If you think about what Dogen is telling us about time, it's very practical, and actually if you take it into your heart and really reflect deeply on what he's saying, I think you live differently. For one thing, if all of time is right here in the present, it means that no matter what the past has been and no matter what the future looks like it will be, there's always the possibility, right here and now, of evolving and redeeming the past and shaping the future in ways that one can't imagine, projecting linearly into the future. It means that every moment there's possibilities, always possibilities, regardless of what has

[01:00]

happened before and what you fear will happen next, there are always possibilities, and that's a tremendous thing to recognize, that is how it is, and the question is, will we live as if every moment was a possibility, or will we say, oh no, it's impossible, the past hems me in, the future is too hard, so that's one thing that's really important. Then the other thing is that, especially nowadays, I don't think here, those of us living in the temple too much have this problem, but we won't always be living in the temple and we'll be going out into the world at large, and then we'll say, along with everybody else in the world, I'm too busy, too much going on, not enough time, I'm always harried, I'm always harassed, well, such ideas and feelings and expressions make no sense whatsoever in

[02:05]

terms of Dogen's teachings. Dogen is telling us that there is always exactly enough time, that every moment is complete and full, there is no such thing as time pressure, and if you actually pay close attention to the time pressure that you feel in your life, you'll see that it has nothing to do with time. It's not time that makes you feel harassed and harried and overworked and too busy, it's not that there's not enough time, it's that you have worries, you have fears, you have attachments, you have desire, you might want to please someone else, you might not want to look bad, you might not want to embarrass yourself walking in late, you know, these kind of things. Those are the things that bother you. It's not time that bothers you, there's just enough time. You know, people say, well, but what about multitasking? Multitasking makes you nervous.

[03:05]

There is no such thing as multitasking, there's only doing one thing at a time. If you really look very, very closely, you're not, you know, reading a book and talking on the phone at the same time. You're alternating between these two things at a rapid rate. And when you know what you're doing and you settle into your activity, you see that there's always just doing one thing and meeting it completely. When you realize that, you will live differently. Then, another thing is, for those of us who are, let's say, of the age at which someone might say of us, you have passed your prime. And we might think that we're aging, we're getting old. Dogen is telling us that this is not the whole story, that all of time is in every moment.

[04:16]

So if we've attained the age of 50 or 60, we are 50 or 60, also we're 40 and 30 and 20 and 10. And if you're 20, you're also 10 and 5 and 1 and so forth. Aging is a convention. It's a designation. Of course, the body changes and so on, but mostly what bothers one about aging is not the changes, because after all, one is always having an experience of the body, right? Which has pleasant and unpleasant, happy and unhappy sensations in a mixture, regardless of how old you are. So what's bothersome about aging is the construct, the conventional construct. And then we think time is running out. But suppose we viewed the end of our lives not as time just ran out, but approaching

[05:22]

death, I can find time's fulfillment. I can find the fullness and the depth of time, instead of, I don't have any more time. Suppose we looked at it that way, which is how Dogen, I think, is telling us to look at it. So I just wanted to bring these things up, lest we think that Dogen is just spinning concepts in the air that have no relevance to our actual living. In fact, if we really take in Dogen's teachings about time, we will look at things differently in our actual living. And the beautiful thing about these words of Dogen is the study of time that Dogen, the journey and the study of time that Dogen takes us on, is that it's not just reading words in a text. Because of the practice of zazen, we actually experience time differently.

[06:29]

When we're sitting in zazen, we are really and truly experiencing time as Dogen understands it. And the virtue of studying Dogen's essay is that we sit in zazen, but we view our sitting in zazen according to our conventional, habituated notions of time and space and identity, which we then apply to this immense experience that we're having in zazen that doesn't really figure into our usual way of looking at our lives. Reading Dogen's essay, maybe we can tread lightly when we explain zazen to ourselves and realize that when we sit in zazen, we are sitting in the present moment that includes all of the past and all of the future and all of space in the place where we are. That sitting in zazen, doing nothing but breathing and being present, actually there's complete

[07:37]

satisfaction. We don't need to do something else. We don't need to be something that we're not at that moment. We don't need to accomplish something that we have not already accomplished. To sit in zazen is to enter the completion of time. So we actually experience that when we sit in zazen, especially sitting in the context of temple life, where the whole life is pervaded by zazen and gives us a stronger feeling for it. So there's a way of practice, a way to evoke these truths in our own, in the cells of our body, not just as conceptual thoughts, but real life-changing experiences. Curiously enough, the writer Annie Dillard has written a book a few years back called

[08:47]

For the Time Being. I don't know if any of you know this book, but it's actually a wonderful book. I admired it so much that I wrote a proposal to my publisher that I would write a dharma book that would be just like that. And they said to me, it's a great idea, but you can't write a book like that. But Annie Dillard did. Anyway, I'm going to read a little bit from her book, which is not the same by any means as Dogen's essay. But actually it's very similar in that the reason why the publishers don't think you can write a book like this is because it isn't about anything, and it doesn't go from point A to point B, it's just sort of like all over the place. And she just brings up different things about the nature of time and the nature of life and the vastness of the cosmos, and what are we doing here, running around on this little planet.

[09:48]

So I just thought, just for the fun of it, because I like the book so much, I would read you just a few pages. It just goes along with little headings that seem to reappear. Like one heading is called China, and she writes about her scenes of China, and also Teilhard de Chardin, who was a Catholic priest and an archaeologist who did some digs in China. Anyway, there's all these different little headings that keep reappearing. Sand is another one. She writes about the physiology of sand, the geology of sand. Anyway, this is a section that reappears from time to time called Clouds. We are fortunate to possess a kind of domesday book for the cloud population in the summer

[10:49]

of 1869 in the California Sierra. On June 12th of that year, John Muir noted from the north fork of the Merced River, and this is from John Muir, cumuli rising to the eastward, how beautiful their pearly bosses, how well they harmonize with the upswelling rocks beneath them, mountains of the sky, solid looking, finely sculptured. On June 21st, he recorded a well-defined cloud, quoting again from Muir, a solitary white mountain enriched with sunshine and shade. Crisp rocky-looking clouds appeared on July 2nd, and it quotes, keenest in outline I ever saw. On July 23rd, what can poor mortals say about clouds?

[11:51]

While people describe them, they vanish. Nevertheless, these fleeting sky mountains are as substantial and significant as the more lasting upheavals of granite beneath them. Both alike are built up and die, and in God's calendar, difference of duration is nothing. We who missed witnessing them are yet certain that on August 26th, 1869, at Tuolumne Meadows, clouds occupied about 15% of the sky at noon. At evening, quote, large picturesque clouds, craggy like rocks, end of quote, piled on Mount Dana, clouds, quote, reddish in color, like the mountain itself, end quote. September 8th, a few clouds drifted around the peaks, quote, as if looking for work.

[12:59]

Seventy-four years later, on August 11th, 1943, a young woman wrote from Westerbork, a transition camp in the Netherlands, quote, it really doesn't matter if it is I who die or another. What matters is that we are all marked men. Do you know who that would be? Anne Frank. One of the themes of the book is the extraordinary brutality of human beings toward one another, and she quotes many quite astonishing statistics of this sort of thing. I'll read another little section. The heading is Numbers. Ten years ago, I read that there were two galaxies for everyone alive. Lately, since we loosed the Hubble Space Telescope, we have revised our figures.

[14:10]

There are maybe nine galaxies for each of us, 80 billion galaxies. Each galaxy harbors at least 100 billion stars. In our galaxy, the Milky Way, there are 400 billion suns, give or take 50%, or 69 suns for each person alive. The Hubble shows, said an early report, that the stars are, quote, not 12, but 13 billion years old, end quote. Two galaxies, nine galaxies, 100 billion suns, 400 billion suns, 12 billion years, 18 billion years. These astronomers are nickel-diming us to death. They say there is a Buddha in each grain of sand. It is this sort of pop wisdom that makes the greatness of Buddhism seem aggravating.

[15:18]

In fact, among major religions, only Buddhism and Taoism can unblinkingly encompass the universe. The universe, quote, granulated, astronomers say, into galaxies. Does anyone believe the galaxies exist to add splendor to the night sky over Bethlehem? Tayyar Deshardan sent a dispatch from a dig, and this is a quote. In the middle of the Tamarisk bush, you find a red brick town, partially exposed, with its houses, drains, streets. More than 3,000 years before our era, people were living there, who played with dice like our own, fished with hooks like ours, and wrote in characters we can't read. Who were these individuals? And who were the Mongol Wanchok family, the man and five sons who helped dig?

[16:33]

Who, in fact, were the manic Chinese emperor, the manic Roman emperor, and the merry monkish paleontologist who dug? Who were the peasants who worked the far tomb fields, the painter who painted clouds? Rabbi Akiva who prayed, and Rufus who flayed him? The Trojans likely thought well of themselves, as we do, yet they are as gone as we will be. Their last settlement died out in 11,000 B.C. Who was that doctor whose hand propped the bird-headed dwarves? One of the themes of the book is deformed children. She goes to some hospital and visits children who are very strange-looking that nobody ever hears about, but apparently it happens a lot that children are born with all sorts of known categories of deformity.

[17:39]

And one of them is children who are bird-headed dwarf children. Who were the Israeli man who split wood across the water? The nurse Pat Iceberg who washed babies like plates? The statistician who reckoned that we people alive today, displacing as our bodies together do, only 1.1 billion cubic feet would fit into Lake Windermere? Anyway, it's a great book, I recommend it, for the time being. So, we go on to discuss miracles, go against classical miracles. Did we get people copies? Did we do all that? Yeah? I'm just going to read it anyway, so even if you don't have a copy, it doesn't matter.

[18:44]

Miracles. The miracles I'm speaking of are the daily activities of Buddhists, which they do not neglect to practice. There are six miracles, one miracle, going beyond miracles, and unsurpassable miracles. And the six miracles means the six senses. The miracle of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking, feeling. This is what Dogon means by miracles. Miracles are practiced 3,000 times in the morning, and 800 times in the evening. Miracles arise simultaneously with Buddhists, but they are not known by Buddhists. Miracles arise simultaneously with Buddhists, but they are not known by Buddhists. Buddhist activity is miracles.

[19:55]

Wherever there are Buddhists, there's always miracles, but the Buddhists don't know the miracles as miracles. Miracles disappear with Buddhists, but do not overwhelm Buddhists. This is a little... I think we encountered this expression, overwhelming, overwhelmed, in the time being. And it's a little bit... It doesn't mean... He doesn't mean here exactly what we usually mean by the word overwhelm. Another way of translating that sentence would be to make it a little more... What I think it means would be something like this. Miracles disappear Buddhists. Miracles disappear Buddhists, but do not cancel out Buddhists. So, in other words, when the miracle disappears, the Buddha disappears.

[21:05]

And yet, the Buddha is not destroyed by, defiled by, tainted by, ruined by the disappearance of the miracle and of the Buddha's own self. Just like us. Our activity, moment by moment, is miraculous, actually. And moment by moment, we pass away. And yet, our passing away on a momentary basis doesn't obviate the meaning of our existence. Otherwise, we'd all go mad immediately, right? To think that we're all living in time and losing our lives on a moment by moment basis could make us all really crazy if we thought about it. But, actually, we would be wrong if we went crazy, because the fact that our miraculous activity is passing away moment after moment doesn't cancel out the meaning of our living.

[22:08]

Even after we're gone, the fact that our life ends doesn't cancel out the meaning of our living. That's kind of what he's saying here. Miracles disappear Buddhists, but don't cancel out Buddhists. Miracles occur throughout practice and enlightenment. Whenever Buddhists seek and teach, and wherever they search, then the Himalayas become a tree or a rock. So, in other words, all the activity of a Buddha, trying to understand Dharma, trying to teach Dharma, searching in the Himalayas, meditating, looking for teachers and teachings, or just appearing as a tree or a rock. From the beginning of the Buddha's practice to the moment of fulfillment and beyond, it's all miracles.

[23:11]

When the Buddhas before Shakyamuni Buddha appeared as his disciples, bringing the robe and a stupa to him, he said, This is a miracle caused by the inconceivable power of all Buddhas. Thus we know that this miracle can also happen to Buddhas now and to Buddhas in the future. In Zen, especially in our school of Zen, one of the most important insights is the fact that there is no way to understand and appreciate the teaching on your own. Even if you're absolutely brilliant and completely right on about everything, if it's on your own, it's not really understanding the teaching. It's only understood and appreciated person to person. So there's always a relationship with the teacher.

[24:15]

This is one of the insights of our tradition. It's a deep thought, in a way, because it's not like the teacher knows something that you don't know and tells you. You may be brilliant and understand everything, but unless there's that relationship, your understanding will not be empowered. It will not be brought to life. Dogen gives somewhere, I think in his journal of his study in China, he gives a metaphor of a king coming into a country. You have to project yourself into 12th century Japanese political theory to appreciate this metaphor. But anyway, the idea is the king comes into the country. And before the king came into the country, everything that was necessary for the running of the country was all there. The roads were there, the bureaucracy was there, everything was all there.

[25:18]

Nothing was missing. But when the king came in, sovereignty was conferred and the country could sort of come alive as a nation once the king appeared. Even though the king didn't bring anything that wasn't already there. Do you understand? Like I say, to us this is a little weird because we don't think about kings. But actually, in all nations that had the idea of royalty, this was the idea, that the king or queen or whatever it was conferred sovereignty and brought the machinery of the nation to life into a more enhanced sort of state of reality. So it's the same thing in our practice, that even though you might have everything you need and be brilliant in every way and understand everything, it doesn't really come to life until there's this relationship. So this of course creates a big problem because what about Buddha? Who was the Buddha's teacher?

[26:20]

Buddha didn't have a teacher. He had various teachers, but it wasn't really historically. And according to the Pali materials that you can read, the Buddha was the first one that started Buddhism. Before Buddha there wasn't. Well, this of course is impossible according to the Zen school. So the Zen school said, no, there are seven Buddhas before Buddha. Which means there is an infinite number of Buddhas before Buddha. It goes back into the unforeseeable distant past because no one, including Buddha, brings the teaching forth alone. It always comes out of relationship, hand to hand. So that's why... But the seven Buddhas before Buddha here appear now as the Buddha's disciples. You see? Which we might think is strange, but a few weeks ago we might have thought so.

[27:27]

But since we've read the time being, we don't have any problem with this. We understand that the seven Buddhas who were the Buddha's teachers before him appearing as his disciples seems like pretty normal to us. It's just an ordinary everyday kind of miracle caused by the inconceivable power of all Buddhas. And this kind of a miracle can happen all the time. Are you waving your pen in the air for a reason? This doesn't mean that teachers are necessarily limited to those who have the title of teacher, or the title of priest or monk. So, in a sense, anyone and anything can be a teacher. Yes, that's right. But be careful. Norman, what do you think of Pratyekabuddhas?

[28:31]

Aren't they supposed to be beings that are self-realized and on their own? No teachers? Yeah, but in the Zen tradition, let's say, the view of Pratyekabuddhas is they're off to the side. They're not doing the practice that we appreciate and aspire to. It's something different. And this is definitely a Zen... twist, a Zen improvement, so to speak, on the teachings. This is unique to Zen. This idea is unique to Zen. The idea that there's almost like a sense of magical quality to this relationship. Which doesn't exist in earlier Buddhism.

[29:33]

In earlier Buddhism, there's more of what we would consider an ordinary sense of we need to understand something, we need others who are more experienced to guide us, that kind of way of thinking. Whereas this is something much more metaphysical and hard to grasp. Particularly here, where you see the Buddhist teacher is now appearing in his disciples, in the sense that this relationship is multidimensional. The teachers are the disciples, the disciples are the teachers. The relationship is seen from many angles. But the important factor here is that there's a connection. It's the connection itself, regardless of what information is passed on or what teachings are passed on. That's what brings everything alive. So, Guishan is the 37th ancestor, a direct descendant of Shakyamuni Buddha. He was a Dharma heir of Bajang.

[30:34]

Today, Buddha ancestors in the ten directions, even those who do not call themselves descendants of Guishan, are all in fact his remote descendants. It's an interesting thing that Dogen has, a little throwaway line here. He's just introducing Guishan, because he's going to tell a story about Guishan. But in a little bit of an aside, he says, well, because you know, there's lineages, right? And lineages follow person to person, and so they branch off, right? So there would be Zen people who are actually in Guishan's lineage, and then other Zen lineages that do not stem from Guishan. Right? Make sense? Well, he's saying, actually, that's not really true. Everybody stems from Guishan. I think what he's saying is that, despite the... Let's not get too literalistic about lineages. He's saying that, in fact, all the great teachers are in all of our lineages, and we honor them all as our ancestors,

[31:37]

not just limiting ourselves to what seems to be the lineage that we could say, on some quasi-historical level, is our lineage. So he's not being sectarian. He's not being sectarian. He's not saying everyone who thinks they may be in a different lineage from us is in fact... Well, I suppose you could take it that way. That's whatever. Yeah, I take it the other way, that he's saying, the opposite, that all the lineage is actually sourced back to the great teachers. So here's the story now about Guishan, a famous story. One day, when Guishan was lying down, Yangshan came to see him. Guishan was lying down. Yangshan came. Guishan turned around and faced the wall. Which I guess, it's kind of a little bit hard to tell, but I guess this is a gesture of modesty somehow.

[32:39]

You know, you can imagine somebody comes into your room and you're kind of laying out on the bed. As soon as you hear the door open, you kind of pull the covers over your head and you turn away. Like, you know, this is an intimate moment here. I'm sleeping and I don't want to be seen. So that's what Guishan does. And Yangshan says, I am your student. Please don't be formal. It's okay. You don't need to turn away. You don't need to feel private in front of me. We're close. Please don't feel that you have to protect yourself or be more formal. So Guishan started to get up. As you might. If somebody walked in on you when you were sleeping, you know, you'd get up and put your robe on or something and present yourself.

[33:42]

So Guishan started to do this. And at this moment, Yangshan rose to leave. And Guishan said, Huiji, which was his other name. And Yangshan came back. Guishan said, let me tell you about my dream. And Yangshan leaned forward to listen. Guishan said simply, would you interpret my dream for me? I want to see how you do it. In response, Yangshan brought a basin of water and a towel. Guishan washed his face and sat up. Then Shangyan came in. Guishan said, Huiji and I have been communicating intimately.

[34:44]

This is no small matter. He says to the other guy, also his disciple, Shangyan. And Shangyan said, I was next door and I heard the whole thing. Guishan said to him, why don't you try now? And Shangyan made a bowl of tea and brought it to him. Guishan praised them both, saying, you two students surpass even Shariputra and Maudgalyayana with your miraculous activity. Shariputra and Maudgalyayana being close disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha. You two are even better disciples than those disciples and your activity is absolutely miraculous. So that's the story. It's kind of a great story, I think. And I've heard it many times. And it's a story that illustrates the wordless intimacy between these people.

[35:53]

And also it illustrates, in the use of the idea of a dream, that what could be more intimate than a dream, right? A dream is something that you might be able to tell somebody, your dream. But it's not quite the same. It's not a dream, it just doesn't have the sense of vividness or power that the dream has. And so, in a way, the dream is the most intimate thing that there is, because no one can understand it but you. No one knows the feeling of the dream but you. Well, the idea here is that these three are in a dream together. You see? That's how intimate they are. They're in a dream together. They're taking care of each other in the midst of the dream without needing to speak to one another, explain anything to one another. Because, just like in a dream, things just sort of flow along, right?

[36:55]

You don't need to explain anything in a dream. All the sort of ordinary conventions of the kind of clunky, physical world disappear and everything has a flow and a sense of meaning. So, they're living in the same dream we're living in. Right? This world that we're living in, of the time being, this world in which time and space are not what we think they are, is a miracle. We're living in a miraculous situation, in a state of radical intimacy, only we don't know it. And we're creating all these really stupid boundaries and conventions and ways of hurting one another and being distant from one another, not recognizing the fact that we are best friends and have been for a long time. And we have no idea. But these guys kind of get that.

[37:57]

And it's not about some kind of miraculous Zen insight. It's about when you wake up in the morning, you wash your face. And you dry it off. And after that, you have a cup of tea. And that's the miracle. And that's the dream. And that's the profound intimacy. It's just that. Just regular life is it. So, that's a great story. I always appreciated that story. And sometimes you experience life that way. Zen life can be that way. The sense of silence that can pervade in temple life or in everyday life, anywhere. If you allow yourself to enter silence, it creates that aura around very ordinary things. Dogen now... So, that's what I say. Now, what Dogen says is this.

[38:59]

If you want to understand Buddha's miracles, you should study Guishan's words. As... This is no small matter. To practice miracles is to study the Buddha way. Not practicing miracles is not studying the Buddha way. So, we have to practice miracles. We have to have miraculous activity all the time. This miraculous activity is transmitted air to air. H-E-I-R. Air to air. Do not study miracles from those outside the way. From the two lesser vehicles or from interpreters of sutras. This is a unique sense of things, he's saying. Our Zen way is a unique sense of life. And it's true, of course, that... Although the deep truth of our existence is probably singular,

[40:04]

there is no possible expression of that truth outside of particularities. And so, each way of practice expresses it differently. And this kind of teaching is very much unique to our way of practice. That's what he's saying. This is something really precious and unique. And, of course, every tradition is the best, right? It's good to think of that. Every tradition is the best. One should think that the way that we practice is certainly the best. Even though the way someone else practices may also be the best for them. But it's the best for me. Otherwise, we might then have a kind of relativistic sense of practice. Well, there are many ways, and all the ways are good, and so on. That's true. But our way is the best.

[41:06]

He's making a little joke by saying the two lesser vehicles. In the sense that the lesser vehicle one would be yin and yang, and the lesser vehicle two would be ma ha yang. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little joke. Right, right. Zen is not exactly ma ha yang. The greater vehicle is also a lesser vehicle. I didn't think of that. I'm sure that's true. So, when we study Guishan's miracles, we see that they were unsurpassable. Guishan's miracles were. Every act was extraordinary. Beginning with Guishan lying down. There are, now he's enumerating the miracles of the story. Turning around to face the wall. Miracle number one. Getting up. Miracle number two. Calling Huiji. Miracle number three. Talking about the dream, which he never explains. Other than this.

[42:09]

Washing his face and sitting up. Yangshan leaned forward to listen, then brought a basin of water and a towel. Then Guishan described this as, Huiji and I have been communicating intimately. You should study these miracles. These ancestors who correctly transmitted Buddhadharma talked in this way. Do not merely interpret it as Guishan expressing his dream by washing his face. You should regard their interaction as a series of miracles. Guishan said, This is no small matter. His understanding of miracles is different from that of practitioners who follow the small vehicles, have limited understanding, or hold lesser views. It is not the same as that of Bodhisattvas of the ten stages and the three classes. People of limited views study small miracles and attain limited understanding.

[43:15]

They do not experience the great miracles of the Buddha ancestors. These are miracles of Buddhas. And miracles of going beyond Buddhas. Those who study such miracles are beyond the reach of demons or those outside the way. Teachers and interpreters of sutras have never even heard of this teaching. Nor would they have accepted it, even if they had heard. Rather than studying great miracles, teachers and interpreters of sutras, those outside the way, and practitioners of the two lesser vehicles, study lesser miracles. Pretty soon he's going to tell us something on lesser miracles. Buddhas abide in and transmit great miracles, Buddha miracles. Had it not been for Buddha miracles, Yangshan would not have brought water and a towel, and Guishan would not have turned to the wall while lying down, or sat up after washing his face.

[44:18]

These are Buddha miracles, not just everyday, you know, garden variety. These are lesser miracles. These are big miracles. Now, he's going to tell us about some lesser miracles. Here's an example of a few lesser miracles. Encompassed by the power of great miracles, lesser miracles occur. Great miracles pervade, and given the existence of great miracles, sometimes lesser miracles also occur. Great miracles include lesser miracles, but lesser miracles do not know great miracles. Lesser miracles are, for example, a tuft of hair breathing in the vast ocean. I think I should say, a tuft of hair breathing in the vast ocean.

[45:20]

A little sucking in the whole ocean, that's the miracle. A little hair, a little hair floating in the ocean, drinks, takes a, sucks in, in one gulp, the whole ocean. This is a minor miracle compared to Guishan washing his face. A mustard seed storing Mount Sumeru, all of Mount Sumeru kind of getting sucked into this little mustard seed. The top of the head, spouting, these miracles. Never dream of Buddha miracles. The reason I call them lesser miracles is that they are limited by circumstances and depend upon special practices and realizations. I mean, this is true, right? I mean, we think, we're looking for these, we're impressed by these miracles, but actually, what's more impressive is Buddha miracles,

[46:25]

which don't depend on particular circumstances and just are constantly arising, in all circumstances, all the time. Much more impressive, right? Something that requires special people, with special conditions, only happens once in a while, I mean, what's that? Big deal. Big deal. That's what he's saying. So they depend on special practices and realizations. They may occur in this lifetime, but not in another lifetime. They may be available to some people, but not to others. They may appear in this land, but not in another land. They may appear in the past or the future, but not now. So what kind of a miracle is that? It's no big miracle, that it's limited like that. It's exactly the opposite of what we think. We think, because it's so limited, it hardly ever happens. It's really miraculous, you know? It's very unusual. He's saying, no, that's nothing. The unusual is nothing.

[47:25]

What's really miraculous is, I mean, what he's really saying here is, what's miraculous is that we're here at all. That we can move our fingers, you know, that we can stand up and walk, that we can know one another, that the sky exists, that the earth exists. I mean, this is a major miracle. Of course it is, right? Of course it is. And the fact that somebody can fly around or whatever like this, I mean, who cares? What's the big deal about that? The thing that's a big deal is that anything is, and that we can know it. I mean, it's very obvious when you think about it, but it's just the opposite. So we're always running around looking for miracles all the time, failing to appreciate this gigantic miracle that's constantly unfolding before our eyes. The great miracles are not like that. The teaching, practice and enlightenment of Buddhas are all actualized through miracles.

[48:26]

They are actualized not only in the realm of Buddhas, but also in the realm of going beyond Buddhas. There's another practical domain called going beyond Buddhas, where he says we have to... If we have a concept of Buddhahood and an aim of Buddhahood, and we don't go beyond Buddhahood, again, this is a very limited thing. A very limited thing. We have to realize Buddhahood and go beyond Buddhahood into just embracing life. The transformative power of miracle Buddhas is indeed beyond thinking. This power appears before the Buddha bodies appear and is not concerned with past, present or future. The aspiration, practice, enlightenment and nirvana of all the Buddhas would not have appeared without Buddha miracles. So what we call Buddhas and all this Buddha stuff

[49:29]

is just a reflex, just a kind of natural occurrence, given the fact that there are miracles to begin with. It all comes out of the miracle of being itself, basically. In the inexhaustible ocean of the phenomenal world, the power of great miracles is unchanging. A tuft of hair not only breathes in the great ocean, but it maintains, realizes, breathes out and utilizes the great ocean. In other words, the miracle is not that the tuft of hair breathes in, sucks up the ocean. The miracle is that the ocean is then breathed out and exists and flows and functions. When this activity arises, it encompasses the entire phenomenal world.

[50:34]

However, do not assume that other activities do not also encompass the entire phenomenal world. It's the same with the mustard seed containing Mount Sumeru. A mustard seed breathes out Mount Sumeru and actualizes the inexhaustible phenomenal world. When a tuft of hair or a mustard seed breathes out a great ocean, breathing out happens in one moment and happens in myriad eons. Breathing out myriad eons and breathing out one moment happens simultaneously. How are a tuft of hair and a mustard seed brought forth? They are brought forth by great miracles. In other words, the mustard seed containing the whole mountain, even before it contained the mountain, just when it was a mustard seed, was brought forth by a great miracle. As is everything. What enables a tuft of hair and a mustard seed to do such things?

[51:37]

Miracles enable them to do so. Miracles bring forth miracles. Do not think that miracles sometimes do and sometimes do not happen. Buddhas always abide in miracles. So how are we doing? Anything to wonder about or comment on or ask about? Several days ago, Linda Ruth told a story about how Katagiri Roshi was helping his teacher with a bath. He could tell that his teacher wanted to have his back scrubbed. So he asked his teacher, Do you want your back scrubbed? He said no. That happened for two days. On the third day, Katagiri Roshi just scrubbed his back.

[52:37]

That was the right thing to do. Is the point of the story of Krishna and his disciples the same? That the disciples just are reading the situation and then spontaneously doing the right thing? Is that the way to see it? Exactly. And Katagiri Roshi's teacher studied this story, no doubt. But I think the main thing is not so much doing the right thing, but having full confidence in the relationship and intimacy, so that you don't have to. In other words, if you have to ask, it's already too much. Right. There's a sense of closeness and confidence in our knowing each other as one's own self,

[53:43]

that there's no need to treat me as if I were somebody other than yourself. And this is the true fruition of the teacher-student relationship, that one knows the teacher as one's self and the student as one's self, not as someone else. So there's really no... And then, even if the teacher is entirely absent, or the student is entirely absent, dies or goes to another country, it makes no difference, because the intimacy is in everywhere. And so that's the fruition and completion of that relationship. And these stories are meant to indicate that level of closeness. And it's interesting, because it's not exactly personal. We would go right away to the... It's a personal thing. It's not exactly a personal thing, in that sense. It's beyond that. Personal means I have a relationship with another person. We're very close.

[54:44]

But that's still another person. This goes beyond that. And these stories... It is the same story. So, shall I go on a little bit? Is that alright? It's warm in here. We're all getting sleepy. I think maybe I should sing a lullaby instead of... Open a window? Yeah, maybe open a window. Is it too close? It's okay if the window doesn't have... Okay. Okay, well, let's do one more little section then. Lehman Pond was an outstanding person in the ancestral seat. He not only trained with Matsu and Shrudo, but met and studied with many enlightened teachers. One day he said,

[55:45]

Miracles are nothing other than fetching water and carrying firewood. Which everybody knows. It's a really famous Zen saying. In fact, that saying, when you think about it, is basically a shorthand version of the entire fascicle here, right? And so, this goes to show you, everybody knows about this whole thing that we're reading about here. It's the most common thing in the world. Everybody knows about Zen being... manifesting this kind of teaching. You should thoroughly investigate the meaning of these words. Fetching water means fetching water. That's what it means. It doesn't stand for something else. It just means fetching water. Sometimes you go out and fetch water yourself, and sometimes you ask somebody else to fetch it for you. Those who practice this, fetching water, are all miracle Buddhas. Although miracles are noticed

[56:52]

once in a while, whether they're noticed or not, they're still miracles. It is not that things are eliminated or perish when they are unnoticed. Things are just as they are even when nobody notices them. Even when people do not know that fetching water is a miracle, the fact that fetching water is a miracle is undeniable. So, we're always trying to notice things, or be noticed, or make things into something special. But things are miracles whether we make them into something special or not. Our lives are miracles regardless of what we do with them. We're always trying to make something out of our lives, but our lives already are something,

[57:54]

and they're already miraculous. We don't need to do anything special with them other than really live them and recognize the miraculous quality of life itself. Yeah? Yeah, except it's not exactly out there. It's everywhere. Here, out there, everywhere. Yeah, whether we notice it or not. That's right. Is there... It sounds like there's something further... Yeah, it seems like, you know... I don't know, maybe it's... I'm stuck in this... It's not a way of looking at it.

[58:55]

It seems in a way that you could just... delineate the mundane and being sort of caught up in my own concepts, ignorant, not paying attention to the miraculousness of everyday situations. And then on the other side there is the miraculous world. And it's there, and I'm here. And if I can get myself into enough of an awareness, I can see that. And that's the whole point that he's speaking to here. He's saying, regardless of whether you can notice it, regardless of whether you think you can appreciate the miraculous world, you're in it anyway. That's what he's saying. You're in it anyway. There is no thing that you fell out of the miraculous world and you're over here and so in other words

[60:04]

you're fine. It doesn't make any difference. You're not estranged and therefore needing to do something. You may feel that way, but it's not really so. It's never so. That's exactly the point he's making. That's why he says, whether you know it or not. That's what he means. Whether you know it or not, you're still living this world of miracles. And that means doing the labor of hauling as in the time of Thuay Nung, the sixth ancestor, who as you know, according to the story, would sell firewood on the street corner to support his mother. Even if you do not know that miracles happen 3,000 times in the morning and 800 times in the evening, miracles do happen. And these numbers just mean all the time.

[61:05]

And I'm quibble with Thuay. What do you think more than morning? Less than night. Well, I don't think that it, I think it doesn't really make any difference. In other words, I think somehow it's a convention of that probably my guess would be my guess is that the sentence in Japanese reads more elegantly if you say 3,000 times in the morning and 800 times in the evening because of the sound of the sentence. But I think there's a convention in this kind of writing to use various numbers to suggest an endless amount. It is also an encouragement to get up earlier. That's true. It is universally the case that all

[62:07]

monastic religious practice has a very early morning schedule. And there is something inherently sort of inspiring about doing spiritual practice before the dawn and being awake in awareness as dawn arises. There is something to that. It's kind of a wonderful feeling. Don't you think so? It is. Sometimes. No, it is. But evening is also great. Morning, the best time for zazen is early morning before dawn, right after dawn, mid-morning, early afternoon, after lunch, early evening is the best time for zazen. Those who see and hear the inconceivable

[63:10]

function of miracles by Buddha Tathagatas do not fail to attain the way. Attaining the way of all Buddhas is always completed by the power of miracles. Causing water to spout out of the head is a practice of the lesser vehicles. So that's what the lesser vehicle people are doing. This is merely a minor vehicle. On the other hand, fetching water, you see, this is a big deal. Anybody can make a mountain torn gush out of the top of their head. This is no trick. But to fill a bucket full of water into a sink and mop the floor, this is something. The custom of fetching water and carrying firewood has not declined as people have not ignored it. It has come down

[64:10]

from ancient times to today and it has been transmitted from there to here. Thus miracles have not ceased even for a moment. Such are great miracles which are no small matter. Dengshan Liangjie, great master Wuben, was once attended on Yunyan who said, Liangjie, what are miracles? And Dengshan said goodbye and walked away. No, excuse me. I missed the line. Dengshan politely brought his hands together at his chest and stood near him. Yunyan again asked, what are miracles? And this time Dengshan bid farewell and walked away. In this story, words are heard and the meaning of miracles

[65:11]

is understood. There is merging like box and cover joining. And this box and cover joining is a kind of expression for this kind of story about Kadagiri Roshi or the same story with what we saw earlier, box and cover joining fitting perfectly, exactly in accord made for each other. You should know that it is a miracle to have a disciple like Dengshan who does not veer off or to have a high ancestor like Yunyan who does not come forward. Do not think that the miracles they are speaking of are the same as those taught outside the way or in the two lesser vehicles. On the road of Buddhas there are also great miracles that happen at the top or bottom of the body. The entire world of ten directions is the true body of a single monk.

[66:12]

The entire world of ten directions is the true body of a single monk. Thus, the nine mountains and the eight oceans around Mount Sumeru as well as the ocean of thusness and the ocean of wisdom are no other than water spouting from the top, bottom and center of the body. It is also water spouting from the top, bottom and center of the formless body. The spouting out of fire is also like this. Not only is there the spouting out of water, fire and air, but also there is the spouting out of Buddhas from the top and bottom of the body. There is the spouting of ancestors, Zen people, from the top and bottom of the body. There is the spouting of immeasurable eons from the top and bottom of the body. There is also the spouting out of the ocean of the phenomenal world and the swallowing of the ocean

[67:14]

of the phenomenal world from the top of the body. So this is all a kind of dogma, playing out the possibilities inherent in the sentence earlier that the entire world of ten directions is the true body of a single monk. in the experience of the body, not as a hunk of meat, or a set of possession, or a coat hanger for identity, but the true experience of being alive in this body. Everything is included in that. Elsewhere, Dogen talks about the true human body, by which he means our capacity to be living consciousness, and in our being living consciousness to include and penetrate everything.

[68:15]

So that's why he says all these things fly out of our body, right and left. So this is a good example of what always confuses me about Dogen. I mean, when I try to really get this, and I pick it apart, and it's just sort of like, what is this guy talking about? And it's like, what I'm getting from you is that you're just seeing it as like, here's like sort of him showing all of the possibilities, but you're not sort of like seriously trying to say, well, what does it mean for like fire to spout out at the bottom of the body, or this or that. So it's just sort of not worry about the minutia of the imagery. Yeah, because you know, Dogen's writing is inherently poetic. It's not meant to be, it's not that it's illogical, he's not saying various things, of course he is,

[69:19]

but his literary style and his mode of expression is poetic. And so, yeah, to kind of apply philosophical categories to it at all points often doesn't yield too many results. So here, he really is just saying, I mean, think about it. He starts to say that on the road of the Buddhas, there are also great miracles that happen at the top or bottom of the body. The entire world of ten directions is the true body of a single monk. And that's the important point that he's making here. And, you know, maybe you have a sense of this, again, in sitting in Zazen. One way that I like to think of Zazen is, to sit in Zazen as a practice over time in our life, is to actually make another body. We make another body in our body. We actually inhabit another body.

[70:22]

It's this body that he's talking about. The body of a single monk, which encompasses the entire world of ten directions. And sitting in Zazen, I think one feels this. You feel like, it's not that, the body that's sitting in Zazen is not the conventional body that doctors examine. It's not that it's not that body, but it's something more than that, based on the basis of that body. And the experience of being the body, in breathing the body, something different happens. And it takes time, I think, to gain your seat in Zazen. And I think that when you gain your seat in Zazen, there's a sense of abandonment and utter fearlessness. You know, in that sitting experience.

[71:24]

So it's not a rational, linear thing, it's all-inclusive. And now, using all the materials that he's already developed in the essay, he's now kind of, poetically, playing out the implications of that statement. By talking about, earlier we saw the miracle of the Lotus Sutra, where water spouts out of the head, fire spouts out of the feet. So he's taking that image, and now he's applying the idea of the whole world being a miracle, and saying, now, the whole world is here in us, in the body. So, never mind water spouting out of the top of our heads, we can spout water, all of time, all of space, and all the things he's saying here. Buddhas, immeasurable eons, the ocean of the phenomenal world, the lands of the world of seven or eight, and so forth, everything. Not just a measly little gushing water, so what?

[72:28]

Everything is right here, in our life, in our experience, in our body. So, to spit out the lands of the world seven or eight times, to swallow them two or three times, the four or five or six great elements, all elements, immeasurable elements, are also great miracles that appear and disappear, are spit out and swallowed all the time. The great earth and empty space are miracles that are swallowed and spit out. It's all right here, in the vast, immense world, which is the basis of all these everyday miracles, is right here, in our married body, which we can experience and appreciate in our sitting practice. Miracles have the power of being activated by a mustard seed, and of responding to a tuft of hair. Miracles arise, abide, and return to the Source beyond the reach of consciousness. Beyond the reach of consciousness. So, it's not a matter of our sitting there and having this imagination

[73:32]

that things are spouting out of our head. It's not a matter of our having conscious thought about this or an image about this. It's a matter of our embodying it and being it and coming forth in our living as this, even though it's not reduced to a cartoon image. The realm of Buddha miracles is beyond long or short. How can this be measured by discriminatory thinking? What we can think about is very small compared to what we are. Which, of course, is true. We might sit around and think, Oh, woe is me, what a schlemiel am I? What have I ever done? Just hanging around, I'm totally a loss. I should be something like him. Look at him, he's doing great. But actually, so we think that. But, in the meantime, it is a miracle that we can think that. And it's a miracle that we appear in this world

[74:38]

with the light of consciousness carrying it forward. We are already irreplaceable. We are irreplaceable expressions of reality. And so, our thinking is so pale and so limited compared to our being, right? Compared to what we are. If somebody said to you, I'm going to give you an unlimited budget and you can have as much help as you need. You can get anybody in the world to help you and they will come. You can have five years to do this. What I want you to do is make a human being out of parts. You couldn't do it. Nobody could do it. Because it's a miracle that there's a human being.

[75:43]

So you are a human being. So what's the problem? But yet we have so many problems because our mind is so limited and our thought is so limited. It's as if the nature of our thought is such that our thought is this big and it has the capacity to bang up against the boundaries of itself, careen around like a drunken mosquito. Bang, bang, bong, bong. And we're doing this all the time and making ourselves really miserable when the truth of the matter is that we are miracles and we're living in the middle of a miraculous dream world. And what we need to do is appreciate the limitations of our thought, which when we do that we'll see our thought is really unlimited. It's just that we're trying to make it do something that it's not supposed to do. If we let it do what it's supposed to do and we see that it's just as unlimited and miraculous,

[76:45]

our thought is as our bodies and our beings. So Dogen is just trying to coax us into realizing how great we are. I'm trying to understand how he does this. I'm reading it and it looks like he totally explodes a word and makes it this big. And then instead of that explosion making it less vague, he gives it more meaning. I can't follow that in my reading of it. I don't know. I just don't understand how he does that. I don't know that I understand either, but I think that when you read Dogen for a long time,

[77:49]

I think you kind of get used to his... Partly what is so difficult about reading Dogen and what's so strange about it is how different is his way of writing from anything that we're used to, and that's part of it. Once you kind of get inside Dogen's mode of expression and Dogen's world, after a while you kind of get the feeling for it and it doesn't seem quite as strange or as bizarre. This is not to say that you haven't figured it out or you can explain the way he writes exactly, but it does after a while seem less baffling. He has a method to his madness and you kind of pick up on that after a while. I don't think Dogen is really saying anything too different from essential sense teachings. I think he's just bringing it out in a different way and emphasizing some things more than others that one might not notice.

[78:53]

Well, maybe that's all for tonight. I'm going to go home before I start snoozing right here on this nice cushy couch. One more meeting, right, next week? And then pretty soon after that you have Sashin, right? Yeah. Okay, so I'll see you next week and we'll finish reading this passport. Thank you for staying awake. Almost everybody stayed awake the whole time. Beings are the motherless sign.

[79:35]

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