersection of each connection of the web, there is a glittering jewel, or dew drop, which contains the reflection of all the other jewels, or dew drops.

[16:32]

And in each reflected dew drop is a reflection's of all the other dewdrops. Okay? And so reflections of reflections of reflections ad infinim. Take a moment just to take that in. Reflections of reflections of reflections endlessly. So when we talk about mirror mind for a moment, Imagine, that's kind of the nature of mirror mind. It just reflects the whole universe and its true reality. So this angel's web is the Buddhist conception of the universe as an image. Each jewel is its own independent Dharma position. Connected through the strands or conditions of interdependence,

[17:35]

and also reflecting all the other jewels or dew drops or dharma positions throughout time and space. And the whole cosmic web and each nexus point is in dynamic motion due to the reality of impermanence. Sometimes I also imagine this to be, if you imagine all causes and conditions, a strand of causes and conditions, right? let's just imagine a strand of causes, conditions. For example, everything that led up to your birth, your parents, their meeting together, their lives, how they grew up, their grandfathers and grandmothers, back to their parents and parents and so on, and everything. That's one strand throughout, right? Each of those strands, all those, for each thing has its own series of strands coming together. So the nexus, the meeting point of each strand, right, is coming together right here.

[18:35]

Now, there's not just two strands coming together. There's a gazillion strands, more than a gazillion strands, coming together at each moment to make this. This is a gazillion strands coming together, and the nexus, the Dharma position of this, of all those strands coming together, is what we've decided to call, conventionally, a glass of water. So the whole... web of time and space is coming together and this moment we just cut out this part of the web in our minds conceptually and said this is a glass of water and we cut out in our minds and said this is a clock and we cut out the nexus and we said that's a chiseau and we're doing this all the time we're cutting you know we're just taking frames and applying them mental frames and applying them to this immense interconnectivity coming together. We're just choosing a particular spot on the web, and we've named it, even though it's not really there in the way that we think it's there.

[19:41]

I hope that's clear. I don't know if that's confusing. Okay. Speaking of water. Tastes like reality. Now if we consider a Dharma position in regard to people and how it is that we see each other, it's important to realize that every individual human's position is dynamic. That is constantly changing or shifting both ours and others. So how do we abide in this particular Dharma position as this one? I don't abide as this one in this Dharma position, but at the same time acknowledging the instability of these forms and the profound into dependence and intimacy. So how do I live as this one, recognizing that this is unstable? Not just the mind, but the rest, the whole thing is kind of unstable, right?

[20:44]

How do I live this instability? How do I live this dharma position, even when it keeps changing? So, for example, each of us has a particular dharma position in this room. that's dependent on myriad shifting causes and conditions. Okay, so all those strands are coming together. Oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention those strands are moving. They're in motion. So not only are they all coming together, they're also moving at the same time, right? So all these shifting strands of causes and conditions. So my parents... my parents' parents, the state of the world when our parents were born. Then there's the food we eat, the education and healthcare that we receive, the landscape that our ancestors and we live in, how our family, neighbors, culture, and nation viewed our gender, our height, skin color, sexual orientation, class. All of this shifting all the time in subtle and not so subtle ways, right? So we could be in one position, say I'm someone who eats lots of junk food, mmm, junk food, right?

[21:50]

And so I have a certain health condition because I've eaten so much junk food, I'm not so healthy, all right? So if I change my diet and start eating nothing but organic food, my body is going to change in some way, right? The Darwin position of the body informed by junk food is going to become a Darwin position of a body informed by organic food. So that change is going to happen. And also I might in this moment be what's defined as a U.S. citizen. But if the U.S. ends up having a civil war, for whatever reason, and I find myself having to flee the U.S. because it's no longer safe for me to be here, and I go to another country, and that country doesn't necessarily want to receive me, then suddenly I go from being a legal citizen to an illegal citizen. So my Dharma position as a citizen in the US, legal, is unstable.

[22:53]

It's only dependent on certain causes and conditions. It could shift at any moment, just like that. And also, As another example, you know, as someone who identifies as gay, I knew kind of when I was four, like, yeah, there's something here that's different, right? But I didn't have the words for it. And I also had this information that what that is is not okay. So I didn't really come into that knowing. I didn't step into the knowing. I said the knowing was there, but I didn't step into it. I didn't fully own my Dharma position of that until much later in life. And then when I did step into it fully, then I was told, you're bad, you're sinful, we can't associate with you anymore. And so I was ostracized. And the government for a long time also said, I'm not a full human being, therefore I can't marry. I can't have a partner according to the eyes of the law. But then that recently changed. So now I can marry.

[23:55]

I can have a partner. So all these things continue to shift and change depending on causes and conditions. So we can't necessarily depend on what's going on here. So some of us, conditioned by our classes or mental and emotional habit patterns, keep acting out of our fixed ideas of who we are and who others are. And when doing so, we miss each other and the reality of our dynamic interbeing, right? So I'm thinking of racial profiling, particularly with police. They will perhaps see a black man driving a car and more inclined to pull over, statistics say, a black man for driving for no reason whatsoever. And that conditioning is based on individual, their own individual karmic consciousness, their social conditioning, as well as the institutional conditioning in which they are manifesting the woa police, right?

[25:02]

So all these different strands, personal, interpersonal, communal, and world in some cases, coming together, creating this. And in the process, we actually miss the human being that's in front of us. We just see the particular bias our biased view and not actually see the warm, whole, complete human being. So intimacy is really being with each other, right? Seeing each other and then going beyond what we see in this moment to allow something else to come forward, right? I remember shortly after the last election, He was a resident at City Center who identifies as liberal, a Democrat, more or less. And he was so surprised by the election results that he decided to, rather than have this, you know, us and them kind of view, he decided to go find someone who identifies as conservative and actually talk to them.

[26:09]

Because he felt like somehow this election was an expression of the fact that we missed, there was a conversation that wasn't happening. We missed each other in some way. So he decided to talk to someone who had conservative views, according to him, and find out why Trump. Why did you vote for that particular person? Because he wanted to understand the other person's point of view, so he wasn't fixed to his own point of view, and that he could include a larger reality, a larger truth, and create a connection and intimacy. And maybe from that understanding, that place of connection and intimacy, be able to move forward together in trying to create a society that everyone felt would be beneficial. That's something to always consider. When you don't understand another person, why they're doing what they're doing, really try to find out. Try to understand their point of view. Why do they hold the view they hold?

[27:11]

Not that it's bad, it's just a different point of view. What can I learn? In that effort to learn, there's intimacy. How are you creating connection and intimacy in that process? So intimacy is really being with each other, seeing each other, and then going beyond what we see in this moment to allow something else to come forward. Can we allow ourselves to come forward in this intimacy? Just seeing what comes forward, when we don't fix ourselves and each other with our views and ideas. When we can do so, we're left questioning what we conceive of as ourselves. Who are you? Who are we? I have this idea of myself. Is that true? And that inquiry takes a lot of courage. It takes a real amount of persistence and courage to really question, who am I? the first time I received the precepts from my teacher, Tia Strozer, in the summer of 2000, which was just a few months before I moved into City Center, she gave me the Dharma name Kozan Zengan, which she translated as Rainbow Mountain Complete Perfect Vow.

[28:26]

And actually, I think I've said this before, I've had three different Dharma names, and each one, the first part, has included mountain in it in some way. So... First one was Rainbow Mountain. And then when I became a priest, it was Perfection Mountain. And now I have a Dharma Transmission. It's Luminous Mountain. So even that changes, right? Now, I'm embarrassed to say I was not a happy camper when she gave me the name Rainbow Mountain. I was like, it sounds like a children's ride at an amusement park. Welcome to Rainbow. I was kind of horrified. I could just feel my whole body went, oh, shoot, right? Yeah. So that was my initial, you know, my own karmic conditioning was like rainbows meant this, right? And so anyhow, that was a moment of, you know, self-clinging, right? However, I later discovered that my teacher was using rainbow as a double entendre.

[29:34]

indicating both my identity as a gay man, but also pointing to the Buddhist teaching of selflessness or no self. So my clinging to self got stuck on this idea of a rainbow. I didn't want to be a rainbow. I didn't want to be a gay flag. I felt that was too limiting to my expression. Or a gay symbol. Especially in the Dharma, I wanted to be bigger. I just didn't want to be limited to just this... So she wrote in my Rakasu, a rainbow vividly arises from sun, rain, and angle. Looking closely, nothing is found. Yet there it is, shining in the sky. So there is nothing in and of itself that is a rainbow. Can you grab onto rainbows? Nope. A rainbow is merely an appearance arising out of the coming together of different conditions. air, moisture, and light arranged in a certain way, and out of those conditions, a rainbow appears.

[30:39]

But there's no substantial thingness to the rainbow. It's simply an appearance arising out of certain conditions. So, we can say that the self is like a rainbow. You're all a bunch of rainbows. Lovely. There is indeed an appearance of a self, and on that level of appearance, a self exists. just like it is true that we have the experience of what we call a rainbow. So I just see the room full of rainbows right now. Something is appearing. On the relative level, we do relate to one another as individuals. So it's not to deny the appearance of a self, but to realize that it is only an appearance. When we go beyond and see through or begin to understand the conditions that are giving rise to the appearance, in this case particularly the five skandhas of form or matter, sensations, perceptions, mental activity and consciousness, then we come to taste the profound teachings of the Buddha on emptiness.

[31:44]

Emptiness does not mean that the thing isn't there. It means that they do not have the self-existing nature independent of conditions. When we see this in our experience, we begin to understand the selflessness of this whole life process. And the deeper the wisdom of selflessness, the more love and compassion flow freely. So in Buddhism, we understand that our sense of our self is nothing more than a confluence and interplay of conditions with which we then have a tendency to identify. Key point. We have a tendency to identify with this confluence of causes and conditions. Yet, there is a Dharma state or position, a ho-yi, that appears and interacts and is affected. When I think of the concept of Dharma position, I also think of another more contemporary word, one that I often hear used in conversations around social identity and diversity, and that is intersectionality.

[32:50]

Is anyone familiar with that term? A few people. My... friend, Lama Rod Owens, who identifies himself as black, poly-queer, able-bodied, cisgender male, Tibetan Buddhist Lama, and who is also mixed-class and racially minded, often writes about intersexuality, including in the book Radical Dharma, Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, which he co-authored with Angel Kyoto Williams and Saedula, Jasmine Saedula. Anyone read that book? I'd recommend it. And Angel, by the way, comes here each summer and co-leads a retreat with Fu Schroeder on Radical Dharma. And I think she's offered other retreats as well. So if you have a chance to ever listen to her speak, she's a powerful speaker, wonderful teacher. Lama Ra says that intersectionality speaks to the reality that we are influenced by any number of identities.

[33:52]

all of which are informed further still by our social and political locations. We are not just straight or gay or transgender or white or black or male or female, etc. We are an expression of a community of identities and influences that may not be apparent to those around us, even to us. So in other words, we are reflections of reflections of reflections of a vast cosmic interdependent web being when I reflect on my own intersectionality and the various locations and influence and forming them I can recognize myself as being queer white cisgendered able-bodied males and priests of mixed class okay so these are all conventional terms and labels that our society has in this moment come up created and that we are using in various ways based upon our own understanding and other others own understanding so you could say that these identities make for the various colors of the particular rainbow that i am as a person each of these stripes or locations have both advantages and disadvantages or you could say privileges and disprivileges depending on who else i find myself among at any particular time and place why i have expressed a lot of harm

[35:18]

While I have experienced a lot of harm and oppression as someone who is gay, I have also experienced a lot of benefits and relative safety as someone who is white and male. And depending on how someone's locating me or how I'm locating myself in each moment, people might relate to me. If they see me as male, they might relate to me in one way. If they see me as a gay male, they may relate to me in a different way. So how am I seeing myself in this particular drama position? And how is someone else seeing me? And how are those two scenes meeting each other? And that can shift at any time. And we can locate ourselves in a particular place at any time. And in some cases, we can choose whether or not to name our location or not. That's a privilege to be able to name your location. It's not a privilege when that's not the case.

[36:19]

So if I am truly committed to being an awake and compassionate human being and a mindful participant in society, then it's important for me to be as fully conscious as I can of what intersectionalities or Dharma positions I inhabit and are being engaged in at any particular time. In relationship to others, I need to be aware of my Dharma positions. because any position is a nexus of multiplicities, and the impact that they have on others, particularly if harmful and perpetuating inequity, needs to be recognized. My identities can either serve as pathways of liberation or oppression, depending on how I and others relate to them. Okay, that's John the position. Let's return again to the second sentence, which can be read in several ways.

[37:21]

Each abiding in its own dharma state fulfills exhaustive virtues. And now the kitchen is going to fulfill the virtue of cooking. Thank you, kitchen. Both mountains and waters abide in place in the dharma, having realized ultimate virtue. Or, each abiding its phenomenal expression realizes completeness. So each of us and each phenomenal expression abides in its own dharma position and by doing so fulfills exhaustive virtues or realizes ultimate virtue or realizes completeness. Each of us dwells in a certain dharma position yet every one of us and all phenomenon each has a virtue called exhaustive virtue. It's called exhaustive virtue in Bielefeld's translation and realized completeness in Tamahashi's translation. And the original word that Dogen used for exhaustive, for the word exhaustive, is gujin.

[38:25]

And gu means to penetrate thoroughly or completely. And jin means to exhaust completely with nothing lacking. So the original word Dogen used then for virtue is kodoku, kudoku. which consists of two characters. The character ku, which means function or result of function, and character for toku, which means virtue or good quality, or the power to command respect, which is an interesting way of framing that. So in other words, one's original virtue is the result or function of their natural goodness or their true nature. Exhausted virtue, therefore, is when one's virtue fully manifests with nothing held back. And this is the kind of virtue that a Buddha has, wholehearted, wholehearted, wholehearted engagement. Dogen also says that each of us already has the same virtue, the same innate goodness, and that we practice for the sake of fulfilling our vow to live together with all beings.

[39:35]

And I ask, I appreciate Kaz's translation of the word as completeness, because completeness to me really means wholeness, the sense of wholeness. And you have that sense of wholeness, it has this profound sense of satisfaction, the opposite of dukkha. Dukha is dissatisfaction. And sukha, satisfaction, right? The feeling of this is just right, this is full and complete. There's nothing lacking here. And that's a wonderful feeling. And yet, most of the time, we only experience dissatisfaction and a sense of incompleteness. Am I the only one? A few people, yeah, okay. So we spend a lot of our time and effort trying to close the gap, trying to fill in what's missing. So Dogen here, and again, I've already confessed... That when I walk into the room, my lens of what's missing, what's lacking here, just gets employed.

[40:39]

And I see the whole room, the whole space with what's out of place. And I'm aware of my bias most of the time. Sometimes I'm not. And I have to consciously decide, how am I going to negotiate this? Am I going to try to fiddle with things or am I going to leave them as is and appreciate their perfection just as they are? So Dogen here is saying that each thing in this very time already is whole and complete and as appears here and now is complete and whole. Nothing more is ever needed than right now. So each thing as it appears in its unique Dharma position in this place and time as it appears is complete. That's pretty amazing, right? You ever feel that? You know your completeness. You feel your completeness. Do you understand your completeness? You're absolutely complete. As Suzuki Roshi said, you're perfect just as you are. You have to get to the point where you can feel that and know that to be true.

[41:43]

Because it's already true. It's already reality. And it's not so easy for us to accept, particularly given that things are changing all the time, including us. Using when we think of transience and impermanence, we think that it's awful. It's incomplete. Things shouldn't change. Because we have the idea that we can grasp onto something. We can fix something. And if we can't grasp onto it, then we're going to lose it somehow. But transience or impermanence doesn't take away from what is. Change doesn't take away from what is. In fact, it's the opposite. True transience... is each thing appearing and carrying the entirety of the profound truth of its moment of appearance. Again, true transience is each thing appearing and carrying the entirety of the profound truth of its appearance at that moment, fully inhabiting its dharma position, fully truthing this moment, right?

[42:56]

And that fully truthing this moment is completely satisfying. Nothing more is needed. And yet, this isn't anything special, right? This is simply how it is all the time. It's just that we don't recognize it. So there's nothing we have to do to produce it, because you can't produce it. It's not produced. It's how it is now and always has been. And we're living it. And you don't have to get enlightened to get to that state. Enlightenment is just suddenly seeing, oh, that's how it already is. Huh, see with me, right? It's already like this. How could I not have seen that the whole time? Everything's perfect and complete. Only problem, because we don't get it. It's due to our karmic condition, and it's not our fault. That's the problem.

[43:58]

Sometimes if you think, oh, I'm not a maitin, it's my fault. It's my fault that I don't see things. That's not true. It's not your fault. It's the nature of human conditioning. It's the nature of our karmic conditioning. So we recognize that. By beginning to recognize that, we actually take the self out of the picture. Right? So Dogen's idea is that every time we sit down in meditation, we're coming closer to realizing what's always true all the time. It's just way harder to do destructor things when we're sitting there in silence than in our day-to-day life and activities. So Zazen is a touchstone of our lives. The beautiful possibility of touching reality as it is now in our wholeness. When we see Zazen as the basis of what we are, the basis of our life, then whatever our circumstances are, we can return to this truth, this reality. So regardless of what's happening, the minute we come back to this truth and this reality, there's a way that we can again reclaim or abide in this wholeness that's already here.

[45:11]

Yes, it takes effort. But in time, the more we practice, it becomes second nature. And again, I've said this before, meditation or zazen is what we are. It's not something we do. Zazen is being what we are completely. There's no doing in zazen. And yet there's some doing in zazen. Okay, almost there. So before concluding, I want to please adjust your positions if you need to. Take care of yourselves. I want to walk through the rest of the first paragraph and get through this paragraph so we can move on to the rest of the fascicle. And this is what it reads.

[46:20]

The spiritual power to ride the clouds is always mastered from the mountains. And the marvelous ability to follow the wind is inevitably liberated from the mountains. So because they are the circumstances prior to the cup of emptiness, they are the life of the present. So cause translates as because mountains and waters have been actively, have been actively since before the empty eon, they are alive at this moment. So here, Gogen is pointing back in some ways to the discussion of uji, of being time. And we know that mountains and rivers are ancient on this earth. They were before plants and animals and humans. So they're millions of years old. And whenever I walk through Tassajara, I constantly can feel that sense of age, right? That ancientness, you know, here in the wilderness is very evident. So we can truly know that when we are in the mountains and waters, we are communing with something very, very ancient.

[47:22]

But Dogen is saying that even before there was an earth, these mountains and waters existed and were alive. Huh? Huh? How does that work? How do we understand this? Boka Moore points out that there are two sides to keep in mind here. So one side, is prior to the kapha of emptiness and before the germination of any subtle sign. So both of these basically mean before the Big Bang, before anything happened. And a kapha, for those who may not be familiar with that term, means an immeasurably long time. I like this talk. Before any kapha means beyond any arising, abiding, destruction, or even emptiness. So this means complete emptiness beyond discrimination. In other words, eternity. So those two phrases means eternity. No beginningless beginning.

[48:25]

And then the other side to keep in mind is that this life here and now, with this particular conditioned body in mind, within this particular situation of the world, again, down the position, right here, right now. Horizontal, vertical. So mountains and waters are the life of this present, Nikon, which includes our livelihood and our daily responsibilities. So Dogen is saying here that this is a practice and this is also eternity. And eternity manifests itself in our everyday activity and livelihood. So everything we do, from the most mundane thing like polishing our shoes or flushing the toilet, to the noble endeavor of working to end war and world hunger is all of eternity expressing itself. So think about that the next time you flush the toilet. That's eternity expressing itself. How is that? And furthermore, according to Dogen, the eternal mountains and waters of the present are liberated in their actual occurrence.

[49:35]

Actual occurrence here is another translation of the word genjo. or moment-by-moment actualization. And the Japanese word that Dogen uses here is todatsu, which means to be liberated. And so it's a kind of compound of the characters for permeate and drop off. So again, altogether meaning to penetrate and liberate. And Okamura writes that, in short, Dogen is saying that each activity of our lives is liberated from itself. because it manifests ultimate reality. But only if we practice living by the Bodhisattva vow. Living to fulfill this wondrous vow is a manifestation of the eternal Buddhas. So in a commentary on Sanskrit Kiyo that I mentioned, that Norman Fisher offered a number of years ago, he said that this idea goes back to the basic feeling in Buddhism and Asian cosmology, that is, there is no beginning, right?

[50:45]

There is no start. The idea of a beginning and a start is a kind of project or a projection of the binary mind, right? The way our minds create a framework. So in Buddhist cosmology, there is also, of course, the idea of things passing in and out of creation, right? There are epochs and eons that occur in which appears there is nothing here. But what is here is energy. And this energy, this movement of impermanence, right? Impermanence is the only thing that's not impermanent. Impermanence is the only thing that's not impermanent. Impermanence is constant, even when there's nothing. Any metaphors we use for describing impermanence will be incorrect and misleading. But whatever there is that stands behind and creates this appearance doesn't have a beginning. That essential movement of impermanence is what the mountains and rivers are and what you and I are.

[51:53]

This is key. We exist now because that movement has never ceased and so in a very real way what we are fundamentally what we fundamentally are always has been and always will be so while we will lose our bodies and minds etc this is central aspect we won't use we won't lose this ever-present flow of energy or this life force so when we stop thinking about mountains and rivers and think about things in terms of individual person and our sense of identity, then this realization goes even deeper. What if, rather than identifying with our ideas and beliefs and body, that we had an identity with this ongoing of being, this timeless being-gainingless manifestation of eternal reality? So when taking this into consideration then, the ordinariness of our everyday lives takes on a new valence.

[52:58]

And everything suddenly has depth. Even our suffering points to the fundamental quality. When we suffer, we lose contact with this reality, this truth of ongoingness of being. Mountains and rivers right now, they are the life of this presence. So in this moment, there's nothing outside of mountains and waters. But our minds always want there to be somewhere and something else, right? And behind all this is the stream of resistance to what is, to the fact of reality. Because we have this underlying stream that wants to take us elsewhere. As long as that's occupying an aspect of our consciousness, it means that we're not really here right now. So we can study this impulse to be elsewhere, like walking outside right now. Don't hold on to that. It'll happen. Don't worry. As long as that's occupying our consciousness, we're not really here.

[54:03]

And when we're here right now then, this moment is complete. So mountains and rivers right now means we see through this impulse and we are fully present right here. Last sentence, last sentence. Since the virtues of the mountains are high and broad, and spiritual power to ride the clouds is always mastered from the mountains, The marvelous ability to follow the wind is inevitably liberated from the mountains. So in this last sentence, Dogen is essentially saying that the virtues of mountains, their spiritual power and marvelous ability, are the ability to ride clouds and follow the wind. And when I read this first line, I had this image of a Miyazaki film. Anyone know Miyazaki? We did castles in the sky and all these other wonderful Japanese animation. I just had this image of mountains riding on clouds through the skies. But to ride the clouds means to go up or ascend to fulfill our bodhisattva vows.

[55:11]

And to follow the wind means to go everywhere. So, in other words, the way of mountains is to go everywhere in time and space at this moment. freely going in the ten directions. That's the way of mountains. So mountains are never limited in their expression. Only we limit them by our karmic views. We're the ones limiting mountains. They are not limited. Mountains are always walking, actualizing their perfect virtue, their completeness, which allows us to practice everywhere for the benefit of all beings. So to go higher and broader in order to help others. Remember the Dharma talk at the beginning of the practice period, I mentioned this going into the mountains, ascending in order to study the Dharma, to become awake. And then once we have that realization, we go back down the mountain, we descend the mountain in order to enter the marketplace, if you will, to share what it is that we have discovered in order to liberate others.

[56:24]

So this ascending the mountain in order to awaken to our true nature, and then there's descending, coming back down again. So Okamura reminds us to remember that mountains of gojui, meaning this reality self, and all other beings in all time. So gojui is manifesting being time. So mountains and waters is a form of shorthand, and it actually means our life. Right? It means mountains and waters are referring to the totality of the process of nature, which is connected with all beings in the entire world. So we are ourselves the mountains and waters, and we can call this entire thing, this entire mountain, the self. We are the self, including the entire mountains, and the mountains include the self. And I am at the end.

[57:26]

And you are at the end. I can see it in your faces. You made it through. Congratulations. My apologies for the length of that. So thank you for your kind attention. And in all this talk about being time and dharma position and cosmic spider webs, with dewdrops reflecting an infinite and exhaustive virtues and the reality self of the Dharma world, if that was all a bit too heady for you, no worries. We're going to gather outside now and go for a walk in the mountains in order to clear our minds, bless you, and listen to them preach the exact same thing that Dovin was trying to convey us. If you didn't understand anything I or Dovin shared here, maybe you'll understand what the mountains have to say. All right. or that squirrel. That squirrel is teaching the Dharma. Same thing, right? She's saying, hey, this is it. This is being time.

[58:27]

All reality. Hopefully it will absolve you of your headache, this walk. Thank you very much for your patience. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Shudra Muhim Seganjo Bono Ngujin Segan Dan Bon Bon Buyo Segan Gaku Butsudo Bujo Segan Gaku These are the plus I vow to save them

[59:30]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_95.24