This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. So I have kids on my right and kids on my left and kids in front. And I don't know who to address exactly, but... Hi, kids. I'm not going to ask everybody's name. There's so many kids, I can't believe it. I've never seen this many kids attend a talk before. So I'm just going to talk straightforwardly. I have a couple of stories, good stories, I think, that have a meaning called a moral. So the first one, is about the sun and the wind and a shepherd.

[01:06]

Do you know what a shepherd is? You know what sheep are, of course. And the shepherd is the guy who takes care of the sheep. So one day, the shepherd was on his meadow, beautiful meadow, and tending his sheep. And the sun and the wind were kind of looking at him. They were passing by overhead. And the wind, being kind of a mischievous guy, as winds are, said, hey, son, what do you think about this? Let's have a contest to see who can make the shepherd take off his coat. And the son said, being a kind of lazy guy, said, well, okay, you go first.

[02:10]

So the wind dropped his breath. And the more he tried to blow off the coat of the shepherd, but the more he blew, the more the shepherd cranked his coat. And he kept tightening his coat, tightening his coat. And he said, take off your coat, shepherd, take off your coat, to himself. And the shepherd just kept tightening his coat more and more and finally the wind ran out of breath, so to speak. And he said, okay, it's your turn, give it a try. And the son said, well, I don't know, there's not much I can do. but just stand here. So the son just stood there and beamed down on the shepherd. And the shepherd said, boy, it's really getting warm here.

[03:17]

I'm starting to sweat and perspire. There's a little puddle around me. I'm going to take off my coat. Time to take off my coat. So the wind said, you win. So what's the moral of this story? I'll answer for you. Oh, somebody's got a, yes. Yeah. I agree with you. I agree. There's another way to express it, which is if you try to push everything around by force.

[04:28]

doesn't work so well. But if you try loving persuasion, that moves things much better. I think what we both said is correct. So there's another story. And the other story is There was a farmer. And the farmer was an old guy, even older than me. If you can believe that. And he was getting ready to die. He said, my time is coming and I'm going to die. He had three sons. He had three sons. Huey, Louie, and So he said, boys, I'm going to turn over.

[05:45]

You get to inherit my whole farm. We'll call it a farm. Just lots of land. And he said, I want you to know that there's a hidden treasure on this farm, on this land. And so he said, it's, it's, and then he died. And so the boys looked at each other and they said, well, let's start digging. So they dug and they dug. They got their shovels. This was a long time ago. They didn't have tractors or anything like that. They got their shovels out and they started shoveling and shoveling and shoveling. And they shoveled. They dug up the whole place. And nothing happened. No treasure. And then they looked at each other and they said, well, let's try again.

[06:48]

So they got out of their shovels and they dug even deeper. Each time they dug even deeper. And they dug up the whole place and there was no treasure. They looked at each other and they said, one more time. Spring is coming and we have this opportunity. So let's dig. So they dug even deeper. And in the end, no treasure. So they looked at each other and said, well, his spring is here and it's time to plant. So they planted in this beautiful, loamy, wonderful soil, all their seeds. And then The spring rains came, the seeds sprouted, and they had this incredible crop. They went more full than ever before.

[07:51]

And they looked at each other, and one of them said, you think this is what the old man was talking about? And the other one said, I think we found the old man's treasure. What do you think of that? This is an Aesop Zen story. You may work and work and think you're going to get something in the end, and you will, but it may not be what you think it's going to be. So in the end, it's the work that counts. without being attached to results.

[08:55]

You want to hear another story? OK, this is a story about that happened in Korea a long time ago. Do you know where Korea is? Yeah. Well, it's it's a country next to China. That's a good guess. It is in Asia. But it's not an island.

[10:01]

So in Korea, a long time ago, there was a Buddhist abbot. He's the head of the temple. He's the head of the monastery, the abbot. When he taught in his monastery, one day he went out and bought a water buffalo, which we call a bull. And whenever he had time, he cleared the mountain forests with his new disciples, taking his bull... to plow the new land. In Korea and China, the monks actually worked the fields, whereas in India they weren't allowed to do such a thing.

[11:13]

But in China, due to the circumstances of China and the culture, the monks outplowed the fields, their own fields. So he took his bowl to plow the fields. And so he said to them, if the Zen student eats too much and too well, he can't study properly. If you eat too much, you can't really study properly. So in the monastery, they ate only barley and vegetables. And his students complained about the poor food. One day he was invited out And while he was gone from the monastery, his disciples, Kobong and Kongbong, very close, and Chongbong, this guy's named Bongbongbong, took the bull to the marketplace, and they sold it.

[12:20]

Wow. Can you imagine that? His feelings took his... bowl to the marketplace, and they sold it? Wow. They bought lots of rice, cakes, fruit, candy, and taking the food back to the monastery, ate well for several days. Master Q. Wall returned and asked, where has my bowl gone? All of his disciples said, we don't know. But you all said, bring my bowl. Otherwise, I will punish all of you. Since they already sold the bowl, they didn't know what to do. That was really dumb. At last, his disciples, Pak Kobong, one of his disciples, his disciple Kobong took all of his clothes,

[13:25]

took off all of his clothes and entered the abbot's room. Naked, okay. Your student takes off all his clothes and enters your room. Naked. And he said, here, I brought your bull. And he walked on all fours around the room, mooing. Master Hewell smacked his disciples behind with his hand, saying, my bull is a large golden one, not a small calf like you. Get out of here at once. Then Master, the abbot, went to the meditation hall like this, and he said to the disciples, fuck, co-bong,

[14:28]

paid back the money from the sale of my bull. After that, he never mentioned the bull again. You understand? He said, my disciple has paid back all the money. He didn't say money. He paid me back for the bull. In other words, Maybe there's a ko-on. This is a story about letting go. His disciples, a little play was enough to satisfy the abbot he said i now have an enlightened disciple who knows how to act correctly so those are my stories for you guys then i have the grown-up story which is even more of a co-op so thank you for coming

[15:58]

We just published a book on the founder of our school, our Soto School in Japan, Dogen Kigen, Zen Master, Zenji. Dogen was born in 1200. The Zen students will recognize all this, but I know there are many people who never heard of Dogen or just recently heard about Zen, who don't know any of this. And so I'm talking to a mixed group, and the Zen students maybe say, oh, I know all that, which is fine, but I'm going to speak as if nobody knows anything. Fortunately, if you don't, you're very fortunate. But, so this book of Dogen Zenji, the way it came about was that Kaz Tanahashi, who was a Dogen scholar, and I have been translating Dogen for years into English, and we translated

[17:33]

some commentary, a commentary, a Japanese commentary, Nishiari Bokasan's commentary. Nishiari was a monk who lived in the 19th century and up into the 20th century, but not very far. And he was one of the leading Dogen scholars of his time. And his commentary we like very much. So, to make a long story short, we put together three commentaries, three Japanese commentaries, commentaries by three Japanese monks, actually. I wouldn't call them scholars, I call them monks. They're scholarly translations of Dogen and monks translations of Dogen, and they both have their place. These are more monks' translations of Dogen, people who have created their commentaries through the filter of their practice and their understanding.

[18:49]

So Dogen did a lot of writing for Zen master. He wrote what he called his Shobogenzo, which has 70 95 fascicles, depending on which edition here we're talking about. And this is considered the, this, the Ginjo Koan is considered the touchstone for all the 95 fascicles. And the Ginjo Koan is what we translate it. the three Japanese commentaries on the Genjokoa. So I'm going to talk about that, but there's so much to talk about that how do I talk about something so vast in such a short time?

[19:51]

So I want to get to, I'm thinking about, well, what is the essence? What is the most essential thing, the simple thing, that really characterizes this Ginjo Koan, Dogen Zenji, and what is the touchstone that everything flows from? So I'll talk about it this way. When Dogen was young, he was a monk, but he wasn't satisfied with the teaching in Japan That's time, 13th century. So he went to China to seek his fortune, to find his Zen master who could really, he could really appreciate. And he did find his Zen master, who he did appreciate, and who gave him the Dharma transmission of the Tzau-dung school, the Soto school. And when he came home, people said,

[20:58]

well, what did you learn when you were in China? And he said, well, what I learned when I was in China was my eyes are horizontal and my nose is vertical. This is like A equals MC squared in the Soto school. Everything flows. from this statement, which sounds very simple. And it is. So people say, Dogen is so complicated, so difficult to understand. And he is. But it's all very simple. Eyes are horizontal, nose is vertical. So what does that mean? So I'm going to read a lot into it. So what is the meaning of the title, Ginjo Koan?

[22:04]

Ginjo has the meaning of, the way I express it, manifestation and realization of the undivided activity of each Dharma as an eternal moment of now. I have to explain a little bit about Dharma. for those of you who don't know. We use the word dharma all the time, and it's become a word in the English language already, but it has many meanings, but it has two meanings for us. One meaning is dharma with a small d and dharma with a capital D. So dharma with a small d means basically phenomena, things. In a narrow sense, it A Buddhist used this term to talk about our psychophysical constituents. So if you look at forms and the categories of feeling, the categories of perception, the categories of thought and consciousness, these are all dharmas in the technical sense.

[23:27]

But in a wider sense, it means all things, all created things are dharmas. And dharma with a capital D means the Buddhist teaching or the understanding from the Buddhist point of view. So the practice of Buddhist practice is one aspect. understanding what dharmas are, and that's, and the understanding is called the dharma. So it's the dharma of the dharmas. So, and a koan usually is a koan, recorded conversation between a teacher and a student about some aspect of life that hits the mark.

[24:40]

And it's difficult to, it's beyond explanation. So the meaning of dharma, I mean of koan in China was like a... example from the records. So there are these books of koans, which are examples of the old masters and their students and their interactions. But here, koan means something a little different. Ko means even or horizontal. Equal. It means equality. So Dogen's eyes are vertical. Excuse me. Horizontal. Dogen's eyes are horizontal.

[25:40]

This means equality. To see everything as equal. And An is like a Dharma position. The position of each Dharma. in relation to every other dharma. I remember when I was in grammar school, my teacher said, one thing can only exist in one place at one time. Each dharma exists at each place at one time. So this is like hierarchy or the vertical. My nose is vertical. My eyes are horizontal. My eyes are vertical. My nose is vertical. I see everything totally equally. And I also see everything as totally hierarchical or in relation to everything else.

[26:45]

So we call this evenness dark and we call this vertical light. You'd think it would be the other way around, but the reason we say dark is equality is because when you go into a dark room, everything becomes one until you bump into them. But you don't see the differentiation of things. Everything is one. This is fundamental basis. Equality. Fundamentally, everything is equal. But hierarchically, everything is different. And so where the vertical and the horizontal meet is called the moment of now. So all of the 14 sections in the Genjo Koan, and each one

[27:57]

is an expression of this understanding. So I'm just going to read you the opening paragraph. Dogen says, when all dharmas are Buddha Dharma, There are delusion, realization, practice, birth and death, Buddhist and sentient beings. This is when we see everything is differentiated. And the comparative realm, comparative realm is delusion, realization, practice. Practice doesn't have an opposite. Birth and death, Buddhist and sentient beings. So he says when the myriad dharmas are without a self, there is no delusion, no realization, no Buddhas, no sentient beings, no birth, no death.

[29:08]

This is the first one is the light side, vertical. The second sentence is the dark side, horizontal. Then he says the Buddha way basically is leaping clear of abundance and lack. Abundance and lack means having and not having. Thus, there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and Buddhists. Yet, yes yet may not be a good word, but in attachment, blossoms fall, just fall, and in aversion, weeds just spread. So. This is the opening statement of dog and skin joke a lot difficult to understand. So I'm going to.

[30:28]

Read you, given all that, I'm going to read you the most difficult of Dogen's commentaries on it. The reason why is because what I just said is somewhat abstract. Sorry. But one of the most difficult parts is not so abstract. He says, Firewood becomes ash. When you burn something, when you burn a piece of firewood, we say it becomes ash, right? That's next. The next step is ash. And it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is after and the firewood is before. You should understand that firewood abides... in the phenomenal expression of firewood.

[31:30]

In other words, firewood is just firewood. It doesn't have anything to do with before and after, which includes before and after and is independent of before and after. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes before and after. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, You do not return to birth after death. So this being so, it is an established way in Buddhadharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no birth. It is an unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no death. Birth is an expression, complete this moment. Death is an expression, complete this moment.

[32:32]

They are like winter and spring. You don't call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring. You may do that, but it's not accurate. Here he expresses, he says, I want you to understand this. Firewood is just firewood. Ash is just ash. Firewood has its before and after. It has its history and its future, which is not good. And ash has its history and its future. But each is independent, totally independent. So in the same way, it's really about birth and death. Birth is independent dharma.

[33:33]

Death is an independent dharma. Although there's some relationship, they're not different. So I don't usually like to pit life against death. Sometimes it's appropriate to do that, but I like to say that use birth and death as opposites rather than life and death, because life includes both birth and death. So he says, go where there is ash and ask. Right now, you have a very fluffy body, but you used to be called firewood, which is very solid and flammable when put into a fire. You got burned little by little and got yourself to where you are now. Do you think the ash will agree with this? It will certainly reply, nonsense.

[34:36]

I've never met anyone called firewood. In this way, the view that firewood is before and ash is after from the perspective of being outside, the ash is just not concerned with it. care. So, then he says, the principle of thoroughly experiencing one Dharma can be understood through the examples of beans and tofu. Beans become tofu. From the tofu maker's point of view, beans are boiled and turned into tofu. It appears that beans are before and tofu after. But this is a perspective from outside. If you say to tofu, your former body, your former body was a hard material called beans, which I boiled, ground, and strained, and hardened with nigiri, and now you have a soft body with a rectangular face, so different from your former body, then tofu would say, this is nonsense.

[35:52]

Tofu can never meet beans again. Beans are beans, tofu is tofu. It is not that this turns into that, but there is only one direction at one time. There is only one undivided activity at one time. So he says, apply this principle to the realm of our daily activity. You may be calculating how to do this, this here, and that, next year and become head of the school at 60. But what's the use of it? However hard you scheme, this may not come true. We should rather endeavor moment to moment acknowledging that body, that today is the only day. So what Dogen is saying and what Nishiyara is pointing out is to just live on each moment totally and thoroughly This is called undivided activity, total undivided activity.

[37:00]

When we think, we compartmentalize and we compare one thing to another. So this is like the first sentence in the beginning. The world of comparative values called value. the second sentence, where everything is taken away, is called the realm of virtue. Virtue and value. So, in Dogen's first sentence, he compares, he lays out the realm of comparative values. And in the second sentence, he puts us in the dark. He takes away everything that is comparative. And it looks like we live at one time or another, but actually both, the third sentence brings it all together so that we realize that both the ultimate and the relative are one piece.

[38:13]

So the eyes horizontal and the nose vertical are the structure of the face. It's all one piece. It's not that this is the ultimate realm. This is the relative realm. And they exist at the same time. So people say, well, spiritual practice, spiritual practice. We don't have a spiritual practice. Zen is not a spiritual practice. Sorry. You come to the wrong place. Zen is a spiritual, but it's not a spiritual practice. Spiritual and mundane are one piece. In our practice, spiritual and mundane are one piece. The great spiritual practice is washing the dishes. The great spiritual practice is taking one step at a time, thoroughly, without egotism.

[39:20]

So if you want to have a spiritual practice, just let go of your ego. You don't have to try very hard to do anything. This is the sun beaming down. If you just simply let go, the sun takes care of everything. If you try hard like the wind, it doesn't work. You just get tighter and tighter. In our practice, we talk about light. Light is something that runs through all of our ancestors' practice. How to reveal the light of the essential nature. And our essential nature is expressed through our activity. Horizontal, vertical, one piece.

[40:27]

And where they meet is your practice on this moment. That's Kinjo Koak. There are many wonderful, you know, it's like, I'll talk a little bit about time, if I have the time. But, you know, the way we think about time, Dogen was very concerned about time. He wrote a fascicle on time, which is very mind-boggling. It's not that he says this is the way time is or isn't, but he looks at time from the various ways that we would never think of looking at time. But basically, when we see time, we think of one thing after another.

[41:30]

But if you look at a round clock, and we make a round clock, and then we say one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. Time. And so time is the distance between those two numbers, between two numbers. Actually, there's total time and there's divided time. The total time is just the face of the clock with no hands and no numbers. This is called eternal time. It doesn't move. But then... we put knuckles and hands on the clock. And that's divided time, discriminated time.

[42:36]

So we take one circle and discriminate it into 12 parts or more. And we say, that's what time is. But time is not just movement. Time is also stillness. Sometimes when you look at the Olympics and you see these beautiful athletes and they go to the bar and they're turning and turning and then they stand up on the bar. And it's just total balance. There's just effortless. There's no effort. Just time is standing still. And then time moves. So we only see time in certain ways. So when Dogen talks about each dharma being the dharma of total exertion of one dharma at one time,

[43:53]

Each dharma exists as its own dharma in eternal time. Time is just something that we invent. And fortunately, we do. It's a good thing. We got here all out of time this morning because of our clocks. So that's good. Otherwise, you'd just be wandering around. But we do have something, you know. When we sit in Zazen, we sit in total time. We let go of all conditioning. So there's conditioned time and unconditioned time.

[44:58]

Unconditioned time is just now. At any time, we just say now. Now is the underlying essence of everything. Time and space. Now and then. Now and here. So here and now is... Dogen's formula for time. Here is space, place, and now is time. So where space and time meet is right there in between your eyes, where the vertical and horizontal meet. So this is the wonderful part of Zazen, is that we can sit in total time.

[46:01]

Somebody has to ring the bell, 40 minutes, so that person has to keep the time. But everybody else can just be in total time. So when we sit in Zazen, we simply say we're one with the whole universe. That's what Zazen is. It's not, it looks like each individual is just sitting in their own space, but actually we're all connecting with the realization of equality, total equality with the universe. When there's total equality, we experience the whole universe. So usually we think that we have to know everything. Actually, in Zazen, we have to know nothing. And knowing nothing is knowing everything.

[47:04]

Knowing nothing is knowing what we really have to know. But the problem is, by thinking we have to know everything, we get all aggressive with each other. And we just keep building our sense of self-centeredness and ego. So knowing nothing is the great common denominator. Zero is the great common denominator of all activities. So the face of the clock is zero, the great common denominator of now. And the numbers are the activities of now. So problem is that stillness and activity are not two different things. Stillness is the matrix of activity.

[48:15]

Activity is the activity of stillness. So when we sit in Zazen, this is great dynamic activity within stillness. And when we leave and go out and do our activity, it's great stillness within activity. So nothing's lost. And when you don't see any difference, you're doing zazen all the time. So on each moment, each moment is a moment of total time. Firewood is just firewood in its phenomenal expression of total time, total being, total existence here and now. Ash.

[49:16]

There's a condition called fire, which was a condition for creating ash. out of firewood, but they're not the same thing. You know, we say meat and steer. When we look at the animal walking around, we say, oh, that's a steer. And then when it goes into the butcher shop, it becomes something. It's not turning into something, it's death. And then when it's in the meat market, steak. We don't say, I'm going to eat that cow. We say, I'm going to eat that steak. It's just steak. And if you say to that steak, you know, you were once a cow? Oh, come on. So, we are many, we have been, all of us, many things. We have been all of them, but we don't remember any of it.

[50:22]

We don't remember any of the transformations. So it's like compost. Everything is compost. All you have to do is look at the trees and the plants to see what's going on. Everything is composted and it becomes food for everything else in one way or another. Everything is nourishing everything else until it's not. Nevertheless, that's the way it is, according to Dogen, and I agree. I think that's enough.

[51:42]

So anyway, that's a little taste. And the book is for sale somewhere. But I think they don't have them now. If you're interested, that'd be great. It'll come out in paperback next year. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[52:36]

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