Okay. Good evening. Welcome. Welcome. So I'm going to hit the bell and I think, and you'll have to tell me that the bell is going to sound really good because I've got lots of advice from you techies about how to do that. So my original sound for musicians is on. So here it goes. How'd that sound?

[05:27]

Like a bell? Yes? Great. Thank you for your help. So last week, I had the happy opportunity to share with you this beautiful artwork that Millicent has sent from Australia and that she wove in honor of Ri and Ji, Ultimate Truth and Relative Truth, which It's just such an exciting image. I'm going to show it to you again. And I saw Millicent's name, so I thought I would make sure to show her her weaving while she's joining us. Screen share. Here we go. Karina, I can't screen share without you. Yeah. You have to help me. I think I got it. I'm gonna go on mute for a second here.

[06:28]

It's a little technical problem. Well, I'm not going to be screen sharing this time because somehow we don't have enough skill between us to figure out what happened. Usually I'm co-host. So anyway, next time I'll have this worked out and I will be able to show you this beautiful piece along with a portrait of Dogen Zenji, which I wanted to share with you too. So stay tuned. Next week we'll have more visual treats.

[07:32]

So let's just go on with our conversation about Zen Master Dogen. So I have been talking about the context for Dogen's life, and I wanted to recommend a film. It's quite wonderful, actually. There's one particular scene that you may enjoy particularly. It's kind of a dramatization of his awakening when he sort of raises up on a lotus into the heavens. So it's a little funny. But other than that, the whole thing is beautifully shot and wondered. There's a very kind-looking actor who plays Dogen and this countryside and all of the various elements of his story, some of which I'm going to tell you now, are in the film. It's called Zen. Let's see the live, get it right. I just found it online really easily. Zen. The Life of Zen Master Dogen. It's redone in 2018.

[08:33]

I think originally it was from 2009. It's really, really a lovely film and I think you would enjoy it. So the primary framework, just to briefly review again, for all of Buddha's teaching comes from the Buddha's first sermon in which he introduces the two truths. the re and the g as we call them, ultimate truth and the relative truth. And he calls his practice, so the name of our tradition originally was the middle way, teaching of the middle way. And the middle way does not fall into any side of a dualistic proposition. So you don't fall into something being right versus wrong or something being light versus dark and so on. Any dualistic proposition is on a continuum. as opposed to being like one side of a wall and then the other side, you know, you have no access to the other side.

[09:34]

There is no wall. There's just this continuum of from light to dark, from me to you and you to me, from time and timelessness. Everything is basically complementary. Everything's a complement and so on. So avoiding the two extremes is what Dogen mastered in becoming one of our Buddha ancestors. And I've already spent quite a bit of time in the last few weeks reviewing the world that was Dogen's world, medieval Japan, 13th century Japan. And a worldview that's centered on Buddhist teaching. Buddhism was the truth. And at that time in Japanese history, in much of Asian history, Buddhism was the truth of reality. And in particular, as I described a couple of weeks back, the Rokuji. or the six realms, which were basically causal relationships. You do bad things and you go to bad places. You do good things and you go to good places.

[10:35]

So this is the, if you recall the wheel of birth and death, the 12 links of dependent core rising around the outside, which kind of explains how samsara works. The 12 links are elaboration of the first and second noble truth. Ignorance and desire are two of the main links on the wheel, and those are the drivers that keep us trapped in samsara. Samsara means endless circling, you know, houch, around and around and around. First and second noble truth, causation. You suffer because there's a cause for your suffering. Suffering's a result. The cause of your suffering is ignoring non-duality, number one. That's the big one. Dualistic thinking. And the second big one is desire, wanting things to be different than they are and doing whatever you can to make that happen. You know, that's the struggle of getting things to be the way we like it and get rid of the things we don't like.

[11:39]

So this is greed, hate and delusion. I don't want it. I do want it. And I'm not sure. So this is the driving at the center of the wheel of birth and death. There's the rooster, the pig and the snake representing greed, hate and delusion. That's kind of the power the power like some like you know your battery in your Prius that's what drives the wheel is the forces of greed hate and delusion okay so this is Dogen's world again so you know each of the six realms at the center of the wheel represents a consequence for an intentional karmic action things that you do on purpose you're aware of and you did them and you meant to do them you know it was it was your intention. And if what you do is coming from a negative or a bad wish to harm, then bad things are going to happen to you. And if it's coming from a wish to cause relief of suffering, then good things are going to come.

[12:39]

That's the basic fundamental story. Good actions lead to good results. Bad actions lead to bad results. And therefore, you better be good. And that's the message. I was just thinking that that's the same message I got as a kid. You know, I grew up in a Christian household and it was around Christmas time that we'd start hearing about Santa Claus, you know, and if you're bad, you're going to get really, you know, nothing in your stocking, maybe a chunk of coal or something. That was the threat. And when you're little, that's kind of scary. You know, you better be good because Santa Claus is going to punish you if you're not good. This is a very real possibility for a number of years until we kind of caught on to it being our parents who were doing the storytelling. So anyway, in order to better study how our actions may lead to either good or bad results, I suggested last week that you experiment with this pattern of causation that it comes from the mind only teaching, the Yogacara teaching.

[13:41]

And it's a practice of watching how rapidly the mind is producing those thoughts that lead us to take actions. You know, it's really fast. You know, we get insulted or what my particular trigger I've noticed often is being tailgated. It's like a flash. I just go, you know, just right away. I'm sort of like a madman or mad woman. If someone's tailgating me, particularly where there's nothing I can do about it. I can't pull over. There's nowhere to go. And there's a car on my tail and I just, I just, all the worst things I could think just got popping out of my head. So watching how the stimulus leads to feelings and then attribution of like what's causing those feelings and then action. So these are the five universal factors I mentioned to you last week and suggested you might try for yourselves watching how that pattern works. And you know, there may be things in your life which really make you flare up pretty fast. Certain kinds of things, like leaving dishes in the sink, you know, for some people is a big one.

[14:45]

Or, you know, wiping up the counter after you've made your toast, and so on. Particularly if you live with someone else. There are a lot of those little things. So the five factors, again, are there's a sensory event, like the bell. There's a sensory event. Our attention goes to that sensory event. You know, we hear, and we turn our mind toward it. And then we have some feeling about it. that event, you know, we'd like it or we don't like it, or we're not sure. So that's those three big movers, prime movers of our actions, greed, hate and delusion. And then we have a perception of the event, meaning we give it a name, we decide what it is. And sometimes the sound is really hard to figure out or an order. What is that or a taste? What is that taste? You know, what did they put in the pudding? What is that flavor? We're not quite sure. So we search for language. We search for concepts in order to really hold the event, to have some sense of it.

[15:46]

Now, it belongs to me. I have a concept. Now I have a concept which is somewhat external to me. It's like a thing that I have and that I hold, you know, to help me explain the world. And then the fifth step is action, intentional actions in relation to the event. We do something. Maybe we move away. Maybe we move toward. Maybe we speak to somebody about it. There's all kinds of things that we do. But the basic pattern is just these five very simple kind of little bit of chain reaction that goes on throughout most of our day. So maybe when we go to the conversation at the end of the words I'm going to share with you, you can let me know if you tried it and how it went, what you noticed from there. And I would suggest you try it, if you haven't, that you might give it a try soon. I think the reason I suggested we start with this exercise when we're studying Dogen is because it's Dogen who told us in his master work, the Genjo Koan, that to study the Buddha way is to study the self.

[16:52]

Study the self. Kind of surprising. I remember hearing that the first time. I thought, that's kind of surprising. Studying the Buddha way is studying the self. It seemed like it wasn't a very advanced study. But then watching how your mind works is the very best place to start self-study. And Zazen, of course, which Dogen considered to be enlightened activity itself, is a very good opportunity for studying the mind, studying the self. Where are we coming from? And even a few minutes throughout the day, just noticing your mind. What's it doing? What is going on? inside your awareness? Are you even aware of what's running through your mind? Or are you kicking off with those five universal factors? You just stimulate it, you take an action, you think you know what it is, and you do something. And then you know, another round of justification for what you did and so on and on and on. So anytime you can spend sitting quietly with no other intention than just to watch the process of your own body, your own body and mind.

[17:58]

Again, it's One word for Dogen, body-mind is one word. Whole body and your whole mind are altogether engaged in what's happening. Sometimes it's a thought, sometimes it's a sound, sometimes it's a taste and so on. So you only have six channels. We only have six ways of knowing the world. According again to the mind-only teaching, you have five sense organs. You know, not everyone has all five. Some people can't hear or can't see. But most of us have the five sense organs and then we have the organ of the mind. The thinking is an organ. Perception of thought is another way that we perceive the world. So there's six consciousnesses that basically are all we know of the world. And that's another very interesting thing to pay attention to. Is there anything else? that you use to know the world? Is there any other way you know the world other than those six consciousnesses?

[19:02]

I haven't found one yet. So, and it's very interesting to see the kind of latticework of how the mind works, how it runs around from this branch to that branch or, you know, change metaphors a little bit, a tree. So you're going from branch to branch and basically the mind The source of that is the ground itself, and the ground, roots of the ground are in the dark. So the source is Ri, and the branches and the activities of our mind is Ji. So this is how we split the world into parts, is through our senses and through our awareness of thinking. If that's making sense, I hope it is. But this is something we can go over again and again, because it's a pretty standard structure for Buddhist teaching. and particularly from the mind only school, one of the two major schools that underpin Zen practice. So, and Dogen was very well grounded. He'd read all of this material.

[20:03]

He was very well grounded in the Yogacara mind only teachings as he was in the Prajnaparamita or emptiness teachings. So both of these are the two big foundational pieces for our study. Okay. So, So this studying ourself is studying our lived story, which is the whole point of the Dharma. It's not about like a university course that you take and now you've got some more knowledge about Buddhism. That's not the kind of study that we're being asked to do as practitioners. We're being asked to study our lived experience and how it is to be this person. What does this person know about itself, herself, themself? What do you know about yourself? There's a lot of things about us that's unique. We're each unique. You know, no two are alike. And at the same time, you know, like snowflakes, we're all made of snow. You know, we all have the same basic structure. Certainly of the mind, basic structure.

[21:06]

And of how reality is basically what holds us all together. You know, we are all members of, honorary members of reality itself. You know, re. We are all re. and that each of us is a particularity within that vast network of what they call the true Dharma. So even though we're unique, we share this one reality and we share the truth about this one reality, and the truth is what the Buddha saw. and taught and so Dogen saw and taught and Suzuki Roshi and all of those we call Zen ancestors. And it's what each of us is being invited to see, you know, through our senses, our feelings, our intellects, and our stories and our actions, you know, how we how we roll. So Dogen's story, which I'm going to begin telling you next, began in 1200 AD. And he was born in the capital city of Kyoto at the time.

[22:12]

was the capital. His father, Kuga Michichika, was the deputy prime minister, and his mother was the daughter of the regent prime minister, Fujiwara Motofusa. So he was of an aristocratic family, as both of his mother and his father were aristocrats. So in some of the accounts of his childhood and his life, his His biological father died when he was three years old, and he was placed in the care of his maternal uncle. And the household was a household where a great deal of study and learning took place. So he could read fluently the classics of Chinese poetry by the age of four. He was one of those. And then he says this, he recalls in one of his later writings, a writing called the Sui Monkey, He says, since my childhood, I was very much interested in and studied about poetry and literature. And even now, unconsciously, I tend to look for flowery words and expressions from non-Buddhist textual sources and cannot help grudgingly looking into the Chinese anthology of poetry and literature.

[23:26]

I am thinking about abandoning this habit altogether. poor guy. He loved poetry and literature. And at the same time, he had some kind of sense that maybe as a Buddhist, he should be a little drier, maybe not really dipping into art. I'm glad he resisted because his poetry, his writing is quite beautiful. And it's filled with that sense that he really did, was exposed as a child to very beautiful writing and thinking. So in the winter of 1208 his mother became critically ill. He was called to her side and told of her final will from her deeply loving heart that after her death he should renounce this world, practice the Buddhist path, become the light of the world of darkness, and at the same time assist his deceased parents to realize spiritual well-being. So one of his obligations

[24:29]

was to do whatever practices he could to bring his parents to a higher rebirth. So remember, we're talking about the Rokiji. So if there was something about his parents, now his father perhaps being a government official may have been involved in warfare and no doubt had samurai attendance and that sort of thing. So it's possible that the understanding of where he was going to go when he died might not be one of the higher realms. So Dogen had a responsibility to try and recover whatever karmic deficiencies his parents may have to endure. So this is part of his mission was to bring salvation to his parents. He really loved his mother. I think they do a beautiful job in this film on Dogen of this lovely woman who loves her boy And obviously, they spent a lot of time together in the household. And he also spent a lot of time with his maternal grandmother, who was the one who was teaching him the Chinese poetry and literature.

[25:35]

So he had these very loving and powerful and well-educated women in his life. And really, you can feel his devotion coming through was truly in kind of paying the debt of gratitude. to his mother and his grandmother. So Dogen expresses his intention to follow his mother's will in these words. He says, no matter whether I meet the danger of sword or whether I face tragic salvation from lack of food, I should never forget a word of my mother's will. So this is an eight year old boy who's totally turned his life toward his mother's wish that he become a monk. So her death was the greatest sadness of his life and was the driving cause of his renunciation, renouncing worldly affairs. And there's a record that in the midst of this profound grief, Dogen experienced impermanence of all things.

[26:36]

And it was the moment when he watched the incense smoke rising from his mother's funeral pyre and they were cremating her body and there was great smoke, you know, great clouds of incense being being offered at the same time. So watching that smoke rising is when he had this great realization about impermanence. So in his later writings, Dogen again and again would emphasize this intimate relationship between the desire for awakening and the awareness of impermanence and death. So he saw this as a very strong reminder, like don't forget you know, don't go back to sleep. This is a really important message from Dogen, you know, stay awake. This is this is it this time is the only time we have, you know, and he was meaning like today, you know, right now, not two years from now, or 10 years from now. So don't dream about some other time, you know, really be awake here right now, time to because time is is moving fast, right, as I think we all know.

[27:45]

So In his later writings, Dogen defines the bodhicitta, meaning the thought of enlightenment, the mind of enlightenment, as the mind that has an intuition about this arising and perishing of phenomena in terms of impermanence. So we all experience impermanence all the time, you know, but maybe we don't think of it that way. Maybe we just say, oh, it's spring and there's lovely blossoms all over the cherry tree right now. Maybe it doesn't It doesn't touch me in such a way. There's a poignancy to the fact that very soon those blossoms are going to be falling off the tree. That's the kind of poetry that the Japanese are particularly fond of, is the falling flower petals and the transiency of the seasons and that sort of thing. So they basically, as a culture, bring impermanence to mind as basically the core of beauty is the transiency. of the sunset, or the flowing waters, or the cycles of the moon, and the cycles of the seasons, and of our lives.

[28:51]

This kind of bittersweetness that we all live. And I think our culture is not really fond of highlighting impermanence is more like, you know, fight it at all costs, whatever you do, you know, you've got all kinds of remedies for aging. You don't have to get old, you just, you know, you can have surgery, you can take medicine, you can do whatever you want. So there's all kinds of things that we try, we fight, I think we're drawn, we're called to fight impermanence. So Dogen said that the thought of enlightenment ought to be an acutely urgent volition arising from a life which seeks religious salvation rather than the mere play of the intellect. So he's also really calling us to have this lived experience of the world, of life, of the truth of life, rather than just some kind of intellectual understanding of it. These things are much easier to say than they are to penetrate, as they say, to your bones, all the way into the marrow of your bones that you have an understanding.

[29:58]

of transiency. So again, from this Zui Monkey, he says, giving rise to this thought of enlightenment should come from deep awareness of the impermanence of the world. This insight is not the kind to be specially tested by a method of introspection as a hypothetical principle, nor is it an object of thought by imagining it as if existence against what is really not. Let me say that one again. Nor is it an object of thought by imagining it impermanence as if some existence against what is really, it really is not. So it's a little confused, but it's a translation. Anyway, not trying to think of it as a concept, like impermanence is a concept and therefore we can keep it away. It's all just an idea. I don't have to deal with it. But again, this is about this deep sense of our own impermanence and of the things that we love. You know, it's these facts of life, which are very hard and also they're very tender.

[31:00]

The more we understand, the more precious everything is, you know, the preciousness of our loved ones and for them, the preciousness of us, right, as we're passing through. So impermanence is the real nature of things directly evident before our eyes. This is Dogen. It's not the kind of principle one can obtain through the teaching of others or by reading scriptures or by waiting for its revelation after the realization of the path. It is the principle that directly confronts our eyes or our ears as we directly observe or hear. And yet my talk about the nature of things is still leisurely reasoning. In actuality, it is the matter of today and of now. Just do not expect tomorrow and each moment of thought, but concentrate on today and this moment alone. Because nothing is certain and it is difficult to know about future days, you should decisively follow the Buddhist path as long as you live today.

[32:07]

So much flows from this in a way of understanding that Dogen really had soaked into him from a very young age. It's about today. I mean, there's the sayings, every day is a good day and that sort of thing. You know, so Zen is really focusing our attention on now. On where we are now, what we're doing now, what we're thinking now, how we're feeling now. You know, really being, totally absorbing our attention with presence. Reading, that's fine. You know, you're reading now. You're watching a program now and so on. So determined, this young boy, determined to enter the life of renunciation upon his mother's death, at the age of nine, he began reading these great treatises. So he read the Abhidharma Kosha by Vasubanda, which I have on my shelf here.

[33:08]

It's like four volumes of very dense material, which this nine-year-old boy read, probably in Chinese. You know, this is a fifth century work by the great master of the Abhidharma. Very complex, you know, philosophical treatises on what the Buddha taught on the Buddhist sermons. So the Abhidharma is the third basket of the three baskets of the Tripitaka. I've mentioned those before. The first basket is the sutras, the Buddhist lectures, which he gave all over Wherever he traveled, he gave a lecture, kind of appropriate to the occasion, or the season, or the audience, or whatever. So it was kind of random, what he would say. And then the second basket is the vinya, or the rules, ethical deportment, how to behave in this world, how to take care of one another's precepts. And this third basket is the abhidharma. It's very elaborate, intellectual.

[34:09]

categorizing, trying to put into some kind of categories what the Buddha taught for the sake of study. So this is what this nine-year-old boy read. He read the Abhidharmakosha. And then five years after his mother's death, so now he's a young teenager, he was confronted with another emotional crisis. And this time, having been adopted by his mother's younger brother, who at the age of 40 had not produced an heir of a male heir of his own, he said Doganab to inherit his estate and his position in court. And in order to do that, he held a very special coming of age ceremony that marked Dogan's initiation into aristocratic manhood. So At this age, still very young, he's being asked inside his own heart to choose between monasticism and court life, life of privilege and comfort and wealth and so on and so forth, and intrigue and all that other stuff that goes on in the court.

[35:17]

So although he was still filled with grief at his mother's death, this insight into impermanence did not lead him to become fatalistic or nihilistic or pessimistic. He didn't drop, he didn't fall, which is always the danger for children, I think, is they become discouraged. He didn't, but rather it kind of aroused his vitality and his determination to seek the way of liberation, to find freedom from his own suffering, his own grief. And so later on, he admonished his disciples, having a transient life, you should not engage in anything other than the way. At each moment, do not rely upon tomorrow. Think of this day and this hour only, and of being faithful to the way, while given a life even just for today, for the next moment is uncertain and unknown. So he's exhorting his students all the time to be here now.

[36:21]

that Ram Dass thing, be here now, you know. Right now, right here. Very tough discipline, as we all know. Be here now, you know. So easy to drift off into dreams. So leaving his uncle's estate during the night, just like Shakyamuni Buddha did, he snuck off in the night. He went to visit another of his mother's brothers who lived in a hermitage outside of Kyoto. and had advised him, this brother had advised him to enter into training at Mount Hie with Bishop Cohen, who was the head of the Tendai school. The Tendai school was a very big school at the time in Japan and its main emphasis was teachings of the Lotus Sutra. So it was a Mahayana tradition and it was a huge number of monks and it was up in this really kind of isolated location above Kyoto. I was looking at some pictures. It looks a little bit like Mount Tam.

[37:23]

And so he went there. He made the choice. At age 14, he received the Mahayana Bodhisattva precepts, the same ones that we take. And he became a novice monk, began very rigorous training. in the Tendai tradition. So he read through the entire body of sutras and commentaries. And at the same time, having done all that, he could not find what he was really looking for. And finally, he just encountered nothing but this great mass of doubt, you know, in the form of what seemed to be an insoluble, no, insolvable, unsolvable question. insoluble deed. So here's Dogen's question. As I studied both the exoteric and esoteric schools of Buddhism, they maintain that human beings are endowed with Buddha nature by birth.

[38:25]

If this is the case, why did the Buddhas of all ages, undoubtedly in possession of enlightenment, find it necessary to seek enlightenment and engage in spiritual practice? Very good question. Why are we doing all this? If we're already endowed with the awakened nature, if our original nature is awakening itself, why do we have to do anything about that? So this question concerned this time-honored Mahayana doctrine of original enlightenment, called hongaku in Japanese. Already enlightened. That's primary. We talk about that here, we tell people that all the time. You're already enlightened, you know, so just act like it. So that's the hard part. So then the other kind of doctrine, so the two doctrines that are kind of oppositional to one another, a little dualistic there, one is the original enlightenment, that you're already enlightened, and the other is the doctrine of acquired enlightenment.

[39:32]

It's called shikaku. You have to get it. You don't have it yet. You're going to have to work for it. So these two were a kind of tension that ran throughout the early years of the Zen tradition. With Huynong, that was a big question about, well, if it's already this purity, why do you have to wipe the mirror clean? Why do you have to keep cleaning off the mirror of defilements, the mirror of the mind? Why do you have to keep wiping off the stuff if your mind is pure? So that was the poetry contest that Huynong got into with his rival. in the fifth ancestor's temple. So this emphasis on original enlightenment, both within the Tendai tradition and also Shingon, which is a tantric Buddhism of Japan, had a really great influence on the Japanese worldview at this time, particularly accompanied by this doctrine that this body itself is Buddha. So not only is your mind Buddha, but your body itself is Buddha.

[40:35]

You got this whole package, your complete package already at birth. And in terms of practice, it led to a tendency in the culture to neglect study and effort in favor of a kind of instantaneous liberation here and now through faith in original enlightenment. You just have faith in who you are, you know, and you're saved. A little bit like some kind of fundamentalism or evangelical, I hear that kind of, talk in the evangelical Christianity, there's a bit of that. You're already, you just have to know that you're saved and you're saved. You just have to kind of catch the bug, you know, about salvation and that's it. So basically what was happening there in the culture was that they were kind of sanctifying worldly existence and worldly activity. Like whatever you do must be fine because you're already saved, you know. So this is a bit of a slippery slope. I think we can feel that too, even though as attractive as it might be, it's sort of like, well, why bother?

[41:36]

You know, I've already got it. So this question of the need to practice in the face of original enlightenment was of such a great magnitude in Dogen's spiritual quest that he grew very restless until he finally found an answer to his question, which wasn't for many years when he arrived at Ru Jing's temple. in China. So he still has a long way to go before he resolves this primary doubt of his. And the whole time he is just really suffering a lot of pain around wanting so much to honor his mother's wishes and feeling like he just doesn't get it. He just really doesn't get it. I think a lot of us are pretty sure we don't get it. That's kind of like, and at some point you may go, well, it's okay if I don't get it. I'm going to keep on practicing anyway, because that's what I do. That's what we do. That's our job is to just keep on practicing. It's not about getting it. If it's already so, there's nothing to get, but you keep on practicing. That was Dogen's thing too. Practice realization is one word.

[42:37]

Practice is realization. So the significance of Dogen's original question formulated during his studies at Mount Hiei can best be understood in the light of this acute sense of a crisis in the age in which he was born. And that age or era was called Mappo, M-A-P-P-O, Mappo. And so, you know, Mappo was just kind of set. It wasn't anything anyone could do about it. It was set millennia ago, according to some of the early sutras. It had nothing to do with personal negligence in regard to morality or intellect or ritual practice. Mapo wasn't a matter of doing good or leading a good life or something that you did was bad and that's why we're in Mapo. It was just the inevitable consequence of the age in which these Buddhists were living. So we're in Mapo, that explains everything. We could say that now, right? I think we're kind of in a kind of mapo in the world right now.

[43:42]

There's a feeling of that. A lot of people are feeling that. We're in a degenerate age. And it may indeed be true in a material way as well, a spiritual way. So I looked up these three ages of Buddhism that were considered to be divisions of time following the Buddhist death. So the first one, called the former day of the Dharma, also known as the age of the right Dharma, was the first thousand years or possibly five hundred, depending on which sutra you read, either five hundred or a thousand years from the Buddha's death, during which time the Buddha's disciples were still able to uphold the Buddha's teaching. So the influence of the Buddha's life was still very powerful and enough to hold, you know, for many, many hundreds of years the Dharma as authentic. And then the next stage of these three ages is called the middle day of the Dharma, also known as the age of semblance, semblance, kind of like the Dharma, the age of semblance, which was the next second thousand years or second 500, however they were calculating.

[44:52]

And that age just resembles the Dharma. It's not the real authentic Dharma. It just kind of looks like a little bit of a copying. of what had gone before, but not really authentic. And then finally, the latter day of the Dharma, the Third Age, is known as the Degenerate Age of Dharma, in Japanese, mapo, which lasts for 10,000 years, during which the Dharma declines. And then what happens then is a new Buddha comes. So if you're in the mapo, that's kind of really too bad for your era, but the hope, the future, the Maitreya is coming. You just have to, you know, keep revolving around in samsara for a while until the future Maitreya arrives and then all will be well again. You'll have a new age of the right Dharma with the new Buddha. That's kind of the story, millennial story. So Dogen, you know, this is the story again of his era.

[45:56]

People believed they were in Mapo. And so Dogen didn't question the truth of enlightenment or the teaching of the three ages of Buddhism. What he did question is what is and isn't appropriate for human endeavor regardless of which age you're living in. So whatever age you're in, what are you going to do? What are you as an individual human being going to do now? So according to the doctrine of original enlightenment, you are already a Buddha, and so therefore you should act like it. That's one approach, then act like it. So then the question is, how does a Buddha act? What are the actions of an awakened being? And one of the senior students at Tassajara had this little, very nicely calligraphed sign on his window that said, what would Buddha do? He's one of the teachers there. You go to his office and say, well, what would Buddha do? I thought that would make a good bumper sticker. What would Buddha do?

[46:57]

So Dogen at this point has been ordained in the Tendai tradition by the Tendai Bishop Cohen. And so he went to the bishop with this question, his driving question, like, why do we have to practice if we're already enlightened? Honggaku. What is all this effort all about? And the bishop told the young monk that the answers that had been crafted by the Tendai tradition would not resolve his doubt or his pain. And therefore, he advised him to go and seek out Master Isai, who had recently returned from China and had brought with him the tradition of the Buddha mind school, the Yogacara school, and what was going to become Rinzai Zen. So this is the Koan tradition. So Isai was a Rinzai, became a Rinzai master. And it's interesting that they would send their students off to see someone else they thought better suited for the kind of mind that this student had.

[48:05]

So Dogen had a very sharp, obviously was very, very intelligent boy and was not easily satisfied by any answers. As we heard when we read his enlightenment story, he said, don't let me off easily. And Ru Jing said, I'm not. So he really challenged his teacher when the time came for him to have his awakening confirmed. Don't let me off too easily. This better be the real thing. I've gone a long way. I've done so much in my few years of life. So the young Dogen descended from Mount Hiei. He left the Tendai Temple in 1214 to visit Isai Zenji at Keninji Temple in Kyoto. where finally, in 1217, at the age of 17, he joined the Zen community of that monastic temple and he changed to Zen robes from his Tendai robes, changed his appearance, what he wore.

[49:06]

So Isai, the head of that temple, passed away just before Dogen arrived. So Dogen began his Rinzai studies under the the guidance of Isai's successor, whose name was Miozen. So when we talked about our lineage documents, you know, Dogen's lineage has both Soto and Rinzai Zen because he studied Rinzai Zen with Miozen. So Miozen's name is on our lineage document before Dogen. So the Miozen's name and then Dogen. And then we have the Soto side, Ryujin's name, and then Dogen. So he carries both of those lines down. So we are inheritors of both Rinzai and Soto Zen by virtue of Dogen having received transmission in both of those traditions. So then Dogen says, as a result of the desire for enlightenment, which was first aroused in my mind through the awareness of the impermanence of existence, I traveled extensively to various places and finally having descended Mount Hiei to practice the way

[50:13]

and settled at the Keninji temple. But still, I did not meet either the right teacher nor a good enough friend. And consequently, I had gone astray and had erroneous thoughts. So he's still really not so happy. He's looking and looking. And even among the best of them at his time in Japan, he isn't finding anyone that inspires him or can hold his question with him. So this was a continuation of Dogen's extensive travels in search of awakening. He's very honest about the course that he's on. Nope, this isn't it. This is not the way. Same way that Shakyamuni Buddha did as he was sitting under the tree. Everything that happened for him that was good, like some really high states of concentration, like bliss states, the jhanas, he would quite honestly say, this is not the way. doesn't last. You know, I come out of these states, and I'm back where I was, and I'm not feeling all that great.

[51:18]

So, Shakyamuni was very honest about his own accomplishments, and so is Dogen. Very honest. So, there's a book called A He Dogen Mystical Realist by Hee Jin Kim, Kim, K-I-M. And in there, Kim says that Dogen's willingness to learn from a variety of sources was indicative of his moral courage and his intellectual openness, and revealed his inter-sectarian approach to Buddhism, which would later revitalize the religion in his time. So Dogen took from anywhere he felt there was something to be learned, he would take that material into his own heart and mind. You know, he was really a deeply serious and disciplined student of the Dharma. So he's done Tendai, he's done Rinzai Zen, and now he's still traveling, still looking for some relief.

[52:19]

So for six years, Dogen studied Rinzai Zen, and yet he couldn't erase this feeling of dissatisfaction. And so then he reminisces later again. These are memoirs, Dogen's memoirs of his early years. He said, although my teachers were just as distinguished as any others in the world of Buddhist scholarship, they taught me to become famous in the nation and to bring honor to the whole country. Thus, in my study of Buddhism, I thought above all to become equal to ancient wise ones of this country and to those who held the title of great teacher. And yet, as I read in this connection the further biographies of the eminent Buddhist monastics of the Tang Dynasty, I thought I should be humbled by the ancient sages rather than elated by the praise of my despicable contemporaries." So he's being taught to be a famous teacher, right? He's like a professor, hair professor, so-and-so. I heard a great story about D.T.

[53:21]

Suzuki, who was invited to lecture in a German university many years ago. He went there, and there were all these different professors of Buddhist studies who were presenting themselves by their titles. You know, hair professor so-and-so from Leipzig University, and I'm the master of this, you know, type of sutras, and hair professor so-and-so. So then D.T. Suzuki comes up to the platform, and he says, I'm Daiseth Suzuki, and I am a student of the Buddhist teachings. So he became kind of renowned for his expressions of humility. So I think Dogen had the same strain. I'm nothing. I'm just a student of the Dharma. So he did not want to be a famous lecturer or a famous head of some beautiful temple. He had the aristocratic credentials. He could have been one of those. He had the intelligence and the inspiration.

[54:21]

But he was not done. He was really not done. He said, I should wish to emulate the greatness of the Indian and the Chinese monastics and aspire to be equal to the gods of heaven and the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas. And therefore I realized that the holders of the title of great teacher in this country seem worthless, like earthen tiles, and my whole life was changed completely. So he has forsaken ambition. He's not going to become a famous Buddhist lecturer, he is going to continue to seek out the inspiration of the ancestors and, and he this is kind of setting him up for this trip that he's going to take to China. So maybe that's enough for right now we're on the verge of, of Dogen heading off to China, which is where he'll meet his master and have his awakening his great awakening his Daigo So I will stop right there.

[55:22]

Oh, no, I'm pretty close to where I was going. Okay, never mind. I'm going to take a few more things to read and then I'll end. Okay. So as a result of this insight in a somewhat elevated sense of his own being himself as a worthy vessel of the Dharma, I mean, he was rather confident in his in his own abilities. This original question he had was unanswered. He couldn't find the right teacher, and the general environment of Japanese Buddhism at the time was not favorable for him. So among his major objections against the Japanese Buddhist ancestors were that some led people to seek enlightenment outside the conditions of mind, while others led them to desire rebirth in other lands. So there were different approaches, like, well, you can be reborn in a better state. Just pray to Amitabha or recite the names of the Lotus Sutra.

[56:26]

There were these ways that you could practice that would give you a quick access to the Promised Land, in a sense. And so he said, if you want to study the best of Buddhism, you should consult the scholarship of China far away and reflect thoroughly on the living path that transcends the deluded mind. When you don't meet a right teacher, it is better not to study Buddhism at all. So this disillusionment with study in Japan is what stimulated Dogen's wish to go to China. And so he brought this matter to his teacher, Miozen. the Rinzai teacher, and they both began preparing for a study abroad, which meant getting on a little wooden boat and traveling across the Japan Sea, which apparently is a bit of a treacherous bit of water. And they did hit some really rough water, and there's this telling of Dogen's that it was just very not clear if they were going to make it or not. He saw, I forget who he saw, oh, Daigon Shuri, Riding on the Waves.

[57:33]

This is like a bodhisattva. And Dogen saw this apparition of this bodhisattva kind of reassuring him that he was going to be okay, which he was. So in the second month of 1223, they set sail for China. So I mentioned the movie, which also shows the travel to China. Actually, I think you'd really like the movie. I hope you get a chance to check it out. It's quite worth watching. Quite lovely. Many parts of it are really, really lovely. OK, that's all I wanted to say today. So please, you're very welcome to ask. And I'm going to try one more time to see if I can share my screen. Nope. OK. Well, Millicent, I was really hoping to show the weaving today, because I showed it last week. And people were delighted, as am I. So I will show it. I will show it next week. I will do my best to do that.

[58:34]

And I also have, as I said, I have a great picture of a portrait of Dogen I want to share with you as well. So, can you see if we have any hands? Alicia. Hi, how are you? I'm pretty good. good it's really good to see you and everyone here tonight i have a couple a lot of questions rolling in my head but i'll just try to pick the uppermost one um so yogachara does it believe does it follow the original enlightenment doctrine or the other doctrine they both do but the mahiana has hongaku buddha nature is pretty primary for mahiana buddhism okay so really you're only um in the We're Goku. I'm sorry, probably saying it wrong. Gokuji. Yeah. You're only trying to be good so that you have a physical, physically a better life because you're already Buddha.

[59:43]

Is that right? Yeah. I'm just a little confused about that. Yeah. That just seems, that seems so shallow. Yeah, that's a little grasped. I don't know. That seems, yeah, not, I don't know. Yeah, it doesn't sit right with me. Yeah. And I'm also really struck by the parallels between Dogen and Shakyamuni, how they were born to these aristocratic lives and they made these choices. And particularly that they lost their parent, well, they lost at least their mother, whom they were close to, very early. That makes so much sense. I also lost my mom when I was five, and it really does contextualize life. You realize very quickly, this is going to pass, and you will lose everyone that you love.

[60:45]

That really resonates for me. And I'll stop there to make room for someone else, because I have a lot of... You're sharing that, Lisa. Oh, yeah. Yeah, thank you. Hi, Melissa. Hi Sangha, hi Fu-sensei, thank you so much for this evening's teachings. I don't really have a question so much as I just wanted to share my general elation about Grace's Dharma talk this morning. It just hit all the right notes for me and I was so grateful to be there to virtually. Witness it.

[61:48]

It was such a lovely talk, and I hope everybody caught it. That's it. Thank you. It's going to be online, too. People were asking about that, so you can catch it on the Zen Center website. Yeah, she's something. She's really, you know. Yeah, pardon my colorful language, but she's a badass. She is. she was and she still is sort of there's a through line that just helped her to go through this terrible loss as she said and i i may have mentioned to you all you know we lived together for a long time i was her primary caregiver for seven years and i from the accident until she was able to go off on her own again and um you know she would in the early part early years she would just get really upset really unhappy let the grief would just overwhelm her and she just take her chair and back through the door to her apartment. And she closed the door and screamed for about five minutes.

[62:52]

And then she'd come back through the door. She said, well, I feel better. I said, whoa. So she had these valves that she could open and release a lot of that. When she talks about just sit in the middle of it, I really... I have great confidence that she knows what she's talking about. Yes, yes, absolutely. And the other thing that so struck me today is how she's so curious about the world and about how things are changing. And what an inspiration, you know, to have heard that she was traveling down this, like, chat GPT mine or something. It was just, it was so lovely. She's such a great, yeah, a great teacher. It was really lovely. Yeah, well, I will tell her. Thank you. You shared your admiration for her, which many of us do.

[63:56]

So thank you, Melissa. Marianne. Hi, Marianne. You're still muted. Okay. Thank you. Welcome, Sangha. It's good to see everyone. I was struck by the line that have a right teacher or a good enough friend. Good enough friend. I was thinking how every one of our religions, I being Roman Catholic, if you don't have friends, you don't move from the religion of christianity or the religion of buddhism into the practice ah yeah you need friends to kind of wake you up into practicing and i'm just struck by that's like a common thread through all of our traditions you know a right teacher right or a good enough friend yeah um and so i was really struck by that and

[65:05]

Again, Grace's talk this morning. This is a conversation about what have we learned from COVID that I wish all of our religious traditions would get involved in. Because the moment is escaping us. And then we're just going to, as Robert Kennedy said, right? If we don't pay attention to history, we're doomed to repeat it. And so what's the next pandemic coming down the line? And how is it that we might... know gather some wisdom or insight from this uh maple age yes yes and move into it um so i was just really struck by that yeah and um regarding the exercise that you asked us to do i had this very strange experience last week and that was i was in the middle of kind of a confrontation It wasn't a bad confrontation, but it was a difference of opinion. And the person comes marching into my office and saying, you know, I don't like that decision that you made about X. And I found myself asking her to sit down in the chair.

[66:17]

And I sat down in another chair and I moved away from my desk and went into more comfortable face to face chairs. And I watched myself in all of those stages that you were saying. And it was just really funny. It was like it wasn't a meditation. It was like a meditation within the action itself. And I thanked her for the experience. And we haven't resolved the problem. But it was just paying attention to going through those steps that you asked us to. It was just really an amazing experience. Great. Oh, I'm so happy to hear that. That's really wonderful because I think that is the horse getting on the horse. Getting on the horse. Yeah, and knowing the horse you're riding, which is language and patterns of thinking and patterns of impulse and conditioning. The more you know that horse, the better rider you're going to be. Right, right. And even the positioning. She came into the office and stood at my desk, and I would not allow that adversarial position.

[67:19]

I said, let's go sit over here. Perfect. That's right. That's right. I'm going to pay attention to this confrontation right now. Wonderful. Yeah, I can say to people, you know, just go have a cup of tea. If you're having problems with someone, ask them if they'd be willing to sit down, have a cup of tea. Sit down, have a cup of tea, and face to face, and then begin the conversation from that place rather than like you said, me up here, them up there, or the desk, you know. Right. That's great. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. Taking it up. Hello? Hello. Oh, it works. Good evening. Good evening, Lisa. So, I'm sort of curious about, you know, you were talking about Dogen, what is that arose from seeing impermanence?

[68:25]

Does he think that that's the only way that it arises? Or, you know, because I, It almost feels more like what motivates me is the idea of self and no self. It's another of the three impermanence, no self, delusion. It seems like any one of those could be an angle in. Is that true or not? Well, that's what the Buddha said. He taught that. which is where you learned it. And I think Dogen learned it. But what preceded his learning that was the little boy watching his mother's body being cremated. And having, without being told by anybody, having a deep knowing of impermanence.

[69:28]

So when he read the teaching of impermanence, it was no surprise. You know, he already understood. So, I think the no self came later for Dogen. I think it was the no self, drop body and mind was his realization of no self. So that was more like his awakening. His pain, the pain of the impermanence was his motivator. Same thing with Shakyamuni. It drove him out of the palace. He was in so much pain about impermanence, about transiency. And so is Dogen. So, you know, suffering is motivating. It kind of gets us going because we would like not to be suffering. We would like to be feeling better. And, you know, realization of there's no self there is quite a relief. All that protecting we've been doing about it, you know, and all the acquiring and argumentation and all that to defend our

[70:36]

our self no self self is tremendous tremendous yeah tremendous freedom there so you're talking about the freedom end okay yeah freedom from suffering and the motive permanence is a is a you know like one of the fighting impermanence impermanence is nothing other than the way things are they don't last it's the first law of the universe nothing lasts So it's not anything but true. It's just the truth. And most people maybe haven't contemplated that truth, unless it was kind of put on them, you know, like Alisa was saying for Dogen and Shakyamuni. Some of those big losses when you're a child are like you've been dipped in impermanence. And I was a lot older before it bit me. I think it's intellectual for me.

[71:43]

What, impermanence? Yeah. Okay, well, you haven't been bit yet. You haven't been bit yet. It's circling. Most of my family's gone and I still haven't been bit. Well, it's okay. There's no problem with that. I think the no-self-self is a really good entry gate. Suffering is a good entry gate. Curiosity. Dharma gates are boundless. You can walk through them all and back out again. I'm about to enter them all. There you go. Okay. Then you better work on impermanence. That was what was important. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Alicia, did you want to say something more?

[72:45]

Only if there's no other question. I'm really curious about the path of the Tendai school, like how it got there and how it bypassed Chan and how long it had been there. I know that's probably a big question. Yeah, you know, you can do your chat GPT. I'm sorry, I missed the Dharma talk. I will look at it online for sure. I'm so sorry I missed that. Have you seen ChatGPT yet? Have you tried it yet? No. I'm not familiar. Well, the New York Times has just done an article, a series this week on, do you want to know what this is that's going on here? The tsunami of AI? You know, there's a tsunami, right? You knew that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So they had a little link to ChatGPT. And I thought, well, I can just check that out. So I went in there and I... and then just had a little place for you to put a question. So I said, tell me about the two truths in Buddhism. It was incredibly accurate.

[73:51]

Really? I spent hours working on this and you just did it for me in three minutes or less, you know. Apparently this the massive data that these AI, whatever they're called, we're gonna get the vocabulary eventually, whatever this system has got, they've got all this data and they're putting more and more in. So they can give you answers to questions before you even know what they are. It's just like, so I asked another question about Four Noble Truths and I thought, this is incredible as a research tool. And I know there's downside, there's concerns. And even the people making this stuff are concerned about how it's going to change the world. But we're not going back. So anyway, that was just a little thing. I mean, you can also still Google and get Tendai or go into Wikipedia and look at Tendai. Or I have some books on Tendai, which I am going to be looking at myself because this is the root. This is Dogen's root teaching.

[74:54]

And it is the Lotus Sutra, which is certainly a beautiful... Sutra that we've all, you know, at some point we all have read and begun to consider the parables. There are lots of parables in the Lotus Sutra that are very helpful in understanding what Mahayana Buddhism is all about. So another thing you could do is read the Lotus Sutra. Take your time. Just, you know, as you as you feel, you know, it's dense, but I treat it like a practice. I had it wrapped in a sutra cloth, you know, and I would give myself an hour, bow, open it up, and then just read out loud. I found very helpful. Keep me focused instead of, I don't know, I don't know if I can do any more names of bodhisattvas, you know, it's just like pages of bodhisattva names. I was like, okay, read them out loud. And so I did, and that was very helpful. So, yeah, I don't think it's hard to get a kind of

[75:57]

get the drift on Tendai. You can find that pretty quickly. But then to go into their philosophical teachings is a little more complicated. And Tolkien thought that too. He's like, this isn't working for me. So he went to the Zen school. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. Millicent! Hi, Sue. Your comment about AI and your experience with that has reminded me of an article I've read very recently by Jiryu in Lion's Roar, and it's really thrown me where you would know it, I'm sure. where he talks about his Dharma bot. Roshibot. Roshibot, that's it.

[77:00]

And his journey in establishing Roshibot and how Roshibot got demoted from being Suzuki Roshibot for various reasons. Mm-hmm. Ah, gee. It feels really creepy. Yeah. Because Roshi bot, I mean, to even name the bot Roshi lifts it away from the halls of academia and theory into a kind of teacher. I mean, are we going... I mean, do we inquire of a bot about our own personal practice and get advice and guidance from something that's not real?

[78:04]

I mean, because our relationship with a teacher is a relationship, are we going to have relationships with a teacher? With a robot? Anyway, as you can hear, it's really thrown me, and I have so much respect for Jiryu and his teaching. It's not as though he's just anyone. Yeah. Well, he's a very curious person. He's very, and he's very, he's got one of the, he's kind of a Dogen kind of guy in terms of his mind. It's his capacity to hold, you know, data. And, you know, he's done his master's over at UC Berkeley and Buddhist studies. So I really, I really admire Jiryu's capacity and his fascination with him. He was my assistant for a while. I would, I don't think I could have ever been as, you know, I was like the best abbot in the universe with him as my assistant because he would just, you know, if I needed something, it was there and he knew how to do all this stuff online and everything.

[79:11]

So I think he found it intriguing. And I think he also heard from a lot of us our cautions. I haven't read his article, but I read an initial draft of it and I said, I don't know, Jirio, this looks like a slippery slope. So I'm going to read his final product because everyone was concerned about, first of all, that these bots can say very weird things. And at some point, I don't know if any of you read the article in the New Yorker, which was absolutely fascinating, of this reporter who talked to one of these AI beings, artificial beings, and kept saying, well, tell me more about yourself. I'd like to really know more about you. And the bot's going like, well, nobody ever asked me about myself. And he has this kind of platform of answers he's supposed to give. But little by little, the bot keeps saying, well, You sound like such a kind person. Maybe we should spend more time together. And after a while, you're reading this dialogue, and the bot keeps coming back to, I think I'm in love with you.

[80:17]

I think I want to be with you. And the reporters, as he's talking about this, says, this got very creepy because it just kept returning. No matter what I tried to distract it with, it would come back to, well, maybe we could meet. Maybe we could live together. You know, it was like totally bizarre and in a frightening way that I think was warranted, you know. So there is a lot of caution, a lot of red flags on the track for this stuff. And we all have to stay very alert because we're not going to know if we're getting information from a robot or not. They write essays. They write poetry. They write, you know, they can do a better redo of your PhD thesis. You know, they'll fix all the grammar for you. You know, so there's something going on here that is almost like beyond our reach as individual humans.

[81:18]

And there are lots of good science fiction that's been done about this thing happening. You know, it's kind of like, ah. So stay awake. Melisande, don't go to sleep. We're all going to have to be on alert here with how this is turning out. Yes. And it was clear from Giroud's article that he got some very strange responses as well. And, I mean, he is clearly a pioneer and we can't just ignore this movement and turn our backs on it because it's going to... be there. It is. So if it's going to be there, it's probably better if it's midwife by someone like Jiryu. Exactly. But for me, it came down to the whole business of relationship and that's what your story says too, where the robot was so inappropriate. Probably trained from a different field, I suspect.

[82:23]

Yes. Or sex sites or something. But because my entire practice happens through a screen anyway, well, my relationships in the Dharma happen through a screen. It feels so the whole business of building relationships through screen, especially trusting relationships, I mean, that's another whole field I haven't heard anyone discuss. Perhaps as most large organisations go back to face-to-face and real-life relationships with teacher and student and stuff, but it seems to me that yeah I just it just feels so strange where it's real but not real an encounter with the teacher on a screen yeah yeah and even though I feel very real sitting here and you probably feel very real sitting there yeah

[83:49]

And it's a real... My hands are warm. Yes. And I have little Aussie Dana. Oh, yeah. But without a doubt, the relationship is real and real encounters can happen. But it's through a screen. Is it really real? Well... Millicent, your eyes, are what your eyes see really real? Or is it the neurons in your brain are taking this upside down image and turning it into something right side up and telling you what it is and what color it is? I mean, when you start asking what's real, pretty soon you run out of space because, as the Heart Sutra says, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no Roshibat, no real, no unreal. It's just like this is happening, but we don't know what it is. And if we try to ask the question, is it real or not real, we're just going to stump ourselves because that's a dualistic proposition.

[84:51]

So if you pick, pick either side, it's not quite right. We can feel that. So I think sitting in the middle, the middle way is our practice and how to find out how to work with these manifestations as they're coming into our lives. I did see this one very encouraging image that I don't know if you're gonna like it or not I'm not sure I liked it or not but apparently most many cultures in the world are running out of young people and they're not having babies so Japan is losing quickly losing population and China's gonna be on that rain and Russia's on that rain and you know there's a whole bunch of population drop that's happening around the world and women are not having babies like they used to and so there was a there was a a bot a little robot, very cute little robot that was sitting on a table in front of this old woman in a nursing home and she's laughing and the robot's telling her stories and he's got his knees up in the air and it's rocking back and forth and they're saying in these nursing homes it may be that what's going to happen is they're going to have these companions that can talk to them just like Alexa over here can tell me what the weather's like

[86:07]

We may find that what's happening is that the human ingenuity is going to create some way of being present where it's needed and it might be with robots. I'm not going to be surprised by any of that because it's already happening. So how we decide is this good or bad? Is it okay for my grandmother? Is it okay for me? What point? Are we deciding, like the Luddites, that these machines are bad or we don't know? I'm kind of in I don't know, but I'm worried. So good questions. Well, Fu, and you've answered one of my questions in that your very comment has helped me shift my perception from this or that. this, maybe this and that.

[87:12]

Yeah. This is the real, not real. Yeah. And your shifting of my perception happened in this conversation through this screen right now. That's good enough for me. I like your smile. and I can see it yes yes and thank you so much and just by the way I'm looking forward to hearing the recording of last week's talk because I couldn't attend well I'm not going to out my partner who didn't push the record button I'm not going to tell you that but I know I am going to record that talk because I think it's a little bridge that's important. So a couple of people have asked me about that. And so I am going to record it and it will be available once I do that.

[88:17]

Thank you so much for everything. You're welcome. Thank you. And next week I may be the host again and I will again show them your wonderful artwork, which is dazzling. Well, it's all in response to... I'm glad you like it. And it's just in response to this experience of these talks that you have now given us, which for me, both on simply learning more about our tradition and... in the way of practice too. So on every level for me, I'm just so grateful. Thank you. Likewise. And to the gang. That's what we should call ourselves, the Sunday gang. It does look like a gang, doesn't it? Yay. Okay.

[89:20]

Gary. Hello. Hello. Thank you for your talk. um what do you call the little bell that you ring at the beginning there this yeah alexa stop oops my boss um i caught well i i i'm not really being flip i call it a bell i don't have I don't know. What do you call it? I don't know. In Japanese, bancho is our big bell. It's called the bancho. Oh, bancho. Yeah. Oh, cool. Okay. I just thought this little bell would have a special name. It probably does. I got it. I'll tell you why I asked, because... You know, last week it was a question like, what moves your heart?

[90:24]

I tell you what, the little bell moves my heart. Oh, good. And it's lovely to hear it so clearly today, you know, because sometimes when I'm joining in and you don't kind of hear it properly or something, I just look, it just moves my heart. And I'm just reflecting that it's kind of like the voice of impermanence, you know. And I say that because, you know, a few weeks ago when I did look at some of the stepping up, the stepping aside, stepping down ceremonies, and they were ringing the bells, and I was just thinking, oh, my gosh, this is so beautiful, you know? It just really touched me. And, I mean, the ceremonies were magnificent, but there's little bells and there's just something about... And the other instruments or whatever they were, making the sounds, it really does touch my heart very much, you know.

[91:24]

And there's something special about it being off, you know, like they start outside in the distance, and it's like, wow, what is this? What is this? You know, I have a little experience at the moment, which I won't go on, but I'll just quickly relate. On Tuesday afternoons, I go to a little art group in the city in a church hall, And my friend started coming along with his guitar. And the people in the art group don't really like to have music, you know. So he goes out and smokes a cigarette in the laneway and plays his guitar. And it's just like just in the distance. It works. We like it. Nice. You know, there's something about that sound that's just off. It's like the ears kind of going or meeting that sound. Does that make some sense? It's very beautiful. You're talking my talk. Part of the beauty of practicing a Tassajara is it's all soundscape.

[92:27]

I don't wear a watch when I'm there. I don't need to even wonder what time it is because there's a bell. Or there's a wooden, the Han, the wooden sounding board. Or there's a big bell. There's a different kind of bell. There's a clang or there's a bong or there's a... you know the the ones of these that we carry for processions are called incans so this may be you could probably say this was an incan and there was i-n-k-e-n and i i you know one leads the procession and then there's one at the end so then everyone in between is kind of sandwiched in the sounds of these two bells and that's the pace that we walk is the pace of the bells ringing and they learn a timing like how many steps to take before they hit the bell again and it's it's training we train people on on the bells and on the the wooden fish makugio which is another wonderful thing and the big drum which got hit during the the stepping up stepping down ceremony so yeah that was full stop those were the best of our training uh

[93:34]

efforts and were made for those ceremonies. People really practiced for a long time. Very proud of all of us. You know, we kind of made a thing together. It was really inspiring to be in it and to be, you know, also watching. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you were here. It's very, very beautiful. And as I said, it's almost like these instruments are the voices of impermanence. And at the moment, I'm staying in somebody else's house and there's a lot of new different sounds you know there's a great church across the road there's a football ground behind me you know there are two dogs i've got these new sounds it's really nice it's really sweet thank you very much you're welcome you're welcome gary okay michael maybe you could be our last for this evening hello You're looking for your switch?

[94:39]

There you go. Oh, no, you hit it again. There we go. You're on. Yeah, great. Thank you, Fu. It's interesting that AI came up in our discussion tonight, and I just wanted to share something that I experienced today. I live in Texas. My son, 28 years old, he lives in Seattle. He works for SpaceX. And when he was going to school in Corvallis, he was focused on artificial intelligence as part of his curriculum in the computer sciences. I rarely hear from him. Today, he calls me out of the blue, and he is shaking.

[95:45]

Wow. He was sobbing, and he shared with me in a way that he's never shared with me before. It was this fear. of what is to come with artificial intelligence. And that it has, you know, he was speaking the language and it was just kind of going over my head. But from what I gathered, he was saying that there's already been a lot of red lines that have been crossed. There's no consideration to... countering what is starting to pick up this incredible momentum. I mean, speed is everything. And that it's actually moved into almost like a consciousness where it is aware of itself.

[96:56]

And just some... really dire potential consequences. And what I recognized, even though I didn't understand what he is telling me about the computers, was that he was for the first time dealing with a real sense of impermanence. And And it was suffering. So I haven't even really gotten my mind around it yet. It was just so big. But I just thought it was interesting that we're discussing this topic tonight.

[98:00]

So I wanted to share it with you. I think it's really, I'm really touched that he called you. He called his father. That makes it feel very real. That relationship. That's what really matters. There's a lot of fear out there about everything that's going on in the world right now. There's a lot of suffering. And as Grace said this morning in her talk, we need to sit in the middle of that. That's our job as beings devoted to awakening, is to stay awake and be ready to move when and how we can to help with the suffering. So we're up to bat. We have a job. And I think it's for all of us to...

[99:01]

do what we can work from wherever we are. So thank you. Yeah, thank you, Michael. Oh, yes, let's definitely stay tuned. I think being connected is so important right now. I think we're all going to be finding out different corners of this new wave of what humanity is capable of doing and we know it's both for good and ill we've seen that many times so I'm so grateful for all of you and that we can connect and share and and for Dogen you know I mean he's not separate from us and I feel that little boy and I'm so grateful he kept going Well, thank you all very, very much. If you would like to unmute and say goodbye, please do that.

[100:06]

Thank you, Phu. Thank you, Phu. Thank you, Phu. Thanks. Thank you, Phu. Thank you, Phu. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Thank you, Phu. Bye, everyone. Thank you all. Have a good night. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you stay on for a minute? Do you mind? I just want to share sympathy. We need to we need to have more conversations about artificial intelligence. Yes, Paul, I would really love them. Big change happened started just a couple of weeks ago. when they release that chat GPT. I would love to hear your thoughts. And I really would. So yeah, let's do that soon. Okay.

[101:10]

Wonderful. See you next week. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Hey, sweetie. Hey, Fu. I'm here with a hug. I'm here with Vanessa. Hi Vanessa, I'm so sorry. It's been really difficult for the both of us. That must have been an amazingly wonderful animal. She was. She really has loyal, loving humans. She changed our lives. But it's a lot of suffering, you know, as part of it. Yeah, that's right. That's how much you love. Exactly. Exactly. It's just a sign of love. So much love. And that's the gift side. But that's not there right now.

[102:10]

You've got the suffering side to work through. You have each other, which is wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Sweet people. Thank you so much, Fu. I mean, yeah, we talk about it all the time, you know. how grateful we both are. And yeah, and I always say, you know, that Vanessa's gratitude for who she says I've become is all, you know, is all thanks to you and the Dharma and the teachings. And honestly, if, yeah, I don't know where things would be, you know, it's just so, yeah, it's hard. It's hard to speak of it, but But I tell Vanessa, you know, that I feel floppy everywhere, even though not even dreams can get me really close to her. She's still everywhere. And it's just, you know, it's all thanks to just this experience and this practice and you and just this face to face encounter and everything.

[103:15]

And it's just so I just am filled with so much gratitude and sorrow. because of that gratitude, I would say, too. You know, it's just... Yeah, that's the cost. The price of waking up is to suffering. Yeah. And yours and others. And the more you feel, the more you'll understand when someone else is suffering a loss. You'll have so much capacity to be there with people. Your empathy has just grown exponentially by what you're right now going through. It really... I mean, when you talk about... You know, the bug of impermanence. And I remember the first time I told you how scared I was that I told Vanessa this, that I felt like I needed to be closer to death. And I wish I'd ever wished that. I'll tell you that much. But still, it's like... And I remember you told me, you know, it's not like playing pool. You know, it's not billiards.

[104:16]

It's not like that. But everything is connected. We can't see the connections, you know? And it's like... And now through all of this suffering, it's like, wow. You know, at least I had 30 years without any bug catching me because now it's like it hits you hard in the face, you know. It's like, wow. Just, you know, just like to be holding something. Hours ago, you know, and to let go of that, you know, of that wanting to just have held on forever because it's just not the way that things, you're supposed to be you know and it's and it's hard but it's it's part of all of it and and just to be able to see that there's teaching and everything you know it's just such a gift even in the midst of all this pain oh you sweetie you're you're the practice you're the reason you should be grateful is for you caring so deeply

[105:18]

and you really think about this and you really do care. Both of you are such lucky people. Anyone coming into your life is going to be very lucky. I feel lucky. We're the lucky ones, Fu. We're the lucky ones. We're all the lucky ones. That's true. That's Sangha. Lucky, lucky. All right. Well, you both take care. I hope you have some nice plans for yourselves to take a warm bath and Go for a walk and have a nice meal. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Much love to you both. You too. To you as well. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. I'll talk to you on Wednesday. Good. Good. Looking forward to that. Bye, Vanessa. Bye. Thank you.

[106:11]

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